Exercise of the Week: Swiss Ball Plank Roll Out w/Feet Elevated

Exercise of the Week: Single Leg Squat w/Contralateral Load

Here's a way to load the single leg squat once you've been successful with the bodyweight version. Place a kettlebell or a dumbbell in the arm opposite the working leg. Some would go to a weighted vest after the bodyweight version, but let's assume you do not have access to a weight vest. Or if you want to get a little nuts you can use a weight vest and this contralateral load.

Exercise of the Week: Overhead Walking Lunge w/Hip Lift

This exercise of the week is a nice exercise to use as part of your dynamic flexibility training or warm up. It's an exercise that I took from Eric Cressey's Show and Go program. In addition to addressing hip mobility, particularly through the hip flexor and hamstring areas, it's a good exercise to help open up your shoulders. One key point is that when the hands go up overhead, really press the palm of one hand and the back of the other hand into each other. Doing so will produce a nice isometric contraction in your scapular stabilizers.

Exercise of the Week: Standing Rope Pulldown

How Did She Do It?

How did she do what you ask? I'm referring to a client of mine who over an eight week period dropped her body fat percentage by just under five percent. That five percent was about nine pounds of body fat gone over that eight week period. Anytime you're looking at a loss of one pound of body fat per week you're looking at some pretty remarkable results.

I'll be the first to say that her remarkable results were not achieved by any special type of diet, extreme workout program or spending an extra 6-8 hours in the gym each week. What she did was actually pretty simple. But she applied this simplicity on a consistent basis. And every time she was faced with a situation that may have comprised her progress she asked herself, "What is more important?"

So what was it that she did exactly? Just a few tweaks to her training and nutrition:

• Adding an extra hour of training each week. She went from training around 2-3 hours per week to 3-4 hours of training each week. That extra hour was an hour of strength training, not slow steady state cardio.
• Spending more time foam rolling and stretching to enhance recovery and deal with the increased training volume. You can't train consistently if you are consistently sore or injured.
• Sticking to the basics as far as exercise selection: split squats, inverted rows, DB incline presses, push ups, half kneeling cable chops and lifts, etc. No circus act exercises. No wacky Bosu ball madness. Exercises that are hard. Exercises that give you the biggest bang for your buck. Trying to hit the basic movement patterns every workout: some pushing, some pulling, a hip dominant exercise, a quad dominant exercise and some core stability work.
• Stopped worrying about calories and started worrying about foods. Calories will take care of themselves when the focus is on nutrient dense foods. Plus calorie counting is an inexact science unless you are weighing every single food item. Or unless you're eating everything out of a box or a bag that has a nutritional label.
• Increased protein intake with the goal of getting her around 100 grams of protein a day. Prior to that she was around 50-75 grams of protein per day which was not nearly enough. To get her up to this 100 gram level I emphasized the importance of including some source of protein whenever it came time to eat. My next goal with her is to get that protein intake even up a little bit more.
• Cut back on carbohydrate intake which kind of goes hand in hand with increased protein intake. In a lot of cases increasing protein intake displaces carbohydrate intake. The carbs that were part of her nutritional intake were consumed at breakfast or when they came during the day the majority of them came from fruits and vegetables. Carb intake from grains was reduced dramatically. When it comes to dropping body fat carbs need to be dropped.
• And here is the the one a lot of people are not willing to do: cut back on the alcohol which was mostly red wine. Less red wine meant less calorie containing beverages which meant less calories taken in overall. More than anything, cutting back on the alcohol showed me what was important to her. She wasn't done in by any social pressure that could have sabotaged her progress.

The changes to her training and nutrition were the easy part. The adherence to each change was the hard part. The greater the adherence, the greater the change which is what we ended up seeing. The funny thing is that now that this transformation challenge has ended she has a desire to keep up with it. What initially started out as a challenge has turned into a new lifestyle.

Exercise of the Week: TRX Circuit

My version of "cardio":

15 Bulgarian Squats each leg

15 Fall Outs

15 Glute Bridges

15 Suspended Push Ups

15 Inverted Rows

3-4 times through the circuit with 90 seconds of rest between each circuit.

Exercise of the Week: Prowler Chest Press

Just another use for the Prowler in addition to pushes and drags. This is an exercise that can be used on an active recovery day, as a high rep finisher at the end of a workout or part of a medley of exercises.

Nutrition Tip of the Week: Some Worthwhile Supplements

Before considering any supplement, take a look at your overall nutrition. If you are guilty of such things as skipping breakfast, not ingesting protein at each feeding or routinely passing on fruits and vegetables, supplementation may not be the answer to your nutrition issues. Aim to improve your nutrition before you search out for supplements. With that being said, people who are pretty good with their nutrition and are active on a regular basis may be lacking essential macro- and micro-nutrients. Or maybe they want to accelerate their fat loss, enhance recovery or bolster their overall health. In these cases you may want to consider one or more of the following supplements:

• Fish Oil: can help with cardiovascular health, joint health, cognitive function and fat loss.
• Protein Supplement: can help bring up your overall protein intake, which should be around 1g/lb of body weight for an active individual. Will also help speed up recovery.
• Multivitamin: can help bring up micro-nutrient deficiencies for optimal overall health.
• Greens Supplement: provides antioxidant support especially when regular fruit and vegetable intake is not optimal.
• Green Tea Extract: provides anti-oxidants along with the benefit of stimulating your metabolism.

To pick up one or more of these supplements check out Prograde.com.

Exercise of the Week: Staggered Push Up Walks w/Val Slides

Here's another hand walking variation that I finished off a workout with the other day.

Exercise of the Week: Val Slide Alligator Walks

I saw this Exercise of the Week done by strength coach Jason Ferruggia and just saw it recently performed by strength coach Tony Gentilcore. It's a great core stability exercise, a great shoulder stability exercise and a great exercise to finish off your workout with. A couple of different ways to use it as part of your program:

1. You can go for a set distance forward as one set.


2. You can go for a set distance forward and back, trying to make a couple trips.


3. You can go for time in one direction or both directions


4. You can go for reps. Take 3-4 steps forward with each hand and then reverse direction for 3-4 steps. Continue back and forth.

If you don't have a pair of Valslides around, no big deal. Just place your feet on anything that would slide along the floor.

Nutrition Tip of the Week: Eat Every 2-4 Hours

Exercise of the Week: Half Kneeling Around the World Slam

The one thing missing from our facility is a concrete wall to do some rotational medicine ball throws. Yes, I can do some partner throws with clients, but once the weight of the ball and the power of the throws goes up so do the chances of jammed fingers, broken windows and innocent bystanders getting plunked.

So that leaves me to doing slams and slam variations for most of the medicine ball power training. Here's one I particularly like:




After working on this for a couple of weeks I would progress this up to a standing position and then maybe to a split stance or single leg position.

Accelerated Fitness Transformation Challenge

The challenge has been issued.

Accelerated Fitness will be starting it's first transformation challenge on March 14. Yes, it is a contest and there will be prizes awarded. But it's not just about a contest. It's not about what Charlie Sheen would call "Winning". It's about the challenge that you are about to impose on yourself. Can you dial in your nutrition and training for twelve weeks? Can you find the time to get that extra workout in over the course of the week? Do you have the willpower to say, "No, bread please".? It's time to stop telling yourself "I can't" or "I don't want to". It's time for some accountability.

Transformation Challenge Guidelines

•The challenge is open to everyone. You do not need to be a client of Accelerated Fitness in order to participate. If you know someone who might be interested please pass this information along. Long distance contetstants are welcome to join.
•There is no cost to participate. Maybe the cost of some mental anguish from time to time.
•The contest will run from March 14 to June 12. Please get me your before pictures by March 14. Yes, before and after pictures are involved. If you need help with your before and after pictures we can do them here at the facility. Also, if you would like to do body composition measurements we can take those at the facility also. Body composition measurements are not a requirement, but nice to have.
•There will be one judge, yours truly. First and second place prizes will be based on who has made the biggest change with their before and after pics. Oh yeah, there is a short essay required before the end of the challenge about what you have learned about yourself over the course of the 12 weeks. Get your pencils ready.
•One other requirement. Let's have some fun with this thing. If you're going to complain or be miserable for twelve weeks, I reserve the right to boot your *ss out.

If you have any questions please send an email to rich@acceleratedfts.com or call (781)538-6664.

Exercise of the Week: Feet Elevated Swiss Ball Push Up

Doing the Little Things

If we just did some these little things maybe we would move better, get stronger or have an easier time losing weight.

• Eat breakfast. I've read some stuff lately that suggests eating breakfast does not help with weight loss. And the numbers in these studies that the authors provide prove their point. That's all well and fine. But from what I see, people who eat breakfast tend to be leaner. I'm not going to provide you with any research, because I do not have any that proves my point. I just know what I see from the people I train, the friends I have and the people I talk to. Those who eat breakfast are leaner.


• Stretch. I love it when people debate about when to stretch, how long to stretch for and what type of stretching to do, when the fact is most people are not doing any type of stretching. Take 10-15 minutes out of your day to stretch if you want to move or feel better.


• Stop using the same side. What side do you carry your gym bag on? What arm do you use to walk the dog? What side is the mouse on? Probably the same side all the time. And it's probably the same side of your neck or the same shoulder that is hurting all of the time. Switch it up. Is this the root of your neck and shoulder issues? Probably not. But it sure isn't helping


• Get out of those heels. This is a classic. I'll listen to women complain about back or knee pain. I'll look down at their feet and they're wearing 2-3 inch heels that they barely could squeeze their feet into. So, I suggest it may be time to get out of those joint wreckers. "But I like to wear heels" is usually what I get back. Look good or feel good? Your choice ladies. Oh yeah, getting out of heels also means trashing your Nike Shox.


• Sleep. If you want to feel well or train well, you have to sleep. Seven or eight hours of a sleep a night is what you should be getting in. And the sooner before midnight, the better. Every hour before midnight is equal to about two hours after midnight. And who needs late night TV anyway? Conan? Not funny. Leno? Not funny. Letterman? Funny from time to time, but not funny enough to keep me up late.


• Eat some fruits and vegetables. Preferably more vegetables than fruits. But I know a lot of people are not even getting in at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, so just eat one or the other whenever you can. I've never known anyone to be less healthy or get fat from eating too many fruits and vegetables, excluding chocolate covered strawberries.


• Drink some water. Is there anything water is not good for? Probably not. I've even read that those who suffer from back pain could benefit from drinking more water. Could you drink too much water? Probably not, unless you have a long car ride planned. When drinking water becomes bad for you, let me know.


• Stand Up. The biggest culprit of shoulder, neck and low back injuries? Sitting. Over the last twenty years or so we have some how ingrained sitting as a new movement pattern. We sit down at breakfast.... if we're eating breakfast. We sit in our cars or cramped train on the way to work. We go sit down behind a computer or desk for a couple hours. We go to lunch and sit down. We go back to our desk and sit down again. We get back in the car or cramped train again and do what? Sit down. Should I keep going? It's no wonder people are moving worse than ever. Take the time to get up from your desk, go for a walk for lunch or do whatever you can to get tall and get extended.


• Get stronger. This tends to be what I always get back to when it comes to training or when talking to someone about starting up a new program. Your first priority should be to get stronger. Too many people are too weak. Too many people get hurt too often because they are too weak. Are you more likely to get hurt because you do not have enough cardio? Or are you more likely to get hurt because you have the strength of an eight year old girl? Or worse, can that eight year old girl can do more and better push ups than you?


• Stop Drinking. You want to get leaner? Those beers are not helping. Hey, if you're happy with the shape you are in, keep doing do what you're doing. Drink all the Bud's and Guiness you want. But if you have your mind set on a desired body fat percentage those empty calories and workout wrecking hangovers from a few too many wobbly pops have got to go. It's called a beer belly for a reason.

Basic Fat Loss Programming: Part Two

So in Part One, we went over your pre-workout foam rolling and stretching. From here we are going to progress into your dynamic flexibility and joint mobility warm up. This part of the workout has probably been the biggest change to most training programs over the last ten years. I remember just throwing a client on a treadmill or elliptical for 10-15 minutes thinking that was an effective warm up. It was nice to get the blood flowing and increase the core body temperature, but that's about it. Then the corrective exercise craze started and dynamic warm ups become popularized. In addition to increasing blood flow and core body temperature a dynamic warm up will provide more central nervous system stimulation and heightened mental awareness for the upcoming workout. You basically become more tuned into what is about to follow.

A dynamic warm up can be different for each individual and this is where corrective exercises can be placed. For instance someone that is suffering from chronic knee pain may want to emphasize some hip extension, hip abduction and mobilization of the hip flexor area. Or someone that is dealing with some shoulder pain may want to work on some thoracic extension, thoracic rotation and scapular retraction exercises. I would usually suggest performong 6-8 exercises as part of your dynamic warm up.

The video below samples a pretty basic dynamic flexibility/joint mobility warm up that coud be used for the typical individual: lack of hip mobility, stiff through the thoracic spine, maybe dealing with some low back issues and has a tough time squatting correctly. The exercises are:

1. Side Lying Thoracic Rotation


2. Cradle Walk


3. Heel Pull Back


4. Overhead Walking Lunge


5. Split Stance Broomstick Shoulder Mobilization


6. Squat to Stand

Perform about 8-10 reps of each exercise. It may take you a couple minutes longer initially, but once you get used to the exercises and transitioning of one exercise to the next the dynamic warm up should take you no longer than 8-10 minutes.

Now these are just exercises I would suggest using for the warm up portion of the fat loss program I am about to lay out for you. If you already have a dynamic warm up that works for you, great. If you want some other suggestions of exercises to include as part of your warm up there are plenty of great products out on the market today such as Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson and Bill Hartman's Assess & Correct or Mike Boyles Joint by Joint Warm-up and Training DVD.

All parts of your warm up are covered, time to move onto the part you are probably waiting for. Time for the fat to be burned.

Exercise of the Week: Single Arm TRX Row w/Rotation

Basic Fat Loss Programming: Part One

I would bet that for the general population at least 80% of you work out with fat loss being the number priority, especially this time of year. In other words you want to get "ripped" or "tone up". I would also bet that 80% of you are going about it the wrong way: worrying too much about how many calories you are burning, spending way too much time doing steady state aerobic work and using a set/rep scheme that is doing very little to elicit fat loss.

There are many theories about what a fat loss program should look like. There are also many advanced methods. Methods that may be beyond the scope of the general population and the scope of this post. What I want to do here is lay out a pretty simple template for you...the general population. Something that is not going to confuse the hell out of you, yet something that is going to be effective. Something that is not not going to require a ton of time, may be 60-75 minutes max with each workout. Something that is going to get you looking like The Situation, not like Snookie. So, let's move onto the programming.

I'm basically going to lay out a template for you with some suggestions for each part of the template. The template is going to consist of two workouts that can be used over the course of the week. You will alternate through each workout over the course of each week. For instance if you are going to perform two workouts per week, you will perform each workout over the course of the week. If you're going to perform three workouts per week, one week you will perform Workout A twice and Workout B once. The next week you will do Workout B twice and Workout A once. Got it?

Each workout will be divided up into four parts:

1. Foam Rolling & Static Stretching
2. Dynamic Flexibility/Joint Mobility
3. Strength work
4. Interval training or conditioning work

Today, let's cover Part One: Foam Rolling and Static Stretching.

I know the question you are asking right now is, "What the hell does foam rolling and stretching have to do with fat loss? Am I going to roll the fat off my body?". Nice idea, but "no" is the answer. It has to do more with training over the long haul. For any fat loss training program to be effective it must be performed frequently. You can not train frequently, especially with any intensity, if you are going to keep getting hurt. So foam rolling and stretching are going to lessen your chances of injury and and increase your chances of training frequently.

If you do not have access to a foam roller, go get one.


If your gym doesn't have a foam roller, go join another gym or ask them to spend the $18 to get one. Once you have your foam roller you're going to execute about eight patterns, spending about 20-30 seconds with each pattern. The areas I suggest working on are:

1. Quads
2. Hip Flexors
3. IT Band
4. Glutes/Piriformis
5. Adductors
6. Lats
7. Rhomboids
8. Calves
9. Thoracic Extensors

This should take you no more than 5-10 minutes. Foam rolling is going to set you up for your static stretching. The idea behind foam rolling or any other type of self myofacial work is to reduce the density of the muscles and facia, in turn making them more pliable when it comes time to stretch.

After you are done foam rolling you are going to perform your static stretches. Why are you stretching now? One, as I just mentioned your muscles are going to be a bit more pliable after working on the foam roller. Two, it just has to do more with what people tend to do. Put stretching early on in the workout and people are probably going to do it. Put stretching in at the end of the workout and people are probably going to head to the car early without getting in any stretching at all.

With the static stretching you want to address areas that are overly tight. For a good amount of people this will be the hip flexors, hip external rotators and the upper trap area. If there are some other areas that might be issues for you, you may want to address those. Below is a video of some stretches I will use prior to a workout.

Your foam rolling is out of the way. Your static stretching is out of the way. About 15 minutes has passed. Time to get moving. In Part Two, I will cover your dynamic flexibility/joint mobility warm up.