CST Free Weight Exercises By Scott Sonnon

This insightful contribution by one of my RMAX faculty coaches, Brandon Jones:
“Yesterday on my local news, I saw a story about a local high school basketball coach who was recently fired. While this alone couldn’t be less interesting, the reason he was fired peaked my interest. He was fired as a result of allowing his [...]
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Q: Hi Eric, I just finished the Maximum Strength 16-week program, and was thrilled with my results, including a 40-pound increase on my bench press and 80-pound increase on my deadlift.  I’m wondering, though, what I should do next?  Should I start the program over? Or, do you reccomend something else?
A: Repeating the program is [...]
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This is quite an interesting video from Brad Pilon.

Growth hormone or ‘GH’ is a very important hormone that regulates the release of fat from your body stores so that it can be used as a fuel source.

Traditionally we have been taught that to burn fat you need to keep our insulin levels ‘normal’ or ‘under control’. It turns out that the release of body fat is controlled by GH….

I like Brad’s eat stop eat book on fasting.

Lots of us in the paleo / evolutionary fitness community are regularly practising fasting. Richard often fasts as does Keith - pictured below.

Keith - in this post explains how fasting has added the finishing touch to his physique:

Essentially, we are designed to be intermittent eaters, but continuous metabolizers. We operate in a slight energy surplus during the day, followed by a negative energy balance during the night. In a healthy, lean individual, energy pool stores are constantly turning over; individuals whose insulin level is chronically high, however, cannot adequately access fat stores and, therefore, for them, the fat continues to accumulate, unabated. Insulin resistance can therefore be considered a survival mechanism, in the fact that it develops as a result of the body’s cells’ requiring protection against the continual onslaught of excess nutrients; a protection triggered due to the cells being already stressed from excessive nutrient content. The excess nutrient intake also serves to shut down autophagy, the consumption of damaged tissues within the muscle cell which fuels repair and regeneration. Growth Hormone release is stunted, and muscle gene expression is down regulated. The ancestral environment did not support chronic, elevated nutrient ingestion, nor was there ever “a window of feeding opportunity” subsequent to a bout of energy expenditure (exercise, for us modern-day Paleolithics) to shovel in carbohydrate replacement drinks and protein powders.

Ideally, we’d eat only when the energy substrates in the blood fall to the point of triggering a need for replenishment. The true hunger signal is an elegantly simple energy management system, and one that you would, in fact, expect from evolution. Contrary to the continual drumbeat of mainstream “experts”, there is no “set point” level for body fat, body mass or metabolism. What evolution has endowed us with is a simple feeding strategy that endeavors to keep us on a random energy intake-to-expenditure path that favors the survival (and thriving, if conditions are right) of the organism. Now, if we’d only get out of the way and let this fabulous mechanism take its course.

Brad’s book is a great introduction to the science behind all this.

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If you want to know how to lose fat and build muscle, then you’re reading the right page because I’ll show you everything there is to know right now.
You see, burning fat and building muscle CAN happen simultaneously! It’s happened numerous times, it’s proven by science, and you just have to do a few important [...]

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3. 3 Tips To Burn Fat Not Muscle If you think you want to lose weight, you’re WRONG…

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I’ve spent my entire life seeking out great mentors across the globe. Oh, I found them… and studied at their feet. Teachers remain a necessity, but I’ve discovered that the necessity isn’t for the reason I thought as a young man. As a young man, I sought out teachers so that they could give me [...]
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This is a random post, but it came about in light of our recent switch to a new hosting company, plus the reorganization of the site.  In this drawn-out, mind-numbing, baldness-inducing process, I came to realize that a lot of my better writing has slipped into an internet black hole - or at the very [...]
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You know I like jumps.

These look amazing. Steve Cotter is using these moves to help prepare his legs for an upcoming kettlebell contest.

He says

Trying to prepare the best I can for the first-ever Arnold Sports Festival Kettlebell Championship on March 7th. It has been awhile since I’ve trained like an athlete, for an event that I want to perform well in. Any serious athlete is going to have to train the legs and kettlebells is definitely a serious sport.

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The Hell Push-Up was designed by CST Head Coach Alberto Gallazzi, the “bodyguard to the stars” (including Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, George Clooney and Gwyneth Paltrow.) When I work with Alberto, it’s a rapid and concentrated exchange. In the martial art world, we say it’s due to the “intrusion of reality.” In the dojo it’s fine [...]
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In this week’s “The Biggest Loser made me want to stab my eye out with a hot poker” moment, I watched what appeared to be a 1,742-pound woman attempt to do an inverted row.  It was an admirable attempt, for sure, but I’m sorry to say that in all my years of strength and conditioning, [...]
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