17 February 2007 Transition: Hard Core Football Player to Hard Core Infantryman “I have a question, but first let me give you some background: I am currently a senior at West Point, about to be a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army. I came here playing football for "ARMY" as a defensive lineman weighing between 260-270 at the time (I'm approximately 6'2"-6'3" tall). I lost a shit-ton of weight in our 6-week basic training from doing Army PT and football workouts without all the food and beer I had in high school to keep the weight on, ending the summer at a low of 198lbs. They cut me from the football team (assholes) and I ended up going back up to 240 at one point, mainly because I was used to eating my face off and going for "weight gain" as an effective workout measure during football. Clearly I don't need that type of body now, I need lean...I need hard. I'm going to be an infantry officer and I've struggled to get back into the low 200's where I’d like to be (210-215ish). Question: What are the best workouts for burning fat and becoming more lean? I'm over the "bigger is better" thing - I just want to take a God-given awesome frame and harden it up. “ Clay West Point, NY Clay, Good question, man. A tough one, too. The advice for getting bigger tends to be easy…and the recommendations for cutting weight are even easier. But I’m pretty sure that looking good for the beach isn’t the point. You want to get lean but stay strong, if not get stronger. This does mean you have to mix things up a bit. It doesn’t mean get on the treadmill for hours, it doesn’t mean stick to salads and chicken breasts, and it definitely doesn’t mean starve yourself and spend three hours a day in the gym…I mean, I guess technically you could. There are entire groups of people who do this. They’re called sorority girls. But then you’d have to do other shit like pinch your fat and say things like “I hate myself”. Not cool. So I’ll break this down into two parts…theory and practice. Since theory’s all talk, and practice isn’t, I’ll start with practice. Anything that gets explained in the theory section will have a little asterisk next to it. I could have done numbered footnotes, but I’m too lazy. Besides, nobody pays attention to that crap anyway. Practice: Main thing you have to do here is keep lifting - hard. When you’re trying to lean out, lifting’s more important than the cardio. Second thing is to obviously cut your calories a bit. And the third thing is to ramp up your general activity level. These are all pretty damn obvious, but there are specific things to keep in mind when doing each one. First of all: the food. Eat what you want, but keep your protein up and keep your sugars down. A calorie is a calorie, true, but if you’re taking in fewer calories than you need day to day (the only way to lose weight), you want to make sure they’re quality. Simple rule before you put something in your mouth: Is this gonna help me or hurt me? Steak, chicken, sweet potatoes? Probably help you. Donuts? Probably won’t. But don’t go too crazy with this; you don’t need to carb cycle, or refeed, or do any of that other muscle magazine crap to cut weight.* You’re still young (relatively speaking), and your metabolism’s on your side. Don’t eat too little either - you’ll start dropping muscle and your metabolism will crash. Take what you’re eating now, and leave about a quarter of it on your plate. That’s it. This pretty much works for everyone. I can always talk about more specific diet recommendations, but honestly dieting fucking sucks, I hate it, and I can’t stick to one anyway. Next… Lifting. You’re going to be eating less. Your body’s going to recover slower. So you have to lift smarter, as well as harder. Lift FIRST during your workout. Don’t do any kind of cardio first. And stick to the basics. You’re not going to build much muscle when you’re cutting weight*, so isolations (i.e. curls and pushdowns) are a REAL waste of time, here more than ever. Best kind of routine for anyone on a cut: Mix up your higher-rep and lower-rep work. But realize that higher rep work won’t help you get lean, just like lower rep work isn’t just for “bulking up”*. The lower rep work should be your first exercises in your workout - the idea here is to keep your strength levels high, so you’re working up to heavy doubles and triples. The higher rep work should go later in your workouts, mostly for form purposes, but also to push you to fatigue. So the way it would look if I were to use four basic lifts as the mainstay: Lift every other day. Sample Workout 1: -Low-rep dead lift work. Start with a light warm-up weight, progress up to a weight where you struggle to get two or three reps out. Keep the total number of sets low, maybe around 5-6, 2 or 3 of which are max effort sets. -Higher rep back work. Multiple sets of pull-ups. If you can do more than ten, add some weight. If you don’t have weight, do a few sets here then do some heavy pull-downs. Rep range here shouldn’t go higher than 8-10. 3-4 work sets total. -Higher rep shoulder work. Standing military presses, seated dumbbell presses, or any sort of overhead press will do. 8-10 reps. 3-4 work sets total. -Core work. Do some weighted sit-ups, hanging leg raises, whatever. Then go home. Don’t spend more than 45 minutes at the gym. The next days (same basic weight progression in each): 2) Low rep bench press Higher rep dips Higher rep dumbbell rows Core work 3) Low rep squats Higher rep squats Higher rep lunges Higher rep good mornings/stiff legged dead lifts/hyperextensions Simple concept: push it hard early on in the workout with something that uses the majority of your body, then burn out with accessory lifts. Keep the workouts short and intense. Remember, you’re not taking in as many calories as your body needs to maintain weight, so you’re going to be breaking down muscle faster as you lift. Much past an hour and you’re getting diminishing returns. Once you’ve hit the muscles hard enough to trigger a growth stimulus, you’re done. Anything else you do is just tearing yourself down. And for cardio: do sprints - specifically interval training. Straight out endurance cardio is still a good idea, as you’ll need it, but high intensity anaerobic work is the best thing for burning fat off while maintaining strength.* Get on a track and sprint the straights and jog the curves. Do this until you fall on your ass. 10-15 minutes when you’re starting out, 20-30 later on. Don’t do this for hours, as you’ll kill your recovery. So in summary, if you lift on this kind of framework three times a week, do sprints twice a week, regular cardio once or twice a week, take at least one day off, and eat a little less, you will get leaner. Period. And if you care, keep reading. Theory: As far as diet goes…carb cycling does have its place, and refeeds are a relatively solid concept when correctly implemented. Problem is, not only are these things very difficult to dial in for different individuals, they only really help if you’ve got either shitloads of weight to cut, or you’re looking for a slight edge in competition. Basic calorie restriction is always 90% of the puzzle. Yes, a scientifically structured diet will help, but it’ll be much more trouble than its worth. If you’ve got real problems with cravings or energy levels, sometimes it pays to adjust what you’re eating just a little more than it pays to switch your entire diet. And if you want to build muscle while you’re dieting…this is tough. Your body doesn’t want to hold on to muscle when it’s not getting enough food. Muscle burns energy, even at rest. 30-40 calories a day of pure fat burned per pound of muscle is the generally accepted rule. If you ask me to cite this I will hit you in the face. If you doubt me, go look it up. Then kill yourself. Bottom line is, unless you’re really new to lifting, you’re not going to add any additional skeletal muscle while dieting, but you can hold on to almost everything you’ve got if you do it right. Higher reps for cutting = magazine bullshit. Higher reps won’t tone you up or cut you up. Muscle can do two things: Grow or shrink. Higher reps will make them grow, but once you get into the 15-20 rep range you’re not putting enough stress on the muscles to force any adaptation whatsoever. You may as well spend that time jerking off, because at least there’s some payoff involved. 8-10 reps are best for building muscle, and therefore are also the best at maintaining it. Lower rep/max work is actually better for neural adaptation; it makes your body better at using the muscle it has. High-stress work is needed when dieting, because it will essentially convince your body that it NEEDS all that muscle to support the demands on it. Max or near max work also prevents weight stagnation, it’ll keep your lifting poundages up. I could get into microtrauma, prostaglandins, IGF/MGF release, but Nick would probably discontinue the column. And then make fun of me. So bottom line: do both. And anaerobic work…when you boil it down, activity burns muscle. Cardio burns muscle. Cardio burns SHITLOADS of muscle when you’re dieting. You’re telling your body you’re not going to feed it enough, then you’re telling it to go out and run for an hour. Your body doesn’t want to feed the muscle since it’s hungry, then you give it the extra slap of forcing it to carry around the excess weight while you’re moving. Sprints will force you to build muscle as much as they will force you to burn it; the act of sprinting itself is short duration high resistance, kind of like squatting. Intervals also do more to raise your metabolism for an extended period of time than regular running, and their recovery is more calorie-intensive. Last thing: Once you’ve hardened up a bit and lost some weight, it’s time to rebuild and turn yourself into less of a football player and more of an all-around athlete. Don’t get me wrong, football players tend to be some of the finest athletes on the planet. But they’re very, very specialized. You want to be strong, and fast, and agile, and have endurance. Most routines won’t give you that. So next column, I’m going to get into crossfit/GPP, which some of you guys might be familiar with. 6 February 2007 Things I wish I knew... Ok, so when I started out trying to think of initial column ideas, I loved the idea that I’d finally have carte blanche to write about whatever the hell I wanted to write about, not have to answer to anybody, and not have to worry about offending anybody. So of course the first thing I did was turn around and ask Nick and Brad what they thought I should put up as my first column, and what kind of tone I should take. After they finished making fun of me, I cursed the American school system for destroying my capacity for independent thought. Anyway, I ditched the idea of writing about one particular subject to start out. Yeah, in the future I’ll write about specific workouts, how to train for particular goals, and try to field as many questions from you, the readers, as possible, but for now I want to keep this simple. What I want to start off with is a short list that boils down my philosophy a bit. For all the biochemistry, biomechanics, kinesiology, and conventional medical training I’ve had, the best class I’ve ever had has been the sum of all my failures and mistakes. If I had to go back and give myself advice when I first started, there are a few things I wish I’d known. Without further ado, that list: 1) It doesn’t much matter what you do, just do it. There are dozens of magazines out there that want to tell you what to do and how to do it. There are trainers, there are websites, there are supplement companies; everybody wants your attention…because they want your money! They want to sell you a magazine, or a routine, or a service, or the latest gakic-leukic-isopromegamusclederoxandro compound. Fuck them. You don’t need them. It doesn’t matter if you follow a carefully constructed periodized program created by a $250 an hour trainer and supplement with the latest 50 jugs of crap you bought at the GNC and work with inflatable swiss balls and resistance bands and six different kinds of knee wraps with magnets… just go lift whatever you feel like, but go hard and heavy, eat steak, and run a few times a week. If you give it 100%, you’ll end up progressing either way. What really matters is that you stick to it. If you’ve got a busy life, but you got a goal in mind, make sure your training works with that life. Yeah, you’ll need to make sacrifices regardless, but don’t set yourself up to fail. Too many people start out doing things right, but overextend themselves, and then they quit. Don’t quit. I hate people who quit more than anyone else. Except for emo kids. I really hate emo kids. 2) Train for what your goals are. People always ask what kind of routine they should do: 5x5’s, circuit training, upper/lower/push/pull days, the latest routine they read in muscle and fitness…whatever. It’s all irrelevant. There are four things you need to do in the gym to get stronger: Squats, Deadlifts, Pull-ups, and Dips. If the last two are too easy, strap on some weight. You do these four things in whatever order you want, do them right, and do them consistently without injuring yourself, and I 3) If something hurts, stop doing it. I know for many of you, there will be a time in your life when your survival could very well depend on you pushing through pain. There are times when ignoring discomfort isn’t just needed, it’s expected - when pain truly IS weakness leaving the body. But that is not what working out is about. Save that no pain no gain mentality for when you need it. There is no dumber place to hurt yourself than in the gym. As a soldier, an athlete, a professional fighter, whatever you may be, you know that you want to be 100% when you need to give 110%. If you’re hurt, you can’t compete. Don’t train through injuries, train around them. Treat the injuries then come back with a vengeance. I’ve trained through torn muscles, ruptured tendons, knee problems, back problems - you name it. And all this determination has given me is a shitload of old problems I need to work around every day. If your knee is hurt, stay off the squats and stop running. Get in the pool and swim a mile rather than running a mile. Work your upper body twice as hard until you heal. Don’t be stupid. 4) All your heroes are on steroids. Yeah. Ugly truth. But the sooner you admit that baseball players have been using athletic enhancements since before Willie Mays took amphetamines, and that even the kickers on an NFL team are using a little bit of test here and there, the sooner you can be realistic about your goals. This is not the statement of a hater; this is the truth. I know. I’ve designed cycles for these guys. I know how easy it is to beat these drug tests. And it really is easy. This is why you can’t look like these guys or train like these guys. There are simply no genetics on earth that will let a 300-pound guy run a sub five-second 40 while bench pressing over 550 pounds. I respect that these men are in no position to be upfront about their usage as their reputations, and the careers of every person around them would be in jeopardy at any hint of anything other than denial. But don’t be one of those naïve assholes who thinks Barry Bonds is anything other than a scapegoat for an entire league that uses drugs. Why do I think this is important? Because it all goes down to knowing your limits, to knowing what you physically cannot do. And the sooner you know what’s impossible, the sooner you can try to do it anyway. 5) Being in better shape won’t get you laid. But it really fucking helps. And that’s it. Sometime around next week (actually, pretty much whenever the hell I feel like it) I’ll have the next installation up. Topics will include the basics of setting up a strength training routine, and a section on how to prep to ace the PT test. Because you want to do more than just limp past the minimum, right? Also, if anyone has any questions they’d like answered, send them in at Alex@RangerUp.com. If I end up posting them, you win a prize. And that prize is: You get your fucking question answered. Just like all the questions that don’t get posted. What other fucking reward do you want? |
 |
|
Similar Items: