In This Issue:

– Robertson Training Systems Updates
– Training Tip
– Nutrition Tip
– Exclusive Interview with Mike Roussell
– New Articles
– Schedule

Robertson Training Systems Updates:

I’m going going, back back to Cali Cali…

I’ll be in California for most of next week, so try not to miss me too much!

It will be a rather quick trip, but my Custom Fitness/Custom Athletics business partner Mike Dodd and I are going to try and hook up with NSCA Strength Coach of the Year Dos Remedios on Tuesday. Wednesday we’ll be spending the day with the one and only Alwyn Cosgrove at Results Fitness. Alwyn must have had some kind of brain fart because he’s even letting me work with his trainers for two hours. Whoa!

Speaking of Alwyn, he actually celebrated his re-birth this past week after successful cancer treatment last year. Please send Alwyn some good vibes as he’s been an amazing leader and mentor in this industry for a long time. Thanks Alwyn!

Training Tip:

Add a twist to your glute training!

If you’ve ever looked at a textbook drawing of great glutes (Serena Williams and J.Lo do not count here), you’ll notice that their fiber pennation is actually back and down at an angle, rather than straight up and down or side-to-side. For that reason, exercises that use a twist allow for both hip extension and rotation to really smoke your glutes. Some examples such as cable woodchoppers, full-contact twists and the like will not only blast your obliques but your glutes as well. Just make sure to get your rotation from the hips and thoracic spine versus the lumbar spine and you’ll be golden.

So next time you want to get in some serious glute work, add in a twist to take it to a whole ‘nother level!

Nutrition Tip:

Don’t Cut Calories Too Low
By Mike Roussell

When you reduce your calories below your body’s needs the body responds by down regulating (or slowing down) your metabolism. When trying to lose body fat the last thing you want is a slower metabolism!

Instead of focuing on drastically reducing your calories find ways to increase your energy expenditure (exercise). This approach will boost your metabolism, not slow it down.

If you like this tip and want to learn more about Mike and his products, check out his Naked Nutrition website.

Exclusive Interview with Mike Roussell

Mike Roussell is quickly becoming one of the foremost experts in the nutrition field. He’s contributed articles to sites such as T-Nation.com, has developed a bi-weekly podcast, and just completed his first project: Your Naked Nutrition Guide.

It’s our pleasure to have Mike on here today! (And be sure to check out the sweet offer Mike makes at the end of this interview!)

MR: Mike, you get immediate street cred just by having a great name. Beyond the name, though, please tell the RTS readers a little bit about yourself.

Roussell: Sure. I’m a Taurus. I enjoy long walks….just kidding. I got into the weight lifting/fitness game like most people by reading muscle magazines. So I wasted several years of my life trying to get big by following Lee Priest’s mass routine followed by massive deltoids a la Kevin Levrone…utter disaster. I quickly saw that nutrition was the lynch pin to success whether it was fat loss or muscle growth. I immersed myself in the literature and read everything I could get my hands on. I went to a small liberal arts college, they didn’t have a nutrition program so I taught myself. Between then and now I have completed a lot of school work and research in nutrition and currently am studying to get my PhD in Nutrition at Penn State.

MR: I love the fact that so many of today’s authors have a blend of scientific and practical knowledge. What’s your academic background like?

Roussell: As I started to get into with your last question. I went to a small liberal arts college where I received a degree in Biochemistry. From there I went to medical school. About halfway through my first year in medical school I realized that medicine wasn’t really my passion and that it was nutrition that I wanted to dedicate my life to. So against the advice of almost everyone in my life I left medical school to pursue a PhD in Nutrition.

Between leaving medical school and coming here to Penn State, I worked as a Lab Tech/Lab manager in a biochemistry lab and aided in the development of the nutritional curriculum for the medical school at the University of Vermont. Now as I said I live in State College, PA and am studying to get my PhD. My research currently focuses on the anti-inflammatory effects of fish oil and the effects of increased dietary protein on cardiovascular disease. Basically a whole lot of school!

MR: As plenty of people are willing to point out, though, the academic success is just the tip of the iceberg. What’s your in-the-trenches experience like? What demographics do you currently work with the most?

Roussell: I’ve actually worked with all types of people. When I was in college I worked with college football players, college students, and regular people. Now I mainly work with average people looking to get in shape. The demographics range from people in their early 20s to 40s-50s. The past couple months I’ve had to tone down my coaching services because of school but in the upcoming months I have some really cool things in store for people looking to harness their nutrition and drop body fat or pack on muscle. I may have a couple of opportunities to work with some real high level athletes in the future so we’ll see how that turns out.

MR: That’s awesome man – keep up the great work!

Moving along, you’ve recently released your “Naked Nutrition Guide” – what’s the major premise behind this project?

Roussell: The original premise was that I needed something to give to my clients. I got tired of reinventing the wheel so to speak with each new client. So I locked myself in my office every weekend for many months and poured out everything into the manual.

As I mentioned before I work with a lot of people who don’t do fitness or athletics for a living. Anyone can create a meal plan but the challenge is creating a system that is easy to follow and practical. Fortunately when I was done with Naked Nutrition I had such a system.

For those interested in the science of nutrition I talk about that in the manual. It isn’t just for beginners as I lay out specific strategies and manipulations of meal plans depending on your goals and how your body is responding. But before I released it I had numerous people who have nothing to do with fitness or nutrition read it and then I talked with them about what parts they understood and what parts they didn’t understand. After taking their feedback I went and rewrote parts of the manual until it became extremely user friendly for just about anyone. There are tons of nutrition plans out there but most of them are too gimmicky for people to stick with for their life. Naked Nutrition is the kind of plan that delivers results and something that you can use forever. I’m really proud of how it came out.

MR: It truly is an awesome product Mike; you did great!

Moving along, if you could grossly over generalize for a moment, what are the main points that people are missing with regards to their nutrition?

Roussell: I harp on compliance a lot. People just aren’t honest with themselves about how well they stick to their plan. The second point would be getting too specific. I really think that people don’t need to count calories because counting calories is a level of specificity that isn’t necessary for 95% of people. That is one of the reasons that I created the Naked Nutrition Serving system which I outline in the manual.

MR: Cool. Same question, but with regards to supplements. Where are people missing the boat here?

Roussell: Supplements won’t make or break your success. This is a key point. But many people will interpret this as supplements don’t work. That’s not the case; certain supplements do work and can boost your progress. At the simplest level if you are taking a fat loss supplement then you need to be in caloric deficient for it to work. The same goes for a supplement that is going to help boost muscle growth; you need to be in a caloric excess. This sounds basic but it is often overlooked by people.

Here’s another idea that I’ve been thinking about lately. Before you take a supplement you owe it to your body to understand the general mechanism in which that supplement will elicit the desired response. If you are taking a fat burner then you should take the time to educate yourself to the ingredients and how they work. Once you do that you will be able to better compare products, cater your supplementation to your own body, and make some killer stacks.

I was just talking with Bill Hartman about this the other day. Take Biotest’s Hot-Rox Extreme for example. HRX rocks my world (pun intended). It makes me so wired. I am very sensitive to the combination of caffeine and yohimbe. If I take it past 2pm then I have trouble sleeping. But one of the ingredients that I really like in HRX is Biotest’s forskolin derivative, Carbolin-19. So what I’m going to do now is just take the HRX in the morning and then take a full dose of Carbolin-19 in the afternoon. Carbolin-19 isn’t a stimulant so I won’t have any trouble taking it in the afternoon. By using it I will still be able to upregulate cAMP – if the supplement does what it is supposed to and from looking at the literature I think it does. cAMP is important for facilitating fat loss.

MR: This is great stuff Mike, thanks a ton for being with us today. Where can the readers find out more about you and your work?

Roussell: Well first they should check out Your Naked Nutrition Guide. I’d like to offer your RTS readers free shipping when they choose to invest in the manual. Click Here and that will take you to a special checkout page where they can get free shipping. This isn’t available to anyone else. I’ll keep the link active until Monday the 18th at 9pm. I also have a biweekly podcast, Max-Out Radio. (Something that I need to get you on as a guest!) They can check that out at www.MaxOutRadio.com. If they are interested in my No B.S. Nutrition Newsletter or Naked Nutrition Online Coaching they can find out more about that at www.MikeRoussell.com.

MR: Thanks again Mike!