Why Girls Won’t (and don’t) Lift Weights!

For decades now there has been a discussion on why girls don't lift weights. I could retire, or at least get a new sweatshirt if I had a penny for every time one of my female clients or female friends has asked, “Won't it make me bulky?” There's a never-ending barrage of misinformation out there about how girls “should” approach our fitness—take a look at Instagram or the Health & Fitness section of Pinterest to see for yourself! You’ll see row after row of photos of thin girls looking happy, because that’s what our culture says fitness “should” mean for girls: looking thin.  When clients ask me these questions, it’s all I can do not to ask if their vegan tofu salad was delicious and then rant about the benefits of resistance training for women, the skewed cultural standards of the female physique, and the perpetuation of antiquated gender stereotypes in gym culture…but I’m getting ahead of myself. In my programs, I am ALL ABOUT girls in the weight room! So, here are some of the common reasons girls don’t want to lift weights—and then debunk them, one by one.

Girls, this post is for you—but if you’re a guy, DON’T STOP READING! Impress the ladies in your life by educating yourself on gym gender politics, and help set a well-informed example!

1. "I'll get bulky.”

False. The female body, magical and wonderful though it may be, simply doesn’t have the same testosterone profile as men! Testosterone is the primary hormone that promotes the development of muscle and bone growth. Although women secrete testosterone too, adult men produce about 20 times more than adult women. As a result, females simply cannot physiologically reach the same muscle hypertrophy (size) as guys.  (Unless you are doing some serious, illegal supplementation…but that’s another post for another day.) 

So this one is pretty simple: girls just don’t have as much testosterone as guys do. Female muscles DO respond to strength training stimuli by increasing in size—but simply won’t support huge, “bulky” musculature. It’s science!

2. “Strength training won’t burn as many calories as cardio does.”

(insert hysterical laugh!!!)

False again! Actually, if one of your goals is to lose non-lean body mass (body fat), strength training is your secret weapon! When you lift weights—heavy weights—your body signals to your brain that you are working overtime. This means that even when you put down the barbell, your body continues to work—and burn calories—to repair itself.  One of the best ways to understand this metabolic effect is to think about the different energy systems your body uses to fuel different types of activities.

“Cardio,” as in steady-state aerobic activity, burns calories from your body’s fat stores after about 30 minutes of movement. So if you jog on a treadmill at a medium-intensity pace for 60 minutes (yes, you need 60 minutes to get any benefit), you will burn fat in the scientific sense. However, as soon as you hit that stop button, your body will also stop using fat calories for energy, and thus stop burning calories altogether. This is in contrast to anaerobic activities, like strength training. Let’s say you strength train with heavy weights for 30 minutes—while your body is deriving much of its energy from glucose (carbohydrate) in your bloodstream DURING your workout, AFTER your workout is a different story. Because you tax your metabolic pathways more during a strength training session, your body continues to repair itself (and burn calories doing so) after you stop. So, while the total number of calories burned during an aerobic workout might be more, the total number of calories burned both during and AFTER a strength training workout is MUCH higher—making strength training an essential practice not just for athletes looking to get stronger, but also anyone looking to lose body fat.

3. “Lifting weights is for boys.”

OK, this one is true and false!  Historically, the realm of strength training has been presided over solely by men. Take a peek into a gym in the 1970’s and you’d probably see only dudes in the weight room. But times they are a-changing! Thanks in part to our culture’s recent movement for gender equality, the gym is becoming more and more a place for both guys AND girls. There is nothing centrally “masculine” about the weight room—those are just old perspectives about what being male or female actually meant in society. Heck, take a look at my group training sessions…… 90% female!  This had more to do with our sociological roles than our physical bodies. The weight room nowadays is just as “feminine” as it is “masculine”. 

So, even though this “weights are for dudes” misconception has been true in the past, this stereotype now false. Nobody bats an eye these days when they see a girl setting up her bar for power cleans, actually I walk over and hi-five her! And while there may be a remnant of this old-school thinking in the gym, ladies re chipping away at that remnant with every single back squat!

4. “I don’t know how to strength train!”

This one is the easiest reason of them all to debunk—because the answer is simple, get a trainer. Seriously though, sales pitch aside: one of the primary complaints I hear from girls who want to lift weights is that they don’t know how (which makes sense, because as we addressed in #3, the gym used to be considered just for guys). But now, thanks to the magic of the Internet, there is information galore available about ANYTHING you want to know about! And in fact, this is generally my mission: to make safe, effective strength training programs accessible to anyone and everyone. By using proper programming, my male and female clients and athletes get weekly workouts that specify exercises, rep counts, set counts, rest periods between exercises, and more. That’s why I’ve fortified my comprehensive online exercise library with detailed instructions, photos, and videos—to equip ALL athletes to learn how to lift weights. No more excuses, girls (and guys)!

I hope that this post has helped debunk some of these mythical reasons why girls don't strength train. (In fact, I almost hope you haven't made it to this final paragraph but instead got halfway through, put on your lifting shoes, and ran to the weight room!)

An accurate approach to Strength & Conditioning!

My approach……

Approach it with specifics…. No matter if I’m working with a Division 1 college team/athletes all the way down to a small high school team/athletes, specifics are vital!

A uniform approach to strength and conditioning simply isn’t the best way to help athletes perform better and stay healthy. So why do others do it?  CONVENIENCE, that’s why, it’s simple and easier!  S&C can’t be uniformed, because training must look different for different sports. After all, you wouldn’t train a tennis athlete — or a cross country runner — like a football player.

The safest and most effective way to prepare for a sport is to train appropriately and specifically for that sport. Here are 3 reasons why.

1. Different Performance Goals
The athletic performance traits that must be prioritized in one sport's strength and conditioning are different from those in other sports. With my program, as an example, we prioritize muscle mass (hypertrophy), maximal strength, and explosiveness as the primary performance goals for football. But softball players need to develop rotational power, and distance track runners need muscular endurance, and all these qualities are developed through different training protocols. All athletes benefit from building a foundation of general strength and work capacity, which is why you’ll see squats on the program for almost every sport. But when it comes to sport-specific strength and movement qualities, what works for one sport may not work for other sports.

This becomes especially clear when you look at the bioenergetic requirements from sport to sport. Just look at the duration and speed of play in a rugby sevens match compared to an 800m track race, or a baseball game compared to a 90-min soccer match, and you’ll see the unique energy system requirements that make an athlete successful in each sport or event. This is why we not only identify the three primary performance goals for each sport on a strength training level, but also constructs sport-specific conditioning programs that develop the proper energy systems utilized in every sport.

2. Different Movement Patterns
Each sport has it's own primary movement patterns. The primary movements you’ll see in a football game are sprinting, cutting, jumping, blocking, pushing, and tackling. In a properly designed football strength and conditioning program, exercises in the weight room are specifically chosen to first develop the general strength capabilities to tolerate those positions, and then the specific strength and power adaptations needed to execute those actions explosively.

But the movements in freestyle swimming, for example, could not be more different.
Good strength and conditioning must be targeted on the specific motor actions required in each sport. And again, while athletes across all sports benefit from developing a base of general physical strength and capability, a properly designed program will train sport-specific movement patterns. My programs, for example, examine the main movement patterns in each sport—like hip extension/flexion for track sprinters and scapular elevation/depression in swimming—to create training that emphasizes sport-specific strength qualities in those positions.

3. Different Injuries
Besides the idea of access for athletes across sports (and genders), this, for me, is the single biggest reason any type of uniform, sport-agnostic workout plan—doesn’t cut it for athletes in other sports. A strength and conditioning professional always considers vulnerable or frequently injured muscles and joints when designed sport-specific training (and, if possible, looks at the individual strengths and weaknesses of each athlete on the team). While football carries a lot of inherent injury risk to many different areas—hamstring, ACL, ankle, etc.—these are not necessarily the same areas at risk in other sports.

Golfers may need extra hip and low-back strengthening to avoid injuries. Tennis players need more elbow and wrist work. Failing to address joints and muscles that may be at risk of overuse (like the rotator cuff for baseball pitchers) or at risk of acute non-contact injuries (like the hamstrings for soccer players) is a failure to prepare athletes optimally for their sport. We incorporate targeted injury mitigation exercises in every sport program—from extra glute med strengthening for female soccer players, to isometric anti-rotation holds for baseball and softball players. This specificity in injury mitigation is something that a static 12-week training program simply cannot offer, and it can make or break the success (and health) of a team.

The Takeaway
We are specific!  The approach to strength and conditioning shouldn't be uniform for every sport—but it does need to be unified. The unique performance traits, motor patterns, and injury risks involved in different sports requires a sport-specific approach, but one that can also create a cohesive training methodology.  Remember, our job as a S&C coach isn’t to make the athlete a better football – baseball – softball – lacrosse – whatever sport player, it is to do two things, 1-obviously improve their S&C, 2-build durability in the athlete-so they can play longer, faster, quicker, stronger, with minimizing the potential for injury!

Some Basic Reasons Runners Should Start Strength Training, NOW!

For runners, "training" means running. And with all those miles logged each week, and all those hours of long runs and hill sprints and fartleks, it's easy to see why strength training isn't your first priority. But while runners have historically been anti-strength training ("It will make me bulky and slow!"), strength and conditioning science is finally catching up and more runners than ever are sprinting to the weight room to reap the many benefits strength training has to offer.

 

Here are reasons all runners—from elite marathoners to weekend stroller joggers—should start strength training NOW.

1. Run Faster

It may seem like a no-brainer, but strength training helps you run faster! Strength training places stress on your body in the form of resistance (weights), which prompts your body to adapt and make changes in order to increase its ability to withstand that stress. Over time, these physiological adaptations can have a huge impact on your running speed. This is why it’s important to train on a comprehensive program designed specifically for running performance—in other words, you can’t do a few random strength workouts and expect to see results.

 

Not only does strength training increase your body’s fat-free mass (bone and muscle mass) while decreasing your body fat %, it also increases the amount of force your muscles are able to exert into the ground with each step during your runs. This helps to make each stride more powerful, increasing your maximal speed and improving your ability to maintain high submaximal speeds for longer. Strength training also increases your muscular endurance and anaerobic power, making it easier to tackle that final kick in a race.

 

2. Stronger Bones, Tendons, Ligaments, Fascia, and Cartilage

Here’s an abbreviated table adapted from the 4th edition of the Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning detailing some of the performance benefits you’ll see from starting a strength training program:

 

The repetitive nature of running (“pounding the pavement”) leaves runners highly susceptible to injuries—especially overuse injuries. In addition to stronger muscles, strength training creates positive adaptations in your bones and connective tissues (tendons, ligaments, fascia, and cartilage) which can help mitigate and prevent overuse injuries like stress fractures.

 

A quick anatomy recap: muscles attach to bones through tendons (muscle tissue blends into tendon, so it’s all one continuous structure). Tendons have little blood flow, which is why they’re white in color illustrations of the musculoskeletal system. Ligaments connect bones together. Cartilage is a dense but flexible connective tissue that helps joints move smoothly and absorbs shock forces through joints. Fascia is a band or sheet of connective tissue that helps stabilize and separate muscles. All these connective tissues are made primarily of collagen, and all respond positively to strength training.

 

Just as your muscles respond to the stress of resistance by growing stronger, stronger muscles exert a greater pull on the bones they attach to, causing the bone and the structures around it to respond by grow stronger, too. Bigger and stronger bones, thicker cartilage, and sturdier and stiffer connective tissues help runners withstand and absorb more pavement pounding. The Achilles tendon in the heel and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee are prime examples of how important connective tissue strength is for runners.

 

3. Better Running Economy

You can measure a car’s fuel economy by how many miles it gets per gallon of gas—and you can measure your running economy (RE) by how much energy and oxygen you use to run at a given pace. The less energy and oxygen you need to sustain a pace (say a 6:30 pace in a 5k or 8:00 pace in a marathon), the better your RE. Your RE is a good indicator of how efficient and effective your body is at running, and can be improved through—you guessed it!—strength training.

 

Strength training helps perfect your running form (see reason #4), making your strides more efficient. And when you can run better, you can train harder—running more miles per week, or sustaining faster paces for longer durations. All this adds up to better running economy. Even better, improving your RE can also enhance your maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max) and lactate threshold, both measures of aerobic fitness and markers of endurance performance. In short, a better engine makes for a higher-performing car, and the same is true for running.

 

4. Better Running Form

The human body is a pretty amazing machine. Most of us have a dominant side that is more muscularly developed, and most of us have stronger anterior muscles (on the front of the body) and weaker posterior muscles (back of the body)—and these strength imbalances can create some imperfect movement patterns. Ever wonder why only one knee will hurt after a run, or one side of your back and not the other? It’s not hard to imagine that if your right glutes are twice as strong as your left glutes, it will alter the way you move. If you do have some funky movement patterns, your body—smart animal that it is—will use other muscles to help out, like recruiting your left lower back muscles to help your weak left glutes extend your hip.

 

This must have been especially helpful for our human ancestors’ survival. Imagine if instead of recruiting other muscles, your body just shut down the malfunctioning muscle—not good if you’re trying to run away from a sabretooth tiger. But these compensatory movement patterns, created by muscle imbalances, can lead to pain and injury over time, especially if you’re running mile after mile with subpar form.

 

A strength training program designed specifically for runners will focus on correcting the muscular strength imbalances that cause bad movement mechanics. This is especially important for your quadriceps and hamstrings—most runners have super strong quads (front of the body) and super weak hams (back of the body), which can alter your stride and cause injury. By evening out these imbalances, you can “turn any” any inhibited and weak muscles and achieve better, more efficient running form. Better form means less risk of overuse injury from bad movement patterns, and more effective running.

 

5. Prevent Injuries

For runners, all other benefits of strength training really add up to this: fewer injuries. Ever been sidelined by an injury halfway through training for a race? Ever had shin splints, tendonitis, IT band syndrome, plantar fasciitis, low-back pain, or other injuries that caused you to skip a run (or several)? A well-designed strength training plan for runners will help strengthen the muscle groups surrounding the most frequently injured joints (ankles, knees, hips, back, and [interestingly] wrists) and make you all-around stronger and more durable. When you’re stronger, your running mechanics naturally improve, helping avoid injury caused by poor running form. And when you’re more durable, you’re better able to withstand all the repetitive ground forces during your runs, without causing injury.

 

Improved durability also unlocks your capacity to run a bit more, a bit harder. Training at higher intensities—whether it’s a faster pace to hit a PR or longer distances to train for a half or full marathon—allows you to achieve new levels of performance previously unattainable. Being stronger, and staying injury-free, help you attack every track session, every tempo run, every long run with 100% effort. Higher quality training = better performance, plain and simple. And here’s the really important part: when you are able to run and train without injury, you actually enjoy running more! In this way, strength training helps you get the most out of your runs, both physically and mentally/emotionally. After all, it feels good to give your full effort!

“What is Sport-Specific Training?”

I get asked all the time, “What is Sport-Specific Training?”

First off, as you may or may not know, every set, weight, movement, and training session I design has a specific purpose, and I encourage you to take the same purposeful approach to fueling and recovery. As an athlete (everyone is an athlete), please make sure you have a practical, comprehensive nutrition and recovery program in place, if not, we can help you there as well.

“Sport-Specific” Training….Here ya go!

It’s no secret that an athlete who is serious about his/her sport needs to train differently than someone just looking to get a little healthier, or gain a little muscle. And no one is surprised when I say that a soccer player needs to train differently than a football player (American football). This all boils down to the fact that every sport has specific demands: both on movement (kicking a ball, swinging a bat/stick, blocking and tackling, jumping, etc.) and on the metabolic energy pathways used for that movement (explosive with lots of rest, varied sprinting and jogging, etc.). These specific movement and metabolic demands put muscles and joints at risk for overuse injuries, which a good training program strives to counter through exercises aimed at injury prevention. Soccer players don’t need to worry about overuse of the anterior shoulder like baseball pitchers do — so a specific training program for a soccer player looks quite different than one designed to decrease injuries for a baseball pitcher. “Sport-specific” training is how all these factors fit together to ensure the best transfer of performance in the weight room to performance on the field. If your strength and conditioning program doesn’t help performance or reduce injuries, then you’re just spinning your wheels in the weight room. Unfortunately, there is a ton of misinformation about what an athlete needs floating around out there—but, I believe the answer is simpler than you think.

Let’s start by defining what ISN'T Sport-Specific Training?

The term “Sport-Specific” has become a pretty ubiquitous, and sadly ambiguous, term in today’s age, and one common misunderstanding is that it means simply adding resistance to a specific skill set. While it might be enticing to think that a golfer can use a piece of rotational exercise equipment to add resistance and give him or her a stronger swing, it just doesn’t work that way, or by having a baseball player use a heavy “bat type” implement in training or even having a basketball player shoot a 20 pound medicine ball for training. In reality, adding resistance to specific skill patterns can be/most often is detrimental to the development of their ACTUAL swing. The same goes for throwing, swinging a bat, and kicking. Adding heavier resistance to these movements changes the biomechanical demand, and increases the likelihood of overuse. If you want to train in a method 100%-specific to your sport, you need to just go out and play the sport. Let skill development take place on the field or on the court, and use the weight room as a place to develop foundational movements, structural integrity, and explosive power. Increasing these performance measures gives the athlete more to utilize during skill work, and can keep him or her healthier throughout the competitive season. Building a strength and conditioning program around a sport is meant to improve performance of specific skills—and reduce the risk of injury from the repetitive practice of those skills. Use the “weight room” as a tool for your sport, not as the sport!

We want/need to train to meet the demands of the sport!

Each sport is different, however there are similarities in fundamental principles that apply to most, such as Rotational Power, Strength, Lateral Quickness, Stamina, Max Strength, Explosive Power, and Linear Speed to name a few. The key is to identify the ones that are key and crucial to continued success in the specific sport. Once they are identified, the key is to not develop a training program that continually adds new “cool, trendy, fashionably neat, and sometimes dangerous stuff/exercises”, it simply is more about simplifying what makes that sport unique and making those fundamental principles better.

The first step in improving the athlete is to identify what movement patterns are used within the sport. Training these movement principles and improving their quality is how to make the time in the weight room worthwhile. Using soccer as an example, athletes need not only to pass and shoot accurately, but also to win challenges, shield the ball, and tackle effectively. Soccer players also need the ability to sprint, and change direction and pace quickly for the full 90 minutes. This means strength training should focus on the development of bilateral (two-leg) and unilateral (one-leg) leg strength, speed and power, and developing aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. These demands are met through correctly programmed strength and power movements. Properly progressed training of compound multi-joint structural movements like squats and deadlifts lay the framework for more explosive and challenging movements, like single-leg box jumps and Olympic weightlifting variations. Simply put, if you want to be training effectively for a sport, you need quality programming and quality progression.

What else is involved Sport-Specific training?
Injury Prevention, that’s vital!

Many sports have skill patterns that endlessly repeat themselves or continuously stress the athlete asymmetrically. Think of how many times a baseball player throws a ball. How about the catcher? How many times does he throw back to the pitcher? Generally he throws more in a game than all others combined (besides the pitcher)! Now we not only have “Sport-Specific” training, but we also need “Position-Specific” training. The body becomes "unbalanced" from all of this specific movement, which can lead to a higher risk of injury. For this baseball player’s program, we wouldn't want to add resistance to an already overloaded movement pattern, since that could only further any imbalances and increase injury risk. Instead, we program a high volume of movement patterns opposite to those typically under continual stress. The aim is to bring the anatomical structures back to a state of symmetry, and regain the neutral positions the body was meant to be in.

Every training day in my program offers injury prevention movements and methods to assist in keeping athletes healthy and mobile. Like with baseball, every sport program comes with its own injury prevention methods that take into account the movement patterns overused throughout the season.

What else is vital to “Sport-Specific training?
Foundational Movements!!!!

Sport-specific training is less about adding something new to the game, and more about simplifying what makes that sport unique. It's important to remember that all athletes benefit from getting stronger and MOVING BETTER. Training compound, multi-joint movement stress the body to produce force in efficient patterns rather than isolating them, thus removing the proprioceptive control associated with a barbell. Foundational movements like squatting, deadlifting, and pressing lay the framework for how the body moves and produces force. Likewise, consistent practice of explosive bodyweight and progressive Olympic variations add to any program to help build efficient recruitment of fast-twitch muscle fibers and a well-functioning neuromuscular system. Practicing these patterns correctly helps to keep every athlete in a healthier state, and allow them the baseline strength and function to take their training further.

“Sport-Specific” training is a science, but applying simple fundamental systems and applicable processes are where the science comes into play. Our job as a Strength Coach/Train is to help keep the athlete in the game/playing, as well as physically progressing, that involves a lot more than just picking things up and putting them down.

Regards,
Greg

Disclaimer - PLEASE DO NOT READ ANYMORE (unless you want the truth.)

Disclaimer – This post is because I want to help you, honestly, I truly want to help you, that is why I do what I do and why I’ve been doing this for many years – to help people get better! So…. if you easily get emotionally hurt, or offended, or love the idea of ‘participation trophies’, or whatever other reason people have to not face the truth, PLEASE DO NOT READ ANYMORE, click the back arrow and go back to whatever or wherever Google will take you.

Ok… so my worthless .02 cents….. I’m going to break this down into 3 parts;
1-mindset,
2-exercise;
3-nutrition.

1 – Mindset:
In the 8 weeks becoming "better" is the goal, that’s the “end game”, period! … and an understanding that health and wellness is a lifestyle and a continuous process, it never finishes, it never ends, it never ends, let me repeat in case you didn’t hear me, IT NEVER ENDS! The “end game” is what I think we are all looking for, or should be looking for. Not just a long life but a better qualitative life. That comes about with general health and wellness action steps. In today's world we know one thing is for sure, we all will die, but there is a slight trend that we are living longer than before, but when we die, how we die and what we do up until we die is directly related to what we do during the time we have until we die. Health and wellness can and will promote a longer and better life, proven fact, average age at death in 1960-about 70 yrs, in 2015-about 80 yrs, actual science, (However, I also read it on Facebook from many self proclaimed internet “fitness experts” geniuses who have no education, or proven research, and who claim to know about these things that they read in another non qualified persons’ Facebook blog, like protein amounts and carb cutting and other bullshit topics they talk about with no validity, they just post it because they can). Sorry for the rant on almost EVERYONE on Facebook nowadays; because real data, and real science is learned in SCHOOL and in TEXBOOKS, and those smart people have no time for irrelevant “look how much I know” bullshit postings. As I said, when and how you die (for the most part) is up to you. I want to live as long as I can, but more importantly I want to be as healthy and as active as I can until that point, if it’s 90, and I'm out walking and playing with grandkids and riding bikes, and boating, then that's fine; but I sure as hell don't want to live until 90 and in a nursing home in a wheelchair because I don’t have the structural integrity or physical capacity to stand or walk or dress myself for the last 20 years of my life, and after plying BINGO I sure as hell don’t want to have to call someone to wipe my ass because I was too lazy or too lazy, or too lazy, or too lazy, or even too lazy to take care of my health while I had the opportunity. Priorities people, priorities, win only an 8 week challenge... next have my ass wiped... or ride Harleys and go to tee ball games at 90… tough call huh?

2- Exercise:
It takes effort, as well as a little effort, and sometimes more than other times, a little effort, not to mention some effort. Along with all of those things I just mentioned, it takes an understanding that consistency is key, (8 weeks = 56 days… 60 years of consistency = 21,840 days). Lastly, but surely not least, it takes making sure you cover all the bases (cardio respiratory fitness, strength building, mobility, flexibility, agility and recovery). There is a simple way to look at it; if you are not in good cardio respiratory, you are in bad cardio respiratory condition; if you are not strong, you are weak; if you don’t have mobility, you have less maneuverability; if you are not flexible, you have limited range of motion; if you don’t have agility, you have a higher level of clumsiness; if you are not recovered (proper food and rest), you can’t put the effort you need into it to maximize the desired result. There is a thing called a “comfort zone,” that’s a place where most love to live, and stay-even during exercise,…. all while snacking on ‘low fat’ muffins, drinking Chianti, only having a bite or two of cheesecake, and sucking down that deliciously tasting Caramel Pumpkin Spice Mega Grande Macchiato ‘skinny lite’ coffee with their veggie omelet (with cheese, bacon, hollandaise sauce and guacamole). Sound familiar…? I hope not! (maybe this should’ve been in the nutrition section to come…?)
Exercise effort/intensity… Sweat, it’s what happens when we're hot, we sweat. Oh, and that 15-20 minutes of “effort” that you actually / possibly put in 2-3 times per week…not enough, nope, don’t fool yourself and think it is. Hold on you might say, I saw on Facebook / the internet that it says all you need is about that amount time.. oh wait, I’m sorry, that was on the “thigh master” and “8 Minute Abs” infomercial. That wet stuff, the sweat, the moisture, it’s purpose is to evaporate and cool us off because our core body temperature is elevated… a result of effort. Please don’t tell me you are “working hard” if you don’t look like you just got out of the “Naked and Afraid” jungle being chased by lions after workout! Science has proven that an increase in body temperature is associated with a higher metabolic rate, and higher body temperatures speed up metabolism. Please join me and train with me and my group once please, it’s on me. 18 or 80, male or female, blonde or brunette, short or tall, big or small, it will EDUCATE YOU, and don’t bring the Macchiato!

3-Nutrition:
Suck it up and deal with not eating what you want to eat, period. You can give me every excuse in the world and it’s nonsense, 100% nonsense. No matter how you cut it, you need to be in a caloric deficit to drop scale weight. My formula is that number of “needed” calories is and should be based on your lean body mass, not the current number on the scale, if you have 30% bodyfat you need to subtract 30% of your weight as “needed” calories for maintenance. If you want to lose weight, that adjusted number needs to be decreased by about 500 calories per day! Scenario…. Person A - WTF Greg, I am supposed to only eat 910 calories a day if I do that! Me – ok, good, you are now eligible to teach 5th grade math, enjoy your 910 calories! Person A – No way can I live on that. Me – Bull, I’m 250 pounds, if I can live off 1300 calories a day, you sure as heck can live off 910 calories a day for this! Is it easy, no, is it doable, yes. Is it going to take meal prep and planning, yes, do you over eat now, yes, should you stop over eating, yes! Do you know that almost anywhere you go for a meal out to eat you are probably about 600-800 calories for that one meal! Holy crap, that’s almost my total daily intake, yupperoo! Now….., don’t tell me that you need the extra calories / more calories for workout because you workout so hard (see above for refreshing), or your muscles needs more because you have more muscle now. No, the structure of your intake needs to be higher in protein / carb percentage than someone with less muscle. (100 grams of clean protein is only 400 calories… are you eating 100g of clean protein? negative charlie, negative; 100 grams of clean carbs is only 400 calories – that’s 3 baked potatoes per day... so you are telling me that 3 chicken breast and 3 potatoes per day is only 800 calories?)….. bingo Mrs. Jones (my 5th grade math teacher). Do I have to eat like this for the rest of my life? No! But if you want to lose weight/fat you have to sacrifice, and whether or not you want to do it is up to you.

And here lies the root of most failures….. it’s temporary, it’s only for a specific temporary reason, like this 8 week challenge. But it’s your 8 week challenge Greg! Yes, I’m at fault, I take total responsibility for giving you a jump start and trying to show you that it takes commitment and focus for an extended period of time to “get better.” Could I have done a 3 week challenge like the ones we’ve done before, sure, those work, and work well, but in an 8 week time frame I hope you see that this is a process, and a modification in a way to become healthier and continue on a path to fitness and wellness. These 8 weeks will be over in a blink of an eye, keep blinking and 8 week periods of “getting better” will continue to go on and on, stay on track/get on track, you should do it, you can do it! ….

Or prepare to press the “call button” in the wonderfully scented ammonia bathroom above the handicap railing at “Le Chattaeu del Wiping” located at 1 Creamed Corn Lane!

Yours in health,
Greg
gregdirenzo.com

Strategy!

Isn't there a strategy in boxing, and everything else you want to be successful at? Isn't implementing a strategy AND STICKING TO IT a formula for success? Why is everyone complaining about Mayweather getting hit and not punching early on? Did you help define Mayweather's strategy? Did you think he was thrown off his game and this wasn't part of the strategy? "It's not where you start, it's where you finish" I thought was always the goal, in boxing, and life...? Complaining about the fight is like complaining about a team that went 5-0 in the first 5 games of the season..... but never made the playoffs; compared to a team that lost to that 5-0 team and went 2-3 in the first 5 games of the season.... but won the Super Bowl. This is the problem today, people fail to see that instituting a plan for success, a "program" or a "plan" or a "strategy" or whatever you want to call it takes resolve, time, effort, discipline, dedication, consistency and a bit of confidence. I imagine the complainers were switching back and forth from the fight and the "as seen on tv" infomercial channel for "8 minute abs" - "thigh master" - "shake weight".

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strat·e·gy

ˈstradəjē/

noun

noun: strategy; plural noun: strategies

1. a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

   "time to develop a coherent economic strategy"

   synonyms:

   master plan, grand design, game plan, plan (of action), action plan, policy, program; More tactics; exit strategy "the government's economic strategy"

   • the art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle.

     synonyms:

     the art of war, (military) tactics "military strategy"

   • a plan for military operations and movements during a war or battle.