The intro before the real intro

     Four weeks ago my brother and I signed our death certificates when we decided it was a good idea to challenge all laws of fitness by discovering and testing the workout plan of ultimate power.  (Don’t worry that’s not the name we agreed on.)  This week we continued to test most of our test subjects, focusing them only on HIIT, which is a self explanatory acronym for High Intensity Interval Training.  The results from our test subjects have astounded us in that they are already feeling a difference in their physical abilities.  In this week’s post, I will show you that HIIT is the best cardio based workout… Not like this helps us move forward but it’s step 4 of the project handout.

The real intro

     Did you know that high intensity interval training has been known to speed up salivary production in dogs by 5%?  This is not true but now that I have your attention.  Many fitness junkies all over the United States believe that HIIT is the number one cardio based workout… I would agree that’s why I’m still typing.  Thanks to a lucky band of test subjects and some studies done from Bodybuilding.com, I have researched three reasons why that statement is accurate.  HIIT has been known to improve VO2 max (or maximal oxygen consumption) just as effectively as workouts that last longer periods of time.  HIIT has also been known to burn more fat in less time as well as decrease your rate of fatigue.

VO2 max

     Where it may seem like strenuous activity for a longer period of time would increase VO2 max, however studies show that HIIT increases VO2 max at the same rate. Though HIIT will defiantly make you sore in the morning because the amount of effort required to make HIIT happen, this goes to show that HIIT can defiantly compete with other workouts that last longer as far as this concept concerned.

Fat loss

     Forget everything you knew about taking nice jogs through the park with your dog as a lovely way to lose fat.  HIIT, on the other hand, can allow you and your dog to burn fat and calories at a greater rate in less time…and that is a true fact.  Studies from McMaster University show that 10 minutes of HIIT is equivalent to 50 minutes of steady cardio exercise.  So yeah, that whole time you thought you were murdering fat by running with your friends for an hour before going to work or school was kind of a waste of time.  Sorry I had to be the one to break it to you.  Please keep reading my blog.

Fatigue

     Have you ever felt that burning feeling in arm as you go for that one last dumbbell curl right before you drop that weight on the ground from physical exhaustion?  That feeling in your arm is not just the feeling of success, but it’s also the building up of Hydrogen ions.  This accumulation can lower the pH levels in your body causing muscle contraction to be more difficult and also lead to fatigue.  However, because of the intensity, HIIT provides a better way to train your body to neutralize all of those hydrogen ions that build up throughout your workout.  In the European Journal of Applied Physiology, a study was published that said that six sessions of HIIT that was spread across four weeks increased the skeletal musical buffering capacity of cyclists. It also decreased their rate to fatigue and increased their maximum energy output.

     In my opinion HIIT is the number one cardio based workout.  Incorporating HIIT into our plan is vital to our quest for awesomeness.

Be sure to leave a comment if you have any questions our have any ideas on how to improve Bros and Fitness.  Ok let’s be honest, leave a comment because your facilitator told you. ;)

     A newbie fitness blogger once said in the middle of testing his new intense fitness plan…

“I’m DYING!”

~Joel C~

Time to Test

     I mentioned I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I picked this blog topic three weeks ago for my 20% project.  For those of you who don’t like reading old information or comments, my brother and I have been searching for the greatest fitness plan that would best suite most people’s wishes and desires for their bodies, as well as our own.  This plan is designed to gain muscle, lose fat, and increase cardio (not for people who distance run mind you.) Last week we discovered that HIIT (a style of fitness training that stands for High Intensity Interval Training) combined with basic strength training seems like the best solution.  This week we continued to put that idea to the test…and it hurts.  So if you like reading about mediocre fitness guys getting themselves, and their test subjects, injured for science continue reading Bros and Fitness.

     Cameron and I have been testing out this mix of strength and HIIT, as suggested by our mentor and brother, Landon, for about two weeks.  It’s very painful but unbelievably effective.  Already I’ve found that my body can lift more, move faster, and achieve more awesomeness points in all of my other physical activities like Parkour and martial arts.  The rest of our test subjects have just begun this plan.  They have already started an introductory regime to prepare them for this new plan which includes light weight, full body strength workouts, and light variation HIIT. (Without the variation of HIIT, this plan is very common among new people who are just starting their workout path to destiny). 

Addressing some comments

            For nutrition, as requested by a commenter of ours, we have been focusing on eating proteins to continue building fast-twitch fibers before and after our workouts.  Ok…what?  Proteins are used to build fast-twitch fibers which are one of two types of fibers in your muscular system that can be activated by building muscle growth.  The other type of fibers are slow-twitch fibers which require very little protean and are activated by training specifically in cardio.  I hope that clicked in your brains. We have also been avoiding foods like fats, simple carbohydrates, chocolate, and my mom’s world-famous laired pudding dessert made with chocolate pudding, whip cream, grounded Oreos, and…ok moving on.

We also got another comment that suggested that we make workout videos to show you how it’s really done as well as suggest other fitness nerds of greatness. The beef in the video that will be shown soon is my brother, Landon.  Prepare to check out the canons on this tank.  Landon has been studying to be a physical trainer, has completed college coursework in physiology, kinesiology, weight training, and nutrition.  He is a firefighter-EMT for Cal Fire and volunteers with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department Mountain Search and Rescue team.  He has been an avid weight lifter, runner, hiker, and all-around fitness junkie for 12 years. Yes, I copied that part from my last blog - so what!?  Also check out workout videos from Six-pack shortcuts (Mike Chang) as well as websites like Bodybuilding.com for more workout tips and Choosemyplate.gov for tips on nutrition.

SPECIAL BRO ANNOUNCEMENT

     I’m getting tired of calling our new fitness plan “our new fitness plan”.  We would like to give you the opportunity to name this unofficial.  To do so drop a comment below and we will chose the coolest name suggested by you guys.  You may post up to three name ideas each.  The last day to submit your fitness plan name is on April 28, 2016. [Few will enter fewer will win].  Also don’t forget to leave a comment if you have any suggestions on how to make this blog or Cameron’s blog better or if you just feel like telling us how your day’s going… (I don’t know why you’d want to, but it’s cool).  Also, I know I said I was going to post in full detail exactly what to do for all four levels of workout awesomeness (if you read last week’s blog). I didn’t do this because it goes along so well with the topic of next week’s post, so I’ll be showing you guys and gals that next week instead.  See you then.

The Bro Interview

     If Cameron (my brother) and I didn’t realize that we were fitness noobs before, we certainly do now. Though we have been “working out” for several years, we know now that we’ve been doing a lot of things wrong.  In today’s weekly blog post of Bros and Fitness we will be discussing our mentor interview and how we came to formulate our hypothesis, which we will be testing over the next few weeks, to answer our ultimate question… What plan will make us the Elvis Presley of fitness?

Our Mentor

     Our bro, Landon, is studying to be a physical trainer, has completed college coursework in physiology, kinesiology, weight training, and nutrition.  He is a firefighter-EMT for Cal Fire and volunteers with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department Mountain Search and Rescue team.  He has been an avid weight lifter, runner, hiker, and all-around fitness junkie for 12 years.  Landon is our mentor for our 20% project (in case you didn’t read the comment section) and he has enlightened us on some very interesting points. Landon is a believer in the fitness religion known as HIIT, which is an acronym for High Intensity Interval Training.  The idea of HIIT is to work at maximum capacity for a relatively short interval, (usually 15 seconds to a minute), take small breaks in between sets, and then “HIIT” it again…(see what I did there?).  Now I know what you may be thinking: “Joel, this is insanity. Do you honestly think this is the perfect plan for me?”  If that’s your question right now I’m going to leave you hanging, instead, I’ll explain what we discussed in our mentor interview.

The interview

     In the interview we discussed the average persons work out plan for strength, if their goal is to be a tank, and cardio, if their goal is to be the Flash.  Landon explained to us that people who work out to be strong tend to work extremely hard for a short amount of time and do a small amount of reps, take a long rest period in between sets, and then go at it again.  On the other hand, he also told us that people who specifically train in endurance cardio, (like distance running), take their work at a lesser intensity, but over a longer period of time.  He also drew diagrams similar to the ones below to show how hard each type of person works and how often they usually rest.

 

Landon’s suggestion for us was to combine both strength and HIIT.  A basic layout of his plan is shown below.  Keep in mind that this plan is the best and most efficient way to gain lean muscle and lose fat (or so we think for now).  This plan is NOT designed for endurance cardio.  Landon’s formula is also excellent for training in sports like Football, MMA, Wrestling, Parkour, and Gymnastics. We’ll talk about other plans for different goals in the next blog post.

·         Warm up with low intensity cardio

·         Strength with weights

·         HIIT set(s)

·         Cooldown with low-intensity exercises and stretching

Where do we go from here?