Building Muscle & Losing Bodyfat

1) Go to the gym with a training plan. Record your reps, sets, weights each workout to ensure your progress week to week. You will not get stronger in every workout, but that does not mean your effort should lessen.

2) Heart rate monitors: While many use heart rate monitors to gauge how many calories they burn each workout, unfortunately heart rate monitors are not very accurate and moderately over state the amount of calories burned. However a heart rate monitor is an outstanding device to gauge your output from workout to workout. So if you are showing let’s say 800 over your 60 minute workout, try to build on that number each day, reducing time between sets, adding dropsets, supersets. Focus on the increase in outpout from workout to workout

3) Change it up: We are creatures of habit. We get stuck in these routines of eating the same things, doing the same workouts and thusly the same results. Would you constantly eat the same protein sources? I hope not. Doing the same type of cardio can become a drastic waste of time as the body begins to adapt to the time, duration and function thusly reducing its fat burning component. Change up your lifting workouts. Vary the rep range, use time under tension, static lifts with super slow controlled form, do last weeks workout in reverse order.

4) Rest & Recovery: This is the most under utilized tool by most people. How productive can your workouts be if you are constantly sore and fatigued. Foam roll all your muscles each day, I personally take ice baths after every leg workout or sprint workout and I am truly almost never sore and it leaves me feeling invigorated and energized as if I hadn’t just murdered my body. Get deep tissue massages, get those muscle adhesions and fibrous tissue broken up so your muscles can expand and grow.

5) Rest Days: Especially for beginners or intermediate lifters. Every 3rd or 4th day take a compete day off. Allow your central nervous system to relax. Training everyday overloads the body with stress and thusly you overproduce cortisol which can leave you fatigued, bloated, cause acne breakouts and injured. Remember we do not grow in the gym, we grow outside of the gym as we rest and recover.

6) Do not eat like a bird. Sorry but you cannot build muscle skimping on carbs and fats. This is the same for fat loss. Any of you who have ever crash dieted know that your fat loss plateaus pretty quickly followed by subsequent rebound weight gain. Train hard and fuel your body like an athlete, not a bird.

7) Man the F%$@ up: Almost everyone I cross paths with, especially fitness model/competitor types truly believe they train hard. It isn’t until I take them through one of my workouts, at the suicide pace, the absurd pain from truly pushing your limits do they then realize, wow I have been working far below my potential.

8) Be consistent: You aren’t going to add 20 pounds or lose 30 overnight or even in a few weeks. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Trust the process, enjoy the day to day feeling of increasing the health of your life. Before you know it you will look back and not even recognize your former self..

Take pride in your work. Self motivate. Do not rely on others for motivation. You are setting yourself up for failure
– JD