Pull Up Contest - Update
October 24, 2008
Hey guys. Sorry to have gone MIA for a couple days. If you follow me on twitter then you will know that I had come down with the shingles. I’m back now. I wanted to give you an update on the Pull Up Contest. Read more
5 Muscle Building Tips
October 20, 2008
Need to build more muscle? Here are 5 muscle building tips that can get any hardgainer on the right track to getting bigger and stronger in a hurry.
– Don’t exceed 5-6 reps on most of your warm up sets. Your first set could consist of a very light weight for 10-20 reps just to get loosened up and get the blood flowing but beyond that you want to keep the reps low. The reason for this is that you don’t want to build up too much lactic acid or accumulate too much fatigue with your warm ups.
– Don’t stretch before your workout in the hopes of preventing injury. This doesn’t work. The only benefit of stretching before a workout is to help you get into positions you might not be able to reach (such as a full squat) because you are tight in specific areas (such as the hamstrings and hip flexors). But stretching for the sake of injury prevention is an outdated idea and doesn’t really work.
– Don’t over-analyze and over-think everything you do in the gym. This never gets you anywhere. Don’t worry if the incline of the bench is supposed to be 50 degrees or 55 degrees. Don’t worry that if you don’t supinate at exactly the right time that you won’t activate your biceps optimally. Don’t stress out about the exact grip width on the bar. If someone tells you that a 16? grip on the bench press hits your triceps better than anything else, but because of an injury or anatomical difference you can only comfortably use an 18? grip, don’t sweat it. People over-think themselves to death and they never get anywhere because of it. Go to the gym, get stronger, go home, eat, sleep and repeat. Don’t turn it into advanced calculus. That is one of the best muscle building tips I can give you.
– Always train both sides of the joint with equal volume. Therefore if you do six sets per week of pressing exercises you need to do six sets per week of pulling exercises. If you do two sets of curls you should do two sets of triceps work. And so on and so on…
– If you can’t get your forearms to grow, try hitting them with more frequency than other muscle groups. They can easily be trained three times per week and recover without any problem. Also, try to hold the bottom stretched position of wrist curls for 3-5 seconds per rep. When you finish training the forearms, hit them with a deep stretch for both the extensors and flexors for 30-60 seconds. These muscle building tips should get the forearms to grow.
Super Charging Your Workout Nutrition
October 14, 2008
A couple weeks ago when I released a series of videos from the fat loss edge DVD I got a couple questions about the topics that I covered in the videos. In the “Build Muscle and But Fat” clip (shown below) I shared the results of a study in which by having a amino acid and carbohydrate workout shake subjects were able to lose weight and build muscle.
Chin Up Challenge
October 13, 2008
Last week on Twitter, I learned that Scott Colby was working to triple the number of chin ups that he could do by Thanksgiving. You know how I love a challenge so I told Scott I’ve be game to join him with the challenge. Then wild man Zach Even-Esh (side note: Check out the new site that I built for Zach and his gym) caught wind of this and challenged the two of us to a Chin Up Challenge.
Beers, Kettlebells, and Oprah
September 23, 2008
What on earth do beers, kettlebells, and Oprah have in common? Right? They all play into the jam packed weekend that I just had.
This past weekend I attended the Ryan Lee Bootcamp III down in Stamford, CT. It was a great weekend and allowed me to catch up with some friends from the fitness industry that I normally only get to interact with via the web. Read more
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