That’s it. Team Honey Badger made their debut on Hawaii News Now Sunrise this morning. The secret’s out. What started as a friendly little ad hoc workout challenge for the news crew has morphed into something else entirely.

So what’s the plan?

While seeing who can lose the most weight fastest sounds nice and all, that’s actually the worst way we can go about things. We took multiple measurements like circumferences, body composition, weight, & bmi  so we can look at how the body is changing over the next 6 weeks. The more information we have on Team Honey Badger the better we can address their training needs. One main issue  is that muscle is much more dense than fat. So, as our boys are training, they’re going to be getting stronger, gaining muscle. Since muscle is more dense while they’re losing fat, they’re going to be losing inches and clothing sizes. Thing is though that weight might not change as much when you’re putting on muscle. And that’s a good thing! Muscle mass takes more energy to support than fat does, so it not only makes you look better, it maintains an elevated metabolic rate for you as well. More muscle = more energy burned throughout the day = more fat lost.

So how do we do It? Strategy.

Exercise is only half the battle. So, we brought in a couple of additional team members. First our team nutrition leader and registered dietitian Paula Sandoval ( www.EvolveFitnessAndNutrition.snappages.com ). Her job is to keep Team Honey Badger on the nutritional straight and narrow by helping implement improved eating habits. She’s keeping them simple and straight forward. If the changes you make in your nutrition aren’t small enough to fit easily into your preexisting habits to begin with, they aren’t going to stick. Good nutrition isn’t a sprint, it’s a gradual process of taking on one good habit at a time.

Then there’s our US Olympic  boxing coach and Get Fit Boxing owner Jen Siegal (www.GetFitBoxing.com ) While I’ve got the guys covered on weights, Jen’s swooping in with some high intensity boxing conditioning to amp up their cardio training in our sessions and developing some serious Honey Badger speed and power. If you’ve never trained with an Olympic certified boxing coach…you should.

Then there’s the conditioning program it’s self. Don’t make the mistake of calling this a workout. These guys are training. Each week offers a new evolution. How long have how many of us been “working out” to lose that last 5 or 10 lbs. How many of us still have that last 5 or 10lbs to lo after years of workouts? working out, like dieting doesn’t work. We train. By addressing the Honey Badgers as athletes, we’re pushing their performance level in a systematic  way that improves their work capacity every time. Each day offers a new evolution. When you enter into an evolution, you grow, you change and you come out stronger.

The workout you saw Thursday morning was designed to start getting the team’s bodies back in touch with working through more natural movement patterns and decreasing the amount of time they have to recover before being able to do more work. I’ll list one of the circuits below and each member’s total score. The score is determined by the total number of reps of each movement completed throughout the entire circuit.

6 sets per movement. 1 set = 20 seconds work and 20 seconds rest. So for that 20 seconds, they did as many as they could before resting and doing it again.

The movements:
Pushups
2 Hand Kettlebell Swings
Body Weight Ring Rows
Medicine Ball Slams

If you want to try, set up a timer and go for it, but please remember, these routines are fairly advanced and can be dangerous without proper supervision. Use your brain and train smart.

Dan       215 points
Byron    202 points
Geoffrey   211 points
Steve.   228 points

Unfortunately Michael and Jonathan had to jump in late on the first day, so I don’t have scores to give for them.

This week’s evolution built on the work recovery theme and added in a strength component. More about that after the segment airs next Thursday on Hawaii News Now Sunrise in the 7am hour.

I’ll be making an in studio appearance on Wednesday, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

I hope you can join us this Saturday, January 21st at 6:45am for our Team Honey Badger Kokohead event.  Come hike the crater with your favorite morning news crew!

We’ll see you there.

MOVE!