AWorkoutRoutine.com’s 2011 Year In Review and Plans For 2012

If you haven’t noticed, it’s the last week of the year, and that means every diet/fitness guru on the planet is in full “rah-rah” you-can-do-it mode writing about New Year’s resolutions and repeating the same annoying crap you hear every year at this time (“do not wait until January 1st… start today!”).

And while that stuff is all cute and fun (and if you find it helpful, then by all means use it accordingly)… I’m not going to be participating in it at all.

Why? Because this week also marks the end of the first full year that this website has existed, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 12 months, it’s that the regular readers of AWorkoutRoutine.com are better than that.

You’re smarter, more dedicated, more motivated, more interested, more focused, more prepared, more helpful, more constructive and just all around better than what’s “typical” in the diet and fitness world.

And over this past year, I’ve done everything I can to be equally better than what’s “typical” in terms of the content I’ve created and the support I’ve provided. Hopefully it shows.

So, instead of wasting your time repeating the same things you’ll probably hear on 100,000 other blogs this week, I’m going to tell you something you probably won’t hear at all…

Thank You.

Yup, I’m talking directly to you. Thank you. Specifically…

• Thank you for your overwhelming amount of positive feedback, suggestions, comments and emails. I read it all and respond to damn near all of it. Keep it coming!
• Thank you for subscribing via RSS and email. It’s crazy fun (and flattering) to watch these numbers grow by the day.
• Thank you for liking my articles and guides on Facebook, tweeting about them on Twitter, and just generally sharing my stuff with others. You’ve single-handedly done all of my marketing for me.
• Thank you to the awesome Reddit community (especially the Fitit subreddit) for linking to/citing various parts of this site whenever relevant and putting a bunch of my articles in your FAQs. The helpfulness and overall quality of the community over there is better than just about every fitness related forum I’ve been on in the last 10 years.
• Thank you for downloading your copy of The Best Workout Routines and making me super excited to release more huge products in a similar format in the future. (More about that in a minute.)
• Thank you for reading what I write and trusting me enough to put my advice and recommendations into action. And thank you to the MANY people who have let me know how well it’s all been working for them. I’ll never get tired of your success stories and hearing about your results, so definitely keep on telling me about it.
• Thank you for making AWorkoutRoutine.com worth every second of time and work I’ve put into it, and for making me want to put even more time and work into it in 2012. I most definitely will.

But wait, there’s more!

Happy New Year, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Etc.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope you had/have/are having an awesome one. I sure as hell am.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is the time of the year when I usually take a week off from working out, and this year was no different. Today was my first day back at the gym since Thursday, and practically all I’ve done over these last few days is hang out with family, play with new toys (new TV looks amazing), and eat tons of Christmas candy and cookies.

No joke… I’ve been shooting for about 3000 calories per day during this time, and I’d say a good 1500-2000 of those daily calories have come in the form of candy (Christmas M&M’s, Nestle Crunch Bells, Hershey’s Miniatures, etc.), cookies (I’ve probably eaten about 5 each of every wonderful Christmas cookie known to man), and various other junky goodness (chocolate covered potato chips were surprisingly tasty).

However, I’ve made sure to hit my protein requirements each day and never really exceeded my goal daily calorie intake at any time. And since we all know that it’s total calories and NOT the source of those calories that truly matters in terms of fat loss or gain… I’m golden.

I certainly do not recommend eating like this often and I certainly won’t continue eating like this any longer (everything is back to normal for me since yesterday), but for a 3-4 day span around the holidays… it sure is fun! Looking forward to doing it again next year. (Full details here: How To Avoid Holiday Weight Gain)

Speaking of which…

Goodbye 2011… It’s Been Fun

Like I mentioned earlier, 2011 was AWorkoutRoutine.com’s first year of existence and it was definitely a busy and exciting one. Here’s a quick recap of some of the more notable events…

The Weight Training Guide (And The Secret Origin Of This Website)

In the summer of 2010, I had this idea to write some kind of mega-guide to designing the weight training program that would be most ideal for your specific goals, schedule, body, and preferences. No bullshit, no confusion, no fitness guru scams. Just the proven science and facts of designing a workout routine in a clear step-by-step format.

I registered AWorkoutRoutine.com about 5 minutes later (creative, huh?) and spent the next few months writing it all. It of course became The Ultimate Weight Training Workout Routine.

Wanna hear a secret? That guide was honestly all this website was supposed to be originally. But, the feedback to it was so amazing and there was still SO much more to write about that I just kept on going. Now here we are a full year later and I’m just barely getting warmed up.

The Diet Guide

About halfway through writing the weight training guide, I came up with the idea of writing an equally comprehensive diet and nutrition mega-guide. So, soon after the weight training guide was finished, I went to work on putting it all together.

On March 15th, The Best Diet Plan went live on A Workout Routine’s sister site, A Calorie Counter, and the response to it has been equally amazing.

The Best Workout Routines

After I finished up The Best Diet Plan, I started writing a really rough outline of what will eventually become some kind of book about building muscle (more on that in a minute).

However, when I reached the point in my outline where the “workouts” chapter was going to be, I quickly realized that this chapter was going to be so huge and awesome that it could really become its own entire book by itself.

Cut to a few weeks of non-stop planning and writing later, and The Best Workout Routines was officially released. I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous about the idea of selling something like this, especially when I’d consider about 95% of all other “fitness eBooks” to be overhyped and overpriced garbage sold by some of the biggest douchebags, con-men, and dumbass fitness gurus around.

But, I made sure to turn the The Best Workout Routines into the complete opposite of that, priced it at almost half of what the average price for something like this usually is ($27 instead of $47 or more), and you guys/girls have all been awesome enough to put your trust in me and spend your hard earned money on something I’ve created.

And let me tell ya, the feedback has been nothing but positive. Seriously… I’ve heard back from so many of you who just wanted to tell me how much you liked it and let me know which workout you were about to start using from it.

And even better, I’ve been in contact with a bunch of you who have been sending me regular progress reports and are keeping me updated on your results. It’s been impressive as hell so far, and I may even share some of these success stories on the site in the future.

Readership Just Keeps On Growing…

Here’s something you’re probably not going to see too often… traffic stats for the website you’re reading.

I kinda feel like you guys should know everything that is going on behind the scenes, and since a few of you have actually asked me about how things are going traffic-wise, I figured I’d show you. Here’s a full breakdown for 2011 (1/1/2011 – 12/1/2011)…

Not a bad first year, huh? Click it to view the full size version.

I’m super happy with how nicely the site has grown thus far, and when you consider that I’ve done literally nothing to promote or market the site at all… I’d say we are doing quite good. It definitely wouldn’t have happened without you guys… so thanks again.

How about we double these numbers in 2012? Speaking of which…

A Preview Of What’s To Come In 2012

I have a ton of big stuff planned for 2012 and beyond, and I want to again take you behind the scenes and let you in on what some of that stuff is…

• A muscle building book. I have most of an outline already planned out, so it’s really just a matter of finding the time to sit down and write it all. I plan to be as comprehensive and complete as possible and really make it the definitive guide to all aspects of training and eating to build muscle as fast as possible and without gaining excess body fat (weight training, cardio, nutrition, calorie cycling, workouts, etc.). It will be awesome, I promise.
• A fat loss book. Basically the fat loss equivalent of the muscle building book mentioned above. It will cover all aspects of training and eating to lose fat as quickly, easily and pain-free as possible (and while maintaining muscle/strength in the process). It too will be awesome.
• Cover the topics I’m asked about the most. My article to-do list is so huge at this point that I think it will be a good 10 years before I start running out of topics to write about. Among them, I plan to comprehensively cover the handful of topics I’ve been getting asked about most often. For example, cardio (my least favorite topic of them all) and what to do when you want to build muscle and lose fat at the same time.
• Actually use Twitter. Not too many of you follow AWorkoutRoutine on Twitter, and I do not blame you. I’ve been super lazy with it, and virtually all I’ve been using it for is tweeting updates when I post a new article. I plan to be much more active in 2012 with tips, pointing out the various useful diet/training articles and studies I come across on a regular basis, pointing out (and laughing at) the tons of dumb diet/fitness related garbage I come across each day, updating you on how my own diet and training is coming along, and much more. So, if you’re not following me on Twitter right now, this would be a damn fine time to start: @AWorkoutRoutine
• Top Secret Project #1. This is something that has been on my mind for a while now, and it’s currently in the very early planning/budgeting stages. I do not want to give away any details just yet, but if you care at all about your diet… you’ll absolutely love this.
• Top Secret Project #2. Similarly, here’s another project I’m REALLY excited about but again do not want to give away any details just yet. It’s going to take a shitload of work and time and money to bring to life as perfectly as I’m envisioning it, but as long as it all comes together as planned, it’s going to be F-ing amazing. Stay tuned.
• Continue providing you with everything you need to get the results you want. that is what it’s all about, really. My sole goal here is to help you reach your goals. Be it fat loss, muscle growth, strength gains, performance increases, improved health and so on. Whatever I can do to help you avoid wasting your time, money and effort on myths, lies and other silly bullshit and instead get the results you want as quickly and easily as possible… I’m going to do it.

And Finally…

Thanks again for making 2011 a huge success for AWorkoutRoutine.com and for just being an awesome audience in general.

I have a really good feeling 2012 is going to be even better, so if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the site via RSS or email, and do not forget to follow me on Twitter. You’re going to want to see what happens here in 2012… trust me.

Other than that, keep your feedback, comments and progress reports coming, continue training your ass off, and have a Happy New Year.

See you in 2012.