The Life Plan (27 page)

51 to 60: 60/40

61 and beyond: 55/45

I personally believe the ratio should be about 50/50 for just about everybody who wants to achieve and maintain great health, strength, and endurance. Strength training and cardio are just as important to a 40-year-old as to a 70-plus-year-old.

Some men are more successful with following—and staying on—an exercise program if they have a personal trainer. There are many advantages to having a personal trainer. Good trainers will take your training to heights you never dreamed possible. They will also prove to be invaluable as they:

Teach proper form and technique

Provide motivation

Monitor progress

Provide constructive criticism

Provide positive reinforcement

Provide an incentive (your accountability, their cost, or even better, their personality) to get to the gym

If you decide that a personal trainer would help you with your exercise program, it is important that you find one who has been certified and has proven that he or she has an understanding of physiology, exercise physiology, and exercise prescription. The top three organizations are known to offer a rigorous certification examination. You want your personal trainer to be certified by any one of these three:

NSCA: The National Strength & Conditioning Association (requires a college degree)—

www.nsca-lift.org

ACE: The American Council on Exercise—

www.acefitness.org

ACSM: The American College of Sports Medicine—

www.acsm.org

I believe that every man who can afford it should work with a trainer. I owe much of my success to my two trainers, Ernie Baul in Pennsylvania and Rod Stanley in Las Vegas. Ernie helped me win the Body-
for
-LIFE contest, and Rod has played a pivotal role in helping me increase my strength and muscle mass over the past four years. These guys have made resistance training fun and challenging for me and have inspired me to get up early and get my butt to the gym.

Over the last few years there have been an increasing number of sports drinks on the supermarket shelves that claim to provide not only fluid, but also essential nutrients that will improve muscle strength, endurance, and overall performance. The truth is, there is nothing magical about any of these beverages. They all contain carbohydrates, which have been clearly shown to be beneficial during exercise—when muscle glycogen levels are near depletion and blood glucose levels are low.

Research has shown, however, that carbohydrate ingestion is beneficial only during prolonged exercise. If pre-exercise nutrition is adequate, there is no need to ingest carbohydrates during continuous exercise lasting less than 90 minutes. In fact, when we ingest carbohydrates during short-term exercise, it simply increases the calories we take in and interferes with our efforts to get rid of body fat.

As far as electrolytes are concerned, only small amounts are lost when you sweat during very heavy exercise, and these can easily be replaced by eating fruits or vegetables later in the day. Only endurance athletes who sweat heavily for extended periods need to replenish their electrolytes while exercising.

However, you do need to drink lots of water when you are exercising. Drink more than you think you need. People are notorious for underestimating the amount of water they require.

Exercise with a friend. Statistics tell us that people who exercise with a friend are more successful at staying with their program. Knowing that someone is waiting for you can be great motivation to show up and get it done!

Train for an event, like a local 5k or 10k walk or run in your area. I’ve seen many men transformed from couch potatoes to lean, mean, exercising machines because they decided to enter and train for a competition. Just look at me: Don’t think you can’t do it . . . YOU CAN!