Hi, Could you introduce yourself?
Yup, my name’s Chad Howse and I’ve had a fitness/lifestyle blog for just over a year. I guess the title of the blog sums it up best: “a blog about being extraordinary: building a strong body and a strong life.”
What is your training approach?
My training approach has a lot to do with my story. I always had two goals: build a more muscular, better-looking body, but also improve my performance and become a better athlete. I believe that if we’re truly trying to build our “ideal” physique, it will have more than a single characteristic, and that’s how I approach training.
By focusing on multiple goals, like improved power, speed, lean muscle gains, we can achieve more – if it’s done the right way of course.
I also don’t suggest anything that I haven’t already done. I have tried everything under the sun, and have failed A LOT. But that failure has pointed me in the direction of what works, and what doesn’t. More often than not, when you really get down to it, the things that work simply make sense.
For example, you’re not going to have consistent lean muscle mass gains if you’re consistently plateauing. So a good program should provide us with enough variation that are gains are kept continuous and don’t fade.
What is your diet approach?
Common sense and balance. I’ve never been a fan of “diet fads” because they only work for a short while. By having a balanced diet you’re getting the right nutrients in your body, but you’re also not depriving yourself, and you’re not going to just break down and quit one day.
Improving our diets, or eating to achieve a certain purpose is more of a lifestyle change than anything. Too many people go “balls to the wall” right off the bat, then 3 weeks later they’re binging like crazy. It’s a process, the sooner we understand this the more sustained our improvements will be.
Aside from blogging at http://www.chadhowsefitness.com what does a typical day for you look like?
Most of the day is spent online, but I have also kept 4-5 clients on the go each day as well. I’ll get to the gym in the morning, around 10 am, then the rest of the day is in coffee shops or training people. I put my “must-do” or productive work online at the front of the day, and the menial stuff at the end.
A couple things I like to fit into the day is time with friends, whether that be dinner or whatever, and also some reading time and time away from the computer. I think scheduling is important. If I didn’t schedule everything I’d get caught doing things that aren’t productive.
What is the worst thing you see people doing? Keep it fitness related
Talking. Not sure if that fits with the question, but when I’m in the gym, the #1 killer of a great workout is talking. And it’s everywhere! It’s like people go to the gym to chat, they spend WAY too much time in there, barely breaking a sweat. But they can claim that they workout 5 days a week, but wonder why they haven’t lost any fat, or gained any muscle.
A workout is meant to be work. Hard work. It’s supposed to be painful, but feel great at the same time. Talking is the thing I see most people doing that is counter-productive to them achieving their goals.
What mistakes have you learnt from?
I’ve made a ton of mistakes in my training that have shaped my approach today. One being training like a typical bodybuilder might. I don’t have their genetics, so the amount of reps, and training days were just too much for me to gain muscle.
I wasn’t getting enough recovery time and my workouts were actually counter-productive. As soon as I dropped the rep counts, upped the weight, added in more rest days and things like naps, I began seeing improvements. Today, I can perform higher rep counts, but when I was trying to build a base, that was the worst thing I could have been doing. Oh, and too much isolation, and not enough compound lifts as well.
What have you learned from training that you apply to your lifestyle?
Focus. My focus in a work session mimics my focus in a training session. Being in the moment when you’re in the gym is important to having a successful workout, and the same can be said for work, for relationships and so on. Little things like shutting your phone off when you’re on a date has to do with being present and not wandering mentally.
That’s something I learned from the success in my training that I have applied to everyday life.
In your blog you talk about how you gained 32 pounds of muscle in 8 months, that’s quite an achievement, have you got a tip for readers who are trying to add mass?
I’ve touched on a couple things already, but I’ll just highlight them again.
1. Intensity. You have to be focused and intense in your workouts if you want to get the absolute most out of them as you can.
2. Recovery is as important as training. During recovery is when you’re actually building the muscle that you have broken down during exercise. So get 8 hours of sleep a night at least. And don’t train more than 4 days a week.
Thanks Chad, been good talking to you
No worries at all,
Talk soon,
– Chad