Get Ripped - Intermediate Metabolic Training

In a previous Blog entry I gave an example of how you might use 'Metabolic Resistance Training' with a beginner using exercises that might be suitable for the skill level and training age of your client.

Today I'm going to continue this theme, and provide a video showing how you might design a metabolic workout for an intermediate client in the gym so we can really fire up the calorie burning and maximise EPOC. I personally think this type of training is ideal for a time efficient but effective workout. It's probably best used as part of a "split" program - this workout targets primarily the upper back  so an intermediate client might train like this using 3-4 different sessions per week, covering all the major muscle groups over a one week cycle.

In my previous Blog entry I also provided some broad guidelines that you could download for how you might use Metabolic training with clients at different training ages. The workout in my video clip might be suitable for a client who has been training regularly for 6-12 months, and has achieved a reasonable level of overall strength & fitness.

 The video illustrates a possible approach for intermediate clients, but a few important guidelines include:

1. No rest between exercises - at the end of a set, have a timed rest of around 1-2 minutes before repeating.

2. Stick primarily to compound movements, this workout contains 4 x compound upper back movements and one isolation exercise.

3. Intermediate trainers are ready for the introduction of more challenging exercises. Note the full body pull-ups here - you could use a powerband to modify the pull-up if required.

4. You should not feel fully recovered before beginning the next set. This type of training is designed to achieve high levels of fatigue at force you to failure.

I hope you take some ideas away from the video, happy training!

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Acknowledgement to Vubui on Flickr for the pics I have used in this Blog entry. You can see his pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vubui/

Get Ripped - Metabolic Resistance Training

'Metabolic Training' is one of the new buzz phrases in fitness. In a previous blog entry I outlined the type of exercise that we can do to maximise calorie burn for fat loss, not only during workouts but also maximising afterburn (EPOC) following a workout. This week I'm getting more specific and providing a sample workout (and video) to show what could be done with a beginner client.


Basically, metabolic resistance training is performing a number of resistance training exercises with little or no rest in between - it's very similar to a "circuit" style workout. It's a very intense way to train, and also very time efficient - workouts tend to be shorter because most of the rest periods are eliminated. We are trying to achieve a very high level of fatigue so we can maximise calorie burn during the workout and metabolic rate (afterburn) following the workout.

Metabolic training is for advanced clients, right? Sure, the principles of metabolic training are ideal for challenging advanced clients and reaching new heights (or depths) of fatigue using higher intensities and less rest. But like most things in the gym we can take the basic principles and modify them for the beginner client. In my experience most clients want to be challenged and they want to feel like they are being progressed to more "advanced" exercise, plus clients generally love the euphoric feeling of completing a really tough workout. The tricky part is handling your clients with enough care and using your professional judgement to get what I call the "Goldilocks" workout - not too hard, not too easy... but just right.

So... Metabolic training is all about resistance training? No. You can achieve excellent metabolic stimulus from doing the right type of cardio, especially from High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). But for today I'm only outlining a metabolic resistance training workout suitable for a beginner.

Metabolic Resistance Training - The Guidelines:

1. Use multiple resistance training exercises - for beginners I recommend 4-5 exercises in the set.
2. Complete your 4-5 exercises in a "circuit" style workout - i.e. no rest in between each exercise. When you have completed one complete set, have a restricted (timed) rest before repeating.
3. Use primarily large muscle groups, compound movements. For beginners, you might modify this by using 2-3 compound movements and 1-2 isolation exercises during the working set.

Check out my basic guidelines for progressing metabolic resistance training workouts here or click on the link below this screenshot.

Click here to view the full downloadable version

So... What does a metabolic resistance training workout for a beginner look like? Click on the video below to view a simple metabolic training set suitable for a beginner. It is intended to target primarily chest and shoulders, it combines four exercises that are suited to the client's level of skill and fitness level.

Training in this way is extremely time efficient, it allows the client to achieve a level of fatigue (i.e. overload) using 12-15 minutes of exercise that would take much longer doing a traditional resistance training program. For the personal trainer, this frees up time for some cardio or perhaps core conditioning but still able to have a short, sharp 30-40 minute session with a client rather than a longer one hour session.

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Calorie Afterburn - What is EPOC?

How many calories do we burn after (rather than during) a workout? The afterburn effect is called EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) and the name alone confuses people - what the hell has oxygen consumption got to do with calorie burning? Well... Those nerdy guys in labs measure calorie expenditure by measuring oxygen consumption. They will hook you up to some breathing apparatus and if you had an elevated metabolism (e.g. after a workout) you would be consuming more oxygen than if you had a lower metabolism (e.g. after 9 hrs sleep).

There is lots of scientific information and research available on this topic, I'll link you to a few things that you might like to check out but generally I'm going to try and cut through the science and summarise it all for you.

Lower intensity exercise gives minimal afterburn: Most research shows that low-moderate intensity exercise has a minimal afterburn effect, and you need to work at around 70% of your maximal effort (as a minimum) to generate a decent afterburn. In fact EPOC doesn't really take hold until you are training at 85%-100% of your maximal effort.
To be clear - low intensity exercise (e.g. walking) is still beneficial, and is worth keeping in your weekly training regime. You can't train at 85%-100% every day, so lower intensity exercise is important to keep you active and has some health benefits.
In terms of calorie burning, one hour of brisk walking might burn around 350 Cal and would have very little afterburn effect. So walking is useful for staying active & burning some calories, but isn't intense enough to fire up a big EPOC response. Even moderate exercise like continuous jogging is found to deliver minimal afterburn.

Resistance exercise works, but... Lifting weights gives a strong afterburn effect if you follow these simple rules:
1. Big muscle groups, compound movements... Bicep curls and other isolation exercises are out!
2. You must work to failure, or at least very close to failure.
3. Minimal rest times between exercises, and between sets. In fact a circuit style workout with no rest between exercises will probably give the greatest afterburn effect.

An investigation into afterburn following resistance training also showed that the majority of afterburn calories were in fact coming from fat burning. The study showed that fat burning was 75%-105% higher than normal resting levels.
I highly recommend dynamic/plyometric exercises to get maximum muscle recruitment and fatigue. For this reason I like kettle bell swings, box jumps, jumping lunge, sprints, stair running, power cleans etc. although for beginners perhaps stick to compound free-weight exercises.

When doing cardio, stick to intervals. Most studies indicate that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) gives a stronger afterburn effect than traditional running or cycling.
The mistake most people make here is not working hard enough during the intervals. HIIT training should be incredibly hard, it makes you feel sick, you want to give up, it hurts. This is where the PT earns their money because very few clients would have the motivation to do intervals on their own and thus they could never achieve great fitness and/or fat loss results on their own.
HIIT should involve a 30sec-2min gut-busting (near maximal) effort, followed by a low intensity "recovery" period (traditionally this is called 'Fartlek'). Beginners should start with short efforts. It's also important to set the right work:rest ratio for clients, beginners will work at around 1:3 whilst more advanced trainers will work at 1:1 or perhaps even harder. Beginners might start with only two or three intervals, but gradually build up to an advanced volume of around ten intervals. HIIT can be done on a treadmill, bike, rower or at the local park so it's easy to mix it up for variety.

How big is the EPOC effect? Each study is slightly different and reports different results. One recent study conducted on men in a metabolic chamber (so it should be very accurate) shows that participants burned 519 Cal during a high intensity 45 minute cycling workout. Following the workout, on average metabolic rates stayed elevated for 14hrs, giving an afterburn of 190 Cal above normal resting levels.
These numbers are significant, remembering that you have to walk briskly for one hour to burn about 350 Cal. Compare that to the high intensity cycling workout - 519 Cal plus a bonus afterburn of 190 Cal, you get a total benefit of 709 Cal from just 45 mins of exercise - more than double the one hour walk.

Another study focussing on resistance training in women showed that metabolic rate was elevated by 13% above resting levels for three hours following a high intensity workout, and was still 4% above resting levels 16 hours after the workout.
Just think about how an extra 100-200 Cal from afterburn will add up if you train clients like this three times per week over a 3-6 month period.

So... How does it work? For those interested in the science of how this works, I recommend you read this article which gives a nice overview of the mechanisms behind EPOC.
In a nutshell, training at very high intensities causes a massive metabolic and cellular disruption to our body. It freaks out our systems, muscles and cells. In particular the hormonal response from HIIT and intense resistance training sparks a stronger afterburn effect - studies appear to indicate higher release of epinephrine, norepinephrine and growth hormone (all fat burning hormones) which gives fat burning a real kick-along following an intense workout.

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Should my Clients be Eating Carbs?

It's no surprise that people constantly ask questions about carbohydrate based foods, even qualified professionals who have studied nutrition are sometimes unsure about carbs.

This week's blog is going to focus on simple advice on carbs for clients wanting fat loss. Of course, any client of mine will be exercising so we need to make sure we give sensible advice to fuel exercise & not just try and starve our clients by cutting out every food that contains calories.

OK so first a disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist and Personal Trainers should not be giving detailed dietary plans to clients. Send them to a dietician or nutritionist for that sort of support - I just want to help you give some common sense advice to clients, nothing more & nothing less.

Energy for Exercise: Before we jump into talking about foods, a quick lesson about how muscles primarily burn carbs for energy during exercise... When you eat carbs, it gets taken into the blood as glucose and then stored in the muscles as "muscle glycogen". Muscle glycogen is an essential fuel for exercise, whether the exercise is aerobic or anaerobic.
Your body can convert proteins to glycogen, but because your body relies on protein to rebuild muscle tissue after a workout you might then run short of what you need to rebuild the body. Converting protein to glycogen also stresses the kidneys because they have to work harder to eliminate some nasty by-products from the process.
So... It makes sense to eat at least some carbs (we can argue about how much another day) to keep glycogen stored in the muscles and fuel our workouts.

Good carbs, bad carbs... Evil carbs... I'm going to provide a list of carbs that I would personally recommend all clients avoid, as well as a list of carbs that I would strongly recommend to clients.
Essentially, anything that has been highly processed is on the banned list. I'll explain what this means and give you plenty of examples because I think this causes confusion sometimes - which foods are the processed ones?

Processed carbs will make you fat: Here is a pic of your typical grain. Once it gets mulched up by a big machine it loses most of it's bran & is turned into a fluffy breakfast cereal like 'Puffed Wheat' it has about 2g of fibre in one bowl. In an unprocessed breakfast cereal like 'Wheat Bran' we get over 26g of fibre -12 times more!
So why is Puffed Wheat evil? Well there are many reasons - firstly, fibre in has been proven to reduce the risk of digestive diseases and improve digestive health. Secondly, the unprocessed Wheat Bran actually requires you to chew. Chewing makes the meal take longer, slows down your eating and allows your body to recognise when it feels full sooner rather than just gulp down too much gluggy crap. So, you end up eating less. Thirdly (and probably most importantly) the highly processed Puffed Wheat gets digested & absorbed way faster than the unprocessed bran. It floods your blood with a massive glucose spike, which leads to a big glucose crash and you will be starving hungry within an hour or so. The glucose spike also causes a massive insulin spike & this increases your risk of type 2 diabetes but that's a topic for another blog.

Unprocessed carbs are pure joy for fat loss: In my previous blog I provided a link to a research paper citing 101 scientific studies indicating that eating whole grains helps prevent a whole range of potential diseases & ill health. It's pretty clear that Puffed Wheat doesn't contain a whole grain and this is where it gets difficult for clients to identify healthy carbs - it says "wheat" on the packet right? And the TV advertisement tells me I will be transformed into an Iron Man so I reckon it's gotta be good... Right?

Yeah, right. There are only two ways you can identify a good carb - well actually three because I'll link you to my own list of good carbs and evil carbs that you can use but it's not going to cover every food at the local supermarket so you will have to either:

1. Learn to read food labels and look for (primarily) fibre content. Compare labels and brands to learn which breads or cereals are lower, and which are higher. If it's higher in fibre it usually contains more whole grains - unless of course it's that fibre enriched white bread (avoid!).
2. Simply eyeball the foods. In breakfast cereals or breads, if it is whole grain you will see the grains. One example is Muesli - check out the whole grains in the bag! Of course you still need to read the label because some Muesli's are high in fat, so for calorie control you will want to choose a brand with less fat.

But what if I eat too many unprocessed carbs??? Let me be clear - overeating is bad for fat loss no matter what the food. However, if you eliminate processed carbs & adopt an "unprocessed only" approach, it is difficult to overeat.
This is because of the chewing factor (already mentioned), and also the fact that unprocessed carbs are usually very low on the GI (Wheat Bran is 30) compared to processed versions (Puffed Wheat is 80). Unprocessed foods take much longer (I'm talking hours) to digest so you aren't going to be hungry for quite some time after eating.
Healthy eating guidelines suggest at least three serves per day, so that's what I'm going to recommend. Just remember to choose good carbs, not no carbs.

So, check out my list of evil carbs which should be on the "avoid" list for anyone wanting fat loss, plus a bunch of replacement foods that you could recommend to clients. There are lots of carbs (good and evil) that are not on my list, you will need to make your own mind up about them.

Download the full list here

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Debunking the Paleo Diet - fact versus fiction

The Paleo Diet is one of the more recent diet approaches to take hold in the fitness industry... This diet is based on the notion that we should essentially be eating like cave-men and that this will somehow transform us into lean & mean hunter-gatherers that are immune from lifestyle diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. There doesn't appear to be any scientific proof or any long term studies to prove it, but it certainly sounds like a good story... Right?

For me personally, this is just another hard-sell from some diet gurus wanting me (and you) to buy their book. Why not the cabbage soup, liver-cleansing, vegetarian, vegan, south beach, Mediterranean, Dukan, detox, or Jenny Craig diet? Or if you prefer take your pick from this list - the diet game is a multi-billion dollar business with plenty of overweight people looking for a magic solution. You only have to find a million suckers worldwide to buy your book on the internet, and even if you are only making $5 per book... I'll let you do the maths.

The Paleo diet is being marketed hard to young fitness professionals and it's time to take a closer look at the science behind it. The fitness industry has a rich history of diets, supplements and fad equipment claiming to be the "best ever" or "cutting edge". It's important to be very critical of these things - you wouldn't rush out and buy the latest ab-swing promising a rock hard six-pack in three minutes would you? So why swallow the latest diet hype without first questioning it and considering alternatives?

I will link you to some scientific research as well as eating guidelines from a range of reliable sources which will debunk certain aspects of the Paleo diet, especially the "grains are unhealthy" message promoted by Paleo authors. I would also like to take a closer look at a couple of the leading Paleo authors - Mark Sisson and Dr Lauren Cordain. Who are these people and should we be taking their dietary advice?

A history lesson: The Paleolithic era (the stone age) spanned 2.6 million years and ended about 12,000 years ago. There was plenty of human evolution over that period and although some archaeological digs have revealed hard evidence of what Paleo man was eating up to 40,000 years ago, very little is known about the 2.6 million years that came before. Expert anthropologists can not agree on the true contents of the Paleolithic diet... We simply don't know exactly what they ate, or how much they ate. This is the first thing that bothers me about the Paleo Diet - it's cleverly branded and it's a nice story but if anthropologists don't know what Paleo man actually ate how can Mark Sisson & Lauren Cordain write books about it? Neither of these guys are qualified anthropologists by the way and neither of them hold qualifications in nutrition either but that's another story.

What the Paleo diet books don't tell you: Because the leading Paleo authors are not anthropologists and they don't like the facts to get in the way of a good story... They kinda forgot to tell us that Paleolithic man actually ate grains! In fact Paleo man had also developed the tools to grind grain, possibly to produce flour and than bake dough in a hearth (old school oven) - this was the beginning of bread-making and has been dated back about 30,000 years. Paleo man also ate legumes which again are banned in the Paleo diet. Each of these links proves that the modern "Paleo Diet" actually bans foods that were commonly eaten in Paleolithic times... Is anyone else out there feeling confused?

OK so now let's discuss grains... As my previous link shows, Paleo authors are telling us to avoid grains, despite current scientific evidence showing that whole grains play an important role in reducing the risk of diseases such as coronary heart disease (CHD), diabetes, cancer and assist in weight management and gastrointestinal health. I could link you to literally thousands of research based articles on this topic but let's start with this one - published in 2011 it is a review of numerous studies and cites 101 studies that prove the importance of grains in preventing disease. You could also visit a short version of this one showing that grains reduce CHD or this one showing that grains reduce type 2 diabetes. If your clients could eat a food that is proven to prevent numerous diseases, why would you ever tell them to avoid that food? I call it crazy, Mark Sisson calls it the 'Paleo Blueprint'.

Not only has science proven the health benefits of grains, but pretty much every elite athletic organisation also promotes eating grains for improved performance. Organisations like the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the NCAA are telling athletes to eat more whole grains. Organisations like the diabetes council and the Digestive Health Association are saying the same thing... All these highly reputable organisations are telling us to eat more whole grains - why would we take advice from Lauren Cordain and Mark Sisson when it goes against the best advice from such highly regarded sources? 

In Summary: I'm not a fan of diets overall. I'm a fan of trainers and clients using realistic healthy eating guidelines and making sensible choices about their food every day. You don't need to pay someone else for a nutritional silver bullet - you just need to educate yourself and use a large dose of common sense when it comes to nutrition.
All the information you need to educate yourself and your clients is available free on the web, but you sometimes have to be prepared to go beyond a simple Google search to find it. 
Nutrition is a minefield and I'm sure there are many people out there who disagree with my views, but remember these aren't simply my views - visit the links and do some reading for yourself before you make up your mind.

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