They also happen to live over 25 miles from the nearest commercial gym or “fitness center”. 

So what do you do when you want to get a good workout in?  Not just going for a run, but something that will elevate your metabolism, get you stronger and get that fat burning!

I was not going to make the 40 minute drive.  There was just too much stuff going on to justify the time commitment. My wife was in the wedding and doing “wedding stuff” all day.  I have to help watch our two kids and help my parents with anything they want help with around the place.

Have you been in a similar situation? Do you give up and plan to “make it up” next week? 

I decided nothing will stop me and if this happens to you; you have lots of choices.

1. Do a bodyweight only workout. Pick out a number, say 100, and perform that many reps of pushups, squats, lunges, and jumping jacks.  Break them up any way you like them and don’t stop until you are all done.  Simple and effective.

2. If you are planning ahead you can bring some bands along to incorporate into your bodyweight workout.  This allows you to incorporate some pulling exercises to get a balanced workout for your whole body.  Check out the best bands you can possibly get from the Band Man Dave Schmitz.

3. Odd object lifting.  Find something reasonably heavy (large stones, logs, small children, tires, etc) and lift it any way you can imagine.  You can even pick it up and carry it for distance.  This will get you a great workout and hit all those “inbetween” muscles you forgot you had!

Lucky for me my dad unknowingly came to the rescue.  The barn roof in the process of being reshingled to fix some holes.  There were 25 bundles of shingles (70lbs each) that needed to be carried up the ladder to the top of the roof. 

So I threw the bags on my shoulder (1 at a time) and carried them up the ladder and dropped them on the roof.  I did this as quickly as possible to really push myself and also to avoid the angry wasps that had a few nest under the hole in the roof and didn’t like me slamming the shingles onto the roof their home was attached to.  My dad found some wasps spray and stood on the roof “riding shotgun.”

So 15 minutes, 2 stings and 50+ dead wasps later I was done.  I felt great to get in such a demanding workout in the fresh air. 

For completeness sake I went into the garage and did a few sets pullups on the steel beam in the roof.  I also climbed from one end of the beam to the other with my knees tucked to my chest to avoid the cars.  After that I did some pushups.

That was it.  I got a great workout incorprating total body moves, some upper body pulling, core and grip all while helping my dad out. 

So there are no barriers to good workouts, just excuses.  Get creative and get fit!

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Now I think if someone has a knee injury, then the elliptical may be the only exercise they can do without pain.  That is great.  As long as they are doing something for their health, go ahead.

However, the elliptical machine can cause problems of it’s own.  Check out this article that explains more:

http://www.thespec.com/article/813467

Basically the elliptical machine put the user is a forward position.  The hip flexors are shortened and over time short hip flexors lead to back pain. 

So what are we to do?  Either have knee pain or back pain?  Is that our only choice?

Absolutely not!

Start strength training for goodness sake.  Proper strength training routines that use a full body workout are the best exercise for you.  Strength training helps build lean muscle.  This lean muscle burns fat like crazy. 

Strength training also can help keep your joints healthy.   By using the proper exercises and correct form you strengthen the muscles around your joint.  You can also improve your joint mobility and muscle flexibility.  Neither the elliptical or treadmill can do that.

It may be intimidating to start strength training.  You may not know where to start.

It’s really easy.  Pick a few exercises.  Let’s use bodyweight squats, pushups (put your hands on a higher surface like a table or chair to make them easier), and lunges.  Now do 10 reps of each.  Start with the squat, then pushups, then lunges.   Do them as quickly as possible then rest 30 seconds.  Repeat 3-5 times.  That is a great workout with no joint impact. 

At Coulee Region Boot Camps in La Crosse we always balance the exercises over your entire body.  Your form is always monitored to ensure safety for your joints and muscles.  And using our interval style strength training will help you melt off 9x more fat then running on a treadmill or elliptical.

I hope you can see how ellipticals should be a complement to a exercise program.  They should never be the whole program!

But if you have to use the elliptical please stretch your hip flexors before and after.  That’s all I ask.

It all seems ridiculous to me.  How is increasing the caloric burn of walking going to help someone. Walking isn’t a great way to lose fat and get in shape.  It’s walking for crying out loud. 

Luckily the people at ACE (American Council of Exercise) have published a study (performed right here in La Crosse at UW-L) that shows otherwise.

I’ll keep this as simple as possible for you. The best exercises for fat loss are also the best exercises for muscle gain and visa versa. These exercises all have one thing in common: they provide a UNIQUE challenge to your body AND involve as many muscles in your body as possible.

Both the scientific research and the real world case studies have shown that total body workouts are superior for maximal fat loss and muscle gain.

It’s as simple as the Dream Body Equation below:

More Muscles Involved =

More Calories Burnt + Greater Muscle-Building Stimulus =

Greater Fat Lost + Greater Muscle Gain

I must be honest in that I have a true love-hate relationship with the following movements I am about to share with you. Love because of the unparalleled fat-melting, muscle-building results they provide. Hate because they break me every single workout by leaving me in tears while in a pool of my own sweat.  In other words, these are not for the weak of mind, body, or soul!

 Stay tuned for a video to demonstrate the exercises below!

Without further adieu, here is the official top 10 list of my favorite total body exercises in the world for fat loss and lean muscle gain:

Exercise#1- Any Burpee Variation

Exercise#2- Any Squatting Combination Exercise- Squat to Overhead Press, Squat to Row, Squat to Chest Press, Braced Core Squat, Single-Leg Squat plus Curl to Press, etc.

Exercise#2- The Swing- Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Med Balls, or Sandbags

Exercise#3- Any Lunge Combination Exercise- Alternating Lunge plus Curl to Press, Alternating Lunge plus Twist, Alternating Lunge plus Chest Press, Alternating Reverse Lunge plus Row, Split Jump plus Curl etc.

Exercise#4- Any Push-Up Combination Exercise- Push-ups plus Knee-Ins, Push-up Rows, T-Push-Ups, Spiderman Push-ups, Squat Thrust Push-Ups, Four-Way Push-up Crawl, etc.

Exercise#5- The Chop- Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Med Balls, Bands, or Sandbags

Exercise#6- Olympic Lifting Variations: Dumbbell or Kettlebell Cleans, Snatches, High Pulls

Exercise#7- Pushup to Plank Transfer

Exercise#8- Rear Foot Elevated Deadlift plus Curl to Press

Exercise#9- Med Ball Snatch-Slam Combo

Exercise#10- Dumbbell or Kettlebell Single-Leg RDL plus Row

Well I hope you take my expert advice and jack up your training with these 10 deadly total body combination exercises. I guarantee you better results in less time by regularly employing these movements into your workouts. Of course it’s now up to you to take your workouts, and your body, to the next level.

I’ll be sharing some more great exercises for those specific trouble spot areas (e.g. legs, butt, abs, chest, arms, etc.) that are holding your sexy back in the days to come

Anthony Dix

Coulee Region Boot Camps

Dr May Mellanby discovered vitamin D and shoed it’s role in rickets.  He also showed that vitamin D supplementation actually healed cavities as shown here.

Lack of vitamin D has also been shown increase your risk of flu.

And most recently vitamin D has been shown to accelerate fat loss.  Check out Johny Bowden’s blog about it here.

I take at least 2000 IU of vitamin D daily and suggest you do the same.  It will have great health benefits.  And lets face it, taking a couple small pills a day is extremely cost effective and easy.  Make sure you get vitamin D3 as it’s the most easily absorbed form of vitamin D.

So how do we train our abs and get a flat tummy or six pack abs?

For one, abs exercises will not give you a six pack.  Only having low body fat accomplishes that, but we’ll save that for another blog post.

Ok, so what ab exercises should be do?

That’s why were here. Hold on to your seats.  Some of these exercises may not be new to many, but are you actually doing them?

First we have to realize the primary function of the abdominals is to prevent movement, not create movement. 

Go ahead and read that sentence again and think about it for a second. Seriously, do it. I’ll wait.  Ready?  OK.

Now we need to train the core in a way that will support its primary function. 

We accomplish that with pillars (aka planks).

Pillars incorporate your core, arms, shoulders, glutes and thighs in one exercise.  The human body love to incorporate many different body parts to accomplish a task.  Your body does not think if terms of body parts, it only knows movements. 

So know you are doing an exercise that that strengthens your core and uses more muscle groups which means more calories burned.   Score!

See the pictures below on how to do a front pillar and a side pillar. It’s pretty self explantory.  Just think straight line from head to toe.  You want to squeeze your abs and your glutes to maintain that straight line.

Front Pillar

Side Pillar

Incorporate these into your workouts and your core will thank you.

I want to speak out against crunches.  They will not get you the tight stomach you desire.  Yet they are the go to exercise for almost all “core” training in gyms and fitness classes today.  So why does this happen?

Because people are lazy.  It’s much easier to just lay or your back and bob your head up & down.

That needs to stop now!

Here are several reasons to never do a crunch again in your life.

They are Dangerous – check out this article that mentions Stuart McGill, who is one the the worlds leading spine biomechanists.  He has been studying the spine for 30 years and has seen or recreated every injury you could imagine.  Crunches put huge shear and compressive forces on your spine.  That may be fine if you want a herniated disc, but I’ll pass.

They do not work – how many people do you know that do tons of crunches and yet do not have abs of envy. Yet they keep at it.  Ever hear the definition of insanity?  It’s doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.  Men’s health mentioned a study that showed it takes 20,000 crunches to lose 1 pound.  20,000 crunches = 1 POUND!  That would take days to complete.  No thank you.

They are boring – have you ever tried to do a few hundred or even thousand crunches?  Laying in one spot and looking at the ceiling for a half hour doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.  I would rather just close my eyes and take a nap.  That would be more productive than crunches.

As you lose weight crunches become less effective – the lower your bodyweight the less resistance on each crunch.  So the better fat loss results you get, the more crunches needed to get keep getting any results.  See 1^st reason above, more crunches sounds like  recipe for disaster.

Athletes do not do crunches – think of some of your favorite athletes.  Chances are they are lean and have great looking abs.  But they don’t do any crunches.  Most of them get a six pack by staying lean and doing their sport (think snowboarders and surfers) or doing anything but crunches.

So what are we supposed to do to get a sexy midsection?  Stay tuned and I will give you the best bang for your buck exercises to do just that.

Take care.

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