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Men and women with all sizes of waists constantly search the web for the magic to get rid of stubborn belly fat. Fitness forums are bombarded with the questions and the replies. The answer most often given is to get a particular ab exercise routine or apparatus and burn it off. Unfortunately, the magic routine or apparatus often recommended more often than not simply doesn’t work.

If all of the magic actually worked, why would so many people still be seeking the elusive elixir? Let’s face it, the models you see posing attractively while using the equipment and demonstrating the routine did not get those six-pack abs and sculpted bodies from using the equipment. The models were chosen because they already had six-pack abs.

So how did they get those sexy stomachs? For sure it is not from abs exercise alone. Even if exercise by itself was enough, the exercises most people are looking for are not the correct types to help lose that stubborn belly fat. Besides which, there simply is no combination of abs exercises or complete workouts that will melt off that belly fat.

Ab workouts are good. They just do not burn fat. The purpose of abs exercises is to tone and strengthen the abdominal muscles. The abs are already there under the fat but if you want to see them you need to work on getting a full body workout. This jump starts the metabolic rate and increases the fat burning potential of your system.

Many authorities stress cardio routines to gain this, but again, cardio alone is not the answer. What it takes is a complete, rounded program that works all of your lean muscle tissue with resistance training and multi-joint high intensity exercises.

The real secret to melting that extra belly fat that hides the abdominals is consistent total body, high intensity routines combined with a healthy, nutrient rich balanced diet. Ab workouts by themselves even if they include specific ab exercises like crunches and leg raises will never burn off your belly fat.

In spite of this, the majority of people trying to lose their gut still continue with their daily ab workouts using hundreds of reps. And the internet is full of people still handing out this bogus advice in fitness forums. But it does not work! The “experts” did not get six-pack abs that way and neither will you.

I am not saying that you should ignore ab routines. Abdominal exercises are important. You need them to strengthen and tone the abdominal muscles and they are a major aid to your back. But you need to mix them into a complete exercise routine to enjoy their full benefit. The fact is that abdominal exercises are not structured to melt the fat and they never will.

The most important factors for weight loss in general and belly fat loss in particular are a full body resistance workouts and a healthy, balanced diet. Full body exercises will also work the abs and core muscles and melt the belly fat so you can see that six-pack of abs that you already have buried in there.

Have you ever dreamed of getting involved in body building sports? Well if you didn’t get a chance when you were young, it is still not too late. Body building sports do indeed contribute a lot of health benefits to seniors like you.

Body building could help you to have a better heart, physically fit and achieve overall optimum health. It helps to condition your body and tone your muscle.

Healthy and active seniors like you are mostly free from major diseases like heart problems, diabetes and hypertensions. No doubt healthy body and healthy lifestyle helps you to stay on top of your health and delay your aging process.

You can tell as a healthy seniors you enjoy your life more than ever before. You feel and look younger than your age, it improves your confidence level and you enjoy a special feeling of well being.

What does body building do to help you achieve your optimal health?

What are the difference between senior body building and others? Senior body building base on the same exercise, workouts and schedules as others. There is no apparent difference except with less rigorous and intense.

Before you decide on this new exciting adventure, check with your health care professional first. Take your doctos advice to the letter and take their approval to the gym.

A professional personal trainer is very very helpful in your case. He or she has to make schedules of your activities that fit your goal and ability. Safety should be on top of your list in all your activities.

Your professional trainer should draw up a workout plan for you. That would includes your exercise routines, the amount of weight to lift, how many sets of workout to follow and what kind of exercise to do.

In order to achieve your ultimate goal in body building, don’t overlook your daily diet. Proper diet should be part of your body building arsenal. Eating right and eating properly will help you to build your muscles as well as speed up the healing process of muscle tear.

Protein seems to be the main focus in body building diet. Some experts is of the opinion that each pound of body weight should consume one gram of protein on a daily basis. Protein supplement is a great way to compliment your daily protein intake.

Lets not forget good old vegetables and fruits. There is no healthy diet without vegetables and fruits. They helps you to obtain balance diet and healthy eating habits.

I cannot emphasize enough on safety here. Safety should be on top of your mind before beginning any of the body building activities. Be sure not to over burden yourself and work within your limit.

Also very important, make sure that you wear proper attire equipped with safety gear such as weight belt when doing the weight lifting. Your professional trainer should be able to advise you in this regard.

You have a new wing as senior body builders. The sky is your limit but your potential is endless. Open up your wings and fly to the new horizon for the new world is yours to explore. Cherish every minute of your journey and enjoy them to the fullest.

By Vince DelMonte, Author of No-Nonsense Muscle Building

If you could sculpt one body part to perfection for next summer, what would it be? Let me guess - six pack abs! I don’t know anybody who does not want to shrink there waistline, lose body fat, eliminate low back pain and develop a jaw dropping set of rock-hard six-pack. Too bad that your brain has been poisoned with contaminated information.

Before you can start learning how to get six-pack abs and discover the truth about what it really takes to build a beach-worthy abdominal section, you must first expose the lies, myths and rumors. Before we talk about how to get six-pack abs, the right way, we must re-program your hard drive and empty the trash can of garbage you have been fed.

Because of all this hyped up and misguided information - even among so-called ‘fitness experts’ - you should skeptical of discerning about all abdominal training equipment and programs. Let’s first eliminate the top four ways not to get a six-pack:

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require expensive workout equipment promoted through obnoxious infomercials. You can’t flick on the TV anymore without seeing two new abdominal exercise machines being promoted at once. There are so many of them, that if you get suckered into these ‘ab workout’ gimmicks, you will be broke quicker than Ben Johnson sprints the 100 m dash! And get this: Of the $520 million dollars a year spent on exercise equipment, abdominal machines get a $208 million dollar piece of the pie!

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require thousands or even hundreds of crunches a day. So much for the Brittany Spears ab workout! Crunches are decent but totally overused and associated with more being better. Crunches is a very general exercise and general exercises get general results. Excessive floor crunches shorten the abdominal wall, pull your head forward and emphasize poor posture. They also involve a very low level of stimulation which negelets adequate muscle fiber recruitment.

Learning how to get a six-pack does not involve starvation diets. Starvation diets starve the muscle when instead, you should be feeding the muscle. Guess what happens when you starve your body? Your metabolism shuts down out of survival and causes your body to store fat. Your body must get energy from somewhere so guess what gets sacrificed? That’s right, your precious muscle which is in fact responsible for a maintaining a high metabolism. Starve your muscle - great logic!

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require fat burning pills. What did the last weight loss pill you bought do for you? The same thing the next one is going to do - nothing! Except give you a thinner wallet but not a thinner waist line. The entire concept of taking pills to ‘burn fat’ is built on a sandy foundation and misleading because diet pills only treat the symptons and not the root cause. Without focusing on the root problems of a flabby mid-section, like nutrition, lifestyle and proper training, you will just end up where you started - farther away from having a six-pack for summer instead of closer.

If just landed on earth from Mars today, and were able to avoid these four completely wrong ways to build a six-pack, than you will have an advantage over the rest of the world and be one enormous step closer to taking your shirt off with pride!

By Mike Geary – NCSF CPT, AFAA CPT, Author of The Truth About Six-Pack Abs

The Front Squat

As you may have already discovered, the squat is at the top of the heap (along with deadlifts) as one of the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all exercises.

In fact, university research studies have even proven that inclusion of squats into a training program increases upper body development, in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during the squat. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and deadlift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution.

If you don’t believe me that squats and deadlifts are THE basis for a lean and powerful body, then go ahead and join all of the other overweight people pumping away mindlessly for hours on boring cardio equipment.

Squats can be done with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, or even just body weight. Squats should only be done with free weights – NEVER with a Smith machine! My book, The Truth About Six Pack Abs contains the full story on why machines are so inferior and even potentially DANGEROUS compared to free weights.

The type of squat that people are most familiar with is the barbell back squat where the bar is resting on the trapezius muscles of the upper back. Many professional strength coaches believe that front squats (where the bar rests on the shoulders in front of the head) and overhead squats (where the bar is locked out in a snatch grip overhead throughout the squat) are more functional to athletic performance than back squats with less risk of lower back injury.

I feel that a combination of all three (not necessarily during the same phase of your workouts) will yield the best results for overall muscular development, body fat loss, and athletic performance. Front squats are moderately more difficult than back squats, while overhead squats are considerably more difficult than either back squats or front squats. I’ll cover overhead squats in a future newsletter issue.

If you are only accustomed to performing back squats, it will take you a few sessions to become comfortable with front squats, so start out light. After a couple sessions of practice, you will start to feel the groove and be able to increase the poundage.

To perform front squats:

The front squat recruits the abdominals to a much higher degree for stability due to the more upright position compared with back squats. It is mostly a lower body exercise, but is great for functionally incorporating core strength and stability into the squatting movement. It can also be slightly difficult to learn how to properly rest the bar on your shoulders. There are two ways to rest the bar on the front of the shoulders.

In the first method, you step under the bar and cross your forearms into an “X” position while resting the bar on the dimple that is created by the shoulder muscle near the bone, keeping your elbows up high so that your arms are parallel to the ground. You then hold the bar in place by pressing the thumb side of your fists against the bar for support.

Alternatively, you can hold the bar by placing your palms face up and the bar resting on your fingers against your shoulders. For both methods, your elbows must stay up high to prevent the weight from falling. Your upper arms should stay parallel to the ground throughout the squat. Find out which bar support method is more comfortable for you.

Then, initiate the squat from your hips by sitting back and down keeping the weight on your heels as opposed to the balls of your feet. Squat down to a position where your thighs are approximately parallel to the ground, then press back up to the starting position. Keeping your weight more towards your heels is the key factor in squatting to protect your knees from injury and develop strong injury resistant knee joints.

Keep in mind – squats done correctly actually strengthen the knees; squats done incorrectly can damage the knees. Practice first with an un-weighted bar or a relatively light weight to learn the movement. Most people are surprised how hard this exercise works your abs once you learn the correct form.

START/FINISH

MIDPOINT

For complete descriptions of over 50 of the most effective exercises for stripping away body fat while developing a rock-hard body, download my e-book The Truth About Six Pack Abs.

Practically everybody has heard the “leg bone connected to the hip bone…” song, but how many actually realize that knowledge can make you look better? The point here is not that the bones connect, but that by keeping in mind the way our body parts interact with each other, we can greatly reduce excess fat and build toned, sculpted bodies much easier! The example of this to take note of for now is your back and stomach muscles. The straighter your posture, the stronger your stomach muscles have to be to support your back, but the stronger your ab muscles, the straighter your back has to be. This is a vicious cycle, but one that can catapult you back to toned and skinny if combined with your regular exercise and diet quite easily.

Stand Up Straight!

The first thing to help lose belly fat is to stand up straight. There are many effects this creates for you. Slouching in your chair or standing up accentuates belly fat, so simply making an effort to be straight makes you appear much slimmer! (Now that’s a quick fix…) Another benefit is that proper posture improves the strength of your back, which makes it easier to maintain your posture, keeping you looking slimmer. Lastly, a straight posture enhances blood flow throughout the body, particularly to the legs and lower back, which are both involved in stomach exercises. So sit up straight! Geez, I caught you slouching already. =)

Back Extension

This is an exercise similar to the “crunch-less crunch”. You start by lying on your stomach with you forehead on the floor. If needed, use a mat or towel for comfort. Put your arms by your sides, palms up. Contract your back muscles to lift your torso off the floor. Hold the contraction briefly, then release and slowly lower your torso back down to the floor. Repeat for an entire set.

The next part of this exercise begins by extended your arms out above your head (pretend you’re Superman flying through the air). Now lift your legs off the floor simultaneously while keeping your head and arms held in place. Try to imagine your legs growing longer as you are lifting them up. Hold your legs up briefly, and then slowly lower them back to the floor.

Doing these two simple things will help you strengthen your back and correct your posture, which are great first steps to losing an unwanted belly. You will also want to continue working on your back muscles and other core muscles, such as the transverse and rectus abdominus. Stomach exercises that work the core will help you straighten up your posture, lose belly fat, and gain muscle tone in both your back and tummy. As with any workout routine, be sure to consult a professional before beginning and always warm up properly to avoid injury.

Today, I would like to share with you a special report from Mike Geary entitled:

“Hidden Dangers of Your Excess Abdominal Fat - It’s More Serious Than a Vanity Issue!”

This report is free, and it won’t take long to read (about 2.5 pages), but it will wake you up to a whole new motivation to exercise like it did for me! Here’s the beginning for a quick taste:

“Did you know that the vast majority of people in this day and age have excess abdomi-
nal fat? The first thing that most people think of is that their extra abdominal fat is simply
ugly, is covering up their abs from being visible, and makes them self conscious about
showing off their body.

However, what most people don’t realize is that excess abdominal fat in particular, is not
only ugly, but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health…”

Read the rest of this fascinating guide for free by downloading it here:

 Hidden Dangers of Your Excess Abdominal Fat - It’s More Serious Than a Vanity Issue!

by Mike Geary, Founder - Truth About Abs .com

As a fitness professional, I receive questions about vitamins all the time. Questions like…What kinds should I take? How much? Should I take a multi or just a couple of the important individual ones like C, E, or folic acid? Will they help me lose weight or build muscle?

So with all the talk and hype about vitamin and mineral supplements…..Are they really necessary for optimal health? The answer is a definitive…..HELL NO! That is, if you’re eating a balanced healthy diet, which most people don’t. Let me put it this way…a vitamin/mineral supplement probably will be somewhat beneficial to you if you have a poor diet. However, if you’re really serious about getting lean and ripped and truly healthy for good, why would your diet be poor? So, in the case that you’re eating a healthy, balanced diet, the answer is that you don’t need a vitamin supplement.

Let’s think about this for a second. Did humans thrive for tens of thousands of years to be the amazing creatures we are today by popping an artificially created vitamin pill. Out of tens of thousands of years of human existence, vitamin pills have only been around for a couple of decades, yet the population is in worse health than ever before. Sure, maybe the human race is not in its worst health from a contagious disease perspective, but we definitely are from a degenerative disease perspective. Now I admit that we do live longer these days compared to historically, but that is only because medical advances keep us alive longer even though we are in horrendous shape physically. People might live longer now, but they’re simply living longer while being overweight, crippled with degenerated joints, plagued with heart disease and cancers, and on and on. You get the point.

So let us get right to some answers as to why I contend that vitamin/mineral supplements are a waste of money and are not necessary to optimal health. Well, first and foremost, a healthy balanced diet consisting of a large variety of natural unprocessed foods (from meats, dairy, eggs, fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, etc.) provides a rich array of vitamins, minerals, and all the other nutrients we need to thrive in perfect health. The problem is that many people don’t choose a healthy balanced diet full of variety. They claim they are too busy, or it’s too inconvenient. Well, I hope that you take your body and the health of you and your family more seriously than these people that apparently don’t care about the physical being that they are walking around in day in and day out.

Another problem with attempting to obtain your vitamins and minerals from a pill instead of natural foods is that your body does not absorb and utilize the nutrients from a pill as efficiently as those obtained from natural food. Whole foods naturally contain vitamins and minerals in combinations that are best assimilated. On the other hand, vitamin/mineral pills contain lots of vitamins and minerals that many times interfere with each other. For example, zinc and copper taken at the same time interfere with each others absorption. Also, high doses of Vitamin E can interfere with absorption of beta carotene (a vitamin A precursor) and other fat soluble vitamins. Many other combinations interfere with each other as well.

Another problem with vitamin pills is possible excess consumption of fat soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, and K). Fat soluble vitamins accumulate in fatty tissue in our bodies, and therefore it is easier to overdose on these compared with water soluble vitamins (vitamin C and the various B vitamins). Excess fat soluble vitamin accumulation can cause various toxic effects within the body. It is much harder to take in excess quantities of fat soluble vitamins through natural foods. You would have to consume exorbitant quantities of liver and other organ meats to take in too much Vitamin A and D. It would be rare for someone to overeat on foods such as that. Also, it would be hard to over consume a plant-based precursor to Vitamin A (beta carotene), found in sweet potatoes, carrots, etc., because your body simply would shut down the conversion to Vitamin A once it has obtained what it needs.

There are even some instances where mega-doses of water soluble vitamins can be toxic. Mega doses of some B vitamins can potentially cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and even liver damage. However, in most instances, you simply excrete excess water soluble vitamins in your urine. That is why many times, your urine will be a deep yellow color a couple of hours after taking a vitamin that has high doses of vitamins B and C. So, when you take a vitamin pill, most of the water soluble vitamins are simply flushed down the toilet. You might as well just eliminate the middleman and flush your money right down the toilet.

Another problem with vitamin pills is that they often use synthetic versions of vitamins that can actually be unhealthy. For example, the forms of vitamin E that are found in pills can be either d-alpha tocopherol (a natural version) and dl-alpha tocopherol (a synthetic version). First of all, the bioavailability of synthetic vitamin E is much lower than natural vitamin E. In addition, I’ve seen many articles that indicated that there could be potential health dangers with taking synthetic vitamin E. Once again, we get back to the fact that natural is always better than something that has been heavily modified by man.

The bottom line is that as long as you eat a balanced diet full of a good variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, meats, dairy, eggs, etc., you will obtain all the nutrients your body needs to operate efficiently without the need for a man-made vitamin/mineral pill.

Exercise is obviously very important for losing body fat and building a strong, lean body, but always remember that proper nutrition is even more important. A lousy diet means a flabby, unhealthy body, regardless of how often someone works out. For a fully comprehensive nutritional analysis of how to establish a truly healthy diet and a lean body for life, learn more in my book at The Truth About Six Pack Abs.

by Mike Geary - CPT, Founder - Truth About Abs

Working as a fitness professional, there is one type of question I get all the time that shows that many people are missing the big picture regarding the benefits of strength training. This popular question usually goes something like this:

“What exercise can I do to isolate my _______ (insert your muscle of choice – abs, quads, biceps, triceps, etc)?”

It doesn’t matter which muscle someone is asking about, they always seem to be asking how to ‘isolate’ it. My first response to this question is always – “Why in the world would you want to isolate it?”

The first thing I try to teach my clients is that the body does not work well in muscle isolation. Rather, it works better in movements along a kinetic chain; that is, large portions of the body assist other portions of the body in completing a complex movement. In fact, there really is no such thing as true muscle isolation. There is almost always a nearby muscle group that will assist in some way with whatever movement you are doing. However, this article compares attempting to ‘isolate’ body parts via single-joint exercises to the much more effective strategy of performing multi-joint complex movements.

When you attempt to ‘isolate’ muscles by performing single-joint exercises, you are actually creating a body that is non-functional and will be more prone to injury. Essentially, you are creating a body that is a compilation of body parts, instead of a powerful, functional unit that works together.

Now if you really want to end up hobbling around in a body bandaged up with joint problems, tendonitis, and excess body fat, then by all means, continue trying to ‘isolate’ body parts. On the other hand, if you would rather have a lean, muscular, injury-free, functional body that works as a complete powerful unit to perform complex movements (in athletics or even everyday tasks), then you need to shift your focus away from muscle isolation.

Believe me, focusing on how well your body functions will give you the side effect of a body that looks even better than it would have if you focused on muscle isolation. For example, take a look at the physiques of any NFL running backs, wide receivers, or even world class sprinters. Trust me when I say that these guys pretty much NEVER train for muscle isolation (their strength coaches wouldn’t be crazy enough to let them), yet they are absolutely ripped to shreds! Just look at guys like Maurice Green or Terrell Owens and tell me who wouldn’t want a physique like those guys.

Another benefit to moving away from the ‘muscle isolation’ mindset to a more ‘complex movement’ mindset is that you will find it much easier to lose body fat. The reason is that by focusing more on multi-joint complex movements as opposed to single-joint muscle isolation, you not only burn a lot more calories during each workout, but you also increase your metabolic rate, and stimulate production of more fat burning and muscle building hormones like growth hormone and testosterone.

Let’s look at an example. The machine leg extension is a single joint exercise that works mainly the quadriceps, can potentially cause knee joint instability in the long run, and doesn’t even burn that many calories. On the other hand, exercises like squats, lunges, step-ups, and deadlifts are all multi-joint complex movements that work hundreds of muscles in the body (including the quadriceps) as a functional unit, create more stable and strong joints in the long run (when done properly), and also burn massive quantities of calories compared to the single-joint exercises.

If you’re interested in discovering more ways to create a body that looks as good as it functions, pick up a copy of my innovative book The Truth About Six Pack Abs!

By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.BurnTheFat.com

The secret to getting super lean – I’m talking about being RIPPED, not just “average body fat” – is all about mastering the art of “peaking.” Most people do not have a clue about what it takes to reach the type of low body fat levels that reveal ripped six-pack abs, muscle striations, vascularity and extreme muscular definition, so they go about it completely the wrong way.

Here’s a case in point: One of my newsletter subscribers recently sent me this question:

Tom, on your www.burnthefat.com website, you wrote:

‘Who better to model than bodybuilders and fitness competitors? No athletes in the world get as lean as quickly as bodybuilders and fitness competitors. The transformations they undergo in 12 weeks prior to competition would boggle your mind! Only ultra-endurance athletes come close in terms of low body fat levels, but endurance athletes like triathaletes and marathoners often get lean at the expense of chewing up all their muscle. Some of them are nothing but skin and bone.’

“There seems to be a contradiction unless I’m missing something. Why do bodybuilders and fitness competitors have to go through a 12 week ‘transformation’ prior to every event instead of staying ‘lean and mean’ all the time? If they practice the secrets exposed in your book, they should be staying in shape all the time instead of having to work at losing fat prior to every competitive event, correct?”

There is a logical explanation for why bodybuilders and other physique athletes (fitness and figure competitors), don’t remain completely ripped all year round, and it’s the very reason they are able to get so ripped on the day of a contest…

You can’t hold a peak forever or it’s not a “peak”, right? What is the definition of a peak? It’s a high point surrounded by two lower points isn’t it?

Therefore, any shape you can stay in all year round is NOT your “peak” condition.

The intelligent approach to nutrition and training (which almost all bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors use), is to train and diet in a seasonal or cyclical fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to a maintenance or growth phase.

I am NOT talking about bulking up and getting fat and out of shape every year, then dieting it all off every year. What I’m talking about is going from good shape to great (peak) shape, then easing back off to good shape…. but never getting “out of shape.” Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

Here’s an example: I have no intentions whatsoever of walking around 365 days a year at 4% body fat like I appear in the photo on my website. Off-season, when I’m not competing, my body fat is usually between 8 – 10%. Mind you, that’s very lean and still single digit body fat.

I don’t stray too far from competition shape, but I don’t maintain contest shape all the time. It takes me 12-14 weeks or so to gradually drop from 9.5% to 3.5%-4.0% body fat to “peak” for competition with NO loss of lean body mass…using the same techniques I reveal in my e-book.

It would be almost impossible to maintain 4% body fat, and even if I could, why would I want to? For the few weeks prior to competition I’m so depleted, ripped, and even “drawn” in the face, that complete strangers walk up and offer to feed me.

Okay, so I’m just kidding about that, but let’s just say being “being ripped to shreds” isn’t a desirable condition to maintain because it takes such a monumental effort to stay there. It’s probably not even healthy to try forcing yourself to hold extreme low body fat. Unless you’re a natural “ectomorph” (skinny, fast metabolism body type), your body will fight you. Not only that, anabolic hormones may drop and sometimes your immune system is affected as well. It’s just not “normal” to walk around all the time with literally no subcutaneous body fat.

Instead of attempting to hold the peak, I cycle back into a less demanding off-season program and avoid creeping beyond 9.9% body fat. Some years I’ve stayed leaner - like 6-7%, (which takes effort), especially when I knew I would be photographed, but I don’t let my body fat go over 10%.

This practice isn’t just restricted to bodybuilders. Athletes in all sports use periodization to build themselves up to their best shape for competition. Is a pro football player in the same condition in March-April as he is in August-September? Not a chance. Many show up fat and out of shape (relatively speaking) for training camp, others just need fine tuning, but none are in peak form… that’s why they have training camp!!!

There’s another reason you wouldn’t want to maintain a “ripped to shreds” physique all year round – you’d have to be dieting (calorie restricted) all the time. And this is one of the reasons that 95% of people can’t lose weight and keep it off –they are CHRONIC dieters… always on some type of diet. Know anyone like that?

You can’t stay on restricted low calories indefinitely. Sooner or later your metabolism slows down and you plateau as your body adapts to the chronically lowered food intake. But if you diet for fat loss and push incredibly hard for 3 months, then ease off for a while and eat a little more (healthy food, not “pigging out”), your metabolic rate is re-stimulated. In a few weeks or months, you can return to another fat loss phase and reach an even lower body fat level, until you finally reach the point that’s your happy maintenance level for life – a level that is healthy and realistic – as well as visually appealing.

Bodybuilders have discovered a methodology for losing fat that’s so effective, it puts them in complete control of their body composition. They’ve mastered this area of their lives and will never have to worry about it again. If they ever “slip” and fall off the wagon like all humans do at times … no problem! They know how to get back into shape fast.

Bodybuilders have the tools and knowledge to hold a low body fat all year round (such as 9% for men, or about 15% for women), and then at a whim, to reach a temporary “peak” of extremely low body fat for the purpose of competition. Maybe most important of all, they have the power and control to slowly ease back from peak shape into maintenance, and not balloon up and yo-yo like most conventional dieters!

What if you had the power to stay lean all year round, and then get super lean when summer rolled around, or when you took your vacation to the Caribbean, or when your wedding date was coming up? Wouldn’t you like to be in control of your body like that? Isn’t that the same thing that bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors do, only on a more practical, real-world level?

So even if you have no competitive aspirations whatsoever, don’t you agree that there’s something of value everyone could learn from physique athletes? Don’t model yourself after the huge crowd of losers who gobble diet pills, buy exercise gimmicks and suffer through starvation diets like automatons, only to gain back everything they lost! Instead, learn from the leanest athletes on Earth - natural bodybuilders and fitness competitors…

These physique athletes get as ripped as they want to be, exactly when they want to, simply by manipulating their diets in a cyclical fashion between pre-contest “cutting” programs and off season “maintenance” or “muscle growth” programs. Even if you have no desire to ever compete, try this seasonal “peaking” approach yourself and you’ll see that it can work as well for you as it does for elite bodybuilders.

By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.BurnTheFat.com