I love watching these ghetto workout videos that show guys demonstrating lots of killer bodyweight exercises using run of the mill playground equipment:

Those videos are a wonderful example that you don’t need to have a lot of equipment — or any equipment — to have great workouts and get in amazing shape.

But another lesson you can learn from those videos is the importance of social support and involving others in your quest to get in better shape. If you notice in all of those ghetto workout videos, there’s always lots of guys around and everyone in the group seems to feed off of each other’s energy. Having intense workouts is always easier and more enjoyable when you’ve got other people around to help motivate you.

I can’t related to why anyone would want to participate in an obstacle course like this, but Tough Mudder sure seems to be developing a passionate following:

A couple of years ago I had a personal trainer (yes, personal trainers often have personal trainers) in Kitsilano, and she was a complete disaster. There was absolutely nothing positive about the experience, but here are the top three colossal errors she made:

1. She never asked me about my goals and expectations.
You might be thinking “Mike, you’re lying, how could a personal trainer not ask her client what his goals are?” I promise you that I am being totally serious. The trainer never asked me what my goals and expectations where, not once. She never even got close to bringing up the subject.

If she would have asked me about my goals and expectations, I would have said that my number one goal in hiring a personal trainer was to have fun and enjoyable workouts. So my expectation was that the trainer would try to understand what type of exercise programming I enjoy so that she could design workouts for me that I enjoyed.

Since she never asked me about goals and expectations, and therefore never knew what I was most interested in getting out of the personal training sessions, she ended up putting me through workouts that I hated because I found them to be painfully boring and completely lacking the types of exercise that I really enjoyed (something she would have known if she had just asked me).

2. She never asked me for feedback.
Again, you might be calling bullshit on this one, and thinking how could a personal training possibly not ask for feedback from the client about how he is enjoying, or not enjoying, the workouts. But I promise you this trainer never — not once — even came close to asking me for feedback on how I was finding the workouts.

If she had simply asked me, I would have tactfully explained that I wasn’t enjoying the workouts because the didn’t address any of the important things that the trainer didn’t even know I was hoping to get from my workouts because she never asked me about my goals and expectations. But she never asked, and I never volunteered the information to her (instead, I just stopped training with her).

3. She was obviously making up the workouts as she was going along.
This one probably isn’t very difficult for you to believe because the vast majority of personal trainers just randomly make up clients workouts on the spot, often picking exercises based on what’s available at the gym at whatever particular moment it’s time to proceed to a new exercise.

I wasn’t particularly surprised that the personal trainer was just making up my workouts on the fly, but I found it pretty irritating just how obvious she allowed her lack of planning to show. She really didn’t even make an attempt to act like she was putting any thought into my workouts. Instead she was clearly just putting me through random exercises that she was thinking up on the spot during my workouts.

I only ended up doing about three sessions with that personal trainer, and it was a pretty awful experience that I’m only sharing with you here to hopefully help to ensure that you’re getting the best value from your own personal trainer (if you workout with one).

So if your trainer doesn’t regularly go over your goals, find a new trainer. If your trainer doesn’t regularly ask for feedback, and use that feedback to improve the service he or she is providing for you, find a new trainer. And if your trainer is randomly making up your workouts on the fly, find a new trainer.

If you workout with a personal trainer, and you’re wondering whether or not your personal trainer is an incompetent moron, I want to tell you about a telltale sign that is often an excellent indicator that your personal trainer is in fact a totally inept.

The sign I’m referring to is using two or more pieces of exercise equipment for the same exercise. There’s almost no good reason to ever use multiple different pieces of exercise equipment for the same exercise. Combining exercise equipment simply creates stupid circus exercises that serve no apparent purpose and will likely cause you to get injured.

For example, I recently saw a photo of a personal trainer in Vancouver doing a TRX chest press with his feet on a stability ball. Insanely idiotic and a crystal clear sign that that trainer is an incompetent fool.

For another example, at the personal training studio I used to work at, one of the most clueless and inept trainers I’ve ever seen would regularly have her clients do resistance band exercises while jumping onto and off of a BOSU. Incompetent fool.

I also saw a video recently where some reject in Vancouver had his client kneeling on a stability ball while catching and throwing a medicine ball. Utterly pointless at best, dangerous at worst, and an obvious sign that the trainer is a stupid moron.

So if you’ve got a personal trainer and you’ve wondering if your trainer may in fact be an incompetent fool, watch out for multiple gadgets in the same exercise. It’s often a dead giveaway that the trainer is completely inept.

I live in an apartment, so sledgehammer home workouts are out of the question. I’ve also never found a gym in Vancouver that offers hardcore training (i.e. sledgehammers, tires, battling ropes, prowlers), so I’m pretty much shit out of luck when it comes to sledgehammer training.

But if you live in a house with a garage and/or backyard that you can use for this type of workout, I highly recommend it. It’s fun as hell. If you live in an apartment and sledgehammer home workouts are out of the question, definitely look into whether any gyms in your area offer this type of workout.

Here are two sledgehammer training demo videos from Ross Enamait:

Grip strength is not a topic that particularly interests me, therefore I’ve never filmed any videos on grip strength, and I have no plans to ever film videos on that topic. But I received a question today asking for suggestions on who has the best YouTube videos about grip strength. That’s an easy question to answer: Zach Even-Esh.

Zach runs a cool YouTube channel dedicated to old-school training using lots of different hardcore gear such as tires, stones, ropes, chains, etc. Looks like an extremely fun way to train. Unfortunately, there aren’t any gyms like that in Vancouver, but if you live near Edison, NJ, and are looking for hardcore workouts, I highly recommend you check out Zach’s Underground Strength Gym.

Back to the topic at hand, the best grip strength videos on YouTube. As I mentioned, you’ll find those videos by visiting Zach’s channel, but here are couple to get you started:

I just discovered an extremely cool company in Toronto called Fetching that offers fitness boot camps that you do with your dog.

Fetching runs exercise programs you do with your dog, bringing you closer together and improving your fitness at the same time. Working out is always more fun with a furry friend next to you, especially when he gives you encouraging tail wags and a sloppy kiss when it’s all over.

There are lots of different types of boot camp workouts: bodyweight workouts, circuit training workouts, interval training workouts, challenge workouts, partner workouts, etc. Countless ways to have fun and effective boot camp workouts. But one particular component must be present for a workout to be considered a boot camp workout: it must take place outdoors. There’s no such thing as an indoor boot camp workout.

Fitness boot camp workouts are popular because people love getting outdoors and working out in the fresh air rather than exercising at a stuffy gym or health club where you’re stuck breathing in other people’s B.O. and using machines that haven’t been properly wiped up and are still covered in the previous user’s sweat. Yuck. No thanks, I’ll take outdoor boot camp workouts please.

But many gyms realize that boot camp programs are wildly popular, and therefore they promote their own facility as running boot camp workouts indoors at their health club. Bullshit. That’s not a boot camp workout. That’s just a generic group exercise class incorrectly marketed as boot camp in order to deviously try to capitalize on the tremendous popularity of fitness boot camps. Don’t be fooled.

One of the all-time biggest myths about exercise is that the best time of the day to workout is first thing in the morning before you’ve eaten breakfast. Bullshit. There’s precisely zero scientific evidence to suggest that working out first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is the best way to burn fat.

Your body’s fat burning system doesn’t run on some kind of wacky schedule based on the time that you wake-up, or how long you’re awake, etc. Your body’s fat burning system runs on a 24/7 schedule, so the time of day that you workout is irrelevant.

Fat burning is based on a simple equation of calories in vs. calories out, on a 24/7 schedule. Over the course of days and weeks, if you burn more calories that you consume, you will burn fat and lose weight.

So don’t worry about what time of the day to workout for best results. It doesn’t matter. The best time of the day to workout is the time of day that’s most convenient for you, and/or the time of day that you enjoy working out the most.

I used to run an outdoor boot camp program in Vancouver (that I ran for several years), and through trial and error I learned exactly what is the best exercise (and worst) equipment for boot camp workouts.

First, the equipment that doesn’t belong in boot camp workouts is anything that’s too big and/or unwieldy to be easily taken to and from an outdoor workout location. This includes dumbbells, kettlebells, and medicine balls.

The best boot camp equipment is ultra-portable, and highly versatile. This includes resistance bands and suspension gyms. Those are the only two types of exercise equipment (besides mats) that I used at every single boot camp workout I ran.

Besides “bands and straps”, the only other two pieces of exercise equipment I recommend for the best boot camp workouts are a jump rope and of course an exercise mat.

With resistance bands, a suspension gym, a jump rope, and an exercise mat, you’ll be all set to perform intense total-body boot camp workouts that are not only effective, but also lots of fun.