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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Disclaimer 3 Introduction 4 How To Use This Guide 9 The NF Training Philosophy 11 How To Succeed 19 What You Need In Your Inventory 31 Before You Get Started 36 Good Luck 40

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DISCLAIMER:

Before beginning this program, you must read the attached disclaimer. Booo legalities, I know. But it’s for your own good, trust me.

Nerd Fitness Rebel Fitness GuideCopyright © 2010 Stephen Kamb. All rights reserved.

Design by Joe Rougeux of Level 11 Studios.

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INTRODUCTION:Welcome soldier,

There’s a war brewing…We are up against an adversary that is stronger and more powerful than anything we have ever seen before. We are facing a vitually invincible army of obesity, heart disease, shorter lifespan, no energy, and unattractiveness (boooooo ugly!). With today’s average lifestyle and food choices, everything is set up for us men and women to fail. It’s no surprise then that two-thirds of the United States is overweight, half of whom are considered obese.

There have been incredible scientific breakthroughs, more low fat meals, “healthy choice” options, and technological advancements than ever before, and yet people continue to grow larger and waistlines continue to expand.

Obviously something isn’t working, and few people are doing anything to fix it.

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It’s time for us to take responsibility for our actions and own up to the hole that we’ve helped dig. Our standards of living continue to improve while our bodies and life expectancy continue to degenerate.

Food companies are working daily to find ways to keep us enslaved to their products, only interested in our wallets and not in our future. 24-hour restaurants, drive-through windows, and vending machines have catered to our desire for shortcuts and less effort at the expense of our personal health.

Fortunately, there is hope.

You have accepted the challenge and responsibility to join an underground movement that is gaining momentum with each passing day.

You’re now part of a ragtag group of misfits that strikes out against conventional wisdom, inefficient workouts, and grossly inaccurate stereotypes. We are building an army of incredibly intelligent, incredibly fit, and incredibly supportive super soldiers; we’re glad to have you.

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Beginning today, you are no longer a desk jockey, pencil pusher, number cruncher, database software engineer, or whatever that little nameplate says on your desk. You are member of the Nerd Fitness Rebel Army, and it’s your mission to lose weight, build muscle, look better, and live healthier.

You are not alone in your journey. Hundreds and hundreds of regular people like you have joined the cause, already seeing results while going against the crowd. And for good reason; the crowd is heading in the wrong direction!

Before we get started, I need you to forget everything you know about health and fitness, which should be easy if you’ve never exercised a day in your life. Hours of cardio, low-fat meals, and ab machines are all a waste of time. These are tools of the empire that helped get our society where it is today. No more.

We’re turning this sucker around, one day at a time.

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The exercises and workouts contained within this guide have been designed in conjuction wth my friend, mentor, and Yoda: Mike Rickett. Mike has over 20+ years of personal training experience, a Masters degree in exercise physiology, and absolutely kicks my ass every time we exercise together.

This is not going to be an easy mission, but if you keep your eyes on the prize and stay on target I have zero doubt that you can accomplish your goals.

I won’t make any promises or guarantees on how much weight you’ll lose, because that is entirely up to you. It might have taken years of bad habits and complacency to dig the hole, but just a few solid months of developing new habits and sticking to a new routine will give you a great foundation on which to build further success.

This is your chance to turn things around. Will you accept the challenge?

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By the time you finish this guide you’ll be armed with all the equipment and knowledge that you need to succeed. After that, it will be up to you to carry through with your orders.

As Morpheus tells Neo in The Matrix, “I can only show you the door. You are the one that must walk through it.”

We’re going to take this one day at a time, and we’re going to win. Every little change and every day of exercise gets us one step closer to victory. I can already smell it, and I love the smell of victory in the morning.

For the Rebellion,

Steve Kamb

Rebel Leader of NerdFitness.com

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HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE:

Within this fitness guide, you’ll find the information necessary to level up your life, a diet guide designed to help you lose weight, a food fighter guide to help you find your way around a supermarket and the kitchen, and at least six months of exercise programming. Each day, you’ll have a mission that will need to be accomplished before moving onto the next mission. They will vary in size, scope, and intensity, but they will produce results if you stick with it!

Here are your first official orders:

Read the remainder of this PDF. This Rebel Fitness Guide will get you in the right frame of mind to build a solid foundation and set you up for a life full of win.

Read the Rebel Diet Guide and Rebel Food Fighter. Although your exercise routines are important to losing weight, your diet will beresponsible for 80% of your successes and failures. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to start drinking wheatgrass shots and eating tree bark.

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Instead, I tell you what’s good for you, what’s bad for you, and what you should limit. Once again, this is one of those: “here are the tools, now it’s up to you” scenarios.

Assess your level of experience, and decide if you want to start with Level 1 Rookie or the Level 2 Recruit Workout. Be completely honest with yourself. It’s better to start with something easier than you expected and use that motivation and confidence to build momentum through the next round.

After you’ve done a routine for 4-8 weeks, you should progress to the next rank when you feel comfortable. Once you get to Level 3, you can pick either Outcast or Outsider. Once completing that workout, you can either stay at Level 3 and do the other one, or advance to Level 4 and pick either Rebel or Renegade, followed by the other Level 4 workout.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to take a break from intense weight training every once and a while. Your body needs to recover, so take a week off every 4 weeks to do something fun like Yoga or Karate or exercise with less reps and weight, and THEN continue your training.

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THE NERD FITNESSTRAINING PHILOSOPHY:

Below you’ll find the training philosophy that I’ve created, cultivated, and built upon over the past few years, aggregating my own personal experiences with advice and knowledge from my “Jedi Council” of fitness gurus. It’s this philosophy that will allow you to develop good habits, burn fat, build muscle, and still live a normal life.

Cardio vs. Weight Training

I am a firm believer that both men and women, no matter their age, need to build their exercise routines around weight training. Recent medical studies, studies conducted by today’s top names in fitness, and my own experiences have shown weight training to be far more efficient, less time consuming, and more enjoyable (my opinion on the enjoyment part) than straight cardio at burning calories. I’ve written an entire article on this subject if you’re interested in learning more about the science behind that.

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What this means is that the majority of your daily exercises in the Rebel Fitness Guide will be built around weight training, efficiently burning calories and simultaneously building up the muscle that you already have. Provided you’re eating properly, those muscles will start to pop out as the fat on top disappears.

Sure there’s a chance you might enjoy running on a treadmill for hours every day, but I’m guessing you have a job, wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, kids, pets, friends, and other hobbies in your daily life. I hate spending more time in the gym than I need to, and I don’t want you to spend more time exercising than you need to either. I don’t want to take over your life, but rather help you find a good balance between your every day responsibilities and exercise.

I love efficiency and soon you will too.

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What kind of routines will we be doing?

I’m going to train you to get stronger and more fit to tackle your everyday activities by doing exercises and routines that work out your WHOLE BODY and mimic real world movements.

Secondly, instead of just focusing on exercising isolated muscles, we’ll be doing exercises that work out multiple body parts at the same time. Efficient and effective. Booyah!

Now, when doing a weight lifting routine, your muscle fibers are broken down and then rebuilt stronger in the days following the workout. Because of this, we’ll never lift weights two days in a row. Instead, we’ll be doing three full-body routines per week with a day off in between each to give your muscles a chance to recover.

For simplicity’s sake I have it set up as Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the workouts, but you could just as easily do them whenever works for your schedule. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to recover between workouts – generally a day off between is enough.

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How does each exercise work?

With each exercise listed, you’ll see a number of sets and a number of reps. If it tells you to do 3 sets of 12 reps of squats, that means you’ll do a 12 squats, wait a minute, do another 12 squats, wait a minute, and then do your final 12 squats. Look at that, you’re already speaking the lingo.

For each exercise, lower the weight with a controlled tempo, and then explode back up through the movement with some intensity. Try lowering the weight (or your body if it’s a body weight exercise) in two seconds and then raise it (or your body) back up in one second. Make sure you go through the full range of motion too; don’t half-ass it, as that won’t do anybody any good. Only lift weights that you can actually LIFT with proper form.

What is a superset?

Sometimes, we’ll have you doing two or three exercises in a row without stopping. For example, you might do a set of squats and then immediately do a set of push ups, then rest, and then start back on the squats again. This gets explained in more detail in the workouts.

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What is a weight lifting circuit?

Once you get to some of the more advanced routines in the Level 3 and 4 workouts, you’ll start to see things called “Circuits.” A circuit involves a list of exercises (squat, overhead press, pull ups, and plank for example) where you do one set of each exercise in a row without stopping. Most of the time you’ll do 2-3 full circuits for a workout. By doing many exercises in succession, you’ll burn fat, build muscle, AND get a cardiovascular workout.

What kind of exercises will be done?

This guide uses a combination of body weight exercises, free weight exercises, and resistance band exercises. I’m a huge fan of free weights, and pretty much refuse to use any weight machines in a gym. I encourage you to do the same. Free weights and body weight exercises teach your body to move naturally, while weight machines keep your body, joints, and muscles on a fixed plane that keep them from moving naturally. This is NOT cool, not safe, and not good for you.

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But I’m scared of free weights, why can’t I just use the machines instead?

Because they’re not safe, they help you develop poor habits, and they’re not real-world effective. Although it might seem safer to exercise using machines, they actually put you at a distinct disadvantage.

These machines do most of the stabilizing work for you, which means all of the tiny muscles that support your big muscles, joints, and bones go unused. Because of that, when you’re in a real world scenario where you have to bend down and pick up your kid, reach behind the refrigerator, or run to catch a bus, those tiny muscles now need to be used but haven’t been exercised, and injuries occur.

Instead, start right away with free weights, and it’s okay if you’re wobbly – that’s because your stabilizer muscles are getting used to supporting you. As they get built up and become stronger, you’ll become less wobbly and more prepared for the real world.

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Will this guide help me get rid of my gut?

Yes it will, but only if you work for it. UNFORTUNATELY, THERE IS NO WAY TO SPOT REDUCE FAT ON YOUR BODY. We’re all created differently, and we all carry fat on our bodies differently. Men usually carry extra fat in their stomach, while women often carry it in their legs and stomach.

This goes way back to the cavemen days and the survival of the fittest - our extra weight was stored in our stomachs in case it was needed later when food became scarce. Food is now readily abundant, but our bodies and anatomy haven’t changed much from the good old days.

Now, if you follow this guide and eat right while exercising regularly, the fat will start to come off in a particular sequence from your body that is completely out of your control. This means that Jabba the Hutt could do 1000 sit ups every day; but he’ll never lose any belly fat until he changes his diet and the weight starts to fall off.

Don’t be like Jabba, you’re smarter than that.

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Will this turn my fat into muscle?

Fat and muscle are two completely different things in your body, so you can’t convert one to the other. Essentially, you could have huge muscles, but you’d never know it because they’re buried under layers of fat. By exercising regularly to build muscle and burn calories while following a great diet of healthy food, that fat will disappear and the muscles hidden underneath will start to pop out. Jackpot baby!

Will this help me get a six pack?

Abs are incredibly tough to come by, and actually have very little to do with exercise, believe it or not. The ONLY way you’re going to see your abs is if you have a body fat percentage down in the single digits. Ladies, you need to get down to 14-17% to see those abs.

Most people already have abs, they’re just hidden under fat. To get that flat stomach and show off your six pack, you need to follow an incredibly strict diet, have great genetics, and/ or burn lots of calories daily until your body fat drops low enough. It’s tough, but if that’s what you want, you CAN get there with enough persistence and dedication.

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HOW YOU’RE GOING TO SUCCEED:

Consider this basic training for your brain; when you’re throughwith this section you’ll be armed with the tools to succeed.

Yesterday is gone. What you did this morning, yesterday, last week, last year, 10 years ago DOESN’T matter. That was the old you, who has nothing to do with who you are today. You are a clean slate.

Consider this the first day of the rest of your life.

I don’t care if you’ve tried to get in shape and lose weight a hundred times before today; this is different. Previous attempts weren’t failures, they were merely stepping stones to get you where you are today in order to make a serious change.

Everything happens for a reason.

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It’s not a sprint. First and foremost, you need to remember that this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. You didn’t get overweight overnight; which means you’re not going to get in shape overnight either. Don’t get discouraged when you don’t look like Brad Pitt or Jessica Biel by next week; it’s going to take some work! One day at a time.

Don’t rely only on the scale. One day, you’re going to step on your scale and see a number that’s higher than you expected. It happens, so don’t beat yourself up over it - your weight can fluctuate wildly over the course of a day or two due to fluid levels, how much you’ve eaten, if you’ve had a lot of sodium, and so on.

Secondly, muscle weighs more than fat, and when you get rid of one and add the other, your weight might not change but your body composition will - this is where taking a before and after picture can certainly help.

Rather than getting bummed out about daily changes in your weight, pick the same day each week and weigh yourself first thing in the morning. Changes over a longer period of time make it easier to spot trends.

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Live every day with a purpose. I have a picture hanging in my room with a quote from my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption:

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

I read it every morning before walking out the door, reminding me to make the most out of my day. Whatever your motivation is to get in shape (yourself, your wife, your kids, your grandkids, your job, the cute waitress at the coffee shop), make that the first thing you think of in the morning so you live each day with that motivation; feel free to print your own quote and hang it up somewhere you can see it.

Frodo knew he had to destroy the ring, Maximus had to get revenge on Commodus in Gladiator, Andy Dufresne knew he was innocent and fought daily in prison to remain hopeful for nineteen years before breaking free. These men were motivated to succeed where others would had failed (yeah I know Maximus died by the end of the movie, but he still got what he was after).

I don’t care what your motivation is, as long as it gets you to take care of business.

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Set goals. Plan out your goals for the future. Your success along the way at hitting these milestones will determine if you’re on target or if you need to make a change.

Secondly, maybe getting below 200 pounds seems like a pipe dream; if you just worry about getting down to 350 first, and then 50 total pounds lost, and then 20% of your body weight lost, and then into the 200’s, etc., the challenge will seem much more manageable. Think of these milestones like achievements on Xbox Live or quests on World of Warcraft.

Try adding goals that aren’t just focused on the scale either: ten straight push ups, one pull up, run a 5k race, etc. As you get stronger and accomplish these goals, your weight will start to fall as a side-effect.

Determine what you expect to accomplish in the next few months with your fitness, and what you expect to accomplish in the next few months with your life. Success in one can snowball into momentum for the other.

Push yourself, hard (but safely). This is non-negotiable. I want you to finish each workout sweating bullets.

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If you’re going to spend 45 minutes exercising, you might as well use that time as efficiently as possible, right? Pick enough weight for each exercise that it’s a struggle, and then next time, lift a little bit heavier. The heavier you can lift, the more calories you’ll burn and the more muscle you’ll build.

No half-assing it. I want you to push yourself every time you exercise. Now, obviously if you feel like you’re about to pass out or hurt yourself, stop. But you’ll be surprised of what you’re capable of beyond the initial “eh, I can’t do this” moment. Step outside of that comfort zone a little bit further every day. Lift one more pound, do one more rep, run one second faster.

Hopefully you’ve seen the movie 300 (here’s the trailer). When asked what he thought about his training to look the way he did for his role as King Leonidas, Gerard Butler replied, “That was a great thing, to put on that cape and put on that helmet, and not have to think, sh**, I should have trained more.”

“Instead, I was standing there feeling like a lion.”

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Remember that you’re human. I know you’re incredibly busy; we all have stuff that gets in the way each day that we didn’t expect. Shit happens. Sometimes the weather prevents you from exercising, jury duty takes an extra day, your friends kidnap you to play videogames with them (you poor soul). What this means is…

If you miss a day or eat bad food all weekend long, don’t beat yourself up. I repeat: don’t beat yourself up! Just don’t let it become two days, and then three days, etc. Before you know it, a week has suddenly gone by and you’re right back to square one. If you mess up and skip a workout, get RIGHT back on the horse and get back at it the next day. Don’t make excuses, just do what you need to do to take care of business.

Remember that you are not alone. There are others doing this program, and other people looking to turn their lives around. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask them on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards. Email me if you have specific questions that aren’t answered in this guide. I’ll do my best to answer your question to the best of my ability.

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Never underestimate the power of momentum. If you’ve never exercised a day in your life or given any thought to what you shovel down your pie hole, it is going to be tough to establish a good routine for exercise and diet in the beginning....but it is absolutely doable.

Science has taught us that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. This means that getting started can be really tough, and thoughts of doubt can creep in. Your will to succeed and your motivation for exercising are very important in the beginning.

Fortunately, once you get moving with good habits, momentum will work in a positive way and KEEP you going. It’s a great feeling to have, and one that will start to pay some pretty significant dividends for you in life.

The great news is, the confidence you’ll get from your first “hey, did you lose weight?” comment will carry over into every other area of your life. Want some inspiration? Meet my friend Christian.

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Nerd Fitness reader Christian emailed me a few months back:

“I am 33 years old, have recently gone through a divorce, lost my job, my house, and am in the process of putting my life back together.

Despite losing so much, I have decided to use this time to perfect myself as a man. I have always wanted to pursue an acting career, so that is one thing that I am now working on. I have also become overweight and I am trying to remedy that situation now.”

After losing some weight, changing his diet, and building some muscle, Christian worked up enough courage to start his acting career…and with his first audition he scored the lead role in a London production of Othello!

Moral of the story: it’s never to late to change, and don’t EVER underestimate momentum.

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Keep track of everything: how much you’re lifting, how many sets and reps, and how you felt after each workout. If you don’t know how you did last time, you won’t know what you need to do this time to get better. Use Excel or write in a notebook, use DailyBurn.com or SparkPeople.com to track your workouts and your diet for free!

When possible, work out with somebody else – I guarantee you will accomplish more if you have a friend there with you shouting words of encouragement. When you’re having days where you don’t want to exercise, your friend can motivate you, and vice versa when it’s the other way around. This is one of the most important things I can pass along.

If you don’t have anybody to exercise with, that just means you’re going to need to work a little bit harder, but that’s okay. I work out alone, and use my time while lifting weights to relieve stress and think about life.

Build a support group around you. Start a blog, tell your friends, coworkers, significant others, family members, rent a plane and sky-write it, just get it out in public. If you have people constantly asking how you’re doing, you’ll be far more likely to stick with your routine so you get to report good news along the way.

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Want some online support? Start a new thread over on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards, where hundreds of people have written thousands of posts supporting each other. Tell us who you are, what you hope to accomplish, and how you expect to get it done. A support group, even online, can do wonders for accountability.

The more people you tell, the more places you post your goals, the more likely you’re going to force yourself to succeed. You don’t want to be known as that guy/girl that can’t keep a promise, do you? Now, once you start to see results, you’ll be inspiring the very people that helped keep you accountable. That’s how I started Nerd Fitness.

Have some fun with it! Certain days will have you doing strength training, while other days will require 30 minutes of any exercise. On those days, do what makes you happy. Hiking in woods, walking your dog, playing Ultimate Frisbee, taking a free Karate class at the Y, playing Wii tennis with your kids, etc. Whatever it is that gets your heart rate pumping and YOU smiling, do it.

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Understand that your diet will be responsible for 80% of your success or failure. You can’t outrun your fork, and you can’t out-train a bad diet. The more positive changes you can make to your diet the more success you will see. I go into all of this in far more detail in the Rebel Diet Guide and Rebel Food Fighter, so check it out!

Don’t get stressed! Stress is often considered one of the leading causes of weight gain: cortisol, a hormone that is released when you’re under stress, seems to work with insulin to create visceral fat (the bad fat in your body). At the same time, cortisol can also prompt you to crave “comfort foods.”

A recent study has shown that workplace stress has been linked to obesity. Telling you to not stress so much about work is probably useless, but at least try to remember that your work isn’t your life.

Don’t forget that.

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Sleep! Unfortunately, lack of sleep has been tied to all kinds of unwanted issues as well, including obesity. I know it’s tough in today’s society, but do what you can to get enough sleep each night if you want to see the best results. Sure, your guildmates in World of Warcraft might get a little upset that you’re not up til 3AM with them every night, but your body will thank you. Eight to nine hours each night is best, but try to get at least seven - less stupid TV at night, read a book, and get your z’s!

Take things one day at a time. If you’re 20, 50, 100, 200 pounds overweight, the finish line might seem like a LONG ways off. Do not concern yourself with tomorrow just yet, because it hasn’t happened.

Gandalf the Grey said it best: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Don’t worry about the stuff you can’t control; only focus on the stuff you CAN control. Each decision you make today will take you one step closer to your goal or one step further away.

That choice is yours.

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WHAT YOU NEED IN YOUR INVENTORY:

In order to get the most out of this guide, you’re going to need access to a few pieces of equipment. Most exercises will only require your body weight, but in other instances you’ll want to use either dumbbells or resistance bands to complete the routine. If you’re serious about training, access to a pull up bar is going to be key as well.

If you have a gym membership, you’ll be able to do these routines in the gym without picking up any sort of extra equipment. You’ll only need either dumbbells or resistance bands (and maybe an exercise ball). If the exercise routine calls for the one you don’t have, substitute in an equivalent exercise that you can do with the equpiment you DO have.

Just a heads up: the links to products on Amazon are affiliate links, so I get a small commission if you buy them through those links. If you can get them cheaper elsewhere however, please do!

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Dumbbells: If you’re exercising from home, you should invest in a decent set of adjustable dumbbells. Why adjustable? Because every time you exercise, you’ll get stronger and stronger, and you’ll need to add weight to increase the difficulty to continue to improve.

Once you can do more than the required reps of an exercise at a certain weight with ease, you need to add more weight to make it more difficult and make your muscles work harder. Muscles need to constantly adapt to the stress that’s applied to them or they won’t get stronger – add more weight and get stronger.

I bought a set of adjustable dumbbells at Walmart for 20 bucks, which you can see here. This is a decent starter set, but you’ll want to eventually buy some more plates or a bigger set if you’re advancing rapidly.

If you’re serious about getting in shape, don’t wuss out and pick up a set of cheap dumbbells and then never get bigger ones. Heavy adjustable dumbbells can get very expensive , and I’m cheap, so I use the equipment at my local gym. Check Craigslist for a good used set as well.

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Resistance Bands: I’m a big fan of resistance bands - they’re far easier to travel with than dumbbells, they provide constant tension throughout the entire range of motion, and they’re extremely versatile.

You’ll want exercise bands of various degrees of tension so you can adjust based on the exercise and how tough you’re pushing yourself. I bought a set for only 25 bucks at Walmart, and here’s a decent set of bands on Amazon, but the resisance only goes up to 20 pounds.

If you’re going serious about building muscle, you’ll need heavy-duty bands like these if you want to go the exercise band route.

Pull-up Bar: Pull ups and chin ups are two of my favorite exercises – they’re so damn simple and incredibly indicative of your level of fitness. In the videos I used for this guide, I went to a local playground and used their monkey bars to do my pull ups. I have an Iron Gym pull up bar.

If you want to do pull ups but don’t have the strength yet, consider a big rubber band to help you until you can do them without assisance.

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Exercise Ball: I’m a big fan of exercise balls when it comes to building core strength. Doing crunches on the floor are boring and can be really bad for your lower back. Instead, doing crunches on an exercise ball put your core through a greater range of motion and really work your abs and lower back.

I highly recommend picking up a ball for your home gym. Here’s a cheap and effective exercise ball.

A bench: some exercises will require you to step up onto a platform to complete the exercise. If you live and work out in a one-floor apartment, it can be tough to track down something to actually stand on, especially when you start adding in extra weights. Here’s a decent bench for $40, which is still pricey for just something to stand on.

Instead, I would recommend either using your home stairs to get started, then graduating to a park bench, stone wall, or a REALLY sturdy chair that can support your weight. If you’re doing this inside, make sure you have enough head room to stand up! If you have a gym membership, you can just use one of the flat benches in the free weight section.

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A watch: When building strength and muscular endurance, it’s important to keep track of how long you’re waiting between sets. A simple stopwatch, the second hand on your watch, or a clock on the wall will work just fine.

Clothing: Be comfortable. I wear 100% cotton t-shirts, basketball shorts, and I work out barefoot. If you’re not ready for going barefoot yet, a good pair of cross-training sneakers is okay - the lower the heel the more in balance you’ll be for your exercises.

If you have some money and you’re naturally a sweaty person, look into those moisture-wicking shirts from companies like UnderArmour and Nike.

Water Bottle: It’s easy to get dehydrated when exercising, so have a source of water with you, constantly taking little sips between sets. Note: I said water, not sports drinks or water with vitamins (which are BOTH loaded with sugar)…just water!

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BEFORE YOU GET STARTED:

1) Consult a physician before attempting any physical activity. These routines are designed for people who are cleared for battle, so make sure you’re up for it.

2) Take a picture of yourself before you get started. Sometimes the scales lie, and your body weight won’t change but your body composition will. If you see great results over these next few months and want to share your story with your fellow NF rebels, there might be some cool stuff in it for you!

3) Watch the videos as I perform each exercise before attempting them. Your form is always of the utmost importance; begin with very light weight when trying an exercise for the first time, make sure you have it right, and then start adding weight and upping the difficulty.

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4) Add enough weight for the exercise to be tough, but not so much that you exhaust yourself completely. For exercises that aren’t body weight exercises, you need to determine which dumbbells to use or what level resistance bands to exercise with. You don’t want to go to complete exhaustion – you always want to have one left in the chamber, a little fuel left in the pod racer (I promise, this is the first and last Star Wars: Episode One reference I’ll make).

Stimulate, not annihilate! For example, if you’re supposed to do 3 sets of 12 reps of shoulder presses, you want to pick a weight that will be challenging for you all the way through to the 12th rep on that final set.

5) Be careful on the body weight exercises. If an exercise calls for 15 push ups and you can only do 5, that’s okay. Either adjust the difficulty to do easier pushups (down on your knees or elevate your hands) or stick with regular push ups and do as many as can, and then go for one more repetition next time. Pushing yourself is good, but don’t overdo it.

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6) Warm up before every workout, and stretch after every workout. It’s amazing how important these two things are to your success, so don’t shirk your duties. If you have to cut a workout short, cut the exercises short…never skimp on a warm up or stretching afterwards. Your body will thank me.

7) Don’t do anything if it doesn’t feel right. I want to get you healthy, but I don’t want you to get hurt doing it. It’s tough to get in shape if you’re out of commission with a pulled hamstring, so take care of yourself. If there are certain exercises that don’t feel right to you and you feel like you’re doing them correctly, do a different exercise for the same muscle group. Let me know if you have questions on what to sub in.

8) Make sure to keep track of your workouts. Have a pen and paper or Excel spreadsheet to keep track of how much weight you used, how many reps you did, and if you should increase or decrease the weight for the next time. It doesn’t need to be anything complicated, just record your numbers. I’ve created excel sheets for all routines in this guide, so feel free to print those out or fill in on the computer.

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ABOUT THE WORKOUTSI’ve designed the different workouts in the Rebel Fitness Guide to be scalable for people all ages, sizes, strengths, and levels of experience.

Many exercises on each routine will have less challenging exercises listed in parentheses next to them. These lesser exercises will still give you a great workout and allow you to finish the whole routine.

For example, if the routine calls for 3 sets of 10 push ups, and you can only do 3 sets of 5 push ups on your knees, THAT’S OKAY. Do your three sets on your knees, and then next week aim for 3 sets of 6 push ups, and so on.

The increasing levels of the routines are based on experience and your tolerance for complexity, not strength. They get tougher due to their complexity, not how much weight you have to lift!

If you feel good while doing level 2, and you want more of a challenge, try level 3, and scale the tougher exercises down to ones that you can complete. Don’t be scared of the higher levels, you can get there!

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GOOD LUCK!Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get in the best damn shape of your life. Yesterday is over and tomorrow hasn’t happened yet, which means all you can control is what happens today.

If you’re ready to get started, check out the exercise plans for your particular level and get going. Don’t forget to read the Rebel Diet Guide and Rebel Food Fighter too, as they will be powerful allies in your quest to eat better, feel better, and look better.

Most of all, good luck my friend. The journey will be long and perilous, but I know you can succeed if you give it everything you’ve got.

Go find a mirror, tell yourself “I can do this,” and get started. Get mean, swear, jump up and down, and pump yourself up. It’s go time, baby.

For the Rebellion!