Keep training in your imagination between sets to increase your strength

Imagine that!

Studies have shown that by "training in your imagination" you can actually increase strength and performance, thus increasing muscle mass, fat loss, and strength gain. While there appears to be only slight increases in the previously mentioned results, it does look to be promising in terms of getting your mind ready to complete the task at hand. Personally, I think we'd all do ourselves a bit of good by taking a few moments to look inside of ourselves and focus before doing any kind of lifting... Visualization is a very key, yet often overlooked, factor in training, hell, in life!

Before any kinds of lifting, I always have my clients visualize the lift before it happens. Establishes inner confidence, which exudes outward.

Who would've thought? Maybe there is something to the saying "Think your way thin."

For all interested parties, check out this link...
http://www.ergo-log.com/traininginimagination.html

What do you think? Silly? Voodoo stuff? "Totally awesome?!"

Choosing the Right Exercises for Fast Muscle Gain

By Jason Ferruggia

When I first started training, I didn’t know any better so I went to the gym and did all the machine exercises and isolation movements that I saw everyone else doing. I figured these would all lead to fast muscle gain and I would be huge in no time.

My dad knew a steroid-using Italian guy named Tony who owned a gym and competed in several bodybuilding shows. He asked Tony if he could write me a program and Tony obliged. I was bursting with excitement and thought this would be the difference maker in my training. I met with Tony at his office one day, and in a scene that could have been straight out of an episode of The Sopranos, he interrogated me about my muscle building program. I gave him a piece of paper with my workout on it and he took a long, hard look at it.

“Here’s whatcha gonna do. And I don’t wan any a’guments. You do dis and you’ll grow. Ya undastand me?”

“Yeah, definitely. No problem.”

He pulled out a legal pad and scrawled out my new training program. It was loaded with all of the exercises that all the top name bodybuilders in the magazines were always shown doing. Stiff arm pullovers, concentration curls, leg extensions, cable flyes, you name it—they were included.

I took my new program, thanked Tony, and left. The next few weeks would surely be an amazing time for me, I thought. The growth that I was about to experience would be dramatic, I just knew it.

But nothing happened.

You know why? Because those exercises suck, that’s why. Sure, the volume was too high for my limited recovery ability at the time, but if he had me doing the right exercises, I might have experienced some kind of gains.

Choosing the right exercises could ultimately be the difference between lightening fast muscle gain and absolutely no muscle gain whatsoever. No matter how well thought out your workout plan is, if you use the wrong exercises, it will be completely useless. Even a bad training program will yield some results if you are using the right exercises. For these reasons, exercise selection is one of the most important components of any muscle building system.

So how do you choose the best exercises?

The best mass building exercises are always multi joint, free weight, compound exercises that use as much muscle mass as possible and allow you to use heavy weights. This includes movements like squats, deadlifts, chin ups, dips, overhead presses and rows. If you are desperately seeking fast muscle gain, the last thing you should ever waste your time doing is using machine or isolation exercises during your workouts. These exercises are great at producing that burning feeling that so many people love and can often lead to a great pump, but they do very little to pack on massive size or build real world, functional strength.

For a very unique, scientifically advanced rating system which gives you a complete list of the best exercises on the planet, proven to lead to insanely fast muscle gain and mind blowing strength visit MuscleGainingSecrets.com now.

Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more How to Build Muscle Fast tips, check out http://www.musclegainingsecrets.com/

Myth Busters: Light Weight/High-Reps to Burn Fat.. or not!

Myth: High-reps and light weight to burn fat and get toned.  Heavy weight and low reps to get "bulky."

At some point during our lives, most of us had heard that very myth.  Even the most novice of trainers knows that burning fat requires the use of high-reps and light weight, you know, to "go for tone, not bulk."

I remember when I first started training.  Everything that I'd read or hear was about doing high-rep work to lose weight and get lean and using heavier weight to build muscle.  I guess I can understand where people are coming.  High-reps put your body under tension for a longer period and they cause a lot of lactic acid accumulation (known to be a potent fat-burner).  

5lbs of muscle vs. 5lbs of fat

But, what if this weren't necessarily true?  

Busted: http://www.ergo-log.com/epocafterheavyweights.html

Check out this study I found on weight-training and post-exercise fat-burning.  While there is still more research that needs to be done, the findings might surprise you!

By the way, I believe that the best way to see if something works is NOT to read about it in some study, but to try it out on yourself in a smart way.  

http://www.ergo-log.com/epocafterheavyweights.html

Thoughts?

Tony

How To Design a Hybrid-Muscle Program

Hey Meat,

You may remember a while back when I interviewed Elliott Hulse, professional strongman, owner of Elliott Hulse's Strength Camp, and co-creator of the Lean Hybrid Muscle system. Well, the interview was awesome and I sent out the audio file for the interview as a gift for subscribing to the blog (if you haven't heard it yet then comment below with your email and I'll hook you up).

At the time, Elliott was getting ready to launch his muscle-building meets bodyfat shredding workouts, designed to get guys lean, rugged, dense, granite-muscle as quickly as possible. Obviously, with his program just getting released, he didn't want to share to much about what made the workouts blast the fat and pack on size, but now he's spilling the beans about how YOU can design a kick-ass hybrid muscle program!

Check it out! This will be a 3-part series so check back often to get all of the info, but first, get your mind right with the first video!

Here's a Q&A about lifting and getting your head ready!

The Lean Hybrid Program is Ready
Get Your Done-For-You Hybrid Workouts Here

Intermittent Fasting- What have you got to lose?

A quick message from Tony: ****Hey, Meatheads! So not too long ago I did an interview with an Intermittent Fasting expert named Martin Berkhan. It had a ton of awesome information in it regarding the woes of frequent eating and why it's so much more beneficial and conducive to long-term success. His clients have had great success with it. I'm going to post that interview within the next day or so, but as I was doing some more research I came across another article on Intermittent Fasting. I asked Brad, the author, if I could repost it here so you guys could take a look at it.

Leave a comment below with your email address and let me know what you think. Bogus? Intriguing? Let's hear it! I'll also send you a copy of his Ebook The Dirty Dozen: The 12 Most Excessive Compulsive Eating Habits and How to Break Them.****

Intermittent Fasting- What Have You Got To Lose?

By Brad Pilon, MS

www.eatstopeat.com

So just what is intermittent fasting and why should you care? Intermittent fasting has become quietly popular in circles where people are striving to come up with ways to reduce caloric intake without harming their workout goals and still allow them to lose weight while strength training.

Intermittent fasting in a nutshell is the practice of short-term fasts, 24 hours in length, once or twice per week. There are variations on that theme, but in general that is the norm. This is done not so much to “cleanse the system” as many would have you believe, though it will to a degree. It's merely a simple and fast way of decreasing caloric intake so you can achieve your weight loss goals without starvation plans or other fad diets. You don't have to be overly concerned about the types of food you consume while you're not fasting, although it should be noted that fasting once or twice per week won't really help you reach your goals if you spend the other five or six days stuffing yourself with all manner of junk. A little common sense is called for.

By allowing a sensible freedom in your food choices, it relieves a great deal of the anxiety present when it comes to most diets. Many times we feel totally constrained and restricted, while this approach leaves us able to not only choose what we'd like to consume, but brings balance and sanity back into our diets. Intermittent fasting as a lifestyle will bring about changes that will last a lifetime. Start by taking it slow at first, and really learn to listen to what your body is trying to tell you as you go through your first few weeks of this. If you find yourself feeling lethargic or underfed, change it up a bit. Your body will tell you what it needs. (And that usually isn't a monster double cheeseburger!) Many times, especially at first, your body will be going through some withdrawals, and it's important to learn how to differentiate the signals. Also, you need to factor in what effect any workout routines you may be involved in will have on your intermittent fasting plans.

The most important thing to remember about intermittent fasting is that it is not merely a diet plan, but a lifestyle, worthy of consideration along those lines. In order to get the best results possible from this type of plan, you need to befriend it. Your fasting should be something that you look forward to, as you most certainly will after you start reaping some of the benefits of this intermittent fasting lifestyle. Making this type of plan fit into your life is key to making a lifetime of good eating and healthy living possible. There are a lot of inherent freedoms built into a diet plan like this, and while that can backfire on you if you're not careful, it can also enable lasting success. Look into what intermittent fasting can do for you!

****
Brad Pilon is a nutrition professional with over eight years experience working in the nutritional supplement industry specializing in clinical research management and new product development. Brad has completed graduate studies in nutritional sciences specializing in the use of short term fasting for weight loss.

His trademarked book Eat Stop Eat has been featured on national television and helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat without sacrificing the foods they love. For more information on Eat Stop Eat, visit www.eatstopeat.com

Related keywords: Quick weight loss, short term fasts, weight loss, fat loss, burn fat, eating to lose weight

The Top 55 Lean-Body Whole-Foods to Build Muscle and Lose Body Fat (guest post)

Hey, Meatheads! Here's a guest post by Mike Geary, founder of TruthAboutSixPackAbs fitness site. This dude, knows a thing or two about lean eating and getting ripped!
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by Michael Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

In most of my Lean-Body Secrets Newsletters, I like to provide a healthy snack or meal recipe that not only is delicious and healthy, but also helps to get you closer to that hard-body appearance that everyone is looking for, while also more importantly, improving your health for life. In this article, I'd like to give you healthy food ideas in a different way. This time, I figured I'd just give you some ideas of what I stock my fridge and cabinets with.

Remember, if you don't have junk around the house, you're less likely to eat junk. If all you have is healthy food around the house, you're forced to make smart choices. Basically, it all starts with making smart choices and avoiding temptations when you make your grocery store trip. Now these are just some of my personal preferences, but perhaps they will give you some good ideas that you'll enjoy.

Alright, so let's start with the fridge. Each week, I try to make sure I'm loaded up with lots of varieties of fresh vegetables. During the growing season, I only get local produce, but obviously in winter, I have to resort to the produce at the grocery store. Most of the time, I make sure I have plenty of vegetables like onions, zucchini, spinach, fresh mushrooms, red peppers, broccoli, etc. to use in my morning eggs. I also like to dice up some lean chicken or turkey sausage into the eggs, along with some swiss, jack, or goat cheeses (preferably raw grass-fed cheeses when I can find them).

By the way I'm talking about whole eggs, NOT egg whites. Always remember that the yolk is the most nutritious and nutrient dense part of the egg, so only eating egg whites is like throwing away the best part... and no, it's NOT bad for you because of the cholesterol... eggs actually raise your GOOD cholesterol. Try to get free range organic eggs for the best quality. Here's an entire article I did on the topic of whole eggs vs egg whites.

Coconut milk is another staple in my fridge. I like to use it to mix in with smoothies, oatmeal, or yogurt for a rich, creamy taste. Not only does coconut milk add a rich, creamy taste to lots of dishes, but it's also full of healthy saturated fats. Yeah, you heard me...I said healthy saturated fats! Healthy saturated fats like medium chain triglycerides, specifically an MCT called lauric acid. If the idea of healthy saturated fats is foreign to you, check out my healthy fats article

Back to the fridge, some other staples:

• Chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds - delicious and great sources of healthy fats.
• Cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt - I like to mix cottage or ricotta cheese and yogurt together with chopped nuts and berries for a great mid-morning or mid-afternoon meal.
• Whole flax seeds or chia seeds - I grind these in a mini coffee grinder and add to yogurt or salads. Always grind them fresh because the omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and prone to oxidation, creating high levels of free radicals in pre-ground flax.
• Whole eggs - one of natures richest sources of nutrients (and remember, they increase your GOOD cholesterol so stop fearing them).
• Salsa - I try to get creative and try some of the exotic varieties of salsas.
• Avocados - love them...plus a great source of healthy fats, fiber, and other nutrients. Try adding them to wraps, salads, or sandwiches.
• Butter - don't believe the naysayers; butter adds great flavor to anything and can be part of a healthy diet (just keep the quantity small because it is calorie dense...and NEVER use margarine, unless you want to assure yourself a heart attack).
• Nut butters - Plain old peanut butter has gotten a little old for me, so I get creative and mix together almond butter with sesame seed butter, or even cashew butter with macadamia butter...delicious and unbeatable nutrition!
• Leaf lettuce and spinach along with shredded carrots - for salads with dinner.
• Home-made salad dressing - using balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo's Choice oil blend. This is much better than store bought salad dressing which mostly use highly refined soybean oil (full of inflammation-causing free radicals).
• Whole grain wraps and whole grain bread (look for wraps and bread with at least 3-4 grams of fiber per 20 grams of total carbs).
• Rice bran and wheat germ - these may sound way too healthy for some, but they actually add a nice little nutty, crunchy taste to yogurt or smoothies, or can be added when baking muffins or breads to add nutrients and fiber.

Some of the staples in the freezer:

• Frozen berries - during the local growing season, I only get fresh berries, but during the other 10 months of the year, I always keep a supply of frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, etc. to add to high fiber cereal, oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or smoothies
• Frozen fish - I like to try a couple different kinds of fish each week. There are so many varieties out there, you never have to get bored.
• Frozen chicken breasts - very convenient for a quick addition to wraps or chicken sandwiches for quick meals.
• Grass-fed steaks, burgers, and ground beef - Grassfed meats have been shown to have as high as, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than salmon (without the mercury). Also, grass-fed meats have much higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) compared to typical grain-fed beef. I recently found an excellent on-line store where I buy all of my grass-fed meats now (they even deliver right to your door in a sealed cooler) - www.healthygrassfed.com
• Frozen buffalo, ostrich, venison, and other "exotic" lean meats - Yeah, I know...I'm weird, but I can tell you that these are some of the healthiest meats around, and if you're serious about a lean healthy body, these types of meats are much better for you than the mass produced, hormone-pumped beef and pork that's sold at most grocery stores.
• Frozen veggies - again, when the growing season is over and I can no longer get local fresh produce, frozen veggies are the best option, since they often have higher nutrient contents compared to the fresh produce that has been shipped thousands of miles, sitting around for weeks before making it to your dinner table.

Alright, now the staples in my cabinets:

• Various antioxidant rich teas - green, oolong, white, rooibos are some of the best.
• Whole wheat or whole grain spelt pasta - much higher fiber than normal pastas
• Oat bran and steel cut oats - higher fiber than those little packs of instant oats.
• Cans of coconut milk - to be transferred to a container in the fridge after opening.
• Brown rice and other higher fiber rice - NEVER white rice
• Tomato sauces - delicious, and as I'm sure you've heard a million times, they are a great source of lycopene. Just watch out for the brands that are loaded with nasty high fructose corn syrup.
• Stevia - a natural non-caloric sweetener, which is an excellent alternative to the nasty chemical-laden artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose.
• Raw honey - better than processed honey... higher quantities of beneficial nutrients and enzymes. Honey has even been proven in studies to improve glucose metabolism (how you process carbs). I use a teaspoon or so every morning in my teas. Yes, it is pure sugar, but at least it has some nutritional benefits... and let's be real, a teaspoon of healthier raw honey is only 5 grams of carbs... certainly nothing to worry about.
• Organic maple syrup - none of that high fructose corn syrup Aunt Jemima crap...only real maple syrup can be considered real food. The only time I really use this (because of the high sugar load) is added to my post-workout smoothies to sweeten things up and also elicit an insulin surge to push nutrients into your muscles.
• Organic unsweetened cocoa powder - I like to mix this into my smoothies for an extra jolt of antioxidants or make my own low-sugar hot cocoa by mixing cocoa powder into hot milk with stevia and a couple melted dark chocolate chunks.
• Cans of black or kidney beans - I like to add a couple scoops to my Mexican wraps for the fiber and high nutrition content. Also, beans are surprisingly one of the best sources of youth promoting antioxidants!
• Dark chocolate (as dark as possible) - This is one of my treats that satisfies my sweet tooth, plus provides loads of antioxidants at the same time. It's still calorie dense, so I keep it to just a couple squares; but that is enough to do the trick, so I don't feel like I need to go out and get cake and ice cream to satisfy my dessert urges.

Lastly, another thing that's hard to go wrong with is a good variety of fresh fruits and berries. The staples such as bananas, apples, oranges, pears, peaches are good, but I like to also be a little more adventurous and include things like yellow (aka - mexican or champagne) mangoes, pomegranates, kumquats, papaya, star fruit, pineapples, and others. Also, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries are some of the most nutrient and antioxidant-dense fruits you can eat.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this special look into my favorite lean body meals and how I stock my cabinets and fridge. Your tastes are probably quite different than mine, but hopefully this gave you some good ideas you can use next time you're at the grocery store looking to stock up a healthy and delicious pile of groceries.

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If you're interested in some more classic info from Mike, go to Mike's Truth about Six Pack Abs site today and discover the exact system that Mike is using to help thousands of his clients from all over the world get leaner than they've ever been before. This system will help you to lose that stubborn stomach fat that has plagued you for years, so you can finally get that sexy six pack that you've always wanted. Here's the site:

Leave a comment below! Share some of YOUR favorite healthy foods and your email and I'll hook you up with Mike's FREE Ebook, Training and Nutrition: Insider Secrets to a Lean Body!

Burn Fat Before Bed! (recipe inside)

Joe Schmoe has had enough. He's finally decided that he wants to lose weight and get in shape. He's gone out and bought a brand new pair of workout shoes, some workout clothes, a membership for a very upscale gym, and is going to start eating healthier.

That's great!

When I ask Joe about his diet he responds with this:

"I want to lose weight so I don't eat after 7pm. If I keep 7pm as my food cut-off then my body won't store the food I eat as bodyfat."

Here is my problem with this- if you go without nutrients, more specifically PROTEIN, for too long then your body enters what is known as a catabolic environment.

What does this mean?

You body will eat away at it's muscle tissue.

BIG PROBLEM.

Muscle is one of the primary "metabolic furnaces" in your body. Without it, you'll suffer from Old-Man Syndrome. This is where you're thin, but are very soft, frail, weak, lethargic, etc.

Bottom line: You need to get some protein into your system about an hour or so before bed. You won't gain fat. It'll actually be the opposite! However, it's very important that you choose the right foods.

A late-night bowl of cereal is NOT the right food. Cookies and milk? Sorry, bub. Ain't gonna happen.

It's got to have a hefty amount of protein, a small amount of fat, and a small amount of calories. You'll retain and even build muscle while you sleep, causing you to actually burn fat while you do absolutely nothing.

Pretty cool, huh?

Here's MY favorite pre-bed meal. It provides you with high-quality protein to help keep your metabolism revving throughout the night and some essential fatty acids (EFA) and fish oil, which are scientifically proven to not only burn fat, but support heart health, balance blood sugar, reduce inflammation, and allow you to properly heal and recover while you sleep:

Metabolic Sleep Food:
1/2c Low Fat Cottage Cheese
1/2 scoop protein (I prefer ProGrade Protein)
2 teaspoons of Almond/Peanut Butter
1 fish oil capsule

Nutrition Information (estimation)
Calories: 250 cal
Fat: 8g
Carbs: 5g
Fiber: 4g
Protein: 27g

Sleep tight, Buff Guy!