I am so excited to be featuring my younger brother Sean Golden. Much like myself, he has always been fascinated with health, fitness, and psychology and his life is proof of just that. At a very young age he always impressed me with all his theories and dedication to researching all that encompassed a healthy mind and body. I witnessed him transform into the handsome young man he is today and couldn't be more proud. He is a senior in college, on his way to being a teacher of mathematics and physics. Already student teaching in college, he is an example of what hard work looks like both in school and in the gym. All his academic career he has been a 4.0 student and broke numerous track records in his high school. He truly has a genius mind in a stellar body, which is hard to come by! His passion for health and fitness is so impressive that I couldn't wait to interview him so he could share his "Golden" knowledge with you.
1. What is your work out regimen ?
My workout regimen has changed and evolved throughout the years I've been lifting. As of recently, the best structured "form" you could label my training is something similar to DC Training, in which you perform an "activation set" of a moderately heavy weight that I would absolutely fail at 9 reps with, and then perform either 8 or 9 reps depending upon how fast I was able to get the 8th rep up. Then I wait about 30 seconds, do another set till about failure (normally around 5 reps), wait 30 seconds and perform another set to failure (about 3-4 reps), then if I feel like it perform one last set to failure (about 2-4 reps). Of course, this is just one scenario: I sometimes start with a weight I can do 10 reps with, sometimes I start with a weight that I can only get 5 times on the first set. At this point, it really depends how I'm feeling that day and if I feel any sort of over-training approaching. However, I rarely use a weight that I can get 12 reps with as I feel that is too light to produce significant growth for me. Most of the time I put my "pushing" exercises together on one day (all back, back shoulder, biceps, and abs), all "pushing" exercises together the next day (Pecs, front/side shoulder, and triceps), and legs on the 3rd day. Then repeat. Every once a week or so I'll take a day off, but it really varies. I like combining the muscles together in this fashion because then when I am trying to bench heavy, my pecs will not be hampered by my triceps if my triceps were training the previous day. Lastly, I almost always progress from compound movements to isolation movements, since compound movements are more time-efficient and develop your Central Nervous System faster with increased coordination.
To read more about DC Training, go here: http://dc-training.blogspot.com/
As a side note, I would not say that a beginner or even intermediate should never go above 12 reps per set. When you first start out, you can get a good stimulus with lighter weights.
2.Tell us what you eat on a regular day?
If I can help it, I try not to eat all day long until I workout. This might result in some superior calorie partitioning (more calories going to use for muscle-related purposes rather than storage purposes), and there has recently been a bunch of compelling research to get in the habit of fasting intermittently, for fat-loss, strength, and neuro-protective purposes. I feel a lot stronger in the gym if I don't eat until my pre-workout protein shake. Furthermore, it allows me to save up all of my calories until after I workout, which recently is around 4:30pm, so that I am never really that hungry, even when dieting. Counter-intuitively, I am not hungry at all throughout the day while I am fasting. My body has gotten very used to it, and that is something that has helped tremendously with cutting weight when needed.
Besides this little intermittent fasting trick, I make sure that I have at least 1g of protein per pound of body weight every day, and if I am dieting then I have at least 1.5g/lbs. I try to get at much of this protein from real food as I can, but if I cannot or do not have time then I will drink whey/casein protein shakes. I also try to have roughly 30% of my calories come from fat, normally egg yolks or fish if I can, and the rest come from carbs. I don't really care what I eat to get my carbs, but if I am dieting then choosing starchy, slow digesting carbs like oatmeal or potatoes will help with hunger. Also, I try to have a good portion of the carbs come from fruits and vegetables for general health reasons.
I set up my diet this way so that I have enough protein to not lose muscle mass during a diet, have good fat and cholesterol to help with keeping my hormones (testosterone, thyroid, etc.) at good levels, and enough carbs to fuel intense workouts (again, not immediately before the workout but as stored glycogen in my muscles). The only difference between bulking and cutting is during a bulk I might drop that fat a bit and increase the carbs, resulting in greater net calories/day, add more volume to my workouts due to the increase in calories, and maybe decrease my protein a tad. During a cut I drop the carb a little bit (but still have at least 200g/day for my workouts), increase the fat and protein a bit, have less total calories/day, and drop some volume from my workouts but keep the intensity and weights the same (normally sets of around 6 reps to failure) to keep my strength. It is important to keep your muscle during a cut so that the weight you are losing is actually fat. Of course, if you have never lifted before and just want to lose weight, you would not need to keep the weights as heavy and could instead lift with higher reps of 10-20 per set. A beginner could also cut down on the carbs more since losing muscle mass would not really be a big concern. However, the more advanced and lean you are when starting the cut, the more carbs you are going to need.
3. What inspires you to stay healthy and fit?
The main thing that inspires me is just to make continual progress towards my "ideal body image". It is not that I think when I reach that image then I will be happy or that I am unhappy with how I am not. Rather, it is just fun to see yourself making progress towards you goal that you will never really reach, since an "ideal" image would be perfection. The fun is in the journey itself, and not in grasping towards the end result. I think this is a good way to approach heath and fitness in general. The people who always seem to go on diets, later to just fall off and gain everything back, tend to be the ones wanting the end product too much. The end product will "never" come: you will never reach perfection. However, if you can learn to enjoy the journey instead, learn to enjoy progress, achievement, and the observance of developing a stronger work ethic and self-discipline, then most of your workouts will make you happy and will improve your general satisfaction with life in general. Every workout is a new "start": this is where I am at today, and by what I am going to do in the next hour I will be closer to my goal tomorrow.
Furthermore, by creating and sticking to an exercise regimen you can increase your own will power and self-discipline that will spill over into other areas of your life as well. So keeping these benefits in mind during the rough days helps keep the motivation up too.
4. What do you think the biggest mistake people make in trying to get into shape?
Thinking that getting into shape is a "sprint" instead of a "marathon". What I mean is, it takes a long time and a lot of determination to get into shape if you are not in shape right now. It is not going to be easy, and you will not get there losing "20 lbs in 4 weeks". For any true lasting change, your habits will need a makeover, and you will need to work at it every day. This is why I said previously that you need to learn to enjoy the actual process; if you do not, then odds are you will fall of the workout regimen or the diet.
It's important to keep in mind that no one ever got an amazing body from doing sit-ups 20mins/day or from taking the latest new supplement from GNC. In the end, it all comes from the hard work you put into your diet and work outs. When you are dieting, stick to the rules you laid out. When lifting, do not cheat and use the bounce at the bottom of the rep, and do not nearly drop the weight during the eccentric movement. Let your muscles do all the work. Always make progress and never settle, because that is where all the fun comes from.
5. If you had to chose one thing that you believe keeps you in best shape what would it be?
If I had to choose one thing, it would have to be just the general idea of self-improvement. The pursuit of a worthy ideal. Once you really get into it, it truly is a great feeling.
6. What is your guilty pleasure?
Chocolate for sure. Milk chocolate is the hardest thing to deny sometimes.
7.What is something that you want to try but haven't yet?
Probably some form of real rock climbing. So far, I've only been rock climbing on the indoor fake walls, and I think real rock climbing would be just awesome!
8. What is the best advice you ever got ?
"Do today what others won't, so that you can do tomorrow what others can't."
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Both my amazing brothers at my wedding.[/caption]
You can follow Sean and all his amazing theories and concepts on his own blog buildingaleanbody.com
Both my amazing brothers at my wedding.[/caption]