Four EL magazine Premiere issue: Max is their fitness contributor:)

     More than just a pretty face with Abs, I'm once again a relevant, active, published writer, thanks to San Diego's newest men's magazine, Four EL.
 
     A San Diego-based Men's magazine, Four EL just launched their premiere issue, May 2013.  I am proud to announce that I am their resident fitness & holistic health contributor, and as many of you know by now, I have just as much a passion for writing about health & fitness as I do training & modeling.  The staff of Four EL recruited me to be their health & fitness consultant and primary writer on matters of health & fitness...subject to extensive editing of course!  Hey!...I welcome all the editing they have to offer, so long as my articles don't get sent back to me too many times for re-write LOL!  Nature of the biz for sure:)  In all seriousness, I'm super stoked to be behind the PEN instead of just in front of the camera for this spectacular publication.  Of course I will also be used in their photos from time to time, to demonstrate exercises that I write about & for physique shots too.  Hey, when they hired me they got two professionals for the price of one:)

Made the cover for REPS magazine, May 2013 issue

     I was fortunate to make the cover for REPS Magazine, May/June 2013 issue.  These covers are not easy to land, and it's very competitive, the irony being they don't pay much either.  Probably because so many models are bribing the editors to be on their cover, haha!  And no matter how many covers one may have appeared on, you always want another one, because few things can boost your modeling career and your relevance as much as a recent cover can.

ABS are NOT Made in the Kitchen...

Abs are NOT “made in the kitchen”…

…they’re not made in the kitchen any more than they’re made in the gym, or made in the bed!

Just because something is repeated over and over again doesn’t make it truth.  It may be cool & cliché but that still doesn’t make it TRUTH.  Shame on all my fitness colleagues out there who keep posting this statement: ‘Abs are made in the kitchen.’  This is an ignorant statement that only teaches part of the formula for sculpting and acquiring lean 6-Pack Abs – The international benchmark of a fit physique.  Just take a moment to consider this statement and you will quickly agree that it makes no sense and in fact you should take this as an insult to your intelligence!  I’m hereby charging YOU to make sure this nonsensical cliché never gets repeated again – the buck must stop with you and I!

But for entertainment purposes and for the sake of naivety, let’s examine this statement at face value and interpret it literally:  So if Abs are indeed made in the kitchen then by deductive reasoning it implies that all one has to do to reveal their dream abs is watch what they eat, i.e.…eat clean with discipline and do not overeat, and voila!...6-pack Abs will suddenly appear!  Okay, okay, so far this is not too far of a stretch for the eager newbie.  However since this kitchen-trumps-all theory does not require you to exercise, slowly but surely, eventually all your muscle mass would atrophy, your metabolism would go into hibernation from your sedentary lifestyle, and your fitness would tank.  Not only would your body composition spiral downward as your muscle vanished, but your physiology would become dysfunctional too.  Without exercise, humans become insulin-resistant and glucose-intolerant, unable to metabolize carbs efficiently or access them for energy among a laundry list of other problems!  Long story short, eventually we would transform into a skinny, soft, frail, unfit & unhealthy person.   In other words, we would be ‘skinny-fat’ – gross!  We’ve all encountered folks like this right?  They look sickly, depleted and androgynous from stunted hormone levels.  And they move like a snail-zombie.  No thanks!

So you can bet when applying basic logic and in conclusion, that Abs are made through a holistic, lifestyle approach combining nutrition, exercise, sleep, and genetic components!  Not one of these components can be minimized or ignored.  They all are equal players!  I should know – lean, sculpted Abs & a flat, tone gut are my bread & butter!  Check out my Lean-Body pyramid…

Max invited to become honorary Raw Brah!

So if you haven't heard of the Raw Brahs, now you have, as I am here to tell you about them.  They are 3 brothers who are part of the holistic-health movement.  They are 'raw' in many senses of the meaning of this word: They're are not following a raw-diet per say, but do incorporate raw foods, but more importantly, they are so into experiencing life and living it to the fullest, organically, that they are very raw - and RADical - in this regard.  Their level of stoke on life is perhaps unparalleled, and their fun-meter is always pegged!

'Guide to Athletic ABS!' DVD Chapter 4: Making Fitness Fun

So what most of you who have actually been following our slow (but FREE) release of my 'Guide to Athletic ABS!' DVD (featuring Chelsea Cruz), might not realize is that:
1. We shot the ENTIRE 'DVD' in 1 day. (To put this in real-world perspective, for the Perfect Fitness 'Ab-Carver Pro' I just did, we shot for a 12 hour day to produce a 1 MINUTE TV spot!)
2. We shot the entire DVD in 1 take.
3. We shot it in January '12, (1 year ago today!) when the sun was setting around 5:15 PM, so daylight to film in was scarce!
4. The executive producer, Gregory Mantell, happens to NOT be an 'early-bird' and he was sleeping on my sofa.  At 0600 on shoot day, I was running around amping getting everything ready and he was literally out cold dreaming.  We didn't start rolling camera until almost 9 AM!
5. We shot at 4 different locations and we managed to pull it off, but as you will see in this latest and final chapter, (Making Fitness Fun!), we kind of ran out of light & subsequently footage, so its just a fun little bonus of clips, but if nothing else you get to see the beautiful & fit, Chelsea Cruz bust out some dance moves, so it's worth pressing play!

But what is cool, is we released the entire high-def 'DVD' on YouTube, FREE - over 60 minutes of jam-packed information on exercise, nutrition, my holistic-approach, 'Abs-Awareness', basic abs & core physiology, and more.  So be sure to hit up YouTube and just search 'Max Wettstein's Guide to Athletic ABS!' and all 4 chapters will come up...perhaps not in order.  While there, you will also see trailers for my first DVD, my Guide to 'Amazing ABS!' - only avail on DVD, but hit me up if you want a copy.

Making fitness FUN, is the key, if you want to keep it consistent and not be limited by traditional fatigue barriers acknowledged during blander workouts.  Once it becomes fun, you forget about the grueling time left on the clock, and exist in the present moment, and trigger reward-neurotransmitter dopamine, and want to keep going.  The easiest way to achieve this is to participate in some kind of sport. I'm not saying that you don't have to push yourself or feel some sort of discomfort from exertion, but if you're adequately challenged & immersed in something physical that you enjoy, you're more likely to push through and charge ahead, upping your intensity inherently.

Here's a sample of Chelsea & I making fitness fun in our own unique ways, yet still an effective full-body, FUNctional workout:

...and the direct link here: 'Max Wettstein's Guide to Athletic ABS!: Making Fitness Fun!'

Some folks have it in them to torture themselves for hours on a treadmill, or bootcamp class, but if that is not your style, then FIND YOUR SPORT!
-Best,
Max  & Chelsea
www.maxwettsteinfitness.com

Men's Fitness magazine editorial & workouts, FEB '13 Issue

I have a few workouts in the Men's Fitness magazine FEB 2013 issue shot by photographer Dustin Snipes.  I did not write these workouts, but while doing them for the shoot, I did find them to be technically correct and effective.  Pick up a copy on stands now, or subscribe digitally, or just go to their website and check them out.  Thanks for your interest! - Max

Perfect Fitness 'Ab-Carver Pro' has finally launched.

The newest & perhaps most effective home-exercise Ab product to hit the market, called the Ab-Carver Pro that I worked on with Perfect Fitness, (maker of Perfect Push-up & Perfect Pull-up) has finally launched and is now available at Ab-Carver Pro dot com  and via TV infomercial sales, and soon in retail sports' stores.  It looks like a futuristic, yet still simplistic version of the oldie-but-goodie Ab-wheel that you roll out to prone with, yet there's more than meets the eye at first glance: