By: Kevin Larrabee
This week’s interview is with Craig Ballantyne of TurbulenceTraining.com. Craig is known for his fat-loss workouts that have help thousands to put on lean muscle and blowtorch bodyfat. Enjoy the interview
KL: Hey Craig, thank you for your time. First off can you fill the audience in about what’s new in the world of Turbulence Training and at TTmembers.com?
CB: I have a big announcement coming soon, but right now we’re just having fun
with all the new workouts I’ve put up recently, including…
3-Minute Arms
6-Minute Abs
TT Bodyweight Cardio (TT Bodyweight Cardio Version 2.0 comes out Nov 1st)
TT for Meatheads (Meatheads Version 2.0 comes out Nov 1st)
TT Female Bodysculpting
We’re in the middle of another 12-week Transformation Contest, and our 4-
week Rapid Weight Loss contest just wrapped up with the winners here:
=> http://www.TransformationContest.com
New TT2K9 workout and Transformation Contest coming in January. Lots of good
times had by all. We’re also doing weekly “Challenge Workouts”, and our
first one was the TT Bodyweight 500 that I’ll talk about below.
KL: The holidays are fast approaching and this tends to be the time of the
year where people find themselves surrounded by alcohol, desserts, and other
food that will temp them to stray from their diet. What advice do you give
to your clients to avoid putting on the holiday weight?
CB: There’s never a time of year when we’re not surrounded by alcohol, desserts,
and other tempting food, so let’s stop using it as an excuse. Okay, maybe
the first 3 weeks of January, but once the Superbowl comes, its one thing
after another (Spring Break, Summer Holidays, Fall Holidays). So “time of
year” doesn’t really impress me. As far as I know, McDonalds is also open 52
weeks of the year.
You have to plan ahead. Decide which days are going to include “reward
meals”, and which days you are going to “stay strong” and stick to the plan.
You have the old, “pain of discipline vs. pain of regret” to choose between.
It’s up to you.
Clearly I’m no Obama when it comes to motivating people. You are either
going to do it or you’re not.
You need to decide right now whether you are going to be like everyone else
or if you are going to go against the crowd and improve your body at this
time of year.
Once you accept how hard it is to burn fat – at any time of year – then
you’ll find it easy.
That might sound like the stupidest thing you’ve heard, so let me explain.
Take a look at a bodybuilder 12 weeks out from a show. They know how hard it
is going to be to cut that fat. So they plan ahead. They make all their
meals in advance. They avoid situations where they will be tempted. And if
they can’t avoid the situations, they still avoid temptation. There is NO
other option in their minds. They’ve accepted the difficulty and the
challenge.
You don’t have to be as strict as a bodybuilder getting ready for a contest,
but you must have the same mindset. You can’t think it’s going to be easy.
You need to mentally prepare in advance. Fortunately, its just a simple
mindset shift.
Go from being a person who is going to TRY and avoid bad foods and too much
booze to a person who IS going to avoid bad foods and too much booze. That’s
all it takes. But again, don’t be fooled, it’s not easy. And you have to
truly believe you are going to succeed.
Now, having said all that, you might also want to try Eat-Stop-Eat from Brad
Pilon, one of the many experts on Intermittent Fasting. Both of the winners
from the first two TT Transformation Contests used Eat-Stop-Eat.
KL: What about training during the holidays, which tends to be the busiest
time of the year?
CB: I’m sure most Fitcast readers know about the 4-minute workouts, and other
short workouts you can do. There’s really not much excuse to miss workouts.
I travel as much, if not more, than 90% of people in the USA. I’ve spent
dozens of nights in hotels and days on planes, and I don’t think I’ve been
able to use any travel day as an excuse to miss a workout. I’ve thought
about it, but I knew deep down I was just being lazy. When I fly early, I
get up earlier. If I have to, I get to the hotel and go straight to the gym.
Like the nutrition part, its all about being prepared, physically and
mentally. Set aside the time on the schedule. Program your brain that there
will be a workout done today. No excuses.
If you’re going from work to a holiday party, train first thing in the AM or
at lunch or after work.
Except for the rarest of occasions, it’s physically possible to do a
workout. The real reason most people skip workouts is because they are lazy
or they want to start the party early.
KL: Recently you have been mentioning Turbulence Training for Meatheads. How
does this differ from previous TT For Mass programs?
CB: It doesn’t. TT for Meatheads just makes me laugh. I was running out of names
for programs, and this workout just happens to be the exact workout I gave
to two of my clients who are self-proclaimed meatheads. So that was the
story of the name. However, I later realized the guys called
themselves “meatballs”, not meatheads. So look for TT for Meatballs in 2009.
KL: At The FitCast not a week goes by without a supplement question. What
supplements do you recommend if any?
CB: I personally do use or would use:
a) Plain creatine (with the loading phase – I don’t understand why anyone
wouldn’t use a 3-day loading period)
b) Fish juice
c) A greens drink (Greens Plus)
d) Multi-vitamin if your diet sucks
e) Protein powder if your life is truly so busy you can’t make real food
KL: Last week I saw a “registered dietitian” telling the audience that they
need to cut out ALL fruit while dieting if they want to lose weight, do you
agree with this?
CB: Yeah, that’s the cause of the world’s obesity problem – too much fruit. If
we’d all stop eating bananas, everyone’s BMI would come down to 25. And the
sooner we can get fruit out of our schools, the sooner we’ll eliminate child
obesity.
All it takes is a thimble-full of common sense to realize that fruit is not
going to stop an overweight person from losing weight.
Now I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t have a clue if eating fruit would
stop you from going from 6% fat to 4% fat for a bodybuilding competition,
but if you are 28% fat and want to go to 20% fat, I promise you that fruit
will not stop you from losing weight.
KL: You are known for helping people lose body-fat without cardio. Would you
say you are a bigger fan of bodyweight intervals? And if so, why?
CB: I like bodyweight intervals because the movements are athletic, and there’s
more mobility benefit from using a variety of bodyweight exercises (when
chosen properly). But I still really like traditional interval training for
fat loss, as that’s what all the research has been done on. But in the real
world, a lot of TT users exercise at home without any fancy cardio
equipment, so I had to meet the need for them and I’ve spent a lot of time
using bodyweight circuits to replace intervals. Some are better than others,
and it all depends on your fitness and strength level, but we’ve found some
really good bodyweight circuits that will help folks burn fat at home.
KL: What is the Bodyweight 500?
CB: This is a workout I made up to use as a challenge workout to keep folks
motivated to stick to their workout program. It came out in October 2007.
I found that guys loved the 300 workout created by Mark Twight and I also
found that because there was a benchmark (i.e. how fast can i do this
workout), it kept guys coming back to try it again and again. And since
getting people to stick to a program is difficult, I realized the value of
the challenge workout in a fat loss program.
So I came up with the TT BW 500 based on that connection. Men’s Health used
it for their Belly Off 2008 program, and the results reported by guys
surprised even me. Some guys lost 40 pounds in 8 weeks.
So here is my TT Bodyweight 500 Workout:
50 Prisoner Squats
50 Pushups
25 Jumps
25 Stability Ball Leg Curls
50 Stability Ball Jackknifes
50 Step-ups (25 reps per side)
25 Pull-ups (NO substitutions)
50 Forward Lunges (25 reps per side)
50 Close-grip Pushups
50 Inverted Rows
50 Squats
25 Chin-ups (NO substitutions)
If anyone needs instructions on these exercises, they can check out:
=> http://www.turbulencetraining.com/bodyweight-500-12-exercises.shtml
Or watch the Youtube video here:
=> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_5TX_uoagg
I just did this the other week and did my best time of 19:35, but some folks
are even doing better. It’s the pullups that’ll get ya.
KL: Great! Thanks for your time CB, it is always a pleasure. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts head over to the Turbulence Training homepage.
That is it for this week folks!
Don’t forget, there is less than 10 days left to purchase
The FitCast Insider- Volume 1 at a HUGE discount!!!
Take Care,
Kevin
