God is in the Details: Planning Ahead 101

Well, well, well...

In about two weeks I would have completed 10 whole months of straight up Wellness Logging. I could not be happier. Most of you who follow me on social media already know about my obsession with the Wellness Log and how it organizes my entire life in terms of exercise, nutrition and supplementation as well as being the sole program I follow and the entity entirely responsible for my progress over the past year both physically and mentally.

But the Wellness Log isn't just about reading it day-by-day and following it as it comes; it's all about planning ahead. Most people see it as more of a daunting premise that they're told what to eat day in, day out for eight whole weeks. I, on the other hand, think of it another way entirely. I believe that knowing what I'll be consuming - down to the midday snacks - for eight weeks gives me an advantage over others. It allows me to plan way ahead. It allows me to set tight budgets for groceries and know that I won't be squandering money on things that'll end up taking up shelf space then going to waste. Most of all, it allows me to deal with the curve balls life throws at me, whether it's business travel, a weekend getaway to the beach or just simply staying at the office a little longer than I had planned.

Obviously I'm on the extreme side of the spectrum, I in no way try to convince others I'm "normal" or a "standard" to follow. I treat my body like the machine I believe it is. I feed it the right fuels, make sure it's moving and functioning properly and above all; ensure that it gets the rest it deserves and needs from time to time. I do however believe that my methods are universally applicable to anyone who wants to take charge and make sure their approach is fool-proof. I digress.

Where do you start? Read up.

Whether you're following the Wellness Log or any other program, you should know up ahead that nutrition is 80-90% if the game. Exercise is the easy bit. It only happens for an hour a day or less. The remaining 23 hours of the day make or break your entire progress. Planning ahead comes down to read up and understanding all the variables which you need to be aware of in order to control.

Fig. 1: Sample shot from The Wellness Log Eight-Week Schedule

When I get my new log, I spend an entire day reading the whole thing, understanding my meal schedule, its patterns, and making up a grocery list of the items I'd need every week in their specific quantities which allows me to set a specific budget.

Next up is learning how to cook in bulk.

This one comes down to gaining experience over time. You're to burn a lot of food at first. Under-cook it, overcook it or straight up fuck shit up in your kitchen. We're not all natural born Julia Childs. You gain experience in the kitchen and you get better at managing multiple tasks and eventually getting good enough to cook for the entire week and knowing how to store foods properly and knowing which foods can live out a week in your fridge and which foods can only be made on the day of.

Fig. 2: Cooking in bulk can help alleviate the mental stress associated with daily cooking

Things like oven roasted/grilled chicken or cooked vegetables generally tend to live out just fine in sealed Tupperware containers inside your fridge or freezer over the week. Things such as salads on the other hand are best made fresh on the day of to avoid wilting of greens.

The biggest weapon in my arsenal though? The briefly aforementioned Tupperware.

Fig. 3: Your new bestest of friends, family and loved ones all compactly stored together in joyous harmony

Air/Liquid tight Tupperware containers can and will become your new best friends. You will store cooked food into them. You will scurry your daily meals into them and carry them across town to college or work. You will wash them. You will cherish them. You will be committed to them. You will drive up to Vermont and hold a commitment ceremony with them. You will love them forever.

At the end I guess it all comes down to how much you want it, and if you want it bad enough, you'll find yourself willing to make sacrifices you found laughable just weeks or even days ago. You'll be cooking the next day's food the night before. You'll be the guy with the comically large backpack who walks around everywhere with his 3,000 calories-a-day in tow. You won't be fazed by the ridicule you get even from your friends because at the end of the day; you do what you do for you, to become the best you.

Are you ready to walk down that road?

Eyes On The Prize Tiger: Focusing On Your Goals

I think - in my humble opinion - that the main reason many of us don't get the results we're expecting has two possible reasons:

• We have unrealistic expectations in terms of timeline and the changes we think we can churn out during a given time period.
• We aren't focused on what our real goals are, rather, we have an abstract concept of where'd like to be, therefore lack the mental focus to get there.

The truth of the matter is that you won't make it very far if you don't have a concrete plan with realistic expectations and milestones set in place. The milestones are arguably the most important aspect of the whole thing; they allow you to perform regularly timed checks to see what's working, what isn't and what needs tweaking in order to get right back on track.

Lacking in focus seems to be a problem for those who treat the concept of fitness as something recreational or seasonal. I like to think it's the most intimate of commitments one can ever make in their lifetime; dedicating yourself to constant self improvement. You should feel so committed to your body and health you'd be willing to drive up to Vermont and hold a commitment ceremony with your body.

I see way too many guys (and girls) who treat their time in the gym or on the track as some sort of social experience. They shoot the shit with each other, try and pick up someone or just flat out show up to enjoy the show. When I'm working out, I'm in my zone, nothing will distract me or make me forget why I was there in the first place. I'm here because what I'm doing there amounts to a religious experience. It's that time of the day when it's just me inside my head, no work, no family, no friends, no bills to pay and no errands to run. It's my time to shine and focus on doing what I do best; give my body the treatment it deserves - by putting it through hell.

This isn't to say that balance isn't the most important bit of all. I'm not asking you to turn into a machine which only sees food as macro and micro-nutrients and every movement as a potential exercise. We leave that shit for professional body builders. Your life should stress on balance, on finding the time to do the things you enjoy with people you love. Taking care of your body and health affords you the energy and - increased time - to so to the fullest.

Until you gather up the mental focus to make your health a priority, create a proper plan which accounts for your exercise, accompanying nutrition and more importantly, how this all fits in your life in a wholesome manner that stresses on balance in life, you may not get anywhere near where you want to go.

Recipe of the Day: Perfectly Roasted Salmon Steaks

We all love Salmon. That’s that. If any of you comment saying that you don’t, you can just go right ahead and kill yourself, because you’re a waste of oxygen and resources.

As I’ve come to learn in recent months, perfecting any recipe - and ensuring it stays that way every time - is all about timing. Once you nail down the timing, you will never botch your soft boiled eggs, your pasta will never overcook, your rice won’t come out half-cooked, and more importantly, your salmon will come out tasting like chocolate sauce covered boobs (In this context, this is a great metaphor, just go with it)

So what’s the trick? Let’s get to it!

Goes without saying, you need to buy a legit salmon steak - Gourmet in Cairo actually sells 150-gram chunks in packs of two’s which go for under 85 EGP which is quite cheap if you consider the alternative in fish sections in Alfa or Metro for instance. Gourmet also sells a large salmon steak which weighs anywhere between 1.2 and 1.4 kgs for a price ranging between 270 and 310 EGP depending on the weight so you can buy that, chop it up into blocks in your size of preference and chuck in the freezer.

First of you need to make sure your salmon’s been taken out of the freezer and that it’s thawed out and currently sits at room temperature - albeit a tad cold in the center. At this point when your salmon is thawed out - and it should have been taken out early in the morning if you’re planning on having it for lunch - you should pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Second, you need to lightly coat the pan or pyrex container you will use for baking the salmon steak with coconut or olive oil. Don’t go overboard, you just want to coat it enough where the salmon steak will rest to avoid it sticking to the pan. You should also lightly grease the salmon steak itself from all four sides. Lay it down in the pan, skin facing the pan.

I personally like to whip up a dash of mixed herbs to really bring out my salmon, your herbs of choice ought to be Basil, Parsley, Rosemary, Oregano and cruched Mint. Sprinkle a dash of each across the fleshy top. You can also grind some black pepper and throw in a dash of ginger powder to taste.

Now that you’ve got this bad boy spiced up and ready to rock and roll - and now that your oven’s been pre-heated - you can tuck it in for EXACTLY 12 minutes on the motherfucking clock. Do this, and you will be treated to the most exquisite slab of fish meat ever to end up on a plate. I guarantee it. Make sure you’ve set an alarm doing a 12-minute countdown and click “Start” the moment you shut the oven door. When that thing beeps, take it out and serve immediately. None of this “Let it rest shit”. This ain’t a steak you classless fucks.

I usually have my salmon steaks with a side of mixed roased vegetables but you can pretty much have it with anything else. It doesn’t matter, the salmon is the center piece of the action.

That’s it for today, short and sweet! Hopefully more coming soon!

Let me know how yours turns out!

Recipe of the Day: Carrot Ginger Soup To Warm Your Deadbeat Heart

Winter’s been getting harsher and harsher as the years have passed by (Suck it, global warming advocates!) and we’ve been forced to become more creative in the way we deal with it. Be it setting the cat on fire for warmth, rubbing ourselves against our neighbors, or getting more creative in the kitchen to bring about some warmth from within.

Everyone likes soup. If you know someone or are yourself someone who said they don’t like soup, you’re lying pieces of shit with no soul.

I slightly digress.

Living rooms in Cairo circa 2014

Below is my favorite soup recipe that is 110% guaranteed to thaw out your icicles and help you to momentarily stop stuffing kittens down your underwear. It’s super easy to make, and I guarantee it’s one of the tastiest - and healthiest- soups you can gorge down on during the cold days. Let’s get to it!

Ingredients (Serves two people)

• 4 tablespoon - Olive oil
• 1 Onion -- peeled and chopped
• 2 Garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon - Chopped ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon - Mustard seed
• 1/2 teaspoon - Ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon - Cinnamon powder
• 1/4 teaspoon - Fresh hot pepper
• 6 to 8 Carrots
• 3 1/2 cups of water
• 2 cup - Labneh
• 1 tablespoon - Honey

Directions

1. Saute the onions and garlic in a pan with the olive oil.
2. Add the spices and cook for several minutes, stirring constantly.
3. Slice the carrots into discs.
4. Add to the pot and cook a few minutes longer.
5. Add 2 cups water, cover tightly and simmer for 30 minutes.
6. In a food processor or blender, puree the cooked carrots with the remaining 1 1/2 cups water.
7. Return puree to the pot and whisk in the labneh and honey.
8. Heat the soup, but do not boil.

There you have it! Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Living With Fat: Why You’re Destined To Fail Before You Even Start

That’s hardly an inspiring title for an article now is it? Well, it’s intentionally so. You see, I’m about to talk about what none of your personal trainers, gym buddies or fit friends who have been doing this for years will tell you. It’s something that’s almost the world’s worst kept secret if it weren’t for the fact no one likes to address it outright and prefers to give it the elephant in the room treatment. (Which would be impossible to ignore given the fact your average African elephant weighs approximately 5 metric tons and your average household room is roughly 6x6 so that’s a pretty tight and awkward situation to just breeze through)

I digress.

You’re going to fail.  A whole lot.

It may seem and sound like the ultimate cliché, but you should know going into this that you can learn nothing without having failed. How do you know if what you are doing is good unless there are other things that can be done that either do nothing or do negative impact? Your only knowledge of success is based primarily on the premise of repeated failure. That’s how most humans grow from the fleshy pre-packaged predator meals they are as toddlers into 6-lane-highway-crossing-the-road-while-on-the-phone adults capable of making good judgment calls.

The only issue is, unlike life experience that happen and register in your brain on a subconscious levels, we’re almost always acutely aware of our thought process and experience during our on-and-off healthy living experiences. The issue is multiplied by the fact that the fitness industry almost promotes this whole concept as though it can be taken as a cycle or a short-term goal where you can have the body of your dreams within weeks if not hours. It doesn’t help that we’re constantly bombarded with images of superhot fitness models on magazines and websites that are a never-ending reminder of the tub of lards we are.

Failure – especially when it comes to fitness and leading a healthy lifestyle – is downright imperative. You won’t be getting very far – and certainly not maintaining your gains and success – without repeated failure. Failure is pivotal because it’s a flagging of what needs to be changed. Your nutrition might need tweaking. You might need to change the way you workout. You might need to not spend so much time sitting at your desk. You might need to improve your sleep patterns. Whatever it be, it’s of the utmost importance that you listen to your body and gauge your plateaus and setbacks as temporary educational failures.

The issue here of course is that most people quit upon being introduced to their very first experience of failure. A lot of people simply can’t handle or fathom why it is that they’re not flexing out their guns and opening beer bottle caps using their abs within weeks of starting to workout and just straight up quit the whole thing. The obvious mistake is that most people do treat it as a short-term process with no real lifelong commitment in mind.

That’s where you fucked up big time kids. Without that mental switch and belief that this is a lifestyle – note the term “life” at the beginning of the word insinuating longevity – you won’t get very far. You’ve got to know, realize and wholeheartedly believe from the bottom of your heart that while you can draw short-term goals; they ought to fall within a larger long-term plan. A plan that involves a lifestyle commitment from nutrition, general activity, exercising and more.

If it sounds like a hard concept to grasp, don’t worry, it is. It’s something that can take some time to develop internally until you are finally ready to accept – and more importantly learn – from your failures along the way. If you grab a Big Tasty in a moment of despair, if you skip working out for a week because you’ve got a big project coming up at work and just don’t have that kind of time, if you get injured and can’t workout for a while or just about anything else that can be considered a setback.

It’s okay to fail, as long as you keep on going.

Chocolate Oatmeal Honey Cake: An Almost-Guilt-Free Dessert

99.99% of the time, desserts are usually the downfall of most people going on “diets”. The sugar tooth is simply too powerful to overcome. We are slaves to its whims. Like a poor man in a gimp suit forced to eternally lick the bottom of his BDSM mistress’s boots. T’is truly a shame.

But it doesn’t have to be. Over the course of the coming weeks I’ll be sharing a few “healthy” dessert recipes that ought to more than do a job of fondling your slutty sugar tooth without adding too many inches to your bulging waistline. Bare in mind that just because these are healthy alternatives to your average off-the-counter black forest slices, it doesn’t mean you ought to down the whole tray right after baking - also that’ll sting your tongue like a motherfucker cause things coming out of ovens are hot.

Let’s get down to our sticky business.

Ingredients:

• 1 large egg
• 2 cups oatmeal flakes
• ½ of a cooking chocolate bar (dark raw cocoa)
• Honey (at your discretion)
• 1 tbsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Coconut/Olive oil
• ½ liter Low fat/Skimmed milk

Process:

1. Pour the two cups of oatmeal flakes in a heat-proof container and empty a good half liter of boiling water on them, the oats will quickly suck all the water out and become fuller and more plump. Leave to cool down for 5 minutes then put in the fridge.
2. Grab your egg and break it into a small bowl. Whip it around like you’re Jayden Smith and you mean business. Seriously, that’s like the most crucial aspect of the whole process. Whip it continuously using a fork or an egg whip till that motherfucker has tripled in volume.
3. Add your tsp of oil, cinnamon and honey to the egg and mix well. The honey bit is up to your discretion, normally half a small jar would suffice but you could add less or more depending on how sweet you want the cake to turn out. Just don’t be too stingy with the honey otherwise the cake won’t turn out very soft and will most likely burn.
4. In a small pot, melt the chocolate bar in the low fat milk on low/medium heat till it’s perfectly mixed.
5. Add the egg/cinnamon/honey mixture to the chocolate. Mix well.
6. Bring out the oats from the fridge and dump on the mixture and mix well.
7. Dump it all in a pyrex or baking pan and make sure it’s evenly spread out all throughout the pan.
8. Place in an oven (which you had already pre-heated to 185 degrees Celsius) and put the timer on 30 minutes.

Depending on the thickness of your mixture and the type of pan you’ve used, it can actually take up to 40 - 45 minutes. Use the knife stab test at the 20-minute mark and if it comes out gooey and wet keep at it and monitor closely.

Usually I recommend that you only activate the heat in the oven from the bottom side only and activate the upper side along the bottom only in the last 10 minutes so the top of your cake doesn’t burn.

Once the knife confirms that it is indeed done, take it out and allow it to cool for half an hour. You can start slicing it into brownies sized squares or just digging a spoon right in. It does however taste 100 times better when it is refrigerated and consumed a few hours after being inside the fridge.

You can serve with bananas, strawberries or peanut butter on top for some added flavor. More experienced bakers and fitness enthusiasts can even add a couple of scoops of chocolate flavored whey protein in the mix before baking for an added nutrition twist and a hell of a lot more protein.

And remember, just because it's made using cleaner ingredients doesn't necessarily mean you can over-indulge. Everything in moderation.

Let me know it turns out!

Facing the Mirror: Own Up To Yourself

This isn’t easy. Sorry, allow me to rephrase. This is fucking difficult. It is a fucking burden waking up before dawn around 4:30 AM, when it’s so dark you step over your cat and bump into every piece of furniture on the way to the bathroom. It’s bloody awful is what it is. But it’s a choice I choose to make 5 to 6 days a week, every week, all year round.

I make this choice because four years ago I decided that my body is a priority. Not just that I’d eat more greens, call 19991 less often and make more movements than bed rolls. It was a decision to take my body to the furthest it could go, and then some more. I strive for physical perfection, not a magazine cover perfection mind you, but my version of perfection. A shady and somewhat dodgy and constantly fluctuating image deeply engraved in the back of my head.

You probably think I’m talking aesthetics here. You’re only 33% mistaken. Aesthetics are definitely a measure for progress for me, but I recently crossed the mental block that had positioned it on the #1 spot and enabled me to realize that it ought to be a #2 or #3 indicator. For me, performance gains have taken the driver’s seat. Aesthetics will happen and more importantly - will constantly fluctuate.

You see, there’s a reason all those bodybuilders and fitness models talk about their on and off season diets and workouts, it’s because you can’t - and shouldn’t - maintain a 4% body fat all year round. You simply won’t progress with body fat that low. Whether you like it or not, your body needs fat in order to grow.

Why am I saying all this shit? Good question. It’s about that first paragraph. It’s about how difficult it can be to commit to this sort of lifestyle when you don’t have the drive or motivation. Many people make it their New Year’s resolution to hit the gym and drop the pounds and enter the next Summer with their Diva look on the beach. Yet less than 10% of people actually follow through with that. Most people hit the gym for a couple of weeks or one month max, and seeing no dramatic changes they are dissuaded and just abandon this whole fitness thing altogether. It’s an all too common scenario that’s become a ridiculous cliche at this point.

What’s the biggest issue there though? It’s simple. You think in short bursts. You have no long term vision. Of course relying solely on long term visions can be equally vicious as it can leave some people disheartened by the fact they’re not achieving their vision soon enough. It’s about setting realistic deadlines, milestones and evaluating your progress throughout by combining short term and long term goals in everything you do. You need a long term goal to be working for, whether it’s to be a certain weight class, or to lift a certain number of KGS in your one-rep max or how fast you can clock out a one kilometer run. It’s just as important to have many short time attainable goals over the course of the year which can help keep you motivated and enable you to reach this long term goal of yours. Short term goals also help you in reevaluating your overall plan and tweaking it accordingly if something isn’t working like you thought it would.

I’m writing all of this shit because it is all too common in my life to come across those who say that it’s difficult to commit to this lifestyle and they’re not necessarily mistaken. It is however an issue of prioritization. Is this important to you? More important than the convenience of lazying about? It’s a choice you have to make, no one else will make it for you. You must decide to respect your own body and be committed to its well being in nutrition and exercise alike.

What’s it gonna be hot stuff?

Recipe of the day: Beet Hummus

Hummus is a great dip that’s quite popular in this piece of shit part of the world. What’s not to like? It goes great with virtually any meant, it even makes vegetables interesting! Not only that, it’s actually quite healthy for you as it’s loaded with healthy fats and antioxidants. But what if I told you that you could make it healthier and prettier at the same time? What sorcery do I speak of, you ask?

Why, beets!

You all now beets, otherwise known locally as “بنجر” that wonderful root vegetable that is notoriously hard to deal with without transforming your naked hands into what they would look like if they hate fist fucked a bear on its period.

So how exactly can we make hummus more interesting for the pallet and the eyes? We get experimental.

Ingredients:

• ½ a pound of steamed/boiled beets
• 2 tablespoons boiled chickpeas
• 4 tablespoons tahini paste
• ½ a glass of water
• juice from a full lemon
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• ½ teaspoon chili powder
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• salt to taste

Process:

1. The biggest hassle in this process is dicing and dealing with the beets, so I advise you buy some of those latex surgery gloves from any pharmacy or major chain supermarket so you don’t end up looking like a cheaper remake of Dexter.
2. You can either skin the beets before chopping them into cubes or cook them with the skin on and removing it afterwards before chopping them into cubes. The trick if you’re choosing the latter option is to scrub the shit out of them to remove the mud from the skin.
3. Steam or Boil the chopped beets for 20-25 minutes until they are soft but still retaining their firmness.
4. Boil the chickpeas for 20-30 minutes till tender.
5. In a blender or food processor, add the cooked beet cubes, the cooked chickpeas, tahini paste, water, lemon juice, olive oil and condiments.
6. Blend until smooth, stopping to stir occasionally the parts that get pushed away from the blades back into the center.
7. Keep blending until all ingredients have mixed well and the desired consistency has been achieved.
8. Try and stop yourself from licking the blender clean before so much as a teaspoon of this stuff touches a plate.

There you have it! My recipe of the day! Hope you like it...

You can have it with virtually anything on the side, it goes great with beef, poultry, seafood and vegetables all the same.

Breaking Past Your Plateau 101

Everyone reading this will undoubtedly go - if they hadn’t already - through a plateau. What’s a plateau, you ask? Simply when you hit a period of time where you current exercise/nutrition routine just stopped producing the effects it used to deliver at the beginning. You’re not losing weight, you’re not gaining muscle, you’re not dropping fat and you’re flat out about to lose it.

As time goes by, you’ll find that plateaus are a natural part of your fitness journey. They’re merely an indicator that it’s time to switch things up. The human body is exceptionally adept at getting used to physical stimulus, so you always want to keep things hot and spicy. Don’t treat your body like you treat your significant other. You deserve better. The thing is about plateaus is that they will only get significantly tougher with time as you continue to make your routines more challenging in order to break out of the previous plateau. This post will discuss training methods exclusively in terms of dealing with plateaus as dedicating a single post to both exercise and nutrition on this subject would mean I quit my day job and dedicate myself full time to writing this crap. I am going to assume you’re in charge of your nutrition and know how to tweak it in order to complement your current fitness regimen and goals.

All of this can seem rather daunting, but it’s really a matter of efficient mixing and switching. It’s about changing up all the different variables in your training and nutrition, the different training methods to employ and surpassing one’s genetic limitations.

image source: www.bodybuilding.com

Let’s start with a simple matter of prioritization.

We all have different muscle groups which respond differently to exercise. Some people have chests that seem to build themselves, legs that barely need a workout to look like plump oak tree stumps, and at the same time, their triceps seem unresponsive or just able to keep up. I for one am blessed with trapezius muscles that seem to be on a self-sustaining growth spur without the need of any direct stimuli while my forearms are dead set on never changing. Despite your best efforts, sometimes those smaller muscle groups just aren’t playing ball, and that’s when prioritizing muscle groups comes in handy.

First of, you need to identify which muscles or muscle groups are lagging behind. This will help you with the planning of your entire week/workouts. You can dedicate the beginning of your week after you’ve become well rested to those lagging muscles to make sure you hit them with all you’ve got. You can also target the weaker muscles at the beginning of your exercise if you’re training different muscle groups on the same day. At the same time, you can also start progressively increasing the workload on those lagging muscles while reducing or maintaining the workload on your other superior muscle groups in order to prompt more growth in the lagging parts. I realize about 10 guys reading this just shat out their pre-workouts as they read the word “reducing” but I can assure you that despite how much of a step back that may seem, maintenance of muscles is much easier than building them in the first place!

image source: www.bodybuilding.com

Another issue seems to be that most people perform their workouts in the 8 - 12 reps range. While that’s all good and dandy, your body can become too used to this set up to influence any drastic changes. I hereby bring you…...the pyramid sets!

The beauty of pyramid sets is an amazing mixture of low, mid and high-repetition training which will leave your muscles in tears - and primed for growth! You can employ pyramid sets with virtually any kind of workout that requires resistance. There are three kinds of pyramid sets which one can incorporate into their workout routine to invigorate their training and push their body to new and uncharted limits to break out of that plateau.

The ascending pyramid set for instance relies on the premise of you increasing the weight with each set. Suppose you’re performing four sets of barbell chest presses or squats. On the initial set, you’ll dish it out using a weight that will enable you to hit 16 repetitions. On the second set, you’ll add more weight but only aim to dish out 12 repetitions this time around. By the third set your weight should progressively increase and aim for 8 repetitions and by your last and fourth set, you should be lifting at your maximal capacity and aiming to hit 4 repetitions - at full functional range and perfect form of course! Conversely, the descending pyramid set works the other way around with you starting out with the heaviest weight and lesser reps and working your way down from there. The third type is the full pyramid which is mostly restricted to more seasoned veterans or experienced bodybuilders and this one sees an average 6 - 10 sets per exercise with a split that’ll look something like 16-12-8-4-8-12-16 in terms of repetitions with weights changing as your reps change.

image source: www.bodybuilding.com

Another trick in the book is using one’s near-maximal workloads when lifting weights. What does that mumbo jumbo mean? Basically that you should lift way heavier than you normally would, and that the weight should be challenging enough that your maximum reps - ensuring perfect form - could not surpass 2 to 5 repetitions. The majority of your muscles are composed of fast twitch muscle fibers which I’ve written about before. These fibers react best and are most recruited with heavy loads. That doesn’t mean that your other muscle fiber types are neglected with these lifts, on the contrary, they are most definitely involved, but since the majority of your muscles are made of the earlier type and you’re aiming for speedy growth, heavy lifts can definitely be a big game changer for you. Obviously this isn’t something you should do day in day out every day for weeks but rather something to incorporate for lagging muscles every now and then to break through the plateau.

And finally, let us not forget everyone’s favorite pastime event - cardiovascular training. 90% of us probably perform the usual run for 30-60 minutes on the treadmill or use the stationary bike using the same speed/resistance for the entire period of time. While this is all fun and dandy, it can become quite tedious and in fact counterproductive if carried on for a long enough period of time. The above constitutes as LISS cardio. Low Intensity Steady State cardio or LISS for short, labors under a simple premise; steadiness. Basically, to get a specific rate going and hold on to it for prolonged periods of time. Example: Perform 5-minutes of brisk walking to get your muscles warmed up and ready for what’s to come. Then, finding a suitable jogging speed (usually between 6-9 km/hr for most people) maintain this for a period of 30-45 minutes followed by 5 minutes of brisk walking for cool down.

What you need to be bringing to the table is some HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training if you like longer conversations at your local gym. HIIT focuses on something else entirely; intervals. After a nice 5-minute warm up brisk walk to get your muscles ready for what’s to come, alternate walking/sprinting speeds in set periods of time. Example: Sprint for 30-60 seconds followed by 2 minutes of brisk walking/jogging and repeat these intervals for 15-20 minutes followed by 5 minutes of brisk walking for cool down. You can apply that same basic premise to virtually any cardio activity, be it running, cycling, swimming, rowing the EFX machine, the treadmill, stair-master or otherwise. HIIT can even be applied to weight lifting where you dish out a set of 10-12 reps followed by 20-30 seconds on the stationary bike. The weight lifting bit is technically the slower interval here so you get the basic gist of it.

“Breaking your plateau can also mean that you’re getting closer to taking more instagram selfies with significantly lesser clothes”

image source: www.bodybuilding.com

HIIT has the benefit of triggering a hormonal response which sheds body fat as well as adds on muscle. It’s preferable not to perform HIIT exercises more than three times a week (and always AFTER your weight lifting routine) with rest days in between as it has an impact on your muscles. You should avoid performing HIIT workouts on an empty stomach as it depletes your carbohydrates stores rather quickly.

Rest assured, plateaus are a very natural part of the fitness life. Your body will get used to what you do. You have to continuously give it something new, keep it guessing and challenge it and set new limits. If you keep doing what you’ve always done, nothing will change.

There you have it folks, some tips and tricks and classic lifehacks which can trigger your body into breaking out of a fitness plateau. Worst case scenario, you’re stuck in a plateau, nothing is working for you, rob a bank, get plastic surgery, bang a stranger, become an alcoholic, develop a festering ecosystem of yet to be discovered STDs in your genitals, become a scientific success story, die a happy yet unapproachable celebrity figure.