Why K.I.S.S. Is Your Secret Weapon For Fast (And Lasting!) Fitness Results

Posted Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

I’ve been a black belt for over 7 years now.

I can perform virtually any fancy spinning, jumping or flying kick you can think of… I can do back flips… break boards, bricks, bones… and… I know tons of impressive looking techniques to disarm a vicious thug with a weapon.

But you know what?

In a real fight I know a hard kick to the balls or jamming my fingers in someone’s eyes is going to work a lot better than ANY fancy amount of “black belt” moves.

Best of all: you can learn to kick someone in the groin or rake their eyes in less than a day. In fact you probably already know how to do it-you just need some fine-tuning to make it work better.

The fact is: Simple is better.

What’s This Got To Do With Fitness?

Everything!

In your quest for fitness you’ve probably found a lot of information. You’re suffering from information overload and much of the information is conflicting. You might be wondering where to start (if you’re a beginner)… or… where to go next (if you’ve been training a while).

What you need to do is…

Use K.I.S.S. For Better Fitness!

K.I.S.S. is my acronym for “Keep It Simple Son!” (clever eh?).

Think of this as your complete guide to keeping fitness simple. Your “structure” or “model” you can put any new fitness information you learn into. In its most simplistic form, you need three things for fitness:

Strength ‘ because strength is the basis of all other physical skills
Cardio ‘ because you need a strong cardiovascular system and to lose fat
Nutrition ‘ because you need to eat healthy and it helps you lose fat

So the question then becomes, “How can you maximize each of these areas to become a more ‘Fit’ person?” That’s what I’m going to tell you.

How To Develop Strength

You develop strength through resistance training. Resistance is resistance is resistance. Your body doesn’t know what you’re using to provide resistance, just that it is hard-so the “tool” you use for resistance doesn’t matter. You can use different tools for resistance:

Your Bodyweight
Barbells or dumbbells
Kettlebells and clubbells
Odd objects like Kegs, tires, sledgehammers, etc

The keys to develop strength are:

CNS Training: train your nervous to contract whatever musculature you now have harder to get more strength out of the current muscle you have.
Sets, Reps and Rest: anywhere from 3-5 sets and 3-5 reps. And 3-5 minutes of rest.
Workout Frequency: 2-3 times per week.

Keep your exercise selection basic as well. You should stick to compound exercises. Here is all you need each workout:

1 Push Movement: Bench Press, Overhead Press, Military Press, Side Press, Clean & Press, pushups, one-arm pushups, etc…
1 Pull Movement: Pullup/Chinup, Bent Over Row, Upright Row, Renegade Rows, Deadlift, etc…
1 Squat Movement: Squats, Front Squats, Overhead Squat, Pistols, Deadlift, etc…
1 Hip/Hamstring Dominant Explosive Movement: Power Cleans, Kettlebell Swings, Snatches, clean & presses, jerks, explosive jumping, plyometrics, etc

As you can see some exercises fulfill two roles like deadlifts (squat and pull) and clean and presses (explosive and push). This is as simple as you can make it. So for each workout you would just pick 1 of each exercise, mix them up for variety and keep them within the prescribed reps and sets.

How To Develop Your “Cardio”

You can develop both your aerobic and anaerobic cardio with HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). Plus, you can burn up to nine times more fat with this method of training (as opposed to just slow, steady-state aerobic training by itself). Here’s how to do it in the simplest form possible.

Pick an exercise for cardio: running, bicycling, and skipping rope are all favorites of mine. You now are going to do intervals of “work” cycles which focus on intensity and “rest” cycles which focus on recovery.

Your session can last as little as 4 minutes to as much as 20 minutes. Here’s a couple quick examples:

Tabata Protocol: 4 minutes of 20sec work, 10 secs rest.
10 Minute HIIT: 10 minutes of 30 secs work, 1 min rest.

Do 2-5 minutes of your chosen exercise lightly to warm up before the intervals and afterwards to cool down.

You will do this routine 2-3 times per week on days that you’re not strength training. Or if you only want to work out 3 times per week (strength and cardio included) you can reduce the intensity of your interval training and do it after your strength sessions.

How To Have Good Nutrition

Nutrition will support your strength gains (and muscle gains if that is your goal) and your fat loss. Nutrition comes down to two basic things:

Eat Clean: As much as possible eat whole foods. Avoid fast food. If it wasn’t around 100 years ago, then don’t eat it. Lean beef, poultry, fish, dairy, vegetables, fruits, etc. Go organic whenever possible.
Calories In & Calories Out: If you want to gain muscle-eat more calories. If you want to lose weight-eat less calories. If you want to maintain your weight-eat enough calories. It’s that simple. Add or subtract calories in groups of 500 to make it easy, for example, if you want to gain lean muscle eat 500 calories more per day and adjust from there.
Hydration: When in doubt, drink some water. Every function in your body is dependent on water-make sure you’re drinking a lot of it.

The manner in which you choose to eat is up to you. Think of nutrition in terms of a lifestyle instead of a “diet” and you will have long-term success.

You can eat anywhere from 1 meal per day (Intermittent Fasting) to 6 meals per day (The “six small meals” camp). More important is that you follow the guidelines above, and you can adjust your meal frequency to find out what works for you.

Also, don’t be perfect. Aim for 80-90% of perfection which means if you can eat the way you want (the way that’s going to support your fitness goals) 80-90% of the time then you’re doing fine.

What about supplements? I believe in supplements because our food sources simply aren’t as nutritional and good for you as they once were. A good multi-vitamin, fish oil and protein are almost necessities as far as supplements go. But remember, supplements are worthless if you’re not following the guidelines above. Focus on them first, and then think about supplements.

Putting It All Together

Fitness doesn’t have to be hard as you’ve seen. So how would I put this all together. Here’s a typical week for me:

Monday: Strength training 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps of Compound Lifts followed by some light HIIT. Supplements after working out and eat clean at night.

Tuesday: Intense HIIT. Supplements after working out and eat clean at night.

Wednesday: Strength training 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps of Compound Lifts followed by some light HIIT. Supplements after working out and eat clean at night.

Thursday: Intense HIIT. Supplements after working out and eat clean at night.

Friday: Strength training 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps of Compound Lifts followed by some light HIIT. Supplements after working out and eat clean at night, plus some alcohol.

Saturday: Some “other” activity like walking or nothing at all. Eat clean but drink alcohol at night.

Sunday: No exercise. Eat whatever. Maybe Alcohol.

Apply K.I.S.S. today!

If you’re putting off “getting in shape” because you don’t know where to start. Don’t put it off any longer-use this guide to get started right away.

If you’ve been training a while and you’re struggling to make further gains because you’re confused as to where to go next-use this guide to get back to the basics and make greater gains.

I believe no matter what your goals are you can apply my K.I.S.S. concept to your training and see results not only faster, but for longer too!