Cool. I started on Friday night and quickly figured out how the portions thing works. It's been going good so far, I even got the wife on it, although she is having a tough tme without the sugars. Thanks for your help.

JP whats your cardio method? I remember you said you do something like HIIT on a stationary bike?

Someone recently directed me back to this thread, which I had forgotten all about. Wolverine, you still here? If so, I will answer your questions now.

jp!!! good to have you back. im still here and goin' strong. sure, answer anytime you want.

No, prob... I don't do any structured stationary cardio at all. In fact, I hate doing anything like treadmill, elliptical, upright bike.

I do, however, looove to mountain bike on trails. I raced a lot last season too, which is pretty intense. Basically all you do when you mt bike is HIIT by the very nature of the terrain. Long climbs interrupted only breifly with thrilling descents where my legs can get a little rest before the next climb.

The difference between the two photos though had little to do with mountain biking. During that period I was exclusively working out in a gym, and just watching my diet. Most people have the misconception that if you want to bulk you lift heavy, if you want to cut, you do light weights and lots of cardio, which is of course complete and utter bull****. If you want to get the MOST fat burning effect out of you exercise, you have to challenge enough total fibers (recruit) with something HEAVY to get the metabolism hormones a kick.

My routine is ALL free weights, all full-body, no isolation workouts (like arms), and all focusing on the 6 basic movements our bodies were designed to do: Lunge, squat, deadlift, push, pull, and twist. An excellent book to purchase on this subject comes out early next month (January 2006) by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove,The New Rules of Lifting. Put it on your wish list. There is no better workout book on the market that I have ever read. In fact, since reading it I am going to require any trainer I ever hire at my gym again to read that book first. It is the fastest way to get them up to my level of training without having to work with them for a few months.

Hope that answers your question. Hit me with some more. I'll try to check back in more often than I have lately, other than coming in to delete spam!

good body JP

How much good did the mountainbiking do?

you look very toight toight like a tigga!
nice package.. lol

15-20 miles, 2-3 times per week. All I have time for with my crazy schedule. BTW, when I am really heavy into riding season, I really back off my heavy quad work, but I keep up the posterior chain work. I get plenty of quad work during that time, but I don't get a lot of flexibility training on a ride, so I do spend a little more time doing light loaded lunges and crossover lunges to keep my hip flexors from becoming too tight.

Jp-
Excellent work, its great to see a trainer doing what he loves to do!

My copy of The New Rules of Lifting is already pre-ordered.

As far as your routine, I take it that you used a lower repetition range with higher intensities to stimulate the muscle fibers? Something like 3-5 x 5 Reps? Thats how I read your statement: "If you want to get the MOST fat burning effect out of you exercise, you have to challenge enough total fibers (recruit) with something HEAVY to get the metabolism hormones a kick."

Let me know if I am on the right track!

Excellent job anyway!

-Andrew
http;//www.Modern-Athlete.com

Andrew, you are right on. Amazing how great heavy deads are for fat loss. I used a few variations on a theme though. I did mostly auto-regulatory routines, full body, circuit style. Then I experimented with Chad Waterbury's 10X3 methods with some success as well. I think that the autoreg is the way to go though for total training efficiency. Since I needed to recover within two days to be in supercompensation I used a 6% fatigue parameter. If I wanted to be in SC by friday I would use a 10% fatigue, and do a bike ride or two in between, but giving my CNS a full 4 days to recover and jack iteself back up.

JP-

Do you own Dietrich Buchenholz's book? The Best Sports Training Book, I think that is what the title is? I've read some auto-regulatory training, but perhaps there is some new information floating around?

I agree deadlifts are fabulous!

-Andrew

I've read his stuff, but not his book. He has great stuff on autoreg. I was introduced to it by strength coach, Bill Hartman, then went on from there. Remember that name though. Hartman is the best kept secret in the fitness industry in my not-so-humble opinion. One day the cat will get out of the bag, but until then he is still not-yet famous so still very accessible.

Jp-
I have heard Bill Hartman's name come up before. I don't know if this is the same one (I am assuming he is) that Tony Reynold's speaks of in his Interview with Alwyn Cosgrove here: http://www.elitefts.com/documents/tony-reynolds.htm

Outside of that interview, I know I have heard his name, but I cannot place it.

AREG is a very interesting concept, I haven't personally experimented with it, so I am not quite sold on it.

Kelly Bagget has some excellent summaries of DB's work on his site as well.

Thanks for you time!

Andrew
http://www.Modern-Athlete.com

I've read Bagget's stuff on AREG as well. Good stuff. He does make it a little more readable. AREG trains you based on your current neural efficiency at training day. You literally only put out exactly what you have, nothing more, nothing less.

The flaw with a standard routine is that it doesn't account for shifting neural efficiencies. If a routine calls for 4 sets of lat pull, what if you hit your first form drop off at 3 sets? Then you are overtraining. What if you only do 4 sets and you could have done 8 sets? You undertrained.

With this system, you determine your max on a given lift in a given rep range, then reduce your weight by 6-10% (depending on when you want to be in supercompensation), and perform as many sets as you can in that rep scheme until you hit your first form drop-off, then that exericse is done. This is also how you can control your volume in such a way that you can train a muscle three times a week and not overload your CNS. It is a beautiful system, and the results you will get are incredible. Not only that, because you are spreading the volume across the week, at no time do you feel just zapped (a big sign that you're overtraining).