Gravity Fx Fitness

I’ve lost 20 pounds in the last 6 months and playing basketball recently has kept it off while exercising just a few hours here and there.

I’ve been playing once a week for the last 7 weeks against guys who are mostly 10-20 years younger.  Our team is made up of men in their forties with one guy in his early fifties and two young bucks of 30 and 25.

I lost the weight prior to starting this league but have kept it off without spending much time doing anything else.  Basketball is a stop and go sport, mixing in periods of higher and lower intensity.

This stop and go nature really generates a lot of body heat, sweat, and greatly increases your oxygen consumption – causing you to suck in extra air at times, which is why us old guys need an occasional “sub” to come in for us.

Two twenty minute halves is plenty of action and our heart rates and metabolism stay elevated for a while afterwards, burning additional calories.  I was in pretty decent shape previously, but hadn’t done specific training for playing hoops, since I didn’t know I was going to play.

One of the things I have done is to do jump rope training between games to prepare for the jumping impact of the games.  I’ll do about 20-30 seconds on and then rest for the same amount of time.  This is for 5-7 minutes and then back to more interval training, keeping my heart rate up with different agility and strength training.

Besides being a time efficient way to workout, these interval workouts prepare you for the stop and go nature of basketball.  One of my personal training clients recently talked about doing step aerobics classes twenty years ago.

“I didn’t lose any weight but it was fun.”  Many people adapt to steady pace activity very quickly and don’t end up losing much, if any weight.  Not long ago, this same client walked on a treadmill 5 days a week for four months and only lost 6 pounds – not the greatest return for her “investment.”

She’s since lost close to 20 pounds by doing shorter bursts of exercise and eliminating processed foods from her diet.

The amount of sweat we produce in these games is a pretty good indication of large amounts of calories burned.  The guy who is 52 remarked about how you can’t get the same kind of breathlessness from doing typical workouts on a treadmill.

This guy is a former college wrestling coach, so he knows a little about training…. and is in pretty decent shape, too.  The take home point is that long periods of exercise aren’t always necessary and sometimes can be counter-productive if you don’t get the weight loss you want and decide to give up because you get frustrated with a lack of progress.

At the same time, if you haven’t done much exercise in a while, start out easy and gradually increase your intensity and/or decrease the amount of rest between exercises as you become more fit.

Train to play the sport and don’t play the sport to get in shape.  Don’t forget to do your strength training to help protect your joints and flexibility/mobility work is also strongly advised.

Get Moving!

Brian Morgan

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You can have great abs without doing hundreds and hundreds of crunches!  I’m not big on marathon sessions of crunches and situps - partly, because it just takes too much time and I’m too busy to do something inefficient.

They take so much time because there isn’t much tension on your stomach and tension is key to training  your muscles, including your midsection.

So how do you get six pack abs without doing crunches?  Simple, you first burn off the fat covering your stomach with multi-joint exercises that use the large muscles in your body and get rid of the “junk” in your diet, otherwise noone can see your flat stomach, anyway!

When doing specific ab exercises, train them with tension – increase the intensity, not the amount of time you train them.  Start off with exercises like planks and bridges to strengthen your stomach and low back.

Then progress to exercises like “rollouts” on an ab wheel or do various pushups and pikes on a suspension trainer like the Bandit’s Loops or TRX.  This trains your stomach and low back to provide stability and coordination while your upper or lower body is moving.

Besides adding to your total body coordination and athletic ability, this also is more time-efficient than spending 15-30 minutes on the floor doing a separate ab workout and I’m all about doing efficient workouts.

I also like using sandbags and kettlebells to hit this area with some intensity.  Sandbags in particular are great for hitting your obliques – adding in a measure of back prevention while giving you a more athletic body.

Many of the “gimmicks” you see on TV use professional fitness models to promote their product.  Most of the time, they have never used that product before and got in great shape with other methods – then they might have even had some liposuction done just before shooting the commercial, to look even better.

Besides getting a flatter stomach, you will probably have better posture and possibly prevent back injury at the same time.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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To burn fat you need to turn up the heat – dial up the intensity of your workouts!  One of my clients has lost 14 pounds in a month, while spending less time exercising.

Previously, she was walking on a treadmill 5 days a week and 4 months later had lost only 6 pounds.  She’s made more progress by making dietary changes and doing burst-type training.

She is still walking, but now she alternates her pace, going back and forth with periods of higher intensity walking – kinda similar to how your car burns more gas during stop and go driving in the city.

She is doing similar exercise in the studio with dumbbells.  Multi-joint movements that involve multiple muscles to burn more calories, alternating between two exercises with little rest in between.

This causes you to release more of your body’s fat burning hormones naturally.  This gets your metabolism elevated without spending hours exercising.  She can feel the warmth in her muscles as she sweats more, helping the body get rid of toxins that can build up.

I showed her a routine that she can do at home with dumbbells and bodyweight when she isn’t working with me in person.  Its great to get results while exercising less.

Research studies have shown that walking on a treadmill without doing any resistance training doesn’t always lead to much weight loss.  If you’re like most people and short on time, interval strength training and interval cardio are the way to go.

Yeah, triathletes and marathoners are usually pretty lean, but they often spend 10 hours or more per week on their training.  Unless you are training for competition, there are more efficient ways to stay in shape.

Yesterday, I did some interval cardio using the Ropes Gone Wild training ropes.  I did 15 minutes of various diagonal, circular and vertical patterns (beatdowns) with the ropes, elevating my heart rate in a short amount of time, going into oxygen debt.

I had my HR monitor on to see what my body was doing and also to see how many calories I burned.  In the 15 minutes I burned 230 calories according to the monitor, which isn’t all that much…..until you read the rest of the story.

I turned the monitor back on as I did some kettlebell presses, before packing it in for the night, leaving the HR monitor running.  An hour and a half later I stopped it and looked at how many calories I burned.

It said 490 calories in that hour and a half after the interval rope training, for a total of 720 overall!  Got your attention now?!  Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the number is a little high.  Knock off 100 calories and that’s still a LOT of calories burned in less than half an hour of exercise.

The point should be clear – intense exercise keeps your metabolism elevated after you have stopped exercising.  So if short on time, turn up the flame to burn more total fat.  Its fine to mix in longer walks, bike rides or runs with your interval resistance training.  By the way, the monitor is a Polar F6.

If you’re looking for a simple program you can do at home, you might check out Turbulence Training.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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In losing 13 pounds and keeping it off for 3 months after stopping the diet, I have learned a couple important things -

there are two phases of eating to lose weight – eating less and getting used to it, and eating better.  Meaning, getting rid of the “junk” that you put in your mouth.

Amazingly, I’m actually used to eating less than I used to.  Naturally, this adds to weight loss when you add in a good exercise program.  But its not just about eating less, its about eating better!

This is a work in progress for me.  For the record, I don’t claim to be a fat loss expert, I just play one on the internet.  All joking aside, I read numerous articles and blogs by people who ARE experts on losing weight and improving your appearance and also attend my share of seminars.

Now that I’m used to eating less, the next step is about improving the quality of food that I eat.  Avoiding or at least minimizing sugar, avoiding processed foods and getting more fiber and good fats into my diet.

I did the Warp Speed Fat Loss program for a month and lost 13 pounds.  Not too shabby considering I didn’t follow the program perfectly.  More importantly, I’ve kept it off after 3 months.  I’m not following the low fat diet anymore, but I am doing my best to eat quality foods more often than I used to.

I’ve also altered the exercise program, as well and think that the slight changes have kept my body guessing.  I’m still doing most of the same exercises, just changing the sets and reps and rest periods – kind of a modified density training workout.

While I’m exercising with decent intensity and little rest, which is key to getting better results in less time, my overall time spent exercising isn’t that much.  I’m convinced you don’t need to spend 90 minutes or more to get results if the intensity is there.

Cleaning up my diet even further is the second phase and the key to getting your bodyfat levels even lower and “uncovering” your six pack abs.  Getting rid of the junk in your diet is also key to eliminating or reducing the environmental toxins that keep you fat and unhealthy.

Why not live to be 100 if your body and mind are both working the way you want them to?  Seems to be working for Jack LaLanne, who turns 95 this Fall!

My body currently looks just like it did at 27, even though I’m in my mid 40’s.  Not bad, but I think I just might be able to improve on that.  Change your mind to change your life.

You might find my previous article Confessions of a Sugar Addict interesting.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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Since playing in a men’s basketball league recently, I’ve altered my workouts slightly to be able to compete and avoid injuries.

While my competitive days may be behind me, in my mind I still want to play my best, even if I’m 15-20 years older than many of the guys.  So today I started off with some self-massage with the Tiger Tail rolling massage tool and then some flexband stretching for my lower body.

Last week I had some tightness in my calf and want to avoid any major muscle tears.  I followed this up with more calf stretching with the Prostretch.  Next I did some interval jump rope training – 20 to 30 seconds on and then 20 to 30 seconds off for 5 minutes.

I followed this up with some bodyweight rows with the Bandit’s Loops suspension trainer, alternating with Power Plate pushup holds.  My elbow is still a little sore and this lets me maintain upper body strength without the eccentric contractions of doing the full movement.

While doing this, I picked one leg off the ground for increased core work.  By having one less contact point, it increases the stability demands on your midsection, which saves me from doing crunches and saves time as well.

Then I did some flexband squat-rows for some additional cardio work and then used the flexbands for lateral agility training.  Definitely need that for playing basketball.

I also mixed in some one arm grappler’s throws with the Ropes Gone Wild for more interval cardio work and to hit my obliques.  Doing these with one arm and the 1 ½ inch manilla rope is a great core exercise.

So all total, the warmup and workout lasted almost 45 minutes, making this workout doable by most everyone from a time perspective.  Not everyone over 40 can jump rope, but if you are still playing sports then you need to do exercises that prepare you for the sport, instead of just playing sports to try and stay in shape.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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I recently injured my elbow due to my own ignorance (stupidity) and have learned a few valuable lessons.

Basically, I ignored my body’s own pain signals until it was too late and had no choice but to stop what I was doing and make some changes.  In my quest to be “lean and mean” at the age of 44, I tried pushing through pain, which is never a good thing!

Yes, you may definitely have to push your body past its comfort zone to achieve great physical feats, but the adage “no pain, no gain” is a bunch of crap that usually leaves you with loads of injuries down the road.

Specifically, two weeks ago, my right elbow was throbbing after I got done playing basketball for the first time in 10 or 12 years.  I don’t like taking anything if I don’t absolutely have to, but I ended up taking some Advil to reduce swelling and inflammation.

I’ve used icepacks and soaked it in a large pan of ice and water quite a bit, too.  I’ve had restricted movement at my shoulder and shoulderblade for a while, with some nasty triggerpoints in my levator scapula and rhomboids (upper and inner areas of shoulderblade).

My pecs and lats have also been tight and contained some triggerpoints (tight bands of muscle) that haven’t responded to self-massage with a massage ball or tennis ball.  These items plus a rolling massage tool like the Stick may be great for maintenance work, but don’t always replace the hands of a skilled massage therapist.

The result of the tightness and movement dysfunction (misalignment) in these areas puts unnecessary stress on my elbow and I also have some tight bands of muscle in my triceps.  Instead of taking the time to get some quality soft tissue work, I tried to work through it – BIG mistake!

I’ve been doing weighted pushups with a sandbag on my back and single arm kettlebell presses to try and increase my upper body size and strength.  My elbow didn’t want to fully straighten so I just ignored the discomfort and shortened the movement.

Playing basketball and all the overhead movements involved was the last straw.  Two weeks later, the elbow feels much better but is definitely not 100%.  Yesterday I did some upper body strength work and partial pushups with my bodyweight is all I can do for the pushing movements, except for static pushups on the Power Plate.

Its not quite ready for much eccentric work, but the vibration platform allows some static work without causing pain – keeping the stress to the elbow minimal but still providing some maintenance strengthening to occur.  The increased blood flow probably aids the healing process, also.

This minimal joint stress would probably benefit athletes during their competitive season – helping them maintain strength when combined with some resistance training.  So I talked to a massage therapist the other day who does some quality deep tissue work and we are going to exchange services.

The stretching I received at a recent continuing ed course helped quite a bit as well, but if I don’t get the proper massage work done, my problems will only get worse over time and keep me from achieving my goals of a lean, athletic physique.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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If you’re eating the wrong foods and don’t even know it, you might be screwing up your hormone levels – causing your body to store more fat!

Items such as low fat, reduced fat, diet sodas, and diet drinks, are often unhealthy foods in disguise.  If its something highly processed and/or containing high amounts of high fructose corn syrup or sodium, it could increase the size of your waist.

“Foods” containing trans fats (artificial fat) can slow down your metabolism, as your body doesn’t know what to do with these and stores them in your fat cells.

If it says low or reduced fat, it usually means they replaced the fat with carbs, which isn’t typically a good thing.  Extra carbs tend to get stored as bodyfat – not what you want!

Are high cholesterol levels really a bad thing?  Trainer and nutrition specialist Mike Geary has a new book that addresses all these issues and helps you fuel your fat-burning furnace, instead of slowing down the fat metabolism.

If you would like some info on Mike’s Fat Burning Kitchen, click here.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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