What I Believe and Kettlebell Week Begins

What I Believe

Recently a very well known fitness professional wrote a blog post called ‘What I Believe’. He also put a call out for other fitness pros around the world to take action and create their own ‘What I Believe’ article.

I have taken him up on his offer and I urge you to do the same.

I Believe In ‘Real’ Functional Training

I believe that functional training is a term that has been so misused in the fitness industry that most people don’t even know what functional training actually is anymore.

Functional training is performing exercises that will help you in your daily activities. And if you want to be better at daily activities, such as, lifting a baby, bending over and picking up heavy box, carrying your groceries, or just kicking the crap out of your brother at every sport out there (sorry Mark) then you need to get strong.

Standing on half a balloon (actually known as the BOSU ball) with one leg and then doing an overhead dumbbell shoulder press isn’t going to help you at all. When’s the last time you were in your driveway and you needed to walk on a balloon to get inside your house while carrying groceries?

Learning how to properly deadlift and start to lift some heavier weight will help you, A LOT.

Pretty much everything we do is ground based. So why are we training on a ball?

Because it works our core more, right?

Ya…good one.

I Believe In Trying To Consume Foods That Help My Life

I believe that we should all focus on eating foods that help us live longer, not on foods that we live for.

Sure I’ll have a jack and coke every once in a while. But I won’t have it every weekend or every month for that matter.

When I’m at a birthday party I’ll usually have a piece of cake…hey, and maybe some ice cream with that too.

But 90% of the time I’m focusing on whole foods. Foods that help me feel great and will increase my energy and longterm health.

Fruits and vegetables are key foods.

I rarely drink sugary drinks and mostly just drink water. The only other liquid drink I’ll drink on a regular basis in a protein drink.

I believe that this is the only way we should eat to live a optimum and healthy life.

I Believe In Intensity

I believe in lifting heavy weights to build strength and muscle and I believe everybody should follow. (Ladies, you’re NOT going to bulk up by doing this)

I believe that high intensity is the key to fat loss success. If lifting light weight for high reps was the answer then all we would need to do is lift a couple soup cans in our house every day or just go outside and garden for a couple hours each day in the summer.

Gardening will not help you get in shape. Sorry, but when people tell me they garden as part of their exercise I sometimes feel like smashing my head through a wall….just kidding :)…I think it just shows how misinformed people really are.

I also believe in interval training as it continues to dominate slow cardio as a fat loss method through scientific studies. Here’s some studies if you’re interested:

Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C, (1994), “Impact of exercise
intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism",
Metabolism, 1994 Jul, 43, (7), pp 814-8.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8028502

Tabata I, Nishimura K, Kouzaki M, Hirai Y, Ogita F, Miyachi M,
Yamamoto K, (1996), "Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-
intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max",
Med Sci Sports Exerc, 1996 Oct, 28, (10), pp 1327-30.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897392

Yoshioka M, Doucet E, St-Pierre S, Alméras N, Richard D, Labrie
A, Després JP, Bouchard C, Tremblay A, (2001), "Impact of high-
intensity exercise on energy expenditure, lipid oxidation and body
fatness", Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord, 2001 Mar, 25, (3), pp 332-9.
Hyperlink http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11319629

What do you believe?

I believe a lot more and I’ll be expanding this article into a series of articles to come. Now I want to know what YOU believe and are you following those beliefs to help you conquer your fitness goals.

Let me know at dan @ gymsuperstar.com or in the comments box below.


Gym Superstar Exercise of the Day #10

The 180 Kettlebell Swing



Keep ROCKIN' IT!

Dan Grant