Toughen Up Self-Defense Training Tips

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Cardio exercise is such a strange thing. In theory, it should work
so perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has
tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn’t add up.

After all, some men and women do cardio 6 hours, 9 hours, or more per week, and still have belly fat to burn. On the other hand, it works just fine for others.

British researchers wanted to get more insight into this paradox, and studied 35 overweight men and women, who weren’t previously exercising.

(Reference: International Journal of Obesity 32: 177-184, 2008).

Subjects exercised 5 times per week for 12 weeks. That’s a lot of
exercise, but it helped the subjects lose an average of 8.2 pounds, which is great - I was positively surprised by the results.

So cardio will work for some people, however, in my experience, it works best in young men, who need the help the least!

Back to the study, the variance in fat loss between individuals was huge. Check this out…

The best subject lost a staggering 32.3 pounds in 12 weeks, while the worst subject actually GAINED 3.74 pounds.

The scientists think they know where things went sour. They
classified the subjects into 2 groups, called the “Compensators”
and the “Non-compensators”.

The Compensators were hungrier, and as a result consumed an extra 268 calories per day, all but wiping out their cardio efforts.

Therefore, the Compensators lost the least amount of weight, and scientists believe that was due to the huge “compensatory” increase in appetite experienced by this group.

Does your appetite increase when you do slow cardio? If it does,
research shows it will ruin your cardio efforts.

So if your cardio program is not working for you, check your
appetite and calorie intake to see if you are “compensating” for
your efforts. If you are, you might be better off using a program
of high-intensity resistance and interval training (i.e. Turbulence Training) for your weight loss efforts.

As Australian Professor Steve Boucher has shown in research,
interval training increases hormones called catecholamines. And
increased catecholamines can reduce appetite, among other fat-
burning benefits.

In the real world, few people lose 33 pounds after 12 weeks of
cardio. Heck, few even achieve an average weight loss of 8 pounds with aerobic exercise.

So again, check your appetite, and consider giving high-intensity
exercise a go for your next workout program.

Beat the curse of cardio with high-intensity Turbulence Training.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training
About the Author

Learn about the “Dark Side of Cardio” in the free report from Craig Ballantyne at www.TurbulenceTraining.com. Craig is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

For the past several months, I’ve been searching, studying, reading and investing a ton of time and a small fortune acquiring information and resources that I can use to bolster my own training, the curriculum of my courses and seminars and the content and quality of my Toughen Up Training Guides.

In addition to punching and kicking workouts, I’ve been exploring, reviewing and “test-driving” various combat-specific and combat-compatible training methods that will not only increase your legitimate self-defense skills but improve your health, tone and strengthen your muscles, prevent or rehabilitate injuries, burn body fat and “turn back the clock” on age-related performance problems.

Allow me to refresh you memory about the “Toughen Up Training Philosophy,”

• to use combative training methods to improve health, fitness, functional performance and mental toughness, and…
• to implement conditioning methods that translate directly to your functional performance and fighting abilities.

Over the past several months, I’ve come across information and resources that have lead to a “breakthrough” in my own training and have DRAMATICALLY changed my understanding about training, conditioning and injury prevention.  (And don’t forget, I’ve been searching for stuff like this for almost 35 years!)

That being said, the absolute, hands down, BEST resources I’ve come across have come from a company called, “DragonDoor.com .”

I’ve bought and reviewed several of their books and DVD’s and, without exception, I’m thoroughly impressed!

It’s hard for me to write this without coming across as “pitchy” or like I’m trying to sell you something.  If you know me well, you know that I’m not like that… BUT…

At the risk of being blunt… If you want to get the most out of your combative workouts you want to:

#1 Buy my Toughen Up Training Guides. ;-)  The current guides provide you with the “building blocks” you need to design your own productive and safe self-defense workouts and…

#2 Checkout the ton of free conditioning information and products that I’ll be reviewing and recommending at DragonDoor.com .

In the future, I’ll be writing reviews about some of the Dragondoor.com products that I’ve studied and will be working much of the material and concepts into articles and training guides. (as well as information from other high-quality sources)

In the meantime, I suggest that you download a copy of Dragondoor’s “Hard-Style” Catalogue. 

Without exception, I’ve been thoroughly impressed by all of the products that I’ve reviewed. 

Download the free catalogue.  It’s loaded with excellent articles and training advice.  It will also give you a sense of what Dragondoor has to offer, what I’ve been studying and the direction I’m heading with my Toughen Up stuff.

If you’re interested in downloading a copy of the Hard Style Catalogue, you can do so at a link I’ve set up for you:

Dragondoor Hard-Style Catalogue

Go ahead and download the catalogue… It won’t cost you a thing to take a look and you might just find the articles to be the kind of thing you’re looking for. 

If you do, fire me back an email at Randy@ToughenUp.com with any comments or questions you might have and let me know what you think.

Take care, train smart and stay safe,

 Randy

What’s nutritional advice doing on a Self-Defense Blog?

Actually, I’m throwing this info at you because I get a lot of questions about the connection between combative training and weight control.  To focus exclusively on training strategies and NOT provide at least a nutritional overview would be an incomplete answer.  So here’s my two cents on eating.

I’m not a nutrition expert so take what I say with a grain of salt (but not too much salt because its bad for your blood pressure and makes you retain water ;-) 

That being said, I betcha I’ve read a hundred diet books: Atkins, The Zone, The Paleo-Diet, The South Beach Diet, The Abs Diet (one of my favorites) and the list goes on.  And the more I read, the more confused I got.  They’re ALL different!  Who’s right?  Who’s wrong?

Eventually though, if you keep reading, stop looking at the differences and begin looking for similarities, you’ll begin to put the pieces together that make sense and call bullshit about the weird, off-the-wall stuff.

Having been blessed with an exceptionally small brain, poor memory and short attention span… I like to keep things simple… So that’s what I’ll do here.  Here is my Down And Dirty List of Smart Eating Tips.

Tip #1: Include All Three Food-Types

Combine three types of foods in your meals: lean protein, “slow” carb’s and good fats.

Lean Protein: Proteins are the building blocks of your body… you are essentially “made of” protein.  Examples: eggs, fish, poultry, lean beef, low-fat dairy, whey protien powder, tofu

Slow Carbs:  Carb’s are basically the energy source for your body.  What I mean by “slow carbs” is carbohydrates with a low glycemic index (GI). GI is a measure of how fast carb’s are broken down into sugar and enter the blood stream.  Sudden increases in blood sugar causes your pancreas to secrete insulin to lower your levels. 

High insulin levels cause elevated cholesterol, blood pressure, risk of heart disease and stroke and oh yeah… increased body fat.  Examples: fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads and pastas

Good Fats - there are good fats and bad fats.  The good fats reduce the risk of strokes, heart attacks and other diseases, lowers cholesterol, helps transfer vitamins and satisfies your hunger sooner, with less food.  Examples: fish and fish oils, nuts, olive oil

Tip #2: Eat Natural And Unprocessed Foods

As a rule of thumb, eat foods that are as close to their naturual state as possible.  Highly processed foods, fried foods, artifically flavored foods tend to be full of unhealthy ingredients and digest too quickly.  In terms of body fat… thats not good.  Natural foods will also have higher levels of vitamins, minerals and fibre.

Tip #3:  Eat Several Small Meals Per Day

If your body “thinks” its not getting enough food, it begins to store fat as a survival mechanism. Skipping meals or not eating frequently enough can turn on the “starvation response” that will slow your metabolism to a crawl.  That spells body fat.

Eat several small, evenly spaced meals (5 or 6) a day rather than a couple big ones.  This regulates blood sugar levels, revs up your metabolism, prevents the starvation response from kicking in, and prevents cravings that will send you searching the cupboards for junk or gorging yourself when you do eat.

I recommend three meals and three snacks spaced about every three hours or so.  Eat your last meal about 3 hours before bed.  Protein shakes are a quick and convenient meal replacement rather than spending all of your time preparing meals.

Tip #4: Eat A Little Less Than Your Maintenance Calories

If you eat too many calories you get fat.  If you eat too few calories you lose muscle and slow down your metabolism.  Believe it or not,  eating too little will make you get fat!  Find out what your maintenance intake is… the amount of food you can eat without gaining or losing weight.  Then, if you want to lose fat, eat a little less…  Its that simple.

Keep track of what you eat for about a week.  If you haven’t gained or lost weight consider that your mainenance amount.  Be careful not to reduce your calories too much or you’ll activate the starvation response.

I hate counting calories.  I’m too lazy, disinterested and can’t be bothered measuring exact amounts of food.  Just adjust your meal size, a bit at a time, and you’ll find the “sweet spot” of how much to eat.

Tip #5:  Drink Lots Of Water

Water is good for you… drink a lot… (there, how’s that for a revelation?)  The health benefits of water are many.  Don’t rely on your thirst to tell you  when and how much to drink.  Carry a bottle around and drink constantly. (I have one sitting beside me right now)

Especially when you’re training regularly, you’ll need a lot of water to replace the fluids that you lose by sweating.

I’ve also read that drinking very cold water will burn fat because your body has to expend calories to warm up the fluids in your gut.

Tip #6:  Take A Multi-Vitamin

Food loses vitamins through cooking and storage time.  My head spins when I try and figure out all the rules and recommendations about vitamins.  I alleviate the pain and agony of unnecessary thinking by just taking a good multi-vitamin and getting on with my life.

Tip #7:  Cheat Once A Week

If you deny yourself your favorite foods permanently, you’ll lose interest in your eating plan and have less discipline to stick with it. Here’s a little trick to keep you on track:  give yourself one meal a week where you can eat as much of anything you want.

It makes it easier for you to stick with a healthy eating plan if you allow yourself to “cheat” every once in a while.  Some people also believe that adding a high-calorie meal every now and then prevents the starvation response from kicking in and slowing down your metabolism.

There you have it, hardly comprehensive nor complete but good enough to get the ball rolling with a smart, healthy eating plan that will keep your body fat under control.

If you’re looking for a good online resource  on losing body fat, I recommend… Alywyn Cosgroves “Afterburn: Extreme Fat Loss Training” (click on the link to read about it)

OK… now I’ll get back to self-defense stuff.  I promise.

Take care, EAT smart and stay safe…

Randy

Why is Combative Training so good for fat loss?

In addition to providing you with self-defense skills to protect yourself…  combative training (boxing, kickboxing, martial arts) is an excellent form of exercise for health, fitness, performance enhancement and more specifically “fat loss.”

Combative training is an excellent “full-body” exercise (the more muscles involved the more beneficial the training effect) that can be used to blast away excess body fat faster than you thought possible.  Here’s how…

Two Criteria for Rapidly Reducing Excess Body Fat

The rate that your body burns “calories” determines how much body fat you carry.  There are essentially two complimentary strategies required to reduce excess body fat.  Being a martial arts geek, I thought I’d represent them in a “Yin Yang” format:

1.   Yin:  consume fewer calories than you burn (nutritional focus)

2.   Yang:  burn more calories than you consume (metabolic focus)

These criteria are pretty straight forward:  If you consume more calories that you burn you gain weight and body fat.  If you burn as much as you consume, you maintain weight and… If you follow the formula I provide you with here you’ll reduce body fat.

Consuming fewer calories than you burn is a “nutritional focus.”  I refer to this aspect of the program as the “Yin” side of the equation because it’s the more passive of the two.  It involves watching what you eat, how much you eat and how frequently you eat.  I’ll expand on nutrition in subsequent posts.

The more active “Yang” aspect involves increasing your metabolism to burn more calories than you take in.   The “faster” your metabolism, the more calories you burn, the more fat you lose.  Pretty simple logic. 

Your goal in a fat loss program is to “rev up” or accelerate your metabolism, to keep it revved up for as long as possible and to repeat that process.  The question is how to do it.

The Afterburn Effect

Recent research contradicts a common belief about exercise intensity and fat loss. 

At one time LSD (long slow distance) exercise was believed to be the best way to lose body fat.  The theory was that lower intensity exercise (aerobic) carried on for extended periods (30 minutes or more) burned a higher percentage of calories from fat. 

Higher intensity exercise was supposed to burn more glucose as a fuel source and was therefore less efficient for fat loss.  Recent research calls “bullshit” on this theory.

It turns out that shorter, more intense exercise not only burns far more calories during the workout but accelerates your metabolism for several hours after the workout.  

With low-intensity, aerobic exercise your metabolism returns to normal almost immediately after your workout.

Intense exercise, such as interval or circuit training, will elevate your “fat-burning state” for up to 12 to 24 hours following your workout… After that you should be getting ready for your next workout so you can rev it up again.

This elevated fat burning state is called EPOC (Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) or “Afterburn.”

Combative Interval Training Fits The Bill

An interval is a period of intense anaerobic exercise interspersed with lower intensity aerobic recovery periods.  It allows you to produce more “work” in a shorter period of time because you allow yourself to recover in between your high-intensity efforts.

The easiest example I can think of is alternating a “jog-sprint-jog” protocol where the “sprint” represents your high-intensity combative drill and the “jog” represents a lower intensity recover period.

The combative training protocols that I write about in my Toughen Up Training Guides work perfectly for activating the Afterburn Effect. Shadow boxing, heavy bag training, focus pad work etc. are perfect for optimal fat loss.

The “Round work, blitz training and build ups,” I describe in the Power Punching, Heavy Bag and Focus Pad Guides will work perfectly when carried out intensely enough to activate the Afterburn Effect. 

The process hitting and holding focus pads with training will “automatically” lend itself to the “work-recover-work-recover” format of interval training.  You work during the hitting phase and recover when holding the pads for your partner.

Optimal Fat Loss Protocol

Fitness and conditioning expert, Alwyn Cosgrove has an excellent e-Book on the subject of fat loss that I highly recommend.  I draw from his excellent information products when designing combative interval training for fat loss.

(Cosgrove also has an excellent “Martial Arts Conditioning” program that I recommend and use extensively when putting together various combative training programs)

In his fat loss eBook, Cosgrove provides a “generic” interval program that can be carried out on any piece of cardio equipment… treadmill, exercise bike or rowing machine for example.  I think that combative training drills in the air, on a heavy bag or focus pads provide superior and more functional activities to build your fat loss program around.

Here’s the workout:

• 5 minute warm up
• 1 minute interval with 2 minute recovery (3 set for starters)
• 5 minute cool down

As you get in better shape, you can gradually add more work/recovery sets, lengthen the duration of the work intervals… or decrease the length of the recovery periods.  Remember to mix your workouts up frequently to prevent your system from adapting to it which will reduce your progress and rate of fat burning.

Your interval could consist of blitzing a heavy bag or pair of focus pads for a minute and then using a low intensity activity such as a light jog, skipping rope or even slower, less intense striking combinations to recover and catch your breath in preparation for your next set.

OK… I’ve probably covered enough for now… Depending on your interest and feedback, I’ll write more on various aspects of combat conditioning concepts and protocols in future posts.  There are a few more pieces of the fat loss puzzle to cover.

Until then, take care, train smart and stay safe…

Randy

Note:  Interval training is an intense activity. If you’re not sure of your health or fitness status, get checked out by a doctor before launching this or any other conditioning program. Refer to my “disclaimer page.”