I received this email today and wanted to share it with everyone. When I write I always try to abide by what the sign says; no sucking allowed. Thankfully it seems that I somehow managed to abide by that rule according to all the great feedback we have been getting recently. Thanks to everyone who has emailed and please keep them coming.
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“I have read Jason’s new e-book and I must say that every hardcore trainee, beginner through advanced, and trainers should do the same. It can save the beginner or intermediate trainee years of frustration and even may give the advanced trainee and fitness professional some new ideas or insights in training. In regards to training, Jason goes through it all, from how to structure your training split depending on your training age and fitness and athletic goals, to selecting repetitions and sets, to manipulating volume, frequency, and intensity, and even to weekly, monthly, and yearly planning. One of the great things about this book is that all of the information you need is given to you so that you can design your OWN programs for the rest of your life. Every accomplished lifter and athlete… …continue reading.
You have to listen to your body. Sometimes you get the gym, start warming up and realize you just don’t have it in you that day. You have two options when this happens. You can listen to your body and just go home and put your workout off until tomorrow or you can try to get psyched up and plow through your workout. If you love training it’s a tough decision sometimes.
It’s kinda like deciding whether or not to utter those three words…
“Watch the teeth.”
If you say nothing, chances are that it could get better… or it could get worse. Or maybe it just remains the same and you realize how lucky you are to be in that position in the first place so you just battle through the painful pleasure. But what if you say those three words? One of two things will happen; it will either get way better or it will immediately be over because no one likes to be told they are doing a bad job. This is a very, very, very difficult decision to make and one that I have wrestled with many times in my life. It is huge reward… …continue reading.
Here are a few easy to follow nutrition rules that will help you build a bigger, leaner physique:
• Eat every 2-3 hours. This keeps you in an anabolic state and keeps your metabolism running along so that you don’t get fat.
• Build your meals around a base of lean protein and shoot for one gram per pound of bodyweight per day. The only time you would need more than this is when you are dieting and your carbs are extremely low.
• Eat vegetables at every meal except breakfast. Not only are they incredibly healthy and provide tons of nutrients and fiber but they slow down the absorption of your meals leading to less bodyfat accumulation.
• Eat organic whenever possible. There is so much crap in the food we eat today that it is really a smart decision to eat organic as often as you can.
• Avoid sugars, artificial sweeteners and saturated fats as much as possible. Some saturated fat in meats is ok, but really try to cut out the sugar and artificial sweeteners.
• Eat carbs at breakfast and around your workout. Cut out carbs at night.
• Drink at least a half gallon… …continue reading.
Sled dragging is my favorite kind of conditioning/cardio/energy system (am I forgetting anything here?) workout that there is. There are a million things you can do with the sled from sprinting to walking to crawling to pressing and pulling.
For strength gains, load the sled up with as many plates as you can handle and drag it as far as you can for 10-20 seconds. This can be done both forward and backward.
For speed development, load the sled lightly and do short sprints with it. If you are going for true speed, you should not use much weight, maybe just the empty sled or at most an additional 45. Anything that slows you down too much or throws off your technique is too heavy and can’t technically qualify as pure speed training.
Sled dragging is also great as a form of active recovery. The day after a heavy squat workout, you could take an empty sled out for a walk, both forward and backward for 15-20 minutes to get some nutrient rich blood in the muscle which will help you recover faster.
If you are looking to really boost you conditioning in a hurry, you could do circuits of… …continue reading.
- For the second weekend in a row I trained in a public gym. As far as public gym experiences go it actually wasn’t too bad. I was training with my brother and my good friend Mark Crook, both of whom I haven’t trained with in over a year so the motivation and energy was high. We actually had a great workout and I was able to block out the tv’s surrounding and whatever was playing on the stereo.
- It’s nice when public gyms keep the music low. This allows you to wear your headphones without having to turn it up so loud that you blow out your eardrums and have a headache for the next five hours after training. A gym I train clients at in New York isn’t so kind and on the rare occasion that I trained there I screwed up my hearing for the entire day trying to drown out whatever hideous excuse for music they had blaring through the speakers.
- As far as machines go, the Hammer Strength row and pulldown pieces are pretty damn good. I have only used these a few times in my life and forgot how much… …continue reading.
I was asked recently about some of the biggest misconceptions and excuses that exist when it comes to building muscle. Read on for my answers…
Question: There is a lot of conflicting training advice out there online, in books, on TV and especially in magazines. What do you think the top myths or misconceptions regarding weight training are?
Answer: That you need a high volume of training. This is a myth that has been passed down from one generation to the next and people continue to blindly follow this protocol without thinking rationally. There is no hard evidence anywhere that you need to use high volume training to get bigger and stronger. Sure lots of guys with great genetics and/or a great pharmacist make progress on high volume training but that doesn’t mean it’s the right way to train.
That you need to hit muscles from a multitude of angles for full development.
That you need a full dynamic warm up before weight training. You don’t. Before sprinting, yes; before lifting, no.
That bodypart splits are the most effective way to train.
Another misconception is that you need a boatload of supplements to make great progress. The bottom line truth… …continue reading.
A colleague of mine recently emailed me to ask about how I train football players in the summer. Below is a small portion of our exchange…
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I know you will disagree with a few of the exercises used but as I said I am a realist and guys ALWAYS want to do curls so I give them a few sets a week. It makes them happy. I eliminated it for a while and guys were pissed and always asked when we could do arms. I believe in making everyone happy. Guys like to get a good pump too.
I definitely agree with you on making training as safe as possible. Alwyn and I have discussed this endlessly. The main reason I have been successful and have had every guy from 4 surrounding towns in my facility, while even having a multi million dollar TEST facility right down the street is not only because of the results I produce but because of the atmosphere in my gym. Everybody loves coming there because it’s so completely different than everywhere else they ever went. The music, the attitude, the camaraderie, competition, etc.
But there’s a fine line between creating the… …continue reading.
Last Saturday morning I had breakfast at Pier Village in Long Branch, NJ. When I left the restaurant, one individual amongst the dozens on the sidewalk caught my eye from over 100 feet away. From what I could tell he looked to be in his late 50′s yet was dressed like someone in their 20′s. Multiple earrings, a chain wallet, camo shorts, a long sleeve t with a short sleeve t shirt over it and sunglasses and a hat pulled low. His t-shirt even fit properly, which is the signal of a cool dude. When you are young and cool you wear fairly short (3-4 inches below the belt) t-shirts and long shorts. When you are old and/or just not cool, you strangely start increase the length of your t-shirts (5-8 inches below the belt) and decrease the length of your shorts (above the knee). This is something that I never understood and have been trying recently to pinpoint exactly when this happened. Nowadays when I hang out with my dad and his friends they are all dressed like me and my friends were when we were going to a Naughty By Nature concert back in ’93. Except with short… …continue reading.
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