We get deep into her cardio workouts, diet and her thoughts on everything going on in the fitness world.

We also cover…

-The best way to workout when you travel

-How one person added 80 pounds to his dips and didn’t grow one inch. What did he do wrong and how can we correct it?

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Monica Brant Interview

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Bare with me,UC-II or undenatured collagen II has been making some noise in the research world lately. In a head-to-head study, subjects with joint pain were given UC-II or glucosamine and chondroitin, the two “big dogs” of the joint health world.

The subjects had an average age of 58.8 and were assessed on physical function, stiffness and pain in their knees following a 90 day protocol.
The results found that UC-II decreased pain by about 20 %, which was higher than the 6% pain reduction experienced by the glucosamine chondroitin  group.
I should point out that these tests were done at the University of California, which has ties to the company that produces UC-II BUT the science behind UC-II is very solid. The primary form of collagen found in cartilage is type II collagen so it only makes sense to think that it will, in fact, reduce our knee pain.When discussing the specific amino acids found in UC-II the researchers stated that they are  “required for the synthesis and repair of connective tissue throughout the body.” That could be another explanation as to the results.

Can UC-II be the one thing that helps you never have joint pain again? I doubt it but it can greatly help. As can a diet high in anti-inflammatory foods, new exercise patterns and various other joint supplements like  hyaluronic acid.

We get deep into her cardio workouts, diet and her thoughts on everything going on in the fitness world.

We also cover…

-The best way to workout when you travel

-How one person added 80 pounds to his dips and didn’t grow one inch. What did he do wrong and how can we correct it?

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Monica Brant Interview

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Plus we have James Villepigue, expert fitness trainer and author of over 8 books to talk about training into old age, endurance athletes and a whole host of other issues.

In this week’s “Real World Training And Diet” call we discuss how to properly set up and diet and training program for maximum gains.

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Immune System-James Villepigue Interview

Problem: Your eating too much protein.

Fix: Start rotating your nutrients.

I love protein powder, probably more so then others. Don’t get me wrong, I eat my chicken and beef and turkey and I feel better when I eat whole foods but when I’m dieting I just love the taste of protein powder better. Sad really but I digress. Most physique folks like us tend to over consume protein because we think we have to.

Not that it’s bad for us ( it isn’t) but you have to look at each of the three macronutrients (protein, carbs and fats) as pieces of a puzzle. Every piece might not fit in a certain spot that you want them to fit but they fit none the less. We’re so focused on the need for more protein that we can’t see the forest past the trees. Yes, we do need more protein when we diet because our need for amino acids increases but too much protein will be converted to glucose and spike blood sugar, in the same, albeit smaller, fashion as carbohydrates.

What happens when the excessive glucose starts floating around our body and can’t be stored in our muscles? We get fat especially when we consume moderate amounts of fat during a low carbohydrate diet. So you should begin to see that every macronutrient has its place in our diet.

It’s not as simple as saying “when carbs go up then protein goes down” either.  We focus on eating what we have to instead of eating to fuel our efforts in the gym that day so just deciding to lower protein slightly and raise your carbs a little bit is like deciding to take your eyes off the road when driving here or there. Eventually you’ll crash.

I’ve put together a complete manual detailing, step-by-step, how you would set-up and use a calorie rotation diet to achieve your ultimate level of leanness while maintaining your muscle mass. Here’s just one of the many examples of individuals that have used my system with great success.

Click Here For More Information On The Fat Loss Diet

Problem: Your Eating Too Many Meals

Fix: Eat Less

Hold on, before you jump to the conclusions that I’ve gone loco, hear me out.  The general thought process is that one should consume 6-7 small meals per day in order to lose weight. Generally speaking, this works. If you’re someone that doesn’t eat enough and/or eats the wrong foods then splitting your food intake up into 6 meals with better food choices will go a long way.

What happens if you’re someone that eats a large amount of protein or carbohydrates with your meals to maintain your muscle mass? Better yet, let’s back up slightly.  Say you have a good amount of muscle mass, you would need to eat more. At 6′6 230ish I need to consume 6 meals or so a day or else I won’t be able to function. That’s just what happens when you have more muscle, you either deal with it or get small.

So is there an advantage to eating 3 small meals versus 6?  Rather than repeat myself, I’ll copy a selection from a previous article that I wrote called small meals and your metabolism (check it out for a more in-depth look at this topic).

“That being said, the main positive thrown out when people suggest that you eat every two to hours is the thermic effect of food (TEF). Basically everytime you eat your body will need energy (calories) to break down the food. the TEF is dependent on the food that you eat. Protein is the highest and wiill account for about 20-25%, while carbs will be 5% an fat being around 3%.

So everytime you eat, your body responds according to your food intake. The problem start with our thinking of TEF. If we’re on a 1500 calorie diet, for example, and we eat 300 calories over 5 meals (I just threw out a random calorie number here) or eat 500 calories over the course of three meals the net TEF at the days end is going to be the same. The only difference is going to be the blood sugar spike, either we spike it 3 or 5 times.

We can either give our metabolism a small or big shot. The entire theory of multiple small meals came about years ago with the though process that since you were eating 6 small meals the chances of adding bodyfat would be lower then 3 small meals.”

Problem: Your training doesn’t support your diet.

Fix: Take an objective look at your training and make changes.

This is a nutrition article so I don’t want to get too far away from your diet but we tend to look at nutrition and training as one whole big thing as opposed to synergistic pieces.  Most people, from average individual to gym rat to hardcore athlete focuses on what we do in the gym as the thing that will cause the biggest change.  We do curls for big arms.

Unfortunately, that’s a completely incorrect way of viewing your training and diet.  Your training supports your nutrition. Why are most people fat? It’s not because their doing low intensity cardio as some internet fitness people will have you believe. It’s because they aren’t causing their body to deplete itself of the stored calories that are making them fat.

This goes across the board for hardcore physique people and the average individuals just looking to burn some fat. Your diet could be picture perfect but if you aren’t matching your depends in the gym to your nutrition then your just repeating the cycle. It’s why high intensity exercise has become so popular lately, no one’s training hard enough.

Problem: Your forcing yourself into a box

Fix: Do it your own way.

Ok,you may be slightly confused here. This happens to everyone, even the top guys at the natural and unnatural levels will hire a adviser or coach to help them lose bodyfat. People don’t want to think and just follow templates that aren’t personalized.  Heck, you can go online and find 100 diets to try tomorrow. Stick with them and you’ll get some results but they won’t help you.

Again, take me for an example. If I followed a typical low carb diet, I’d eat the same amount of carbohydrates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (the days I lift) as I would on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (low intensity cardio and off days). Can anyone else see the problem in that?

Maybe you’re following a dieting that’s causing you to feel great part of the time and awful for the other half. Are you going to stick with the diet just because you feel ok 3.5 days per week?  Of course not, but you like the results?  Don’t stay in the dieting mold, fix it, break it.

Click Here For More Information On The Fat Loss Diet

Before we can get into the factors that affect your metabolism, I need to explain how our bodyweight gets regulated by a few factors.  Our body is regulated by the hypothalamus ( a structure in our brain) and it conveys certain signals to your body including our metabolism, hunger levels,  activity and hormonal levels, all which change depending on how much we eat and what we do.

Our body doesn’t want to lose fat, ever. Our body wants to stay right where it is. So when we eat less and lose weight our body slows down our metabolism, increases our hunger and drops our hormones. When we’re eating a ton of food and gaining weight we have a faster metabolism, we’re not hungry and all of our hormones are jacked up.

The hormones connection

Every single hormone that we have responds to our activity level and food intake and they all tell the brain what’s going on in their own way so that various adjustments can happen.

Everyone talks about “starvation mode” online and what it really describes is the metabolism slowdown, the increased hunger and the decreased hormone levels. All of this depends on your current starting level of bodyfat. It should be obvious that someone who’s 70 pounds overweight won’t have as big of a issue as someone who’s leaner.

The Two Faces Of Dieting Disaster

Let’s first look at how much bodyweight effects losing bodyfat. Your caloric burn during the day depends on your current bodyweight. When you lose bodyweight you need for energy is decreased. So it’s as simply as losing weight, losing the need for energy (calories)

Now there’s another part of metabolic slowdown that has been debated for sometime. There’s a certain amount of “extra” slowdown that occurs and research refers to it as the “adaptive component” of metabolic rate. Basically it means that our metabolism slows down more than it should. This depends on your starting body weight your sex(females have a harder time then men) and your individual genetics.

Why does this happen? Well the hormones that we mentioned earlier have a big role in this as ,together, they have a affect on central nervous system output. Thyroid (not as important as people make) insulin, leptin, all affect our metabolism. Initially the decrease will come from your sympathetic nervous system which directly effects the thyroid, so that’s why we see all this thyroid talk.

So we see that the sympathetic nervous system has a profound short-term effect on our metabolism so what’s the answer? Well we see why compounds like caffeine are so popular since they directly take aim at the sympathetic nervous system and do stimulate it.

The real hero,however, is a dieting system that has us rotate our calories. As we’ve pointed out above, the worst thing that we can do is eat less since our body needs to be tricked to think that we’re not losing weight. A typical low carb approach where you eat few carbs during the week then have a few “cheat” meals during the weekend doesn’t cut it. Our hormones won’t be spiked.

That’s why I’ve just released The Fat Loss Diet, a step-by-step approach to setting up a calorie rotation system so that your hunger levels don’t increase, your metabolism doesn’t slow down and you maintain your lean muscle mass.

Click Here For More Information On This Amazing Diet System

Just look at some of the “before” and “after” photos of real people that have used this approach with massive success…

And that’s just two of the many….

Click Here For More Information On This Amazing Diet System

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 1

Understand that the hamstrings both flex the knees and extend the hips.

Unlike other bodyparts, the hamstrings can produce force both in knee flexion and hip extension. And we know through recent research that the hamstrings are connected to the low back and glutes so what happens to the hamstrings can effect your low back and glutes greatly. This is why track coaches, for the longest time, have had their athletes training the hamstrings in hip extension.

When combined with knee flexion exercises like leg curls, hip extension exercises like deadlifts and their variations can vastly shape the hamstrings. Make sure you use both in your training.

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 2

Train Each Function Of The Hamstring With Different Reps

Being that the hamstring acts on two different joints, they also are made up of different muscle fibers. When used as  hip extensors (deadlifts), the hamstrings are more fast twitch dominate which means that they must be trained with lower rep ranges. Yet when you train with leg curls, you need to know that you are training them as slow twitch muscles and must use higher reps.

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 3

Stretching The Quads Will Open Up The Hamstrings

Due to the rule of antagonistic inhibition, if the quadriceps are tight then the hamstring will show a reduction in force. Perform a quad stretch before a set of hamstring work and you’ll notice an increase in force of the hamstrings on that set.

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 4

The Hamstrings Can’t Produce As Much Force As The Glutes

When you hear about all of these pros athletes and their hamstring issues what you should really be hearing that they have weak glutes. The glutes, which is the muscle that can produce the most force in the body, work in hip extension (sprinting) like the hamstrings. The problem is that most people have weak glutes and overcompensate with the hamstrings. Focus on glute work to warm-up before you perform hamstring work.

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 5

If Your Hamstrings Are Tight, Stretch Your Adductors

The adductor magnus (the biggest adductor muscle) acts as both a hip flexor and hip extensor, which means it may compensate and do some of the hamstring work. If you feel that your hamstrings are tight, perform foam rolling and stretching movements for your adductors and you’ll have looser hamstrings.

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 6

Make Sure To Force Your Hips Back When Perform Deadlift Variations

Most people bounce up and down during deadlifts and never focus on the deep stretch at the bottom of the movement. This type of loaded stretching will help to increase the rate of muscle growth as well as potentially increasing protein synthesis and preventing hamstring soreness.’

Hamstring Workout And Training Principle # 7

Train Your Hamstring Often

As noted in point # 1, the hamstring have two functions. Make sure you include both movements in your hamstring session but don’t be shy to train your hamstring again, using either both or one of the movements, at least once more during the week, if you are trying to improve your hamstrings.

First, let’s look at insulin sensitivity. More or less, this refer to how receptive a specific tissue is to insulin. If the tissue has a high sensitivity then it will respond well to insulin. If it doesn’t then it won’t. You want insulin to be able to do its job to change your body but it’s not the only thing we’re concerned with.

But carbohydrate tolerance is a different thing, we need to stop handcuffing carbohydrates to insulin.  Think of your muscle as a empty bucket. Once we first start to pour water into the bucket, it will fill up. But once that water hit the brim of the bucket then it start to “spill over” a.k.a increase the changes for fat gain.

If our carbohydrate tolerance is high then our insulin levels won’t be sky high.

Why do we care about carb tolerance?

The biggest reason is that it gives us a margin for error. You don’t honestly think that you can consume carb meal after carb meal and not get fat right? So the times that we may consume too many carbs won’t effect us negatively.

So it’s no surprise that we want to focus on our diet and training. That’s a given. If we deplete muscle glycogen (through training) and reduce the incoming amounts (through our diet) our overall glycogen levels are lower.

How to get rid of carbs and bodyfat

Obviously the easiest way is to just reduce the total amount of carbohydrate sin our diet so that our resting muscle glycogen levels are lower overall. It’s a simple explanation but eat less today and you can eat more tomorrow. You’ve created more space.

This is where the topic of refeeding comes in. Push more glycogen into your muscles on specific days and maintain or improve muscle size while losing bodyfat.

Now you see why bodybuilders have done split session of weights and cardio forever. They may have not even known it. Train hard so you deplete muscle glycogen then train hard again with your cardio at another time and deplete muscle glycogen further. Simple enough.

We make dieting too complex. Here’s a simple 7 day plan to follow,

Days 1-Get Rid Of Your Carbs

AM-Weight training

PM-20-30 minutes of interval training

Carbohydrates are kept under 150 grams

Days 2-5

AM-Weight training

PM-20 minutes of interval training follow by 10 minutes of low intensity walking.

Carbohydrate intake is kept under 200 grams

Days 6-7

Only train with weights on today.

Carbohydrate intake is around 400-600 grams per day.

You see and you thought that losing weight was complex.

That’s how I opened my first email (on facebook none the less) to Jason Pegg. If you had asked me who he was a few months ago, I wouldn’t of had a clue but thanks to social media sites like twitter and facebook, we’ve actually had the chance to share information and interact almost daily. You see Pegg isn’t just some dude. He’s actually pretty strong.

Jason has a 870 pound squat and a 710 pound deadlift. Not to mention that he is a member of the Elitefts advisory board. So the dude knows what he’s doing. Here’s proof

To be honest, this conversation started out of my desire to improve my deadlift and fix some of my training flaws. Here’s what occured during our conversation.

JS:I have trouble keeping my hips from rising too fast. I end up straightening out my lower body too soon and this limits how much I can pull from the beginning. Ive used different grips and pulled from a deficit in hopes that it’ll correct it. Hell, I even tried to pull with less weight slower to improve my technique. What can I do to fix it?

JP:This could really depend on so many things, and could vary widely from individual to individual. Its really hard to say. It could be that their head is down, causing their back to round. That is an easy fix. Some guys just lack the back strength to hold an arch. it could be A lagging muscle group. Weak abs for example don’t provide enough intra abdominal pressure to stabilize the spine, which causes, again, the back to round. This is big in your run of the mil trainees, and bodybuilders, because for whatever reason they think that they don’t have to train their abdominals to be strong. I’m not going to go that far into it, because i will just end up pissed off and flying off the handle into some weird tangent that ends up being far away from the original question! That being said, I would always look at your technique first. without seeing someone actually pull, if i had to give them something to focus on to improve their form, it would be

1. Don’t deadlift facing a mirror. you spend too much time looking at your body and not doing what you’re supposed to.

2. Keep your head up and back. I don’t mean that they should be trying to see the mirror behind them, but the head needs to be flexed into the traps.

3.Keep your butt down, and your chest up. In the start position, you really need to focus on pushing your chest out through the space between your arms. It will make perfect sense when you try it. Quit trying to do slow deadlifts too. That is about as effective as trying to shovel smoke. you have to deadlift violently.

Now, saying that, you obviously want to work guys up to it so they don’t fuck themselves up, but you should never have any kind of controlled tempo when deadlifting, unless it is a static hold at the top. Honestly, too, you shouldn’t look to do variations of the lift if you’re having trouble with the main lift. It just tends to emphasize technique breakdowns. toss the deficit pulls for now, and work them in later. You have to realize too that everyone’s structure is different, and the only place you will see a “perfect” deadlift is in the pages of your personal training manual.

There are some guys with deadlifts well over 800lbs that seem to do more stiff-leg technique, but you should also see this with EVERY REP. If it starts happening when the weights get heavy, it is one of the issues I discussed earlier.

JS:Most people tend to lose the bar half way up the thighs. What can this be attributed to more? Lack of hamstring strength or upper back/grip strength and what can someone do to correct it?

JP:Again, it could be a form issue. did they start with a rounded lower back? how are their feet placed on the ground? Are they parallel? If your feet are parallel, you aren’t going to be able to get maximum contractions in the hip, which will often lead to missed lifts right at the top. I used to have this problem. Your feet should be angled out away from the midline, anywhere from 15-45 degrees.

It has also been a grip issue for me in the past. There is nothing you can do immediately to fix that, save for throwing the straps on. That’s something else I believe too. there is nothing wrong with using the straps in the deadlift. let your other back work and specific grip work fix that.

Fuck the broscientists who cant even pull double their bodyweight, but don’t hesitate to say “straps are wrong , bro,” they don’t know shit. as far as correcting it, obviously fixing their feet and improving their grip strength is good. Working on getting stronger all over is a good thing to. And, honestly, although guys hate to hear it, sometimes there is just too much weight on the bar.

JS: What accessory work have you found to be the best for improving the lockout? It is more “upper hamstring” work like pull-throughs and good mornings or do people need to just stop whining about how weak they are and get strong in a wide variety of posterior chain movements (box squats, SLDL’s etc).

JP:”Posterior chain” (I hate that term) work will always help. If you can get strong doing them, you’re going to get stronger all over, regardless. Exercises that work the hip extension and knee flexion together are good as well. I love GHRs, but i think that pullthroughs are stupid as a “strength” exercise. I think they have their merits, but if you’re doing a pullthrough as one of the main ways to get your deadlift up you need to look at your program. reverse hypers done correctly are infinitely better. I was able to really push my deadlift up by just deadlifting. Doing it for reps with submaximal weights. Im not talking 50% but reps at 70-85 percent of your 1rm.

That is whats worked best for me. if you were looking for an exercise to really help your deadlift, that wasn’t a deadlift, I found that when i started doing heavy, high rep barbell rows the right way (not that dorian yates 70 degree angle shit) and my lockout fixed its self. DB rows done in the same fashion will help as well. Shrugs are good for this as well, so long as you don’t turn them into hang cleans without the rack at the top. run the reps up. Don’t do rack pulls. they’re good for adding some muscle, and getting weight in your hands, but they don’t really do much for your lockout. Ive done 545 plus a green and blue band, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 900 pounds or so, and couldn’t lock out 730 at my last meet. The carryover just isn’t there.

JS:People that are more bodybuilding based love powerlifters because they have huge backs. What are a few tips that you’d tell a bodybuilder to add into their back training

JP:Let me preface this one with a disclaimer. This isn’t meant to offend anyone, and these are broad generalizations of my observations from college gyms and the local YMCA. I know there are legions of bodybuilders out there that this wont apply to, but there are probably twice as many guys who it will. I have seen and know some bodybuilders whose backs are absolutely ridiculous. HUGE backs. Sorry guys!
Honestly I think that they would gain a lot from making the switch from training bodyparts to training movement patterns. i think that they would be well off to cut the volume down, and move the frequency up, but this goes hand in hand with dropping the bodypart splits. Guys wont do good mornings because they have hamstrings and biceps tomorrow, and dont want their hamstrings to be sore. Also, in no particular order, my tips to the average local bodybuilder would be:

Your back is something that you cant cheat and “pump up” to look huge. You don’t need so many exercises. You’re pissing up a rope trying to really focus on improving your teres. Quit wasting your time. Get off of the damn machines too, and put a barbell and dumbbell in your hands. Ive literally seen hundreds of bodybuilders who will not do a single barbell or dumbbell lift for their entire back workout. Leave your ego at home and bend over. kind of like I was talking about before, those Yates rows are doing your back a disservice. Quit worrying about “feeling” the muscle and the “mind muscle connection.” Its all Weider principle bullshit. Your back responds well to heavy loading and hard work. I guarantee your back gets bigger and thicker doing 315lb barbell rows for 10 than it does doing seated cable rows with 180lbs worrying about getting a “peak contraction.”

Basically, what it boils down to is that doing heavy, BASIC back work will do more for you. I guarantee if you did nothing for your back but deadlifts, chinups, and barbell rows for 2 months you would shit when you saw how much better your back gets, especially when you compare it to the machine centric back programs most guys follow today. rewire your brain and fix your training for a huge back.

JS: Thanks Pegg

-How men and women can get lean after the age of 40.

-What type of cardio natural athletes really need to do to get lean.(Be warned, this is raw advice, right from someone that has had to get lean year after year naturally).

- How to adjust your training as you ago so that you don’t wreck your joints.

Plus we introduce a new segment this week called “Real World Diet And Training”. In this segment I call a reader or listener and address their biggest diet and training questions.

To lead the show off this week I talk about various ways to build muscle besides the typical volume approach of high reps and high set.

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The Dave Goodin-Natural Pro Interview