I wanted to start off this interview by saying this is the last of interviews I will be doing for a while. The break in production is due to a few reasons.

The first reason being that I am going to be even more pressed for time soon and won’t have much time to devote to it.

The other is that, in all honesty, I like to interview those whom I respect, and I am not sure how many fit into that category right now. It might appear as if I am “kissing ass,” but in truth I generally admire and respect those whom I have talked with and learned something from. Others who have followed these interviews have learned something as well and at the very least I feel good about that. With only one exception I am very proud of the interviews I have done and the people I have talked with.

You do not have to be a “guru” and we don’t have to trade off gain. I just like to ask some questions and break the grind of the normal format.

In celebration of these interviews I am putting them together in a download .PDF format for everyone. It will be free and maybe even with an extra or two in there.

So, without anymore adieu I want to get to this final interview below.

If you’re not aware of who I am speaking of it is non other than Tony of “Gobbla Guides” or “Tony’s Fitness Reviews”. He is outspoken, intelligent, and gives it how it is. If you can’t tell I have a running theme with that type of folk.

Leigh Peele: First can we start off with a little background Tony? What has lead up to make you the man you are today?

Tony:“Thank you” little miss opened-ended-questioner! I suppose a lot of my personality comes from growing up and working from a pretty young age. When I was but a wee lad I helped out on a neighbors pig farm where I learned how to drive a bobcat and nut an innocent little creature! We spent long hours in the sun shoveling, stacking, and generally moving things from one place to another. The biggest takeaways from that experience is that simple things provide sense of accomplishment and if there isn’t a reason for doing something then don’t do it. There’s ALWAYS something that *needs* to be done, don’t waste your time on things that don’t. After I was provided transportation I started working at a local nursing home as a CNA where I specialized in Alzheimer care. It was a pretty messed up gig to tell the truth. Watching “normal” people go insane is pretty rough and there really isn’t an “up side” to the job. Even if you got lucky and worked with the sane people for a little while they were still dying and that’s not good. I’m not sure what really came out of that, other than dying is pretty crappy and there are scales of crappiness.

Into modern times, I’ve been in the United States Air Force for 9 years now. I’m a career “computer guy” and have developed a definite love\hate relationship with the bastard computer! I’ve been here and there and seen a good chunk of the world and met some odd characters of every race\nationality\creed. The pay is good and if you land a good job, you get a good job for a little while. If you land a bad job then you get to change it no later than 3 years later with no loss of income or benefits. Typically the work load is pretty light, and if you are doing something significant you can take some satisfaction in knowing that thanks to you some bastard is getting vaporised.

For those of you “in the know” you’ll know that I’m darn close to my halfway point in the service and have reached the point that I had to decide what I wanted to do when I grow up. With some encouragement I went the “Fitness Professional” rout. Exercise has always been a bit of an obsession of mine and has always been something that I’m always interested in and willing to learn a little bit more. I should finish my bachelors degree this year, which was a commitment considering losing 30hrs due to the major change, in Health and Sports Sciences which will open the door for some certifications (ironically enough). I train some locals who are really fantastic, hard workers and have a very modest website featuring reviews of some popular and not so popular fitness products that will hopefully give people honest feedback on products and while probably won’t give someone everything that they could need to know to make their own decision on buying products, at least they could have an opinion on it that isn’t swayed by personal interest.

Leigh Peele:I have to ask then Tony what are you looking forward to doing the most with working with people? Do you have an idea of what you want or feel your “nitch” is going to be?

Tony: For the most part I just like being a part of the fitness community and look forward to a time that I can fully dedicate myself to it. The reward for me is seeing the look on someones face when accomplish what ever their goal is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 40 year old female trying to fit into a swimsuit or a high school superstar trying to set a new record. My personal feelings on me as a trainer is that I don’t have the ability to make someone succeed. That comes from within. I can offer guidance and support, not ability. With that in mind, as a professional I just want to be around people happy that are meeting their goals. What exact form I take in that picture or what goals are being accomplished I’m pretty flexible on. I just want to be there to see that smile.

Leigh Peele: That is the best answer I have ever heard given to that question. I can’t wait to see the things that you do.

I know that besides working with others you are working on yourself. In your blog you keep a log of your training efforts but those who are playing catch up give a run down of the training and diet program you are using right now and what your current goals are. If possible maybe a little insight into where you started from?

Tony:It’s a journey. I spent several years looking for some sort of magic answer and trying to be “like” someone else rather than following simple (the best) instruction. I pretty much suck at everything to tell the truth, although I suck a lot less at it now than I had in the past. About 4-5 years ago I struggled to run a mile, couldn’t lift my bodyweight (squat, bench, pull-up). My journey started primarily with running getting a 1/2 marathon under my belt and logging some decent miles over all. I started training for an ultra (because if it’s worth doing it’s worth driving it into the ground) and ran into some issues with my knee. Since I couldn’t run I lifted and now I’m on a bit of a hybrid\GPP style “thing”. If asked today, I could do a 24min 5k, squat 300, bench 200, Deadlift 400, pullup 30 reps, and do 70 pushups. Some things might be a little better or worse depending on what exactly I’m working on but that’s the general area anyway.

Most of my training revolves around generic ability and I’ll specialize now and then depending on the requirements of my job and the time of year. For instance every year I have to do the PT test which is pretty specific on what they want and deadlifting isn’t on there. That’ll be my body comp\running period because it’s hard for a fat boy to run. Similarly I just today volunteered for a SOCOM forward operator slot, if I would get word of that then strength endurance would be the new focus of my world. A typical week would be 4-6 sessions (2-4 weights\2-3 running\2-3 endurance, w\ some days double dipping). I just try to be maintain a nice level of suck across the board.

Diet is chocolate pop tarts and beer. Sadly enough that’s only half joking. I love food and have the willpower of a gnat. If I’m not into body comp\high volume training then I’ll do a limited carb diet such as South Beach or TNT. If I’m training a lot then I’ll go with a portion control method getting 1 serving carb\protein\fruit + any vegi’s I want a meal. Body comp = calorie counting. I make all of my breakfasts and lunches ahead of time and dinners are hot and flexible.

Leigh Peele: Those training increases are certainly nothing to scoff at. As for the diet, well, I have been known to have a weakness for pop tarts myself. It’s incredible how many calories you can fit into something so small, warm, and gooey.

You mention the use of TNT or South Beach as well as various training programs, and I know it’s safe to say that you have read your fair share of training material and information that people put out there.

For those who are reading that don’t know, you have a website now where you do reviews for different products and information on diet and training information. How and why did this come about?

Tony: You can find my website at http://tonyreviews.wordpress.com/. There you can find my own training journal and miscellaneous thoughts that pass through this crazy mind of mine (you’ve been warned). On the right hand side you can see some of the reviews that I’ve done for various fitness, diet materials, and links to people that are friends and inspirations to me.

This whole little thing started a while back when I really wanted to learn why I wasn’t making the progress that I wanted. I ate my food (consisting of X, Y, Z) as much as I wanted…just like the article said, I exercised 3 times a week and damn it I still didn’t have washboard abs and women tossing panties at me when I walked by DAMN IT!! You follow simple instructions and aren’t getting results…what the hell? So I started learning and soaking up information from what resources I had available. My problem was everywhere I turned everyone had the answer but it didn’t seem like people had the same answers to the same questions. Not only did advice conflict but it conflicted violently and it confused the crap out of me. Basically after trying to learn I was more confused than ever. It seemed like everyone had glowing things to say about everyone and products that I had and didn’t think that they were worth the toilet paper that they were printed on. When challenged the producers simply took the stance that I’m too dumb to “get it”…but if I bought their new product then the guru of the day might be able to teach me. That’s when it clicked that these people weren’t trying to help me, they were trying to help themselves.

I felt victimized. It’s my own stupid fault for not realizing that there is no integrity check out there and that salesmen were more interested in pushing products than they were in helping someone learn why their product was bad or overpriced. Hence my blog! I look at material based on what it promises to deliver and try to give a consumer an idea of what they can expect to walk away with if they decide to buy it. I don’t normally comment on programming or over all theory simply because I’m NOT an expert and it’s true that more often than not the author has more knowledge and experience than I do. I simply offer an opinion from a consumer geared towards other consumers. If a product delivers and has stand out good points then I say so. If it falls short I say so, and try to say why I feel that it fell short. I don’t think my opinion is particularly profound or awesome that everyone should listen to or agree with, it’s simply a way of getting out open and honest feedback, both positive and negative, that I personally feel practically non-existent any where else.

It’s working out pretty well. I don’t have as much time to devote to really having a “resource” that I’d like but it’s a work in progress for sure. The reviews seem to be well received. Anything negative said is pretty well expected to be met with serious resistance, but more often than not people are pretty cool about it. If folks agree or disagree with a review and respond in a way that’s respectful then their challenge or pat on the back gets added to the review so further readers can see OTHER peoples honest opinions about products. At the end of the day the whole site is simply a toehold for integrity that I sure wish I had a year ago.

Leigh Peele: With all the resources and information you have under your belt, at the current moment what is a training approach you feel is underrated or you feel just needs more highlighting? Perhaps even a recommendation?

Tony: DANGER! DANGER! LOADED QUESTION ALERT!

Let’s caveat my answer here before we even start. My answer is going to reflect average “Joe\Jane” here and not an athlete or legitimately-trained individual. If you scroll up to see me commenting on me sucking at most things, that’s because I’m comparing myself to people that are good at things that I “like” to do. You go to any high school and pretty much any athletic kid would beat my butt at any of those things. Coming back to “average” and I’m pretty darn good. That’s only because “average” is overweight and severely out of shape, that’s just pure statistics…normal is fat and lazy (read as sedentary)…it is.

In my opinion emphasis in training is too often putting the horse before the wagon. First step of training….conditioning\GPP. All the time. Every time. Some books play lip service to it and condition you to the point to where you can do the book’s program in the weight room…so what? You don’t live life in the weight room. The weight room is largely irrelevant to living. Now THAT is blasphemy right there. What do I mean? If you want to live your life well and be “healthy” (as a normal human being) what level of strength do you NEED? More importantly how do you NEED to be able to express that strength? I just recently did a pull-up with 95 lbs strapped to me. That’s an neat little ego stroke but in daily life how is that going to benefit me in any way?

The average person’s biggest issue is not a lack of strength, nor is it a lack of cardiovascular endurance. It’s a lack of simple conditioning and strength endurance. We’re out of shape to the point to where “living” is a chore and it’s too big of a pain in the ass to walk across the parking lot in the mall so we’ll drive for 20 minutes until a spot opens up. When a man sits on his ass for 14 hrs a day (between work and home) is going to the gym and lying down on a bench the thing that guy needs to be doing? Obviously not. Buddy Row needs to move his body with large (controlled) movements as a functional and coordinated unit for an extended period of time. If he has 20 minutes then go for 20 minutes, I don’t care. Doing curls isn’t going to make your quality of life better. Increasing your work capacity increases your potential to do anything that you want to do and the “normal” person has practically zero to begin with.

There are a few people that get this right. Ross at rosstraining.com, crossfit, gymjones, right off the top of my head. If done properly simple conditioning IS a workout and will provide more than enough strength for the average person while legitimately improving that persons ability to live. If the person is an athlete or otherwise active\trained\ect then this may not apply, but keep in mind that I’m talking about “normal” here and what “normal” is.

Leigh Peele: Aww c’mon you know one day you are going to have to do a prontated grip pull up with 12-year old strapped to your leg at some point in your life. Some sort of freak trampoline accident perhaps where you have to charge in and save the day.

So it is time, I always end my interview sessions with a question for each person I interview. I call it the The Pro and the Case Client. I give you the case and you give me what you would do in a training aspect to help them with their problem.

Case Client #006 The Weekend Warrior (scared yellow)

Case Client #006 is a 53-year old man who has seen better days of health. He suffered a mild heart attack and a big scare. Life has taken in a new meaning but fear has gotten the best of him. He wants to get in shape but is scared to actually train. He has of course been cleared and encouraged by his doctor to exercise and is all-systems go. Yet when he feels his heart race at all he just gets fearful it will stop again. So he goes to the gym on the weekends and loafs around wanting to take on the challenge but scared to start.

What kind of advice would give him? How would you take this guy from fearful to fearless?

Tony:As stupid as it sounds I don’t think most people go to the gym to progress. They go because they’re supposed to go to the gym and get some sort of satisfaction with “going to the gym”. Case #6 really isn’t that different than 99% of the people that he’s surrounded by. He’s essentially healthy but doesn’t really get the point of training. That’s essentually what I’d try to work on. Shift the mindset of why he’s there into “progression”. What he progresses on it really doesn’t matter but make it obvious what the goal is and what it’ll take to get there. Set up measuring sticks along the way. You hit a “success point” and celebrate it in some way. Make success an expected part of the training experience and #6 will crave it and his motivation to improve will overtake his fear of having his heart explode.

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For reviews and more information about Tony check out his site at http://tonyreviews.wordpress.com/