Here’s our pumped-up version of the “Spartacus Workout” featured in Men’s Health. This is a tough workout and one that will bump up your cardiovascular fitness, strip fat and increase strength all in one hit.

Be warned, it’s very intense and not for beginners. You should always see your doctor before starting an exercise program. Always maintain good form during the exercises.

Spartacus is an intense circuit – meaning you do one exercise then move immediately onto the next one until you reach the end of that set of exercises.

You’ll need a timer and will do each exercise for 60 seconds then change to the next exercise. At its most intense you won’t be resting between exercises, although to begin with you could start with a 30 second rest.

So you’ve got 60 seconds work:30 seconds rest.

You can watch the video to see how the exercises are done HERE.

EXERCISE 1: Goblet squats. Advanced Variations = hold the dumbbell out from your body or add a hop.

EXERCISE 2: One-armed dumbbell swing (you can also use a kettle bell). Advanced Variations = add a small hop on the down-swing.

EXERCISE 3: Split-jump. Advanced Variations = stay on one leg for 30 seconds then switch to the other leg. Make it tougher by alternating legs. make it even tougher; add a hand weight and travel forwards or backwards during the movement.

EXERCISE 4: Side squat. Advanced Variations = Increase the weight of dumbbells.

EXERCISE 5: Ultimate lunge with rotation. Advanced Variations = push the weight out and/or go heavier with the weight.

EXERCISE 6: Mountain climbers. Advanced Variations = walk your hands and feet forward or backwards as you “mountain climb”

EXERCISE 7: T.Push-up. Advanced variations = Add push-ups and burps and increase the weight.

EXERCISE 8: Dumbbell bent-over row. Advanced variations = Add weight or a hop to the action

EXERCISE 9: Push-up row. Advanced variations = Add weight, add burpees

EXERCISE 10: Squat dumbbell push-press. Advanced variations = get lower on the squats, add a little jump to the squat. Even tougher? Add movement to the hops.

You’re looking at 15 to 20 minutes max to get through one set of this workout. Make no mistake, it WILL work you hard!

To understand cellulite, you first need to understand the anatomy of skin. The top  layer of skin is called the epidermis. Right under this is the dermis (also known as the corium) which is filled with hair follicles, sweat glands, blood vessels, nerve receptors and connective tissue. The next layer down is the first of two layers of subcutaneous (under the skin) fat. It is here that we find fat cell chambers arranged vertically in females and when this fat protrudes into the dermis (think of a muffin rising out of its tray to create a bump as it bakes) and we have what is known as cellulite.

Men have a completely different structure in that first layer of fat which allows for more internal expansion of their fat so it’s rare to see men with cellulite. Added to this, men have thicker epidermis and dermis layers in the thighs and buttocks than women.

There are many treatments for cellulite – liposuction, injectables, massage, thermotherapy (heat therapy), topical ointments, lasers and shock wave therapy are a few. These can cost upwards of a few thousand dollars depending on which treatment is chosen. The results? Less than promising for the most part and for the more invasive treatments like liposuction and injectables there are the possible side effects of swelling, infection and irregular contours to look forward to.

Of all of the treatments, lasers prove to be the most promising. The side effects are minimal (small blisters) although long term effects are unknown at this time.

What You Can Do To Minimize Cellulite:
1. Firstly, understanding what cellulite is – a unique and distinctive layer of subcutaneous fat common to females (not some weird disease that only a few people suffer from).

2. Do not waste your money on cellulite “treatments” (seaweed wraps, liposuction, ointments, massage etc) because they have been shown to be largely ineffective, no matter how much they cost.

3. Improving your diet and exercise will improve cellulite appearance. Reducing body fat will cause the fat cells to pull away from the dermis and lessen the “orange-peel” effect of bumpy fat (AKA cellulite).

4. Start doing resistance training (weight training of some kind). Cellulite is layered on top of muscle and if that muscle is soft and untoned it will contribute to the uneven look of the skin above it.

The good news is that it’s low in fat and a good protein source for vegetarians (and anyone else who likes clean healthy food). The other good news is that it isn’t complicated to make – I’m the kind of cook who likes to keep things simple. We tried it over quinoa for a heartier meal and it worked very nicely.

INGREDIENTS:

1 large onion diced finely

4 large cloves of garlic diced finely

3 large carrots diced finely

4 celery stems diced finely

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 cup of lentils (doesn’t really matter what kind)

8 cups of vegetable stock (you can pick this up at grocery stores if you don’t happen to make it yourself)

1 850g (30 ounces) can of tomatoes (try for one without added salt)

1 tablespoon of tamari (I used a teriaki sauce and it was great)

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

METHOD:

Put the lentils in a container to soak while you do the next step.

Heat a large pot and add the olive oil then add the onions, garlic, celery, carrots and cumin. Stir until onion is soft.

Drain the water off the lentils and rinse them well then add them to the pot

Add the can of tomatoes and vegetable stock

Turn down the heat and allow to simmer for about 45 minutes (test the lentils to make sure they’re soft).

Add the tamari (or teriaki sauce) and the tomato paste and stir.

You can either blend the soup a bit (with a regular or a hand blender) or leave as-is. Blending it makes a thicker consistency, it depends on how you like your soup. Serve with toasted pumpkin seeds and, like we did, over quinoa for a wholesome, hearty and really yummy meal.

First, let’s define the word “calorie”. Everyone’s heard of them but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t really know what a calorie is. A calorie is a unit of energy (specifically the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 degree celsius).

• Our bodies burn energy to stay alive, to breathe, to move, and so on. Obviously the more you move, the more energy you burn and that energy is measured by an amount of calories.
• We eat food and food has energy (an amount of calories depending on what the food is).
• The very simple formula for losing weight is this: Calories consumed have to be less than calories burned. If you do the opposite (eat more calories than you burn) you put on weight.

This is not a new idea, it’s been around for a long time and it turns out, it works. It doesn’t even particularly matter what you eat – check out the professor who lost 27 pounds on the “Twinkie Diet”. The point he made wasn’t that it was healthy necessarily, but that he was able to lose weight by eating fewer calories than he used throughout the day.

The trick to long term weight loss is PERSISTENCE. If you take a look at the National Weight Control Registry data where registry members have lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for 5.5.years, most members report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low fat diet and doing high levels of activity.

So you have to find a way of eating that you can maintain for a long time, maybe even a lifetime, not just a month or a few weeks. And you do have to make changes in how you eat, what you eat and very definitely, how much physical activity you do.

Here are a few tricks you can use:

1. Use a smaller plate when you eat a meal

2. Put vegetables (greens, salad vegetables – but not starchy vegetables like potatoes) on half of your  plate. Use the other half of your plate for equal amounts of grains and starchy vegetables on one side, and protein on the other side

3. Eat the vegetables first – all of them. Then the protein and lastly the heavy carb-loaded grains or potatoes.

By the time you get to the end of your meal you’ll be satisfied (eating the vegetables first ensures you start feeling full by the time you get to the end of your meal). Most likely you’ll have to eat slower because it’s harder to eat vegetables, especially raw ones, than to scoff down an all-in-one meal like a burger. It takes time for your body to recognize it’s full and this way of eating helps it do just that.

So what’s the RIGHT way to eat anything? On a plate in the way described above and for an extended period of time.

Tracey Thatcher

Here is a beginning list – it only includes the La Crescenta, La Canada and Valley areas of Los Angeles because this is where we do most of our training and the groups listed are the ones we’ve been dealing with the most. We do want to increase the size of this list so if you’ve got a suggestion, email it over and we’ll check it out for inclusion.

1. Workout World, Sherman Oaks – www.workoutworldusa.com. 818-501-5145. 14255 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks 91423

Why We Like Workout World: It’s an Aussie company and we have a long history with the company that goes back to the 1990′s. It’s a great place to check out home gym equipment from treadmills to boxing bags, strength training systems to fit balls. Great prices and excellent service.

2. World Gym, Tujunga – 818-951-5222. 6656 Foothill Blvd, Tujunga 91042

Why We Like World Gym: This gym was recently refurbished with more than $300,000 worth of brand new equipment and the best prices on memberships we’ve seen in a very long time. A veritable candy store for people interested in strength training and if you’re more of a cardio lover, you’ll find some pretty sweet cardio equipment to keep you happy too.

3. Foothill Athletic Club – http://foothillathletic.com. 818-957-0204. 3931 Lowell Ave, La Crescenta 91214

Why We Like Foothill Athletic Club: This is an old favorite, we’ve been using this facility for a long time. The staff are friendly, the equipment is decent, there’s a nice women’s-only room, racquet ball and an outdoor pool that’s heated all year round (none of the chlorine fumes that you can get in indoor pools). A cross-fit-style room is something to look forward to for the more adventurous fitness fanatic.

4. Flintridge Pharmacy and Wellness Center – http://www.facebook.com/FlintridgePharmacy. 818-790-1802. 529 Foothill Blvd, La Canada Flintridge 91011

Why We Like Flintridge Pharmacy and Wellness Center: The owner of this pharmacy is hell-bent on helping people make holistic, healthy choices to prevent disease from ever occurring. They have regular seminars on nutrition, supplements and exercise, stock a good assortment of literature and are distributers for both Standard Process and Mediherb products. This is a pharmacy we can happily support!

5. Crescenta Valley High School Track – 818-249-5871. 2900 Community Ave, La Crescenta 91214

Why We Like Crescenta Valley High School Track: This school has a really sweet track that is open to the public outside school hours. For outdoor workouts it’s ideal – clean, beautifully surfaced with a choice between the running track itself or the springy artificial turf to do push-ups, sit-ups and other “floor exercises” without worrying about placing your hand in dog poop or gum.

Very simply, the body is composed of cells. There are lots of different kinds of cells but the ones responsible for activity of any kind (running, breathing, digesting, walking, talking, working out and so on) are muscle cells. Let’s focus on the muscles cells involved in moving our skeleton – the skeletal muscle cells. These cells, in order to do any kind of work, need an energy source and that energy source is ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate).

ATP is made from foods -  protein, carbohydrate and fat – and each muscle has a tiny store of it at all times, enough to last for a couple of seconds of activity. So you see the problem, in order to do any kind of continuous activity, the muscle cells have to have ways of making more ATP.

Now, luckily, the cells also have a small store of creatine phosphate (a chemical compound) which can be quickly used to make more ATP. This is a very fast process and doesn’t require oxygen  (it’s anaerobic) but it only gives about 25 to 30 seconds of high-intensity fuel. Think of activities like weight lifting of 100 meter sprints – power actions, these use this anaerobic energy system.

Going on from there, you see, there needs to be a way to make more ATP otherwise no one could continue moving for longer than half a minute at a time. The next step  in order to keep moving is to take the carbohydrate, glycogen, that is stored in the muscle and do some pretty complicated things to it to turn it into ATP (fuel for those muscle cells). It doesn’t need oxygen to do this and so this is an anaerobic activity. Unfortunately, the ATP formed in this way also runs out pretty quickly seeing as the muscles only have a small amount of glycogen at any time. You get about 1 to 2 minutes of high-intensity activity using this system of creating energy. 400 to 800 meter sprints are an example of actions that use this energy system. One of the waste products of this system is lactic acid – this is what you feel when your muscles start to burn during a work out.

Well, one to two minutes is better than a few seconds, but we all know bodies can go on working for much longer than that. There has to be another way of making fuel (ATP) once all the stores have been used from the muscles themselves. Here is where we get into the aerobic energy system. In a very complex chemical reaction involving oxygen and carbohydrates and fat among other things, (the body burns carbohydrates first and then fat in healthy well-fed people; rarely protein) aerobic activity can continue for a long time (look at marathon runners – they can keep running for hours).

All three energy systems are used at all times. The body is a pretty miraculous machine and is constantly replenishing its ATP, creatine-phosphate and glycogen stores even while it’s using oxygen to make more ATP for activity.

The difference between aerobic activity and anaerobic activity? Oxygen and the length of time you can exercise at a particular level. When activity is high intensity but short in time, the anaerobic system runs the show – power lifting, tennis serves, sprints, 100m swims. When activity is lower in intensity and for a longer time it’s the aerobic system that takes over – anything continuing longer than an 800m run.

So it’s something to admire while you’re at the gym working out. Your body, each cell, is doing a complicated series of chemical reactions to make sure you have the fuel you need to do whatever activity you’re doing, from running on the treadmill for thirty minutes to bench-pressing 150 pounds. It’s switching from anaerobic to aerobic systems to keep you going.

Tracey Thatcher

BMI, or body mass index, is so well known by most people as the measure of the health of the body that most people don’t question its authority. It is used by doctors, personal trainers, dietitians and life insurance companies to determine whether or not a person is overweight, healthy or obese.

Unfortunately, BMI has some serious flaws. Ask a serious bodybuilder what he thinks about the fact that his BMI indicates he’s overweight and he’s likely to laugh – these guys often have body fat levels below 10%. It’s not body weight or body mass that’s at issue as far as Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease or hypertension are concerned, it’s fat levels. The fatter you are, the greater the risk of disease. It just happens that BMI has been the accepted tool to determine body composition since 1985. Why? It’s really easy to work out, you just need to know a person’s weight and height then run a simple formula and, voila! He’s “normal”, “overweight” or “obese”.

Here are some interesting BMI facts that might surprise you and should get you thinking about its usefulness (or lack thereof) as a tool you use to determine what shape your body is in:

1. The formula for BMI was devised by Belgian mathematician, Adolphe Quetelet, between 1830 and 1850. He warned that the calculation was only meant to be used for large diagnostic studies on general populations and was not accurate for individuals.

2. The height and weight tables used to determine what your score means came from the life insurance industry initially in 1908. In 1985 the National Institute of Health (NIH) began defining obesity according to the BMI, which defined the 85th percentile for each sex as the official cutoff for “obesity”, based on the standards for underweight, average, overweight and obese that were set by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company mortality tables. It pays to think about the motives of life insurance companies in using, and determining what would be termed “obese” when drawing up policies – it’s unlikely those “obese” customers got a discount on their insurance premiums.

3. The NIH introduced the BMI standard with the view that it would be only used by doctors to warn patients who were at especially high risk for obesity-related problems. It was never intended that it be used by individuals as a diagnosis of whether or not their weight is healthy but this is how it is used today – individuals are encouraged to easily diagnose their own BMI via the NIH website BMI calculator.

4. The standardized BMI tables (put together by the life insurance companies) fail to take body frame or build into account (“small”, “medium” or “large frame”, for example).

5. The BMI is based on a Caucasian standard and can be inaccurate for other races. Some Pacific Island populations and African Americans in general have a lower percentage of body fat at a given BMI than do white or European populations (Stevens, 2002).

6. In 1998 the NIH reclassified the definition of “overweight” overnight by lowering the threshold by 10 pounds. On Jun 16, 1998, the “average” woman was 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds. On June 17, 1998 that same woman became “overweight” as the weight for “average” dropped to 145 pounds. Keep in mind that the much-publicized US obesity crisis has risen to the forefront of national attention only since the late ‘90s, after the NIH changed the standard for what constitutes overweight and obesity.

Does all of this mean there isn’t an obesity problem or that having too much body fat isn’t detrimental to health? Obviously not, but using the BMI as a standard to determine the condition of your body probably isn’t the best idea either. Especially when you realize the definitions for “overweight” and “obese” are arbitrary and at the whim of insurance companies or the NIH and that people with extremely low body fat and in superb physical condition can be labelled as “overweight” per their BMI.

What’s a better way to determine fat levels in the body? The gold standard currently is hydrodensitometry testing and involves getting into a tank of water. Based on the amount of water displaced, your body density and body fat can be calculated. It’s used by universities primarily and costs $25 to $75 per test. Then there’s DEXA scanning, the same imaging technology doctors use to measure bone density to determine osteoporosis risk. Your body fat, muscle and bone mineral density are measured. It’s extremely accurate and non-invasive but costs $200 to $300 per test.

If you’re looking for a simple method to predict heart attack risk and other obesity-related diseases that you can use at home and costs next to nothing, consider checking out your waist to hip ratio. What’s healthy? For men, anything below 0.95. For women, below 0.86 per the American College of Sports Medicine.

Here’s how you find your waist to hip ratio (WHR):

Measure the circumference of your waist just above your belly button
Measure the circumference of your hips around the buttocks (widest point)
You can measure in inches or centimeters
Divide the waist measurement by the hip measurement
WHR = waist circumference/hip circumference

Always remember, exercise is a key factor in alleviating the risk for cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and many other potentially deadly conditions. You can exercise no matter what shape your body is in now and it will improve so long as you do it properly and consistently. Being educated and seeking advice from exercise professionals to make sure you’re on the right path should be part of your overall health plan.

Tracey Thatcher

Today you can find such solutions as laser fat removal, stomach reductive surgery, super low-calorie diets involving hormones like HCG and sugar replacement products like aspartame cropping up in nearly every processed food product, including most chewing gums.

Laser fat loss example

There is an obsession with losing weight all over the world. You’d expect that with this much interest and investment that the People of Earth would be slim, toned and gorgeous. That’s almost the exact opposite of what’s really happening (go to your local Costco food court if you don’t believe this).

It’s no secret that the majority of people (95% is the figure quoted in Congressional hearings, research papers and books) who lose weight by reducing the amount of calories they ingest (dieting) alone, regain the weight they lost and then some in a matter of months. The term “yo-yo” dieting comes from this phenomenon. What do these people have in common? Dieting alone. No exercise, or very little.

These are sedentary people. Take a look at the photos below – they are MRI cross sections of the thighs of two 70 year-old men. The one on the top is sedentary. The one on the bottom is a triathlete (very physically active).

The National Weight Control Registry tracks 10,000 people who have lost weight and kept it off. The average member of this registry has lost 70 pounds and remained at that weight for six years

There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight – some did it with Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig or the Atkins Diet. A very small number did it through surgery (that’s very telling with all the promotion about these days for procedures like the “Lap Band”). What is consistent is that, among other things:

1. These people eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally

2. Registry members exercise about an hour or more a day

3. They eat breakfast regularly

4. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population

So folks, it CANNOT be ignored. You have to exercise if you want to maintain your weight loss successfully. Going on diets is a massive waste of time and money unless you’re prepared to get active and stay active in a pretty big way.

How to exercise to get the best results; well, we can get you lots of good information on that (there is a LOT of garbage out there on that subject so it pays to pay attention).

You could start with the book Fit Lean Healthy, 8 Simple Steps to get you up and running – it’s based on a very successful and time-tested method for getting personal training clients on the right track.

Tracey Thatcher

Sarcopenia is a word used to mean wasting of muscle that occurs naturally with age. Most people’s bodies lose about 10% of muscle mass each decade once they reach their thirties. This accelerates dramatically once the age of sixty is reached. This muscle wastage has many undesirable effects, among them:

• Trouble with balance and, as a result, a higher chance of falling (a major problem for the elderly)
• Poor recovery from disease or surgery. Muscle provides a storehouse of protein to aid efficient recovery and when it’s absent, recovery is slow or non-existent
• Lack of strength and power resulting in dependence on others to get in and out of the bath or even into and out of bed in some cases
• Osteoporisis – a disease whereby bones become porous and fragile
• Increased fat deposits (as muscle mass decreases, metabolism slows down so fewer daily calories are burned, resulting in greater fat storage)

There are no drugs to stop sarcopenia, the only weapon against it is to maintain muscle mass and the only way to do this is with some form of resistance training, whether it be using your own body weight (as with push-ups, chin-ups, dips or body-weight squats), using free weight and machine weights or doing physical work like digging ditches or loading bricks.

In our personal training business we are seeing more people over fifty who have realized they need to maintain their muscle mass and who are doing so very successfully with carefully programmed, fun exercises that include good doses of resistance training. There’s no better time than the present to get started and, the good news is, it’s never too late to get started.

Probably the best way to overcome any barrier is to, firstly, know what it is. If you know what you’re dealing with you can plan ahead on how you will deal with it when it comes your way.

Getting into shape can be a constant battle with your body when you start, especially if you’ve been inactive for any length of time. The biggest barrier to fitness is simply getting started. This makes complete sense if you understand the Law of Inertia – an object at rest tends to stay at rest while an object in motion will tend to continue in that same motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Your body, in the case of starting a fitness program, is the object, and if it’s been “at rest” (sedentary is a nice way to put it, otherwise known as bone lazy) it’s naturally going to want to stay that way and it WILL take considerable force (from you and, if necessary, a competent fitness coach or personal trainer) to get it active.

This is a kind of chicken before the egg proposition – is your body or are you the barrier here? If you think of your body as an object and you’re the driving force, then it all becomes simple – not necessarily easy, but simple nonetheless. Your body is resisting change – it wants to stay on the couch. YOU are going to have to get it moving.

Here’s the (almost) no fail method:

1. Hire a competent personal trainer to help get you started. This way you’ll have a team of two against the wily ways of your body. The trainer should know what he’s doing (or she as the case may be) so you can rest assured you won’t be wasting your time.
2. Follow the trainer’s advice – do the extra work on your own, keep a food diary, drink the extra water and slow down on the alcohol. Ignoring your trainer’s advice is like shooting yourself in the foot.
3. Ask questions, find people who are on a similar journey, join fitness forums online.
4. Eat well – it might take planning out your weekly meals and making lunches in advance. Eating poorly is just asking for your body to kick you in the teeth and going on strike.
5. Sleep well – getting enough rest is in the same category as eating well. You’ll get less complaints from a well-rested body.
6. Drink enough water. This takes planning too. Don’t skimp on it – very often you think you need a hit of sugar when your body is actually thirsty. Leaving it until you feel parched is leaving it way too late. A good test: your urine should be clear.

Good luck in overcoming the biggest barrier to fitness. It can be done, it has been done countless times and you can do it too.

Feel free to email us at rudi@gofitnow.com if you want any more advice or help.