Back in 2007, I received dozens of emails about Tiger Woods and his new muscle-bound body, and people wanted to know if I thought he was using steroids.

So I wrote a very controversial blog post about it.

And this week that blog post has gotten a lot of attention, given his recently admitted “transgressions”.

What did I say back in 2007?

Well, back then, I said he’s NOT on steroids.

But given his recent behavior and clear lack of judgment…now I’m starting to reconsider.

Could I have been wrong about Tiger’s muscle-building all along?

I still think it IS possible for him to have gained that amount of muscle NATURALLY.

In fact, back then I said…

“Anyone who thinks Tiger Woods is on steroids has never been in a gym. Has never lifted weights. Has no idea of the potential of the human body to adapt to training.”

Not surprisingly, that created a LOT of controversy, and some of the blog comments from anonymous readers are downright nasty and contain strong language, so be warned if you want to check my original blog post out here:

=> How Did Tiger Woods Build Muscle

Essentially, my argument was this…

1) Tiger isn’t “that” big, and not much bigger than me

2) I’ve never used steroids

3) Therefore, I don’t believe Tiger needed to use steroids

And I still believe that, but last week someone made an interesting comment on the blog and about my photo, writing:

“Tiger appears bulked up. You look natural. Tiger Woods does not.”

Interesting…so here are 3 scenarios…

1) Could the differences in our bodies be due to the bodyweight exercises in my program giving me a more “natural” look while Tiger has done more weight training – and looks bulky?

2) Could the differences simply be due to the way we each genetically respond to training?

3) Could he really be on steroids?

So far I’ve received many more “Tiger DOES use steroids” comments on my blog, but maybe its simply because he isn’t using bodyweight bodybuilding methods.

Interesting stuff.

In the end, I’m sticking to my original belief that Tiger did NOT use steroids to build muscle.

And that my workouts – particularly the bodyweight exercises used in my Bodyweight Bodybuilding type workouts – give me a better looking, all-natural beach body.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, TT Bodyweight Bodybuilding

All this talk of Dubai in the news reminds of the time back in February 2006 when I spent a week in the desert on the Persian Gulf visiting 4 of my friends who were living there.

It’s kind of a funny story, because as you can imagine, it doesn’t rain much in Dubai, but the week I went there it was overcast for 4 days and rained HARD for 3 days.

They had a lot of flooding that week, crazy car crashes, and I remember walking around in the mall with the floors covered in water. I’m bad luck when it comes to weather – so don’t invite me to your wedding!

I also did the classic “Spend half the day on the beach and half the day skiing in the indoor ski hill at the mall”.

Here’s me snowboarding (poorly) in the mall in Dubai =>

In case you didn’t know, Dubai has this crazy mall in the middle of the desert where they just happened to build in a ski hill.

Crazy.

Here’s what the mall looks like from the outside when you drive by – the big grey “spaceship-looking” thing is the ski hill…

Yep, good times. And here’s a picture of me with my beach body in the ocean the morning before I went snowboarding:

Back then I was about 190-195 lbs, although I don’t feel that I look much different.

If there was one difference in my training it simply had to be…

The fact that I trained with a partner.

And even though we trained in a crappy training environment (commercial gym, bad music, etc.), we made big gains and got strong because we pushed each other and we were able to spot one another.

Back then I was able to bench 310, and these days I can barely bench 275 (for various reasons, the biggest being my lack of a training partner).

So my workouts back then were also 4 days a week to build muscle (didn’t need much help with fat loss), but in reality, we only need 3.25 workouts to get everything we needed.

We over-trained a little, mostly because me and the guy I trained with were both working 10-12 hours per day training other people, and getting up at 4:30am after 5 hours sleep isn’t the best situation for recovery…

…even when you’re only 30 years old.

About that time is when I came up with the TT Fusion Fat Loss workout, and my program is reflected in that one, because of the 4-day per week advanced nature.

Essentially, we had this set-up going:

Day 1

Bench
Row
Another press (could have been dumbbell or board press)
Pullups
Grip

Day 2

Squat
Hip extension (i.e. good mornings)
1-leg exercise (i.e. bulgarian split squats)

Day 3 - Rest

Dork in Dubai (self portrait) =>

Day 4

Dynamic Bench
Shoulders
Arms

Day 5

Deadlift
Abs
Grip

Sometimes we’d skip a mid-week workout and train on Sundays with some classic strongman stuff, like tire flipping, etc. Those were fun workouts too.

Those were the days.

My workouts have changed a little bit, but I’m trying out another 4-day per week program now, although with more bodyweight exercises.

Who knows where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing in 2012.

Stay strong,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training Fusion Fat Loss

Well hey everyone! T’is the last month of the year…still time to make progress…folks in their last few days of the 6th TT Transformation Contest will be burning fat right to the end.

I have a new program, TT Bodyweight bodybuilding, that I gave to Vince Del Monte to offer along with his no-nonsense DVD set…watch for that on Tuesday, December 1st.

I used one of Vinces programs for 4 weeks and got great results, then used some of his techniques to compliment my bodyweight exercises and the result is one of the toughest bodyweight programs I’ve ever designed, the TT Bodyweight Bodybuilding program…

…you even get a crazy Bodyweight 501 or insane bodyweight 666 circuit.

Click here to listen to this week’s call

Or just read below for all of the details…

Monday – Nov 30

Transformation Tip of the Week:

The harsh reality is that most people do not want to see you succeed. People will try to hold you down. You must make an effort to hang around others who share your goals to lose weight, and so that you can leverage their knowledge, commitment, support, and success. It’s research proven that when you hang around others who succeed that you will also succeed.

Workout A – Turbulence Training Bodyweight Phase 5

Advanced Upper Body Strength & Lower Body Circuit Conditioning

1A) T-Squat (15 reps)
1B) Feet on Ball Pushup (12 reps)
2A) Chin-up (Max-1)
2B) Hands on Bench, Feet on Ball Pushup (15 reps)
3A) Pushups with Hands on Ball  (15 reps)
3B) 1-Leg Deadlift (12 reps)
4A) Inverted Row – Feet on Ball (12 reps)
4B) Spiderman Pushup (8 reps)
5A) Side Plank Leg Lift (10 reps)
5B) Split Squat with Front Foot Elevated (12 reps)
5C) Spiderman Climb (12 reps)
5D) Plank with Arms on Ball (30 seconds)

Tuesday
30 minutes of fun activity…and now for :

3 favorite muscle building tips from Vince Del Monte

1) Begin with 3 full body weight training workouts every 48-hours.

2) Take your body weight in pounds and multiply it by 15 to determine your daily caloric intake if you want to gain weight.

3) Use a training journal and track your progress and have a training program. Never go to the gym without a plan.

NOTE: Watch for Vince’s (aka “Rambo”) birthday special event this week where you get your chance to grab a copy of his workout DVD’s and my new program, Bodyweight Bodybuilding.

Wednesday

Men’s Health (Dec 2009) says that an hour of lifting burns 500 calories as will 40 minutes of running…but of course, that depends on your fitness level.

I say…”Don’t get focused on calories burned…just focus on workout intensity and performance to sculpt your muscles and let your diet of whole, natural foods burn the belly fat.”

Workout B – TT Bodyweight Phase 5

1A) Prisoner Squat (10 reps)
1B) Prisoner Lunge (8 reps)
1C) Inverted Row (10 reps)
2A) Pull-up (Max-1)
2B) Elbow-to-Instep Lunge (8 reps) =>
3A) Hands on Ball, Feet on Bench Pushup (15 reps)
3B) 1-Leg RDL (10 reps)
4A) Shoulder Press Pushup (15 reps)
4B) Stability Ball 1-Leg Curl (10 reps)
5A) Jumping Jacks (60 reps)
5B) Chop (15 reps)
5C) Stability Ball Rollout (10 reps)
5D) Chin-up (6 reps)
Interval Workout B

Thursday
30 minutes of fun activity and now to clear the air about fish oil…

Last week’s message simply meant, “Do NOT mega-dose fish oil unless you are under the care of a physician.”

It did not mean, don’t ever use fish oil.

The American Heart Association “recommends those people with coronary artery disease (CAD), should consume about 1 gram (1000 mg) of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids daily, preferably from eating fish.”

But to get the recommended 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids, you would need to eat one to two servings of salmon, four to seven servings of cod, or four servings of shrimp per day – and a lot of the fish on the market is NOT quality fish.

In that case, you may choose to use a supplement…but in order to be conservative, talk to your doc first, especially if you have blood clotting issues or low blood pressure.

Friday

Workout C – TT Bodyweight Phase 5

1A) Y-Squat (10 reps)
1B) Cross Crawl (12 reps)
1C) Elevated Pushup (12 reps) =>
2A) Towel Row (Max-1)
2B) Rotate Lunge (10 reps)
3A) Chin-up (Max-1)
3B) Pushups with Hands on Ball  (15 reps)
4A) Spiderman Pushup (10 reps)
4B) Stability Ball Jackknife Rotation (8 reps)
5A) Siff Squat (25 reps)
5B) Multi-Direction Lunge (12 reps)
5C) Side Plank

Social Support Saturday!
Get 30 minutes of fun activity, and then…

“Figure yourself out; spend some time in introspection” – Frank McKinney.

That’s a brilliant idea for today…

…so take 10-15 minutes for yourself to write down where you’re headed for the rest of the year, and what plans you want you to accomplish in 2010 and then put in some action steps you need to follow to reach those goals.

Keep it simple and clear.

Answer these questions:

1) Is the life you’re living worth what you are giving up to have it?
2) Are you doing what you want in life?
3) Are you living the personal life that you want?
4) Are you doing enough of the little things that make you happy?
5) Are you spending enough time with the people that make you happy?
6) Are you making the best use of the limited time you have in your one lifetime?

Simple questions. Simple answers.
Make a simple plan.
Develop simple solutions.

Sunday – Plan, Shop & Prepare
30 minutes activity and plan, shop, & prepare for the week ahead…

Now for the TRUTH about fruit and fat loss…

Danish researchers reviewed all the fruit and weight loss studies they could find (Obesity Reviews, Volume 10 Issue 6, Pages 639 – 647)…

And studies showed:

- fruit intake reduced body weight
- fruit consumption reduced the risk of developing overweight and obesity
- an inverse association between fruit intake and body weight

Bottom line: Fruit does NOT make you fat.

Duh!

Alright, that’s it for this week, stay tuned for Bodyweight Bodybuilding, and:

Next week!
1) Another TT Workout dissected…
2) The 6th TT Transformation Contest ends – voting starts Dec 14th…
3) A nutrition tip on choosing the right number of calories for weight loss
4) Very Interestink Kettlebell Research!

Talk to you soon!

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

The other week I was at a fitness seminar and met a brash young Scottish trainer from Long Island named John Romaniello (that’s a photo of him, but I’m not sure why he’s crying).

Now I’m pretty skeptical of other personal trainers, but this guy seemed to know his stuff. He’s written for T-Nation, Shape magazine, and is even doing stuff for Men’s Health…

…that gave him some credibility. He’s also kind of funny. Kind of.

So I asked him to write 2 articles for you – one for men and one for women – on building a sexy body. For some strange reason, he sent me the article for men first, but I’m still going to litter this article with pictures of sexy girls instead.

Warning: John has some weirdo-bodybuilder type ideas, but we’ll also forgive him for that. Hopefully this gives you some ideas to help you get the body you want…

5 Tips for Building a Sexy Body – John Romaniello

Whatever your fitness and physique goals are, it is important to structure your programming in a way that allows you to meet those goals in the shortest time period possible.

You have a tremendous variety of tools in the tool box, and it is sometimes easy to forget that not all methods are effective for all goals.

Athletes training for their sport practice some high specific drills; training for fat loss requires adjustment of nutrition strategies, power lifters work on becoming skilled and efficient in their primary lifts.

Given these examples, is easy to see that none of these scenarios would really benefit from using strategies intended for the others.

And so, if your goal is simply to build a lean, symmetrical, attractive and sexy body, you have to gear your diet and structure towards those goals.

Here are 5 tips to help you along the way:

1) Focus on Building an X-Shaped Physique

When it comes to being physically attractive to the opposite sex, it’s important to understand that certain body dimensions are visually important, from an evolutionary perspective.

Our progenitors credited desirable traits like strength, productivity, and virility to corresponding physical attributes.  While the society ‘needs’ may have changed in a way that no longer makes it ‘necessary’ to have the characteristics to succeed, to a certain extent we carry our ancestors tastes.

This means that physical traits which imply the presence of “mating qualifiers” are important for increasing your stock with the ladies.

To that end, an X-shaped physique means: broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and strong, well-developed calves.

For broad shoulders, focus on core movements that allow for maximal recruitment, such as the push press, as well as some isolation exercises to focus on the medial delts and increases width, such as lateral raises.

A narrow waist is primarily the result of a low level of body fat, obviously. However, it is important to understand that the muscles around your waist respond to weight training in much the same way that all other muscles do: by growing!

So while I don’t ever advise avoiding certain exercises completely, I offer the caveat that one should avoid training rotational exercises with either heavy weight or high volume.

Strong, well-developed calves are not easy to come by.  Calves are a notoriously stubborn body part to grow, so I recommend training them multiple times per week.  Work your calves first in your training session, not last.

By focusing on these muscles and building a physique more in line with what our ancestors considered desirable (and let’s be honest, we still do), you are on the road to a sexier body.

2) Push Less, Pull More

In keeping with the ideas from above, the goal of training for sexiness should also include balance and symmetry.  This not only should you train the right way, but also that you need to make a concentrated effort to avoid training the wrong way.

As men, we’re highly visual creatures.  As trainees, this translates into becoming highly focused on ‘mirror muscles’ – that is, those you can readily see in any mirror.

Guys in general tend to do a lot more work on muscles like chest than back. I cannot begin to describe the drawbacks of this mentality.

Instead, I’ll focus on the main ideas of this post.

With specific regard to appearance, lopsided training which focuses on anterior (front) muscles over posterior (rear) muscles leads to pretty ugly imbalances.

In addition to this being a great way to get yourself injured, it can lead to a round, forward shouldered look that is not the goal of any training program I’ve ever heard of.

Keeping in mind the idea of building a sexy body, it’s worth noting that such a look is also decidedly unattractive.

Instead, we should focus more on the muscles of the upper back: latissimus dorsi, teres major, trapezius, et al.  These muscles, developed correctly, will help pull your shoulders back, helping to create the broad shouldered look that men find powerful and women find attractive.

To prevent imbalances and help to create such a look, try to maintain a 3:2 ratio of pulling exercises to pushing exercises.

As an example, 3 sets of rows, 2 sets of bench presses.

Following this pattern, you are far less likely to develop unattractive imbalances; in addition, you will be less like to incur injury.  And probably be more likely get naked.

3) Lift Heavy at Least 4 Days per Month

The benefits of heavy training are widely documented, so once again I’ll just focus on the relevancy to building a bang-worthy body.

Training heavy doesn’t just make you strong-it makes you look strong. Training in low rep-ranges (3-5 reps) necessitates the use of near-maximal weight.  In generally, you would be working within 75%-85% of your 1RM.

This elicits some profound physiological changes.

Training with heavy loads leads to an increase in both neurogenic and myogenic muscle tone, both of which are important for building an attractive physique.

First, it is necessary to recognize that for the purposes of this writing, the word “tone” means the level of tension in a muscle.  With that understood, let’s talk about each type.

Neurogenic tone refers to the level of tension in a muscle in a working or flexed state.  That is, how “hard” a muscle is when you are either training it, or just flexing it for some chick at the gym/beach/World of Warcraft party.

Myogenic tone can be defined as residual tension in a resting muscle.  What this really means is how hard, full, and dense your muscles are when you’re just hanging out.  Rather than some artificial pump, an increase in myogenic tone is a permanent increase in the appearance of your muscles.

Increasing neurogenic and mygenic tone also has the benefit of making muscles more visible at slightly higher levels of bodyfat – and there is a lot to be said for having your triceps pop out a bit more at 10%–just imagine how they’ll look at 8%!

To achieve the increases, my clients all have at least 1 day per week dedicated to lifting near maximal loads.  In addition to the aforementioned benefits, heavy training also leads to strength increases, which has obvious implications for training in the future.

Take home: lift heavy, get hard.

4) Mix Up Your Training

In order to create a body suited for a variety of physical.er, tasks, you need to change up you workout pretty frequently.

Training variety keeps you motivated and invariably leads to better results.

In terms of helping you increase your rating on the Scale of Sexy, the main benefit if from a fat loss perspective.

While it is arguable that “training ADD” can inhibit muscle gains (which is only true if you are changing haphazardly with no thought to programming)…

…for the purposes of getting lean, exposing yourself to consistently changing stimulus is an excellent way to ramp up metabolism and consistently increases the processes by which fat loss is made possible.

Certainly, I do not advocate switching programs from day to day.  Instead, I recommend choosing or designing programs that have multiple training methods built into a training week.

An easy way to work variety into your training is to change exercises for the same movement.  Switching form bench presses to push ups, counter intuitive though it might seem, can actually help you increase muscle mass, as well as lose fat.

Even a switch as simple as trading in barbells for dumbbells for a single workout can make significant changes, and keep you lean year round, aiding your quest for a sexy body.

For more structured change, consider trying out timed workouts: that is, instead of counting reps, each set will be for a given length of time-the goal of course is to get as many reps in that time period as possible.

Not only will increasing training variety make you sexier, but it also keeps training fresh and fun.

5) Tame Your Hormones

Bro, I hope it isn’t news to you that men and women have vastly different fat storage patterns than men.  Moreover, fat storage patterns vary pretty heavily from man to man.

In general, men tend to store fat around the abdominal and love handle areas.  Once again, we have our ancestors to thank/blame for this one.  So after 10,000 years of evolution, we’ve adapted to storing fat where it wouldn’t get in the way of hunting, killing, skinning, and devouring dinosaurs, wildebeests, umber hulks, and squirrels.

Women, on the other hand, store fat in the hip and thigh area.

Evolutionary favoritism notwithstanding, these differences are due in large part to differences in hormonal environments between men and women.

To make it basic: high testosterone will lend itself to storage of midsection fact, whereas high estrogen leads to lower body fat storage.

Men, listen up: testosterone is your friend, and the more of it you have, the faster you’ll gain muscle, lose fat, meet women, and read my blog posts.

Therefore, high levels of test are good.  Unfortunately, when you are on a fat loss program (AKA when you are dieting down for beach season or spring break), the way testosterone effects insulin management gets a little screwy.

In fact, with most of the male clients I’ve had, as they get closer to their goal body fat level, it gets much harder to lose fat in those more “masculine” areas such as abs, obliques, and lower back.

Therefore, as you continue to lean out towards your ideal sexy body, you will probably notice that you are suffering from Chronic Love Handular Fatittude-never fear, Roman to the rescue.

To aid in shedding the love handles and creating a body worth seeing naked, there are a few ways to improve insulin management via supplementation and diet.

For supplements, fish oil, along with the myriad of other benefits, has been shown to vastly improve insulin management when taken in high doses.

As far as additions to diet: cinnamon, added to meals containing carbohydrates, has been shown to mitigate the effects of insulin spikes and fat storage.  Along those same lines, there is some evidence to support that drinking a moderate dose of apple cider vinegar prior to meals containing carbohydrates has similar effects.

A combination of an intelligent diet and training program, as well as a few tricks like the supplement recommendations above is a great way to make your endocrine system work with you to create a sexy body, instead of against you.

So there you have it:

5 simple strategies to help you lose fat, put muscle on the right places, and build a body women are evolutionarily programmed to want to see naked.

You’re welcome.

John Romaniello
Roman Fitness Blog

***************************************************

Interested to hear what you think…I’m down with the training hard and heavy and changing it up, but still not sure I believe in the power of supplements, especially for fat loss.

Let us know what you think,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

When I was 16 I started lifting in my parent’s basement, in this tiny little area behind my dad’s workshop.

I bought a York Universal weight machine set from some guy that my mom worked with…no wait, if I remember correctly I traded him a portable CD player for it. Anyways, there was just enough room to set it up on a cement floor in the area between my dad’s shop and the furnace room.

In fact, in my little tour below, you’ll see – from the outside – where I first started lifting…maybe I’ll go back and film inside the house…you’ll be shocked at the tiny space I used for about 6 months before I finally got a gym membership.

Anyways, someone’s “Turbulence Training Theme Song” entry the other day reminded me of the Metallica “Enter Sandman” tape (yes, a tape!) that I played over and over and over again while I worked out.

Every day I would come home from my $5 an hour after school job at the local greenhouse around 6pm, and then I’d eat dinner and go down to the basement to train.

Back then I was doing 3 total body workouts per week, as outlined in the little booklet that came along with the weight machine. It was a little annoying because I had to remove and adjust a bunch of pieces on the machine whenever I changed exercises, but it was good enough.

In addition to the Metallica tape, I also listened to Nirvana’s Nevermind over and over again, as well as Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.

I honestly can’t remember much about the workouts. They certainly worked because I got stronger, but it wasn’t until I finally started training at the Stratford YMCA that I got a lot stronger, and was benching 225 by age 17. That’s not crazy strong, but pretty good for 5′8, 175 pounds.

Eventually I was training 6 days per week, and yes, I was using the stupid one bodypart per day type program. Eventually that irritated my shoulder, and around age 21 I started training smarter. But that’s another story for another time…

But at age 16, I was having a blast training in the basement, even on the nights when I had hockey at 9 or 10pm. And on the nights I didn’t, I’d train and then go play about 3 hours of NHL Hockey for Sega. Those were the days.

Alright, if you’re training, then here you go…enjoy.

I think this just might be the Turbulence Training Theme Song for now…

Train hard,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training