Because of this I spent the majority of the last three years doing tons of pushup variations on the floor, the Jungle Gym XT, medicine balls, etc. Any time I tried to press dumbbells or a bar the pain was just too much to deal with and I had become [...]]]> As I’ve detailed plenty of times before I had shoulder surgery three years ago to repair a torn rotator cuff and labrum. I’ve also torn my trap on that same side in the past, so the shoulder is pretty jacked up.

Because of this I spent the majority of the last three years doing tons of pushup variations on the floor, the Jungle Gym XT, medicine balls, etc. Any time I tried to press dumbbells or a bar the pain was just too much to deal with and I had become very gun shy.

I’ve been able to press overhead since about six months after the operation but I haven’t been able to lay down and press a bar or dumbbells without pain since.

After blasting the hell out of every pushup variation known to man for the last 36 months I was able to finally lay down and press a bar pain free for the first time since 2006. The only press I could do was a Swiss bar incline press and I had to stop the bar about two inches off my chest… but boy did it feel good for a meathead like me to press some weight again.

I started with 135 the first day and worked my way up to 225 x 9 (I was hoping for 10 and thought I did it but the video shows otherwise)  in eight weeks. This is not record breaking or even that impressive. But it was a big accomplishment for me since I haven’t touched that kinda weight in years and I was pretty psyched about it.

I alternated the Swiss Bar incline press with chest supported rows, as seen below. On most row exercises I like to hold the weight at the top with a good shoulder blade retraction for a second. This ensures that the weight isn’t too heavy and potentially injurious to my shoulder. If you have any type of shoulder issues heaving heavy rows probably isn’t the best idea in the world. Although, having said that, I will still rock a high rep cheat dumbbell row with anywhere between 130 and 170 pound dumbbells from time to time. I am a meathead at heart after all…

After Swiss bar inclines and rows I hit some Vince Gironda chest dips and chin ups.

Next up was a super set of dumbbell front raises into cheat  lateral raises.

Yes, I did lateral raises. I hadn’t done them in probably five years and just felt like it.

I alternated this with band pull aparts.

Finally, as a little finisher challenge, I decided to see how many reps I could blast out with 135 on an overhead log press after doing all that other stuff and being pretty fatigued. Someone else in the gym was using it and it was sitting there set at 135 so I decided to grab it and give it whirl. In all honesty, if I had to load it myself I probably wouldn’t have it.

I managed 24 partial range cheat reps.

Bodyweight in the videos was 205, but that was after eight weeks of very little sleep and food with stress levels through the roof. Things are a bit more normal now and I’m currently sitting at about 212 and climbing back up.

So for those who’ve asked, my training is going pretty well. How about yours? Let me know what you’re up, how it’s going and if I can help.

PS. Today is the last day to pick up Vince Gironda: Legend and Myth at 50% the normal price. Definitely worth the read for some cool exercise variations and mindset stuff.

Related Posts:

• How to Build Muscle
• How to Build Muscle & Gain Weight
• 27 Tips For Healthier Shoulders- Part 2
• Do These Exercises to Get Jacked
• Lift Heavy, Meditate & Get Outside More Often
• 9 Quick Tips For Bigger Arms
• Eliminate The Useless Crap
• A Better Way to do Chin Ups
• Should You Always Use a Full Range of Motion: Part 2

I was supposed to be Eminem. At least that’s the way I saw it back in ’88. It was my freshman year of high school and the Beastie Boys were yet to be taken seriously, so I figured I could be the first great white rapper. I practiced my rhymes all the time and just knew that within a few years I’d be on tour opening for Public Enemy. Then 3rd Bass came along and crushed [...]]]> “I never sleep, cuz sleep is the cousin of death.”
Nas- New York State of Mind

I was supposed to be Eminem. At least that’s the way I saw it back in ’88. It was my freshman year of high school and the Beastie Boys were yet to be taken seriously, so I figured I could be the first great white rapper. I practiced my rhymes all the time and just knew that within a few years I’d be on tour opening for Public Enemy. Then 3rd Bass came along and crushed my dreams. But I could at least be second, I thought…

Twenty three years later I still write and rap every day. Except that I don’t write raps. I write about training and I rap along to Eminem, Nas, Biggie and thousands of other classic hip hop songs on my iPod.

I also:

• Coach athletes and regular people who want to get bigger, stronger and faster
• Design training programs
• Answer questions
• Order new stuff for the gym or myself to try out
• Test out and review products people send me for free
• Do all kinds of networking and behind the scenes business stuff
• Read about training
• Read about business
• Keep in constant contact with the eleven people I pay to work for me on a regular basis
• And whatever else I need to do in order to ensure my success

It’s all about the hustle. It’s the only way I know how to live.

While it may not be as glamorous as touring the world rocking mics and partying with my groupies backstage, I love what I do and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Here’s a sneak peak into a recent day.

4:56am- I wake up with an incredible urge to pee and while en route to the bathroom write the first few sentences to an article I had promised my buddy, Chris McCombs.

5:02am- What’s the use? I already have the article started in my head and I can’t risk forgetting the opening. May as well get it done now, I decide. So I fill up a 40oz bottle of water and get to work.

5:43am- With that one done I decide to get started on another article for the Huffington Post.

7:07am- Check in on social media stuff and blast a few tweets to my Twitter and status updates to my Facebook page. It’s all very noteworthy, life changing stuff… like Jerky Boys quotes and my commentary on the effectiveness of coconut oil as a sexual lubricant.

7:09am- Notice that I have a decent number of new fans on my Facebook Page since I last checked and when I click on them I notice the steadily increasing number of good looking females. If only I had a mic in my hand this could all be so different.

7:14am- Hop in the shower, alone, and get ready to head to Renegade.

Michael Flynn approaches 500

7:23am- After getting distracted by an important email I text my long time good friend and Renegade staff member, Alyson that I’m running late and she’ll need to open up for me.

7:31am- Throw some One World Whey and Athletic Greens in a shaker bottle for later as I run out the door.

8-10am- Coach two groups of clients.

10:09am- My eyes start closing while I’m standing and in mid conversation with my brother. This is unusual since the dude is pretty intense and keeps you on your toes, to say the least. With all that’s been going on lately I’ve barely slept in days. I decide I need one of my four monthly cups of coffee right now.

10:32am- Caffeine seems to be kicking in and Jared and I discuss some business issues as he gets started painting on the new record boards. We wanted to add some more boards/categories and decided that chalkboard paint like we had in the old place was the best choice.

10:37am- We settle on bench, squat, dead, log clean and press, pushup, chin up, broad jump and farmers hold. That covers a broad enough spectrum of maximal strength, power and strength endurance. I would love to have some kind of lower body endurance challenge but the space we’re in doesn’t allow for it. While a wall sit is a fun toughness challenge it’s not worthy of a record board.

Since we still don’t have a log light enough for the girls we decided to sub in a high rep barbell clean and press as a temporary challenge. As many reps as you can get in a minute with 65 pounds. Aly bangs out 17 on her first attempt below.

10:44am- I call John Alvino. “Hey maggot (a name we always call each other because it makes us fondly recall the Iron Sheik vs. Sargent Slaughter feud), before we finalize these new record boards can you think of anything else worth adding?” We decide to leave it as is. Somehow the conversation deviates to big asses and the like, as it usually does. When we were 22 I would have never guessed that we’d still be having the same conversations 15 years later and would still be so easily distracted by the sight of boobies. In mid sentence John says, “I gotta go, bye.”

Click. Just like that he’s gone and I have no problem with it. When you’re on a cell phone you may have to hang up with someone at any second. Having that understanding makes it very easy to talk to someone on the phone. If I know I can’t get off the phone that easily with someone I won’t call them… ever. I simply can’t deal with giving an explanation of why I have to go. I just do and I’m hanging up. I’ll call you back at some point.

I also can’t deal with the questioning…

“What? Just like that? You’re hanging up right now? Are you gonna call me back?”

It’s one of my least favorite lines of questioning on this earth.

But apologizing for getting disconnected is equally as irritating.

“What happened? Was that my phone? Your phone? Sorry, dude I don’t know what’s wrong with my phone…”

“ALRIGHT!” I get it. Who cares? Just move on with the conversation like nothing happened. I think in 2011 we all understand that calls will be dropped from time to time. Let’s pick up where we left off and move forward.

Walt hits 500 for a set of 8 rack pulls

10:52am-I review four resumes my assistant had forwarded me and a few internship requests.

10:55am- Upload my bio and head shot to send to Adam at Live Strong where I’ll be a new member of their five man fitness advisory team. I wonder for a minute if anyone else on the staff could be as handsome as me. The chances are slim I realize, so I send the pic along.

11am- Do a phone consultation with a multi time NFL Pro Bowler, mainly about nutrition.

12pm- Call to wish my mom a happy birthday and regret not doing so earlier in the morning. We go back and forth about whether something she had told me yesterday that I forgot was due to my inability to pay attention or my lack of memory. I argue for memory loss, she’s standing strong behind her opinion that my listening skills suck. We agree to disagree… I think. I can’t remember.

12:07pm- I laugh at the strange dichotomy of my world. One minute I’m on the phone with one of the greatest football players of the last twenty years, the next minute I’m getting yelled at by my mom like I’m 15.

12:09pm- Jared tells me about someone who has a problem with me. I’m shocked by the fact that it’s past noon and this is the first such occurrence of the day. I must be getting soft.  Dan Kennedy always says if you haven’t pissed someone off by noon every day you’re not doing a very good job.

12:17pm- I receive an email from the person in question. I write back.

12:28pm- Get a text from my friend Andrew who tells me that his legs are covered in mosquito bites from our dinner together the night before. I tell him I’ve already scratched my ankles to a bloody pulp. We laugh about my quip to the waitress about how I couldn’t choke down the hockey puck I was served and the jokes that ensued afterwards. “This is bone dry too?!” You had to be there. The point is I spend a good portion of my day in hysterical laughter and place a premium on comedy.

It seems like I choose my friends by their ability to make me laugh or find the humor in all that I do. Which is pretty much everything.

12:39pm- Realized I was running late for lunch with mom but luckily I got my running late habit from her and she’s running later than me.

1:05pm- Call Jen, who’s back in Cali while waiting outside the restaurant for my mom. We go over some business stuff, then she tells me that I’m gonna miss the Santa Monica Food Festival this weekend. For someone who likes to eat as much as I do that kinda sucks. I tell her that I’m also gonna miss getting laid. Which kinda sucks worse.

DaNunz Pumps the Guns

1:10pm- I get a text from another athlete client who is on the road and needs some tweaks to his program based on what’s available in the gym he’s at. I send him back the changes.

1:12pm- Another text from a college athlete of mine checking in to say hi and update me on things. He tells me that my old friend, Sal Alosi of the New York Jets, is their new strength coach and said hi.

1:16pm- Mom shows up late and we eat. I get chicken and pasta. The stress and lack of sleep lately is shrinking me rapidly so I need to pack in some calories.

2:03pm- Check my phone after lunch and see a text from my buddy Sean Hyson, updating me on his trip to Vegas for the Mr. Olympia. Since I’m across the street from the mall I decide to run in and see if I can find some new shorts and pants which I desperately need.

3pm- Walk out of the mall empty handed. This is pretty much the case nine out of ten times I go to any mall.  That is, of course, if you’re not counting the unsolicited phone numbers I receive while shopping.

“HI-OH!”

Just kidding. Well except for the two guys that told me to call them. They thought I’d be perfect as a “fluffer” for their next film. I’m not exactly sure what that means but the spank on my ass they gave me assured me that they meant business.

“I think it may have moved.”

“Moved?”

“It may have moved, I don’t know.”

“I’m sure it didn’t move.”

“It moved! It was imperceptible but I felt it.”

Ah, that never gets old…

3:05pm- Text Joe DeFranco a question about some equipment I’m thinking of getting for the gym.

3:11pm- Get a call about the possibility of training one of the best high school teams in the state, or at least some of them.  We set up a tentative date to get the ball rolling.

3:15- Hop in the car and am greeted by the sounds of that whiny, screechy weird Lil Wayne/ Ne-Yo hip hop/ R&B stuff that all sounds the same to me these days… HORRIBLE. So I put on Hip Hop Junkies by Nice and Smooth and head to a 4pm meeting about something that could be pretty big.

5:20pm- Back at Renegade and back in coaching mode. But first I discuss the importance of not sounding or appearing too desperate when you first meet a girl you are interested in with a young friend of mine. Girls are like attack dogs and can sniff out fear or desperation from a mile away.

Sending that one extra text or asking that one weird question can be the death of any possible relationship or one night stand long before it starts. You need to at least appear like you have things going for you and your life isn’t hinging upon her getting back to or spending time with you.

The key to this is to keep a steady rotation, I explain, so then you’re never putting all your eggs in one basket. If it doesn’t work out with one you have 2-4 to fall back on. Then you’ll never be desperate which leads to getting more girls, etc, etc. Success breeds success.

But be prepared for girls who were at first quite busy all the time when you wanted to get to know them better to never have anything going on ever when you no longer do. That always makes for lots of fun and weirdness.

5:30-7:30pm- Run two groups through the paces, crack some jokes and talk some shit to raise the level of competition in the gym. In my evil and devious mind I constantly plot ways to get the crew fired up and pissed off enough to outdo each other at all costs. An example of this is me telling 23 year old Jeff how embarrassed he will be if 48 year old Mark beats him on the Power Wheel Pushup challenge (seen below), especially since he’s been training with me for nine years, one longer than Mark. I whisper in Mark’s ear that he’s getting old and may not have the heart to fend off the young lions anymore. He proves me wrong.

7:30pm- At this point I’m overtired and wired so I decide to train with the last group. I put on Spaz Out by Jedi Mind Tricks (featuring Apathy, King Magnetic, Esoteric and Celph Titled) and I’m ready to go. Motivated by the performance of my 58 year old friend and client, Paul (seen in the video below) and staff member Yaniv (also seen below) I hit the military presses hard along with some chins and curls. It was all I had time for as I had to meet mom for dinner. For the biceps I introduced two of my coaches to a very secret technique I just invented that night called “running the rack.” I would tell you about it but then I’d have to kill you.

9:06pm- Roll into the Pluckemin Inn for dinner, six minutes late.

“Where were you the whole time?”

“It’s 9:06. I said I’d be here by 9.”

“Oh. Ok.”

After a pretty sub par, shlocky meal mom says how she wishes Ed was here and misses him every day. She said she was talking to him in the car on the way home from work. I start tearing up. It’s been two years but it still happens every time. I keep a picture of Ed next to my bed and touch it every morning when I wake up, promising to make him proud.

10:47pm- Back home and completely exhausted. I send an email about some nutrition and supplement stuff to another one of my pro guys and return a few other business related emails. My friend Jon Le Toq wants to know when I want to book the Renegade seminar in London and for me to shoot him a few possible dates to secure the gym.

There’s another email from my friend Paul Mort who simply wants to know if I’ve ever noticed how the skin on your balls resembles both elbow and chicken skin. I tell him that the thought occupies my mind for most of the day.

11:23pm- Log in to the Renegade Inner Circle and answer a few dozen questions for a half hour while trying to keep my eyelids pried open.

11:56pm- Tell Jen I love her and thank her for dealing with me. Then crash into bed, hoping to get some sleep. The hustle starts again bright and early tomorrow.

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I’ve been doing a lot of running lately. Hill sprints, flat ground sprints, sled sprints and cone/agility drills. [...]]]> 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 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

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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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 [...]]]> 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 street vendor and threw it on to get in to the Stadium.

Dude is the definition of chill.

And he eats twelve bananas a day.

TWELVE BANANAS!

Back to Sean Hyson…

Ten weeks ago he decided he wanted to get really serious and do a transformation story. So I put together a 12-week training and nutrition program and we got started. So far Sean has lost 30 pounds of bodyfat, while simultaneously putting a half inch on his arms and improving all of his lifts.

This Saturday he was attempting a new PR in the squat, looking to put four plates on for the first time ever. Again, I will repeat the fact that he has lost thirty pounds over the last ten weeks and is running sprints, jumping rope and doing fasted cardio several days per week. Still, he was able to increase his strength dramatically in ten weeks, through an incredibly high level of dedication, discipline and attention to detail.

We will cover his transformation and training/nutrition program in more detail when it’s all done and we have the before and after pics in two weeks. But for now I think the video below speaks for itself:

While Sean was squatting, a bunch of us were doing pin pulls at the next rack down. I worked in with my brother, Jared, Hinds, and my good friend and Renegade Gym member, Lieutenant Paul Miller of the NJ State Police.

I’m still doing my best to stay smart and not go too heavy on anything. I need to just get healthy and stay healthy. However, the cameras were rolling and the adrenaline was pumping so I jumped up almost 200 pounds from the last time I did rack pulls a few weeks ago. None of these sets were incredibly hard, though, so I told myself it was all smart and safe. Even though a 200 pound jump is never remotely smart or safe.

Again, I am keeping the reps high on my warm up sets in order to ensure that I am totally warm and ready for my heaviest sets and also to induce fatigue (the opposite of what I recommend for most people) so that my heaviest sets aren’t as heavy as they would be had I done less warm ups. Right now it’s working quite well and I feel good.

I worked up to 545 with the following progression:
135 x 10
225 x 10
315 x 10
405 x 8
455 x 8
495 x 10- I think. Maybe I got 8 or 9. I can’t remember. This was going to be my heaviest set so I pushed it.

But then Paul did this weight for five reps:

This was a huge milestone for Paul as it was the first time he’s had five plates on the bar. At 46, he’s bigger and stronger than he’s ever been and has been making insane gains in size and strength the last few months. So congrats to the big man for that awesome new PR.

Anyway, after watching Paul do that I couldn’t NOT do another set ;) So I threw on another quarter and did 545 for a few reps:

Without all the warm ups, and if I was really going all out I think I would have had 600 in me. Which isn’t great, but isn’t bad for where I’m at right now and I’m happy with it.

Probably the most impressive performance on the rack came out of Hinds. Until Saturday he hadn’t touched a barbell in 15 years, as he does the majority of his training with bodyweight only.

Still he worked up to 405 for 12, which I thought was awesome. I know that if I hadn’t touched a barbell in 15 years I’d probably only be doing 225 or so.

For some reason we didn’t catch it all on video, but trust me; he got 12 reps.

Finally, Jared finished up with 495 for 12:

After that we messed around on the glute ham and did some tire flips:

After that we had a challenge on the log clean and press.

I wasn’t going to train at all on Saturday since I had already trained three times that week and done a couple days of hill sprints. I also woke up at 4:44 in the morning so I didn’t have a ton of energy. But once I felt the intensity and the adrenaline I made a last minute game time decision to get in on it.

However, I really had no intentions of pressing the log, considering that I had pressed on Friday, and my injured shoulder and all…

But, of course, I continue to make testosterone influenced decisions in the heat of battle.

Paul beat everyone on the log with 20 reps so I had to jump in and see if I could beat my buddy. That would only be the right thing to do…

After that a round robin style tournament of tug of war broke out, with the finals coming down to me and Sean vs. Jared and Brian.

All in all it was a great day, tons of healthy competition and a lot of fun.

And that’s what training should be all about.

Please leave your questions and comments below.

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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 [...]]]> 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 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 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.

PS. For an awesome 16 week program that will help you make huge improvements on your chin ups and numerous other bodyweight exercises check out Uncaged by clicking HERE now.

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What I love about this exercise is that it requires [...]]]> 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.

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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 [...]]]>

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/

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