Sticking to your workout is no easy task. There is always something else that you could be doing or not doing. A movie/TV show to watch instead. Maybe your brain is trying convince you that you had a long day or you are tired. Excuses to skip a workout are a dime a dozen. Only about 20 percent of the population engages in high levels of physical activity defined as three 20 minute workouts a week.

I am no stranger to skipping workouts. I have gone months without skipping a workout and I’ve gone months without doing a workout. It always feels good when you finish a workout plan that you set weeks in advance and know that you didn’t miss a single day. The best way I’ve found to keep from falling for that moment of weakness is to have a calendar of some sort where you cross off the days you did your workout. You cross off a day for each workout you finish.

So when your brain decides to tell you one day that you could miss this one workout, you’ll have something to see that shows your consistency. Do you really want to break that? You’ll feel bad about later when there is no X in that square. This usually works well for me. I like to see that I was perfectly consistent at the end of the plan and that is enough to overcome the urge to skip.

There are other tricks you can use too. Here is a list of 20 from Men’s Health. Another one of my favorite ways to stay consistent is to use competition–I love competition. Have a friend workout with you or make a bet with them to see who can reach a certain goal the fastest. Hanging around friends who are in shape and consistently go to the gym is also a good way to stay motivated. It is hard to avoid talking about working out or any sort of physical activity when all of you do it often. If its in frequent conversation, it’ll stay at the forefront of your mind.

I also have a personal goal or life mantra that fits in with this. I don’t particularly like mediocrity. I want to be able to know that I’m better than the average in as many aspects of life and living as I can be. The only way to be confident of that is to consistently do what the average don’t. I had a Chemistry teacher in High School who talked about rising above mediocrity. He was a good guy and I wholeheartedly believe in what he preached.

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I am in favor of going to the gym a few days a week for about an hour each session. I’m not a bodybuilder in training or a professional athlete so why mimic their schedules? A lot of people like to split up their workouts into body parts or groups. I prefer doing a total body workout that lasts about an hour three times a week at most. There are times when I’m starting a new routine where I have to take longer than an hour and that’s fine but certainly no more than 90 minutes.

I’ve tried splitting my workouts into body parts–I never liked it. With a split body part plan, you usually only workout each body part or group once a week. With a total body plan, I hit every muscle three times a week and I do it in half the time. It looks to me that three total body workouts ends up being better than one body part a day.

Working more muscles also leads to more hormones being released which helps your muscles grow even faster. Bodybuilders naturally scoff at this idea and if you asked them for advice, you will more than likely get pointed in the direction of split body parts. Even for bodybuilders, I always encourage them to look into High Intensity Training which advocates less work for better results.

Trying to fit a total body workout into an hour is no easy task. My personal strategy is to have two different routines that I alternate. Each routine is similar in their goals–total body–but, employ different exercises to work some muscles more than others. This keeps things fresh and makes it more difficult for my body to adapt so it will grow even faster.

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If you only had time to do three exercises, what would they be? My natural response would be to hit as many muscles as possible. Right off the top of my head I would pick deadlift, squat, and bent-over row. With those three moves I would have worked the biggest muscles and since they are all compound moves, I would have also worked a lot of muscles.

As much as I like my picks, Men’s Health’s Muscle Guy, Mike Mejia M.S., C.S.C.S chose three different exercises. The idea is pretty much the same but, his moves have a stability factor. I’m all about training your small stabilizer muscles because they are so often ignored. Mike picked the squat and press, swiss ball push-up, and inverted row.

There is a special place in my heart for those three exercises. The squat and press is amongst my favorite compound moves with a pair of dumbbells–add a torso twist in there and it gets even better. The swiss ball push-up is great because it forces you to use a whole bunch of muscles you didn’t even know existed to stabilize yourself. If you’ve never done a push-up on a swiss ball, it’ll take some time to get used to it. It also isn’t easy. The inverted row is one of those exercises that I see few people ever do. It is a great move for your back and all it uses is your own body weight.

There are probably a ton of three exercise groups you can create depending on your objective. The idea behind my picks is to hit the biggest muscles and as many muscles as possible to allow your body to release the most amount of hormones into your body for maximum muscle growth. If I can only do three exercises, I’m going to make sure they accomplish as much as possible.

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The first question out of most guy’s mouths when we discuss working out is “how much do you bench?” A kid asked me that question recently so this epidemic is not just limited to adult males. I admit that I am guilty of bench press love at times–pushing heavy weights on the bench makes me feel strong. Because of this fascination with the bench press, a lot of guys have an upper body imbalance. This imbalance manifests itself in the form of “rounded shoulders” or it makes your shoulders more injury prone.

There are levels of severity to the imbalance. I’ve seen guys at the gym who have a very visible imbalance. Their posture looks off and you can tell that is not what fit human body is supposed to look like regardless of how much you can bench. My upper body imbalance was never too severe–being an avid reader of Men’s Health helps a lot. Ever since I discovered this problem, I’ve made sure to work my back harder than my chest. I also recommend putting back exercises before chest exercises in your routine–back muscles are bigger anyway.

There are mathematical ways to measure if you have a back/chest imbalance with rulers and lines and other semi-complicated things. Here is a way to figure out if you have an imbalance by comparing exercises. You should be able to chin as much as you can bench. Unless you want to strap a bunch of weight to yourself and find out your max chin, you can do as many chin ups as you can and then see if you can bench your body weight the same number of times. If all is equal or fairly close, you are probably okay. If your chest is significantly stronger, get cracking on improving your back.

Lucky for your back and shoulders, it is amongst the least favorite places for fat to hang out so getting them defined is a lot easier than getting your abs defined. Every guy wants the coveted V-shaped torso and women love it. The best way to get your body into balance and improve your shoulder strength is to put as many total body compound exercises into your routine as possible. My favorite one of them all is the deadlift. The more muscles you activate during a workout, the more growth hormones your body releases. This will help every muscle in your body grow faster.

Rows are also fantastic for building your back–bent over row, single arm row, etc. I’m not the biggest fan of shrugs but, they’ll work your traps. Shoulder presses with a barbell or individual dumbbells are good. You can end all your workouts with a few sets of chin-ups. Instead of doing them quickly, count and hold for two seconds at the bottom and top of each chin-up. It’ll be a lot harder and you’ll get a much better workout. If you are a bit weak in chin-ups, try the reverse pyramid technique that I mentioned a while ago.

Don’t ignore your back. It’s awesome!

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There is a common myth believed by a lot of people. It is taught by high school gym teachers–at least mine did. It is given as advice and accepted as truth. It is the myth of creating muscle tone by lifting light weights a very high number of repetitions. The reality is that lifting a light weight a ton of times is going to do nothing–at least not what you are looking to do.

I’ve always wondered where this myth came from or why people believe that it makes any sense. I believed it once upon a time until Men’s Health set me straight. It may make sense if you believe you can spot reduce fat–you can’t. Fat is lost proportionally throughout the body. Some places will always have more fat than others. Trying to spot reduce fat through exercise is literally an exercise in futility.

A more fundamental question to ask is why do people want to “tone”? I don’t think anyone is actually trying to improve muscle tone but rather, muscle definition. The toning crowd wants muscle definition but doesn’t want to be huge. They fear looking like a bodybuilder. I find that laughable because they think they can go to the gym and lift hard enough to even remotely achieve those kinds of results. It takes years of dedication to look like the bodybuilders we see on TV. So, you toners, let’s not get ahead of yourselves.

The only way to achieve muscle definition is to reduce body fat so that your muscles show through better. The process of lifting a light weight doesn’t do much for fat loss–you are absolutely better off on the treadmill. To speed up the process of muscle definition you can reduce fat and make your muscles bigger. A bigger muscle will look more defined. Worrying about becoming Arnold is really the least of your worries. Go grab something heavy that you can lift 8 - 12 times; not something you can lift 30 or more times.

Now, if you really are one of those people who believe in this toning myth, I really hope you try what I’m suggesting. Toning really is a gigantic waste of time. Lifting heavier weights will actually be work. It will be a lot harder than lifting bean cans but, you’ll actually be accomplishing something! I have a friend who used to believe this myth. I showed him the light. He is now in the best shape I’ve ever seen him. He doesn’t look like a bodybuilder and he probably never will. However, he is lean and mean–more “toned” than ever before.

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I’ll admit it. I hate stretching. In fact, I don’t even believe the regular run-of-the-mill stretches are beneficial to your workout. They probably increase flexibility and that is important but why not do those stretches after a workout when your muscles are warm? Why do them when your muscles are cold? Seems pretty illogical to me to try and stretch something that isn’t really ready for it.

I’ve read Mark Verstegen’s Core Performance and take a lot of his ideas to heart. His training methodology is about creating useful bodies–I’m all about that. He preaches more active and dynamic stretches. Amongst my favorite of his stretches is the Inchworm–you’ll find it in his book. You’ll feel like you actually did something after doing this stretch.

The goal of this stretch is to start with your hands in front of your toes and then walking them slowly as far forward as you can and then slowly walking your feet to your hands. It pretty much mimics the movement of a cartoon worm. You should repeat for a set of five.  This move stretches your hamstrings, calves, glutes, and lower back. It sure beats any 30 second toe-touch holds–how boring are those?

If you still want to do the stretches they taught you in high school, do them after your workout.

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Caffeine is great to help you push a little harder during your workouts. I’m generally against taking any drugs or special supplements to enhance or improve the results of workouts but, caffeine is one of those that I take exception to. I consume caffeine anyway so I don’t see it as anything particularly special. The only supplement I take is whey protein.

My caffeine consumption comes from coffee or energy drinks like Red Bull. It is hard to tell if it really does anything. I have noticed that I am able to go harder when I’ve had caffeine opposed to not having caffeine. It may be a mental affect where I think it gives me more energy so I end up having more anyway. Caffeine does give you a boost so chances are, it is going to improve speed and endurance during your workout.

Millions of people consume caffeine daily in one way or another and it has been used throughout human history. If you are looking for a boost that isn’t synthetically created or involves a whole lot of scientific compounds that you don’t understand, caffeine may be your best bet. I often have Red Bull in the fridge and of course, coffee.

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Lift heavy and fast? Theoretically, it is impossible. Your body takes more time to gather the resources required to move a heavy weight than it does a light weight. However, if you were able to lift a heavy weight fast, you would theoretically get phenomenal results in the shortest amount of time.

Since you can’t really lift heavy and fast, we’ll have to use a trick that is almost the same. The benefits is not something to ignore. This article talks about this particular trick and a handful of others. The idea behind lifting heavy and fast is to lift heavy and then immediately lift fast. This is actually very similar to the concept of drop sets except you aren’t aiming to lift to failure and then going to a lower weight.

To use the heavy and fast trick, you’ll want to use a weight that you can lift about 5 times without going to failure. Immediately after the 5 reps, you will do an explosive exercise targeting the same muscle. If you started with a bench press, you could follow with plyo-pushups or some other weight that will allow you to lift fast.

You can do this with any muscle or muscle group. You just need a heavy regular lift and an explosive move to immediately follow it with.

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I’m not the biggest fan of long distance running unless it is in the name of competition. I can tolerate it a lot more when I am outside where the ground isn’t always the same and other factors can at least surprise you. Hamster running on a treadmill is by far my most hated gym activity. With that being the case, you can probably guess that I don’t do much of it.

Instead of long marathonesque running, I always prefer interval sprints or what is more popularly known as High Intensity Interval Training–HIIT. The idea behind HIIT is that you put light-pace work in between short sprints where you go as hard as you can. My usual HIIT treadmill routine is a light two minute jog followed by loops of a 30 second sprint and a one minute 30 second light jog resting period until I hit 20 minutes. I also raise the incline of the treadmill to better mimic real outdoors running.

I haven’t used my treadmill routine in a while because I’ve been running outdoors–the weather is nice so why not go outside? I happen to live in an somewhat hilly area. My general route leads me going mostly downhill in the beginning and then mostly uphill the rest of the way. I use the same HIIT concept except I do the sprints when I am going uphill. The hills keep the running interesting and challenging.

Now only recently, I’ve started sprinting up this rather steep hill. I don’t know exactly how steep it is but, when I drive my car up it, I can feel the car really trying–I drive a Nissan Altima. From my perspective, sprinting up relatively steep hills is a lot more satisfying than a couple mile run with small hill sprints throughout.

It is known that HIIT is a better way to torch fat because it creates a similar effect as weight lifting: increased caloric usage throughout the day regardless of what you are doing. Taking the concept of HIIT and nature’s landscape will help you lose fat faster and be a lot more fun than time spent on the human hamster wheel.

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My favorite variation on the dumbbell curl is the Static Curl. I generally recommend this curl when you are trying to breakthrough a plateau or you so happen to be bored with the regular bicep curls. The static curl works exceptionally well because it forces your bicep work at the toughest part of the curl–when your arm is parallel to the floor or 90 degrees with your body.

The static curl keeps one of your arms in that position while the other arm does normal reps. Once you finish those reps, you switch so that your other arm will stay in that static position while the other does its reps. Just to make myself clear, both arms will be holding dumbbells.

Your static arm will be contracted, tense, and working hard the entire time your other arm is working. If you have never done this variation on the curl before, try it. It will probably kick your ass. Especially if you are one of those people who swing their bodies while doing curls–you might want to try a lower weight in that case.

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