Deadlifts For A Lean Body

Friday 7 Aug 2009 by johnny | 4 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , ,

Deadlifts For A Lean Body

Deadlifts are the Hulk Hogan of weight lifting.

They are that big, hairy, bad ass mo fo.

They are the one that leaves you aching, sweating, sore and stuffed.

They are also one of the best overall fat burners.

This is because dead lifts work out so many different muscles, and it is such a hard exercise. It replicates picking something up, just like you do every day, so it has real world applications – unlike an ab machine or a leg workout machine.

Deadlifts work the whole posterior chain, which includes almost your whole back, but mostly the lower, your butt and your hamstrings. It might not seem like dead lifting something is going to help you get abs and a lean body, but it will.

Just remember that ab exercises are not the dominant player at work here – building a little muscle all over and getting a lower body fat percentage is.

I include deadlifts in my workouts once a week because I do a split routine (3 times a week I work different parts of my body eg Monday is chest and back, Wednesday maybe Arms and Calves etc etc). However if you are just starting out, and have never really used weights before – you should start with a full body workout – 3 times a week.

Especially if you have a lot of fat to burn off.

Here is the program I followed when I first started, I followed it for a few months and saw some great progress.

Here it is:

Bench press – 2x 10 reps

Squats – 2x 10 reps

Dead lift – 2x 10 reps

Overhead military press – 2x 10 reps

Decline sit ups – 2x 12 reps (if you are an extreme newbie – do crunches instead as this will be too hard)

Bicep curls – 2x 8

Skull crushers – 2×8

Pull ups – 2x as many as you can do

Calf raises – 2x 12

This will serve you well if you put in the work. When I say 2×8 it means that you will do 2 rounds of 8 repetitions. So for example on calf raises I would do 12 calf raises (12 repititions or reps) and then rest, then I would do another 12 reps. Each time I do the desired number of reps it equals one set. So in our calf raises example you are doing 2 sets of 12 reps.

Go it?

Now go show that iron who is boss.

Visit my site for all the info and goss on getting a hot bodytoday – How to get abs

Until next time,

Look good, feel good and live like you mean it

Johnny

Exercises – Home Body Sculpt

Wednesday 5 Aug 2009 by johnny | 5 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , , ,

Exercises – Home Body Sculpt

Some people are hermit crabs. Other people are just anti social. Some people are not too generous with cash. Others just don’t like traffic. Some people don’t like to be seen doing “exercise”, and others just prefer to motivate themselves.

Whatever your reason for wanting to workout at home, it is irrelevant.

I tend to do both. I will workout with some lighter weights for hard exercises such as clean and press and any dumbbell exercises + boxing workouts. But I will go to the gym to go hard and heavy on deadlifts, squats and bench presses. Sometimes it just depends how I am feeling. There is nothing like meeting a girl at the gym, but there is nothing like blasting “Some Kind Of Monster” by Metallica at full noise while smashing the boxing bag into submission.

Here are a few of my favorite tips for working out at home, plus an intense workout you can do with absolutely no gear.

  • Make sure you set how many reps and sets you do before you even pick up the weight
  • Play some music sometimes, and other times workout in silence. The motivation music brings is amazing, but the reflection and self growth that comes from the sounds and thoughts of silence is equally beautiful.
  • Drink heaps of water
  • Always incorporate full body workouts into your routine – even if you are doing say arms on one day, always throw in some full body workouts such as clean and press, deadlifts or squats of some variation.
  • One thing I do sometimes is to end my workout with a one rep max of a couple of bodyweight exercises such as press ups or crunches, pull ups or chins.
  • Record exactly what you do in your gym session, you always want to progress.

Here is a workout to help you burn fat and build a lil’ muscle:

Set the timer (if you have a laptop you can bring it with you and use This Bad Boy which is a stopwatch that rocks so hard.

Warm up by beating up your flatmates or cleaning the house then:

  • 2 minutes skipping
  • 1 minute burpees
  • 1 minute crunches
  • 1 minute lunges
  • 1 minute press ups

Rest because you are lazy then:

  • Hold the plank for 1 minute (youtube it)
  • Squats for 1 minute
  • Box jumps for 1 minute (are box jumps self explanatory?)
  • If you are human, you should be a bit sore by now, if not go and run up a mountain

Until next time look good, feel good and workout like you are going to live for one more day!

Johnny (wants you to visit his site How To Get Abs ) make me happy :D

Feel free to comment and ask me to post about anything you are interested in, if it is related to fitness and nutrition… Even better! My email is also on the site so feel free to drop me a line, I respond to every email and enjoy it!

How Can I Remove My Abdominal Fat, Damn Fast?

Tuesday 4 Aug 2009 by johnny | 4 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , , , ,

How Can I Remove My Abdominal Fat, Damn Fast?

Nobody likes doing things slowly.

I sure don’t.

So when I started shedding more body fat than usual I thought I had better check my diary to see why.

I am always trying new things health and fitness wise. New diets, adding more cheat days (that flunked the test hopelessly), different workouts etc etc. I started seeing that my abs were  getting a bit more defined than they previously had been a little while ago, what was the secret?

Well, I think it was this, along with a few other things, I did some serious work on my nutrition discipline.

We all know how it feels to go a mates or a relatives place and binge out on food, but that’s okay because we don’t often go there.

Or is it?

I have found that I can only tolerate so many hours by myself before I start thinking things a human shouldn’t, so I have to go a visitin’. I normally find that when I am at a guests house (even if it is “the lads”), that they offer food. Now I am not one to turn down a token of love, but sometimes it has to be done in the name of good health and looking and performing well.

So before visiting I eat. Simple enough? Before I go out on a day whether it is to the university, to work or other, I whip up a few little meals before I go. It probably takes me 20 minutes to cook while I am eating my breakfast in the morning anyway, so it’s no big drama.

I also found that the one big thing in my nutrition that helped me massively was eating smaller, more frequent meals.

I have talked about this before and the likelihood of me talking about it again is 100%. This is purely because what is repeated enough is learned, ingrained and becomes action. I want to make it very clear how important it is to eat about 5-6 small meals a day. Eating a big breakfast is important, but your meals should be smaller as the day goes on.

I have found that if you just do the opposite to most people, you will get among the top 1% of the results in the world. For example, most people eat a massive dinner, and they think it’s healthy!!!

Eating a massive plate of food and then going to bed a few hours later is anything but healthy. What do you think your body does with all that food when you sleep? It can’t burn it off doing anything so it kindly stores it as fat for the next time you are stuck on the North Pole for 3 months with no supplies.

Eat small and frequent.

Over and out.

Visit my site. How To Get Abs.

Johnny


Exercises To Help My Abs

Tuesday 4 Aug 2009 by johnny | 18 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , , ,

Exercises To Help My Abs

There is no doubt about it.

Abs, or lack of them are the best looking or worst looking part on a male or female.

Perhaps beer bellies used to be cool. They are no more.

Fire up at me, disagree with me, but I think that is what most of the population thinks as well.

So today I am giving you a few exercises to help actually bring your abs to the surface, instead of hiding deep below all that body fat. Certain exercises can help your abs to get stronger, but that probably isn’t what you need. If you care to take a look around at pictures of guys or girls with abs, you will soon see that it doesn’t matter if their abs are strong or not, when they are showing they look fantastic.

So now is when you say, so how do I get abs? What are these exercises to help my abs?

Here are a few rippers that will leave you sweating like mad and burning fat like it’s rubber on a race track:

Burpees: These are a wicked fat loss tool. Simply put, you stand up and push your office chair to the side and take off your hand bag, you jump to the floor and land in the press up position, do one press up, then bring your legs back up so you are now squatting, now thrust yourself back up to your feet and jump up in the air once. Repeat and repeat until you are stuffed.

Skipping: The importance of skipping is often over looked. It is used by boxers and has been for many years as one of the best and most effective fat burning exercises around. It is high intensity, works the biggest muscles in your body, and gets really hard after a few minutes. Try skipping in between other random workouts you might do such as the burpees above.

Check out  for more crazy fat burning tools and the best fat burning information out there.

Until next time,

Look good, feel good and live like you mean it!

Johnny

Fastest Way For Teens To Get A Flat Stomach

Monday 3 Aug 2009 by johnny | 29 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , , ,

Fastest Way For Teens To Get A Flat Stomach

If you are a teenager and you are reading this, you are going to lead a kick butt like filled with amazing things. If you are motivated enough to look for information on how to get into shape, you are going beyond what even most adults do. Slap yourself on the back!

Now, the reason you came..

The fastest way for you to get a flat stomach is easier than what you might think. You don’t have to go on some ridiculous diet, but a few diet changes will help massively. You don’t have to go running every night, but some exercise is necessary!  Here is my advice to you:

Create some boundaries for your diet habits

When I talk about boundaries I mean things like, “Okay, I’ll have dessert after tea, but I won’t have soda”. Or “I will have some dessert tonight but only one helping”. When you are on a mission to lose some belly fat and get a nice stomach, you will start becoming aware of what you are eating a little more. You will know that cake is going to taste good, but is it really helping you become the school hottie?

Instead of thinking as sweet foods as good, you will start thinking of them as ways to make you fatter. You will look at “boring food” like fruit, veges, whole grain breads, nuts, seeds, berries, fish, lean meats and other natural foods as life savers! These foods will not add any fat to you, they will instead cause you to burn fat!

Don’t exercise, have fun

Exercise to me is boring, slow and totally unnecessary. So I do something I enjoy. I will put on my Ipod and hit the weights, and go as hard and as heavy as I can and try get a new personal best, or I will crank up my stereo and have a full on boxing workout, or maybe I will go for an HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) mission through some overgrown, off the beaten track bush run.

Don’t think that because somebody says you have to do something that it is true. Rumors are made up and that is why most people believe that you can buy an ab machine or some phony pills and your worries will be over. That isn’t the case. Losing fat and getting a flat stomach can be a bit of a challenge, but it isn’t that hard really.

You’re a smart kid… Just exercise a little more doing something that you love and cut back on the soda and lollies. Trust me, it isn’t that hard, you just have to do a little bit each day.

All the best and I am only ever an email away if you need any help.

Check out my site before you embark on your life changing mission here: How To Get Abs
Johnny

How To Lose Belly Fat Without Exercising

Monday 3 Aug 2009 by johnny | 34 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , , , ,

How To Lose Belly Fat Without Exercising

This seems to be searched quite a lot. It is proof that humans are brutally lazy and will do anything to avoid actual work.  A little off topic, but I have heard that the highest proportion of heart attacks occur on a Monday morning, meaning that some of us are so lazy we will have a heart attack to avoid going to work!

I think that unless you are extremely overweight there is not much chance of losing belly fat without exercising. Sure you can eat a good nutritious meal  6 times a day and measure out exact proportions for each meal, but if you are not burning any fat through exercise you will not see much in terms of results. You will definitely feel better though and will be a lot healthier, and over the long term you will notice some fat loss, but nothing like the synergestic effect of combining nutrition and exercise.

My bet is against you however. If you are too lazy to do exercise, the chances of you sticking to a good diet and not wandering from the course are pretty much zero. It is far harder to so no to chocolate cake at a party than it is to fit half an hour of exercise into a day. Take from this what you will, but as I say, my bet is against you losing belly fat without exercising, unless you are extremely overweight.
Even then you should still be doing a bit of exercise, even if you can only manage to walk around the outside of your house a couple of times a day.

Rock on over to How to Get Abs (my site) to check out what’s going on and kick your butt into action.

Until next time,

Look good, feelgood and live like you mean it!

Johnny

My Ab Are Strong, But I Still Am Flabby

Sunday 2 Aug 2009 by johnny | 6 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , ,

My Ab Are Strong, But I Still Am Flabby

Ahh, a problem my grasshopper. Your first challenge is always the hardest.

I think that everybody has though that if they do a million crunches they will have a shiny six pack at some stage in their life. It is tempting because having the discipline to do a few hundred crunches a day is much easier than having to stick to a strict diet when you are at a party and you last ate 5 hours ago and the food smells so good but you know it will be so bad for you!

Having strong abs is part of the equation, but not the biggest part. The factorial in the equation is the fat that chills out around your six pack, hogging the lime light and scaring all the beach goers away from you. How to get rid of that fat ugly mate who always hangs around you and brings you down all the time. Giving him the kick is the big part.

So how do we kick this lazy sod? If you are already working out resistance training and cardio and you still have a bit of a belly, chances are you have just recently started and are on a good diet or you have been going for aaaages and you have a poor diet.

The saying that abs are made in the kitchen is not some metaphorical wives tale, it is literally true. When you workout you break down your muscle, when you feed your body you build your muscle. So it is actually true that abs are made in the kitchen! That protein shake is the construction foreman and that bottle of soda is a group of teen thugs who are throwing stones at the workers.

Until next time..

Look good, feel good and live like you mean it

Johnny

Foods That Fight Belly Fat

Wednesday 29 Jul 2009 by johnny | 5 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , ,

Foods That Fight Belly Fat

I have decided to do this post because I keep hearing about people who are nutritional drop outs. They still don’t know the difference between good and bad fats and they still have a whole lot of bad ass fat on their stomach.

I have posted before about a couple of rules that can help you when picking foods at the supermarket, grocers, where ever you go. I’ll post them again because they probably got lost under all the other stuff I was talking about.

When shopping – Try to buy foods with just 1 ingredient.

This might sound like Mission: Boring and Impossible, however it can be anything but. When I first did this I thought I would be limited to fruit and veg, but there are a whole lot more choices than that. It kicks the right side of your brain into overdrive and forces it to do a little more labor than it is used to. When you only have limited parameters you have to think outside the square about what you can have with what. Use it to your advantage, don’t get depressed about it, emo kid.

When shopping – Always aim to buy things that will go off within a few weeks.

I am not some evil anti capitalist who is trying to bring about further economic crippling, but as weird as it sounds, it is true. Let me ask you something…

How long does a McDonalds burger last? How about a bottle of soda? Canned goods? White flour?

All these things are so full of crap and so intrinsically crap that you have to wonder – do the manufacturers feel bad about all the people they are helping to become overweight bowling balls?

This is the reason that I tell you to buy things that go off. Now most things that go off are good for you – things like fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, dairy, eggs. But some things like seeds, nuts, protein powder and a few other things don’t tend to go off as easily. These are just guidelines.

Apply common sense and some rationality and you have the ingredients for a good list of fun times at the market!

Until next time look good, feel good and live like you mean it!

Johnny

How To Lose Lower Ab Fat

Sunday 26 Jul 2009 by johnny | 4 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition

How To Lose Lower Ab Fat

This is the stubborn sucker. This is the one that leaves you crawling the internet for information until 3am. This is the one that hides you abs just enough to make you not want to pull your shirt off for any occasion.

So how to lose lower ab fat? Well, let me explain how I did it. I am also a human so this may help you.

First, let me tell you what didn’t help me. Drinking alcohol, missing my workouts, having too many cheat days, buying supplements and ab machines. Okay?

Now, what did help?

1. Increasing intensity and frequency of cardio based workouts.

This is one the of biggest things that impacted on my results. Often we can find ourselves slipping in our commitment to our workouts, and then taking the easy way out. We say we will run for half an hour and it ends up being a pathetic excuse for a slow jog. Always remembering what you want will help you keep yourself disciplined and in the habit of making excellence. Instead of meandering around your neighborhood like a decrepit old man, how about you start running like you are 14 again? How about instead of standing around your boxing bag aimlessly flinging your arms about, you imagine that the bag is somebody who has just held your family to ransom! You have to get mad!

2. Tighten up your nutrition plan

You will not lose that lower ab fat if you are having a cheat meal every day. Know and understand that. It is so easy when we go into a new environment such as a mates house, visiting family or for a day “out with the boys”, to slip back into our old habits of eating. Prepare for these outings. Make up some lunch or be prepared to be so stubborn about saying no to junk food that you appear rude! Do anything to stop taking in junk food, and it will soon be offered to you less. Get mad that people are trying to give you heart disease next time they offer you deep fried whatevers! And apologise afterwards and explain why you did it!

Until next time – check out How to get abs

Johnny

Top Exercise to Lose Stomach Fat

Friday 24 Jul 2009 by johnny | 4 Comments
Filed under: Nutrition Tags: , , , , ,

Top Exercise to Lose Stomach Fat

Here are a few bad boys from under my watchful guard. These are the top exercises to lose stomach fat that I have used to get ripped abs and a low body fat percentage.

You have to bear in mind that fat loss will only come if your nutrition is well under way to becoming great. You won’t get ripped abs eating cakes, pork chop.

Early morning routine: I am sure that this is the most effective one in my arsenal. Every morning (well most mornings – we’re all human) I take a 30 minute jog. This is as soon as I get up. Shoes on and out the door, and maybe some shorts and a top also. I walk the minute and have a bit of a stretch, then I hit it. My speed depends on my mood really, it shouldn’t, but it does. I find normally I am quite happy and full of it in the morning – I think it is sort of a pride thing. You are happy to be up before everybody else and even happier that you are doing something great for yourself.

After my run I max out on my body weight reps. I hit a 1rm (going to your max reps once) of press ups, sit ups, pull ups and lunges. Feel a burn and love it.


Any time cardio sessions: These are a real fat blaster. I set up a timer and some loud music, have my pen at the ready and training log, then get into it. I will do 2 minutes of skipping, a 2 min boxing bag round and then I do one more of each of the following than I did yesterday: burpees, bicycle crunches, scissors, pull ups or chins, press ups and box jumps.

You have to record what you are doing so you know you are getting fitter and faster. You will start shedding fat if you can squeeze in one of these a day – if you can get 1 of each in you will get the results of Hercules!

Until next time – get up early

Johnny

« Older Entries