“After competing for 15 years, culminating in 2 Ms. Olympia competitions and the first ever Ms. Fitness Olympia in 1995, I have ended up in Tennessee. I spend my days training, hiking, biking and trail running in the Smoky Mountain National Park. Of course this is when I’m not running a busy household with 4 kids and a hotttt husband. The past several years I have competed in sprint triathlons and ran the Disney marathon (the last marathon I will ever run…my body looked smooth and mushy after that chronic cardio, a lesson learned!).

I still weight train the way I did for bodybuilding competitions. At 51 my bodyfat is 11% (using the Parrillo 9 point caliper calculation), year round. For cardio I do 2 (20 minute), interval workouts each week (run stairs, sprints, stationary bike), plus I do long and slow cardio such as hiking, biking, etc. a few times a week, if I feel like it.

I am attending Duke University to become an Integrative Health Coach. Along with my BS in Food Science and Nutrition and personal training certification I offer a triad of services to my clients. I can be reached at HealthCoachPenny.com.

My motto:  ‘Always we can begin again’.”

Mass building and attaining an acceptable muscle-to-fat ratio: There is a lot of danger in attempting to construct new muscle, lean muscle, muscle not marbled with an unacceptable amount of body fat. What is the sense in gaining 20 pounds of scale weight if 12 out of 20 pounds weight gain is body fat? The Parrillo approach to mass building is based upon combining power-style weight training with high caloric intake. Intense weight training is a prerequisite: don’t even consider going on a mass building program if you are not prepared to train at 110% of capacity in every single session: train like a berserker in the weight room and perform copious cardio. The primary mistake mass-builders make is dropping cardio under the mistaken assumption that continuing cardio interferes with the muscle building procedure. Now that is one handy rationalization. “Aerobics tear down muscle tissue!” This convenient muscle myth is complete bunk: in fact the opposite is true: cardio builds endurance, allowing for longer and frequent cardio and weight training sessions; cardio keeps the appetite kicking and intense, Parrillo-style cardio accelerates the metabolism. An accelerated metabolism is the opposite of a sluggish metabolism. An accelerated metabolism enables the mass builder to make sure weight gain is lean muscle. The goal is a high muscle-to-fat ratio. This occurs when the mass builder slams calories – but keeps food selections “clean.”

Want lean mass?

Eat clean calories: It makes no sense to embark on a “bulk up” routine using an indiscriminant “seafood” approach, “see food eat it.” Those that eat anything and everything and ditch cardio end up adding more fat than muscle during a mass-building phase. The main mistake made amongst mass builders is in not being discriminating enough in their food choices. At the professional bodybuilding level, elite competitors eat massive amounts of lean protein, fiber and starchy carbs – and nothing else. The whole idea is to create lean muscle mass without growing fat in the process. To do so, to add serious amounts of muscle mass without adding an equal or greater amount of body fat, requires great discipline. You need to eat lots and lots of calories – but this is where the discipline comes in – the bodybuilder’s calories can only come from ‘approved’ foods, bodybuilding foods.” You can build massive muscles by power training and eating pizza for breakfast – you can get huge and muscular and become fat as a pig all at the same time. The percentage of body fat added when ingesting trash food indiscriminately is unacceptably high for a bodybuilder. Heavy training and heavy eating will add muscle. The key critical question is: how do we add muscle with a minimum of body fat? Parrillo discovered way back in the 1970s that heavy eating combined with bar-bending power training was the secret to building muscle mass. Further, if the athlete trained heavy and ate big but ate “clean,” then that individual could reap the best of both worlds and grow large and powerful and actually increase their lean muscularity in the process. Parrillo developed and systematized an approach for building the metabolism that revolutionized bodybuilding and ushered in our modern era; the era of the massive yet ripped-to-the bone bodybuilder.

Big calories, Big muscles: Professional bodybuilders routinely consume 8,000+ calories per day (or more) in the competitive “off season.” They add size eating huge amounts of clean foods. These same bodybuilders can then “cut back” to 3,000 or 4,000 calories per day (down from 8,000) and get ripped. Imagine eating 4,000 calories per day and attaining a sub-5% body fat percentile? In the final days leading up to a bodybuilding competition, the typical IFBB pro is consuming 3,500 calories in six to eight, 400 to 500 calorie meals. Eating multiple meals comprised of clean food “teaches” the body how to handle thousands of calories of food each day without getting fat. Bodybuilders coax the body into becoming more and more efficient at digesting and distributing food on a continual and ongoing basis. A Parrillo competitive bodybuilder will eat upwards of 50 times per week, consuming a meal every two to three waking hours. Supplement meals are used to augment real food meals. The elite bodybuilder will also consume a wide variety of Parrillo Products each and every day. The Pro starts off his day with the first of several Parrillo Hi-Protein^™ or Optimized Whey^™ shakes. During the day they will consume various Parrillo sport bars – perhaps some Parrillo cake, cupcakes, pancakes, muffins or even Parrillo Ice Kreem^™. Supplement meals allow the bodybuilder some latitude: with the right Parrillo Products lying about, the competitive bodybuilder never has to miss a scheduled meal. Parrillo products introduce variety and taste into often bland diets. It’s nice not to have to cook every bite of food and it’s nice to have acceptable taste treats.

Nutrition and the Parrillo Meal: The Parrillo Nutritional System builds the metabolism. An accelerated metabolism is a wonderful thing for someone seeking to become larger yet seeking to stay lean. Parrillo nutrition is rooted in the expert use of regular food. Potent Parrillo supplements augment a sound nutritional game plan based upon “whole foods.” The Parrillo meal is a thing of structured beauty: a portion of lean protein is augmented with a portion of fibrous carbohydrate and completed with a portion of starchy carbs. Natural, potent and balanced, this particular combination has multiple purposes: the lean protein provides amino acids needed for new muscle construction. Lean protein dampens insulin. Fibrous carbohydrates are wonderful for cleansing and providing critical micro-nutrients. Fiber dampens insulin secretions. Starchy carbs replenish glycogen stores depleted by intense training and provide energy. When protein and fiber are eaten in combination with starch, the insulin-spiking characteristics associated with starch are dampened. The Parrillo meal is an exquisite ballet of muscle-building nutrients and micro-nutrients. The body has to “gear up” to digest and distribute the lean protein and fibrous carbohydrates that make up the lion’s share of the classical Parrillo meal.

Metabolic elevation and CapTri®: The elite bodybuilder weight trains with great ferocity using a full arsenal of Parrillo intensity-amping techniques. Parrillo aerobic training is equally intense. Every time the Parrillo athlete weight trains or engages in cardio with the requisite exercise intensity, they boost their metabolism: the more intense the exercise session the higher and longer the degree of metabolic elevation. Metabolic elevation is a wonderful thing for anyone seeking to lose body fat: just sitting around your house, doing nothing, the elevated metabolism is burning 25% more calories than a “normal” metabolism. Big clean eating boosts the metabolism. Intense exercise boosts the metabolism; after weeks and weeks in a state of perpetual metabolic elevation, the BMR resets itself to an increased level. One dilemma John Parrillo faced preparing IFBB professionals was how to avoid losing precious muscle mass when stripping off the last vestiges of body fat leading up to a contest. The solution was the invention of CapTri^®, a high-calorie medium-chain triglyceride oil that provides the caloric density of a lipid (8.3 calories per gram) yet because of its unique molecular structure, is impossible to end up stored as body fat. CapTri^® has dual
usage…

• CapTri^® is used for building muscle mass: CapTri^® calories are used to construct new muscle. The first step in forcing a muscle to grow is to engage in a high intensity weight workout that triggers the “adaptive response.” If the target muscle is then fed and rested, it grows. Medium-chain triglycerides are used to fuel the construction of new muscle – or they are burned for energy – MCT calories cannot be stored as body fat.

• CapTri^® is used by those intent on shedding body fat: CapTri^® is protection against muscle-wasting in the face of declining calories. CapTri^® calories are used to off-set the requisite reduction in starchy carb intake before a competition. By taking the starch calories out of the diet in the final few weeks, the body is forced to burn body fat. Lost starch calories are replaced with CapTri^® calories to prevent muscle wasting. Tablespoons of CapTri^® are taken throughout the day.

CapTri^® is used as a mass-builder. CapTri^® is used by those seeking to pare down to the lowest possible body fat percentile. This dual-use supplement is unique and because of its uniqueness is often mischaracterized and misunderstood. One aspect of CapTri^® that causes confusion is the fact that CapTri^® is a fat and generally speaking, any fat is the antithesis of good nutrition. There are bad lipids and there are good lipids. CapTri^® is (obviously) a good lipid. Fat chemistry classifies saturated fats into three generalized categories: short-chain, medium-chain and long-chain triglycerides. Conventional “bad” fats are of the long-chain variety. LCTs are easily converted into body fat. In the Parrillo nutritional system, LCTs are avoided. Parrillo proteins are “lean” proteins, i.e., devoid of LCTs. A serving of prime rib might contain 1000 calories, but 700 of those calories likely come from the long-chain saturated fat that permeates this cut of meat. A serving of flank steak might contain only 400 calories; however 300 calories will be protein calories while only 100 flank steak calories will be attributable to LCTs.

How to use CapTri®: MCT calories are impossible to end up stored as body fat because of their “carb-like” molecular structure, excess LCT calories are virtually impossible not to end up stored as body fat. LCTs are so chemically similar to stored body fat that this similarity makes converting LCT calories into stored body fat incredibly easy. MCTs, on the other hand, are not processed by the body like a conventional fat. MCTs are digested as if they were a carbohydrate; MCTs are absorbed directly by the portal vein. CapTri^® can add a boatload of clean calories to your daily intake. That is super good news to those serious about adding mass. Conversely CapTri^® is the best friend of the hard-dieting bodybuilder in the final weeks leading up to a show. CapTri^® is amazingly easy to use; sprinkle a tablespoon over food meals. How easy is that? Many bodybuilders use CapTri^® to cook foods with. Potatoes fried in CapTri^® are delicious; as are sautéed vegetables, such as bell peppers, onions, asparagus and broccoli. Proteins sautéed in CapTri^® are equally delicious: chicken fingers, delicate fish fillets, shrimp with garlic, lean cuts of thinly sliced beef, scallops and shellfish. CapTri^® cooking allows the hardcore bodybuilder to inject flavor and variety into food preparation. Grilled, skinless chicken breast can get real old real quick, particularly if you are eating 40 to 50 meals a week. How wonderful to be able to sauté some fabulous fish fillets or tasty jumbo shrimp in CapTri^®? Doesn’t that sound
delicious?

Building Mass using CapTri®: The finest way to build muscle mass is to set up a 12 to 16 week program where all your efforts are focused on adding a significant amount of lean muscle mass – while minimizing any body fat accumulation. The use of the Parrillo BodyStat Kit is highly recommended. BodyStat tracking is used on a weekly basis and provides you with the statistics needed to monitor body composition. Body fat percentiles are accessed using a nine-point skin-fold caliper test. Results are logged and each successive week changes in lean muscle mass and body fat are observed. This allows the bodybuilder to access overall body composition. Are you gaining muscle or are you gaining an unacceptable amount of body fat? Changes can be made based on science and fact. If you are serious about adding lean muscle mass, consider embarking on a 12-week, three month mass-building regimen using the Parrillo Principles for training, nutrition and supplementation. Clean up your food selections, purchase CapTri^® (and the Parrillo Body Stat Kit) and begin using MCTs daily. Intense weight training and intense cardio form the base: use BodyStats to ensure weight gain is muscle gain and not fat gain. CapTri^® is the mass builder’s best friend and is your best insurance that weight gain is
muscle gain.

Because I’m a bodybuilder and also because I don’t like to do anything half-assed, I had personally put onabout four or five pounds of fat in the last month. For a while I was deluding myself into believing that mostof what I was gaining was rock-hard muscle mass, but in the end the telltale Christmas Eve party photo I takeevery year by the tree with my wife told the real story. My face was getting that chipmunk look to it, and if Ididn’t act soon I would eventually have more chins than a Chinese phone book. After squeezing into a pair ofjeans that were far from being skinny jeans in the first place, then huffing and puffing whilst going through theheroic effort of putting on my shoes and socks, my wife had asked me in her droll manner if it might be timeto chill out on what she felt was my completely misguided ‘Quest for 240’ before I started my contest diet onMarch 18. I couldn’t argue with her. What would be the point? Anyone who’s been married for nearly twentyyears, as I have, learned long ago that you don’t win arguments with your wife. The smart thing to do is tosimply accept that she’s always right. You’d be surprised how much more smoothly married life is once youaccept that. And when I’m getting fat and in major denial, she’s the only one who has the nerve to tell me thebrutal truth.
I had just finished up a back workout at the gym. I would have done a half-hour of cardio, except that amonster blizzard was moving in fast that was supposed to dump anywhere from twelve to eighteen inches ofsnow on us. This meant that I was in for a good four to six hours of shoveling tomorrow, which would burn upplenty of calories. It also meant that like every other panicked citizen of my town, I was at the local Stop ‘NShop supermarket picking up a few essentials in case we would somehow be snowed in for weeks and drivento starvation. I swear people behaved as if we were crossing the Rocky Mountains in wagons rather thansafely ensconced in our nice warm homes stocked with food, 1,000 channels of digital cable, and usually witha four-wheel drive vehicle in the driveway or garage too. The impending storm really held about as muchdanger as an escaped bunny rabbit.

Who stepped behind me in line but Jeff, the 52-year-old dad of my one and only training client, his footballplaying son Jared. I hadn’t seen him since he had joined me for a leg workout roughly two months before.Even though he often trained much later in the day than I am ever in the gym, it was still odd that I hadn’trun into him. My Spidey sense hinted that it probably wouldn’t have mattered what time of day or night I hadwandered into the gym – I still wouldn’t have seen him. But just to make sure. . .“Jeff, how’s it going? Ready for the big storm?” This lame pleasantry was the New England winter equivalentof ‘hot enough for ya?’“Yeah, pretty much,” he replied, not really looking at me. I always found it odd that people who were slacking in their workouts seemed ashamed or guilty, like they expected me to be some sort of Fitness Cop who wouldjudge them and admonish them for their lack of dedication.“How’s training been going? You been going at night?” Jeff was not the type of man to dodge issues, so I fullyexpected him to come clean.“No, I haven’t been too motivated lately.” He paused. “Maybe I should hire you to train me for a while.” Iglanced in front of me. There were three people. Two had full carriages, as if they either hadn’t shopped forfood in weeks or they weren’t expected to be able to get out to shop again until well into the new year. Thethird was a little old lady with only a few items, but she was already sorting through a little stack of couponsshe had removed from her purse. Experience told me she would hold up the line the longest, arguing aboutwhy she couldn’t double the coupons on her cat food and yogurt.

“As much as I like you and you’re a very generous man who knows the value of a good trainer, I can’t motivateyou, Jeff,” I announced. He appeared shocked, as if I were admitting failure ahead of time.“What are you talking about? You do an excellent job with my kid!”“I appreciate you saying that, but you’re mistaken. I don’t motivate Jared. He’s already highly motivated.Motivation comes from within, and it’s really nothing more than a powerful desire to achieve a specific goal.When that desire is strong enough, the goal becomes something you must do or have, and nothing gets inyour way. Building your business to the level it’s at today probably took some time and work, right?” Jefflaughed.“Are you kidding me? More than anyone except me and my wife will ever know.”“So why didn’t you give up?”“Well, it’s what I wanted to do, and I knew I could do it if I worked hard enough.”“Didn’t you ever get discouraged? Weren’t there setbacks?”“Of course!”“So why didn’t you quit?” That stopped him for a minute. “Quitting was never an option, was it?” He shook hishead.“Nope. Never.”“Because you were incredibly motivated. Because you knew what you wanted and you had to have it nomatter what. As much as you keep talking about competing again, and I know you really are sincere, I justdon’t think your physique is important enough to you, at least right now, to sustain your motivation enoughso that you’re constantly improving it and working toward getting it ready for the stage. If it were, you’d beat the gym and the idea of hiring a trainer – even an awesome trainer – for the sole purpose of keeping yourmotivation high would seem ridiculous to you.”
“Okay Ron, so what’s the point of trainers then? Is it just to instruct and supervise?”“No, I would never insult the many great trainers out there by saying that. Even top athletes in just aboutany sport today benefit from elite strength and conditioning coaches. These people have taken the time andenergy to educate themselves in the absolute most effective ways to improve performance in specific sports.A person who has become certified in an excellent program like the Parrillo Certification knows how to literallytransform the human body, whether someone wants to build muscle, lose fat, whatever. And because it’s a rare person like me who puts such a high priority on improving his or her physique, a good trainer can also actto help encourage a client and keep them in a positive frame of mind.”

“So just to be clear, you’re telling me I’m not as motivated as I could be, and you can’t help me get moremotivated?”“Basically, yes. And that’s fine. If and when the time comes that you do decide you want to compete againand it’s something you have to do, you’ll have no problem getting to the gym when you should or eating allyour nutritious meals every day. Those will be things you want to do because you know they bring you closerto your goal. And if you want someone to help torture you in the gym and push you harder than you couldprobably ever train on your own, I might be persuaded to help. You’ve always beengood to me.”“I might just take you up on that,” he said. The line was actually moving in front of us, and I started putting mypurchase items up on the little rubber conveyer belt.

In the end, we did in fact get roughly a foot and a half of snow. Luckily I had procured substantial provisionsso that my family did not starve, and once the mountain pass had thawed in March we were able to hitch upthe wagons and start heading west once more. Or maybe it was more like a day of back-breaking shoveling toclear my driveway before life returned to its normal schedule. In any case, I knew I would soon be seeing aninflux of new and not-so-new members at the gym in a few days making good on their New Year’s Resolutions.I also knew that only a few of them would stick around for more than a couple weeks. The truly motivatedones, for them, giving up would not be an option.

The Parrillo philosophy of physical training is multidimensional: there are a lot of components and these components need to be put in play and executed simultaneously. To further complicate an already complex approach, approximately every four weeks the lifting and cardio needs to be changed to avoid stagnation. The Parrillo approach is so sophisticated and effective that stagnation and inertia are actually anticipated ahead of time and significant revisions are made to the training template on a predetermined basis.

Before we give the reader the impression that the Parrillo approach is rocket science (or as celeb-retard Paris Hilton calls it, “Rock science”) and too complicated to implement, be aware that the individual component parts are easy to grasp, examined one at a time, and the way in which a trainee weaves the parts into an overall training matrix or template are just as easy to grasp if given a good explanation – which is exactly what we are

going to do….

Parrillo-style Progressive Resistance Training

The foundation of

the Parrillo resistance workout, intensity:

At the most elemental level, weight training is one of two training methods used in the Parrillo System; cardiovascular training is the second training mode used. Parrillo-style weight training needs to be intense enough to trigger hypertrophy, muscle growth, and to that end, Parrillo training uses a lot of intensity-amping methods to take the trainee “past failure.” The mistake most weight trainees make is they select a poundage, perform 8-12 reps in comfortable fashion before moving on to the next exercise. Muscle hypertrophy is not triggered by sub-maximal sets done comfortably; muscle growth only occurs when the “adaptive response” occurs and the AR only happens when a muscle is pushed past its momentary capacity: forced reps, drop sets and other “take it past failure” techniques and tactics are used to force the muscle to grow.

The Parrillo

“three-phase” set:

The second fundamental Parrillo Principle is defining and implementing the Three-phase set. On every weight training exercise, on every set from warm-up to completion of that particular exercise, the trainee does the weight training set – the 1^st phase – follows the lifting immediately with a 2^nd phase fascia stretch and finishes the set with a 3^rd phase muscle pose and flex. Pump, stretch and flex are the Parrillo training mantra and differentiates Parrillo training from every other system of weight training. After hitting a weight training set that targets a specific muscle, a specific fascia stretch is done that forcibly stretches and elongates the same muscle. Finally, after being pumped and stretched, the same muscle is repeatedly flexed to the point of cramping. This procedure builds muscle, loosens the confining casing that surrounds every muscle then pushes muscle into newly elasticized surrounding.

Train often:

Elite bodybuilders training under John Parrillo’s direct supervision, competitive athletes seeking to maximize their unique genetic potential are advised to weight train six times a week generally hitting all muscles twice weekly using different exercises in each session. Intense weight training has a dramatic impact on the human metabolism. After an intense weight training session the metabolism becomes and remains “jacked up” for hours after the cessation of the session. Think of the metabolism as a bodily thermostat: we want to set the thermostat upward to burn as many calories as possible over the course of the day. Intense, Parrillo-style weight training increases the metabolism, intense Parrillo-style aerobic training increases the metabolism and Parrillo-style nutrition, eating certain foods at certain times amps up the metabolism: when all three elements are in place and practiced, intense weight training and intense cardio done often combined with metabolism-amping foods and supplements, the metabolism is “built” to use the Parrillo phrase. Intense, endorphin-releasing weight training needs to be done intensely and often. Exercises are rotated within the weekly template to avoid

staleness.

Use high and low

repetitions:

Generally speaking, high repetition weight training affects muscle fiber differently than low repetition weight training. Most progressive systems champion one repetition range over the other. John Parrillo has long held the philosophic position that rather than being an “either/or” proposition, the savvy elite weight trainer needs to perform both rep ranges within the same exercise. During the first phase to the Parrillo Three-phase set using any exercise, the trainee is advised to “pyramid up” ending a particular exercise with a low-repetition, 3-6 rep heavy set. The Parrillo trainee then “pyramids downward” by stripping weight and performing continued sets of the same exercise using higher and higher reps. The Parrillo trainee will finish an exercise with a 20-100 repetition set before moving on to the next exercise. Training in this fashion covers all the muscle-building bases and ensures that each muscle is exhausted and decimated – thereby triggering hypertrophy – before moving on to the next exercise for a particular muscle or muscle group.

Use a wide range of

exercises:

Generally speaking, an average trainee is advised to hit each muscle or muscle group twice a week. If by way of example, chest is trained on Monday using barbell wide-grip flat benches followed by narrow-grip dumbbell bench presses and finishing with dumbbell flyes and cable crossovers, the second chest routine done Thursday might consist of dumbbell incline presses followed by barbell decline presses and ending with pec deck done on a machine and cable crossovers. By being creative and imaginative the Parrillo trainee can perform a wide variety of progressive resistance exercises and never have to perform the same exercise twice in the training week. John Parrillo discovered decades ago that most bodybuilders grow best when subjected to a wide variety of exercises using both high and low repetitions. Often we will hear bodybuilders complain that they are incapable of recovering from one session to the next and invariably the cause is inadequate or insufficient nutrition: as Parrillo pithily put it four decades ago, “There is no such thing as over-training – only under-eating.” In almost every case, training-related fatigue is directly caused by insufficient caloric

intake.

Fascia stretching is not

optional: Parrillo-style training is not a cafeteria line where the trainee walks down the food line, selecting items they like, rejecting others based on their biases and whims; the Parrillo progressive resistance training system is a fully-formed PHILOSOPHY that is fully integrated and interwoven; when all the various aspects are in place and practiced with due diligence, the results exceed the logical sum of the parts. The number one aspect to Parrillo weight training that inexperienced trainees ditch, toss or eliminate is fascia stretching. The Parrillo three-phase set is the foundation of the Parrillo weight training system: fascia stretching is integral, not optional. The whole idea is to stretch between each set, even the lighter warm-up sets; stretching on the light sets ensures that by the time the heavy sets and the high rep/super-pump end sets roll around, the fascia tissue, the sausage-like casing that confines and limits the size of a muscle, will be warm and the stretches done deep. Saving fascia stretches for the top sets and the high rep sets is ill advised; ditching fascia stretching altogether takes the Parrillo out of the resistance training. Pump/stretch/flex – no ifs, ands or buts!

Parrillo-style Aerobic Training

Go intense or go home:

What differentiates Parrillo-style cardiovascular training from all other aerobic formats? The absolute insistence that all aerobic exercise must be done with great intensity; the polar opposite of Parrillo aerobics is a guy casually riding an exercise bike reading a magazine or distractedly watching television. In the Parrillo lexicon, sub-maximal aerobic exercise is underperformed aerobic exercise. Unless the trainee is drenched in sweat at the end of each cardio session that session has not been as productive as it could be. John Parrillo is a physiological scientist and long ago discovered that if cardiovascular exercise was done with great intensity – intensity being defined as tooling along so hard that breathing is labored – then the working muscles will, over time, literally reconfigure themselves. Mitochondria are cellular blast furnaces and for bodybuilder purposes more mitochondria equates to larger muscles and more leanness. Intense cardio builds mitochondria density: go hard or go home!

Sweating is not an option: Parrillo Performance puts out a dandy product called Max Endurance^™. Designed to counter the effects of ureic ammonia that occurs when a trainee sweats profusely, this product says volumes about the Parrillo approach to cardio. Think about it; Parrillo athletes sweat so hard and so profusely that they need a product to counter the negative effects – meanwhile the rest of the fitness world is talking about the nonsense of staying in the “fat burning zone” and how unnecessary it is to go too hard too fast or too long. Parrillo athletes go so fast, so far, so long and so often that they need to take Max Endurance™ (loaded with potassium and magnesium aspartate) in order to clear ammonia and endurance-robbing waste products. Those that don’t sweat buckets are under-training, those that are cruising along in cardio comfort and those that are talking to their neighbor as they perform aerobics are all underperforming. In Parrillo world during cardio the athlete tools along as hard as humanly possible, going as fast as possible just shy of the point where oxygen debt forces the athlete to quit. Hard, labored breathing is the Parrillo benchmark: labored breathing and cardio that requires muscular effort (as opposed to effortless cruising) creates mitochondria to be constructed and body fat to be mobilized and oxidized. Hard cardio accelerates the metabolism for hours. Profuse sweating is the indicator that you’re doing it right!

Mix mediums and keep the body guessing:

Don’t fall into the aerobic trap of doing the same type of cardio in the same way at the same pace. Advanced weight trainers understand that routines need to be periodically changed in order to keep muscles from becoming complacent: complacency is the enemy of progress. The same strategy needs to be adopted for cardiovascular exercise. Those that always sit on a stationary bike and use the same duration and pace year round are missing the boat. Gains come from targeting weak points instead of continually playing to your strengths. If you are used to a certain mode, change modes regularly; if you are used to 45 minute sessions try 30 minutes at twice the pace or sixty minutes attempting to duplicate your 45 minute pace; if you always use a “legs only” cardio machine or mode, find a device or mode that forces you to use arms and legs. Be imaginative and legislate change into your cardio format: sameness begets sameness and in order to elicit progress the body needs jolting.  Plus mixing formats and altering durations and intensities keeps cardio interesting. John Parrillo often advises trainees to leap from one cardio machine to another within the same workout! Make it a point to alter cardio modes and methods with the same regularity used to alter weight training.

More is better: In the Parrillo approach to aerobics, early morning cardio is the gold standard. The rationale behind pre-breakfast cardio is so sound and the results gotten by elite bodybuilders so profound that every serious bodybuilder or fitness buff needs to expropriate this tried-and-proven strategy: cardio done coming off a full nights sleep is cardio done when glycogen stores are at their lowest. The human body’s preferred fuel is glycogen and when it is present it will preferentially burn glycogen first. Once glycogen is exhausted the body will burn its second favored fuel source: stored body fat. Early morning cardio, torrid, sweaty cardio, rips through any residual glycogen and starts burning fat for fuel. This is ideal and this strategy has become standard operating procedure for elite professional bodybuilders worldwide for decades. In addition to this stupendous strategy, first proposed by John Parrillo in the 1980s, performing a second cardio session after the final meal of the day has also become SOP for the bodybuilding elite. The idea being that performing the second session accelerates the depletion of glycogen before the long sleep fast. Between two cardio sessions per day and weight training, the metabolism is turned into a blast furnace. Intense, Parrillo-style cardio done twice daily accelerates the metabolism, intense Parrillo-style weight training accelerates the metabolism and Parrillo-style nutrition accelerates the metabolism. Put it all together and the bodybuilder “builds the metabolism,” the cornerstone philosophy of all Parrillo Philosophies. Put it all into play and transform your physique in a matter of months.

-Would you like to see more information on our supplements, different diets, fascial stretching or workouts?

-Are you a competitor using Parrillo supplements?  We want to hear from you.

Contact us today 1-800-344-3404 or Heather@Parrillo.com