The Nerdist Way_ How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) - Chris Hardwick [62]
FITNESS HIGHLIGHTS
• The most important thing about working out is consistency!!!
• The most important thing about fitness is contraction, using lighter weights to pump maximum blood into your muscles.
• Work the full rotation of muscle: power-lifting mentality (full range of muscle) vs. bodybuilding mentality.
• Do not grow in the gym; growth takes place with rest and proper nutrition.
• Posture and proper alignment are most important for preventing injury.
• The first five minutes of cardio flushes out stored carbs in the body.
• Better diet = less cardio.
• Depletion of calories will burn lean muscle mass.
• Overtraining, breaking down muscles, and not allowing enough recovery time will lead to injury.
• The most important supplement is food!!
• Minimum cardio: Reach THR (target heart rate) a minimum of three times a week. Your THR should be 60–70% for fat burn, 70–80% for cardiovascular.
• For the sake of stress on your joints, it’s better to walk at a good pace at an incline than to run.
• For stamina and endurance, include interval training (to elevate your heart rate).
• Vary the type of cardio, weight resistance, and interval training to shock your muscles.
• If under the age of seventeen, be careful of growth areas, i.e., spine, shoulders, and knees.
• At any age, core strength is most important! Build solid core strength, then pursue weight strength and muscle size. Endurance builds strength!
• Check your ego!
A SUMMARIZED PRIORITY LIST FOR LIST WHORES
1. CONSISTENCY: Commit to doing the best you can every day!
2. PORTION CONTROL: Don’t eat until you get full.
3. A CHEAT DAY: Seriously, ANYTHING you want.
4. HEALTHY SNACKS: Almonds, fruit, yogurt, string cheese.
5. WATER: Make water your go-to beverage!
6. DO NOT EAT TWO HOURS BEFORE BED: Can’t really expand on that one.
7. DON’T PUNCH PEOPLE IN THE FACE: I mean, as long as we’re making lists ...
CHECK THAT BOX!
In the lifelong pursuit of fitness and feeling better, you will ALWAYS get an “A” for effort. For the first couple of years of my manly workouts, I avoided exercising while traveling because I just wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, and the pain of ignorance far outweighed the desire to have a luscious body (wait . . . WHAAAA??). Then while doing a series of stand-up gigs at colleges in central Illinois (I was following the path of the great Lincoln-Douglas debates: “This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.” Abe FTW!) Anyway, it was during the winter and I believe the National Weather Service had declared the area “Hoth”, so I was left with a day of nothing to do in a Hampton Inn in a small town. (Hampton has the best beds in a pinch and are in all small towns. No, they are not paying me but certainly SHOULD.) “Say . . . maybe I’ll see if there’s a fitness room . . . that should crush some of this boredom!” Let it be noted that the broadband in the hotel leaked out of the Ethernet cable like tree sap, so anything more than email was unrealistic. Yes! There was a fitness room. Most hotels have them now. In this case, it was just a treadmill and an exercise bike, but it was enough. I stretched for five minutes and ran for twenty. That was all. I felt better.
When I got back to Apartment Dojo, I shamefully recanted my minuscule workout.
“Bro!” said Trainer Tom. “That’s GREAT!”
“It is? But I only jogged on the treadmill for, like, twenty minutes.”
And this is the following sentence that shifted my worldview of consistent exercise and made it seem plausible: “It doesn’t matter what you do . . . as long as you check that ‘Did I work out today’ box with a yes!”
And it suddenly made a bunch of sense. Two years prior, I was in terrible shape, and now here I was CHOOSING to exercise without someone standing over me telling me what to do. The benefits are twofold: (1) Some exercise is better than NO exercise. Always. (2) Something joyful surges in your brain