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In praise of bodybuilding trainers

If you’re looking for a trainer in a mainstream gym in Taiwan, you’d do well to look for someone with a bodybuilding background. I’ve trained nearly 200 trainers here and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting more than that over the years. I’ve meet trainers both good and bad and though there were some excpetions, in general most of the pretty good ones had a bodybuilding background.

If you think about it for a minute, Taiwan’s culture isn’t really conducive to building muscle and being really fit. Yet, the bodybuilders have gone against that grain and built muscle anyway. I admire them for that because we hear all the time from people that “don’t want to get big” by lifting weights. If people only knew how hard it is to get big even if you want to!

Bodybuilders know how to build muscle and lose fat because they have to know that for competition. And getting on a stage in your underwear can’t be easy. I wouldn’t do it. It scares me to death. But it forces you to really know what you’re doing, that’s for sure.

Bodybuilders also have an amazing work ethic that they have to maintain for years. The truth is no one builds a great physique in months no matter what P90X and the other fitness marketing fads tell people. Bodybuilders know that it takes years and people need to hear the truth of that.

So that’s my recommendation. Whoever you pick, be sure to ask them lots of questions about their approach to find the trainer right for you.

Dongyidong is worthless

Dongyidong in Chinese means to just move around. It’s random, you swing your arms a lot, and it’s mostly meaningless.
Where do people get the idea that it really doesn’t matter what you do? I’ve even had trainers tell me it doesn’t matter what people do, as long as they do something. So Olympic lifting, walking, marathon running, aerobics class, and bodybuilding are all the same? Really? Would you recommend Crossfit to an 80 year old? How about powerlifting for a pregnant woman? Face it – it DOES matter what you do and no, it isn’t all the same.

Take dongyidong, for example. I keep hearing, “Well, at least they’re moving.” Is that it? They’re moving? Have we lowered our expectations so much that we reward people for doing the absolute least, lowest level of effort possible? The problem is that by promoting dongyidong, we’re removing the need for any further correction in movement or exercise progression. How about actually fixing what is wrong with people? That’s hard work and demands actual knowledge so we promote dongyidong instead. How about actual program design? We throw that out the window by telling them to just dance around and wave their arms, instead.

I understand older people in the park doing dongyidong as a social activity but as trainers I think we should raise our standards. If we want to be experts then we actually have to practice our craft. And if you’re telling people to just move around randomly, I don’t see any craft or professionalism in that. Let’s raise our levels of professionalism beyond the dongyidong level.

On being negative

Part of education is learning what’s right but in order to do that, we have to also talk about what’s wrong. Too many people shy away from doing that. In order to say what’s right and wrong, you have to stand for something first and I think many people are reluctant to do that. That’s really too bad. Why are so many people really afraid to take a stand for something that they think is good? I really don’t understand that. We all benefit from the exchange of ideas as long as people stand behind their ideas and defend them. But I can’t abide someone that stands for nothing. If you stand for nothing, if you aren’t passionate about an idea, then I feel sorry for you. I’m very passionate about what I do and I hope you do too. If you aren’t, find something that you feel passionate about and learn all you can about it. Life’s too short to do anything else.

We love luobuo tui! How to get bigger calves

Luobuo is turnip in Chinese BTW, so Chinese call big calves “turnip legs.” It isn’t a sign of approval BTW. 🙂
Calves are the kind of thing you can’t hide in summer and the summers here are long and hot. A lot of guys look like they don’t work out at all because they have tiny little calves. So in the interest of helping guys out, here’s a little workout that you can add to what you’re doing to help your calves grow.

Stand on the stairs with your heels both hanging off the step. Push your heels down as far as you can and stretch the calves as much as possible. Then come up on your toes and squeeze your calves as hard as you can at the top. Repeat for 100 times in as few sets as possible. Make sure you get 100. As you get better, do fewer sets. Do NOT bounce through these – squeeze and stretch the calves as much as possible. Calves respond to high volume so do this up to 3x a week.

The number one reason guys have small calves is the lack of serious, heavy leg training like barbell squats and deadlifts. You won’t get big calves just isolating the calves but by adding this short routine to already serious leg work, you can bring up this often lagging body part. Let us know if you try this out.

Who’s the fittest? Tactical Strength Challenge (TSC) May 2014

Who’s the fittest? Find out at the Tactical Strength Challenge (TSC)!

Training up for this will help you lose fat and get strong!

The challenge has two parts: 1. you agree to make the deadlift, pullup, and kettlebell snatch a part of your workout from now until the first weekend of May 2014, and 2. if you feel so inclined, you come compete at the TSC competition on 03 May 2014 at Formosa Fitness.

Here’s what the competition part of the challenge looks like:

The idea behind this is to use the competition to drive your workouts. Here are the benefits to the challenge:
1. The date of the competition gives you an end date, forcing you to focus on getting the workouts done rather than procrastinating.
2. You’ll be going through this at the same time as other people, providing a sense of community to drive you further.
3. You’re forced to focus on broadly useful exercises instead of less useful ones, getting strong and losing fat in the process.
4. Plus on competition day you’ll get to come meet a bunch of people just like yourself. Trust me, it’s a relief to meet other people that enjoy this stuff here since no one else in your gym may be into this.
All are welcome!!

On the morning of May 03, we have weighins at 10am and the competition starts at 10:30am. Everyone gets three chances to pull a deadlift max. When everyone has pulled, everyone (guys and gals) does a set of max pullups. You’re done when your feet hit the floor. After that, you do a set of max kettlebell snatches in 5:00 with the 12kg (women) or 16kg (men’s beginner), or 24kg (men’s open division). The winner is the one who gets the most points in the three events.

If you’re interested in joining, please signup here: https://www.facebook.com/events/189569594584665/

Need a program to get you started? Do these workouts below to prepare:
Tactical Strength Challenge Beginner Program
Workout A
hip ext 3×10
body squats 40
pullups 5×5 (do 25 total)
deadlift 5, 5, 5+
DB OH press 5×8
pullups 5×5 (do 25 total)
DB or KB swings 5x10L/R (minimal rest between sets)

Workout B
hip ext 3×10
body squats 40
pullups 5×5 (do 25 total)
Barbell squat 4×10
DB rows 3x10L/R
Pushups 3×25
DB or KB snatch 5x10L/R (minimal rest between sets)

Alternate these workouts ABA for a total of 3x a week. Do these every week between now and May 3 and you’ll be ready to compete!

Hope to see you there!