Stop Using Your Age As An Excuse!

The other day I was flippng through the channels on the old TV and I came across TMZ. I"m not a fan, but it's good for a laugh or two. On this particular day they had a picture of Shemar Moore on the beach. They were all amazed at how ripped he is especially since he's 43. Really, come on people, 43 isn't old! The next day I was listening to a radio talk show and they had just intverviewed some guy and they were amazed that he was ripped at 39 years old! Again, really?

I think it's time to share a little secret with some people; It ain't your age that counts! The following pictures have people in them that are all between the ages of 40 and 80. According to most people's thoughts on aging, everyone here should be ready for the scrap heap with "how old" they all are. Yet I think that you'll see, these guys are all pretty impressive. Along with Shemar I've added some shots of Randy Couture (who's 48 I believe), Steve Maxwell (who's 59), Sylvester Stallone (who's 65 I believe), Clarance Bass (who's 70), Peter Ragnar and a few others that I don't know by name or age.

I think it's pretty clear by the shape all of these guys are in that it's not the age that counts, it all comes down to how you treat your body.

If you've spent 30, 40, 50, or more years loading up on junk food, processed food, and all that other crap; and you don't vigorously exercise of course you're going to be out of shape. But, it's your actions and the choices that you've made that have caused your body to go down the crapper, not your age or your genetics or any of the other B.S. that people cry and whine about.

However, if you eat the way that nature inteded you to, you exercise vigorously, get the right amounts of sleep, and learn how to deal with and minimize the stresses in your life; it doesn't matter how old you are.

Now, stop using age as a freaking excuse, get out there and train hard and smart, eat right, and kick some ass! I'll talk with you more later.

Yours in strenth and health,
Brett Stepan

Some things I've learned:

Me, trying to master the rings v-sit

Over the almost 36 years that I've been on this planet I've had the wonderful pleasure of studying under and learning from some amazing people. Here's an incomplete and short list of some of the things that I've learned from them and from experience:

1.) Dieting can help you lose weight, but it's also very catabolic. In other words, the weight you lose will mainly be from healthy and functionl muslce. Not a good thing.

2.) Cardio, Aerobics and Long-duration training can help you lose weight, but (like dieting) it's very catabolic. Again, most of the weight you lose will be from healthy and functional muscle. Not a good or healthy thing.

3.) The above two points are part of the reason why, when most people lose weight, they end up looking like smaller versions of their fatter selves. Because they are.

4.) Training your Anaerobic system through hard resistance training and sprinting will help you lose weight as well. Anaerobic training promotes muscle growth. This means that the weight you lose will be mainly from extra body fat. This is a good thing!

5.) The above point is part of the reason why people who tend to lose weight through resistance training and sprinting end up looking like physical specimens and anatomy charts rather than smaller versions of their fatter selves.

6.) To quote Dr. Al Sears, MD, "The importance of protein can be summed up in one word: Nitrogen. Nitrogen is responsible for creating every cell in your body and fueling cellular regeneration. And the only source of nitrogen you have is protein. For every 50 grams of protein you'll get 8 grams of nitrogen. To put it in perspective, your heart alone requires 8 grams of nitrogen a day to function normally. So imagine eating only 40 to 60 grams of protein a day like many diets recommend."

7.) Some of the most impressively developed people I've ever known come from backgournds in gymnastics, Powerlifting, and Olympic Weightlifting. These people developed their bodies with full body workouts, compound/multi-joint movements and avoiding muscular failure. So, do you really need to work each body part individually, use special machines, or take every set to failure or beyond for great development? NO!

8.) If you look up people like Eugene Sandow, John Grimek, The Great Maxic, Steve Reeves, Chuck Sipes, Reg Park, and Bill Pearl you'll see some of the most impressive men you've ever seen in your life. They're all ripped! On top of that, each one was also known for their overall health and strength. They developed they're bodies in a time before most supplements and steriods. Now, ask yourself this, "Do you really need all of that supplement and steriod garbage to create a great physique?"

9.) Squats are a phenomenal exercise for developing the entire lower body, and creating a very strong and durable overall body. They can help you add mountains of muscle (I personally used them to gain 22.5 pounds in 4 weeks last year), drop bodyfat, and improve you athleticism and health. Front squats, Back squats, Overhead squats, bodyweight squats, kettelbell squats, they're all good. I don't care which ones you do, just do them!

10.) Barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, clubs, sandbags; they're all wonderful tools to have in your tool box. As long as you use them correctly, with the right methods and for the right reasons.

11.) Incredibly hard work can make even the worst program work. Not working hard will make even the best program not work.

12.) Your body's adaptive response will dictate how it changes. If you constantly challenge it, it'll respond by growing stronger. If you don't challenge it, it'll respond by getting weaker. The choice is up to you.

13.) The average person loses between 9 and 27 percent of their lungpower per decade. This means that by the time you retire you could have already lost between 40-90 percent. This is not good for your health, disease resistance and longevity. However, by challenging your lungs with hard exertion followed by recovery time (think about sprint interval training) you'll trigger the adaptive response to make your lungs stronger and more powerful. This will not only allow you to maintian, but to even improve your lungpower. You truly can have the lungs of a 30 year old when you're in your 70's.

14.) Vigorous exercise and hard training are crucially important to your health. But, no matter how hard you work, you can't out-train poor eating.

15.)  I think that most people will agree that if you challenge your muscles with high resistance, they'll grow stronger. Guess what, your heart's a muscle too. It'll only grow stronger by challenging it with high resistance.

16.) Deadlifts not only work pretty much your entire body while also stimulating healthy hormone production, they also build muscle and connective tissue and burn fat; and they are truly a functional movement. Think about it, how often during your life have you had to squat down and pick something up off of the floor? It happens to most people almost every day.

17.) Eating multiple meals a day was created by bodybuilders in order to become as gigantic as possible. So, why do so many people use the strategy to try and lose weight?

18.) One of the benefits of having a good amount of good fats in your diet is they help with the optimization of your hormones. Since your hormones are the messengers between your brain and your body your health, physique, and more are all regulated by them. Keep your hormones good, and your health awesome by adding in the right amounts of fat. It's not your enemy!

19.) Your neck holds crucial things like your spine. Train it hard and keep it strong!

20.) Three full body, vigorous workouts a week has helped countless people achieve their goals.

Well, there are twenty of the many things that experience and great coaches have taught me throughout the years. I'll write some more later. Take these things and apply to your life what will help you reach your personal goals and I'll bet you won't be disappointed. Talk with you later.

Yours in strength and health,
Brett Stepan

One Of Our Worst Enemies

A handful of years ago I had worked my way up the performing between 1,000 and 1,200 push-ups a day, six days a week. The amazing thing is, there was literally no difference between the results that I got from doing 200 push-ups a day and the results that I got form doing 1,200 a day. My strength didn't improve, my physique didn't improve, my athleticism didn't improve. Yet, I felt that need that I had to do more, had to hit those thousand or more a day.

A little bit later I had a young lady train with me. I set up a pretty intense program for her that was a lot of hard work, yet only took about 15-25 minutes a day to get through, and it was only a 3 day a week program. Over the course of a few months she dropped 40+ pounds of body fat, she gained about 10 pounds of healthy muscle, she dropped inches and sizes, she become much stronger and much more conditioned, and she completely transformed herself into an impressive hottie. Yet she was disappointed. She was mad because she wasn't doing 2-3 hour workouts 4-5 days a week like some of her friends were, even though her results far surpassed her friends' results.

So, what do these stories have in common, both me (with my push-ups at that time of my life) and this young lady (with her need to put in more time) were trying to fulfill our egos and impress others. It wasn't the results that mattered (even though that should be all that matters), it was the ability to have the bragging rights that did. And this is one of the biggest enemies that we all face when it comes to our fitness goals.

Using my client from the above paragraph as an example you'd think that most people would be ecstatic. After all, she was getting much better resutls, she looked better, she felt better, she was healthier, and she was in better shape than her friends. And, she was able to do it in less time per week then they were putting in in a single day. Yet she was mad because she wasn't able to brag and say, "oh yeah, well, I'm doing 6 hours a day, 7 days a week!" Her need to fulfill her ego and impress her friends actually got in the way of the results she wanted to achieve.

The same thing is true for me and my old push-up fixation. Even though I had long stopped getting any benefit from the addition of more reps, I continued to pile them on, wasting precious time and energy while getting nothing in return. All so I could impress people by saying, "yeah, that right. I do over a thousand push-ups everyday!" It doesn't seem worth it, does it. Why put in the time and effort for no reward other than the abilty to brag.

Thank God I learned my lesson. These days (both with myself and with my clients) it's all about the results. They are what matters. If I can get you or myself the results that we desire in half the time, why should we care what the person doing twice as much for less results thinks. Shouldn't our results really be what speaks for itself.

So, instead of trying to fulfill some ego or trying to impress others with your training, focus on what you're getting out of it. Are you reaching your goals? Are you becoming healthier, more fit, and stronger? Are you growing as a person? If you are, who cares about trying to impress anyone else? I'll talk with you more later.

Yours in strength and health,
Brett Stepan

Some Personal Stuff

Me, having fun with some handstand practice at the park!

Wow, it's been a little while since I last posted. It's amazing how time really flies. I hope that all the father's out there had a great father's day!

One of the questions that I'm often asked is what type of methods do I use in my own training as well as in the training of my wonderful bride and all of my athletes and clients?

It's actually pretty simple. Because my first priority for my clients and myself is optimum health, I make sure that evey method passes the health test. If it hurts someones health and wellness, I'm not into it. From there I look at how the methods are going to affect people's performance in their daily lives, especially for my athletes. If it's not giong to make them more effective in their sport, I don't use it. Then I'll look at how the method is going to do in the realm of creating a physique that someone's going to be proud of.

Overall I tend to use the following:

Gymnastic and Martial Arts Based Bodyweight Training
Olympic Weightlifting
Powerlifting
Strongman Training
Kettlebell Training
Indian and Iranian Club Training
Sandbag and Bulgarian Bag Training
Medicine Ball Training
Odd Objects Lifting and Carrying
Sprinting, Hill Sprinting, Rope Skip Sprinting, and Swim Sprinting
Qi Gong and Tai Chi
Yoga
Joint Mobility Training
Breathing Drills

Basically, I people to master their own body; to lift, carry, and throw heavy shit, and to jump and sprint. Then I have them recover through a mixture of breathing, stretching, mobilizing, and rest.

Talk with you more later.

Yours in strenght and health,
Brett Stepan

The Real Goal:

“It’s the human condition to grow old and die, but you don’t have to live your life as a weakling or accept fragile health, a poor appearance and lack of vigor as inevitable. Those who make training a lifetime pursuit tend to live very well for all of their years. The rewards of lifetime training include health, discipline, confidence, and strength. You just plain feel good.”--Grandmaster Bradley J. Steiner

Bradley J. Steiner wrote those words almost two decades ago, yet they become truer to me every year.
It’s nuts that in our society only 30 percent of all adults perform any type of exercise on a daily basis. And only 5 percent exercise vigorously. Yet vigorous exercise is one of the keys to lifelong health, vitality and well being.

Most people tend to view exercise as a chore they need to do in order to drop a few pounds. So, they’ll embark on an exercise program, lose a little weight, start feeling and looking better, then stop and go right back to the lifestyle that caused them to be fat and out of shape in the first place. Then they’ll bitch and moan and begrudgingly start the entire process over again.

Anyone ever hear of Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Instead, I say that you make vigorous exercise apart of your daily life and look at it being a life long goal. Start viewing your exercise not as a chore, but instead as your time to practice and play with new skills. Skills of strength, endurance, flexibility, vitality and health.

I’ll guarantee you that you’ll not only look and feel better, you’ll actually be better. You’ll improve your physique, your hormones, your health, your vitality, your strength, your stamina, and more. The positive effects will even creep into every other aspect of your life. After all there’s a reason why so many of the most successful business people in our country will freely talk about how they achieved their success only after they got themselves in shape. Vigorous exercise can play a huge role in improving any and all areas of your life.

It astounds me how many of the people that I know that are my age or even younger that already possess bodies that are ready for the scrap heap. I remember as I turned 30 hearing from so many people, “Brett, now that you’re 30 things are a lot different. Your metabolism is going to slow down. You’ll lose your flexibility. It’ll be harder to stay in shape. You’ll lose your strength.” And so on and so forth. Yet, as I’m approaching my 36^th birthday I’m currently stronger, faster, more flexible and mobile, have more stamina and endurance, and carry more healthy and functional muscle mass then I ever have before. I also feel better, look better, perform better, and I’m healthier than ever.

And I’m not alone. The people that I respect like Scott Sonnon, Charles Poliquin, Brooks Kubik, John E. Peterson, Steve Maxwell and Clarence Bass are all in their forties, fifties, and even seventies, respectively, and they’ll all have had the same experiences.

So I say that starting today stop looking at exercise as a bad thing and as a chore. Start looking at it as something splendid and fun, something to be integrated with your lifestyle. Start playing and practicing instead of working out. And make it a lifelong thing, not something that you’ll do for a month or so and then give up.

As Bradley J. Steiner said, “Realize how important your training is to you and resolve never to quit. Your personal reward will make any title pale in comparison.”

Now go out and train hard. I’ll talk with you later.

Yours in strength and health,
Brett Stepan

The Truth About Changing Your Body

Jonathan Horton

Jen Grasso Ferruggia

I'd say that both Jen and Jonathan know a thing or two about creating a great physique, wouldn't you? Unfortunatley, most people don't. To loosely quote strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline, "Changing your body is one of the hardest things that you can do. It will not be seduced, cajoled, or sweet talked into changing." And the evil Russian speaks the truth.

The fact of the matter is simple, in order to create a favorable change in your body you must hit it with a stimulus strong enough to force a favorable adaptation. In other words, you have to hit it hard and heavy and with enough intensity to force it to blow torch those pounds of fat and build that good, healthy lean musle.

Training and eating in "moderation" doesn't work. By definition the best results that you can ever achieve by following moderation are moderate results. However, being that the world is far from a perfect place, usually those results fall far below that. In fact, if we look at the fact that you have to provide a strong enough stimulus to force a favorable adaptation, moderation should never even be mentioned. Instead, it takes an extreme.

As strength coach Craig Ballantyne so expertly put it, "incredible effort is needed to create incredible results."

So, if you want to lose the gut, drop the love handles, get rid of the saddle bags, and ditch the waggly underarm drop the 2 and 5 pound dumbbells, get rid of the 5 pound kettlebells, don't look at Zumba; instead get out there and bust your ass! Squat hard, deadlift heavy, master your chin-ups, work on your handstands, sprint. Then fuel yourself with good protein, good fats, and lots of veggies and water and get some rest. You'll see the results.

Talk wtih you all later.

Yours in strength and health,
Brett