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 where you went. They would be sitting next to you at the movies, serving you in restaurants and rubbing elbows with you in the waiting room of the dentists’ office. Because, let’s face it; everyone and their mother drinks protein shakes these days. And if that’s all it took to build muscle there would be a lot more huge dudes walking around.
I’m sure plenty of you have tried this before. You decided to start drinking an extra protein shake or two per day in the hopes of packing on new size. Or you decided to really jack up your protein intake by adding an extra three… …continue reading.
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 to progress these last couple of weeks. Do you think lack of sleep plays a big role in not progressing as my diet and training could’nt be anymore solid. I would appreciate it if you could get back to me as this is the one thing I’m desperate to acheive. Cheers
John Brodie
Answer: John, your lack of sleep is absolutely slowing down your gains in the gym and hampering your ability to build muscle and lose fat. Insufficient sleep will slow down your recovery, decrease your testosterone and insulin sensitivity, elevate your cortisol and possibly lead to a whole host of other… …continue reading.
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% below maintenance, but be sure to temporarily increase your calories at regular intervals. This brings up our next point.
2) Do not stay in a caloric deficit for longer than 5 consecutive days. Staying in a caloric deficit for too long leads to a slower metabolism, less glycogen (stored carbohydrates in your muscles that are crucial for athletic performance), and without fail, losses in lean muscle mass. This is easily avoided by “eating up” occasionally to replenish your glycogen stores and give your metabolic rate a much needed boost.
3) Focus on force output during your cardio workouts. Many so-called fat loss “experts” love to say,… …continue reading.
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: Tell us how you got into fitness?
Jason: Growing up, I was always one of the weakest, skinniest kids around. I have always been obsessed with sports, but being small and weak wasn’t exactly conducive to achieving my dreams of having a superstar career in the NFL or NBA. I was in eighth grade and didn’t even weigh 100 pounds. I decided to do something about it, and I wanted to get bigger, stronger, and faster.
Around the same time, my cousin started dating a professional wrestler who was absolutely enormous and became something of a big brother to me. I started following his advice to the… …continue reading.
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 want to be the best and I knew that to become the best trainer/coach I could be, I would have to put in a lot of time and work with a lot of clients. I started with regular, everyday people but progressed to training a lot of athletes. To date, I have worked with over 700 athletes from numerous college and pro organizations. I also continue to work with members of the armed forces, Hollywood stars, and tons of regular guys who just want to get bigger, stronger, and leaner.
I’m also not married to any one concept or training style and am willing to adapt and… …continue reading.
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 to injury with high reps. Their form breaks down after five reps or so when their core strength gives out and they are then at a much greater risk of injury.
With more advanced guys high rep leg training can work wonders and lead to extremely fast muscle gain. Most times I keep the reps at around 20-25, but sets of up to 50 or even 100 reps can work quite well also. Tom Platz built some of the freakiest legs ever seen and was a huge advocate of extremely high rep leg training. I’ve had the pleasure of discussing training with Stone Cold Steve Austin a… …continue reading.
Question: If you train four days a week using an upper/lower split, what is the optimal way to schedule the days? Should I do lower body first followed by an upper-body day, or vice versa? Does it matter?
Answer: The traditional way of answering this question is that you should train whatever needs the greatest attention earlier in the week. Sometimes I follow these guidelines and sometimes I don’t. In most cases, I actually prefer to do an upper-body day first, followed by a lower-body day. The reasoning for this is that an intense squat or deadlift workout will take a lot more out of you than will any sort of upper-body lifting. I normally prefer to give the lifter a day off following a heavy lower-body session instead of having them go in and try to do some kind of heavy pressing or pulling when they are probably exhausted from the lower-body workout. Squats and deadlifts take a great toll on the entire body and require more recovery time than any kind of upper body training.
The optimal way to split up four upper/lower sessions a week would be as follows:
Monday: Upper
Tuesday: Lower
Wednesday:… …continue reading.
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 down you will do the following movements:
Traps- deadlift.
Shoulders- dumbbell or barbell military presses.
Chest- dumbbell presses, weighted pushups or barbell bench/incline presses
Back- chin ups and 1 arm dumbbell rows.
Biceps- barbell or dumbbell curls.
Triceps- dips and close grip benches.
Lower back, glutes and hamstrings- more deadlifts.
Legs- squats, squats and more squats.
Simple, right?
Don’t waste time searching for 739 other fancy exercises that won’t work any better than what I just listed. Eventually when you have more time and have made some very solid, impressive gains we can expand the list a bit. But for now stick to the… …continue reading.
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