Fitness Junkie And Prolab Athlete Jeremy Scott Talks To M&S

What do you love most about fitness and bodybuilding?

One of the reasons I love fitness, strength training, and bodybuilding is because it’s one of the fairest forms left in society. Now I know that might sound odd, since it’s probably the most subjective competition sport there is. However, I am talking about the work you put into your aerobic-anaerobic training and nutrition plan. That is what’s fair.

If you put the time into training and eating the right way for your body, the results show 100% of the time. You might not win your class and get a little plastic trophy but the body you built and lessons you learned along the way are yours. Think of it this way...at your job you can bust your butt everyday and never get promoted. In the gym if you bust your butt everyday it shows both externally and internally.

There are a lot of truths in fitness and bodybuilding that don’t exist in the “real world.” That’s the main reason I love training so much. It’s an arena in which you can compete with others, but more importantly an arena you can compete against yourself day in and day out.

What keeps you motivated?

My personal health is the #1 motivator. nothing else even come close. Now, when I was a lot younger and dumber I trained for vanity. As my good buddy would say “all you need is jacked arms and a rock six” and that’ s how we trained.

I think that’s how a lot of guys start training and sadly still do to this day, but along the way I saw the bigger picture. To make a long story short, the way I was eating and living started to affect my health internally on various levels, which made me take a serious look at my training but also my lifestyle.

So, I started to focus not so much on the vanity part of training and eating but instead focus on my internal wellbeing. The result: I am now in the best functional shape of my life, stronger, faster, and more efficient. One of the byproducts is a body I am happy to see in the mirror.

I truly believe if you focus on learning how your body works internally, and do what’s healthy first, all the external benefits will follow. At the end of the day that’s what matters how we feel and how healthy we are. Without health the external shell is meaningless regardless of how good it looks.

What are your future goals, dreams and plans?

My future goals differ from most as I spend more time on client’s nutrition and training than my own these days. So my #1 goal is to make sure all of our clients at www.jeremyscottfitness.com reach their goals. They are the focus of what I do each day. They also motivate me to train harder and eat better,.

Some of the changes and transformations they make really blow me away. I just want to continue to help and inspire others through healthy fitness practices. If I had to pick something selfishly training wise, I do have a few more NPC Men’s Physique shows on the schedule this year and like anyone else I would like to win one.

I also plan to jump on stage for a bodybuilding show in the next year. I have always loved bodybuilding, the whole process training, nutrition, preparing and competing. More important than all of those things I just want to continue to “be the best Jeremy Scott I can be.” Showing up day after day in great shape, competing on a higher level at every show, and living healthier & happier every day.

Which do you prefer, and why…stead state cardio or HIIT?

Anyone who knows me knows how I train, knows how we train our clients, and how we run our fitness camps, and knows I hate “steady state cardio.” Cardio in the sense most people talk about it is a “swear word” at Jeremy Scott Fitness.

I use this analogy all the time: “do you want to look like a marathon runner or a sprinter?” Think about it... Olympic sprinters are ripped up lean athletes while marathon runners on average are skinny fat and look sick in my opinion. Now I am not saying all marathon runners, but be honest here many of them don’t have aesthetically pleasing bodies we aspire to have.

The science behind my thoughts, simple... I am about efficiency time and effort. No secret here, I don’t enjoy running, so if I am going to do it I want to get the most bang for my buck. Spiriting has been show to raise growth hormone in the body, which builds lean muscle. This in turn keeps your body fat lower.

Sprinting can also increase mitochondria, the section of the cell where your energy is stored, making your body more efficient at releasing energy. To get real basic here sprinting helps you build lean muscle, shed body fat, and takes far less time than the “steady state” cardio people have been doing for years. You tell me which one sounds more attractive to you?

What are some of the biggest training mistakes you’ve made?

Some of the biggest mistakes I have made starting out where being too anxious for gains and poor nutrition choices. Now we all want results and we want them yesterday, living in the microwave instant message society. I guess it’s our nature now.

Fitness doesn’t work that way. It takes years on years of sacrifice and dedication to truly see the changes you want. Many times people will try things for 90 days see little results and quit. 90 days is nothing. You just have to trust the process and know each day is one day closer to your goals.

I was no different. I would try something for 8 weeks, see no results, convince myself the program didn’t work and try something else. This was very counterproductive. I also didn’t know how to eat correctly, not that I would smash pizza and fries all day, but my macros where out of whack.

I listened to the wrong people starting out, read the wrong magazines, believed the lies in advertisements and it got me nowhere. It wasn’t until I really started educating myself, listing to what I call the “real rock stars” of the health industry most of which will never be on covers, in magazines and don’t have bodies you would aspire to have.

However, listening to the right people learning the science behind nutrition, strength training, rest and corrective exercise put me on the path to success helping me get to where I am at today.

How important is carb cycling when trying to cut fat and retain muscle?

I love carb cycling personally; I do it all year long and have been doing so for a few years now. I have found great success not only aesthetically staying lean all year but also with energy levels and making gains in the process. We teach it to our clients here and I believe it’s the healthiest most effective way to stay lean and healthy 24-7-365.

In its simplest form I practice a NO-LOW-MEDIUM-HIGH carb rotation for most of the year. Now if I have an event, let’s say a competition or a photo shoot coming up, I will make adjustments with my macros and follow a different pattern based on my body composition.

There are truly so many options with carb cycling based on personality type, work schedule, and lifestyle I think it can be effective for almost anyone if there are willing to follow it correctly.

What are some of your favorite supplements and why?

I am Prolab athlete and I absolutely love being part of a team that has been around so many years and is trusted in the industry. I take a wide array of supplements throughout the year based on my goals at the time:

• Multivitamin
• Fish Oil - Glucosamine
• Vitamin D3
• Vitamin C
• Spirulina
• ZMA
• Melatonin
• Prolab Whey Isolate
• Prolab Beta Alanine Extreme
• Prolab BCAA Plus
• Prolab Creatine
• Prolab Glutamine

I love the Beat Alanine Extreme. I wasn’t sure about it before I started taking it but I am a believer now. In a nutshell, it helps my endurance when I am training it allows me to do more in the gym for longer periods of time. It’s also a great recovery agent, so I can get back into the gym quicker and continue making improvements day after day.

I am also a huge fan of Prolab BCAA Plus, as at times I will train either anaerobic or aerobically in a fasted state and I find taking BCAAs before and after helps with the muscle breakdown. I am all about training for health and functionality, but it’s also nice to keep the muscle you build as well, and I find BCAAs really help in that department.

How important is nutrient timing for performance and/or building muscle?

I go back and forth on this one, as I know many people fear eating carbs after 7 pm. They believe they will turn into straight fat….which I don’t believe. I do believe in trying to eat for your activity level. If you’re going to train for an hour you should have some fuel either pre/post workout or both. Same goes for sitting on the couch watching TV. You don’t need to eat a ton of pre or post food for that activity.

So yes timing does matter. Pre workout nutrition is probably the second most important meal of the day and post workout is #1. My reasoning your muscle are depleted from training so hard in the gym they are screaming for fuel, so feeding them in this state leads to greater and faster gains in my opinion.

A little “bro science” here. I tend to eat a majority of my carbs after I workout or before and after, based on the day. I feel I train better, feel better, and look better overall when timing my food intake this way.

What are some of your favorite motivational quotes?

• “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” – Jerry Rice
• “If you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe then you’ll be successful.” – Eric Thomas
• “The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
• “A champion wants to succeed more and more and thinks about it 24 hours a day, and does the things - the extra things - that it takes to be that champion.” – Jay Cutler

Now each of these quotes probably holds a different meaning for me than they would for you, but they have all motivated me and continue to each and every day. I think you can take each one of these quotes and apply them to any arena of your life and you will see improvement and that is the thing I love about them the most.

This whole fitness world we live in is amazing and I love it to the fullest, but it’s only a small part of my life and who I am, and these quotes help to motivated me inside and outside the fitness world.

If someone wants to connect with you, where can you be found?

• Website: www.jeremyscottfitness.com
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Jeremyscottfitness
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jsfbootcamps
• Prolab Athlete Page: http://www.prolab.com/team/jeremy-scott/
• Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/teamjsf/pins/