things i tried that worked.

today i am gonna talk about different training techniques u can implement to help you reach your goals. it will include everything from nutrition to working out. so listen up! Number 1 - the seafood diet.

I tried this when i just came out of the army and was preparing to head over to melb to study. For cosmetic reasons, i felt that i needed to lose the mass in my legs. so i decided to try going on an all-seafood-no-meat diet. cut out chicken, pork, beef from my diet. had lots of fish, prawns and squid. plus alot cardio being done. this actually made me lose alot of weight. but i also lost alot of my body mass.

Number 2 - the "clean" bulking up diet

I tried this after i did my seafood diet and i was melb. after losing mass in my legs, i wanted to be proportional and bulk up my upper body. so i started working out in the gym and following a bulking-up diet. This included weighing my food and making sure i have a balanced proportion of protein, carbs and fat. it came to a stage where i literally was boiling my meat and veg to reduce fat while using other sources such as olive oil and nuts to make up the fat in my diet. it also worked as i actually put on approximately 20kg and was looking quite proportional (broader shoulders and all). haha.

Number 3 - Working out bodybuilder-style

Alot of people when wanting to bulk up turn to bodybuilding programs (i.e. 3-5sets of 12 repetitions; around 5 exercises per bodypart). For the untrained person, this is a good way to start. It not only helps tone up your muscles but also gives you a foundation in your training. From my personal experience, i am quite happy that i started off like that because now when i go heavier and train more like a powerlifter or olympic weightlifter, i feel that i am more conditioned to handle the heavy weights. i started by following Arnold's bodybuilding split where he supersetted chest and back blah blah blah (superset = doing one exercise straight after another). then there's also the idea of variety in bodybuilding where u change up the exercises to keep the muscles working to adapt. therefore, at the end of the day, without having started off working out using a bodybuilding-style program, i dun think i could have made the gains in terms of strength and power that i managed to have today.

Number 4 - the 5x5 program.

this is a strength-building program which is popular among the strength athletes such as the powerlifters or weightlifters. you do 5 sets of 5 reps for a compound movement (a movement that uses more than one joint and one muscle group). Once you are able to get all 5 sets of 5 reps, then you increase the weight. other variations include 3x3 or 10x10 (more for bodybuilding). How this worked for me was when i was training to hit a 200kg deadlift within 6-8 months. i started off with a 1RM of 140kg. and following the 5x5 program and switching it up with a 3x3 on certain weeks, i was able to get my deadlift up to 185kg.

Number 5 - Crossfit.

This is the one thing that i am currently doing and have been showing the most benefits to my fitness and health (haha. sorry to sound biased). Crossfit is defined as constantly varied, functional movements executed at high intensity. it combines weightlifting, sprinting and gymnastics movements. although some ppl do not see some of their training methods as being techincally sound (i.e. kipping pull-ups, high-rep olympic lifting), but it actually makes me sweat quite abit and gain quite abit of strength (increased my snatch to 60kg and clean-and-jerk to 80kg). plus most importantly, i also managed to drop my weight back down to 75kg and i can fit into my old jeans and berms. so do you think it works? hehe.

so what have u tried that has worked for you? there are so many things out there that everyone has tried and has different opinions about. but like i told one of my clients, it's most important that you are happy with what u do and it works for you. =)