Today I have a post that I stole from my buddy Keith Scott of www.BackToFormFitness.com (which I highly recommend you check out) about training hard and not making excuses.
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I was fortunate to travel to Los Angeles this past weekend to see a couple of Eddie Vedder concerts. (If you have never seen Eddie or Pearl Jam in concert, I highly recommend it.) I met up with my good friend Jason Ferruggia of Muscle Gaining Secrets fame. If you don’t know of Jay or his work, check out his site and products, they are top notch. More on that later.
We met in Santa Monica and hung out the first day, getting lunch and talking training. Jay is an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to putting on muscle and gaining strength. I soaked up as much as I could about the subject, while sharing my expertise on rehabilitation and getting healthy after injuries. Although I learned a lot in those conversations over lunch and dinner, my real lessons came on Sunday afternoon when I had the opportunity to train with Jay at Gold’s Gym in Venice beach.
During our training session, we didn’t say… …continue reading.
Last week I met up with some friends and went to see a few of my favorite old school hip hop groups of all time. When the second group of the night (who will remain nameless to protect the innocent) came on the crowd was on fire as the band started out with one hit after another. The lead singer has always been known for taking off his shirt midway through the set and revealing his ripped, muscular physique. This was always a big hit with the ladies and probably made more than a few of the guys envious or jealous.
It had been several years since they played their last show so no one had really seen them in a while but in a hooded sweatshirt he still looked pretty jacked. At about the half way point in their set it happened. He turned toward the DJ and walked to the back of the stage as he started to remove his shirt.
In an instant the t-shirt was off and the only thing left was the trademark wife beater. When he finally turned around the whole crowd went silent from the obvious shock.
… …continue reading.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Central Park at the Men’s Fitness Ultimate Athlete event. While it was a great event for a great cause and I met a lot of great people I was reminded of the importance of leading by example. My good friend, Sean Hyson of Men’s Fitness, who was looking as jacked as ever, jumped into the competition to show that he can not only talk the talk but walk the walk. I was really impressed by Sean’s willingness to get his hands dirty while he was working and put his money where his mouth is. After Sean’s impressive performance on the bench press I looked down at my phone to notice a text message from another good friend of mine who also leads by example.
Craig Ballantyne and I first met via a mutual friend a few years back and have trained together several times since. While Craig will never be mistaken for a juiced up professional bodybuilder he is incredible shape and has the physique most guys would kill for. He is absolutely ripped and definitely practices what he preaches. The thing that impressed me was how strong he was.… …continue reading.
Question: What are the best exercises for building big, powerful shoulders?
Answer: The best all around shoulder building exercise is the barbell hang clean and press. Perform this exercise by bending over with a barbell in your hands and a shoulder width grip. Start with the barbell just above your knees and be sure to maintain perfect posture with your head in line with your spine, chest up and back arched. Initiate by driving your hips forward and shrugging your shoulders. Pull the bar to your upper chest and catch it there by dipping at the knees slightly. Immediately press the bar straight up overhead to lockout.
The second best shoulder exercise you can do if you want to build cannon ball sized delts is a handstand pushup. This is as difficult as it sounds but can be modified for novice or intermediate lifters. The easiest way to work up to a handstand pushup is to start by simply holding the position for time while you keep your feet up against the wall. Work to increase your time each week and eventually you will be able to start doing partial and then full… …continue reading.
There is an old idea that still permeates mixed martial arts circles and that is the idea that strength work is not necessary or should, at best, be a secondary consideration. Many combat coaches and athletes spend hours and hours a week on conditioning. Often times this is all they will do, neglecting any kind of strength
work whatsoever.
I understand that conditioning is the most important quality for a combat athlete to develop but you have to realize that improving your strength is vitally important as well. Statistics have shown that at lower levels of competition, the stronger of two equally skilled opponents will usually emerge victorious. This isn’t always true at higher levels of competition but it still needs to be noted.
Working on improving your endurance is the most important thing you can do as a combat athlete. But that doesn’t mean that strength work should take a back seat either. If you improve your strength, you improve your endurance. That is because everything that you do (pick up an opponent, etc.) when you are stronger, takes less energy and thus is less tiring.
Think about this; strength work has been proven to… …continue reading.
Who could ever forget that famous line from Pumping Iron where Arnold said that getting a good pump was better than sex?
We all laughed, although some of us harder than others, because deep down we agreed with what he said. But after all these years, the question still remains- is a good pump a defining component of a productive muscle building workout. Is it really that important?
Some people emphatically state that getting a good pump is necessary if you want to build muscle. There are no studies that show this to be true, but real world evidence shows that there is something to getting a good pump. First of all, the ability to easily obtain a good pump is a sign that your body is in an anabolic state and ready to train. It shows us that the body and the cells are well hydrated and ready to grow.
Some days, you go to the gym and can’t get a pump no matter what you do. Those are days that you probably shouldn’t even be training. Your body is telling you something, and that something is that you are not in an anabolic state, probably not fully… …continue reading.
Last week I was on a five day adventure trip in Mexico with a couple of my buddies. When I got to the airport I realized that I had forgotten my supply of food that I always travel with and was not happy. It was definitely going to be a long (and hungry) trip.
When I unpacked my bag I also realized that I forgot my jump rope and my TNT cables and Jungle Gym straps that I always travel with. Another bad sign.
You see, I despise training in most public gyms and would rather train outside on the beach or in my hotel room than set foot into one of these nightclubs. When I found out that our hotel had no weight room I was instantly devastated when I realized that my only option was the Gold’s Gym across the street. For some reason I assumed that a Gold’s in Mexico might be better than a Gold’s here. I have no idea why, but I did. Boy, was I sadly mistaken.
I walked into the sounds of pumping techno music and the sights of countless spandex clad gym… …continue reading.
There hasn’t been a day that’s passed in the last 15-20 years that I haven’t thought obsessively about training for at least an hour or so. I am constantly analyzing and questioning things. I spend a minimum of an hour per day discussing training with my good buddy John Alvino because he has more experience training people than almost anyone I know of. I also dial up the West Coast at least a couple of times per week to talk training with my colleague and close friend, Alwyn Cosgrove. AC is another guy that I love talking training with because he has tons of real world experience and understands what it’s like to have a gym full of guys training at once and the real concerns that arise from that situation.
Anyway, here are just a few of the many questions that we ask each other on a daily basis…
- Should we really be training athletes for maximal strength or just for optimal strength?
- Once they achieve optimal strength for their given sport what good does more strength do for them?
- If we are training
I recently had the pleasure of spending an extended, Memorial Day weekend down in the great city of Austin, Texas. For anyone who has never been, I highly recommend it. Among numerous other things to do, you definitely need to check out the museums, catch a flick and dinner at The Alamo Draft House, grab some food and drinks at The Oasis on Lake Travis, and go experience the incredible live music scene on Sixth Street. If Bob Shneider is playing, do yourself a favor and get a ticket; it’s an amazing show. Thanks to Chad Thompson for that great recommendation.
Two of my favorite things in life are training and good music and Austin combined both of these passions perfectly. Austin is a very fit and healthy city as evidenced by all the hiking, biking and walking trails around which we definitely took great advantage of. It is also known as the live music capital of the world and you can see every kind of music imaginable being performed in the countless bars downtown.
My only warning would be to those of you that don’t deal with heat too well to wait… …continue reading.
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