If you’ve read this blog long enough you may know by now that, next to training, music is my biggest obsession in life. I go to dozens of concerts and live performances per year and could single handedly keep iTunes in business. Here’s a list of some of the newer stuff we’ve been rocking in the gym over the last few months. Some of it is recent and some of it is just stuff that I have recently gotten into or have had renewed love affair with as of late. I’ll try not to repeat any recommendations I… continue reading.

Guest Post by Brad Pilon There are three main keys to losing fat and gaining muscle. If you’re missing any of these you will most likely fail in your attempts to build a lean muscular body. So what are they? 1) Eat Less Calories than you burn off 2) Resistance Training 3) Eating enough protein to maintain muscle mass That’s as short and sweet as I can put it. Any diet can work as long as it gets you to eat less calories than you burn off. The key is to find a diet that suits your personality and… continue reading.

The pull up is one of the greatest muscle building exercises in existence, which is precisely why it’s been called the upper body squat. Lat pulldowns can’t even come close to comparing. Whenever you move your body through space the level of neuromuscular activation is dramatically higher. People all too often ask, “How much can ya bench?” A more appropriate question would be “How many pull ups can you do?” The pull up measures your strength to weight ratio better than almost any other exercise known to man. Below are the top 10 ways to improve your pull ups. 1)… continue reading.

Bill Starr was the first strength coach to work at both the collegiate and professional level. He was the strength coach for the Baltimore Colts when they won Super Bowl V. No matter what people may tell you about slide boards, balance training, Bosu balls, tempo training, occlusion training and simultaneously working one arm with the opposite leg, the fact of the matter is that not much has changed in the last forty years when it comes to effective strength training. In general, we can’t get guys any bigger or stronger today than we could back then. As Bill said… continue reading.

If you want to know how to build a bigger chest you’re in the right place. I’ll give you all you need to know including the best chest exercises and the ultimate chest workout. Let’s start by discussing some anatomy basics about the pecs. There’s an upper head of the pecs known as the clavicular head, and there’s a lower head of the chest known as the sternal head. There’s also a pec major and a pec minor. What you really need to know are the following two facts: 1) You can definitely target the upper pecs and… continue reading.

By Mac Danzig Although there are other people at the controls, manning and updating my websites, I do read all of the mail, and the questions I get asked most often (hundreds upon hundreds of times now) are about my diet. All of the emails and letters are so hard to keep up with, so I finally sat down and decided to write a comprehensive look at my diet. I’m writing this on the fly, so even though it’s long, I will most certainly leave some important things out.. ‘Sorry’ about that in advance. This is not… continue reading.

By Brad Pilon Flexible intermittent fasting is becoming a very popular way to use your body’s natural ability to burn lots of fat in a short period of time. Here is a list of the ways that flexible intermittent fasting will turbo charge your fat loss. 1. Increases Fat Burning Hormones Hormones are usually at the root of most of your metabolic functioning, and fat burning is no different. Growth Hormone is the most important fat burning hormone in your body. Fasting pushes growth hormone production into high gear and this makes your fat burning… continue reading.

It just wouldn’t be a party if I didn’t get at least a dozen random fitness related questions from strangers, family members or long lost pals. Kinda like the exchange I had with my old friend Kevin last week… “Hey Jay, good to see you, buddy. Glad you’re here, I have a couple questions for you.” “I probably don’t have the answers, but fire away.” “My shoulder’s been killing recently right here, when I bench press. Here, feel this clicking thing it’s doing,” he says as he places my hand on his shoulder. Another party; another guy placing my hands… continue reading.

I wish I had a guide about how to avoid elbow pain when I first started training, because I certainly have had my share of it. Although this is not my main area of expertise, and guys like Bill Hartman and Keith Scott know a lot more about this than I do, I’ve trained a lot of people for a lot of years and have seen almost every injury you can imagine. I’ve also experienced quite a few of them myself. So today I’m gonna share some tips and tricks with you about how to avoid elbow pain. And since… continue reading.

Jungle Gym XT– There are countless exercises that can be done on the Jungle Gym XT; many more effective than using a machine or even free weights, such as pushups, flys, dips, assisted handstand pushups, leg curls, hip thrusts, ab fall outs and many more.  At Renegade Training Center we use big, basic barbell lifts as our main maximal strength exercises and then supplement with bodyweight, kettlebell, dumbell and strongman type lifts for accessory work. The Jungle Gym XT gets used at every workout, without fail. It’s also great to travel with because it’s small and light and… continue reading.

Riding a stationary bike sucks. Sure, it’s convenient and often the only option for a lot of people, but let’s be honest; enduring 30 minutes of water boarding would probably be more fun. If you can ride a stationary bike, you can ride a real bike; and that would be a much better choice. Sprinting would be far superior to either of those. Doing so on a hill or with a sled or Prowler is often even better. Below are some of my favorite conditioning drills that I do myself and with all of my clients. continue reading.

Guest Post By Brad Pilon You may not have heard of intermittent fasting, and so you may not know why it can and should be a part of your workout and fat loss plan. Intermittent fasting is the practice of abstaining from all but water for a period of usually 24 hours to help with the goals associated with fat loss and weight loss in general. The way in which it helps in this arena is by cutting out a full days caloric intake, while still being able to maintain a full workout schedule. Let’s look at… continue reading.

Here’s an interview I did with my buddy Craig Ballantyne  that many of you may have missed the first time around: CB: What do athletes need to work on most? JF: Most athletes are too weak. I don’t care what sport they play or at what level they are playing at, most athletes, in general, need to get stronger. I think that if most athletes just focused on properly getting stronger, they would improve their performance and be a lot better off. I am not downplaying the importance of running mechanics, flexibility, agility, change of direction… continue reading.

I always advise all beginners and hardgainers to concentrate on making linear progress (either by adding more reps or more weight) at each and every workout. Add a rep or a plate and you will make pretty consistent gains for quite a while. This is one of the key components to the Muscle Gaining Secrets program. Eventually, however, you’ll no longer be a beginner or a hardgainer and then the whole game changes. It will become more and more difficult to make linear progress on a consistent basis. This can be hard to accept at first and become quite… 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… continue reading.