The New Gym Rules

For anyone, walking into a new gym is as intimidating as being told by an ageing wizard that you need to destroy a magical ring while an army of invisible goth-men nefariously stalk you down.

But at least Frodo had Sam holding his hand.

You’re most likely alone, confused and feeling slightly dizzy and nauseous due to the stringent scent of one part sweat, one part ammonia and one part pheromones.

Neckless men communicate in nothing but grunts and as they slap each other on the back and lift all the weight, they look in your direction and you feel less significant than Pluto when Nasa decided it wasn’t a planet anymore.

Turn around though and toned gym bunnies are giggling and jumping up and down, performing HIIT cardio sessions, their makeup perfectly applied, eyebrows on fleek and their fake breasts pushed up so far that you wonder how their diaphragm can actually expand.

You’ve only been in the gym for all of five minutes and you’re sweating, out of breath and feel like passing out- you haven’t even touched a weight yet.

If you are to survive, you need to know how to navigate the jungle:

1. Putting a towel on a piece of equipment is the equivalent of a dog peeing on a tree

It doesn’t even have to be a towel, any of your possessions will work; placing something of yours on a piece of equipment tells everyone in the gym you are using it.

Forget to put something of yours on a bench or weight machine and it will disappear faster than Deadpool when he smells chimichangas; you’ll only have yourself to blame and your lack of awareness has lost you the right to ask for it back.

2. You’re workout is no more important than anyone else’s

Everyone in the gym is there to better themselves.

Maybe you’re one of those people whose mum fed them with a silver spoon and, every night, patted you on the head and told you that you were special but in the gym you’re no more important than anyone else and neither is your workout.

Take up an acceptable amount of space (approximately an arms length away from anyone else) and respect everyone no matter what they’re lifting or what type of exercise they’re doing.

3. If you use your phone, be mindful

Five years ago, if you used your phone on the gym floor you became a pariah, your muscles atrophied and the thought of dead animal flesh, cooked medium rare, made you gag.

Now, if you workout but never post it to Instagram, what’s the point?

Your bulging muscles won’t appreciate themselves and if nobody sees you squat past parallel then it never actually happened.

People have their phones with them for a myriad of reasons: life struggles, exercise diaries, work, social media, distractions, music.

Whatever it is, it’s not your place to judge someone for using their phone on the gym floor and if you’re using your phone it’s your responsibility to make sure your head is up and you’re paying attention.

If you get hit in the head by a barbell while posting to Facebook, it’s you’re own fault.

4. Have fun

Like Cyndi Lauper pined, “girls just want to have fun” and so does everybody else in the gym.

You may have a masochist or sadistic streak but everybody else is just in the gym to have fun and maybe make a gain or two, that’s why they work out in pairs and talk and dance around the gym whilst singing to pop songs.

Similar to Rule Two, don’t take away someone’s happiness; you don’t know them, you don’t know their motivation for working out and you don’t know what they’re escaping from.

And make sure you’re also having fun.

5. Be sociable

In time, the gym will probably become your second home; a bio-dome where the outside struggles fade away and become nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

Because of this, gyms can either be incredibly isolating or sociable.

Choose isolation and you may get some mental reprieve from the hustle of your day to day life but if you choose to be sociable, you’ll learn from those who are stronger, fitter and faster.

You’ll grow as a lifter and as a person because where else in your life can you immerse yourself in a smelting pot filled with people from all different professions, social economic classes and levels of experience and expertise.
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Of course there are other rules, the cliched ones, the ones that belong in a romantic comedy where a man falls in love with a dumbbell, cheats on it with Crossfit, only to be taken back when he stops eating sugar and starts cleaning all of his food before he eats it.

(That’s what ‘eating clean’ means, right?)

But these are the rules people don’t think about because they’re too concerned with how their perceived by the people around them, too obsessed with the image they’re portraying than the person they’re becoming and while it might be tempting to be that person that does nothing but grunt at other members or perfectly applies their makeup, please don’t be that person.

Nobody really likes that person.

 

 

Dave Asprey- A 21st Century Snake Oil Salesman

Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof coffee and the enigmatic biohacker who lost 45 kilograms without restricting calories or exercising, “learned about the power or butter at 18,000 feet elevation near Mt. Kailash in Tibet”, when he “staggered into a guest house from the -10 degree weather and was literally rejuvenated by a creamy cup of yak butter tea.”

In other news, Dave Asprey confirmed for being Bruce Wayne.

Asprey has a group of specially trained Oompa Loompa’s who pick the ripest, freshest coffee beans before the suns rays cause them to wither and die. He then uses his Bulletproof Process™ to eliminate any harmful moulds, bacteria and toxins from the beans to ensure you can enjoy the fruity aroma of apple, cherries and vanilla without the jittery, cranky feeling coffee normally causes.

For more: Dave Asprey- A 21st Century Snake Oil Salesman

How To Experience Happiness and Smash PBs

“Just please, take it easy tonight,” Sara implored over the phone as she sat poolside, basking in the warm Melbourne sun.
“Yep, don’t worry. Of course I will.”

Normally I listen to my wife with attentive ears and a furrowed brow, as if every syllable was a precious commodity that would quickly dissipate. It was my job to preserve each word for future generations; to capture the wisdom.

This time though, I was in the middle of flicking off my work shoes, unbuttoning my shirt and slipping into my workout clothes (a bright orange singlet and a pair of blue shorts- no wonder she hates it when I dress myself).

Outside it was 40 degrees celsius, or 104 degrees fahrenheit, and the wilting plants begged for water as sweat started to bead on my brow the moment I stepped outside.

Twenty minutes later, I stood in front of a loaded barbell.

On it, was 240 kilograms (530 pounds). My previous personal best was 230 kilograms.

Clearly I wasn’t paying attention to my wife when she told me to take it easy.

To read more: How To Experience Happiness and Smash PBs.

Still Think The Contestants Are The Biggest Loser?

It hasn’t been long since it’s graced our screens but The Biggest Loser is back.

That’s right; the show that brought fat-shaming into the public domain, then went a step further in fat-shaming children, has now decided to honour Ararat with the title of ‘the fattest town in Australia’.

Good luck living down that moniker citizens of Ararat.

See, in 2010 Jamie Oliver did something similar as he headed off to Huntington, West Virginia, USA and attempted to bring them back from the precipice of a deep-fried armageddon.

He wept on national television when the residents spurned his broccoli croquets and, just like a teenager when their mother finds the porn stash, complained that nobody understood him!

In the end though, he did manage to, with the help of reluctant-turned-plucky school cook Alice, change the school canteen lunch programs, open up a kitchen where residents were are able to learn how to cook, for free, using fresh and seasonal produce, and institute a ‘pay it forward’ attitude towards learning how to cook.

Hell, he booked out a football stadium and taught people how to cook prosciutto wrapped chicken cutlets.

How awesome is that?!

And then we have The Biggest Loser…

To read the rest of the article, head over to: Still Think The Contestants Are The Biggest Loser?

5 Ways To Improve Crossfit- A Reaction To My Last Article

Over the past few weeks, Crossfit has been thrust back into the social spotlight with some, including myself, calling it out as an irresponsible exercise methodology, and others using it as a call to arms, rallying around their beloved regime.

Since Greg Glassman first conceptualised Crossfit in 2000, bringing Olympic lifting, gymnastic moves and mobility work to the masses in a high paced, frenetic fashion, it has been plagued with controversy.

In 2001, Glassman claimed that periodisation, a method used effectively by thousands of people for decades before, was a hoax.

Two years later, in 2003, Glassman infamously stated that Crossfit would allow an individual to go from deadlifting 200 pounds to between 500-700 pounds in two years, despite only pulling for maxes 3 times a year.

Despite all this though, Crossfit has boomed and now has over 7000 affiliates, mostly within the United States, and thousands of loyal followers that will immediately rally to the cause when their workouts are called into poor repute.

But there are still a myriad of problems with the core system, and the growing understanding of these flaws may explain why so many affiliate gyms are moving away from the core programming outlined by the Crossfit.com site.

To continue reading, please continue to: 5 Ways to Improve Crossfit

And don’t forget to sign up for the mailing list to make sure you stay up to date with all the latest nutritional and fitness info that you can use to improve your physique and lifestyle.

10 Things The Instagram Athlete Has To Stop Doing

We’ve all seen them.

Their abs, booties and cleavage make us squirm in our skin when our Grandma asks us what Instagram is, and then pleads with us to see ours, yet we still ‘follow’ and ‘like’ them because they provide us with insightful tips on how to get sexy, and motivate us to get off our arses so we can get hot like them.

And yet, it’s hard to take them as anything but eye-candy when you read some of the backwards drivel that comes out of their mouths.

To continue reading: 10 Things The Instagram Athlete Has To Stop Doing

Also, take a moment to sign up to the JP Training Systems newsletter. You’ll receive exclusive subscriber only content delivered directly to your inbox to help you take your physique to the next level.

Is this the dumbest person on YouTube- Freelee the Banana Girl

There are two types of people in the fitness industry.

Type one have dollar signs in their eyes, often at the expense of their clients wallets. These are the ones that do not have the publics best intentions at heart, instead opting for shaky science and flimsy logic to put a quick buck in their own pockets.

Tracy Anderson is one such example.

She continues to make ludicrous claims to the media that are single handedly setting the fitness industry back decades, choosing to ignore every advancement in exercise science and nutrition, in the pursuit of charging $900 a session.

Then we have the Type Two trainers. These one are the ones that lost a great deal of weight by cutting out sugar, eating 6 small meals a day, taking Shredz or going vegan/vegetarian. Whilst misguided, and possibly dangerous, still setting the fitness industry back years, they have their clients best interests at heart, yet still choose to believe things on bad or nonexistent evidence in an effort to be ahead of the fitness game.

Nobody wants to hear that they can lose weight eating 3 meals a day- that’s boring.

Freelee, the Banana Girl, has just over 25,000 likes on Facebook, 69,500 followers on Instagram and 3,288 Twitter followers.

And yet, she is doing irreparable damage to the industry by providing misinformation and inane claims that are not backed, in any way, by science.

To continue reading, please go to:

http://jptrainingsystems.com/is-this-the-dumbest-person-on-youtube-freelee-the-banana-girl/

Tracy Anderson’s New Infomercial

You’ve read those Men’s magazines, tried the workouts and experimented with the recipes but at the end of the day, the pot of meat and veg bubbling over on the stove and your muscles sore, you’ve decided that it just isn’t for you.

There’s nothing worse than growing big, bulky, unsightly muscles that force you to tailor every single piece of clothing that you buy.

And the eating! Nobody can be bothered eating that much- chicken and broccoli diets are just so 20th century.

But don’t think I’ve forgotten about you women. We all know that exercising will make you big and bulky; there are even stories of women growing Adams apples as they APPROACH the Squat rack.

You, however, want to be so slim that when you turn sideways, you disappear, along with your womanly curves, so that you can fit into your thirteen-year-old daughter’s clothes!

If any of this sounds like you, and I bet you it does, then do I have the workout for you!

To Read More: http://jptrainingsystems.com/tracy-andersons-new-infomercial/

The conversation has to be had… ice cream>a six pack any day

We are under attack from a bombardement of images depicting the female fitness douche bag, sweaty  with her abs on full display post-workout, photographed underneath the perfect light of the gym as she basks in the affection of those ‘creepers’ on Instagram, hash tagging her pictures with  #everybodylookatmeplease and #lookatmyeatingdisorder, and her male counterpart, the ripped guy at the gym who spends 45 minutes of a 70 minute workout posing and posting images to Instagram with tags such as #ihaveabsbutnopersonality and #whoneedsbrainswhenihavebiceps.

As a society, the world has an obsession with the fit, and with it, the fanatical. Through social media we are consistently bombarded either with the images described above or with others telling us how fat we are.

Civilisation seems to have lost the middle ground, but it is this middle ground that is the most awesomest place to be in.

What it really means to have six pack abs in todays world and why it isn’t worth it

The fitness industry is a place of extremes, and obtaining, and maintaining, the elusive six pack is no different.

We perceive those whose abs can be used to grate cheese as an embodiment of the most positive aspects of the human race: dedication, perseverance, commitment, grit, and toughness. These are the people we aspire to be, strive towards and hope to one day, if we are lucky, emulate.

Women drool over men with the mythical ‘V’ tapered torse, and men pant when they see the curved outlines of a woman’s contoured belly.

But what we, as innocent and naive onlookers, don’t see is the self-sacrifice, the health issues, the almost obsessive obsession, the self-flagellation and pressure, both intrinsic and social, that having a ripped midsection brings.

Forgetting the chosen few who seem to be able to eat nothing but donuts and pizza yet still have a swole stomach, obtaining and maintaining a six pack of drool-worthy abdominals requires you to meticulously count calories and operate within a calorie deficit.

Women boast about their intense, strenuous cardio and weight sessions, talking about how they’ve eaten nothing but chicken breasts and green vegetables in pursuit of their #makethehatersjealousevenifitkillsme bodies.

However, performing such strenuous bouts of exercise in a calorie deficit can lead to serious health implications for women, such as: disruption of menstrual cycle, osteopenia, osteoporosis, and most harrowing, infertility(1).

Yes, some women are putting their quest for abs above their ability to one day give birth and be a parent.

Just let that sink in for a bit.

They are choosing to have abs over children.

And what of those women who make a living out of having abs, and stepping on stage in a sequin bikini and stripper heels, enough fake tan slathered on their body to make Snooki look pale?

The vast majority of them ravage their metabolism in pursuit of the perfect body, leading to metabolic damage and ‘rebounding’, sometimes adding up to 10-15 kilos of fat within a week post-competition.

Us men do not get off so easily either. Whilst it is true, men can survive with less body fat than women, those who strive to maintain single digit body fat year round can suffer from erectile dysfunction, osteoporosis, and low testosterone levels, leading to an inhibited sex drive.

All this says nothing of the psychological effects leanness causes.

From turning down dinner invitations with friends because you can’t find something on the menu that is ‘clean’ or that can be plugged into a calorie counter, to the self-deprecating abuse and post-consumption depression some people feel after consuming a ‘cheat’ meal or accidentally eating too many calories one day, none of this is normal, yet, because of our obsession with abdominal muscles, it is accepted as being ‘hardcore’ and a way to ‘love yourself’.

My four pack abs, tubs of Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s and ability to eat a family size pizza in one sitting make me happy… and that’s all that matters.

Admittedly, there was a time when I brought into the hype, thinking that, because everyone knew I was into health and fitness, having a six pack was naturally expected of me.

However, over time I’ve discovered three things:

1) I hate cardio. Seriously, it sucks.
2) I love ice cream, and not just eating it once a week because I’m rewarding myself for eating nothing but chicken breasts and broccoli for 6 days straight, 92 weeks in a row but eating it because it tastes damned awesome and I want it.
3) Food is awesome, and there’s too much great stuff out there to operate in a calorie deficit.

Unfortunately for me, these three confounding factors have conspired against me and, over time, I’ve come to accept that I probably won’t ever have that elusive six pack that we are told is the holy grail of dedication and health.

It’s ok though because, even though I count calories and plan my meals on the weekend, I still eat whatever the hell I want when I’m out with friends, I don’t stress over blowing my caloric intake one day, I don’t engage with negative self-talk over my lack of a ‘perfect’ body, and, most importantly, I eat ice cream and I’m still healthy.

For most of my adult life, I’ve sat somewhere between 12-14% body fat, which is well within the healthy range for a 20-29 year old male.

In fact, men should aim to maintain somewhere between 15-20% body fat over the course of their lifetime for optimal health, with 3% of this being essential fats used for maintenance of life and reproductive systems, and women should aspire to between 20-25% body fat over the course of their lifetime with 13% of this being essential fats (2).

And you know all those super fit and healthy people we see on Facebook, Instagram and on the media, well, there is little evidence of any health benefits when women drop below 14% body fat and men below 8%, further fuelling the fire that these bodies are more the embodiment of our societal obsession with leanness equalling health than actual embodiments of healthy individuals.

Final thoughts and a message to all the people who might respond with a “well, he’s just pissed he doesn’t look like us, hater!” 

Sit back and consider this: life is awesome.

It is filled with countless new adventures, foods to try, and conversations to have that have nothing to do with fitness, exercise or abs and, whilst men should stay below 25% body fat, and women below 30%, to decrease their risk of obesity related illness(3), life is really too short to spend time obsessing over something nobody really cares about anyway.

Unfortunately, the fitness douche has made it seem #hardcore and normal to pursue a devot lifestyle, where one lives almost like a Tibetan monk, not in pursuit of inner peace and tranquility, but instead enduring self-flagellation and harsh dietary restrictions in pursuit of a vain commodity that is fleeting in it’s appearance but crippling in its pursuit of.

So yes, some of you can call me a ‘hater’, but if I can keep my four pack and still eat tubs of Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s without having to wear a cilice to atone for my dietary sins, have dinner with friends and not pull out my calorie counter app and have a child someday (seriously, why people would still want to be super lean after learning that I still have no idea!), then you can keep your six pack abs, brittle bones and impaired hormonal functions, Limpy.

(Okay, that was harsh. I apologise.)

(1) The effects of intense exercise on the female reproductive system. M.P Warren & N.E Perlroth. Journal of Endocrinology, 2001. July; 170(1):3-11
(2) http://gapsa.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Body-Composition-Fact-Sheet.pdf
(3) Implications of high body fat percentage on cardiometabolic risk in middle-aged, healthy, normal-weight adults. JY Kim, SH Han, BM Yang. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013 Aug;21(8):1571-7. doi: 10.1002/oby.20020. Epub 2013 Apr 9.

Since when was ‘pain’ an acceptable outcome in the fitness (Crossfit) industry

You aren’t ‘going to war’, or entering ‘beast mode’. You don’t need to ‘suck it up now’, you can eat junk food every now and then, if people are calling you obsessed then you may just be and if ‘you’re already in pain’ then you should probably just stop.

As the fitness industry continues to evolve into a sprawling online community, the culture of ‘pain’ is becoming more and more prevalent.

Whereas logic would dictate that, once injured you stop exercising, we are consistently being bombarded with people telling us that we should persevere and push through the pain in order to reap the life affirming results.

And what for?

We all act like professional athletes, without salaries, fans, agents, insurance policies or anything that matters.

The dirty little secret every one seems to forget is that nobody cares if you hoisted more weight for more reps, or completed a WOD in less time than expected.

You may get a high five, or a moment of internet stardom as the video of you painstakingly completing  ‘Fran’ with a torn rotator cuff canvasses the internet, but the next day you’ll still need to wake up and get dressed, which may be hard with that torn rotator cuff, and go to work where they won’t give a damn if you hurt yourself exercising if you can’t get those reports on Johnson’s desk by 10am.

(Yes, every boss in the history of business is called Johnson… deal with it.)

When LeBron James played in the Capital Classic All-Star game in 2003, as a High School student, he was insured for $10 million dollars.

Even if his knee exploded, forcing him to become a dentist instead of a future Hall of Fame NBA player, he would still have $10 million dollars sitting in the bank.

If you blew out your knee completing Cindy, or Elizabeth, your gym wouldn’t give you a dime. Work would tolerate your absence for a time, but once your sick leave dissipates you’ll either need to limp back into work, or suffer unemployment.

They won’t care that you did it completing an epic Chelsea, smashing your PB before realising your tibia was protruding from your shin.

A recent study(1) of 132 people showed that Crossfitters are actually no more prone to injury than Olympic weight lifters, Power Lifters and Gymnastics, with an injury occurring in approximately 74% of participants, 7% of those requiring surgical intervention.

I would expect that if this study was extrapolated, accounting for those Crossfitters who train, headphones blaring, in their own commercial gym, the rate of injury would increase due to the culture of train through the pain that the fitness movement perpetuates.

Kevin Oger now finds himself in the most awful of predicaments.

As a Crossfit coach and an amateur competitor, he faces medical bills that may reach up into the hundreds of thousands, the likely loss of his career, his livelihood and his passion, Crossfit, yet all that pales when we consider that he may never walk again.

And what for?

A better finishing time than the person next to him? A pseudo-macho display of his testicular fortitude? Because he didn’t want to ‘let down’ those people cheering him on? So that he could smash his chest at the end and declare himself the best in an event that nobody really cares about? Did he want the privilege of having his name inscribed on a board, only to be erased months later when his time was beaten? Or the right to boast about it on social media so a few people could ‘like’ his post?

You aren’t a pro athlete, so stop acting like it

Richard Froning could perform a handstand pushup, whilst sculling a beer, beating you in a game of darts and doing a leg press all at the same time.

If he retired tomorrow, due to injury or disinterest, he could also live comfortably for the remainder of his life thanks to sponsorship deals, prize winnings and a coaching career that would no doubt be booming.

LeBron James could blow out his knee tomorrow and have all the athleticism of Charles Barkley when he gets schooled by those kids in Space Jam when the Monstars steal his basketball skillz, and still his children’s children would never have to work again.

At the end of March, Kevin Ware, a basketball player at the University of Louisville, suffered what may be the most horrific injury in college basketball history as his shin bone broke the skin, forcing paramedics to cover it with a blanket and players, coaches and spectators started throwing up at the sight of the injury.

He was uninsured, as was Kevin Oger, and millions of other ‘athletes’ who are enduring injuries for the sake of ‘their sport’, and now will need to live with the realisation that his pro career will never happen.

A final thought

You’re standing in your backyard, your young child/nephew/niece/grandchild/god child/cousin/random kid from next door that sneaks into your yard to eat the apricots off your tree is looking up at you, all big and doe eyed, wanting to play ‘rocket ship’- you know, that game where you toss them up into the air, then catch them on the way down…

…but you can’t, because you just finished Angie and, midway through, you felt something tear in your lower back but kept going anyway because you didn’t want to let down those people on social media who don’t really care anyway…

…so now you need to look at the kid’s innocent face, and say no…

… all because you needed to ‘go beast mode on that workout’ and ‘suck it up, so you could benefit later’.

(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24276294