Deload weeks are when you want to take plates OFF the bar

Once you’ve been training more than a few years the need to deload on a somewhat regular basis becomes more and more prevalent.

How often you do so depends on your training age, strength levels and injury history. Eastern Bloc countries and countless other successful lifters have had great results by training hard for three weeks and deloading on the fourth week.

It’s a pretty widely accepted formula and has been proven time and time again. So there’s really no need to try and reinvent the wheel. Three weeks hard, one week deload is my standard go-to-recommendation.

There are other options, however, and if you have only been training for a couple of years you won’t need to worry about deloading just yet. Beginners can go a few years without deloading. Eventually you’ll want to start with 12 weeks then work your way down to 10 and so on. When you get a little more advanced some people might be able to go 6-8 weeks hard before deloading. If you’re more of an early intermediate lifter, eight weeks may be a better option for you. If you’re more advanced and go eight weeks you might want to consider deloading for two weeks.

But to keep things simple let’s assume everyone is following the three to one rule. That’s the easiest thing to do since it fits nicely inside of a month.

I usually recommend reducing the total training volume per workout by 40%. So say you normally do 20 sets per workout; on your deload week you would do 12 sets at each workout.

On big barbell exercises that you do for maximal strength like a bench, squat, dead, military I recommend cutting the weight to 50% of your one rep max and just doing two sets of five. So lets say your 1RM on the bench is 315 and the previous week you were doing 255 for sets of 6-8, the deload week would be 155 (or technically 157.5) for 2×5.

The other option is to remove the lift all together for that week. I like this option for experienced guys who have a mastery of the lift and/or are also beat up from years of heavy training. The removal of the big barbell lift all together helps their joints recover. You also may kind of “lose the groove” if you do this, if you are more inexperienced, so it’s something you have to decide for yourself. But I think the benefits of taking that week off of heavy barbell lifting usually outweigh the negatives. You’ll get back in the groove in not time the following week.

For assistance exercises you have two choices. Intermediates should just do fewer sets but keep the intensity the same. You could do the same weight as the previous week or even try to go up. However, the intensiveness (not what some people mistake as intensity) should not be as high as the previous week . This means that you need to give your CNS a break on your deload week and shouldn’t be going to failure or getting overly psyched up on anything.

For guys who have been training a while and are a bit beyond the intermediate level I  recommend cutting the intensity by 20-40% on assistance exercises. So just take 20-40% off all your weights. If you did incline db presses for 10 reps with the 100′s on week three you would do 60′s- 80′s on your deload week. The stronger/more advanced/more beat up and further along in a training cycle you are the greater the drop off % should be. It also depends on the exercise. If you’re normally using 150lbs on a 1 arm row I would want to drop that down by a full 40%. But if it was just something like a face pull or curl you could easily get away with just dropping it 20%. You would do the same number of reps as the previous week but just cut the sets.

The other option is to just take the week entirely off from heavy lifting. I first did this back in the mid 90′s after a phone conversation with Ian King, and my results were awesome. My recovery dramatically improved, my testosterone went up, I was sleeping better and I had fewer nagging injuries. Like any good American I wanted more and got suckered into other stuff and got away from that for a while.

Be sure to lighten your weights on deload weeks

That was until I went to Nazareth Barbell one day for a visit and big Mike Miller told me that that’s what they did. Three weeks on of balls to the wall training, one week off entirely. They went at it hard and absolutely killed it for three weeks, then they rested. They were all monsters and I’m pretty sure Mike was the first guy to squat 1200. So it was hard to argue.

I went back to it again and had some of my over 35 year old clients doing it and they were making great progress.

Like the stubborn, glutton for punishment knucklehead that I am I have yet again gotten away from that schedule but it does work incredibly well and should strongly be considered by all those over 40 who like to go heavy and balls deep like we do. If all you do is some light bodyweight training or kettlebell stuff, deloading won’t be as important for you. But if you like moving iron and do stuff that stresses your shoulders, spine, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles regularly (like military presses, squats, farmers walks, tire flips, deadlifts- ya know, all the fun stuff) then  I would highly suggest deloading regularly.

If the over 35 crowd doesn’t want to take the week off entirely they should definitely at least reduce both the volume AND the intensity on their deload weeks. Not doing so really isn’t even an option, in my opinion, because it will keep you in the game and healthy a lot longer. Either you take the deload week and truly deload or you will be forced to deload due to an injury sooner or later.

Also, for the over 35 crowd I can’t recommend going more than 10-12 weeks without taking a complete week off entirely; with once every 8 (or fewer) weeks being an even better option. During these weeks you can stay active- walking, swimming, hiking, stretching, etc. But no lifting.

Hopefully that gave you some good ideas about how to deload properly without being too confusing.

To sum it up…
- Reduce total # of sets by 40%
- Reduce intensity on big lifts to 50% of 1RM or just eliminate them all together
- Reduce intensity on assistance work to 80% of the previous weeks weight (if that doesn’t allow enough recovery drop the % down to 75% the next cycle, and so on and so on until you decide what % works best for you)

Leave me a comment, if you liked this post, do me a favor and hit the FaceBook “Like” button for me, and let me know if you have any questions.

PS. For a complete program with the deloads built in, minus the guess work check out Triple Threat Muscle.

Related posts:

1. Reps: How to do Them Properly
2. The Most Important Thing You Can Bring to the Gym
3. 44 Muscle Building Workout Tips

So when people ask me for some tips on how to get lean I tell them two things- diet and sprint. Pretty simple stuff.

Diet is really 80% of getting lean but that’s another topic entirely. Today we’re simply gonna focus on hill sprints for fat loss. Mainly because not enough people are doing them and many of those who are, are doing them all wrong.

If you are new to sprinting you need to take it easy. I mean reeeeaaaally easy. If the last time you ran a sprint was the week before senior prom you need to be very cautious or you’ll probably get hurt.

If this describes you I’d start with hill sprints. Why hill sprints? Well, firstly, because Walter Payton did them. And most of us should strongly consider doing whatever Walter Payton did just because he was that awesome. Because he was my favorite athlete growing up (along with Michael Jordan) I started running hill sprints way back in the 80’s when I found out that that’s what “Sweetness” did (and that poster, pictured above, was on my bedroom wall for years. You see how ripped Payton was?). When I found out a few years later that they were a major part of Jerry Rice’s off season training regimen, their greatness was reaffirmed in my mind.

Hill sprints place your body in a safer position because of the angle, so there is far less impact. The risk of pulling a hammy or popping an Achilles or something in your knee is greatly reduced. So, for most of us, this is the way to go. Another great thing about hill sprints versus other fat loss methods is that they also build muscle at the same time. Can’t really say that for the stairmaster, can you?

Now, before you get started you should warm up properly. Wearing some neoprene knee sleeves might be a good idea just to keep the knees warm. I recommend starting with about five to ten minutes of low intensity drills to get the body ready for the task at hand. A good warm up might consist of:

•    Jumping jacks

Tell me that's not the coolest picture ever...

•    Flings
•    Seal jumps
•    Ali shuffle
•    Low pogo jumps
•    High pogo jumps
•    Prisoner squats
•    Gate swings
•    Wide outs
•    Leg swings- front, back, side to side
•    Walking lunges
•    High knees
•    Butt kicks
•    Tuck jumps
•    Lateral shuffling
•    Skipping
•    Etc.

The nice thing about sprinting up a hill is that you don’t require as much of a warm up. After hitting 5-10 minutes of the drills listed above start with some lower intensity sprints. Do one at about 60%, then 70%, another at 80%, one more at 90% and then you’re ready to go. For the most part I recommend that your sprint work be done at around 95-97%. Very rarely should you go all out at 100%. I realize that the difference between 95-97% and 100% may seem very small but an athlete in tuned with his body can tell the difference. And keeping the intensity just that much lower makes a big difference in overall recovery and CNS fatigue.

Again, if it’s your first sprint session in years you need to start way easier than you think. I recommend no more than FIVE sprints of no more than 40 yards the first day. Some times I see coaches or trainers recommend starting with ten 40-50 yard sprints. When I see this it’s immediately obvious that they haven’t trained too many people and haven’t done this themselves. Or they have been sprinting for years and forgot what its like to be a beginner. Beginners need to be extremely cautious and should start at only about 85-90% for the first week or so and keep the total number of sprints very low.

See how you feel after the first session and give it a go again in about five days. Slowly increase the intensity over time. Rest periods can be as short or as long as you need them to be. You want to keep your heart rate elevated but you don’t want to rest so little that your form starts getting sloppy and you risk injury.

If you were training for speed you might be resting up to five minutes between each set. But since today’s topic is hill sprints for fat loss try to keep the rest periods a bit lower. We don’t need complete CNS recovery here.

The next thing we need to discuss is proper running mechanics. This is where most people get it all wrong. A couple weeks ago I went down to the field with my long time friend, Mike DeSanti (the creator of the recipes in the Triple Threat Muscle nutrition guide and our upcoming recipe book) and we ran some sprints. Since a qualified coach had never taught Mike how to sprint before he was just running like he always had without much thought involved.

I wanted him to feel the difference so I let him do about five or six sprints the old way. Then I taught him to run properly. His speed increased dramatically on the next one and when he hit the 50-yard line he broke out into hysterical laughter.

“I can’t believe I just learned how to sprint at thirty years old!”

“That was awesome!”

“I never moved like that in my life!”

“I was like a gazelle!”

He could barely get the words out through the laughter and since he was cracking up so hard I started dying, myself. We laughed uncontrollably the entire way back to the goal line and it continued throughout the rest of our workout.

Mike was so blown away by the difference that proper running mechanics made that he couldn’t contain himself.

So what did I show Mike that most people don’t know?

Since this is not a discussion on maximal speed training or mastering the 40 yard or 100 meter dash we won’t concern ourselves with the start so much. Instead, to be safe, we will use flying starts, meaning you start by running at less than your maximal speed and work your way up to top speed over the course of 15-20 yards.

•    Starting from the top down, the face must be relaxed. Do night clench your jaw or make any crazy faces. Relax.

•    Keep the chest up and shoulders back and down.

•    No side to side rotation of the pelvis, torso, shoulder girdle is allowed.

•    Hips remain forward toward the finish line at all times.

•    Arms should be bent ninety degrees with the hands open (no clenched fists or flailing, limp wrists).

•    When you are running the arms must pump vigorously, forward and backward. NEVER LET THE ARMS CROSS THE MIDLINE OF THE BODY. Only forward and backward. Little kids run with their arms side to side. Don’t do that or we will all make fun of you.

•    Think of pulling yourself through the air by driving your arms back as fast and hard as you can. The hands come up to a level even with the face and they come down and cross your pocket on the way back (but no further; don’t have them swinging way behind you).

•    Drive the knees high and be sure that the foot strikes directly under your body; not out in front of you (although, on a hill this may be slightly different depending on the incline).

•    Only the front portion of the foot should strike the ground; the heel should never make contact.

•    When the ball of the foot makes contact with the ground think of yourself as an animal pawing at the ground and rapidly pulling it behind you.

•    As Charlie Francis said, running takes place on the ground, sprinting takes place above it. If you do it right you should feel minimal impact or stress and should feel like you are flying effortlessly. If you’re taking a lot of pounding and it feels like a lot of work, you’re doing something wrong and should consider having someone watch or video tape you for some feedback.

What I listed above are basically the instructions for flat ground sprints but can easily be applied to the hill. A few angles will change here and there but for the most part, if you follow those recommendations you’ll be ahead of the pack and your sprints will be a lot safer and faster.

Just in case you aren’t convinced that hill sprinting isn’t the way to go just yet, consider that the current 49ers  head coach, Mike Singletary, who played most of his career with Walter Payton and had several outings against Jerry Rice, has taken a page out of the legends books and added hill sprints to the teams off season training regimen.

“There’s something about the hill,” Singletary told reporters back in mid-March 2009, after the 49ers first minicamp and the hill was on full display for the first time. “It’s beautiful to look at but what it’s going to do for our guys is it’s going to bring about something that you can’t really get in the weight room, something that you really can’t get on the track.”

“All the guys that I know that worked out on a hill, they were a cut above some of the other competition around the league and they had a long playing careers,” Singletary said. “So I’m excited about the hill and it just adds another dimension to our workout.”

So make like Payton and Rice and the entire current 49ers team and go find yourself a hill and start sprinting…

PS. Speaking of the 49ers, their Strength & Conditioning Coach, Duane Carlise, just released a new DVD set on training for football. Check it out by clicking HERE now.

And then check out this video of the great Walter Payton (they show him sprinting the hill at 2:24)

Please leave your comments below.

Related posts:

1. When to do Conditioning For Fast Fat Loss
2. Athletic Fat Loss & Three Days vs. Four
3. My Top 5 Muscle Building & Fat Loss Tips

2. Train for performance increases from workout to workout. It’s very hard to see size gains or even fat loss gains from day to day but you can see performance improvements on a regular basis, if you train properly.

3. Set PR’s as often as possible. You can’t do the same thing over and over and expect to see any results. Setting PR’s ensures results and fun.

4.    But know when to back off. Deload weeks should be taken after 3-8 weeks of intense training.

5. Do fewer things better. ADD is a very bad thing. Pick the most productive exercises and methods and get good at them. It’s the best way to make long term progress.

6. Foam roll or use a PVC pipe before training. Hit the quads, hams, IT bands, glutes, inner thighs, calves, lower and upper back.

7. If you are going to static stretch because you need to in order to get into certain positions, the best time to do it is after you foam roll and before you start your dynamic warm up.

8.    Use a lacrosse ball on your piriformis and upper back. You’ll hate me at the time but will thank me later.

9.    Do some type of dynamic warm up for 5-8 minutes before you start lifting heavy. This should include low intensity hopping drills, leg swings, isometric bridging exercises, activation drills, etc.

NOT the way to do hurdle drills.

10.    Do hurdle mobility drills. Hip mobility is very important and goes quickly as you age.

11.    Jump or throw something after your warm up and before you start your main lift. It fires up your CNS and better prepares you to move some heavy shit.

12.    Be explosive on every set; even your warm ups (to a point, you don’t have to explode the empty bar so excessively that you dislocate your shoulder).

13.    Don’t cause excessive fatigue on your warm up sets. But don’t rush them or neglect them either. Find the balance.

14.    When working up to a heavy triple, double or single it’s best to use smaller jumps and take about 8-12 sets to get to your max. You will find that your top end sets feel lighter when you do this versus if you just jumped right into them after only a few warm up sets.

15.    Squat.

16.    Always squeeze the bar as hard as you can, trying to crush it, on every lift you do.

17.    Squeeze your glutes tightly and brace your abs like you’re about to be punched on every standing exercise you do.

18.    Always maintain optimal posture throughout your sets. Never let your shoulders slouch forward or your lower back round out.

19.    Do more moving and supporting on your hands. Practice handstands against the wall, do Power Wheel hand walks, lateral hand walks, alligator pushups, partner assisted wheel barrow walks, etc. This is great for building up strength and stability in the shoulders.

20.    Use thick handles or Fat Gripz and ropes as often as possible.

21.    An awesome workout template goes like this- some type of jump or throw for power development, big barbell lift for maximal strength development, bodyweight exercises for assistance work, strongman finisher. Try it.

22.    Don’t train to failure on a regular basis.

23.    Don’t do slow, grinding death reps. They fry your CNS and slow down or even reverse your progress.

24.    Don’t use less than 70% of your max on any exercise. The resistance won’t be enough to stimulate any size or strength gains and will serve very little purpose. (There are some exceptions but this is a pretty good rule to follow)

25.    Jump rope.

26.    Do the majority of your exercises in a standing position. You sit or lie down to relax; not to train.

27.    Pick heavy shit up off the ground.

28.    Always carry or drag heavy shit as part of your program (farmers walks rule).

29.    Press, support or carry heavy shit overhead more often.

30.    Do more pushups. If you are beyond the beginner level figure out creative ways to load them (weight vests, plates on back) or make them harder (suspended, 1 arm, etc.).

31.    Decrease your rest periods.

32.    Do something active at least 4-5 days per week. Three 45 minute heavy lifting sessions will get you strong, but you won’t necessarily be in shape or healthy. Try to find the balance of both.

33.    Take one day completely off. The body needs a break once in a while.

34.    Don’t train for more than an hour, max. Your testosterone levels will plummet and cortisol levels will skyrocket.

35.    Run, jump, climb and crawl. It’s what your body was designed to do.

36.    Work up to advanced levels of planks and side planks. Your spine will thank you later.

37.    Listen to your body. When you have nagging pains it’s almost always better to train around them than through them. Trust me.

38.    Take a week off when your body needs it. The older you get the more frequently you will need to do this. There’s no shame in doing so. It will keep you in the game longer.

39.    Don’t do more than 10 reps on most upper body exercises and 15-20 reps on most lower body exercises.

40.    Play.

41.    Get at least 20 minutes of sunlight per day.

42.    Do hill sprints.

43.    Go to bed by 10:30 every night. Eleven at the latest.

44.    Get 8-9 hours of sleep. It’s very difficult to get bigger, faster, stronger or leaner on minimal amounts of sleep.

45.    Get up at the same time every day.

46.    Take naps. It’s an awesome way to boost recovery and get a little surge of growth hormone.

47.    Get Active Release.

48.    Take contrast baths or showers after training. Hot as you can handle for 1-3 minutes. Cold as you can handle for 30-60 seconds. Repeat for 10 minutes. This really helps with recovery.

49.    Get massages. Being dedicated to this on a regular basis lately has made a tremendous difference in how I feel. The key is to find a really good masseuse who really knows what’s up.

50.    Train outside from time to time. Bring a bunch of stuff outside and get after it. Or just go to the park and do a bunch of bodyweight stuff on the monkey bars. But do something.

51.    Meditate.

52.    Pick up a copy of Triple Threat Muscle. It’s an awesome athletic based program that I’ve used with a lot of people to achieve very impressive results. Plus, your contribution will help me buy more cool stuff for the gym

53.    Or, if you’re a hardgainer-  Muscle Gaining Secrets. I’m just sayin…

Start incorporating any or all of those tips today and pretty soon it will be impossible for you to walk into a room without people stopping to note, “That dude’s fuckin awesome.”

Let me know what you think of this list and feel free to add to it in the comments section below.

Related posts:

1. 3 Ways to Build Muscle Fast
2. Optimal Program Design For Muscle, Strength & Power
3. How to Build Muscle on a Tight Schedule

Today’s guest post is from David Jarzebowski, a member of the Renegade Inner Circle.

Ok, so a high school friend of mine got married in Buffalo, NY, over the weekend. When I was booking the ticket, the only option from London was to fly via Newark. Given how close this was to Renegade Gym, I decided to extend my trip by a day and try to squeeze in a training session at Renegade. Jay was kind enough to agree, and so I booked the flights and hotel at Newark airport.

I arrived from London at 1pm local time (6pm UK time) and got to my hotel around 2:30pm. I was starting to get a little nervous about the training session, and also about how I was going to get to Watchung itself.

I spoke to the hotel staff and they told me it was not possible to walk to 0.75 miles from the hotel to the bus stop. So I had to order a taxi. This was a mistake, as apparently there is a flat $20 fee from the hotel to Newark. The hotel told me about this in advance, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I paid the money and shut up.

Also, I was originally going to train at Renegade at 7pm, but decided to train at 6pm based on the fact that it might be easier to get back to the hotel if I trained at 6pm. However, I ended up getting on a non-express bus in Newark, which took over an hour to get to Watchung. Still, I got off this bus at 6:15pm, and walked for about 25-30 minutes to the gym. This was fine, except for having to run across a 4 lane highway. But it was all worth it when, over 2 hours after leaving my hotel, I crossed the highway and saw the Renegade Gym sign.

As I approached the front door, I was pretty nervous. Was this beast of a man known as Jason Ferruggia going to look me up and down, laugh at my 185lb squat and send me back on my way? I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I walk in the door and recognise AC, the guy who I had been in touch with prior to my arrival to try and sort out a ride after training. He greeted me with a big smile and a hand shake, and I instantly felt better.

I stood around for a bit, and then Jay came over and said hello. We shook hands and he commented that I looked bigger in person. This put me at ease instantly. We exchanged a few more bits of small talk, and then he got back to training the 6pm group.

I glanced around and figured that rather than stand around, I’d better do something so that I was ready to train. Being too nervous to talk to anyone, I just started doing some mobility work that I’ve been doing lately based on the Asses and Correct DVD. After a few minutes, Jen came over, introduced herself, and had me sign a waiver.

I asked Jen where I could do some foam rolling, and she pointed to the far end of the gym and pointed out the location of the foam rollers. I started foam rolling and began to feel a little more relaxed, although not very much more.

After rolling, Jay informed me that I would be training in a group with 3-4 other guys at 7pm. Mike (the guy who did the recipes in Triple Threat Muscle) helped me through the warm up.

After warming up, we did some kneeling medicine ball throws. I’d never done these before in my life, so I was nervous. However, I tried to copy Mike as best as I could, and they were pretty fun. I was still feeling a bit nervous, and had a hard time focusing on anything other than throwing the ball (like counting how many reps I’d done; thankfully Mike was taking care of that).

After the medicine ball throws, we did squats. I did a few reps of the wall squat drill, and also stretched my hamstrings and hip flexors. We then started to squat.

I was still nervous at this point, as I wanted to do my best and show that all the work I’d been doing over the last 8 weeks, since I knew I was going to train at Renegade, had been worthwhile. My first warm up set went fine, no real drama. Jay was watching my form, and had a few pointers after I was finished. He watched me do an overhead squat, and commented that my tight hamstrings were causing my lower back to round at a certain depth. He suggested I go not as deep. He also told me to point my toes out slightly wider.

At this point, I was starting to feel much more relaxed. I had remembered all of the names of the people I was training with, and I had figured out when I needed to put weights on the bar for the other guys, and when I could rest.

After squats we did deadlifts, and this was pretty cool. Basically, Jay just had me do a bunch of sets of 135lb and kept giving me pointers on how to improve. I still have a way to go, but this was a very cool experience and really hammered home to me how cool of a guy Jay is. He was giving me 1-on-1 instruction (in between coaching the other guys, who were doing rack pulls), despite the fact that I had paid nothing to be there (and I wasn’t even a potential client who might join the gym in the future).

Finally, we finished with a few sets on the bench. Jay gave me a bunch of tips that really made my bench feel more solid. I hit 205lb I think for a single (but not an all out 1RM), which was great.

Once we were done training, I bought a couple of t-shirts (one of which Jay gave me for free, again proving what a sound bloke he is). I said goodbye to everyone, and Jay gave me a lift to the bus stop so I could begin my journey home.

The bus ride home was fine, involving a change in Elizabeth and at the airport. I did learn that I pronounce “Newark” in a way that is confusing to NJ residents, after the bus driver got confused when I asked if he went to Newark (“new-uk”, not “nu-uk”). Good times

Conclusions

Overall, training at Renegade was a brilliant experience. The 4+ hours on the bus were well worth it. Here are my highlights/conclusions:

1) I train on my own, so I am not used to receiving any coaching or encouragement whilst training. This was the best thing about Renegade. Everyone is encouraging you to get the weight up, and people are shouting the cues you need to keep your form in check.

2) Everyone was very friendly, and focused on helping you do better.

3) It was great not having to search around the gym for weight plates, pull 25lb plates out from behind 45lb plates etc. Training around people who actually care about their environment was nice.

4) Jay is no where near as scary as he seems (at least as scary as he seemed to me). I don’t mean to kiss ass, but he was friendly and a great coach. I can see why Renegade is so successful.

5) The guys (and girls) that train at Renegade have a lot more responsibility than I was expecting. I thought Jay would be telling each person how much they would be lifting and for how many reps. However, everyone knew how much weight they would be lifting during their warm up sets, and how much they wanted to hit in their work sets.

6) I need to make notes in my training journal about what cues to think about when I am training. Since I am training on my own, I need to review the cues before each set. I think this will help me progress much better than I have of late. Being at Renegade made me realise that my progress has been pretty poor, and I need to do something about that. This is the start.

Ok, I think that is it. This is quite a marathon post, so if you managed to read it all, well done and I hope it was entertaining. I had an amazing time, and I can’t thank Jay enough for letting me train at Renegade.

If you get a chance to train at Renegade, TAKE IT. If you have to go out of your way, then DO IT! It will be worth it.

Cheers,
Dave

Related posts:

1. What it Takes to Train at Renegade Gym
2. How We Do It At Renegade Gym
3. Training: Renegade Style

Grip and Forearm Strength is an important aspect for anyone who trains with weights or competes in sports.  This is true for many reasons.

Grip Strength helps your other lifts go up, in turn improving your weights lifted.  The way this happens is by a concept called Radiant Tension.

To demonstrate this, let’s look at the bench press.  When you bench, the more stable the bar is the better.  With a strong grip on the bar, you will have better control of it throughout the length of the bar path.  The way Radiant Tension works is when your hand squeezes onto the bar, tension begins to radiate through your wrist, down your forearm, across the elbow and into the shoulder.  This tension helps you get more weight and more repetitions in your set.

To test this, lie down on the bench and perform the movement with your hands relaxed around the bar.  You’ll see that the bar path can be very erratic this way because you are too loose.  This lack of tension can turn into lack of control and at the least can hold you back in your training.  At worst, it could cause you to get hurt.

Now perform the bench press with your grip tight on the bar, extending the tension down through your arms and into your torso.  You will feel much more stable and more in control of the bar.  I bet your lifts will go up at least 10 to 20 pounds just by using radiant tension, if you haven’t been already.

Remember when Stafon Jackson dropped the bar across his throat last Fall while performing the bench with a false grip?  NOT GOOD!  The fingers and thumb need to be wrapped around the bar in order to create the appreciable amount of tension necessary to initiate the irradiation effect down through the arms and into the torso.

This same radiant tension is produced by the hands for other lifts such as Overhead Lifts, Squats and Deadlifts.  In other words, by building grip strength, we can increase our performance on the big lifts in the gym, which in turn can help us when we compete at sports like Baseball, Basketball, Football, etc.

Speaking of sports, Grip and Forearm Training is important there, too.  Obviously if we participate in a sport where we have to hold or throw balls or swing a bat, stick or club, then the hands are highly involved.  Baseball, Basketball, Football, Rugby, Golf, etc are all sports with a heavy involvement of the hands, so training the hands must be done the right way for maximum benefit.

But don’t think just going into the gym and hitting some Wrist Curls at the end of the workout or squeezing on some Tennis Balls is going to give you the Grip and Forearm power you need for high performance and aesthetics.  You have to hit the elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers and thumbs systematically with a balanced approach.  Training everything the right way will get you strength gains and improve your performance at your sport.  Doing the same stuff all the time, however, can lead to imbalances which cause your strength levels to go down and even result in discomfort and injury.

To help you out with this, I have designed an ebook that will show you how to build Grip and Forearm Strength the right way, without setting you up for injury.  This manual is called Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball.  In it I show you how to use Grip Strength Training to hit the ball farther, throw the ball harder, and become more resilient against injury.

Not a ball player?  No problem.  These exercises and workouts will apply to everybody.  The book is loaded with tricks to build your own equipment and includes a lot of information specifically for baseball, but the 200+ pages of exercises will enable everyone from the pro athlete to the serious fitness enthusiast, and even the weekend warrior to train the Grip and Forearms effectively for size, strength and performance.

For more information, click the link to check out Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball.

Thanks and all the best in your training.

-Jedd Johnson

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I’ve been doing a lot of running lately. Hill sprints, flat ground sprints, sled sprints and cone/agility drills. Because I have a habit of getting overzealous and pushing too hard, too fast I added in too much volume when I knew I shouldn’t have.

We’d been getting seemingly endless streaks of rain here in NJ (somewhere my friend, Chad Waterbury is smiling) which were driving me insane and causing me to restart my search for a place to live in Southern Cali. So when the sun finally started shining and the ground dried up I couldn’t get outside often enough.

My calf started bothering me and tightening up from the excessive volume that I wasn’t ready for. I should have listened and taken another day off but since the forecast called for ANOTHER entire weekend of rain I decided to get my sprints in a day early. That was two weeks ago and I haven’t been able to run since, much to my chagrin.

It’s not a major injury, just something that we all deal with. It’s frustrating as hell, though because sprinting and jumping are two of my favorite things in the world, and I can’t do either. Ah well, hopefully I’ll get some treatment on it and be back next week sometime. If not, I’m gonna have to cut down on my eating schedule. And the prospect of doing that really doesn’t excite me.

Last week my buddy Craig Ballantyne was in town from Toronto and we had a couple great workouts together. Of course I jumped on the bad calf during one of our workouts and hit a 50+ inch box jump, which wasn’t bad. We also did a whole bunch of other fun stuff.

Our last workout wasn’t anything to write home about, however, since we were on four hours sleep  from a night out

My worst nightmare.

at the Jersey Shore the night before where we partied with Einstein (“E=MC2, motherf*ckers”) and drank fifty cent beers, while I hobbled around like a gimp.

Craig had never been to the shore before so I took him down to show him it wasn’t just a place filled with ass clowns from Long Island, like the MTV show made it out to be.

On Thursday my bother, Jonny Hinds rolled into town and we had a great session of bodyweight training, Eischens yoga, alignment work, handstands and, yes… quite a few bananas.

Last night was the first time I was able to do a barbell snatch in over two years. And today my shoulder actually feels pretty good. Due to the fact that I have broken my right wrist three times (Pop Warner football, basketball, snowboarding) and torn my right trap, labrum and rotator cuff my form will always be a bit odd/off on Olympic lifts but I do what I gotta do to protect myself while still being able to perform them.

Why do I even bother doing them and risk another injury? That’s a good question that can only be answered by someone much smarter that me. See the title of this post…

The workout consisted of military presses (worked up to 195), pull ups, med ball pushups, farmers walks, fat bar curls, neck and some barbell complexes as a finisher. Here’s the video of the complex below. I did clean grip snatches to protect the shoulder.

Again, the Olympic lifting form is not perfect, but it gets the job done.

I meant to do six reps on every exercise but I only ended up doing five on the first one.

Story of my life- always coming up a bit short when it comes to the snatch…

(Turn your speakers down if you’re at work)

Please leave your comments below.

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Craig Ballantyne: Can you walk us through a typical Renegade style training session. Is it always goingto be total body training with conditioning at the end?

Jason Ferruggia: More or less. We don’t really isolate muscles and every workout involves the total body. There may be an upper or lower focus on certain days but we are still using exercises and drills that involve the entire body for the most part.

Vida has to stretch before squatting or her butt tucks under.

Everyone gets in ten minutes early and foam rolls and stretches first before the dynamic warm up begins. I know some people are vehemently opposed to static stretching and believe that it’s unnatural and does nothing. They’re probably right. BUT… if you have a guy who can’t get into the bottom position of a squat without his lower back rounding, often times five to ten minutes of stretching the hip flexors and other tight muscle groups may be a quick fix. It’s not a long term solution and there are other things you should be doing to correct this, but if a little foam rolling and static stretching allows someone to squat correctly without going in to lumbar flexion I don’t see the problem with it. And when you only have 12-16 weeks to work with an athlete who is getting tested on squats you have to use quick fixes quite often and can’t always take the long term approach.

But, back to the question…

Like I said, we would use the foam roller for the IT band, quads, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, back, etc. Guys will do static stretching after that, if need be. Then we’ll get into a full body dynamic warm up, which will be some basic calisthenics stuff, some jumping jacks, seal jumps, flings, overhead squats, shoulder dislocations, some isometric poses and bridging type stuff. Just stuff to fire up the CNS and some muscle activation drills.

Then we’ll often start the majority of workouts with some type of movement efficiency drills or an explosive power exercise like a jump or a throw. I really like box jumps a lot, so maybe we’ll work up to a one rep box jump or do multiple sets of 3-5 reps. Other great jump variations are hurdles, broad jumps, vertical jumps and depth jumps for more advanced guys.

After that we will usually hit one big barbell exercise for maximal strength work, usually in the range of 1-5 reps. Over the course of many sets we will work up to a top end set for the day. This is not a true, death rep, grinding max, but a real solid, heavy set. The best you can do that day with picture perfect form and no breakdown in technique.

This is always hard to control because young guys always want to push themselves way too hard, way too fast. When you continually push too close to failure and go too heavy, allowing your form to break down while grinding out reps, you always end up getting weaker and/or injured.

This is hard to learn and something most people don’t want to learn. It usually takes someone making the mistake time after time and getting weaker and injured often for this to finally sink in.

Sometimes the maximal strength exercise will be done on it’s own or it will be part of a two or three exercise super set or circuit. For example, while working up to a top end set on a military press we might alternate that with sets of pull ups and maybe even glute hams as well. If we do the maximal strength movement alone we’ll hit the pull ups and glute hams and maybe some abs as a circuit with minimal rest afterwards.

And we almost always do a finisher. So after the strength training is done we might push the Prowler, drag sleds, do some burpees, do some battling ropes, or maybe high rep swings or snatches. Something like that for about 5-10 minutes, tops. This is a great way to get some conditioning in without having any negative impact on your size, strength or power gains.

If we have a typical skinny hardgainer whose primary goal is to get bigger and stronger we will skip the power exercise at the beginning and the finisher at the end. Their workout would usually just consist of a push, a pull and a lower body exercise. They’d hit a few good sets of each of those then go home. Although, in the age of ADD, sometimes you even have to add something else in just to keep these guys interested. It’s not in their best interest but they expect and want to be doing something a little crazy. Sometimes you have to walk the fine line of getting optimal results and keeping people entertained.

Like my friend, NCAA strength coach, Joe Kenn said, “In this day and age you gotta keep these fools engaged.”

Craig Ballantyne: Very nice. We haven’t really covered too much beginner stuff so I’m glad you touched on that. What are some tips you could give to beginners our there?

Jason Ferruggia: Again, like I said, they should stick with a very basic program consisting of three exercises- push, pull, lower body. Three exercises per workout is all they need. First and foremost, learn to control your own bodyweight. Get really good at bodyweight exercises. You should start with inverted rows, pushups, bodyweight squats, things like that. After a few months of that get proficient with the big exercises and master your form on presses, squats and deads.

I think everyone should learn the big, basic exsercises, and the best way to learn those is to do them three days a week for three to five sets of about five or six reps. You want to keep the reps low just because you learn technique better that way. When you do higher reps your form tends to break down.  Your stabilizer muscles tend to give out before the prime movers. You learn bad form that way.

And in the future, when you progress beyond the novice level, just make sure you always remember to pick stuff up off the ground, lift stuff over your head, carry heavy stuff and do bodyweight exercises wherever and whenever possible.

Also, always try to make PROGRESS at every workout. Try to do more reps, do more weights, or if it’s a bodyweight exercise move on to the next level. This doesn’t have to be every exercise at every training session, but over time you need to make consistent improvements. Just make sure you’re making progress from week to week or month to month.  A year from now, if you’re still doing the same weights, obviously you’re not going to get anywhere no matter what your goal is.

Craig Ballantyne: I like the advice of always trying to set the personal best in the training sessions and stuff like that. What about top three tips you would give for an ADVANCED person that’s maybe stuck at a fat loss plateau or something? Someone that’s not doing a real generic cardio workout, but kind of has a good idea of what they’re doing, but needs to really step it up.

Jason Ferruggia: If someone hits a fat loss plateau it’s usually diet related. If the diet is in check and every thing looks perfect that’s when I start doing some kind of carb cycling or calorie cycling. If you jack up their calories for a few days, that will kind of get their metabolism cranking again and get them out of that plateau.

If someone is stuck at a plateau, we might say “For the next three days we’re going to increase your calories by one and half times,” maybe even double.  You’ll find that they will actually lose weight.  Some rare people may gain weight for a couple days, but then during the following days after that, they will always lose weight.

So, something like that definitely helps. Going forward they may have to do that every 3-5 days, meaning that they will have to have a high carb, high calorie day.

As far as training goes, probably the biggest mistake an advanced guy makes, and I make myself, is never backing off.  You need to be smarter the more advanced you get. You have to listen to your body. You need to take more time off, take a planned week off here and there, cycle your poundages, warm up more, maybe use slightly higher reps.

These are things that sound counter intuitive for fat loss or not specifically geared towards fat loss, I guess. This advice is usually geared toward guys looking to build muscle and get stronger. But if you’re beat up in the gym and not making progress, you’re not getting stronger. In my opinion that’s going to hold your fat loss back because you’re not making any progress or performance gains. Remember, everything is based on improving your performance. If you do that everything improves. So you need to make sure that you’re not over training, you’re not over doing it, and you’re not being overzealous.

More is NOT always better. A lot of times, less is more. So, doing an extra ten sets in the gym is not necessarily going to get you leaner. You’re going to get leaner through your diet, through getting stronger, and through proper conditioning methods, which will involve sprinting or interval training.

You just need to be safe and be smart in the gym, otherwise that will hold you back. When you’re beat up you can’t train or if you can’t train optimally you can’t build muscle or lose fat optimally.

Please leave your comments below.

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Craig Ballantyne: Now, I know you don’t specialize in fat loss, per se, but over the 15 plus years of training people, what have you noticed and what lessons have you learned from training athletes that might help average people and some of my readers lose fat more efficiently?

Jason Ferruggia: Athletes that train intelligently always seem to be able to get down to single digit body fat fairly easily.  Then you have the average guy going to the gym struggling and he’s always stuck at 20 or 18 percent body fat.
He’s doing the same things and making the same mistakes a lot of average gym goers make…

He’s on the treadmill, the stair climber, the elliptical. As you know, cardio is very ineffective for most people. A lot of power athletes, a field athlete like a football player, for example, can’t afford to do traditional cardio or steady state aerobic activity because that will pretty much destroy his fast twitch muscle fibers and make him slower and less explosive.

They really don’t even have that option, first of all.

They’re forced to just stick with high intensity training methods like plyos, sprints, agility training, and things like that. So, they’re doing that kind of stuff and they’re getting way leaner than the guy who is sitting on the bike for 40 minutes a day. That should tell you something right there. That kind of stuff, the latter, is not that effective.

So, like I said earlier, I have everyone train like an athlete. We only do high intensity stuff because that’s really where the results are at. You’re going to get the fastest results with the high intensity stuff.

You can also do low intensity stuff as a recovery method on off days. It’s that in between, middle ground stuff that really sucks for most people. That’s where you get the elevated cortisol and the muscle loss.

As I’ve said a million times, sprinting is the most effective form of fat loss training there is. But it’s hard work. Most people would rather sit on a bike or even do a bunch of bodyweight and kettlebell circuits for an hour straight long before they would ever dream of going out to the track or sprinting up a hill. It’s their loss. I’m not gonna hold anyone’s hand and walk them to the nearest hill.

Even in my own gym, for example, I tell people to sprint all the time. How many of them do so? Very few. What’s sad is that some of the guys in their twenties have ignored my advice for months or years while two guys who are 47 have regularly started hill sprinting and another guy who’s 37 and just started with us a few months back is already out on the hill. Every generation seems to be getting weaker and weaker, but again- another story for another day.

Jessica Alba knows the benefits of playing yourself into shape

Another great way to lose fat and improve your conditioning is to just play yourself into shape. People who stay active and have lots of physical hobbies like surfing, rock climbing, pick up basketball, beach volleyball or whatever, are always in pretty good shape and they don’t think of it as exercise. It’s not tedious. It’s just you’re out there having fun like you used to do as a kid. So grab a ball of some sort and start playing.

Craig Ballantyne: The last time we spoke you were talking about how you moved to almost everyone to more of a three day per week training program…

Why don’t you tell us a little about why that is?

Jason Ferruggia: I love to train, so I could train seven days a week if over training wasn’t an option. However, not everyone has the luxury of training whenever and as often as they want. Most guys are lucky if they can get in three workouts per week. Some get four, but its rare that the average guy will train more than four times per week. Nor should he. Well, let me clarify that. He shouldn’t strength train more than four times per week. You can always add in some other conditioning work or sprints and things like that.

I do know a lot of guys like to train four days a week better than three, if they have the choice.  So I experimented for the last couple of years with a lot of guys I coach at the gym and online to see what would get the better results, four days or three days. We went back and forth for a while just trying a lot of different things. I was kind of set in my ways with a system that I had been using for years, because it gets outstanding results.  But I said, “Let me try some different things here and see what’s what.” Just to be sure, ya know?

On the four day split what I often found was that if you’re going to do four days you really have to limit it to three hard days. I feel like it always ends up becoming three and a half days with a fourth easier day on a Saturday.  This has to be kind of a down day where you’re just doing glute ham raises, some neck and grip, some calves and abs, something like that.

Four, hard big workouts per week is A LOT mentally and physically for most people to get up for. And it’s hard to recover from.

So, if you have a big bench press day, a squat day, a military press day, and a dead lift day, that’s four big workouts in a week with assistance exercises. I find that’s a lot for people to handle. You can do it for about two or three weeks, but then I do find that people start to burn out. For me it’s usually only two weeks. It depends how strong you are, you’ll burn out faster the stronger you are.

Also, another problem with the four days was that people weren’t always making it to every workout. People have real jobs, a busy schedule, family commitments and a life. So with four days per week people weren’t always able to get there. Three days just seemed to be more practical for the majority of people.

Four days just wasn’t realistic for a lot of people and the motivation wasn’t always there also. People coming three days were always excited to be there. Sometimes with four days people start to get overexposed and not as motivated by that fourth day.  I like people to be motivated every time they’re in the gym.

It’s always nice to have a day off between high intensity workouts as well, not just for your muscles but for your nervous system, your mind and your joints. That way you’re always fresh mentally and physically, and you get that with three days. That’s why we ended up sticking with three days and it’s always what I seem to go back to.

Three days always has seemed to get the best results for the majority of people I’ve trained. Four days is only beneficial when you have outstanding recovery ability, a lot of time, low stress levels; and even then I still think that fourth day should be an easier day with less demanding exercises. If you do that you can get away with it. But for most people, if they only have the time, they should opt to get outside and sprint on that fourth day as it will give you a lot better results in the end.

Please leave your comments below.

PS. For a comprehensive athletic muscle building system, check out TripleThreatMuscle.com.

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Craig Ballantyne: Let’s transition back into some training stuff. Now, your gym isn’t just for guys, right? There are girls that train there also, correct?

Jason Ferruggia: There are a few girls, but that’s not my focus or main specialty. My first priority and focus is getting guys bigger, stronger and faster and just improving their overall performance. That is my true passion. We really only try to appeal to males and any marketing we may do is always done with guys in mind. But if high school or college female athletes want to come in and train for improved performance, and they can hang, they are more than welcome. In fact, they often earn a lot of respect from the guys when they do.

In our old gym we had only one female athlete in more than a dozen years, that was able to hang and actually made it more than three months. She went on to have great success. Others came and went but none made it more than three months.

Right now, in our new location, we have three high school female athletes who are doing a great job and are an absolute pleasure to train. Although, truth be told, it’s apples to oranges because the scene during the high school training time is far less intimidating now than it used to be. We had quite a few more lunatics back in the day. Those kids seem to be fewer and far between these days, which is a shame and a whole other topic for another day.

As far as female non-athletes go we have three to five of them right now who are able to hang with the guys and get in on our workouts. And that’s three to five more than I ever thought I’d have. Again, because of the way we train, what we train for, the music and the atmosphere; it’s not really a place where most girls would want to be or would feel comfortable. So I don’t expect a lot of them to want to join the gym. Nor do I do anything to entice them to do so. It’s just not my thing.

The girls that I mentioned, that we have now, can all do at least five chin ups, some can do ten or more; they can all pull over 225 and squat around 185. So they have all gotten outstanding results and continue to make great progress.

I know some of the hardcore females might be offended by me saying this but most average women do not want to train with 15 guys in a 90 degree gym while listening to Deftones and Ice Cube and pull max deadlifts or clean and press a log. Dem’s just da facts. When you find one that does, though, I highly suggest slipping a ring on her finger.

And if a female comes in looking for fat loss she’s definitely in the wrong place. That’s not what we do.

Or like Frank Rizzo said, “I don’t do dat, baby!”

It aint Jenny Craig or Curves. We train to get bigger, stronger, faster and more athletic. Fat loss is a goal that bores me to tears. It’s very unappealing to me to train someone solely for the goal of losing fat. I refuse to do it. The weight room is a place to get strong. You lose fat with proper diet and a lot of sprinting.

It’s not worth wasting strength training sessions when all you have to do is learn the most effective fat loss exercise there is and practice it regularly…

Pushaways. Push your fat ass away from the dinner table.

No matter who the client is I never change the training when it comes to fat loss. We simply change the diet and add in more sprint work and the like.

So if a girl hires me she can expect to be doing box jumps, chins, farmers walks and Olympic lift variations just like the guys. I may let her skip the neck harness, however. A girl with a neck like Stone Cold is never a great look.

If a girl can do all that stuff, is very athletic and in shape, can do at least five chin ups, jump onto a 36 inch box, squat 135 or so, then I have absolutely no problem working with her. Of course, I would prefer if she were an athlete. I would also prefer if she looked like Jamie Eason and was training for the lingerie bowl.

But like I said, everyone trains like an athlete at my gym anyway.  Now obviously those prerequisites eliminate 90 percent of the population of females, but like every business book and business expert on the planet recommends- you have to do one thing and one thing only, to be successful in life.  You can’t specialize in everything. You can’t be the master of everything. You have to do one thing, really well. I have chosen to do what I do because I love it. I can’t compromise.

I know a lot of trainers or coaches might be listening and read my site quite a bit, and the best business advice I can give you is to specialize in one thing. No one ever remembers the guy who does rehab, runs bootcamps, trains people for lacrosse, trains six year olds, trains old ladies and is an expert at pre and post natal training. Choose one thing and specialize on it.

Get really, really good at it and make it your focus.

For me, it’s turning average athletes and former athletes into beasts. That’s what I love to do. The thought of working with any other population makes me miserable.

For you it may be postural alignment or housewives. Whatever it is that you love to do. When you do what you love your whole life will be more enjoyable and you will be more successful. Don’t take on clients just for the sake of making more money and don’t train people for something you don’t enjoy. And never work with a client who you really don’t like working with. Take it from someone who knows from experience; that shit will make your life miserable and will have a huge negative impact on your business.

This means turning down more people than you accept and only training clients you will enjoy training and who will be a walking billboard for your company. Before accepting someone into your facility think to yourself, “Would I be proud or embarrassed to have this person wearing one of my t-shirts around town?”

Craig Ballantyne: Cool. Could you just give some quick tips on training females that you have found to be most effective? Are there any differences between the sexes in your opinion?

Jason Ferruggia: The differences are minimal but there are a few.

•    Females require less rest between sets. This is simply because they weigh less and are weaker. It’s no different than a 135 pound guy who squats 185 needing less rest than a 250 pound guy who squats 550.

•    They require less rest between workouts. In other words they recover faster.

•    They seem to excel on full body workouts. Males can get away with upper/lower splits but for females it’s usually a waste of time.

That’s really about it. Other than that I recommend that they train just like guys. Do mobility work regularly, start workouts with explosive stuff like jumps and throws, do maximal strength work, use bodyweight assistance exercises and get good at controlling your body and moving it through space effectively. And stay the hell of the machines. Sprint two to three times per week and you’ll wonder why you ever wasted a second on the stairmaster.

One last story here to emphasize my point about training for strength- I knew a powerlifter years ago whose wife wanted to get in shape. She was probably about 38 at the time. Instead of designing some clown workout for her he said, “Ok, we’re gonna get your bench up to 135, your squat to 225 and your deadlift to 315. When you hit those numbers you’ll be in better shape than you ever dreamed of.” Some people, including his wife, thought he was nuts. But you know what? He took this novice lifter and got her in incredible shape in less than a year with three basic powerlifts and an emphasis on consistent strength gains. I always thought that was a pretty cool story.

Please leave your comments below.

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Here is part 2 of the recent interview I did for Craig Ballantyne. Click HERE for part 1.

Craig Ballantyne: Tell us a little bit about some of the unique conditioning that you do? Obviously you’ve got the prowler, you guys do sprints, but what else do you have in Renegade Gym that you guys do?

Jason Ferruggia: First of all, it should be noted that not everyone needs to do conditioning. Typically the most explosive athletes do the least amount of conditioning. These would usually be throwers. But if you want to be in shape or play a sport you are going to need to do some conditioning. The key is not to overdo it. Or do it just for the sake of doing it.

As I said, we do zero cardio. Traditional cardio goes against evolution. You weren’t designed to do that and it’s counterproductive; meaning it causes cortisol release, over use injuries and saps your power.

As far as the methods we DO use- the prowler is one of the BEST things you can do. We use that quite a bit. You really have to experience it to even appreciate it. You do 10 to 20 of those with minimal rest and it’s gonna be far superior to any kind of cardio machine you could possibly do. That’s a great finisher or can be used on off days. There’s no eccentric component so you really don’t get sore from it.

How far should you push the prowler? It really depends on how much room you have. Anywhere from 20-50 yards should be good for most people. You’ll know when you’ve had enough. Trust me.

On top of that we’ll drag sleds pretty much the same way, same parameters. With the sled you can do a variety of different drags.

We’ll also do high rep kettle bell swings and snatches. I’ve recently become a big fan of snatches. Well, I was always a big fan of snatches, but recently became a very big fan of kettlebell snatches. In the past I always thought they were a good exercise but nothing special. Recently I’ve fallen in love with them, however. A lot of it has to do with a new technique I use to do them.

It can be somewhat difficult to master but once you really get tight form down on the snatch, it’s a very fun exercise to do. I am definitely a big fan of tight snatches… so to speak.

Swings and snatches for high reps or timed sets are awesome as a finisher. You could do 3-4 sets of 10-25 reps or just set a clock for 8-10 minutes and try to get as many reps as possible. Then each week you would try to get more reps in the same amount of time with the same weight.

The battling ropes are great if someone has any kind of knee injury, if they can’t push the prowler or they can’t sprint. There’s very little stress with the battling ropes so they allow people with any kind of injuries to get a great workout in. I like to do 4-6 sets of 20-30 seconds of work as a finisher. And there are numerous patterns you can use with the ropes.

My all time FAVORITE are hill sprints. I love to do hill sprints. I recommend hill sprints for everyone who needs to lose body fat.  They’re awesome and you don’t need any special equipment at all; just a hill. The reason I like hill sprints better than flat ground sprints are for the simple fact that they are less injurious, a little easier on the body and you don’t need to warm up as long.

But any kind of sprint; the prowler, sprints with a sled, sprints on flat ground and sprints on a hill are definitely going to be far superior to any cardio machine you could do.

The human body was simply not designed for long duration, repetitive, steady state activity.

If you are sprinting for conditioning and to cut weight you don’t have to be overly concerned with work to rest ratio and total volume as you would if you were training for speed. Simply run hard for 40-100 yards and rest as long as you need to. The whole workout doesn’t need to last more than twenty minutes.

Sometimes after a workout I will drive ten minutes over to the high school and sprint on the field turf immediately after training. I’ll do reduced warm up, since I have already just trained and then run about eight or ten 50-100 yard sprints.

I can’t recommend sprinting highly enough. I honestly believe that EVERYONE should be doing some sort of sprinting twice per week.

It’s what the body was designed to do and nothing will get you in better shape faster.

Please leave your comments below.

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