4 Tips On How To Get a Great Night's Sleep (Inspired by a Naked Dad)

A couple of months ago, I was in Stamford, CT for a conference. The first morning there, just before my first session I went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.

I got to the hostess about the same time as another guy. I knew who he was, but I wasn't sure if he knew me. Still being half awake and somewhat shy, I didn't introduce myself. We waited at the front of the almost empty restaurant for almost 5-minutes and were both visibly annoyed that we were ignored by the hostess.

While we were waiting, Vince Delmonte came down, who just happened to be a common friend (I think Vince knows everybody). He introduced us and we've been emailing each other every week ever since.

That guy, was Mike Roussell.

Mike just happens to be one of the top nutrition experts in the world and runs a very successful nutrition program over at NakedNutritionNetwork.com.

Mike is also one of the busiest dads that I have met.

Back in September when we first started talking, he was in the middle of studying for/writing his comprehensive exams for his PhD, working on his latest fat loss project called Warp-Speed Fat Loss (a collaboration w/fat loss expert Alwyn Cosgrove) and trying to be an exemplary parent (along with his wife Emily) to (then) 6-month-old twins.

Mike sent me this email that I thought you busy dads out there would appreciate...

Hey Chris. Glad you emailed me. There aren't a lot of guys like us - family man, fitness, blogging - we should stay in touch.

You would appreciate this... Classic 'dad' night last night - driving the kids around town at 1:30am to get them to stop screaming and sleep. Emily and I rate nights by what late night talk show host we will see before going to bed...

Jay Leno - great night (kids asleep before 12:30am)

Conan - average night (kids asleep by 1:30am)

Carson Daily - bad night (too late to remember)

Hope you're well, Mike

I'm not sure if you guys are anything like me, but I've always been hung up on how much sleep I get (or don't get these days). In fact, based on my 10-years of fatherhood, I've got a pretty reliable rating system as well...

#1 Rating - Bath & bed time story =
7-8hrs of sleep...A GREAT NIGHT!

#2 Rating - Bath & bed time story followed by a tantrum =
5-6hrs of sleep...BREAKFAST PREP WILL BE RUSHED, BUT CAN STILL GET DONE IF I DON'T SHOWER.

#3 Rating - Bath & bed time story followed by a tantrum, pee in the bed & late night laundry session washing soiled sheets =
4-5hrs...NO SHOWER, NO TIME TO PREPARE BREAKFAST FOR MYSELF THE NEXT MORNING, BUT I'LL STILL MAKE IT TO WORK.

#4 Rating - Bath & bed time story, tantrum, late night pee in the bed and/or puke followed by another bath and a late night laundry session washing soiled sheets =
ZERO hrs of sleep...DON'T EVEN BOTHER GOING TO BED BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO GET UP IN AN HOUR ANYWAY!

On a "normal" night (whatever that is), here are the 4 things that I try to do to make sure I get a great night's sleep NATURALLY...

1. Stop the coffee by 3pm. If I'm drinking espresso, I make sure that the last one I have is at 3pm. The 1/2-life of caffeine is about 3-4 hours in a healthy adult, so by having my last espresso at 3pm, I can ensure that most of the caffeine I consumed during the day is gone by around 9ish. That's just in time to...

2. Try to get to bed by 10pm. Your body wants to follow nature and the best possible sleep means that you're following sleep-wake cycles similar to that of the sun (darkness-daylight). If you're already going to bed too late, try to get up a little earlier each day, forcing you to hit the sack earlier, until your body adjusts.

3. Have your dinner earlier (or no later than 6/6:30pm). A lot of people use this trick for weight-loss, which I believe works, and it helps you with sleep quality because you'll make sure that your body's digestive processes are somewhat calm by the time bedtime rolls around (meaning that your heart won't be working as hard to feed all the muscles involved with digestion).

4. Calm your mind by using meditation or some form of relaxation. I just started using this technique and it's really worked out well. I'm the type who's always thinking...about what I need to do tomorrow, about ideas for my business, about whether or not my 3-year-old went to the bathroom prior to bed so I don't have a #3 or #4 kind of night. After reading the book "A New Earth", I learned that by just focusing on my breathing for 5-minutes, my mind stops racing and I'm able to really calm myself and relax right into a great sleep.

CL
The FitAndBusyDad

P.S. Getting up at 5am after a great night's sleep has been part of my morning routine for almost 10 years now. It enables me to get a lot done while my wife and kids (and the whole world pretty much) are still in bed. It also allows me to get my metabolism revved up with quick intense workouts that really take no time at all!

TRAIN like an Athlete, LOOK like an Athlete

Let me clear something up.

I AM NOT A BODYBUILDER.



Never was, don't think I ever will be.

Even growing up in the booming bodybuilding culture of the mid to late 90s, it never interested me.

In fact, I always envisioned having the physique of an athlete - Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, Karch Kiraly (volleyball player? pink hat? No?) - these are the guys who I idolized growing up.

But it wasn't so much what they looked like that impressed me, it was WHAT THEY COULD DO. My goal was to be able to jump like Mike, run routes like Jerry and put a ball hard into the sand like Karch (Still doesn't ring a bell?).

Because I grew up that way - training for performance as opposed to aesthetics - that influenced the way I train myself, train my clients and write my programs today. That interest in performance was why I went to school to study Human Kinetics.

It was always about what I could do to make myself or others perform better.

Training was about supporting my active lifestyle NOT a means of giving me one.

Having 6-Pack Abs, a well defined torso and what some referred to as "horse legs" was just a bi-product of training to be a better athlete.

Therefore, I will never write a bodybuilding based program. I don't even think I know how.

The FitAndBusyDad Lifestyle isn't about bodybuliding or getting massive guns and delts the size of bowling balls.

It's about being able to hold your own with the 20-year-olds at a pick-up game.

It's about loading 5 more rocks onto that wheel barrow that you need cart out of the backyard.

It's about still being able to throw your 10-year-old into the air and catch her without breaking your back.

It's about being able to carry your wife over the threshold even after 5, 10 or 25 years.

I build athletes that can perform...

...and if you push a lawn mower

or carry your kids from the car into bed after a late night

or put them on your shoulders while you're going from Merry-Go-Round to roller coaster at Six Flags...

...Then you're an athlete too! And you should be training like an athlete.

As busy dads involved in our kids lives, we have NO CHOICE but to be ATHLETIC. We have to be able to keep up with our kids. We want to be the STRONGEST dad on the block.

So stop doing bicep curls and do chin-ups instead.

Stop doing seated calf raises and do Siff squats.

Stop doing crunches and do some dead lifts.

Because as much as we won't admit it, we want to hear our kid say to his best friend, "My dad can kick your dad's a$$!"

Chris Lopez
-The FitAndBusyDad

P.S. Click HERE to train like an ATHLETE without having to set foot in a gym.

In Case You Missed It...

I got my 15-seconds yesterday.

I appeared on CityTV Toronto's Breakfast Television yesterday morning and did a quick demo of some of the exercises that you'll find in the new FitAndBusyDad e-book. Kevin Frankish, the host, was a good sport. And even though I got cut off slightly at the end (there's just too much to talk about), I may end up back sometime soon. And sorry guys, I did NOT get a chance to meet Dina.

You can find the video HERE. (Sorry, but it's not like YouTube, so I can't embed the video into the blog.)

CL
FitAndBusyDad

P.S. If you haven't already, get a sneak peak of what's in the book by signing up above for my newsletter or by clicking HERE.

The Experiment is Over....

...And I failed miserably. Not really. My Blackberry Experiment is now done, because, thanks to my friend Craig Ballantyne, I now know how to blog from my Blackberry (which I'm doing right now).

Truth be told, it's just easier having it. I've learned how to better manage my time, so I now only check it at scheduled times 2-3 times per day. I turned the E-mail notification and ringer off. I gave my wife and the kid's school their own unique rings. And now I leave the berry in the gym bag where it belongs. Voila! I just created an extra (and much needed) hour in my day.

So with my extra hour today, I got this workout in...

1a) 100 Tricep Push-Ups (it took me 3 sets)
1b) 3 x 25 KB Rows

2a) 400m runs x 4
2b) 25 KB Swings x 4

3a) Plank x 2min
3b) Side Plank x 45s/side

So it's off to the Dominican Republic in a couple of days with the family (all 6 of us!) for a destination wedding and long overdue vacation. I hope to have my first video blog up next week so stay tuned for that.

Still Busy,
CL

Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!!!

Ah yes, it smells like spring and therefore another soccer season is upon us! It's time to load up the minivan with lawn chairs and a packed cooler full of bottled water, gatorade and sliced oranges and head out to field to mingle with the other parents who also think that they're kid's the second coming of Ronaldinho.

AJ, my oldest, I'm proud to say, has made an "A" Division U11 team (yes, she just turned 10, so she's playing a year up). For us, that means lots of traveling to various weekend tournaments, lots of practices (2-3 per week) and (with the price of gas expected to go through the roof this summer) lots of money!!!



Joey (4-yrs-old), pictured above, may not return to the game this season because of the incident that occurred after this picture was taken. We're still petitioning the league, but she's gone through all the standard anger management courses and has promised to only drop-kick the ball from now on and NOT her opponents (regardless of how much she dislikes the headband they're wearing).* She has expressed an interest in art as of late, so maybe we'll just take this season off to work on her brush strokes.

*I am, of course, kidding. There was no "incident" and she'll be playing the same "bee hive", chase the ball soccer that we parents just love to watch.

As for the other 2, they're still too young. Frankie is perfectly content sitting on her princess lawn chair, sun hat on, sipping her pink lemonade and cheering her sisters on from the sideline. Mikey, as much as I know she wants to get out there, can't walk yet, let alone kick a ball. Plus, the intermittent breast feeding breaks may prove to be a distraction for the coaches.

All in all, this should be quite the summer. Even Rozanne, my wife, is playing with her usual team in a competitive women's league.

As for me, the last time I played soccer was when I was 8. I think it was my parents forcing me to get out there because I was a tubby, bacon and rice eating bundle of a child. A lot of good it did me though, because they just stuck me in net. Yes, I was the original "Big-Fat-Goalie... ...Monica Geller had nothing on me.

See you on the pitch (I mean the sideline),
CL

P.S. I'm reading a great book right now called, "Raising Our Athletic Daughters" by Jann Zimmerman & Gil Reavill. I highly suggest picking up a copy if you have girls. It's main point talks about how participating in sports can positively affect girls lives through the difficult years of adolescence. With 4 daughters, I'll be reading this one a few times!

Another 20-Minutes

I had another great workout yesterday. It was inspired by my friend Dr. Gavin Maxwell who is a former Olympic canoeist. Back when Gavin was training, he was able to do 82 pull-ups straight (with a kip). GavMax is about 6'4", 250. Former Olympian or not, if at his size he was able to do 82 pull-ups, then at 5'11, 180, I should at least be able to do 50.

So the goal of yesterday's workout was to do 50 pull-ups in as little sets as possible and progress to doing 1 full set of 50 straight (that's a pretty lofty goal, but I'm bound to it now that it's in the blogsphere).

So here's what went down...

1) Bodyweight Warm-Up (Squats, Push-ups, Lunges, Stick-Ups & Planks)

2a) 50 x Pull-Ups (17, 12, 9, 7, 5)
2b) 100 x Close-Grip Decline Push-Ups (48, 30, 12, 10)

3) Front Squat Tabata @ 135lbs

4) 50 x Blast Strap Inverted Rows (22, 15, 13)

Then it was off to my mall escapade with Mikey my 9-month-old.

CL

P.S. OK, maybe it took me 30-minutes ;-)

Mall Food Sucks

I hate the mall. I hate being there. I hate feeling like I have to buy something if I'm there. I'd much rather be doing something productive than wasting my time shopping for stuff I don't need.

But when your wife needs a 2.5hr emergency root canal,

AND her dentist's office is 45-mins away from home,

AND you're with your 9-month-old,

AND it's raining outside,

AND the mall is the only place within 5-minutes of the dentist office,

AND the only other viable, indoor hang-out within a mile is IKEA,

THEN you don't have much of a choice.

So I found myself at a higher-end mall on the west end of Toronto. The worst part about the mall is the food court. How can someone possibly make a healthy decision when KFC, McDonalds and Arby's are your restaurant choices? Even the so-called "healthy" salad bars were crap with their sub-par tomatoes, browning lettuce and rubberized chicken.

I almost broke though and bought an Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich combo complete w/those curly fries (I don't think I've had one of those since high school). But, I thought, if I'm going to use up my weekly reward meal, I'm not wasting it on cheap garbage. So I got the heck out of the food court and went walking.

I was HUNGRY. I had just finished a kick-ass workout (more on that tomorrow) an hour and a half before, so my body was jonesin' for some grub. So right between a Club Monaco and a Banana Republic (like it matters) is a sushi "booth". So I go up to the lady and ask for some sashimi (instead of all the "prepared" sushi with the sugar rice in the display fridge). I end up spending about $17CDN for 15 pieces of paper thin raw fish.

What a rip off!!!

Lesson learned...

Be prepared. Pack the chicken breast you barbecued last night so that you don't have to spend 20 bucks just to eat some mediocre sushi at the mall. [It was worth it though because at least I know I'm putting something relatively good into my body (relative to a Big Mac, I guess)].

...And encourage your family to FLOSS, so that we don't end up in this predicament again!

To your dental hygiene,

CL
FitAndBusyDad

Blood!

Thanks to my buddy Vince DelMonte for showing this one to everybody at our Mastermind meeting a couple of weeks ago. Check it out. It's worth the laugh...




It's off to Paramount Canada's Wonderland with the kids tomorrow. Have a great weekend everyone!

CL

I'm taking it back...

Last Thursday, I wrote about fat loss and the simplicity at which fat loss was achieved.

I got a few emails yesterday expressing people's concern with that statement. So let's clarify what I said in Thursday's blog post...

"...but it really is simple - watch what you eat (lots of water, lean protein, healthy fats, fruits and veggies), train hard (weight training & intervals work best) and try to get rid of as much stress as possible."

So what I said was, fat loss is SIMPLE...S-I-M-P-L-E.

Fat loss is simple...It's just not EASY!

In fact, it's really f_cking HARD!

Just ask the fitness model on the cover of Men's Health how much canned tuna and broccoli he had to eat to make the line through his abs a little deeper.

Just ask the MMA fighter who has to get rid of the last 5lbs to make his weight class.

If losing fat were that EASY we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic. We'd be a society of Men's Health and Shape magazine cover models.

Now I'm not saying this to discourage anyone. Nor am I saying that achieving the body you've always wanted is impossible. It just takes HARD WORK and CONSISTENCY. Stay on track with your nutrition. Use a program that works and train hard (even if you don't see any "results" after the first couple of weeks...trust me, something's happening). Give it all you've got and you'll get there.

CL

It's Your Last Chance!

The Turbulence Training Transformation Contest closes today.

Hurry and get your votes in on who you think made the most dramatic transformation.

Go to www.transformationcontest.com to place your vote.

Go to www.turbulencetraining.com to use the same program that one of the finalists used to lose 30lbs in 3 months!!!

CL

The Most Common Question

"Hey, Chris! How do I get rid of this?"

That is the most common question I get when I attend any family event, party, shindig, baptism, barmitzvah, baby naming, wedding...well, you get the point. Someone - a friend, relative, aquaintence, in-law, or someone I've never met before who found out that I help get people LEAN - will come up to me, regardless of what I'm doing, and pose the above question while grabbing they're trouble spot (usually a full clench of the hand with a shake and a jiggle).

My answer? I wrote about it here before. But it really is simple - watch what you eat (lots of water, lean protein, healthy fats, fruits and veggies), train hard (weight training & intervals work best) and try to get rid of as much stress as possible.

Think it's really any harder than that? It's not. Just ask my friend Craig Ballantyne, creator of Turbulence Training, who has been helping people for years with his revolutionary TT system and now has closed his first ever Transformation Contest.

Take a look at how these contest finalists transformed their bodies using Turbulence Training.

Even better, you can vote for which contestant you think overcame the biggest obstacles and made the most dramatic transformation.

You CAN achieve the body you've always wanted. What's holding you back?

CL

Fix Your Posture Today

I got an email from Jim Lin over at The Busy Dad Blog a couple of days ago. We were talking about some of the exercises that I use for my programming and he was interested in learning how to do a stick-up.

The stick-up is one of my favorite everyday exercises. It allows you to really open up your chest and use all those little muscles in your upper mid-back (the ones responsible for giving you good posture).

Because we live in an "anterior dominant" world...we drive, type on a computer, eat, converse, spend "chest-day" Mondays bench pressing...our "non-mirror" muscles tend to get neglected. I'm willing to bet that 4 out of 5 people that work in an office have poor posture just from sitting at their desk all day typing away at their computers.

If you get the chance, get up from your desk a couple of times a day and do some stick-ups. Perform 10 reps 2-3 times daily and you should see a marked improvement in your posture.

The Stick-Up
(I apologize for the "burglar look" in these pictures. But the look and the exercise fit though.)

1. Start by planting yourself against a wall so that your head, shoulders, elbows, knuckles and tail bone are contacting the wall. Initiate the movement by pulling your elbows in and contracting all of your upper back muscles pulling your shoulders down and back.








2. Slowly, ensuring that your shoulders do not elevate (travel upwards toward your ears), raise yours arms along the wall maintaining contact with the wall at all times (ie. Your knuckles or elbows should not come off the wall at all).











Couple this exercise with some stretches for your pecs (chest) and you'll be sitting and standing upright in no time.

CL

Butt Out Already!

I was watching Oprah with my wife a little while back (c'mon guys, your wives make you watch it too). Usually, I'd have my laptop with me and pretend that I was watching when I'd really be working. But this episode was on health and fitness, so it particularly grasped my interest.

There was a doctor on the show (Dr. Oz, I think) who was talking about the dangers of smoking, for both the smoker themselves and their kids. There was one particular statistic that made me fall off the couch...

Through second hand smoke, your child inhales the equivalent of 1 out of every 4 cigarettes that you consume.

1 OUT OF EVERY 4!!!

Listen, it's your perrogative if you smoke. I can understand that.

But don't light up in front of your kids.

Don't do it when they're in the room.

Don't go to another room while they're in the house.

Don't crack a window in the car and smoke your butt while someone is sitting beside you.

Kill yourself BY YOURSELF.

Who ever said that cigarette smoking was cool needs to be institutionalized. What is this, the 80s? It causes cancer of the mouth, lungs and throat. It turns your teeth yellow. It makes your clothes stink. It makes you look like an idiot when you're standing outside in the freezing cold without a jacket on while you're having a butt.

Your kids are smoking 1/4 of the crap you're smoking and they don't even know it.

Be more responsible. Be less selfish. Get rid of the cigarettes.

cl

The Paper Towel Theory

I was going to write something myself this morning, but couldn't come up with anything better than this. It's genius!

From Alwyn Cosgrove's blog...

This is a pretty good explanation of the visual representation of fat loss that was emailed to me recently (And attributed originally to a "Bob White"). Hope you enjoy it..

Let’s assume you go out and buy two rolls of paper towels, each with 112 paper towels on it. You put one aside, and keep it for future reference (your “before” picture). The other one represents you (I’ll call your paper towel “Ed”).

The core represents the lean Ed. The towels represent the fat that is covering the lean Ed.For sake of argument, let’s say that Ed wants to lose 28 pounds of fat, so (112/28) each sheet represents a quarter-pound of fat lost.Let’s also assume that Ed loses his fat equally during each day of the program.Each day during the first week, you tear a sheet off of Ed, representing the fat he has lost for the day. Next, you put Ed next to the full roll (“Big Ed”) for comparison.No noticeable difference! Even at the end of the week!"This can’t be working for me! This program sucks! " But, you continue to follow your fat loss program. At the end of weeks two and three, you continue to compare Ed to Big Ed, and still notice very little difference.But Ed is determined!

He continues to work hard!

Three more weeks go by, the sheets peeling off day after day, before Ed gets up the courage to stand next to Big Ed again. Now there’s a big difference!By the end of the program (112 days), Ed is down to his lean dream, or somewhere near it. Big Ed is still - well, big.

The lesson to be learned is that fat, like paper towels, comes off in sheets. When you are heavy, you are big around. And when you are big around, that fat is spread over a MUCH larger area – just like that outside towel sheet. The closer you get to the lean you, the more each lost pound of fat shows, because it is spread over a smaller area.While the outside sheet may only cover one layer of the roll, the inside sheet may go around 4 times. That last sheet looks like it gives you four times the results of the first sheet, but in reality, the results are the same – your perception is just different! And you’ll never see the inside, if you aren’t patient while the outside is coming off.

Great Analogy!

CL

TGIF...Restaurant Eating

After a couple of days of being in meetings, it's great to get out and enjoy the Toronto wind and rain (note the sarcasm). I came out of those intensive Mastermind sessions with more motivation and drive than before.
While I was in yesterday's meeting, I got an email from my mom asking me to come to a party at a buffet restaurant. I respectfully declined. As much as I love spending time with my extended family, nothing good can possibly come out of eating at an all-you-can-eat buffet, no matter how disciplined you are.

If you do have to go out to a restaurant where you know temptation may get the best of you, here's what I do to make sure my hard earned results don't go down the toilet...

1) Get a workout in to jack your metabolism up. Before we go out, I try to do a quick bodyweight circuit before I jump in the shower. I've got a chin-up bar mounted in my door frame, so a typical circuit would look like this...

1) Jumping Jacks x 25
2) Prisoner Squats x 25
3) Chins (or Stick-ups if you don't have a bar) x 10-15
4) Lunges x 20
5) Close Grip Push-ups x 20

I would do 2-3 circuits trying to beat my time on each successive one.

2) Eat something and drink lots of water before hand. If you're going to a place like a buffet, make sure you ingest something healthy before you leave. This will give you a "full" feeling and hopefully you won't chow down on the deep fried calamari and chicken wings. Even a protein shake would be better than not consuming anything at all.

3) Say NO, DON'T GO. If it's a buffet you're invited to, suggest a healthier restaurant alternative. Nothing feels worse than eating more than you can handle and feeling like a bag of crap afterwards.

Have a great weekend. Eat Smart.

CL

A Little Experiment

So my Blackberry crapped out on me again...for the last time.

I've been reading a lot of books on time and energy management (the 4-Hour Work Week, Power of Full Engagement and Dan Kennedy's "No BS" book are my favorites). One of the common ideas in each book is the concept of inaccessibility. We live in a world of constant communication where there is so much stimuli, it hinders productivity. Have you ever been on a roll with a project only to get interrupted with a phone call or mindless email or one of those "have you got a minute?" conversations that seem to go on for hours? By that time your focused energy on the task is gone and you can't afford that 15-20 minutes that it took you to get focused again.

Well, I'm out. There are too many things that require my undivided attention (my kids, my wife, finishing projects) that I can't afford the interruptions. So the PDA is gone and so are the excuses...for now.

I'm going to go a month without it and see how it goes. I'll still have the "Bat Phone" with me so that my family can get a hold of me...maybe. I'll check my emails and voicemail twice daily at scheduled times.

I'll admit, I was a little addicted to the crackberry. Times have been often that I look for that little blinking red light to see if there's a new message waiting for me. But no more. Let's see when I start to feel the withdrawal kick in. I'll report back.

Feeling Liberated,
CL

The "No-Time" Workout

I literally had NO TIME to train yesterday, so I managed to squeeze in 20-minutes...so, I guess I did have "time". Here's what went down...

1)Warm-up BW circuit (Prisoner Squats, push-ups, reverse lunges, stick-ups, planks (front & side).

2a) Chin-Ups x 3 sets (20, 15, 12 reps)
2b) Pistols (1-leg squats) x 3 (15, 12, 12 reps)

3) Kettlebell Swings x 100 (w/ a 54lb KB) - it took me 2 sets to finish 100

After that, it was off to dinner to celebrate AJ's 10th birthday.

The bottom line.......
You don't NEED an hour and a half, fancy equipment and an elliptical machine to train.

CL

Happy Birthday AJ

Today marks my 10th Anniversary of fatherhood. My little girl, whom I named after the greatest athlete that ever lived, turns 10 today. Ten years of bloody noses, changing diapers, soccer practices, days at the beach

So this being a very special day, here are a few things that I've learned over the past 10 years about being a dad...

-Stay active (and I'm not just saying that because of what I do for a living). Kids learn through observation. Set the standard. If being active is an important part of your life, it'll be an important part of theirs...my 2-year-old knows what a kettlebell is!

-Spend time. It's not about the X-box or all the arts, dance or sports programs they're in. Kids just want you around to take notice and spend time with them. Let them know that they're important.

-The minivan is inevitable. Guys, seriously, you can't avoid it. Drive all the SUVs you want. Squeeze your growing family into that mid-size sedan. Drop your kids off in your sportscar...whatever. It's so darn practical you'd be a fool not to have one. I've got a bike/snowboard rack on mine to say "Yeah, I've still got it". I've even hung blast straps off the roof rack at my daughter's school's parking lot to get a quick workout in. I've got a black one with a spoiler on it...but, yes, it's still a minivan.

CL

4-Minutes of Hell

With my fat burning efforts being accelerated as of late, I've been experimenting with different ways of "finishing" my workouts.

One of the best finishers that I've been using are TABATAs. This 4-minute protocol was created by a Japanese sport scientist and encorporates 20s work periods with 10s rest periods. In order to get the most out of them, you absolutely need to use big, multi-joint movements (no bicep curls or calf raises here). If you're at the gym, then try this protocol using either dumbbell thrusters (squat presses) or front squats (it's easier to rack the bar for your rest periods). If you're at home, try using kettlebell swings or if you don't have any equipment, you could do burpees.

Here's the TABATA I did yesterday after my fat burning lifting session to kick my own ass...

1a) Kettlebell Swings x 20s
REST 10s
1b) Spiderman Push-Ups x 20s
Rest 10s
-Repeat 4 times

I was DONE after that.

Get Lean,
CL

Oh, so close...I Love this time of Year

I was watching the Kansas-Davidson NCAA basketball tournament game yesterday afternoon and it made me appreciate a few things...

1. I survived yet another (and what was probably the worst yet) Toronto winter.

2. College basketball is still "pure" - guys play w/heart and leave everything on the floor, there aren't any cry-babies or over inflated contracts

3. I've got great kids - My wife was at a bridal shower, so it was me and the 4 little ladies. I set AJ (9) and Joey (4) up with some crafts. Frankie (2) sat beside me on the couch w/my laptop and a set of ear buds watching a movie and Mikey (8-months) fell asleep on my lap. Unreal! I got to watch most of the game uninterrupted.

March Madness marks the beginning of spring for the Lopez household. So aside from purging all that we seemed to have collected over the winter, spring also means that it's time to get outside.

We're off to a wedding in the Dominican Republic in a few weeks so my fat loss efforts have accelerated. With the weather getting better, it feels good to be able to head out the door and get over to Riverdale Park to run some hills or pull the sled. Remember, nothing's better for fat loss than running intervals (on a track, on a hill, pulling a sled).

So, instead of slogging it with a slow paced run, try sprinting up a hill a few times for some variety (just make sure you're properly warmed-up. Stay consistent with it and you should be seeing your abs in no time!

Train smart, train hard.
CL