You Can Win Free Personal Training With Me
August 28, 2009 by admin
Anyone who comes to this Saturday’s 20 Min Fat-Loss Solution Workout will be entered into a raffle for FREE personal training.
This is true even if you are a current client.
The top prize is 1 month FREE with me as your coach.
For current clients – you will get your next month free no matter what plan you’re on.
For non-clients – you will get a month on the Basic Program.
To improve your odds bring a friend. For everyone you bring you get an additional entrance into the raffle.
All the details are right here.
Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.The Truth About Core Training: Why You Should NOT Be Doing Crunches
What does everyone who wants a better stomach do? Crunches, crunches and more crunches.
Why? Because that’s what he or she sees everyone else doing. The funny thing is that rarely if ever do those other people doing all those crunches actually have midsections worth emulating. Somehow our minds filter out all of the people crunching until the cows come home with no results, and only pay attention to the 3% of people in the lucky sperm club that look good.
I’m not really pointing any fingers here because I did the same thing for at least a decade myself.
Why You Should Not Be Doing Crunches (and most, if not all traditional ab work for that matter)
#1. It will not make you look any better: Everyone that I have ever met who was dissatisfied with their midsection only ever has ONE problem – there’s too much fat over top of their ab muscles.
You were born with your abs in a 4, 6 or 8 pack and when you die, they’re going to be that way too. The only issue is that the layer of fat on top of them is too thick for you to be able to see them.
The solution to a better stomach is a good fat-loss program. (I’ve written about the hierarchy of fat-loss before.) In 3 or 4 hours per week you can slash your body-fat in half (or more) with a good fat-loss program.
If you slash your body-fat in half, but do no direct ab work whatsoever your abs will look better than they have in years (or possibly ever). But if you waste those same 3 or 4 hours per week just working your abs directly, your stomach will look no better AND you posture will probably get worse and your back will probably hurt more.
#2. Crunches make your posture worse:
When you crunch you bring your head, shoulders and chest down towards your pelvis.
What is bad posture? A forward head, shoulders and a dropped chest. Or, to put that another way, your head is forward, and your rib cage and shoulders are pulled down towards your pelvis.
If you already spend all day at your desk hunched over looking at your computer, why would you want to spend any more time hunching yourself over and over and over again with crunches?
#3. They won’t help your back feel better:
Contrary to popular “wisdom” doing a bunch of “ab” work will NOT help to protect your back at all.
A little anatomy – when people talk about their “abs” they’re talking about the long flat muscle that sits on top of everything called you “rectus abdominus.” It runs from the bottom of your rib cage to the bottom of your pelvis. Its fibers are vertical.
If you think about the physics of that, you will realize that there is no possible way that a vertical muscle on the front of your body can provide any support to a vertical structure on the back of your body (your spine).
Think about it. If it contracts concentrically (gets shorter), then it just lowers your rib cage which actually rounds your lower back and puts it in a position that it is MORE vulnerable to injury in.
If it contracts eccentrically (resists getting longer), it keeps the rib cage from moving backward. How does that support your lower back when lifting or twisting?
Your Own Weight Belt
The reason why people where weight belts is that if you synch them up tightly enough the squeezing of your midsection provides support for your lower back when you are trying to move something heavy. You actually have your own internal weight lifting belt of muscles that is built into your body. It’s made up of muscles that tighten inwards to support your lower back during movement, lifting, etc. These are the muscles that are weak when you have “pooch.”
The natural question is “how do I isolate those muscles?” That misses the point for a whole bunch of reasons that I don’t have the space to get into.
In people with a properly functioning core (and no back pain) your internal weight belt turns on automatically right before any kind of movement. By the time you think about “bracing” your core it’s already too late.
What you want is the kind of training that puts your body into positions that force it to fire the right muscles at the right time automatically (without you having to think about it).
You will never throw out your back when you are all braced up and prepared for a movement. It’s going to be when you don’t expect and your body failed to automatically and unconsciously prepare that you will hurt your back. There is no kind of crunch that will help with this.
2 Core Exercises You Should be Doing Instead
P.S. Don’t the FREE fat-loss bootcamp that I’m doing this Saturday (8-29). This will be a very fun, fast and effective fat burning workout, and I will make a donation to the Capitol Food Bank on your behalf if you show up. More details right here. This will be the kind of training that will actually help your midsection look better.
Two Important Things For You To Know About
August 24, 2009 by admin
#1. How to sign-up for the Free, Fat-Loss Bootcamp
#2. Today is the LAST day to get the brand new Client Success Manual for 50% off
How to sign-up for the Free, Fat-Loss Bootcamp
Spots are going, so send an email to my assistant, Natillie (thebodyyouwant@yahoo.com), to reserve a spot in the class time you want.
The subject line should read “Josef’s bootcamp“, and in the body include:
1. the time you want (9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, 1:30 or 2:30)
2. your name
3. email address
4. phone number
Today is the LAST day to get the brand new Client Success Manual for 50% off
Today, August 24th, 2009 is the very last day that you can get the Client Success Manual for half price. If you’ve ever wondered exactly what to do in the kitchen and in the gym to get the body you want in the time that you actually have without being hungry, then this is your answer. In this manual I break down the mindset, nutrition and exercise program to help you get and keep the body you really want.
It’s got a complete 16 week program, a three phase nutrition program for life-long leanness, and 30 delicious, usually easy fat-burning recipes. For more info click here.
If you’re a client, don’t worry about this. If you are a current client when I get my first shipment of the manuals, then you’ll be getting one absolutely free.
Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.I’m Giving A Free Bootcamp On August 29th
August 20, 2009 by admin
You can get fit, win FREE stuff and contribute to a worthy cause absolutely free on Saturday, August 29th with me in Ft. Dupont Park. Every hour on the half hour I will be conducting a short, fun, intense and effective fat-loss bootcamp called “The 20min Fat-Loss Solution.”
You can win FREE stuff just for coming by my tent. We’ll have a raffle for prizes including:
• My brand new Client Success Manual (will retail for $79.95 after Monday)
• FREE personal training programs
• Books
• CD’s
• And more
I’ll be doing these classes live from 9:30am until 2:30pm. And for every single person who completes the 20min bootcamp I will donate at least $1 to The Capitol Food Bank. (I may increase that number if the space in the park turns out to be small, thus limiting class size.)
The first time I mentioned this, the event was called “Saturdays in August,” but has been renamed “Feet In The Street.”
We’ll have ropes (these are really fun), kettle bells, medicine balls, agility ladders and all kinds of fun stuff for the class.
So, put this down in your calendar:
What: The 20min Fat-Loss Solution (Fun, FREE and effective fat-loss workout with me)
+Prizes
+I will give money to charity on your behalf just for showing up
+more, fun FREE stuff like – bike rides, boxing demonstrations, inline skating, nature hikes, and more provide by the other folks at Feet In The Street
Where: Ft. Dupont Park, near the activity center. Here’s the flyer with a map (click to enlarge).
When: August 29th, 2009 from 9:30am to 2:30pm on the half hour.
Its first come, first serve, so show up early so you can get spot in the class.
Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.DC Fitness Advisor Says TIME Magazine Was Almost Right About Exercise Not Making You Thin
August 18, 2009 by admin
Time magazine just ran a piece called “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” by John Cloud. While most fitness professionals are incensed by Cloud’s piece, DC Fitness Advisor, Josef Brandenburg says, “Cloud’s piece was far more right than wrong. People in my profession are mad because they see this as a threat to their livelihood.”
Personal trainers are bugging out!
“If Cloud had said, ‘exercise done for the sake of burning extra calories will not make you thin,’ then he would have been exactly right. Traditional exercise done for the sake of burning extra calories does not really work. We don’t have any scientific evidence to say that it does, and about half of my clients come to me after they get to the point that they are doing aerobics for 6 hours per week without…
Press release continued right here.
You’ve Got To Watch This – This Will Be The Single Greatest Fitness or Weight Loss Lesson of Your Entire Life
August 12, 2009 by admin
There’s this guy named Dan Caro. When he was 2 years old he got into an accident that burned him so bad that he was left with nothing but ONE THUMB. Not one thumb on each hand, but one thumb and no fingers between his two hands. That’s it.
When Dan was 12 he decided to learn how to play the drums. If ever there was a good excuse to fail playing the drums it would be, “hey, I can’t do that – between my two hands I’ve only got one thumb!”
Dan is actually really good as you can see here:
He uses the thumb on his left hand to hold the drum stick against his stump. And on the right he uses a wrist band to hold the stick on his wrist and wiggles that around to play.
I found out about Dan from the book Excuses Begone!
The most important lesson that Dr. Dyer talks about is: “Don’t complain and don’t explain.” ‘Cause when you boil it all down, what stand between you and what you want is an excuse – “I’m too tired”, “I’m too old,” “I don’t have the money, “ blah, blah, blah.
And all excuses are some kind of complaint about how the world is and how that is getting in your way, or the reasons why you don’t have what you want/what you promised. If you no longer allow yourself to complain or explain, then you can’t make excuses.
If you can’t make excuses, then you can’t weasel your way out of your promises to yourself and to others. And, when it comes to getting and keeping the body you want, all there is to it is making promises to yourself and following through on those commitments. (Sure, you need a good map, but the map is worthless if you won’t travel the path laid out.)
There are only 2 options:
#1. You followed though
#2. You didn’t
The only thing that complicates the situation is when we start to complain or explain why we did not honor our promises. The only complication is excuse making.
I highly recommend this book. Oh, and if you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t have the time to read a book,” stop complaining(!):-). Get the CD version and listen while you eat breakfast, clean, drive, walk, or whatever. Excuses begone!
Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.The Best low-Carb Ice Cream I’ve Ever Had
August 5, 2009 by admin
This Sunday me and my fiancé were walking to J. Crew in Georgetown looking for this blue and white seersucker jacket that I had seen online when we passed Ben & Jerry’s and I saw a sign in the window for milkshakes. My all-time favorite milkshake is mint chocolate chip.
Seeing that sign in the window made me think about having a sweet, minty, creamy shake with big chocolate chunks at the bottom. It almost made me walk into Ben & Jerry’s, but I resisted and said to myself, “there’s got to be someway that I can make one of those without sugar… today.”
I never found the jacket I wanted, but I did figure out how to make the best low-carb ice cream I’ve ever had. No sugar alcohol. (I’ve found that the sugar alcohols interfere with a lot of people’s ability to lose fat, and are only OK in ice cream.) And it was mint chocolate chip.
Also, I’ve found that sugar alcohols (in all commercial brands) alter the consistency of the ice cream, but this one has the same consistency as regular ice cream.
Ingredients
2 cups cream
¼ cup water
1tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp mint extract
pinch of salt
green food coloring (optional, only if you want it to be green, otherwise it will be yellow because of the egg yolks)
4 egg yolks
12 packs Splenda (or ½ cup)
½ cup of chopped sugar-free chocolate (I like dark)
Directions
1. In a microwave safe bowl, heat cream and water until steaming (2min).
2. While cream is heating, mix everything but the chocolate together well. Add to hot cream and return to microwave until steaming, but NOT boiling (1min).
3. Follow instructions on your ice cream maker. Be sure to add chocolate half way through the process.
Nutrition
6 servings (about 1 cup) with 5g net carbs per serving vs. 52 for 1 cup of Ben & Jerry’s
