Job Well Done!!!!

On March 9, 2011, High Octane Fitness/Martial Arts promoted their first Yudo and JuJitsu students. After a year of training, they were ready to advance in rank. Joseph Barnes obtained a junior yellow belt in Yudo and Alonzo Travis earned his Kukyu (yellow belt) in JuJitsu. These ranks were highly earned and not given away. They both went through a 1 hour grueling test that covered physical and mental limits, as well as knowledge about their fighting style. At High Octane Fitness we pride ourselves on teaching self-defense first and sport as a secondary means to achieve the ability to defend ourselves and love ones. Congratulations to both Joseph and Alonzo for an excellent job well done.

Happy New Year Everyone! by Andy Stolarik

I know it’s well into the new year but this is our first new year post. Everyone has made their new year’s resolutions and keeping to them for at least a month or two. That’s when they realize that it takes work and dedication to achieve their overall objective.

I say take your time with your new commitment. What’s the rush? Everybody wants everything at one time. The “fast food effect.” That’s why people burn out so quickly because they want their objective now. I’m here to tell you that you won’t achieve your goal as quickly as you would like. It takes time, dedication and many smaller goals to achieve you bigger objective. Today, I’m going to give you a list exercises that you can do to help you achieve your smaller goals.
The market is flooded with ways to lose weight, increase your muscle mass, increase your strength, how to achieve that beach body without lifting a finger and best of all what to eat and when to eat your favorite foods. Almost everything that I have read, researched, and experimented with all say the same thing but one thing that I have learned is to keep everything simple. The least amount of planning gives you maximum amount of time doing what you need to get done. Mike Mahler wrote in his book- The Aggressive Strength Solution for Size And Strength- about the 80/20 club. The 80/20 club is a list of seven exercises that are needed to increase muscle tone and strength. Do these seven exercises 80% of the time and supplementary exercise 20% and you will increase muscle tone and strength. However, do these same exercises 100% of the time and your increase muscle tone and strength 100% of the time. I like this list and follow the list and have had amazing results.
So I got to thinking let’s develop a list of bodyweight exercises that will increase muscle tone and strength. The exercises need to be compound exercise (work the whole body not just isolate one body part) and keep it basic. So here is my 80/20 club of bodyweight exercises: “The Big Seven”. Remember I’m using the K.I.S.S. method: Pull-ups, Dips, Push-ups, Squats, Bodyweight Rows (inverted push-ups), Handstand Push-ups and back hyperextensions.
These seven exercises will work your major muscles throughout your body. You can mix up the exercises and way you need to keep it effective and non-stop. Of course there are variations to the list above but again I used the K.I.S.S. method.
Complete the workout in the least amount of time:
21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of: push-ups, pull-up, squats and hyperextensions.
Do 21- push-up, pull-ups, squats and hypertensions and then do 18 of all and then 15 and so on. The one who completes the routine in the least amount of time wins. Post your results.

Merry Christmas “Trees” Workout

I was watching a James Bond movie and felt motivated to grab a quick workout. What you need is a stopwatch and your body weight. I came up with this workout based on one of the workouts we do with kicks on Thai pads. The term “Christmas Trees” is where you kick the pads 1 kick, 2 kicks, 3 kicks, 4 kicks….up to 10 as fast & hard as you can, then come back down from 10 kicks, 9 kicks, 8 kicks….down to 1 kick…then switch legs…So, with that being said, I decided to do the same with 3 basic body weight exercises…Squats, push ups, & sit ups…

You will end up doing 110 reps of squats, 110 reps push ups, & 110 reps of sit ups for a grand total of 330 reps.

Go from one exercise to the next as fast as you can:  Start the stopwatch…

1 squat, 1 push up, 1 sit up…2 then 3, up to 10...Then 10 squats, 10 push ups, 10 sit ups…9 then 8, back down to 1…HAVE FUN!

I completed mine tonight in 9:30 minutes. If this is too easy…Although, I felt good, dripping sweat, muscles pumped and feeling worked, I think next time I will do jump squats, clap push ups, and probably still regular old sit ups, because I like those, or maybe some leg raises! Or maybe, I will do more than 1 round…Feel Free to do as many rounds as you want!

Try it! Be creative with your exercises/workouts! Just make sure you keep your heart rate up, it keeps you fairly winded, which…if you go from one exercise to the next without stopping, that shouldn’t be a problem. Have Fun With it!

Let me know your time when you do it!

It's Time For Change & I Am Not Talking Politics....

Today, I was sitting in carpool line waiting for my son to come out of school. The parking lot was extremely full because of the Christmas parties. Cars and people were everywhere. As I was sitting in my truck watching people come out of the school and go to their cars, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I guess I never paid too much attention before, or maybe it was due to the excess of people walking across the parking lot than I am used to seeing, so it made me think about it more.

I was saddened to see that at least 8 out of the 10 people that walked out of the school were either overweight, obese, looked unhealthy, weak, lacking flexibility, poor posture, etc…Many were children too! I know they have to feel miserable! I have been there & I have to say, I will never be there again!

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

WE ARE THE FATTEST NATION IN THE WORLD!!!

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

My Outdoor Fitness Boot Camps provide the perfect combination of personal training, team building, and hard work that result in you reaching your fitness potential! Something great happens when a group of people with similar fitness goals rally around each other to conquer the day’s workout. It’s about setting personal goals and pushing your limits. It’s about taking on some competition, but remembering that it’s ultimately YOU vs.YOU!!! It’s about feeling like you would run through a wall if I asked you to. It’s about the air of confidence you feel as you carry out your day knowing that, while most of your co-workers or the general public are barreling down a path of unhealthy habits, you’ve already done, in one session, more running, pushing, jumping, pulling, and crawling than they’ll do all week! It’s about doing something for you! 

  

Unleash the athlete inside you!

 

“Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live.”
-Jim Rohn

Today's Outdoor Boot Camp Workout

12-17-2010 Workout


Got started with "The Kong" and "The Ape Step." These are body weight animal movements that will work your total body and get you ready to work. If you are not familiar with these exercises, I suggest you search them on you tube and give it a try yourself. We did "The Kong" the length of 3 tennis courts and "The Ape Step" back the length of 3 tennis courts changing sides halfway through. The warm up was out of the way, so we got started with our 300 rep workout which is as follows....


The Rules:
Complete 10 Exercises As Fast As You Can, Going From One To The Next With As Little Rest As Possible:

30 Prison Squats
30 Push Ups
30 Sit Ups
30 Squat Thrusts With A Hop At The Top
30 Dips
30 Walking Lunge Steps
30 Mountain Climbers
30 Alternating Planks(Transition from plank to plank from elbows to hands)
     *A lot tougher than you'd think...
30 Double Crunches
30 High Knees(Run in place as fast as you can, bringing your knees as high as you can)

We finished this 300 Rep workout in 12 minutes...Looking forward to better/faster score next time!

Throughout the remainder of our workout, we threw in some pull ups, running/fast walk across a 6"x6" retaining wall, one leg hops up some steps, wall climbs, traveling depth jumps, hanging leg raises, and leaping over and going under some rails.

See You Monday!

You should give the 300 Reps a try and let me know what your completion time is!

Andy's Home Made Meal Replacement Drink!

Many of you are asking about the homemade meal replacement recipe that I use. Let me start off my saying it is not my recipe. I got the recipe from Mr. Bova, the creator of http://projectspartan.net/. It is his invention so give him the credit.

Version 1:

1 cup of stock (homemade is best but not necessary) already heated
1 tablespoon (I use a real spoon) of coconut oil/cream/water or olive oil
1 teaspoon of cream (sour cream) or 1 table spoon of half/half or goat milk

Mix all ingredients up and drink. Yum!



Version 2:
1 cup of tea, coffee or 100% pure coco (already heated)
1 tablespoon of coconut oil/cream/water or olive oil
1 tablespoon of half/half or goat milk

Mix all ingredients up and drink. Yum!



There you go. Homemade meal replacement drink/soup.

My New Spartan Diet by Andy Stolarik

Over the years I have been on a search for the Holy Grail of diets.  Most people are looking for something that is easy, gain magical results in a quick time frame.  This is the “American Way”- quick and easy but let’s face it, changing your body is not an easy task especially when it comes to eating.  We all know how to eat properly and the effects of eating properly however, we are lazy if it requires some kind of work.  Your body is a machine and like all machines it requires maintenance and work so nothing will rust and cease up on us.  While our body is in motion we will be able to see if anything needs to be fixed from pain, lack of sleep/over sleep, poor intake of foods and etc...

Our diets affect about 90% of our emotions, activity, personality, thoughts and how we speak to people.  When we eat right (clean), we can think better causing us to make appropriate decisions, we are nicer to people (because we are not hungry and feel better about ourselves, we will be able to communicate our thoughts clearer our colleagues, and our level of activity and ambitions will be increased.  The other 10% is how we get there.  What is our plan to put the 90% to work for us?  That is where the new Spartan Diet program comes into play.  This idea was inspired by Bova- the Spartan Warlord.  His ideas and research made it possible for me to make the Spartan Diet work (see his link on the right side of this blog).   So without any further ado:

This plan consists of 2 main meals- breakfast and dinner.  You will fill up on veggies (low carb veggies at that).  Follow this program for 3 days and on the fourth day carb-up on one meal- don’t go overboard or all this hard work will be wasted.   The carb days you will pick one meal and eat a fair portion of carbs- enough to satisfy you-preferably use breakfast as your meal.  Then throughout the day eat veggies that have medium sugar levels.    

Meal 1 – Breakfast

Protein based meal (egg, steak, grilled chicken) with some veggies or blackberries. 

Meal 2- Lunch

Eat mostly veggies with a side of protein (fish, steak, chicken)

Now lunch can be substituted with another form of food but not crap food.  You can use a meal replacement drink if you wish.  Just make sure you make it yourself.  This was also inspired by Bova. 

Meal 3- Dinner 

Eat mostly veggies again with much needed protein.  

Snacks throughout the day

Eat veggies.  You make them so you can eat them (cooked, raw, dipped- make sure you use olive oil any way you can get them down).    

The idea for this diet is to burn the already ready stored sugar in your body and coupled with an exercise plan you will burn lots of sugar which will shrink your fat cells. 

Well that’s it “My New Spartan Diet” program.  Use it over the holidays and tell me if it works for you.  Remember this is just a guideline- you can make any adjustments necessary to fit your needs.