Guest Post by Mike Westerdal of Lean Hybrid Muscle
Many of you know that I compete as an amatuer powerlifter. One thing I’ve noticed over the past few years is that there are a lot of guys that believe the bigger you get and the more bodyweight you carry the stronger you will get. This was pretty much undisputed in the past.
All you had to do was look up all the world records in the squat, bench and deadlift and you’d find that the super heavyweights weighing 300 lbs and more dominated all the record boards regardless of age.
I’m not sure exactly when it started happening, but the tides are turning. When you look up the powerlifting rankings you’ll see that today the top numbers at many of the biggest powerlifting events each year are not always held by the heaviest guys.
In fact on forums across the Internet people are arguing that the strongest guys in the world today are representing the 198, 220, 242 and 275 lbs classes.
And I’m not talking about short fat guys that weigh less than their taller counterparts. These are lean powerlifters that look like they compete in bodybuilding.
The… …continue reading.
While everyone’s busy searching for the perfect rep scheme or newest miracle supplement, one of the greatest progress boosters of all is constantly overlooked. The concept of taking an afternoon nap is foreign to most of us yet it can do more for your training than 90% of the other minutia bullshit people waste their time obsessing on.
There’s a popular MMA t-shirt that reads “Tap or Nap.” While the intended meaning of the t-shirt is obvious, this slogan can also be applied to your training. Taking naps is so important that if you don’t find the time for one you may be tapping sooner than you think… to injury, illness, or frustration.
That’s because that afternoon fatigue that sets in for almost all of us is a normal thing. It’s your body’s way of telling you it needs a rest. You can ignore it and just battle through the rest of your day. Or you can drink some coffee to mask the symptoms. But over the long haul it will catch up with you one way or another. That much is inevitable.
The smartest plan is to take a short nap. Twenty minutes is ideal but if you’re pressed… …continue reading.
This is an old article from 2004, originally written for Elite Fitness. Since it was quite popular and many of you may have missed it, I figured I would reprint it here today…
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I sometimes wonder if there are any prerequisites at all to getting a job as college strength and conditioning coach. As the owner of my private athletic training company (Renegade Strength & Conditioning) I have had the opportunity to work with athletes from numerous colleges and universities across the country and have witnessed their disgust with their schools strength and conditioning programs. Some athletes, such as those attending Arizona State, are fortunate enough to have outstanding strength coaches and tremendous programs that they need not look elsewhere for help. Others are not so lucky.
Every August I try to send my athletes back to their respective schools as one of the strongest, fastest, and most well conditioned players on their team. Come December I see the unlucky one’s come back to me weaker, smaller and slower. These athletes have the misfortune of training under some Neanderthal strength coach who hasn’t learned anything new about weight training since the release of Pumping Iron. There have been countless… …continue reading.
Today I have a guest post from my friends Mike Roussell and Alwyn Cosgrove who just launched Warp Speed Fat Loss 2.0.
Mike: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. First so we all have some perspective, how long have you been a trainer?
Alwyn Cosgrove: I started training people in 1989. Actually 1987 if you count teaching martial arts classes. In 1995 (after college) I went full time. Since day one I’ve been very particular about what I do. I track and tweak everything. When we opened Results Fitness in 2000, we really started to gather a lot of data. We currently have 250 members and we track all their workouts and body comp changes week in and week out.
Mike: So it is like you run your own fat loss studies at your gym?
Alwyn: Exactly. We had read all the studies showing interval training to be superior for fat loss than steady state training. This confirmed what we were seeing with our clients. But I am a big belier in that there is no physiological limit to the amount of weight a person can lose in a week, month, or year so… …continue reading.
Originally written For Elite Fitness Systems in 2004
When Part One of this article was written a few years ago the focus was on college strength coaches. Unfortunately the unmaking of an athlete begins long before college. It starts at a very young age with uninformed but well intentioned parents. By doing what they think is best for their kids; many parents actually end up destroying their children’s athletic futures. For this story to be complete we have to go back to the beginning.
The father of three high school aged boys I used to coach is one such example of the type of parent I am referring to. Paul is a father who lives vicariously through his kids and demands that they excel in whatever sport they play. He picked wrestling and baseball as their chosen sports to specialize in from a young age. The reasoning for this, he told me, was that “White kids have a much better chance of achieving greatness in those sports than they do in football or basketball.” Fun was not an issue; the improved chance of long term success was all that mattered. Whether or not they liked football or basketball was of… …continue reading.
“Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price.”
– Sun Tzu
Did you know that you can get down to single digit bodyfat and look like an elite level pro athlete in just three easy, twenty minute workouts per week? And you can do it while eating whatever you want? It’s true…cuz I heard it on the radio… and read it on the internet.
Eight minute abs. That’s right folks, in just eight minutes a day you can get the abs of Cheik Congo (pictured). All it takes is a quick crunch workout. No need to worry about your diet or doing any exercises that actually jack up your metabolism and burn fat.
Six minute muscle. Jay Cutler look out. Because some lazy schmuck is gonna embarrass you right off the stage next year by training no more than 18 minutes per week.
Four minutes to super strength. Wait til Chuck Vogelpohl and Louie Simmons find out that they wasted all those years and could have gotten so much stronger with significantly less time and effort.
Two minute conditioning. Poor Tito Ortiz. All those wasted trips to Big Bear… …continue reading.
Now I know what you’re thinking; “What a boring ass blog post topic.” But it’s a topic I feel needs to be addressed because some people just don’t seem to have a clue what they’re doing. Or maybe I just feel that way because I’m so OCD and incredibly analytic that I see and think about things that most people never do. But I promise I will do my best to make this worth your time.
Go to a public gym and watch ten different people perform a set of ten reps. You may see speed reps, grinder reps, death reps, pump reps and everything in between. But what style provides the best results?
Like everything else, it depends on a number of factors. Grinders reps are those reps that the HIT crowd is a big fan of. Every rep goes up slowly and painfully and is a fight to the death. There is nothing fast or smooth about it. Grinders reps are also characterized by a lot of locking out, rest-pausing and just overall grinding. It can be argued that locking out your reps is good for your joints. Over time, however, locking out may just grind your joints… …continue reading.
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