Are you
tired of putting in the effort at the gym and not seeing results? Many people
show the drive, determination, and consistent effort, but don’t reach their
goals. If this sounds familiar, the next logical step is usually to find an
educated personal trainer with proven experience. But, if you’re not ready to
take that step, or if you’d prefer to go it alone, rest assured, we spoke to
some of the nation’s finest personal trainers who gave us 25 insightful tips and
strategies specifically designed to help you build strength, gain muscle mass,
lose fat, enhance your endurance and maintain healthy eating habits.
HEALTHY
EATING: 1. Nutritional Basics
Ask
almost any personal trainer and they’ll tell you that regardless of your
training goals, healthy eating is the backbone. Food is what fuels your body to reach your goals and
without proper nutrition through quality foods, you’re likely to stall. As a
result, if possible, eat organic foods and, above all else, maintain a balanced
diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates, complete
proteins, and fats including such things as fish oils and flaxseeds.
2.
Prepare Ahead
Regardless
of what you’re doing, preparing yourself in advance gives you the best chance
to accomplish your goals. Micah LaCerte, a personal trainer and fitness
competition world champion, explains that your approach to nutrition should be no different. LaCerte
says it’s best to prepare for your “upcoming day by prepping all your food in
advance.” He adds that this will ensure you do “not eat bad foods or skip
meals.”
3. Eat
more
Eating
only three daily meals? For over 25 years, personal trainer
Mike Duffy has sought to correct this habit explaining that, “half the people I
deal with aren’t losing weight because they don’t eat enough.” Duffy advises
them “to eat five times a day, about every three hours to stimulate their
metabolism” including two mini meals between their three basic meals. With
activity levels decreasing throughout the day, he advises to “eat less as the
day goes on.”
4.
Portion Control
You’ll be
eating more often, so paying attention to portions is extremely important. Jay
Cardiello, a personal trainer to countless celebrities and professional
athletes, explains that you need to “make sure chicken breasts, (and) meats,
are no larger than your palm” and that “spaghettis, (and) pastas, are no larger
than your fists.” He also suggests using “smaller bowls, plates, and cups”
because studies show people “serve themselves 20 to 40% more food when they’re
using larger plates.”
5. Eat
With Purpose
Everything
you consume should have substantial nutritional value. No one knows this better
than Dan Trink who possesses 11 training certificates in spite of once being
overweight. Today, through the magic of the Internet, Trink helps people around
the world get healthy and he stresses that, “you want the most nutritionalbang for your buck.” He adds
“everything you eat should serve some sort of nutritional purpose in your body,
fuel your workouts, and (be) geared towards optimizing your body.”
MASS
BUILDING: 6. Muscle-Building Basics
Talk to
any personal trainer and they’ll tell you there are certain muscle-building basics. First, increase your caloric and
complete protein intake. Then, when you enter the gym, focus on your form.
Perform compound movements and train with weights on average around four times a
week. Never underestimate the importance of rest. Remember, muscle tissue grows
outside of the gym when you’re giving your body time to relax and recover
following your workouts.
7. Range
of Motion
Don’t
take any short cuts. As personal trainer Lee Boyce explains, that means you
should “aim for the largest ROM you can achieve in your exercises.” Why? Simple, according to Boyce,
an ex-athlete with a background in Kinesiology and Health Sciences, “your
muscles will do more work per rep, and it will result in your breaking down
more tissue by the end of the workout.”
8. Up and
Down
Wondering
how to get the most out of lifting weights? Duffy says that he tells
his clients to “use a weight that will have them failing on the set between the
30 and 40 second mark because research has shown that it’s the time under
tension that causes muscle to grow if you are trying to build more
muscle." He cautions that if “you’re failing at 20 seconds, you know that
weight was too heavy.”
9.
Contradicting Cardio
Do you
love your cardio exercises? If so, you’ll be
disappointed to know that, as LaCerte states, “during times of mass building
you do not want to do large amounts of cardio.” Why? Chances are you’ll be
burning far too many calories. So what should you do if you still want to get
in some cardio? LaCerte says “a light jog a few days per week for 20 minutes is
adequate.”
10.
Supplementing
Some feel
supplements can play a key role in boosting muscle gains. If you subscribe to that theory chances
are you’re already taking protein supplements, but what else? Trink says that
creatine “seems to be about the most effective strength and size-building
supplement.” And, to boost your performance, you may also want to try
peppermint. Cardiello explains that, the scent “alters the perception of how
hard you’re working out” making it seem “less strenuous, slower paced, and
easier to complete.”
ENDURANCE
TRAINING: 11. Prepare Yourself
When it
comes to training for endurance, you’ll need to be hydrated and be sure you’re
eating properly because, by its very nature, this form of training is very demanding on your body. You should be doing a
good mix of cardio and weight training. And, to increase your aerobic capacity,
you should incorporate intense interval training. You’ll likely be sweating
buckets and burning calories galore, so be prepared.
12.
Heart Rate Monitor
If you
already own a heart rate monitor, considering all the exercises you’ll be performing, this
would be a good time to use it. If not, you may want to either go out and buy
one, or learn how to do it yourself. Why? Duffy advises to “monitor your heart
rate” because “it’s not just doing it and doing it for 60 minutes, it’s am I
doing it hard enough for 60 minutes.”
13.
Exhaust for Endurance
To
further your endurance training, you need to put in total effort. Boyce says, “you’re going for muscle
exhaustion, so remember to fully exhaust the muscles.” How can you do that?
Boyce suggests that you “get good at the bodyweight staples – pull ups, chin
ups, push ups, inverted rows, (and) squats.” He adds that, “if you can master
these movements for high reps, your muscles will get well conditioned.”
14.
Reduce Rest Time
It’s
always tempting to take a break when training, but LaCerte advises
that you should “stick with rest times of 30 to 45 seconds between sets”
because he says “this will help increase your overall endurance.” LaCerte adds
that “if you are strength training, lift moderate to heavy weight and keep your
rep range between 8 to 15 reps,” or “if you’re running, mix duration cardio with
sprinting.”
15. Fight
Fatigue
Fatigue
may be your biggest enemy when endurance training, but Cardiello gave us some
tips to fight it. First, drink beet juice because “it can actually increase
stamina by up to 16%” and it “helps your muscles produce more energy, more
efficiently, making exercise less exhausting.” Another way to boost your
performance is by carefully selecting your music because a recent study suggested
that, “when people listen to favorable music their blood vessels expanded 26%.”
STRENGTH
TRAINING–16. Strengthening Basics
According
to our personal trainers, if you want to build strength, you have to set goals and be
patient. In the early going it’s important to be consistent and stick with your
plan. When you’re in the gym, don’t get distracted. Stay focused on the task at
hand. When you leave the gym, make sure you get proper rest and keep track of
your progress. If you stay determined, your goals can be accomplished.
17.
Motivation
Motivation
is key. Cardiello advises to count down when performing reps and “look at your
dominant hand while you’re pushing up.” He explains that it “automatically
includes a positive reinforcement” because the dominant hand more easily and
quickly moves the weight. Also, if you’re using the post-workout sauna time as
a motivating factor, stop because it
“actually impairs performance and strength two days later.” Instead, Cardiello
suggests taking cold showers or even “ice baths to help replenish muscles.”
18.
Form Matters
When
strength training, you’ll be putting your body through very strenuous activity, so it’s important to maintain proper
form. Trink explains that by maintaining proper form “you’re guaranteed to
activate the muscle groups that you are looking to train and, most importantly,
you’ll stay healthy and injury-free.” He adds that the guy “who can stay
healthiest can train the most and in the long run makes the most progress.”
19. The
Little Things
Ever
notice how a bunch of seemingly insignificant things can make all the
difference? Strength training is no different. Boyce
explains that when you’re strength training you have to “pay attention to the
little things” because “you’re only as strong as your weakest link.” As a
result, he suggests that “if you notice a deficiency, address it in conjunction
with your program.”
20.
Change Helps
If you
want to make progress, sometimes you have to change things up. Why? LaCerte explains
that it’s important because you have “to ensure that your body never gets
adapted to what is coming next.” Once that happens, you may notice
diminishing strength gain results. To avoid this possibility, LaCerte suggests
that you could “switch up how heavy you’re lifting, your tempo of an exercise,
your rep/set count, or what time of the day you’re lifting.”
FAT LOSS:
21. Fat Loss Basics
Forget
calorie counting and concern yourself with body fat percentages. You must also start
eating the right types of foods, which for most people will mean only lean
meats, increasing fruit and vegetable intake, and removing any processed foods
or those high in sugar. With your nutrition in check, the next step is
performing intense interval cardio training, as well as weight training. And,
don’t forget to keep track of it all in a journal.
22.
Photographic Evidence
Can’t get
the scale to budge? It’s very possible you’re gaining muscle and shedding body fat so follow
Trink’s advice and “take pictures on a weekly basis.” Trink adds that it’s
important to take “front, back, (and) side pictures all from the same angle,
same lighting, same clothing because the scales lie, pictures do not, and
you’ll really be able to see a change that way.”
23. The
Carb Factor
“Learn to
control your carbohydrate intake” because, as Duffy says, “they can cause your
body to store fat.” Duffy adds that it’s important to train cardiovascularly
for more than 20 minutes at a time because in “the first 20 minutes your body
is basically burning carbohydrates for energy.” He continues stating that with
every continuous minute past the 20-minute mark, you’ll begin “burning more and
more of the stored body fat.”
24.
Attacking the midsection
To
flatten your waist, Cardiello says you must “go below your navel.” He cites a
Syracuse University study indicating “people burned more calories the day after
they did a lower body resistance training (exercise) than after they worked
their upper bodies because the leg carries, for one thing, more mass.”
Cardiello also adds that “getting a six-pack doesn’t mean doing 100 crunches a
day, it means proper diet.”
25.
Hydration To The Rescue
An
often-overlooked factor, and one stressed by Trink, is to make “sure that your
GI tract is healthy, because that’s how you absorb all your nutrients.” Do so
by consuming vitamins, fiber, minerals, a probiotic, and water. Cardiello
suggests you drink “ice cold water first thing in the
morning” adding “you’ll naturally boost your metabolism by up to 24% for 90
minutes.” LaCerte recommends you “drink at least one gallon of water per
day.”
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