Training’s been going pretty well lately. The shoulder still bothers me but has been feeling a lot better and is coming along. Now I have a new injury to deal with. I’m a big fan of overdoing things. Well, lemme rephrase that actually… I am not so much a fan of it as I am someone who routinely overdoes things. It’s one of the many things I have in common with Clark Griswold.
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… …continue reading.
The Men’s Fitness video crew stopped by Renegade Gym on Saturday to shoot some footage of Sean Hyson’s amazing transformation and his attempt at a new PR in the squat. Sean is the fitness editor at Men’s Fitness magazine and has been taking the train out from New York City to train at Renegade Gym on the weekends for over a year now.
On top of that we also had a visit from one of my favorite guys in the entire fitness industry, none other than the owner of Monkey Bar Gym, Jon Hinds. For those that don’t know, Jon is a 46 year old white dude who can dunk a basketball, walk on his hands and perform numerous other displays of supreme physical fitness. He’s also a Pan Am games winning BJJ black belt, and one of the all around coolest, nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
While he was in town he was staying in Brooklyn and yesterday morning just decided to buy a bicycle, on a whim, and ride it from Brooklyn, through the Bronx to meet us at Yankee Stadium, while wearing flip flops, no less.
And no shirt. He just bought a Jeter shirt from a… …continue reading.
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… …continue reading.
This is a great exercise that works the upper body pushing muscles as well as the abs and lower back, which have to contract forcefully throughout the movement. We use this as an upper body finisher or rep challenge exercise. The key points to look for are a full range of motion and no sagging of the hips or collapse of the lower back… which of course, sometimes goes out the window in the heat of competition. But do your best.
What I love about this exercise is that it requires more athleticism than a regular pushup so it serves multiple purposes.
You can get your Power Wheel HERE. It’s a great piece of equipment that I can’t recommend highly enough. And nothing works your abs any harder.
Today I’m going to show you a few cool exercises you can do with the TRX Straps. Everyone knows by now that I am a huge fan of heavy, traditional exercises like squats and deadlifts, but for years I have always preached the value of bodyweight exercises and moving your body through space. This elicits a higher level of neuromuscular activation and helps you build muscle and develop strength faster. Most of my workouts include some kind of big heavy barbell or dumbbell lift and a bodyweight exercise (or two, or three), often done with the TRX Straps.
TRX Exercise #1: Bicep Curls
TRX Exercise #2: Triceps Extensions
TRX Exercise #3: Inverted Rows
TRX Exercise #4: Low Ab Pull In’s
Get your TRX Straps today and take your training to the next level.
Bear crawls aka bear walks are an awesome strength and conditioning exercise but are commonly performed incorrectly. This is the proper way to do bear walks. The common mistake is to keep your butt up high in the air and allow your lower back to round. This can be problematic for people with glass backs and should be avoided. Performing them as demonstrated is a great total body exercise that really works the core musculature and the stabilizer muscles of the shoulder. This is way better than external rotations and other such isolation movements.
This exercise is way harder than it looks when done properly. Try to work up to 50-100 yard sets and increase your speed only if form is perfect.
For more great training tips visit http://www.MuscleGainingSecrets.com/
Today we are going to discuss how to improve on chin ups. Chin ups are one of the best overall muscle and strength building exercises around. The problem is that many beginners can’t do a single rep and many intermediate trainees can not seem to progress on them no matter what they do. One very simple solution is to get a JumpStretch rubber band and loop it around the bar to assist you, as shown in the accompanying video. Start with a strong enough band that allows you to do 5 reps. When you get up to 10-12 reps switch to a lighter band and start over again at 5 reps. Repeat this process with one or two more bands until you are strong enough to do them on your own.
Since the video will explain it more clearly than words ever could, watch below to learn exactly how to improve on chin ups.
For more great muscle building information please visit http://www.MuscleGainingSecrets.com/ now.
Great workout tonight. Did some rowing, squatting, shrugging, etc. and finished with the battling ropes of death. I have gained back about 20 of the 48lbs that I lost and am feeling pretty good. The shoulder is coming along and I am happy at this weight. Gaining another 30 pounds on top of this is probably something that I won’t be doing. I’ll see how I feel as I progress but I feel very good being lighter. My natural adult weight is only about 165 at an even six feet tall and my wrists are only slightly bigger than six and a half inches. Carrying an extra 65 pounds around for all those years probably led to some additional wear and tear on my body and would continue to do so if I gained it all back. We’ll see what happens…
Anyway, here is a clip of the battling ropes from tonight. And also the aftermath.
And the aftermath… Unfortunately we didn’t capture the main blast on film, but the end was still entertaining.
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