How much weight will I lose?The short answer is, it depends. Humans are complex. Our relationships with food are complex. And every complex human with complex relationships is different. I’ve worked with clients who’ve lost 20 pounds in 6 weeks and others who’ve lost 1 pound while adding 6 pounds of muscle and dropping their waist-size by 3 inches in 12 weeks. Following the program with 80% or more accuracy and commitment, my clients lose between 0.25 and 1 pound per week on average. Do I have to count calories or track my macros? Nope! I have some clients who have no idea what MyFitnessPal is and others who feel genuinely better when they do count calories and/or track macros. My philosophy at its core revolves around sustainability, consistency, repeatability and most importantly building a healthy relationship with food. 80% of my clients don’t count calories. The other 20% may use it for a short period of time then shelve it and see how things feel. The goal for all my clients is to get to the point where they can eat intuitively and feel good about their nutrition without constantly counting calories, tracking macros, or using charts, tools and scales to measure every blueberry and drop of creamer. How do I contact you to ask a question?The easiest way to ask me a question is through our app chat feature! How do check-in’s and support work?Depending on the program option you choose, you’ll be receiving scheduled support and communication from me through a mix of email, phone and/or in-person meetings. Everyone will receive support and communication through app chat, message and email, regardless of their program! If applicable, coaching phone calls will be conducted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. To better serve you, emails will be limited to 1 per week, and you can include as many questions as you’d like, less than 3 sentences for each question in bullet form. I try to answer emails on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s! What’s different about your nutrition approach and philosophy? Are you going to put me on a low-carb, vegan or low-fat plan? To echo above, humans and our relationships with food are complex. My approach is science-based and implemented through habit-tasks that we’ll organize, track and build on together. Science isn’t sexy and it doesn’t sell well, BUT it does show us what we should do to see results. My programs are based on reviewing credible scientific evidence and distilling it down into simple language and habit-tasks so you can benefit and get results. We’ll work closely together through this collection of nutrition and lifestyle habit-tasks and mindset skills, rather than emailing you plain black and white instructions for a traditional diet that’s designed for marketing and sales, not long lasting results. I've already tried everything else. Why would this work for me? We all have those friends who lose weight on the new fad diet (on social media). BUT we don’t see the rebound-overeating, diet-fatigue, and weight regain (NOT on social media). There’s a reason fad diets come and go (who remembers South Beach?). If the social media diet gurus did in fact have the golden solution then everyone would be lean, fit and screaming about it from rooftops. This isn’t reality. I assure you, you’re completely normal if the traditional diet cycle has failed you. The REAL solution is to get out of that cycle and into sustainable habit-based practices that actually work. What kind of changes will I have to make? We’ll work together to establish habits, build mindset skills, and incorporate changes based around your nutrition, your body and your lifestyle. How long before I lose weight? The honest answer is, it depends. I know this isn’t the sexy answer you were looking for. My coaching and programming is not a quick-fix crash diet 30-day suffer fest. I help folks make lasting changes that get them lasting results. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach with weight loss. For some the weight seems to come off more easily, others hammer away a small but consistent 0.25 pounds lost each and every week, while others must lay weeks or even months of groundwork before they see true weight loss. To put this differently, consider all the reps you've taken up to the point of seeking out a weight loss solution that have included unhealthy lifestyle habits, poor nutrition choices, minimal effort to change, and so on. Take a moment to try and quantify this. Understand that in most cases, it’s going to take at least that amount of reps in a healthy direction to unravel the unhealthy ones. Again, not the sexiest answer. I can’t guarantee a timeline for you but I CAN help you get those healthy reps in. With your commitment and 1, 2, or 1,000 healthy reps a day I can guarantee you’ll make progress towards your goals and see results. Have you helped people like me before (who have a lot of weight to lose? People who are athletes? People who are moms/dads)? I’ve worked with grandmothers and grandfathers, 10 year old club baseball athletes and professionals in the NFL. I’ve worked with folks who weighed 300+ and others who barely broke 50. I’ve worked with type 1 diabetics, NCAA division 1 athletes and a mom post-double knee replacement. Please scan through my testimonials here and shoot me a message or email if you want to learn more!
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“Want XYZ, YOU SHOULD GET MORE SLEEP!”Yeah, yeah, yeah…we’ve all heard it. And how many times have we actually tried to make a change to get more sleep? Yup. For 99% of us, myself included, the answer is ZERO times. As I’m sure you know, the research on benefits of sleep for a healthy lifestyle is VERY conclusive. “Exercise, sleep and nutrition form the triangle of health, and all are related,” says Dr. Phyllis Zee, a professor of neurology and director of Northwestern University’s Sleep Health Centers. For one, her research has shown that a proper night's sleep (7+ hours) results in more productive training sessions later that day. But, seriously though, why don’t we ever try to make a change to improve our sleep? Wellllll, I see a few reasons.
We would rather try going keto, changing training programs, popping an Ashwagandha Reishi supplement powder, or trying those magical bracelets we saw selling on Amazon Prime Day for $19.99 to see if that’ll help us lose fat, gain muscle, have more energy, get stronger, look better naked, make a billion dollars next year, etc. What if getting more, better quality sleep moved the needle more than all of the above combined? Let’s buck the status quo and jump in with this month’s blog post. I’m going to discuss sleep, how it’s made a difference in my health, fitness and performance, why I think it’s the low-hanging-fruit for everyone else’s, and give 5 actionable strategies you can use TONIGHT to improve your sleep, without the online quick-fix magical bracelets. My sleepy story.My wife will tell you, I can fall asleep almost anywhere in about 3 minutes or less. And I can sleep a solid 7 and half hours straight without waking up 10 times or tiptoeing to the bathroom every 3 hours. BUT, it hasn’t always been that way! After rowing crew in college, working in NYC finance, and coaching crack-of-dawn fitness classes, I picked up some pretty rough sleep habits: working on the computer until 1AM, up at 4AM to exercise, 430AM commute, and 5AM to open the gym. My brain and body quickly reprogrammed that this was the norm. I was tired, tense, had brain fog, slower reactions, was prone to more outbursts, my gym performance was lackluster, injuries piled up, lower back constantly nagging, my body held onto stubborn belly fat like the plague, and I struggled to get lean. Maybe you commiserate with 1, 2 or all of these issues. I want you to know that this is NOT OK, healthy or normal, and that there ARE tactile actions you can take to remedy these things. I started to clean up my act, 1 habit at a time, in an effort to improve my sleep quality and quantity, and it paid off in countless ways for my health, fitness, and performance.
TLDR: If you don’t sleep 7+ hours a night on a regular basis your health, fitness and performance ARE SUFFERING. “I don’t know where to start,” and “It’s too hard to change” are terrible excuses. I’m going to lay out 5 strategies below you can use TONIGHT to try and get more Z’s and exactly where you should start to improve your sleep. MOVE YO' BODY.Not surprisingly, getting active has a lot of scientific benefits that lead to better quality sleep. According to Dr. Ramar, exercising outdoors boosts your oxygen levels, which helps calm you while vitamin D from sunlight helps regulate circadian rhythms to keep your bedtime consistent and help you sleep more soundly. The opposite is also true. Lack of sleep leads to crummy training sessions, and it has a negative effect on your muscle recovery. When you don’t get enough sleep (or the quality of your sleep is poor), it can cause muscle recovery to slow. That means you may end up feeling more sore for longer than you should, without seeing much progress. If you’re serious about your health, fitness and performance goals, then a full 7+ hours of sleep every night is essential. GET YOUR LIGHT RIGHT.One of the easiest ways to get into “rest mode” is to adjust your exposure to light. When you're exposed to light, your brain stops producing melatonin, the sleep hormone. This makes you feel awake and alert. And while the debate on whether blue light from our devices affects our sleep is still being questioned, there's no doubt that doom-scrolling, or binge watching, keeps your mind racing while you're trying to relax. Consider shutting down your screens an hour before shuteye. Worst case, use an app like Flux to dim the light from your computer in the evening if you have to burn some midnight oil. THE BEDROOM.Prep your sleep space: remove electronics, keep the room cool, and make it as dark as possible. Keep your sheets clean, your pillows comfortable, and try some sort of white noise in the background. You can buy a literal white noise machine, but my wife and I use a $30 fan we got from Costco. Your Hygiene. Take a warm shower! This is a fool-proof sleep inducer for me. Get into bed clean. Try earplugs and/or a sleep mask. Have A Sleep Routine.According to the National Sleep Foundation, actively building a healthy sleep routine makes it easier to get the sleep you need on a consistent basis. For example:
how i would start.
extras!Breathwork: Try 5 minutes of focused breathing before bed. I love the Box Breathing Method after training sessions and before bed. I’ve even used it in my pre-bed shower. Breathe in for 4sec, Hold for 4sec, Breathe out for 4sec, Hold for 4sec, repeat for 6-10 rounds. Sleep Supplements: I’ve found Magnesium really helps me to sleep more soundly. And most health professionals would point out that the large majority of folks are deficient in it. My wife uses Melatonin on an as-needed basis with good success. Brands like Beam and other CBD products have big followings and a lot of widespread use these days. Talk to your doctor, read product labels and understand that chronic use of most sleep aids will blunt its effectiveness overtime so use them only when you need them. Meditation: Try the Headspace app, Reveri hypnosis app, a sleep podcast or something similar! There are tons of free resources out there. The 8 Sleep Mattress Cover: I’ve heard GREAT things about these from folks I really trust, including Dr. Huberman of the HubermanLab podcast. Here’s one of his ToolKit summaries on sleep, if you’re a nerd like me! Please share this with anyone you think it could help! Most importantly, LET ME KNOW what you try, what works for you, what doesn’t, how it has impacted your sleep, and how it’s improved your health, fitness and performance! You can easily reach me @tomanocy on Instagram. Feel free to reach out to me for any training, nutrition or coffee talk and make sure to tag me in any pics of you and your doggos. Cheers!
how did we get here?
If you haven’t heard, glutes are the new abs. That’s right! (Cue viral sensations of cake check or lying barbell booty challenge and the recently trending “booty handle squeeze rows.'') I want to talk about an exercise that can help you both get ahead in the dumptruck department AND drastically increase your fitness and performance. Don’t be the guy or gal who sleeps on this exercise then cries about their poor, frumpy peach and lousy state of fitness. Let’s dive in.
I want to talk about Romanian Deadlifts, aka RDL’s, why I love them for fitness, performance and glute gainz, why you should too AND how you can incorporate them when you suit up to train TODAY. my rdl love story.
There was a time when I honestly believed RDL’s were invented as the preferred movement Roman soldiers used to lift dead bodies off of the battlefield! In reality, by most accounts the RDL was named by Romanian weightlifting legend, Nicu Vlad, during a 1990 clinic in San Francisco. During the clinic Nicu cleaned and jerked 500+# then proceeded to perform a mysterious deadlift-like exercise working up to 550+# for sets of 3 reps. He claimed this was key to his Olympic-level success in weightlifting! When asked what the mysterious lift was called, Nicu paused, shrugged and remarked, “Let’s call it the Romanian deadlift or RDL for short.” And thus, the RDL was born!
Pick whichever story you like, either way trust me when I say the RDL is the grand-daddy of developing Olympic-Gold caliber strength and size in the backside and posterior chain.
TLDR: when performed correctly, the RDL is a fantastic way to teach lifting from the hips and legs instead of the back. In fact, there are very few exercises better at building size, strength and power in the legs and butt- erector spinae, gluteus maximus, hamstrings and adductors (all underdeveloped areas for most folks). The movement itself is a hip-hinge, driven by pelvis-on-femur hip flexion and extension with the feet in a closed-chain position on the ground.
Ryan Tomanocy here: Movement Nerd, Bacon Aficionado and Intramural Champ. I’m super happy to be sharing this with y’all. I’ve been coaching and training for 10 years and am a disciple of the iron temple. In weights we trust. This is the way. Okay, I’ll stop. But really, I’m a coach, trainer, avid snowboarder, soccer player, swimmer, mountain biker and gym rat. I love training to be strong, fast, go long, any and everywhere, in any situation. RDL’s have been a staple in my training since my collegiate rowing career at Ithaca College, where I competed in 8x and 4x men’s heavyweight boats against crews from across the US, including Syracuse, Cornell, Navy and others, and rowed a personal best 6:35 2k on the ergo at 170#.
Much of my love for training was born out of my time rowing crew. RDL’s were a massive piece of that, and I’ve continued to incorporate them in my training regimen since. Fact, last year I worked up to 405# for 5 reps on the RDL and my legs have never been thicker, my hamstrings denser, nor my hops higher. My wife calls me “Rock Butt.” Thank you RDL-gods. here's how it should be done.
Yes, this is long and detailed for good reason. If you don’t approach training with the intent to move well with quality first, then imminent injury will force you to do so later. “Do not pass go and do not collect $200.” Caveat: I typically have beginners start with a bodyweight RDL hold for time, today let’s get straight to the meat and potatoes using a barbell.
my rdl progression.
RDL’s can be done with dumbbells, kettlebells, a sandbag, a gallon of milk, heck even bodyweight RDL’s can provide a potent stimulus for beginners and in certain training scenarios (memorably, I used a small red resistance band for about 80 reps and was waddling-no-stairs-toilet-ouch sore). Again, I like to start folks with a Bodyweight Single Leg RDL Hold for time. Even strong girls and boys will feel some type of way after 30+sec of holding! I typically progress folks as follows:
RDL Holds → Walking RDLs → KB RDLs → KB Single Leg Contralateral RDLs → BB RDLs From there we introduce more advanced variations like Ipsilateral RDL’s, Around the World RDL’s, BB complexes, incorporate tempo, band resistance, etc. As with any exercise, we can manipulate a variety of factors to either add complexity and continue driving adaptation or reduce complexity and scale back the stimulus. to prevent injury.
Always prioritize a neutral spine position (refer back to the bullets above on “how it should be done” and “Common errors”). Also, consider your level of preparation prior to plugging these into your programming. For example, you should have sufficient “core” strength before attempting to perform these with progressive loads. Ensuring safety of the spine is going to be most important here.
programming considerations.
Start with identifying your current training focus (general hypertrophy, building a big booty, maximizing your deadlift, preseason strength for rugby, etc). And honestly, I could write a whole post on this subtopic alone. For our purposes today I’ll keep things brief and tactile so you can incorporate RDL’s in your training session ASAP!
Here’s the gist. If your current training focus involves having a bigger and stronger backside then you should be doing RDL’s (*cough* 99% of you). If yes, follow these steps.
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You can find me @tomanocy on Instagram and through my site here at exploreperformancehq.com. Subscribe for future content in the sidebar above or below the post on mobile. I'll be posting a new blog every 3 weeks. Don't hesitate to reach out to me for any training, nutrition or coffee talk and make sure to tag me in any pics of your pups, good-boi’s, sweet-gals, aka doggos. I would love to see ‘em. Cheers & Happy Training!
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