The Super Uber Mega Ultra Important Missing Ingredient EVERYONE Needs More Of

June 7, 2012 by Roger Lawson II 32 Comments

Could you eat (insert a delicious food that makes your stomach go “WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”) everyday?

Could you eat (insert a food that burns your buttcheeks and you wish that you could wipe it from the face of this Earth) everyday?

I don’t know many things, but I do know that I’d fight a bear and a tiger at the same time for a Cinnabon and could eat one everyday. Ask me to do the same with arugula or beets and eventually I’d end up trying to jump off a cliff. I imagine the scenario might play out similarly for you, minus the whole bear and cliff thing.

We do what’s fun and what we enjoy.

We avoid what sucks. As flawed as that can be at times, that’s how we roll.

But what if we applied this same mindset to our training and diet?

What if we did we did more of what we liked & loved and less of what we didn’t?

A Case Study In Fun

Kimberly Mills is one of my favorite Facebook friends. She’ll randomly update me with her progress and life happenings, but the reason why I dig her so much is because I can tell that she is living one hell of a life. In her messages she rarely uses periods, only exclamation points ranging from 1-18 depending on how excited she is.

Kim sharing her amazing story in the July/August issue of Experience Life magazine

She works with a trainer, but each set and rep of her training program isn’t locked down and set in stone; she has a ton of fun both during and outside of her official sessions. In fact, and I affectionately call her a special kind of sick because of this, she joined the 10,000 burpee challenge where she does 100 burpees a day for 100 days – definitely not my cup of juice, but if fun were money she’d be making it rain 24/7/365, and that’s more important than anything else.To say that she is loving fitness would be the understatement of the century.

A few weeks ago my friends Andrew Griffin, JC Deen and I got together and trained in a completely different way than we usually do. There was air humping. There were faux English accents, and we swung hammers in a very manly fashion – I can’t think of a time when I’ve had more fun during a workout (I managed to hit some PRs because of all the awesome energy as well.

Since then I’ve completely revamped the way that I train, doing only exercises that I love to death or I think are cool and want to learn, because…

If you aren’t having fun, you’re doing it wrong!

No matter if you want to be ripped like old pictures after a bad breakup or turn yourself into The Incredible Hulk, it’s gonna take awhile to get there, so why not enjoy as much of the process as possible?

Fun is a prerequisite to success.

The road is long and there will be many times when you get frustrated, pissed off and want to ragequit. Try to bypass the fun step and the odds of you giving up before making it to where you want to be are pretty high.

I just put on my Miss Cleo turban, so I can now accurately predict your future – the less fun you have, the less permanent the results. For all my gamer nerds out there, don’t grind to get to the end game without stopping to actually enjoy all the quests and people you meet along the way.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don’t find some way to milk as much fun & enjoyment as you can from the delicious teat of life then you’re missing the whole point.

Some people enjoy the thrill of constantly chasing after a new strength PR. Some enjoy learning a new movement and after months of small successes finally getting it. Some enjoy getting their swole on all day every day. Then there are those who aren’t having fun unless they’re raiding Death’s refrigerator and eating all his sammiches by the end of their workout.

If you like yoga, do yoga.

If you like jogging (and can do it without hurting yourself), go do it every now and then without worrying about muscle loss or strength regression – worrying will do more harm then the running ever could.

I don’t care what you do as long as you love it. Just make sure that what you’re doing is leading you closer to your goals – it’s hard to have fun making no progress.

There is ALWAYS room for good ‘ol fashioned tomfoolery – one workout or meal will never make or break your assault upon the gates of Castle Awesome, so stop treating it like it will.

Need some ideas? Grab your spoon, because here’s an entire bowl full of ideas for you.

Workout Funjections

Homie Fun

Get a training partner or two and just let whatever madness happens happen. Everything is more fun with homies.

Procrastinator Fun

Perform 2-3 sets of 1-2 exercises at the end of your workout.

Example:

A1) Leg Press – 2 x 20
A2) Dumbbell Hammer Curls with optional bicep kiss – 2 x 10

“Oh hi there” Fun

Choose an exercise that you love and intersperse it throughout your workout, staying 4-5 reps below failure.

Example:

A1) Deadlifts – 2 x 5
A2) Tricep Pushdowns – 2 x 8
B1) Dumbbell Rows – 3 x 10
B2) Tricep Pushdowns – 3 x 8
C1) Goblet Squats – 3 x 8
C2) Tricep Pushdowns – 3 x 8

Pump Fun

Get your main strength movement (bench press, overhead press, squat, deadlift, chin up, etc) out of the way and then pump your muscles to oblivion and beyond for the rest of the workout.

Example:

A) Barbell Back Squat – 3 x 5
B1) Barbell Hip Thrust – 2 x 30
B2) Chin Ups – 2 x AMAP (as many as possible with good form)
C1) Bodyweight Back Extensions – 2 x AMAP
C2) Dumbell Squeeze Press – 2 x 20
D1) Barbell Curl – 1 x 15
D2) Seated Row – 1 x 15

“I love everything!” Fun

Pick 4-8 exercises that you love the hell out of and do only those for your workout, varying the sets and reps for each.

“Zomgwtf!” Fun

Fill this workout with exercises that have haunted your soul since the beginning of time, or ones that you rarely do and want to get better at.

Example:

A1) Single Leg Deadlift – 3 x 8 each leg
A2) Pullups – 3 x 8
B1) Dumbbell Walking Lunges – 3 x 10 each leg
B2) Dumbbell Military Press – 3 x 10
C1) Dragon Flags – 3 x 6
C2) Heavy Dumbbell Holds – 4 x 15 seconds

Minimalist Fun

Pick 1-2 exercises and perform 5 sets of each, varying the rep ranges.

A1) Barbell back squat to box – 2 x 3
A2) Barbell bench press – 2 x 5
B1) Barbell back squat to box – 2 x 8
B2) Barbell bench press – 2 x 10
C1) Barbell back squat to box – 1 x 20
C2) Barbell bench press – 1 x 15

Survival Fun

Set a time limit (5-30 minutes is a good range) and see how many rounds of an exercise circuit you can perform.

Example:

A1) Pushups – 10
A2) Burpees – 10
A3) Dumbbell Row – 5 each arm
A4) Single Leg Hip Thrust – 5 each leg
A5) Jumping Jacks – 15

SMASH!

Smash stuff over and over again until you feel like stopping.

Food Funjections

There can be only one!

Eat one nice, hearty meal for the day – that’s it (don’t go out of your way to try and eat as many calories as possible, though).

Treat yo self!

Have a food that you absolutely love…everyday.

All day

Eat a food that you love…with every meal

The Minimalist Guide to Mobility: Moving Like a Ninja in 5 Minutes or Less

May 23, 2012 by Roger Lawson II 64 Comments

Courtesy of N1NJ4

9-5 desk jobs.

Epic back and forth commutes that are longer than a Lord of the Rings movie.

A never-ending stream of emails and messages.

Keeping up with the relationships that matter most to us.

With all that’s going on, we’re all busier than a one-armed man in a 5-on-1 boxing match – I totally get it

BUT! *waves finger in the air with much zest and vigor* that doesn’t mean we should sacrifice our health in the process.

Just a few years ago I was “that guy.” My days consisted of sitting in class for several hours, sitting at the library desk where I worked for several more hours, walking to the gym and doing a light jog on the treadmill before hammering my body, all before heading home to sit around more until bed time.

It’s no wonder that I moved like a tin man, my form on some exercises suffered, and I had the random aches to go along with it.

If this story sounds familiar and you’re finding yourself moving down the same path of movement lameness, consider this your intervention.

Movement Intervention

Below you’ll find a series of mobility drills to do at the beginning and end of each day. Simply pick one exercise from each category and perform 5-10 reps, cycling through them for 5 minutes.

If that seems overwhelming at first, just start by picking one of those times and a few less exercises. Set an alarm, turn on a movie/music, write yourself a note, or have a friend come by and slap you in the face as a reminder, whatever you need to do to make sure it gets done.

Many of these are mobility drills that I’ve added into my clients pre-workout warm up, and their experiences have been fantastic. Their form has improved, they’re moving better throughout the day and they’ve drop kicked nagging pains in the chest, all from doing them a few times a week – imagine what you’d gain from just 5-10 minutes a day (or more awesomely put, 35-70 minutes a week). The cumulative effect is oh so sweet.

Ankles

Rocking Ankle Mobilization (1:11)

Upper Back/Shoulders

Quadruped Thoracic Rotation (beginning of video)
Foam roller extension (1:47)
Wall Slides (2:13)
Band Pullaparts (2:28)
Sleeper Stretch (2:43) – 15 to 30 second hold earh arm
X-Band Walk (2:52)
Scap Pushups (3:50)
Band Shoulder Dislocations (4:05)

Hips

Spidermans (0:11)
Hip Flexor Mobilization (0:22)
Rear Foot Elevated Hip Mobilization (0:35)
Reverse Lunge (0:49)
Knee to Knee Stretch (1:35) – this can also be a 15-30 second hold if necessary
Quadruped Hip Extension (1:04 – targets the glutes very well)

Full Body

Squat to Stand (1:22)
Bodyweight/Assisted Squats (3:25)

Bonus: Static Stretching

*Hip Hinge Hold (3:06)
*Hip Flexor Stretch (3:17)
*Quad Stretch (3:21)

* 30-60 second holds

You can also order the red resistance band (and others) here.

Did I miss anything? Want more mobility drills?
Let me know in the comment section or e-mail and I’ll film some more exercises, because I love you more than a unicorn loves rainbows.

50+ Quotes Guaranteed to Inject Your Day With Unbridled Awesomeness

April 19, 2012 by Roger Lawson II 21 Comments

I’m a bit of a quote freak, and I know many of you out there are as well (it’ll be our little secret).

With the power to spur you into action when moments before you had nothing left to give, improve your perspective on life, or simply turn a droopy face into a beaming smile, quotes are pretty much the coolest thing you can read in under 5 seconds.

I start my mornings by reading a new quote, but I want to stop being a quote horder and spread the love around, so here are a few of my favorite ones guaranteed to make you smile, laugh, or maybe even change your direction entirely.

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean
“It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.” – Dalai Lama
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” – Khalil Gibran
“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.” – Brian Tracey
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl
“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo
“Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. – Francesca Reigler
“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.” – Winston Churchill
“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.” -Eckhart Tolle
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell
“As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” – Andrew Carnegie
“All problems become smaller if you don’t dodge them but confront them.” – William F. Halsey
“Success will never be a big step in the future, success is a small step taken just now.” – Jonatan Mårtensson

“There is no moment like the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him can have no hope from them afterwards: they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and scurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence.” – Maria Edgeworth

“There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today.” – Mignon McLaughlin
“Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.” – Zig Ziglar

“Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.” – Alfred Adler
“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.” -Frank Tibolt

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.” – Jim Rohn
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The satisfied, the happy, do not live; they fall asleep in habit, near neighbor to annihilation.” -Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life, 1913

“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” – Arnold H. Glasow

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown

“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.” – Bruce Lee

“ The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.” – Vance Havner

“When people say to me: “How do you do so many things?” I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel: “How do you do so little?” It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” – Philip Adams
“Establishing goals is all right if you don’t let them deprive you of interesting detours.” – Doug Larson

“Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow.” -Yiddish Proverb

“We acquire the strength we have overcome.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Everyone must choose one of two pains: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” – Jim Rohn

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically – to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside. The enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good.’ – Stephen Covey

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” – Soren Kierkegaard

“The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.” – Jim Rohn

‎”There is only one success–to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley

“I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” – Bruce Lee

“We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death.” – David Sarnoff

“You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper.” -Robert Alton Harris

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

“Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy.” – Cynthia Nelms

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” – James Openheim

“The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.” – Roux
“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn

“I don’t believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.” – Ken Venturi
“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” – Epictetus

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.” – Mother Teresa
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” – Steven Furtick

Did I overlook your favorite quote? Leave it in the comment box below – I’ll be constantly updating this list with your submissions.

The Sexification of Rog Law: The Conclusion

April 5, 2012 by Roger Lawson II 3 Comments

Since the last update I’ve been experimenting with a modified version of one the most effective ways to lose the most amount of fat in the least amount of time – a protein sparing modified fast (PSMF for short).

When dieting to lose fat, you want to keep your protein levels high enough to preserve muscle mass while still maintaining a weekly calorie deficit. The problem is that the further you venture from your maintenance calories without returning to, or close to, those levels, the higher the risk of muscle loss if you don’t match that decrease in calories with more protein.

Think of fat loss as a game of tag, with maintenance being your “home base”. The further you get from base, the more in danger you are of getting tagged, aka muscle loss (and getting tagged SUCKS DRAGON TAIL).

A PSMF diet bypasses this problem by providing very high levels of protein and, well…not much else. In order to create the largest deficit possible, there simply isn’t room for many calories coming from other sources. Also note that for someone who is already reasonably lean, a diet like this is only supposed to be used in the short term in order to prevent possible side metabolic side effects. The more fat the that you have to lose, the longer that something like this can be maintained.

My diet from Sun-Thursday:

100g protein shake, 1 cup of 1% milk and 1 cup wat
2lbs chicken breast
1-2lbs of steamed broccoli
3 grams of fish oil
1 daily multivitamin

Pretty bland, but it’s the nature of the diet.

After Thursday I got mentally fatigued and decided to end it prematurely (I planned on doing it for 2 weeks), eating at maintenance up until Sunday night, where I weighed in at 192.

With my speaking event coming up on Friday and having lost 18lbs in 6 weeks while increasing my strength, it’s safe to say that I’ve accomplished the main goal of this leg of the journey. My long term goal is still to hit 180 or so, but I’ll take more of a relaxed approach and enjoy fulfilling some fun & kooky objectives that I’ve been kicking around in my head for awhile.

For those of you who are looking for more information on a scientifically sound approach to losing fat rapidly and safely, look no further than Lyle Mcdonald’s Rapid Fat Loss book. Filled with both the how and the scientific reasoning behind the why, it is simply the most user friendly and effective product on the market.

Faithful Sexification Supestars, do you have any questions that you want me to answer about this whole process?
Post them in the comment section below and I’ll do my best to help make your next move your best move.

The Complete Guide to Beating your Meat

March 29, 2012 by Roger Lawson II 27 Comments

White, thick, and very affordable. Meet your enemy, the dreaded chicken breast – it is here to destroy you.

There are few things in this world that will bring your dietary dominance to a screeching halt faster than a dry, boring piece of meat. Through sheer willpower alone you might get a few pieces down your throat, but in the end your body knows there are better tasting foods out there, and if you force it to endure the mouth-drying agony of a lamely prepared protein source one more time, it may very well seize up & choose your early demise over such a fate.

Not cool. I’ve seen it happen.

In the past I’ve let entire packages of meat go bad because I couldn’t muster up the mental & physical fortitude to eat more of it. Not only did it make my wallet pissed, but my fridge didn’t smell too lovely either.

So I’m here to do my part and help make sure you get the most out of your meat. In the video below I demonstrate my favorite quick & easy method for creating a juicy, mouth-worthy creation out of pretty much any meat (pork, beef, chicken, turkey – all these cuts work.

Here’s a sample chicken recipe for you to try as a well.

Let me know what you think in the comment section, and if you have any tips that you’ve used to great success please let me and the rest of the Sexification community know. Remember – friends don’t let friends eat dry meat (FDLFEDM).

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