This is an interview from the winter of 2006 that I did with my good friend, Dave Tate. Since many of you may have missed it the first time around I decided to repost it. Enjoy…
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I’ve never met “Big Bad Dave Tate.” I have never even met Dave “Fuckin” Tate. Supposedly this is some terrifying lunatic who would throw you through a wall for squatting less than 800 pounds in his presence or suck the brains from your skull if you looked at him wrong. At least that’s what I have read on the internet.
I only know the Dave Tate who I exchange hilarious daily emails with, trade business and life advice with and on many an occasion, drink a few too many beers with.
On a recent weekend in February, Dave was in Jersey for some business and as usual we got together and had a few drinks and a lot of laughs. He also came to watch me train a group of athletes and told me afterward that he had never seen kids with better form before. This, of course, has nothing to do with the story; it’s just a shameless plug I… …continue reading.
1) Include a lot of close grip chin ups and dips in your workout program.
2) Do both heavy sets to stimulate the fast twitch fibers and higher rep sets to get a good pump increase the size of the slow twitch fibers, sarcoplasm, etc.
3) Consider training arms (biceps and triceps) on your leg day, 48 hours after your main upper body day. This allows you to hit them more often and also when they are fresher.
4) Or consider, for a short specialization period of a month or two, training biceps and triceps first in your upper body workout.
5) Since they are a smaller body part, the arms can tolerate more volume and frequency than the lats, quads or other larger body parts, when specializing on them for a month or two.
6) Do an equal amount of work for both the triceps and biceps.
7) The triceps respond best to heavy loads so be sure to hit them heavy with some dips, floor presses or board presses.
8) Stretch the biceps and triceps in between sets and after your last pump set.
9) Always try to increase the load on all of your biceps and triceps… …continue reading.
If you’re serious about building muscle and getting stronger there are three very critical mistakes that you absolutely can’t afford to make. I can’t tell you how many times I see guys in the gym committing these cardinal sins and how badly I wish I could help them all. Unfortunately I can’t save everyone but I’ll always do my best to give my loyal readers an unfair advantage over everyone else.
One critical mistake all skinny guys and girls make is they follow traditional bodybuilding advice and only train each muscle group once per week. If someone just arrived here from Mars and I told them the best way to improve something was to do it only once per week they would think I was absolutely insane.
To elicit a growth response you must provide the muscles with a certain level of volume, which should be absolutely no higher than the bare minimum. Research and empirical evidence has shown this to be roughly 50-100 reps per muscle group, per week. Anymore than this will lead to overtraining and less than this will usually not be enough for anyone but the inexperienced newbie who is just starting to train… …continue reading.
By John Alvino
Over the years I’ve had a lot of different training partners; a couple professional bodybuilders, a few competitive powerlifters, and countless hardcore lunatics. But I never got faster gains in muscular size and strength than the months I spent training with my buddy and world class strength coach, Jason Ferruggia.
Jay is not only immensely focused and intense when he trains but he has this stuff down to an exact science. He’s the thinking mans strength coach, forever analyzing and experimenting. There literally hasn’t been a single day in the thirteen years I’ve known him that we haven’t discussed training at length. NOT ONE DAY! That’s how obsessed he is with finding a faster, more efficient way to help his guys build muscle and get brutally strong.
He’s constantly dialing me up with some new concepts and theories for us to try out on ourselves and our clients because he’s never satisfied. While other arm chair gurus may theorize, Jay is in the trenches testing new methods on countless human guinea pigs and tracking their results like a mad scientist.
About a year ago I received a call from him some time after 1am. If I… …continue reading.
“We got the results back from the doctor today. It’s pancreatic cancer. There’s no cure… It’s terminal.”
My heart stopped and tears welled up in my eyes.
Even though he and my mom never decided to make it official and tie the knot, he was, for all intents and purposes, my step dad. That’s what we referred to him as, and Edward Liebman was the greatest father figure I had ever known.
“Whattaya mean? Are they sure?!” I asked as cold sweat started to roll down my back.
“Yes.”
I couldn’t speak and began to weep like a baby. I felt like someone had sucker punched me in the stomach and I dropped to one knee.
“Now, look, this doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere anytime soon. I’m gonna fight this thing ‘til the end,” he told me.
I struggled to compose myself enough to get a few words out.
“I know you will. And I know I don’t have to say this now because it’s not going to be goodbye anytime soon, but I just wanted to say how much I love you. I hope you know that. And I want to thank you for everything from the bottom of… …continue reading.
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