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Winners of BTC III: Team Challenge

Tola Seng — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:27:37 +0000

I am pleased to announce the winners of the Body Transformation Challenge III: Team Challenge. Congratulations to all our winners. It was a very close competition. Your results have been the best that BTC has ever seen! You guys have inspired me tremendously. I know it took a lot of hard work and dedication to achieve the results that you did. You guys have a lot to be proud of.

Thanks to everybody who participated and donated in the challenge. I hope your participation in the challenge was a positive experience. Please continue your training and keep your journals posted. I look forward to your continued success.

And now for the winners...

Team Winners: Hard Ninety - Rick, Melinda, Phana, Ana

Rick Before:

Rick After:

Melinda Before:

Melinda After:

Phana (Photos Below)

Ana (Photos Below)

1st Place Individual Winner: Phana

Before:

After:

2nd Place Individual Winner: Shaun

Before:

After:

3rd Place Individual Winner: Ana

Before:

After:

Once again, congratulations to all the winners! Your amazing results have given us the best BTC so far! Big thanks to all of the competitors for making this the biggest BTC ever!

Stay tuned for BTC IV...

BTC III - Final Results

Tola Seng — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:06:22 +0000

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the BTC III: Team Challenge. I'm happy to see so many impressive transformations. To be honest, I was a bit reluctant to post up my results because everyone had such amazing photos!

This post is just to get up my photos and stats. I will have a follow up post soon with a review, conclusions and thoughts on the challenge.

Once again, congratulations everybody!

Stats

Weight: 164 lbs
Body fat %: 14.5%

Measurements

Neck - 15 3/4"
Left Biceps - 14 1/4"
Right Biceps - 14 1/2"
Shoulders - 21 1/4"
Chest - 16"
Waist - 30 3/4"
Hips - 38 1/4"
Left Thigh - 22 3/4"
Right Thigh - 23"
Left Calf - 15 1/8"
Right Calf - 14 1/8"

Congratulations of Completing BTC III: Team Challenge

Tola Seng — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:20:32 +0000

CONGRATULATIONS

for completing the BTC III: Team Challenge. Thank you guys for help making it the biggest challenge we have had so far. I hope you guys got alot out of participating in the challenge. I look forward to seeing your after photos and results!

Deadline to Submit After Photos and Results:

The deadline is 11:59:59pm Sunday, July 11th. Please get these in as soon as you can.

Your Photos Will Be Posted Online:

In order to be eligible for the prizes, you will need to have your photos posted online. This will help prevent any judging discrepancies and make the challenge fair.

Beach Bash and Awards Ceremony:

In order to celebrate the completion of the challenge, we will be having a Beach Bash on Saturday, July 17th in Huntington Beach. We will also be presenting the winners and prizes. A mini- decathalon is also planned. Join us for some sun, fun, food and friendly competition and to show off your new beach body.

Tips to Getting Great After Photos

Since it's that time for us to be taking our after photos. I thought I'd give you guys some tips on how to get some after photos that will really show off that chiseled, new body of yours.

1. PrePump

Try to get a nice pump going in your muscles. Do a few sets of exercises that will focus on each of your muscle groups. The trick here is not to overdo it. Your goal is to aim for muscles full of blood, NOT fatigued muscles. Exercises like pushups, pullups, curls, military presses, lunges, calf raises should do the trick. You don't need to be in the gym with a full set of weights. Use whatever you have around you for resistance - even a towel will do the trick.

2.Tan

If you got a few days before taking your photos, go outside in the sun for a nice tan. The definition in your muscles "pop" out more the darker your skin is. That's why bodybuilders use skin tanners before they compete. Don't overdo it though and give yourself a sunburn. You don't want to look red. If you have no time for a tan, then use a bronzer, it won't look as natural but will still be effective.

3. Dehydrate

Okay, you don't want to dehydrate yourself to the point of hospitalization, but you want to get your body to have a lower amount of water. This will give your skin a tightness and will keep your muscles from looking "soft." The trick to this is to plan a few days before your photo shoot. You want to minimize your salt intake and your water intake. There's not really any set "guidelines" for this. Just do it in small and healthy increments and monitor your body.

4. Use Oil

This may be a matter of aesthetics, but if you like the look apply a small amount of oil on your body during the photoshoot. This will give your body a nice shine. Add some glycerin and water into a spray bottle and use that to mist up. Again, don't overdo it. You don't want to look like an oil slick.

5. Proper Lighting

It helps if you have good lighting to enhance the definition of your muscles. To achieve this effect, you want to have "hard" lighting. Which you will usually get from one small, but very bright light source. The best placement for this light source will be directly overhead. Think bodybuilders on stage. If you can get a spotlight above you, or stand underneath a bright enough celing light, you will be able to pull this off. This type of lighting will give you the nice hard shadows that you need to show of the "cuts" in your muscles.

6 Common but Overlooked Training Mistakes

Tola Seng — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:59:50 +0000

Photo courtesy of WhirlingPhoenix

I've been seeing some downtrodden responses in the forums to the effect of, "my training is not working." In light of this, I thought it would be helpful to address some common, but overlooked mistakes in training.

To begin, here are a couple excerpts from one of my favorite books, Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics that gives good insights into how we can use setbacks and negatives to our advantage and help guide us toward our intended goal:

Glance at Negatives, But Focus on Positives

Automobiles come equipped with "negative indicators" placed directly in front of the driver, to tell you when the battery is not charging, when the engine is becoming too hot, when the oil pressure is becoming too low, etc. To ignore these negatives might ruin your car. However, there is no need to become unduly upset if a negative signal flashes. You merely stop at a service station or a garage, and take positive action to correct the problem. A negative signal does not mean the car is no good. All cars overheat at times.

However, the driver of the automobile does not look at the control panel exclusively and continuously. To do so might be disastrous. She must focus her gaze through the windshield, look where she is going, and keep her primary attention on her goal - where she wants to go. She merely glances at the negative indicators from time to time. When she does, she does not fix on them or dwell on them. She quickly focuses her sight ahead again and concentrates on the positive goal of where she wants to go.

Nobody is Right All the Time.

Realize that it is not required that a person be 100% right at all times. It is in the nature of things that we progress by acting, making mistakes, and correcting course. A guided torpedo arrives at its target literally by making a series of mistakes and continually correcting its course. You cannot correct your course if you are standing still. You cannot change or correct "nothing." You must consider the known facts in a situation, imagine possible consequences of various courses of action, choose one that seems to offer the best solution, and bet on it. You can correct your course as you go.

With that being said, here is a list of six overlooked training mistakes that may be preventing you from achieving the fitness goals you desire:

1. Not Enough Rest. Your body responds and adapts during periods of "rest," not during periods of "stress" (training). If you don't give your body sufficient time to adapt and recover, then you will not get the benefits of your training. How much rest do you need? It's different for everybody, but in general, I think you KNOW if you are not getting enough rest.

2. Over-training. This goes hand-in-hand with the principle of recovery. Your body needs time to recover. Over-training means that you are putting too much "stress" on your body. This often happens when we start a new training routine as that is when our motivation is at its peak. A guideline to keep in mind is to not train your body more than twice a week. This has been shown to produce optimal growth and allow sufficient time for rest and recovery.

3. Starvation Mode. This is a culprit for many dieters. It follows the idea that "too much of a good thing" may be harmful. Think of it as over-training in the opposite direction. Dieters think that if eating less will cause you to lose weight, then not eating at all will be a GREAT idea! This is far from the truth. Remember, the goal of diets is to lose BODY-FAT, not bodyweight. By drastically restricting your diet to an unhealthy level, you will trigger your body's survival response to actually "store energy" (aka, body-fat)! This is what is called starvation mode and is the exact opposite of your intended goal. Aim for moderate decreases in your energy intake and calibrate it according to the results that you see.

4. Quitting Too Soon. You need to give your body adequate time to adjust to your new training routine. Everytime you make a "significant" change to your routine, allow yourself two weeks before you review it's effectiveness. You can't proclaim "something doesn't work," if you haven't given it enough time to produce results. I find that two weeks is best to see if a routine is giving you positive results.

5. Not Making Necessary Changes. Remember what Maxwell Maltz said, "nobody is right 100% of the time." I'd also like to add that "nobody is the same." In other words, what works for me, may not work for you. Tailor your plan so that you get the most benefit from it. This requires you to beflexible. To make the necessary changes as you go along. If you find that your diet or training isn't giving you the results that you expect/want, then what changes are you going to make so that it does?

6. Not Asking for Help. Do you know what changes to make in your diet/training that will produce the goals you want? You may hit a bullseye with your eyes closed, but it will only take you that much longer. Ask for help and assistance in areas you feel stuck. Our forums is a great place where you can ask questions and get the proper feedback and guidance.

8 Ways to Improve Your Training

Tola Seng — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:52:59 +0000

Image courtesty of The U.S. Army

If you've ever started an exercise or training routine, you know how frustrating it can be when your gains start to slow down and stagnate. Maybe the scale shows that you have stopped losing weight, or you're unable to add more plates to your bench press. Whenever we stop making gains, we call this reaching a plateau. Plateaus, in any area of life can be discouraging. No matter how hard we train, it seems we're not making any progress. But like a mini peak on a mountain, there is always a way to get to the summit.

When it comes to lifting weights, many people feel that the end-goal is only about how much weight they can lift. "You're making gains only if you're increasing the amount of weight on the bar," is their motto. Of course, there are other ways to be productive and make improvements. If you find that you have reached a plateau in part of your training, consider making gains in some other aspects of training. Here is a list of eight ways you can improve the quality of your training in the gym.

1. Form

Work on improving your form. If you're a beginner, this is the single most important goal you can strive for. If you're a regular gym rat and feel that improving your form is matter for beginners only - think again. They say that fundamentals are everything in sports and in weight-training, proper form is the basic fundamental. The fundamentals can always be worked on and improved. Getting the perfect form on an exercise should be constantly addressed.

If you don't know the proper form, now is the time to learn it. Assist the help of a certified trainer or someone whom you trust. Be weary of the advice you get, however, because it will only take that much longer to correct mistakes and errors from improper form.

2. Speed/Time

Make improvements in the amount of time you spend at the gym. Try to shorten the duration of time you spend on your workouts. Many people spend more time in the gym than necessary. Instead of focusing all of their energy and attention on getting the most from their workout, they can be seen sitting around, conversating, taking long water breaks, talking on the phone. Cut out these extraneous behaviors.

Make it a goal to see if you can squeeze the same amount of wok - or more, in a shorter period of time at the gym.

3. Flexibility/Range of Motion

Try to get the deepest stretches and contractions from your exercises as possible. To do this, aim to achieve full range of motion with every repetition. Get the full stretch in your muscles as you lower the bar. Get the full contraction as your squeeze your muscles.

Aside from injuries, more often than not, I see people failing to get the most range of motion from their exercises. Their squats barely go below perpendicular. Their bench press is a full six inches from their chest. Their rows fall short of touching their solar plexus. If you do not have an injury are failing to get the deepest stretch from your exercises, either you are lifting too much weight - or simply not trying.

A good way to increase your flexibility and make use of the down time between sets is to practice stretching. You can stretch whatever muscle you are exercising in between sets.

4. Enjoyment

Have you ever thought of increasing the enjoyment you get from you workouts? It may be a strange concept to you, if you feel that workouts should be tough, grueling and stressful, but what's the point of doing something that you despise? Yes, enjoyment and satisfaction can be increased.

Make a conscious effort to enjoy your training more. Enjoy the feeling of pushing your body to the limit. Enjoy the pump as your muscles overflow with blood. Enjoy the rush of adrenaline as your body courses with energy. Hey, Arnold Schwarzenegger described the pump as "having an organism." With that type of enjoyment, it's no wonder he trained religiously!

5. Increase Load

There's more to increasing your workout load than merely adding extra weights to the bar. You can also increase the load and therefore the amount of work you do by increasing the amount of:

Reps. Add a few more reps to your sets. If you can't lift the weight for more reps, then lower the weight.
Sets. Add an extra set to your exercise.
Exercises. Add an extra exercise to your workout routine.

Increasing any of these factors will increase your growth. This is where advanced training techniques like pyramids and drop sets come into play. If you don't know what these are, then simply adding one extra rep, set or exercise will help tremendously.

6. Learn

Improving in the gym is not only a matter of improving your body. Learning is also improving. Improve your mind. Strive to learn new ways of doing things. Do you find your workouts repititious? Does it feel like you are doing the same exercises over and over?

Add variety to your workouts by learning new exercises. Or try an entirely new workout. You can add body weight only exercises. You can try kettle bell exercises. There is a tremendous variety of exercises out there. Find one you like and incorporate it into your next workout.

For example, I never tried cardio type "class" workouts, like yoga or kickboxing before. However, I trained with the P90X dvds and found that I quite enjoyed these types of workouts. They are also easy to do and don't require any equipment. Now I have no excuse to not exercise as I can just train at home without any gym equipment.

7. Stamina/Endurance

Try to spend more time at the gym. I know this may go against improving your speed/time, but where the former goal was meant to make your workouts more efficient, the latter goal is meant to increase the endurance of your muscles. Like a sprinter vs a long distance runner.

How long can your muscles work before they succumb to lactic acid and fatigue? Do you get tired easily? Are you out of breathe early? If so, then work on improving your muscular endurance and stamina. Increase the amount of reps you do, or the amount of sets in your workouts. You can also increase the number of exercises you do with each workout.

Strive to add more work to your routine. Your body will adapt to the extra load by increasing it's endurance and stamina.

8. Improve a Specific Body Part

Focus on improving a lagging body part. If your strongest body part is your chest, then maybe you don't need to work on improving the amount of bench press you can do. Maybe your legs or your back is lagging behind. Then spend more time doing squats or rows. We all like to play to our strengths. When it comes to body building and weight training, that often means we neglect the weaker parts of our body - leading to asymmetry and underdevelopment.

I'm guilty of this myself. I tend to workout the upper half of my body to the detriment of my lower half. With this recent BTCIII challenge, I am working on improving the size of my legs.

Look in the mirror, be honest with yourself. What body parts have you neglected? Ask a friend for an "objective" perspective. Sure we all like to have the biggest guns in the room, but if you have chicken legs - then you will look disproportionate.