Mayhem 6-Exercise Circuit

I first met Mike Whitfield in Las Vegas. Sin City. If I remember correctly (my memory sometimes fails me in situations like this), he was lost and wandering in a dark alley. He looked confused.

“Mike, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’ve been DJ’ing,” replied Mike, his eyes dazed, with a twinkle. “They had pancakes on the turntables!”

The rest of the night was a blur. When I saw him the next day, he didn’t seem to remember the encounter in the alley. I didn’t bring it up.

As I walked down the strip, there it was. A flyer on the sidewalk. “Get ‘Finished’ with DJ Pancakes’.

BOOM goes the DJ Dynamite! 🙂

That Mike Whitfield is a busy man. He gets it. He knows what it’s like to be one of us…

As we traded notes in Vegas, Mike asked me about my perspective on staying fit with a busy schedule.

You see, I’m not a professional trainer. I have a completely different lifestyle – one that’s probably a lot like yours. And that gives me a different perspective.

Here’s my story.

…

The whir of the hard drive and computer fan cranking up each morning is like caffeine for me. It gets me excited. Ready to tackle the day.

My wife is a morning person. Me? Notsomuch. But each morning, I hear the shower go on as she winds down from her workout. I roll out of bed to do my 10-minute Metabolic Motivator. Done.

My body’s awake now, but my brain is still warming up. About the time I hear the water in the shower turn off, I’m hitting the power button on my laptop. Whirrrrr.

I spend the next 10 minutes catching up on some reading. Emails, blog posts and what-have-you from some of my friends in the fitness industry before the kids get up. Before we start the drive to school. Before I start my day of meetings and conference calls and decisions.

There are some really good folks out there. They want to help you. But as I read some of these emails, I realize that, as well intentioned as many of them are, a lot of them still don’t “get” what it’s like to be us.

“I’m lucky I get to work out during business hours when other people are stuck behind their desks or working their regular jobs” reads one email.

I hop into the shower. This is my thinking time. And that one line is stuck in my head. Over and over it keeps repeating itself. Other people. Stuck. During business hours.

It’s no wonder that these trainers think you should have no problem spending 30 minutes driving to a crowded gym to do their long, boring, hour-long (or more!) sessions before driving 30 minutes back home to (hopefully) tuck your kids in for the night.

Because they work out during business hours. They’re not “stuck” behind a desk.

That’s why they create these long workouts. And why they call YOU lazy or tell you that YOU don’t have your priorities straight when you can’t make time to do their long workout (hey, it happened to me).

Next time that happens to you, ask your trainer if they can carve out a few hours to do some spreadsheet analysis in between clients (I think ‘DJ Pancakes’ is an exception to that rule, he genuinely gets it).

The fact is, though, most of them don’t know what it’s like to be us. It’s just not their lifestyle.

And that’s fine. But they should stop pretending they know what it’s like to spend 15 hours per day running around trying to get everything done.

Trying to get the kids to school. And then a full day of work. And then chauffeuring the one kid to band practice while trying to get the other one to the soccer field. And then get dinner on the table.

And then helping with homework with some type of math you had to know years ago but have long forgotten. All while thinking in the back of your mind, “I’ve got to work out today.”

They don’t get what THAT’s like.

You and I don’t have time to spend hours in a sweaty gym.

We need a way to work out more efficiently.

And that’s where Metabolic Mayhem comes in.

Metabolic Mayhem helps the busiest moms and dads shed their unwanted fat and keep it off in just 20 minutes (or less!) per workout.

The key is densifying your workouts by cranking up the intensity. But it’s more than working out harder and faster. It’s about designing workouts that truly maximize the effort of every rep.

And that’s by using Work+Rest/Work method.

Though the idea is much bigger, when you apply this Metabolic Mayhem concept at the micro level to your workout routines, you’ll maximize the intensity of every rep.

And that – according to a 1998 article in the Journal of Obesity – can lead to burning up to 300% more calories in just 1/4 of the time.

Who wouldn’t want that?

So, how do you apply this Metabolic Mayhem concept to your workouts?

Try out this 10-Minute Bodyweight Scorcher. I call it “Pancakes to the People!” in honor of the young and energetic DJ Pancakes, Mike Whitfield.

Seal Jacks x 60 seconds

Spiderman Push Ups x 8 each side

Goblet Squats x 20

Forearm Planks x 30 seconds

Pull-Ups x 10 (or as many reps as possible)

Mountain Climbers x 10 each side

Repeat that circuit for as many rounds as possible in 10 minutes. Rest only when you need to.

This type of workout clearly isn’t for the weak-willed. It’s for the type of person that does finishers so they can eat pancakes. People that go all out, all of the time. Like Mike Whitfield. Like YOU.

It sets your metabolism on fire by using the Work+Rest/Work principle from Metabolic Mayhem: Work a body part, and then let it rest while you work another.

It’s the best way I know to really crank up the intensity of your workout to get more work done faster, get a massive calorie burn during your workout, and a massive afterburn following your workout.

Give this workout a try and let me and Mike ‘DJ Pancakes’ Whitfield know what you think.

The moral of the story? Forget long, slow, mind-numbing cardio for fat loss! There’s a much better way to lose fat. Ways for even the busiest moms and dads to lose their unwanted fat and keep it off in 20 minutes (or less!) per workout.

Learn more about Ben and his Metabolic Mayhem method here.

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Ben Teal is a Certified Metabolic Trainer and is the creator of Metabolic Mayhem where he helps the busiest moms and dads shed their stubborn body fat with workouts that last 20 minutes (or less!).

Metabolic Mayhem is his passion, but it isn’t his profession. Ben is an economist (BA and MS) and a process efficiency expert. This gives him a unique (and entertaining) take on fitness… one that has been extremely successful helping other super busy men and women burn fat, build muscle and change their bodies.

When he’s not in the office crunching data, working out or writing for Metabolic Mayhem, you can often find him stuck in traffic somewhere between home, work and driving his two wonderful kids between seemingly endless activities.