This reader-created video is Simon’s interpretation of Primal Blueprint Fitness and his entry to this year’s PBF Video Contest. This is one in a series of workout videos, recipe videos and other contest submissions that will be published all week long. View them all and vote for your favorites later this week. Grok on!
Subscribe to the Mark’s Daily Apple Newsletter and Get Challenge Updates All Month Long
Related posts:

Playing in the Forest
Real Primal: Hunting for Dinner
Persistence Hunting in the Park

Original post by Mark Sisson

This reader-created video is Pieter D.’s interpretation of Primal Blueprint Fitness and his entry to this year’s PBF Video Contest. This is the first in a series of workout videos, recipe videos and other contest submissions that will be published all week long. View them all and vote for your favorites later this week. Grok on!
Subscribe to the Mark’s Daily Apple Newsletter and Get Challenge Updates All Month Long
Related posts:

Primal Blueprint Forest Sprinting
Contest Video: Primal Blueprint Bodyweight Exercises
Contest Video: Primaldelphia (plus Grok in the Wild! pics)

Original post by Mark Sisson

Ab exercises are one of the most popular, and yet, most controversial topics in the exercise and health/fitness industry. Hundreds of ab belts, ab gadgets, ab gimmicks, and ab exercise machines have flooded the exercise market for people looking for sexier and flatter abs… that sexy six-pack abs appearance that everybody wants. The problem is…

The problem is that most of the ab exercises that are recommended all over the internet, and in magazines, etc, are not necessarily the best method to get that six-pack abs appearance. First and foremost, the most important aspect for great looking six pack abs is losing the extra stomach fat that is covering up the abs. To be honest, most people already have decent abs underneath, yet the six-pack is simply covered up by all of that extra flabby belly fat.

Instead of focusing so much on ab exercises to make your belly flatter and more like a six-pack, you will lose much more abdominal fat by focusing the majority of your workout time with special combinations of high intensity full-body, multi-joint exercises. The best exercises for losing that sloppy ab fat are the exercises that work the largest portions of the body at once.

Exercises that work the much larger muscle groups of the legs, upper and lower back, and chest give you the biggest metabolic bang for your buck in terms of ab fat loss. Combining these types of big multi-joint exercises in high intensity super-set, tri-set, or circuit fashion gives you the biggest fat-burning and metabolism boosting response from your workouts.

And that is one of the best kept secrets for flat sexy abs that are actually visible as a six-pack!

Now when it comes to ab-specific exercises, another mistake most people make is mindlessly pumping away with hundreds of crunches and other meaningless abdominal exercises that barely give your abs much resistance to work against. If you want to actually develop your abs to the best extent possible, don’t waste your time with exercises that you can do more than 20 or 25 reps… that means you are definitely not doing an exercise that provides enough resistance to the abs. Exercises that give you enough resistance to get you down into the 6-15 rep range per set works great for the abs.

Generally, higher resistance ab exercises that provide a much larger stimulus to the abdominals come in the form of exercises that involve raising/curling the legs and pelvis either upward or inward closer to the trunk. A couple great examples of these higher resistance ab exercises are hanging leg raises or knee raises using a “pelvic curl up”, or an exercise like lying hip thrusts. Many times, the same people that can do 80 or 100 crunches, can’t even complete more than 2 or 3 properly executed hanging leg raises, because they simply have never worked the abs under heavier resistance.

If you really want tighter flatter abs that look like a six-pack, remember that losing that extra stomach fat is actually the MOST important part. Also, when it comes to ab-specific exercises, always remember higher resistance exercises that involve curling/raising the legs and pelvis upward or inward are what develops the abs to the best extent possible.

-Darrin Walton

Warrior Fit Body Boot Camp

The Prize:
aeroSling. Elmar is a reader over in Germany who decided to start who his own fitness business. A year’s worth of German engineering later I received one of these things in the mail (for all I know, I may have been the first American to get one). Great for CrossFitters or anyone interested in adding a little variety to bodyweight strength training, wrap it around a tree limb or telephone pole to add dips, reverse rows, overhead presses, hanging planks, or assisted pistol squats to your routine. Winner will receive one aeroSling ELITE, courtesy of Elmar and Smooth Fitness.
The winner will also receive their choice of a Grok Shirt and a bottle of Primal Flora from PrimalBlueprint.com.

The Contest:
One element of this challenge was to find and eat clean food:

Challenge #1: Eat Lots of Plants and Animals
Eat clean: The quality of your food matters. While sourcing clean food (organic, [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Using exercises to lose weight is an extremely effective tool not only to speed up your fat loss — but to make sure that not only will you lose the weight, but improve your conditioning and the overall look of your body while you do it.
That being said, not all exercises are created equal, and some are better than others when it comes to turbocharging your weight loss. So to help you stick to the exercises that are most effective, here are the top 15 exercises to lose weight:

#1 — Burpees

As seen in the picture above, burpees are done by quickly dropping down, doing a pushup, standing up and then jumping all in one motion. Not only will these give you a full body workout with the combination of jumping and push ups, but it will burn calories and get your heart moving, ultimately improving your overall metabolism and helping [...]

Original post by rafael@thefitnessadviser.com (Rafi Bar-Lev)

The coolest thing about the Internet in my opinion is the ability to meet people from all over the globe. Over the past 3 years I’ve become friends with a sharp personal trainer from Bulgaria, Yavor Marichkov.

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Original post by admin

3 cycles of:
30 Walking Lunges
Sprint
Weight Carry/Evade
2 x 10 Pushups
Sprint
20 Squat Thrusters*

This workout is designed to be done with a partner or group. See the “How-to” section below for instructions.

How-to:
Warmup: A couple rotations of the Grok Squat and a few 50 meter runs at moderate effort.
Equipment:

Sandbag or some other heavy weight for a “Hunt” prize. A 50 lb sandbag works well, but any weight that is heavy to you and your partner will work. A soft weight (sandbag, medicine ball, etc.) is highly recommended.
A kettlebell, set of dumbbells or any other weight(s) you can hold at your chest or shoulders and press overhead.
Bandana, flag or some other piece of cloth.

Setup:
Find a large, open field. Set up this WOW by placing the prize (sandbag or alternate weight) on one end of the field and the dumbbells (or alternate weight) on the other, about 50 meters [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

The Prize:
A Vitamix! That’s right, a $500 blender.  I’ve had one of these for over ten years now, and the things hold up. Want to make your own salsa? Almond butter? Puree some veggies? Or maybe you just like to drink your steak. The Vitamix will liquefy pretty much anything. It’s the Bugatti of the blending world. Courtesy of Gail Goodwin from Inspire Me Today, the winner will receive a Vitamix Blender.
In addition to the blender, the winning entry will also be featured as Saturday’s blog post right here on MDA.
The Contest:
Cue the dramatic music, take a bite of your favorite vegetable, steel your fiery gaze at the audience, because it’s time to play Iron Chef: Primal Edition!!! (hold for applause). Reader Nate came up with the idea for this one. For anyone not familiar with the popular Japanese import cooking show, chefs are tasked with creating an assortment [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

With millions of people becoming more obese and overweight than ever worldwide, it’s no wonder that the weight loss industry is so incredibly massive. There are literally thousands of “experts” offering weight loss tips that promise to turn you you into a model, no matter how much you weigh now.
 

The truth is that most of these tips are harmless — and a lot of them are based on common sense and scientific studies that are actually extremely helpful. But a few of these tips are not only bad, but they can actually kill you.
Here are 5 popular weight loss tips that you really, really don’t want to follow:
 
#3.  ”Stay Away From Fat.”
One of the most common tips you will find in the diet industry is to “stay away from fat”. Apparently, this seems to be based on the advanced scientific belief that because the word for a type of nutrient [...]

Original post by rafael@thefitnessadviser.com (Rafi Bar-Lev)

Clipped from: www.fda.gov (share this clip)

via clp.ly

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Original post by Brad Pilon