Here’s Cara Heads, the 2000 Olympian taking someone off the street and teaching them the Olympic lifting movements to prove her point that anyone can get into this sport for fun and fitness.

I have proven over and over in my coaching practice that I can show ANYONE how to do the basic Olympic lifts in under 1 hour.  Period.

You don’t need to be a world champion to get in great shape!

And here’s Cara working on her Snatch technique off the blocks:

Jason Ferruggia has a new post about what kind of coach he is, and what kind of coach he isn’t.  He’s basically helping to define his own niche for anyone who doesn’t know what it is.

The fitness industry is just like any other industry – it’s a field of specialists who know what they are good at and what they aren’t good at, and then everybody else.  If you look for a trainer and they tell you “I do everything: bodybuilding training, fat loss, functional training, strength training, gymnastics, tennis training, yodeling, etc” … find a new trainer.

If you have a specific problem, go to the guy (or girl!) who specializes in fixing that exact problem.   Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying your coach needs to be so tightly defined that he’s only got ONE focus.  But, anything more than 3 (maybe four), and we’ve got a problem.

One of Jason’s major points about himself is that he is not a “motivator”.

Here’s a quote from Jason:

If you want to sit around and eat donuts all day why would that possibly bother me? And why would I want to motivate you? I’m not Jenny Craig or Matt Foley the motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river. What you do is your choice. Sure I will make fun of you, laugh at you and encourage others to do the same; but it’s your life, not mine.

If you are too stupid to realize that regular exercise and a healthy diet is a necessary part of life I’m not going to waste my time telling you. Get on some prescription drugs, order a sausage pizza and watch another episode of Friends.

OK, he’s WAY more intense than I am.  As you know, I’m a ridiculously mellow dude.  I meditate, I read books about Zen, I love ABBA and Romantic comedies, have seen every episode of Sex and the City (twice), and have a habit of laughing at all of my own jokes.  But, I am also NOT a motivational speaker.

Someone asked me recently what the name of my strength training company was, and I replied, “PDX Weightlifting.”

“Oh,” they said, “I think that would turn off a lot of people.”

I replied, “Yep.  And that’s the point.”

You see, I’m not a yeller.  I’m not like Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser.  I’m not here to call you up on the phone, get you off the couch, convince you that it’s time to workout, force you to work hard, and then nitpick you every step of the way.  There are trainers who do that for a living.  They’re great at it.  You need to be DEAD HONEST with yourself.  If you NEED a trainer to be your external motivator, then you need to hire one of these guys (actually, they’re usually girls).

I ain’t that guy.  I’m almost the opposite.  I’m way too relaxed.  In the gym, I’ll make sure you’re doing everything correctly, I’ll watch your lifts, I’ll discuss any and all topics you want to about your goals and progress.  But, I’ll also be cracking (bad) jokes and being very silly.  I do a great job of keeping the atmosphere exciting and fun.  That’s my personality.  And I expect everyone in my programs to stay positive and have fun while they workout, regardless of how hard it is.  NO whining – period. I have no tolerance for whining.   If you start wimping out, that’s you’re own problem.  And I’ll focus my energy of the folks who are working hard with a great attitude.

I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to.  If you say, “I can’t do it”, I’ll agree with you.  If you say, “it hurts”, I’ll tell you to stop or modify till it doesn’t hurt.  This is because when a truly motivated personal tells me this, it’s probably true! And I’m not going to make you do something that will result in injury.

Unfortunately, unmotivated people say these things as knee-jerk reactions to anything hard and as a result never push themselves hard enough to make any progress.

One of my favorite clients of all time is my client and friend Beth.  She’s been working out with me for a few years now, and in all of that time, I don’t think I have EVER heard her say the phrase “I can’t”.  This woman’s an animal.  She’s more than tripled her strength levels, gone from “skinny fat” to seriously lean, and looks and feels great.  (She regularly tells me about moving couches and other heavy shit up stairs by herself!)  All I do is show her the most efficient path toward her goals.  But, she’s the one who does all the work.  And boy, does she!

When my people tell me “it’s hard” or “what the HELL are you having me do?!”, or “I’m going to kill you for making me do this”,  they’re saying this as a badge of honor.  They do whatever I ask of them, and they work their butts off.  They may be cursing my name in the process … make no mistake!  But, they do it.

If you have no personal motivation, you have no business doing business with me because you WILL NOT get the results you want.  I’m a “lead the horse to water” coach.  You hire me when you want over a decades worth of knowledge, program design skills, solid real-world advice, a fun atmosphere, serious weight-training, and serious results.

Tony Robbins eating Peter Griffin!

If you need more motivation, buy some books by Tony Robbins.  And hey, once you’ve figured out your sh%t and decide you are ready to see the best results of your life and have a blast doing it, contact me and I’ll kick your butt with a big smile on my face.

I found this passage pretty funny from Jason’s post:

People ask me all kinds of questions when they find out what I do for a living.

“How do I lose this?” (grabbing a handful of a 48 inch waist)

“I don’t know.”

“How long should I do the stair climber for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t give up carbs but I want to get lean. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I only have twenty minutes to train, twice a week. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’re into all that heavy lifting but I can’t do that. What can I do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I don’t want to get too bulky so how should I lift?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I get motivated to go to the gym?”

“I don’t know.”

By training, I am a competitive Olympic Weightlifting Coach.  THAT is what I do.  I train athletes and people who seriously want to train with an athletic intensity on weightlifting-based programs.  Every program I create is built through the lens of a weightlifting coach.

If you are someone who wants to be able to answer YES to that question box on your job application that says “can you lift 100 pounds?”, and then laugh that that sounds light, I’m your guy.

This can include lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds who have totally different end goals: obviously, competitive weightlifters; athletes in any “power sport” like baseball, football, golf; and fitness folks who want to be in the best shape of their lives and lose 20, 40, or more pounds of fat.  The commonality is clear.  All my people lift weights – hard.  That’s the glue.

If you come to me wanting to lose 20+ pounds of fat, I’m not going to take it easy on you just because you aren’t in a competitive power-sport.  I’m going to hammer you just like I would anyone else on heavy weightlifting exercises and make you ridiculously strong.  As you’re losing that 20 pounds of fat, you’ll keep all your muscle, you’ll in fact gain muscle, become “toned”, learn a bunch of cool exercises like the clean and snatch, front squats, deadlifts, etc.  And you’ll start being able to perform in a way you never have before in all of your life.

The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that he approached every problem with only 6 tools.  Whenever a problem came up, he looked in his tiny little tool box, and tried all 6 of those tools on it.  If that didn’t work, he switched to a new problem.

I’ve found that there are things that I can coach at a high level given the tools that I have and things I can’t.  These are the ONLY things I do – 1) Competitive weightlifting; 2) power-sport training; 3) extreme fitness training.    3 things.  That’s it.  I’m great at these things.  But, if you want to become the most kick-ass marathon runner of all time … you’ll need to find someone else.  That just isn’t what I do.

This particular quote sounds very much like my own way of approaching coaching (hey, that rhymed!):

Often times people will tell me that they want to train with me and that I if they hire me or come to my gym I really need to push them. No, I don’t. You need to push yourself. You’re hiring me for my program design skills which are based on 16 years of experience. I am not a cheerleader. Any nitwit can yell at someone like a drill sergeant. Just because a workout is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective. Just because a coach yells loudly it doesn’t mean he’s smart.

If you can’t find it within yourself and are not driven to excel, there is nothing I can do for you.

I’ll give hard working, motivated, intelligent people everything I have. But for everyone else I have no time or patience. I know this offends many people. But it’s just me being honest.

I feel very lucky.  I have a great set of people to work with.  They all come in, work hard, joke around, have fun, and get into great shape.  Not a bad job.

A new paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that women who strength train score higher on cognitive tests.

Older women who did an hour or two of strength training exercises each week had improved cognitive function a year later, scoring higher on tests of the brain processes responsible for planning and executing tasks, a new study has found.

The Women (ages 65 to 75) were all put on a strength training program for a full year.

A year later, the women who did strength training had improved their performance on tests of so-called executive function by 10.9 percent to 12.6 percent, while those assigned to balance and toning exercises experienced a slight deterioration — 0.5 percent. The improvements in the strength training group included an enhanced ability to make decisions, resolve conflicts and focus on subjects without being distracted by competing stimuli.

Notice that the control group still exercised, but only did “toning” and “balance” work and saw a slight deterioration in cognitive function.  This is the kind of stuff you’d do in a Yoga class, or even an aerobics class.  Those things are great (even essential).  But, without a dedicated strength training program, you’re selling yourself short – apparently even your brain!

I get asked often by women over the age of 40 if they are going to be able to handle my programs. 

Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, and video runs at about 30 frames (pic’s) per second, then this 5 minute video is worth 9 million words!  It’s Crystal West doing about 5 straight minutes of bad-ass push up variations.  She’s over 40 and doesn’t let anything stop her. 

In fact in a recent blog post, she said she’s now worked out for a consecutive 766 days!  That’s over 2 years without a day off.  OH, heaven’s you say, she must be wicked over trained.  But, listen to her sensible approach to lifting:

“There are two fundamental ideas that I am aware of as I approach my playout. First, make sure that I am having fun. As my teacher says, ‘Fun is Fundamental.’ Secondly listen to my body that day and let it tell me what is right for me.”

Sarah Bertram and Jessica Gee got 1st in the 69’s and 4th in the 63’s, respectively, at Nationals this year.  Both of them are from here in Oregon.

Both are also coached by Tom Hirtz, a legend in his own right.  My club competes against their club all the time, and it’s fantastic to see the two of them doing so well.  They both work extremely hard, and are genuinely cool people.  Congratulations!

Here’s a news story about them from KEZI news Eugene, OR. It includes shot of them practicing, and interviews.

Alwyn Cosgrove has a post on Abundance vs. Scarcity in the personal training market. He sets up the idea that some people have a mindset of abundance, and others of scarcity. Meaning, those with the abundance mindset think the world is full of plenty of opportunity for everyone whereas those with the scarcity mindset believe there is a limited amount, and to do well means (by necessity) that someone else must fail.

I call it going “Deep Sea Fishing for Water”. This can be a little deep (no pun intended) so bear with me….

It’s as if we chartered a boat and went out to sea, with the goal of collecting as much water as we could. When we get there – I start using a bucket to collect my water. You start using a tea cup.

Now ask yourself this — are you angry that I used a bucket? Do you feel as if I’m taking more than my “fair share” ?

In the personal training and fitness coaching market, there really is an abundance of potential clients. I’m never worried about helping out a fellow trainer for fear of them “stealing” my clients. That’s ridiculous. The United States has a population that is about 30% obese and growing (pun fully intended). Every year we graduate a larger number of high school students who have never had a serious PE class, who couldn’t run a mile to save their lives (literally, if a bear was chasing them, they’d be food).

Here’s the reality. If you’re a man, without any serious physical ailments, and under 70, you should be able to do at least 10 pull ups. You should be able to run a mile in less than 9 minutes (I’m being lax here). You should be able to do 100 crunches in a row, no problem; 50 push ups straight; and squat about bodyweight. I’m not joking. Any male of the species, if truly in shape, should be able to do these things. The amount of testosterone flowing in the male body is ridiculous compared to what women have. Men are quite literally on steroids. There is no excuse. These numbers are low. There are old old old men at Loprinzi’s that can do better than this.

All it takes is some work. And the pay off is huge.

For women there are similar standards. At least: 8 full push ups or 20 knee push ups; run a mile in less than 10 minutes; do 8 pull ups with 75% bodyweight (with 100% bodyweight if you have a small hip structure); Squat 75% bodyweight; 100 crunches, no problem. These could all be higher depending on bone structure.

For certain athletes these numbers would be different. Female Olympic lifters sometimes have a hard time doing pull ups because of the shear muscular weight they carry in their hips and legs. But, then they make up for that by clean and jerking their bodyweight (see below).

If you can’t do those things, I can help you. For that matter, a whole host of trainers could help you get better than you are now, even the crappy ones. All they have to do is encourage you to workout regularly. Most Americans don’t, therefor, it’s an open market. How many people do you know who can boast the aforementioned numbers? Can you?

This is Melanie Roach clean and jerking a ton of weight:

Cassandra Forsythe has some answers.

Everyone is always on the lookout for the Ultimate Diet Secret.  What can I do to lose fat FAST?!  I need to know NOW!  Please HELP me!

As a fitness and athletic coach I hear this all the time.  I hear it more than just about anything else (at least from women, men generally are more interested in muscle gain).   In fact I’ve been hearing that now for nearly 12 years!  But, let me tell you, there are precious few people who have actually done anything with the secret diet knowledge once I lay it out for them.

Yes.  There IS a secret.  The problem is that you already know it.  Since I couldn’t say it better, I’ll just quote Chad Waterbury:

If I told you to consume one gram of protein per pound of body weight, fibrous vegetables, water, green tea, 12 grams of fish oil, and spread those out over the course of six meals each day you’d be anything but impressed. But if I held you in captivity and forced you to do that every day for a month, you’d be blown away by the results. The nutritional methods to lose fat have already been found. The challenge we coaches face is figuring out how we’re going to get you to adhere to the guidelines.

What’s the take-home message?  Stick to the plan.  Losing fat, gaining muscle, and other forms of body composition change require the one thing most of us refuse to put in:  Consistency.  It’s often boring, but the boredom will pay dividends.

From the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition:

These findings suggest that 5 days of Cr loading in women may be an effective strategy for delaying the onset of neuromuscular fatigue during cycle ergometry.

I stole this from an Article in Olympic Coach Magazine (the same one I referenced below)

I quote it in full:

Turkey Chili
Serves 6

Ingredients:
1 Tbs Olive oil
16 oz Ground turkey (93% lean)
2 Tbs Garlic, minced
1 cup Diced onion
1 cup Diced bell pepper
1-12 oz Dark Beer or Broth
2-14oz cans Diced Tomatoes
1 can Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Celery Soup
1 can Low Sodium Black Beans
2 cups Frozen, shelled edamame
MRS DASH Southwest Chipotle Spice to taste

Preparation:

1. In a large sauce pan, sauté ground turkey in olive oil until brown. Add MRS DASH spice blend and garlic and cook for 3 minutes.
2. Add onions and peppers and cook until onions are soft (approx 5 min).
3. Add dark beer or broth and simmer until 75% reduced.
4. Add canned tomatoes, beans, and cream of celery soup. Stir well, cover, and simmer over low heat for 30-45 minutes.
5. Add frozen edamame, cover, and simmer an additional 10 minutes.
6. Feel free to spice it up at this point with your favorite hot sauce.

**Get creative and add more of your favorite vegetables like frozen corn, zucchini, mushrooms, and even jalapenos!

Nutrition per serving:
Calories: 420; Total fat: 16g Saturated fat: 4g; Protein: 29g; Carbohydrates: 36g; Fiber: 9g; Sodium: 570mg

Kitchen Tips:

1. Ground turkey may have the same total fat as ground meat; but it is lower in saturated fat than lean ground beef!!!
2. MRS DASH spice blends are a great way to season food without increasing the sodium. The blends are perfectly balanced and much more affordable than buying individual spices and blending them yourself!!!

Created by: Adam Korzun, MS, RD, LDN

Avocado Rice
Serves 6

Ingredients:
4 servings Instant Brown Rice
½ tsp Ground cumin
2 Tbs Scallions, chopped
1 ea Avocado, diced

Preparation:

1. Follow the package instructions for 4 servings of rice.
2. Cook according to package details.
3. When cooked, add in cumin, scallions and diced avocado.
4. Stir until well incorporated.

Nutrition per serving:
Calories: 165; Total fat: 5g Saturated fat: 1g; Protein: 3g; Carbohydrates: 27g; Fiber: 3g; Sodium: 50mg

Kitchen Tips:

1. Brown rice has only its husk removed during milling, so it is richer in fiber, trace minerals, and those important B vitamins than more processed white rice.
2. Instant Brown Rice has all of the benefits of traditional brown rice, but it cooks in one third of the time!

Created by: Adam Korzun, MS, RD, LDN