I received the following question today via YouTube:

I just wanted to know what you recommend for cardio workouts.

I thought I’d post my answer here since most people are under the false impression that they need to do hours upon hours of long boring cardio in order to burn fat.

I don’t recommend cardio at all. It’s not necessary for fat loss (it’s a waste of time, is very ineffective towards fat loss, and can actually make people fatter, believe it or not), so I don’t encourage people to do cardio.

My workouts are all total-body circuit training workouts, which keeps your heart and lungs pounding throughout the entire workout. This means your cardiovascular system is exercising the same time you’re doing your resistance workout. Very time-efficient and the most effective way to burn calories.

As my friend Craig Ballantyne says, Just Say NO To Cardio.

I just saw a TV commercial for a product called the Ab Coaster. What a useless looking piece of exercise equipment.

On the TV commercial, they won’t even say how much the product costs. All they talk about is the “$14.95 trial offer”. I was curious how much the Ab Coaster costs, so I went to the company’s website to have a look. To my utter astonishment, it costs $414.75 USD, or “one convenient payment plan” of $399.80 USD. Jiminy.

Here’s my main problem with the Ab Coaster: it’s not a total-body workout product. It’s a gimmicky ab machine that allows you to perform 2 exercises: leg raises and oblique leg raises. Is that worth $400 to you? I doubt it, unless you have a bunch of extra money lying around to purchase (not to mention space to store) expensive ab exercise equipment that has extremely limited use.

For most people, the only type of home exercise equipment that’s worth buying is compact equipment that is ultra-versatile (i.e. one single piece of equipment that allows for a vast selection of total-body exercises). For this reason, the only two pieces of home exercise equipment that I recommend are the suspension gym and resistance bands. Get them both, or choose one or the other (pick whichever one you think you’ll enjoy exercising with the most).

But stay far away from gimmicky ab gadgets that cost $400+ and allow you to perform only two exercises.

The question of how to build big arms is perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions by males, and it’s also one of the least understood topics. For most people, they’re falsely under the belief that they must do a vast variety of arm isolation exercises in order to build up a lot of muscle their arms. From barbell curls, to incline dumbbell curls, concentration curls, kickbacks, pushdowns, etc, etc, etc, most people are completely off track when it comes to building muscular arms.

The answer to this question is short and sweet: do heavy chin-ups and rows for your biceps, and dips and close-grip bench press for your triceps. Period. End of story.

The secret to building big and powerful arms is to focus on doing very heavy compound exercises that use multiple muscles and move multiple joints. Focussing on those exercises will allow you to lift far more weight than you could ever imagine lifting with an isolation exercise, and the heavy weight is what’s really going to force your muscles to grow.

So if you want big arms, concentrate on improving your strength in the following four exercises: chin-ups, rows, dips, and close-grip pushups.

One of the most popular parts of my Vancouver boot camp program is the fact that there are absolutely zero crunches involved. If you join my outdoor boot camp program, you will never do a single abdominal crunch. Not one.

Another boot camp company runs workouts at Coopers Park and they spend almost their entire Wednesday workout (60 minutes) on their backs doing abdominal crunches. It’s painful to watch.

I can’t imagine why a fitness company would run a 60 minute ab crunching workout, unless they’re promoting the whole spot-reduction myth (i.e. do hundreds of crunches to burn belly fat and tone your midsection). Spot-reduction doesn’t work, so doing that many crunches is a complete waste of time, not to mention potentially harmful on your spine.

If you want to be shown how to burn belly fat and tone your midsection WITHOUT doing a single boring abdominal crunch, then join my Vancouver boot camp program. We look forward to seeing you there.