The 5 Biggest Workout Mistakes that Slow Down Results

1. Not drinking enough water. Dehydration can diminish energy and impair performance. Even a 2-percent loss of body weight through can put you at a disadvantage. Shoot for eight to ten eight ounce glasses of water daily and drink 16 ounces of water 2 to 3 hours before training. You should then drink an additional 8 ounces 10 to 20 minutes prior to training. The result is more energy to lift weights and you’ll tone up faster.

2. Reading on the treadmill. If your only goal is to build a healthy heart and lungs, then a low intensity treadmill works fine while reading a book or magazine. However if you really want to burn a ton of calories and make a noticeable difference then you’ll need to pump up your intensity which makes it hard to read. If you’re concentrating on reading then you’re not working hard enough. Put the magazine down, increase your intensity and burn more calories now.

3. Get off the treadmill if you hate it. Stop torturing yourself doing cardio exercises you don’t even enjoy. Exercise doesn’t have to be something you hate to do. If you can’t stand the treadmill try the bike, if you hate the bike try the step mill, if you dislike that then try jump roping. You’ll get better results if you pick a cardio routine that’s fun for you. Keep trying new things until you what you like. You can also cross-train. Take a 30 minute workout and do three different exercises for 10 minutes each.

4. Stop wasting all your time on cardio. If your goal is to be a distance runner or some other type of endurance athlete then keep it up, but if your goal is to burn more fat and your doing over 30 minutes of cardio a day it’s time to cut down and add some weight training. Weight training builds muscle which boosts your metabolism which leads to weight loss. Cardio does not.

5. Not paying attention to diet. I’m not saying you need to get on a diet. But you can’t go out and eat anything you want just because you workout a few times a week. If your workout burns off a few hundred calories don’t spoil it by treating yourself on a daily basis; adding back in a few hundred extra calories. That just puts you back at square one. Pay attention to portion sizes and try to eat something every three to four hours and forget the high calories drinks.

Overweight and Need to Lose Bodyfat

Here’s a question I was recently e-mailed about needing to lose weight.

Q: I am currently 214 lbs at about 34% bodyfat and I need to lose some fat.
Here is my plan:

I'm going to start a low carb diet and train with weights four times a week. Here’s the weight training split:
Mon: Chest and Back
Tue: Legs
Wed: Off
Thu: Arms and Abs
Fri: Off
Sat: Full Body Circuit
Sun: Off

I'm also going to start walking for 45 to 60 minutes every morning but I'll make sure to keep my heart rate in the fat burning zone.

Is there anything you'd do to upgrade or modify this?

A: From your program I’m guessing you haven’t read my blog. At 214 with 34% bodyfat you’ve got about 72lbs of fat to cut back on, so pretty much any program will work as long as you're burning more calories than you take in, but since you’re looking for an upgrade let’s see how we can improve your program.

If you’re looking for fast results I'd start by throwing this plan out and starting over from scratch. Here’s what I recommend you do:


Stop it with the body part split. You’re not a bodybuilder so you don’t need to hit each muscle with its own day. Besides you’re goal is to lose fat and your arm day won’t burn much fat or elevate your metabolism much. Instead switch to and upper lower split three times per week for a higher caloric burn and a better use of your time. Day 1 do upper body compound lifts such as rows, pull downs and presses on Day 2 rest, Day 3 do lower body exercises such as squats, lunges, and deadlifts. Day 4 rest and day 5 back to upper body. Keep alternating between upper and lower body exercises. Next week you’ll do two lower body days and one upper body day.

For cardio stop the doing the fat burning zone workouts. Besides there are several studies showing that low intensity aerobic work does almost nothing for fat loss. To get more bang for your buck switch to high intensity interval training three times per week, it burns more calories while you are doing it, burns more calories after you have done it (EPOC) and in every single head-to-head study is shown to be more effective than steady state cardio.

For your diet know that carbs aren’t bad. Making some changes aren’t a bad idea though. Switch to whole wheat pastas and breads and brown rice and load up on vegetables. Most important stick to correct portion sizes. Don’t forget high protein foods such as lean turkey, chicken and fish and healthy fats. Make sure you’re not drinking your calories either. Swap sodas and high calorie coffees for water.

Overall this plan should help you lose 1-2 lbs. of fat a week. For more tips check out my blog and workoutquest.com.

The Secret to Successful Fat Loss

I’m going to share with you the secret to successful fat loss. It’s real easy and begins with three questions you must ask yourself.

1. Where am I today?
2. Where do I want to be?
3. Is what I’m doing today going to get me there?

Let me break down each one for you.

First, do you know where you are today? Did you set a goal at the beginning of the year to be down 25 pounds by December? If so, the year is half way there; are YOU half way there? Or do you have the same open ended goal of losing some weight and toning up? First before you can do anything else, figure out where you are today.

Second, where do you want to be? What is your goal? Figure it how, write it down, and have a clear picture in your mind what this looks like and know what it’s going to take to get yourself there.

The third question is so powerful because it relates to you taking action. You can read all the blogs, magazines, and books you want but nothing happens until you take action! Ask yourself this question daily; is what I’m doing today going to get me there? If you can answer yes to this question on a daily basis then you’re on your way!

My Muscle Building Fat Burning Countdown Workout

I’m going to share with you a workout that I recently did using countdowns. It was a great workout because it was a full body circuit that incorporated strength, balance, cardio conditioning, and core stabilization with only four body weight exercises. To do countdowns you’ll start with a high number of reps and with each round you’ll do fewer reps, working your way down to 1 rep on the last round. I started at 10 reps and worked my way down to 1. Best of all it was done in under 30 minutes; my heart rate was racing, I was sweating and my muscles were burning (remember if you want to see results, you must push beyond your comfort zone; translation - work up a sweat).

The four exercises:

1. Bulgarian Split Squat 10 reps with right leg, 10 reps with left leg
2. Single-leg Romanian Deadlift 10 reps with right leg, 10 reps with left leg
3. Chin up 10 reps
4. Pike push up 10 reps

The exercises are done with no rest between (unless you’re tired) that’s one round. The next round repeats the same order with 9 reps of everything, then 8 rep and so on until the last round is complete with 1 rep of everything. That’s 330 total reps!

The great thing about this workout is I didn’t need any weight; all I needed was a pull up bar. Anyone who thinks you can’t do cardio without a machine needs to try this. I challenge you to work through it with as little rest as you can and let me know how high your heart rate gets.