Chances are you’re reading this on Saturday or Sunday…hopefully you didn’t have too much to drink last night.

Let’s talk about a real politically incorrect topic in the fitness world – booze.

So many readers ask, “Can I still drink while on a fat loss program?” And well, the answer is yes, you can do anything you want on a fat loss program…you just have to accept the consequences of your actions.

And what are the consequences of drinking?

Well, here’s a dirty little secret.

My infamous shirts-off abs photo, the one of me and Bally the Dog in what looks like a random field, was taken back in the day when I still consumed more alcohol than was healthy.

In fact, I did so for many years, being a young Canadian guy, that’s what a lot of young Canadian guys from small towns often do…we drank a lot of beer when we were younger.

But just because you drink a little beer – or have a glass of wine every night – doesn’t mean you can blame your belly fat on booze.

After all, a glass of wine, a bottle of beer, and a shot of alcohol all roughly contain the same amount of calories, between 100-150. A glass of wine adds fewer calories to your diet than most minor eating mistakes, such as:

- a cube of cheese
- two handfuls of nacho chips
- a few chicken wings
- half a giant bakery muffin
- or half a slice of post-bar pizza

Of course, if you’re drinking a Jack and Coke, you can expect to almost double your calorie intake…so 6 of those in a night and you’re looking at 1800 calories – that’s REAL damage…but only moderate damage if you stick to 6 light beers, which would hit you up at 600-900 calories.

The reality is that alcohol does NOT add that many calories to most people’s diets.

The truth is you need to stop blaming alcohol for your belly fat and look at what you are eating. That’s where your calories are probably piling up.

NOTE: Unless you’re consuming one of the 500 calorie Starbucks concoctions…then you DO have a liquid calorie problem…but one glass of booze per day is not making you fat.

As for all the so-called fat loss ‘gurus’ who try to impress us with their knowledge and claim that alcohol slows your metabolism, that just doesn’t hold up in the real world.

What matters is total calories coming from the liquids, and if you keep that low and it fits into your daily diet, then yes, you can drink booze on a fat loss program and still lose fat.

But there are other factors in the booze discussion we must address.

First, I’d never recommend someone start drinking just to get the so-called health benefits of alcohol.

I’ve seen first hand what booze can really do, and it hurts more people than it helps – directly and indirectly.

My father drank about 12 beers a day for 30 years, and while he never weight over 165 pounds at 5’9″ until his final year, it was the booze that killed him.

Handle your drinking with care. It can be a dangerous vice. Even binge drinking, which is what I used to do back in the early 2000′s, can be quite harmful.

If you go all week without drinking and then drink six, nine, twelve, or more drinks in a night, this will hurt you in the long haul.

Besides, once you get over 30 years old, the “mornings after” are hardly worth the “nights before”, at least in my opinion.

Today, I’ve come a long way from the 18 year old who used to drink all Friday night, work manual labor all Saturday, and then drink again all Saturday night.

I’m also a lot different from the 27 year old who would go all week without booze and then drink from 4pm to 4am on Saturday night.

Neither of those were healthy lifestyles. And I should have known better, particularly the 27-year old me.

Today, I rarely drink, and I recognize that when I do have a couple of drinks, it decreases the quality of sleep and leaves me stuffed up the next day.

It’s just not worth. In fact, for anyone who drinks each night and feels tired the next day, I guarantee you’ll overcome your lack of energy by giving up your nightly alcohol.

That’s a fact.

Booze tonight will ruin your tomorrow.

BUT…it shouldn’t stop you from losing belly fat. Alcohol is not kryptonite to your fat loss efforts. Of course, alcohol isn’t going to HELP your fat burning either.

Alcohol contains calories (about the same as you’d get from a similar sized soda or juice), and too many calories from any beverage will leave you with belly fat, but don’t blame your beer belly on beers when you have two drinks and a plate of 2000-calorie nachos and wings.

Understand that for most people, the real belly fat damage comes from the food you eat with the booze, not the booze.

Know your enemy.

Handle with care.

Make the healthy choices.

Now, having lectured you, I’ll admit that from time to time, on special occasions, I’m happy to have a drink.

While in Nicaragua recently, sitting in a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I had a few Coronas (and yes, chips and guacamole) on the beach, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

When I go to restaurants, I love a Cabernet with my Ribeye.

And for my cocktail of choice, a friend and I have a ritual of celebrating business deals with a “Moscow Mule”. At STK, the steakhouse in the Cosmopolitan in Vegas, they even bring you the drink in a fancy copper mug.

Oh, and if we’re doing shots (which I don’t do anymore), it’s tequila, no lime or salt needed.

But most of the time, a club soda or bottle of water will do.

Now you know the deal with booze and your belly fat,

Craig Ballantyne, CTT
Certified Turbulence Trainer

PS – I gave up booze to concentrate on this 1 Million Mission.

If you are a fan of exercise, you probably have heard about or are familiar with metabolic training. This type of workout differs from the more traditional forms as the goal is to speed up your metabolism so your body becomes a lot more efficient in breaking down your food so all the nutrients can go into the body and form new tissue along with maintaining itself. It is basically a conversion of food into energy. Some of the food will be used immediately and some will be stored in your body’s tissue.

There are ways to boost your metabolism like eating certain foods, drinking specific beverages as well as eating every several hours throughout the day. Exercise is another one of these effective ways and you do not have to be an advanced or professional exerciser to reap the benefits of a workout program that targets your metabolism. In fact, if you who want to lose weight or get healthier, these metabolism-specific workouts are what you should be doing.

What Exercise Is and Is Not

Everyone knows that exercise is any activity that gets your heart rate up. It can be running, bicycling, swimming—even playing tag with your kids. However, when it comes to metabolic training, this type of exercise will result in nothing more than boredom. If your goal is to speed up your metabolism, this type of exercise is not going to come close to doing the trick.

A good exercise program needs to incorporate more than just your heart getting a workout. It needs to utilize your entire body. This means adding weight and/or resistance training into your workout. It also means taking your cardiovascular workout up several notches—that run needs to be a sprint, that bike ride needs to have more hills and the swimming needs to be faster. In a nutshell, you need to perform these activities at your maximum potential and then push further from there. That is what real exercise is all about.

Weight Lifting

Probably one of the most misunderstood forms of exercise is weight training. Women shy away from it because they either do not know what they should be doing or they are fearful that they will bulk up. Men love to weight train from the standpoint of looking good, getting stronger and bragging about how much they can bench press. But weight training has a whole lot more to offer than bragging rights and a toned physique.

Building muscle gives your metabolism a boost. How? For every pound of muscle you have, you will burn approximately six calories a day (fat only burns two calories a day). That may not sound like a lot but consider that number over a week, a month or a year. It will start to add up. Plus, after a really good weight training session, your metabolism will get an automatic jolt trying to help your muscles recover from all your hard work.

Metabolic Training Programs

Now that you know what to do, you need to put it all together to create a supercharged metabolic training program. This is most effectively done through circuit training where you will use all the major muscle groups and take minimal amounts of rest. Your heart rate will stay elevated through most of the workout as you continually go from one exercise to another with little recovery time.

What is great about this type of training, aside from the metabolism boost, is that you can design your circuit any way you like. Just make sure to incorporate both cardiovascular exercises and resistance training. Your circuit can have six, seven, eight, nine or ten different exercises. The key is to keep moving between each one with no rest. A brief rest will come after you complete one round before you hit the circuit several more times.

When creating a workout like this, you want to choose exercises that will give you the most bang for your buck. That means each cardiovascular exercise should be a high intensity one like burpees, mountain climbers or jumping jacks. Your weighted exercises should be a bit more complex than the standard seated bicep curl, for example. After all, you are looking to kick start your metabolism and sitting down is not the way to do it.

The most effective exercises are those that use both the upper and lower body simultaneously. A good example of such an exercise is a push press—a squat with an overhead shoulder press. Another example is an alternating one-arm row in a push-up position (you can even throw push-ups into the mix for even more of a burn). These are just two of many exercises where you can work more than one muscle group at the same time. Another added benefit—these types of exercises really elevate the heart rate.

Where Do You Start

To create a workout that targets your metabolism, choose six to ten exercises and make sure you have resistance training exercises along with some cardiovascular movements in the mix. Set the amount of reps you want to do for each exercise (for the cardiovascular part, choose a set time like one minute, for example). Go through each exercise quickly moving from one to the other without stopping. Once your circuit is done, take a short break and do it all over again. Ideally, you should go through the circuit at least three times if not more.

If after the first round, you do not feel a bit fatigued, try using heavier weights or taking the cardiovascular portion up a bit. The idea is to work at your maximum level pushing through every rep, jump and squat. If you need more motivation, consider this—studies have shown that training this way raises your metabolism up to thirty-eight hours after the workout is done. Not bad for only thirty minutes of hard work.

With traditional workouts losing their ground in terms of fast weight loss and a sped up metabolism, this newer approach to exercise is winning over many people who find that they do not have to spend hours in the gym to see results. According to celebrity trainer and fitness expert, Jillian Michaels, “Circuit training is an excellent way to simultaneously improve mobility, strength, and stamina.” So if you have thirty minutes and are up for some really hard work, you will reap the benefits of a metabolic training program unlike any other exercise program you have ever done.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

Metabolic Workout Finisher Workout by Mike Whitfield, Certified Turbulence Trainer

It was a big day for a client of mine named Chris.  He hit the 65 lb mark recently.  He has lost that much in just a little over 5 months.  He didn’t use any secret pill or any fad diet, either.  When I asked him, “Chris, what do you think is the #1 secret to your success?”, he responded with one of two things and I’ll let you guess:

“Once a week, I am surrounded by awesomeness, and it’s the awesomeness I find with you Mike”.  OR…

“Paying attention to what I eat, drink lots of water and stay consistent with my workouts even when I don’t want to”.

He said the second one, but I know he was thinking the first one.  Trust me on that.

I’m going to tell you what Chris has done to lose so much weight in a short of amount of time so you can jump start your fat loss or break a plateau you might be experiencing.  It’s a one-two punch that your belly fat doesn’t stand a chance of fighting.  Plus, what has worked has pretty cool initials – MRT and MFs.

Dude, What is Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT)?

What Chris has been using is a combination of Metabolic Resistance Training and Metabolic Finishers to accelerate fat loss.  Why do I find the need to capitalize the first letter in each word of the title?  I don’t know really – but pause for a second and look at it.  It looks cool with the letters capitalized.  Maybe that’s why.  Maybe you’re bored with this paragraph.  Maybe I’ll make this the last sentence of this paragraph.

Metabolic resistance training has been getting a lot of buzz lately due to its fat-torching abilities.  But many people don’t quite understand what MRT is.  It’s almost like strength training and intervals done at the same time.  The reason I put “almost” in italics is because it makes the sentence look awesome.  Seriously, you get the best of both worlds because MRT is strength focused, but with short rest periods and using compound movements, you improve your conditioning.  For example, performing 8 Bulgarian Squats on each leg followed immediately by 6-8 Pullups and then resting for 1 minute is metabolic resistance training.  However, performing bicep curls, resting for 2 minutes and then doing sit-ups, and then finally taking a sip of a protein shake while looking at facebook on your phone is not MRT.

MRT burns a significant amount of calories in a short amount of time due to the compound movements and shorter rest periods.  A program with squats, rows, and pushups set up in a non-competing superset or circuit fashion hits all your major muscle groups in no time.  You not only burn calories while working out, but you also set your body up to burn calories well after the workout – as in up to 38 hours.

So let’s do the math:

Hundreds of calories burned during the workout + Even hundreds more of calories burned after the workout = New wardrobe and feeling dead sexy (too much?)

What are MFs?

Metabolic finishers (MFs) is a way to replace interval training and finish your main strength workout.  They are designed to burn a ton of calories in a very short amount of time, pretty much making you feel spent.  When done right, you will typically have nothing left in the tank once you complete them.  That is why they are at the end of a workout.  Some finishers take only a couple of minutes.

After one of Chris’s main workouts, he does the following circuit 3 times, and rests for 30 seconds between circuits:

1) DB Swings (20)
2) Incline Push-ups (15)
3) Total Body Extensions (15)

As you can see, by incorporating these moves at the end of his main workout, Chris improves his conditioning by working his cardiovascular system without the redundant cardio machines.  He uses his own body and a dumbbell to elevate his metabolism, hitting many muscles in a short amount of time.  This is a great metabolic finisher for his fitness level.

To make the above finisher more difficult and challenging, you can do this:

1) DB Swings (20)
2) Spiderman Push-ups (10 ea side)
3) Burpees (15)

By using a combination of metabolic resistance training and metabolic finishers, you do more in less time, creating an environment within your body that requires a substantial amount of calories to recover.  Yay for science.  Yay for fat burning.  Yay for new clothes.  Yay for the last sentence in this paragraph.

One Last Secret Chris used to Burn 65 lbs of Fat in Less than 6 Months (by the way, this is a long header but you didn’t notice until now, and now you’re chuckling, and now you’re welcome)

Chris has been using metabolic resistance training and finishers for a while now.  He has been typically using superset or circuit fashion workouts lifting heavy early on in his programs (usually in the 8 rep range).  But get this – when he knew he would be busy at work, he would still put in a fast metabolic resistance bodyweight circuit after work, even if he couldn’t complete his main workout.  He would knock out the circuit in 15-20 minutes.

He had this “back-up” program set up of body squats, inverted rows, pushups and cross-body mountain climbers, followed by a 2-minute metabolic finisher for those busy days (he works in retail).

By staying consistent, that has allowed him to drop so much weight in a short amount of time.  So yes, you can use your own bodyweight as a tool for metabolic resistance training.

Using metabolic resistance training and metabolic finishers are the latest tools for creating your own body transformation.  A well-designed MRT and MF program can strip off fat in just 40 minutes a day, 3 days a week.  You can do that.

Mike Whitfield
Certified Turbulence Trainer

Balanced, wholesome nutrition is important no matter what your lifestyle may be. A quality diet, rich in real, unprocessed foods will enrich the lives of everyone, active or not. When it comes to physical performance however, quality nutrition becomes even more crucial. If you expect the best performance from those muscles, you’ll need to fill up with the best nutrition.

If you’re training for a challenge like the tough mudder you will be consistently testing your physical limitations and pushing the body just a little further than it wants to go. In order to progress, your body will need nutrient dense food in sufficient amounts. Ignoring or underestimating the value of diet during training will leave you exhausted and at a stand still.

Nutrition for the Tough Mudder Training Period

The staples of the training period diet should be the same as any other time, assuming you adhere to quality nutrition all of the time anyway. Optimal choices from all three macronutrients are of the biggest concern.

Carbohydrates

Carbs will add fuel to your training fire when. A quality carbohydrate rich diet will keep your muscle glycogen levels topped up, meaning you’ll be ready for any tough physical challenge whenever it pops up in your training.

Just like everything else, your carbohydrate selections need to be clean and real. There’s no room for sugary, processed breakfast cereals or bagels. Raw fruits, vegetables and whole, unprocessed grains will offer the best nutrition and quality energy to your training. These are all rich in fibre as well, which will keep things moving and flowing the way they should.

Variety is key if you hope to enjoy the benefits of all kinds of antioxidants, minerals and vitamins while keeping boredom at bay. Choose a wide range of fruits like apples, berries, oranges and bananas. Add in colourful veggies like orange and yellow peppers, leafy greens, eggplant and tomatoes.

Once you have loaded up on these important staples, throw in some whole grains like wild rice, oats and barely. Quinoa, which is technically a seed, is often considered a whole grain and can be prepared as such. Another bonus of quinoa is that it is a complete protein, meaning you get more bang for your buck.

Avoid any processed or refined grains as they offer far less fiber and are nowhere near as nutrient dense. This means boxed, convenience and refined, white foods are literally off the table.

Protein

Your muscles are going to need plenty of protein to recover from the beating of your tough mudder workout plan will be putting them through. Round after round of snatches, push presses, squats, pull ups and swings will take their toll on your whole body, making it imperative that you refuel with quality protein a.s.a.p.

If you’re a meat eater, stick with the leanest sources as possible. Chicken breast, extra lean cuts of beef or bison, fish and seafood are among the best choices. While fish like salmon is higher in fat than most, it is still a great option since those fats are the heart healthy Omega 3’s we so desperately need.

If meat is not your thing, load up on eggs, egg whites, quinoa, beans and high quality vegetarian or whey protein powder.

Twenty to thirty grams of protein per serving is sufficient for muscle repair and recovery. There is no reason to consume excessive amounts since the body will only process so much at one sitting.

Fat

Once considered a four-letter word, we know understand how important fat is to the human body and brain. Again, this doesn’t imply that twinkies and French fries are appropriate options.

Foods that are rich in Omega 3’s like nuts, fatty fish, avocados, olive oil and flax are all excellent choices. Notice how they are all real, whole foods as well. Nothing packaged, wrapped or boxed.

Enjoying raw nuts as a snack, eggs at breakfast, salmon for supper or a bit of ground flax in your post workout shake. These are all great, tasty ways to consume enough healthy fats in your day.

The Post Workout Meal for Tough Mudder Training

Yes breakfast is important but the post workout meal is even more so. Not only do you need to be very aware of what you’re consuming after your tough mudder training, you need to pay attention to the timing as well.

Ideally you would complete the post workout meal within sixty minutes of your training session. This will allow those much needed nutrients to be shuttled and transported to their appropriate homes in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

Immediately after a tough workout, think of your body as being in a state of desperation. It is starving for nutrients to replace what has been lost. Hormonally, everything is set in place to receive and utilize those nutrients as best as possible. Assuming your choices are appropriate, your muscles will work with those hormones to complete the recovery process to their best capacity.

Fuel up with twenty to thirty grams of quality protein and forty to sixty grams carbohydrates, preferably in liquid form to get that nutrition in as fast as possible. Avoid adding any fat to your meal, as this will slow the digestion rate. You want fast acting nutrition.

The Day Before

To successfully complete a tough mudder challenge, your body will require a lot of energy in the form of stored muscle glycogen. This comes in the form of carbohydrate. The day before the race will be spent enjoying your normal, balanced diet with a special emphasis on carbohydrates.

This is the time to add in a few extra servings of your carb rich favorites like fruit and whole grains. Aim for seven to ten grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight. This will ensure that on competition day, you’ll have lots of fuel in the tank.

Race Day Nutrition

On the morning of the big day, make sure you start with another carbohydrate loaded meal. This will top up the tank and replace any glycogen that was lost while your were sleeping. Pair your carbs with a lean protein and try to avoid too much fat in the pre competition meal since you’ll want to digest that breakfast as quickly as possible.

During the event it is crucial to stay hydrated and your best option may be sports drinks. Not only will you get the water you need, you’ll replace those important electrolytes while adding carbohydrate back as it’s lost through exertion.

You should be well hydrated before the event of course, but make sure you are drinking at every moment of opportunity during the race and again once you cross the finish line as well. Nothing will halt your progress during the competition like a Charlie horse in the calf caused by dehydration.

Enjoy the Day

Feeling sick, lethargic, crampy and exhausted will seriously thwart not only your physical performance, but also your enjoyment of the day you’ve been looking forward to. Proper, sound nutrition is paramount when it comes to putting your body through something as tough as a tough mudder.

Train hard and eat well for an optimal performance during your tough mudder challenge.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

How to Get Faster Results with Ab Workouts Finishers

I actually stumped a friend of mine.

She told me while I was waiting for a client, “well, I worked out, so I’m going to come back later today and do my cardio because I have to get to work”.  She confided in me that she was wanting to drop some weight, especially in her belly,  before “lake season” got here, because she’s a big fan of going out on her friends’ boat during the spring and summer.

I then told her that she didn’t have to come back to do any cardio.  I actually told her, “You know, you can get faster results with a couple of tweaks and getting here a few minutes sooner … all without having to do any cardio”.

You should have seen the look on her face. She was puzzled.  Then it hit her.  She knew where I was heading.  “You’re going to talk about metabolic finishers, aren’t you?”.  I replied with, “well, duh”.  But I also told her I would look at her program and tweak it a little bit to improve her results.

There wasn’t any big overhaul needed… just some adjustments.  I would hate for her to have to learn a whole new program.  That can be intimidating.  I also wanted to adjust it to where she can focus on her belly fat, which she was concerned about. She just needed ab workout finishers.

Fix the Warm-up

The first thing I asked her about was the way she warmed up.  Unfortunately, she did what most people do, which was hop on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes watching MTV’s Cribs.  You’re not missing anything.  It’s a mansion.  There’s a bulldog.  There’s a pool.  The countertops are made of gold and the fridge blends in because it has cabinet doors, too.  The end.

I told her to put in bodyweight exercises that will better prepare her body for the workout.  We plugged in Prisoner Squats, Arm Crosses, Pushups, Planks and more.  This will improve her workout performance, and due to that, she will burn more calories.  The warm-up was fixed.

Minor Tweak to Some Exercises

She actually had a pretty good program going for her.  We just made some exercises a little tougher.  We replaced the DB Squat with the DB Split Squat. I like elevating exercises to single limb movements.  They can be an effective change for fat loss.  Another thing we looked at was her Incline DB Chest Press.  She was amazed at the difference it made when doing a 1-Arm DB Incline Chest Press.  She never knew she could feel her abs work when performing a chest exercise.

Now the ab exercises – they were pretty rough…the sit-up machine and DB Side Bends.  I replaced those with Stability Ball Rollouts and Side Planks w/ Leg Raises.  That would be a big boost to her ab exercises, working her core more effectively, all without hurting her back like machines and DB Side Bends can.

The Finish for Better Results

Knowing she was concerned about her belly fat, I told her to knock out the cardio.  She was bummed to find out that excessive use of cardio increases your appetite.  That explained some of the cravings and munchies she was having.  I told her to incorporate some metabolic ab finishers after her strength session, which is a combination of intervals without cardio equipment and effective ab training to shed belly fat and increase your metabolic rate.  I had her try this one:

The Swingin’ Core Ab Finisher

Do the following superset 5 times, resting for 30 seconds between supersets

KB/DB Swings (20)
Alligator Crawl (20 seconds)

Heart rate up?  Check.  Working the abs and blasting belly fat?  Check. Using incomplete recovery for optimal results?  Check.  Elevating metabolism so she’ll rock the 2-piece?  Check.

That’s the idea behind an ab finisher – to get the calorie-burning benefits of a finisher, along with placing in the latest proven ab exercises to trim the waist.  And needless to say, she was  pleased to find out that she didn’t have to perform any “2-a-days” by coming back later in the day and performing cardio.

I told her by using a combination of a good diet, a solid workout program and using these metabolic ab finishers, she would be all set when it comes time to hit the lake on the boat.  By using finishers, she got to save time and spend more time in the waves drinking a cold one (bottled water… what were you thinking?).

If you’re using metabolic resistance training and you make these few tweaks to your favorite workout program, you will get faster results.  It’s actually a pretty easy tweak if you think about it.  Simply leave work about 10 minutes earlier or skip hitting that snooze button.  Boom?  Boom.

Bam,

Mike (Mikey) Whitfield
Certified Turbulence Trainer
Creator, Ab Workout Finishers

How to Sculpt Your Abs with Finishers

One of my clients who has been with me for a long time actually showed me one of her programs that I wrote when we first started years ago.

Honestly, I was embarrassed.  For one thing, everything seemed to be 15 reps.  But worse, her ab exercises were crunches and stability ball crunches…. yep, you guessed it – 15 reps.

But that was before I learned what I now know.  Fitness training has constantly evolved and I feel it is my duty as a trainer to stay on top of things so I can help my clients as much as possible.  When I first started, I even prescribed more cardio.  Oops.

But much like I learned as I evolved as a trainer, I also learned along the way as I lost 105 lbs.  We make mistakes and we learn how to improve.  Thankfully, I learned more effective ways to sculpt your abs including some of the newer methods like the Stability Ball Stir-the-Pot exercise, as well use intervals and or metabolic ab finishers instead of cardio.

One question that pops up in my inbox as well as on my blog is, “How do you come up with these metabolic finishers?”.  The truth is, sometimes they come out of nowhere.  I always keep a sheet of paper in my pocket or I use my Evernote app on my phone when an idea hits me.  It drives my wife nuts and for some reason, I find that funny.

One thing I wanted to accomplish was to figure out how to work the abs with the most effective ab-sculpting exercises, but in a finisher method fashion.  For example, the Stability Ball Stir-the-Pot exercise is quite demanding, but hey, it’s not like doing Jump Squats.

But if we combine calorie-expensive moves, along with proper ab-sculpting exercises, you can have what I call an “Ab Finisher”.

Let’s do one:

The “Spider” Ab Finisher

Do the following circuit one time

1) Spiderman Pullups (3 per side)

2) KB Snatch (10 per side)

3) Spiderman Pushup Plank (20 secs per side) – this is one of the new exercises that came out of nowhere by the way.  You simply hold the bent leg out at the bottom of a Spiderman Pushup, embracing your abs, then switch sides and repeat

4) Bodweight Narrow Stance Squats (20)

5) Spiderman Climb (10 per side)

6) KB Swings (30)

Rest, followed by a self fist pump (no one is watching, I promise)

That’s chaotic and awesome, sure.  But you also kept your heart rate up, burned more fat and sculpted your six-pack abs simultaneously. Now that’s efficient.  Better yet, your body will burn more calories in hours and hours to come.

That was the whole idea behind using ab finishers with my clients, especially those that wanted to chisel their abs before a big event like a wedding, but didn’t have much time.  I knew that finishers were the way to go, and I knew the best ab exercises to use without hurting their back and neck.  I just needed a way to combine the two.  That’s when the experimentation began.

The good news – metabolic Ab Finishers work awesomely (that’s a word – look it up) to blast fat in a really short time and will sculpt your abs

The bad news – they are not easy and are very demanding.  They challenge you mentally and physically, much like workout B in Craig’s Metabolic Resistance Training program (that one gets me every time).

But if I were to give you a template on how to shed fat really fast and sculpt your abs before your next big event, it would be like this:

●        Nutrition – Create a calorie deficit by consuming whole, natural foods (eliminate the junk and alcohol) and I’m a fan of intermittent fasting

●        Workout Program – a structured Turbulence Training program and aim to beat 1-2 previous bests at each workout (for example, if you did 8 DB rows with a 60 lb DB last week, see if you can nail 8 with a 65 lb DB next time).

●        Follow each workout with a Metabolic Ab Finisher

●        Stay active on your off days by going for a walk, a light jog or even playing with your kids or dog.  This has more to do with your mentality, but it won’t hurt to burn some more calories either.

●        Most importantly – create a successful environment.  In other words, if it’s in the house, you’re going to eat it.  Throw it away.

The above will give you a lethal combination of finishing off belly fat for good.  But don’t miss a step.  It’s all about the combination (kinda’ like a metabolic finisher combined with the right ab exercises).

Ohhhh snap!  What an epic way to wrap it up.  Then again, I ruined it by typing this.  So close… so very, very close.

Boom goes the ab-sculpting dynamite,

Mike Whitfield, CTT

Certified Turbulence Trainer