If you’re really serious about gaining muscle mass and losing fat, then you need to check out more of Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training workouts.

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NOTE: If you’re Looking for my Bodyweight Exercise Revolution Review, Click Here.

Just completed my first workout using the exercises I learned from Bodyweight Exercise Revolution. My first reaction was that I was surprised by how inflexible I was. I’ve been relying too much on pushups, pullups, and squats to get the job done.

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In our busy world, women have completely different needs than men with regards to exercise. For one thing, many women these days are busier than men. Raising kids, doing household chores, and pursuing a full time career is a lot of work.

So, staying fit is at least 10 times harder for females than it is for men. But it does not have to be so difficult. The biggest flaw I see in the training programs of most females is too much cardio. Where most females might do as much as 5 hours of cardio per week, most men spend about the same time performing resistance training.

You can see the difference: men who do more resistance training than cardio are often stronger and have higher energy levels throughout the day. On the other hand, individuals in general who perform a lot of cardio, are much more slugish and have difficulty maintaining their weight.

Hence, the first principle women should follow is: Cut down on your cardio.

How to Lose Weight without Cardio

I’ve done it in the past, so there’s no reason why you can’t do the same. Weight loss is based off of two things:

• Increased metabolic rate
• Decreased caloric intake

Most people focus on reducing their caloric intake and burning off more calories through cardio. The worst thing that’s happened in the fitness world is the publication of these calorie charts that tell people how much they’re burning for each minute of cardio they perform.

I remember back in college I overhead this conversation between two friends. Lets call them Tom and Joe. Tom is a chubby guy who’s just started losing a little weight through exercise and diet. Joe is a skinny guy. I don’t know much about Joe, but I’m assuming he has a faster metabolic rate than Tom.

Joe goes to eat a pastry and Tom says, “You know it’s going to take you a long time to burn that off.” Joe looks up at Tom, confused. “Yeah, that pastry is like 300 calories. I can burn that off by jogging 30 minutes on a treadmill, but you’ll probably have to jog like 3 hours because you’re skinnier than me.”

WRONG!

Joe will probably finish off the pastry, get up and walk to the door and feel hungry again. Why? Because he has a fast metabolic rate and can eat more calories overall than Tom because of his fast metabolic rate.

Fat loss with High Intensity Resistance Training

When you perform high intensity resistance training you cause damage to the connective tissue and muscle fibers. You also drain energy reserves. All this activity gives the body a reason to change. It starts the recovery process, which includes strengthening your muscles and replenishing energy stores.

In this process, your body improves. It gets stronger, leaner, faster, and more athletic.

I mentioned earlier that your body must burn more calories than it consumes in order to lose weight. But the biggest issue here is that your body does not discriminate between muscle and fat when performing long duration cardiovascular activities.

Short, high intensity resistance training prevents the loss of muscle mass. Instead of burning calories from both fat and muscle, why not burn calories from your fat stores, and use it to rebuild damaged muscle tissue?

The Role of Estrogen in Female Fat Loss

Estrogen plays a huge role in female body composition. The hormone is produced in large quantities by the ovaries of females and some by the adrenal glands. Estrogen causes increased deposits of fats in certain sibcutaneous (under the skin) tissue.

Estrogen also causes fat to be stored in the buttocks and thighs, which gives women their characteristic figure. This is hormone is the primary reason why women carry more fat than men. However, because women have more estrogen and less testosterone than men, it is next to impossible for them get as big and muscular as men without the use of specific supplements.

In short, women shouldn’t be afraid of resistance training.

Specific Diet Recommendations for Females

The same rules of eating apply to females as men. It is often assumed that women need less calories then men. This is only partly true. Most women need less calories only because they weigh less. However, assuming a man and woman weighed the same and followed very similar training programs, their caloric needs would not be much different.

But most athletic women do not weigh the same as athletic men. Again, it has to do with hormones than anything else. Here is my simple approach to nutrition: eat more if you need to. Eat less if you need to. Eat the same if you need to.

Well, how do you figure out how much you need to eat? Simple answer:

• If your goal is fat loss, and your not losing weight at your current caloric intake, then drop the calories per day just slightly and see what happens.
• If your caloric intake is less than 1000 per day and you’re still not losing weight, then you’re not eating enough. Eat more for about a week and see what happens.

A lot of dieting is experimentation. I refuse to follow specific formulas. These formulas often don’t take into account individual metabolic rates and level of activity. They’re often based on assumptions, and you know what happens when you assume.

Here’s my primary message to women: don’t be afraid to eat more if you need to eat more.

Top Three Training Principles for Women

Lets recap what we learned in this article:

1. Do less cardio and more resistance training.
2. Don’t be afraid of resistance training.
3. Don’t be afraid of more food.

Top Three Training Prorgrams for Women

The following are the best training programs Women can use to Develop a Better Body

1. Gladiator Body Workout - Combination Dumbbell and Bodyweight Workouts. Click Here for More Information

2. Superior Dumbbell Workout – Dumbbell Exercises and Workouts. Click Here for More Information

3. Workout Without Weights - Bodyweight Only Exercises, Workouts, and Training Techniques. Click Here for More Information.

Just came back from an intense workout with my buddies – Dom and D-Raj. We do our own thing. I love reading eBooks, watching training videos, and just combining a whole bunch of stuff into my own thing.

I truly believe that education is important. If you want to be a better fighter, you find yourself a trainer or get some equipment to help you out. If you want to be a better writer, maybe purchasing some writing books will help you out.

So that’s my goal. To teach you guys what I learn from experience, reading, and observing. Lets start with 7 simple Continue reading

We live in a fast paced world, and so your workouts need to be fast paced. Interval training is a system where you alternate between periods of high intensity training and periods of low intensity training.

Interval Training is clearly one of the best ways to drop fat and to shorten your workouts. Gone are the days where you performed a set, then rested 2-3 minutes before moving onto the next set.

The great thing about interval training is that you an use almost any single activity in an interval scheme. The most Continue reading

Ok, this time I really am going to start a training log on this site. It will be posted on the side bar, and on a page in the menu bar on top. This will keep it away from the main articles on the site. Here is today’s workout:

Warmup: 5 minutes jump roping

Workout:

Perform 3 rounds in 10 minutes of:

• 5 Chinups
• 20 Double Unders
• 10 Chair Dips
• 20 Double Unders
• 20 Ankle Grabbers
• 20 Double Unders

Time: 13:03.11

Notes:

There were three problems with this workout:

1. My mom kept interupting me. I could have probably gotten this done under 12 minutes if my mom wasn’t knocking profusely on the garage door. The only solution to this problem is to workout when my mom’s not home.
2. The ankle grabbers were too easy. Replace them with 10 Squat Jumps. This might shorten the workout due to a faster movement, or might make the workout longer due to a harder movement. Either way, the intensity level will go through the roof.
3. I forgot to do the double unders in the second round after the ankle grabbers. I was too anxious to look at my time. Solution is to do double unders before each movement instead of after. This is just a mental change – “I have to do 20 double unders before the exercise” as opposed to, “Don’t forget to do doubl eunders after this.” This might even speed up the movement as theire’s less “remembering” Trust me, when the workout is tough you forget things. Double unders before the exercise will probably decrease my strength levels as well, Although in the first round i was did the dips as 2 reps – pause, 4 reps – pause, 3 reps – pause, 1 reps. And on the last round It was 5 reps – pause, 4 reps – curse at yourself, 1 rep. So, in other words a tough workout pushes you past your limits. You have no time to rest because you’re under the clock.

Overall, a great workout. Try it out!

I experienced something amazing last night: deep meditation.

Meditation is simply an attempt to reach a “deeper” state of awareness. Now I’m not going to throw any philosophical mumbo jumbo at you. I’m just going to talk about my experiences with meditation, and what I did different last night in my meditation practice that has already given me such incredible results.

I began meditating in high school. It was one of the many things that helped me in my weight loss. But the real break through came during college. There was a day where I just broke down, crying. I’d just finished fighting with my mother about our usual issues: “Parth, get a job!” – “No! Idon’t want to!”

I collapsed near my bed and began crying, silently. I called my cousin up and explained the situation to him. I’m sure he was scared as he had never heard me this way. I’m usually the “macho” guy in our group. But today, I just felt like a helpless little child. I forget what I said to him, but I do remember what he said to me: “What you’re trying to do with your life is tough, because there aren’t immediate results to it. There’s no steady stream of income at all. But what you’re doing is admirable. Getting up at 4 in the morning, pursuing a dream, not wanting to work for anyone else but yourself. That’s admirable.”

He was right. I go back to that night and those words every single moment that I feel depressed, frustrated, and just plain…down.

I’ve been feeling the same way since I decided to start this members section. A million different questions pop into my head at any given moment:

• Will it work?
• What if I fail?
• What if too many people sign up?
• What if not enough people sign up?
• What do I charge?
• How can I protect myself legally?
• Why am I doing this?

Image by Yogic Trance

The Benefits of Meditation

Meditation has helped me dig deeper. It has allowed me to get up at 4 in the morning and workout. It has allowed me to stay on a difficult dieting plan. It has allowed me to realize my greatness….and I need to do it again.

Last night, I began to meditate using my usual methods: “watching my thoughts ” and “breathing,” But along with each breath, I said things to myself like:

• You need to dig deeper
• You can do this
• You will succeed
• You can wake up early tomorrow
• You’re gonna make this successful, no matter what
• You’re going to be successful, no matter what
• Stop wasting time, and hustle!
• Don’t worry about what people say
• Just move!
• Your best isn’t good enough. You need to push harder.

The key to really motivate and push yourself and achieve your dreams involves some sort of meditation. You may be meditating, and not even realizing it. Many people “reflect.” They’ll sit down, write things down on a piece of paper, and try to solve their problems in a practical manner. One aspect of meditation is awareness. Awareness is simply understanding your problems, surrounding, and beliefs. It’s simply understanding YOU.

Have you ever listened to someone arguing or complaining and thought, “If only he/she would listen to themselves?” Well, meditation is exactly that: put on a tape recorder while you complain and b**ch about your problems with a friend, and then play it back a few days later. See how you feel listening to your own voice. You might be surprised by what you say.

So meditation is listening to your inner voice, to your inner a**hole and understanding him/her. Once you start listening and understanding, you can start to reallygauge into the problems:

• Are you nervous? Why? What can you do about it?
• Are you anxious? Why? What can you do about it?
• Are you afraid? Why? What can you do about it?
• Are you angry? Why? What can you do about it?
• Are you lacking motivation? Why? How can you fix it?
• Do you feel guilty? Why? How can you fix it?
• Are you depressed? Why? How can you fix it?
• Do you feel sorry? Why? What can you do about it?
• Do you feel jealous? Why? How can you fix it?

Image by Young Adult Crisis Hotline

Stop Rationalizing and Start Understanding

Most individuals try to reason their way out of doing something really hard. Its the reason why diet books do so well. I mean come on, how many different ways do you need someone to tell you to eat less? It’s the same reason why fitnesseBooks and infomercial products do so well. The process goes something like this (and I’ve been through this as well):

1. You buy this amazing new book with this amazing new training program.
2. You’re really excited to you tell all your friends or blog about it.
3. Then you go try it and realize how friggin difficult it is.
4. The fact that you’ll actually have to do some WORK makes you nauseous.
5. You go shelve the book and sit on your coach, open up a bag of potato chips, and start watching Biggest Loser.

I knew what I was getting into when I decided to pursue my own dreams. I took the path less traveled and I knew all about the twists and turns and hills and slides. But doing the right thing – apologizing to someone, taking on a job for passion as opposed to money, reaching in and motivating yourself to lose weight – all these things take a sh*t load of courage.

I’ve talked about meditation a few times with friends and family, and a lot of them state that meditation is hard. They’re afraid to meditate simply because they’re afraid of their thoughts. I had a friend in college who told me she was afraid of being alone. She was afraid of the thoughts that come to her and afraid of how it might make them feel.

Image by wildmind

How to Meditate

Well, over the years I’ve adopted some specific rules to meditation:

• Step one: Learn to sit quietly. Thats it. In this first stage you do not need to practice any technique. Simply practice your breathing. Adopt a steady rhythm of just breathing and focus on that pace.
• Step two: Watch your thoughts. What I like to do is pretend there’s a camera in my head. As a thought comes up, I just take a picture of it. When I exhale, I imagine throwing that photograph away.
• Step three: Get to the peace zone. After step two, you’ll find yourself just “there.” You’ll be able to get to your “peace zone” rather quickly. This part is actually kind of scary,cuz you feel like you’re in this deserted area, like a forest or something.
  • Everything around you is pitch dark. Everything is silent. You see no people, hear no people, and think no people. This is the state of true inner peace, and it’sfriggin’s scary.
  • The first time I achieved this zone, I literally opened up my eyes and looked around to see where I was.
• Step four: Listen to your voice. If you can make it past step three, then you’re doing amazing. At this point, there’s no one else around you but yourself. You’re not going to hear any voices – not your parents, your friends, that random guy who cursed at you on the street – no one. So it’s just you talking to yourself. So listen to it.
• Step five – Understand your voice. Once you learn to listen to yourself, you realize what’s really deep inside of you. What’s really bothering you. What’s really hurting you in your subconscious mind.
• Step Six – Step five and six go hand in hand. Now that you understand what’s really bothering you all you need to do now is take out a pen and paper, right down some actions you can take to solve those problems, and go do them.

I read somewhere that the difference between prayer and meditation is that with prayer, you are talking to God, and with meditation, God is talking to you. Either way, the techniques that I just explained to you should help you mentally overcome any barrier in your place. You should at least try them out – cheaper then hiring a psychologist.

Image by MobiGates

I’ve gone through dozens of intense bodyweight routines in the past. A few of them have made onto the YouTube. I wanted to showcase some of my most interesting workouts in one single post. Here they are:

Density Training

This workout was very recent and was a simple experiment in Density Training. Density training is where you steadily increase the number of repetitions performed per set, while decreasing the number of sets. The idea is to perform the same number of repetitions per workout using a lower number of sets, thus accomplishing those total repetitions in a shorter amount of time. Check out the video:

Ideas for progression:

You can attempt 200 pushups and 100 chinups in your first workout, but trust me you’ll be sore for at least 3 days afterwards. If you’ve never performed more than 30 or 40 pushups per workout, then you’d better start off with conservative numbers such as 50 pushups and 25 chinups. Once you’re comfortable with these numbers, you can shoot for higher total repetitions.

Click here for more Intense Bodyweight Workouts

9- minute Bodyweight Routine

The 9-minute Bodyweight Routine was my attempt to develop a 10-minute intense workout. The truth is, it wasn’t really that intense for me at all. I found it to be quite easy, and perhaps a great warmup routine for me. However, I can see this routine being useful for beginner/intermediate trainees. Here it is:

Ideas for progression:

The routine is simple enough, so moving forward I would suggest replacing some of the exercises with more difficult ones. For example, after incline pushups, you can try hindu pushups or dive bombers. Crunches can be replaces by full situps or hanging knee raises. Finally, boot strappers should be replaced by parallel or full bodyweight squats.

Click here for more Intense Bodyweight Workouts

10 Sets of Hell

I showcased this workout here before, but never presented a video. This video is somewhat embarrassing because this workout did kick my but. The original workout was posted on bodyweightculture.com by EvilOne. In this video, I replace the Pull Up with the Bent Over Row, simply because I didn’t have anything to hang on outdoors. But when you do the workout, replace the Bent Over Row with the Pull up. I actually attempted this workout again in my garage and put a belt over the top to do a pullup. The workout gets even harder that way. I suggest you look this guy up because his workouts are definitely “Evil.” Here’s my futile attempt at his workout:

Ideas for progression:

So yes, the full goal of this workout is to be able to perform 10 rounds in 20 minutes. I’m not sure how many people have actually accomplished that feet. I think it was the fear of failure that prevented me from going all out with this workout. I will definitely be going after this workout again, once the whether gets better and I have some training partners to push me.

Click here for more Intense Bodyweight Workouts

Tabata Pushups/Sprints

When I designed this workout, I thought it was going to be one of the easier ones. But Tabata did kick our buts. This workout was performed by both myself and D-raj, but for some reason I only footage of D-Raj performing the workout. Here it is:

Ideas for progression:

Change up the exercises or add more rounds. Or just try to sprint faster.

Click here for more Intense Bodyweight Workouts

Rainy Day Workout

This was just one of those “what do we do today?” workouts that I came up with on the spot. Oh yeah, it did start to rain so we had to work in a small space. Three guys, small space, there’s really only one thing you can do:

Ideas for progression:

The main thing here I guess is to try to get up to doing 10 rounds of this. Five rounds itself is pretty tough, I can only image how tough 5 rounds would be. For beginners, start off with basic jump roping drills and alternate with bodyweight squats. The basic progression here would actually be bodyweight squats, then squat jumps, then squat thrust, and finally burpees.

Click here for more Intense Bodyweight Workouts

Insanity Workout

This is by far the most intense workout ever devised! Just watch the video:

Ideas for progression:

We did try this workout one more time, performing just 3 rounds straight through. Yes, it was easier, with my time being around 13 minutes. I think I can probably hit 5 rounds pretty easily now, perhaps around 20 minutes or less. For beginners, start off with doing just 3 rounds of pushups and leg pullins. Steadily add in the other two exercises. Once you’re fully comfortable with three rounds, then add in more rounds.

Well, there you have it. Six great bodyweight routines to help you get and stay in shape. Now tell me….who needs the gym?

For more great bodyweight training information, check out Bodyweight Blueprint for Fat Loss:

Bodyweight Blueprint for Fat Loss is a complete bodyweight manual written by Coach’s Ryan Murdock and Adam Steer which shows you unique bodyweight exercises you can perform in the comfort of your own home. The manual also 3 bodwyeight programs specifically for fat loss, along with many other features.

Click here for more information

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