Hey Coach, Glad to have you back again. So, whats Athletic Body Workout all about?

When most people decide to workout it is because they want to change the way they look. They usually want to lose fat and gain muscle. And traditionally, when asked to pick the type of body they want, they usually use some type of athlete to describe the body they want.

Most people want the strong, lean, athletic body type. And the best way to build an athletic body is to train more like an athlete and less like a gym rat. The Athletic Body Workout is designed to train you like an athlete, so you can build the athletic body you want.

Awesome. Well, what are the benefits of combining Barbell, Dumbbell, and Bodyweight workouts within one program?

Exercise is about movement…both the movement of your own body, as well as the movement of objects. So, to train your body for all these types of movements you need to use different “tools”. Bodyweight for the movement of your own body. Barbells for the movement of an external object with both limbs. Dumbbells for the movement of external objects with either one limb or in alternating fashion.

Using bodyweight, barbells and dumbbells not only trains your body to perform these movements better…but build athletic muscle and burns fat as well. You not only improve your athletic skills, but your athletic appearance as well.

Makes sense. Is Athletic Body Workout similar to your previous workouts? What is the main difference?

Previous workouts were Workout Without Weights and Superior Dumbbell Workout. Besides the obvious difference of combining bodyweight, dumbbell and barbells, the workout structure is completely different. You rotate between General Fitness, Fat Loss, and Strength & Size workouts to keep you on a steady path of building your athletic abilities and athletic body.

Workouts I did after this like the Ultimate Gymless Workout, Extreme Dumbbell Fitness and Gladiator Body Workout use this similar system because it works so well…and keeps you from getting bored.

You talk briefly about nutrition in Athletic Body Workout. Can you elaborate on what you feel are some optimal nutritional strategies for the average trainee?

For the average trainee, you don’t need to worry about supplements or complex eating strategies. But you should clean up your diet. In my opinion, most people already know how to eat correctly…they just don’t. What is better for you, an apple or a cookie? I bet you already know the answer, right?

I would start to write down everything you eat for a week. Then take a look at it in writing. You’ll quickly be able to pick out your problem areas and clean up your diet. Remember, you need fuel to build an athletic body and give your all during the workouts…so give your body good, healthy food.

In your previous workouts, the cardio was intertwined with the strength workouts. Do you follow the same strategy with the Athletic Body Workout?

Yes, this is a big part of Athletic Body Workout. Just think about it, most athletic activities combine strength and cardio at the same time. They only exceptions are sports that focus on only one physical attribute, like powerlifting. You need to have the strength to perform the activities AND the heart and lung power to sustain the activity. You perform how you train…so you must train both strength and cardio at the same time.

There are GPP workouts sprinkled through the workout programs. This is for General Physical Preparedness. They are a lot of fun and give a lot of benefits…as well as challenge both strength and endurance at the same time.

How would a complete beginner go about achieving a more athletic physique?

Stop traininglike a bodybuilder and start training like an athlete. By that I mean throw away all those split routine workouts and “isolation” exercises and start using Full Body Workotus with compound exercises. The object of an athletic body is not to maximize the size of each muscle, but to build athletic muscle and a strong body that works together. Plus, you need to start to blurr the lines between strength training and endurance training. Doing biceps curls and jogging for 20 minutes is not going to build an athletic body no matter how much you do it.

If you get the Athletic Body Workout, start with the General Fitness Workout. You’ll probably realize you are not as fit as you think you are.

Is the Athletic Body Workout for Men Only?

No. The Athletic Body Workout is for women as well. However, if women feel uncomfortable using barbells, they can stick to dumbbells for those exercises. Both men and women can benefit greatly from this type of athletic workouts.

As in all your other workouts, does this one come with templates?

Of course. I am big on having workout journal sheets so you can document your progress. Getting an athletic body is a journey…and like any worthwhile journey, it should be documented. The journal sheets are printable so you can use them over and over again.

Thanks for talking with me again, Coach.

If you’re absolutely serious about developing a lean, athletic physique, then you need to grab a copy of the Athletic Body Workout. Click here to learn more about this incredible program.

Over the weekend, my cousin came to visit me at my father’s store. He was surprised to find two sets of dumbbells in the store. I told him that some customers had given my father the dumbbells so that the could stay in shape at the store. Now, my dad’s store isn’t the biggest around.

And yet, he’s able to get quick 2-3 minute workouts throughout the day to stay in relatively good shape. For a middle aged man who works 14 hours a day standing behind a counter, dealing with suppliers and nasty customers, and stocking shelves (which many times requires lugging around heavy beer cases), staying in shape is absolutely vital.

Then the inevitable question came: what exactly does my father do?

Well, my father pretty much uses the same two-three exercises over and over again. That’s all he needs. Each week, I’ll show a new exercise and he’ll decide whether or not he wants to add it into his routine. One of the basic routines I taught him looks something like this:

3 rounds of:

• Dumbbell Swings, 10 each hand
• Pushups, 10 repetitions

Really simple, right? In between customers, he’ll go in the back, and do swings with one dumbbell. Then he’ll use the dumbbells aspushup handles to perform regular pushups, this way he doesn’t have to place his hands on the floor. If he has more time, he’ll add in shoulder press and dumbbell rows.

But, the bottom line is that it takes very little to maintain a decent level of health and fitness to help you face the challenges of daily life, regardless of your profession.

One of the best programs to use if you’re just as busy (or more) as my father and wish to perform workouts that require little space and little time is the Gladiator Body Workout. Click here for more information.

There are lots of different ways to combine bodyweight and dumbbell exercises for an effective workout. Here are 7 of the best ways to do it:

#7: Peripheral Heart Action (PHA)

PHA is a fancy term that states that you alternate between an upper body and lower body movement. A simple and effective workout using this system would involve choosing one upper body dumbbell and bodyweight exercise and one lower body dumbbell or bodyweight exercise.

Click here to Learn more about PHA

#6: Supersets

A superset is where you perform two exercises back to back with little to no rest in between. There are lots of different ways to organize a superset. You can do two exercises that work the same muscle group, two exercises that opposing muscle groups, two upper body movements, etc.

Click here for a Sample Superset workout

#5: Trisets

A triset is where you perform three exercises back to back with little to no rest in between. Trisets generally are for one bodypart. But I personally like to do trisets of opposing bodyparts. For example, one chest, one back, and one leg exercise.

Click here to Learn how to Organize your Triset Workouts

#4: Interval Training

Interval training is where you perform a high intensity exercise for a short period of time, followed by a short period of rest. There are many different interval training methods out there, but most beginners should start out with 30 seconds of high intensity exercise followed by 90 seconds of low intensity or rest.

Click here for some Interval Training Workouts

#3: Giant Sets

Giant sets are where you perform 4 or more exercises for the same bodypart. An example would be performing 4 pushup variations as a circuit. They need to train the same or similar muscle groups in order to qualify as giant sets.

Click here to Learn how to Organize your Triset Workouts

#2: Inverse Pyramids

Inverse pyraids are oftern performed with two exercises. You alternate between these exercises as a superset. However, the difference is in the rep scheme. With one exercise, you gradually increase the repetitions, and with the other exercise, you gradually decrease the repetitions.

Click here to Learn how to Set up your Own Inverse Pyramid Workouts

#1: Compound Sets

Compound sets are basically supersets that train the same muscle group. These are the hardest form of supersets and are used primarily when you have a laggingbodypart. For example, if you suck at pullups or want to put more muscle on your back, you would simply alternate between pullups and dumbbell rows as a superset/compound set

Click here to Learn how to use High Intensity Training to Gain Mass and Strength

Image by fitness 102 I love superset workouts. Some of my favorite workouts involve combining bodyweight and kettlebell workouts. It just so happens that there is a trainer who’s come out with a full workout program that uses this strategy of superseting bodyweight and kettlebell exercises to create intense fat burning workouts.

His name is Chris Lopez, and the name of his program is Kettlebell Revolution. You definitely need to check out this guy’s program. Click here for more information.

For the past few months, I’ve displayed a poll on the side bar which asked my readers what kind of product they would like to see from me. The options were ebook, online personal training, and members-only site. I was quite surprised by the results. 57% of you wanted an eBook and 39% wanted online personal training. The shocker here was the fact that only 4% wanted a members-only website. I’m glad I put this poll out there before I completed the website, or else I’d be launching a product/service no one wanted.

Ok, so I need your help in coming up with a topic/theme for this ebook. Sorry, that’s a pretty general question, so let me help you guys with throwing out a few “thinking” questions out there:

• My goal is to help you guys out. What kind of product do you feel would help you achieve your goals?
• There are a lot of great articles on this site. Is there a particular topic you’d like me to expand on?
• There are also a lot of great eBooks and information products out there. Is there something you haven’t seen yet that I can help you with?

Please post your suggestions to comments, or shoot me an email at shah@shahtraining.com

Cover image by The Current Buzz

A lot of trainees want big arms, but what most of them do not know is that you need to put on about 15 pounds of muscle all over your body in order to put on just a half inch of mass on your arms. Well, actually I don’t know the exact ratio, but think about it for a second. Have you ever seen a guy with big arms not be a big guy over all? Just imagine someone with big arms, but no chest, back, shoulders, or legs to speak of.

Image by ELAREE

My suggestion is to start off with a full body routine, then steadily transition to a split body program so you can specialize on your arms further. Here is a sample template to help you out:

Months 1-3: Full body workout

• Start off with a basic full body workout routine, performing it 2-3 days per week. If you’re performing a full body routine more than three days per week, then it is wise to have multiple full body routines so that you are not performing the same exercises on an incredible high frequency

Months 3-6: Upper/Lower Split

• After three months of full body workouts, split your body in half. Train your upper body on one day, and train your lower body on the second day. You can use a 2-day, 3-day, o 4 day split with this program
• In order to complete a three-day split, you can perform an Upper Body workout on Monday and Friday, and a lower body workout on Wednesday. In the following week, switch it up and perform a Lower Body workout on Monday and Friday, and a upper Body workout on Wednesday.

Months 7-9: Push/Pull/Legs

• Push means that you perform an upper body exercise which requires you “pushing” something away from the body. Examples include push ups and bench press. Pull means that you perform an upper body exercise which requires you “pulling” something away from the body. Examples include pull ups and bent over row.
• On the third day, work your lower body. The suggestion is to use a different workout than you did in months 3-6.

Months 10-12: Arms/Back/Chest/Legs

• It’s finally time to specialize. Start the week off with the muscle group you’re targeting, which arms. This workout should comprise of two to three isolation exercises for the biceps and triceps.
• Second and third day will involve training the back and chest. You will probably using many of the similar exercise from your push and pull workouts.
• Once again, on the last day with legs, design a different workout other than the ones that you have been performing thus far.

As you can see, this is a year-long program. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you about building muscle. It takes time. There is no short-cut path to building incredible arms in six weeks. This program is for those that want to train and eat the right way. For the rest of you, go pick up a bodybuilding magazine.

One of the best practical bodweight programs out there is the Bodyweight Exercise Revolution:

Bodyweight Exercise Revolution

Bodyweight Exercise Revolution is based off the Circular Strength Training system. In other words, hit your body from as many angles as possible. This is beyond basic pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats.
Click here for more info

I’m going away to India in February for my cousin’s wedding. I like to call it the “Land of Tea” because everywhere you go, you are offered “Chai” or Tea. In fact, after my first visit to India (as a teenager), I became addicted to Indian Chai.

One of the problems I always have is maintaining my weight. Last time I went to India I had gained a tremendous amount of weight due to horrible food choices and lack of exercise. I have prepared a video to explain what went wrong and how I plan to remedy the situation in the future:

How to Design an Effective Vacation Training Program

Creating a vacation program is easy once you have the right tools in front of you. So before you leave for your vacation I want you to do three things:

Step One: Determine the type of training equipment you have access to. If you do not have access to a gym, then you can create a bodyweight or resistance band training program. If you do have access to a gym, try to figure out what kind of equipment will be in that gym.

Step Two: Determine the amount of time you have to exercise. Be practical here. Try to figure out what your itinerary is ahead of time. If you have a family like mine, there won’t be any itinerary. In that case, prepare for the worst.

Step Three: Use the methods below to develop your training program.

3 Methods to Training on Vacation

It’s a good idea to have a “bag of tricks” while you’re on vacation. Here are three more tricks to add:

Max Rounds in 20 minutes – This is classic density training and something that’s been repeated several times on this website. I’m repeating it again because not enough people use this format of workout design.

• When you’re on vacation, you have limited time. You may have 10-20-or 30 minutes to workout before you leave for some enchanted getaway tour bus. I know for myself, I’ll be needed in more places than I can pronounce.
• The main idea is to set up a circuit and perform it as many times as you can within a given time frame.

Tabata Training – Here is another training method I’ve talked about numerous times on my site. I think people are too scared to try this method. But I’m telling you, it’ll save you a lot of time and prevent you from gaining any vacation weight.

• Tabata training revolves around intervals of 20 seconds work, and 10 seconds rest. Traditionally, you perform 8 rounds for a total of 4 minutes, and then you’re done. Most people will choose 3-5 exercises for a 12 to 20 minute workout.
• Create a Tabata routine based on the amount of time you have. Don’t be afraid of modifying already established training protocols.

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

Singles for Strength – Here is something I have never talked about on this site. If you get a chance to hit a gym with a lot of free weights (most hotel gyms just have machines), then you can perform something called Singles Training.

• Choose one barbell exercise and perform anywhere between 5 to 10 sets of singles. You can gradually add weight to the bar as you progress, or just start off with 80-90% of your maximum and perform 10 sets of singles. (By the way, singles means performing just 1 repetition)
• Singles are a great way to maintain or even boost your strength levels while on vacation. If you have just ten minutes to workout, then perform 5 singles with 60 seconds of rest between each set.

What a Great Way to Workout while on Vacation! – Image by tinatinatinatinatinaBodyweight Training Resources

I’ve come across a lot of great bodyweight training resources along the years. Check out these two resources before embarking on your journey:

Workout Without Weights – This is an eBook written by Coach Lomax. It has taught me pretty much everything I know about bodyweight training. The eBook is concise and easy to follow. It comes with six “mini” eBooks for additional information. One of the mini eBooks is a full 4-week Tabata training program. This may end up being your full program for you vacation. Check it out here.

BodyweightCulture.com – Bodyweight Culture is a no nonsense forum with a lot of people who are genuinely there to help you out. If you’re a complete beginner to bodyweight training, no one will yell out you (the way they do on various other forums – I won’t mention any names), but instead they’ll kindly ask you to use the search function for your question. The information is GOLD and the people are NICE. Check it out here.

Fitting Exercise into Your Busy Itinerary

As mentioned earlier, when you’re with my family, anything can happen at any time. I have thought of some survival techniques to help you fit in at least three workouts per week while you’re on vacation:

Technique #1: Exercise First Thing In The Morning – Before anyone can tell you to do something, or before that tour bus leaves, just get up a few minutes early and perform a quick workout.

Technique #2: Get it Done on the Side of the Road – When your family or tour bus makes a rest stop find a good park bench or open area and start cranking out pushups, jumping on benches, and pulling on tree branches.

Technique #3: Make it an Event – If you’re going to be with cousins or friends, then get them to workout with you. If they’re not interested offer to teach them, or make a compromise. Say, “Your Art Museum on Sunday, and my Gym on Monday.”

Relaxing While on Vacation

Most often when you’re on vacation, you want to get so much done in such a short amount of time that you forget to relax. I’ve had my best memories when I’m with my family, all sitting around at the dinner table, or playing cards at 2 in the morning, or with my cousins lounging around at a hookah bar. Don’t forget that you’re there to see family and old friends, not just to take some picture of the Eiffel Tower.

Relax, Have some Chai – Image by Veralyn AdeyinkaRelaxing your body is important. If you want stress, then go to work. But if you’re going to spend money on a plane ticket to a distant land, do it stress free. If you are extremely limited on time and need to choose between relaxing and exercising, choose the former. You can always get back into the groove when you come back home.

To receive updates on new articles, subscribe to Shah Training today.

Image by quickster This is the third and final installment of the “Shah Training is Not Bodybuilding” series. The first post talked about focusing on a long-term approach to fitness. In the second post we took that idea further and I asked you to take another look at your current goals. Are they really something that will bring you satisfaction in the long term?

This final post I want to dabble in the definition of fitness. The princeton.edu definition for fitness is – the quality of being suitable.

Suitable for what? For life? For bodybuilding? For powerlifting? For a particular job? For what?Princeton.edu provides a sample sentence: “They had to prove their fitness for the position.”

Interesting. I actually like this definition of fitness. I once made a short video where I stated something like, “Fitness has nothing to do with losing weight or gaining muscle. It has to do with being healthy.”

A Practical Example

A bodybuilder friend of mine responded by saying, “You’re contradicting yourself.” Lets do a little experiment in word replacement:

What I’m saying is, “Being fit means that you are healthy.”

Apparently, according to my bodybuilder friend means the same as:

“Having a six pack means you are healthy.”

or

“Having big biceps means you are healthy.”

or

“Being able to run 24 miles in a few hours means you are healthy.”

Here are my thoughts:

• A six pack does not necessarily mean that you are healthy, because you could have gone through some extreme form of dieting that could be potentially harmful to your body. In this case you look healthy, but may not be much healthy once you get your blood work done.

• Same goes for the guy with big biceps. How many guys are walking around with huge arms and inflated chest, along with a belly hanging down to the ground? They’re just strong, but don’t look very fit. They wouldn’t be able to run very fast, nor would they be able to lift their own bodyweight for high reps.

• Finally, lets take the last example. Most distance runners are extremely skinny. They lack fundamental levels of strength and some even look sick- borderline anorexic. I would not call them healthy.

So then, what exactly is the definition of fitness? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Really bad technique. Image by BodidlyI try to emphasize movements that mimic daily life actions. Picking things off the ground is the most common movement we perform on a daily basis. The most common problems occurring after age forty are lower back and hip related. These are also the least-trained exercises in the gym.

One of our staple exercises is the Kettlebell Swing. However, before you learn the Swing, it’s important to get the basic range of motion right. That’s why I often like to teach the Kettlebell Dead lift first before the swing. The Dead lift is a really important exercise for those with back or mobility problems. Here’s how to perform the two-handed dead lift:

1. Keep your legs slightly wider then shoulder width apart.
2. The kettlebell should be right in between your legs, dead center.
3. Lower your hips while bending your knees to a point where your quadriceps are slightly above parallel to the floor.
4. Keep your back straight, chest up, and shoulders neutral as you grip the kettlebell with both hands.
5. Slowly stand up until your body is fully straight. Do a slight back bend to emphasize the movement, then slowly bring the kettlebell back down to the ground.

Here is a video to help you guys out:

Now, in order to perform the one-arm version, you need to keep your shoulder in front of your body. In the two-arm version, your shoulders will naturally be in front of your body, however in the one-arm version, your shoulder may fall to the side, causing the kettlebell to swing to one particular side of your body. That is not what we want. This is a transitioning exercise for the kettlebell swing, where it’s vital that the kettlebell stays in the center of your body.

You don’t need a kettlebell to perform the dead lift. You can simply practice the movement with your bodyweight, pack a school or duffel bag with rocks, or use paint cans for resistance. The possiblities are endless. But whatever you do, remember to teach yourself how to pick stuff off the ground.

A while back at Tastefully Driven, I wrote a post where I claimed that all you need to get into great shape is running, push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. Well, I’m going to back that claim up and design three intense workouts using only those four exercises. Each workout builds on the one before it. My suggestion is to try each workout once per week and cycle through them. For example, Workout A can be performed on week one, then Workout B on week two, and finally Workout C on week three. Week four you would perform Workout A again and try to beat your time.


Workout A
3 rounds for time:
Run 400 meters
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
20 Sit-ups

Workout B
For time:
30 Sit-ups
20 Push-ups
10 Pull-ups
Run 800 meters
10 Pull-ups
20 Push-ups
30 Sit-ups

Workout C
For time:
1 mile Run
50 Sit-ups
35 Push-ups
20 Pull-ups
800 meter Run
30 Sit-ups
20 Push-ups
10 Pull-ups
400 Meter Run
15 Sit-ups
10 Push-ups
5 Pull-ups

A tip on how to set these workouts up:

It will be difficult to find a track with a playground nearby where you can perform pull-ups. What we have done in the past is run around the block (355 meters according to Google Earth), then run up the stairs to my second floor room, perform the pull-ups on the bar, then run back down and complete the rest of the workout. This adds another extra element of stair running.

Other options u can do is to replace the pull-ups with body weight squats if you are unable to find a bar nearby. I can also foresee issues with the sit-ups,as it may be uncomfortable (and potentially harmful to your spine and lower back) to be performing sit-ups on the ground. The best solution is to purchase a mat. Another option is to replace the sit-up with a kettlebell or dumbbell option such as windmills, where you are hitting the same muscle group. Sometimes we have thrown in the kettlebell swings to replace the sit-ups, and Hindu push-ups to replace regular push-ups.

The options are endless. Take the format of these workouts and make them your own. You may need to replace exercises or reduce/increase reps to fit your fitness level.