Crash Course

INTRO

This is the most valuable article we will ever send.

There is a lot of information in here that people pay certain companies or trainers

thousands of dollars for (believe it or not)!

We’re doing it for free, so here it goes…

Have you ever wondered why fitness seems so unnecessarily complicated?

The fitness industry is notoriously brutal for making everything confusing.

We’re writing this out of frustration, and out of desire to create a bit of change.

We want our athletes to succeed. Period. Even if you aren’t training with us yet.

Your own well-being is not something that should be intentionally complicated.

As a team that has been there and done that - we know the difficulties all too well.

100 different YouTube videos telling you 100 different things about fitness, weight

loss, muscle growth, diet, HIIT training, intermittent fasting, etc. You get the idea.

It sucks.

You start one thing, and 7 days later you get a suggestion from somewhere that

there is a better, faster, cheaper, more effective option. You switch, follow that for

another week or two, before the same thing happens again. Rinse, dry, repeat. No

progress - ever. Just “new, better” information that never works.

Just like the finance world, the fitness industry uses words that only it

comprehends, to keep you confused, and to keep you seeking from fully

understanding.

It is confusing by design. It is confusing, to keep you buying more “solutions”.

In this article, I am going to tell you the truth.

The real truth.

I’m here to tell you the secret that the fitness industry doesn’t want you to know.

And the truth is, it isn’t that complicated.

I know…

That sentence is going to frustrate a lot of you.

It is going to piss off those of you who “have tried everything” and “nothing has

worked”.

If it made you mad, then you - more than anyone - should keep reading. Because

you’ll soon see that it is the truth.

In the next couple of pages, I am going to quickly explain everything you need to

understand, regarding the basics of fitness.

No fluff, no sales pitch, no confusing words without explanations.

It’ll be broken into 3 main parts: Diet, Exercise, and Recovery.

If you are going to read one thing to try and understand how to “get in shape” or

understand fitness as a whole, then let it be this.

It will be simple, fast, easy to understand, and (most importantly) true.

And, it’s free.

DIET

Diet is easily one of the most over-complicated things in the world.

There are a lot of terms and expressions you may have heard, like “tracking

macronutrients”, “tracking micronutrients”, “intermittent fasting”, “carb cycling”,

“keto”, “dirty keto/low carb”, “high carb, low fat”, “caloric deficits and surpluses”,

and probably a few dozen more.

90% of it is completely irrelevant.

Here is the breakdown of the few things that ACTUALLY matter.

Calories:

A calorie is a unit of energy. Your body burns a certain amount per day (roughly

2000 for an average sized adult male) just by existing. You will burn additional

calories when exercising, and it will vary depending on the intensity and type of

exercise (generally 300-700 calories/hour of exercise for the same sized adult

male).

If you want to lose mass (fat), you need to eat less calories than you burn.

That’s it.

You can not exercise at all, and still lose weight as long as you are eating less than

you are burning. This is called a “caloric deficit”: consuming less than you burn.

For traditional fat loss, diet is much more important than exercise.

Macronutrients:

Macronutrients is a collection of… nutrients. They consist of protein,

carbohydrates, and fats.

At the risk of oversimplifying (but we did promise to make this simple), it is

extremely (probably MOST) important that you eat enough protein. Generally

(again: generally), when eating a reasonably well balanced diet, the carbs and fat

will fall into place, but most of people don’t eat enough protein.

In the simplest terms, protein is responsible for maintaining and growing muscle

(more on this in the exercise section), and is key for recovery and sustaining a

high-output lifestyle.

Protein intake is measured in grams. A good target is 1 gram of protein per pound

of bodyweight, per day.

So, if you weigh 180lbs, aim for 180 grams of protein a day. You can see the

protein content on the label of your food (where is says “protein” under the serving

size), or usually just by doing a quick google search of what you’re eating and how

much.

If your can of tuna has 15 grams of protein, and you eat the whole can, you have

consumed 15 of your 180 grams for the day.

Hope that makes sense!

If I haven’t lost you yet, another point I really want to emphasize: it is possible to

gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Eating sufficient protein, while in a

caloric deficit will do this. This is what you may have heard be called “body

recomposition” or simply “recomp” for short.

There is a common fear/concern that if you eat in a caloric deficit, you will lose all

of your muscle mass - this is where the traditional “bulking and cutting” phases

come from.

In truth, your body worked very hard to build your muscles, and it will do

whatever it can to not lose or consume them. As long as you eat enough protein,

your body will generally not consume your own muscle mass when losing weight

in a caloric deficit (again, this means eating less calories than you burn). You will

shed body fat, without losing muscle mass (provided you keep working the

muscles as well - more on that in the “exercise” section)!

“Bulking” refers to eating more than you burn (a caloric surplus), with the hopes of

growing muscle mass. Though it does work, it has to be done very carefully, and

often the body fat gained during a bulk disproportionately outweighs the muscle

gained. We don’t recommend it.

If you don’t want to lose bodyfat, and just want to gain muscle mass, you should

eat at maintenance or a small surplus (eating the same amount of calories you burn

in a day, or just a bit more), eat sufficient protein, and exercise your muscles, and

you’ll accomplish your goal.

One last little point - alcohol. Alcohol is fun. But in excess, alcohol can

slow/prevent muscle growth, increase body-fat storage (by inhibiting the

processing of other nutrients consumed while the body metabolizes the alcohol),

and can ruin sleep. Realistically, one drunk night can cause 3-4 days worth of

ramifications.

It is generally awful for fitness and health.

Keep all this in mind next time you find yourself stumbling into an Uber after

seven $3 pints at Buffalo Wild Wings.

So, to recap diet:

If you want to lose body fat, eat less than you burn.

Always eat enough protein (roughly 1g per pound of bodyweight, per day).

If you want to gain more muscle mass without losing fat, eat at maintenance with

sufficient protein, while engaging your muscles in progressive overload (more on

that in the next section).

Skip the “dirty bulk” altogether. The cons usually outweigh the pros.

Keep alcohol in moderation.

EXERCISE

People love to overcomplicate exercise.

Bottom line is, if you are moving your body and getting your heart rate up… you

can’t really go wrong.

Everything else is just dependant on what you want to get out of it.

For the sake of simplicity, there are two main types of exercise.

There are strength focused movements (lifting weights, for example) that target

muscle groups, and there is “cardio” which targets your cardiovascular system

(like running, walking).

It is possible to engage both systems at once. CrossFit is a common one that is a

perfect example. Even hiking with a heavy load can do this. Many activities can

and will. Anytime you can feel that muscle “burn” while your heart rate is up, and

you’re moving your body - you are hitting both.

Let’s talk strength first.

The foundation of any strength training is what is called “progressive overload”.

All this means is you are working your muscles harder over time. This can be

through an increase in repetition, increase in resistance (weight), or both. Even

doing multiple sets of the same number of repetitions at the same weight will

engage progressive overload for that workout, as you are stacking the total number

of reps.

In simple terms, progressive overload is lifting more weight, more times, or both. It

exists both on a micro level (during one workout) and on a macro level (increasing

your load over weeks/months).

This is how muscles grow. Progressive overload.

You literally work your muscles, they break down (which is what makes you sore),

and they build back stronger. This repeats over days, weeks, and months.

This is also why sufficient protein is important - in simple terms, protein is

responsible for the rebuilding of muscle fibres. You need enough protein in your

diet to grow the muscles you are working.

As we mentioned earlier, if you are eating in a caloric deficit and don’t want to

lose muscle mass, it is important that along with sufficient protein intake, you

stimulate your muscles through progressive overload semi-regularly (most studies

suggest around twice per week for maintenance) to avoid losing muscle mass.

You may have heard the word “hypertrophy”. Hypertrophy is simply the

enlargement of your muscles. Unless you’re into competitive bodybuilding, you

don’t need to really worry about “optimizing” it, or any of those buzzwords you

may have heard. For the most part, standard progressive overload will naturally

lead to hypertrophy overtime.

Sound good?

Onto cardio.

Cardio is good for your health, and overall fitness. We preach cardiovascular

endurance pretty hard at Combat Fitness, because of the nature of what we do and

what most of our athletes do, and the lives we live.

Strength is one thing, and it’s incredibly important, but cardiovascular endurance is

the backbone of all actual fitness. Period.

A heavy deadlift is great, but if we have to run, or a hike, do a ruck march, or want

to do a jiu jitsu tournament, or get into a street fight, or we’re roping out of

helicopters and climbing through buildings… cardio is the base of it all.

There are many forms of cardio, that can all do pretty much the same thing.

The big difference here is what is called “heart rate zones”, or just “zones”.

See, “cardio” is actually broken into FIVE different Heart Rate zones, depending

on how hard you’re going.

Again, at the risk of over simplifying, we’re going to break it down even farther

into just 3 main categories: Endurance, Threshold, and Maximum. These are the

main principles and targets behind our world-renowned Low Volume, High

Efficiency running system used across all of our programs, including SOFRUN.

Endurance: Somewhat self explanatory. This is a zone you can hold, theoretically,

forever - as long as you keep fueling your body with food and water. Depending on

your fitness level, this can range from a slow walk, to a moderate run pace. It

completely depends on the person.

Threshold: We’re going to use a couple complicated terms here, but I’ll explain

them after, I promise. Threshold is the zone right before your body crosses from its

aerobic function into anaerobic. All this means, is that it is the limit of what your

body can physiologically sustain. When you cross your aerobic threshold, your

body stops using carbohydrates, fats and oxygen to fuel its cells, and instead burns

stored sugars (called glycogen stores) and creates lactic acid faster than the lactic

acid can be metabolized (absorbed). Lactic acid is what causes that muscle burn,

and will eventually cause the muscles to slow and seize if produced in excess.

All that means, is once you cross the threshold, you body starts using a whole other

system that physiologically cannot be sustained.

The “Threshold” zone sits just below that level, but is a harder effort than

endurance.

Maximum: As outlined in “Threshold” this is the zone above, which your body

cannot sustain for longer than around one minute (slightly different for everyone).

With the right training, you can increase your limit (how hard you can go before

crossing this threshold), and increase your tolerance to lactic acid and decrease

your lactic acid out put, allowing you to sustain this for a bit longer.

Again, apologies for the use of a few big fitness words.

To put all that as simply as possible:

Endurance can be held for hours.

Threshold is harder, but can still be held for longer periods of time (10-40 minutes)

Max crosses into a whole other physiological system, as such can only be used for

roughly one minute.

So… what does this mean for training?

A productive, complete training system should incorporate all 3 of these

training zones.

That’s pretty much it. You should do some long, slow days like walks, jogs or

hikes. This will cover your endurance zone.

For threshold, do some longer, harder efforts: for example, one of our favourites is

a 15 minute easy warm up, an 8 minute hard run, two minute rest, then another

hard 8 minute hard run, followed by a cool down. Short, sweet, and effective.

For your Max zone, go hit some hill repeats, wind sprints, burpees… anything that

really jacks your heart rate up. With these harder efforts, you will need rest in

between (30 seconds of burpees, 30 seconds off - or - 3 hill repeats, two minute

rest)… that kind of thing.

The need for rest is because, as mentioned earlier, your body produces a lot of

lactic acid during these efforts, which is what causes that burning feeling in your

muscles. The rest periods will allow your body to reabsorb this, before starting

again.

The simplest way to structure it, is dedicate one training day per week to each of

these zones.

That is all! Have a healthy mix of these three, and your cardiovascular system will

start to improve rapidly.

RECOVERY

Everyone’s favourite, but the most overlooked recipe to athletic success.

There are many factors that contribute to successful rest and recovery, and we’ll

outline them now.

Sleep is everything. If you start training your body without sufficient sleep,

everything will start to fall apart in 5-7 days. You’ll get extremely fatigued and

lose your desire to continue training.

It’ll be over before it started.

Depending on your age and output level, aim for 8-9 hours a night if possible.

I can hear a lot of you groaning that that is impossible… it’s not.

Check your phone screen time - you’d be amazed at the amount of time we waste

in a day.

Streamline your life, and prioritize sleep… everything else will fall into place.

With good sleep, you’ll also get more efficient at everyday things. You’ll be much

happier, you’ll remember things better, do better at work, etc.

Excluding the 0.5% of the population that legitimately has a modified genetic

make-up and only requires 3-4 hours of sleep (like my old man)… You really need

to trust us on this one.

Sleep is not for the weak. Long-term lack of sleep causes weakness.

There are a few things you can do immediately to improve your sleep:

Keep your room cool. Aim for 66F (19C) or cooler.

Purchase an eye-mask ($5-10). This will create a total blackout around your eyes

and allow deeper sleep in longer cycles.

Avoid screens and work for an hour before bed. Try and take time to relax (I know,

I know the demographic I’m talking to - we don’t relax. But try.)

Don’t ever do anything in your bedroom except sleep (minus maybe ONE other

thing… haha!). But avoiding working, watching shows, exercising, etc. in the same

room you sleep in, if at all possible.

Absolutely avoid caffeine and alcohol for many hours before bed. Caffeine will

make falling asleep more difficult, and alcohol will ruin an entire sleep all together,

preventing REM, limiting deep sleep, and triggering more frequent wake-ups.

Anyone with a smart watch with sleep-tracking abilities can tell you how terrible a

sleep is, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel like it, after a night of drinking.

Lastly, aim to go to bed earlier, and wake up earlier.

So that is sleep, what else?

NUTRITION

Nutrition, which we discussed earlier, is also very important to recovery. Aim to

consume 20+(ish) grams of protein and some carbs 15-30 minutes after a workout.

This will allow a more rapid reabsorption of nutrients and kick-start the recovery

and rebuilding process.

Eat a well balanced diet, as mentioned already, high in protein.

Rest days

This is totally dependant on your body, your lifestyle and your training process.

In general, listen to your body. If you are starting to feel exhausted, take a whole

day or two off.

When we create programs, we usually incorporate 1-2 rest days per week,

depending on the individual.

If you have an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and your training is not very intense,

you may not need any rest days.

Rest days can vary, from taking the day completely off exercise and sitting on the

couch with your legs up (sometimes very necessary), or it can be more of an active

recovery like going for a walk, easy swim, hike - that king of thing.

Proper rest and recovery is as important as the training itself. Without it recovery,

you won’t develop, and you’ll burn out. Fitness is balance.

SUMMARY

We covered a lot in this. Our hope is that at least some of it made sense, and that

you will walk away with a whole lot less confusion regarding fitness and nutrition.

The industry is confusing on purpose. Hopefully this simplified the things that are

actually relevant, and helped you realize what isn’t.

Please, feel free to keep this and come back to it, re-read it, take notes whenever

you need.

To recap…

Eat your protein - 1g per pound of bodyweight, per day.

Eat in a caloric deficit (less in than out) to lose fat.

Eat at maintenance, or just above (same in as out, or slight surplus) with sufficient

protein to grow mass and not lose weight.

You can grow muscle in a caloric deficit, as long as you have sufficient protein

intake, and progressive overload!

Exercise your muscles (progressive overload) to grow them, or at the very least to

prevent their loss.

Use “cardio” to increase overall health and fitness. This is the backbone of

everything.

Sleep 8-9 hours a night, and optimize your sleeping environment.

Schedule rest days. These are important too!

That is it! Pretty easy, hey?

Hopefully this helped some of you. If you ever have any other questions, or need

help with anything, you can always reach out dedicated Athlete Support Line (by

text) at 206-594-5200, or by email at contact@combatfitness.co even if you aren’t

training on any of our programs!

Take care, and thanks for reading