Lots of people in English soccer this winter have seen the movie Moneyball.
Watching Brad
Pitt play Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s general manager, got them thinking. If
stats had helped Beane to revolutionize traditionally anti-intellectual baseball, might
stats not help revolutionize traditionally anti-intellectual soccer, too? But there are
one or two baseball-soccer
differences that British viewers struggle to overcome. First, what’s with the scouts
chewing tobacco? But above all, why does Brad Pitt play a GM? In the history of soccer,
nobody has ever made a movie about a GM. In a soccer film, Pitt would have played the
glamour role of head coach — or “manager,” as the Brits call it. In
Moneyball that was a subordinate role, played by defiantly unglamorous Philip
Seymour Hoffman.Continental European clubs traditionally had the equivalent of
GMs (“technical directors,” they often called them); British clubs usually
didn’t. Either way, the guy just wasn’t taken that seriously. The manager/head
coach matted.Yet, that ancient structure is now finally crumbling. As soccer
slowly becomes more intelligent, more clubs are realizing that it was crazy to give one
single coach total power. Even in England, last bastion of absolute rule by manager, GMs
look like the future. The GM is coming, and sometimes he even wears glasses and spouts
stats just like Billy Beane.

The dawn of the British GM

Possibly the first “general manager” in English soccer was Sir Matt Busby at
Manchester United. As manager, Busby had resurrected United after the plane crash at
Munich in 1958 had killed his team of “Busby Babes.” In 1969 he quit as
manager, gave himself the title “general manager” and made Wilf McGuinness
“chief coach.” Four months later he sacked McGuinness and became manager
again. When Frank O’Farrell was subsequently hired as United’s manager, and
walked into the office marked “manager,” he found Busby there. O’Farrell
recalled later: “I told him, sorry, he had to move. He seemed OK about it.”
But perhaps he wasn’t. O’Farrell was sacked after 18 months.Busby
had set the template for general managers in England: They would always be seen as
meddlers, forever trying to sit on the manager’s chair. Managers encouraged fans and
media to take this view. In English soccer, the omnipotent job of manager has
traditionally attracted egomaniacs and megalomaniacs. The manager typically wanted to run
everything alone: buy the players, pick the team, run the youth academy — everything. The
“director of football” (as the GM came to be called in British) was a rival
for power. For decades, English managers managed to keep him out.  Yet,
by the late 1990s, with the Premier League attracting coaches and players from around the
world, many people in British soccer were getting interested in wacky foreign ideas. They
saw that American sports clubs, and many serious continental soccer clubs, had GMs. And
they could see that having a GM and a head coach made more sense than letting one manager
run the club alone like Colonel Gaddafi running Libya. The English system of rule by
“absolute manager” is “frankly bonkers,” writes Barney Ronay in
The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of the Most Important Man in Football.

Masters of the temporary fix

The basic problem with managers was that they were short-term messiahs. You hired them
and gave them total power to rearrange the club, to buy and sell anyone they liked, but
before long you generally sacked them and had to clear up their mess. The perfect case
study is Tottenham Hotspur’s purchase of the Ukrainian striker Sergei Rebrov. In
2000, Spurs’s manager George Graham paid Dynamo Kiev £11 million for him –
nearly twice Tottenham’s previous record fee. Clearly Rebrov was meant to be a
long-term investment. But months later Graham was sacked. The new manager, Glenn Hoddle,
didn’t like Rebrov. The record signing was benched, sent on loan to Turkey, and
Rebrov finally joined West Ham on a free transfer.More on soccer managers,
next… 

Continue Reading

Do me a favor. Stop
reading this article for a second and listen to the world. Really hear what’s going
on. Welcome back. How’d it go? What did you
hear? The people at the table next to you breaking up? Your kids watching something on TV
that they shouldn’t in the other room? A distant lawn mower breaking down? It’s
amazing what you hear when you concentrate on what’s happening all around you.
There are so many stories in all that ambient noise. Now lets try it again, but this time turn the focus from external to internal.
Listen to your body. What does it want to tell you? Maybe some injury is nagging you or it’s too warm in this room or you’re in
love and can palpably feel the butterflies in your stomach. Or maybe you’re just
hungry. As much as I’d like to wax poetic
about that love thing, I’m going to talk about hunger. It may seem like a
no-brainer: If you’re hungry, you eat. But if America’s burgeoning waistlines
are any indicator, there’s nothing simple about it. The human digestive tract
isn’t just a fleshy collection of tubes. It’s a wildly complex system linked
to, among other organs, your brain, which, in turn, is heavily influenced by hormones,
external stimuli, past life experience, and a million other things.
In other words, sometimes your hunger has nothing to do with a need
for food. Maybe you’re bored or unhappy. Maybe you have an addiction to refined
sugars. Maybe you’ve trained yourself to view a pint of Häagen-Dazs as a
reward because, well, you deserve it. That’s not your body telling you what it
needs. That’s your brain talking smack. So the ultimate goal is to learn how to
truly listen to your body to determine your nutritional needs. Along the way, however,
you might need a few tricks. For example, counting calories.
If you want to get fancy about it, a calorie is the energy needed to
raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
Huh? I’m already confused.Tony Horton explains why
we shouldn’t be counting calories, next…Continue Reading

Bad news for Mike “The
Situation”: Narcissism is not only bad for relationships, a
new study says it’s also bad for a man’s health.
Researchers from the Universities of Michigan and Virginia concluded
that vain men
who registered strong characteristics of destructive narcissistic traits like entitlement
and exploitativeness had far higher levels of cortisol, which is a known stress hormone
that leads to high blood pressure and heart troubles. The study put 106 people through a 40-item questionnaire to measure their levels
of narcissism. Three of the five narcissistic personality characteristics — leadership/authority,
superiority/arrogance and self-absorption/self-admiration — are considered healthy.
People who scored high in those categories were not found to have increased stress
levels. But those who scored highest in the bad types were found to have the highest
traces of cortisol, and therefore higher levels of stress. Interestingly enough, women were found to be just as narcissistic as men — but
are less affected by the stressful consequences.Continue Reading

Jon Finkel is the author of The Three Dollar Scholar: Awesome Advice for Acing Life’s Major
Decisions and Mindless Debates. He has written for GQ, Men’s
Health, ComedyCentral.com, and The New York Times, among other publications.
Follow him on Twitter @3dollarscholar.  I have written for Men’s
Health magazine, Men’s Fitness magazine, Maximum Fitness
magazine, Muscle & Fitness magazine, Muscle & Fitness Hers
magazine and Muscle & Performance magazine. I have written dozens and dozens
of articles on every possible fitness goal
imaginable, from specific goals like getting thicker
calves, to the all-powerful “lose X amount of weight in X amount of days”
articles. I have interviewed Olympic gold medalists and hall of fame athletes in almost
every sport, and in most cases, I have interviewed their world-class trainers and
nutritionists. I have visited many of the top athletic training facilities in the
country. I have spent 10 years writing about losing
fat or gaining muscle in every conceivable way, and I can tell you with absolute
certainty that no matter what you’ve heard or read or talked to your local
Bally’s Fitness trainer about, achieving your fitness goals doesn’t begin
with diet or exercise or a fitness plan or a DVD or a personal trainer. Getting in shape,
whatever you define “shape” to be, all comes down to one word: Habit That’s the
secret. If you have shitty eating habits, you’re probably fat. If you have shitty
drinking habits, you’re probably fat. If you have shitty exercise habits,
you’re probably fat. If you have shitty sleeping habits, you’re probably fat.
If you have more than two of these shitty habits, you’re probably overweight. Three
or more? Obese. If you have all of them, you might be morbidly obese. Habit. Habit. Habit. There’s no sense in lifting a single weight or walking a single mile if you
haven’t evaluated the shitty habits you have that have made you into the fat
version of yourself that you have become. Not being fat is all about breaking bad
lifestyle habits and replacing them with good ones. There are no magical cures to your
weight-loss dilemma. You won’t get thin overnight. In fact, you won’t get
thin over a week’s worth of nights. But if you erase your bad habits, you will get
thin. What follows is not an exercise plan or diet regimen. It’s not something to
print out and take with you. It is simply an extremely easy way for you to get started in
turning your health around. It costs nothing. In fact, it will probably save you money.
Trust me. If you’ve never exercised or have spent most of your life 20 pounds
overweight or more, following these easy steps to the letter will get you thinner over a
fairly short amount of time. The good news is that you can literally start losing
weight right now. Seriously. This very second you can start becoming less heavy.
Ready? Let’s begin. Month 1: For one month, eat exactly as you have
been, but the only beverage you can consume is ice water. Ice water with breakfast. Ice
water with lunch. Ice water with dinner. Ice water when you’re thirsty. Ice water
before bed. The icier the better. No more coffee, sodas, fruit juices, energy drinks,
sports drinks, etc… Simply ice water. This will literally cut thousands of empty
calories out of your diet every week. You’ll also slowly flush out some of the
toxins you’ve accumulated and give your body a chance to hydrate. Even if all you
ever drink are diet sodas and zero-calorie Crystal Light drinks, this switch will be
highly beneficial for you. Just remember, you must drink water, and there must be ice in
it most of the time. That’s it. There’s all kinds of science behind why ice
water is good for you and I won’t bore you with it here. But do not add
zero-calorie sweeteners, either chemical or natural. Add nothing. If you do this, you
will lose weight. Lots of it. After the first week of getting used to drinking water,
chug one full glass of ice water before you begin any meal. It will fill up your stomach
and you will eat less of whatever you’re going to eat.Month 2: Continue drinking only ice water, but feel free to
add a bag of green or black tea to the water for some flavor. Also, a squeeze of fresh
lemon or lime or even orange is OK, too. A few slices of cucumber are surprisingly good
in water as well. Now that you’ve proven to yourself that you can break your
drinking habit on a day to day basis, it’s time to add a little physical element.
Walk for 30 minutes every day. No exceptions. The 30 minutes don’t have to be
continuous; could be 10 minutes after each meal, or it could be five minutes six
different times a day. But you have to get it in. You can even pace around your family
room during The Office if you want, but you have to keep moving. By finding
those 30 minutes every day to walk, while drinking ice water with your meals, you have
not only eliminated tens of thousands of empty calories from your diet, but you are now
burning calories by getting your blood moving for an extra 30 minutes a day.You can handle that for
two months, can’t you? More tips on forming
healthy habits to lose weight, next…Continue Reading

It’s time to break out the MBA again.But I’m not going to “proactivate” you
with a bunch of management buzzwords, and that’s mostly because I think the majority of
hyper-detailed time-management stuff is a bunch of bullsh*t.

It’s not that scientific

I will not preach a bunch of time management theories. Several books have been written on this subject;
some of them are okay, others, not so much. I’m not a master of time management, and I
have no intention of becoming one. To be honest, I’m dubious about it as a discipline. For
me, it is closely aligned with what I call self-help bullsh*t.A former
employer of mine had a policy where all management staff had to take a well-known two-day
self-help course on being exceptionally productive through adopting a [lucky] number of mannerisms. I’m being
deliberately obtuse because I’m going to slam the course now, and I’ve had enough threats
of lawsuits about my writing to know I don’t enjoy the experience.The course
was the most mindless drivel I’d ever been exposed to. Two days of having common sense
that you should’ve learned by the age of six twisted and “paradigmed” and “proactivated”
into management mumbo jumbo until my brain turned into protoplasm. Then they try to sell
you on day planners and software and… and you just want to barf. I’m skeptical if a
time-management guru has ever really helped anyone manage their time better.Nevertheless, I didn’t want to crap on the entire industry after taking just one course,
so I read a couple of the most popular time-management books and they just confirmed my
suspicions that this is common sense overcomplicated so someone can sell a book or a
course, along with a bunch of add-on crap. I worked over a decade in marketing, and I know
a scam when I see one.Anyway, I guess I can’t just rant about how it’s all a
bunch of crap and not give you any advice at all, because that wouldn’t be terribly
productive, so here is my common-sense-based time un-management advice.

RELATED VIDEO:
Get The Perfect Body With These Workouts

Prioritize

When it comes to time management, nothing is more important than prioritization. An
oft-used axiom is that if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. You must
make the decision that exercise is important to you and you will put it before many other
things. Another axiom is that no one lies on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time
at the office. Conversely, I think there are probably plenty of people who lie on that
same bed wishing they’d spent more time exercising, especially since if they had then they
probably wouldn’t be dying right then.Also, know that being in great health
can make you more productive at everything else you do. If you’re in shape, then you can
be a better husband, a better dad and even a better employee.If you make
exercise and healthy eating a high priority, you’ll find the time to do it.

Plan

I’ve written about this before. You know your life and schedule better than anyone, so
you need to do a bit of figuring your own stuff out. Figure out what time of day works
best for you to exercise. Figure out your running or cycling routes. Figure out how you
are going to fit in breakfast. Figure out which gym has the most convenient location for
you. Figure out that spandex is a bad idea.Figure all this out, then make a
schedule and endeavor to stick to it.

Adapt

Does this even require explanation? Things don’t always work out the way you plan, so
don’t give up on the fundamental goals — just change the plan and try again.Remember what Field Marshal von Moltke said: “No plan of battle survives contact
with the enemy.”

Be Efficient

Thirty minutes of going hard with the weights is far better than an hour of farting
around in the gym. Running hard for 30 minutes burns more calories than walking for an
hour. It also is better for your heart, lungs and cholesterol, and it improves your ability to train harder with
weights.Efficiency doesn’t just apply to exercise. You can pack an entire
week’s worth of gym clothes and take them to the office on Monday so you never have to
worry about missing a workout because you don’t have fresh attire. I found that lunchtime
is a good time for weightlifting, and it allows me to skip those fattening coworker trips
to the Chinese food buffet.If you get creative, you can think of other ways in
your life to exercise efficiently.

Think!

You’ve got a brain; use it. What do you do that wastes time? Where are the holes in your
schedule? What do you need to do to fit exercise into your schedule?Time
management: You figure it out.

Continue Reading

When it comes to eating canned foods, common sense is in order. Plenty of myths abound
about the impact canning and preserving have on foods, much in the same way they
exist about frozen produce (a lot of which is actually healthier than fresh produce).
The general argument is that vitamins diminish over time when produce is tinned, but this
is actually just as (if not more) likely to occur with fresh produce, which often sits
around in packing plants for lengthy periods before hitting the shelves at your local
grocery store. Fruits and vegetables picked for canning are usually
processed quickly. A study at the University of Illinois found that a great deal of canned
fruit and vegetables contains the same amount of dietary fiber and vitamins as their fresh
equivalents.Now that we’ve established canned foods
ain’t all that bad, we ask: What are the best canned foods out there? And what can
we do with them?

Canned salmon

The first heavyweight on our best canned foods list is the mighty salmon. It’s a
worthy inclusion, as not only is this fish rich in omega-3 fatty
acids, it’s actually better for you when canned because it’s packed with the
bones intact, meaning more calcium for your bones and teeth. Also, some of the fat is
removed, making it a healthier option.Try making a salmon Nicoise: Mix the
salmon with cooked  potatoes, quartered tomatoes, pitted (stoned) black olives,
cooked green beans, and soft-boiled eggs. Dress with a vinaigrette made from olive oil,
lemon juice and Dijon.

Canned pinto beans

There is virtually no difference between the nutritional value of canned and fresh pinto
beans; both require cooking for similar amounts of time. The canned beans are much more
convenient and can easily be added to soups or stews. They’re a good source of
folate and manganese, relatively high in protein, and rich in vitamin
B1 as well as a slew of other minerals.Make a traditional tortilla soup (but
lose the tortillas if you’re dieting) with chilies, tomatoes, chicken broth,
avocados (a good source of healthy fats), cilantro, lime juice — the usual suspects –
but add a can of pinto beans to warm through near the end of the cooking time. The soup
will go much farther, and you’ll reap the health benefits from the beans.

Canned tomatoes

Scientists have been talking about ketchup being a healthy part of your diet for a while
now, and this is mainly because lycopene, the antioxidant
component of the tomato, becomes more potent when heated. Thus, canned tomatoes are a high
source of lycopene and are also rich in vitamins A and C while containing no fat or
salt.Make a flavorful sauce to go with roast or grilled chicken. Gently soften
sliced onions with garlic. Add torn olives and canned tomatoes, and let cook for a short
while. Just before serving, throw in some torn-up basil, then serve alongside your
meat.

Canned smoked mackerel

Although cooked mackerel is generally healthier for you than smoked (as it doesn’t
contain any of the nitrates associated with this method of cooking), we’ve gone for
the smoked because it is infinitely more versatile and delicious. Canned
smoked mackerel is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids and is very
inexpensive.Make a smoked mackerel paste by blitzing the mackerel with cottage
cheese, low-fat natural yogurt, cracked black pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Eat
with crackers or on whole wheat toast.We’re serving up five more of the best
canned foods next…

Continue Reading

While the tall-man, longer-penis
theory is an old wives’ tale, a new report shows that taller men
are biologically superior in at least one other way: They have better hearts. A new study of U.S. doctors found that taller men
tend to have less heart failure than shorter men. The study followed 22,000 mid-50s male doctors for more than
20 years. In that span, about 7% — 1,444 doctors — developed heart failure. The
tallest men in this study — those 6’0″ and taller — were 24% less likely to develop
heart failure compared to the men 5’8” and shorter.
It’s possible that these doctors had very different childhoods;
depending on whether they were rich or poor, their diet
during upbringing could be affecting them later in life. Differences in early life
activities were not factored. There’s no
proof that those extra inches of height protect the heart, but one hypothesis is that
their biology gives their heart more space to work with between the branches of the
arteries and blood vessels, and therefore are less stressed over time.Continue Reading

From time to time, people ask me,
“Why do you work out six times a week, and why should I do the same?” Fair
question. But let me throw a question of my own out there: Why shouldn’t
you? You’re creating a good habit. We
all have bad
habits. During this time of year, everyone and their mothers are busy making
resolutions to change the bad habits they picked up the previous year. You should
add exercising six days a week to your list. You start this good habit, and then soon
it’ll become part of your lifestyle. Once that happens, you’ll feel guilty if
you miss a workout. Why? Because it’ll be part of who you are now. A more
health-conscious, self-aware you. A better you.I
can hear you now saying, “But, Tony, I don’t really have to work out six
times a week, right?” Well, you don’t have to do anything. It’s a free
country. But before you put the weights back on the rack or roll up the yoga mat, let me
ask you some questions first. Don’t you sleep every day? You eat and shower every
day? You brush your teeth daily, right? So what happens if you don’t sleep for a
few nights? What if you choose not to shower for a number of days? Skip a few meals? What
happens isn’t pretty. You end up a smelly, ravenous zombie with halitosis. You feel
terrible. You look like hell. But the moment you get some food in your stomach, the
instant you step underneath that hot water, the second you wake up from a good
night’s rest, the minute you extinguish that dragon breath, you feel revitalized
and reenergized. Consistent exercise does the same for you and more. Much more.RELATED
VIDEO: Performance Tips From The World’s Greatest Athletes
Inconsistent exercise
is the fitness equivalent of driving across the country on surface streets. You’re
bound to hit nothing but stop signs, streetlights, detours, construction — you name it.
You spend a ton of time spinning your wheels, wondering why you’re not getting
anywhere or seeing any noticeable results. You don’t get any momentum. You
don’t get good mileage — only frustration with your lack of any decent progress.
Hell, there’s not even anything good to listen to on the radio. This trip sucks.
You wouldn’t drive from Los Angeles to New York only using residential streets and
back roads. Jump on the freeway and drop the top. Get the wind in your hair. The
six-days-a-week mentality and lifestyle will get you on the “open highway” to
better fitness and results.There’s a
well-known quote that applies to this topic. Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss,
you’ll land among the stars. Don’t settle for the bare minimum or give the
least effort you think you can get away with. If you’re going to do something, do
it to the best of your ability. Most people aim to work out around three to four days a
week. Well, that’s good, but it ain’t great. Let’s be frank. You know
as well as I do what tends to happen to us.So? What tends to happen that
six days a week will fix? That’s next…Continue Reading

Ever look at a fitness magazine or watch a few minutes of an infomercial after getting
back from the gym and think, “Why don’t I look like that?” The ads want you to believe
that with their products anything is possible. In his article “How
To Get A Fitness Model Body” AskMen fitness expert James Fell explained that no piece
of equipment or dietary product will get you perfectly sculpted. Even with the right
dietary restrictions and workout regime, it’s extremely difficult to attain the ideal
physique. Author and fitness model Vince Del Monte goes even further, explaining that the
bodies we see in the media are not only near impossible to achieve but are impossible (and
unhealthy) to maintain.The above photo was taken 24 hours after I
competed in a fitness show in 2011. The actual truth about how I achieved this
condition is a tough pill to swallow, so instead of offering you false hope by promoting
my products and services as the answers to a ripped and
muscular physique, let’s make sure you’re ready: Can you handle the truth? Well,
here it is.To get into this extreme shape, I began weight training at the age
of 22 and have continued to lift consistently for the past nine years (not nine weeks). I
was able to take my scrawny, 149-pound body to a muscular 227 pounds (and not without
gaining fat through the “bulking up” process). Understand, it’s impossible to gain muscle
without fat unless you’re taking performance-enhancing drugs. I chose not to.For the four months leading up to this picture, my diet was very strict. I ate every
three hours. I ate six different protein sources a day (sirloin, whole eggs, white fish,
turkey, chicken, protein powder), four different carb sources a day (brown rice, Ezekiel
cereal, quinoa, yams), two different fat sources a day (avocados, mixed nuts), consumed
vegetables with every meal, trained from 1.5 to 3 hours a day (six days a week), and
eliminated all alcohol and sweets. I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. and rose at 6:00 a.m. every
day. My weekly grocery and supplement bill was around $300 a week. I invested $4,000 to
hire one of the top bodybuilding coaches in
the world. I have a very supportive wife who lives and breathes the same lifestyle, making
it easier.RELATED
VIDEO: What Not To Eat Before Your Workout
I was also training at one of the best gyms in the country and was surrounded by
celebrities and professional athletes to keep me motivated.
I grew up in an extremely goal-oriented home so I have my own natural drive to be
successful. I was competing for my Pro Card (which I won), giving me huge motivation. Did
I mention I was filming my entire transformation to create a brand new product called
Stage Shredded Status? That gave me financial motivation, too. I also invested in a
professional photographer who shot over 800 images to capture this one. I wouldn’t doubt
that some digital retouching was applied to fix some of my cosmetic flaws — and that was
after my body was already water-depleted and carb-loaded (sneaky tricks we fitness models
know)!  In fact, what most people don’t know about the fitness models and
bodybuilders who are promoting the next pill, powder or potion is that these models are
scheduled for photoshoots immediately after competitions. This is to ensure the model is
in extreme shape after months of dieting, intense
training (often times with the use of steroids and growth hormone), tanning, posing
practice, using diuretics, and other photo-enhancing products and tricks.Although this type of extreme shape is temporary, many magazines and advertising
campaigns hope their prospects buy into the belief that this condition is the standard
look, rather than the exception, and never do they explain that this look is temporary and
that these models do not look like this all the time. These images may inspire millions,
but they also mislead millions. Individuals are encouraged to emulate their idols, not
knowing how they really got there.Find out how to get the most from your
workouts…Continue Reading

Your general goal should be to gain a half-pound to two pounds of muscle each week. To
accomplish this weight increase, you will need to gradually consume an extra 500 to 1,000
quality calories a day above your basal metabolic rate and exercise exertion requirements.
These additional calories will promote faster muscle growth.The average
hard-training individual will need to consume at least 10 calories per pound of body
weight just to meet their daily basal metabolic requirement. If you are training, you will
need to take in an additional seven calories per pound of body weight to meet
any daily activity that requires movement and focused exercise, such as weight training
and cardio. For example, an individual who weighs 180 pounds, is moderately active
throughout his regular life and who weight trains intensely and consistently will need to
consume approximately 3,060 calories to add quality muscle to his body (180lbs x 17 =
3,060).Many bodybuilders do well with a macronutrient calorie breakdown of 40%
complete complex carbs, 30% protein and 30% fats. Keep in mind, this example is intended
to be a guideline because your body has a unique set of dietary responses. Others may find
a different ratio works better for them. It’s strongly suggested that you use your body
and the mirror as your main guidelines — if you’re not pleased with how you feel or what
you see in the mirror each week, minor adjustments to your nutrient ratio and serving size
are acceptable until you find what works best for your body.To encourage muscle
growth, strength gains and recovery, you need to ingest sufficient amounts of
high-quality protein along with enough complex carbs to fuel heavy and intense training
sessions. Strive to consume at least 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight
and 1.5 to 2 grams of carbs per pound of body weight (as a baseline). Pay attention to how
your body responds to the ratio of protein and carbs you are eating; depending on your
body’s insulin sensitivity, metabolism and body fat levels, your needs will vary. Start
with at least 1 gram of protein and 1.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight and add
25% each week if you’re not growing. Your dietary fat intake should account for 0.5 grams
of fat per pound of body weight.There are four calories in every gram of carbs
and protein and nine calories in every gram of fat, so an individual who weighs 180 pounds
will consume 180 grams of protein per day (180 x 4 = 720 calories), 270 grams of carbs per
day (270 x 4 = 1,080 calories) and 90 grams of fat per day (90 x 9 = 810 calories). In
total, that’s 2,610 calories to gain quality muscle mass without unwanted body fat. So,
how do we make up the missing 400 calories? (Remember, our daily calorie guideline is body
weight multiplied by 17). The answer: One “Freebie Meal” a day, which I’ll explain in a
moment.RELATED
VIDEO: What Not To Eat Before Your Workout

Advanced Rules To Maximize The Muscle-to-Fat Ratio

1. Establish a regular meal cadence by consuming at least five calorie-dense whole-food
meals and one muscle shake each day. At first, this might seem like a lot of surplus
calories, but this amount is necessary to facilitate muscle growth.2. Earn
your carbs by timing them as follows: one meal before you train, during your workout, one
hour after you train, and four hours after you train. Only give your body carbs when they
are required for intense exercise.3. Rotate your protein sources at each meal
to optimize digestion and absorption. The best sources of protein are bison, buffalo,
sirloin, venison, turkey, chicken, white fish, salmon, and whole eggs. Hydrolyzed protein
is your best protein powder supplement.4. Rotate your carb sources at each
meal to prevent allergies. The best sources are potatoes (all colors), yams, white and
brown rice, Ezekiel cereal, Ezekiel bread, oatmeal, beans, and small amounts of fruit. A
carb powder like Vitargo or Karbolyn are your best carb powder supplements. Gatorade is
sufficient if the first two options are beyond your budget.5. Eat at least 1
cup of veggies with every meal to optimize digestion and absorption, and to control blood
sugar levels.6. Rotate your fat sources each day to get a variety of
saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats into your diet — walnuts, pecans,
cashews, almonds, all nut butters, coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, and a variety of
seeds.7. Sip on 30 to 50 grams of carb powder, 5 to 10 grams of glutamine, 5
to 10 grams of branched-chain amino acids, and 3 to 5 grams of creatine starting 30
minutes into your workout in order to blunt cortisol (a catabolic hormone released in
response to stress) and to initiate muscle growth.8. Drink a top-quality
organic greens supplement when you wake up. This will infuse your body with easily
absorbed vitamins, minerals, amino acids, chlorophyll, enzymes, phytonutrients, and
alkaline salts that help neutralize acids and ensure your cells are living in an
environment in which they can thrive and grow.Sample meal ideas are
next…

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A new study by Korean researchers found that the length of men’s fingers
indicates the length of their penises. The study found that the longer a man’s right-hand
ring finger is than his right-hand index finger, the longer his penis. To test their
hypothesis, the researchers stretched men’s flaccid penises as much as possible before
measuring them because “stretched [flaccid] penile length provides a reliable estimate of
the potential maximal elongation during erection,” the researchers wrote. “Therefore, the
technique applied here for stretched penile length measurement is highly recommended for
accurate prediction of erect penile length. Penile length was measured under anaesthesia,
avoiding pain or discomfort when the penis was fully stretched.”The difference
in length between the right-hand ring finger and the index finger — a comparison
scientists call the “digit ratio” or “2D:4D,” for “second digit” (index finger) and
“fourth digit” (ring finger) — is studied
avidly because it correlates directly with many physical, behavioral, psychological,
and sexual aspects of human life. Males typically have longer right-hand ring
fingers than right-hand index fingers. (Paradoxically, this larger difference in length is
called a “low digit ratio.”) Females’ right-hand ring and index fingers are typically the
same length. (This is called a “high digit ratio.”) The farther apart the fingers are in
length, the lower the ratio; the closer in length, the higher the ratio. Digit ratios are
largely determined by male and female hormones, to which fetuses are exposed in utero.

Meaning Of Fingers

Entertainment Preferences 

Individuals with longer ring fingers — that is, low 2D:4D — prefer action films,
hip-hop, erotic footage, and video games involving killing over other types of
entertainment. This recent study, also out of Korea, also found that low 2D:4D folks –
that is, mainly men — really dislike romance films. (High 2D:4D folks like
them.) ”In addition, we found that low 2D:4D was associated with a preference for
sports instead of other genres of entertainment products,” the researchers wrote.
“Therefore, 2D:4D helps us to better understand the rationale of individuals’
preferences for media violence.”

Sexual Orientation  

Males with very low 2D:4D have a higher likelihood than other men of being gay, according
to a study by University of Liverpool researchers.  ”There was a significant positive
relationship between mean 2D:4D ratio and exclusive homosexuality,” the researchers
wrote. Another
study by the University of California, Berkeley, confirmed these connections,
adding that the likelihood is even higher among men with elder brothers. The Berkeley researchers also noted that lesbians tend to have low — that
is, typically male — digit ratios.

Depression

Males with high-digit ratios — that is, typically “feminized” ratios with index and ring
fingers of the same length — are more likely to be depressed than men with low-digit
ratios. The University of Alberta study found high rates of clinical
depression in men with those digit ratios. ”The risk and prevalence of major
depression is about twice as high for females compared to males,” the researchers wrote.
“Not only do women report depression more often, but they also report more symptoms per
depressive episode, and are more susceptible to stressors than men. If this is the case,
higher, more feminine digit ratios should correlate with higher scores for depression
within each sex.” And they do. More meaning of fingers next… 

Continue Reading

Didn’t your parents tell you
eating broccoli would make you
smarter? It’s good they taught you that because new research shows that people
with better education eat more fruits and vegetables. The study, published in Nutrition Journal, comes
from Concordia University, which examined data from 94,000 people aged 18 to 69. They
determined that fruit and
vegetable consumption is correlated to education. Those with a lower education and income ate about 4.5 servings per day compared
to those with a higher education and income, who surpassed the recommended daily intake
benchmark and ate over five servings. Also, people who were better educated reached for
carrots and apples more frequently. Some other
interesting breakdowns in the demographics showed that women nosh on fruits
and vegetables more (5.4) than men (4.5). Meanwhile, single people, smokers and
40-year-old adults without any children at home were the lowest consumers of the good
produce. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but
in more serious terms, meeting the recommended daily requirements of fruits and
vegetables reduces the risk of diabetes, strokes, obesity, and high blood pressure. Get
some —  and don’t let your educational level get in the way of your health.More on AskMen:The
Consequences Of A Bad NameThe
Ingenious Ways Hackers Exploit UsContinue Reading

5. ZZ Top, “Legs”

Remember when heavy
metal started sounding like disco, all shimmery synths and programmed beats? No? Just
imagine what a Van
Halen tune sounds like and then play “Jump” — no racing guitars and headbanging,
right? Just high-def production and a great melody. Like Kiss’ “I Was Made for
Lovin’ You,” ZZ Top presents the same sonic disconnect between their image and
songs like the amazing “Legs.” If only all hair metal was as cool as this beard metal.

4. LCD Soundsystem, “I Can Change” (Stereogamous remix)

Now much mourned and
sadly defunct, LCD Soundsystem was the first band to work with Nike to compose one long
continuous track to soundtrack a run from warm-up to cooling down. The result, “45:33,” is
a great one to jog to, containing the seedlings for what would later turn into the
stunning track “Someone Great.” But perhaps the New Yorkers’ most suitable workout
track is their mantra-stic “I Can Change,” here in the pulsating Stereogamous remix.

3. Skrillex, “Bangarang”

Much can be said about
dubstep: that it got corrupted and turned into “bro-step” upon arriving in the U.S. from
the UK, or that it’s just a silly studio trick to make any pop diva hit get that super
wobbly bass advantage. But both of those criticisms neglect the sheer level of crazy
energy contained in the beats purveyed by artists like Skrillex. And it’s right at the
hardest part of your workout, when you need that extra burst of energy. Step it up!

2. Bruce Springsteen, “Dancing In The Dark”

The Boss’ workmanlike
approach to rock makes his tunes a great match for runners who just need a dose of
discipline to stick to their New Year’s resolutions. Others may prefer the perennially
misunderstood “Born in the USA,” or the, yes, very suitable “Born to Run,” but I suggest a
live version of “Prove It All Night” or “Dancing In The Dark,” which pairs Bruce’s usual
passion with sheer and blatant fun.

1. Daft Punk, “Around The World/Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” (live
mashup)

Say what you will
about his Twitter rantings, but Kanye West has
great taste in samples, as shown in “Stronger,” a song pilfered wholesale from
Daft Punk. This French powerhouse has no shortage of motivational club bangers, and
nowhere is this more apparent than at their rare live appearances, where their hits flex
and morph into each other with tactical brilliancy. The fantastic live
album Alive 2007 portions out the classics in tantalizing style, and
you’ll find yourself taking on lap after lap just to hear “One More Time,” er, one more
time.

Continue Reading

I’ll admit that there may be some good reasons to bring along your significant other
when you hit the gym, like providing her with the opportunity to do something about the
hail damage on her ass, but in my opinion, the costs outweigh any potential benefits.
  Convincing her to work out is
great, but send her to pilates or Curves instead.   The gym is my
version of church, and I’m a deeply religious man in this sense. I don’t want
my wife interfering with my prayer sessions, and neither should you.   Sure, you may have a woman for whom these reasons don’t apply. If so, bully for
you. Feel free to ignore this advice. If you do take her with you, please remember, no PDA.   For the rest of you, here are six damn good reasons why working out should either
be done solo or with a friend who also stands up to pee.

You Can’t Check Out The Babes

Let’s get one thing straight: Ogling women and wandering around drooling with a
visible hard-on while at the gym is seriously not cool. They don’t like that.
Conversely, I think the occasional subtle glance using the mirror is perfectly acceptable.
  If your girl is with you, you can kiss that goodbye.   Seriously, no matter how discreet you think you are, you’ll get busted. And
you’ll pay.  

She’ll Check Out The Babes And Ask How She Compares

And there is no good answer.   You can be honest, which is a big mistake,
or you can get down on your knees and promise on your own soul that she is the most
beautiful creature in all the gym — nay, the world!   And
she’ll still think you’re full of crap.   Going to an
environment where there are lots of sweaty hard bodies in spandex for her to compare
herself to could make her anxious, and this won’t be good for her mood. And, again,
you’ll suffer for it. 

She’ll Distract You

I’m talking about weightlifting
here. If she doesn’t know how to lift, she’ll want you to train her, which
seriously takes away from your workout. If you want to go to the gym together, and you
lift while she takes a class or jumps on an aerobic machine, then that’s fine.
  But even if she is capable at lifting, chances are she isn’t
going to be as strong as you or want to follow a similar program. When working out with a
friend, I go with a guy of similar abilities so that we can push each other more
effectively. No offense to women, but most of them just aren’t as physically strong
as men are.   That’s OK, though, because they make up for it in
other ways.Read on for more reasons why you should never work out with your
significant other…

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Alabama football head coach Nick Saban earned a $400,000 incentive on top of his annual
$4.73 million salary for guiding the Crimson Tide to a BCS National Championship on Monday
night. That’s quite the bonus, but for a college
football program that’s worth more than half a billion, it’s chump change.Ryan Brewer, an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue
University Columbus, analyzed 115 of the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision schools to
calculate the worth of the football programs, and the numbers are jaw-dropping.The LSU Tigers, the team Alabama shutout 21-0 to win the title on Monday, are estimated
at $504.2 million.The Tide are worth a cool $522 million, but that doesn’t even get them
into the top five.  The Texas Longhorns lead the way by a long shot
coming in at $805 million. The Florida Gators are a distant second at $630.2 million,
while the Michigan Wolverines ($618.6), Notre Dame Fighting Irish ($581.2), and
Georgia Bulldogs ($564.6) round out the top five.To determine the value, each
program’s revenues and expenses were factored in along with cash-flow adjustments, risk
assessments and growth projections.More on
AskMen:Kreayshawn’s Dating
TipsThe
Easiest Way to Start Looking BetterContinue Reading

“First and foremost, I just want to thank my savior, the Lord, Jesus Christ. I am so
thankful for the platform God has given me.” -Tim TebowTim Tebow had an incredible game yesterday. It was maybe the best game of his career.
Not many people thought Tebow could pull it off. He had lost three straight games and was
going up against a tough Pittsburgh defense. But Tebow came out strong, not afraid to run
or throw the long ball.The Broncos as a whole had a great team game, but the
outcome really came down to Tebow. His 125.6 QB rating was the highest in the Broncos’
history. It was a phenomenal first playoff appearance. But was it a miraculous
performance?The Internet thinks so.Tebow
threw 316 yards against the Steelers, completing 10 of 21 passes. That’s an average of
31.6 yards per completion. Tim Tebow’s favorite Bible passage is John 3:16. (If you’re not
up-to-date on John 3:16, I think it goes something like this: “For God so loved the
Broncos that He gave them the one and only Tebow and that whoever believes in him shall
not perish at the hands of the Steelers and have eternal life, or at least until next week
when they meet the Patriots.”)Are Tebow’s numbers just coincidence, or was
there divine intervention?Seriously? Tebow’s savior, Jesus Christ, has nothing
better to do on Sunday afternoon than fix an NFL game so that Tebow’s passing numbers
match a Bible verse?Really? What about stopping the cholera
epidemic in Haiti that’s now killed over 7,000 people? Or what about not opening up a hole in
the ground under the feet of a one-and-half-year-old toddler in Russia? Or, if Tebow’s
savior has a thing for numbers, maybe He could solve the European debt crisis. Those would
all be great things to do on a Sunday — that is, if you’re not watching football.And even if Jesus Christ checked in see what was going on at Mile High on Sunday,
should God be a bit peeved with Tebow? Isn’t the seventh day the day of rest? Tebow worked
like a mule out there and earned a pretty good chunk of change doing so (about $250,000).
The Steelers gave it a go but were just too banged up. Ben Roethlisberger’s
ankle and the numerous injuries to defensive stalwarts were too much for Pittsburgh to
overcome. Tebow played well, but it wasn’t a miracle. The only noteworthy words spoken by
a John were John Elway’s words of advice to Tebow before the Wildcard game: “Pull the
trigger.” And he did. Tebow was great in the first half, and when it came down to Tebow
time, the Denver QB did what he needed in order to pull off the win.Tebow had a great
game, so give him credit. God might work in mysterious ways, but this is just too much.Continue Reading

“I want to proactively synergize your core competencies toward an optimized fitness
paradigm.Sorry, that’s the MBA talking.I’ll admit that
having an MBA and sitting through all those boring
don’t-yawn-don’t-yawn-don’t-yawn strategic planning meetings has been
valuable in terms of helping my clients view getting in shape from a big-picture
perspective. Who knew?Beyond learning how to master the secret
one-nostril-inhalation yawn method, I picked up some business learnin’ that can help
you ditch the gut and pump up for the gun show or whatever.So this article is
all about setting fitness goals
and how to achieve them, because an adage of business is “What gets measured gets
done.”

The desire to look good

Vanity is not a bad thing. When used properly, a little bit of vanity can be good for
your health. For example, a number of people have been prompted to quit smoking not
because it destroys them on the inside and makes them smell like the inside of a Cold
War-era Russian submarine, but because it causes wrinkles.Some people take it
too far, like bodybuilders who focus solely on achieving what they perceive as an
aesthetic ideal, health and physical performance be damned. So feel free to embrace a bit
of vanity as a goal. Just don’t go overboard.Personally, this is where
my fitness
motivation comes from:-One-third vanity-focused (looking good)-One-third health-focused (things like improved longevity, lowering cholesterol,
decreasing cancer risk, lowering blood pressure, etc.)-One-third physical-performance-focused
(how fast I can run, how much I can lift, how much energy I have, etc.)I think
this is a good approach, and the three motivations are mutually inclusive. So think about
what you want to achieve in terms of vanity, health and physical performance. Get this
idea in your mind. Write it down, even. These are your “outcome goals.”

RELATED
VIDEO: Performance Tips From The Worlds Greatest Athletes

What are outcome goals?

Also known as “long-term goals,” outcome goals can be motivating. They keep you reaching
toward something. Personally, I believe in aiming high so that if you only achieve 80% of
your goal, you still feel like you’ve done something awesome. I also like pushing
outcome goals. This means that if you do fully achieve them, you don’t just focus on
sustaining it, but instead reach for a higher level.But to achieve the
outcome, you need to focus on the process.Here’s how to do
that… 

Continue Reading

Guys, we’ve got a phenomenal man-weekend ahead of us. In some ways Wildcard Weekend is
even better than Super Bowl Sunday.
Instead of only one (usually over-hyped) game, we’ve got four great match-ups, and unlike
the regular season they all have different start times so we won’t have to miss any of the
action. Some people skip over these first round games because it’s a bunch of lower-tiered
teams fighting it out. But the Steelers, Giants, Texans, Lions, Falcons, Bengals, Broncos,
and Saints are all good teams. Some are even great. These teams have all
slugged it out through an arduous regular season and all deserve the chance to move on.
But in order to play in the divisional championships, teams will have to fight tooth and
nail for every yard. A few key players will have to man up for their teams to have any
chance of winning.Ndamukong Suh
(Detroit Lions): The Lions’ star defensive tackle is a tough opponent to play
against, but he has a nasty streak that can get him in trouble and cost his team (he was
suspended for two games earlier in the season for stomping on Green Bay’s Evan
Dietrich-Smith). Suh will have to focus his energy into making smart plays and make sure
keep his temper under control. In order for Detroit to win they need Suh to be better than
he’s ever been since he’ll be facing a surgical Saints’ offense and a record-setting QB
Drew Brees.Will Smith (New Orleans Saints): In a battle
against two of this year’s best quarterbacks it’s the defense that needs to pull through.
Everyone knows that both Brees and Matt Stafford will be throwing bombs on Saturday and
that they’ll put points on the board. The regular season has shown that there is no way to
completely shut these guys down, so they’ll have to make the big plays when it counts.
Defensive end Will Smith needs to come out charging against Stafford and try to get into
the head of the 23-year-old QB early. A few early stops with some pressure on the body
(Smith has 6.5 sacks this season) should give Brees just enough room to work his magic.John Abraham (Atlanta Falcons): If there’s one guy on the Falcons
D who should be able to frustrate Eli Manning and the Giants’ offense, it’s defensive end
John Abraham. The guy had a decent 9.5 sacks this season and also forced four fumbles. New
York is relying on Manning to win the game for them, so if the Falcons can smother the
Giants’ offense they might be able to surprise many people and move onto the next
round.Eli Manning (New York
Giants): New York is a good team, but not a great team. They do, however, have a
quarterback who can be great. Eli
Manning is a solid QB who can usually step up his game when it really counts. When
Manning is firing on all cylinders the Giants can beat any team in the league. New York
doesn’t even need a complete game from the guy — as long as he can come through in the
last half, the Giants should do fine. Tim Tebow (Denver Broncos): Speaking of
not needing a good QB for an entire game, the Denver Broncos need Tim Tebow to
step up (if only for the last two minutes of the game). In their last couple of regular
season games, Tebow definitely had some opportunities to help his team, but his throws
were off the mark. Tebow really needs to pull the trigger on Sunday. Unfortunately, those
words of advice were spoken by John Elway and not Tebow’s lord and
savior Jesus Christ so we’re not sure if Tebow will listen. Broncos fans are hoping he
got the message.Isaac Redman (Pittsburgh Steelers): With Ben
Roethlisberger’s ankle still giving him trouble, the Steelers will need to rely more on
their running game than they would probably like — especially since starting running-back
Rashard Mendenhall is out with a torn ACL. With Big Ben hobbling around the pocket, he’ll
need to hand off to RB Isaac Redman who will need to be able to handle the increased
workload. If the Steelers don’t want to get Tebowed, Redman will have to keep those legs
pumping.T.J. Yates (Houston Texans): Yates is a third-string
rookie quarterback and the Texans are making their first-ever playoff appearance. Cue the
dramatic music. The Texans have a highly rated defense, and while the old saying goes
“Defense wins championships,” no team has ever won a game without putting points on the
board. Yates needs to watch every feel-good sports movie ever made and make sure that he
has the game of his life on Saturday. Geno Atkins (Cincinnati Bengals): While
the Bengals are also starting a rookie QB, he’s no third-stringer. Andy Dalton will
definitely have some nerves to get over but should hopefully settle down quickly. The real
key to a Bengals victory will be to put consistent and unrelenting pressure on the Texans
offense –especially Yates. Geno Atkins (7.5 sacks) is a big part of the Bengals D and he
will need to come up with another big game if Cincinnati wants to move on to the Patriots.Continue Reading

When Albert Pujols turns 52 on January 16, 2032, the (by then probably massively
overweight) slugger will have been earned up to $268,750,000. Both he and the Los Angeles
Angels of Anaheim in California, U.S.A. (as they’ll then be known) will look back at the
massive contract and agree that it was well worth every penny.”Wait,” you
might say, “Pujols will be making an average of $36,000 every day, the average annual
Swedish income — how can anyone be worth that much money?”You’re
right, that’s a boatload of money. While only $240 million is guaranteed, don’t forget the
perks, which include four season tickets to every home game for a decade, 10 games per
season where Pujols can use a suite for his charity and also a luxury
hotel suite for every single road game (aren’t the other players going to get
jealous?). So not only does he get a boatload of money but also some awesome (and
unnecessary) extras.And he deserves that?Absolutely.Albert Pujols has been one of baseball’s best players — if not the very best player –
for the past decade. Nine-time All-Star. Three time MLB Player of the Year Award. Three
time NL Player of the Year. 2009 Sports Illustrated player of the decade. His
career batting average is .328, he’s already hit 445 home runs, has a slugging percentage
of .617, and has driven in 1,329 RBIs. Now, can you name a single Swede who can hit the
long ball like Pujols?And most of those stats only get better in the
post-season. He’s a big-time player. He’s consistent. He thrives under pressure. What more
could you want? He’s going to help the Angels win games and sell tickets.After
more than proving his worth, Pujols ended a good run with the Cardinals by winning a
championship and then cashed out with a big-time contract. The Angels won the bidding war
and in return they get a franchise player for the next 10 years (Pujols should, hopefully,
still be able to produce for at least seven or eight of those years). Owner Arturo Moreno
isn’t crazy. He sees Pujols as a sound business decision. They crunched the numbers and
Pujols will bring more to the organization than it pays out. Are there risks involved? Of
course, but no great business ever made big strides without taking a little risk.And who are we
kidding? With a guy who can go 5-for-6 in Game 3 of the World Series, including three home
runs, there’s really not much risk involved.And, sure, it’s a big contract,
but it isn’t the biggest. A-Rod has a 10-year, $275-million contract. And while his skill set is
different, it goes to show that if you can produce at this level, then this is what you’re
worth. It’s the same in any business. If you’re not happy with it, move to Sweden and
watch some kubb.Continue Reading

Physique transformation is a long process, and it’s not really a straight path, at
least in the sense that your progress isn’t consistent. Rather than progressing in a
linear manner — in terms of both actual growth and the amount of time it takes — muscle
growth tends to happen in “bursts.”Unfortunately, these bursts
are usually interspersed with long draughts of progress: the dreaded plateau.You’ll often hear about guys who simply “can’t” get any
bigger despite their best efforts. These guys have hit full-body plateaus, really. Most of
the time, this is an issue with a guy’s diet more than training; these guys are
often not eating enough. Slightly less talked-about but certainly more insidious are
single-body-part plateaus, where someone is experiencing pretty decent progress overall,
but one muscle group seems to have stalled out like the ’84 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
I drove in high school. (Hey, don’t laugh; that car had personality. It may not have
had air conditioning or a working radio… or a functional passenger side seat belt,
but it sure as hell had personality.)Unlike most issues with muscle
growth, where food (or lack thereof) is usually the culprit, single-body-part plateaus
aren’t typically due to a dietary deficiency. They’re usually a training
issue. Not just lack of training, but lack of activation that leads to lack of
development.And, as anyone who’s ever hit such a wall can tell you,
training a muscle in a way that allows for subpar activation is worse than not training it
at all. Not only do you get the same results (none), you also waste your time. This must
be avoided, and to do that, you need to learn to activate your muscles to get them growing
again.So today, I want to share five quick tips to jump-start growth in any
muscle. Nothing crazy, no groundbreaking secrets from some Eastern Bloc black ops training
camp. Just five tried-and-true methods I use with my clients to get their stubborn muscles
growing like (insert simile of something that grows fast). No, I didn’t forget to
add it in. I just couldn’t think of anything cool.RELATED
VIDEO: Get Six-Pack Abs Fast

1- Don’t just lift — lift fast

Unless you’re doing a program that specifically calls for a dedicated lifting and
lower speed (like lactic acid training), don’t worry about tempo. As an industry,
we’re really getting away from tempo prescriptions as a whole.In fact,
Jason Ferruggia (excellent trainer, extreme badass) has cited the prescription of slow
tempos for muscle growth as one of the biggest mistakes and wastes of time in his career.
While I don’t think we need to write tempos off completely — everything has its
place — I do think that getting away from structured speed for a few months speeds (ahem,
pun intended) results. Anyway, rather than wasting you mental energy timing your rep,
always try to lift explosively. Increasing bar speed will force you to amplify recruitment
of fast-twitch muscle. This simple trick will affect your body in profound ways.The increase neurological efficiency has obvious implications for muscle growth, but
from a fat-loss perspective it’s also great because you’ll use more weight,
which is just more calorically expensive and metabolically challenging. Ultimately,
you’ll have greater activation, recruitment and development. As an added bonus,
lifting in this way will increase both neurogenic and myogenic muscle tone, helping you
look leaner even at a slightly higher level of body fat. Try this with shoulder exercises
and enjoy the new look of your delts just a few sessions later.

2- Perform Unilateral Exercises

Single-limb movements, particularly with heavy weight, recruit High Threshold Motor Units
(HTMUs). Recruitment of HTMUs has carryover to muscle building by escalating overall fiber
recruitment and neurological efficiency, allowing you to stimulate muscles more easily and
create growth more.Of course, training your entire body using unilateral
exercises does double the workout time, so I normally recommend starting your workout with
big bilateral movements, then transitioning to a few sets of single-limb exercises, and
finishing back up with some more explosive bilateral stuff. As an example, going from
front squats to heavy single-leg squats, and then to jump squats.Ready for
three more tips on how to gain muscle fast? That’s next…

Continue Reading

Click here to
check out John Romaniello’s official website. People have a
tendency to treat training for a “look” differently than training for an
athletic or a strength goal. The truth is, whatever your fitness goals
are, it is important to structure your program in a way that allows you to meet those
goals in the shortest time period possible.You have a tremendous variety of
tools available to you, and it’s sometimes easy to forget that not all methods are
effective for all goals. Athletes training for their sport practice some highly specific
drills; training for fat loss
requires adjustment of nutritional strategies; powerlifters work on becoming skilled and
efficient in their primary lifts.Given these examples, it’s easy to see
that none of these scenarios would really benefit from using strategies intended for the
others. So, if your goal is simply to build a lean, symmetrical and attractive body — the
ultimate male body — the obvious solution is to gear your diet and training structure
toward those goals.

1- Focus On Building An X-Shaped Physique

When it comes to being physically attractive to the opposite sex, it’s important to
understand that certain body dimensions are visually important from an evolutionary
perspective. That’s why you should focus on creating what we call an “X-shaped
physique.” Developing such a body will automatically make you more attractive to
women while making you more imposing to men.You see, our progenitors credited
desirable traits like strength, productivity and virility to corresponding physical
attributes. While societal needs may have changed in a way that no longer makes it
necessary to have the characteristics to succeed, to a certain extent, we carry our
ancestors’ tastes. This means that physical traits that imply the presence of
“mating qualifiers” are important for increasing your stock with the
ladies.To that end, an X-shaped physique means broad shoulders, a narrow waist
and strong, well-developed calves. For broad
shoulders, focus on core movements that allow for maximal recruitment, such as the
push press and some isolation exercises to focus on the medial delts and increases in
width, such as lateral raises.A narrow waist is primarily the result of a low
level of body fat, obviously. However, it is important to understand that the muscles
around your waist respond to weight training in much the same way that all other muscles
do: by growing. So while it isn’t necessary to avoid certain exercises completely,
train with the caveat that you should avoid rotational exercises with either a heavy
weight or high volume. The goal, overall, is to develop a waist-to-shoulder ratio of about
1.618 — the Golden Ratio.Now, as for strong, well-developed calves, these are
not easy to come by. Calves are a
notoriously stubborn body part to grow, so I recommend training them multiple times per
week. Work your calves first in your session, not last. By focusing on these muscles and
building a physique more in line with what our ancestors considered desirable (and
let’s be honest, we still do), you are on the road to a sexier body.

2- Push Less, Pull More

In keeping with the above ideas, the goal of training for sexiness should clearly include
balance and symmetry. This means that not only should you train the right way, but also
that you need to make a concentrated effort to avoid training the wrong way.As
men, we’re highly visual creatures. As trainees, this translates into becoming
highly focused on mirror muscles — that is, those you can readily see in any mirror. In
general, guys tend to do a lot more work on muscles like chest than back. I cannot begin
to describe the drawbacks of this mentality. With specific regard to appearance, lopsided
training that focuses on anterior (front) muscles over posterior (rear) muscles usually
leads to pretty ugly imbalances. In addition to this being a great way to get yourself
injured, it can lead to a round, forward-shouldered look that is not the goal of any
training program I’ve ever heard of.More muscle-building tips from
expert John Romaniello, next…

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Regular exercise takes an incredible amount of
discipline and dedication. The most common complaint coming from men with busy work and
family lives is a perceived lack of time. If time is the barrier that prevents these men
from exercising consistently and achieving the results they desire, then a fresh
perspective is badly needed. It starts not by going to the gym to work out,
but by bringing exercise to you — whether you’re at work, at home or on a business
trip. We’re going to introduce you to five office exercises that are
effective and fun.  

Office chair squat

This simple office exercise can be one of the most effective body-strengthening
movements. Begin by standing as tall as possible and relaxing your shoulders. Lift your toes up to the top of
your shoes. This will center your feet and help ensure that you are performing the squat
correctly. While keeping your back perfectly straight, lower your bum to within one inch
from the seat of your chair. Perform a 10-second hold at the bottom of the rep. Remember
to keep your knees well behind your toes to keep stress off the knee joint. Your bum
should be the first muscles to lift your body back to the standing position.
 

Desk press

This fantastic office exercise will strengthen both your upper body and core. While keeping your body in a
straight line using your core muscles, hold a push-up position with your elbows at a
90-degree angle. While holding this position, execute 10 knee-drives, followed by 5
push-ups. Repeat 3 to 4 reps.  

Business flight

This office exercise will target the areas that are typically compromised while working
at a desk — specifically the hamstrings and the mid-back regions. Begin by standing as
tall as possible. Pull your head and your shoulders back and down to create a
“perfect posture” position. Using your hips as a hinge, bend over while
standing on one leg and extending the other leg so that it and your torso are parallel to
the floor. Hold for 3 seconds, then return to the original starting position. Perform this
exercise for 1 minute before switching legs and repeating.  

Victory

Posture is often compromised while sitting at a desk over the course of a day. Use this
office exercise to straighten up and activate both your deep inner core and important
postural musculature. Begin by putting yourself into perfect posture while seated: exhale,
lengthen your spine and make your body as tall as possible. Hold this tall and perfect
posture position and then lean forward, open up your chest and extend your arms as if you
were pushing up against a small rooftop over your head.  

Office hip hiker

Almost all adults will have had at least one episode of lower back pain over the course
of their lifetimes. Performing this simple exercise in your office chair can provide much
relief from an achy lower back. Begin by sitting up straight. Lift one of your glutes up
and almost off the chair and return it back to the chair. Repeat on the other side;
perform the exercise in a continuous side-to-side “rocking motion” for 30
seconds.

fitness roi

For the man who is weighed down by family, work and other life commitments, the
realization that a gym or a fitness center isn’t really necessary for exercise is one of
the great starting points to better health. The fact that gravity is a force that is
always present in our lives means that there is always an opportunity to move and create
exercise anywhere and any time.

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One of the most frequently stated goals of men in the gym is to get ripped abs.
The ab muscles are what really identify someone who is serious about their fitness and
diet plan, because without determination and a fair amount of effort, getting ripped abs
is a goal that will never be reached. While everyone has developed ab muscles
to some extent, it’s getting them to show that becomes the biggest issue for most.
This is due to the fact that most of us tend to store our body fat, at least partially, in
the abdominal region. This is also one of the most stubborn places to lose fat. That said, if you know the principles of how to get ripped abs, you can make this goal
a reality.

Genetic factor

The first thing you must realize is that every guy has his own uniquely shaped abs.
Randomly selecting a picture out of some men’s magazine or billboard and saying
that’s what you want your abs to be like could be slightly self-defeating, because
even if you did get your body fat levels low enough, your abs may not be genetically
shaped in a similar way, therefore, the appearance of your abs will still be different. Recognizing that this factor is out of your control and not getting hung up on
it is one step forward on your quest to get ripped abs. If you are unable to do this,
you’ll only become more frustrated as time progresses, which is a serious motivation
killer. Rest assured, though, that if you can get your body fat levels low
enough and perform correct, targeted exercises for this muscle group, your midsection will
garner second glances.

Food factor

Next comes the diet aspect of the equation. Ever heard the saying: “Abs are made in the
kitchen”? Nothing could speak the truth more. As stated, everyone has some ab muscles, but
most have a layer of body fat hiding them. Removing this layer is going to be about 90%
dietary effort and 10% exercise effort when it comes right down to it. If you aren’t
ready to take control over the foods you are putting in your mouth, getting ripped abs
should not be a goal for you. While the old notion used to be that you should
eat a diet as low in fat as possible in order to remove body fat, this has changed in
modern times. Now, ab-friendly
foods that are higher in protein, moderate in fat and moderate or low in carbs
are making headway, as this helps to control insulin levels better, and insulin happens to
be the prime hormone that stores body fat (in a hypercaloric balance).
That’s not to say you can’t get lean on a higher-carbohydrate diet; you most
certainly can — and some guys do — but for the vast majority, hunger levels are much
more manageable on a low to moderate carb approach, which correspondingly makes eating
fewer calories easier. At the end of the day, it’s really going to come
down to your total calorie intake, with less importance placed on how you get there –
assuming sufficient protein is present, of course. Discover ways to get
ripped abs with these routines…

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Some people are what we call
high performers. They are exceptionally focused, insanely
organized and (therefore) incredibly productive. They are detail oriented, remember
things well, are good with deadlines, and usually get out of bed before their alarm
clock. Others are… well, not. I happen
to fall into the “not” category.Some of us (including me)
are big performers. I say “big” because they think
Big. They have Big dreams, Big goals and usually Big personalities. More than anything
else, they are exceptionally skilled at seeing the Big Picture. These people are good at
ideas.  They are
fantastic at coming up with great concepts and understanding how those concepts will play
out. Unfortunately, they’re not detailed oriented, forget stuff and often finish
projects just before the deadline — or just after it. And, of course, they hit snooze a
few times before getting out of bed.But people
with big ideas want to bring those ideas to life — they just need help being more
productive. And so, hoping for that, I undertook a quest to achieve better
productivity.Along the way, I compiled a list of
five rules to increase productivity. The best part is, these rules can
be applied to any job, any field of study and, in fact, any area of your
life.Here they are:

1. Write It Down

This should have been one of the easier habits to adopt, but I wasn’t able
to make it “stick” until about Day 9. Writing things down is something I
recommend in a lot of instances, and since I’m an intense planner when it comes to
diet and training, it makes a lot of sense to me.You
see, putting something down in black and white gives it something it lacked previously:
tangibility. Writing takes things from ideas to plans.In my case, the way I am doing things now is to have working
to-do lists. I simply make a list each night of all of the stuff I want to do the next
day, listed in either order of importance or the chronological order that I want to
finish them (you’ll have to play around to see what works best for you). By doing
this, I am immediately able to get started on my day in a productive way.

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This is surprisingly effective. Even writing down “walk the dog for at
least 25 minutes” seems to have an impact on the weight of that task, and
I’m a lot less likely to skip out halfway through.Going further
than to-do lists, I now write down nearly everything. I carry a small pocket notebook
with me and jot down any idea that comes to mind that I’d like to blog about, as
well as random thoughts that drift into my head, which I find allows me to organize
things more efficiently.The pocket notebook has long been a tool for some of the most
productive people in history — Thomas Jefferson carried one made of ivory
leaves that he used to record everything from quotes to the migrations of birds.
Other famous bad-asses are known for pocket
notebooks, including Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin, and Ludwig Van
Beethoven. If it’s good enough for presidents and
scientists, it’s good enough for ol’ Roman.To put
things back in the fitness context and give you something actionable, I suggest you start
recording both your meals and your training sessions. Ideally,
you will plan them out beforehand and then record them during, to see how closely you can
match your plan.In the case of my
coaching clients, both
training and diet are planned for them, and the client has to follow the plan. If
you’re using a program like Final Phase Fat
Loss, you have the Training Log Sheets, and you have spaces to record
your weight and reps. Life is a lot easier and more productive when these things are
handled in advance (or simply done for you).Even if
you’re not going to start planning your diet and training in advance, at the very
least I recommend you start recording them during the event. You are a lot more likely to
get a better workout and eat the right things.Another cool diet tip is to use your cell phone camera to take a picture of
every meal. Tim
Ferriss calls this “the flash diet.” Taking a picture serves as a pattern
interrupt and forces you to think about what you’re eating. While you don’t
have to post the pictures on Facebook or Twitter, try to look
at your meals through that lens. If you’re trying to lose fat, each meal should
take you closer to that goal. If you wouldn’t want your friends to know what
you’re eating, you probably aren’t making the right choices.So write
it down!More productivity tips next…

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