From the opening minutes of “300,” it was clear that director Zach Snyder’s 2006 film set a new standard for physiques on the screen. Plenty of other movies had featured ripped leads, villains, or characters. But in “300,” every single Spartan, dozens in all, perfectly blended the cuts of a comic-book superhero with the classical lines of Jacques-Louis David’s “Leonidas at Thermopylae” —all while looking dirtier, tougher, and more defined than either.

These bodies, it turned out, were the result of a perfect storm of training and nutrition factors, all orchestrated by trainer Mark Twight and the staff from his Salt Lake City-based gym, Gym Jones. A former world-class alpinist, Twight applied all the intense physicality and strategic planning of his previous career to the challenge of making men look like mountains. He gave his subjects no quarter; they trained together shirtless in a single hall in Montreal, ate customized meals, and were subjected to regular unflinching critiques. Star Gerard Butler later said it was the first time anyone had called him “fat.”

The film and its grueling workout regimen became the stuff of legend. But rather than embracing the role of the next Hollywood trainer, Twight turned his focus back to Gym Jones for most of the next decade, before returning to the limelight as Henry Cavill’s trainer in 2012′s “Man of Steel.” After transforming Cavill into the most impressive Superman to take the screen, Twight reprised his training role for the long-simmering sequel of “300,” titled “300: Rise of an Empire,” which comes out today.

“A former world-class alpinist, Twight applied all the intense physicality and strategic planning of his previous career to the challenge of making men look like mountains.”

Since (spoiler alert) the Spartans all died in “300,” the sequel demanded more than just uncovering the same old muscles. Twight dealt with mostly new actors, a new location, and a host of challenges that the original film didn’t face. But the results ended up looking pretty familiar. A few days before the film’s release, he spoke with Bodybuilding.com about the new film and shared some of the workouts that he used to design a new generation of warriors.

QHow did “300″ and the precedent it set loom over what you were doing?

No one, when the original came out, had any idea of the kind of impact it would have outside of the movie world—in particular in the fitness world. And I think that raised the bar really high for expectations for the second one.

But then, the storyline of the second one goes in a different direction, where the main characters are an alliance of free Greeks whose profession isn’t war, but rather, they’re basically citizen soldiers. So on one hand, you wouldn’t expect them to look like the Spartans, who grew up on training and fighting in the first one, and were united all the way to that big battle in their intent and spirit. This, however, is a shaky political alliance to fight off a common enemy.

But then, from our perspective, it’s not like we’re going to say, “Well, we’ll give them a few percentage points of body fat because they’re not professional soldiers” or anything like that. We were going to go as hard as we could and see how it all played out.

“We were going to go as hard as we could and see how it all played out.”

How had you grown and changed as a trainer since the original film?

Most of the training for the original happened in late 2005, and we wrapped in January of 2006. The second one was all shot between basically April and October of 2012. So let’s call it seven years, and yeah, I learned quite a bit. But mostly it comes down to being more adept at addressing a greater variety of problems.

During the first film—and on this one—when you have so many people, there’s no way really to individualize the work. You could try and put certain groups together who have similar characteristics and abilities and push them within those smaller groups, but overall, I think with cast and stunt crew included, on the first one we were managing about 35 people total, and on this one, about 40. And so it comes down to the central piece of our training philosophy, which is: “Find the problem, fix the problem.” And I think I didn’t necessarily have as accurate an understanding of what that meant on the first one as I do now.

The sequel also posed a number of different problems that “300″ didn’t. On the original, we had pretty much total control of all the people. We had them united in one single place of training, one location, and we had a kitchen in the training hall with three chefs on-site. All the meals were prepared according to our menu and the timing that we designed. We could fine-tune the diet for people: more calories, less calories, more protein, less protein, higher fat content for one guy, but another guy needs more carbohydrates because his energy is always low.

“It comes down to the central piece of our training philosophy, which is: ‘Find the problem, fix the problem.’”
Mark Twight, far left and right

But with “300: The Rise of an Empire,” the movie was shot and most of the preparation was done in Sofia, Bulgaria. I don’t want to overstate it, but it wasn’t the same as having all the resources we had in Montreal or Los Angeles on the first “300.” And then we had a number of cast who were obligated to other jobs; they had to do their training in other locations prior to coming to Sofia. So we had a lot of moving parts and not everybody in the same place at the same time, so we couldn’t achieve that small unit integrity that we had on the first one, where everyone went through the same hardship all together.

We obviously had some language issues as well, because there were a number of stunt guys from the United States, a couple from England, but we also had guys from Bulgaria, from the Ukraine, from Poland, from Germany, all of whom had English as a second language—if they had English at all. So the educational process that we could go through training on an individual basis, say, for “Man of Steel” movie, we couldn’t do here in the same way.

I recall trainers from other films, such as “The Hobbit,” telling me that they utilized heavy everyday stuff from the set for training. You, on the other hand, shipped a miniature version of Gym Jones all the way to Bulgaria. How was that received?

It was interesting. One of the reasons we had it shipped was because we had no idea what would be available to us there. And there was no way I was going to try to show up and cobble something together, because I believe you need to walk into a gym and know immediately that it’s a place of work—it’s separate, and it’s something different from outside.

One of the things we’ve learned over the years is that the training environment is absolutely essential to the outcome. And I think when you’re just finding stuff to do, there’s no way you can shift someone’s psychology from the instant they walk in the door. And so we put everything together and weighed it, and then we realized we could actually find the rubber flooring we use in the Czech Republic, so we didn’t ship that over. But it was still a little over 5,000 pounds that was air freighted over to Bulgaria.

So they would walk in the gym and say, “Wow … kettlebells. We’ve seen those before.” And there were barbells and bumper plates and dumbbells and everything, so we really had a small version of the gym. Still, it took a number of weeks for guys to adapt to it, because the weight training thesis in Bulgaria is a little different than what we do. Obviously Olympic lifting is a big national sport, and the other big sports are wrestling, and maybe judo. So Olympic lifting and bodybuilding are really the main focus of the way those guys train, and when we started laying some stuff on them, they were having their lungs turned inside out and thinking, “Wow, there’s no way this could possibly work. I like doing this other thing, and I don’t like this, because I’m no good at it.”

“We had some really good examples of what we do, one of them being Clay Enos, who is the unit photographer for all of [Zach Snyder's] films.”

But on the other hand, we had some really good examples of what we do, one of them being Clay Enos, who is the unit photographer for all of [Zach Snyder's] films. He started training with us and according to our philosophy in late 2006, so at that point, it had been for five or six years. One day, we were working with the stunt guys, and we said, “Let’s work up to a heavy deadlift today.” And so at 170 pounds, Clay pulled 435. There was only one of the stunt guys who pulled more, and that guy came from a weightlifting background, and he also weighed 225 or something.

So these guys started to realize, “Wow, this guy is following the things that these guys do and teach, and he can do this stuff. Maybe we should kind of pay attention.” And so we would work with [the local guys] three days per week doing our thing, the power endurance and strength endurance-style training, and the other two days each week, we left them on their own to do what they were used to: the heavy lifting and bodybuilding-style training.

“We knew, however, that when guys are really lean, they look huge on camera.”

Our thesis for this movie, and for the original “300,” was to expose existing muscle, unlike “Man of Steel,” where Henry [Cavill] had to build new muscle and a fair amount of it. We couldn’t do that with so many guys, because we didn’t control the nutrition as carefully, and again, it’s a total of 40 guys.

We knew, however, that when guys are really, really lean, they look huge on camera. And so that was the direction we went. It’s not a bodybuilding bulking phase. It would be more like a leaning phase, but a lot of it is high-intensity, power endurance, and interval training with one heavy-duty strength session per week.

We’ve done jobs where we had everything in our favor: We had our gym, we had really good meal providers to work with, and we had the right sort of recovery available, like massage or acupuncture. But on this job we were kind of on the front lines, without everything that we would want to have available, and we were still effective.

So when you think about all the “secrets” that people have for this style of training, like this certain machine or this certain supplement, I found myself just realizing, “Wow. When you just keep applying the pressure and educate people, then you can produce a really good result.” Maybe we could do better if we had more precise control, but it’s remarkable how much we can do with tinkering with the psychological aspect and really hammering people with the training.

You’ve written that the original “300″ actors trained shirtless so “everyone knew what everyone else had and how they were progressing.” Did you do that again?

We didn’t, although a bunch of days it was hot enough that people took their shirts off. You know, on the first film we were a little more hardcore, partially because we were setting up something new, in a way.

Zach is a very physical guy, and he really changed the way that a lot of these movies are shot, or what he expects from the actors. And so his thesis on the original “300″ from the beginning was, “Make these guys as physical as possible,” and he made receiving the roles contingent on doing the training, because the more physical you make the actor, the less he needs to be doubled, and therefore the more believable it is. The audience isn’t stupid. You can tell when it’s someone else. Even if you don’t ping to it consciously, you know, “OK, that can’t be that guy.”

“His thesis on the original “300″ from the beginning was, ‘Make these guys as physical as possible.’”

And then he was in there leading from the front and training with us for the eight-week prep period, he was in the gym every morning before everyone else. And that went a really long way to informing the aesthetic and how we handled everything. I think we were a little more hardcore because of it. We were just like “a’right, everybody strip.” On Monday morning, everybody would come in, and it was pretty clear what they did on the weekend. They could hide it with a T-shirt, but not now. We can see.

On this one, we didn’t have the same vibe. However, one thing that did happen that I don’t think a lot of people noticed necessarily was that we had a “lunch group” made up of Noam Murro, the director, and a group of guys who work behind the camera. Every day when we broke for lunch, those guys rushed down to the gym and got a 45-minute workout in before going back. At that time, Noam would just go from the director, who was telling people what to do, to coming into the gym with total surrender and saying, “Tell me what to do.”

One of the fascinating things we see all the time with training was that at a certain point he said, “When I come in and I train, I’m more effective in the afternoon. I usually just don’t have this much energy in the afternoon and I get frustrated. I come here, you totally kick the shit out of me, and I go back to the set, and I actually have the energy and the clarity to make my afternoons more effective.”

So they didn’t have the same influence on the stunt guys and the cast, except when they’d be in the gym and we’d have certain common workouts, if some of the guys who were actors saw how hard the guys behind the camera were working, they’d step it up a notch as well.

One thing I’ve learned about you is that you’re never just training bodies; you’re always cultivating a certain mindset. Were you able to win everybody to your vision of what you’ve called “the art of suffering?”

Not everybody. When you’re training guys in the U.S. there are certain types of pop culture references or jokes you can throw down, and people will get it. But Sullivan [Stapleton], Callan Mulvey, David Whennem—they’re Australian. That’s a completely different attitude. Then we had Bulgarian and Romanian guys we couldn’t even speak to. Maybe were able to show them a different way, but in a psychological sense, I don’t think we were able to reach those guys.

There were a few standout people though, and Eva Green was one of them. She comes from a pretty non-physical background. She played some tennis, and she runs every now and then, but that’s the extent of it. And here she is, thrust into this super-heroine type of role, where she’s got to fight with one sword, two swords, assassinate some guys with daggers and a scarf, draw a bow, and sell the fact that she can do it. And so in Paris, I had her double, and another stunt guy, Rich Cetrone, who was on the original “300,” who comes from a boxing and martial arts background and is a total stud. So Eva was with me for about an hour and a half per day, and with them for about an hour and a half per day.

“She comes from a pretty non-physical background, and here she is, thrust into this super-heroine type of role, where she’s got to fight with swords, assassinate some guys with daggers and a scarf, draw a bow, and sell the fact that she can do it.”

For initial couple of weeks of fight training, she could never get that aggression and treated it more like dance choreography, because she didn’t have that sort of aggression that we learn in the context of certain sports in her background. It was a fascinating process to watch her find it. [Gym Jones trainer] Michael Sullivan saw the movie the other day and said, “I never would have guessed that she didn’t have physicality in the previous 20 years of her life.”

“300″ thrust Gym Jones and your style of training into mainstream prominence. How has your overarching vision for the gym and its mission changed or grown since then?

When the original “300″ came out, we had “a website,” but we had no plan. I was against selling stuff at that point. And within the first month, we had almost 13 million hits on the website and it crashed our server.

But that really speaks to Zach’s vision for that movie and how different it was. People were like “What the fuck? How did this happen? How did all these guys end up looking this way? How do we find out more about this?” And we had nothing to say except, “Um, we fed them food and had them work really hard.”

In the beginning, I wanted to preach to a small choir, and to practice the message, our philosophical message. And I think what’s developed over the years from communicating through our website, and from teaching seminars, from interacting with all kinds of people, is that we’ve become more effective at communicating.

The point of doing these movie jobs, really, is just to say, “Look, this is what can happen.” You can make all the excuses you want, like “Oh, that guy gets paid to train,” or “That guy doesn’t have a family” or “That guy doesn’t have another job,” but do what Andrew Pleavin did—just do 20 percent of what he did—and you’re going to have a pretty powerful result. You decide what’s important, which is what he did, and you’ll make time for it.

With Twight’s help, Actor Andrew Pleavin lost 30 pounds in 5 weeks to reprise his role as Daxos.

I hope what we can do with the training plans and the philosophical treatises on the site is to give people support, but not to make them dependent. It’s to make them independent. To educate people, to inspire people—that’s the path I want to go down. Because once they educate themselves and put it into practice, they realize, “Wow, I’m able to control things I didn’t think I could control about my body, my health, and my life.”

One guy shares that with two, two share it with four, and then suddenly, as a society, that’s a pretty big step. We’re in a better place.

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Vital Stats

Name: Nic Troupe
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 207 lbs

NPC Men’s Physique competitor Nic Troupe has a history many of us can relate to. After an injury forced him to retire from his college football team, Nic was a little lost. But, unlike many ex-collegiate athletes, he didn’t spend his extra time feeling sorry for himself. Instead, Nic dove into the academic side of athletics and found his way into a lifetime of fitness, which eventually led him into competition. Check out Nic’s story and get his full fitness program!

Nic grabbed an undergraduate degree in fitness management, which led him to Wartburg College and Northern Iowa University, where he worked on the strength staff as a graduate assistant. “I got really involved in athletic training, and coaching strength and conditioning,” Nic says.

With an M.A. in physical education and a CSCS certification in hand, Nic then spent six years as a strength coach at a high school. Nic took pride in helping young athletes better themselves, but he also wanted to improve his own fitness. “I’ve trained for 5k and 10k road races and warrior dashes, and I’ve done competitive bench press competitions,” says Nic.

“I may make the switch to bodybuilding in the future, but we will have to wait and see.”

Clearly an athlete, Nic’s latest challenge has been competing in physique. He placed 2nd at the 2012 NPC Denver Novice and Masters Championships, and 4th as a novice at the Max Muscle Mile High Natural Championships.

His competitive future was looking bright when calamity struck. As he and his fiancee were waking across the street, they were hit by a taxi. Nic suffered severe neuromuscular damage which inhibited his speech and made even basic movements like walking up and down stairs very painful. His physical issues lasted for three months, and he had to back out of a show 8 weeks before he was scheduled to compete.

Undaunted by his setback, Nic recovered and continued to compete. In 2013, he placed 9th in the open division of the Colorado State Championships. For his future fitness endeavors, Nic is prepared to bring his best-ever self to the stage. “I may make the switch to bodybuilding in the future, but we will have to wait and see,” he says.

Nic’s Nutrition Program

Nic’s nutrition philosophy is based upon the “If It Fits Your Macros” approach. His greatest success has come from not over-complicating his diet. He focuses on eating healthy foods every day, but doesn’t deprive himself, especially during the off season. “If I want to have a Pop-Tart, I’ll have one,” says Nic. “I know that my approach doesn’t look like all of the other guys, but it works for me and I am happy with the results I get.”

Using this approach, Nic has been able to stay leaner in the off season without losing any muscle mass.

As stage day draws nearer, the indulgences are far less frequent. Other than cutting some indulgences near a competition, Nic’s diet stays pretty much the same in and out of season.

Nic’s Training Program

The guiding principle behind Nic’s training program is constant change. He rarely does the same workouts twice, so his body never knows what’s coming and he stays excited about his training.

When aiming to build mass in the off-season, Nic does heavy lifts in straight sets. As contest season nears, he changes his regimen to include more supersets, trisets, and dropsets to keep his heart rate up and burn more fat.

Below is a sample training week that Nic might follow. After doing this workout routine, he may not repeat the same sessions for another 4 or 5 weeks. All rest periods are kept to around 60 seconds, with the exception of legs and shoulders, which is taken to 90 seconds rest between sets.

“As contest season nears, he changes his regimen to include more supersets, trisets, and dropsets to keep his heart rate up and burn more fat.”

Nic’s Supplement Program

When selecting a supplement to use, Nic looks for two primary factors: cost and taste.

Because of his previous results and enthusiasm for iSatori, when he reached out to iSatori, he was quickly invited to become a brand rep on the Bodybuilding.com forums, and now he gets all the great-tasting supplements he enjoys.

His stack isn’t huge, though. “I base my diet on lean gains rather than going for an all-out ‘dirty bulk,’ so I don’t need much beyond my diet and training,” says Nic. “I’m really liking how Bio-Gro is helping me with adding lean mass without additional calories.”

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Do you often look at people who have great bodies—bodies that you’d kill to have—and wonder what their secret is? Do you wonder how some people can achieve great fitness success while others struggle? It’s more than just genetics and intense training. It may boil down to small, consistent habits.

True, cover models usually have great training routines, stick to their diet plan no matter what, and are highly motivated. But their success comes from more than that. Incredibly fit people tend to have weapons most of us aren’t aware of. These secret weapons aren’t built in laboratories, and they don’t come from complex science. They’re tiny habits and strategies that anyone has the capacity to utilize.

Want to learn the secret weapons of the insanely fit and add them to your own fitness arsenal? Read on!

Secret Weapon 1:

Our world is one of instant gratification. People tend to want things right away, and this phenomenon extends to fitness. If people don’t see results after a week in the gym, they often fall off the wagon. Eating a bag of chips is instantly gratifying, whereas the results you’d get from months of hard work and clean eating are far more difficult to forecast.

Super-fit individuals can delay their gratification. They recognize the fact that the choices they make today—forgoing that slice of pizza or hitting the gym instead of the nearest bar—will reap future rewards that are far more meaningful than quick pleasures.

As a result, super-fit people don’t necessarily feel deprived when they diet. They’re able to look past short-term sacrifice and focus on long-term gains. If you can control your mind and view healthy choices in a positive light, you’ll be able to eat clean and train mean with purpose and passion.

If you can focus on the long-term benefits of smart choices, you’ll be able to easily commit to fit decisions.

Secret Weapon 2:

Super-fit people don’t compare themselves to others, because the minute they do, they put their focus on something they can’t control. Instead of constantly worrying about what everyone else is doing, elite athletes put their focus on something they can control: their own effort and performance. This internal focus leads to a more positive, goal-oriented mindset, which usually leads to greater achievements.

Super-fit people don’t compare themselves to others, because the minute they do, they put their focus on something they can’t control.

If you constantly dwell on the fact that you aren’t as good as someone else, your mindset becomes instantly negative. If you’re stuck in a negative frame of mind, it’s almost impossible to give your best effort to your training or diet.

The only comparison you should be making is to where you were yesterday. If you’re further ahead today, you are moving in the right direction.

Secret Weapon 3:

Tricia Ashley, a MuscleTech athlete, says that her success comes from her ability to stay positive when things get rough: “Without a positive attitude throughout adversity, I could not have reached the success that I have!”

Life is always going to present you with hard times, but how you deal with those hard times will determine your success. Many people give up or lose their tenacity when the going gets tough. If you view your adversity through a positive lens, you’re far more likely to grow and come out ahead.

“Without a positive attitude throughout adversity, I could not have reached the success that I have!”

Instead of dwelling on the negative, think about all the progress you’ve made so far, the good things that have happened in your life, and look forward to what you will achieve in the future.

A rosy outlook—or at least one that will push you to drive harder—will work in your favor. Should you reach a roadblock again, you’ll know precisely how to move around it.

Secret Weapon 4:

Many people believe the fitness elite have highly advanced training secrets and spend a lot of time researching new training techniques.

More often than not, the real secret isn’t some advanced lifting regimen, it is prioritizing rest.

“Fatigue blunts physical adaptations. Adaptation takes energy as well, and if all your energy is used up for performance, your recovery will suffer and no energy will be left for improving the cells, tissue, and systems of the body,” explains Marc Megna, former NFL football player and performance coach.

You have to train hard, eat whole foods, and prioritize sleep to grow.

Going hard in the gym is an absolute must, but if you aren’t giving your body time to rebuild and recover, you’ll just grow weaker over time.

You have to train hard, eat whole foods, and prioritize sleep to grow.

Secret Weapon 5:

Tricia Ashley suffers from Hashimoto’s disease, which has caused hypothyroidism. Instead of quitting, Tricia took the time to learn about her body. She feels that having patience and learning what’s best for her body has been crucial to her success. Through experimentation, she’s learned that her body responds best to a diet that’s entirely gluten free.

Pay attention to how your body feels after you eat various foods. Like Tricia, you may be able to pinpoint what makes you feel best and what can best help you see results. You can also approach this strategy by eliminating foods from your current diet one by one.

This is called an “elimination diet” and may help you pinpoint specific foods that drag down your wellbeing.

Secret Weapon 6:

You have a world of information at your fingertips. Use it.

Marc Megna explains that one of the biggest contributing factors to his success is a never-ending thirst for knowledge.

Marc is never satisfied with the information he already has, and he knows that there’s always something new to learn. “I think it’s this information-seeking trait that has helped me continue to get better and better,” says Marc.

You have a world of information at your fingertips. Use it. Learn about your goal, what it takes to achieve it, the best programs to help you get there, and how to beat problems you may have along the way.

Follow in the footsteps of people who have accomplished your goal and ask them for best practices.

Your mind is your greatest asset.

Putting It All Together

How many of these traits do you use? Can you apply some of these to your life today? Success isn’t always about having the best workout or diet. Usually, success comes from your attitude, your approach, and your commitment to building your best self.

Let us know which other traits work as part of your own healthy lifestyle!

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Vital Stats

Name: Greg Robins, CPT
Education: University of Massachusetts Boston
Occupation: Strength and Conditioning Coach at Cressey Performance
Twitter: @CoachGregRobbins
Website: thestrengthhouse.com
Location: Hudson, MA

Gaining weight can be incredibly difficult and stressful for certain people. For these folks, commonly called “hardgainers,” adding even a little size can seem like a monumental task. Personally, I’m skeptical about the extent of this difficulty. From my time in the military to setting recent personal powerlifting goals, I’ve had my fair share of experiences gaining healthy weight.

At my lowest weight of 173 in the military, I had the energy of a bull and personal bests that included a 435-pound deadlift, a 315-pound squat, and a 285-pound bench press. Later, when I flew up to 230 pounds, these same lifts shot up over one hundred pounds apiece, and I still boast a better-than-average work capacity.

Over the years, I’ve learned that tackling any goal comes down to being honest, acknowledging how much work it will take, and pushing through that work. If you’re a hardgainer who wants to gain weight, you probably won’t feel hungry all the time, but you’ll still have to eat. If you really want to grow, you need to silence your fears of getting fat, of your performance suffering, and of eating 100 percent clean.

“Gaining weight can be difficult and stressful. With proper training and willingness to do the work, you can build quality muscle and add healthy size.”

I don’t care how hard it is for you to gain weight. With proper training and willingness to do the work, you can build quality muscle and add healthy size. Do you have the courage to actually step outside your comfort zone and get something done? If you want to grow, start with these seven tips!

1 Use data over guesswork

The guessing game and going by “feel” never give you an accurate picture of what you eat on a daily basis. So do the math and figure it out!

Write down your daily diet in a notebook or food-tracking mobile app, crunch the numbers, and seek help if you need additional eyes. You may be surprised by what you find. Perhaps you thought you ate 3,300 calories one day when, in fact, you ate only 2,900. That’s a 400-calorie difference that can add up overtime.

“Write down your daily diet in a notebook or food-tracking mobile app, crunch the numbers, and seek help if you need additional eyes.”

Often, you just need something as visual as a food log for a couple weeks to fully grasp what you put into your diet—or not, in many cases.

Action point: Spend at least one month writing down your meals, snacks, and calories of any form that touch your lips. This serves as a mental exercise to get yourself used to eyeballing portion sizes and grasping the frequency and size of the meals you can consistently suck in on a daily basis.

Take advantage of this experimental period to tweak your diet according to results and how you feel, and learn how your body responds. For example, if you haven’t been gaining as much muscle as you’d like, check your protein intake to see if it’s adequate; if not, bump it up by increasing protein portion size or shift foods around a bit. One gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is a solid daily target.

One month is all you need to get a good picture of your caloric intake, but if you feel like it really helps, by all means, continue doing it until you can confidently start assembling meals through approximation and still achieve the results you want.

Just be sure to avoid getting consumed by the idea that you need to count every calorie all the time.

2 Add calorie bonuses in addition to planned meals

Hardgainers don’t gain weight for a slew of reasons. Chief among them is that they don’t sneak in enough extra calories into their diet. Finding something to add as a surplus source of quick and easy calories is clutch for major gains.

Sure, this might be easier said than done, but it’s a matter of identifying foods and recipes that are calorie-dense but light on stomach space. These foods include nut butters, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, grass-fed butters, honey, full-fat coconut milk, and full-fat Greek yogurt. Some other viable options consist of drinking milk throughout the day, making peanut butter and (insert your choice of condiment) sandwiches, homemade 1,000-calorie protein shakes, and homemade energy bars or “cookies.”

“Finding something to add as a surplus source of quick and easy calories is clutch for major gains.”

Once you figure out the foods which bloat the calorie count but not the stomach, plan to put them into your meals. That means making things in advance, thinking ahead, and having foods like full-fat Greek yogurt and nut butters within arm’s reach and ready. Don’t be lazy about it.

More calories = more growth, so pack on the calories and cram them in where you can.

Action point: one of my favorite quick and easy snacks

1. Grab a jar of all-natural peanut butter (none of that added sugar and oils funny business!) and empty it into a bowl.
2. Add two or three scoops of quality protein powder, a little honey to taste, and about 1/2 cup of dried oats.
3. Add just enough water to make it mixable but not soupy at all.
4. Mix all together.
5. Separate into little balls that can hold together and refrigerate.
6. Eat one with each of your meals over the next few days.

Other good options include many awesome high protein recipes by Protein Powder Chef, Anna Sward.

3 You need to eat carbs (yes, even the starchy ones)

This tip seems pretty straightforward, but you’d be surprised by how many people ask me why they’re not gaining weight when their only carbohydrate sources come from vegetables, trace amounts of sugars, fruits, and legumes.

I’m not saying to go completely crazy on trashy carbohydrates, but your body will gain better results from additional carb sources such as rice, oats, sweet potatoes, and—dare I say it—bread. This is especially true with heavy weightlifting, since carbs are needed to replenish glycogen stores that a particularly grueling lifting session devours. Some studies suggest that timing the majority of your starches around when you train may shunt unnecessary fat storage. For example, eat these starches either pre- or post-workout.

Action point: Add two bananas, a bowl of oatmeal (one cup measured uncooked), or half a cup of rice (measured uncooked) to your post-training meals.

4 Fat is where it’s at

Fats are essential to your diet because they cushion your vital organs, help you digest certain types of vitamins, maintain optimum brain function, and more. Plus, fats are the easiest way to add extra calories. Fat sources are calorically dense, go down quickly, provide a lot of energy, and of course, they’re damn tasty. Before you go to town on heavy cream and lard, fats should come from quality sources, like raw nuts, sunflower seeds, nut butters, avocado, fattier cuts of meat, olive oil, real mayonnaise, and some cheese.

Fats should comprise most of your meals when you’re not training or close to training times.

Action points: things you can do to add more fats and thus more calories to your diet

• Liberally douse your veggies in grass-fed butter or olive oil.
• Pat some butter in your sweet potato.
• Add extra olive oil in your marinara sauce.
• Use real mayonnaise in your sandwiches.
• Eat a whole avocado with your meal (they go with everything!).
• Snack on macadamia nuts, cashews, Brazil nuts, and any of the other more nutrient-dense nuts throughout the day.

5 Eat faster

Before your body has the chance to feel satiated, fill ‘er up! If you eat too slowly, you give your brain a chance to catch up on your stomach’s actual satiety levels, which is usually about a 20-minute delay. When you sit down to eat, start shoveling as much food as you comfortably can into your gaping maw. That means the opposite of what most weight loss experts will tell you. Never put your utensils down during your meal.

Action point: Make it a point to eat your meals with training buddies or friends who eat more food than you do. That way it becomes sort of a competition. It also puts “eating a lot” into a humbling perspective when you can see how much other people eat in comparison to yourself.

6 Drink more calories

Chewing takes work and time. Drink your calories whenever you can, whether that ends up being milk, coconut water, or a simple shake. Big, nutritional shakes you make at home are the real moneymaker here. You can add extra calories from coconut milk, nut butters, high-quality protein powders, and fistfuls of greens to make that shake give you both weight and nutritional gains.

Action point: Drink beverages like coconut milk, milk, or coconut water with each meal.

7 Have a positive relationship with your food

Far too often, people get consumed by the act of eating that they forget to savor food and view food as more than just numbers. Learn to cook, enjoy your food, and stop eating alone.

Having a positive relationship with food will do wonders for the poor habits you don’t even realize are taking place. It’s often the negative association that stems from the “need to eat” and makes hardgainers less likely to be able to adhere to consuming more calories. In these cases, it just helps to have a friend to be there along the way.

Action point: Plan to have dinner with a friend at least twice each week over the next month. As I already mentioned, try to make plans with friends who aren’t afraid to say yes to two entrees or second (or even third) helpings!

Do you have any other weight-gaining secrets to share with other hardgainers? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Vital Stats

Name: Cassie Smith
BodySpace: cassie1162
Height: 5’6″
Weight: 145 lbs
Occupation: Associate editor of Bodybuilding.com, CrossFit athlete, and weightlifting competitor

The sport of weightlifting is a polarizing enigma. Some think the snatch and the clean and jerk are the epitome of strength and athleticism. Others find them dangerous, hardcore, and completely out of the realm of normalcy.

As a weightlifting competitor and CrossFitter, I’m firmly in the pro-snatch camp. I think it’s a shame people don’t do the “Olympic” lifts and feel sad when trainers clutch their pearls at the thought of allowing their clients to perform such “dangerous maneuvers.” As it turns out, weightlifting training and competitions are actually safer than other sports.¹ With the right coach and the right equipment, there’s no reason to forego your interest in weightlifting because these moves look scary.

The snatch and the clean and jerk aren’t bodybuilding lifts, though. Doing them won’t help you build particular body parts like that troublesome upper pec or that lagging vastus medialis. These lifts will, however, aid your mobility, make you a more powerful athlete, increase your lean muscle mass, and, believe it or not, tax your cardiovascular system.

Now, before you run to the nearest platform to grip it and rip it, slow your roll. You can’t throw plates on a barbell and hope you can get it over your head. That would be like dumping an 8 year old into the front seat of your car, handing him the keys to the ignition, and then giving him the green light—now that’s scary.

The snatch and the clean and jerk are difficult lifts. To do them safely takes a lot of flexibility, speed, and power. So before you even attempt the real thing, try these progression lifts. They’ll help you develop the mobility, speed, and power you need to snatch or clean and jerk successfully.

Clean Foundation Moves

EXERCISE 1

If you’re a bodybuilder, you’ve probably been doing front squats with the bar resting on your shoulders and your arms crossed over the top of it. If you want to clean, drop the habit. Start doing front squats with the bar in your hands and your elbows pointed forward. It gets really difficult to pull the bar off the ground and onto your shoulders if you can’t bring your elbows up to near-shoulder level. If you can’t even hold the bar in that position without wanting to scream in agony, it’s time to start practicing more mobility.

For most people, the enigma of the clean stems from a lack of flexibility. To do a clean, your T-spine, lumbar, and shoulders have to be supple and strong. You may be able to hold the bar in a front rack position, but as soon as you squat down, you freeze. You don’t have to front squat 250 to work on your mobility. Grab an empty bar and practice holding the bar in the front rack and squatting down.

“It’s also important to squat to full depth—that means your hip hinge needs to be below your knees.”

It’s also important to squat to full depth—that means your hip hinge needs to be below your knees. One of the keys to a good clean is getting under the bar quickly. Do one right, and all the sudden you’ll be ass to grass with a bunch of weight on your shoulders.

If you can, sit at the bottom of a light front squat. Practice keeping your chest up and your spine neutral. Don’t round forward. Allow your back and your shoulders to stretch. Learn how to get comfortable in this position.

EXERCISE 2

Undoubtedly, you’ve practiced the deadlift. The clean pull is similar, but you’ll actually be pulling the bar as high as you can. This is an important movement to practice because it’s what you’ll do before you fall under the bar in a real clean.

Clean Pull

For the clean pull, keep your arms just slightly bent and the bar close to your body. The point is not to use your biceps to pull the bar up, but to practice using the energy stored in your ankles, knees, and hips—we call this triple extension—to drive the bar upward. Before the bar even leaves the ground, make sure your lats and hamstrings are engaged.

As you pull, don’t let the bar drift forward. To be good at the clean, you have to learn to control the bar and make it do what you want it to. Don’t let the bar control the movement. Use light weight to begin so you get the feel of how your muscles are working. Your form should stay the same, no matter how heavy you load the bar.

EXERCISE 3

True plyometrics aren’t exactly “lifts,” but they will help you learn how to produce more power. To jump on or off of a box, your muscles have to stretch and then contract rapidly. The faster your muscles can do this, the more force they can produce. Force, as any good student of physiology knows, is a primary piece of power. And power is an essential aspect of performing the clean.

Box Jump

Adding plyos to your regimen is beneficial no matter what your goals are. Jumping on or off of a box will fire up your central nervous system (CNS). Your CNS is responsible for delivering messages to your muscles from your brain. If your CNS works quickly and efficiently, you’ll be much better at doing complex movements.

Jerk Foundation Moves

EXERCISE 1

The push press differs from a strict press in that you get to use momentum from your legs to help you lift the bar over your head. To do a clean and jerk, you need to get comfortable having weight over your head. It might be scary at first, but by doing this lift you’ll build strong, stable shoulders and an iron core that, together, are more than capable of putting up big numbers.

Push Press

I see a lot of people doing this lift with a lot of chest action. The bar goes more forward,than out and there’s a lot of scary back-arching going on. The push press is not a standing incline bench press.

Grab the bar with your hands slightly more than shoulder-width apart. The movement should begin with a dip in your knees; don’t start by sticking your ass out. As you push upward with your legs, think about that energy traveling all the way up your shoulders, through your arms, and into the bar. As your arms reach full extension, poke your head through and let your whole body take the weight.

EXERCISE 2

A push jerk is a little different than a push press because you re-bend your knees after you dip and drive the bar over your head. This movement is a little more complicated and thus takes a bit more athleticism and coordination.

Push Jerk

The point of doing a push jerk is to work on “catching” the bar with your legs. In other words, your knees absorb some of the weight as the bar goes over your head. You should be able to push jerk more than you push press.

The lift actually ends when you re-straighten your knees and your arms are at full extension. Just like in the push press, your head should poke through your arms. If someone was standing to the side watching you, she would be able to see at least a little bit of your ears.

Snatch Foundation Moves

EXERCISE 1

Maybe one of the most difficult exercises ever invented, the overhead squat is the king of exposing your weaknesses. If you have any sticky points in your shoulders, back, or hips, the overhead squat will make you feel like an old lady.

Overhead Squat

The overhead squat is a great foundation because the bottom portion mimics perfectly the landing position of the snatch. If you can sit—with your hips below your knees—and the bar over your head without wanting to cry like a little girl, you’ve got the start of a squeaky-clean snatch.

The overhead squat is also great for working balance, stability, and mobility. Even if you aren’t interested in ever trying the snatch, throwing an overhead squat into your regimen will only help you.

EXERCISE 2

The snatch balance is a fun little exercise that’s challenging at every level. Even with light weight, putting together the speed and coordination necessary for this lift can be difficult.

Snatch Balance

Start with the bar racked across your shoulders like you would for a back squat. Your hands will be wide, like they would be for a snatch. Dip like you would for a push press and then drive upward. As the weight unloads from your shoulders, drop into the bottom of an overhead squat position.

It takes speed to get down and athleticism to figure out how to drive the bar up and then squat down in rapid succession. And, like the overhead squat, it requires a lot of mobility.

What do you think?

Have any other ideas for weightlifting progression moves? Having trouble with any of these movements? Hit me up in the comments below!

References

1. http://www.liftbigeatbig.com/2011/11/benefits-of-olympic-weightlifting.html

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Vital Stats

Name: Elizabeth Aguilera
Email: ekaguilera6@gmail.com
Age: 24
Weight: 129
Contest Weight: 127
Height: 5’7
Occupation: PR Professional, Oh Yeah! Nutrition Spokesmodel
Education: Purdue University – BA in PR and Media Relations
Contest History: Wings of Strength Chicago (NPC); Midwest Ironman (NPC)
Athletic Background: Cheerleading, Softball, Tennis, Track, NPC Competitor
Sponsors: Ape Strength Fitness, Pink Label Bikini, and Oh Yeah! Nutrition

When it comes to diseases, lots of syllables often make for a scary diagnosis.

Take melanoma, for instance. Elizabeth Aguilera has it and, according to her doctors, always will. Every two months she meets with a specialist to look for spots on her skin, have them tested, and determine whether to have another surgery. At the tender age of 24, she’s had four already, to remove seven cancerous patches of skin from her stomach ², leg ³, and hip ².

“I check myself all the time,” says Elizabeth, a spokesmodel for Oh Yeah! Nutrition. “As long as I keep consistent, and go every two months for the rest of my life, I will be fine. If it advances to a stage 3, or 4, it will get into my lymph nodes and organs. I just have to monitor it.”

Take anorexia–not a disease, but a disorder. Morgan Wehmer, Elizabeth’s sister, has wrestled that dietary demon and lived to tell. She was bullied in high school and took extreme dietary measures because she felt like it was the only thing she could control.

The sisters deal with their dilemmas, with their syllables. They lift each other in hard times. That is what families do.

THE BIG SISTER

Treatment and surgery are intense, and a body needs rest. Elizabeth strives to put in max effort in the weight room, but with regular treatment and surgery, she’s not always able to. She has to be careful, patient, and confident. Each day presents a challenge.

Elizabeth’s efforts inspire her younger sister, Morgan, “On her most horrible days, she’d post the most inspirational things,” says Morgan. “The things that upset her the most, she’d turn into positives for other people. And it was therapeutic for her. It gives me strength should I ever want to complain, give up, or slack off. She’s my other half. How can I slack if Liz would go 110 percent?”

“The sisters deal with their dilemmas, with their syllables. They lift each other in hard times. That is what families do.”

Even before her diagnosis was delivered, Elizabeth was fit, but with her life in the balance, she has taken it to a new level. She took the stage in 2013–in part to mark a check on her bucket list–and finished fourth. But her doctors asked her to take a break in 2014. Her goal to turn pro remains unfulfilled.

That bucket list was lengthy but the sisters have shortened it in the past six months. They worked as models and did photo shoots. Liz has asked photographers not to “edit out” her scars. She wants people to see them. They are markers of his past, and she wants people to know that cancer survivors can still be models.

THE LITTLE SISTER

Vital Stats

Name: Morgan Wehmer
Age: 21
Weight: 143
Height: 5’10
Occupation: Nursing student at Indiana University of Bloomington
Certification: NASM (American Fitness for LIZ)
Contest History: TBA, summer 2014
Athletic Background: Track, softball and varsity dance; obstacle course races
Website: ewehmer.wordpress.com

Morgan Wehmer was suffering from anorexia. She is a tall girl, with long arms and legs, so when she dwindled her body weight down to 113 pounds, she simply looked ill.

In high school, she seemed like a regular kid. She was heavily involved in extracurricular activities, had a boyfriend, and was an athlete. She loved organized dance and sang in the choir. She played softball and ran track. She got good grades and never got into trouble. She was a good kid.

But, high school brought unforeseen torment for Morgan. She was bullied by older, taller, more athletic girls, who called her names. They’d walk behind her and shout “slut” to terrorize young Morgan. That was her first significant freshman experience. “That’s not what you want to happen in that foreign land,” Morgan says. “Girls … there’s never a reason. Girls can just be so, so mean. [Elizabeth] would get into fights with them and protect me.”

The bullying continued for years. Morgan tried to bury the jabs and insults, but their effects manifested in other ways. She and Elizabeth, tight as toddlers, grew apart as they fought through adolescence. When Morgan needed protecting, Liz had her back in the school hallways. When she wasn’t around, the taunts intensified.

When the pressures of dating, studies, incessant bullying, and self-image worries left Morgan reeling, she took control of the one thing she could: food. She started to cut back calories, skipped meals, and found excuses to avoid the dinner table.

“Stop fighting yourself and start fighting for yourself.”

“There was faulty thinking before, and after,” Morgan says. “I feel like I am talking about a different person now. Food was the only thing I could control, but I over controlled it.”

Elizabeth was one of the first people to notice the changes in Morgan. She fought off the mean girls, but anorexia was a more elusive and subtle foe. “Everyone was worried about her,” Liz says. “She was in denial about it.”

THE LIFTER SISTERS

Morgan stewed in her own torment, her thoughts growing more and more negative. Her family broached the subject to little avail. It strained the family, and Morgan saw it. She says something changed in her psyche.

“All of my thoughts about food and what I needed to eat to keep me going…all of that was faulty,” Morgan says. “When I realized I was looking at things in horrible ways, there was this light switch. I can never go back to that.”

She began to research nutrition and very slowly gained her weight back. It took two years, and it’s still an ongoing struggle. She wants more muscle. Morgan’s research produced some unplanned results. She fell in love with the study of nutrition and decided to pursue dietetics as a profession, before switching to another health-conscious field, nursing.

“I wanted to do it the right way, the healthy way,” Morgan says. “I ate a lot of healthy foods, basically double what I am eating now. I was doubling up on carbs and healthy fats, along with working out. I used machines, free weights, and bodyweight exercises. I wanted to build muscle, and it took time.”

While Morgan was flipping the script on her education, Elizabeth learned she had melanoma. Thus began an endless series of exams, scans, surgeries, biopsies, and doctor visits. She took monthly flights to Jacksonville for treatment, then flew back to school for coursework, determined to graduate.

“Looking at Morgan now, it’s hard to tell that she was anorexic.”

“I can’t even fathom how I’d feel about having a constant unknown diagnosis,” Morgan says of her sister’s plight. “As these spots appear, she has to get them cultured and then wait weeks for results.”

To make matters worse, Elizabeth’s husband was deployed overseas as a member of the U.S. Navy. She graduated college during his absence and underwent treatment while he was stationed in Japan. Their separation further alienated the struggling older sister, but she had Morgan to lean on. It’s not that their roles reversed. Morgan didn’t become a “big sister.” They simply grew closer, and each time one faltered, the other offered support.

“Everything is about your attitude and fighting for what you want in life,” Elizabeth says. “I wanted to start my life, and [melanoma] put me on hold. It gave me time to start doing more things. I sat down, wrote down things I wanted to do.”

THE THINGS WE HIDE

Looking at Morgan now, it’s hard to tell that she was anorexic. If you don’t notice Elizabeth’s scars and ask her about it, you might not know that she has recurring skin cancer. Just imagine what all the other lifters are going through. How many battle confidence or body-image issues? Who is sick? Who is mentally ill? You can hide a lot of pain under your gym clothes.

Morgan suffered from the mental anguish of anorexia for two years before she started to pull out of it. Even then it took two more years before she felt “over” it. It’s hard to talk about. Subjects like this aren’t exactly locker-room chatter. “It’s sensitive subject matter to talk about, but it’s happening a lot more than people think,” Morgan says. “It’s something that needs to be addressed.”

Magazines and infomercials boast about fat-loss techniques, playing on image fears. Fitness and nutrition make headlines, but profound subjects like disease, disorder, and death get overlooked by our mainstream social conscience. “A lot of people talk about weight loss, which is great, but at the same time there are problems that people don’t talk about every day,” Elizabeth says. “People are still battling disease every day, but it’s good to see that there are people getting through these things.”

NEVER ALONE

The distance between a healthy lifestyle and a debilitating one is not as great as you might think. A doctor’s diagnosis or a bully’s attack can change everything.

The support of a sister, a brother, a friend, or even a stranger can help reverse a slide. “[Morgan] came out of it, graduated high school with honors, and she had a greater sense of health and well being,” Elizabeth says. “It changed her life and her career. Everything she went through happened for a reason. It made her who she is today.”

To work on the items on their bucket list, the lifter sisters created a website, a Facebook page, and spread their message via social media. They use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, BodySpace, and their website to reach people all over the globe, and not just to people with cancer or eating disorders. They’re out to help anyone who asks.

REFERENCES

1. www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/melanoma
2. www.cancer.org/research/cancerfactsstatistics/cancerfactsfigures2013/index
3. www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/
4. seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/melan.html

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Name: John Doyle
Email: dipper-23@hotmail.com
BodySpace: JDoyle23
Country: Ireland

Why I Got Started

I was heavy all through my teenage years. People teased me and called me names; it hurt a lot. I was tired of always being the fat kid and being picked last in all the sports I played because I wasn’t fit enough. College didn’t help any. I gained three stone (42 pounds) in the first year. Something had to change.

I noticed that my cousin Shane was training hard and had lost a lot of weight. I was jealous. At the beginning of my transformation, I used him as my inspiration and asked him loads of questions. We still talk about weight loss every week, and now we even chat about the prospect of bodybuilding, which is my next goal.

I was studying adventure tourism management in college, so I was doing a lot of outdoor sports like rock climbing, kayaking, hill walking, and mountain biking. I could do those things with all of that extra weight, but I wasn’t able to excel at them like I wanted to. So with the help of my cousin and my drive to change, I began to transform.

Post To Fitboard

How I Did It

I decided to join Weight Watchers in my hometown of Killarney with the support of my sisters and family. I followed the Weight Watchers program, which gave me great discipline and opened my eyes to how simple it is to implement a healthy lifestyle into a busy college life. Even though I was juggling a part-time job, studies, and a healthy lifestyle, I still managed to get back into the sports I loved.

I cut out all the junk food. Before my decision to change, I ate takeaways, pizzas, chocolate, fizzy drinks, and crisps. You name it, I probably ate it. I started to prepare my own meals from scratch and introduced more fresh fruit and vegetables to my daily intake. Preparing my own meals gave me great control and insight into what I was fueling myself. It led me to discover that I love cooking. I have begun baking healthy muffins and bread from the recipes on Bodybuilding.com.

“In a short 8 months, I had lost more than 100 pounds. I haven’t looked back since.”

I was always active in sports, but because of my poor diet and lack of real effort, I could never be my absolute best. So, I started really simply and worked my way up. I started walking with my dad, sister, and our dogs Sam and Odie. Every week, we went a little longer and a little faster. After I built that base, I got out on my mountain bike or road bike for various spins. I always set a target of how long I would cycle and how far. The next time I rode, I would try to better the time and distance.

Once I had lost about 30 pounds, I got a gym membership and started swimming. Every week, I did more lengths. I did a lot of interval cardio on the treadmill and I completed spinning classes to get me in shape.

After that, the weight started flying off. In a short 8 months, I had lost more than 100 pounds. I haven’t looked back since.

The only things I regret through this journey were that I never kept a photo journal. I wish I did because I could have looked back for changes in my body. I also regret not finding weights from the beginning. I’m going through Steve Cook’s Big Man on Campus trainer and I absolutely love the feeling weightlifting gives me. I have set new goals to transform my body and be more muscular. So keep watching!

Supplement Plan

During the initial weight-loss period, I didn’t take supplements. But, now with the Big Man on Campus, I use the following products:

NUTRITION PLAN

I try to drink three liters of water per day.

Training Program

During my 8-month transformation, I did mostly cardio. I’m now following the lifting routine of Big Man on Campus and absolutely love it. Look there for my training details. Here’s the training that I did for my initial weight loss.

Suggestions for Others

For anyone with a goal, it starts with you and your conviction to that goal. You have to believe in what you want and reinforce it every day, no matter if it’s weight loss or bodybuilding. I always reward myself before I start my next journey. I buy a new shirt that is too small and I use it as my focus point. I spend good money on it and I want to wear it, so I hang it where I will see it every day. Now I have a new top for my next goal to build a bigger, stronger body. I see that every day and I find motivation from it.

Knowledge is the key! Learn as much as you can about your body and what it takes to fuel it. I learned how my body operates on a calorie deficit and how I could still feel satisfied and operate my daily tasks. I now am learning what it takes to fuel and produce a bigger body. Now that I know how to train and eat, if I ever have an issue with weight again, I have the tools to get right back in shape.

“Now that I know how to train and eat, if I ever have an issue with weight again, I have the tools to get right back in shape.”

Find a role model and gain inspiration from their achievements. I read many sports biographies from various athletes and it helped me focus when I felt low.

You have to build up your self-discipline to succeed. When hunger strikes and unhealthy options are readily available, you have to have the strength to make a good choice.

I was always told that I wasn’t fast enough, that I couldn’t jump high enough, or that I was too heavy to be good at sports. When I was on training spins, I let these taunts play in my mind and used them to rev me up so I could push harder. Use negativity to drive your training—don’t let it bring you down.

Country-specific Details

I am from Ireland and the weather is usually pretty rainy. Don’t let weather influence your training schedule; focus on your end goal. Your equipment and motivation should prepare you to deal with any weather conditions. Through my walks, runs, and spins, I’ve rediscovered just how beautiful my town (Killarney, Co. Kerry) actually is.

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It’s the million-dollar question: How do the fit stay fit?

At Bodybuilding.com, we’re uniquely qualified to know the constellation of factors which separate the successful from the unsuccessful when it comes to fitness. That’s because we have BodySpace, which is more than just the largest social media site in the world dedicated to the fit-minded. It’s also a vast data pool that amounts to the world’s largest fitness study, a research effort that we refer to as the Strength in Numbers Study.

Our Strength in Numbers findings are based on BodySpace members who actively make progress toward their stated goal, whether it’s weight gain or loss. If you move toward your goal on BodySpace, we consider that fitness success.

Every time you track a workout, post to FitBoard, add progress pics, and engage in myriad BodySpace activities, you help the community at large. You help us understand the habits that generate fitness success. If you’re an active BodySpace member, you contribute to the greater fitness good.

No matter how many numbers we crunch about crunches, no matter how much digits we slice and dice about getting sliced and diced, shaping up still requires one person to dig deep and make a commitment to become better.

New habits must be formed, changes must be made, and reproducible motivation must roar to life. Everyone walks their own path toward their goals, but simple daily habits that reinforce eating better, exercising regularly, and sleeping more still lay the groundwork for a fit life.

The majority of fit individuals don’t spend hours in the gym, live on a diet of cabbage, or nit-pick the optimum amount of holy water to achieve immortality. Instead, fit people share a set of outrageously simple and positivity-reinforcing habits. These are the eight habits of highly successful fit people, according to the first major batch of our Strength in Numbers data.

1 Highly Successful Fit People Track Their Workouts

Memory sure works in a funny way. If you’ve been relying on it to recollect the exact number of reps and the weight for each of the five (or was it six?) exercises you did two Tuesdays ago, the only exercise you’ll be doing at the gym is frustrating yourself.

It’s more than merely a matter of organization. Neglecting to track your workout via an online tool or a journal is a rookie mistake, one that can lead to unproductive workouts and a stark absence of recognizable progress. Simply writing down your workouts makes you more aware of what you may or may not be doing. You might be surprised to learn that you were, in fact, doing only 20 minutes of cardio rather than 30.

Additionally, a visual record—especially one that other people can view—holds you accountable to completing your workout, gets you fired up about measurable progress, helps you avoid exercise plateaus, and could even engage you in some friendly competition among peers.

All of these serve to help the fit stay fit—or in some cases, get even fitter.

2 Highly Successful Fit People Find a Plan And Stick It Out

There are literally hundreds of exercise plans out in the wild. It’s not uncommon for a newcomer to struggle with finding the “perfect” exercise blueprint. When it comes to picking out a suitable workout program, the best method is to just go with one that fits your goal and difficulty level, and then feel out the program for at least six weeks. Why?

If you’re new to exercise, your body undergoes major changes as it attempts to wire your motor units and brain to become better accustomed to new movement patterns. Typically, it takes 4-6 weeks for your body to adapt and for beastly gains to come out of hibernation.

It is for this reason that both sticking it out the first six weeks of the program and tracking your workout—the first habit we discussed (see the synergy?)—are so crucial. In doing so, you can make smart tweaks to turbocharge your program and view progress in numbers, even if they don’t immediately make themselves apparent on your body.

Once you get over that initial adaptation phase, the transformation begins to take shape, making you more likely to dive further into the program. This brings us to the next point …

3 Highly Successful Fit People Post Progress Pictures

You may laugh at the prospect of someone who poses in front of the bathroom mirror, arm outstretched, ready to snap a picture. Maybe you actually know someone who does this, but it turns out there may be something scientifically sound to the “selfie.”

Progress photos can help you track your progress. Each snapshot in time showcases subtle changes that you might otherwise have never noticed (“Wow, my abs look like they could crush tomatoes here!”) and incidentally lights up certain regions in your brain related to euphoria.

These visual milestones trigger a stronger and stronger release of dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical strongly linked to reward. As you ease the psychological tension between your desire to reach your fitness goal and the hard work needed to achieve it, you will uncover the drive necessary to keep pursuing your goal because you’re closer than you were before.

It might feel a bit awkward at first to take photos of yourself, but these quick snaps can help keep you grounded and motivated.

When you advance, they allow you to identify weak points or lagging body parts and zero-in on what you need to improve.

4 Highly Successful Fit People Seek and Share Motivation

When you first start your fitness journey, summoning motivation day-in and day-out can be likened to moving a hundred-ton hippo that won’t budge an inch no matter how much you goad, hoot, and prod it. Is this genetics or laziness? Some studies seem to think motivation is inherited, but the literature on motivation itself is still pretty unclear. What is clear, however, is that intrinsic motivation doesn’t always come easily, so it has to sprout elsewhere.

Enter the Internet sub-genre of fitness motivational pictures and quotes, aka “fitspiration.” Popular quotes range from “A one hour workout is only 4 percent of your day. No excuses!” to “Believe yourself and you are halfway there,” to the more abrasive and succinct, “Shut up and train.” These powerful quotes and images are staples on FitBoard, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Just a cursory look through any of these places will hit you with enough extrinsic motivation to kick your arse in gear.

The best type of motivation, though, is realizing that you enjoy working out and can gain a sense of achievement from doing something awesome. For this reason, tracking your progress through workout logs, pictures, and even occasional medical checkups is incredibly important.

5 Highly Successful Fit People Make Fitness Social

Few things are 100 percent enjoyable when done solo. For instance, the struggle of a 6 a.m. workout is instantly made better with a workout buddy (and a hit of caffeine, of course).

Numerous studies reinforce the idea that social support helps create a positive feedback loop to spur on a person’s positive self-perception and keep him or her exercising. A study that came out of the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention shows that social support specific to fitness kept people committed to exercise measurably better than just general support. It’s no wonder that fitness conquests are likely more successful among groups which channel the same exercise mindset, like on BodySpace or group fitness classes.

Interestingly, a study conducted at Kansas State University found that it’s better to buddy up with others who are fitter than you are. It sounds like counterintuitive advice, but hanging with someone stronger or fitter is the perfect motivator, because apparently motivation and harder bouts of effort often germinate from “feelings of inadequacy.” These feelings can push you toward improvement.

6 Highly Successful Fit People Constantly Learn

As mentioned before, attaining better fitness at the individual level isn’t an exact science—at least not yet. New research on a variety of nutrition and fitness topics hits multiple scientific journals daily, nightly, and ever so quickly. Unless you consume content regularly, it’s difficult to keep up with the latest skinny.

Of course, the Achilles’ heel in all this is that such information amounts to the good, the bad, and the ugly.

You have to apply some critical thinking to separate the chaff from the wheat. Inevitably, you’ll come across grand claims with pseudo-scientific backing and a lot plain old-fashioned bro-science, so an active mind and keen eye are essential.

Don’t think you have to try every new program under the sun, either. Rather than implementing everything all at once, save certain tips and techniques for later. Consume quality content regularly, but always examine it through the lens of your own goals, body, and lifestyle.

7 Highly Successful Fit People Regularly Visit Fitness
Sites

Through our Strength in Numbers Study, we discovered that the most successfully fit people in the world start off by doing what you’re doing right now: Being here and reading this. This habit goes hand-in-hand with Habit No. 6 and proves that you’re on the prowl for information, education, and constant self-improvement.

Being engaged in such activities will help you stay committed to fitness for life. Whether you’re looking for information, recipe ideas, or social support, you’re in this for the long haul.

8 Highly Successful Fit People Take These Supplements

Granted, these supplements won’t make or break your fitness progress. After all, fitness is based first and foremost on smart training and precision nutrition. To be effective, dietary supplements must stand upon a solid foundation of whole foods and consistent effort. Supplements augment and can enhance your hard work, but they won’t do any of that work for you.

In addition, if often isn’t possible to get all the necessary nutrients exclusively from real foods. Some chalk it up to inconvenience—a wholesome meal may just be out of reach simply because of the environment or time constraints. Other times the problem might be more complex and further out of your control. Then there’s the growing dearth of nutrients from food itself due to modern agricultural practices, soil depletion, long carbon footprints, and excessive processing.

The nutrients present in food today aren’t in the same concentration as food grown 50 years ago, much less hundreds of years ago. Iceberg lettuce, for example, now has the same nutritional value as cardboard.

In these instances, supplements—in particular protein—provide the extra nutrients needed to support the fit life of exercising individuals, especially people with specific body composition or strength goals.

If you want to learn more about the popular supplements and see where they fit in your strategy, you can learn a thing or two from our supplements page or the category guides linked to the ingredients above.

BodySpace, Your Space

Are you already a BodySpace member or an active part of another online fitness community? Sound off in the comments below and let us know the habits which work for you. Don’t forget to give yourself a hug for beginning or continuing your fitness journey with others like you!

References

1. M. D. Roberts et al. Phenotypic and Molecular Differences Between Rats Selectively-Bred to Voluntarily Run High Versus Low Nightly Distances. AJP: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 2013; DOI:10.1152/ajpregu.00581.2012
2. Oka, RK et al. Sources of social support as predictors of exercise adherence in women and men ages 50 to 65 years. Women’s Health. 1995 Summer;1(2):161-175
3. National Institute of Mental Health. “Brain signal boosts as monkey nears reward.” NIMH. NIMH, 30 May, 2002.
4. 4. Kansas State University. “Burning more calories is easier when working out with someone you perceive as better.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 November 2012.
5. Mark W. Howe et al. Prolonged dopamine signalling in striatum signals proximity and value of distant rewards. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038
6. Fan MS et al. Evidence of decreasing mineral density in wheat grain over the last 160 years. Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology. 2008;22(4):315-324

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Vital Stats

Name: Obi Obadike
Website: www.obiobadike.com
Email: obifitness@verizon.net

QObi, my arms look great, but I have ski-slope shoulders. What do you recommend?

To build a complete physique, the sculpted sort that looks good on a magazine cover, every body part needs to hold its own—without exception.

That means giving every body part its due in the gym, even if it’s not a “glamour” body part like chest, biceps, or abs.

When I train, my objective is to work each body part a minimum of once each week and a maximum of twice each week. That same rule applies to shoulders. I always pair shoulders with a back-smashing session.

To grow big, strong shoulders, hit them with a minimum of three exercises each training session. Note the word “minimum.” If you’re strong enough, feel free to increase this to 4-5 exercises on shoulder day.

I make sure I warm up my shoulders by stretching my arms out. It’s essential to prevent injury. I start with small circles going forward for at least 30 seconds and then I reverse and go backward for 30 seconds. Then I do the same thing, only making the circles bigger.

Here’s a breakdown of two shoulder routines. I chose these exercises because collectively they work each head of the deltoid. When I mention Monday and Friday—well, that’s up to you. Just don’t train shoulders on consecutive days.

Follow this shoulder routine and they’ll grow. Trust me.

Monday

1 Dumbbell Front Raise

This isolation exercise primarily works your anterior (front) deltoid.

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and rest your arms at your sides. Using an overhand grip, slowly raise your arms in front of you and bring the dumbbell to eye level.

Dumbbell Front Raises

Then, slowly lower the weight back down to your sides. Find yourself swinging? It’s likely that the weight you’re using is too heavy. Remember: Speed isn’t the key here. It’s all about slow, isolated exercises.

• 1 set warm-up of 20 reps using very light weight
• 3 sets of 12-15 reps

2 Dumbbell Overhead Press

This shoulder exercise works your anterior deltoid while indirectly targeting your triceps and upper back.

Sit on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand, and make sure your feet are shoulder width apart and flat on the ground. Bring your arms to shoulder level and bend at the elbows. From there, simultaneously push the dumbbells overhead and extend until they touch for a complete repetition. Lower the dumbbells back down to chest level and repeat.

• 1 set warm-up of 20 reps using very light weight
• 3 sets of 12-15 reps

3 Barbell Upright Row

This compound exercise works the deltoids and trapezius muscles while indirectly targeting the triceps.

Stand with your feet shoulder with apart and your knees slightly bent. Hold the barbell in front of you, resting it against your thighs. Pull the barbell up until it reaches the level of your clavicle.

Barbell Upright Row

At this point, your elbows should be fully pointed outward. Be sure not to swing or bounce the bar or rise to your tippy toes. Keep a steady breath, inhaling on the downward position and exhaling as you pull the bar upward.

• 1 set warm-up of 20 reps using very light weight
• 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Friday

1 Dumbbell Shoulder Shrug

This exercise works the upper trapezius muscle, helping you built titan-style traps.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand using an overhand grip. Stand upright, feet shoulder-width apart. From the starting position, squeeze together your shoulder blades while simultaneously rotating your scapula. Try to bring your shoulders to your ears (or as close as possible) while elevating your scapula.

Hold that contraction for at least two seconds before lowering your shoulders back down.

• 1 set warm-up of 20 reps using very light weight
• 3 sets of 12-15 reps

2 Dumbbell Lateral Raise

These raises primarily work the middle head of the deltoid as well as the anterior deltoid and posterior (back) deltoid.

Dumbbell Lateral Raises

Stand with your feet shoulder with apart, feet firmly planted. Holding a dumbbell in each hand, and keeping a slight bend in each arm, raise your arms to shoulder height.

Slowly bring your arms down and back to your sides. Repeat.

• 1 set warm-up of 20 reps using very light weight
• 3 sets of 12-15 reps

3 Military Press

This exercise works the entire shoulders complex, but especially the front deltoids.

Sit on a bench. With your feet firmly planted and roughly shoulder width apart, grasp the bar with an overhand grip. Extend your arms straight while lifting overhead. Try not to arch your back.

Lower the bar back down to your clavicle and repeat. Be careful not to hold your breath. Inhale while pulling down and exhale while pushing up.

• 1 set warm-up of 20 reps using very light weight
• 3 sets of 12-15 reps

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“Too much protein is as bad as smoking.”
“Meat and cheese cause early death.”
“High-protein diet linked to aging, cancer, and diabetes.”
“Now we can’t eat protein. What can we eat?”

If you’ve been able to avoid the barrage of headlines like this that have seemingly taken over the Internet in the last week, consider yourself lucky. It never ceases to amaze me how one single study, once it’s attached to a memorable hook, can seem like breaking news that every outlet in the world needs to cover without the slightest bit of scrutiny.

Now every time you order a double chicken breast with veggies on the side, you run the risk of receiving a snide remark about how all that protein you eat is going to kill you.

Many of you have asked me through social media about my take on the study that provoked these stories, and you’d better believe I have one.

Read on for some ammo to fire back at your friends and family as they butter their fifth piece of white bread to go with their pasta dinner.

Running the Numbers

The study that everyone is talking about is an epidemiological study from the University of Southern California. An epidemiological study means that they did not actually perform a study in a lab, but simply looked at factors in life to make associations or correlations.

The researchers did some further research in mice and yeast to support their hypothesis, but that is a far leap to connect to humans. So I will focus solely on the epidemiological study in humans.

In this particular study, the researchers took data from a pre-existing survey known as NHANES III, one of the largest national surveys of health and nutrition done in the United States, assessing about 6,300 people over the age of 50 years old. The authors of the original study collected a wide range of data about their subjects and followed them for 18 years, even analyzing their death rates and cause of death.

Armed with this raw data, the authors of the new study separated the subjects into three different groups:

1. High protein: People who consumed 20 percent or more of their daily calories from protein.
2. Low protein: People who consumed 10 percent or less of their daily calories from protein.
3. A middle group between the low and high groups.

They reported that, among subjects aged 50-65, people who consumed a high-protein diet, mainly from animal protein, were 75 percent more likely to have died over the next 18 years than people consuming a low-protein diet. These unfortunate individuals also had a fourfold greater risk of dying from cancer, as well as a greater risk of dying from diabetes.

On the other hand, in people 65 and older, there was no greater risk of death or death from cancer from eating a high-protein diet. In fact, it seemed that the higher-protein diet in people over 65 decreased the risk of overall death and death from cancer while the low-protein diet increased their risk of death.

However, there was still a greater risk of dying from diabetes in all ages eating a higher-protein diet.

A Logical Leap

Armed with this data, the scientists leapt to the conclusion that anyone age 50-65 should consume a very low-protein diet, where protein represents as low as 10 percent of total daily calories or less. If you consumed 3,000 calories per day, that would equate to 75 grams of protein total per day. If you were down at 2,000 calories per day, that would be just 50 grams!

For the lead researcher to say that eating protein is as dangerous as smoking is irresponsible.

On the other hand, researchers also suggested that people over the age of 65 should consume a high-protein diet, since there is a relationship between higher protein intake and reduced death rates in older people. That’s right: little to no protein for 15 years, and then you should suddenly go back on a high-protein diet at age 65. This, researchers suggest, will prevent muscle loss, frailty with aging, and death.

If the study were the extent of what the researchers said, perhaps the article you’re reading wouldn’t even be necessary. However, the lead researcher, Dr. Valter Longo, went on to state in a much-quoted interview afterward that eating a higher-protein diet is as bad for middle-aged people’s health as smoking cigarettes.

That quotable statement has helped fuel the hundreds of stories about this story, and it makes a rebuttal necessary. Luckily, it’s not difficult to do.

One Day Is Not A Diet

There are a number of serious flaws with this study, but the fatal flaw was how the researchers determined the subjects’ protein intake. It was with a method called “24-hour recall.” Basically, the subjects were asked what they ate the prior day. Yes, just one day!

It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that what these people ate in one random 24-hour period of their life is representative of the diet they maintained for up to 18 years, or 6,570 days. This is to say nothing of the likelihood that people age 50 or above can’t recall with perfect accuracy what they ate for breakfast today, let alone what they ate yesterday. We honestly have no idea what the subjects’ diets were like over the 18 years that they were followed.

Another problem was that the researchers only calculated total protein from “animal sources” or “plant sources.” There was no mention of the source of the animal protein, nor what else anyone was eating with it. Was the animal protein from leans cut of beef, poultry, dairy, and eggs along with a low- to moderate-carb diet that was rich in vegetables? Or was the protein from burgers eaten on buns with fries, fried chicken with mashed potatoes, and salami sandwiches on white bread with mayo?

The subjects in the study were asked what they ate the day before their interviews. One day! That’s not enough evidence to determine a proper diet.

The NHANES III interviews were performed in the late 1990s on subjects who were born in the 1940s and earlier. Given what we know about the dietary habits of families during the early part of the 20th century, I’m inclined to believe that that most of the diets fell into the latter camp. Not that it even matters, since it’s just one day among thousands.

The researchers also concluded from the stats that carbohydrate intake had no impact on overall death rates, nor on death from cancer and diabetes. But protein intake did have a negative impact on diabetes. I’m expected to believe that eating chicken breasts, lean beef, fish, eggs, and low-fat dairy has a negative impact on diabetes, but eating a loaf of white bread doesn’t? Sorry, not buying it.

I can point to a stack of trustworthy studies which say that one of the best dietary methods for people with diabetes is to follow a higher-protein, lower-carb diet. In fact, there is evidence that simply dropping back on carb intake can reverse type-II diabetes.

Need one more reason to reject the 24-hour dietary recall method? It says nothing about the level of physical activity or exercise habits of the 6,000-plus people. Even if they were consistently eating a higher-protein diet, I can almost guarantee you that those people who trained and lived a healthy lifestyle would have a lower incidence of overall death, death from cancer, and especially death from diabetes.

Silly Advice

The study itself may be flawed, but the dietary recommendations that accompany it are some of the silliest advice I’ve heard in quite a while.

“There are far too many dietary interactions going on to call out one macronutrient as the scapegoat.”

If it seems bizarrely arbitrary that a 64-year-old isn’t allowed any protein, but a 66-year-old gets plenty of it, you’re right. Setting that aside: If you eat barely any protein for 15 years between the ages of 50 and 65, it will be far too late to suddenly start pounding protein again when you are 66 years old. You will have already lost significant muscle mass, which has been shown to decrease both quality of life and lifespan in senior citizens. A sudden blast of protein at that point could be a case of too little, too late.

One thing I haven’t mentioned so far is that higher-protein intake and higher risk of death from cancer in the study was associated with higher insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) levels in the subjects. The relationship between IGF-I and cancer progression, as well as high-protein intake and IGF-I, is interesting. But we are far from having a true handle on cancer, its progression, and death resulting from it.

There are far too many dietary interactions going on to call out one macronutrient as the scapegoat. There are genetic factors, epigenetic (gene expression) factors, and environmental factors that we are far from understanding, and for the researchers to make sweeping nutrition rules at this point is simply premature.

As much as we would like to get closer to understanding cancer, the truth is that the more we learn, the more we still need to learn. Hinging matters of life and death on any single villain, be it a macronutrient or a protein like IGF-1, is overly simplistic. But for the lead researcher to top it off with a comparison to smoking is downright irresponsible.

Jim’s take-home points

Should you be concerned about eating a high-protein diet? No! Should you switch to a low-protein diet when you turn 50 and wait to switch back to a high-protein diet after you reach 66? No! The data from this study, and the conclusions that the researchers made, are packed with as many holes as the Swiss cheese they tell us we shouldn’t be eating.

Setting aside what we don’t yet know about IGF-1 and cancer, let’s think of it purely in terms of the power of the argument. Is a single day in a stranger’s life enough to convince you to eat a total of 50-75 grams of protein per day, be weak, and potentially have a poor quality of life, simply to obey some watery theory pushed by a few scientists? Of course not!

Live your life strong and healthy. Do what you have always known to be good for you, and what makes you feel good: Eat protein!

Reference

1. Levine, M. E., et al. Low Protein Intake Is Associated with a Major Reduction in IGF-1, Cancer, and Overall Mortality in the 65 and Younger but Not Older Population. Cell Metabolism 19 (3): 407-417, 2014.

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Vital Stats

Name: Abby Huot
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Education: St. Mary’s University of Minnesota (2004)
Occupation: Athlete, writer, fitness model, bikini/figure competitor

Quick, do a digit check. Are all your fingers and toes accounted for, or have a few succumbed to the cold? I can tell you that this has been a brutally chilly winter for most of the upper Midwest, and my region isn’t alone. Records have been shattered all across the United States for cold, ice cover, and snow totals. Right now it seems impossible to imagine warmer days.

But, make no mistake, summer is coming. Soon it will be time to crawl out of our cozy hibernation nests, peel off the polar fleece we’ve been donning like battle gear, and reveal our pasty, dry skin to the warm basking glow of a spring sun. Finally, Vitamin D in its glorious, non-supplement form! You can almost feel it.

So what’s your game plan? Hot chocolate and blankets are just what the doctor ordered for frigid nights, but if you’ve gotten used to skipping the gym and hoarding comfort food, it’s time to change things up. Reignite your fire for fitness and get your head back in the game.

Here are a few reminders about why you should get going with your training and diet again. After all, spring and summer are going to be here in the blink of an eye.

1 Wedding Season’s Upon Us

June is a major month of note. Not only does it signal the first day of summer, Father’s Day, and the oh-so-notable Flag Day, but it’s also the most popular month for weddings. If you’re among those getting laced up in white, hitting a training program now will help you head down the aisle with extra confidence and, depending on your goals, an extra layer of lean muscle.

“Try a new lifting routine or kick up your cardio with high intensity interval training on a Stairmill.”

Use that save-the-date stuck to your fridge to inspire you to push forward, even if your new fit body is not for your own wedding. Try a new lifting routine or kick up your cardio with high intensity interval training on a Stairmill. Start with one minute at level 8, or 30-45 seconds at level 10, followed by brief rest periods for a total of 20 minutes. Shock your system into growth by trying German Volume Training (GVT), which pushes you to do 10 sets of 10 reps on one exercise. The more you ramp up your training routine now, the faster you’ll see results.

2 Smaller Clothes Are Coming

“Picture yourself running in shorts and a tank top. How does that make you feel?”

I promise I’m not poking fun at your winter weight. With warm weather around the corner, it’s just a matter of time until layers start coming off. Whether you’re ready for it or not, the time for that teeny-weenie bikini is fast approaching.

As you look out your window at the snow-covered ground, sunbathing on the beach might sound like a far-off dream. So take a step back. Picture yourself running in shorts and a tank top. How does that make you feel? Awesome, or anxious? If you’re not feeling great, remember that winter is the perfect time to get in gear. You might be more apt to don a cute new sports bra or running shorts when you’re feeling fit. Be the first one in your town to hit the ground running and looking mid-summer awesome when it’s only April.

Set a concrete goal. Sign up for a local event, 5K, 10K, or an obstacle race. Start training for strength and endurance now. Alternatively, have you ever thought about competing in a physique competition? Start taking a peek at local and regional competitions that are happening this year. Competitions that are 16 or 20 weeks out will give you a hard deadline while putting extra training gas in your tank.

If you’ve never felt comfortable wearing shorts, work hard so that this is the year to feel great in them. If you’re self-conscious about your skinny arms, make this the year of the muscle shirt. Plan jogs outside or go rollerblading for the first time in years. Grab some friends to set a pace for yourself and make it a cardio get-together. The more positive people you have around you to cheer you on, the more successful you’ll be.

2014 should be your year to shine, not cover up!

3 Spring Break Is Upon Us

Got a winter getaway trip planned? Time to get your butt in gear! You don’t want to have to worry about the pounds you’ve packed on while you pack luggage. If you’re planning on site-seeing, start now with 30-minute walks on the treadmill and tinker with the incline to mimic being outside. If you’re planning on snorkeling, get in the pool at your gym three days each week and push yourself for a calorie-burning, lap-swimming workout. Changing your cardio workout styles can not only lean you out, it can also prepare you for the vacation activities you’ve spent so much time saving up for. Don’t let it go to waste, and don’t forget the sunscreen!

“Get in the pool at your gym three days each week and push yourself for a calorie-burning, lap-swimming workout.”

4 Spring Is The Season Of Love

Are you single? Why not utilize your time now to find your best and most confident version of yourself? Nothing is more attractive than someone who is strong, confident, disciplined, and goal-oriented. Put your best foot forward by buckling down on your training and diet routine. Already got someone special? Plan couples workouts and get to the gym together. Not only can you push each other, you can get in and out of the gym in a blink by supersetting exercises. One person can do sets of squats while the other person does kettlebell swings, then you can switch. Low-rest, high-intensity workouts will strengthen your bodies and the health of your relationship.

5 Your Friends Need You

Many people have already fallen off the wagon for their 2014 goals in your life. Why not give them a boost by leading the way?

Working in groups or having someone to keep you accountable for your goals often creates a solid emotional boost to the recommitment of goals. Be the catalyst in the lives of people around you by electrifying your social group with your enthusiasm to get back on the wagon.

“Working in groups or having someone to keep you accountable for your goals often creates a solid emotional boost to the recommitment of goals.”

Try a hip-hop dance class with your friends if you’ve always been curious. Find a training program online, or hire a trainer to bring you through a group workout. Set up a circuit routine the gets everyone involved—think biceps curls, planks, step-ups, and Swiss ball hamstring curls. Follow it with 5-10 minutes of hard incline cardio. If you’re a competitor, get together with a friend who shares your passion, and increase accountability by practicing posing and stage routines.

6 You Owe It To Yourself

Yes, winter can be brutal and can make the idea of training debilitating. When it’s 0-15 degrees outside, you don’t care much to venture outside the house. I get it. I live in Minnesota, where 2014 brought 44 nights below zero already, twice as many as we normally get in a year! Even so, you owe it to yourself to follow through on the goals you set—no matter the weather.

Give yourself the power and momentum to push forward and start your spring and summer seasons with the body and health you’ve always dreamed of having. Find inspirational members on BodySpace and ask them questions about how they got to where they are. Go to a big fitness expo or competition and talk to the people in the world of fitness. How do they keep their own fire aflame?

Follow your favorite athletes through social media and read inspirational books like “You Are a Badass,” by Jen Sincero, which is one of my personal favorites. Education and inspiration are crucial to your success. The motivation to keep going is available everywhere when you look for it and are open to it.

You’re just as worthy of your efforts now as you ever were. 2014 has barely started. It’s way too soon to give up on yourself. Start now or start again and make it the best year of your life!

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We are creatures of habit. We each default to our favorite exercises, those bread and butter lifts from programs we love for as long as they keep bringing results. Familiarity just feels right. It wraps you in a secure blanket of warmth, growth, and gains. Unfortunately, that familiarity begets false confidence in your exercise technique, which could cost you even further gains.

“But, Rock Lock, I’ve improved 10 pounds over the last year!” you cry. That’s sweet. But imagine the results you could net with precise exercise form and practice. Unless you or a training buddy have an acute awareness of form, it’s possible that you may have been missing key form points. Remember that poor form calls out compensatory mechanisms while still building strength, albeit inefficiently.

Don’t fret, young Padawan. Here’s how to fix these seven key movements that you previously thought you owned.

Exercise 1

Squats have helped Mr. Olympias, World’s Strongest Men, and other athletes launch from so-so athletes to epic gladiators. There’s no reason not to reap the benefits of the almighty squat, right? But after weeks of nearly crushing yourself under the bar, your results can still end up lackluster.

Team Cellucor‘s Jen Jewell explains why.

“I see a lot of ‘newbies’ just lower their butt down really quick with their knees wobbling all over the place—over the toes or collapsing inward. I’ve even seen this with bodyweight squats! So, when I instruct new clients or am giving pointers, I tell a client to push her butt back as though she’s going to sit down in a chair. This usually helps her get into better position and keep from hobbling forward so much.

“Additionally, I encourage clients to ‘push the booty way back—as if you’re trying to knock someone out with that thing—lower, go back up, and repeat.’ Even though that might be an exaggeration of breaking at the hip, it helps clients picture it and will typically do the trick!

“I typically see people barely start to lower, call it a rep, and bounce back up. That’s not low enough! That’s not even a proper squat! To benefit from squats, you have go to at least parallel, which is the position at which your hip joint and knee joint are aligned parallel to the ground. This ensures quad burn, but also fires up the hamstrings and glutes as well.”

Squat

Exercise 2

I cringe every time I see someone fling heavy dumbbells as high as they can using their back, and then allow momentum to not only carry the weight up but send it back down with zero control. This makes back and rotator cuff injuries almost inevitable if someone continues on this self-destructive path. Thankfully, that won’t be you!

First of all, when you hold the dumbbells, they should rest at your sides instead of in front of you. This way you will be less inclined to harness a back-initiated swing to begin the exercise. Visualize generating force from only your delts as you lift the weights out to your sides with a slight bend in the elbow. Locking out the elbows places strain on the tendons in that area and can make them susceptible to injury.

To avoid unnecessary shoulder strain, stop the movement when your arms become parallel to the floor. At that point, turn the weights so your pinkies point toward the ceiling and pause for one second before slowly lowering the weight to the starting position in a controlled manner. Use a challenging weight you can control throughout the exercise to ensure you don’t cheat.

Dumbbell Lateral Raise

Exercise 3

The triceps rope pushdown should primarily activate your triceps and core, but this exercise is blundered and haunted by our old enemy, the lower back-generated swing monster. Time and time again, I watch people use momentum to press down heavy weights. This only hurts your elbows and yields no benefit for those muscles in the back of your arms. Again, slow, controlled movement reigns supreme here.

Take the rope and step away from the cable stack. The extra distance increases tension on the triceps more than standing next to the pulley. Keep your shoulders squared and back, chest out, and glue your elbows to your sides. By keeping your elbows tucked in, you emphasize triceps contraction rather than elbow destruction.

As you press the weight down, focusing on working the triceps muscles, spread the ends of the rope apart, and squeeze the hell out of your triceps. That squeeze and tension stimulates growth in the target area.

Afterward, let the weight slowly come back up. Right before you feel as if your elbows are about to be yanked out of place, stop, and then do another rep. This constant tension will make your triceps scream bloody murder by the end of your set.

Exercise 4

A king of the exercise world, deadlifts could well be the most basic movement—in theory. You pick up the weight, hold it, and put it down. What could go wrong? Everything. There are oh-so many instances where a deadlift can go wrong and make lifters vulnerable to injury.

“Deadlifts are often a mess all the way through,” Jewell says. “I often see people with their shoulders rolled forward and hunched over as they lower the weight. Then they lose control over their body as a whole. Having your shoulders back, lats tight, core activated, and chest up will help eliminate this hunchback stature that I see all too often in the gym!

“I see another problem with neck alignment. At the beginning of the pull, you might be tempted to look down at the weight. This puts your neck out of neutral spinal alignment, which makes you more prone to hunching your shoulders and keeps you from engaging your core. Keep your neck aligned with the rest of your spine at the start and finish of your pull.”

Exercise 5

“Although dumbbell curls are a great exercise, problems rear their ugly heads when they are performed improperly.”

You want perfectly rounded biceps like IFBB Men’s Physique Pro Craig Capurso? He’s going to let you in on the “secret” to winning the arms race.

“Although dumbbell curls are a great exercise, problems rear their ugly heads when they are performed improperly,” Capurso says. “Many people will either pick up a light weight that can be lifted a million times or a weight that’s simply too heavy. Either of these prevents people from ever performing a worthy rep. Many people start the exercise with a shoulder swing followed by a fading elbow. This movement pattern doesn’t actually involve the biceps. It basically makes the exercise one big cheat.

“The goal is to achieve a well-controlled movement that isn’t aided by the aforementioned body swing. You should feel a deep burning sensation in your biceps and a noticeable pump or swell. You should also be able to perform the recommended reps in your program. After four sets of this type of training, you’ll feel fatigued, making it difficult to even bend your arms. That’s good because you are doing it correctly and have picked proper weights.”

To mix things up and really focus on your mind-muscle connection, try hammer curls. “This is when you stand in a neutral position, with your hands at your sides and the palms facing in toward your body,” Craig says. “Notice where your elbow rests in reference to your body and actively think about maintaining this position throughout the exercise. Really think about contracting the muscle groups involved as you bring up the weight. If you feel the heat in your shoulder, elbow, or any other muscle group that shouldn’t be firing, restart the process or perhaps lower the weight.”

Exercise 6

The bench press is an excellent indicator of upper body strength. When performed correctly, it is a money exercise that builds strength, muscle size, and athletic function. Haphazard execution of the bench press can increase the risk of shoulder or pec injuries, but that can usually be rectified by going with lower weight or just doing the damn exercise the right way!

In preparing to pump out your first rep, make sure your shoulder blades are squeezed together. This will protect your shoulders and bring your chest higher so the bar doesn’t travel as far. Next, plant your feet firmly on the floor and get yourself in a stable position. Otherwise you increase the chance of getting hurt. Keep everything tight, including your shoulders and butt.

As you perform the lift, lower the bar to your nipple line and keep it there for a one-second pause. Think about pushing your chest away from the bar rather than pushing the bar away from your chest. Remember to drive your feet into the floor for force production, keeping your butt on the bench, and arching your back to transfer force to the bar. Once you press the weight up, focus on squeezing your pecs as if you were trying to crush a walnut sitting between them.

Bench Press

Exercise 7

Crunches are a perennial favorite and also one of the most poorly performed exercises in the gym. Even if you think you’re a crunch king, you might be doing them wrong and actually jeopardizing your neck health.

The first step to being a crunch master: Don’t cross your arms on your chest or clasp your hands together behind your head. Instead, lightly place your hands on the temples of your noggin and focus on keeping your elbows in line with your shoulders. Don’t bend your neck; the idea isn’t to bang your head against your crotch, but to dig your lower back into the floor and lift your shoulders about 3-4 inches off the floor.

Squeeze your abdominals and forcefully let out a big breath. Slowly drop yourself back to the floor and repeat. Now do 10 reps and let me know the difference this makes. Don’t worry, you can catch your breath—I can wait.

Do you see other poorly performed exercises at your own gym? Sound off in the comments below! Let us know if you have any favorite tips or techniques. Share with the community to help improve everyone’s form—and results!

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In many serious lifters’ playbook, the squat is the go-to lift for developing serious lower body strength and size. It no doubt gets the job done, but as with all exercises, there will come a point where you feel like you’ve hit a ceiling. You know you should be able to move more weight around, but your muscles just don’t seem to cooperate. At times like these, a temporary vacation from the same-old squat routine is in order.

Don’t worry, after you try one or several of these tried-and-true techniques, you can always come back to the squat variations you know and love best. In most cases, you’ll be stronger and more balanced when you do.

1 Try Single Leg Variations

It’s amazing how simply shifting the work from two legs to one leg can exponentially crank up the difficulty. You might think, “Ok, I’ll just squat half of the heavy load I’ve been moving in a back squat,” but in most cases, you’ll find that weight laughing at you the first time you try it.

The increased balance demands of single-leg squat variations make them highly difficult to the unaccustomed, but they are worth it! Stick with them until you find your footing. Unilateral exercises also confer additional benefits in correcting side-to-side muscular imbalances, which many people find to be a key to building even greater bilateral (two-leg) strength.

Pistol Squats

While there are many one-legged squat moves to choose from, my somewhat unorthodox recommendation for you, if you struggle to improve a barbell back squat, is to try the pistol squat. Tread lightly! Even bodyweight pistol squats can be extremely difficult for most lifters, at least in the beginning. The initial instability produces more muscle engagement, and the high level of muscle control this exercise demands may initially force you to hold onto something for balance. There’s no shame in that, I promise!

In the beginning, perform this exercise with bodyweight only until you can safely and confidently hit six consecutive reps. After you’ve done this for a while with good form, you can start adding weights, either by holding a dumbbell plate, a kettlebell, or a couple of light dumbbells held straight out in front of you. Once you can perform 6 good-form reps with a weight between 25 and 45 pounds in your arms, you should see a notable improvement in every other lower-body lift.

2 Spread Out

In a standard back squat, most experts would direct you to point your feet straight forward, or perhaps ever-so-slightly outward. A small adjustment in your foot position, they know, can cause a significant shift in the muscles that are worked.

Following that logic, try this on for size: Spread your feet slightly past shoulder-width and point your toes outward at a 45-degree angle. This adjusted position is called the sumo squat , and it will develop strength and mobility of the hips, adductors, and glutes to a greater extent than a narrow-stance squat.

Sumo Squat

Some people may find this position to be more comfortable for their individual body, and it becomes their go-to squat. That’s great for them, but make sure you do it right before you fall in love. Ensure that your knees don’t spill too far over your toes when you drop it low. And, perhaps even more importantly, don’t flare your knees inward as you bottom out. Get them out wide over your toes!

3 Pause At the Bottom

Are ya ready to feel your quads and buns burn? Try pausing at the bottom of any squatting movement. This applies to front squats, back squats, pistols, and all other variations you see in the gym. This pause eliminates the stretch reflex in the muscles, and thereby forces the muscle to generate more “true” force to be able to complete the squat.

What do I mean by “true?” At the bottom of a deep squat, the stretch in your hamstrings and adductors helps you bounce out of the hole to some degree, even if it doesn’t look like a “bounce” per se. Envision pulling back a rubber band to a stretched position; it is now primed to spring back to its normal elasticity with even greater power. Adding a brief isometric contraction of about 2-4 seconds makes this “bounce” impossible, and has the potential to improve strength and power production from the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and other lower-body prime movers.

Some lifters find this to be such an effective technique that they perform at least some sets starting from the bottom. This is known as an “Anderson Squat.”

4 Add Half-Reps From the Bottom

Trying new squatting variations is only one way to attack a squat that doesn’t seem to be progressing. Another is to take your current form of squatting and simply make it more difficult. A great way to accomplish this is to perform half-reps from the bottom.

These are just what they sound like. Sink down into a full squat, and then rise up just halfway. Pause, and then lower back into the hole before pushing up into the full standing position. Sound easy? In execution, it’s anything but. This technique places more stress on your muscles during your weakest point of the squat movement pattern, which allows you to build strength where you need it most. Just don’t call me when you can’t sit down comfortably for the next few days.

Few people are able approach their normal squatting volume with half-reps being added in, so take it slowly. Add 1-2 half reps per set to start, and build up until you can perform a full set with a half-rep in between each full rep.

5 Shift the Load

When someone mentions the squat in casual conversation—what, your friends don’t do that?—-most people imagine the back squat during which the bar is placed behind the neck. But that is only one type of loaded squat, and to be honest, it isn’t right for everyone. Some people simply never feel comfortable with the spinal compression that results from having a barbell sit on top of their back. Others find that for reasons of balance, knee strength, or something else, they are able to achieve far superior form with other variations. Open your mind and your squat will feel the benefit!

Take, for example, the front squat. In comparison to the back squat, the front squat hammers the quads more and calls for additional muscle activity from the hips and lower back. Due to the biomechanical nature of the movement, the front squat places less spinal compression and torque on the knees as well. Simply put, it offers much of the same stimulus as the back squat, but less risk to your most vulnerable areas.

“In comparison to the back squat, the front squat hammers the quads more and calls for additional muscle activity from the hips and lower back.”

Most athletes find that maximal weight they can front squat will be approximately 80 percent of a back squat’s maximal lift, so bragging rights aren’t quite the same. But in recent years, having a strong front-squat max has become cooler than ever, and is often taken as a sign of being an overall well-rounded athlete. And you’d better believe boosting your front squat will help your back squat grow, too!

6 Make It Explosive

Common sense says that the only way to develop a heavy squat is to squat heavy. Sure, that’s part of it, but there is another proven method: squat fast. Bar speed is often overlooked because it often makes the exercise feel “easy” or less productive, but cranking up the velocity of your squat can help your squat immensely by allowing you to practice technique while still training for peak power.

So what exactly makes it a “speed squat?” Perform the squat at a smaller percentage of your max. Depending on your repetition range and volume of work you want to get done, this can range between 35 and 70 percent of your one-rep max. For heavier loads, lower the rep scheme; the lighter the scheme is, the higher reps should be. You can perform a set portion of a leg day for speed, or if you’re really dedicated to squatting, you could split your week into light and heavy days.

Another way to add power to the squat is by performing bodyweight squat jumps. Drop down into a deep bodyweight squat and launch yourself off the ground as high as you can go. Land quietly, meet the balls of your feet to the floor, and bend your knees slightly to absorb the impact. Drop back into the squat position and continue your reps in this fashion. As you would in any exercise, maintain proper form throughout, being mindful of spine and knee positions. Don’t lean too far forward or let your knees pass too far over your toes.

Give one or all of these tips a try on your next lower-body training day, and share your experience in the comments below!

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There’s an idea out there that athletic people largely use the Internet for motivation, in the form of selfies, memes, forum feuds, and other stuff to stoke their fitness fire. Either that, or they’re succumbing to what derisively gets called “exercise ADD,” looking for new movements, grips, and programs to fill up their hours in the gym.

These may be true in many cases, but there are plenty of others among us who see the Internet’s value as an unparalleled resource when it comes to sharing the latest in nutritional and supplement research. If you have PubMed or other databases on your bookmark toolbar, then you know what I’m talking about.

But if you spend much time doing keyword searches for specific supplement studies, you also know that it can be difficult to know what lesson to take away. At Examine.com, understanding studies and making them practical is what we do. Sometimes we find new studies with new possible uses for supplements that didn’t pan out in the past. Other times, we may find that a supplement isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Either way, it’s always rewarding to dive into the research with an eye to how it can be put to use by real athletes.

Here are three studies we’ve seen in recent months that are worth your attention.

1 Colostrum: The Endurance Athlete’s Friend

Shing CM, Peake JM, Suzuki K, Jenkins DG, Coombes JS. A pilot study: bovine colostrum supplementation and hormonal and autonomic responses to competitive cycling. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2013 Oct;53(5):490-501.

Supplemental bovine colostrum has been the subject of several recent promising studies, and it has long been a popular supplement among elite athletes in demanding sports such as cycling and track and field. The logic behind supplementing with colostrum is somewhat simple. While it’s not nearly as well-known a protein-source as whey, colostrum is a far richer source of immunoglobulins, which are antibodies that provide immune support to growing animals.

Colostrum is also rich in a number of growth factors including IGF-1, necessary to accelerate growth of the young animal. But, at the moment, it’s still unclear to what degree the growth factors in colostrum are bioactive in humans. Most research focuses on the immunoglobulins, primarily immunoglobulin G; researchers want to see how they compare in humans to the immunoglobulins found in whey.

What did the researchers do?

Starting off on a good note, the subjects were trained endurance athletes rather than sedentary students taken at random to fulfill the requirements of the study. Each of the 10 subjects, who had competed in cycling for at least three past years, completed a baseline VO2 max test, after which they were given either 10 grams of bovine colostrum concentrate or 10 g of whey protein.

“Each of the 10 subjects, who had competed in cycling for at least three past years, completed a baseline VO2 max test, after which they were given either 10 grams of bovine colostrum concentrate or 10 g of whey protein.”

The end of the trial was when each subject raced a brisk 102 kilometers per day for five days straight. Their diet was recorded during the study but wasn’t manipulated in any way.

The researchers also measured illness rates—since illness is common during such high-intensity athletics—and common markers of illness, including:

• Testosterone-to-cortisol ratio
• Levels of immunoglobulin A (IgA) in saliva (a common test of immunodeficiency)
• Subjective variations in the athletes’ moods

Once the race was done, the racers’ weight, performance during training, sleep, mood, and subjective fatigue levels hadn’t changed significantly. In the subjects taking colostrum, testosterone levels showed a normal diurnal pattern—high in the morning, low in the evening—on race day, whereas levels were closer to level for the whey group. Cortisol levels were also consistently higher in the morning for the colostrum group, whereas IgA levels were consistently lower with the colostrum at all morning and evening points.

What are the practical applications and limitations?

The study makes a promising case that colostrum supports the immune system more during intense and prolonged training than other protein sources such as whey. The study probably could have said a lot more if the sample size was larger than 10 athletes, but that is the natural side effect of only trying to get highly competitive athletes to try a new supplement prior to a five-day race over 500 kilometers in duration.

However, this study doesn’t mean colostrum is necessarily superior to whey, but rather simply that it is a more efficient source of immunoglobulins—and a far more expensive one, it should be noted. It’s plausible that you could receive the same amount of immunoglobulins, and hence the same benefits, simply by taking a larger dose of whey protein than 10 g.

2 GAKIC is back from the dead, sort of

Wax B, Kavazis AN, Brown SP, Hilton L. Effects of supplemental GAKIC ingestion on resistance training performance in trained men. Res Q Exerc Sport. 2013 Jun;84(2):245-51. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23930551

GAKIC, or glycine-arginine-alpha-ketoisocaproic acid, has been sold for a number of years to control fatigue and increase strength in strength athletes. But despite a few encouraging small-scale studies showing impressive strength gains, it never took off to a wide variety of producers, nor became common in the supplement stacks of high-level athletes. However, it has received a new look in a couple of limited studies over the last year, first for female strength athletes, and in this case, for men.

What did the researchers do?

Researchers gave seven resistance-trained men 10.2 g of GAKIC 40 minutes prior to exercise. The exercise in question was first working up to a one-rep max on a leg press, and then, after a short rest, completing five sets to failure at 75 percent of the max with 3 minutes rest between sets. The supplementation was a single usage only, and as the study was double-blind cross-over in nature, the subjects reported back a week later to take the other treatment (those assigned to GAKIC initially then took placebo and vice versa).

“The exercise in question was first working up to a one-rep max on a leg press, and then, after a short rest, completing five sets to failure at 75 percent of the max with 3 minutes rest between sets.”

The results of the study report “an increase in overall volume performed on the leg press” by 22.5 percent, which is promising, but puzzling upon further inquiry. It seemed that the first set wasn’t affected, nor were sets 3-5; only the second set seemed to have a spike in endurance with GAKIC relative to placebo. Maximal strength was not affected by GAKIC, and when assessing the data of each individual, it seemed that there were responders and nonresponders to the GAKIC.

What are the practical applications and limitations?

Despite the nice increase in endurance, it should be noted the main claim to fame of GAKIC, increased strength, failed. The increase in endurance is odd, though, in that it occurred only in the second set. You’d expect it to show up either in the first set, when the subject is the most rested, or in the later sets, when they are the most fatigued. Without any further evidence, it begs the question whether the benefits could be mimicked by timing a set with the upbeat part of a song, or getting a little encouragement from a training partner.

GAKIC still has its diehard supporters, but the wait continues for a conclusive study to back them up.

3 Multivitamins and Overtraining

Li X, Huang WX, Lu JM, Yang G, Ma FL, Lan YT, Meng JH, Dou JT. Effects of a multivitamin/multimineral supplement on young males with physical overtraining: a placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blinded cross-over trial. Biomed Environ Sci. 2013 Jul; 26(7):599-604.

Some of the loudest outcry against last year’s “multivitamins are a waste of money” editorial came from hard-training athletes. Multivitamins are commonplace in the supplement regimen of athletes, who often believe, to paraphrase a common argument, that the vitamins help replenish what exercise depletes. A recent study took that argument and applied to the ultimate state of athletic depletion, the condition known as overtraining.

What did the researchers do?

A group of Chinese researchers took a large sample of male military personnel following a regimen of “large-scale endurance military training.” Before receiving the supplements, the young men showed many classic signs of overtraining, including increased thyroid function, decreased adrenal, testosterone, and immunological functioning, and significant increases in psychological stress, anger, and tension. In other words, they were not happy campers.

After testing these parameters, one group of the soldiers received a placebo, while the other received a multivitamin supplementation for one week’s time, all in conjunction with their standard diet during military training. The multivitamin formulation used was fairly simple and more reflective of a mainstream vitamin such as Centrum than any of the better options available to athletes. The food, on the other hand, was not elucidated on any further than the description, “a standard Chinese diet.”

Multivitamin Used in the Study Included:

• Vitamin D 2.5 μg ( D2 or D3 not specified)
• Vitamin E 8.7 mg
• Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) 0.5 mg
• Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) 0.5 mg
• Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine) 0.5 mg
• Vitamin C 150 mg
• Folate 1 μg
• Calcium 200 mg
• Iron 3 mg
• Zinc 3 mg
• Selenium 12.5 mg

While one week seems like a really short time to assess the efficacy of a multivitamins, it appeared sufficient to cause significant immunological and psychological changes in this study. In contrast to the placebo, the soldiers receiving the multivitamin saw improvement on the biomarkers of thyroid and immunological function as well as preserved cognitive parameters such as fatigue, anger, sleepiness, and general mood.

What are the practical applications and limitations?

In contrast to the previous two studies, this one is statistically robust, even though it still leaves something to be desired in the details. While it definitely showed an improvement in function with multivitamins relative to placebo under periods of high physical stress, we have no clue what the baseline diet was that the multivitamin was actually supplementing.

Furthermore, the bare bones formulation of the multivitamin used may not reflect many multivitamins on the market today. Most multivitamins do contain the above and plenty more, although in theory a more complete multivitamin would have replicated the observations, unless some unforeseen components somehow negated the benefits.

Conversely, the ability of the multivitamins to act within a week is both promising and a bit confounding. Exhausted soldiers with no other nutritional support at their disposal are one thing, but how would it affect a body after months of supplementation and hard training? Nevertheless, the study presents an interesting potential benefit of multivitamins. If you’re not taking one and are seeing signs of overtraining, it seems to say, a multi could conceivably provide a useful and fast-working intervention.

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