Back in Action

Hi guys... wow... no post in almost 3 weeks. My sincerest apologies. Was caught up with shooting a TV program with Kementrian Kesihatan and some local celebrities called Sihat 1, which is due to be aired on RTM 1 or 2 sometime soon. Will keep you guys posted on that. It was indeed a very interesting experience and it was nice. Am definitely looking forward to more opportunities such as this. Been also busy tying up some loose ends on my e-book... which should be out soon.

Anyway during my TV shoot, i met many people who asked loads of fitness questions. It was nice to hear from lay people as they really didn't know much about these things. And i guess i had forgotten what are some of the basic concerns that some people have. When you are into fitness, you focus on more technical things and forget that many lay people out there have very simple questions and concerns. So i have compiled them and here are the answers.

How do i reduce the fat around my belly?
This is obviously referring to spot reduction, which doesn't work. Whether you are looking at losing fat around your arms, hip, face or tummy - its all the same thing. You need to provide your body with a calorie deficit which will cause your body to burn that additional fat. Doing crunches does not focus on burning the fat around your belly. You will make your muscles stronger and more toned, but you won't see anything if its covered with layer of fat. But won't crunches be a good exercise to burn calories. Well doing crunches will use up some amount of calories but crunches alone isn't enough to create the deficit required to see the results you want. So no... crunches alone is not going to work.

Should i do cardio to burn fat
YES, that is one effective method of burning fat. But weight training will also be able to help you to burn fat. Doing loads of compound exercises in super sets is also extremely effective in raising your heart beat and melting fat. So cardio is NOT the only way to burn fat. You can use weight training.

I am skinny, can i really bulk up?
Why not? I was skinny once and i turned out ok... if i can, so can you. With the proper nutrition and the proper training routine, you can achieve it.

I heard that training your biceps and triceps on the same day is a waste of time.
Why? There is absolutely no scientific evidence that supports this. Now i know some muscles should not be trained together as it will dampen your performance of the second exercise. Eg. Doing triceps and then doing bench press - ya... you will notice a significant drop in your bench strength because you do use your triceps for bench press, and if you have worn it out, then you will feel it. But biceps and triceps are antagonistic muscles... meaning when one is working, the relaxes... hence if you are going to choose two muscles to work on, i would choose antagonistic muscles as my first choice. In fact that's what i do now. I train my chest and back on the same day and biceps and triceps on the same day as well. Because it is antagonistic, you don't have to worry about losing performance.

Will i become short if i lift heavy weights over my head?
I think i wrote about this some time back. NO.... your height is predominantly determined by your genetics as well as your nutrition during growth. Weight training has no effect on your height. This is just a myth.

These are just some of the questions i received and the answers that i shared with the people who asked me. In most of these questions i had to explain in detail as many people had formed "beliefs" and its not easy to shake someones beliefs. But i am glad i managed to answer the questions in a manner that enlightening to them.

Anyway... now that all this is done, i do hope i will be able to post more regularly.... my apologies again for the long silence. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments.