Craig Ballantyne’s Favorite Finnishers
in part 1 of this expert interview series, Mike Whitfield with WorkoutFinishers.com and TrainWithFinishers.com interviewed me about the New 2.0 that is coming out.
Over the next few day’s I’ll be share differences between the original TT program and 2.0.
To listen to this call click here
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Mike: Absolutely, very cool. Now let’s talk about, let’s say we have a guy named Joe and he says, “Craig, I have my high school reunion coming up in just four weeks and I’m about 30 pounds overweight. What do I need to do in the next four weeks to lose as much fat as possible?” What would you tell that person?
Craig: Well, that person has got to get dialed in on their nutrition and they need to also then start training consistently with intensity. Well, we can’t train them too hard. If someone’s 30 pounds overweight, they can’t be doing jumping and all that type of stuff that some of these DVDs are having people do. Nutrition is going help this person take the most body fat off him in the next four weeks so we have to figure out what’s best with him. Generally, the Eat. Stop. Eat. program has been one of the most effective when combined with Turbulence Training for our transformation contests. So we’re looking about knocking off 15 to 18 pounds in 30 days when someone goes from bad nutrition to good nutrition and uses the Eat. Stop. Eat. and then uses Turbulence Training.
If someone is working out already, we get them on the Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks program, which we filmed the follow along workouts for. If they’ve been kind of dabbling in workouts, we put them on the intermediate program. Then if they were brand new, we would put them on Beginner Turbulence Training where you could still lose a lot of belly fat but you just won’t be training as intensely. But you’ll be using a lot more bodyweight exercises and if you’re 30 pounds overweight it’s going to be pretty darn hard.
So we have a system for everybody that goes and gets put into place there. Our most advanced program in terms of results, the one that most of our transformation contest winners used, is the Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks program. Also one of the other ones that’s really popular is Thermogenic 30, which we also filmed follow along workouts for. These two are just really smashing successes and I’ve had people on those as quickly as possible but I still would not have them do more than four workouts of hard exercise per week. They still stay active on their off days but you can’t cram for fat loss like you cram for an exam. You’re going get overuse injuries. You’re going to hurt elbows, your knees, your shoulders or your back if you train too frequently with intense training. People are going to drop out and then they’re going to go to the reunion and be 40 pounds overweight because they dropped out and they started eating out of depression. So we have to train smart and train and eat properly.
Mike: Awesome. And going back to that Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks, that is a definitely a good classic workout from the TT. I actually used that myself and I’ve used it with I think three to five of my clients and I had great successes. A matter of fact, Amber, who won first place three contests ago, she actually used that the last four weeks so it was kind of the climax to the end of her 12-week transformation. I can’t remember the exact pounds but I remember her losing a couple of dress sizes and just looking amazing. Of course, her husband was pretty excited about it as well. That’s a fantastic program. I’ve used it myself and in several clients as well.
Kind of rolling into that, I know that workout feed that had a pretty cool bodyweight interval program at the end. Let’s talk about finishers and let’s talk about what kind of finishers do you have in the TT 2.0 program and maybe what are one to two of your favorite finishers?
Craig: We have finishers at the end of every workout. Now one of the things that I did recently is that 101 Reasons to Hate Craig Ballantyne workout. That was a lot of fun. Throwing the burpee in there at the end, doing them a certain number of reps before you could move on, I really liked that. Anything that is total body that we can get in there, total body movement, and then we also super set things with lower body, upper body, and total body ab exercises.
So at the very least that would be my big five as a finisher: squat, push, pull, single leg, total body abs. That’s fantastic. You do that for 30 seconds or 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off. Then always the classic is the punisher, which is 20 seconds of squat, 10-second hold in that bottom position, and repeat that eight times because it’s the super most advanced bodyweight finisher that you can do. I did that, believe it or not, at a bathroom in an airport.
I was emailing my readers about that today on my trip to Europe because I just sat on an airplane for 12 hours and I had another 4 hour flight after that. I just needed to move around and I didn’t want to walk around with my bag on my shoulders throughout the entire workout. So I just crammed one of those workouts in in this giant bathroom with this shower and everything and there were tons of room so I just did the bodyweight workout in there. That was great.
Mike: Absolutely. Of course I challenge everybody listening to throw that in at the end of your workout. Like you said, 20 squats and then hold that 10-second bottom position there and do that eight times. It will absolutely destroy your legs and it will make you walk funny at first when you’re done, but then you got all day energy from that because it’s so intense and it’s a great finisher after any workout.
Craig: Yeah, I would definitely tell most people not to do that workout because they’re not ready for it. What I would say is try two rounds first and then next week come back and do another two rounds till you’re up to four. Then the week after that, try six and then finally, try eight. But you definitely do not want to just jump into that. That is not something that will not make people happy. It could leave them quite injured, to be honest with you, if they just go from never doing it to doing eight rounds of it so you’ve got to build up.
Mike: Absolutely, very cool. Now let’s talk about, let’s say we have a guy named Joe and he says, “Craig, I have my high school reunion coming up in just four weeks and I’m about 30 pounds overweight. What do I need to do in the next four weeks to lose as much fat as possible?” What would you tell that person?
Craig: Well, that person has got to get dialed in on their nutrition and they need to also then start training consistently with intensity. Well, we can’t train them too hard. If someone’s 30 pounds overweight, they can’t be doing jumping and all that type of stuff that some of these DVDs are having people do. Nutrition is going help this person take the most body fat off him in the next four weeks so we have to figure out what’s best with him. Generally, the Eat. Stop. Eat. program has been one of the most effective when combined with Turbulence Training for our transformation contests. So we’re looking about knocking off 15 to 18 pounds in 30 days when someone goes from bad nutrition to good nutrition and uses the Eat. Stop. Eat. and then uses Turbulence Training.
If someone is working out already, we get them on the Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks program, which we filmed the follow along workouts for. If they’ve been kind of dabbling in workouts, we put them on the intermediate program. Then if they were brand new, we would put them on Beginner Turbulence Training where you could still lose a lot of belly fat but you just won’t be training as intensely. But you’ll be using a lot more bodyweight exercises and if you’re 30 pounds overweight it’s going to be pretty darn hard.
So we have a system for everybody that goes and gets put into place there. Our most advanced program in terms of results, the one that most of our transformation contest winners used, is the Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks program. Also one of the other ones that’s really popular is Thermogenic 30, which we also filmed follow along workouts for. These two are just really smashing successes and I’ve had people on those as quickly as possible but I still would not have them do more than four workouts of hard exercise per week. They still stay active on their off days but you can’t cram for fat loss like you cram for an exam. You’re going get overuse injuries. You’re going to hurt elbows, your knees, your shoulders or your back if you train too frequently with intense training. People are going to drop out and then they’re going to go to the reunion and be 40 pounds overweight because they dropped out and they started eating out of depression. So we have to train smart and train and eat properly.
Mike: Awesome. And going back to that Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks, that is a definitely a good classic workout from the TT. I actually used that myself and I’ve used it with I think three to five of my clients and I had great successes. A matter of fact, Amber, who won first place three contests ago, she actually used that the last four weeks so it was kind of the climax to the end of her 12-week transformation. I can’t remember the exact pounds but I remember her losing a couple of dress sizes and just looking amazing. Of course, her husband was pretty excited about it as well. That’s a fantastic program. I’ve used it myself and in several clients as well.
Kind of rolling into that, I know that workout feed that had a pretty cool bodyweight interval program at the end. Let’s talk about finishers and let’s talk about what kind of finishers do you have in the TT 2.0 program and maybe what are one to two of your favorite finishers?
Craig: We have finishers at the end of every workout. Now one of the things that I did recently is that 101 Reasons to Hate Craig Ballantyne workout. That was a lot of fun. Throwing the burpee in there at the end, doing them a certain number of reps before you could move on, I really liked that. Anything that is total body that we can get in there, total body movement, and then we also super set things with lower body, upper body, and total body ab exercises.
So at the very least that would be my big five as a finisher: squat, push, pull, single leg, total body abs. That’s fantastic. You do that for 30 seconds or 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off. Then always the classic is the punisher, which is 20 seconds of squat, 10-second hold in that bottom position, and repeat that eight times because it’s the super most advanced bodyweight finisher that you can do. I did that, believe it or not, at a bathroom in an airport.
I was emailing my readers about that today on my trip to Europe because I just sat on an airplane for 12 hours and I had another 4 hour flight after that. I just needed to move around and I didn’t want to walk around with my bag on my shoulders throughout the entire workout. So I just crammed one of those workouts in in this giant bathroom with this shower and everything and there were tons of room so I just did the bodyweight workout in there. That was great.
Mike: Absolutely. Of course I challenge everybody listening to throw that in at the end of your workout. Like you said, 20 squats and then hold that 10-second bottom position there and do that eight times. It will absolutely destroy your legs and it will make you walk funny at first when you’re done, but then you got all day energy from that because it’s so intense and it’s a great finisher after any workout.
Craig: Yeah, I would definitely tell most people not to do that workout because they’re not ready for it. What I would say is try two rounds first and then next week come back and do another two rounds till you’re up to four. Then the week after that, try six and then finally, try eight. But you definitely do not want to just jump into that. That is not something that will not make people happy. It could leave them quite injured, to be honest with you, if they just go from never doing it to doing eight rounds of it so you’ve got to build up.
Mike: Oh certainly. Definitely. I like the approach of doing an increase of two rounds each week. Going back to that 20-10 style, there was something specific that I remember when we did the filming and that was the plank and side variation of that. It was a really good finisher for my abs. What that was is we actually did a plank for 20 seconds and then for 10 second rest period—and it’s not really rest—you do a left side plank. Then you go back to a regular plank and then go to the other side plank for 10 seconds. So basically you’re doing 20 seconds of a regular plank and then a 10-second side plank and you do that for I believe four rounds. Of course if you wanted to try that, when you first do it just do two rounds or even just one round just to kind of ease into it but it’s a great way, it’s what I call a cool ab finisher. I remember doing that and my abs feeling pretty much, pretty tight for the rest of the day so it was a fantastic finisher there.
Join us tomorrow where we’ll talk about putting on muscle and losing fat.
Sincerely,
Mikey Whitfield, CTT
Certified Turbulence Trainer