Disclaimer
You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. This is particularly true if you (or your family) have a history of high blood pressure or heart disease, or if you have ever experienced chest pain when exercising or have experienced chest pain in the past month when not engaged in physical activity, smoke, have high cholesterol, are obese, or have a bone or joint problem that could be made worse by a change in physical activity. Do not start this fitness program if your physician or health care provider advises against it. If you experience faintness, dizziness, pain or shortness of breath at any time while exercising you should stop immediately.
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Developments in medical research may impact the health, fitness and nutritional advice that appears here. No assurance can be given that the advice contained in this site will always include the most recent findings or developments with respect to the particular material.
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Where to Start.
In this page I am going to talk about how to work out and the different workouts offered. If you have any questions, make sure you join our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/MFactormembers/ .
Basic Terms
Functional vs. Bodybuilding
In general, there are two types of workouts. Bodybuilding workouts are kind of like the old PX90 routines or machine workouts. They focus on isolating muscles. This is what most people do with their gym time. The god news is that is is an easier way to workout. The bad news is that you don’t get the best results.
These workouts are based around functional training. As the name implies, we work multiple muscle groups at the same time work all planes of motion. The reason is that we do this in sports and real life, so why not mirror life functions with our training?
I always tell my clients that these exercises are a lot harder than they look. For a lot of you, this will be a rude awakening. You will realize you don’t have a full range of motion, you are weaker than you thought and your cardio gives out.
That is normal and a sign you are doing everything right. M Factor training is about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Push yourself but always pay attention to form.
The Three Stages of Training
First Phase:
Getting ready
1-4 weeks
- Getting moving again.
- Learning movements
- Dealing with imbalances.
- Getting flexible
- Improving cardio
Second Phase:
Doing the Work
Week 4 to ???
- Increasing intensity
- Increasing cardio
- Increasing strength
- Reducing rest times
- Fine tuning the workouts
Third Phase:
Maintenance
- You have achieved your goals
- You are rehabbing an injury
- You just don’t have time for full workouts
- You have to cut back on days
The takeaway here is that you are in one of these phases all the time. Life happens. The crap hits the fan and maybe you can’t do the volume of workouts you have been doing. For example, the Christmas holidays, don’t stop working out, shift into maintenance mode.
First phase is learning, second phase is doing the work until you hit your goals and the third phase is a scaled down version of phase 2.
Exercises, Reps and Sets, Rounds and Rest
Exercises
The exercise is the actual movement you are doing.It is critical you pay attention to form and feel the right muscles working. For example, a bridge is a glute (butt) exercise with a little hamstring (back of Leg) action and a great stretch of the hip flexors. If you don’t feel those muscles working but you have lower back pain, you are not doing the exercise right. Stop and adjust. read the description of the exercise and watch the video. Most important, ask questions.
Reps
Reps are the number of times you do an exercise.
Sets
A set equals the exercise times reps. Doing 10 squats is a set. There are a number of variations of sets but this is the basic idea.
Rounds
When we start doing circuit or interval training, we will have a list of exercises to do. When you finish the exercises, that is a round. Typically we will shoot for three rounds for a good workout.
Rest
Rest is the time between sets or between rounds. When you first start out, I am not going to care how much time you take between exercises. Once you get past
How to Choose a Workout.
The concept of my free online training is that you pick the workout and you do the work and I am here for questions and support.
I have listed the workouts from least intense to most intense. That being said, here are some tips.
- If you like the workouts for a certain week, there is no rule that says you have to move on to the next week. Stay on the current week until you feel you need a new challenge.
- Don’t skip around on workouts until you are familiar with what I am trying to do. The multi-week workouts are designed to progress you safely from week to week, offering new challenges.
- There are no secret, exotic exercises. All the exercises have a base form, which you learn in the 4 week program. The advanced exercises are all based off of these. if you don’t master the basics, you will fall apart on the harder versions.
- It is not the exercise, it is the effort you put into it.
The Workouts
This is the best plan for beginners and anyone who wants to ease back into a healthy lifestyle. It is also the workout plan for runners/walkers who want to mix in a little strength and flexibility training with their cardio workouts.
Learn the basic moves you will be doing the rest of your life. Get strong, flexible and better balance.
Don’t get intimidated by the name. I am a SGX Spartan coach and this 12 week program is modeled after the Spartan system. It involves periodization and has three phases.
1. Function- This will be similar to the 4 week get off the couch program. The aim is to work on form and get the muscles used to new movements.
2. Fitness- we build upon phase 1 and add more intensity and volume.
3. Performance-You take what you have learned and we supercharge it.
HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training, is the holy grail for people who want to push themselves in short, intense workouts.
These workouts are also suited for people who travel, or vacation or just have a limited amount of time to workout.
In the spirit of pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone, The Monthly Fitness Challenge is designed to test mind, body or both. Do one every month and end the year a better human.
This is a quick reference tool that will demonstrate the exercises with video and text.
Also, learn how to substitute exercises to make the workout harder/easier. Each exercise will have harder and easier versions. This is the universe of useful exercises.
Training is a contact sport, sometimes you will get minor injuries. But most of these injuries will stem from the years of you being inactive. Learn the techniques to:
- Untie muscle knots and restore length
- Fix Joint pain
- Banish foot pain
- Fix posture
People buy weird stuff for their gym. This page is not about clever marketing and stuffing your house with gadgets.
I go over exactly what you need and what you don’t need. Also, I provide links to amazon so you can get competitive prices and fast shipping.