Author: Nick Hawkins

How To Get Abs

▪️One of the most common questions googled on the internet is “How do I get my abs to show”?⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Participating in a 4-Week crunch challenge won’t get you the results you are looking for if you have fat around your belly hiding it.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Drinking Detox Juices won’t get you there.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Hours of cardio won’t get you there.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Fat Burning Supplements will DEFINITELY not get you there.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Avoid from focusing on the ‘quick’ fixes…
⠀⁠
▪️It’s pretty simple, actually.⁠
⠀⁠
1️⃣ Eat nutritious whole foods.⁠
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2️⃣ Focus on compound exercises and add HIIT cardio to keep your muscle while burning fat (and then add a few crunches/leg lifts).⁠
⠀⁠
3️⃣ Increase the intensity level as you progress in your workout routine (progressive overload).⁠
⠀⁠
4️⃣ Stay in a slight calorie deficit over a longer period of time, depending on where your fat percentage is and what your goal is.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️It’s simple, not easy. Don’t listen to people that are trying to confuse you to buy their fat loss detoxes, pills, or other scammy products.

Progressive Overload
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▪️ What does progressive overload mean?⁠
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▪️ Progressive overload is when you continuously increase the demands placed on your body through exercise.⁠
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▪️For the most part, the goal is improve muscle hypertrophy (muscle growth) or strength.⁠
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▪️Most of the time people plateau when doing this because they only try to increase the weights, but that can limit you if this is your only strategy.⁠
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▪️So Yes, you can add more weights, but unless you’re ok with only having a hammer in your toolbox, it’s best to put a variety of tools in your toolbox.⁠
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▪️Doing this can get you a diversify your progressive overload strategy, and ultimately, increase your hypertrophy and strength gains.⁠
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▪️ You can also change the tempo of your lifts, decrease the rest intervals between sets, increase the amount of reps or sets, as well as incorporating different training methods such as the rest-pause or drop sets.⁠
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▪️So there are definitely numerous ways to progressively overload than just increasing weights.⁠

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Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Weeks
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Some “fitness professionals” will sell you on the idea that you can easily lose 10 pounds (of body fat) in 10 days, or that there’s a magic 21-day fix program to finally get your best body of your life in record time…
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And sure, while there is, maybe, ehh, a little bit of truth to these claims — if and only if — you restrict your calorie intake to extreme levels (unhealthy), if you overexercise and overtrain (unhealthy and unsafe) and if you sacrifice your ideal lifestyle (incredibly stressful), it’s NOT something I would promote or recommend. Ever.
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The truth is that somewhere between 0.5 pounds and 1.5 pounds per week of weight loss is not only realistic, but also achievable for most people. Could be more, too, depending on circumstances, but generally that’s acceptable.
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This means that in 8-weeks, you can lose between 4 and 12 pounds.
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This means that in 10-weeks, you can lose between 5 and 15 pounds.
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This means that in 12-weeks, you can lose between 6 and 18 pounds.
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And once you understand the expectations, it’s important to implement the plan that can help you get there as smoothly, safely and seamlessly as possible. Here’s an outline of that plan:
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Strength training 3-4x per week (you could do 5x but not required)

Eat in a 500-750 calorie deficit on average

Consume close to 1.0 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight

Drink 2/3 your bodyweight in pounds in ounces of water each day

Aim for 6-8 hours of high quality sleep per night

Some cardio won’t hurt, but don’t overdo it

Patience is key, because fat loss is not linear.

Here are FIVE exercises that will help you to create a back of STEEL.⁠
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1️⃣ Deadlifts – This is an incredible exercise that trains the posterior chain of your body and activates a huge amount of muscles which allows you to lift incredibly heavy weights. An important note is to practice and perfect form & technique before loading heavyweights.⁠
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2️⃣ Barbell Rows – This is also a compound exercise that targets mainly your lats but also your upper back, as well as your arms.⁠
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3️⃣ Pull-Ups – This is another amazing back builder, which you don’t need much equipment (or even a gym) for, but when you get stronger, you can start adding dumbbells between your feet or use a weight belt to add more resistance.⁠
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4️⃣ Lat Pulldowns – If you’re not able to do Pull-Ups yet, this is a great exercise that can help you get there. It’s a similar exercise and you can start with lighter weights but the movement is very similar and can help you get the strength you need to get to your first pull-ups.⁠
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5️⃣ Dumbbell Rows – A great exercise that you can perform with either two or one dumbbells at a time while leaning over on a bench to tackle any muscle imbalances you might have.⁠

♠️Muscle Memory♠️
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🔹 No training will lead to no progress and consequently we can experience muscle loss aka atrophy. ⁣
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🔹 How hard is it to regain muscle you might ask? ⁣
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🔹 It turns out, “Muscle Memory” is real, and the majority of us have likely experienced it. It’s far easier to regain lost muscle, than it is to gain it for the first time. ⁣
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🔹 Our muscle fibers have an “epigenetic memory” which means the changes that the cell’s DNA goes through, including information about its previous size can be replicated over again.
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🔹 Even though we will lose muscle mass after a period without training, we don’t actually lose the number of myonuclei. This increases the amount of resting muscle protein synthesis, and makes it much easier to regain lost muscle once we’re back to training. ⁣
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🔹 In addition, motor unit recruitment seems to decrease slowly in comparison to muscle size. ⁣
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🔹 This means that when we start back working out, we’ll be able to regain a good number of muscle fibers, and still apply high amounts of force, compared to when we previously started training.. which will allow muscle regrowth to happen at a much faster rate.

Reference: https://medium.com/oxford-university/the-amazing-phenomenon-of-muscle-memory-fb1cc4c4726

-Diet Breaks
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▪️The concept of taking ‘Diet Breaks’ was first initiated and publicized by Lyle McDonald in his innovative book called “A Guide to Flexible Dieting”, and in the last few years more research has been accumulated on that matter. ⁣
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▪️Have you ever started a diet break with the purpose of dieting “better” later ? Sounds counter intuitive, but it’s exactly how diet breaks work. ⁣
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▪️And for the record, I’m not talking about cheat days or days where you simply stop dieting because you “don’t feel like it”. I’m talking about diet breaks, which actually serve a purpose to your progress and your fitness journey.⁣
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▪️Diet Breaks are essentially short periods of time, between 10 to 14 days, spent at an estimated maintenance, where calories are elevated by increasing carb intake to reduce hunger. This can potentially speed up your metabolism, increase energy expenditure, and regain some lost strength e while simultaneously losing some water weight.
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▪️Studies show that periods of caloric restriction followed by small “breaks” at caloric maintenance, will result not only in better fat loss, and an increase in muscle mass, but weight is actually easier to keep off in the long term. ⁣
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▪️And this happens for two reasons: both physiological and psychological ones. ⁣
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▪️I’m not saying that dieting all at once doesn’t work, because obviously it does (a caloric deficit will always work). Also if you’re dieting for a close competition, you won’t have enough time to implement diet breaks in your prep.
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▪️However, if you are not dieting for a competition and you would like to get lean, the implementation of diet breaks is certainly going to work better for long term maintenance. ⁣

Incline Bicep Curl

▪️Studies have shown that incline biceps curls are the best exercise for growing the peak in the short head of the biceps.

▪️When on an incline, your arms get naturally further back, keeps the rest of the body steady and doesn’t allow any other muscles to help or cheat the weights up.

▪️If you curl straight forward in line with your body, you will be targeting the long head which is on the outside of the bicep

▪️Angling the arms slightly outwards can target the short head at the inside of your bicep.

▪️If you’re currently only doing biceps curls using bars, implementing a dumbbell curl might help you take out any imbalances you have, as most of us use one arm more than the other for certain things (like, I’m right-handed and do most things with my right hand)

It’s totally normal to want to be able to pinpoint ONE thing and blame it for why we gain fat.

It is rarely even one thing though.

Let’s say you want to lose 15 lbs because you weighed that much 5 years ago and felt more confident, more energetic and happier at that weight

You probably gained those 15 lbs gradually over the course of 5 years because you were consistently in a slight calorie surplus

Not because of carbs

Not because you ate at night

You can lose that weight without restricting anything. You just need to have a plan to stay in a caloric deficit and give your plan time to do its work!

Cutting out carbs, alcohol, fruit or whatever will NOT be the long term solution you are looking for. Sure, you might drop 5 lbs but then you’ll probably gain it back and be back at the drawing board looking for another food group to blame

Skip that cycle and choose a sustainable plan that you can see yourself happily sticking to for the REST OF YOUR LIFE

Click here for your FREE fat burning ebook

▪️One of the most common questions googled on the internet is “How do I get my abs to show”?⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Participating in a 4-Week crunch challenge won’t get you the results you are looking for if you have fat around your belly hiding it.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Drinking Detox Juices won’t get you there.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Hours of cardio won’t get you there.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Fat Burning Supplements will DEFINITELY not get you there.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️Avoid from focusing on the ‘quick’ fixes…
⠀⁠
▪️It’s pretty simple, actually.⁠
⠀⁠
1️⃣ Eat nutritious whole foods.⁠
⠀⁠
2️⃣ Focus on compound exercises and add HIIT cardio to keep your muscle while burning fat (and then add a few crunches/leg lifts).⁠
⠀⁠
3️⃣ Increase the intensity level as you progress in your workout routine (progressive overload).⁠
⠀⁠
4️⃣ Stay in a slight calorie deficit over a longer period of time, depending on where your fat percentage is and what your goal is.⁠
⠀⁠
▪️It’s simple, not easy. Don’t listen to people that are trying to confuse you to buy their fat loss detoxes, pills, or other scammy products.

Click here for your FREE fat burning ebook.

Can fish oil improve physique?

Fish oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which have positive health effects. In addition, researchers discovered that omega 3’s could improve various aspects of your metabolism, such as increasing insulin sensitivity and fat oxidation (aka fat brining).

A case study investigated whether fish oil can enhance a person’s body composition compared to safflower oil as the control group. The study included 44 healthy men and women. For six weeks, they consumed 4 grams per day of either fish or safflower oil. Then, they measured their body composition with air displacement plethysmography (i.e., BodPod).

The lean mass of the fish oil group increased by 0.5 kg, while the control group decreased their lean mass by 0.1 kg. However, the fat mass of the fish oil group declined by 0.5 kg, while the control group increased 0.2 kg. The fish oil group also lowered their cortisol (the stress hormone) levels.

Keep in mind that the BodPod is not ideal for measuring body composition. In addition, most similar studies have not found positive effects.

There aren’t any effects during optimal conditions (e.g. trained young adults with good diets), but small benefits increase in more compromised conditions (e.g. inactive older adults with disease).

In conclusion, studies show that fish oil supplementation can improve body composition. However, most research finds little to no effects in healthy young populations.

Resources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20932294/

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