Men’s Fitness magazine recently asked me for 3 of my best fat loss secrets. Since most times the magazines just don’t have enough space to run my full tips, I thought I’d give you a more detailed explanation of my secrets here (plus two bonus tips that I didn’t send to the magazine – just another reason to be a TurbulenceTraining.com newsletter subscriber).

Secret #1 – Focus on burning carbohydrate, not fat, during your fat-loss workouts.

Sounds backwards, right? But not when you look at how I structure my workouts. Remember that Turbulence Training focuses on resistance training and interval training. Both of these use carbohydrate as the main source of energy. So it’s obvious the workout is designed to burn carbohydrates during the training session.

Why do my fat loss workouts focus on burning carbohydrate rather than fat? In order to burn more calories after the workout, that’s why. When you exercise with intervals and heavy resistance training, your body uses more calories in the hours after exercise than it would if you did traditional cardio and lifted lighter weights. Alwyn Cosgrove calls this ‘afterburn’, and I call it ‘Turbulence’. By any name it gives you the same results – maximum improvements in your body composition (helping you lose fat and gain muscle).

Secret #2 – Use a range of repetitions in your strength training workouts.

In order to train more muscle fibers and burn more carbohydrates, I have clients use a range of repetitions within the same workout. My workouts now use 5, 8, and 12 reps per set in order to work the muscle the most effectively. This will burn more carbohydrates and promote as much muscle growth as possible when you are keeping the calories low. This approach is also used in my TT for Mass report – in order to get the most results in the least amount of time.

Secret #3 – Use the stationary cycle for interval training.

I choose the stationary bike for intervals whenever possible because cycling against a resistance can help maintain muscle mass. Cycling against a resistance also allows you to perform a large amount of mechanical work, and that is a key determinant of the Turbulence in my training. But please note: I don’t use low-intensity, fast pedaling ’spinning’ intervals as I’m convinced that the hard, resistance based intervals are more effective for fat loss. My clients only cycle against a strong resistance in their intervals.

Secret #4 – Increase meal frequency

Okay, so this isn’t really a secret to anyone that has read about fat loss. But a new study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that eating 6 times per day was associated with eating fewer calories per day, lowering cholesterol levels, and lowering post-meal insulin levels. Combine an increased meal frequency with an increased protein and fiber intake, and you’ll see your body composition improve rapidly.

Secret #5 – My Synergistic Turbulence Training Workouts

My Turbulence Training Fat Loss workouts are fast becoming the most effective way to burn fat, build muscle, and get lean. The synergistic strength training-interval training workouts are efficient and effective – getting you in and out of the gym in under an hour. Read more about the best fat loss workouts here that coaches and trainers from all over the world are using with their clients.

“I’ve been employing Turbulence Training with my clients for some time now, and I can say that they are delighted with results, not only because of the fat they burn, but also because of the time they save. Program is great for busy people – basic, most efficient principles in comprehensive and practical form. And I can add from personal experience, Craig is real professional and great guy in conducting business with his clients and associates.” Davor Kudrna, Martial Arts Instructor and Conditioning Coach, Croatia

Craig Ballantyne trains athletes and executives in Toronto, and writes for Men’s Fitness magazine. His trademarked Turbulence Training workouts and his comprehensive workout manuals (including “The Ultimate Bodyweight Workout”) are featured on his website Turbulence Training.

Check out my official Turbulence Training review

Your metabolism is a measure of how many calories you are burning each day. But did you know that the food, exercise, and lifestyle choices you make every day have a significant impact on your metabolism? For example, if you starve yourself (instead of following a sensible fat-loss eating plan) your metabolism will slow down. If your metabolism slows down, it means your calories out will be less. And that means no more fat loss, and possibly even continued fat gain.

So for every day that you continue to slow your metabolism with unhealthy lifestyle choices, you get further and further away from fat loss. To help, I’ve put together a list of the top 10 ways to maximize your metabolism, so that you’ll burn as many calories as possible each day so that you can finally lose the fat.

1) Don’t starve yourself! Cutting calories too much is one of the worst things you can do to your body. Starving yourself actually causes you to lose much more water weight and muscle than fat. Use fitday.com to find out your daily calorie intake.

2) Eat 6-8 small meals per day with an emphasis on lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. You have to have a nutrition plan, so spend a couple hours on a day off preparing as much food as you can for the upcoming week.

3) Eat breakfast. You have to make this meal part of your daily metabolism-boosting plan. At the very least, eat a lean protein, drink some Green Tea, and consume a fiber-rich fruit to get your fat loss day started right.

4) Eat healthy fats. Sources of healthy fats included nuts, fish, olive oil, and flax oil. I consume 6 grams of fish oil per day. Replace all processed carbohydrates in your diet with almonds. For example, if you currently eat a small bag of pretzels as a mid-afternoon snack, eat almonds instead (eating the same number of total calories).

5) Eat high quality foods that will help you control your blood sugar levels, insulin levels, and energy levels. Insulin management will help you lose fat and prevent you form gaining fat. I’ll be writing more on how to eat and exercise to control your hormone levels – the #1 neglected factor in fat loss programs.

6) Eat 1.14g of protein per pound of lean body mass. If you don’t know your lean body mass, then simply eat 1g of protein per pound of body weight. But if possible, stick to the lean body mass recommendation, as that eliminates excess fat mass when calculating protein needs.

7) Don’t drink alcohol. Alcohol intake can quickly add hundreds of calories and alcohol prevents fat burning. Alcohol intake can also reduce testosterone levels, a big no-no for men looking to Get Lean.

Drink Green Tea and water. While I don’t believe that either of these will increase your metabolism, I do believe that they help prevent decreases in metabolism. Not too mention, these are your 2 healthiest beverage options.

9) Stick to a consistent sleep schedule. Don’t stay up all night, and if possible, avoid working afternoon and overnight shifts. If you must work shiftwork, stick to the rest of these principles as strongly as possible.

10) Use the Turbulence Training workout principles for the most efficient and effective metabolism boosting workout. This means strength training with moderately heavy weights (that allow you to complete 8 perfect reps per set) and interval training. For exact instructions, get the TT for Fat Loss Special Report.

Craig Ballantyne trains athletes and executives in Toronto, and writes for Men’s Fitness magazine. His trademarked Turbulence Training workouts and his comprehensive workout manuals (including “The Ultimate Bodyweight Workout”) are featured on his website Turbulence Training.

Check out my official Turbulence Training Review

Turbulence Training has evolved from both scientific principles as well as personal experience. And it originally came to me in a dream in University. Just kidding. The truth is that during my graduate years at University, I was searching for an efficient and effective way to stay lean while keeping my strength and mass even when I did not have time to train as often as I would like.

So I based the program on what I had read in hundreds of strength training and fat loss studies, as well as my countless past workouts that I had logged faithfully over the years. From that research and my results, Turbulence Training was invented. The principles of Turbulence Training are:

1) Lift heavy weights.

Heavy strength training stimulates what is called muscle protein turnover. This is important for two reasons:

a) It causes extra calorie burning outside of training.

b) It stimulates muscle re-modeling (it will help keep muscle while in a state of reduced calories, whereas lighter reps and a lesser stimulus to the muscle won’t have the same muscle maintenance effect).

For most people, 8 reps is often lower than what they regularly use, therefore they build strength and muscle while reducing calories and burning calories with intervals. It works great even for advanced guys, but the results are almost magical for the average person because they tend to train with high reps and light weights. Thankfully, because so many people are using such poor programs, they make me look like a genius when they switch to my Turbulence Training routines.

2) Interval training is more effective for burning body fat and maintaining muscle mass than regular cardio.

I think this is most true when it comes to the last couple of pounds of body fat. Interval training is what separates people with 15% body fat from those people with the lean, athletic look. If you want to lose that last ten pounds, you will do it best with interval training in your workouts. Interval training also builds better sport conditioning and “everyday fitness” that is more practical to life (i.e. how often do you have to run more than 20 minutes at a slow pace vs. how often do you sprint up 3 flights of stairs?).

3) Non-competing supersets allow you to do more work, with less fatigue, than supersets of similar muscle groups or even traditional antagonist groups.

This allows most people to continue making strength gains even when they reduce calories. It also allows you to get more work done in a shorter amount of time. That’s why Turbulence Training is so efficient and effective.

4) Variety.

The Turbulence Training workouts are changed every 4 weeks, and sometimes every 2 or 3 weeks. My training template is simple to adapt and easy to modify for the creation of an endless number of workouts – a great thing to know if you are a personal trainer or simply someone that loves to workout to improve their body.

How is Turbulence Training different from other programs?

I found that most fat loss programs were deviating from the main goal. Some programs tried to be so hardcore that all they were concerned with was making someone puke. That will help you lose your lunch weight, but if you can’t complete the workout, how good could it be? Making someone puke doesn’t accomplish as much as my structured programs that actually stimulate the body to change.

Other fluffy fat-loss programs however, are all about high reps and slow cardio. That might give you some muscle endurance, but it doesn’t’t help you keep your strength and muscle, or really shed your fat. The programs that really get on my nerves are the ones that promise a toned body by doing a few sets of curls with soup cans. Get real! That will never work. You have to train hard to get the body of your dreams.

And I won’t lie, with Turbulence Training, you have to work hard, but the results are worth it. You have to lift heavy enough to stimulate muscle growth & muscle turnover and you have to do intervals at a level that you will find uncomfortable, but tolerable. With the heavy lifting and intervals, you will burn more calories outside of the training session than you would with any other program. And that is the magic behind Turbulence Training.

I call this effect, “Turbulence”, and use the analogy of the turbulence that a plane must fight against to right itself in the air. The harder your body has to work to return to normal, the more calories and fat it will burn and the more changes your body will make (i.e. you will build muscle and lose fat). It’s all about adaptation. And you’ll adapt to the TT workouts by getting leaner, fitter, and stronger.

Craig Ballantyne trains athletes and executives in Toronto, and writes for Men’s Fitness magazine. His trademarked Turbulence Training workouts and his comprehensive workout manuals (including “The Ultimate Bodyweight Workout”) are featured on his website Turbulence Training.

Don’t forget to check out the review at Turbulence Training Flamed…

Answer:

Most importantly, no certification will guarantee that someone is a great trainer. The information taught in almost all certifications is generally outdated and basic.

It is really up to the trainer to learn outside of the certification process. A good trainer will have a mentor (preferably many mentors) that has shown them how to successfully deal with many situations, train people efficiently and effectively, and how to design a great training program.

A good trainer should also possess critical thinking skills. They shouldn’t simply do what all the other trainers are doing or copy workouts and exercises straight from a book or website.

If you are familiar with my training programs, you will know that they contain basic, no-fluff exercises. There’s no standing on gym balls or other dangerous and relatively ineffective training methods. There is nothing in my programs that I can’t justify. The trainer you choose should also be able to justify their exercise programs.

If I were picking a trainer, I’d insist on them meeting a very high level of criteria. After all, your trainer is in charge of your body and your health. You should demand a lot from your trainer. That’s the only way your training will reach another level.

Feel free to email me for trainer recommendations throughout North America. I might be able to recommend someone for you.

Craig Ballantyne trains athletes and executives in Toronto, and writes for Men’s Fitness magazine. His trademarked Turbulence Training workouts and his comprehensive workout manuals (including “The Ultimate Bodyweight Workout”) are featured on his website Turbulence Training.

Take a look at the Turbulence Training Review

Two of the more dreaded post-holiday tasks are assembling new electronics and planning your New Year’s resolution workouts – especially when you have no instruction booklet for the latter.

For beginners, getting into fitness can be intimidating and confusing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, getting fit is one of the most straightforward tasks you’ll attempt in the New Year. Fortunately, reaching your fitness goals requires only two things; discipline (that’s up to you) and a set of simple guidelines (which I’m happy to provide).

First, you should arrange for a full physical examination from your physician. This is mandatory for people that have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or are obese. Once you have your doctor’s approval to begin a fitness program, you should schedule a fitness assessment with a health professional at your gym.

While both of these are incredibly annoying, they are essential to your success and well-being. The benefits of a doctor’s visit are obvious, particularly if you have one or more of the previously mentioned conditions but it also allows you and your doctor to discuss your lifestyle. Preventative medicine is far better than reactive medicine. Make your doctor part of your fat loss and health-building team along with the health professionals at your gym.

The real benefits of the fitness assessment aren’t finding out how much body fat you have or how many minutes you can last on the treadmill, but rather getting a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.

According to Tim Irvine, President of Totum Life Science, “First and foremost we need to identify what works and does not work mechanically for an individual. We do this from an injury prevention standpoint and also to determine what the limitations are for an individual. Much more appropriate programs can be set from this information.” If you want to avoid injury and actually achieve your goals this year, get to know your strengths and weaknesses.

The next secret is to walk, don’t run, to fitness success. If you want to pick up your University running workouts where you left them 10 years ago, that’s fine. But I guarantee you won’t last 10 days. And then it’ll be a dreary 355 days until you’re ready to try exercise again.

The hidden benefit of a good fitness assessment is that it will actually serve as a nice introductory workout to your return to fitness. It will buffer your delusions of fitness grandeur from the reality of what your body actually can do. After the fitness assessment teaches your body a lesson and awakens your muscles from their winter slumber, only then will you realize your limits that you must respect in subsequent workouts.

Goal-setting is the fourth secret to success (and not just in fitness, but in any area of life). It is much more effective to commit to a set of specific short-term and long-term goals than it is to routinely hope for weight loss each year.

Set realistic goals and remember to train within your limits. If you are currently sedentary and haven’t exercised in months (or years), don’t begin an advanced training program. Start with a conservative beginner program. Your belly wasn’t built in a day, and neither will be lost overnight.

Limit your initial workouts to 1 set per muscle group. In week 2, you should be ready to add another set. And if you want to build up to 3 sets, then do so in week 3. Slowly increase the weight and stay within your desired repetition range. At no time should you be too sore to function. And runners should also heed this advice. Too much running will guarantee shin splints in the early going. Avoid running on back to back days for the first two weeks and keep the distance short. Sore muscles are guaranteed when you lift. So keep the volume low.

And now for the two super secrets that will help keep you committed and consistent with your workouts and will finally help you lose fat for good.

First, build your social support team. Social support is the #1 factor for success for women in fitness programs, and is important for men as well. Support can come from your spouse, brother or sister, child, mom or dad, friend, neighbor, co-worker, personal trainer, or lifestyle coach. Don’t try to go it alone. As Dr. Eric Serrano says about his weight loss patients, “Patients respond better when they report to a person instead of a machine. No one wants to disappoint a real person.”

You also need to know that nutrition is the second most important factor for success in fat loss programs. That’s why you don’t need to train like a world-class athlete when you are starting to lose fat. Most of the fat you’ll lose in the early going is because you have chosen to make better nutritional choices. And if you don’t make better nutritional choices, even the best exercise program in the world isn’t going to help you achieve your fat loss goals.

Nutrition is a lot simpler than you think. Don’t over think things. See a nutritionist or listen to what your mother told you as a kid. Food choices should contain a large nutrient-to-calorie ratio. Dr. Phil (yes that Dr. Phil) calls this “High-Response Cost, High-Yield Nutrition”. And follow this rule: Don’t eat foods with added sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or fruit syrup,” says Elizabeth Ward, MS, RD. Log your nutritional intake on www.Fitday.com. This is a free website that allows you to track your calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

The consistent use of these 6 secrets will help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions. Make this year’s fitness plan a strategic investment in your future health. The most efficient and effective way to lose fat this year is with my Turbulence Training workouts – the choice of fitness professionals.

Craig Ballantyne trains athletes and executives in Toronto, and writes for Men’s Fitness magazine. His trademarked Turbulence Training workouts and his comprehensive workout manuals (including “The Ultimate Bodyweight Workout”) are featured on his website Turbulence Training

Don’t forget to check out the full review at Turbulence Training Flamed…

With the Turbulence Training reports and the following article you can avoid gaining holiday fat while doing the impossible: Losing fat and gaining muscle over the holiday season.

Since one of our least favorite holiday traditions is trying to find room for exercise in a busy schedule, here are 6 tips on how to continue to improve your body over the party season while getting a head start on your New Year’s fitness resolutions.

Step 1 – Train efficiently

Strength training is a very efficient type of exercise, giving you many benefits with a small amount of exercise. During the holiday season, you might be able to get the same benefits by reducing the number of sets per exercise in your workout from 3 to 1. That will help you maintain muscle and strength while significantly reducing your training time.

Interval training is another economical form of exercise. Rather than following up your strength training with 45 minutes on the treadmill, you can get the same (or better!) fat burning results from a much shorter period (20 minutes) of interval training.

Step 2 – Cut the junk

Men’s Fitness Training Adviser Alwyn Cosgrove suggests that we ask ourselves, “Will this help me or not? Is this a positive step or not?” So unless you can justify doing 3 exercises for triceps, then cut the junk from your workout and focus on efficient exercises only.

Step 3 – Warm-up as a workout

You don’t need to spend 10 minutes on the treadmill before you strength train. Instead, you need to prepare specifically for what you are about to do. If your walk to the gym is more than a couple of minutes, you can go right into specific warm-up sets for your strength training exercises.

Step 4 – Whole body vs. split routines

Don’t be a slave to doing chest and arms on Mondays. This eliminates any excuse to skip workouts when you deviate from your “weekly” schedule. Plan your holiday workouts to train either your entire body in one session or alternate between upper body and lower body workouts.

Step 5 – Train your abs with every exercise

The 15 minutes of sit-ups you do each day is a waste of time and is damaging to your lower back. Instead of wasting away on the floor, approach every exercise as an abdominal exercise. Brace your abs (like someone was about to punch you in the stomach) and never let your low back “round”. This body posture is especially important for exercises such as the abdominal plank, squats, push-ups, and all standing exercises.

Step 6 – Plan your workouts

In the spirit of the holidays, I’ve given you a lot of tips to improve your workout efficiency. Now the most important part is up to you to put them into action. So don’t go into the gym without a clue and end up on the cardio machine for an hour because you didn’t know where to start.

Each Turbulence Training workout follows an efficient and effective template to get in and out of the gym in under an hour. You can also choose to do a weights-only or intervals-only workout, therefore cutting even more time off of your trip to the gym.

Turbulence Training Template

5 minutes – 2 warm-up sets for key weight training exercises

15 minutes – Weights

20 minutes – Intervals

5 minutes – Stretch (tight muscles only)

www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Craig Ballantyne trains athletes and executives in Toronto, and writes for Men’s Fitness magazine. His trademarked Turbulence Training workouts and his comprehensive workout manuals (including “The Ultimate Bodyweight Workout”) are featured on his website Turbulence Training.

Read the full review at Turbulence Training Flamed…