I go to the gym Monday through Friday right after I drop my kids off at school.  (For those of you who are wondering, I finally started coming to a stop for my kids to get out of the car.  No more pushing them out as I drive by.   It’s been working well for us.  Thanks for your concern.;)  It’s a basic gym, nothing extraordinary about it and I go at that odd time of the morning where it’s the end of the early morning rush but before the mommy time starts so it’s never crowded.  Every day that I am at the gym there is a woman on the Arc Trainer—her special Arc Trainer—covered in about 2 gallons of sweat and I used to always think, ‘Work it girl!’ when I saw her doing cardio.  Then one day I got on next to her and she was covered in sweat while the display of her machine said 7 minutes.  I immediately thought, “Holy crap.  What setting could you possibly have that on if you are that sweaty after 7 minutes?!  I need to get a hook up from sister-girl on how to juice the Arc Trainer for everything it has.”  Then I got on again about a week or two later when her display read about 50 min or so (I know I wrote about this before on some post but I can’t find it right now) and while I was doing my cardio it looped at 60 min and started counting from 1 again.  What the…?  What is THAT about?  Who in this day and age has that much time to do that much cardio all week long?  Holy ticking time, Batman!

So today I just happen to be there before she was and she came in and put her stuff on the machine before going to the lockers to put her stuff away.  What she used to “hold her spot” was 7 pieces of gum neatly lined up on the machine—meanwhile she was chewing away on some already before setting up shop.  Holy intestinal fortitude!  I got the runs just knowing she was going to chew all that in that short of time.  Well short time for 7 pieces of gum, long time for useless cardio.  Thankfully I was done 5 minutes after she came back so I had enough time to stock up on Cank-Aid and warm salty water.  This brings me to some more of the basics…

I am going to start running, I need to lose some weight.

Good luck with that.  Using running to lose weight is like using a spoon to empty bathwater out of your tub; you will eventually get it done.  If you insist on running as a form of weight loss, do it the right way by incorporating speed drills and sprints into your runs and you’ll really achieve what you’re hoping for.

Can I do the weight lifting class at my gym instead of lifting?  It’s so boring and I hate it.

You mean the class that does more reps in one hour than I would ever do in one week?  I would say no simply because you cannot lift heavy enough.  And I can’t say this enough:  group fitness has its place in life but not as a primary if your desire is to look good naked.

What do you think about…{insert diet concept/book/workout technique/DVD/latest fad here}?

Who cares?  You know you don’t.  I could tell you that it causes a new arm to grow out of your neck and if you are hell bent on it enough, you’ll bring an extra sleeve for your shirt just in case.  Seriously.  And honestly, if it is going to energize you, challenge you, inspire you and so on and it is safe, I say go for it.  I hope that most of us have been around long enough to know that change matters more than the actual diet or workout itself.  Not to mention, are you new to dieting or not?  If you are new, you’ll lose weight running to the shower in the morning.  If you’re a veteran, you could scale Mount Kilimanjaro eating only a bean and a half of pear and maybe, just maybe, you’ll lose a half pound by the end of the week.

I started doing bootcamp 5 days a week.  Is that ok?

Only if they mix it up.  If you are doing 5 days of jumping/plyometrics, that is not ok.  And if it is really a glorified run club, see #1.

It is cool to see people in their “stages of readiness”.   When we first start out we just want to lose some weight.  But then we lose a few pounds and realize we look the same as before, just smaller.  Then we go to a beach and put on a bathing suit and realize we’re so crinkly that we look like we wrapped ourselves in cellophane before we left the house.  That sets us on a mission to be smaller and tighter.  The rest is history but it’s wild to watch it go down in slow motion.  This wraps up all the questions asked to me in April.  May is proving to be a slow month which is nice because I need to regenerate in my hole office after all that.  Woop woop!

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Last week I was a nudge, this week I am a nag.  Sorry, but she’s climbing out through the afro please make room for her.

This is the last post in this series and I have a few things to say but my mind is everywhere right now.  Have you ever suffered from, “…and another thing”?  I am suffering from that right now.  I have a bunch of little things to add in but not enough to make it a coherent post so I’m going to do the Tourette’s thing right now and just blurt a bunch of stuff at you.  Bear with me while I do this.

Starch vs. No starch

Not everyone should be zero starch.  I know folks like to tell you that it’s the best way to lose body fat and yadda yadda yadda but I have been in the business for 15 years and from all that I know and have seen I can absolutely tell you that that’s not true.  What I have noticed though is that some do better with lower starch than others.  Here’s a very simplified overview for you (shamefully simple):

Bubble—Starch is not going to make a huge impact on you in terms of having it in your diet until you want lines.  Try not to live without it every day because you limit the effectiveness of it as an aesthetic tool later on.

Butter—Starch must, I repeat, must stay in your diet.  Not a ton.  At least a serving a day should be in there.  You will never be rock hard so there is absolutely zero point in going starch free.  What it really does is set you up for a midnight carb binge that rivals anything the food network could conjure up and that’s saying a lot.

Befuddled—you are like the bubbles.  Dowhatchalike.

Dairy

Nice and easy and always portable, dairy is a great protein option…if you like carrying a gallon of water under your skin and 2 pounds of mucous in your sinuses.  But some of us are addicted so I’m not going to go on an anti-dairy rant.  I’ll save that for another post but…

Butters—avoid dairy like a moldy dish of food lodged in the back of your refrigerator.   Especially cheese which is the anti-butt food.

Supplementation

My audio post for Butters spoke about high dose fish oil and how it can help you reduce the effects of cellulite on the bum.  Done correctly and with supervision, you can really make some great changes in the appearance of your back side and also lighten up any stretch marks.  I am a lover of Omega 3.  Here are some more of my thoughts:

Magnesium—is a must in any physique athlete’s diet.  If you’re taking it as a cal/mag—stop.  You have plenty of calcium in your diet and do not need more.  However, you do not have enough Mg.  Try it as Mg glycinate, taurate or malate because they are easily digested and will give you less rumbly tumbly.  Mg can wreak havoc on your tummy and make you feel like you are going to release your colon in public without any notice—oh the thought!  Why Mg?  Great for the metabolism and insulin sensitivity and helps with anxiety/depression which is common among us athletes.

B Complex—add this in if you’re not taking more pills than a 70 year old man.  Honestly, it can be overwhelming.  Great for metabolism and your skin.

BCAA’s–Here’s another one that’s good for everyone.  Add them in prudently.  If money is an issue, have them on training days only and do it in 3 month stints.  If it’s not an issue, call me so we can have lunch and talk about angel investing–just throwing that out there.  But then have it daily and your dosage will change based on your workouts and rest time.

This is not my official supplementation post, this is only in context of making a smooth but plump rump so if something is missing that you think should be here let me help you with that by saying, “No it’s not.”

Cautionary Note

You can get on the web now and see amazing pictures of butts everywhere.  They will be smooth, perky, strong, super human and most of all naked so you can see every detail and feel bad about every dimple you don’t see, as well.  Let me remind you of something you may already know but maybe think you’re exaggerating or are not quite sure of:  very few people are natural anymore.  If you aspire to do this without the aid of anything besides food, vitamins and minerals then you have to be careful of what you use as a pin-up for success.  At the very least, they will be taking a fat burner, at the very most it can be scary.  You cannot be in this industry (clean eating) long term and have to be lean time and time again without some kind of “help”.  With that being said, you may not be able to achieve naturally what others have done with chemical assistance and it helps to know that when you’re in the middle of picking yourself apart for the 3^rd time that day.  If being natural matters (and it does to Jodiojo & Co.) then tuck this away in your mind for safe keeping or you may find yourself compromising your beliefs further down the road in pursuit of something that’s not attainable naturally.

For My Jammers

I said in a previous post that I would give you a place to go for help with your butt training.  If you want get specific with the information I provided about weaknesses and technique, go here.  He is great.  I ran into his site a while ago from Nick T.’s site (he’s another guy I really like) and instantly fell in love.  Not because of his training info, although that’s great too, but because he is humble and he gets it.  Both Nick and Brett are a breath of fresh air in a crowded industry of shouters.  Get on their sites and absorb.

If you are signed up for extra info from my blog, then you received the email with my 3 favorite exercises.  Let me know yours when you can.

This has been a great series and I’m really glad y’alls like it, as well.  Hit me up below with any thoughts.  I’d love to hear them.  The next series is Failing Forward.  Let’s make the best of all the mistakes we do while dieting.  How do you salvage your diet when everything seems to be going wrong?  If you have anything in particular that you want me to cover in this, let me know!  Woop woop!

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I am a nudge.  I won’t deny it.  Many of you who know me are thinking the same thing right now.  Actually, you’re thinking:  “I love you, girl, but you annoy me.  You always say the thing I want to hear least that day (always said with pure love).”  That I do.  So why should today be any different?  I figure, as long as I am fulfilling your need (i.e. supplying you with butt changing info), then it’s okay for me to fulfill my needs (i.e. get you to see how destructive chasing a body part can be).

I always say I love what I do but today I want to be more specific:  I love you.  No, seriously, I do.  I love you tremendously—even if I have never met you.  Why?  Because you are just like me and I love that.  Whatever you do now, I’ve done before and probably twenty times more than whatever you are doing now.  I love to talk to you.  I love to know what makes you tick. I love to hear about all of your successes.  And I love to see you happy.  NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING (in the context of my line of work) makes me more happy than to call a woman who is having a “ah-hah” moment.  It’s like music to my ears.  You can hear my smile over the phone.  It’s crazy.

But now think of the flip side of that.  When you’re unhappy, I’m concerned.  My heart aches because I remember what it was like to be in a not-so-good place and how isolating it can feel.  It’s not like we want to talk about it because we feel like people will think we’re crazy, whiny or the worst of them all—weak.  We don’t want to admit we have some faults or somehow can’t get it together so we just “keep on keepin’ on” hoping that no one notices we just ate an entire package of double stuff oreos in two days.  We’ll quickly regroup from that only to be the most rigid dieter this side of the buffet display and after a while it all gets so annoying doesn’t it?  Somewhere in all that lunacy, we find balance and we settle into a body that is good…decent…not bad–however you want to describe it, please do so.  It’s not like we’re super disgusted, it’s more like we’re just not satisfied.  This is where body part obsession takes root and becomes a bit alarming.

Our bodies can be nice to look at so it’s great to keep them well oiled and maintained but their primary purpose is to function for us not appear as trophies.  We have bums for a reason and it’s not to serve as a beacon of failure for our diets or our lives.  They are meant to hinge us at the hips, move us from side to side and help us get the heck out of Dodge when necessary.  They have a primary function in the body; not a secondary function like our tummies (yes, tummies are our core, but ideally our abs and back serve as our core/trunk and nutrition makes a great tummy—not crunches).   This is a huge thing to think about, seriously, because as you pound away at your booty you may be setting yourself up for some major surgery later on.

Although I love writing, I stress when I set out to write articles like this because on the screen they can read as preachy or judgmental.  I can tell you without a doubt that nothing like that is going through my head right now.  What’s running through my mind is what I was like when I wanted nicer shoulders and the only word that I can think of is “fixated”.  It was my main focus and I cared about nothing else besides my shoulders.   Fortunately, I was interrupted from destroying my neck/shoulder region (or unfortunately if you know why I was interrupted) because I really do think that if I continued on I would have had two grapefruits sitting at the top of my arms like a dot on an i.  Of course, reaching over my head or putting a shirt on wouldn’t be possible but dang it all, I’d’ve looked good! (I made that double contraction up. Work with it.

Function matters.  A lot.  I know we do not all have access to the top physical therapists out there (or have the awesome Heather on their staff) but it is worth it if you can at least once in your fitness career be evaluated for your weaknesses.  If you have tight hip flexors and weak glutes to begin with, when you go to do any of the exercises mentioned you run a high risk of not engaging your glutes properly thereby killing your progress.  You think that you aren’t doing enough so you keep doing more of the same and your weaknesses snowball from there.  If you train for function more than you train for form, you will be much better off.   The catch here is twofold:  1) to get over yourself enough to embrace a new way to train other than strict body part training and 2) to take the time off from hard training to do any necessary mobility work if need be.  How many of us really do anything preventative?

I know what you’re thinking.  “Then teach me to do it the right way, Jodi.  What am I missing?”  I can’t, it’s not my gig, but I know whose it is and I will give you that info at the end of this series.  I have a little more to talk about and I don’t want you to lose your focus by focusing on your bum which is the focus of this series.  You need to focus!  We haven’t even touched dieting, yet, and how you diet does make a difference in what your bum looks like.

Where does this leave you then?  What’s my point in drawing your attention to function and not form?  Balance.  Make sure that your program has balance.  Spread out the butt stuff throughout the week or do a good butt workout once, maybe twice in a week.  But do not go crazy and make every day a butt day by putting in something in every workout.  That’s not good.   Here are some guidelines for you:

1)      Limit the plyometric activity to no more than twice a week. This means sprints as well as pure plyos.  The pounding action of sprints and plyos take a toll on your spine and your feet.  Ease up, killah, before you look like your Aunt Ethel who is all of 4ft 3in by the time you’re done jumping.

2)      Have someone take a look at your program for obvious imbalances. You want to cover all planes of motion in a full body and have something with lateral movement if just a lower body.  Whether you do this in the warm up or in the program itself it doesn’t matter.  Just make sure your workout is not one big variation of the step up.

3)      Pay attention to injuries! So many times I talk to girls and they are working through some major junk like it’s nothing talking about, “I just need to look good for my…”  Listen, if you show up walking like Quasimodo, was it worth it to you?  Knock it off and see a physical therapist!

Nutrition is next.  Some radical supplementation talk for you butter butts and a few other things.  Hang tight.  Woop woop! )

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As we venture into the land of glutes, we need to address the fact that as women we do not all want the same thing from our butt training.  Some of us want bubble butts—firm and poking out.  Some of us want a nice bum minus the layer of cellulite on them—a.k.a. butter butt (nice ‘n smooth).  And then some of us want nice legs and are not sure whether or not to get psycho about the bubble part or not—befuddled butt.  To lump everyone into the same category is to do a disservice to you ladies so let’s chop today’s post up into a few sections to help everyone out.

Bubble Butt

Normally you are: lean already with either a flat bum, fused spine bum or misshapen bum

Very rarely you are: heavy.  I have yet to meet a girl with a large lower body who’s looking to bubble it out more.

Nutrition: clean.  You are lean so your regimen is most likely good.

Supplementation: normal

Your arsenal:

Bridging—weighted or unweighted.  Single leg or both legs.  Feet on floor or high on bench.  Squeeze at the top.

High step ups—the higher you can step, the better.  Form is a must.

Conventional deadlift—single or double leg.  Go deeeeeeeeep.

Hill sprints—also start block training is awesome.

Deep reverse lunges—step off of a plyo box if you can do it.  Go super deep here.

You do best with: double leg work if you do not have a bum at all; single leg work if you have one but no shape.

Butter Butt

Normally you are: soft.  You are about as muscular as a pillow.  You MUST make muscle first.

Very rarely you are: muscular.  I have seen muscular tops and soft bottoms (I mean squishy) but it is rare.

Nutrition: clean as a whistle.  Very little room for things like cheese or processed food.

Supplementation: necessary and high dose.

Your arsenal:

Metabolic cranks—lunges, plyos and band walks thrown together to make you sweat and lean out more.

Kettlebells—complete posterior workout all the time.  No break for the butt and you sweat like a mo.

Deep squats/deads—You need to lift like a man for a while.  Break some PR’s and kill yourself.

Lunges—Heavy.  Not so deep yet because you need to be heavy first.

You do best with: Heavy training with minimal rest that’s going to make you sweat and puke.

Befuddled Butt

Normally you are: fit but not defined.  You look good but no one’s stopping you to do a leg commercial.

Very rarely you are: heavy on the top.  It happens sometimes where legs are good, not defined but top is squishy.

Nutrition: moderately clean.  You are more training dependent than food dependent.

Supplementation: precise.  You don’t need much so what you do need should be precise.

Your arsenal:

Single leg everything—don’t care what it is, do it with one leg.

Sprinting—More on the 200’s and 400’s than the 100’s.  Get the hams involved long term.

Detail work—calf raises, bridging, glute ham raise.

Band walks and donkey kicks

You do best with: progressions.  Obviously we all do but you more than anyone because your training is going to evolve faster as you shape up and decide bubble or not.

Regardless of which butt you prefer, all physique training can (and does) produce unsightly side effects that tend to stain any of the work you do in the gym.  Some training does it more than others.  I find that when we train for a cause we tend to be more aware of the world around us.  When we train for a sport, we tend to be more competitive with ourselves and with others (not always a good thing but not always bad either).  When we train for our bodies, though, we tend to be more myopic and critical.  It is this one that I want us to be more mindful of because trying to perfect a body part requires a lot of “me time” and that can sometimes be bad.  Spending hours on our bodies can skew our mindset, our outlook on life and our sense of purpose.

Without us trying or even meaning to, if we are not ‘on it like hornets’, we can become pompous, mean hotties.  Trust me, it does not take much.  Yes, we’ll help a person out on Facebook or in the gym whenever they may have a question, but ultimately we want to be left alone to look at ourselves in the mirror.  Now, really…that sounds terrible and shallow and it doesn’t really go down that way—or does it?  This is a tough one to address and I am throwing this out there to think about but what do you want that nice butt for?  You know I ask this because I want you to think about what’s really going to happen when you get it, not what you want to happen when you get it.  We want to like what we see in the mirror and we want to be commended for our hard work in the gym (maybe not by a random person, but definitely by those close to us), but we don’t want unsolicited comments, judgment and creepy fans.  Nor do we want tension and strife from our friends and family who now think that we spend too much time on ourselves on a daily basis.  However, I guarantee you that you will get this.

If you are not actively changing the inside of you (i.e. patience, understanding and compassion) to match the outside of you while you do this, your butt is not the only thing that’s going to end up hard.  How many of us have met someone with a great body at a show, gym or event and complimented them and they were meaner than a junk yard dog.  Guess what.  She got the surprise behind door #2 and obviously wasn’t ready character-wise to receive it.  Usually when we say we want our {fill in the body part} to look good, we want the whole package (personality) to look good, as well, and somehow expect us to miraculously be different when our new bodies show up.  Umm…not so in reality.  We think we will suddenly be happier because now we look different but it’s not the case.  If you are unhappy while flabby, you will be unhappy while fit—I can stake my occupation on it.  So while you spend all the time you are going to spend squatting, lunging and stepping, take that time to do a self assessment and see if you need to become patient, kind hearted or available to others.  Honestly, you are doing it more for you than anyone else.  It’s a hard road to walk being hot.

Lots more to come…woop woop!!

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Before we try to master the back side and create a lump that hangs off of the end of our spine, I think it prudent for us to go through some basic training to make sure we are all on the same page:

Squat, Deadlift, Lunge, Step Up

If you want to use any of these guys to make a better butt, you have to go low, the move must be deep and you have to go heavy.  These guys prime you in your workout for other glute exercises so they need to be there.  Over the next few days we’re going to go through a couple of different movements to understand what makes a great butt and these four guys are a great place to start.

That’s Kas doing a deadlift from the floor.  First, she’s going light b/c this is a pic for something else.  Second, she is on the way up in the move, she starts almost with bum to floor and third, she has great legs.  You must go low to hit the glutes in these moves.  If not, your quads will be the ones to benefit.

Normally we like to find a step that’s about 18″ high for step ups, but if you are going for the bum, you gotta go high.  Here is a great place to start.  The advanced level of this move would have your box about 2″ higher than this.  You need to go deep to hit the tush.

This is a lunge leaning forward.  Kas is at the top of the move.  The most important part for you to see is that she is fully aligned while leaning forward.  The only thing that moves on her is her legs.  Her back knee will drop but those weights will stay right there–in line with the front leg.  This will smoke your butt off.  Your range of motion is small but your burn is big.

1)      Learn the movement unweighted. I know you have been squatting for years, but if you can do it, have someone analyze your form for you without holding a weight.  You’d be amazed at how you thought you had perfect form for all these years but you really didn’t.  The thing I see the most is “toe lifters”.  All of your weight sits in your toes and you do not sit back enough in the move.

2)      Deadlifts come from the floor. This means your bum does too.  I love the magazines with the workouts with the cool moves, but really—close the magazine.  Grab a heavier than normal BB.  Put it on the floor.  And deadlift it for real.  Drop your butt, keep your chest up, sit your weight back and go for it.  Now this, of course, is after you have done #1.  Please.  If not, your knees could cave in, your chest could fly forward and this could get ugly.

3)      Your knees could possibly hurt. What fixes knee pain is strong legs.  What makes strong legs will cause knee pain in the beginning.  If you have asked someone who is a professional and who you trust if you are doing #1 right and they say yes, hang in there then until you get stronger.

4)      Start with two legs first. Before you try to go heavy or fancy, master #1 first and then master heavy.  Once you have mastered heavy, then master fancy.  Do NOT go from basic to fancy without going heavy first.  What’s fancy?  That “crazy new move” you saw so-and-so doing at the gym that you have no idea what it’s for or why they’re doing it.   Or the favorite move of your favorite fitness model that looks so cool but you are not qualified to watch it, much less do it.  Fancy is useless without the basics and even more useless if you’re not going heavy.

5)      Do every variation possible under the sun. Just like I say with food, cardio and cheat meals:  MIX IT UP.  I know you love a particular exercise because it burns like a mother when you do it, but you have got to hit your butt from every flipping angle there is.  Now these guys are the base exercises, we have a few more types to go through before we’re done, but there are so many variations of these that it’s not funny.  The walking lunge is not the only exercise out there.

Food, food and more food…

1)      The number one thing necessary in your diet for a great butt:  consistency. Not perfection—consistency.   You need to consistently get in the right food so that it may do its work in the back.  This is what I said on Yin and Yang.  This is what I have been saying forever.  Stop beating yourself up over what you ate extra in the day and instead congratulate yourself for all the right things you got in.  TRUST ME…this will pay off more than you’ll ever know.

2)      Do not go starchless forever. Biggest mistake a girl could ever make.  I know many who do it.  You are shooting yourself in the foot.

3)      Learn to supplement when necessary. When we first start out, we buy every supplement under the sun.  About 3 weeks later we’ve remembered to take them once.  If you have a ton of cellulite and unsightly dimpling, you will need to supplement.  We’ll talk about that in an upcoming post, but until then, know that you’ll have to be intentional about this at some point but not forever—nothing is forever (see #2).

Take Stock In What You Have

Owning up to what you really have as an asset is a basic necessity of any physique athlete.  What I see are two things all the time and both of them are ugly:

False humility: This is the girl with the hot body who insists she doesn’t have one.  She’s on every fitness site looking for the thing that’s going to create a hot body when she’s sitting on a gold mine.  I get it, we can all improve but that’s not what this is.  She’ll beat off your compliments with a baseball bat and slice up all attempts to tell her she’s arrived with a machete but it’s not because she’s modest.  Quite the contrary.  But she can’t admit that to herself, let alone you so instead she mows everyone over in an attempt to keep the compliments coming.

Utter shame: This is the girl who may have great legs or nice abs or a great shape but may not be in the best shape ever.  So she could stand to lose a few pounds but she’s not a “fixer upper” or anything.  There’s clearly a great body under there and it won’t take much to do so.  But you don’t have a chance to say that to her because she’s too busy beating herself down like a bad viral YouTube video.  She’s disparaged herself more times in one conversation to you than anybody in her life has ever said about her.  And she’s just getting warmed up!  Listening to it can truly bring you down so you need to exit the conversation.  It’s awful.

We are going on to the next phase of building a great bum tomorrow.  We have 3 more days of this and lots more info.  We haven’t even really started, yet.  But before we can get into that super info and really explore our pin cushions, we need to appreciate what we have first.  If we do not do that, then all of our training is a waste because we will never think that we have arrived.

1)      I don’t care what you thought of yourself before this, but today, stand in front of the mirror naked and like what you see. Write out what you like—and only what you like—about your body right now.  If you want, you can wear underwear—but that’s it.  You are not allowed to have a negative thought about your body.  If you do, you have to start all over again.

2)      Figure out whether you are an utter shame girl or a false humility girl. You do not have to be either of them.  I only point them out because they are the hardest to change.  Anything else is teachable so don’t worry.

3)      Figure out why you want this. I’m telling you now, if you want this just to look hot you’re wasting your time.  You won’t make it.  But if you stick an admirable goal on it, you’ll have a better chance.

Ok…much, much more to come.  So many exercises, so little time.  Woop woop!!

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“Smack it up, flip it, rub it down…oh no!”

Arguably one of the most famous butts out there.  Also a good example of a stepping stool, dinner tray or counter top.  Your choice.

No body part is talked about more on a daily basis, by women, than a woman’s butt.   You could argue abs but really, young girls care about abs.  If you are under 23 years of age, you want great abs.  By the time you graduate college, though, you realize that gravity is a force to be reckoned with and you begin to think long term by asking the most fundamental question that every woman wants to know:  “Where in Heaven’s name is my bum going?  Last time I checked, it was midway down my back but I just looked and it’s not there anymore…”   Not to mention, the older you get the less likely you are to show your abs in public.  Gym?—sure.  Public?—not so much.  You can hide unsightly stretch marks, loose skin and a layer of chub under a good shirt but there is no hiding the fact that your butt ends somewhere around your knees and it’s not coming back up any time soon.

I want to chat about our back sides.  In all ways…  So yes, I will be going over my favorite exercises for the butt and what’s really good for them.  I will NOT be telling you what the best one is because it really depends on your alignment and your weaknesses.  You can really mess yourself up by killing one particular exercise to the point of lunacy because you think it will make a better butt when it’s not doing anything because your alignment is horrible.  And your alignment is horrible because some portion of your glutes are shut off due to weakness, injury or so on.  Therefore we will be avoiding “the best” kind of language and be talking more along the lines of “this is a good one” and “ooo, I really like this one, too”.

“Cindy” discovered there’s a dark side to the hack squat.

But you know me by now and you realize that everything comes with a twist.  You can find “the best butt” exercises anywhere and there are plenty of trainers out there much better than myself that are currently doing those types of posts so this begs the question, “What are you really after, Jodi?”  Let me answer that by saying…our back sides.  That side  of us that we don’t necessarily want to talk about or even acknowledge is there.  It comes out when we talk about body parts or taking ourselves to the next level or fierceness in the gym.  We have a secret side to us that’s not always comely, although she’s typically stifled when we have our wits about us, she can pop out at any time and wreak havoc in our lives.  Let’s visit her this week, eh?

Expect some exercises, some programming and some things to think about when it comes to how you view yourself and portray yourself on a daily basis.  I’m looking forward to exploring this with you.  You know how I roll…if you have anything in particular that you want to know, hit me up below or email me.  Cool?  Woop woop!

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Since I laid some ground rules down for nutrition in terms of an obstacle race, I feel it only prudent to do the same for active recovery and injuries.  The only thing that tops being injured is being sick.  I have had a sick 6 year old at home now for 3 days and he is reminding how miserable it is to be sick.  But injuries are annoying because you really want to work out at full capacity but you can’t and the whole time you can hear the pounds collecting on the scale.  So let’s put this in perspective, shall we?

Active Recovery

Active recovery is a fancy schmancy word for “knock it off and rest, will ya?”  In support of us psychos who feel like we’re being lazy because we only worked out 7 days this week (as opposed to the 8 days available to us overachievers), this is a vital tool to be added to our tool box.  Unlike a regular athlete who has full calories available to them at all times, we have to recover in two ways:  fake “high” caloric days and consolidating exercise.

Since our lives are guided by the motto “less is more”, our prep for the race should be a bit less than the average athlete.  For one, a ton of running will kill a physique.  Therefore, that should cut the schedule back a bit.  Secondly, we will need to consolidate lifts with functional training because lifting more would be hard to due to the lack of food in the diet.  And lastly, we do not have enough starch in the diet to go hog wild in terms of energy output without wondering if we’re burning through some major muscle so we need to get smart about adding fat.  Here are some ways to manipulate your schedule:

• Go to full body lifts for now.
• Add functional movements in between the lifts.
• Wear a weighted vest in your workout instead of heavy DB’s or BB’s.
• Leave at least 2 days completely free from all exercise and instead, make them stretch days.
• Eat the most on those days, but not so much that you break the caloric bank.
• Add sprints to your schedule (like 200’s and 400’s) but do not put them after a killer leg workout.  Even if you are doing full body workouts, you may have more of a “leg day” than another day.  Avoid sprinting after that.
• You can make the high cal days high by adding more Omega 3 fats instead of adding more starch.  This will definitely aid in active recovery.
• Drop a day of cardio and make your lifts more dynamic so you suck wind during them.

Injuries

Injuries are a pain in the butt.  And I mean that literally!  I would rather (yes! I got my “I’d rather” in) remove a deep splinter with a butter knife than sit through my summer (again!) with a major injury like a broken limb.  I broke my foot last June and it was miserable.  I refused to be sidelined so I hobbled all over Boston with a huge boot, but it still wasn’t the same.  Because we are on a compromised diet in the first place, our joints and tendons are ripe for the picking in terms of injury.  Fat is scarce in our diet and it is what lubricates our joint capsules  so we have little give and take when we misstep or land funny.  Rolling ankles are almost a given as well as rotator cuff issues.  Be smart!  Make sure you recover and get plenty of sleep.  Should an injury occur, here is what you need to know:

• Your first reaction is to cut all the starch out of your diet.  Don’t do it.  Go to 1/day at least 4 days/week.
• Eat exactly what you need each day.  This means do not go to bed hungry or full.  Either one is bad for different reasons.
• Do not work out on the injured body part until you are completely well.  Trust me when I say this.  We heal jacked up if we do not fully recover.  For the rest of your life, your knee will ache every time you turn on the garbage disposal.  Seriously.
• You will not gain weight if you keep the junk out.  This is not the time to “munchy” yourself into next week.   With that being said, do not try to starve yourself, either.  See above.
• You will feel smooshy.  Itiswhatitis.  You are not losing muscle.  You are losing your “pump”.  Accept it and just know when you lift the right way again, all will be well.
• Don’t be a cardio hero.  If you can’t lift right but somehow can still do cardio, don’t try to make up for lifting with cardio.  Baaaaaaad decision right there.  Just say no.

I feel better now that I put this on paper.  If you go out and act crazy on the course, I have nothing to do with it.   You have been warned.  Hahaha!  Let me know if you are doing one any time soon.  I’d love to know.  Woop woop. )

I’m sure some of you have figured out that I have some issues.  From the butter obsession (that I must say I do not indulge upon, just dream about) to my pen/journal  fixation, it is clear that I can come across a bit unhinged at times.  Let me assure you that I have been cured of those afflictions and now sit in a place where I can at least look back at them and giggle.  Another gift that I have been given is learning that is ‘less is more’.  This is one that I hope to instill in you, as well.  This is tough for us type A folks because we are so extreme in all that we do.  If we are going to be an underwater basket weaver, we are going to be THE BEST underwater basket weaver there is.  Knowing me I’d learn how to do it with every possible type of reed available to weave and I’d understudy with a reedologist and I would complete an accredited course on basket weaving and become a certified weaver and—you get the point.  This is a perfect illustration as to why it was so important for me to learn the principle of ‘less is more’ before I became a walking symbol for destruction.

In the case of building muscle when you are lean, less is definitely more.  Or as I like to say, “Just a dab’ll do ya!”.  Give up the dreams of waking up tomorrow with shoulder caps so round you could hang your coat on them.  Walk away from the idea that in 12 weeks you’ll develop your glutes to the point that you could pick up your kids and carry them to the car while your hands are full.  These things are fallacies and because you believe that you can achieve them, you allow your desires to talk your head right out of common sense; because common sense would tell you if it was that easy, everyone would have them.  But you aren’t thinking like that right now.  You have visions of iron clad butt cheeks with tennis ball like caps separated by a rigid 6 pack…it’s scary in your mind right now.  So let’s get you back to reality, girl.  You’re out of control.

Gaining muscle takes time.  There I said it.  It takes time, lots of consistency and due diligence.  And honestly, if you don’t have any of that right now, keep doing what you’re doing until you do have time to do it fully.  (Essentially, if I keep you from thinking about how long it takes and you just keep doing it, you’ll get there without realizing it.  Wait til I tell you tomorrow that developing a tight body takes time, too.  You’ll really flip your lid then.)  Because it takes forever and a day (did I say that?), do not set aside times to specifically gain muscle and lose body fat like they used to back in the day.  You are going down a long dark road doing it that way.  Instead, let’s look at an alternative way to give you the shoulders and glutes you so desire.

YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION, NOW WHAT?

Wow.  Fiesty today, are we?  Ok, let’s get specific.

What you need to effectively build is a surplus of calories, ample rest and full recovery from effective workouts.  Since we have come to the conclusion that we are not going to be Arnold by the end of 12 weeks, it is not necessary for us to eat like him either.  An easy way to create a surplus sans calories is to do much less than before.  This means the only activity you would do during this period of time is lift.  No cardio, Zumba, pilates, power yoga or any other activity that makes you sweat.  Nothing.  And you would also rest more than you did before so you will create an even larger surplus of calories.  If you tell me that you cannot rest more because your life is go, go, go kind of busy, I will give you that look that says, “Well then you must not want to build right now then do you?”  Please refer back to Saturday when I said there is no whining and yes you have to do all that I say.  If you can’t cut your schedule down and rest, you can’t build right now.  All of this is important because you are not going to eat too much more than what you are right now maintaining.  At best you may go up 200 cals, but not much more than that so you can see why you becoming part of your couch is necessary.   We do not feed you more, we move you less.  It works really well without all the extra poundage that is incurred through traditional stuffing programs.

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?

For all age groups, a bit of paranoia is to be expected.   If you are used to doing cardio 5 days a week right now, going down to none may make you freak out a bit.  You may also be more anxious because you just lost your daily stress relief.  However, it is still a better alternative to the freak out you would have eating extra starches in a day with a steady weight gain on the scale.  That, my dear, is a harrowing experience.  And you can expect minimal weight gain.  Seriously, you should gain no more than 10 but 7 is optimal over the course of 12 weeks.

TWENTY SOMETHING:

You can expect…well…not much.  Your ability to build muscle at this age is like my ability to give you a straight answer without some kind of wisecrack—hard.  You are going to slog away at the weights like it’s your job and have very little to show for it.  Especially if you are curvy.  The curvier you are, the less muscle you will make.  Sorry.  Just accept it.  So why depress you with this?  To keep you from thinking you’re doing something wrong and thereby attempt every lifting program/ergogenic aid under the sun which will in turn screw up your body for your thirties.

THIRTY SOMETHING:

You can expect the world.  At this age, it is at your fingertips.  Hormonally you are ripe for the picking.  You make muscle easier, you have the beginnings of muscle maturity and you aren’t calling your girlfriend every five minutes anymore as to what she is wearing so there is this inner peace and patience about that helps you stay focused.  This is a great age.  Get in the gym now and never come out!

FORTY SOMETHING:

You can expect density.  You will not get “bigger” but what you have will be fuller.  This is the look we all really strive for.  You are past your prime of making muscle and now are on a hormonal decline.  I know that well known dr. type folk are coming out saying the contrary but they are talking about general public making some muscle.  I am talking about you, the lifting elite, making more muscle.  Very different.  It ain’t happening now without a major battle or you being genetically gifted out the wazoo.  But you are in the age of making nice, full shoulder caps without trying.  Not two oranges sitting atop your clavicles, but a subtle attractive fullness that comes from muscle maturity.  And boy do we have focus now at this age.  Not only are we not calling our girlfriends, we are lucky if we keep our phones on.  And rest is not an issue.  We’re in bed by 9.  Shame.

I will put numbers to all of this when I wrap this series up.  Next up, dieting.  What you can really expect and how long it takes to truly get that lean look.  I will end with a talk on skinny fat because it is a daunting place to be and someone needs to put that reality out there for some of you.  I will put the numbers in that post or the one right after it but I promise to give you something very concrete to walk away with.  If you are signed up on the blog, you are getting the numbers today.  That is an advantage of being signed up.  Hang tight, there’s more to come!  Woop woop!

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I think one of the things that plague us as women is constantly wondering if what we are doing is enough.  Honestly, I could also go so far as to say it is just constantly wondering X and then you insert the fear here (x=if I’m good enough, if I’m the only one who…, if I’ll ever be…) but that’s been brought up here so I’m going to be more specific today in referring to if what we are doing measures up to “enough”.

The obvious question here is enough for what?  Enough for weight loss?  Enough for muscle gain?  And boy is this a tough question to have you answer just off the cuff.  If I ask you ‘enough for what’,  you will say in one breath that you want to get lean, add muscle, be more athletic and have 2 babies all before lunch time.  And I have learned not to be so silly as to say, “Which one means the most to you?”, because that question opens up a one hour dialogue about the meaning of life that you were not ready to answer thereby sending you into a tail spin (and me for a drink).   I’m not going to do that today so you can calm down and keep reading.  I am sure you did a nose dive under your table getting ready to rock back and forth in fetal position fearing one my probing moments with you (unless you’ve never spoken with me before and then you’re an innocent victim waiting to be had by one of my conversations. Hehe…) but I can assure you that is not the point of this.  Today is all about defining—but you know me…this may go further after that—and the next few posts are about the actual guidelines.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT HERE?

First, let me just say before I even begin to talk about what’s enough, no whining!  NONE.  I already know the texts, calls and emails are about to follow when I put this out here that ask me, “Do I really have to do all that?”  Yes.  You do.  Now knock it off.  What?  Do you think I’m writing for some sick sadist side of me that needs appeasing?  I’ll admit I have my days but for the love of all that’s holy I’d never put those days in print.  So, yes, you must do all to get what I am saying—if you are the genetically average.   If you have anything exceptional in your genes, then you need to “chew the meat and spit out the fat” as they say as to what pertains to you or not.  But other than that, there is no compromise.

Second, I am going to break this down by goal and within each goal I am going to further delineate it by age group.  For instance, I may give a general over view of what ‘building’ is and then go into what that looks like for a 40-50 year old, a 30-40 year old and a twenty something because it is dramatically different for all three.   If you are 45 and think you want to “build” like a 20 year old, you’re in for a big disappointment and most likely major weight gain in the process.  Our needs are different and need to be acknowledged as being different.

Lastly, I’m going to do this in a way that is very different from what you are probably used to seeing.  I promise to be somewhat technical, but I’m mostly going to be realistic.  Meaning that I want you to know what it really looks like to put these goals in action.   The burnout, the discipline required, the places you could awry, potential weight gain and other issues that crop up when we put this into effect.   They are way more important than any technical information and let me give you an idea of what this looks like:

Say I am talking about building muscle.  Most women think that you just lift heavy for 12 weeks and then you build a ton of muscle.  Seriously, I have people say I want to build my shoulders this winter.  Um…good luck with that.  It takes a whole lot more than a winter to build great shoulders.  But they’ve read somewhere that they need to eat X amount of calories more and set their lifting up in such a way that they get the max recovery and take advantage of the EPOC and so on.  Good info for sure and I will certainly have some of that info in there, as well, but I will also have a whole section called “Walking This Out”.  This section forces you to think about the emotional cost of gaining weight over the winter and all that comes with a building program.  It sounds romantic and fun when presented as this “amazing 12-week program to shape you”, it’s a whole other thing when you are at your holiday Christmas party up 10 pounds and feeling puffy.  At that point, you couldn’t care less about your shoulders and you are more worried that someone’s going to shoot your picture and put it in the company newsletter.

ARE YOU JUST GOING TO DEPRESS ME?

No!  Let me say this as nicely as I can… NO, now stop looking for an excuse to stop pursuing your goal!  Why are our New Year’s Resolutions never successful?  (Besides the fact that people bite off more than they can chew and the whole concept in and of itself is so cliché…) Because we do not count the cost ahead of time.  Some of us rush out into excitement and hop on the latest and greatest fad but that’s not normally the clean eating community.  For us it is more like whatever we choose we choose it because it is solving that current problem.  “If I just lose some body fat, I’ll be able to fit into my jeans and then I’ll be happy…”  But then in the middle of that quest, you realize that toting all your food around and not going to social functions made you more unhappy than the ten pounds you wanted to lose in the first place so you end up abandoning that goal in midstride.  For every goal you abandon, there is a closet in your mind that opens up and accepts that failure and piles it on top of all the others and then just when you need confidence the most—the door pops open and reminds you just how good you aren’t.  Let’s avoid that this year by knowing what we’re getting into when we set our goals and then putting the appropriate things in place to deal with the drawbacks.

For instance, in the case above we would talk about short term pain vs. long term gain.  What does it matter what people thought of you (and I really make you answer this and warning: it can be eye opening) and truth be told, you being 10 pounds up is still better than 80% of the office staff so why the worry.   When you think this through BEFORE you get to the party and BEFORE you put the goal in motion, it changes the entire situation and you are able to deal with it head on instead of being blindsided by it while holding a shrimp cocktail in your hand.

How about we get on with it already then?  Look forward to this being my next mini-series and I hope you enjoy.  I am not sure that I will start it tomorrow or Monday but you know if you are signed up on my blog or if you get me via RSS, you will be notified.   Until we meet again, start pondering ‘what’s the goal?’.  Cool?  WOOP WOOP!:o)

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If you live in New England, I am sure you noticed that today is markedly different than last week’s balmy December weather.  We’ve gone from global warming to bun warming in less than a week with you sitting on your car engine to provide the bun warming.  It’s right about now that you start to question your resolve for “getting out for a good run”.  But then knowing that sends me into Dr. Mercola mode (you know, Chicken Little, the sky is falling, everything is going to make you flabby and so on) where I have to give you the ins and outs of using running as a means to sculpting a great body lest you go crazy and run yourself into the ground on a treadmill instead.   Using running as your only means of cardio can be done but in the long run it’s a lot of work and it doesn’t always pay off.   Depending on what kind of runner you are dictates what type of approach you should take to make or maintain your shape.  Read on…

(Is it bad that I have the space heater blowing directly on my legs right now as I type?  Brrrrr…)

Best heater ever.  I’m about medium well right now.  Almost done.

Plug and Chug

I read somewhere that the average woman runs a 9:30-10:00 min mile and in the running world, that’s not very fast.  And in the physique world, that’s not even cardio.  And I am not saying that to be mean, I am saying that to be honest.  You know if I let you go the whole winter doing that and knew it wasn’t going to get you anywhere, you’d be mad that I didn’t tell you.  So let’s unruffle the feathers here and get to changing your body, yes?  For instance, I have a favorite “walk spot” that I go to when I need to clear out my mind and if I’m really worked up over something I can find myself walking at a heinous pace.  Whenever this happens I always seem to pass someone on a ‘run’ by a good clip.  Now there is something wrong with that and although they’re most likely going to be on their run longer than I’ll be doing my walk, I’m still doing more work than them.  The take-home from this?  Make sure your run is challenging, first and foremost.  No puttering.

Second, if you’re slow, you’re slow.  Don’t try to go faster, you’ll most likely injure yourself but then you cannot run 5 days a week as your cardio—you’re going to have to mix that up.  You can either:  add in hills, cross train with another piece of cardio or add specific bouts of speed into the mix at specific times so that they are limited and controlled.   I’ll be honest; I’m never a fan of 5 days of running unless you are preparing for a marathon.  At that point I’ll cut you some slack otherwise mix it up.   See below for how to add controlled speed into the program.

Going Nowhere Fast

Have I mentioned lately that it’s cold?  And if you are not “all about the run” or getting ready for an event, chances are you have moved your run indoors.  If you want to do that that’s cool but there are some things you need to know if your body is the main reason why you run.

• Running on the treadmill is not the same as running outdoors.  Now I know that “runners” may know this because you are dramatically faster on a treadmill than you are outside but you may not think about this if you don’t care how fast you are.  When you run outside you propel yourself forward and engage more of the backside but when you run on a treadmill, you are just jumping up and down in place.  Not the same thing.

• Sprinting on a treadmill is bad news and sprinting on a treadmill on an incline is even badder.  Can I say that? Well, maybe not, but truly, it is worse because it completely changes your gait.  Why do you care?  Because cardio never ends for us; there is no place for injury or any time for program interruption.  Jack up your knee and you’re going to lose your mind.  You’re not a run nut so you won’t work out through pain, instead you’ll bring yourself down to chicken and green beans for your entire knee rehab and that’s crazy.

• But since you are on a treadmill, odds are that you can hop off and go do some really crazy stuff like plyos and cranks and then hop back on.  Or maybe you can do a triathlon in your gym by swimming first (elliptical w/arms), biking second (upright is better than recumbent) and then running third.  Going from one to the other can be challenging and you’ll have a better workout session because you are not just slogging through forty minutes on the treadmill alone.

Out and About

If it is all about you and the pavement and you are somewhat on the faster side, then these guidelines can help you to get somewhere in terms of your physique this winter:

• Sprint two days per week in your runs by adding anywhere from 400m to 800m speed work in your run.  I know, you have no idea what 400m looks like so let’s add 90 sec to 3 min speed surges to your run after you have been on the road for at least 10 min.  Add them in so that you can do at least 5 of them in your total run and leave at least 5 min on the run that you can use to cool down.

• Run one whole day at a pace 0:30 sec faster than usual.  This doesn’t sound like a lot until you actually do it and then you realize it’s a major challenge.  Added challenge:  add 60 sec surges in to this run.  You’ll be dying by the end but this is exactly what you want and need.

The Big Picture

What is this really all about?  Doing the same cardio, same time, same run route and same pace day in and day out is the best and fastest way to plateau on your physique goal.  If you really want to change your body or keep on changing your body you have to change your run or it will not help you—it will hurt you.  I know what you’re thinking…you don’t do the same run, there are days you go longer than others.  Yes, but it’s still the same run unless you have changed your pace dramatically. Out of 4 days of running, you have to have at least 2 of those runs make you pant harder than a dog hanging out a car window or you’re wasting your time.  However, if you are the polar opposite and every run you do is an Olympic tryout, then you must have 2 runs per week at a slightly easier pace to mix it up.  If you keep it stagnate, your body will, too.

Remember, what we are all about is longevity in the life of leanness.  And this series is about using the 5K to lose 5 pounds or more.  Overall, this journey is a marathon—not a sprint–and if you want a body that lasts and lasts while being lean, you have more factors to think about besides just the here and now.   If you’re stuck and need pointers, comment below and I’ll be happy to help you out.  Cool?  Woop woop!:o)

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