Be Relentless Podcast Monday Quick Hit 33 – The Bleeding Effect

Most of you know I’ve been on a fitness revamp of my own over the past weeks. I’ve talked about it on a few forms of media, including this podcast, and will do some more in the future.

The need for the revamp came from a variety of reasons, such as fighting depression, injury, and all of that other stuff.

Today made for 75 straight days of cardio.  Trust me, I’ve never done a streak like that and it’s provided some insights. That’s a lot of time with the headphones in, trapped with your own thoughts…

Continue reading

90 Fitness Answers 04 – How Do I Raise My Metabolism?

90 fitness answers 04 - how do i raise my metabolismYou know those people that it seems like they can eat anything (and everything) and they don’t put on an ounce of fat?  Then there are those people who look at a bowl of pasta or a birthday cake and it’s like ten pounds magically appears.  If you’ve ever asked “How do I raise my metabolism?” then chances are you’re in the second group.

Let’s start by just defining what we actually mean by “metabolism”, to get on the same page.  Basically, the metabolism is all of your body’s processes.  Everything from powering your cells to repairing damage, replacing old cells, creating new ones, and so on all fall into this lump category of “metabolism”.  All of these things require energy, in the form of calories, to take place.  That energy can come from the food you’re eating now or it can come from fat or muscle stored on your body, which is past overeating that you did.  Of course, when people are asking this question they’re generally looking for ways to expend more energy and ideally have the excess come from the stored fat.

For the first group, there’s a handful of reasons as to why they may be able to just burn through food, not all of which are related to the metabolism, but for the sake of this post we’ll stick with those.  For the rest of us, here’s how to get that metabolism cranking and the fat dropping: Continue reading

90 Fitness Answers 03 – Should I Do Cardio Before or After Strength Training

90 fitness answers 03 - should i do cardio or strength training first

Long-time Relentless athlete Tara was a great example of building both strength AND endurance!

Let’s get into the training side of our 90 Days of Fitness Questions.  This is another one I get a lot:

Should I do my cardio before or after my strength training?

Well, let’s start by defining what we’re talking about.  Usually when I get this question people are defining “cardio” as long-duration, slow-to-moderate speed endurance work:  Going for a run, bike, etc.  They’re defining their “strength training” as a more traditional weight training session:  Squatting, benching, etc.

For the record, those are not totally opposing activities.  There are ways to develop strength WHILE improving one’s cardiovascular ability, which we do at Relentless, but for the sake of this discussion I’ll keep to those definitions to not muddy the waters too much.

When it comes to combining cardiovascular/endurance training with strength training, the common thought is often that if you do too much cardio you’ll lose all of your strength and muscle.  We’ll actually get deeper into this in a later question, but the answer there is yes and no.

Continue reading

10 Steps To a Lean, Fit Body – Part 1

relentless strength training bangor gym fitnessI’m going to break down building a strong, healthy body that has both “show” and “go” in ten simple steps..

Why would I do that? Because I’m tired of all of the conflicting, confusing stuff out there in the fitness world.

The truth of the matter is that if you want to build a lean, strong body that performs and looks the part it’s way too easy to get lost in the sea of information out there. Turn on the TV and you’ve got workout infomercials hitting you in the face. Click on the radio and you get blasted by ads hawking some stupid wrap. Heck, a single click of a mouse will see you be buried under a deluge of information. There’s basically no end to it. Quite frankly, it’s frustrating at best and maddening enough to throw your hands up at worst.

At Relentless we’re well known for being “BS Killers”. Sometimes that means that we’re a little blunt, but so be it. My clients hire my coaches and myself to cut through all the noise, kill the mumbo-jumbo, and get them great results without the stress and goose chases of having to hunt down and then figure out how to apply all that information.

So, in light of that goal, let’s cut to the chase. Continue reading