Is Fitness your Sport, or is SPORT what your Fitness Plan is Missing?

Feel like you’ve hit a training plateau?  Can’t bear the thought of another boring bout of cardio on the treadmill?  Does your pending workout session loom over your head like a rain cloud all day long?  Why not do something about it so you actually look forward to your workout because you know it is going to be the highlight of your day?   Why not rediscover an old sport or learn a new one?  Joining a competitive sport’s team will instantaneously renew your exercise regimen with fun, motivation, accountability, intensity and passion! 

While there will always be a need for traditional exercises, both resistance and cardio, in any holistic, well-rounded fitness plan, playing and competing in sports can also be an outstanding path to achieving fitness while bringing some excitement back into your training.  Playing a sport or competing, can also give you something more tangible to train for, other than a scale or the mirror.  Some folks are lucky enough to view traditional exercising as a sport in and of itself, and actually enjoy exercising in the purest sense – they actually trigger a dopamine-neurotransmitter reward response, in their brain simply by going for a jog outside, spinning to good music or busting out a heavy set of squats.  CrossFit for example, once just considered a form of boot camp-style exercising, is now a niche sport followed by thousands.  The best of the best CrossFitters now compete in the national CrossFit Games, broadcasted by ESPN.  However most of us view working out as just that – more work, and just another hour taken from our day that we’re just trying to get over with.

This blog post was originally written for & published in Four EL magazine by me, SEPT 13 issue.

The NFL Workout for the Weekend Warrior!

**(Originally written for my client Four EL magazine, August 2013 issue)

It’s hard to believe football season is just around the corner – pre-season starts this month!  It may mark the end of summer madness and mean shorter days, but just about all of us enjoy a get together with the boys for Sunday afternoon football.  And in the spirit of football season, we bring you this month’s NFL workout:  It’s all about training for power, agility, quickness and explosiveness!  Try this training circuit 2 to 3 days per week for a full-body, functional workout which combines power-lifting, plyometrics, agility and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) strategies.  Think of it is as your own summer training camp!

Creatine: The 'Maximum-Effort' Supplement for Immediate ATP Replenishment!

     I recently wrote this information on Creatine for my new client, Four-El magazine, and thought I would also share it with you all.  The issue is on stands now in San Diego, along with my 'NFL Workout'.  Creatine as a performance enhancing supplement has been around since the early nineties but since it is one of my favorites and one of the most effective & safe supplements on the market I wanted to take an in depth look at it.  Creatine is proven to increase strength, power, and prolong maximum-intensity-effort endurance by rapidly replenishing muscle-ATP supply:  It is a tried and true supplement that is considered safe by all standards.  Before I go any further, I just want to take a moment to speak about supplements in general and their role as healthy lifestyle component along with diet, exercise, sleep and other factors.

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!