The TLA is about training like an athlete for a set period of time with a defined purpose. This includes being more disciplined in your life than usual, challenging habits, monitoring progress, adding quality to your workouts and becoming nutritionally savvy. I did some research and checked out how a few of the hollywood stars prepare for roles, plus one celebrity chef. Judging by my research it seems the best way to reach your goal is to train like an athlete.

Anyway, you be the judge.

Jessica Biel

In order to build and maintain her lean, slender and toned body Jessica Biel combines various exercises into any given workout, constantly changing the exercises she does to keep her body guessing and building lean muscle to cope with the change in workload.

Jessica Biel’s favourite resistance exercises include:

• Squats
• Plyometric jumps
• Walking lunges
• Jumping lunges
• Medicine ball throws
• Chest flyes
• Press ups
• One leg stiff legged deadlifts

Nutrition

When getting ready for a movie Jessica Biel will eat 6 to 8 small meals a day to kick start her metabolism and provide the right fuel and energy for her workouts. The Jessica Biel diet will include a high level of quality protein – fish, chicken, some red meat – and a good source of complex carbohydrates, with most carbs eaten in the morning and straight after her workout. In the evening Jessica will reduce her carb intake to zero whilst still eating high protein meals (or substituting her protein meals for protein shakes)

Continue reading Body transformations →

For men, a decade ago the body of the moment was about being super buff, super big. Now, things are changing. The narcissistic pumped up stiff look is falling by the wayside. For starters most women hated it. Secondly, to achieve the narcissistic look involved too many supplements, was too regimented to achieve, and if you actually managed to achieve the super big look you had no friends because let’s be honest, you were just no fun. Nowadays men want to look fit. They want to look athletic. They also want the goal to be achievable, engaging, and simple. Importantly, at the end of the week men want to be able to reach for a pint instead of a tub of cottage cheese, which is definitely more manly. Coincidentally this ideal is a look females appreciate. The body of the moment is lean muscles with legs and upper body in proportion and a stomach that juts. This look is best achieved with a combination of progressive weight training, heart rate intervals, recovery, nutrition, and here’s the wincer: female workouts. At the TLA we call our female workouts dynamic circuits. Female workouts are essentially body weight circuits that sculpt the long muscles and the small muscles of the body in a way that is highly dissimilar to weight training, but has a huge carryover to day to day life situations. These movements include jumping, twisting, and powerful movements coupled with finesse. Done properly your hamstrings scream, the back of your shoulders align while engaging the core and posterior chain. The best bit about these female workouts is the carryover effect to the other manly workouts. Suddenly squatting is done with better form, running feels more natural and faster, when you box you are more aware of the abs,and both the way you both move & lift improves. For the TLA Stephana Arnold is our dynamic circuit instructor. Stephana brings some of her torturous ballet routines which she would use while training as one of the top ballerinas in the country. These routines exquisitely define muscles and make the wee muscles squirm & work harder than you can ever imagine. For the TLA more men than women are now doing the dynamic circuits, including a couple of Vancouver Whitecaps. My advice. Do some woman workouts. They will help a great deal in getting the body of the moment.