In January, there were a number of news items and research articles that ranged from the supposed discovery of “exercise in a pill” to how 36-year-old football star Ray Lewis continues his on the field domination with help from a very strict exercise and nutrition regimen.

Enjoy!

Fitness News & Research | January 2012

General Fitness Articles | January 2012

Must-See Fitness Videos | January 2012

Fitness-Around-The-Web Column
The last day of every month, we include links to news, research, articles, and videos that we find during the month that are informative, useful, entertaining, or a combination of all three. If you ever come across an article or video that is worthy of being added to this column, let us know!

Tracking your workouts with a workout log template is one of the most effective and simple ways to help ensure you maximize your results. If you are working out for fun, or to maintain your health and fitness, a workout log can be overkill. But if you want to change your body, whether it’s to improve strength, build muscle, lose fat, or increase performance, tracking every set of every exercise of every workout is the fastest way to help you get the best results.

Over the years, I’ve used tons of different workout log templates to help track my workouts. I’ve also experimented with several different workout logs as I was creating my BuiltLean Program. While there are endless fitness apps that make workout logs digital and dynamic, call me old fashioned, but I prefer writing everything down on a sheet of paper.

The workout log templates below are my favorites, but I am biased because I created them from scratch and tweaked them for years. You can view the workout templates by clicking on the image, download them for free, and print them out as many times as you want.

Here’s some more information so you can understand how to fill out each workout log properly along with some tips:

Workout Log Training Calendar

The first workout log isn’t really a workout log, but a 12-week training calendar to plan out your workouts. Again, if you are just working out to stay fit, this is probably unnecessary. But if you are trying to create a specific result, planning out your workouts and adding progression is absolutely essential!

In a perfect world, your training regimen would change overtime so as to keep the body guessing and prevent overuse injuries. So over a year long period you could change your regimen from an endurance focus, to strength, to hypertrophy, to power. You could consider focusing each 3 month period on a certain theme, or change the theme every month (technically this is called a macrocycle, mesocycle, and microcycle periodization approach).

How to use the training calendar – fill in the workout name under each day you plan to complete it, then mark days where you will not be working out as “rest”.

Workout Log Template #1: Daily Workout Template

The most common way of creating a workout log is to have a single workout on one sheet. So for example, if you are doing a full body workout, than all the exercises, sets, reps, rest periods for just that workout is included in the sheet.

In this particular log, I include a section for workout paramaters such as primary muscles used, total # of sets, total # of reps, and length of workout, a warm up section, an aerobic/intervals/stretching section, and a comment/notes section.

The downside of this template as you will learn from the next workout template is that each workout is on a single sheet. If you do a workout 4x, then you will have 4 different sheets, which can become annoying as you need to flip back and forth between the sheets to see how you are progressing.

How to use the daily workout template – before starting your workout, fill in the sheet with all your workout information, leaving just the boxes in the center of the sheet under “Exercises” blank. When you are at the gym, fill in all the blank boxes.

Workout Log Note: “TR” stands for Targeted Reps, or the number of reps you plan on completing for a given exercise set, “AR” stands for Actual Reps you complete, and “W” stands for the weight you used, and “RBS” stands for Rest Between Sets. Finally, brackets are used to connect exercises that are completed as circuits. If all these terms are getting you confused, check out this list of strength training terms on BuiltLean.com.

Workout Log Template #2: Monthly Workout Template

What if there was a way to combine most of the information in the preceding daily workout log, but include the same workout 4 times on one sheet for easy comparison?

Well, that’s exactly what my monthly workout log template is able to accomplish.

The reason I call it the “monthly” workout log template is that if you complete 1 workout per week, then you are done with the sheet after one month. Given that research has shown the effectiveness of a given workout can diminish in as little as 4 workouts (for those in shape), 4 is a great number of times to complete a given workout before recycling.

This workout log is my favorite because you are easily able to track the sets, reps, and weight you complete from workout to workout for a given exercise, which makes creating progression in your workout a breeze! In fact, this makes the sheet downright brilliant! I must give credit where credit is due because this template was based off a workout template created by Alwyn Cosgrove in his “The New Rules of Lifting” book.

How to use the monthly workout template – before starting your workout, fill in the exercises you plan to complete along with the targeted sets and reps. Within the first Workout 1 row, you will write down the actual weight and reps you completed for each set. You will then move on to the next exercise and fill in the weight and reps for each set for the row Workout 1. If you intend to pair exercises together in a circuit, you can use brackets as I show in the example sheet, which I filled in.

Workout Log Note: You’ll notice that I have 10 exercise rows and with 5 sets across, which equates to 50 total sets that can be completed on this sheet. For your workout, you will likely only use about half, or less of the sheet. I included these extra exercise \rows and columns to give you more flexibility when creating your workout.

I hope you use these templates to help get your body to the next level.

Let me know what you think of these templates and if you have any questions!

While soda offers no nutritional value, you may be surprised to learn that most fruit drinks are as bad, or possibly worse for your health than drinking soda. In fact, some fruit drinks pack more sugar per serving that a can of coke that has roughly 10 teaspoons of sugar!

When I first realized drinking 12 ounces of orange juice (165 calories, no fiber, added sugar, little real fruit) every morning wasn’t exactly the healthiest breakfast choice, it was a tough pill to swallow. A whole orange on the other hand is only 60 calories with a lot of fiber to help fill you up. It took me months to switch to drinking water and eating whole fruits for breakfast, but I’m glad I did!

Below is an infographic from my friends at HealthScience.net that shares fruit drink facts beverage companies don’t want you to know:

Fruit Drink Facts:

Created by: Health Science

Letter from Daniel O’Donnal to Marc Perry, BuiltLean creator:

Marc,

Hopefully I am not stepping over any bounds sending you this and that it helps your business in some way. Happy Holidays.

I have read everything you have on your web site and every single email that you have sent out regarding diet and exercise and aging and success stories, etc. All this that I have read and researched has caused me to change my entire life and become healthier and more fit than I have ever been.

My name is Daniel O’Donnal and this is my transformation:

I am 30 years old. Happily married and a father of 4 beautiful children. I was an athlete throughout high school and stayed active through college as well, but was never able to hit the fitness goals that I wanted to bc I didn’t know how. I made excuses and didn’t make the time and diet changes necessary.

I got a career and let things go a bit physically. I wasn’t obese or injured. I just didn’t make it happen for me. I didn’t get off my butt and fight for myself like I should; like we all should. Our bodies are just one and we need to take care of them and be fit. Well, that’s when I started making changes and ran into your site.

I wasn’t educated in what I really needed to do and eat and through what you teach I was able to change my life and fitness. I feel confident that even when I am old and grey I will be built lean and fit and that I will be able to play with my grandkids and enjoy all the activities that I do now at 30 yrs old. I hope one day to actually have your program and am able to use it when I can afford it, but for now I will continue to stay in the loop through the info and video feeds that you email me and what you post on your site.

Thanks Marc for all your inspiration and help,

Attached you will find some photos of me and my 3 month/90 day transformation. Lost 22.7 lbs and 9%+ Body Fat

-Daniel

My Stats
Age: 30
Occupation: Chief Marketing Officer of a national Pest Control Company – Edge
Residence: Utah
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
Body weight before: 180
Body weight after: 158
Body % after: 7%

Do you have a success story you would like to share? Email me right here: BuiltLean Contact

Let Daniel know what you think of his transformation!

As the New Year unfolds, millions of people set goals to lose weight…but sadly few are successful. If you are one of the millions of people attempting to change your lifestyle, I’m confident that after you read this article and complete each step, you will be stacking the cards massively in your favor to become a success story in 2012.

You are about to learn a simple, but powerful framework to help you not only lose weight, but also keep it off for the rest of your life. It’s not smoke and mirrors, it’s not about promising you fast, easy results, and it’s not about crash dieting.

This article is a do-it-yourself guide to help you lose weight safely, naturally, and sustainably. It’s not easy, it’s not effortless, but it is a proven process that works very, very well.

The “secret” behind the BuiltLean 5-Steps to Weight Loss is that it’s a systematic approach to help you change your habits. Right now, your body reflects your current exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle habits. We need to change these habits so that you achieve a stronger, leaner, and fitter body for the long run.

When I say lose weight, I mean lose fat without losing muscle. Losing weight if you are also losing muscle is undesirable for reasons I describe in a previous BuiltLean article: How Losing Weight Can Make You Look Less Lean.

Lose Weight Naturally Step #1: Self Assessment

“He who conquers others is strong. He who conquers himself is mighty”
-Lao Tzu

Successful weight loss boils down to changing your old habits and replacing them with new habits that will transform your body. So how do you change your habits which are deeply ingrained in your subconscious mind?

The short answer is be conscious of your habits so you can change them. One of the best ways to become more conscious of your habits is completing a self assessment to analyze your mindset and physical state.

A) Mindset Assessment
Answering tough questions about your exercise, nutrition, and your lifestyle habits can help inspire change. For example, if you don’t workout, why not? This seemingly simple question requires deep introspection and courage to answer. Yes, you may not have the time, but that may not be the “real” reason.

Top 5 “Lose Weight Naturally” Questions:

B) Body Assessment
Next is the body assessment, which provides objective facts and establishes the starting point for your journey. A body assessment can also be a HUGE motivator as well, because the results of a body assessment can be a serious wake up call.

I strongly suggest (i.e. require) men complete a full body assessment and encourage women to complete that of which they are comfortable. A typical body assessment is comprised of the following:

Strength Levels

For more information on tracking progress, check out my free 20-Page Get Lean Guide.

Now It’s Time To Lose Weight!

While there is a lot of information in this article, you don’t need to complete each step perfectly in order to be successful. Just do your best with each step and move on to the next step. For example, if you don’t have a body fat caliper, or don’t know any ways to measure your body fat percentage, that’s fine. You can still lose weight without knowing your body fat percentage. Do what you can, order what you need, then move on.

An important theme I tell everyone who completes my BuiltLean Program is to “Always Move Forward”. We all have obstacles in our way and we all make mistakes, but it’s how we deal with adversity that determines our success.

Always move forward and good luck with your weight loss journey!

]]> http://www.builtlean.com/2012/01/03/how-to-lose-weight-naturally/feed/ 14 http://www.builtlean.com/2011/12/29/best-of-built-lean-2011/ http://www.builtlean.com/2011/12/29/best-of-built-lean-2011/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:45:38 +0000 Marc Perry, CSCS, CPT http://www.builtlean.com/?p=6248

Looking back at 2011, it has been a very fun, exciting, and busy year for BuiltLean.com. From the start of the year, traffic to BuiltLean.com has grown 10x from 300-400 visitors/day to 3-4K visitors/day (See: BuiltLean.com Surpasses 100K Unique Visitors Per Month). Some more notable items: I did my first live TV appearance for the NBC Philadelphia 10! Show, the BuiltLean Program launched in March to rave reviews, 29 new videos were uploaded to the BuiltLean Youtube Channel, which now has over 150K views from around the world, and 3 amazing contributors came on board to write articles for BuiltLean.com (Christy, Max, and John).

Out of 75 articles written this year, only 5 can make it to the Best of BuiltLean 2011 list. The articles that were chosen were based on a combination of the following:

1) # of Pageviews
2) # of Comments
3) # of shares

So here they are:

1) How Many Calories Should You Eat To Lose Weight?

There are some articles I find myself sharing all the time and this is one of them. Eating less calories than you burn is fundamentally the most important guideline for successfully losing body fat. In this article, which attracted 35k views and 31 comments breaks down how many calories you should eat to lose weight into 3 simple steps.

2) Full Body Workouts vs. Split Routines: Which is Better?

There is a lot of confusion over whether full body workouts or split routines help you lose fat, build muscle, and improve performance most effectively. The short answer is that either strategy can work very well when combined with proper nutrition. For a detailed look at the pros and cons of each exercise strategy, check out the full article which has attracted 10K views, 41 comments, 42 Facebook Likes, and has an average time on page of 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

3) How To Get Ripped & Cut: Definitive Guide

Getting “ripped” is an elusive state of fitness only experienced by very few people. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not about some fitness product, or even fitness program that gets you ripped. In this article, which attracted 33K views, 55 comments, and 48 Facebook Likes, I tell the truth about how to ensure you get a ripped body…and it has little to do with the strength training program you choose.

4) Proper Push Up Form: How To Do A Push Up

Breaking down the push up into 7 distinct tips, this video attracted 23K views and 33 comments on Youtube and 18k views on BuiltLean.com with 35 comments in 2011. In the video, we used B-roll to show the proper push up form and also improper push up form to highlight the differences.

5) Jack Lalanne Tribute: Facts About Fitness Icon

With 13K views, 38 Facebook Likes, and 10 Comments, this article tribute to Jack Lalanne was not the most viewed, or shared, but it was a very important tribute to a fallen comrade in the fight against obesity. He has some of the best quotes I’ve ever come across on fitness and his passion for fitness lives on.

]]> http://www.builtlean.com/2011/12/29/best-of-built-lean-2011/feed/ 6 http://www.builtlean.com/2011/12/03/pizza-is-a-vegetable/ http://www.builtlean.com/2011/12/03/pizza-is-a-vegetable/#comments Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:09:18 +0000 Marc Perry, CSCS, CPT http://www.builtlean.com/?p=5858

In November, there were a bunch of articles I came across that highlight the continued shift in the lifestyle of Americans. I’m a really optimistic person, but these articles highlight the implications of how being tied to technology 24/7, not moving, and not eating a balance of nutrient dense foods is affecting our health from poor sleep, to weight gain, to increased use of medications.

1. Congress Pushes to Pass Pizza As a Vegetable

I thought this was a joke when I first saw this news, but it’s not! Can you guess how Congress is justifying pizza as a vegetable? Here’s a short excerpt from the article, “In an attempt to fight back at federal regulations that greatly limit the amount of junk food that can be served as part of government-funded school lunch programs, Congress has proposed a new spending bill that classifies pizza as a “vegetable.” Reports indicate that the bill would allow for just two tablespoons of tomato paste to be considered a serving of vegetables.”

2. “Freshman 15″ A Myth Study Says

“The idea that college freshmen gain an average of 15 pounds in their first year of school is a myth — the average is really between 2.4 pounds for women and 3.4 pounds for men, the co-author of a new study said Tuesday….no more than 10 percent of all college freshmen actually gained 15 pounds or more — and a quarter of freshmen reported actually losing weight during their first year.”

3. Less Sleep = Greater Chance of Weight Gain

“Fifty years ago, Americans averaged 8.5 hours of sleep a night; today we’re averaging only 6.5 hours. Coincidentally, the obesity rate has risen from 12 percent to around 30 percent in the same time period. Is this related? Studies show it’s likely.”

4. Exercise videos target children as young as 6 months

Woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan developed a series of videos designed to help parents exercise with children as young as 6 months old. The videos give parents 50 activities that they can do in 15-minute segments using household items such as spoons, or paper. The idea is that “in early childhood, babyhood, toddlerhood, we are really developing the habits that we’ll carry with us for a lifetime”. Given how sedentary our lives are becoming, maybe these videos are actually a good thing, but it’s a sad state of affairs they are actually being brought to market.

5. Tax on Soda Could Raise Revenue, Fund Nutrition Education

In Illinois, representatives are considering levying a tax on liquid chemicals (I mean “Soda”) which could help increase revenue to help fund nutrition programs, pension shortfalls, and repair roads to name a few benefits. At the same time, a tax on sugary drinks means less people will drink soda, which means less obesity. But does this impinge on our free will to buy what we want and eat what we want? I think taxing these drinks is a good idea. Ironically, soda is subsidized by the government through corn subsidies, so maybe a tax on soda does make sense.

6. Study Finds Exercise Significantly Improves Overall Quality of Sleep

A recent study found that people sleep significantly better and feel more alert during the day if they get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week. A nationally representative sample of “2,600 men and women, ages 18-85, found that 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a week, which is the national guideline, provided a 65 percent improvement in sleep quality”. It’s scary, but true that about 35 to 40 percent of the population has problems with falling asleep or with daytime sleepiness.

7. More than 20% of American Adults On Psychiatric Drugs for Behavioral Problems

In the last few years, I’ve met many people who take anti-depressants, or anti-anxiety pills, but I had no idea that the national average was 20%! A majority of American adults taking medications are still women 45 years, or older, but the demographic of 20- to 44-year-old women and men has more than tripled within the past decade. Does this have anything to do with lack of a balanced, nutrient dense diet and exercise? I think you know the answer to that question.

8. Cooking May Have Driven Human Evolution

There is a general consensus that raw food is healthier and more nutritious than cooked food, but recent research from Harvard University has shown that some processing and cooking of foods may have helped us extract more energy from the foods we were already eating. More energy extraction may have helped the bodies of early humans grow larger and brains increase in size and complexity about 1.9 million years ago.

9. Exercise Adherence Survey from FitnessReloaded.com

Maria who is a BuiltLean Newsletter subscriber and founder of FitnessReloaded.com created a survey to learn more about exercise adherence. Participants will get a free copy of the resulting “2012 Exercise Habits Industry Report”. The survey is open until December 11, 2011.

]]> http://www.builtlean.com/2011/12/03/pizza-is-a-vegetable/feed/ 0 http://www.builtlean.com/2011/11/30/obesity-trends-facts-stats/ http://www.builtlean.com/2011/11/30/obesity-trends-facts-stats/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:48:53 +0000 Marc Perry, CSCS, CPT http://www.builtlean.com/?p=5805 We know that collectively Americans have packed on the pounds, but how much and how fast body weight has increased is simply shocking! Below you will find a short presentation on the rise of obesity in America, several relevant stats about U.S. obesity, and some links and resources for more information.

U.S. Obesity Trends: From 1985 to the Present (Must See!)

My jaw dropped when I saw the following presentation which shows the prevalence of obesity in each state since 1985. Notice how the colors change from blue to red, which indicates a shift from less than 15% obesity rate to over 30%. Just click the arrow to the right of the presentation to get started and click through each slide.

Let’s take a closer look at the stats shown in this presentation: