Marc: Well, that makes a lot of sense, especially number one and number four. At least in my own personal experience, I know that before I was able to really pack on some muscle, I was trying all kinds of you know, heavy lifting programs and you know, doing program of the month and really working out hard in the gym, but I have to admit that my nutrition basically sucked. It just wasn’t any good, and the minute I started figuring that out, how many calories I needed, what to eat, what was healthy to eat and the portions, and really the mast building foods, I noticed that I started to not only lean up, but I put on a lot of muscle mass as well. So, I have to agree with you, the nutrition for me, I mean if I had to throw a percentage out, it, you know, was near 80%. It made that much of a difference for me.
And number four, the same goes. You know, having a support group. I’d have to say that my subscribers, my listeners, the pod cast members, the people that are on my body building forum are really my support group because they hold me accountable. In some ways, maybe I’m trying to keep up with the pack or show off or whatever you want to say, but you’re absolutely right. Doing it by yourself without anybody supporting you or encouraging you or helping you would certainly be a lot harder. I know my gains substantially improved after I, you know, started reading all these different fitness newsletters and participating in forums and getting different workouts, all of a sudden, that sort of light at the end of the tunnel really started to shine through, so I would have to agree with you, especially on number four.
Now, this one’s a little bit different just because this question was sort of odd, but again it might be an absolutist statement. But the only reason anybody should ever spend a minute exercising is to increase your body’s lean muscle tissue. Can you comment on that statement?
Craig: Well, I mean, it just, you know, I don’t really see the point why anybody would say that. I mean, if somebody wants, I guess this is referenced only into changing somebody’s body because obviously an endurance athlete would need to spend minutes doing other types of activities and not just be focusing on building lean muscle tissue. So, let’s take a look at it in that context and I still would disagree with it. So, if we were only thinking about this statement with respect to fat loss or body sculpting and thinking that you should only spend time exercising to increase your body’s lean mass tissue, I would disagree because I believe that there’s some benefits from interval training that help to boost your metabolism.
You know, if I was going to rearrange that statement, I would say, you know, for fat loss, the only reason anybody should ever spend a minute exercising is to increase their body’s metabolic rate becauseto me that’s the foundation in my training system, building lean muscle tissue, just a pet peeve. I always dislike it when people put the word lean in front of muscle. Are you going to build fat muscle?
Marc: Yea.Craig: I mean, you know? Ok, so the foundation in my training is we want to boost our metabolism with the strength training and interval training and you know, strength training builds muscle tissue which does help increase your metabolism and you know right after exercise, after a hard strength training, work out your post exercise metabolism is increased. So, you know, I certainly wouldn’t limit the only exercise people do to building lean muscle tissue.
Craig: There’re certainly other benefits, I mean also, you know, boosting metabolism and taking care of your abs and your lower back. You might not be building lean tissue there, but there’s certainly, that’s the type of exercise you have to do sometimes.
Marc: Ok. Now this question, some different avenues here, but bear with me here. While excessive cardio is indeed a waste of time and can be detrimental to those looking to build muscle, it seems there’re some specific cardiovascular benefits that help with athletic performance that go beyond just heart healthy benefits. So, one fact I picked up was research on people untrained who did bike cardio to failure three times a week, showed that the number of capillaries increased 100% in the leg. So this means better nutrition and oxygen to the affected area and all that imparts. So, cardio training provides new roads to the muscle where strength training alone cannot. So, my question is that true and what might this actually mean even to people trying to build muscle, does it mean more pathways into the muscle so more nutrients can be delivered or am I reading that wrong?
Craig: Well, you would first have to establish that blood flow and nutrient delivery is a limiting factor in strength training, or in building muscle, and to be quite honest with you, I don’t think it is. If you believed that, then you would actually have to say that these, in my opinion, worthless nitric oxide supplements would actually be beneficial because they increase blood flow, but I don’t believe that increased blood flow is making anybody bigger or even stronger.
So, the fact, in my opinion, mechanical factors which is the eccentric, the lifting of weights and the lowering of weights, most importantly, and the concentric, the lifting of weights, the mechanical stress is what stimulates the growth response, and there’s enough blood flow to match the needs of the mechanical stress. And the limiting factor is A, mechanical stress and B, the processes in the muscle for regeneration and repair which are probably determined by genetic factors. And then obviously the amount of nutrients, the correct nutrients, but I don’t believe that nutrient delivery which you asked about, is a limiting factor here. So, to me, I really, if you took those untrained people and you trained them intensely with strength training only, you would probably show an increase in capillary density as well because the university that I went to, McMaster University, they had showed that in body builders there’s an increase capillary density due to that training, but I don’t believe that that increased capillary density made the muscle bigger.
And then the last thing I just want to say on this is that it’s clearly not, it doesn’t sound like what they were doing is traditional cardio. It sounds like they were doing interval training because, and that makes sense because what interval training does is it decreases oxygen saturation at the muscle level, and the response of the muscle is to increase the number of capillaries so that in your future training sessions, your muscles aren’t deprived of oxygen like they were in the last training session. So, your oxidative enzymes increase in your muscle tissue, and then your capillary density increases or your oxygen delivery, so.
Long story short, I don’t think that cardio, if you took 10 guys and gave them body building only and you took 10 guys and gave them the same body building workout and additional cardio, you wouldn’t see any difference.
Marc: Ok, well, that sort of leads me to a surprise question I want to throw at you right here. Just because you mentioned it, and I know that I get a lot of questions on this particular product, so and this is just out there. You can pass on it if you want. NO2, nitric oxide style supplements, are you saying you’re not a fan of that and you don’t play into the, “It builds muscle”?
Craig: Oh, not a fan at all, not believing one second that that type of stuff increases muscle.Marc: I just mentioned that because at least on my forum and I get a question a week on, you know, the new nitrix oxide product, you know, pumps and, you know, “It gives me great pumps and delivers nutrients,” and it’s the same old spin, but a lot of people are getting pulled into buying those style products thinking that, you know, it’s going to increase my blood flow, it’s going togive me better pumps, I’m going to get more nutrients and the muscles are going toget bigger, and I think what they’re getting is caffeine from the product which, you know, amps you for your workout and maybe a placebo effect which I’m all in favor of. I mean, if you give a man a sugar pill and he could bench 450 pounds and he doesn’t know, then the mind is a powerful thing, right? So
Craig: Well, I think that there’s another ingredient in a lot of those products and I am saying this, I don’t study a lot of these products, but I know that some of them have creatine in it, so, you know, same with some of the protein powders out there have creatine in it.
Creatine I know can help you do more work, I mean, it may not work for everybody, but it can work for a lot of people, so. I wrote years ago that the muscle pump has nothing to do with your body building. I mean, again, it’s the amount of blood flow to muscle does not result in muscle growth alone. I mean, the work has to be done to the muscle. If, and this should be a pretty graphic analogy, if blood flow to an area increase size, then we would have a lot of older men using Viagra that were well endowed, you might say, but blood flow alone does not cause growth. So, that’s important to understand and you know what? You know what? If somebody shows me a well done study from a scientific journal that proves me wrong, I’ll definitely write about it in my newsletter, but until that day, I am pretty confident that these products are not directly responsible for growth, unless they contain creatineor, I didn’t know there was caffeine in some of these products, but if there is, it certainly can help your focus in the workout. So
Marc: There’s not many, NO2 style products anymore, I mean, there are a few, like the original NO2, but a lot of them now come in transport systems that have Taurine, caffeine, creatine, I mean, a slew of different things, so pointing, it’s very difficult to say, “Well, I know that this NO2,” it’s like, “Really cause there’s nine other things in that.”
Craig: Yea, and you know what? I mean, if it’s their money, and if they are lovingevery minute of it, then by, who am I to say, “Don’t waste your money,” if you’re enjoying the effects of it? You know, it goes back to my original statement on the cardio there, if you love every minute of it, and you know, you’ve got the time to spend doing it, then by all means, go ahead and do it, but, you know, put it this way, I wouldn’t buy them.
Marc: Well, having done super sets myself, you know, I can testify to the fact that my heart is pumping during those workouts and the intensity levels are very high. But would making a statement like, “Strength training gives you all the heart healthy benefits of cardio,” would that be like saying that doing the Stairmaster gives me all the muscle boosting effects of doing squats, or is that sort of a bad analogy?
Craig: It is a bad, it’s not a great analogy, and again, it comes back to something I said earlier in the interview that there is so many factors that affect cardiovascular health that I think there’s an over emphasis on the entire, you know, steady stay cardio for heart health.
You know, if you take a look at the most basic general recommendations for health, you know, the doctors of the, you know, ACSM says, you know, you should be walking for 30 minutes seven days a week or something like that, or I mean, if that is the basic recommendation and somebody says to me that my 45 minutes of strength training is not helping my heart health, I mean, that just defies common sense because there’s so many factors here. I think it really comes down to you’re going to have very good heart health with great nutrition first of all and avoiding stress, smoking and excessive alcohol. Just take a look at where the oldest people in the world live, you know, some of the islands in Japan. I really doubt these people are doing steady state cardio. They’re living to very long ages because they’re eating incredibly healthy diet.
There are many factors in there, they’re generally avoiding stress, or at least in the past, maybe things have changed now with modernization, but I like just to look common sense wise at people that live a long to a long age, why do they live to a long age? Was it because they did cardio? Most people that live to a long age now have never ever done cardio. So, again, it’s just being active with an activity you enjoy is probably more important and I don’t think that cardiovascular exercise is the be all and end all of improving your heart health with exercise.
Marc: Well, the reason I’m going to ask this next question is because I think a lot of people who might read, you know, various magazines, it seems like the stars really get in to talking about a certain type of a diet or something they’ve tried. So, what’s your take on weight loss and using stars as proof because it seems to me that some of these stars go through some crazy routines and diets to get to a weight goal or look a certain way and then, you now, it goes back to the same old routine that they’ve done, you know, after the photo shoot or the movie.
You know, I can name numerous stars that have either bulked up or lost a ton of weight and changed, but people look at them as like, “Oh, you know, what was Brad Pitt’s routine for Fight Club. I want to look just like that.” Of course, Brad Pitt doesn’t look like that right now anymore. He specifically trained for it, but people are looking at these stars as somehow, you know, as proof that they can achieve something, and I’m not sure that’s, you know, they’re paid to do it, they have professional trainers doing it, it’s sort of their job, and people who are, you know, working at home or have fulltime jobs or looking to do the same thing, and yet, I don’t know that that making that connection is always such a good idea.
Craig: I don’t really know enough to comment on some of the workouts and diet changes of the stars, but I mean, we certainly can look to successful role models and even in the magazines. I mean, I interview women for Oxygen Magazineand there’s a woman in there that has had six kids and she looks fantastic. She’s a fitness model, you know, she’s about 36 years old, didn’t even start doing this until she was 32. And then there’s John Benson’s Fit Over 40. That’s where people should, you know, people that are over 40 that want to role model, they can look. And I mean, all these transformations, I think all these transformations, like body for life and even the supplement Transformation contest, not the ads, but the contest and where they show the winners and stuff, if they’re legitimate winners. I mean, we can learn a lot from these people and that I’ve always say that we can often accomplish a lot more than we give ourselves credit for, and you know, there’s definitely no point in selling ourselves short, so whether or not, you know, the million dollar stars are using a good program or not is irrelevant, but us everyday people, if we use a good program, and we plan ahead which is often what most people fail to do or just don’t want to do.
Plan ahead with your nutrition, you can avoid the obstacles in your life that, you know, keep the body fat on your body and really working out becomes the simple part of it. The nutrition is the hard part, but if we commit and we plan ahead, then we are all capable of incredible changes. And there’s a lot of inspiring stories out there, far more inspiring stories from the average, everyday person that makes these changes, whether they lose 200 pounds to go from 350 to 150 and a healthy weight, or whether they go from, or whether they’re 40 year person that makes incredible transformation and steps onstage for the first time. I mean, those are the people to look to for your role models and to show what can be done with busy lifestyles, with kids, with families, with jobs we can all pull it off.
Marc: You know, it’s interesting that you say that, especially the part about not just the mental aspect of it, but what you can accomplish in not selling yourself short, and the reason I bring that up again is that I, you know, at least once a year, usually in a body building forum because that topic gets buried somewhere and it starts, you know, a new topic, the topic of genetics comes up and body building and reaching your genetic potential, and in a sense, I think that that’s sort of, you know, a lot of times when I read these posts, a lot of people are selling themselves short because they figure, “Well, my family is small, so I’m never going to accomplish those things,” and so they’re looking for, you know, supplements or something else to do it for them rather than looking at the nutrition and training harder and making those, you know, results happen for them because they look at the genetic potential like, you know it’s selling themselves short, and yet, you’re absolutely right.
You look at some of these other people and that question doesn’t even come into their mind. They simply just 100% go for it. They’re not worried about their genetic potential compared to Mr. Olympia or somethinglike that. They’re just reaching their own limits. I don’t know that that question comes into their mind. I mean, it probably doesn’t if you’re going to succeed doing 100%, then you’re not really worried about, you know, mentally limiting your factors and your potential as far as genetics go.
Even for me personally, I see that question all the time and I know that I haven’t reached my genetic potential because I know that I could train a little bit harder because every time I find a workout from one of you fitness gurus out there, it pushes me to a new level that I hadn’t been to before. So, even for me, I haven’t reached my genetic potential. I have no idea what it is, but I know that I’m not there.
Craig: Oh, I agree with you. I know I’m not at mine, and I know that it’s due to my shortcomings and I know that if I focus my efforts even more. I mean, I’m still making improvements, but you know, I’m never satisfied, and like most people, most people are probably in the same boat as you and I, Marc, that they know they can do better, but are least striving to do better. I mean, we certainly are and you know, a lot of us are at different stages of understanding that and knowing how to harness our potential, but you know, the key is as long as you don’t stop and as long as you, I mean, you can understand that you’re not at your potential, but you can also understand that you can still improve. And as long as you don’t look for excuses or you know, I hate to say the word quit, but as long as you’re not quitting, as long as you keep on moving in a positive way, then you’re doing a good job, and that’s what we should all be striving for is just keep on kicking butt and doing the best we can, you know?
Marc: Well, I just bring that up because like I said, I see that every year and for me, I don’t believe in answering that question anymore because it doesn’t even come into my mindset. I mean, I’m just going to continue to improve. I know I can do better and I’m not worried about what my genetic potential is or comparing myself to other people. It think that’s sort of, when you start to go down that path, you potentially can make excuses for why you’re not at a certain level. I just don’t even think about it. I mean, if I want to achieve a certain level, then I try to achieve that level. I don’t know that anybody knows what their genetic potential is, but I can tell you that 99% of the people that I encounter never hit, you know, those types of levels. They always could be doing more than they are to improve themselves, so not even sure that I question is something that people should even really think about other than
Craig: We should just keep on making plans to improve.Marc: Exactly. So, I think you covered this one, but you know, as with many of these new programs, they all seem to skim over the fact that the real results come from changing a person’s diet, not eliminating cardio or eliminating weights or fruits or fats or anything else. Some have diets so low in calories it’s not a surprise people would lose weight. So, would you say that making dietary changes is the most deciding factor?
Craig: Yes, yes, absolutely, and I often, I did say this already that I believe that sometimes the nutrition is the hardest part. The training, I mean, while physically very hard is not as mentally hard to stick to as nutrition, and it is absolutely the key, not only in fat loss, but also I believe your nutrition is also the most important part of your health. So, I mean, if you are neglecting it or you’re not doing as well as you should, you know, I recommend everybody to do a inventory of their nutrition and see if they can’t make some changes, and what I like to tell people is just try and make one small change every day and one or two big changes every week. I know that I’m even improving my nutrition every once in awhile I make sure I scour the vegetable area for a new vegetable that I may or may not enjoy and just make sure that I get it back in the nutrition plan, so.
Every day should be trying to improve and every day that you try to improve, you’ll find a way to make things easier and make healthy eating a better habit, so especially for the beginners out there, you know, don’t worry about changing overnight. Just try and make improvements every day and try and make it so that these changes become habits, and once they become habits, things are going to start to improve very rapidly and any time I go to a seminar or conference and you know, hang out with fitness professionals, whenever we have lunch, we always talk about, you know, because sometimes we’re at a seminar and we don’t have time to grab the best food. We do the best we can, but you know, if we slip up, we always talk about how we can’t imagine how people feel crappy every day because of their nutrition, that nutrition choices that most people make, I mean, if I eat one bad meal, I don’t feel that great, and I don’t understand how people can go around living like that every day and day in and day out, but you watch people eat nothing but processed foods and high glycemic carbohydrates and it’s hard to imagine what they must be feeling like, so, you know, we all know we need to improve our nutrition, so definitely everyone out there should do the best they can.
Marc: One thing that I’ve seen a lot of people do is, and it’s kind of unfortunate, is you have person totally wants to change their lifestyle, maybe lose a lot of fat, so they start reading, they get involved in newsletters and some forums and they kind of figure it out for themselves and actually do pretty well because they ask questions. And then they go from, you know, not such a great lifestyle, say an unhealthy lifestyle, and starting on Monday, you know, because they read about this on Friday.
So, starting on Monday, they’re not going todrink, they’re not going to smoke, they’re going to totally revamp their kitchen, buy all the healthiest foods and they’re going to start exercising four times a week and doing cardio five. And at first, you know, these people are pretty happy, but then they start to realize, I think they start to realize, that they made too many changes too quickly, and what ends up happening is all the sudden, you don’t hear from them anymore. And then when you do two years later, you know, they’ve fallen off the bandwagon. And I think that goes to exactly what you said, making very slow changes in your lifestyle to make them habit.
So, if you have a whole bunch of unhealthy habits, focus on one at a time. If you have a drinking habit, then focus on starting the limit the alcohol intake, or trying to quit smoking. Maybe start with a healthy breakfast. You know, small changes as opposed to changing your entire lifestyle overnight because A, it’s not habit, first of all. You’ve just made a massive change to your lifestyle and keeping up with that is nearly impossible. It’s frustrating; your whole life is in turmoil. You basically changed how you eat, how you live, how you function, so you’re exactly right on making small, significant changes over time until they become habit is exactly where you need to be even from my own personal experience is the same thing. I’ve made small changes over my life to the point now where it’s just habit. I don’t even think about really eating healthy anymore. It’s just habit.
Craig: Yea, we could talk for hours on helping beginners get their kick start, but you’re right, you’re right.Marc: Slow, slow changes. The last thing is Will Brink; the author of Body Building Revealedsaid there’re many energy pathways in existence. If you leave out something like cardiovascular training because these programs give you the same heart healthy benefits, you’re really ignoring one of those energy pathways. So, if you just do strength training, you’re not training nor expanding the capacity of other systems that are important to athletic performance. So that goes back to my question is doesn’t a sound athletic program, it has all of the key components you were talking about, nutrition, strength training, interval training, and the mental aspect. So, leaving out one of those pathways is a mistake, am I right about that?
Craig: Well, it all depends on what the person needs. You know, if we’re talking about athletic performance only, I mean, I don’t think I have a good reason to put a wide receiver through an extensive cardiovascular training program, so basically, it’s a needs analysis. What does this person need, what training methods will suit their needs and then we work around that.
I know body builders that don’t use any cardio and step onstage at low single digit body fat, so there’s a very big individual factor here. You know, that’s a bit of general statement, so, I guess, my answer’s not, it’s just paying lip service to, it’s very individual exactly what the best training program is in these individual scenarios.
Marc: Well, speaking of training programs, now that I’ve monopolized your time, what I really want to find out if you offered a program called The Turbulence Training Program. So, in a nutshell, what is that? I mean, for people listening, and they’re like, “What’s the Turbulence Training Program?” Exactly what is that?
Craig: It’s home based workout, so I wrote this program because I write for Men’s Health magazine andWomen’s Health magazine and that is they typical audience that I deal with, very busy people, you know, that work 10 hours a day and commute round trip of two hours, so they have very limited time, you know, to train in the morning before their kids get up or after their kids go to bed at night, and so they can just do these workouts at home with dumb bells, exercise bench, body weight. I have a lot of body weight variations, some pretty unique and funky stuff, but at the same time, you know, not being creative for the sake of being creative, being creative for the sake of results. And it’s a combination of strength training and interval training and as you mentioned before, for three workouts per week, 45 minutes per session.
Pe ople always ask me, “What about off days?” And I just say, “Be active on your off days. Choose an activity you enjoy.” If you like to do cardio on a Stairmaster, go ahead and do it, but you know, I developed my program to be three structured workouts so you have four days outside of the gym to be active in life. So, whether it’s you do some yard work or you play with your kids or you walk your dog for long extended period of time, in this day and age, people are very stressed for time, so I try and give them more time by creating the most efficient workout method that I could come up with in my experience of training people.
Marc: Well, I just want to remind people or at least let people know where they can find your program, and that would be at TurbulenceTraining.com, but I also noticed last night, Craig, and this is sort of interesting, when I was looking at your order page, you offer a deluxe version and it seems that there’s a body weight training manual?
Craig: Yea, that was a lot of fun puttingthat together. It’s a six month body weight manual, over 70 body weight exercises in there, body weight exercises, variations, almost everything you can do without equipment. I mean, you’ll need an exercise ball, a bench for like maybe step ups or something, and if you’re strong enough, a pull up bar for pull ups and body weight rows, but it’s a lot of fun. You can do this, most of the time, you only need about a 6X6 area to do the body weight exercises, so if you’re very cramped, if you’re traveling, it’s really great for body weight, for business people to travel. Men and women love to take it on the road so that they don’t have to go down to the crappy hotel room gym that doesn’t have what they want. They can just work out in their hotel room or down in the hotel gym they can do a fantastic work out and not have to worry about, you know, missing their regular routine.