Chris Hemsworth as Thor

So I’m waiting at a stop light and I notice what appears to be a big guy walking down the sidewalk. There are a bunch of cars in the way so I can only make out his calves, and his hands. Calves are pretty big, and hands and forearms also appear to be a good size.

I can catch the rough tempo and style of his gait, and then it hits me. I can’t tell if this guy is overly fat, or overly muscular. As the cars start to move forward it is revealed to me that the man walking down the street was probably in his mid 50′s, hadn’t seen the inside of a gym in 30 years and was approximately 100 lbs overweight.

The troubling part is that he walks and moves exactly the same way as the powerlifters and bodybuilders from our gym. I wonder if I walked the same way when I was chemically enhanced and weighed 250lbs pounds…possibly, but I can’t remember and nobody ever mentioned anything to me…I certainly hope not.

It’s taken me a long time to get over my need to be bigger and now it just looks silly when I see normal guys eating and training their way up to be as big as this overweight man and ending up looking and walking just like him too.

The new wave of hollywood comic book action hero’s also helps with this point. Ryan Reynolds, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Hugh Jackman etc. The key to the look each guy has is that they’re muscular but also very lean.

During is prep for his role as Thor, Chris Hemsworths trainer explained that the marvel people wanted him to get his shoulders as wide as possible to give him that heroic looking shoulder to waist taper…sounds like the Adonis Index…

Chris Evans as Captain America

All the muscle in the world won’t do a thing for your look if it’s covered in fat. In fact, the more muscle you have mixed with a high bodyfat level the bulkier and fatter you’ll end up looking. Unfortunately many guys will be so afraid to ‘lose muscle’ they’ll let the best years of their life go by being fat in a desperate and futile attempt to build more and more muscle for some non existent day in the future when they think they’ll finally be ‘big enough’ to start stripping away the fat.

It’s sorta like buying a ferrari and then leaving it in a garage for the entire time you own it, never getting in it or every letting it see the light of day. This to me is the similar to spending countless hours in the gym trying to build muscle but all the while concealing it under a thick layer of fat. What is the point?

Excessive bodyfat will always obscure and cloud your ability to tell how much muscle you really have and how well your effort in the gym is paying off.

John

This is the question I end up asking myself at least a dozen times every day I’m at the gym. I normally go about my business and don’t say much to anybody unless my good buddies are there. I listen to music or podcasts and just do my own thing.

Seriously...What the F#&K are you doing?!

As I’m resting between sets I scan the gym and just watch what other people are doing, and without fail, every single time, I see something that makes me ask this question.

From people doing full squats standing on a stability with a barbell across their back, to people trying to do one leg deadlifts standing on a bosu ball, to trainers making overweight seniors push a weighted sled back and forth across the gym…WHAT THE F#*K ARE YOU DOING!??!

Part of it is incompetent trainers trying to make their client feel like they’re getting their money’s worth buy coming up with ridiculous exercises and workouts.

Part of it is people who need to show off by doing strange workouts with wobble boards, and bosu balls, and standing on stability balls.

Part of it is people who just don’t know what they’re doing and unfortunately read a magazine to get workout advice or watch some other equally clueless person in the gym and copy what they’re doing.

The people doing the ridiculous thing that gets me to think “WHAT THE F#*K ARE YOU DOING” are almost never someone who has a body that I would consider to be in good shape…or more specifically at their respective Adonis Index or Venus Index.

In other words, they’re doing all of this weird stuff and it’s not doing anything to help them a better looking body…if anything it just makes them look even more foolish.

On the other hand most of the people I ever see who have a great physique just stick with the basics and put the necessary time and effort to get their body into a great shape.

The moral of the story is that no gimmick piece of equipment or bizarre technique is going to get you to your body any faster than hard work and a well designed workout program.

Leave the wobble boards, bosu ball, (and standing on a swiss ball for squats) to the other people who want to give the appearance that they know what they’re doing…In all likelihood they don’t (and they’d trade in the ridiculous workouts if they really knew how to build the body they want).

Dumbbells, a bench, a bar, and some serious effort is all it’s going to take to get to your ideal body.

John

The 75% Non-Diet Solution for Weight Loss – Anything Goes Diet Blog

When it comes to weight loss there is going to be a beginning and an end to your weight loss journey. Obviously you can just be losing weight for the rest of your life, at some point you will get to the goal weight and stop.

The reality is that even after achieving your weight loss goal you may find that you slowly creep up in weight and start to gain little bits of the weight back.

In order to stay at your goal weight I propose the 75%/25% rule…you can read more about it at the anything goes diet blog here:

Keeping Weight Off with the 75%/25% Rule

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Sabotage Point – Venus Index Blog

During a transformation many people hit a point where they stall or have stalled in the past. This could happen for any number of reasons including a lack of social feedback and the fear of the unknown. In all cases this is a psychological barrier.

Learning where your specific sabotage point is and what the psychological and social keys are that create it is the first and most critical step to breaking through this barrier.

Once you get through this barrier there is no stopping you from reaching your goals.

In todays podcast we talk about getting past your sabotage point.

You can read more and listen to the podcast here:

Getting Over Your Sabotage Point

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Finding Your Motivation – Adonis Index Blog

Getting through a transformation requires daily effort and each day requires new motivation. Even if the end goal is the same the motivation to push through another day might be different.

It’s your job to find that motivation and stay on target. Incredible changes can be seen in a short time, but only if you find the motivation to stay on track.

Each day builds on the last and by the end of three months you can accomplish something you never thought possible.

Staying motivated is the linchpin to reaching your goals.

In todays podcast we interview one of our contest winners Andrew Scott and get insights into how he found his motivation to stay on track and build an impressive amount of muscle in only 12 weeks.

Read more and listen in here:

Finding Your Motivation

John

So I just finished a mini transformation of my own (riding off of the momentum from our latest Adonis Index transformation contest)

Here are some before and after pics of me from almost exactly one year ago.

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Almost exactly 1 year apart

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About 5-7 pounds leaner.

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Some other random pictures we took this past week after my latest diet down. I’m anywhere from 176-179lbs in these pictures.

A random pic while I was talking

A back shot

Some abs

Doing Some Light Curls

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So this is where I got to this time around. It’s been almost two years in the making (I’ll put up some two-year transformation comparison pics next…man I was FAT two years ago!)

I followed the Adonis Index Workouts for the past year doing a giant cycle leading up to this shoot.

Over the next few posts we’ll talk about how I ate for this cut down but if you’re a regular reader here you already know what I’m going to say…I just ate whatever I normally would eat, just less of it…and yes I had a coffee and a donut every morning during this cut down!

I did do some ‘volumetric’ cooking to help with those days when I wanted to feel more ‘full’ but without eating too many calories…we’ll talk more about this later as well.

I don’t know why but it seems like December is my month for getting leaner and putting up pics. I guess the job now is to maintain this level of leanness until this time next year and post another round of pics!

John

This is a slight departure from the regular posts here but I think you’ll like it.

Today over at the Adonislifestyle blog Brad Howard and I posted the first part of our two part interview with the winner of our Adonis Effect transformation contest Jason Haynes.

If you’re part of the Adonis Lifestyle community you already know who Jason is and why he’s our star profile today.

For those of you who don’t, I think a quick look at his pictures makes the point better than I can with words.

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This is the link to the first half of the podcast interview we did with him.

INTERVIEW WITH JASON HAYNES CLICK HERE

(scroll to the bottom of the post to find the audio player, you can listen on the page or download the mp3 file)

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This interview reveals many insights into making a big time change in your body and life.

Enjoy

John