Interview With Rusty Moore From FitnessBlackBook.com

An interview with Rusty Moore, the author of Visual Impact Cardio.

By way of a background, Rusty Moore is the author of Visual Impact Muscle Building, Visual Impact for Women and now, Visual Impact Cardio. As you may know, Rusty’s workouts are some of my absolute favorites, which is why I am so pumped he agreed to this interview!

1. First of all Rusty, “Cardio is dead” … What the heck where you thinking when you decided to write Visual Impact Cardio?

It’s funny…I know people are going to hit the sales page for Visual Impact Cardio and think I’m out-of-touch with how to burn body fat. Brief intense intervals are supposedly “the new thing”. What is funny is that I’ve been doing High Intensity Interval Training since 1993.

I’ve also done metabolic resistance training for years, body weight circuits, etc. I knew about CrossFit and that type of training long before it became a household name. I’m not bragging, I just want people to know where I’m coming from. I’m not an old guy who’s training methods are stuck in the 80’s.

I decided to release a cardio book because I think people are in need of this info more than ever. The brief intense interval stuff isn’t getting the job done all the way. A recent study has shown that at best, the afterburn effect accounts for only 15% of what is burned during a workout. So a super intense interval session that burns 300 calories only has an afterburn of 45 total calories.

I have come up with a program that maximizes the amount of calories burned per minute of training…without reaching sticking points or overtraining. The people who will like it the most are the ones who have been stuck for months at a body fat percentage higher than they would like.

If someone is doing circuit training, Tabata intervals, CrossFit, HIIT, etc…and not getting as lean as they would like, my program is the answer for that.

2. The theme of Visual Impact Cardio is “Mastering the Skill of Losing Body Fat.” Is losing body fat really a “skill” or isn’t it just a matter of hard work and dedication?

It really is a skill. If hard work and dedication were all that mattered, there would be a lot more fit people walking the planet. People are putting forth the effort…but aren’t doing the right things at the right time.

Most people who are stuck are simply losing water weight and then gaining that back. What is happening is that they get depleted of carbs a bit while training, go down a bit in weight…then they replenish those carbs and go back to where they started.

They are living in the glycogen zone…never tapping into their stored body fat.

The skill is getting into a glycogen depleted state…and then using fat for fuel without burning muscle tissue. This is something that needs to be mastered if someone wants to get lean…and also stay lean year round. The book teaches this skill.

3. Your two main workout manuals, Visual Impact Muscle Building & Visual Impact for Women, contain what I would consider good approaches to doing cardio. Do you consider the advice you lay out in Visual Impact Cardio THAT much better?

Those two courses have a really solid cardio program as well. To be honest, people who have either of those two programs won’t need this new course. This is for people who like their own routines and just want to lose fat – or – for people who have my other courses and want to mix things up.

There have been countless examples of people who followed the cardio routines in both Visual Impact Muscle Building and Visual Impact for Women and got ultra-lean and fit.

4. I personally got great results by combining Phase 3 of Visual Impact Muscle Building with your advice in Visual Impact Cardio; do you think it’s necessary to follow your workouts (for men or women) while following Visual Impact Cardio?

No. This program was meant to be a fat loss program that would work well with any resistance training program. It will also work on its own. A lot of people really enjoy their workout routines, but just have a tough time losing those last 5-10 pounds. I wanted to create a program for those people.

Obviously…I’m a bit biased about my other two courses. I think they work extremely well when combined with Visual Impact Cardio. I really focus 100% on helping people get sleek and lean vs getting bulky. If that is their goal, my courses can play a major role in helping them get there.

5. You have a great free ab workout that just took 1st place in “The 50 Best Free Health & Fitness Courses on the Web” … how important is cardio in relation to getting visible abs? How important is diet?

I think Abs Blueprint 1.0 did well because it was really designed to be a paid course. I changed my mind and decided to offer it for free the week before it was going to go live. The reasoning was I wanted to give away something of value for free to help launch my Facebook Page.

You have to be at a low body fat percentage to see your abs. Cardio and diet can burn off the blubber that covers the abs. This free course discusses this quite a bit, but also a bad-ass routine taught to me WAY back in college…from a guy with the best abs I’ve ever seen in person.

The course really lays out what it takes to get super-sharp abs. It would have done well as a paid course, because it works well…but I’m glad I offered it for free (good karma).

6. Who would benefit from reading Visual Impact Cardio? Who would not?

The program is geared heavily towards cardio machines. This program uses precise measurements that really only a cardio machine can provide. So anyone who doesn’t belong to a gym, or doesn’t have access to cardio machines will not want to get this program.

There is also a time commitment for at least 8 week. I’m reintroducing the time element back into burning fat. You have to exercise at an intensity that maximizes calorie burn…and exercise long enough to create the proper deficit necessary for fat loss. The time commitment is roughly 30-60 minutes, 5 days per week (with weekends off).

Besides that, this program is for everyone who wants to get as lean as they desire. Whether someone has 50+ pounds to lose or less than 10 pounds to lose, my program will allow them to hit their goal.

7. Can you give my readers one little “golden nugget” you discovered during your studies, researching and testing for Visual Impact Cardio?

Sure. The intensity level that you can burn calories at for an extended period of time is just below lactate threshold. To get lean quickly, you will want to spend more time near your lactate threshold level.

So how do you figure out your LT level on a cardio machine?

Hop on treadmill, exercise bike, elliptical, etc.

• Exercise at a moderate pace for the first 5 minutes.
• Gradually increase the speed until it feels somewhat challenging.
• Maintain this speed for 20 minutes.
• At the 15-20 minute mark check your heart rate.
• Heart rate should be 165-180BPM (men) or 175-185BPM (women).

…basically you are trying to figure out the highest level that you can maintain without your muscles getting fatigued. Find that number, and remember it. Spend more of your time training at that level when you do cardio from now on.

This is obviously only scratching the surface, my program goes into detail about setting up intervals that have an “average intensity level” above the LT level. It also has 8 week cycles that strategically work with short and long intervals along with steady cardio to systematically burn fat at a fast rate without overtraining or reaching fat loss sticking points.

The goal is to systematically burn fat at the quickest rate possible, without killing people. It works no matter where people are at, but the people who will appreciate the program the most, are the ones who have been at a fat loss sticking point for a while.

8. Can someone expect results from your workout while their diet consists of drinking beer and eating nachos?

Absolutely! This is one of my favorite meal and drink combos. The trick in doing this without putting on weight is to track weekly calories, NOT daily calories.

Here is what I recommend.

• Figure out how many calories per day puts you in a deficit. So for a 180 pound man, maybe 1,500 calories per day allows him to lose weight.
• Multiply that figure by 7. In this case it would be 10,500 calories per week.
• Eat under 1,500 per day Mon-Fri.
• This allows you to eat much more on Sat and Sun (beer and nachos).

The main point is that you will lose weight staying under your weekly calorie limit. This is the approach I take year-round and it works flawlessly.

To make this method even more effective, do the right type of cardio Mon-Fri with lower than normal calories. Works like charm!

9. I know you like beer, what’s your favorite “diet beer” and “non-diet” beer?

Best question ever! I have so many favorites I am going to list a few categories (hope that is cool). I’ve been going to beer tasting festivals for years and really enjoy beer a lot. Here is my short list.

• Favorite Low Cal Beer With Pizza: Amstel Light
• Favorite Low Cal Beer With Mexican Food: Corona Light
• Favorite Beer With Hot Wings: Stella or Widmer Hefeweizen
• Favorite First Friday Beer: Mothership Wit or Leffe
• Favorite Microbreweries: Ninkasi or Dogfish Head
• Favorite Beer in General: Mothership Wit

Sorry about the long list. These are simply my “go to” beers. I like a much larger variety than what is listed above. I’ve become a newer fan of Dogfish Head. The CEO talked a bunch in the documentary, “Beer Wars”. Really high quality craft beer. Costs more than a lot of beers on the market, but you really can taste a difference.

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For more info about any of Rusty Moore’s Visual Impact courses checkout the links below.

• Visual Impact Muscle Building or read my review here
• Visual Impact for Women or read my review here
• Visual Impact Cardio or read my review here

Thank you VERY much Rusty!