Today I have part 1 of a recent interview I did for my buddy Craig Ballantyne. Craig Ballantyne: Jay, why don’t you give us a little bit of background about who Jason Ferruggia is? Some of the readers may not be familiar with your stuff, so just give us the Renegade Strength Coach background. Jason Ferruggia: Sure. I’ve been training people since the early 90’s. In 1994 I opened up Renegade Gym in New Jersey with the money I had saved up. I was actually still going to school at the time as well. Since then I have… continue reading.

It’s almost impossible to imagine it today, but there was a time, many years ago, when athletes avoided strength training like the plague for fear that it would make them slow and “muscle bound.” Fortunately we have long since discovered that that was a myth and nowadays just about every athlete on the planet, from tennis players and golfers to football players and wrestlers, participates in some type of strength training program. This is frequently talked about by the announcers and highlighted in pregame videos. How the sporting world has changed over the years… Strength training making… continue reading.

Question: What is the best way to stay hydrated during training camp and two-a-days? Is there a certain hydration “procedure” during hot weather workouts, which may or may not be limited to a certain form of drink mix.. ( ie, fruit, vitamin supplements, change of food intake, etc.. ) Despite the best efforts of football staffs, we seem to hear of disasters in this area every year……I want to just try and give my son every advantage that I can… Answer: The best thing I’ve found, that I I’ve used with great success over the… continue reading.

Long before I kinda “went mainstream” and had the Hardgainer column every month in Men’s Fitness and became known for my ability to help skinny guys get bigger and stronger there was a smaller, hardcore audience that knew me only as the guy who trained football players and combat athletes in a dungeon gym in New Jersey. As much as I love getting guys bigger and stronger, when you throw in the element of speed, conditioning and overall improved athleticism I get REALLY excited. That’s my true passion. If I could only train one type of client it would… continue reading.

In between sets of box jumps recently one of my athletes asked me why we don’t train calves. “You wanna train calves?” I asked. “Well, I’d like to have some bigger calves. I mean, mine look kinda silly, being so small and all.” “Have you seen mine? Not exactly what you’d call huge. More like tomato cans.” “There not as small as mine, though.” “Yeah, but I’m 30 plus pounds bigger than you. Proportionately they’re the same.” “So, you don’t train your calves?” “Nope.” “Why not?” “Well, first of all, I hate training calves. I hate all… continue reading.

By Dave Ruel of AnabolicCooking.com Makes 4 Servings Ingredients * – 1 Tbs. lemon juice * – 1/2 tsp. rosemary, crumbled, or 2 tsp. fresh, chopped * – 1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. olive oil * – 4 six ounce salmon steaks Directions * 1. Combine all ingredients, except salmon, and pepper to taste in a bowl. * 2. Pour mix into the bottom of a small baking dish. * 3. Add salmon steaks and turn to coat. * 4. Marinate 15 minutes. * 5. Wrap… continue reading.

It’s funny, but these days, with all the advances in science and technology that have been made over the last few decades, an average skinny guy has far less of a chance of ever getting significantly bigger, stronger and faster than he did twenty or thirty years ago. Why? Because there is far too much information out there and society as a whole has developed an incurable case of ADD. The Baltimore Colts won Super Bowl V while training under the watchful eye of legendary strength coach, Bill Starr. You know what their program consisted of? Bench, squat, clean-… 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… continue reading.

Aside from the constant barrage of date requests I get from a fully intoxicated Britney Spears (that chick won’t take no for answer), one of the most frequent emails that’s been coming my way lately is a request for muscle building smoothie recipes. So today I’m going to show you how to make a few of my favorite drinks. The ones that don’t kill brain cells, that is. First things first- like mom always said… “Turn down that goddamn music!” “I found another condom wrapper and empty six pack under your bed!” “You history teacher called and… continue reading.

As you may know by now I suffered a torn rotator cuff and labrum that required surgery. The injury was a long time in the making and the destruction of my shoulder began many years ago when I was doing stupid things like isometronic training in the power rack and other high risk, low reward methods. Before surgery I was sitting at about 227 pounds. After several months of being incapacitated and eating like a normal human I was down to 179! Like I’ve always said, my hardgainer genetics are freakishly bad. Hell, my wrists don’t even measure seven inches… continue reading.

To build muscle fast you need to present the body with a stimulus that it isn’t used to. This stress will cause the body to adapt by building itself up bigger and stronger. Where most people go wrong is that they think they need to annihilate the muscle in order to elicit any type of response. This is counterproductive. When you annihilate the muscle with tons of sets, reps and constantly train to failure and beyon you drastically increase your recovery time. The problem with that is that training frequency is very important. So when you increase your recovery… continue reading.

Stop over thinking. That’s it. That’s one very important key to fast muscle growth. It’s that simple. Stop doing that and instead focus on what’s really important and you’ll grow a hell of a lot faster. Every day people ask me what angle they should set the incline bench to, should they do hill sprints or sled sprints, whether they should wait two hours or two and half hours between meals, if they should do six reps or eight reps on dumbbell presses, if they should rest between arms when doing 1 arm rows or do both arms and… continue reading.

Let’s say you’re training someone who’s fat and weak but their goal is to get lean. They aren’t obese but they have 25-35 pounds to lose. Pretty much like every average American. Since fat loss is the goal you might be inclined to put them on a typical “fat loss workout.” This means that they would do a total body, circuit style workout, alternating upper, lower and full body exercises with moderately high reps (8-20) and minimal rest periods (0-60). Sounds like a decent plan. Except for the fact that they are too weak to get anything out of it. continue reading.

Guys, I’ve been saying it for years- you gotta train old school and you gotta train like an athlete, no matter what your goal.  Someone who wholeheartedly agrees with me is my buddy and professional strongman competitor Elliot Hulse, who is also  the co-creator of the Lean Hybrid Muscle System (which is on sale for 50% off until tomorrow, by the way). Check out this killer post by Elliot below… If you’re like me, you probably want nothing more than to feel like a ’super-stud’ every time you take your shirt off in public. You want to have… continue reading.

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.