2009 June | How to Build Muscle, Gain Strength & Become a Better Athlete

Archive | June, 2009

Eliminate The Useless Crap

25. Jun, 2009 68 Comments Fat Loss, How to Build Muscle

Let’s face it.

You’re busy.

And you have very little time to spend debating what you should do in the gym or what you should be eating.

So I’m going to make it easy for you.

First, let’s cover your workouts. You’re going to train 3-4 days per week and you’re going to get in and out of the gym in 45-60 minutes. This helps to keep your testosterone levels high and allows you to maintain maximum focus throughout.

You’re always going to choose big, compound exercises for each body part. Starting from the top [...]

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Top 5 Muscle Building & Fat Loss Tips

23. Jun, 2009 13 Comments Fat Loss, How to Build Muscle

I was interviewed for a big name fitness magazine recently and they asked for my top five muscle building and fat loss tips. This is, of course, very hard to narrow down and come up with just five. But I did my best and here’s what I told them…

Train Like an Athlete

Just about everyone I know wants to look like Reggie Bush, Nate Marquardt or even Dwight Howard. So why train like Ronnie Coleman or Flex Wheeler? Train like the guys you want to emulate.

When you train like an athlete [...]

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How to Build Muscle with High Rep Leg Training

15. Jun, 2009 8 Comments How to Build Muscle

Question: If someone’s trying to build muscle, is there any benefit to including sets of 50-100 reps, either with lighter weights as a “burnout” set, or with moderately-heavier weights done to failure and then continued in a rest-pause fashion?

Answer: For beginners, absolutely not. I actually do the opposite of what a lot of people recommend with beginners who are trying to build muscle; I keep their reps low, not high. Until they master the skill of a complicated exercise like a squat or deadlift I would never risk exposing them [...]

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Men’s Fitness Interview Part 2

14. Jun, 2009 1 Comments Fat Loss, How to Build Muscle

By Sean Hyson

This is the second half of my interview with MF training adviser, Jason Ferruggia. It’s kind of like The Godfather, Part II, only more violent.

Sean: What makes you stand apart from other trainers?

Jason: I think the fact that I have logged thousands of hours training hundreds of clients. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, 10 of which saw me spending 8-12 hours in my training facility, five or six days a week, and sometimes seven. Everything I do, I tend to do to the extreme. I always [...]

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Mens Fitness Interview Part 1

12. Jun, 2009 1 Comments How to Build Muscle

Here is part one of a recent interview I did with Sean Hyson for Men’s Fitness Magazine.

By Sean Hyson
A few weeks ago, I introduced you to our chief training adviser, Jason Ferruggia, so everybody could get familiar with this crazed, shaven-headed Jersey boy… who happens to be one of the most reliable sources of training information out there. Now I bring you an interview with Jason so you can hear him tell you in his own words who he is and why he’s qualified to teach you how to train.

Sean: [...]

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5 Ways to Burn Fat Fast

10. Jun, 2009 7 Comments Fat Loss

Today we have a great guest post from one of the top fat loss experts in the world, John Alvino.

5 Ways to Burn Fat Fast

1) Don’t decrease calories by more than 15% below your maintenance levels. This is one of the keys to maintaining all of your muscle mass during a fat loss phase. If you have a time constraint (weigh in for sport, wet t-shirt contest, etc), you may have to decrease your calories further than 15%. In these rare cases, you can decrease calories as low as 25% [...]

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How to Lower Estrogen Levels in Men

04. Jun, 2009 20 Comments Nutrition

How to lower estrogen levels in men is a hot topic these days since it seems to be something that so many males suffer from.

Seinfeld fans will undoubtedly never forget the episode in which Frank Costanza and Kramer invented the mansierre, which was a bra for men with excessive breast development. While we all laughed hysterically some people were just the slightest bit uncomfortable because the reality is that an inordinate number of men have “moobs,” or man boobs.

This is often due to excessively high body fat levels. [...]

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Your Muscle Building and Fat Loss Questions Answered

02. Jun, 2009 3 Comments Fat Loss, How to Build Muscle

Question: Coach, What is the difference between using chains around your neck on dips versus using a traditional dip belt?
Thanks,
Keith Connel

Answer: Keith, chains around your neck will force your body forward. This will place more stress on the chest. Hanging weights from your waist on a dip belt will keep you more upright and thus put more stress on the triceps.

Question: Hey, I’m finding it hard to get eight hours sleep, six if I’m lucky. With my job and my body clocks all over the place. I have’nt been able [...]

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Vegan Muscle Building: Is it Possible?

01. Jun, 2009 5 Comments How to Build Muscle, Nutrition

People always ask me how the heck they could possibly gain muscle on a vegan diet. That’s because they have been brainwashed to believe that without eating a billion grams of protein per day their muscles will shrink faster than their wang in a cold pool. This simply isn’t true. Not even close.

The body can only assimilate so much protein on a daily basis and you can only build muscle so fast. If protein were really the key to building muscle you would see tons of 250 pound behemoths every [...]

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