If you haven’t checked out the website Muscle With Attitude, you are definitely missing out. I love that website for their great articles and forum. The last article I read was by Chad Waterbury and I have read his stuff before and he really knows his stuff.

Chad Waterbury is one of the world’s leading experts on developing muscle for the goal of enhancing performance. His novel training methods are used by athletes, bodybuilders, figure models, and fitness enthusiasts of all ages and from all walks of life. He has an M.S. in Physiology from the University of Arizona, and he specializes in the neurophysiology of human movement and performance. He currently trains, consults and lectures around the country, and also contributes to numerous newsstand and online publications.

His article, “3 Fat Loss Steps” is about his encounter with a women who was doing ALL the wrong things in the gym to try and lose fat.

“I’d watched her train for about 30 minutes before she started talking to me. When I entered the gym she was reading while “exercising” on the elliptical machine. She got off the elliptical about 15 minutes after I entered the room, so I can’t say how much total time she spent on it, but it was at least 15 minutes.

When she casually stepped off the aerobic machine, there wasn’t a single bead of sweat on her forehead. (No surprise since she couldn’t have swung her legs any slower during those 15 minutes.)

Then she headed over to the area that featured dumbbells and a few outdated machines. For 15 minutes she performed a circuit of arm curls, leg extensions, straight leg raises, and side bends — lots of side bends, with a 25-pound dumbbell to boot.”

Yes, I have seen this too many times in the gym. It can be very frustrating for a personal trainer. I want to go over and tell them that they are doing it all wrong!

Here is what Chad would have have suggested to her:

“Sweat Within 5 Minutes

If you’re not sweating within five minutes of starting your workout, you need to rethink your choice of exercises. My female clients almost always start their training sessions with rope jumping. I love rope jumping for the simple fact that you can’t cheat. Sure, you can try to slow down the movement, but it’s still challenging, and virtually no other exercise will get you sweating faster than rope jumping.”

Well said! If I am not sweating within a couple minutes of either my interval training or my strength training, I know I am not working hard enough!

“Perform a Total Body Workout 3 Times Per Week

A total body workout consists of at least one of the following compound movements in each workout: an upper body pulling, an upper body pressing, and a squat or deadlift variation.”

Perfect! This is how I put together all my clients workouts, as well as my own. These work more than one muscle at a time, ensuring you get a great all over body workout and you don’t need to do any extra ab work, because by doing these compound exercises, you are engaging your abs all the time!

“Protein, Vegetables, Fish oil, Surge and Water

Consume 5-6 meals per day and eat protein and vegetables at each meal. How much of each? It doesn’t matter at this stage, just eat until you’re full, but eat your protein first.

Okay, I’ll offer up an olive branch:

For your three main meals you should eat a serving of protein that’s the size of a deck of cards. For your snacks, shoot for at least 15 grams of protein in the form of anything you like, as long as it’s a complete protein. Examples include cheese sticks, cottage cheese, hard-boiled eggs, chicken breast, or salmon jerky.”

Another thing that I tell all my clients. You would be surprised at how many people still think that 3 square meals a day is enough! I always tell them to include a carb and protein at each meal also.

And Chad’s final words of advice:

“Is there anything else you can do to lose fat? Sure, any form of energy systems training that’s limited to 20 minutes of medium to high intensity exercise will help. But the aforementioned three steps are the most important steps that I could’ve told that girl within five minutes. And you know what? If she would’ve followed the advice she could’ve lost at least two pounds of fat per week for quite a spell.

But unfortunately, I didn’t tell her, and that’s why I’m telling you.”

Good advice Chad!