I know this is a popular discussion on the internet and many other people have shared their opinion on the subject so I thought I'd share mine. The funny thing about this topic is that to some extent it can really be answered in one sentence - It depends on what your training goals are.

If you are a powerlifter or training for the Strongman competition then doing push ups isn't really going to help you much. On the other hand, if you are training for a military physical fitness test, doing heavy squats won't do much to improve your scores. Of the three methods, kettlebell training is probably the most versatile in that both a powerlifter and a military guy could use them and get really good results in their respective fitness tests. The reason for this is that weightlefting and bodyweight training generally fall on opposite ends of the muscle usage spectrum, while kettlebell training falls somewhere in the healthy middle.

Weightlifting will train maximum strength more, while bodyweight training will train muscular endurance more. You can of course do high rep weightlifting to develop muscular endurance or handstand push ups (for example) to increase maximum strength, but most people don't use these types of training for those reasons. As mentioned, kettlebells are definitely the most versatile because they do a great job at developing both sides of the muscle usage spectrum.

If you don't have very specific muscle usage requirements like the powerlifting or military examples, I would honestly say that the best thing to do is to incorporate all 3 types of training into your workouts. It'll keep your training fresh so you won't get bored and you'll train your muscles (and your nervous system) to respond to a wide variety of stimuli.

Personally, from the age of 15 to about 21 I swore by the iron. Back then we hadn't even heard of kettlebells and bodyweight training was limited to plyometrics. I was all about squatting, benching, deadlifts, etc. My senior year of high school I was able to leg press over a ton, could do 10 dips with two 45lb plates attached to me, and I used 120lb dumbbells in each hand to do chest presses. I loved it but looking back I realize that it left me open to injury and created a lot of muscle imbalances.

These days, though I still hit the weights, it is primarily to increase my strength in the main compound lifts - bench, squat, clean and press and deadlift. I always stay under 7 reps on bench and I rarely find myself doing cleans with the barbell anymore because I get enough clean work in with kettlebells - same goes for squats.

I would say my workouts now are 75% bodyweight, 15% kettlebell and 10% weightlifting. I love bodyweight training because it makes me physically feel better. I feel strong, fit, and most important to me personally - balanced. I think by nature, bodyweight training makes it very hard to have muscle imbalances because almost no bodyweight exercise is an isolated movement. Your nervous system has to recruit a wide variety of muscles to get you to move your body around in all kinds of ways. I also don't feel like a heavy, inflated balloon all the time. Some people love that feeling - I know because I used to love it - but now feeling like that would make me feel slow, less agile and out of shape.

Like I said, I used to be able to leg press over a ton but I also would have struggled with running 3 miles. Now I can do that with ease. I also think that the strength from bodyweight training translates over to weightlifting much better than the other way around. A guy that can do 10 free standing, handstand push ups will be able to put up some good weight on the military press but a guy with a strong military press won't necessarily be able to do even one handstand push up. Another advantage to bodyweight training is that I can get a workout in anytime, anywhere. I don't need any equipment and I can progress the difficulty of the movement simply by changing angles.

I love kettlebells too but I feel like overall I have the most fun with bodyweight training and that is perhaps the best answer of all to the question in the title - the best form of training is the one that you personally enjoy doing the most. If you don't like doing something then it becomes a task. Your training should be fun so pick one of the methods or pick all three and get to it!

I am a Certified Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). I have approximately 15 years of fitness / exercise experience with a wide range of knowledge on different types of training.

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Tags: Better, Bodyweight, Kettlebells, Training, Weightlifting, Which

by Michael Roussell, PhD – 6/28/2012

When it comes to forging a lean muscular body, total calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fats get the most the attention. It's for good reason, too, since trying to sculpt a noteworthy physique for beach season without being mindful of what you stuff in your gullet is a surefire way to get mistaken for a wayward beluga whale instead of a hard training bodybuilder.

However, often times it's what most would consider the "little things" such as sleep, endocrine disrupting chemical loads, and micronutrient statuses that can be the veritable little hinges that swing big doors.

The most overlooked of this group are the micronutrients: vitamin and minerals. Let's look more closely at two minerals, zinc and magnesium, and the role they play in your physique development.

Minerals play very important (yet often overlooked) roles in your body as they serve as cofactors or pieces to enzymes and compounds that carry out important functions.

Take iron, one of the most well-known minerals for example. Iron sits inside hemoglobin serving as the molecular docking station that holds onto oxygen and keeps the entire hemoglobin compound together. Without iron, this whole system would fall apart. This is typical for all minerals in your body – they do the dirty work for essential functions. Zinc and magnesium are no different.

Magnesium is required for over 300 different reactions and is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body. Magnesium is a physiological rock star, playing a role in regulating blood pressure, blood sugar, and energy metabolism. Nuts, seeds, spinach, and certain whole grains are all good dietary sources of magnesium.

Magnesium supplements come in all different types, however, avoid supplements containing magnesium oxide. While they contain the highest percent of elemental magnesium, research shows they're absorbed the poorest.

Zinc is an essential mineral found mainly in animal protein sources, with oysters being the best source. It's required for the proper functioning of 100 different enzymes. These enzymes play a role in a wide variety of systems in the body ranging from protein and DNA synthesis to immune function to cellular division. Your body doesn't readily store zinc so maintaining a consistent intake is required to maintain the needed levels in your body.

Despite the essential role of minerals, the importance of maintaining high mineral levels in our foods stuffs has been essentially ignored.

Some research has estimated that the mineral content of the food found in supermarkets is 40% lower than that of 50 years ago, making it harder to get what we need to make sure our bodies are running on all cylinders.

Adding back zinc and magnesium to your diet can help fight the depletion effects due to lack of dietary intake and exercise (another main cause of mineral depletion). Blood magnesium levels can decrease as much as 5% from just walking on a treadmill for 90 minutes at 3 miles per hour.

Research shows us some interesting benefits of supplementing with zinc and magnesium to replete our bodies:

Magnesium supplementation improves exercise tolerance during times when you haven't gotten enough sleep.Magnesium supplementation can improve cardiovascular function during exercise.Zinc supplementation can prevent exercise-induced decreases in thyroid hormone and Testosterone levels in both sedentary men and elite athletes.

As noted, the effects of hard training on zinc and magnesium levels further exacerbate the problems already created by the mineral depletion of our soil. Here's what you can do to get your body back on track.

ZMA® or zinc monomethionine aspartate and magnesium aspartate–This supplement was developed by Victor Conte in the mid-late 1990s through his company SNAC, which carried out micronutrient testing and optimization for high-level athletes, amongst other things (wink, wink).

While Victor Conte's role as steroid guru to the stars took away from the growing popularity of ZMA®, it remains a solid supplement that provides two key minerals for hard training athletes – and it's inexpensive. Take it right before bed and you can reap the relaxing effects of the magnesium as well (see below).

Topical Magnesium–As mentioned, magnesium is a muscle relaxant, making topical magnesium a great tool for people who have trouble unwinding and falling asleep at night. The importance of sleep and its effect on hormones such as leptin, ghrelin, and growth hormone can't be understated. Topical magnesium is a simple way to optimize sleep for certain people.

Falling asleep can be the sticking point for many lifters and if you're not falling asleep within 30 minutes, then you have a problem that needs to be addressed. If ZMA® isn't doing the trick, rubbing some topical magnesium behind your knees 20 minutes before bed should help you fall asleep faster.

Top off this night time regimen with a couple caps of Z-12™ and you won't stir until your alarm goes off the next day.

When dosing individual vitamins and minerals I always like to have an actual reason to do so other than X vitamin is good for you so I'll just take more. The best way to do this is through testing your mineral levels, although this isn't the easiest or most convenient approach.

Zinc, however, proves to be the exception. You can get a quick and easy handle on your zinc status by using the oral zinc sulfate test. This test is simple – it involves holding a shot glass-sized amount of zinc sulfate in your mouth for five seconds, then swallowing it. You then describe what it tastes like using one of the following:

Tasteless like water = Low Zinc Status.Slightly dry but mineral-like. A sweet taste developed after a few seconds = Zinc Status Marginally Low.It has a distinct taste that gets stronger over time = Zinc Status Almost Where It Should Be.Instant strong and unpleasant taste = Zinc Status Good.

You'd be amazed how many people fail this test miserably. The first time I did it, I was at Peak Performance in New York and thought that fellow T Nation contributor Dan Trink was playing a trick on me and had slipped me a Dixie cup of plain water. My zinc status was that poor!

If you can't find someone that does the oral zinc test, purchase a zinc tester (Metagenics makes one) and test yourself. Then, based on your results, add ZMA® and/or a standalone zinc supplement. Test yourself again in a couple of weeks and continue the process until your zinc levels get fixed. Once you do you'll be amazed. You'll sleep better, recover better, and have more energy to train.

Unfortunately, there isn't such an easy test for magnesium, although too much oral magnesium is an excellent laxative. So if you happen to overestimate your dosages, you'll know pretty quickly by your increased, perhaps frantic trips to the bathroom.

Several years ago I wrote an article for T Nation with Alwyn Cosgrove called Non-Sexy Training & Nutrition. It was full of effective but less than glamorous training and nutrition methods. Minerals fit into this category.

Taking a ZMA® supplement or complete mineral supplement every night isn't sexy but it will fill some pretty important nutrient holes that will make everything else that you're doing that much more effective.

Questions or comments? See you in the LiveSpill!

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Tags: Better, Mineral, Mining

Welcome newcomers! If you want to build muscle, lose fat, boost your performance and improve your health you're in the right place. To make sure you don't miss out on any new updates you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and sign up for my newsletter list. Thanks for visiting!

What food you put in your body is probably the single most important decision you make every day. A lot of us have that down and always make very healthy choices. Or so we think…

Unfortunately, what’s a healthy choice for me may not be a healthy choice for you. Everyone reacts differently to certain foods. For the most part you can’t go wrong with lean protein, vegetables and berries. Those foods seem to be tolerated very well by the majority of people. Once you veer off that list it gets a little bit more complicated.

Foods like grains, eggs, nuts, certain fruits, legumes and dairy can all have negative effects on people’s digestive systems. When your digestion gets messed up so does everything else.

So what I suggest is that for a week or so you simply keep a food journal. Write down what you ate and then make note of how you felt during the 60-90 minutes following that meal. What you discover may surprise you.

I’ll use myself as an example.

I love sweet potatoes, but when I really cued in on everything I was eating and recorded it all with notes I realized that sweet potatoes make me feel a lot worse than white, red or Yukon gold potatoes.

Quinoa gives me an instant headache.

Oatmeal just makes me feel blah and I have no energy.

Nothing makes me feel better than red meat. I feel incredible after eating it and have zero digestion issues.

Eggs are one of my favorite foods yet if I eat them too much I get a similar (though nowhere near as severe) feeling that I get from eating oatmeal. One tip for egg lovers is to make sure you don’t eat them every day and to always change the way you cook them (hard boiled, fried, scrambled, etc.).

I love nuts and nut butters, but unfortunately I have adverse reactions to many of these. Some cause digestive issues, others cause my throat to get scratchy.

Same with apples. The only apple I can eat is a Pink Lady. If I eat other types of apples my throat gets itchy and slightly swollen and my stomach just doesn’t feel right.

Many of these reactions aren’t the end of the world so I continue to eat these foods (eggs, nuts and apples; never really quinoa or oats anymore) occasionally just because I enjoy them so much. You don’t have to give up every single pleasure in your life.

The point of this little exercise is to identify what causes adverse reactions in your body. If you eat something and it causes your nose to run, as do certain foods I eat, that means you’re not meant to eat that food. If a food doesn’t agree with you, sure you can deal with excess mucus production for a little while or a scratchy throat, but just imagine how much better you would feel if you eliminated all the foods you can’t tolerate. You’d be unstoppable because you’d be operating at 100% and firing on all cylinders.

You see, any time your body has to react to an outside stressor like that you’re taking vital energy away that could be used more efficiently elsewhere, like recovering from workouts, etc.

So take the time and do this for a week. Then cut out the foods that are causing you problems and note how much better you feel. Some may make such a big difference that you’ll vow to never eat them again. Others may be your favorites and even though they cause some minor problems you’ll allow yourself to have them for a treat on occasion.

It’s up to you but I think it’s very important to at least know what is causing you problems.

If you really wanna take it up a notch do a full blown elimination diet and get rid of all foods that are known to cause allergies or inflammation then gradually add them back in one at a time.

It’s a short time to sacrifice considering you’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you. And every one of those days could be a lot better if cut out the stuff that’s making you feel like crap.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is too simple to make a huge difference. This could be a lot more significant than changing your training split or improving your squat technique. Digestive health is crucially important to how you look, feel and perform.

Don’t ignore it.

Tags: Adverse Reactions, Digestion, Digestive Systems, Egg Lovers, Favorite Foods, Food Journal, Fruits Legumes, Grains, Healthy Choice, Healthy Choices, Lean Protein, Nut Butters, Oatmeal, Pink Lady, Red Meat, Stom, Sweet Potatoes, Types Of Apples, Whole Lot, Yukon Gold Potatoes

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Tags: Better, Perform, Simple, Whole