Authors@Google: Craig Ramsay

>>Presenter: Hi everyone. My name's Mike Hebrew, I'm on the local author's team. We're always
looking for volunteers so if you are interested or have ideas we're always looking for new
ideas. Also we have a new talk on Monday. Nick Mason of Pink Floyd will be here, so
that should be very cool. I met Craig about a year ago? Two years ago?
>>Craig Ramsay: Get it right. [Laughter]
>>Presenter: And I started
>>Craig Ramsay: A year and a half
>>Presenter: I started working out with him. It's definitely changed my life. I feel better
about everything in general and, so, even if you don't learn anything he's very entertaining
so [Laughter]
>>Presenter: So everyone welcome Craig Ramsay. [Applause]
>>Craig Ramsay: Thank you, Mike. Well hopefully you will learn a lot which I will make you
but thank you, Mike. And yeah, Mike and his wife Christy have been clients of mine for
about a year and a half and I've been so impressed with Mike's transformation over the past year
and a half. Not just his physique but what he's capable of doing with his athleticism,
it's really impressive. And he's such a good example of when you have those physique goals
in mind and you reach them, your whole life changes. It's not just about your body it's
about your body, your mind, your spirit, your work, your family, your relationships, your
future, your present, everything. And, also, I have today my assistant, Kevin, who is also
a client of mine and his success story is incredible and is very impressive to me and
other clients. He's been a great motivator and a great example and walking billboard
of what the message can provide. Here, give us a walking billboard back and forth runway
walk, Kevin. Here we go. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: There we go. Kevin, how much have you lost?
>>Kevin: Um, as of this morning I've lost 78 pounds.
>>audience members: Wow!
>>Craig Ramsay: 78 pounds in a short, how long has it been?
>>Kevin: 10 months.
>>Craig Ramsay: 10 months but you have to understand; when Kevin first saw me he couldn't
do a push up and couldn't even walk on an incline on a treadmill. And when someone comes
to me, unathletic, unlike this one that just walked in that seems to be jacked and go to
Venus Gold's everyday which is great, [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Welcome. Then if someone is unathletic when they come to see me, a lot
of times there's no hope in hell in their eyes or in their mind. And my message is it
doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what obstacles you're up against, doesn't
matter if you're in a wheelchair, once we tackle the mind, we tackle the body. And what
Kevin's been able to do is incredible. And this is the message and the message is in
this book, "The Anatomy of Muscle Building." Which all of you have and I have a more impressive
one cause it's the hard cover. [Hitting book]
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Um, yeah, and actually great
introduction is this short video that we have which explains not only the book but me as
the author and what I put into it. Here we go.
[Music plays]
>>Craig Ramsay in video: My training history started in Canada. I was a hockey player turned
contortionist, turned ballet dancer, turned Broadway performer.
[Music plays] >>Craig Ramsay: Nice shorts, right?
[Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay in video: Ten years ago my mother was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I
was able to learn about my mom's condition and change her life and pretty much save her.
Nice Vicky, this is really good! What brought me to training and changing people's lives
stems from that. [Music plays]
>>male #1 on video: You're here because?
>>female #1 on video: I'm here with Craig Ramsay and we're gonna do a workout for this
area right here.
>>Craig Ramsay on video: You're pretty good.
>>female #1: Don't need a workout?
>>Craig Ramsay: You don't need a workout. [Music plays]
>>male #2 on video: This really is a fantastic exercise to engage all core and abdominal
muscles, you can see with Craig here.
>>female #2 on video: If someone wanted to lose weight versus build muscle is there a
different way you would approach the strength training program?
>>Craig Ramsay on video: There's no difference.
>>female #2 on video: Really?
>>Craig Ramsay on video: There truly is no difference. If you want to drop unhealthy
weight you have to incorporate a resistance training program.
[Music plays]
>>male #3 on video: Craig's book which we have here is Anatomy Muscle Building and it
is available now.
>>Craig Ramsay on video: It's also available on my website.
[Music plays]
>>Craig Ramsay: Kevin Rhodes. [Music plays]
>>Craig Ramsay on video: My training is like a slap in the face followed with a loving
hug. [Laughter]
>>Jackie Warner on video: All of you are going to find your inner athlete today.
>>Craig Ramsay on video: Hop! Hop! Hop! Hop! Go!
[Girl panting]
>>Jackie Warner on video: Sprint it back you guys!
>>Craig Ramsay on video: Come on hot girl! This way then you're gonna sprint it out.
[Music plays]
>>Craig Ramsay on video: Keep that strong run, Mandy; you've got to power this. On!
>>female #3 on video: I met Craig Ramsay on a reality fitness show and he changed my life.
[Music plays]
>>female #3 on video: Craig has this amazing ability to make you wanna work hard and make
you believe in yourself. [Music plays]
>>male #3 on video: My name is Joe. I live in L.A. and I'm 35. I earn my living as an
event producer. I have worked with everyone from Diane Von Furstenberg to Doctor Dre.
[Music plays]
>>Craig Ramsay on video: Eat for fuel not for fun. Follow the love I have for you until
you find it for yourself. You got this!
>>female #4 on video: Craig, I swear I'm gonna puke! If I vomit I'm gonna vomit on you!
>>Craig Ramsay on video: That's what soap and water's for. Hate me now, love me later.
[Music plays]
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay, so now you know me. [Applause]
>>Craig Ramsay: Probably too much. So I really wanna concentrate, obviously, cause it's a
book club but on the book, "The Anatomy of Muscle Building" and why I wrote this specific
book and why I chose this as my first book. Let me let you in on a little secret that
fitness books are written by fitness professionals for other fitness professionals. I've read
the majority of them out there and they annoy me. And the reason why they annoy me is because
they preach and all they do is tell you, "Okay this is the program you need to do." But most
people don't know what that program is or even how to start. And the gym and fitness
is a very vulnerable experience. And the majority of people, there's one that knows the gym
too, hey! [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: So it's my job to analyze a body and I'm like, "Okay he spent this many
years in the gym. This is what he does. This is his program. He's underdeveloped here."
And all that, so if you see my eye wandering don't worry I'm not really judging
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: It's more out of love and
care for you. So, I was saying the gym is a very vulnerable place to be and, for all
of us, even people that know what they're doing. You still have to grow and you have
to change and you need to move past plateaus. And you need to be vulnerable enough to ask
for help with that. So anytime anyone reaches out to me from the show, or just from the
reputation I have, I just always feel so blessed and I tell them what a great place that is
to start from. And I wrote this book so I'm forcing them to reach out by reaching out
to them. I'm from Canada, from a small town in Canada and I, unfortunately, have not been
able to spend as much time and love and attention to my family and friends over the last ten
years because I've been in New York and L.A. So this book is able to reach the masses and
take the message of technique. Technique is so important when you go into the gym and
you have to know everything for your body and that machine. You have to be one with
that machine. So if you're doing some lame program in another fitness book, not to demean
other fitness books by any means [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: but if you're doing a lame and program and it says, "Oh lat pull down"
okay women are saying, "What the hell is a lat pull down? What's the seat adjustment?
How much weight should I be using?" All of that, this outlines that for you and it really
sets a program in motion. Um, let me see my notes. I have Doctor's handwriting by the
way. It's horrible. I'm sure all of you do too, right? You don't have to write, you type.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: I'm behind the ages. Um, so
I wanted to discuss because Google is such an impressive company to me and I admire all
of you very, very much and I admire Mike and I know the long hours, the hard hours that
he puts in to work and I wanna compare the workouts in this book to what your work schedule
is like. You know how there's those days when you have like a moderate work day where you
can't really give it all, all day but you're still giving it and you're getting work done
and it's taking 8 to 10 hours? So that's your moderate day, the same thing goes with a moderate
workout day. And let's talk about cardio, a moderate cardio workout would be just slightly
elevating the heart rate for a long period of time, so like 40 minutes to an hour. That's
a way of burning fat off the body and it's a body builder's way of working out without
hurting his tendons and his ligaments because his body is so expanded, so that's your moderate
workout, cardio wise, that's gonna burn fat. Now, when you have a deadline and you have
to work your ass off at work, the same thing applies to the gym. That's called interval
training. So it's when you give and then you have to hold back and catch your breath and
then you're like, "Oh my gosh!" You get your mind together and then you give again. That
go and pull back, pull, go and pull back is the goal at the gym for that and in the book
is you raise your heart rate as quickly and aggressively as possible and then you lower
it down as quickly as possible. So you wanna work against that adrenaline rush that you're
gonna feel and that's called interval cardio which for most of you, I'm really impressed,
jeeze, Google's doing something right cause ya'll are in shape. It's great. But interval
cardio's gonna work for you then. That's what you wanna focus on. Putting it in terms of
the book, the body building aspect of this book is interval training. So it's lifting
heavy for, you know, 30 seconds, you're doing 30 second hard lifting and that's gonna raise
your heart rate up more than most cardio will and then you take your break. Taking that
break lowers the heart rate and then you go back into it. All of that is outlined in the
book. Now women, we've already talked a bit about this like 10 minutes before hand when
I should've saved it for the presentation [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: So I'm sorry to bore you all with it but women are very timid in starting
a resistance training program and unless you have an auto immune disorder like PCOS or
you have, you know that you have higher testosterone levels or if you're taking testosterone then
you don't have to worry about that, unfortunately, because, Christy and Mike can vouch for this,
women have to restrict and men have to indulge. So I'm letting you in on the secret. Our goals
are different. And unfortunately when I have a couple that comes to me and I'm like, "Okay,
great." So your goal for the man is to be able to eat the buffet and enjoy it and utilize
it on your body. And the woman, you're gonna have to restrict cause you don't wanna be
bulky, you don't want to have all that kind of calorie intake so we're gonna deplete your
calorie per meal and you're gonna have to sit there and watch your husband just enjoy
and indulge in all of this amazing pizza. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: So it's always tough to do that and it's a tough balance. But the goals
are there and they're different, we have to understand that. Also, Mike took me on a little
tour and I have to say I'm so impressed with what Google has offered you as far as snacks
and as far as meals go, wow, it's so impressive, the choices that you have, the options, so
obviously all of you are already utilizing that and the gym you have, they know what
they're doing you all look fantastic. Some tips that are mentioned in the book that I
would like to talk to you about is if you're incorporating fitness into your work day then
how do you do it without looking like a total jackass and a sweaty mess? And there's tricks
to this. So, after your workout, wear a black shirt after it cause you will sweat for a
couple hours after your gym workout. You guys are able to work out during the day, right?
How does that work? Are you, do you have certain breaks during the day or you can just go in
when please?
>>Male #1: We wait til our bosses are gone. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Oh, okay, nice.
>>Male #2: It's pretty flexible as long as we go to the meetings we have to go to
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay, where do I apply to work at Google?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: This is great. Well, that
is so supportive and I'm so impressed with that cause breaking up your day with workouts,
even if it means like doing two workouts like, "Okay I'm gonna separate my cardio" you have
cardio machines here too, "Cardio and then later in the day I'm gonna do my weights."
So impressive that you guys are able to work on your physiques while you're able to work
and I know you guys have trainers that are top notch and your equipment is fantastic
and it's a little different than what you'll see in the book here but the technique is
correct. And if you're debating if they are right or if I'm right, I'm right. Just so
you know. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: I'll play the video again, okay?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: But the reason why I say that
is because my background with having been a contortionist and now being a medically
trained fitness professional for twelve years is the body has to be in correct alignment
when you execute all of these workouts. And that's what the book has. That's what the
book repeatedly and annoyingly will go over you know, feet shoulder width apart, bent
knees always, tuck the pelvis, this is protecting your hip flexors and then the chest is always
elevated. The shoulders are sort of pushed down and back which is gonna now protect your
rotator cuffs, guys that's the number one injury in the gym for us and elbows in as
much as possible, good punching wrists. Now, taking it a step further, past the anatomy
of muscle building which it does mention, is then going into a body building program
which has a fall script. All this stuff will be explained once you read the book in further
detail, but fall script utilizes the forearms and the arms as well as the primary muscle
of the chest when you're doing, say, pushups or barbell press. You have to know where you
fit into that program and you have to be honest with yourself. That's why the book outlines
that and it says, "Okay, if you can do even one day a week this is what you do, a full
body workout." If you have two days a week we wanna separate that into upper body and
lower body. Now, I'm guessing, because all of you are in fairly good shape, you guys
do utilize the gym? Put up your hand if you utilize this gym. Yeah? If you don't do you
guys have gym options? Do you work out at the gym?
>>Male #3: No.
>>Craig Ramsay: No? Well, A you're doing really good you must have some sort of sports background
and you eat properly, obviously, but what's in the anatomy of muscle building, the pushups,
the triceps exercises, all of that can be done from home. And if you Google Made Man,
is that right Kevin? Made Man dot com? I do an amazing jug workout.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: I handle some really heavy
jugs and I take you through a routine that can be done from home. So there just is no
excuses cause even if you're in shape and you feel in shape the benefits of putting
lean muscle mass on you are incredible. They help with every aspect of your life. I preach
it until no one wants to hear me anymore. Women in the gym, and I mention this in the
book, and other trainers may tell you differently but they're wrong, women have to look their
best in the gym in order to have a great workout, in order to feel their best. Please, even
guys, don't have that mindset of, "Oh, I'm gonna wake up and look like hell and go into
the gym." Doesn't work, doesn't work like that cause you don't feel your best, you don't
look your best and you're gonna be aware of that. If, dress up, I'm not saying you're
gonna be in full beat with eyelashes out to here and you're gonna be doing "Chicago" the
musical but you definitely have to wear something that's appropriate that makes you feel good,
even guys, it does aid in your workouts. First off, does anyone have any questions so far?
Don't be shy. Yep?
>>female #1: Could you actually talk a little bit more about the nutrition differences that
you just got into between men and women? I know some of it can be a little more specific
when we started working together
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah.
>>female #1:there's carbs after a certain time and things like that and the way men,
sort of, need to eat after a workout.
>>Craig Ramsay: And before, yeah, let's start with breakfast first. Is these snack bars
open right in the morning for you guys?
>>audience member: We have a full kitchen.
>>Craig Ramsay: Excuse me [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: this is amazing. Can I just get a Google pass at least?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Venice Gold's, I'll just come
a little bit early and have a buffet [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: It's great. I have the oatmeal options you have and fruit, you have fresh
fruit, correct? So that's an incredible start to your morning. If there's protein options,
didn't I see hardboiled eggs?
>>audience member: Yeah we usually have hard boiled eggs.
>>Craig Ramsay: Perfect. So starting your breakfast off, when you wake up in the morning
you should have it within a half hour of waking up. If you don't and you don't eat you're
slowing down your metabolism. Also, if you're taking a sip of coffee prior to putting food
in your system you're slowing down your metabolism. That ring around here is near impossible to
get rid of unless you have those fitness model tips. And how many of you drink coffee in
the morning on an empty stomach? Yeah? That's slowing down your metabolism like crazy and
it packs on fat around the mid section. The same with going without eating for 3 hours
and I'm not saying you should indulge every 3 hours. As we talked about with men and women,
especially women, you have to break up your meals as if they're snacks. And I don't like
to get in the habit of calorie counting because women can be obsessed with that. What you
should know is the good foods and the bad foods and the ugly and the ugly is sugar.
Sugar is just not a necessity and if you think fake sugars like Splenda and all of that are
gonna be fine, they're not because they're gonna drive you insane mentally because it's
gonna perpetuate more sugar cravings. So you just need to cut out that crap. Unfortunately
there's just no way around it. You can have it every 10 days or so, a cheat meal is fantastic
and once you're at the fitness level of most of you, actually to be honest, then you can
have a cheat day and then we just go crazy on it and we love it, right? But the trick
is to get back on track after you have that horribly indulgent day. That's where your
body gets back into a shock mode where it's like, "Oh, alright, then we don't need to
store into this fat." We deplete it and we're back on track. And you do that every 10 days,
it's a health thing. It has nothing to do with just the mind, it's a mind and body thing
that's necessary to do. So women, the breakfast, ideally you have it right here. Your oatmeal,
your eggs, your fresh fruit and peanut butter, peanut butter is gonna be your best friend,
women especially. When we incorporate a good fat like peanut butter and avocados with really
good carb it slows down the digestion of carb. So, say I had peanut butter with oatmeal,
normally that would take 40 minutes to shock my system and it would be depleted, right?
And then we could get hungry sooner and we'll have ups and downs. You'll find a chemical
change in your body. If you have peanut butter with that it slows down the digestion of that
carb. So now you're being fed, slowly, food over a two hour period instead of 40 minutes.
So that's why they say eat good fats to lose weight. It's good fats with carbs. One online
training client, cause I offer online training through fit orbit, and all of that is outlined
with, they utilize the book by the way, the workouts in the book, but the food program
one client reached out to me and she said I've actually gained some weight and all I'm
having is, and she showed me a picture of a chicken and avocado at night and I said,
"Oh, honey, you're taking initiative too much." Follow exactly what it is because you're taking
in more than 44 grams of protein in one sitting and anytime we do that we store it as fat.
So if you think, "Oh, I'm gonna have that Atkins and I'm gonna go crazy on protein,
well if you, your body can only digest so much at once. That's why we break it up into
meals every two to three hours of small portions. If you indulge like that it's stored as fat
and then she's having avocado but there's no carb to slowly digest it so she's shocking
herself with fat too. So the poor girl's trying to do well but she's taking too much initiative.
What else?
>>female #1: And the timing of that, like at night maybe but throughout the day starting
with breakfast.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah, well carb depleting because a lot of people will be like, "Oh
I wanna lose weight and I gotta cut carbs out of my diet." No, carbs is energy, protein
is repair. So remember that, where do you need most of your energy? In the morning and
afternoon, I'd be surprised if you're running marathons at night but if you are then your
training's gonna be slightly different where you're gonna need those carbs for energy,
and any marathon runner knows this, is you're gonna have those carbs later in the evening.
Otherwise, what you wanna do is restrict them. Same thing with losing weight or gaining muscle,
you still don't need to have that excessive carbs after like 3 pm. So you wanna start
cutting them out. Snack, women definitely, and men, you want nuts, you want, you want
to have a carb like a multi grain cracker with humus, perfect, great. Vegetables, do
you guys have those options here?
>>Male #3: Yeah.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah. What other options, what do you guys like to eat in the snacks
here?
>>Female #2: [inaudible] [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay, cut the bananas, no more bananas.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Bananas are way too high in
sugar and unless you're eating it before you workout, great, you're gonna utilize that,
that sugar for energy, otherwise stick with berries, blueberries, stuff like that. My
big guy in the back, how often are you hitting the snack bar?
>>Male #4: I sit by the junk food thing [Laughter]
>>Male #4: it's often but it's not
>>Craig Ramsay: So the junk food is like what? Sugar stuff?
>>Male #4: Yeah, it's like candy bars
>>Male #5: there's only one
>>Male #4: Oreos
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay and when do you work out during the day?
>>Male #4: Usually in the morning.
>>Craig Ramsay: Usually in the morning? So if someone works out, and you lift heavy?
>>Male #4: Sometimes.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah? If someone is working out to intensity and they aren't having as
much food, this should not go on video by the way
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Cause I'm telling you how
to live an indulgent life [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: But you can have more sugar intake. So the less food you have the more
sugar you're able to have. I don't wanna promote that and unless you have a really healthy
existence with incredible workouts then you can go down that route. That's why when you
go over to Venice Gold's you'll see cookies and you'll see brownies being sold and you're
like, "What the hell is this? This is a health gym." Well it's because they need that sugar
for energy because if they went starving for 3 hours, we don't wanna have a brown rice
and chicken meal cause it's gonna be too slow to digest, we want that fast acting sugar
to give us a sugar rush to be able to hit our workout really hard. Let me look at the
book, I wanna get back to the book and discuss these options in here. I have no skin! Ah!
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: The stretching. We're gonna
talk about stretching quickly. It's fine if you have cramp and you're like, "Oh I need
to stretch" or before you do that exercise you can lightly engage in a stretch. Do not
over do it. Your body is like an elastic band, if you overstretch that you're not gonna be
able to get a proper contraction in your workouts. And what this book promotes is a proper stretch
and a proper contraction which you always have to have with every single rep, every
single set. If you don't, then you're not changing the shape of your body. So make sure
you stretch. If you're stretching aggressively it's after your workout. Now women, the exception
is if you wear high heels, but there's no dress code of high heels here right? No, we're
pretty laid back? [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Well, if you do wear high heels often you wanna stretch out those calves
before you begin any kind of cardio program, okay? Warm ups, always warm up the body, what
you wanna do is send blood flow to the body, that's gonna help you prevent injury, that's
why we warm up for anywhere from five minutes to 20 minutes prior to any kind of weight
resistance but you always wanna combine both of them. Yes?
>>Male #6: So you have a note here that the best form of cardio is running the stairs
>>Craig Ramsay: Yes.
>>Male #6: If you could compare those to elliptical
>>Craig Ramsay: Oh gosh, I'm gonna get in trouble again.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Christy might know what I'm
talking about. I have to say my opinion with this and it's the correct one, remember we
talked about that? [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: But the elliptical machine is absolutely useless unless you have a knee
or an ankle or a lower back injury. The reason is I go into a gym and I look at these people
that will, and I'm not judging them, please don't think that it's a judgment, but if you
gravitate towards the elliptical machine it means one of two things, either you're injured
and you know what you're doing or you don't know what you're doing, you're insecure and
you jump on the elliptical machine for 40 minutes and call it a day because it's the
easiest machine to get started and it's the easiest machine to do. So you're choosing
the easiest machine in a gym which is gonna give you the least results, but guess what?
You're there and you're putting the time in anyways you may as well go crazy on it and
go for what's going to challenge you the most cause that's gonna change your body the most.
An elliptical machine takes the weight off of the legs and the whole idea and point of
cardio, proper cardio program, is utilizing the weight you have. Like for instance Kevin,
his weight loss journey, lugging around extra weight when you need to get rid of it, that's
hard to do. It's equivalent to me giving one of you skinny fit people a 45 pound plate
and hold onto it and do the same cardio. You're gonna be exhausted. That's what an obese person
feels like. But you put them on a stairs and their going, lugging it around it's gonna
be a much harder workout with incredible, quicker results if you attack the stairs.
Stairs, treadmill incline, if you feel like you're having a lazy day go on the steepest
incline possible and try not to hold on, only 10 seconds of every minute hold on, otherwise
just dig your heels down and climb that mountain. It's gonna do you a world of good. Do not
take the easy route. Always challenge yourself. Does that answer it?
>>Male #6: Yep.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah?
>>Male #7: Related to that you were talking about interval training with weights. What
would you recommend for interval training with, say, running? Pumping up the feet?
>>Craig Ramsay: For the cardio? Yeah, what you wanna find is the amount of time that
it takes to really elevate your heart rate. So I'm guessing for you it'd be like a 30
second sprint. So say you're just on a treadmill, do you run? Are you okay with running? Knees
good, all that? Okay, well let's use first treadmill as an example. So treadmill and
this is in the book as well it'll talk about it, you know the treadmill with handles on
the side? So we start with a two minute just easy walk and then we bump it up to a fast
speed that's gonna really elevate your heart rate. So I'm guessing like 6. 5, 7.0 for you,
so you're running for 30 seconds, you find the sides and you hop off carefully. And that
hop off is forcing you to catch your breath which is lowering your heart rate. So you
calm yourself down. Don't get wrapped up in the analyze, women analyze everything in life
too. I'm a huge feminist so don't worry I'm not attacking any of you but what you do is
you analyze the situation, you go in your body and you make yourself miserable. And
what you need to do is separate that, think about other things, trust the technique you
have because you're studying my book and then, then you can get through that program without
over analyzing. Over analyzing will exhaust you. And then you grab onto the sides and
you hop back on for 30 seconds and then you do it again. You repeat. That's a perfect
way of interval training. If 7.0 isn't giving your heart enough of a challenge, the heart
rate, then you have to bump it up, bump it up, bump it up, bump it up all the way to
12 speed.
>>Male #7: Do you recommend waiting a length of time for the heart rate to go down or does
it lower right away?
>>Craig Ramsay: I'm guessing for you that it would take 30 seconds after hopping off
to catch your breath. If it takes longer then I think those intervals are too aggressive,
then you need to lower the speed. So raise it up and lower it down and monitor it and
you can control your heart rate to lower. If you relax the jaw slightly when you're
working out, and it talks about this in every single exercise of the book, always have that
space in the jaw which is gonna allow you to relax the back of the neck, which is gonna
allow you to breath properly. The majority of people in the gym don't know how to breath,
believe or not, and we don't wanna seem vulnerable and out of breath so we hide it, right? If
you're forced to breath properly and your diaphragm to work, if you relax that jaw it's
gonna actually lower your heart rate quicker. So it's a trick of the trade. 150 dollars
please, that's my consultation. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: fee. Any other questions? I like questions. Also, if you relax the jaw
and the diaphragms working properly it's gonna take the tension out of the neck. You know
how women, you're always saying, "Oh, I don't wanna build big traps, my neck muscles." All
that? It'll be out of the equation if you do that and then it will relax the shoulders
which will protect the rotator cli, uh, rotator
>>audience member: Cuff.
>>Craig Ramsay: Cuff, thank you and it will also allow your diaphragm to work so you'll
be able to sing some great notes [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: like that while you're working out.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Any other questions?
>>Presenter: Now everyone's shy.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah, don't be shy.
>>Presenter: Oh, here we go.
>>female #3: So, um, about routine.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah.
>>female #3: How often should you change your routine cause there's always these talks about
muscle confusion.
>>Craig Ramsay: Of course, yeah, when you become familiar with it which usually takes
6 to 8 weeks when it becomes boring. Usually women get bored with programs sooner than
guys cause women are more capable of processing those things and perfecting them quicker.
No offense guys. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Just saying it like it is, I'm one of ya, sorta.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: So with you you're gonna need
to change every 6 to 8 weeks. And what you always wanna do is make sure you're still
combining a cardio and a resistance program. If it's only cardio you will get in a routine
as a woman to only burn calories from that day and not change the shape of your body.
If you're a woman that thinks, "Oh I'm just gonna do cardio" you're only burning calories
from the day. You are not changing your physique. And it's all about the ego people. There's
not one person that comes to me and if they are they're lying if they say, "I'm really
concerned about my health and I really would like to breath better and have balance and
all that." I know, it's, am I allowed to say bullshit?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: It's bullshit. It's all about
the ego. You wanna look better and then that will change and improve your life and, of
course, your health. Just being honest. Any other questions?
>>Female #4: Sorry this is a question, other sort of cardio interval routines you can do
not just on the treadmill but maybe some of the other machines.
>>Craig Ramsay: Absolutely. One of my favorite cardio weight training combination exercises
is on a stationary bike, combining dumbbell training with the bike. So if you only have
20 minutes, 30 minutes, this is the perfect form of cardio interval training for all of
you in this room. Stationary bike, dumbbells and a routine of 30 second intervals, you're
gonna do shoulder presses 30 seconds, shoulder front raises 30 seconds, side push outs 30
seconds, bicep curl 30 seconds, triceps behind the head 30 seconds and then you rest for
a minute. That's your rest, that's lowering your heart rate and then you go back into
it. That routine in combination will shred your body. Absolutely shred your body and
pack on upper body mass for guys because we do have the ability to raise testosterone
levels in our body, unlike women, so we can build our upper body. Women, you don't have
to worry about that. When the man does a bike in the high resistance and we're talking for
women it's anywhere from 8 to level, 8 to level 10, for men it's 12 to 20. If you're
doing resistance training with the legs and cardio with a really high resistance you're
bumping up your natural testosterone. Testosterone is what makes our body composition. It's gonna
tell us how big and how cut and how much fat we're gonna be able to lose so you wanna give
yourself a fighting chance by raising those testosterone levels. So that, again, goes
back to our cardio, why choose elliptical when you can work the leg muscles and actually
raise your natural testosterone levels with stairs or with the bike on heavy resistance?
Same thing with weight training, guys you always wanna do legs once a week even though
we dread them. The reason why we dread them is cause we have that testosterone rush which
makes us have that fight or flight. So it's panicky where you're like this and that's
relaxing the jaw, calming yourself down and focusing and removing yourself from the body
to be able to get through the program. Then any body part that is deficient for guys that
you're like, "Oh, I have small shoulders" well then on the shoulder day you always incorporate
a leg exercise to the extreme, that's raising your testosterone levels which are gonna enable
that underdeveloped body part to build. Another 150 dollars please.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: That's a really good tip and
it's in the book [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: "The Anatomy of Muscle Building"
>>Male #8: So I actually have a quick question. So on a leg day, would you still do cardio
on that day? What would you suggest?
>>Craig Ramsay: Really, really good question. You only, I only advise a warm up of like
6 minutes or so just to get the blood flowing to the body and no cardio on that day. Doing
legs is such a cardio experience anyway with the elevation of your heart rate going up
and down and up and down that it's not worth it. It's over training and you're not taking
in enough calories to justify that kind of workout.
>>female #4: Just for men? Or women and men?
>>Craig Ramsay: For men it's also, yeah it would be for women and men but for men it's
also a testosterone thing, they're gonna collapse. They're not gonna have enough, what's called,
creatine and ATP levels in their body. They don't have enough so they're actually gonna
fall down. A woman is never gonna fall down, by the way. This is my difference with training
men and women, men will inform me of when they're exhausted and when they're gonna collapse,
a woman will go until her bicep rips. And then all she'll do is go, "Oh, I'm kind hurt
a little bit. Do you think I should be concerned?" And her like bicep's down here.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: So that's just the difference
between men and women. Women aren't taking in enough calories to justify that kind of
workout. If you're spending too much time in the gym it's useless. You need to really
focus and do it to intensity and you make sure you eat before and after. Another eating
tip, especially for men, men that body build you wanna eat a white starchy carb before
your workout and afterwards for energy. That's okay, we work out hard to indulge in life.
So all this crap, and I can say bullshit, so the bullshit of not having white potatoes
and not having pizza and all that stuff, it's not true, your workouts just have to be intense
like in "The Anatomy of Muscle Building" that justify that and utilize it. That's what we
wanna do; we wanna work out hard to utilize that. Yes?
>>Male #9: Does it matter what time of day you work out? Whether it's before breakfast
or dinner or whatever?
>>Craig Ramsay: Never before breakfast because it's actually only, okay let's explain it
this way, you never get in a car without having proper gas in it, right? So your body, if
it's not fueled, what is it running on? It's not running on calories, it's not running
on food intake, so what happens to our bodies? Is anyone under 23 years old here? No? Great,
so everyone 23 and older, what happens to our body is we tap into muscle. Unfortunately
we don't tap into fat when we work out on empty stomach. We're too old everyone. I hate
to break it to ya, I'm with you though. We're too old to do that nonsense so we eat away
at our muscle mass that we're trying to put on and we convert it into fat. That's a good
way of thinking about it, smaller here, bigger here. You need food to work out properly.
So what was the exact question again?
>>Male #9: What time of day is best?
>>Craig Ramsay: What time of day. When you're eating properly you wanna make sure you have
enough calories in your system, and I'm not saying eat a buffet before you work out because
if you're new to the gym that will make you nauseous, definitely. So at least an hour
or two before your workout is fine and a healthy meal of maybe 500 calories for guys, 300 calories
for women, around that range and whenever you're gonna have the most energy. Everyone
is so different. Or with the demands of work, if you can't work out until the evening well
then that's your workout. And if that's the case then we're gonna adjust your carbs and
we're gonna make sure that you still surround yourself with carbs so you have proper energy
to work out. If it's in the morning after your breakfast, great, if it's twice in day
like here we talked about, if you could do half hour or 20 minutes of cardio and then
quickly change and go, is that same fit guy or another fit guy?
>>audience: Same fit guy.
>>Craig Ramsay: He's just going, yeah, he's going in circles.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Good observation. He's part
of the running group isn't he? [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Just around the block. So, yeah, cardio broken up and then you go back
and you do your heavy weight lifting. Ideal, incredible, if you guys could do that, wow,
I told you I'm signing up to Google. Can you get me an application, Mike, afterwards? Thank
you. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: I don't know if you'll have me but
[Laughs] >>Craig Ramsay: After this
[Laughs] >>Craig Ramsay: we'll see. Any other questions?
Do you guys have fitness groups here? Yep?
>>Male #10: So you mentioned you were a contortionist
>>Craig Ramsay: Do you want me to prove it? [Laughter]
>>Male #10: No, that's alright, I believe you.
>>Craig Ramsay: My next book is a stretching book that comes out May 15th and it's the
first time ever that I actually get to show that off. So I'll see you back after May 15th
and we'll do that. [Laughter]
>>Male #10: Sounds good, I was actually wondering what part that plays in, you mentioned don't
stretch a lot before you work out, but I wondered what part being flexible plays in actually
not getting injured kind of in general.
>>Craig Ramsay: Absolutely you have to have a flexible body but you have to know when
to properly stretch those muscles. As I said, working out with weights and cardio is a contraction.
If you elongate that muscle too much you're gonna be flopping all around. And I trained
a lot of Broadway shows, I did a hand full of Broadway and I was the go to guy in Broadway
and let me tell you, every single dancer I have I have to change their mind frame, their
mind of thinking. You know how we talked about elliptical; people gravitate toward ellipticals
for 40 minutes? Dancers gravitate just toward just holding their leg straight up and stretching,
overdoing it because that's their insecurity. They don't know what they're doing so they're
gonna stretch cause they know they do it well and they're gonna get a date out of it as
well, right? [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: It depends on what gym but, so, with you, you still have to obtain a flexible
body. If you work out to intensity and you don't have time to at work here and stretch
there, then even at the office, in my next book and I think there's a couple of stretches
in here but, again, we don't wanna look like a jackass at the workplace and have our leg
up in our cubicle, what we wanna do is very discrete private stretches which can be done
from the comforts of your own chair. Which will be in the next book which I'll definitely
talk about when we return, absolutely, and if you have a hard workout, in a hot bath
where you're raising your body temperature, ideal way of stretching over your legs and
being able to break up that acid that makes your hamstrings really tight. After the workout,
yeah, always, always, always, please. Any other questions? Yes, Sir?
>>Male #11: So I came in late so just tell me if I missed this question but I noticed
when stretching with a trainer my leg can go so far back but if I just relax and let
them push instead of a pulsating motion it keeps going farther and farther back but if
I myself am trying to do it it's a very limited motion. And it was mentioned that that was
mainly just a frame of mind thing that the muscle is actually capable of tremendous kind
of relaxation when it's relaxed. What's your thoughts on the matter?
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay, that's a PNF stretch. So that's an assisted stretch that he's doing,
correct, with you?
>>Male #11: Yeah.
>>Craig Ramsay: It's a different form of stretching; you need to do all types of stretching. There's
static, there's dynamic and there's a PNF stretch which is where a trainer will assist
you and he'll even ask you for, um, to resist him then he'll take you a little further,
that's just a different form of stretching which you can do on your own with a towel.
So one of those hand towels, if you're on your back and your leg is extended up, you
can do the exact same thing holding the towel underneath your leg and then pushing against
it for a good 10 seconds and then releasing it for another 20 to 30 seconds and that will
take the range of movement further which is a great form of stretching but it should be
usually advised or with someone that's a professional or a friend utilizing my next book "The Anatomy
of Stretching" on May 15th [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: which will guide you through that.
>>Male #11: Does that cross over, does that help for other kinds of range of motion where
you are physically moving your leg or is that independent?
>>Craig Ramsay: Oh yes, your intimacy in the evening, is that what you're talking about?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Or am I going to a place that's
inappropriate at Google? [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: It helps in all forms of your life to have a flexible body, yeah. It helps
with your relationships [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: It helps with your daily life; sitting in a chair, repetitive movements,
having a flexible body is such a necessity. And your lower back, you know your problem
areas and we forget to move and to make our bodies feel good. So taking a 15 second stretch
break is gonna make all the difference with, even with your, your blood flow, your circulation.
Standing up and giving a stretch where needed. If you hold your body correctly, that this
book really addresses, then you will have less injury and less tightness in your muscles.
Any other questions? Yes? [Audience member mumbles]
>>Craig Ramsay: Oh, Mike has the mic. [Laughs]
>>Male #12: So most of the exercises
>>Craig Ramsay: I thought that joke, I'm sorry; I thought that joke would've gone over better
with you guys at Google. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Mike with the mic. [Laughter]
>>Male #12: It took me a second.
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay. [Laughs]
>>Male #12: So most of the exercises in here are actually using free weights, what's your
thoughts on sort of like belt or cable driven machines?
>>Craig Ramsay: You guys have cable machines correct? They're incredible, they're great.
I think that the dumbbells and barbells are a really good way to start and to gain your
stability. They help with stability and your technique before you move to cables because
cables can help you cheat a little bit more by range of movement. But, all exercise is
great and there's not one way, like I'm not judging weights and cables as much as I'm
judging the cardio, still a good question. But if it's done properly, the cable machines
are fantastic. And machines in general are really good to do but no one program is advised
or should be advised and, like you said, we need to mix it up and we need to change it
up. So I'll take my clients through working a set of dumbbells and then they'll do a barbell
press and then we'll do cable machines and then we'll do seated, guided smith machines,
things like that. Yeah, utilize everything that you have. If this is what you have here
don't judge it just do it, if that makes sense. If you don't have anything and you're at home
you can get, ah, my ultimate perfect workout DVD.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: which I'm the perfect push
up demonstrator guy so, now it's at Costco and stuff like that. My DVD's there utilize
the proper push up. If you even do pushups in the correct form, you're working all of
these secondary muscles more that what most people do as primary muscles in the gym. Meaning,
if you have proper form, your whole body's gonna be built from that pushup. Any other
questions? [Pause]
>>Craig Ramsay: I have a question. Can I get a Google shirt after this?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: I really like them.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: I want the gay one though,
with the rainbow flag that's there. [Laughter]
>>audience member: That's just the regular one.
>>Craig Ramsay: Oh, it is? [Laughter]
[Claps] >>Craig Ramsay: Yay! Google!
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Good Company. Yeah, this is
the it gets better campaign for Google. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: That's what I need. I'll do a PSA for Google. Great.
>>Presenter: I think that's
>>Male #13: We could get you a Google circle shirt. They have these white shirts with different
colored circles.
>>Craig Ramsay: Well I love that. I'm Canadian so we love our free shit so keep it coming,
that's great thank you. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: I'm gonna eat buffet snacks after this, trust me.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: You'll be missing oatmeal
for a week. [Laughter]
>>Male #14: So I have another question about nutrition.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah.
>>Male #14: What should you eat to gain or not to lose weight? Whenever I eat healthy
I have too few calories at the end of the day and I'm losing weight and at the same
time I don't wanna eat, like, that my blood sugar spikes too much.
>>Craig Ramsay: Right, of course, so glycemic index, have you heard of that?
>>Male #14: Yeah.
>>Craig Ramsay: Yeah. So Google those and make sure that you're eating the most appropriate
calorie consuming foods possible. That will help you in losing weight if someone's goal
is to lose weight, if your goal is to gain weight what you're improperly doing, if you're
not seeing results and you're eating a lot, is your workouts aren't intense enough and
you're not lifting heavy enough. A guy has got to lift heavy in order to pack on muscle
mass cause you're ripping the muscle, right? You're ripping the fibers and then you're
healing them with your food. So if you're not ripping them properly with the proper
stretch and a contraction with every single movement then we're not changing the shape
of the muscle and we have to fill that, uh, the damage that we do with proper eating so
you have to make sure that you're not having breaks in your day and you have to eat every
three hours. Think of it as meal, snack, meal, snack, meal, snack, like you can do this,
please don't get in the habit of thinking that a protein shake or a protein bar is a
meal, right Kevin?
>>Kevin: Right.
>>Craig Ramsay: Kevin just buried his head. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: His food log with often have, "Oh I had a Myoplex shake for dinner" and
I'm like, "It's not a meal, that's a snack!" There's not enough healthy material in that
food to process things out of your body. It's gonna get stuck, you need to have foods, you
need to have fiber, you need to have salad. Is that answering your question? Yeah? Ask
me something more specific with it. Like for you, that pertains to you. Ask me something
like what; just ask me something that's more specific.
>>Male #14: Well, I mean, like in general I'm trying to, like I'm cutting out white
rice, potatoes and more bread to prevent that my blood sugar spikes too much and then I'm
losing
>>Craig Ramsay: Do you have a problem with that?
>>Male #14: Yeah.
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay. That's fine.
>>Male #14: Yeah, so I've just been like losing weight and weight like constantly.
>>Craig Ramsay: So more protein sources. Your protein levels, do you know how much protein
you're having per meal? Have you broken that down?
>>Male #14: No.
>>Craig Ramsay: No? Start paying attention to that.
>>Male #14: But I mainly, by now, I'm eating like meats with vegetables all the time.
>>Craig Ramsay: Okay, I mean, that's great and you will lose muscle mass if you're not
having a proper carb intake but if that's a medical issue then you need to address that
before you need to address your physique, if that makes sense. I would get that on track
and then you can sustain your muscle mass with more protein, more proper proteins, so
just more often, every two hours. You're not eating every two hours, correct?
>>Male #14: No.
>>Craig Ramsay: Right, so if you have
>>Male #14: Sometimes I'm skipping meals
>>Craig Ramsay: See, that's what's gonna do it to you. You're gonna lose weight. Even
if you work out hard and you don't eat properly, it's not gonna change the shape of your body.
Food has to be a given. You know how people say you should start with food or food has
to be included? No, food is a given. It's like talent on Broadway, talents a given.
It's, then it's the other things that are important. So the same thing with you, every
two hours you're gonna have to have protein sources. Hard boiled eggs here, grab hard
boiled eggs every two hours, just start feeding into that. It gets boring but try and separate
yourself with that relationship with food and that 10 days, that's where I want you
to go shit crazy on it without any carb, obviously. So have those options, okay?
>>Male #15: You're much too young to have this concern but have you noticed any change
of how you metabolize and build and maintain muscle as you get older?
>>Craig Ramsay: The majority of my clients are 40 plus and the best results that I've
had with clients are heading into their 50s or their 50s. How old are you?
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Is that a,
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: Write it down on a piece of
paper.
>>Male #15: Old enough to know better. [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: So, the body changes, the workouts have to change as you go into a different
phase. A lot of guys go back to old school, what worked for them in their twenties, the
same as women always judge themselves with how they looked in high school, "Oh but I
was this weight in high school and I fit into this." You can't do it. Your body has been
around and been lugging itself around and climbing up stairs. Your muscle density is
different so you're never ever gonna weigh that same but your physique can be the same
cause muscle will condense and look tighter. So for guys, we have that mentality of working
out the same way we did back in the day and you can't. As soon as you hit a point about
45, 50, I find, this is a stereotype, but it exists enough that I can recommend that
you change it to a burn program. We have pumps and we have burns and what I mean by that
is, say in this, "Anatomy of Muscle Building" it will say okay you're doing 12 heavy sets,
no, for you it's gonna be a minute, how many can we get in a minute by lowering the weight?
So you're doing rows like this and it's more of a pumping rather than when you go through
the motion, when you body build, pump, pump, your heart rate is elevated for the whole
duration of the exercise. Remember how I talked about intervals, cardios great for you guys?
Not the same for someone that is heading into that age bracket, what we wanna do is your
workouts, heart rate elevated the whole time which means you have to work out like you're
23. You've gotta kill it. Right Kevin? [Laughter]
>>Craig Ramsay: Kevin how old are you?
>>Kevin: 48
>>Craig Ramsay: 48 and he changed his life around this last year. Completely, he looked
like his father before and now he looks like his own son, like it's incredible.
[Laughter] >>Craig Ramsay: You look great.
>>Kevin: I'd like to add, um, I was never ever an athlete at all and I'm probably more
fit than I ever was in my entire life.
>>Male #14: Is that mainly the diet or exercise.
>>Craig Ramsay: Has to be, the diet has to be a given, has to be a given. And, especially
my online training, it outlines that but what Kevin's talking about with his workouts is
even the other day when I had him in, uh, in training, his workouts have to be as intense
in his body as the fitness professionals. There's too much babysitting by trainers.
Trainers don't like me for saying this stuff but it's true and this is why I wrote this
book is, this is your trainer, now your motivator is you. And that energy has got to be there,
you have to work out like the trainers work out for themselves. All day long I see trainers
that are training their clients and doing functional training. Do you know what that
means, functional training? It just means like improving their daily life for their
work, for their work, for their sports, whatever it is and I say bullshit. I say what you need
to do is work out for a physique that's cover, Men's Health cover worthy. And if you have
that intensity into it, change happens. So your work outs have to be intense. Don't kill
yourself. I'm not trying to say that but it has to be the proper program. And that's in
this book.
>>Presenter: Alright, well, it's 2 o'clock so I think this is over. Craig will be around
to talk, I think, afterwards so thank you for coming in.
>>Craig Ramsay: Thank you guys. Thank you so much.
[Applause]