5 Big Reasons Why Everyone Should Train Like Athletes

March 10, 2010

Guys, I’ve been saying it for years- you gotta train old school and you gotta train like an athlete, no matter what your goal. Someone who wholeheartedly agrees with me is my buddy and professional strongman competitor Elliot Hulse, who is also the co-creator of the Lean Hybrid Muscle System (which is on sale for 50% off until tomorrow, by the way).

Check out this killer post by Elliot below…

If you’re like me, you probably want nothing more than to feel like a ’super-stud’ every time you take your shirt off in public. You want to have the confidence to say, ‘Boy, this sweaty shirt is chaffin’ me’, then reach over your shoulder and tear your shirt off like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. When you know that your pecs look like two soup bowls inserted beneath your skin, and your abs are as hard the asphalt you stand on, it’s tough to keep your shirt on!

Today you are gonna learn the top 5 training principles that you MUST implement in order to make your physique and performance goals… a reality. But, before I open the info-floodgates, there is something you’ve got to understand. Men… all men, should recognize that we are athletes and our training programs must reflect this.

Even if you’re a ‘pencil pusher’ or a ‘white collar crook’, the essence of your being is athletic. In order to see any type of fitness results it is essential to recognize that Squats, Power Cleans, 40 Yard Dashes and Vertical Jumps are not only for NFL Combine participants… they are for you!

1. You’re An Athlete By Design

The foundation principle of everything that I teach all begins with one extremely powerful phrase: “We are primal beings living in a modern world”

Our physical bodies have been unchanged for thousands of years. In fact, today, our bodies are an exact expression of what our ancestors were over 100,000 years ago. It is believed that it takes about 100,000 years for 0.001percent of a genome to change… so yourself and Primal Man are for all intents and purposes… the same.

What has changed is how WE have chosen to live, if you can even call it that. As we have ‘advanced’ in technology we have regressed in physical strength and stature.

We function at a much lower capacity than were inherently capable of. This is analogous to those people who buy off-road vehicles that will never see anything but concrete! You’ve been given the ultimate athletic tool… use it.

2. Short, Hard and Intense Workouts Yield Lean, Hard and Muscular Bodies

When you spend over an hour in the gym sitting on useless ‘fitness machines’ while you’re waiting to do your ‘next set’…your nervous system’s primal response is to release Cortisol and Glucocorticoids – which are stress hormones, (these make you sick, sad, fat and, stupid) in response to your body thinking… “Holy Cow, we’ve been training for over an hour… perhaps we’re being chased by a tiger and need to preserve body fat”, then it begins sacrificing muscle tissue for energy! This is called The Catabolic Effect. Also, workouts exceeding 1 hour have been shown to be associated with a rapid decrease in androgen levels.

This is why marathon runners look so emaciated… id much rather look like one of those Lock, Stock & Ready Sprinters with muscles rippling across their backs and abs.

3. Aerobics and Cardio Training Is Boring & Ineffective

You’ve seen the chunky aerobics instructors; they do cardio all day long… don’t you think that they would be a bit leaner? Well, there is a scientific reason as to why they are chubby even though they bounce up and down on those colorful blocks all day long. In fact research has shown that aerobic instructors who taught an average of 3 hours a day maintained a body fat of 22-24% – mind you, that Olympic athletes hover around 9%.

Especially with repetitive exercises like aerobics the body adapts quickly to the stimulus and ceases to respond to the stimulus. Also, you begin to become very fuel-efficient… Listen, think of a metabolism that has adapted to long treks of cardio as being a Honda… it burns very little fuel (i.e. fat) but can go miles and miles. Think of a metabolism that is roaring with increased mitochondria activity (as is present in someone who weight trains with circuits) as a Hummer, large fuel combusting metabolism!

Here’s why this is so important! You want a stronger heart, without the fat saving response of long boring cardio treks. That is why I teach my clients how to do work capacity sets. We take 4-6 exercises and complete them back to back with no rest and aim to complete them all with in about 2 minutes… if your heart is not ready to pound out of your chest after that, then maybe you should visit your veterinarian!

Here’s a simple circuit that you can do at home – first 20 squats, then 20 lunges, then ’step ups’ on a bench 10 each leg, finally do 10 squat jumps and get it all done in less than 90 seconds! Kick-ass workout!

We begin every session with Plyometrics and then get right into 3-5 “work capacity” sets for upper and lower body.

4. Get High on Oxygen & Sunshine

Besides the fact that training on treadmills and ’sit down’ exercise equipment is less effective than getting your feet on the ground and learning how to use your own bodyweight, training indoors can be detrimental to your performance and fitness results.

As ‘primal beings’ we are in need of several vital elements and forms of energy. The suns rays are nourishing to your mind as well as body. It is well documented that those who live in the cooler northern climates that enjoy less sunshine through out the year are several times more likely to suffer from depression.

Also, if you’re like most Americans you work and live indoors (maybe). In fact, the average person spends 90% of their time indoors. Several health experts have propounded that our homes and workplace are the most toxic environments in our lives. Many studies have stated that toxic particles and fumes found in your home and workplace include: air fresheners, spray starch, paints, mothballs and even ‘new car’ smell kills more people every year than automobile accidents!

So, what do you do? Train in the great outdoors! When I train my Strength Camp clients at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg Florida, not only do we benefit from the sweet bay breeze but also the scenery is beautiful enough to give a nun spring fever!

5. It’s Gotta Be Fun!

Drop out rates for exercise programs are almost as high as the drop out rate in my old middle school! The bottom line is, if you don’t enjoy it – you wont do it. The most effective way to ensure that you stick with your training program is to change it often. This doesn’t mean hop from one modality to the next before you get any results. It means stick with your weight-training program for a minimum of 90 days but change the exercises you use for each body part every few weeks.

This not only keeps you interested but also, your nervous system will be challenged with the new exercises and be forced to adapt. This yields fast and long-lasting results!

To learn more about Elliot and take advantage of the 50% off sale on Lean Hybrid Muscle before it ends on 3/11/2010, click HERE now.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning | 5 Comments

Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Pull Ups

February 20, 2010

sergio oliva Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Pull Ups The pull up is quite possibly the ultimate measure of strength. It’s also one of the greatest muscle building exercises in existence, which is precisely why it’s been called the upper body squat. Lat pulldowns can’t even come close to comparing. Whenever you move your body through space the level of neuromuscular activation is dramatically higher.

People all too often ask, “How much can ya bench?” A more appropriate question would be “How many pull ups can you do?” The pull up measures your strength to weight ratio better than almost any other exercise known to man. You are pulling up one hundred percent of your bodyweight, in the exact manner the human body was designed to work. It’s one of the most natural exercises you can do. While not everyone can squat or deadlift due to lower back or knee problems, pretty much everyone can do pull ups. Or should be able to do pull ups…

To this day I am still haunted by the image I witnessed in a local park a few years ago when I was there training. A man my age was there with his wife and his son. He was shooting some hoops, watching his kid play, and basically just enjoying the beautiful July weather. At one point he wandered over to the pull up bar and got on it. He then proceeded to twist and squirm and strain for the next 10-15 seconds as he attempted and failed to do one pull up. ONE PULL UP! Now mind you, this guy was not obese. He had the average adult male physique- 5’9”, 165 pounds with a 38 inch waist, ten inch arms and “a chest like a wet blanket,” as Frank Rizzo of The Jerky Boys would say.

The second hand embarrassment was enough to make me want to dig a hole and jump in it.

“Look at the man you married, honey. I can’t do a single pull up. But don’t worry, I can keep you safe.”

“Hey buddy, watch how strong daddy is. Don’t you want to grow up to be just like me?”

To paraphrase Matt Rhodes, a man who can’t do pull ups is a woman. Or some other form of living being, because the women at my gym can do ten or more. But you can’t call yourself a man if you can’t do pull ups. It’s as simple as that.

Below are the top 10 ways to improve your pull ups.

1) Don’t go to failure- This is the biggest problem I see with pull ups. Everyone goes to failure on every set. That’s because it’s so easy to do. As soon as a single rep does not look exactly like the previous one and you can’t get as high, the set is over. If your speed slows down noticeably the set is over. You would never continue a set of squats if you could no longer lock out the weight. If you got all the way up on rep five but were only able to get up ¾ of the way on rep six you wouldn’t proceed to do four more reps of partials until the set ended with the weight crashing down on you and crippling you. But that’s exactly how people finish their sets of pull ups. The form gets worse and worse and worse, and they keep going and going and going, climbing up the invisible ladder, swinging and kipping. When you do this you get no stronger. And most of the time you get weaker. The negative effect of training to failure is seen more on chin ups than any other exercise. No one knows why this is, but trust me, that’s how it is.

2) Lose excess body fat- If you are carrying excess body fat your ability to do pull ups will be greatly reduced. Extra body fat is good for lifting more weight in certain exercises that require greater leverage like the squat and deadlift. But that’s all it’s good for. Other than that it’s unhealthy and unsightly.

3) Start in the proper position- All too often people start in the dead hang position with their scapula elevated and their shoulders touching their ears. This is dangerous and incorrect. When you do this all of the tension is placed on your tendons and ligaments instead of your muscles. When you get on the bar you want to pull your shoulder blades down and lock your shoulders into their sockets. This is a far safer position and ensures that the stress will be placed directly on the muscles and not the tendons and ligaments.

4) Maintain a slight elbow bend throughout the set- This goes hand in hand with the above tip. Before starting your set you want to bend your elbows ever so slightly. This bend should barely be noticeable, but it will have a huge impact on your elbow health. Do not start with your elbows completely locked. This, again, places all of the stress on the tendons and ligaments instead of on the muscles. On each successive rep you should lower yourself until your arms are nearly straight, stopping just shy of lockout. But don’t use this as an excuse to cheat. Just shy of lockout means that your elbows are “99% locked out;” you just don’t want that complete extension.

5) Initiate with the lats- When you start to pull, be sure that you fire your lats first; not your biceps. If you have trouble feeling your lats, as many newbies do, have someone poke or slap your lats a few times before you start pulling. Even having a partner keep his hands in contact with your lats throughout the set may help. It may also look a little strange to other members of your gym.

6) Drive your elbows down- To get the most out of your lats when you chin you should think about driving your elbows down and back. Don’t simply pull with your biceps.

7) Pull your chin to the bar- I used to be a stickler for having people pull their chest to the bar. I still instruct beginners to do that, knowing full well that they won’t be able to, but that it will at least instill the importance of getting high. You only need your chin to clear the bar. That last few inches does very little for you lats and instead focuses the stress on the smaller, weaker muscles of your upper/middle back. The pull up should be used to target the lats, first and foremost. Don’t waste energy struggling with that last few inches at the top. Get your chin over while keeping your back arched and then lower yourself. Use other rowing exercises to target those smaller upper back muscles and use the pul up to smoke your lats completely.

8] Use a variety of grips- There are countless ways to pull your body up. You can do chin ups with your palms facing you at a number of different grip widths. You can also do chin ups with your palms facing each other, or pull ups with your palms facing away at multiple grip widths. You can pull up on bars, rings, fat bars, ropes, towels, suspension straps, beams, Eagle Loops, and even baseballs or softballs hanging from a chain. The variations are endless. Use as many different chin ups as possible to avoid burnout or overuse injuries.

9) Use a variety of rep ranges- To do a lot of pull ups you need strength and you need endurance. Strength is built with low reps. You can do low reps with a weighted vest or dip belt or you can simply perform more difficult variations of pull ups. Endurance is built with high reps. This is where the use of bands comes in handy. Having a few different levels of band tension will allow you to vary your rep range greatly. This will help you boost your chin up numbers a lot faster. Some days you train in the range of 1-5 reps for maximal strength. Some day you train in the range of 6-12, and others you train in the range of 15-30, with a band, to improve your endurance.

10) Strengthen your grip- The stronger your grip is the easier pull ups will feel. I suggest getting a Captains of Crush Gripper and using it a few times per week. You can also add in some more specific grip work at the gym like fat bar holds, hexagon dumbbell holds, as well as various pinching and crushing exercises.

Start using these top 10 ways to improve your pull ups today and drop me a line to let me know how they’re working out for you.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning, Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Simplify Your Program, Amplify Your Results

February 11, 2010

Bill Starr Like Lynyrd Skynyrd advised, I have always tried to be a simple man. Mainly because I have a simple brain and am left with no other choice. But I have always believed that the more you can simplify things, the happier and more productive you will be.

On any given day there’s a good chance that I’ll sell all of my material possessions and move into the wild. Or at least I dream I will. I imagine a life with no TV, no internet and no cell phones, where I am eternally happy and stress free. I know that the internet makes our lives easier and helps many of us, including myself, make money. It’s just that it also complicates things and takes up too much of your time, if you let it. We live in a society where everyone always needs to be plugged in. I, for one, just want to be unplugged more often.

A couple years ago I got rid of email on my phone and then downgraded to something more basic without all the bells and whistles. On most days, now, I don’t even turn my cell phone on until somewhere between noon and four in the afternoon. I can’t really explain why, except for the fact that maybe I miss the eighties and early nineties, when people couldn’t get a hold of you at anytime, no matter where you were. That and the fact that it helps me be more productive due to far fewer interruptions.

When it comes to checking regular email these days, forget about it. I can barely bring myself to login to my account, never mind read dozens of emails and respond to them.

And that’s exactly how I feel about complicated training programs. When I let my guard down and check out some other training sites on occasion, my head often starts to spin when I read some of the recommendations that are being made. Bill Starr was the first strength coach to work at both the collegiate and professional level. He was the strength coach for the Baltimore Colts when they won Super Bowl V. No matter what the guru’s may tell you about slide boards, balance training, kettlebell swings, Bosu balls, tempo training, eccentrics and simultaneously working one arm with the opposite leg, the fact of the matter is that not much has changed in the last forty years when it comes to effective strength training. As Bill said himself, “the more simple a program, the more it will achieve the desired results, which is greater functional strength.”

An effective strength training program doesn’t need more than thee to five total exercises per workout. If you write a program with more exercises than that it’s usually for entertainment value, not for results. People should concentrate on quality not quantity and strive to do fewer things better.

If you are an athlete that usually means you will only be training for three to six months out of the year. The rest of your time will be spent playing or practicing. For three to four of those months you should be squatting. Back squats reign supreme, but you could also do front squats for variety and overhead squats to improve your mobility and build functional strength and stability in a completely different manner.

I love deadlifts, but the reality is that most athletes would be better served doing some sort of Olympic pull. A snatch or clean variation, and preferably both, should be part of the program. There’s less risk and more benefit.

If you are also running and jumping, which every athlete should be doing, there is very little need for anything else in the weight room aside for mobility work such as hurdle step overs, duck unders, some joint prep work and some isometric bridging exercises. All of this should be part of the warm up and does not constitute the strength portion of the program.

If an athlete is very inflexible it would probably benefit him to do some split squats or Cossack squats and hold the stretch position at the bottom for a few seconds. Romanian dead lifts or single leg RDL’s could help as well. Loaded stretching that you turn into an exercise seems to be more effective than regular stretching; which bores most athletes to tears. Some extra tight guys will need both. But, there is nothing inherently more “functional” or “sport specific” about single leg exercises, as some coaches suggest. They can be used in certain cases but they aren’t necessary when an athlete only has 12-16 weeks to train. If you have six months to train, I would recommend starting with unilateral work at the beginning, for the first couple of months. For everyone else with limited time, you need to get the most bang for you buck, which means you need to head to the squat rack.

For the upper body athletes need to press vertically and horizontally. Bench presses, inclines and military presses are at the top of the list; especially for football players who will most likely get tested on one or two of these. Personally I prefer to use weighted pushup variations or dumbbells most of the time but when guys are getting tested you are left with no option. These exercises are great assistance movements, however.

Chin ups and rows should also be included to balance out the upper body training and keep the shoulder region healthy. A wide variety of chins should be included to help avoid any possible tendon issues that can arise from using the same grip too often.

If you pick one of each of these exercises and use the proper set and rep scheme you have as effective a strength program as you can find. If, in one workout you were to snatch, squat, press and chin what more would you possibly need? That’s a program that will get you strong. When you start adding in rear delts, concentration curls, Cuban presses, right leg/ left hand step up and military press, fancy tempo schemes and all that nonsense you take away from the effectiveness of the program; not add to it. People need to understand that every single muscle group does not need individual attention and isolation. When you do snatches and overhead presses you eliminate the need for direct external rotation, shrugs, rear delt and rhomboid work. That’s bang for your buck right there…

Athletes play their sport. That is how they get conditioned optimally. They run, jump, cut and do agility drills. That is how they develop the ability to do these things better; not by doing weight vest multi-planar lunges on the slide board. You need to build strength in the weight room and play or practice your sport frequently so that the strength transfers over. Most “sport specific exercises” and all that clown nonsense do very little.

Interestingly enough, the guy who DOES need all that extra stuff in the weight room is the thirty or forty year old guy who’s just training because he loves it, but isn’t competing in a sport. For him, the workout IS his sport. If all he does is powerlifting or Olympic lifting he will most likely be pretty banged up in a few years and getting one step closer to a shoulder or knee surgery on a daily basis. Guys like this, who train year round, should only squat and deadlift for blocks of 12-16 weeks, once or twice a year, if at all. It really depends on their injury history and goals. If all he does is bodybuilding, he might look good but will possess no functional strength or the athleticism to compete in a pick up beach volleyball game. One spike attempt and he may tear an abdominal muscle, lat or rotator cuff. So this guy actually needs so called “sport specific training” more than the athlete does. Weird but true. Plus, anyone who trains year round definitely needs more variety than the athlete who only trains for a few months. But, only after you have been training for a few years and have mastered the basics. This is another article for another day but I will address this in full detail very soon with specific case studies.

An athlete, training for only 12-16 weeks, however, should pick big, basic exercises that get the job done fastest. These are usually simple, old school barbell exercises. Sometimes dumbbells or bodyweight exercises can work just as well, but you have to remember that many athletes will be getting tested on a barbell lift (or three) at camp so they need to train on them during the off season. That and the fact that it is so ingrained in our heads that strength (especially for football) is measured by the numbers you clean, squat and bench press.

The point of all this is that if you want to get better results from your training you need to simplify. Complicated routines lead to lackluster results. Like Bruce Lee said, “simplicity is the key to brilliance.” It also helps you get bigger and stronger a whole lot faster.

Simplify your program to amplify your results.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning | 15 Comments

You Already Knew That

December 28, 2009

KB girl You Already Knew That It just wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t get at least a dozen random fitness related questions per week from strangers, family members or long lost pals at holiday parties. Kinda like the exchange I had with my old friend Kevin last week…

“Hey Jay, good to see you, buddy. Glad you’re here, I have a couple questions for you.”

“I probably don’t have the answers, but fire away.”

“My shoulder’s been killing recently right here, when I bench press. Here, feel this clicking thing it’s doing,” he says as he places my hand on his shoulder.

Another holiday party; another guy placing my hands on his body. For once I’d like to meet a lingerie model with a supraspinatus tear. Or a pulled pec.

“Feel that? What do you think I should do?”

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Pretty bad.”

“I’m gonna go with stop bench pressing, then.”

“Oh man… I was hoping for another answer. I love benching.”

“But obviously it’s screwing up your shoulder. You can probably go back to it eventually but for now you have to eliminate whatever is causing you pain. That would be the first logical step. See how it feels when you drop the bench and we’ll take it from there.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Kevin already knew the answer but he needed to hear it from me.

At another recent holiday soiree I was approached by a young guy named Rick who I hadn’t seen in a year. At the 2008 version of this bash he asked me how he could get bigger. He said he’d been training for the last six months but with little to no progress. I inquired about his current training program and he said he had been following some of my stuff online and in the magazines.

“Well, that’s a start. What exactly are you doing?”

“I do bench, curls and pushdowns three days per week. For legs I run on the treadmill when I’m done.”

I sat with a puzzled look on my face, trying to recall when exactly I had written such an inefficient training program. Finally, I concluded that I hadn’t and it was he who was mistaken… at least I hoped.

I told him to drop the pushdowns and add in chins, dips, military presses and cleans or rows for upper body work. I allowed him to keep the curls because I’m nice like that. He was done with the treadmill and was going to learn how to squat and deadlift, I insisted.

“Train three days per week with an upper body pull, an upper body push and squat or deadlift variation. Finish up each workout with a few sets of curls or shrugs and you’re done. Eat an ample amount of healthy food three to five times per day and report back to me in a year.”

Had he done what I said he would have gained an absolute bare minimum of twenty pounds. Yet, here he was standing before me, the exact same size as last year.

“So what’s been going on with the training?” I asked.

“Uh… it’s good.”

“Have you been doing squats and deads?” I obviously knew the answer.

“Well, I tried them, like you said. But they were just so hard, ya know? I like to look forward to going to the gym and getting a good pump. I wasn’t really getting a great pump from them. And I felt them in my back a lot. So, ya know, I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“Yup… I know.”

“I mean, I trust you and all, and I’m sure I would have gotten much better results if I did what you said, but… ya know.”

“I do… I do.”

Later that night a guy named Chris approached me and asked me how he could get ripped for a trip he had planned to Hawaii in March. His training was pretty good. He was actually running sprints instead of jogging. The only problem, I concluded, was his diet. When probed, he admitted that there were tons of starchy carbs being stuffed down his pie hole on a daily basis. I very simply told him to cut those out and he’d lose the fat.

“So you really think it’s the diet, huh?”

“Yes, it is. You can’t out train a bad diet. And you’re proving it to yourself right now. Change the diet and your body will transform.”

“Yeah, you’re right; I know that.”

You see, most people know more than they think. They have at least half of the answers. They just need me to confirm it for them.
Don’t believe me?

Try this 10 question pop quiz and prove it to yourself…

What’s the best thing to drink all day?
A) Water
B) Soda
C) Coffee
D) Irish car bombs

Which foods help you get leaner?
A) Green vegetables
B) White rice
C) Bread
D) Chocolate mousse

What’s the best exercise for your triceps?
A) Dips
B) Pushdowns
C) Extensions
D) Kickbacks with soup cans

Which exercise helps you get leaner, faster?
A) Sprinting
B) Jogging
C) Walking
D) Knitting

Which exercise helps you build muscle faster?
A) Deadlifts
B) Concentration curls
C) Leg extensions
D) Ankle inversion/eversion with stretch bands

What’s the optimal amount of sleep you should get each night?
A) 8-9 hours
B) 5-6 hours
C) 3-4 hours
D) Who needs sleep

Which exercise will help you get faster most efficiently?
A) Sprints
B) Speed ladder drills
C) Over speed training
D) Watching Carl Lewis sing the national anthem on YouTube

Which exercise will have the greatest transference to the playing field?
A) Power cleans
B) Smith machine presses
C) Donkey calf raises
D) Double biceps curl thingy while standing in the middle of the power rack and holding a cable in each hand and holding each rep for a three second peak contraction

Which food helps you build muscle fastest?
A) Eggs
B) Oreo’s
C) Twizzlers
D) Butter

What would help you make faster progress in the weight room?
A) Adding more weight to the bar
B) Going from training four days per week to seven
C) Doing tri sets and giant sets
D) Doing drop sets and running the rack all the way down to the 5’s on every exercise you do

If you answered A on the majority of questions you are on your way. You know what you need to do and what it takes to get great results.

Deadlifts

Squats

Sprints

Chin ups

Water

Lean protein

Vegetables

Sleep

Lots of the above will lead to tons of muscle and strength being built and fat being lost.

But you don’t need me to tell you.

Because you already knew that.

Now you just have to do it.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Fat Loss, Motivation, Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning | 22 Comments

How to Avoid Elbow Pain… And Keep Your Wrists & Shoulders Happy Too

December 22, 2009

001 How to Avoid Elbow Pain... And Keep Your Wrists & Shoulders Happy Too I wish I had a guide about how to avoid elbow pain when I first started training, because I certainly have had my share of it. Although this is not my main area of expertise, and guys like Bill Hartman and Keith Scott know a lot more about this than I do, I’ve trained a lot of people for a lot of years and have seen almost every injury you can imagine. I’ve also experienced quite a bit of them myself. So today I’m gonna share some tips and tricks with you about how to avoid elbow pain. And since no discussion about the ‘bows would be complete without addressing the wrists and shoulders we’ll cover that a bit as well.

First on the list of exercises that cause elbow pain is the straight bar curl. When you go heavy enough, long enough, this exercise will probably bother your wrists and lead to some tendon issues in the elbow. You can avoid that by not keeping the barbell curl in your routine for more than three or four weeks straight, rotating it in and out every other week or just avoiding it all together. Another way to make this movement less stressful is to take the most comfortable grip on the bar possible, which is usually a bit wider than shoulder width. Don’t worry about what some bodybuilder said about the optimal grip width for biceps development. You can’t train if you’re injured. Stick with what’s comfortable.

The fully extended position is usually the most stressful so you may want to cut the range and not extend the elbows fully if you experience pain on this exercise. You may even want to cheat out of the bottom position just a bit with some body English. Yup, I said don’t do full range and told you to cheat. Call the form police.

A better option would be to curl with the EZ bar or dumbbells. Even better would be to do alternate dumbbell curls where you lean and sway a bit in a natural, non rigid motion. This will usually lessen the stress on the wrists and the biceps tendon and help you work around any possible elbow issues.

However you do them you should adhere to what I have always said and that is that curls should not be done heavy. Beginners and weak guys can do fives but everyone else should stick with six reps or higher. If you’re strong, make it 8-20. You’ll thank me later.

When I was young I hired a Canadian personal trainer to write me programs for a while. One of the workouts had me doing called for preacher curls supersetted with skull crushers for six sets of three reps to failure. Needless to say, my elbows were shot for a few months and I nearly needed an IV drip of Vitamin C and megadoses of Ashwaganda (if you don’t get this joke consider yourself lucky).

The next exercise on the elbow and wrist fuckers list is straight bar chin ups. This is very similar to the barbell curl. The fully extended, fully supinated position causes unnecessary stress and is not a natural movement. Ideally, all chin up bars should be zig zagged, like you welded an EZ bar on top of a power rack. I tried to get those custom made years ago but couldn’t find anyone to do it for me. Now I see them a bit more frequently. This grip is much less stressful on the wrists and shoulders than straight bar chins. An even better safer option is the parallel grip chin up.

Pull ups with a straight bar may or may not bother the elbows but they can definitely be hard on the shoulders. Again, a zig zagged bar would be a much better option when going pronated but some people with shoulder or wrist problems may want to avoid the pullup altogether and stick with parallel grip chins.

The best of all options would be to do chins on handles that rotate or on rings. The handles that rotate allow you to start pronated or semi supinated, or semi pronated, or however the hell you want. As you pull yourself up you can supinate to whatever level is comfortable. Doing this on rings is great also, but be prepared to be significantly weaker (due to the fact that the rings swing and you have to stabilize your body).

Unless you weigh 165 or have tremendous grip strength, towel chins might be something you want to avoid altogether. That’s not to say that it’s a bad exercise, but if you aren’t prepared for it you could be in for some unwelcome elbow shredding from this bad boy.

Before we go any further and I get my inbox flooded with hate mail I must reiterate what I always have, and that’s that there are very few exercises better than chin ups. They are one of the best measures of relative strength and are basically the upper body squat. I’m just telling you how to make them safer.

Finally, let’s cover direct triceps work. Extensions, if done heavy enough, long enough, will probably ruin your elbows; especially if you bring them to your nose or forehead. The best option is a dead stop triceps extension which is like a pullover/extension combo. Lie down on the floor and lower the bar behind your head until the plates hit the ground. Pause briefly and then rip the weight up off the floor and directly overhead to lockout.

Pushdowns are safer but shouldn’t be overdone. A large volume of direct triceps work could lead to serious issues down the road. Four to eight total sets of direct triceps work a week should be enough to stimulate hypertrophy while keeping you pain free.

There are plenty of other ways to avoid elbow pain but following my advice above is a good start. You can’t “throw dem ‘bows” when you’re injured, so train smart.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building | 7 Comments

Linear Progress?

December 3, 2009

arnold12 Linear Progress? I always advise all beginners and hardgainers to concentrate on making linear progress (either by adding more reps or more weight) at each and every workout. Add a rep or a plate and you will make pretty consistent gains for quite a while. This is one of the key components to the Muscle Gaining Secrets program.

Eventually, however, you’ll no longer be a beginner or a hardgainer and then the whole game changes. It will become more and more difficult to make linear progress on a consistent basis. This can be hard to accept at first and become quite frustrating if you let it. But you have to take a step back into reality and accept facts. If you were able to add five to ten pounds a week to your bench ad infinitum you would be pressing 1,000 pounds in a few years. Obviously this isn’t possible.

You also have to accept the fact that you will have off days. You won’t always be able to set PR’s. This doesn’t mean you haven’t made progress or haven’t gotten stronger. It could just mean you haven’t been eating or sleeping properly, you’re too stressed out or it could be hormonal. It could also be one of fifty other things. The point is it happens. On days like this just do your best for the day and know that you will come back stronger at your next workout. If you set a new five rep max squat of 365 two months ago and today you can only do that weight for five reps again, that doesn’t always mean you failed. Tomorrow or yesterday you may have gotten it for eight. Your strength levels will vary from day to day. As long as you are able to go up at most workouts and on a long term basis you are getting consistently stronger, that’s all that matters.

As you get stronger variety becomes more important to your long term success as do planned deloading periods and extreme variances in volume and intensity. This will be explained in further detail in Triple X Muscle, which I will be unleashing on all you mofo’s some time in January.

As always, thanks for reading.

Train hard.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building | 6 Comments

How to Improve Your Chin Ups

December 1, 2009

Franco+Columbo How to Improve Your Chin Ups The last post I wrote about how to improve your chin ups detailed how to get from zero to one. Once you get to one you will, in time, work your way up to sets of five or even ten reps. But again, you will hit a wall at some point and be unable to make any more improvements. So today I am going to offer a very easy, completely unscientific method that will help you add more reps to your chins.

One of the major problems is that for most average guys a set of chins is a five rep max. Therefore it is true CNS draining Max Effort work. And they repeatedly do this time after time, workout after workout. There is no other exercise that you would continually max out on and take to near death failure like you do with chin ups. You would know better than to do that with squats and deads. But everyone is fine with doing it on chins. And I truly believe that to be one of the major reasons why more people don’t improve on their chins with any regularity.

The other problem is that there isn’t enough variety in the rep ranges and when you continually do those five rep max sets you are never doing anything to improve your endurance in that movement pattern. To get better on the 225 pound bench test you would do things like strap pushups, ascending board presses or pushups, high rep dumbbell presses, etc. on one day to build your endurance and some heavy pressing on another day to build your strength. But most people don’t take this approach with their chins; they only work on the lower end of the rep scale trying to improve strength, but do nothing to improve endurance. And obviously this doesn’t always work too well.

So the simple solution is to throw in more high rep work; which would again involve the use of the bands. The bands got you from zero chins to one and now they can help get you from your current plateau up to a new PR.

Exactly how, you ask…

Any way you want. Simply using more variety will be enough to do the trick and help you break out of a rut. Some workouts you can use the light band, some workouts you can use the mini bands, some you can use the average bands, some you can do with bodyweight, and some you can do weighted. Just mix it up each program and keep getting stronger on each variety of chins you do.

But remember not to go to failure and let your form break down. Again, most people are smart enough not to let their squat turn into a good morning, but everyone is ok with climbing up the invisible ladder, swinging, rest-pausing, severely protracting their shoulders and doing whatever else they can to make their final reps on chin ups look as ugly as possible. Don’t do this if you want to get stronger.

Below is a video from this past summer that we shot at Renegade Gym of Jen doing chin ups. She bangs out 13 picture perfect reps with no band. That’s something that most guys can’t do. In the video in the previous post about how to improve your chin ups she did 15 WITH the band. That was less than eight months earlier. The way she made such dramatic improvements was through variety and building up her endurance in that movement pattern with higher reps sets. She always did a variety of different grips and we varied her reps from 3-20. Some months she did chins twice per week (one day heavy, one day light), others only once. This is another way to boost your chins. Hit them 2-5 times per week for a month and then cut back to only once per week for the next month. The supercompensation effect from the reduced loading will often lead to improved performance in the second month.

Waving the reps up and down is more effective than just trying to make linear improvements; which only beginners can do. While a linear approach of starting with strong or average bands and working down to no bands worked well in the past, it won’t work so well now that you can do eight reps or so. You need to use a form of undulating or alternating periodization to get the best results.

But again, remember that you need to improve your strength endurance in that movement pattern. Having the arms extended overhead (as in a military press) makes it more difficult to breath. You need to get used to that. So even throwing in an exercise like the monkey bar climb, seen below, can be helpful as well.

Hopefully that gives you some good ideas about how to improve your chin ups and you’ll be setting some new PR’s real soon.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning, Videos | 23 Comments

Reps: How to do Them Properly

November 19, 2009

FrancoColumbu incline press 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 to powder for a variety of reasons I will get to. Locking out your squats is definitely better for VMO development. Locking out on each rep and pausing ever so briefly also allows you to use more weight. This may be a good thing for many of you. Or it may be a bad thing. It really depends on your goals, what you are training for and how you want to feel 25 years from today.

When I talk about pump reps I am referring to what you see most successful, intelligent bodybuilders do. If you watch Ronnie Coleman do a set of incline dumbbell presses on YouTube you will see what I’m talking about. The sets all look safe, clean and smooth. There is no rest-pausing or locking out; the reps continue in a piston like fashion until the set ends. He goes heavy as shit, but there is none of that silly screaming and shaking that the HIT’ers love, nor is there any dangerous break down of form that the dweebs love (elbows flaring, hips lifting or rotating, etc.) Pump reps are fast yet controlled, heavy yet non-joint-destructive, and the range of motion is always slightly limited. This is a good thing. Despite what your favorite personal trainer told you, it’s not healthy for your shoulders to bring the dumbbells down below the bench when doing flat or incline dumbbell presses. Full range of motion for the pecs would include bringing your arms all the way together behind your back and then crossing them over each other in front of your body. Obviously that would be impossible with any exercise. Like the Red Sox winning another World Series (sorry to my readers from Boston, I joke, I joke). Not happening. So forget about this mythical concept and stay safe.

Failure on a set of grinders reps is a whole lot different than a set of pump reps. Like I said, you will have used more weight and you will have paused and locked out each rep. Failure comes when you are very close to getting injured or your CNS is completely fried. This is great for your ego. It may be great for short term strength gains as well. But this is the worst style of reps you can do if you still want to be able to train 25 years from now. And, in the long term this style of training will lead to burn out and less impressive strength gains.

When you hit failure on pump reps it’s more due to the feeling of rigor mortis setting in, the accumulative fatigue, lactic acid build up, oxygen deficit, etc. This is far, far safer in the long term. You won’t lift as much weight on your sets today but you will probably be stronger in 5-10 years from now because you won’t have experienced so many injuries or burnout. It could even be argued that this style of training is more sport specific because it will help improve your lactic acid tolerance. That’s debatable but I’m throwing it out there, kinda in the same fashion as Baba Booey’s (of Fla Fla Flow-hi to hardcore Stern fans) first pitch at the Mets game. On your really hard sets, at most you might want to lock out one or two reps at the very end to catch your breath and get another one. I don’t think it’s necessary but sometimes it’s fun to do in the heat of battle. Just don’t make a habit of doing it if you want be in the game for the long haul.

Now, before I go any further I need to point out that I’m talking about assistance work here. If you’re working up to a 3-5 rep max on some kind of press, squat or deadlift then by all means, lock out each rep if you want to. On heavy squats, that would actually be safer. It will allow you to reset the proper position at the top of each rep and quickly go through your mental checklist of what you need to do before descending into the next rep. That is a must for safety. But for mindless exercises like one arm rows and dumbbell presses, pump reps will always be safer.

Finally, we have speed reps. It’s been stated by a few intelligent strength coaches that if you are an athlete training for speed and explosiveness, you should stop all of your sets when the rep speed slows down. This is a very valid argument. If you asked me to I could tell you why this is 100% correct and you should do it 100% of the time. But it’s also hard to qualify unless you have a skilled coach watching each of your sets. It’s even harder to do in a group setting when you are training 10-20 athletes. And most importantly, it’s just not as much fun. Athletes love to compete. It’s, umm, why they’re athletes. That means they will compete in everything they do ala Michael Jordan. The weight room will be no different. So if Johnny does a set of eight with the 120’s I can guarantee you that when his training partner and teammate grabs those bells he has a goal of nine reps set in his mind before he even begins the set. And as a coach or trainer you can’t tell him to drop the weights or end his set because the weight is moving too slowly. That creates a shitty atmosphere.

That’s not to say you can’t compete with speed reps, but you have to get creative. Maybe instead of reps you do timed sets of 20 seconds. The reps are all done as fast as possible with perfect form. The goal is to get more reps in twenty seconds. Guys can try to beat each other and beat their PR’s from week to week. Now, that’s a great way to make speed reps effective and fun. I highly recommend you give it a try.

Final Recommendations

So how should you do your reps? I advise that you always use Compensatory Acceleration and try to explode the concentric or lifting portion of the exercise as fast as humanly possible. Imagine that there is a piece of wood at your sticking point that you must drive the weight through like Bruce Lee punching through a brick. If you hit the wood slowly it will never break and you’ll be stuck. You have to explode through it. Never, ever lower the weights slowly for some kind of timed count. That’s nonsense and reserved for internet strength coaches who have never trained anyone. Lower it under control but consciously use the stretch reflex instead of trying to negate it. That’s more natural and will make you more explosive and athletic.

For the most part I recommend more of a pump style on most assistance exercises. This will keep you a lot safer and in the game a lot longer. The last rep should look exactly like the first rep of a set albeit slightly slower. But the form can never be allowed to deteriorate. Never fail mid rep, but stop one or two shy of failure. Beginners, weak maggots and pussies should all train to failure. That’s because you have to learn what hard work is and know what failure actually is before you can stop a rep or two shy of it. These guys should also lock out each rep at the top very briefly just so that they know what “text book form” is before they start modifying it.

Everyone else should pump ‘em out, hard and fast.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning | 9 Comments

The Main Ingredient

November 16, 2009

cheick kongo The Main Ingredient “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 in the high altitude. If only he had known that hard work was out of style and that he could have been in even better shape if he cut his training time down to two minutes per day.

That’s what people want. Because not only do they not have the time to train, but they just don’t wanna work that hard. I mean who wants to push the Prowler 25 times straight? Who wants to do high rep squats? Or heavy deadlifts? In the same workout? That sounds really hard…

A marketing guy once sent me an unsolicited email offering me his services. He told me that if I wanted to double my business I had to stop being honest. I had to make it seem like my workouts were easy, that getting in shape didn’t require much work and that the whole process would be painless and effortless.

To his point I put very little time and effort into my reply…

Fuck.

Off.

Getting in shape is brutally hard work. I don’t give a shit what all the scam artists and marketing scumbags tell you. If you can’t handle the truth then you’re destined to be soft and weak forever.

If you’re twenty percent body fat right now and desperately want a six pack you had better be prepared to diet your face off and work harder than you ever have in your entire life. When everyone is drinking beer at the football tailgate party on Sunday you’re drinking a gallon of water. And when the hot dogs go on the grill, you’re gonna have to pull out a steamed chicken breast and broccoli, which you prepared that morning, just like you do with all your meals for the day, every morning of every day. And you’re going to do that EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR SIXTEEN WEEKS STRAIGHT.

Don’t have time to do hill sprints after work? Then you gotta set your alarm clock a half hour earlier and get up while it’s still dark out. And when your strength training workout ends at night, the fun is just beginning for you. Because now you have to do a conditioning circuit of kettlebell swings, jump rope, mountain climbers, squat thrusts and sled dragging.

And let me tell you something else… NOBODY gets ripped in three workouts per week. If you want to see really significant fat loss you need to be putting in a minimum of five sessions per week . For some of you 8-10 would be even better. That could be three weight training workouts, three brutal conditioning sessions and two or three easier cardio/conditioning workouts.

Sucks, I know. But you said you wanted to get ripped. Be careful what you wish for. Because now you gotta earn it, or be looked at as a failure in the eyes of everyone you told.

I’ve seen fat fucks get on a bodybuilding stage in 20 weeks. But they didn’t say they “wanted” to do it. They said they were “going” to do it. And they did all that was necessary to achieve that goal. Which means, in the eyes of most people, their lives were pretty miserable for five months. It means no unplanned cheat meals and undying, round the clock dedication. But these people had the drive that most people don’t and were actually willing to work for something.

Wanting and doing are two completely different things. We all want a lot of things. But how many of us actually achieve our goals? How many are willing to put in the hard work necessary to reach the top?

“Twenty weeks?! That’s a lot of dieting and hard work. I can commit to twelve weeks but not twenty.”

Then go fucking play PlayStation and watch another episode of CSI. What do I give a fuck?

No matter what anyone tells you there is no replacement for hard work. No training system, no diet, no machine, no gimmick and no supplement.

But most people fear hard work more than they fear death. They simply don’t have it in them.

How many times have you gone to a public gym and seen someone squat or deadlift? About as often as you see hot chicks during day light hours I bet.

Better yet, when was the last time you saw someone do a good morning? Now that’s a hard, uncomfortable exercise. Who wants to subject themselves to that? Bent over rows? They hurt your back. Standing military presses?! Who wants to stand? You need to be comfortably seated with lumbar support while “working out.”

Plus, all these exercises take too long to perfect and the learning process can be very frustrating. Much easier to just jump on a machine, right? I mean, you’re at the gym to burn some calories, not learn a new skill, after all. Power cleans? Only a genius with the mental acuity of Albert Einstein could possibly learn to do those properly. Who has the time for that?

What “hardgainers” are actually willing to turn off The Real World and go to sleep an hour earlier to accelerate the muscle building process? Or have what it takes to force feed themselves at the most inconvenient times of day and sneak protein shakes in between classes?

Very few.

Unlike getting shredded, building muscle doesn’t require 6-10 workouts per week. Most hardgainers can get great results in three workouts and everyone else will do great with four sessions per week. But it’s still a 24 hour a day job that requires a monumental effort.

We are all brainwashed to believe that you can get bigger and stronger and leaner in a very short time, with very little effort and even less dedication.

But nothing could be further from the truth, my friends.

The only way to achieve physical greatness is through brutally hard fucking work.

End of story.

No go earn it.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Fat Loss, Motivation, Muscle Building, Strength & Conditioning | 72 Comments

Tap or Nap

November 3, 2009

RearNakedChoke Tap or Nap 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 for time, ten minutes is better than nothing.

Now right about now the majority of people reading this are probably thinking they’re too busy to take a nap or work in a job that doesn’t allow it or that one way or another they just can’t afford the luxury. And that may or may not be true.

Americans pride themselves on how hard they work. And “hard” is judged in hours. It’s a badge of honor to work 70 hours per week; 90 is even better. Only slackers work 40 hour weeks these days, right?

With all there is to worry about who has time to nap? It’s just not that important.

Or is it? If I told you to get some fresh air and sunlight every day you wouldn’t argue. If I told you to eat fruits and vegetables you wouldn’t tell me I was crazy. So why is the concept of taking a nap still so frowned upon? Because, it my opinion, it’s just as important as anything else.

When your body needs rest you should let it rest. Most of us ignore these signals and then end up having to use sleeping aids to fall asleep at a later time because we are over tired and the body’s homeostasis has been disturbed. A short nap will reenergize you and improve your focus for the rest of the day, making you even more productive. It will also help increase growth hormone secretion and restore all of your body’s depleted functions to a state of homeostasis.

While the majority of us continue to resist the idea there is a portion of the population that has begun to make the shift. Several companies have recently recognized the importance of afternoon naps and have begun allowing employees to take them. Some of these organizations have even gone so far as to add rooms dedicated to power naps. That’s because they know that productive employees make them more money, and productive employees are well rested employees.

Taking a regular afternoon nap will help you recover faster from training, it will help you build muscle faster, it will boost your immune system and your focus and will lead to an overall improved feeling of well being and health.

My advice is to start looking for times to squeeze one in. If you can’t, you can’t. But many of you can and I suggested you start doing so today. The optimal time is right around when the mid afternoon fatigue sets in. Another great choice is to take a nap immediately after training. This is something that I have recommended to my clients for years and something that many well known bodybuilders have always been big proponents of.

I must warn you, though, that the sense of guilt will make your nap difficult to enjoy at first. But you’ll have to get over it.

Secondly, your wife, girlfriend or mother may have a problem with it. As I already mentioned, we have all been led to believe that no one in this country has “earned” the right to take a nap. This is an obstacle you will have to overcome with your house mate. But explain why you need to do this and be firm. No matter how much they oppose the idea… you’re napping. I know a guy who’s been married for three years and his biggest complaint is that he hasn’t taken a nap since the wedding. And he’s absolutely miserable about it. Don’t become that guy.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Muscle Building | 21 Comments

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Reps: How to do Them Properly

The Main Ingredient

Tap or Nap

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