The example I used for myself was yoga. Now, anyone who knows me–especially in the fitness context–can tell you that yoga is something that I have historically been bad at. It’s not even that I’m not flexible (although my upper body is locked up pretty badly), it’s just that yoga requires me to do a lot of other things I’m not really great at. Patience, stability, static strength–not things I have in spades.

Many people immediately responded and said they were starting yoga as well, and could understand why I wanted to work on this. Outside of my fiancee being a contributing factor, it’s not hard for most people to see the myriad of benefits one can get from yoga.

On the other hand, though, a lot of people were perplexed. The common question is, “why yoga? Of all the things you’re bad at, why is YOGA your top priority?”

This is a very logical question–why didn’t I choose something else? For example, in my post, I talked a lot about basketball, and never having enjoyed it because I’m not physically suited for it–so why not start there?

I’m sure there are a lot of things I suck at that I could have embraced, but the fact is that none of them will give me the same payoff as yoga will. Getting better at basketball might make me a bit more popular with some friends at pickup games, but outside of the potential bump to my endurance, I wouldn’t physically benefit from B-ball in any significant way.

That’s where yoga is special: building proficiency has carryover to nearly every aspect of your physicality. In fact, I believe that yoga can make everything you do in the gym (and most things out of it) more effective.

The number one benefit, in my view, is injury prevention. Very simply, I don’t want to get hurt again. There is absolutely nothing worse than training hard and working your butt off only to see all your hard-earned progress go down the drain because of a needless injury.

And trust me, I know how frustrating it can be. It happened with my knees when I was 24 (meniscus tear), my shoulder when I was 26 (rotator cuff tweak), and my elbow when I was 27 (tendonitis).

I got over all of them, but they could have been avoided.

Which is why I decided to get started with yoga, despite the fact that I was terrible at it. And in addition to getting better at it, I feel better, I look better, and I’m even performing better.

All of that said, injury prevention is just one of several reasons yoga is awesome. And I’d like to give you a litany of them. But, here’s the thing. I’m a big, dumb animal. And I’m not always smart enough to realize things on my own—especially when it comes to embracing things I’m bad at. So, I need to give credit to my fiancée, favorite KB expert and extremely tolerant yogi, Ms. Neghar Fonooni.

In addition to being very patient when giving me insight into why I should practice, Neghar is also extremely convincing. So convincing, in fact, that I think she’ll have a lot more luck telling you why you should do yoga than I will.

With that in mind, she’s given me permission to publish her list covering exactly that. And so, I leave you in her capable hands.

9 Reasons Why Yoga is Awesome for Gym Junkies

by Neghar Fonooni

I promise this isn’t going to be one of those annoying posts that regurgitates generic reasons why yoga is good for you. I mean, obviously it’s good for you-so are broccoli and fish oil. But we don’t always do things that are good for us, do we? Sometimes it’s because the things that are good for us just…well…they suck. But other times, perhaps we have reasons why that “good thing” doesn’t pertain to us.

For a long time I neglected my yoga practice in favor of lifting. I made all the excuses in the world, including the cliched “I don’t have time” hogwash, and I rationalized that lifting was better than yoga anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal. The further I got from my practice, the more off-center I became. As an entrepreneur spinning multiple plates, I fell deeper into disarray and began to feel terribly encumbered. It took me a long while to realize that there was a giant hole where my yoga practice used to be, and an even longer while to find an instructor and a studio that would properly fill that void.

Now that I’ve resumed my place on the mat, I realize just how valuable yoga can be for gym enthusiasts, and how often it is overlooked. I also found that practicing yoga now, as an advanced lifter, has far more benefits than I had even been aware of 12 years ago when I took my first yoga class. So, if you happen to be a gym-junkie who loves to deadlift, hip thrust and kettlebell swing your glutes into submission, this list is for YOU.

9 Reasons Why Yoga is Good for Gym Junkies

1) active recovery

Yoga is an effective and low impact way to move on your non-lifting days without compromising recovery. Many yoga experts will even go as far to say that hot yoga in particular can stimulate your metabolism and help release toxins from the body. Either way, you will always feel better leaving yoga than when you came in.

2) kinesthetic awareness

Flowing through poses while barefoot and mirror-less requires a great deal of control. Yoga requires you to listen to your body, tapping into your trunk, your feet, your legs-you name it-to enter and sustain postures without visual aid. This increases kinesthetic (or body) awareness and can help when moving through compound lifts at the gym such as squats and pushups. Because yoga carries such an internal focus, it can encourage you to practice more intuition during your lifts.

3) balance

And I don’t mean stability, although you’ll certainly get your fair share of that from yoga. I’m referring to the balance of activity that yoga provides an avid gym goer. Lifting sessions are typically aggressive and weighted, while yoga is intrinsic and uses the body as leverage. This can create a balance between Herculean and Buddha-like activities, which in turn, encourages balance within your life.

4) mobility and flexibility

No matter how many times someone tells us that we need to spend more time stretching our muscles or mobilizing our joints, we would just rather lift, wouldn’t we? I mean, who has time to do all that flexibility work when we have to make sure we snag that open power rack before someone else! But, improving your mobility and flexibility will increase your movement efficiency-benefiting your lifts exponentially. Yoga is a fun way to get bendy that won’t take up valuable gym time.

5) breath control

I cannot tell you how many times I have helped someone out of shoulder pain by teaching them to breathe from their diaphragm or coached a client into a stronger overhead press just by cueing them to BREATHE. Yoga places significant emphasis on the breath, which will keep you aware of your breathing during your training sessions.

6) the goldilocks principle

Understanding when to hold back and when to push through is a delicate dance. You can sometimes set down the weight and think, “I could’ve done more.” Inversely, you might be wishing you hadn’t pushed through that last ugly rep. Yoga teaches you how to feel free within your body, accomplishing challenging poses while fostering ease of movement. You can’t force the poses if you intend to do them correctly, but you are encouraged to look within yourself for what you might be capable of. It’s a beautiful balance of just right that can aid you in your lifting endeavors.

7) bodyweight strength

It wasn’t until I started practicing handstands last year that I discovered my strength training had some critical holes in it. Being able to move heavy iron relative to your bodyweight is awesome, but then discovering that you have little ability to leverage that bodyweight? Well, that was a revelation. Yoga improves bodyweight strength, and puts you in positions that you might not otherwise put yourself in at the gym.

8) noncompetitive environment

Most of us who lift regularly have an inherent competitive nature. We compete with our previous lifts, with others at the gym, or even in an organized environment such as powerlifting or olympic lifting competitions. This is part of what makes us so ambitious and something that should certainly be fueled. However, even when this competition is friendly, it’s still competition and can sometimes blind us. Yoga is a noncompetitive environment that can bring you back to your center when your hunger for big lifts gets ravenous. You’ll have to learn to accept your progressions and avoid comparing yourself to the person on the mat next to you.

9) bigger lifts

You might not typically think of yoga as something that can make you stronger, but it sneaks up on you like that. Yoga poses can translate to lifting strength by waking up muscles you don’t often use, encouraging cooperative multi-joint movements and giving you wicked upper body strength. I can deadlift over twice my bodyweight and perform multiple sets of 10 pull-ups-but crow pose humbles me. This branch of strength can only serve to make your lifts bigger.

Even after reading these convincing reasons to practice yoga, you might still be skeptical.  If someone you trust thinks it can help you, chances are that you will too. Besides, if Roman can do it, you can do it, too.

+++++++

Well then. If you aren’t convinced that Yoga is good for you after reading that, then frankly, I’m not sure if we can still remain friends. Thank you to Neghar for that awesome post.

If you’re convinced and ready to start doing some awesome broga (or, you know, regular yoga), then you should absolutely check out my friend Yuri Elkaim’s program “Yoga For Athletes.  I twisted his arm and got him to put it on sale for you at 33% off – so make sure to grab your copy before the sale ends tonight.

Get Yuri’s Program for 33% off here. Sale ends tonight!

SOUND OFF: For you Yogi’s out there – what’s the #1 reason you do Yoga? 

The post Why You Should Do Yoga appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

Some might bristle at the idea that a lot of the building blocks of your personality were already in place just a few years after potty training; nonetheless, it’s true. While you’ve (hopefully) picked up some new skills along the way, you’re still very much the same person.

For example, stubborn kids tend to grow up to be stubborn adults—talk to any parent of a 30-year old long enough about raising kids, and you’ll eventually hear, “oh, he’s been like that his whole life!” That’s the nature part; but there’s also over the nurture aspect—over time, we learn how to manage these traits to best benefit ourselves.

As we mature, these things manifest themselves differently: in a child, stubbornness might present itself as willfulness or intractability; with a few years of development, it might be more like tenacity or determination. Regardless of changes to presentation, however, those traits are still present.

Why does this happen? Some of it, of course, is natural–whether you want to call it genetic or hereditary or whatever, a piece of who you are is there at the beginning. Thank your parents for that. The rest of it comes from your environment and your reaction to it.

Your parents are responsible for a lot of this, too (albeit in a different way), but the main determinant is you. From the time you were a child, you set yourself on a developmental course that resulted in who you are today—and that has played a hand in everything from the way you react to situations to the things you like to spend your time doing.

Which brings me to my point, or at least the start of it, because we’re going to talk about the latter today: the things you like. In specific, I want to talk about the things you like doing, and how—and why—you derive enjoyment from them.

As mentioned above, this starts in childhood. The simplest and purest example of preference is play. And in a very real way, your youthful playtime was formative for your adult perception of the world.

HOW PLAYTIME INFLUENCES PERCEPTION

To give some insight, I’ll use myself as an example. While you’re likely not interested in the day-to-day thoughts, opinions and preferences of pre-adolescent Roman (then known to friends and family as John-John), you might be surprised to know that many of them have not changed much since I was about 8 years old.

Ah, the good old days. At that point in my life, I spent most of my free time looking for entertainment. I wanted to play. In that regard, most children are very similar; what differs from child to child is their game of choice.

What entertains them? What do they consider fun? What do the love to do? What do they hate? And why?

By the time I was 8 years old, I had a pretty good handle on my preferences. I knew what I liked and what I didn’t like, particularly with regard to activities.

I loved reading. I loved writing. I enjoyed football. I hated basketball. I loved short races; I hated long races. I hated soccer. I enjoyed puzzles. I absolutely abhorred math. I loved video games.

What I didn’t realize at the time, of course, is that those preferences (and the strength of each) were based almost entirely on my level of skill at each activity.

• I loved reading because I was good at it. The same goes for writing. I’ve had a natural affinity for words for as long as I can remember.
• I loved football because I excelled at it.
• I hated basketball because I was terrible at it.
• I loved short races because I was exceptionally fast. I hated long ones because I got tired out of breath. (I hated soccer for the same reason.)
• And don’t get me started on math—while my reading assignments were gleefully completed in about 10 minutes, my math homework took me an hour and my mother had to force me to do it.

And so on and so on.

The take home is this: the better I was at something, the more I enjoyed it; the more I enjoyed it, the more I did it; the more I did it, the better I got at it; the better I got at it, the more I enjoyed it…the more I did it, the better I got at it.

All told, a fairly obvious cycle that resulted in the adult version of Roman: a man who writes for a living, performs HIIT cardio instead of marathons, detests basketball, and avoids math at all costs.

This is a phenomenon that I call a skill bias—simply, you enjoy what you’re good at, and get good at things you enjoy.

Skill Bias: you love what you do and do what you love–because you’re awesome at it.

Skill Bias is a pretty interesting thing, and we can all relate to it. But for many people, it starts a bit further back.

Why Do We Choose What We Choose?

Given complete freedom to choose, what will a child decide is interesting or entertaining? What will they play? This differs from child to child—contrary to me, perhaps you hated reading but loved math, for example—, but one thing that we all have in common is that we like feeling successful. In fact, we need it—Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs places “achievement” just below self-actualization.

The drive for accomplishment is a piece of evolutionary biology that’s responsible for most of history; on a cultural scale, it manifests itself in monuments and cities, not to mention wars. For adults not looking to make such a huge impact on a global scale, we seek achievement markers—everything from big houses to fancy cars to college degrees.

Getting back to my earlier point, as children we seek this out almost exclusively through play. This is an important point. Kids are more or less in control of the things they play, and so they tend to play things that make them feel successful and give them that sense of accomplishment. In the simplest terms, as a consequence of seeking this feeling of achievement, children gravitate towards the things they’re good at.

But it goes deeper than that. There’s also something I call Propensity Bias: you gravitate towards (and enjoy) not just things you’re good at, but things you are suited to be good at. That difference makes for an interest analysis.

When you’re a child, being good at something is often the result of some sort of predisposition: either a mental or physical advantage. Speaking generally, if a 10 year old is good at a given activity, it’s because he is suited to be good at it—by that point in life, natural tendencies begin to show themselves, and will impact things pretty significantly.

Out of interest, Malcolm Gladwell touched on this in his book Outliers. Using the example of youth hockey players, he pointed out that the standout players usually had birthdays earlier in the year; because they had up to a full year of physical development over other kids, of this, they were more suited to being successful at the activity.

Because of this, they were given more play time—meaning the practice to develop their skills. They received more coaching, better coaching, more encouragement, and probably derived more enjoyment.

In the long run, these players have a significant leg up on their counterparts, even after the physical disparity evens out. Not surprisingly, these athletes tend to have longer and more successful careers.

Now, that’s a pretty specific example, so let’s make it more general.

Sticking within the context of sports, I think it’s safe to say that taller kids tend to “be better” at basketball, while stockier kids tend to “be better” at something like football. More accurately, they have a physical suitability to those sports, respectively, and are more likely to achieve success.

Obviously, skill comes into play at some point—the better you are, the more likely you are to win, of course. But how do we build skill? Practice. And what is practice in a child’s world? More play. What encourages the child to play? The positive feeling that comes with success.

If we accept that from the outset the taller child is going to have more success at basketball, we can see that he’d be more inclined to enjoy it, play more often, and get better at it.

This means that our developmental narrative of aptitude and preference is no longer just the previously pictured cycle of Skill Bias. A level deeper, it looks like this:

Propensity Bias: when your natural affinity for being awesome leads to being awesome. Science.

Ten years down the road, your excellence at that task is a combination of your original physical suitability (probably still a factor), and all of the time you’ve spent practicing. But, as I alluded to earlier the desire to practice—to play—stems, in large part, from the positive feelings you get by playing. In other words, if you’re good at something when you’re young, you’ll form a generally positive association with it. You psychologically associate the feeling of being good onto the activity itself.

Let’s go back to that basketball player. Subconsciously, the very basic emotional experience of “I’m good at basketball and that makes me feel awesome” begins to change.

Progression of Emotional Association. (Also, I am really enjoying these little charts. I hope you are, too.)

By virtue of positive experience, he will ultimately create an association between the activity and the feeling. He’ll likely carry that with him into his adult life, and will have a positive view of basketball.

Think about that for a second: the fact that you grew a bit faster than other kids 20 years ago began to affect your life profoundly, at least in terms of your interest in all of the things related to that singular activity.

And, of course, the opposite holds true as well—associations can be negative, and lifelong.

UNSUITABILITY AND NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS

It may be true that based on the fact that you were a tall kid and naturally suited to be better at hoops than a (short) guy like me, maybe you like basketball to the extent that you play pick-up games on the weekend and have an active fantasy account.

I, however, was not tall. I was not naturally inclined to be good at basketball. Resultantly, I rarely had any success. Given that, I had no real desire to play—I didn’t fulfill my achievement need, so basketball fell by the wayside in favor of things that made me feel good, like reading and writing.

My lack of suitability had led to a lack of practice, which had led to a lack of skill. Compared to other kids, those who had played a lot more, I was awful at it. The feeling of being awful became uncomfortable and I didn’t like it. Because I didn’t like it, avoided the activity even more. The skill gap between other kids and myself got wider. Eventually, I stopped trying altogether.

To this day, my feelings on basketball are pretty negative. I played in years, and have no desire to. I have not accepted an offer to “go shoot some hoops” since I was 12 years old. In fact, my negative association with the sport is such that I won’t even go into a sports bar during basketball season. (I’m telling you, I was really bad as a kid. And probably worse now.)

Negative associations are powerful, and people often don’t realize they have them. They’re also pretty limiting; they keep you from doing things that might benefit you because you’re convinced you don’t like them. In all likelihood, you probably just have some emotional reason compelling you to stay away from it.

And I’m here to tell you that you should try to change this, and why.

GETTING TO THE POINT

APPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH & FITNESS

We’ve been talking a lot about preferences for activities, and that of course leads us into fitness.

Here, positive and negative associations are huge. Chances are, you know someone who can’t stick to a schedule of any kind; the reasons for this vary widely, but many times the negative associations of having repeatedly failed paradoxically encourage this person to fail again—or, more likely, to stop trying.

When it comes to your body, I think that the things you’re bad at are just as important as those you’re good at. In many ways, they may be more important. For one thing, the things you’re bad at, those that are hard for you, have much greater potential to allow for progress, both psychologically and physically.

Psychologically, it keeps you humble. There is benefit to humility, beyond eeping your ego in check. Sure, there’s that, but doing things that are a struggle instead of those sticking to those you excel at helps you realize you’re not invincible, or immortal.

Physically, doing the things you’re bad at is a pretty good way to spot (and, hopefully, correct) weaknesses. Men in particular tend to have “favorite” exercises; this can lead to imbalances and injuries. We’ve all seen the guy who loves benching neglect back or corrective work, only to mess up his shoulder.

Even those of us with more advanced training knowledge can play favorites, leading to some problems.

A good example of this is my client, Dale. He’s a pretty advanced guy of 39 that came to be to lose some fat while he’s rehabbing an injury. Dale loves—loves—deadlifts, but his back had been killing him and he needed to stop pulling for a bit, so he figured it was a good time to get lean.

When I sent Dale his fat loss program, he emailed me back to let me know that he hates single unilateral work and thinks stuff like single leg RDLs and Bulgarian split squats are dumb. This struck me as pretty funny and reminded me of my client Colin whom I profiled in Engineering the Alpha—super strong guy who hated fat loss workouts but wanted to lose fat. Using that example and Colin’s pictures, I convinced Dale to give it a shot for month.

For exactly 30 days, he had to do this thing he hated. If, at the end of the 30 day period, he still hated them, we would go a different route. This is something I call the proficiency threshold–discussed in depth below.

Not surprisingly, Dale wasn’t very good at single leg exercises in the beginning. His balance was wonky so he had to use lower weight. Understandably, it frustrating for him, and I’m sure the negative association was deepening and ringing alarm bells in his head.

But, he made progress, which made him happy. Additionally, quickly found out that he had a pretty severe strength discrepancy between his right and left leg—which was contributing to the problem in his lower back. He followed the program for a month, and at the three week point decided he didn’t hate split squats anymore. Win.

Anyway, fast-forward 4 months: lots of single leg exercises and some boring stuff later, and Dale’s lost 33 pounds, we’ve addressed some imbalances, and he’s deadlifting pain free.

In Dale’s case, doing what he hated, what he was “bad” at turned out to be exactly what he needed. And it’s probably just what you need, too.

BREAKING NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS

During the halcyon days of my misspent youth, I was particularly fond of the idiom, “the best way to get over one woman is to get under another one.” Crass though it is, it usually worked. Similarly, I believe that the best way to break negative associations to replace them with positive ones. And I want to teach you how to do that.

I subtitled this article why you should do stuff you’re bad at. I probably should have used the word “need” instead of should. Doing stuff you’re bad at isn’t just good for you; it’s essential for you. Even when you’re talking about something as simple as fitness, doing things you suck at isn’t just good for your body, it’s an avenue to personal growth.

And when it comes to negative experiences or associations, the best thing you can do, the most effective way to make the change, is to accept the pain. Accept the suck. Get comfortable with a little discomfort. Very simply, I believe that you need to push through until you have a positive experience. As unpleasant as this sounds, I believe that it is essential for personal growth. I also believe that trial by fire is infinitely preferable to a lifetime of avoidance.

Interestingly, despite the fact that this is one of the core tenets of my worldview, it’s only recently I have begun to think about this in terms of fitness.

HOW TO EMBRACE SUCKING

I’ve long said that one of the most valuable skills you can possibly develop is to get good at being bad at stuff. What I mean by that is that it takes a lot of internal strength to expose yourself to failure over and over. When you try anything you’re bad at—whether you’ve failed before or have simply never tried it—that’s what’s going to happen. Developing that internal strength will change your life in ways you can’t imagine.

You need to admit that if you’re not at least okay with failure, you’re very rarely going to try anything new; and when you do, you’re not likely to stick with it. As illustrated by the first part of this article, let’s admit that often, when we dislike something, we actually dislike being bad at it—and especially dislike how that makes us feel.

I’m as prone to this as anyone; hating being bad at things was a stumbling block for me for most of my adolescent life. It wasn’t until I was about 25 that I figured out a system to overcome this, a system that allowed me to learn how to be good at being bad at things.

The Proficiency Threshold: Suck with Style for 30 Days Straight

This system, which I will now share with you, relies on a tool I call the proficiency threshold. This is the point at which you stop sucking bad enough to assess the activity honestly; the point at which you don’t hate the activity because you’re bad at it.

Also known as a suck threshold. Stick with it long enough to cross before you give up.

The only way to get over negative associations and potentially form positive ones is to have positive experiences, and the only way you can even attempt that is to decide, objectively, if you actually want to. To figure out if you really want to overcome the negative association, you have to evaluate things objectively.

And so, whenever I am faced with an option for a new activity, or something I know I’m bad at, I try to figure out a proficiency threshold. This means that I predetermine amount of time or work that needs to put into a task in order to develop baseline proficiency. The amount is usually quantified by hours, and based on recommendations from experts.

From there, I make a firm commitment to myself to get there in a month.

Once again I’ll use myself as an example. To illustrate, I’ll use something pretty much everyone knows I suck at: yoga. Probably one of the most popular YouTube videos I’ve ever created was the one below. In it, you’ll see me being led through a yoga workout through my fiancée, Neghar.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watching that video, three things should be obvious to you: 1) I am not enjoying myself,  2) I am really bad at yoga, and 3) my fiancée is hot.

Only the first two are relevant, so let’s talk about that. I’ve never been a yoga guy. Aspects of it appeal to me, but many of them turn me off. The ridiculousness of rich white women dropping Namaste before getting into their Range Rovers doesn’t appeal to me. The general woo-woo nature of people attempting to find their center doesn’t appeal to me. And so on.

Very clearly, I have some strange negative association not only with yoga, but also with people that practice yoga. Obviously, this isn’t really centric to my life, and I don’t think about at any time other than when I’m asked to do yoga.

Over the past few months, I’ve been getting asked a lot. Neghar is a practicing yogi, and was an instructor for many years; it’s important to her that I give it a shot. My goal, then, was to replace my negative association with yoga with a positive one—experiencing it with her.

However, I ran into an issue: I still sucked at yoga. Which made me not enjoy it. Which made me not want to practice. The rest, you know. And so, I decided to push through.

Which poses a problem: if you suck at it, you won’t enjoy it, which can deepen the negative association. How can you make sure you create a positive association if you’re really bad at it? How can you ever get good at it?

Even if you stripped away my negative association with yoga people, I still sucked, and I still hated yoga. But, watching myself the yoga video above, it’s impossible for me to say if I actually hate yoga because I hate yoga, or I hate yoga because I suck at yoga.

After a few conversations with other people who have been in my situation, I decided that the proficiency threshold was 10 hours: if I did 10 hours of yoga practice over the course of the month, that should allow me to build up enough skill to make an objective analysis of my feeling. I reasoned that I would be good enough to decide whether I liked or hated yoga—and if I hated it, it wouldn’t be because I was bad at it.

Two things it’s important to mention. First, as I said spoke to people who have been in my situation—muscular men who previously struggled with yoga. I wanted to have the clearest picture in terms of the amount of practice I would need; I wanted to progress in a way that made sense for me, not someone who had been practicing for a long time.

Secondly, I wanted to practice at home. While I could have gone to classes, I know myself well enough to know that being self-conscious about being so bad would just reinforce the negative association.

Meaning I wanted a program that would allow for 10 hours of jacked guy-oriented yoga done in the privacy of my own home. For those interested, I actually found one:

Broga: Yoga for Bros, bro.

As you can tell from the name, the program was designed specifically for athletes. I’m not a competitive athlete, but like all active people, I struggle from a few of the same problems that athletes do. On top of that, it was written by a friend of mine, so I was able to trust it. That helped.

You might be able to guess what happened. That was about two months ago, and I’m happy to say I don’t hate yoga anymore. Actually, I’m not that “happy” to say it, because now Neghar gets to say I told you so. But it’s true.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t love yoga, and I’ll never be a yogi. But I don’t hate it, either. If I’m in the right mood, I can get into it; so while you probably won’t find me posting pictures of handstand practice on Instagram, you might actually see me going to a class and attempting new moves. Moreover, my back feels looser, my hammies are happy, and my fiancée and I have something to talk about.

ENLIGHTENMENT?

At this point, I’m sure I could drop some cliché about getting out of your comfort zone, but I’d rather give you some deeper insight.

My experience with yoga, and thinking about all of this of this as led me to a pretty profound conclusion: we choose to ignore a lot of awesome stuff in the world.

It’s not that we don’t know things—it’s that we know them and ignore them anyway. If you don’t go out of your way to make changes and experience new things, you will very likely sit in a sort of stasis. You’ll have the same opinions you had when you were 5; keep building on the same skillsets you’ve been developing since you were 10.

We ignore the things around us because they don’t give us immediate pleasure, because we have to work for the. And because of that, we hold ourselves back.

For example, I know that basketball isn’t a bad sport; I also know I could get reasonably proficient at it if I dedicate myself to it for a month. I’ve just always chosen to ignore it, because I have some stupid childhood issue with it. Perhaps, if I had embraced the suck long ago, I’d be out shooting hoops and loving every minute of it. Who knows?

In much the same way, I’ve always known that yoga had a myriad of advantages, and that I could benefit from it. I just chose to ignore it. Well, no longer. I’m going to keep doing yoga, and keep growing from it.

And, now that I’m fully in the throes of appreciation, I want to share that with you.

Let’s get just 25 COMMENTS, and tomorrow, I’m going to hook you up with a post about why YOU should give yoga a shot, too.

So, SOUND OFF – what do YOU suck at? Is it yoga? Oly lifting? Dancing? Fashion. Leave your WORST one below!

The post Embrace the Suck appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

I know I promised that for once I would actually just take a vacation on my vacation, but honestly, I find it hard to stay away from work for too long. Especially when I have some good stuff for ya.  So, I’m definitely relaxing and having a great time on this little European Business/Pleasure Excursion, but I wanted to take a second to give you some tips on how to do the same on you next trip—while staying (or getting) in great shape.

To give you some context, picture this: my fiancée Neghar and I are drinking coffee at a lovely cafe before heading out to explore the city. We did a hotel room workout earlier today. I’m munching on eggs (over medium) and some delicious pastry called a trdelnik.

We’ve been abroad for 8 days, and have spent time in Lund (Sweden), Copenhagen, Berlin and are currently in Prague. We’ve got a day more here, and then off to a quick stop in London before we head home.

Neghar and I at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

It’s a bit of a whirlwind tour of cultures—and food. Oh, glorious food.

Despite what you might think, while I have every intention of staying as lean as possible, it makes no sense to me to avoid any singular aspect of a culture—especially the food. I’m a firm believer that you should immerse yourself in a culture, with all of your senses; to me, “tasting” different countries is just as important as seeing those countries.

Food is the most accessible expression of what a culture puts in the world for others to consume; in a very real way, a visitor in NYC, for example, has as much to gain and experience, culturally, from eating a slice of pizza as they do from seeing the Empire State Building or Times Square.

And so, in an effort to get the most complete experience, we are, of course, seeing museums and monuments, cities and castles—but we’re eating like Kings as we’re doing so. We’ve had meatballs in Sweden, fruit Danish pastries in Denmark, and quite a bit of strudel in Berlin, along with more wurst than I can relate.

Pork + cabbage seems to be a running theme. Win.

While I won’t go so far as to say all of these indulgences are wholly without impact on my physique, truthfully, we’re “getting away” with a lot of dietary indiscretion with minimal consequence.

How?

Well, it’s a result of a few factors, from making sure we exercise every day to being aware of the total food we eat, even if we’re lax on food some of our food choices.

To make things as concise as possible, I’ve decided to condense things and put them into a list form. And so, for your consideration, I give you my top THREE tips for staying fit while traveling, eating, and enjoying life.

I’m positive that the next time you travel, this post will be of extreme value to you. So, without further delay, let’s get to the tips.

1) Do 30 Minutes of Physical Activity FIRST THING in the Morning

It’s hard to train on vacation—you’re so busy and there’s so much to do. I get that. It happens to everyone, and when time is short, it seems that you’re training session is the first thing to get cut.

That’s why I always make a commitment to do something first thing in the morning. Even if it’s not a full workout, just do SOMETHING. A walk. Some sprints. A few sets of pushups. At the least, you’re getting some activity, which will not only burn some calories, but also elevate your metabolism.

Getting ready for sprints with a dash of irony.
Shirt available here: http://bit.ly/ZESlmF

If you do it first thing in the AM, you have no excuses. Chances are, you don’t have anything scheduled—and even if you do, waking up 30 minutes earlier isn’t going to make or break your stay.

For us, this means hitting the hotel gym (or a bodyweight workout if there isn’t one).

Make this commitment and stick to it, and no matter how the rest of your day goes, you’re already on the right track, and have made some progress—or, at the very least, done some damage control.

2) Master the Fine Art of Improvisation 

If you’ve ever stayed in a hotel, I don’t need to tell you that hotel gyms aren’t exactly well-stocked. You can find good ones, of course, but most of the time you’ll be lucky to find a few treadmills and a set of dumbbells. If you’re ever luckier, those dumbbells will actually be of appreciable weight.

Sometimes, you’re not so lucky.

I’ve run into some issues on this trip: in out hotels in both Berlin and Prague, the heaviest dumbbells were 10kg. Seriously. And while that’s better than nothing, it’s hard to have a good workout with weights that don’t go past 22 pounds.

And so, sometimes, you’ll need to improvise.

Here’s one example:

Necessity is the mother of Invention: me rowing DBs wrapped in a towel.

The dumbbells aren’t heavy enough for me to hit my back, so I had to stack a few and wrap them in towels to do rows. Each towel is holding two dumbbells, each weighing 10kg, for a total of 44 pounds.

Now, that’s not exactly heavy enough for me to do max effort rows, but it will do in a pinch. The towel was really taxing on my grip, and I just did more reps than I normally do.

Trust me, after four sets of 15 reps, my arms, forearms, hands and even my back were exhausted. Certainly not the best training session of my life, but obviously a lot better than doing nothing!

I’ve been improvising my way across Europe, and I’m staying in shape with minimal equipment–and you can do the same, no matter where you travel.

Once you start thinking outside the box and are willing to be a little creative, you’ll start coming up with ways to have awesome workouts in just about any situation.

RESOURCES FOR THIS TIP:

• My Vegas Hotel Room Workout
• Neghar’s Hotel Gym Workout

3) On Travel Days, Fast Until You Reach Your Destination

I’m a longtime practitioner of Intermittent Fasting—predetermined periods of abstaining from food alternated with a predetermined feeding window.

Normally, I fast for 16 hours a day: I have my first meal at about 2pm and my last meal at 10pm.

When traveling, I take it a step farther and simply avoid food on days that I physically travel, until I get to my destination.

This might sound extreme, but before we get into it, let me as you a
question: Have you ever been on a cross country flight, looked at the food options, and STRESSED OUT about how to make to “right” choice?

If you have, then you know where I’m going this.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve learned that no matter how good your intentions are, and no matter how disciplined you are, it’s nearly impossible to stick to your diet when you’re traveling. Airports and train stations are not known for healthy food choices, and are just not really conducive to dietary success. Planes and trains themselves are even worse.

The only way I’ve found to truly mitigate this issue is to simply not eat. At all. If you can’t choose correctly, it’s better to choose nothing. To give you an example: on Tuesday, we booked a train from Berlin to Prague leaving at 2:30pm and getting in at 8pm. I don’t like to eat before 2pm, and I don’t like to eat while physically traveling. So, I simply didn’t eat.

Once we got into Prague, we had a nice dinner, high in protein and fat, enjoyed a few glasses of wine, and enjoyed dessert. From there, we walked around the city for a few hours, and then went back to our hotel and called it a night. My total energy intake for the day was about 2000 calories (3 glasses of wine is about 525 calories!), even though I only ate one meal.

Totally worth it.

Here’s why this is important: as I said earlier, I believe that one of the most valuable aspects of traveling is experiencing other cultures, and that this is done, in large part, by experiencing food.By not making “bad” food choices earlier in the day (or, rather by fasting and removing the option), I freed up my calorie budget for a far better experience later in the day.

Rather than trying to choke down a disgusting sandwich on a train, I simply fasted a few extra hours. This in turn allowed me to enjoy an amazing meal with my amazing lady while enjoying an amazing view of this amazing city.

Again, I don’t shy away from “bad” foods–like I said, I’ve been eating a lot of dessert. But, if I’m going to eat 500 calories worth of strudel, I want it to be the best damn strudel in a city known for it’s strudel–not something I remove from a cellophane wrapper.

Does fasting until 9pm take a bit of discipline? Absolutely–but strangely, it’s easier than choosing the right foods all the time. It’s just a weird bit of human psychology. But, the mild discomfort was worth it, and always is: the experience was better, the food was better, and my night was better.

So, if you normally practice some form of fasting, I urge you to give this a try. If you DON’T practice some form of fasting, you definitely should read a bit about it and give it a shot.

RESOURCES FOR THIS TIP:

• Intermittent Fasting 101
• Intermittent Fasting 201
• Intermittent Fasting FAQ

+++++++

Welp, there you have it three of my fast and easy tips for making your travel work for your body instead of against it. By practicing the above three strategies, I manage to stay lean on the road–or, at least, leaner than I would otherwise.

Executed correctly, I believe they’ll work for anyone. If you’re on the road just half as much as I am, I promise you that these will make your life a lot easier and your waist a lot smaller.

Give them a shot and let me know what you think!

RESOURCES FOR GENERAL TRAVEL:

• Roman’s Road Rules: 8 Tips to Help You Travel Like a Boss 

Of course, I want to know YOUR top tips for staying in shape on the road. Give me just ONE tip that you use while traveling.

If we get 50 COMMENTS, I’ll be back with Part Two–my full hotel room workout! 

The post Roman’s Road Rules (Fitness Edition) appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

Certainly, it will help a lot of people, but my more self-serving reasons is that it would be much easier, in the future, to just send a link to this article, rather than continuing to type out the answers over and over, several times per week.

Why did it take me so long to do this? Because I’m a big, dumb animal, folks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Me, basically.

Anyway, if you’ve read a lot about fasting, you’ll probably know the answers to a few of these. If you’ve recently begun fasting, then you’ve probably asked yourself (or me) one of these questions, or at least been curious. Definitely check these out.

If you’re a complete neophyte to the idea of fasting, you’ll get a lot out of this article, but you really should check out the basics first. My articles Intermittent Fasting 101 & Intermittent Fasting 201 should be enough to get you started.

Finally, I just want to reiterate that this is intended to be a quick blog to save us all time, not a dissertation, or even a full article. As such, it’s not filled with science and links to PubMed.

Meaning that you might be disappointed if your general reaction to is this:

Don’t be that guy.

With all of that said, on to the questions.

On General Fasting

1) Fasting for 16/24/36 Hours Seems Hard; Like, Weawwy Hard–Will I Die?

Yes, you will die. But probably not as a result of fasting.

And, honestly, it’s not that hard once you get used to it, so just man up. I don’t mean to make light of it–your first foray into fasting can certainly bring with it a certain degree of discomfort. You’ll be a little hungry. This is normal, and it’s nothing to worry about. And, the longer your fast (as in, practice the habit of fasting, not maintain one single fast), you’ll find that you don’t get as hungry as often. And so fasting becomes much easier.

The abbreviated version of why this happens: there’s a hormone called ghrelin that controls hunger; the production of ghrelin is dependent on when you eat. (So, producing ghrelin makes you want to eat, and eating produces ghrelin…which makes you want to eat more. More than a little annoying.) Ghrelin secretion in your body happens on a schedule based on your eating schedule; meaning the more often you eat, the more often you produce ghrelin, and the more often you want to eat.

All of which explains why you’re always hungry. Fasting will be hard in the beginning, because you’ve conditioned your body to produce ghrelin on a schedule, and so you have to push through that hunger.  Here’s the good news: ghrelin secretion begins to adapt to new eating patterns pretty quickly. Fasting helps you influence this because you’re eating less often, which means you’ll get hungry less often.

Science lesson over. The upshot is that the discomfort from fasting fades quickly, and the benefits (both longterm and short term) outweigh the acute inconvenience.

Or, as I said earlier, man up.

2) But Wait! Isn’t It Bad 4 My Metabolismzz?

No, it isn’t. This a myth that I could write about all day, so, again, a summary.  The idea that not eating will slow your metabolic rate is based of the fact the eating increases your metabolic rate; the increase occurs when you eat due to something called the Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF). Basically, you expend energy to break digest, absorb, and utilize the food you eat. This part is true.

Here’s the part that’s not true: the suggestion more often you eat, the more often your metabolism will increase, therefore not eating often can lead to metabolic slowdown. For years, you’ve been told that eating 5-6 small meals per day helps you keep your metabolism elevated. Again, not true.

The fact is that TEF is determined by your total energy intake, not how often you eat. So, it doesn’t matter if you have 2 meals or 8, as long as you’re getting the same number of calories, the effect will be the same.

All of which is to say that a daily fast of, let’s say 16 hours, does not decrease your metabolism.

On Timing

These questions comes up a lot with people who practice 16/8 fasting. In a perfect world, that model looks like this: fast for 16 hours, hit the gym, start eating. The suggested feeding window is 2-10pm; so, ideally, you train at 1pm. That’s a problem for a lot of people who have pesky things called “jobs.”

But, simply because you can’t follow that one specific recommendation doesn’t mean you can’t utilize fasting, or get great results from it. To that end, here are the two most common schedule concerns that I get, and my recommendations.

3) I can only train in the evening, after work. Should I wait until then to break my fast? 

Depends. You can wait to break your fast if the following apply to you:

• You don’t mind eating your first meal at 6 or 7pm.
• Your workout won’t suffer from the extended fast.
• You won’t have an issue getting in all of your calories and macros before bed.

If those things are not an issue for you, sure, you can wait to have your first meal until after your workout. But, you don’t have to. The second option is to simply break your fast at around 1pm with a moderately sized protein rich meal, have a shake or something like a bit later one (up to you–if I eat before my workout I puke), and then have some BCAAs before training at about 5:30pm.  When you finish your workout, start eating the rest of your calories.

I’ll mention that option one is probably better suited to fat loss, while option two is better for muscle gain.

4) I can only train in the morning, before work. Should I eat after? How do I handle this? 

The obvious question here is about meal timing: if this person finished their workout at, say, 7am, they have to make a choice and either:

• break the fast post workout, and then have an eating window of 8am-4pm. This can work, but you’re missing out on all of the nifty hormonal stuff that comes with not eating in the morning, including increased growth hormone secretion and better insulin management.

• don’t break the fast post workout; simply continue fasting until 1-2pm. Much easier in terms of thinking. Probably better and more effective from a hormonal standpoint. But carries with it the inevitable question about wasting the post workout window. It’s a tradeoff – can’t have everything. You could also take BCAAs post workout to get some PWO anabolizmz. (More on BCAAs below).

On Breaking The Fast

5) Will XYZ Break My Fast?

I get this one a lot. People want to know what constitutes breaking a fast, and what, if any, caloric intake is acceptable.

Here’s a list of things to DO NOT break your fast:

• Water
• Black Coffee
• Green Tea
• Greens Powder (see my blog post here)

Those things are pretty much fine in just about any quantity. Cool?

Here’s a list of grey area stuff, with a note on why gets the official rating of sometimes.

NON-BLACK COFFEE - You can add all sorts of stuff to coffee to make it either more delicious or healthier–or sometimes both. But, adding anything to coffee that has calories can potentially break your fast. A little heavy cream makes things tasty. A little coconut oil gives you some medium chain triglycerides, and you know how delicious those are (see Bulletproof Coffee).  

If you have a single cup of coffee per day, this is a non-issue; but if you need 4-5 cups to get going in the morning, and you’re adding a tablespoon of cream or coconut oil to each on, that will add up. There’s no hard and fast rule, but I say just try to keep your total caloric intake below 100, even if it’s from fat. The poison, as they say, is in the dose.

DIET SODA - I don’t have a problem with diet soda or artificial sweeteners in fairly limited quantities. However, not all are created equal, and they can exert different effects. For example, one of the sweeteners in Coke Zero is acesulfame potassium, which has been shown to be (potentially) insulinogenic; so that’s not the best choice during a fast, because you want to minimize insulin. Diet Coke, on the other hand, doesn’t have it. 

Is it going to make a huge difference? Probably not. Is drinking diet soda going to kill you and make you fat and give you herpes? Probably not. Still, probably best not to make it your primary liquid of choice. Again, the poison is in the dose.

BCAAs - Branched Chain Amino Acids are fantastic for a number of reasons, and when it comes to fasting, most people consider them necessary. BCAAs can blunt hunger, help you build muscle and retain LBM, and allow for better workouts over all. So, why are they in the grey? 

Very simply, they’re extremely insulinogenic. The production of insulin shuts down the production of growth hormone, so dosing with BCAAs may negate some of the benefits of fasting. Whether this is actually the case is open to debate. Many experts recommend this; for example I’ve heard that the position of BCAAs not breaking a fast referred to as Berkhan’s Law, named for Swedish nutritionist Martin Berkhan, one of the godfathers of the IF movement.

My personal position is this: if you’re focused on insulin management (for example, during an Insulin Reset, which appears in Phase I of Engineering the Alpha), I would skip the BCAAs until after your workout. If you have good insulin management or are trying to gain muscle, go for it.

MOAR QUESTIONZ?

I’m looking to keep this post dynamic and update it as time goes on, so feel free to drop and Q’s about fasting below, and I may  steal feature them going forward.

Hopefully, this post will help you as much as I know it will help me–whether you learn from the information or just refer people to it so you don’t have to keep answering these!

Happy Fasting,

Roman

The post Five Fast FAQs About Intermittent Fasting appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

Some of my best ideas and creations occur this way (the feast/fast model and FPFL are two examples). That said, it doesn’t always have a happy ending or result in a breakthrough; sometimes a crazy idea is just a dumb idea that you’re crazy enough to true. Examples include the time I randomly decided to do 205 deadlifts with 205 pounds, and roughly 63.8% of the decisions I made regarding women between 2002 and 2011. Oops.

Today, I’d like to talk about an idea that started out crazy, and turned out not to be frighteningly stupid. Quite the opposite, in fact—it’s turned out to be a way to hit new PRs, add some size, and even burn a little fat. In short, it’s got everything you want…if you’re willing to put in the work. And it WILL take work.

You ready? Drum roll please…

Introducing Century Sets

100 Reps of pure humility

Here’s how it works in brief: 100 total reps of a compound exercise with a predetermined percentage of your bodyweight (chart below).

This idea came about out of pure boredom, coupled with a lack of equipment. In a crowded gym with guys loitering on every piece of equipment, the only station available was, predictably, the squat rack. And while you can do nearly any exercise in a squat rack, I got to thinking—always dangerous—and pondered, what if you were to do a workout with ONLY squats? How would it work?

Obviously, I had to find out. What resulted is Century Squat, from which grew Century Sets using other exercises. Adam and I started playing around this last summer, when we grew a bit bored from testing all of the workouts in our book. You’re probably wondering why it’s taken me close to a year to post this? Well, frankly, because it’s been sitting in a file with 25 other half-finished blog posts and I’m finally just getting around to it. Geeze, cut a guy a break.

Anyway, as the name implies, you’re working with 100 reps; the goal is to hit that number in the fewest number of sets possible. But, there are caveats: no set should go over 20 reps; so, you’ll aim to complete in the fewest sets possible, with a minimum of five sets. When you can get 5×20, increase the weight next workout by 5%. Simple? Yes. Easy? Hell no.

Let me just make that as clear as I possibly can: unless you routinely do high rep work for multiple sets, this is going to suck. A lot. It won’t bury you, but it will humble you. Even something

Now, before we go any further, I’d like to address some things I know are bound to come up:

• Ben Bruno is probably at least partly the inspiration for this. His stuff has certainly impactful to my training over the past year, and he does a lot of high rep work.
• I’m aware that there are other systems that go by the name “century sets.” I don’t really care. I’m not coming up with a new name. If there can be more than one guy named John, there can be more than one protocol called Century Sets. Deal with it, because this.
• I’m sure some will make the comparison to German Volume Training. There are certain similarities, of course: aiming for 100 total reps, and using the same working weight during all sets, increasing only when you can complete all reps on all sets. A few key differences:
  • We’re working with 5×20 instead of 10×10. So, really, higher reps with a lower percentage of 1RM.
    • Will this lead to a difference in training effect? Depends on your fiber type, and how you grow. For me, lower body tends to grow on multiple sets of high reps, but no difference in upper body.
  • With GVT, the number of sets is static. You hit 10 no matter what, then stop; you may wind up with less than 100 reps.
  • With Century Sets, the number of reps is static. You’re going to complete 100 reps, no matter how many sets it takes. Because, again, this.
  • I’m not German.

Now that we’ve got all that squared away, let’s move on to exercises.

Pick Your Movement

The concept can be applied to any exercise, but it’s probably best to stick with the basics. In the chart below, the six of the big boys are outlined, along with suggested starting percentages.

Of course, these numbers are just a jumping off point, but they’re a good place to start. Admittedly, they’re recommendations based on experience from just seven subjects (Adam and myself, and then five clients), and n=7 isn’t exactly proven science. Still, in our testing, these seemed to allow for the greatest success rate over an 8-week period. Finally, while you can do multiple exercises Century-style during a given week or (for the truly masochistic) even the same workout, it’s better to start conservatively and work your way up—especially if you’re not generally accustomed to high volume workouts. Ya dig?

OTHER NOTES ON EXERCISE SELECTION:

1 .With regard to pull ups/chin ups: use bands for assistance, not an assisted pull up machine. Obviously, this will make it much harder to get an accurate read on the percentage of your bodyweight that you’re using. So, select a band that allows you get at least 20 but no more than 25 reps on your first set. Adjust from there. You’re a smart bro, bro; you’ll figure it out.

2. For any pulling exercise, feel free to use straps. Your grip will be the limiting factor in any pulling exercise. You may want to go strap-free the first few sets to get some forearm/grip work, but once you have to terminate based on grip, use straps.

3. Speaking of straps, consider using Kroc Rows. I love Kroc rows, but this takes twice as long. Secondly, if you terminate a Kroc Row at 20, I’m not sure it’s actually a Kroc Row anymore, as you’re supposed to go to failure. So, I guess you’d just be doing a single-arm row “Kroc style.” Still, a good addition.

4. Trap Bar Deadlifts are a perfectly fine alternative to squats. And, honestly, I prefer. Picking stuff up off the ground has always been infinitely preferable to squatting with a bar on my back. When I first tried this, there was no trap bar available, and we had to just squat.

5. If you’ve got a bum knee or gitchy shoulder, proceed with caution. Look, experimental training is cool, but being an idiot is not. If you’re dealing with a messed up body part, do some testing before you jump in on this.

So, you’ve got the method, you’ve got the exercises. Let’s talk about execution.

Selecting Your Starting Weights

To illustrate how this works more clearly, we’ll use a hypothetical example. Let’s call him “Trevalin Dagmor” and say, hypothetically, that he’s a level 8 Human Paladin, who just so happens to wield a +5 Holy Avenger. Trevalin hypothetically stands at 5’8’’ and hypothetically weighs 185 pounds. As a completely unrelated aside, this particular hypothetical Paladin also bears a striking resemblance to me. Hypothetically.

Here’s what his weights would look like:

Once again, just a jumping off point. If you’re particularly strong in one exercise or particularly weak in another, make adjustments to the percentages. As a gauge, you should be able to hit 20 reps on the first set.

My Workouts

Okay, you got me. Trevalin is me. Or rather, I’m him. Well, he was my D&D character, which makes us the same person. So, I’m going to give you an example of my first experience with Century Sets, which, as I mentioned above, was with squats.

To begin, load a bar with equivalent of your body weight. At the time I came up with this, I was 190, but I loaded the bar with 185, because the gym only had one 2.5 pounds plate. Don’t be a stickler. I got under the bar, and proceeded to do my thang.

The aim, obviously, was to get 5 sets of 20 reps. I didn’t quite make it. And, in all likelihood, your first time out, neither will you. My first workout appears on the chart below. As a comparative reference, so does my third workout.

This sounds nuts, but TRUST me, your legs will progress like crazy.

As you can see, my legs were not quite as accustomed to the higher volume as I would have liked them to be; my quads we getting a little sleepy during my 3^rd set. In point of fact, it was really my lower back that was the limiting. It took me 8 sets to get 100 reps, but my low back was tired during the 5^th set, which is why I terminated at 8 reps. I took a longer rest (more on that below), and was able to hit 14 on my next set. But, fatigue set in again. My 7^th set was truly murderous, and by my 9^th rep I had to bail out, despite my legs having a few more reps. I finished my last set of 4 reps with as much dignity as I could muster.

My second workout showed some improvement, but my third was when things really picked up. I hit 20 on the first 4 sets, but my back fatigued on set 5. I finished with a total of 6 sets; during the last one, I stopped at 7 simply because I was at 100, but definitely could have kept going.

By my fourth workout (July 23, 2012) I was able to finish in 5 sets; this was 8 weeks later, and my legs had grown about an inch, with just one day of training my quads. Since then, I’ve gone as high as 225 for 4 good sets of 20, and some straggler sets.

General Programming Considerations:

VOLUME: Is high. If you’re doing a lot of other high volume stuff, tone it down while you’re using century sets.

FREQUENCY: You could conceivably do this once per week, but you’d have to pay very close attention to recovery and it might put you under the bus. You could also do it once per month, but that wouldn’t really be enough to progress in a reasonable length of time. So, perform a workout of this kind once every two weeks.

REST PERIODS: Speaking generally, I have people rest about 3 minutes between earlier sets. If you can go with less rest, do so. As sets progress, you may need more recovery time. During my first workout, I took a 7-minute rest period to let my low back recover. So, no less than 90 seconds, no more than 8 minutes. That’s a huge range, so here’s a guideline: rest as much as you need to be able to execute at 75% on the next set. If you rest until you hit 100%, it will take too damn long and you’ll miss out on the metabolic effect.

Final Thoughts

They say that necessity is the mother of invention; perhaps it’s also true that insanity is the father of innovation. Despite being born out of lack of equipment and an apparent desire to humble myself, my version of Century Sets has proven to be great for building mass, increasing strength endurance, and burning fat. But they’re also fun, in that I-hate-myself kind of way. But, above all, it’s a challenging way to add a little spice to your program that just so happens to be effective. Win.

On a related note, Century Sets were featured in some of the bonus material for Engineering the Alpha; if you haven’t checked that out yet, do so. I hear it’s flying off the shelves at bookstores…

Okay, YOUR turn! What’s the absolute CRAZIEST training protocol you’ve ever come up with, or tried? How’d it work for you?

Give us all some new stuff to try — 75 COMMENTS and we’ll get a new blog post up this weekend!

The post Century Sets: appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

And so today, we’d like to share some “do” stuff–practical, actionable things that you can and should do on your quest to become Alpha. We’ve created 16 rules that guide the behavior of an Alpha; rules that help you navigate the world and help an Alpha to do all the things Alphas do–like ride dragons, help kids with their homework, and restore balance to the Force.

Put in the simplest way possible, by following the Alpha Rules, you will develop the Alpha Traits. 

Seems pretty awesome, right? Of course. And we figured that the only way to make incredible, useful information even more awesome was to make it pretty to look at.

To that end, we proudly present the very first Engineering the Alpha INFOGRAPHIC!

 (click to enlarge)

Now, in the title of this post, you’ll notice we said 16 Rules, and the infographic only displays 15.

What’s the 16th rule? Simple: make up one of your own. Alphas life live on their own terms, and although we can guide you, it’s not for us to decide how you should live your life. That falls to you, Alpha.

And of course, please pick up the book. Would mean the world to us.

We really love this graphic, and hope you do, too. So please share it! We’d also love your comment on the i-graphic itself…

But we’d really love to know: what rules do YOU live your life by? Let’s get the TOP THREE rules. If we get 50 COMMENTS, we’ll select 5 people to win a FREE copy of the book.

The post 16 Rules Every ALPHA Must Follow appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

Remember that time our book was #1 AND #2 on Amazon?

I also think that “an unreal life” is fairly obvious: we want to men live the kind of life they’ve only dreamed of, a life so awesome that it seems like it just can’t be real. But it is. This book will help men do that, because it will help them identify, understand, and solve many of the problems plaguing them—problems that every man is struggling with, on a global scale. You’ll find many of the solutions in the first three chapters alone.

The part of the title that most people ask about is the middle—Engineering the Alpha. On the one hand, it’s clear that we want to help every man turn into an Alpha; that’s not the part that causes confusion. The part that confuses people is the word “alpha” itself—what does that mean? Is it a good thing? Is it bad?

Here’s the problem: ALPHA is a term that comes with a lot of connotations, many of them negative. My goal is to reclaim it—to redefine what it means to be an Alpha, make it a positive term that bespeaks a level of high evolution and purpose.

REDEFINING THE ALPHA

In order for you to fully grasp our meaning and definition of what it means to be an Alpha, we must first strip away everything that is currently tied to that word and idea.

The general perception of an alpha male is someone who is…well, kind of an asshole. The guy who is strong and confident but also domineering and cocky. As it is currently understood, the alpha male tries to elevate himself, often by tearing others down.

In film and on TV, we portray this archetypal alpha as the good-looking quarterback who picks on nerds to impress cheerleaders, a guy who acts like an asshole to hide deeper insecurities. The public perception is someone who actively seeks to be better than others and then prove that he is.

The commonly portrayed Alpha Male is, troublingly, a mix of generally positive traits executed in a negative way. But even so, my issue with the perception of the Alpha male is not that he’s kind of a bully; it’s the fact that that title that draws its power from others. And that’s not how you create success.

You see, to be an Alpha male in the traditional sense simply means the most dominant within a group, or the strongest in a group or the most confident in a group. Not a person who is necessarily strong or confident in the absolute sense; just someone who, in a given group of people, most outwardly projects strength or confidence. In other words, the problem with the definition of Alpha isn’t really the assumed aggression or implied cockiness; it’s the fact that the entire foundational principle for self-value is comparative analysis.

In my view, that’s an incredibly dangerous mindset—if your goal is to be the alpha male in the traditional sense, it means you’re trying to be better than other people; your entire assessment of self is based on where you fall relative to others in this imagine hierarchy that exists in your mind. Moreover, the current idea of being alpha is that it’s not just based on comparative analysis, but also on comparative improvement. And that’s a hollow approach to motivation and fulfillment.

As you must have surmised by now, that is not what I mean when I talk about being an Alpha. We want to take back the concept of The Alpha and use it as we believe it should be used. The Alpha is someone who is not just assertive, but evolved.

In fact, I believe that the Alpha is the most evolved version of you. This is not about being an AMOG—the Alpha Male of the Group. That’s an unfulfilling approach. Just think about it. Your mindset isn’t, “I want to be good” or  “I want to be better.” It’s, “I want to be better than the other guys in the room.” That approach makes it hard to every feel achievement or success.

I want to rally against that. I submit that you need to focus on internal drivers or else you’re creating a recipe for a lack of satisfaction and fulfillment. You want to focus on the things you can control. And the number one thing you can control…is you.

While all men have a competitive drive to be the best in the room, those who are more highly evolved desire much more strongly to be the best version of themselves. I want you to judge yourself against only yourself. I want you to achieve success that you strive for; that you want; constantly trying to improve internally and externally because you want to be better than you were and—not be better than someone else. That is being The Alpha.

If you walk into this life with any other motivation than wanting to be better than you then you are doomed to failure. And if you can’t accept that defining yourself only be comparison to others isn’t an impediment to self-actualization and happiness, then you will have difficulty reaching the goals you desire and living a fulfilled life.

All in all, my book is concerned largely with helping you improve various areas of your life. It will make you stronger, healthier, and fitter. But it will also make you smarter. The tools in this book will allow you to affect physiological changes that will enhance everything from sex drive to brain function. Above all, this book is largely concerned with helping you to become the best version of yourself.

Or, as I call it, becoming The Alpha version of you.

We’re going to start right now. I’m going to give you a series of traits that govern the behavior of an evolved man; a man who takes the natural competitive drive inherent in the masculine psyche and directs it towards the fulfillment lofty goals and the accomplishment of great things, rather than wastes it on petty envy. These are the traits you’ll find in a man who’s looking to make himself better so that he can best serve the world—the traits of an Alpha.

UNDERSTANDING THE ALPHA

We understand the Alpha has some connotations that are hard to break. That’s why we want to define the traits so you understand what it really means to be the Alpha. Your evolution will depend on remembering that the poison is in the dose. We’ve identified the traits, but ultimately the Alpha understands when to turn these traits on and off, and when pushing too far leads down a path that is harmful to you and others. We’ll show you those barriers, but it’s up to you to draw the line and stay the path.

The 7 Traits of Alpha

Alpha Trait 1

Helpful—But Not Condescending

The drive to become successful isn’t simply a means to a narcissistic and individualistic end. The Alpha understands that taking care of his primary goals is only part of creating the life he wants; the other half is influencing and shaping the world he lives in. It’s taking what you’ve learned—the good and the bad—and being able to pay that knowledge forward and make the world a better place. That is the foundation of this entire book: take the lessons we have learned about how to create an unreal life, combine them with your own life lessons to create your own version, and share them.

But being helpful has its limits. The Alpha gives advice and encourages others, but he does not look to do things for them. He understands that they need to do things on their own, and while they sometimes may need assistance—whether with advice or guidance—the Alpha realizes that if he were to overstep his bounds and solve the problems for them, they wouldn’t learn. The Alpha doesn’t micromanage the people in his life. That’s not being helpful; that’s being condescending. That is assuming that his own ability to solve problems supersedes that of everyone else.

Believing that you are the only one who can fix things is the height of egotism, the proverbial, “If you want something done right, just do it yourself.” This mind-set is one of the most damaging opinions you can have. By doing tasks for others, you’re removing their ability to help themselves advance, limiting their growth potential, and imposing your will on them in a way that is not helpful but damaging.

While being helpful is important, trying to be too helpful can go too far. If you are trying to do everything for everyone, you’re not saying, “I want you to succeed.” What you really mean is, “I don’t think you can do it.” It’s an insult wrapped in a facade of kindness. The Alpha is a leader and a motivator but always in the context of letting the people you’re helping blaze their own path.

That applies to us, and this book, as well. We don’t think we have all the answers, but we know we have some of them. We’ve discovered certain traits, characteristics, and triggers that can serve as a guideline to help you master the circumstances that dictate your life. And so the purpose of this book is not to solve all your problems for you—it’s to give you the tools to solve them yourself.

We’ll show you the elements that will make you stronger, smarter, and more confident. These attributes will improve how you look, help you at your job, and boost your sex life—but only when you take those lessons and apply them in your own manner. Keep that in mind for everything you learn; you must apply knowledge in a way that works for you.

Alpha Trait 2

Confident—But Not Cocky

The previous incarnation of the alpha was always thought of as cocky. As we already stated, you know the alpha male as the guy who put others down to elevate himself. The redefined Alpha is not characterized by some overt cockiness that is projected to hide deeper insecurities but rather by a true confidence, an honest assessment of his strengths and weaknesses as well as what he can immediately achieve and what he needs to work on. The true Alpha doesn’t need to put others down to feel better. His assessment of self isn’t defined by a comparative analysis. It’s an internal drive that fuels motivation and success.

Therefore, the Alpha elevates others to display his confidence in his ability to share thoughts, ideas, and plans that can positively influence the world around him and the people in it. If you have good ideas, you should share them. If you think you can help people, then you should take action. If you think you’re the right guy for a woman, then you should prove it to her. This is what confidence enables—taking action in every form possible. But that action should never be used to denigrate another individual. When you accept who you are, and appreciate who you can be, your confidence immediately becomes much more genuine, your insecurities become less potent, you create more control, and you experience more success.

Alpha Trait 3

Vain—But Not Conceited

Listen, there should be an understanding that good-looking people can go a little farther in this world. It’s not a hard-line rule, but it is a general observation that has been proven over and over again. English researchers found that men who are rated as more attractive also happen to make more money in their jobs and have higher positions. This is just a correlation, but it’s not the only study that has recognized the relationship.

A little bit of vanity is a good thing because it’s really just a manifestation of wanting to take care of yourself. When you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you exude an energy that improves your world and the world of the people you interact with.

Just like extreme cockiness is the bad side of confidence, the downside of vanity is when it progresses to conceit. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be ridiculously good-looking. The problems only begin when you start believing that because you’re good-looking—or more muscular or leaner or smarter or wealthier—that you’re better than everyone, on anyone else. That’s conceit.

The Alpha understands this differentiation. He doesn’t want to improve his body to be better than others. Instead, the focus is about the feelings of achievement that go along with reshaping his body. The process of self-improvement makes him feel better as a means of inspiring his confidence and building a precedent of success. As you’ll find out in the book, creating physical success is a gateway to generating success in every other aspect of your life.

The Alpha knows this and realizes that while looks or brains or money or muscles may give him an edge, they don’t make him a better person. His value is determined by his actions and what he does for other people and the world.

Alpha Trait 4

Prideful—But Not Arrogant

The difference between pride and arrogance is a fine line but one that separates those men who inspire from those considered assholes. Everything depends on how you react to your success. Do you share your successes as a means to promote more creative and progressive thought—or do you expect things to happen because of what you’ve already accomplished?

Arrogance is assuming that because you’ve reached a certain level that you’re entitled to certain privileges and opportunities. People who rest on their laurels are arrogant. On the other hand, pride is acknowledging your success but always retaining the mind-set of an intern. You have to earn every opportunity, hustle for every success, and prove yourself over and over again—no matter who you are and what you’ve done previously.

The difference between these two qualities is easily differentiated. Do you talk about your prior successes as a means to create new opportunities for yourself and others, or is it done with the expectation that people will automatically react with reverence and feel humbled in your presence? Are you looking to always work hard—on your projects or partnerships—or are you simply looking for an easy path to completion?

The Alpha understands that pride is an essential part of self-actualization. You can’t improve yourself and the world you live in if you don’t acknowledge your success. This is change psychology that depends on reinforcement. You need to believe you are good, and the only way to do that is to reference what you’ve done right. At the same time, pointing to prior success shouldn’t change the fundamental drive to become better or the effort you put in during that process.

In the end, the difference is simple. Pride is the province of the Alpha who has done and will continue to do great things—and arrogance is the calling card of dickheads and pretenders who are simply masquerading as power players.

Alpha Trait 5

Humble—But Not Self-Loathing

The drive to avoid arrogance can swing too far and bring you to a place where you no longer value yourself or what you achieve. Just as pride is important for acknowledging your successes, humility is equally important for confessing how hard it was to become better and accepting that you may not be the best and have a lot of work to do to get where you want to go.

Humility is important. It keeps us sane. It keeps us grounded. Most importantly, it keeps us hungry. Understanding that you are smart is essential to building the confidence you need to achieve; reminding yourself that you’re not Einstein is a strong driver that will help you learn more and become even smarter. But thinking that because you’re not Einstein means you’re patently stupid, well, that goes past the point of humility and dips into self-loathing.

This dark side can manifest itself in a way that is truly self-destructive. When you become self-loathing, you venture into a universe where you are incapable of taking pride or credit for any success. Self-loathers genuinely lack so much confidence that anything that is accomplished is never seen as a direct result of their effort, time, or contributions. They’re paralyzed by a belief that no matter what they do, they are simply not good enough. Self-loathers downplay achievements, direct praise only toward others, and castigate themselves for all shortcomings and failures. In other words, the highs are still considered valleys, and the lows can drive confidence to the depths of hell.

The Alpha understands that anyone who can’t be a little self-deprecating is taking life—and himself—too seriously. He’s humble and hungry, but he gives himself credit where it’s due. And he never, ever loses faith in himself.

Alpha Trait 6

Tolerant—But Not Weak

We probably don’t need to tell you this, but you’re going to have to put up with some shit in life. Whether it’s with friends, loved ones, coworkers, or bosses, part of life is dealing with crap. It’s an inevitable fact that no one can avoid. Patience and tolerance are essential to understanding your place in the world, as is being comfortable with opposing opinions and beliefs. Your opinion is not the only one that matters, and your job is not to convince everyone to see the world as you do.

Whether it’s in the office or at the bar, you can’t be argumentative with everything that goes against your worldview and values. You have to be tolerant of people’s mistakes, shortcomings, and personal opinions. Doing otherwise is being narrow-minded and an asshole. And you don’t want to be an asshole.

At the same time, there are lines in life. And if people cross them—whether repeatedly or egregiously—you have to be willing to put your foot down. This doesn’t always mean being aggressively confrontational; in many situations, the Alpha displays his tolerance by addressing inappropriate behaviors with helpful solutions. In the workplace, when people are screwing up, punishing them for their mistakes is not always the best way to fix the solution. Addressing the problem and providing an alternative path to help them become better is an approach that works best for everyone.

Other times, a more aggressive approach is needed. Within the working world, you’ll inevitably have a boss or superior who will go above and beyond to make your life miserable. You should feel empowered to address these behaviors in a way that improves the situation. In these moments, you need to be aggressive and confident. You need to confront the problem, lay the cards on the table, and leave your adversary with no choice but to see the situation that has been created and the steps that need to be taken. As the Alpha, you should always be thinking about solutions, not problems. And in the most extreme cases, this might mean you need to be able to walk away and find a different job.

Part of being the Alpha is understanding that the toxicity in the world around you can literally make you a less evolved person, making you more unhappy and thereby negatively impacting every related aspect of your life.

Determine your morals and values. Remind yourself that not every disagreement is a point of contention. But remember that being tolerant is not an excuse to sacrifice the core of who you are. The Alpha inspires the world around him to become better, and that can’t happen if you’re too fearful to voice your opinion and settle for a life where you’re always the bitch.

Alpha Trait 7

Dedicated—But Not Obsessed

We’re all familiar with the image of the workaholic. You know him as the guy who stays late at the office and works himself to the bone. Doesn’t matter if it’s Monday at eleven a.m. or Saturday at two a.m.—the workaholic is a machine designed for one purpose: getting shit done.

On one hand, we admire these people. There’s something to be said about a great work ethic, hustle, and desire to take on seemingly impossible projects. On the other hand, there’s an aspect of the workaholic that we pity. That’s because there’s a fine line between dedication and obsession, and knowing where to draw that line makes all the difference between whether your hustle and grit are virtuous traits or deleterious characteristics that cause you to lose sight of what’s really important in your life.

The difference between dedication and obsession is that dedicated people work themselves toward a point of achievement. The Alpha outlines goals so there is a quantitative or qualitative way of determining success. This is what keeps him humble and hungry but also prevents him from endlessly chasing more work and spiraling into obsessions. The obsessed are those who can’t pull themselves away from their desks. They focus infinitely on one thing and one thing only, so much so that everything else important in their life becomes blurred or diluted, or at worst disappears. The obsessed oftentimes possess another dangerous trait—being self-loathing.

In order to draw the line, the Alpha understands that being dedicated means approaching goals like a sprint, in bursts of concentrated effort. Obsession is a marathon, a life spent chained to a treadmill chasing a carrot with no hope of ever feeling satisfied—and that unfulfilled feeling laces the very essence of everything in life.

The French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne once wrote, “Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.” While this is true in the sense that the top 1 percent of 1 percent of all achievements might be unlocked by only a single-minded pursuit, madness is the more common consequence of obsession. It leaves you bitter, empty, and alone. Alphas are dedicated to their families, friends, health, and most of all to themselves. They are dedicated to improvement, but they are not tied to a narcissistic view that impairs their ability to create a rich, multifaceted existence.

++++++

The above traits are, in my view, not a code of behavior that you must adhere to, but rather a standard of being that you should aspire to. You should want to be confident and helpful. You should want to stay humble and be dedicated. You should strive to be tolerant, but not weak. And you shouldn’t be afraid of a little vanity.

These things, taken together, are what makes and Alpha. Not being a bully or making other people feel bad. By focusing on these things, you’re focusing on being the best version of yourself. So, if you want to achieve #alphastatus, and truly make an impact on the world, start with these.

Of course—reading the book wouldn’t hurt, either (winkwinknudgenudge, nah mean?)

Oh, look! A link to order the book! How’d that get there?

Super weird…

Sweet trailer, right?

The book is on sale now–and if you pick it up before April 20th, you’ll be helping me hit my goal of hitting #1 New York Times bestseller. Your support means the world to me.

GET YOUR COPY OF MAN 2.0 ENGINEERING THE ALPHA TODAY <== help me hit #1!

What are YOUR thoughts on what it means to be ALPHA? Let’s get 50 COMMENTS on this post and we’ll give away FIVE copies of the book, and ONE ALPHA Tshirt!

The post 7 Traits of Highly Successful ALPHAS appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

Perhaps one of the most under-appreciated facets of physique enhancement is the sheer number of tools, tricks, and cool little “hacks” you can use to make your training more effective.

I purposefully say “under-appreciated” and not “unknown” or even “under-discussed” because despite all the threads clogging up message boards with blather about rollers, grippers, kettlebells and all the other stuff, how many people are actually taking advantage of these things?

Of course, that question is impossible to actually answer, as we have no real way of quantifying such usage.  However, two very obvious points stand out in regard to this topic:

1) More experience, more tools.

The more advanced—and definitely the elite—lifters of all weight training disciplines use a variety of tools to achieve their strength or physique goals.

Some tools of the trade

This is true of most people who make a living in the fitness industry, and certainly of anyone who competes in any fitness-related endeavor at a high level.

Power lifters use boards to perfect their lockout, chains and bands to train using accommodating and elastic resistance to maximize power output through the entire range of motion.

Serious bodybuilders use straps, belts, wraps and the like to help hoist more weight for a greater number of reps, helping them to have more productive and growth-inducing workouts.

And, on the other hand…

2) Recreation (sometimes) Means Reluctance

The vast majority of recreational lifters—even those who consider themselves “serious” about their training—tend to shy away from such tools, viewing them as extraneous or unnecessary. More to the point, these tools are considered “too expensive;” an opinion which is not without rationale. After all, if you are not planning on competing in a strongman event, dropping a few hundred dollars on a truck-pulling harness probably sounds like an investment that would be difficult to justify.

The Conundrum

Given the two above facts, we see that although elite level lifters use tools to improve already incredible performance, other lifters tend to shy away from such tools and deny themselves access, despite the fact that it would make life more awesome. A solution?

The Big Idea

What if I told you there was a tool that, if used properly, could help people of any level to achieve their goals more quickly? That could help increase size, strength, and power and even help you get leaner in the process? You’d probably be pretty interested.

What if I then went on to tell you that this tool, once used properly for a little as two months, would thereafter consistently give you the majority of the benefits of ever having used it? Does that sound like something you might be interested in?

Maybe. But, maybe you’d probably be pretty skeptical.

Well, what if I then told you that this tool was absolutely free of change, and that in fact you already have one in your possession—two even!  Does that sounds like something you might be interested in?

You’d probably be pretty annoyed at this point, and tell me to stop with the fucking sales pitch and just get to the damn point.

Well, fine…you don’t have to get all pissy about it.

So, just what magic tool am I babbling about?

Simple:  This!

BEHOLD AND GASP IN AWE AND WONDERMENT!

What? You’re not impressed!? Are you not entertained? IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE?

Well, that’s only because you haven’t yet seen what I can DO with this hand. The ladies know what I’m talkin’ about. (rimshot!)

But we’re talking about building muscle. So, to carry on with that discussion. 

Tactile Stimulation

An old trick for new gains

More than just a euphemism for eight-grade style hand love, tactile stimulation is a valuable method of muscle recruitment that can help lead to great progress. Simply put, tactile stimulation is essentially a way of activating or focusing a muscle by lightly touching it; primarily to increase mental awareness of that area: the much lauded mind-muscle connection.

Touching a muscle at rest makes you aware of it.  As soon as you lay fingers (especially your own, although others work as well) on your skin you immediately become more attentive to that area of your body; your nerve endings become engaged, your muscles more responsive.

Likewise, when you touch a muscle that is flexing or working, the effect becomes even greater. In terms of weight- training, touching the muscle sends a signal to the brain to help preferentially recruit that muscle for the given task; this obviously helps with the performance of an exercise and the results gleaned thereby. Used correctly over time, this will allow you greater overall control of the working of that muscle.

The Premise

The use of tactile stimulation, about which we will later speak in greater detail, is in large part designed as facilitator to increase what we has been colloquially called “Mind-Muscle Connection.”  Before we can discuss the real reasons tactile stim is useful, some insight into this mental aspect of things is needed.

I think a good majority of the problem stems from the language we use.  The term “lifting weights” is problematic. It puts you in the mindset that your sole job is to hoist the weight. This is true only in the most general sense.

It is not enough to just “lift” weights. In order to achieve greater recruitment of fibers in the muscle you’re trying to work, you should (as a general rule) be consciously trying to flex and squeeze the targeted muscle(s) throughout the entire range of motion. This is something practiced and espoused by bodybuilders, and by those who train them; a good example is my friend Christian Thibaudeau, a high level physique coach who consistently stresses the importance of actively engaging in each exercise by way of flexing.

To illustrate, let us take the example of the bench press. To the uninitiated, the exercise is simply lowering a bar to your chest and then lifting back to the starting position. Of course, experienced lifters know that is not the case. Just as we have the option to change grip width, bar path, and body position to change the degree to which certain muscles are used, we also have the option of using a variety of techniques to get the targeted muscles to work harder.

Stated somewhat more completely, albeit obtusely: to increase the amount of fibers working within that muscle, thereby increasing the amount of work that specific muscle performed.

Staying with the example of the bench press, one trick often used is that of squeezing. That is, actively try to force the hands towards one another on the bar, thereby activating the pecs to a greater degree. There is nothing overtly wrong with this technique; quite the opposite. It is a moderately effective approach and certainly better than just pushing a bar. But it isn’t optimal.

Wouldn’t it better to just, you know…flex?

The problem is, most people can’t “just flex;” at least, not during a lift.  Instead, they get exactly as much or as little recruitment as the exercise dictates and their body is inclined to give.  These trainees are limited in recruitment potential because they do not have a well-developed connection between their bodies and their mind.

Tactile stimulation is, bar none, the fastest, easiest, most cost effective way to correct the disconnection, increase muscle recruitment.  And, in the end game, make you stronger and faster.

Mind-Muscle Connection

Mind-muscle connection in fact has two components: conscious muscle control, and conscious muscle awareness. The line between the two is a tad blurry, but it is there.

Conscious muscle control is being able to recruit/flex/squeeze a muscle at will. This develops over time.  CMC is usually easy to develop, and happens fairly organically. Although it’s not quite a linear equation, typically speaking the more time you spend training a muscle the more control you have over it.

So, because most people start out their weight training career by focusing on chest, just about anyone who has been lifting for a few months can consciously flex their pecs. Other muscles are harder to consciously recruit, but more on that later.

Conscious muscle awareness is somewhat harder to define; it’s essentially knowing or feeling which muscles are working in a given exercise; or more specifically, to what degree different muscles are contributing to the lift.  The more muscles involved in the lift, the harder it becomes to focus on this. Conscious muscle awareness comes not just from spending a lot of time training, but from spending a lot of time training correctly. There are a lot of longtime lifters with lousy muscle awareness, and it seems to be almost epidemic among newer lifters.

By increasing both aspects of the Mind-Muscle Connection you truly maximize the effects of your workout; and by employing tactile stimulation, you can achieve this in far less time than just waiting around for your brain and muscle to fall in love and live happily ever after.

Test Flex (wit’ yo Chest)

To help illustrate my point and give you a better understanding of how this all comes together, there is a simple test I normally prescribe.

Close your eyes and flex your chest. Well, don’t actually close them yet, I haven’t finished explaining the test yet. (I am so clever.)

Okay, so, what you are going to do when you finish reading is:  close your eyes and flex your chest. As you flex, and without touching it, try to focus on your upper chest.  While still flexing, slowly move your upper arm around, trying to find the position that activates the clavicular head of your pectorals to a more intense degree.

Chances are you can get it, but it takes a little doing—not exactly quick and easy. Now the fun part.

Take the first two fingers or your right hand, and gently touch the upper area of your left pec: right where the clavicle says “what’s up” to the sternum. Flex the upper area of that muscle. Once again, move the humerus of your left arm around until you feel hard, dense flexion. Not only will you feel the contraction in your chest, you’ll also have the added benefit of feeling it occur right beneath your fingertips.

If you are doing it correctly, in addition to this two-fold method of increasing awareness, you have the contraction occurring more intensely. You’ll also be able to “find” it faster.

This is valuable for a number of reasons. As mentioned previously, it will allow you to develop mind muscle connection and use that going forward.  In the short term, it also makes your workouts more productive. Finally, it helps you define your perfect range of motion for working a stubborn body part.

Advanced Application

If you’ve ever had trouble trying to fix a muscle imbalance, increase the level of isolation in a lift, or even just “feeling it” where you’re supposed to feel it, tactile stimulation is going to blow your mind.

I will use myself as an example, and in particular my back.

For starters, I believe that, generally, most people have lousy mental-muscular awareness in their back.  Newer lifters more so, and myself in particular. When I was just starting to train, I must have tried every variation of the bent row, seated row, pull-up, pull down and pull over known to man, with little to show for it. My arms were growing, my traps were growing, my shoulders got a little thicker. But my back progress was almost non-existent.

One day, I wound up working in with random guy on the Hammer Strength seated row. This gentleman just happened to be a sort of “hands-on” spotter, so whenever he wasn’t gently applying pressure to the weight stack, he was gently applying pressure to my upper and mid back. In true bodybuilder form, all the while he was screaming “that’s it bro, you got it! Squeeze, kid! Nice set, bro!” Although somewhat annoying, it was a pretty good workout.

The next morning, I could barely move. I was sorer in my back than I’d ever been in my entire life. Now, at this point in my training career I wasn’t an idiot, and I know when I’d touched on something important—pun intended.

So for the next few weeks, I did all of my back workouts unilaterally—one hand doing the work, the other hand stretched across my body holding onto my opposing lat.  In three months, my back development took off like I’d never imagined.

My back no longer sucks. Also, my butt is adorable.

By touching my back with one hand, I was making myself aware of how little those muscles were working. And, at first unwittingly and then later extremely consciously, I was learning how to flex and engage the musculature of my back and put it to work the way it was supposed to.  Eventually, I was able to flex and recruit those muscles at will; and when I went back to two-armed exercises, the heavier weight this allowed for changed me even further.

All told, in six months my back went from being my worst body part to one of my best. And there is a great lesson here: in order to grow, a muscle needs to do some work—so if you’re using the wrong muscles, you’re selling yourself short.

Closing Thinkingz

There are dozens of tools available to make your progress better or faster—everything from Fat Gripz to Prowlers and all kindsa crazy stuff. And all of those things are great—but, they cost money and take a bit of time to master. 

Tactile stimulation, on the other hand, is a free, effective and fast way to ensure that you’re increasing M/M connection…and thereby, your results.

It’s all you, bro.

SOUND OFF

Well, are you not entertained? What are YOUR favorite training “hacks”? Let’s get 40 COMMENTS about either fun tricks, or just my awesome references, and we’ll get another brand new blog post this Monday!

The post The Magic Touch appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

Yesterday began the first Pre-Order for Engineering the Alpha: A Real World Guide to an Unreal Life, my new book, co-authored with Adam Bornstein and being published by HarperOne.

The book comes out on April 16th, but we are doing a 5 day Pre-Order bonanza complete with extra bonuses. Why? Simply, because it will make the book more successful in the long run.

So. You need to get it. And ideally, you need to do it today. Let’s talk about why.

SELF-INTEREST STUFF

Seven Reasons Why You Need to Order ALPHA This Week FOR YOU

 1) IT WILL ROCK YOUR FACE OFF

This is a true statement. Honestly, being as objective I can, this is a great book. It not only has some really high level information in there that will change your body, it also has a ton of stuff in there that will help you re-assess your life, and make positive changes.

It’s the best fitness plan I’ve ever released, and at 16 bucks, it’s cheaper than any of the others.

No brainer – so pre-order here

2) IT’S AN ENJOYABLE READ

Outside of having good fitness information in there, this really is the most well-written thing I have ever worked on. There are sentences in this book that make me cry. There are others that make me laugh every time I read them.

There are stories in here that I was afraid to share. But there are ones that I couldn’t wait to share. Stuff about friendship and sex and poker. There are pop culture references to everything from Star Wars to Fight Club to Contra to Catcher in the Rye. Everything about life that I love, I tried to work in here. Very simply put, you can’t NOT relate to this book. It’s simply too applicable to every man.

If you enjoy reading my stuff, then you need to order it. The writing is something I am really proud of.

Pre-order here.

3) IT CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON

This is the only fitness book that has ever been written that has such a strong narrative structure. Using the universal principles and story telling methodology of the Monomyth, ETA provides a blueprint that is applicable far beyond your body. This is a growth-oriented book that will not only walk your through a Hero’s Journey, but will also teach you how to use every single struggle you face as another Hero’s Journey; to understand the monomyth as a problem solving thesis that will help you get through any struggle you face.

4) YOU ARE GOING TO GET FREE STUFF

Bonuses. Oh, bonuses galore. If you order this week, you’re going to get a ton. You will get hidden chapters (including an essay entitled “How Sleeping with Over 200 Women Made Me Awesome At Monogamy” — easily the most personal and vulnerable thing I have ever written.

But you’re also going to get a TON of extra workouts. You’re going to get an entire SECOND PLAN. The book outline a complete program–16 weeks of workouts and diets, complete with meal plan. It’s the best one I have ever written. And we often get asked, “what should I do after?” Well, we have a follow up ETA Plan. It’s yours. Completely free. Just for pre-ordering.

Oh, and you’re also going to get Super Hero MUSCLE. You know that muscle building program you guys have been asking me for YEARS to write? The program based purely on hypertrophy? This is it. THe follow up to the Super Hero Workout and Super Hero Fat Loss, SHM will complete the trilogy and close the circle. This may be released on it’s own, but not for less than $77. You can get it FREE when you buy ETA.

Which means that when you order today, not only do you get the chapters the publishers thought were too “risky” for the book, you also get TWO complete extra fitness plans.

And for under 20 bucks, makes sense just to pre-order now.

5) YOU CAN GET MORE FREE STUFF LATER.

When the book is released, Adam and I are going to do a “land rush” promotion. This allows people to buy multiple copies of the book to get different high level, awesome prizes. Stuff ranging from free equipment (custom Fat Gripz, anyone?) and gear, to Alpha getaways where you and I can party together and blow stuff up (as in, actual explosives. More on this later.) When you pre-order the book this week, you can apply that purchase to bulk stuff down the road.

6) YOU CAN RANDOMLY WIN IT ALL.

This one is special. If you pre-order the book between now and Friday, you get an ALPHA FREE ROLL. This is a raffle ticket which qualifies you to win ANY of the Land Rush prizes.

Any of them. This means by ordering just ONE book today, you qualify for a chance to win prizes that are reserved for people who buy 100 or 250 or even 1000 copies of the book. This is one thing I can PROMISE is only available this week. Not offered again.

YOU MUST SUBMIT ENTRY BEFORE FRIDAY TO QUALIFY. (NOTE: this raffle will be held April 8th, on my Birthday.)

You could potentially win up to $20,000 worth of value. But only if you order this week.

Fine Print Note: Due to legal reasons having to do with “sweepstakes” laws, I’m required to let ANYONE enter, without purchasing anything. So, I am. If you want to enter without buying the book, please just send a blank email to support@romanfitnesssystems.com with the subject line “Alpha Free Roll” – you’ll be automatically entered. Obviously, not buying the book is kind of lame, but rules is rules. 

7) YOU CAN WIN A FREE TRIP TO NYC TO PARTY WITH ME.

When you pre-order this week (and this week ONLY), you also get a Golden Ticket.

This is a raffle ticket that qualifies you for a chance to win an all expenses paid trip to NYC for my book release party. All expenses paid. Flights, hotel, party are all on me. We’ll get to train together at one of the most awesome gyms in NYC. And we’ll get to celebrate like fucking champions.

NOTE: The party is April 19th. This raffle will be help March 22nd. You can win a free trip to the greatest city in the world, and get to go to the best book release party EVER. All for ordering ONE book. Please, get it here.

Fine Print Note: Again, I’m required to let ANYONE enter, without purchasing anything. So, I am. If you want to enter without buying the book, please just send a blank email to support@romanfitnesssystems.com with the subject line “I wanna come to the party” – you’ll be automatically entered. This is an interesting one because why would you want to go to the book release party of a guy whose book you didn’t buy? Kind of a dick move. Still. It could happen.

So, that’s what’s in it for you. That’s the self-interest stuff. But there are a few reasons you need to order for me.

TIME TO HELP ROMAN OUT

In the internet business world, we talk about making deposits into your  ”good will” bank account. Essentially, be awesome and give great content and help people. When you ask for money (sell a product), you’re depleting a bit of good will.

I haven’t promoted much over the past 12 months. Just tons of free content and a lot of laughs. I’ve been saving my metaphorical pennies, and now I sadly need to cash out.

The time has come to empty my Good Will bank account. The time has come for me to call in the favors. For me to appeal to your sense of emotion and loyalty and good heartedness.

I want you to order the book because you want to help me. I want to order it because I’ve helped you. I want you to order it because you want to see me succeed.

The truth is this: I need this book to be a New York Time’s best-seller. Need. I would prefer it to be #1. And I simply cannot do it without your support.

To make things more clear, here’s a short list of Roman-centric reasons you need to buy this week:

1) I WANT TO BE #1.

As I said, I want to hit #1 NYT best-seller. I believe that I have written a book that deserves attention. I believe we’ve written a book that will change lives, and push this industry in the right direction. But in order for it to have the most impact, it needs to debut with a splash.

I need to sell several thousand copies, before the book even hits the shelves.

This means the “acreage” person can’t help me. Only those who already know about me can. Those who know I put out great stuff. People who trust me enough to pre-order on faith.

That’s you. That’s the Roman Empire. YOU can help by ordering now.

2) WE NEED TO SHOW BARNES & NOBLE WHAT’S WHAT.

I need to sell about 1000 copies this week. B&N has ordered several thousand copies of the book to stock on shelves. But not as much as I need them to. We need to get them to double their order.

The ONLY way to do this is to show them the power of the Roman Empire. We need to show them that my readers want to support me, WILL support me. We need to show them that my mailing list and my blog and my facebook page are tools that I can use for their benefit.

In order to do that, I need to sell 1000 copies this week. At least. There are 15,000 members of my FB page alone, and legions of readers who visit this blog daily. If everyone ordered 1 copy, B&N would triple their order. If everyone bought TWO copies, I would be guaranteed #1 best-seller. And if only 30% of you buy, I still win.

Please, if you’re going to pull the trigger, I need you to do it this week.

3) WE NEED TO SHOW MY PUBLISHER THE SAME.

Along the same lines as B&N, we need to show my publisher that their faith in my was not misplaced. Currently, they have ordered a certain number of copies to be printed up. I WANT THEM TO DOUBLE THEIR ORDER. Triple it even. I want them to know that this book will fly off the shelves.

I need you to help me. Show them that this book is going to have an impact by ordering this week.

4) YOU THINK I’M COOL.

Here’s the emotional spot. If you have ever thought, “Roman’s a nice dude” please be a nice dude and buy the book.

If I’ve ever helped you in any way, please order the book. Please spend 16 bucks to help make me a success.

If you’ve ever lost weight from my recommendations, or gotten into great shape, or loved an article from T-Nation that changed the way you train, or even just jumped in on a Q&A and gotten a question answered, help me out. It has been my absolute pleasure and honor to help you, and to continue doing so.

But I need to ask something in return: I need your help. I need you to buy this book, and I need you to do it THIS week.

Today, especially, is the best way to help me make the biggest project of my life a success.

 5) YOU WANT TO INVEST IN THE RFS COMMUNITY.

Whether it’s fitness information or business stuff or you just think my fan page is a fun place to hang out and kill time while you’re pretending to work, I really appreciate you being a part of the Roman Empire. I appreciate you putting your body in my hands and trusting me to help you.

This community has grown so much, and helped so many people. People who have made friendships with each other, people who have gone on to become trainers and nutritionists because of what they learned here.

And now I’m asking you to give back to the Empire. The BEST thing for the RFS community is continued growth.

Ordering this book and helping me get on the best-seller list makes this community a better place. Not only will it bring thousands of new people into the fold, it will also bring ATTENTION. Attention that I can leverage to make shit happen. Awesome shit. Stuff that benefits the community.

Whether it’s prizes or new products or interviews with awesome people I wouldn’t have access to otherwise, making this book a best-seller makes me more successful–and I will leverage that success to help you. I will use that success to make this community better.

Order this week, and in doing so, you will be bettering the RFS community as a whole.

 6) YOU WANT TO HELP THE INDUSTRY.

I think we can admit that when it comes to fitness professionals who are well known by the public, the quality is sorely lacking. Whether it’s the Jillian’s or the Tracey’s or anyone else, the people who are known by the average person just aren’t good enough. Their information isn’t good enough.

I want to help get better information out there. And I need you to help me do this. I believe that YOU want to help.

And so when you order the book today, you’re helping. You’re making sure that this book makes the kind of splash it needs to get the media attention it deserves–media attention that will be used to expose the BS and help get the industry on track.

 7) YOU WANT TO HELP ME MAKE MY MOTHER PROUD.

Pretty simple: Momma Roman would simply be overjoyed if I hit the best-seller list. She would be proud beyond words. I would like to make that happen.

And I believe that you want to help. Whether you are a mom or just have a good relationship with yours, I think you can understand the sentimentality here.

So, pull the trigger. Make my mom proud.

++++++++++++

There you have it–14 reasons that you should buy Engineering the Alpha today. Seven of them help you. Seven of them help me. And all of them help me to help you (Jerry McGuire style).

To summarize, here’s the bottom line: when you spend 16 bucks, you’re going to get a minimum of 200 bucks of value. You stand to gain thousands more.

When you order this book, you spend $16, and you get bonuses and a great workout and a great book.

But you also get to help me. You are in the unique position of holding my career in your hands. The success of Alpha will determine whatever comes after this. And I want it to be something special.

You can help me succeed–and I truly believe that most of you want to.

So, in closing, if I may paraphrase a princess from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, “Help me, Roman Empire; you’re my only hope.”

Thank you for reading, and for your continued support.

Humbly,

Roman

HOW TO ORDER AND OTHER NOTES

Awesome, you’ve decided to order the book in advance. THANK YOU for your support.

Now, how do you get your bonuses?

Simple: save your receipt. At the end of the week, I’ll be sending out an email that will let you know where to send it. From there, you can get your bonuses.

Now, some notes about ordering:

1) HARDCOVER

We’ve been getting asked which version to order. Please order the hardcover; these are worth THREE TIMES as much when it comes to being counted towards the best-seller list.

2) USA/UK

To everyone who is outside the states, your support means the world to me. But, you order from the UK site, it won’t get counted towards the best-seller list on the Times. I just wanted you to know that.

Now, I’ll still give you the bonuses either way, of course, but I would appreciated if you

ordered from the US site. Or, you can be extra awesome and order one of each!

3) BONUSES

These will get sent out as soon as I have clearance from my publisher. The hidden chapters in particular can’t be released before a certain date.

Okay, that’s it. Thank you again for being awesome. If you haven’t already done so, you can pre-order here.

The post Let It Begin: appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

This is not atypical for me. Between visiting friends, speaking at conferences, and going on more business-but-pleasure trips than I can count, I travel several times per month. In 2012 alone I took 43 flights, averaging to just over 3.5 per month. And that was a slow year—2013 seems on pace to be even crazier.

It seems crazy to say this, but prior to launching my online business in 2009, I didn’t travel much. I went on vacation once every few years, but that was really. Needless to say, when my life changed and I went from being a homebody to a road warrior in short order, I was thrown for a loop, and it took me a while to get my bearings.

Which is to say, I sucked at traveling. Badly. I was just not good at it.

Over the past four years, I’ve gotten so much better and really hit my stride as a traveler.

And so today, I wanted to share my top 8 tips for traveling to make your life and fitness a lot more manageable while on the road. These are 8 lessons I’ve learned from four year on the road with more to come. Follow these. Trust me. You’ll thank me later.

Here we go:

Road Rules from the Roamin Roman

Road Rule 1

Show Up Early

I’m listing this one first because it’s the one that it not only made the most difference in the way I travel, but also took me the longest to get through my thick head.

Most people dread flying and dread airports even more. Having spent a lot of time in airports over the past two years, I sympathize completely; for much of that time, I thought I hated airports and flying and everything related to it. However, over the last six months, I’ve come to realize that I really hated to do was rush and wait.

Three years into a travel-heavy lifestyle, I decided to conduct an experiment: what if I could eliminate the rushing, and turn the waiting into something else?

For my next 10 flights, I went to the airport early. First two hours, then three. Now, I don’t mean two or three hours before my flight—I mean two or three hours before I would normally get there, which is about 50 minutes. Meaning, if my flight was at 5pm, I’d get to the airport at maybe 1pm.

This has changed my life in ways I can’t even begin to describe.

Here’s the thing: what I’ve noticed from taking more flights than I care to remember is that the last 3-4 hours before you leave the house is lost time. You’re too busy running around and making sure you have everything that you simply can’t be productive.

As a writer and entrepreneur, I need to be protective of my time, and losing several hours is unacceptable.

When I started showing up early, those hours were reclaimed. I just find a table, pull out my laptop, and start working. Those extra three hours at the airport are when I have gotten work done without even breaking a sweat—including this article.

In addition to that, I never, ever have to feel rushed.

I highly recommend this for any entrepreneur. It will make travel so much more awesome.

Road Rule 2  

Bring the Internet with You.

For a long while, I was very hesitant to sign up for some sort of portable internet service, because paying 50 bucks per month, every month, seemed silly, when I might need it only once every few weeks. Instead, I would pay for Internet at airports with boingo, or pay for the daily Internet service at hotels I was staying at.

Eventually I realized that I was being absolutely moronic. Not only was I spending about the same amount, but I was sacrificing quality of connection. Not smart, Romaniello.

About six months back, I made one of the smartest decisions of my life and turned my iPhone into a mobile hotspot. All I need to do is plug the phone into the computer, and I have a fast, high quality connection. And, rather than add another new bill every month, it simply increased an existing monthly bill by about $20. Pretty awesome.

Now, I can work anywhere. While I initially thought that the benefits of having done this would really be limited to long travel, it’s been pretty helpful in other spots; for example, my favorite coffee shop in NYC has notoriously slow Wi-Fi…which no longer bothers me.

By having Internet in my pocket, I can get more work done, pretty much whenever I want.

Road Rule 3

Pack Light

You are a chronic over-packer. You are. Admit it. Go to the mirror right now and say, “I’m an over-packer. I have a problem and I’m ready to deal with it.”

This is not a judgment, it’s a simple truth—99% of people are over-packers, and for most of my life, I was no different.

Currently, I might be an under-packer. Twice in two years—last year’s trip to India and this trip to Thailand—I’ve traveled internationally for at least 12 days with nothing more than a J. Crew weekender bag. Yeah, that’s the actual name.

And while it seems at this point completely NBD to travel for two weeks with a bag designed to accommodate a three day trek, please believe me when I say that this was not always so. In fact, I remember one time specifically when I went to visit Joel Marion in Tampa for a weekend and used a bigger bag than the one pictured above.

Think about that—I now take less for a two-week trip than I used to when I was traveling for 48 hours.

When I think about it now, the most ridiculous thing is how much garbage I used to bring with me on a trip. Did I really need thee pairs of shoes? Where the hell was I going? What happened on that trip—and others like it—was that I’d wear 30% of what I packed. It was stupid.

The truth is, you do not need to bring that much stuff. That includes you, ladies. I understand the desire to bring two outfits for every day (trust me, I do), but the fact is that you can make do with less clothing than you can really imagine.

If you’re traveling for business, your office clothes will also do for a night out.

On a given vacation, you do NOT need three pairs of dress shoes. Even if you fancy, huh?

If you want to get a bit Zen, it’s also true that carrying less baggage makes you feel less stressed.

Pack less and your travel and life will get less complicated.

Road Rule 4

Decide Your Stance on Checking Bags

I’ve always been of the mind that checking bags is a waste of time and energy. In the first place, hanging on to your bags pretty much guarantees that you arrive with them; airlines can sometimes lose your luggage, which I assume is a pain in the ass.

While the fear of potentially lost luggage is always at least a partial factor, I believe that most people avoid checking bags simply because it adds time to the trip—waiting at the baggage claim for the conveyor belt of doom for what can sometimes take close to an hour is a nightmare for some people, and they’d rather avoid it altogether. I certainly used to fall into that category.

These days, however, I have taken to checking baggage, and I’ve learned that I don’t mind the wait. In fact, I actually enjoy it. Firstly, what I’ve realized over the past three years is that there’s really no reason to rush—those 30 minutes aren’t adding to my trip.

When I’m on vacation, I don’t need to foster a mindset of urgency; I should be aiming for the opposite. Checking bags helps me do that—changes my pace and lets me slow down. When the trip is for business, I’m never rushing from a plane to a meeting; I arrive the night before and the meeting is the next morning. Getting to a hotel with an extra 30 minutes to spare certainly isn’t going to make a difference in my experience.

Moreover, when I deplane, I generally have a few things to catch up on, and I need some time to do it. Having 20-30 minutes to kill while I wait for my bags is an opportune time to do this. Keep in mind, as I mentioned in my second point, I carry my internet with me at all times, so I can have a seat near the carousel and log in to check email, if I need.

Business stuff notwithstanding, I have an infinite number of other ways I can productively spend a half hour—and I bet you do, too. Even if it’s as simple as calling your loved ones to let them know you landed safely and then catching up on social media (both, in my world, important), you can kill time and teach yourself to relax.

All of that said, I do realize that checking baggage slows you down, which can put a crimp in travel plans—especially if you’ve got connecting flights with a short layover—even if your bags are checked all the way through to your final destination, if your first plane is late, you might make your second plane but your bags might not.

Rather than court disaster, I use the following rule: check you’re direct, protect when you connect.

Okay, I just made that up now, but what the hell do you want from me? I’ve been sitting an airport writing for three hours—cut me some slack. Jeeze.

Anyway, I’m not trying to convince you to check bags—I’m just saying you need to decide your stance on checking bags, and stick to it.

Road Rule 5

Always Have Extra Gadgets Packed

I can’t take even 1% of the credit for this particular rule—all of it goes to my boy Tim Ferriss, who gave this tip in a New York Times article on travel tips from Silicon Valley peeps. (Note: in that same article, Tim says adamantly that he doesn’t check baggage, but, again, it’s all about picking your stance.)

This rule is pretty simple—keep an extra charger for your phone, laptop, iPad, or any other gadget you travel with in your travel bag at all times. When you travel, use those cords, and when you get off the plane to go home, leave them in your suitcase.

I’m sure I don’t have to explain this, but if you’ve ever found yourself in India without a cord to power your laptop, you’d quickly agree that this simple step can save you a lot of headache.

As an aside, I actually leave my Kindle in my travel bag at all times, along with the charger. I don’t really like reading on a tablet, and when I’m home I only read actual books, but I find having a few dozen books in your pocket when you’re traveling is pretty handy—nothing is worse than being limited to the reading selection at an airport bookstore.

Road Rule 6

Make Travel Days Either Cheat Days or Fast Days

This is fitness related, so pretty much everyone can use this advice.

My theory is simple: airport food and last minute meals are just not going to help you hit your goals. They just aren’t any good, and it’s impossible to stick to your dietary restrictions, count macros, etc. And even if you could, it’s a pain in the ass.

About a year ago, when traveling back and forth to between LA and NYC three times a month with my co-author Adam, we noticed that the days where we were physically traveling just went to dietary hell. We tried to be healthy and would buy mixed nuts or jerky at the airport, but it just wasn’t working. Drastic measures needed to be taken, so we came up with this feast or famine approach.

It’s as simple as it sounds: any day that you are physically traveling, you will either eat whatever you want and not have to worry about limiting yourself at the airport, or when you land late at night and just need a quick nosh.

Alternatively, you can simply choose to fast all day. This is what Adam usually does. Not only do you get to ignore airport and airplane food, but fasting is pretty easy when you have a six hour flight. Most of the time will be spent napping or working.

So, if you’re looking for a way to get your diet under control with constant travel, follow this rule.

Road Rule 7

Always Have a Back Up (Training) Plan

Anyone who has ever stayed at a hotel knows that the gym situation is always an issue. Usually, I try to find a real gym close to the hotel, but that generally means renting a car to get there and paying guest fees. That can add up. Plus, you just may not find a good one. For that reason, I sometimes settle for training at the hotel.

Now, while some hotels do have pretty decent facilities, most of the time you’re going to wind up with a few treadmills, a universal machines, and a usually incomplete set of dumbbells going up to 50 pounds. Now, you can get a good workout with all of that, but you need to have a plan. Think about it: when was the last time you went to a hotel gym and just “did whatever”? Probably not too long ago. Was that a great workout? Probably not.

When you’re limited in terms of equipment, it can sometimes sap your energy and creativity, and you get a lackluster training session. Personally, I want to avoid this at all costs.

To that end, I always carry 3-5 pre-written metabolic circuits with me in my pocket notebook; these are fast paced circuits that will help me burn fat or stay lean, without using weights heavier than 50 pounds. I put some time into creating them, know they’re awesome, and having them written down means I’m going to follow them as closely as possible. Not only does this make your workout better, it also helps you get out of there a little faster.

Here’s a video of the lovely Ms. Neghar Fonooni killing a complex in a hotel gym. I don’t know her camera guy was, but I bet he was very handsome.

In addition to that, I normally have a bunch of bodyweight workouts that I bring as well, that way I can train without even leaving my hotel room. For an example, check out this post for one of these: my famous Dead Hooker Workout.

 Road Rule 8 

Try to Pick the PERFECT Flying Time

My final tip has to do with planning your travel based on the most ideal time to fly. Now, obviously this is a particularly high level tip, and applicable only to those who fly consistently, and who don’t mind spending a little extra money for a good time to fly. Further, this is most applicable to those who take the same flight path fairly frequently. Still, it’s a good tip, so I wanted to share.

When I say find the perfect flying time, I am referring to the time you depart and land—depending on what you need to do, it makes sense to choose a time that allows you the most freedom.

Most of the time, people assume that flying out early in the day makes the most sense, so you have “more of the day” left when you get to your destination. This makes sense if you’re going to a tropical place and need to maximize sun exposure, but for business it’s not really an issue.

Over the past two years of flying East-West and back, I’ve found the times that make the most sense for me.

When flying from NYC to Cali, the perfect time to leave is 5PM EST. This not only allows you to get in a full day of productivity on the East Coast, it also makes life easy once you land. You’ll touch down at about 8:30 PST. This is just enough time to check in, grab a quick bite, and go to bed. You’ll get a full night’s sleep and wake up naturally at about 6am, and BAM – just like that, your body is set to Western time. If you’re fasting that day, you can go right to bed and not be hungry.

When flying from Cali back to NYC, I’ve found that you really can’t have a sweet spot. Even if you leave at 7AM PST, you’ll still get in at about 3PM EST. Not only will you be exhausted, but you will lost most of the day. The way to mitigate this? The dreaded red-eye. Seriously. When I fly back from Cali, I normally take the 11:30PM flight. This gets me into NYC at about 7:40AM EST. I only get about five ours of sleep on the plane, but with a cup of coffee, that’s easy to manage. Not only do you get a full day on both coasts, but you’ll likely save money on the flight as well.

So, if you are a frequent flyer and always find yourself going to the same locations, spend a little time to figure out what the perfect flying time is, the time that allows you to maximize your productivity and enjoyment on both ends of your trip.

Once you do this, your travel becomes more fun and less stress. As an added bonus, it becomes easier to plan, because it narrows the window for searching flights. Double win.

Hit the Road Like a B0ss

Well, there you have it. A massive blog post written at an airport, on time I reclaimed from planning my perfect flying time, and showing up early, and posted on internet I carry in my pocket.

Whether you’re a fitness pro, an entrepreneur, or just someone who spends a lot of time on the road, follow these tips from the Roamin’ Roman, and you’ll find yourself stressing less and chilling more, all while being extra productive. Can’t beat that.

Further Reading

While I’m certainly a more adept traveler than I used to be, I am by no means a master. I can tell you how to stay fit and be more productive while traveling, but I can’t give you any insight on things like frequent flier miles, or how to get discounts or any of that.

Thankfully, I know someone who does: my buddy Algis Tamosaitis, whom I have known for about two years, having met at a conference thrown by Timmy Ferriss. When it comes to traveling, Algis isn’t just a boss — he’s straight up #alphastatus.

In his new book, Rock Your Travel, Algis gives insight on the ins and outs of travel, and how to take advantage of discounts, programs, and everything else.

In the book, Algis covers stuff like:

• How he flew first class to Tokyo for $52.50
• How a family for four flew to Hawaii for just $80
• How to earn enough Frequent Flyer miles in ONE afternoon to fly from the U.S. to Europe or Asia four times.

Seriously. How crazy is that shit? But, crazier, Algis is letting you download the book for free by pricing the kindle edition at $0.00 for the rest of the day. As of tomorrow, it jumps back up, but it’s still less than 10 bucks and worth EVERY PENNY.

You’ll love it.

Grab it here.

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What are YOUR favorite travel tips? Do you have one tip that has changed your life? Or do you prefer to stay home and avoid travel?

Leave your BEST tip (or worst experience) in the comments!

Let’s get 35 COMMENTS on this post and tomorrow I’ll post EXATLY how to get the best workout of your life–whether it’s a hotel gym, or even your living room!

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