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Nowadays, everybody wanna talk like they got somethin’ to say,
But nothin’ comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of jibberish,
And all these fools act like they forgot about J…
-Eminem (probably)
Friday, Coach J here from Anyman Fitness – and welcome to the latest edition of The N.W.A. Newsletter.
Each Friday’s N.W.A. Newsletter will have 3 parts:
- A Nutritional Tip to help make your diet healthier and easier to stick to.
- A Workout Tip to help make your training sessions more effective and fun.
- An Attitude/Mindset tip to help you strengthen your greatest asset – your mental toughness.
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I will also give you my single favorite piece of social media content from AF over the past week and link to it on either Instagram or Twitter.
Without any further ado… let’s get started, shall we?
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N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week:
You are now about to enter “The Danger Zone” of dieting.
The time from Halloween to New Year’s Eve is one of the toughest stretches of the year to maintain or lose weight.
The average American puts on 8-10 pounds during this 2 month time period.
We then spend the next 10 months trying to shed those 8-10 pounds.
Often times, instead of shedding all the weight, we get *pretty close* but end up with a net weight gain of a few pounds.
Fast forward a decade or two, and we’re 50+ pounds heavier than we were in high school, and we’re staring at ourselves in the mirror, wondering what happened…
I would know… this happened to me as well… so if it happened to you, you’re in good company.
The best advice I can give you for the next 2 months is simple:
Be sure to nail all of your “normal days”.
If you do this, you are guaranteed to end up fine at the start of 2022.
You may even find yourself leaner and lighter than you are today.
Let me explain what I mean by “nail all your normal days”…
Between now and January 2nd, there are 5 days we consider to be holidays, and food fests often accompany them.
Those days are:
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas Eve
- Christmas
- New Year’s Eve
- New Year’s Day
I’m not the kind of coach who’s going to tell his clients to eat macro-perfect, Tupperware containers of food when everyone else is getting down with holiday treats and goodies.
That just isn’t reasonable – you have to be able to be hedonistic from time to time and enjoy some calorie bombs every once in awhile.
So, I instruct my clients to have fun on those days, but just be smart.
Binging is never a good thing, so keep your senses about you.
But enjoy yourself nonetheless!
Have some stuffing, potatoes, turkey/ham, macaroni and cheese… whatever you desire… and be sure you enjoy some dessert as well.
Enjoy the food for the taste and take your time eating it.
Savor every bite – holidays only come around a few times per year, so be sure you make the most of them.
Use the time to recharge and have fun.
But if we did that every day during the holidays, we would quickly run into issues.
Those 5 days I mentioned above make up less than 10% of the time between now and 2022.
Over 90% of the time, it’s not one of those days.
90% of the time, the days are considered ‘normal’ days.
Perhaps you’re off of work and you have a bit more free time, but either way, the other days usually don’t have family functions or social events attached to them.
And that’s the secret – if you want to maintain your weight during the holiday season, you can’t let “Christmas” turn into “Christmas, plus all the leftovers and desserts and more drinks and more leftovers and then let’s go out to eat and more booze and…”
Ya know?
THAT’S what gets ya.
It’s not “Thanksgiving” that gets ya.
It’s turning “Thanksgiving” into a Thursday through Sunday gorge-fest…
If you don’t pump the brakes after your fun, you’re guaranteed to pile on the pounds quickly during the holidays.
If you apply just a bit of strategy and discipline, you could make this holiday season your most successful yet from a health perspective.
Enjoy yourself on your holidays, nail your “normal days”, and be sure to keep training hard in the weight room.
If you do that, you’ll put any extra calories to good use and on January 2nd, you’ll feel amazing instead of hungover like most Americans on that day.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
I’ve always hated leg day.
It’s mainly due to being 6’8″ – it’s tough for me to properly balance with my long legs and levers.
Of course I never skip leg day, though… doing so would be sacrilege.
Even though I’m not a fan of leg day, I’ve managed to find a leg day protocol that works really well for me.
I’ve used it with a few 1:1 clients of mine as well, and they rave about it, too.
It’s a short routine, but it’s grueling.
You’ll be in and out of the gym in 30 minutes or less… but I can promise you, you’ll be wobbly walking to your car afterwards…
Here is my current leg day – you can use this in your own training sessions if you wish.
Bodyweight Split Squats: 3 sets of 20 reps per leg (2 minutes rest between sets)
Dumbbell Goblet Squats: 10 sets of 8 reps (30 seconds of STRICT rest between sets)
Supersets of Romanian Deadlifts + Bodyweight Calf Raises: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (RDL’s) and 20 reps (calf raises) (3 minutes rest between sets)
That’s it.
That’s the entire leg workout.
The short workout begins with bodyweight split squats.
These don’t need to be loaded.
Focusing on one leg at a time is a great way to loosen your hips and glutes up while improving your balance and athleticism.
After 3 sets of those, we move onto the heart of this leg day:
10 sets of 8 dumbbell goblet squats with 30 seconds of STRICT rest between sets.
If you’re doing this for the first time, start light with 20 or so pounds at the most (unless you’re a seasoned veteran of high rep leg exercises).
Each time you complete all 10 sets of 8 reps with 30 seconds of rest between sets, you increase the weight 5 pounds next session.
Eventually, the weight may get too heavy to properly get into position for goblet squats.
If that happens, start holding the dumbbell between your legs – this is called a “dumbbell sumo squat”.
I did this exact leg routine from March to December of 2020 while my gym was closed.
All I had was a 70 pound set of adjustable dumbbells, so I had to make due with my available equipment.
And after 9 months of doing those leg days, I just kept going!
Once I was able to get back into the gym, I kept adding 5 pounds each time I completed the routine.
Eventually, I had to switch to the barbell and now I’m back squatting 145 pounds for 10 sets of 8.
I’m a bit surprised I’ve been able to stick with this leg workout as long as I have.
It helps that it’s really short and provides EXCELLENT results.
After you damn-near-die doing those 10 sets, take a rest and then lock in for the final part of the day: Romanian Deadlifts superset with bodyweight calf raises.
These are less grueling – but you still want to be sure you’re intense and moving some solid weight.
Once you’re done with each set of RDL’s, don’t rest, go right into the bodyweight calf raises while you breathe deep and recover.
If you’re like me, and trying to squat as much as possible isn’t your cup of tea, give high rep leg training a try.
Who knows, maybe you’ll even learn to love leg day like I do now…
If that’s even possible… 😉
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Have the difficult conversation.
Do the hard work.
Meet your challenges head on.
Do what you know you need to do.
Avoidance is a huge problem for many people.
We tend to shy away from our problems and issues, as burying them down deep is often less painful in the short term.
But there’s that phrase – short term.
We just end up kicking the can down the road when we don’t communicate clearly to other people.
Long term, this sets us up for regret, which is one of the most powerful emotions we can feel as humans.
Maybe you’ve been avoiding getting a check up because you’re scared of what the doctor might say.
Perhaps you’re procrastinating on talking to your boss about work/life balance, and you’re getting more miserable by the day.
Being a self-advocate is important.
If something is bothering you, it’s always best to deal with it before it festers and becomes something else.
I’ve seen many divorces that could have been easily avoided with more communication along the way.
I’ve heard many stories of estranged family members who have forgotten what they were even fighting about in the first place.
In those situations, the difficult conversations were sometimes avoided.
Or the feelings of resentment became too strong, and ultimately broke the relationship forever.
Getting comfortable being uncomfortable is an important part of self-improvement.
We all need a bit of extra practice navigating uncomfortable situations.
The good news is once you start practicing having difficult conversations, they become easier over time.
And the best part is you’ll start to develop a reputation for being an honest, upfront person.
That’s never a bad thing…
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Unless you’re training for a powerlifting/strongman competition, slow your reps down.
Maintain tension throughout the entire range of motion.
No dropping bench presses on your sternum.
No falling/kipping pull-ups.
Work the muscle you’re trying to work intently at all times.
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I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Anyman Fitness N.W.A. Newsletter.
I’ll be back next week.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Best,
Chuck-D-Coach-J
Anyman Fitness
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