Doing Cardio While Building Muscle- Part 3
January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Intervals: The good- intervals allow you to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time and keep your metabolism elevated long after you finish doing them.
Intervals: The bad- if you are training legs two or even three times per week, you can not do intervals more than once a week without overtraining. Let me rephrase that; you can but eventually it will lead to overtraining or at the very least slow down your strength gains. You can negate this slightly by keeping your leg training volume extremely low and doing your intervals on the same day as your weight training. You can’t do five to eight sets of legs two or three days a week and 30 minutes of intervals on top of it. That’s a dead end road.
You also have to remember to do your intervals on your training days and not on off days like you might do with other forms of cardio because that will lead to overtraining much quicker.
The ugly- if you choose sprinting as your form of interval training you could get hurt; it’s an ugly truth that has to be faced. The thing that will lead to even more injuries is following faulty interval protocol advice. Normally it is recommended to do 30-60 second intervals when they are being performed on a stationary bike. A lot of people take these recommendations and apply them to sprinting. This is a huge mistage! Nobody can sprint for 30-60 seconds. Ok, not nobody; but most average people can’t do it. World class athletes can sprint for that long, but not everyone else.
Don’t believe me?
Go try it. Warm up thoroughly and try to sprint for 60 seconds straight. Let me know what happens. We have all seen the Olympics and how winded guys are after sprinting the 100 which happens to last all of ten seconds. Most of us have seen guys run the 40 and not be able to catch their breath for at least a few minutes afterwards. And that takes five seconds or less. Not only is sprinting for 30-60 seconds impossible for most people but it also greatly increases the risk of injury.
When you keep your sprint distances and times very short, you decrease the risk for injury because you never hit top speed and instead spend most of your time in the acceleration phase. This phase has the least potential for injury. For that reason, most people should be running 20-50 yard sprints. This keeps you at top speed for a very short period of time; usually little enough time to maintain form and not suffer an injury. When you run at top speed for too long the chance for a break down in form and thus an injury is greatly increased.
I would never recommend that a non athlete ever try to sprint for 30-60 seconds straight and you should never take that advice from anyone. It is faulty and dangerous. To further reduce your injury while sprinting, use adequate rest periods between sets. Also, running with a sled slows you down enough to avoid top speeds and makes sprinting much safer.
Bottom Line- Intervals are a great tool for getting ripped, however when your main goal is to get big and strong and just keep fat gain to a minimum, they should be used sparingly if at all. I would recommend sprints above intervals on a bike and even then I wouldn’t do them in true interval fashion but more of a traditional speed workout with short sprints and adequate rest periods. This will still elevate your metabolism greatly and keep you lean. Just look at the physiques of Olympic sprinters for proof of this; that his how they train. Sprint, rest… no intervals.
Mike Mentzer: Genius or Lunatic (Do You Even Care??)
January 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment
If you don’t know who Mike Mentzer was I will give you some quick background. He was a famous bodybuilder who competed back in the seventies and eighties against none other than Arnold, himself. He was known for being a huge proponent of extremely low volume training. Mike was either loved or hated; there was no in between. He had some radical view points and an in-your-face way of expressing them. He even had the balls to call Arnold out about his high volume training protocols and say what a complete waste of time it all was.
Mike Mentzer’s basic ideas and theories were that we are all grossly over-trained in sets and overall volume but under-trained in intensity. He recommended somewhere between one and three sets per bodypart, once every 7-21 days. He also knew what I have since learned; that high protein diets are unnecessary and are just another scam perpetrated by the bodybuilding industry to force you to buy more protein powder and useless crap.
Many people thought Mike Mentzer was a genius and learned a great deal from him while making tremendous progress employing his advice. Others thought he was completely insane and needed to be committed.
I, personally, loved Mike’s attitude and rebellious nature. I also learned quite a bit from him and when I first read Heavy Duty way back in the early 90’s, it completely changed the way I thought about training. It also led to some outstanding results.
The problem was that at the time I was like many of you; constantly in search for the next best training program and always thought there was a better way of doing things. So I lost my way for a few years while experimenting with everything under the sun.
Sadly, you have to get off the right path and get lost for a while in order to realize that you were heading in the right direction all along.
It has been at least 15 years since I read Mike Mentzer’s training theories for the first time and I have experimented with quite a bit of different loading parameters and training methods since then. I can now state, unequivocally, that Mike Mentzer was a lot smarter and a lot closer to the truth than a lot of people I have taken advice from over the years.
Was he a genius?
No. But he was a smart guy and a rational thinker. He never just blindly accepted what everyone else did. He thought for himself and questioned everything.
Looking back I can say that Mike was a little off with his frequency recommendations and that the intensity he advocated was a bit too high and unnecessary. In fact, I think some of the extreme intensity techniques he advocated may have even been counterproductive. I also strongly disagree with many of his exercise choices.
But that doesn’t mean that Mike’s ideas weren’t effective. He is, after all, responsible for helping Dorian Yates win the Mr. Olympia contest.
Mike knew the dangers of overtraining and realized just how unnecessary and counterproductive all that useless junk volume really was. He knew that it didn’t take anywhere near as much training as most people think to produce dramatic gains in size and strength. Mike knew and preached to people that if they couldn’t get the job done in a fraction of the sets they normally used then they weren’t training hard enough. Or maybe they weren’t eating properly or getting enough rest… But whatever it was, their lack of progress was not due to their lack of training volume. In fact, their training volume may have been what was holding them back.
I respect what Mike Mentzer contributed to the strength training world and will always consider him a pioneer in our business.
To learn how I incorporated many of Mike Mentzer’s theories with my own (that are based on 20 years of in the trenches experience and endless discussions with renowned coaches and trainers) to create the best muscle building system available for drug free, genetically average lifters, go to http://www.ferruggiasmusclesecrets.com/ now.
Doing Cardio While Building Muscle- Part 1
January 5, 2009 | 1 Comment
There is much debate and controversy on the subject of doing cardio while building muscle. Once and for all I am going to set the record straight. So without further adieu, here’s the real deal on doing cardio while trying to gain size and strength…
If you are a beginner who also happens to be a ripped ectomorph who has to fight for every ounce he gains (e.g. a classic hardgainer), I suggest that you lay off cardio almost entirely for at least 8-12 weeks. Get your training and diet down and pack on some size. In that time you should be able to gain at least 15lbs of muscle if not 20+. After you have done that you can add in some cardio. I would start with three weekly sessions of twenty minutes of moderate intensity cardio; no intervals. Use a bike to limit the amount of eccentric stress or pounding on the joints. And remember there are actually things known as real bikes that go outside, not just stationary bikes that people park themselves on to watch Oprah. Although, if you choose that route, get one with a well padded seat that will not lead to the death of your sex life.
If you are beyond the beginner level you should always be doing some kind of cardio on a regular basis, be it intervals, moderate intensity steady state, or low intensity, long duration steady state. Again, don’t limit yourself to machines indoors; get outside and drag a sled, run sprints, jump rope or play a sport. That’s a lot more fun anyway. I think everyone should be doing something like this at least three days per week for at least 30 minutes. It’s healthy and prevents a host of health problems, not to mention that it keeps you in shape and looking good.
Contrary to what many people believe, cardio can actually be of great benefit to those looking to get bigger and stronger. Not only does it improve the cardiovascular system and thus improve the quality of your weight training workouts but it allows you to eat more muscle building calories while staying lean. To pack on 20-30 pounds of muscle you have to eat an inordinate amount of food. Doing some cardio will help ensure that you don’t get fat from all the excessive eating.
The bottom line is that everyone but absolute beginners should be doing some kind of cardio type activity at least three times per week for thirty minutes. This will not inhibit size or strength gains in the least but may actually enhance them. You should vary your activities and intensities as much as possible. You can do cardio immediately after you train, although I prefer to do it on non weight training days or later in the day after training because I am usually too spent after lifting to give it my all on the cardio. Doing it on off days is usually a better option anyway because it serves as an active recovery activity and also gets you burning some calories on those days.
New Janurary Muscle Building Feature…
January 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Hey! Happy New Year. I just wanted to let you guys know that we are going to be running a 3 part article series with our resident muscle building guru – Jason Ferruggia – that is all about doing cardio while trying to get bigger and stronger. It is really dynamite. If you want to get big and strong and don’t have Jay’s Muscle Gaining Secrets system – you’re crazy 
Seriously. Jason knows his stuff and his system gets my highest recommendation. Plus Jay’s ebook is really entertaining to read. He has a great story about how he got pick pocketed in Spain and how he ended up having an amazing workout as a result -weird? Yes. Entertaining? Yes.
In all seriousness if you want to gain 15 or 20lbs of muscle by March 2009 then you need Muscle Gaining Secrets (Naked Nutrition Approved).
Big Arms Before New Years
December 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Just kidding
Everyone who ever picks up a weight soon develops the desire for a set of massive arms. It’s nearly unavoidable. Within a week after their first workout most guys are start for searching the secrets of how to get huge arms during every spare moment they have. Nearly everybody loves to stretch their shirt sleeves or even cut them off. Unfortunately, many people go about their arm training all wrong. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when training for big arms is using the wrong exercises. Kickbacks and concentration curls will do very little to develop a set of impressive guns. If you really want to know how to get huge arms, use my top ten biceps exercises and your arms will be exploding with new growth in no time.
Biceps:
Close Grip Chin Up- This is the king of biceps exercises because it allows you to use the most weight and move your body through space. Any time you can move your body through space, instead of just moving your limbs, there is a higher level of neuromuscular activation which leads to greater muscular development.
Barbell Curl- As far as isolation movements go, this is the best one there is when it comes to building big biceps.
Dumbbell Curl- Another isolation movement that is nearly the equivalent to the barbell curl. The added advantage is that when you can no longer complete another rep you can stop doing them simultaneously and switch to alternate curls to cheat a few more reps out.
Incline Dumbbell Curl- The added stretch here makes this a very effective bicep building exercise.
Hammer Curl- These target the brachialis muscle, which, when developed, can add a great deal of mass and thickness to the upper arm.
Triceps:
Parallel Bar Dip- You wanna know how to get huge arms? Train your triceps hard. Although everyone focuses on the biceps, the triceps actually make up 2/3 of the upper arm and can really make your arms look enormous if you train them properly.
When it comes to proper triceps training, there is no better exercise than the parallel bar dip. Again, this is an exercise where you are moving your body through space instead of just moving your limbs. If you need proof of the effectiveness of dips you need to look no further than the incredible arm development of male gymnasts.
Close Grip Bench- This is another compound movement which will pack slabs of muscle on the triceps as it allows you to use a ton of weight.
Half Range Close Grip Bench Press aka Lockouts- This exercise is done by setting the pins in the power rack so that they stop the bar about a third of the way down from the top. This greatly overloads the triceps and allows you to use extremely heavy loads. The end result is that you will build huge horseshoe triceps.
Angled Bar Pushdown- I prefer the angled bar to the straight bar for pushdowns because it is much less stressful on the wrists and much more comfortable to handle heavy weights with. This is a highly effective isolation movement which is pretty easy on the elbows; a rarity for isolated triceps exercises.
EZ Bar Lying Triceps Extensions- This is another highly effective isolation exercise for the triceps. Unfortunately, this exercise can lead to elbow problems. For this reason it should be used less frequently than the others and the reps should be kept a bit higher; preferably in the 8-15 range.
Stop wasting your time with any arm exercises that are not on this list, immediately. Use those listed above and hit them hard and heavy. You won’t be asking anything else about how to get huge arms if you do that.
For specific set, rep, rest and frequency recommendations as well as months of workouts and other priceless information that will show you exactly how to get huge arms, check out http://www.ferruggiasmusclesecrets.com/
Learn This Guy’s Muscle Building Secrets
As Seen In
