How Do They Do That?

Admit it, sometimes they get on your nerves. Sure, you look to them for motivation and guidance, but deep down you’re jealous. The chiseled abs, the toned arms, the tight calves...No doubt about it, the trainers at 24 Hour Fitness are in amazing shape. The question is: How did they get that way? Is it genetics, or discipline and knowledge?

Since we know you’d love to know their secrets, we picked five of the buffest, most inspiring trainers at 24 Hour Fitness. They're into free weights, martial arts, intensive cardio, or all three, and the insights and tips they provide will make your next workout more productive. So stop wondering what it takes to have one of the hottest bodies in the gym. Some of the best in the business are about to show you how to make it happen.

Chuck Abele
Gym: Overland Park Super Sport, Overland Park, Kansas
Area of Expertise: Besides holding a bachelor’s degree in nutrition, Abele is a consummate jock, having been a decathlete, Division II football player, and a competitive strongman.
Favorite Training Technique: Supersetting, or doing two related exercises in quick succession. "Nothing allows you to get more work done in less time,” he says.
How He Trains: Given his diverse background, it’s not surprising that Abele likes to mix things up in the gym. He works out 5 days per week, combining strongman and power-lifting exercises, such as the barbell clean-and-press, with lots of unstable-surface training. This enables him to retain his hard-earned muscle mass without neglecting core strength and balance. Instead of traditional steady-state cardio, he prefers 45- to 60-minute bouts of intense, varied activity, similar to how boxers or ultimate fighters train.
His Advice For You: By combining high-intensity, rapidly paced strength training (supersetting), with smaller, more frequent meals, you can teach your body to increase its metabolism and burn more calories, even when at rest. “You’ll be a fat-burning furnace,” he says.

Toni Lentz
Gym: Orange Sport, Orange, California
Area of Expertise: Cardio and free weights
Favorite Exercise: There’s nothing like traveling lunges for “firing up those glutes,” says Lentz. While holding a pair of dumbbells at your sides, take a giant step forward with your right foot. Bend both knees as you slowly lower yourself toward the floor. Then press down with the right foot to stand up and stride forward with the left leg. Continue until you can’t continue.
How She Trains: After being teased incessantly as a youth for being a “toothpick,” Lentz transformed herself. She trains nearly 2 hours per day, 6 days per week, mixing free weights, running, and kickboxing, with core work. As if that weren’t enough, she recently started training to become a pole-vaulter.
Her Advice For You: Use your stress. When you’re anxious or upset your body is producing adrenaline, which can be used to fuel intensive workouts. In other words, take your aggression out on the treadmill or weights rather than yourself or someone else. “We’re all stressed about one thing or another,” says Lentz, “so why not use it to fuel your workout?”

Tuan Nguyen
Gym: Fulton & Hurley Sport, Sacramento, California
Area of Expertise: Fat loss
Favorite Warm-Up: Rotational push-up. Start as you would a regular push-up, but when you reach the top position, rotate your torso and hips and reach one arm toward the ceiling as you balance on the sides of your feet. “It’s a great way to get the core primed and ready for action,” says Nguyen.
How He Trains: A former state-level competitor in martial arts, Nguyen favors a functional approach to working out. He uses unstable surfaces such as balance boards in his training and prefers free weights and cables to the guided resistance of machines. The added balance and coordination this requires lets him work more muscles and burn more calories in less time. For additional fat loss, he prefers the intense stop-and-go action of basketball to more steady paced forms of cardio.
His Advice For You: Nguyen wants you out of your comfort zone. He wants you to challenge yourself with non traditional types of exercise. Whether it’s performing a shoulder press while standing on a wobble board or substituting a cable rotation for the overused crunch, never let your body get used to what it’s doing. “That’s when you plateau,” he warns.

Nathaniel Best
Gym: Downtown Chula Vista Active, Chula Vista, California
Area of Expertise: Making it hurt. (He’s a former Marine and SWAT officer with a black belt in martial arts.)
Favorite Warm-Up: After doing a little stretching and light calisthenics, Best revs up the elliptical machine to level 14 and tries to burn 30 calories in 2 minutes. “When I was on the SWAT team, I had to be ready for action at a moment’s notice,” he says. “This helps simulate that.”
How He Trains: Best lifts weight five to six times per week and does two additional intensive cardio workouts (i.e., 100-yard wind sprints, running bleachers, etc.)
His Advice For You: Besides getting to the gym at least three times per week, Best encourages you to sneak in some brief physical activity throughout the day. This could include a few sets of push-ups in the morning or some crunches before bed. Or keep a dumbbell by your desk at work and do curls when you’re on the phone. Short bouts of exercise like this help “keep the ball rolling,” says Best, providing momentum and inspiration.

Kelli Hein
Gym: Downtown Dallas Super Sport, Dallas, Texas
Area of Expertise: Distance running. A graduate of Purdue University with a degree in kinesiology, Hein qualified for the Boston Marathon and recently started a club at her gym called 24 Run.
Favorite Running Trail: Around White Rock Lake in Dallas
How She Trains: What started as a way to stay in shape for soccer when she was a kid has developed into a daily habit. Hein now runs 9 miles per day. In the last few years, she’s also come to appreciate the value of strength training. She lifts twice per week in order to stay fit and injury-free. “It really makes a difference in the way you look and feel,” she says.
Her Advice For You: Don’t try to do it alone. Her running club is geared to novices and the gentle pressure they put on each other to consistently advance toward a common goal is the reason more than 100 of its members competed in Dallas’s annual 3-mile Turkey Trot. “Try and find a training partner—someone who’ll make you accountable,” says Hein. “It’s hard to blow off a workout when you know someone else is waiting for you.”