I’m really tired of these fitness magazines. Each week, I help my father out at his convenience store at the city. The other day, I picked up a female fitness magazine, simply because there was an attractive actress on the cover. As I flipped through it, I noticed how many garbage articles were being published in the magazine.

And next to each picture of an attractive model, there was an advertisement from a supplement company. In fact, these magazines are run by supplement magazines. Just to give you a few examples, Muscle Linc. is owned by Iron Man. Muscle Media used to be owned byEAS.

And Weider owns Muscle & Fitness, Flex, and a many other publications. On top of that, if these magazines don’t get advertisements (from supplement companies, of course), they don’t profit from their magazines. It’s as simple as that.

If there was at least some effort on their side to come out with new and unique content, then I wouldn’t be suspicious of their intentions. But the fact is that they rehash the same garbage over and over again. I know, since I’m sitting at the store, month after month, noticing the same headlines over and over again.

Why Women Need Better Information

I’ve known for a while now that the majority of what is written in fitness magazines is BS. But, I had never thought about just how many WRONG things are being written in regards to training for women. Female fitness programs are still lagging behind those that men follow.

And it’s actually easier for men to get into shape, compared to women. So I would think that there would be more programs out their catering to women who want to get in shape the RIGHT way, instead of using the same old boring fitness routines that just don’t make any sense in our day in age.

One of the most important things lacking in female fitness program is Intensity. Women are told to go lighter and longer. In other words, instead of adding weight to an exercise, they are told to add repetitions. Instead of making a workout more difficult, they are told to go easier, but just workout longer.

It’s as if women are some delicate species that will get sick from intense exercise.  The truth is the intense, more difficult workouts will create more leaner, sexier, and athletic looking bodies.

Are you Willing to Change your Fitness Program?

Now that I have your attention, it’s time for you to decide: do you want to continue to see a lack of results with fitness magazine workouts, or do you finally want a resource that will absolutely transform your body using very simple exercises you can do in the comfort of your own home?

What’s more, you can perform these workouts with limited time, without purchasing any equipment at all. Of course, I’m talking about bodyweight training. Those pictures I showed you earlier were of gymnasts, dancers, and yogis – three types of athletes that have mastered the art of bodyweight training for fitness.

What makes gymnastics, dancing, and yoga different then traditional forms of bodyweight training is it teaches you how to move your body through a variety of different movement planes. For example,pushups just each your body to go up and down.

A movement inspired by dance or gymnastics will teach your body to move up, down, side, back, twist, jump, etc. There will be greater carry over to every day life because you will be engaging the muscles you used to perform every day activities.

Introducing: CST
The only people that are teaching this form of bodyweight training come from Circular Strength Training (CST). CST is a training system developed by Coach ScottSonnon, which revolves around two revolutionary concepts: 1) Six Degrees of Freedom, and 2) 4×7 Progression.

The Six Degrees of Freedom (SDF) describes exactly what I mentioned earlier: moving your body through multiple planes of movement. The SDF, as described by Coach Scott Sonnan, are:

• Heaving – Up and Down
• Surging – Front and Back
• Swaying – Side to Side
• Yawing – Twisting
• Pitching – Rolling Forward or Backward
• Rolling – Bending to the Side

Now, performing a movement that has you move up and down and front to back is fine, but what really makes the workouts of dancers and gymnastics unique is something known as “Flow.” Flow is exactly what it sounds like – moving from one plane of movement to another with ease and grace.

In other words you need to create bodyweight workouts where in one second you’re moving up and down, and the next movement you’re moving side to side. If you notice the movement patterns of great bodyweight athletes, you’ll notice this sort of pattern.

CST certified Coaches Adam Steer and Ryan Murdock have developed two impressive fitness programs that revolve around these two concepts. They are Bodyweight Exercise Revolution and Bodyweight Blueprint for Fat Loss.

Bodyweight Exercise Revolution is an overall introduction to CST bodyweight training and features 5, 28-day fitness programs. There is one for fat loss, strength, mass gain, general fitness, and athleticism. If you go through each program separately, in 5 months you’d have literally transformed your health and physique. Click here for more information.

Bodyweight Blueprint for Fat Loss is focused primarily on using Bodyweight Exercises for Fat Loss. It incorporates all of the same ideas as Bodyweight Exercise Revolution, but the workouts are geared towards helping your lose as much fat in the shortest time possible. Click here for more information.

You need to make the decision today: Are you going to continue to follow pointless fitness magazines and never get any impressive results, or you going to take a chance and try some trully unique ideas using CST bodyweight exercises? Start today with either Bodyweight Exercise Revolution or Bodyweight Blueprint for Fat Loss.

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.

I’ve always been a non-conformist, doing things that others don’t do. When kids were out playing basketball during recess, I was standing up against the fence reading a 300-page paper back novel. In high school, when most kids were out partying or getting into car accidents, I was at home, working on my first novel. And in college, when most kids were once again partying, getting into car accidents, and skipping class, I was at the campus writing center, work-shopping my screenplay with an exuberant grad student.

I’ve always been different, always been somewhat strange, practical yet un-practical. My email signature says: Strength Consultant. Writer. Dreamer. You just need those two words to really describe who I am: Writer. Dreamer. The fitness aspect of my life is another big part of me. I don’t know when it started, or why it started, but through the goal of weight loss, and the activity of Martial Arts, I developed a strong interest in the planning process. Why is it that when we run, we increase our endurance, but our strength goes caput? Why is it that despite being able to do more push-ups, our punching power doesn’t change? What causes what? And why does it cause it?

Since very early on, I enjoyed trying new things, especially if it was creative and something that most people wouldn’t think of doing. One example is my decision to start Yoga, at age 12. How many American suburbanite 12-year olds want to start Yoga? You can say it’s my Indian background, but then how many 12-year olds wake up early JUST to perform Yoga? I dunno, looking back, I think that I was born with this knack for just doing something I wanted to do, no matter what it took and how many people said no to me.

Why are all these thoughts coming to my head, and what does this have to do with fitness? It has everything to do with fitness! What we’re talking about here is the ability to do something because you love doing it. This seems to be a lost cause now a days. People work simply for the sake of working. People eat simply for the sake of eating. And people workout simply for the sake of working out. If you’re not having fun, then whats the point? No complex, super-intense workout will work if it doesn’t excite you at the beginning, and satisfy you at the end.

Ask yourself one question: Is my training program fun? If not, then forget about goals and start doing something fun!

Also check out:

• How can I get a full-body workout at the gym? – Choose whole-body movements
  
• Stop Rationalizing and Lift!
• Three Steps to High Frequency Training
• Dumbells for Power and Strength
• Differences in Training