The Exact Step-By-Step System I Run All My Clients Through To Get In Beach Ready Condition In Under 12 Weeks – FREE

Hi, my name is Raymond Burton and this is a series of fitness articles, videos and podcasts on how to get in beach ready condition in under 12 weeks if you need to lose weight quickly or gain back lost muscle – starting from scratch.

I’m working out at home (Basement Barbarian Style) even though everything I show here can be done at the gym. I personally work out at my home here in Calgary (Alberta, Canada) and want to show you how to overcome any obstacles from my personal experience.

I’ve also found that working out at home increases your odds of success by a ton. I’ll get into that later.

Need some more help immediately? Stop sweating and struggling to lose fat and build muscle

Are any of these problems keeping you from looking and feeling your best?

– How to do Cardio Correctly… (or do you even need it at all?)
– Weight Training or Resistance Exercise Tips…
– Proper Diet and Nutrition Information to Lose Weight Quickly…
– Motivation and Sticking to The Plan…
– Rebound Weight Gain…
– Hunger and Binging on Sweet or Salty Foods…
– Keeping Your Momentum Going Long Enough To See The Results You Deserve…

You can always contact me for online training – book a free 30 minute consult here to see if I can help you.

You can also get everything in this online guide in a Kindle book immediately for $10: Click Here.

To see the direct links to the different sections of this guide, scroll to the end of this article and you’ll see them listed.

I’m here to help,

– Raymond Burton

Let’s Get Started!

When I stopped being a full time personal trainer, keeping in shape became more of a challenge. The real world takes up a lot of time. It’s the same with high school or university athletes, parents, working overtime and manual labour jobs. Things get harder when being strong, muscular and lean are not part of your job like it is for personal trainers.

So now that I know what it’s like to be in the REAL WORLD and struggle to get in shape, I’m posting articles, resources and related videos for more depth and to answer specific reader questions as they come in to me:

This Youtube video for example : Answers to “What are sets and reps?”

Lots of tips and answers for subscribers on how to start working out in the monthly free newsletter as well. You can sign up for that at the end of this article and download this full guide in one shot.

I’ve also put a helpful podcast with lots of answers on how to start working out at home on itunes.

If you don’t find answers to the fitness questions you have, just fire me an email and I’ll answer it in the newsletter.

How To Start Working Out: Step 1

Thoughts lead to feelings, causing actions that create your results.

Change is hard. Let me set the record straight right here right now. You absolutely have the ability to improve your fitness and health.

If you are human then you can get in shape, lose weight, build muscle or whatever. But it will take work. Read that again. If you are human, you can get in shape.

I only say this because some people believe they are born a certain way and cannot improve. “It’s genetics,” they say. Genetics do matter. But effort, consistency and focus matter a whole lot more.

If you continue to believe that you are destined to skinny or fat, then you will fight with your inner self to be anything better. In essence if you change and stop feeling lazy, weak willed or skinny etc., you will lose your old identity. The “body image” has a way of wanting to self-preserve. It will fight you.

This is why change is hard. This is why starting a new lifestyle will be a challenge. You must recreate yourself and become stronger than before…. lose your old self and create a better you. Step up and become involved with life. No more standing on the sidelines.

Fight that “soft and weak” ego voice that wants to keep you down. Other people (even family who are often the cause of your personal pain) will get in the way. Obstacles and challenges will arise.

Getting In Shape Is About Adapting To, And Overcoming Challenges

ALWAYS.

This is about lifting yourself to the next level.

If you want to change, you can get in shape if you put in the work. If you have trouble making it happen, it’s one of two things; medical, or motivational.

One of the things people don’t get is that getting in shape is like balancing your bank account. Deposit more calories than you withdraw and your bank account grows. If you stay comfortable and keep that bank account balanced… you’ll stay at the same weight.

But eating properly takes discipline and discipline is hard work. This is where many people don’t push through and control their minds and bodies for the desired result.

Shortly, I will show you how to start working out with a progression that a raw beginner would be best to follow to get muscular, strong and lean. This is a routine that I have found to work for a lot of people of all ages that have come through the different clubs. It works around the idea that you should walk and then run!

Lets get started by answering some basic questions before you head off to the gym!

How To Start Working Out – THE BIG QUESTIONS

Which muscles where?

In the beginning, sometimes you don’t know which muscles are supposed to do what! Well for that matter, even where they are. You hear the fit folks saying, “Man did those bench presses ever blast my pecs!”

But the problem for many is that you don’t have a clue what a pec is except that chickens do it when they are hungry!

So instead of giving you the scientific name like pectoralis major (chest), I’m going to explain things like you would hear it in the gym or in the muscle magazines. No more mystery…

I’ve done my best here to cover all the angles and answer all the questions I’ve heard over the years. However, there is always something that needs clarification. I’m only an email away, and it’s free.

There are also videos of all the exercises on the website on the Raymond Burton Youtube channel.

You will find demonstrations of everything there for you and if you can not see it, again, please just contact me through the link above and I’d be happy to point the way.

How do I know its safe to workout?

I think the real question is “How safe is it for you not to workout?” Did you know that obesity has just replaced smoking as the number one cause of health related problems? That’s incredible! Sorry to say, but that means North Americans are a bunch of overweight, inactive people! Back in the day when people milked cows and planted their own food you would never hear of something like this. Our desk jobs are killing us! We are not physically tired at the end of the day and we are mentally worn out.

Lets look at some of the real concerns you should tend to before working out.

It’s important to see your doctor and get a checkup. Make sure you get a blood pressure test and a blood test. Have your heart condition checked and make sure all the other stuff is done and o.k. Some people mistakenly hold back serious effort in the gym for too long because they are afraid something may be wrong with them.

You should get a check up and receive a clean bill of health because that’s one more excuse gone!

Next, your trainer will need to know about past and current injuries to know how to design your routine. If you are going to do it on your own, you will be able to do some research as to which exercises are the safest and most beneficial for you and what you should avoid.

Medications – A large part of working out these days involves sports supplements. It’s a good thing to know if any medications you’re on because they can interact adversely with these supplements. I.E. Blood pressure meds mixed with ephedrine and caffeine is not a good idea!

There is also a form called the PAR-Q (physical activity readiness questionnaire). It covers most questions that should be addressed before starting an exercise program. Most gyms stock these forms for liability reasons and it shouldn’t be hard to get a hold of one.

Last point; if you are just starting out and have a lot of questions about exercise and your health, you can do Online Personal Training with me. It is the most sure fire way to make sure that you are doing everything correctly using video and email.

Next, we’ll talk about how to choose a gym if that’s where you want to workout, but also, how to start working out at home. There’s lots more info than just that but that’s what’s next in order of writing.

How To Start Working Out For The First Time – Priorities

how to start working out for the first timeWhen people ask me how to start working out for the first time, I know it’s because people get overwhelmed in the details. I get that, because while I don’t have a problem with fitness, I do have a problem with business. I crashed and burned my gym business at one point in time, even though everything was going well, and then I got overwhelmed and I didn’t know what to do.

So to answer the question about how to start working out for the first time, I must tell you how to prioritize. This means, what is the 80/20 of it. What 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the effort.

When I see someone has a problem with one thing, I try to relate it. You have a problem with this. I had a problem with that. What’s the overriding principle that helps people cut through the crap on a variety of subjects. It’s focusing on big ideas. So fitness I do not have a problem with, so I’ll help you with that. You got to take the biggest thing, and I think one of the biggest things, right at the top, is so simple that you don’t even have to actually do anything, and that’s sleep.

How To Begin Working Out For The First Time: Step 1

First, forget about cutting out your junk foods or anything like that, or getting started right away on an exercise plan. Why don’t you first make sure that you’re not stressed out and that you’re getting proper sleep, because your body can’t function without that. So that’d be a number one sort of thing.

Personally, my mobility work is bad. So I know mobility work is the number one thing I have to get done every day, even if I don’t get a workout in. I have to get in the squat position, and I have to do some twisting and moving because for me, a priority is to not hurt so that I’ll want to work out. Doing something like this every day, if I at least get that accomplished, I know I’m moving long-term to where I want to be.

Now for you, perhaps your first thing is to get some sleep. If you’re getting only five to six hours of sleep, fix that before you move onto eliminating chocolate bars. None of your body systems are working properly if you are sleep deprived. This makes you unmotivated to work out.

How To Begin Working Out For The First Time: Step 2

After sleep, I would move on to diet and eliminate the biggest dietary problem for you. For skinny people it’s not eating enough. When you need to lose fat, the problem is saturated fats, too much food and simple sugars. These areas are confusing for people. “What foods have saturated fats? Can I eat carbs? What is the difference between carbs and sugars? How much food is ENOUGH?”

It’s easy. Start cutting back on anything that comes in a wrapper. This eliminates things like chips, pop, chocolate bars, pre-packaged meals, all those sorts of things. You know that those foods aren’t the sort of things you want to be steering towards. So learn how to make one good thing that doesn’t come in a wrapper, and put that in your pocket and use that, build on that.

So you have two big steps here. That is get a good amount of sleep, and that can be whatever for you, because some people work better on different amounts. Generally speaking, eight hours. Not always practical. So me personally, it’s between six and eight. Eight on the weekends maybe, if I’m lucky, and usually six during the week. I think seven is great. So put that in your pocket, that’s the sleep factor. That makes sure everything works right.

Next, slowly get rid of your packaged foods. You know, if it tastes really good, and it’s salty or it’s sweet, it probably shouldn’t be in there. Those are the two big cornerstones.

For skinny people there is more wiggle room on treats. They can get your calorie count up but they aren’t healthy. So garbage calories can help you get bigger but long term, bad things can happen – like diabetes.

How To Begin Working Out For The First Time: Step 3

After sleep and junk food, you’re looking at exercise. So just top tier stuff here all the way across.

The thing with exercise is there’s this mentality that you have to go hard, and you need to have these crushing workouts and all that.

My belief is to get rid of the things that cause the aches and pains in your body. They are signals that something is out of balance. So if you have knee pain, you’re not going to feel like doing cardio or all the big exercises like squats and deadlifts if you’re a lower deadlifter, and lunges. All these big exercises that are really productive. But you’re not going to want to do any of that if it causes you pain every time.

So for someone like that, you step back and you go, “Well, how do I start to get rid of this knee pain?” Diet, hydration, and regular movement fixes a lot of bodily problems. So something simple like yoga, very easy. Don’t go for a super fast flow or anything like that. Find a very easy yoga class, or even get yourself a DVD. I have several I could tell you about, I just don’t have them in front of me. But you can watch them anywhere, you can even download them to your laptop, take them with you or put them on your phone so that you can get them anywhere.

If your body is young and working well, then we have no problems going after the big compound exercises. Older skinny guys have to tackle things a little differently.

A rested, well fed, pain free body craves physical activity. You’ll naturally feel like taking a short 20 foot jog. Your walking pace will pick up, you’ll want to do some cardio, you’ll want to start experimenting with the weight training and those kinds of things.

Conclusion Of Part 1

So you need to get into it, like a rolling effect. Keep gathering momentum, don’t try to do it all at once. Don’t worry when you see fitness experts and stuff flashing their abs and telling you to make these cataclysmic changes to your lifestyle. You don’t need to do that. You’re going to be here until the day you die, so there’s really no rush.

Just keep chinking away at it and you’ll see the habits start to build on each other. It’ll make the process enjoyable as opposed to something that you jump into like cold water, and you get the shock and you want to get out as quick as possible. Slowly turn that dial until it becomes something that you’re comfortable with and you’ll want to do every day because the feedback you get from it.

When that starts to happen, when your body moves the way you want it to, and when you feel good, and you’re using the bathroom regularly and all those sorts of things, when that starts happening you’re going to want to keep doing the right things because the feedback you’re getting from it is worth so much more than any sort of discipline that you have to show to get it.

So sleep, start eliminating the packaged foods, and start moving with something you enjoy. Moving can be walking, yoga or whatever. Progressively get your joints and everything working better and feeling better so that you feel good, and you’ll slowly start to ramp up out of choice and not out of wicked amounts of self-discipline and willpower.

SELF-DISCIPLINE AND FITNESS MOTIVATION WILL FAIL YOU IF YOU DON’T START SEEING RESULTS.

So that’s our initial goal – get you seeing tangible results from minimal effort.

Continue Reading Part 2 Of How To Start Working Out