I'm Sorry

I’m sorry! I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. I wish I had a creative excuse, but alas I don’t. I’ve just been very busy with all sorts of things. In any case, I’m back! I put out a call to my Facebook friends this morning to see what people might want to hear about and Zelinda answered that she wants to know more about ideal workout frequency. Let’s get to it.

Mainly this depends on three different factors:

1. Your goals

2. Your schedule

3. Your condition

Let’s talk about them one by one.

Goals determine everything. (In a perfect world, at least.) If your goal is to win gold at the Olympics then your optimum workout frequency is going to be a little different then if you’re trying to lose a few pounds and stay active in life.

If general fitness (losing a few pounds or something like that) is your goal, in a perfect world my recommendation for weekly workout frequency would be something like this:

Resistance training – 2 or 3 days

Interval Training – 1 or 2 days

Duration Training – 1 day

What this means is I’m looking for 4-5 days of exercise each week. The problem with this is that it’s based on a “perfect world” scenario. Most of us don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world that is mainly governed by…

Your schedule. Listen, all of the perfect world scenarios are useless if you work 50 hours a week and have two kids and an aging mother who needs you to take her shopping twice a week. When planning out your exercise time be honest with yourself about what you can 100% commit to each and every week. If it’s twice a week then great! Absolutely kill it twice a week. I’ve had numerous clients get fantastic results training hard twice a week. The problems occur when someone isn’t honest with themselves about what they can do. Here’s a scenario:

Madeline wants to lose a few pounds. She also has a job and kids so all her time isn’t really hers. She knows that she can absolutely exercise twice a week but she’d like to do three times a week so she tells her trainer, “I’m in for three times a week! Let’s do it!” She’s excited. The first week goes great but the second week her daughter has soccer practice during her scheduled time so she has to cancel once. This happens the next week, too. She makes it three times during her fourth week.

What happens here? In four weeks she made it to 10 sessions. We can look at that two ways. If she committed 100% to twice a week she’d be thrilled! After all she was able to make all her sessions plus two! Unfortunately she committed to three times. So what happens to her mindset here? In both scenarios she made 10 sessions. In one of those she’s thrilled, in the other she feels like a failure. Mindset is crucial in this game so make sure that what you commit to you can do 100% and if you can do more from time to time, that’s great!

That leads us finally to your condition. Basically it comes down to this, if you’re a reasonable healthy person you’ll be able to train more times during the week and get something from it. If you’re not in great shape you should probably start on the lower end of the spectrum and build up from there. This will allow you to progress in a safe and effective manner.

This is a pretty quick rundown but I hope I was able to answer any questions you may have. Please let me know if you have any others. Have a great day!

Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach, FMS

2861 Grove Way in Castro Valley

510-754-7113

MitchRFitness@gmail.com

MitchRFitness.com

I Help People Discover Their Strength!

Diet or Exercise: Which One Works?

I was bumping around Facebook the other day and I saw one of my clients link to a nice article that talked about how exercise itself is pretty useless as far as losing weight is concerned. I know she knew this and it’s something that I’ve talked about many times so it got me thinking that so many people are confused as to what are really the main drivers behind their goals: diet or exercise.

To that end I’ve decided to blatantly steal this article idea! I usually am very careful to give full credit to whomever I get my ideas from but in this case I just can’t remember where I saw this article. If you know please tell me so I can give full credit. I really don’t want to steal anyone else’s hard work.

Weight Loss – Diet! I can’t say this enough. If you want to lose weight you must change your diet. The nasty little secret about trying to do it all with exercise is that exercise just doesn’t burn as many calories as we think it does. Sorry but it’s true. If you hit the gym and then stop at Starbucks or the bagel shop on the way home you probably just took in more calories than you burned right there.

What exercise should do is set you up to maintain, or hopefully raise, your metabolism so that the weight can continue to come off and stay off in the long run. This is why we focus so much on resistance training as opposed to cardio. Resistance training helps build and spare lean muscle so that you can keep that metabolism humming and the fat burning even when you’re not exercising.

Joint Pain – Exercise. If you have nasty recurring issues in your back, shoulders, or knees most likely they’re being caused by some combination of poor movement patterns, soft tissue (muscle or connective tissue) restrictions or just plain muscular weakness. (By the way, I’m not talking about some kind of impact injury.) In the business we also call these things ADLs. Activities of daily living. 

A good trainer should be able to spot these things and help you move better, get you stronger and break through some of those restrictions. Sometimes they might have to refer you to a body-worker if your issues are a little more in depth, but the point is good exercise programming is the way to go here.

Also, and pay attention here because this is VERY IMPORTANT, if this is your issue you’ve got to realize that this takes work outside the gym to improve. Your trainer can tell and show you what to do, but it’s up to you to take those lessons and apply them to your life! After all you might be in the gym 3 hours a week but you’re outside the gym 165 hours other than that!

What diet can do for you here is help you fight some of the inflammation that can come with eating overly processed foods. Up the fruits and veggies in this case as they’re going to be your main anti-inflammatories! Adding in some fish oil can help as well.

General Fitness – Both! In order to improve your general fitness there’s no way around it, you need to take both diet and exercise seriously. Your exercise will build your athletic engine and your nutrition will give you the fuel to run it.

The great thing about it is when put together in a well-constructed plan, the combination of diet and exercise can set you up for a lifetime of fitness and success! Who doesn’t want that?

Let me know if you have any questions about how to improve your diet and exercise and what is important for you to focus on.

Have a great day!

Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach, FMS

2861 Grove Way in Castro Valley

510-754-7113

MitchRFitness@gmail.com

MitchRFitness.com

I Help People Discover Their Strength!

The Amazing-Super-Top-Secret to Great Results!

I have the secret. This is the one you’ve all been waiting for. THE secret that will allow to finally get the results you’ve always wanted.

Lose weight? Yes.

Get stronger? You bet.

Build muscle? You know it.

OK. Now before I tell you this INCREDIBLE secret I need you to promise me something. I need you to promise me that you will actually take this to heart. I’ve worked with hundreds of people over the past six and a half years. People of all ages, body types, injury histories, conditions and goals and I’m telling you that this secret is bulletproof. It flat out works. Every time! After all it is THE SECRET!! 

The one everyone is asking about! The one everyone wants!

The secret that quack Dr. Oz says are in all those books and products he tries to push on you.

All they want is to make a buck off you by lying but I’m giving you the TRUTH for  FREE! So, if I’m going to just give you this secret FOR NO CHARGE the least you can do is listen up and do it, OK?

Alright. Are you ready? Oh boy, this is exciting!

HERE IT IS!

THE BIG SECRET!

THE KEY TO ACHIEVING ALL YOUR FITNESS GOALS!

THE ANSWER TO LOSING WEIGHT, GAINING MUSCLE, GETTING STRONGER AND EVERYTHING ELSE YOU’D EVER WANT TO ACCOMPLISH!

You must show up consistently and work very hard.

I know. It’s hard to believe right? Let me tell you, though. In working with all the clients I’ve worked with over the years, the ones who showed up and worked very hard got much better results than the ones who didn’t.  I know it’s unbelievable, but it’s true!

Here are a couple of examples. (I’ve changed their names to protect their privacy.) Leslie wanted to lose 20 pounds. She hardly ever missed a session despite a very challenging job and family responsibilities. She worked very hard each during every session no matter what and was mindful of her goals and what she wanted to accomplish when she was eating and outside of the gym. Guess what? She lost 20 pounds and now she can even squat and deadlift more than her bodyweight!

Hilda wanted to lose 20 pounds. She’s missed a lot of sessions for reasons such as going out to eat and “not feeling like it.” She complained and resisted adding any weight to her exercises and anything that made her “uncomfortable.” She didn’t pay much attention to her nutrition outside of the gym and didn’t think much about her goals except when she complained about not hitting them. Guess what? She didn’t lose any weight!

See! It’s science! Showing up consistently and working very hard is the super-secret everyone has been looking for! Aren’t you lucky you found it here?

Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach, FMS

2861 Grove Way in Castro Valley

510-754-7113

MitchRFitness@gmail.com

MitchRFitness.com

I Help People Discover Their Strength!

My Self-Involved March 7th Meet Wrap Up

Wow. What a day! I can honestly say that, as a whole, the March 7th NorCal Powerlifting meet was my best meet performance. I've said many times that I've learned something at every meet I've done, good and bad. At this one I learned three absolitely HUGE things about meet prep and the day itself.

Overall, my training going into the meet was very good. I don't recall missing any lifts, with the exception of a shot-in-the-dark bench attempt about 5-6 weeks ago. I did have a little back tweak on a deficit deadlift day about six weeks out but I took care of it and it went away pretty quickly. All-in-all I felt like I was supposed to coming down the stretch.

This leads into the first lesson. I really nailed my taper down to the meet. I'd been doing a fair amount of volume and accessory work for the months leading in. With about a month to go I started cutting down on the accessory work and did a little more high weight work on the competition lifts. I did my openers three weeks out and then did lighter rep work the following week. About 60% of 3 sets of 6-8. I did each lift twice that week and then the final week I did 3 sets of 5-6 at about 50% on Sunday and Tuesday. Doing this I felt fresh, but also still ready to go.

Lesson 2. Breathe! During my squat warmups I started to get a little nervous. This happens to me from time to time with squats. The stress of timing my squat warmups, getting wrapped and getting the first lift in is always a little nerve wracking. Anyway, I started to feel my heart really race and when I took a 275 warmup (about 150 pounds less then my opener) and it felt like 800 pounds I knew I had to settle myself down. I slowed everything down and worked on my breathing. I concentrated on breathing in and out slowly and deeply and then took and easy 315 and 385.

Lesson 3. Nutrition. I never felt like I really figured out how to eat on meet day. I knew to eat light and stay hydrated but it was always a little bit of mystery to me. What I did on this day was treat each lift like it's own seperate training session. Meaning during warmups and each lift eat/drink my usual workout drink. This and a few small snacks did the trick. After each lift I had a dip in energy but by the time the next lift came around I was back up and felt great.

Onto the lifts!

Squats - As I mentioned before, once I got my breathing under control my warmups felt good and solid. My last warmup at 385 was fine and I felt under control. I hit my 429 opener pretty easily. I hit my 451 OK with a pretty good sticking point in the middle, but I felt OK enough to give 463 a shot. Unfortunately, I lost my tightness at the bottom and wasn't able to recover. I was pretty OK with my 451, though.

Bench - My warmups here felt pretty good. I went up to 225 for a pretty easy double. I opened with 253 and it flew up with no problem. Here was my nemesis, though. I have attempted 276 at every single meet I've ever done and have never been able to hit it. I have hit it twice in the gym, but never at a meet. Having said that, I nailed it here and felt great! I went for 281 on my third and got pretty stapled. I think that I was so happy to hit my 276 that I was kind of mentally done for my third. Overall, I was very happy to hit that 276 here.

Deadlift - It was getting late in the day and after bench I definitely felt a little tired but about 30 minutes before my deadlift warmups I started really feeling good. In the warmup room, everything absolutely flew up. A few people asked me how I felt and I was actually afraid to tell them. I went up to 415 and I think that was just as fast as my 225. I opened with 474 and it was easy. I took 501 on my second and it was just as easy. My main goal for the day was to hit a PR total so I went a little conservative here and went for a 513 so I could hit that number. This one took an extra second to get off the floor but came up pretty well after that for a new PR total of 1240!

The total PR meant a lot to me because I hit my previous one about two year ago and weighing in at almost 17 pounds heavier. Adding to that, the last meet I did was the worst one I've done so being to hit this felt like one heck a victory for me.

You can check out the video of my lifts below.

Thanks for reading!

Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach, FMS

2861 Grove Way in Castro Valley

510-754-7113

MitchRFitness@gmail.com

MitchRFitness.com

I Help People Discover Their Strength!

2015 Get Better Series: Nutrition

Last month I gave a talk in which I broke down some simple things people can do to get better at hitting their goals in 2015. Let's talk about nutrition today.

We all know that there can be NO change in body composition without a change in nutrition. Let me repeat that because it seems like I can’t say it enough. 

There can be NO change in body composition without a change in nutrition. NONE. 

The problem I see most when it comes to people’s nutrition is engagement. Way too often people just don’t know what they’re eating. I’ve had people tell me, completely honestly that they’ve followed what we’ve together agreed to do, only to ask a few questions and realize they haven’t changed a thing. There are two great ways to really stay engaged with what you’re eating:

1. Food log. When you start writing down everything you eat and drink it forces you to see what you’ve done your best to avoid seeing. It forces you to see that you're eating a whole bag of chips that you would have forgotten about. It forces you to see that you’re not having desert twice a week, you’re having it 6 times a week. It forces you to see that when you tell me you eat eggs for breakfast, a salad for lunch and chicken and veggies for dinner and that’s it! You conveniently forget the sodas, coffee drinks, chocolate and handfuls of M&Ms you eat every day.

Mostly, though, it forces you to remember what your goals are and that you have these goals in the first place.

2. Remember your goals. Too many people tell me they want to lose weight and when I ask them how their diet is going they kind of get real quiet. If something is an honest to goodness goal why do so many people just forget about it all the time? If I have a weightlifting goal you’d better believe I think about it when I’m lifting. If I have a financial goal you’d better believe I think about it when paying my bills. So if you have a weight loss goal why do you forget about when you eat? Get engaged!

Let me know if you need help getting engaged with your nutrition. 

Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach, FMS

2861 Grove Way in Castro Valley

510-754-7113

MitchRFitness@gmail.com

MitchRFitness.com

I Help People Discover Their Strength!