When I first started training, I didn’t know any better so I went to the gym and did all the machine exercises and isolation movements that I saw everyone else doing. I figured these would all lead to fast muscle gain and I would be huge in no time. My dad knew a steroid-using Italian guy named Tony who owned a gym and competed in several bodybuilding shows. He asked Tony if he could write me a program and Tony obliged. I was bursting with excitement and thought this would be the difference maker in my training. I met… continue reading.

As most of you who have followed my writing for a while know, I have never been a big fan of protein powders. That’s because most of the junk available on the market today is made from extremely low quality protein and contains cheap fillers, artificial sweeteners and other dangerous chemicals. I learned this first hand a few years ago when I paid a lab in New Jersey to test the top selling protein powders at the time. Most of these brands… continue reading.

By John Alvino When most people attempt to perform ab workouts at home, they usually just lie on the floor and engage in a marathon of crunch repetitions. This all too common approach will never lead to a well-balanced set of six pack abs. First of all, the basic crunch will only provide a marginally positive training effect for beginners. Once you get strong enough to crank out sets of 50-100 or more, the resistance the crunch provides is simply too little to provide a training effect. And secondly, the crunch only works the abs… continue reading.

I’m sure by now that many of you are familiar with the word tempo when it comes to training for fast muscle gain…Right? No? Well, I wouldn’t feel left out or get too worried about it because it is a fairly useless concept. Tempo, in the training world, is the speed at which you perform your reps in a given set. Therefore, the correct terminology should actually be rep speed. It is typically displayed in a three-digit code. The first number represents the eccentric or lowering (also called the “negative”) portion of the rep, the second… continue reading.

Question: What should hardgainers do for their abs? Answer: Hardgainers do not need any direct ab training. If you are doing a lot of big exercises like squats, standing presses, deadlifts and chin ups, what is doing a few sets of stability-ball crunches going to accomplish that hasn’t already been done? All of those compound exercises involve the abs and all of the core musculature tremendously. For hardgainers, adding in more volume in the form of… continue reading.

By Patrick Beith & Latif Thomas On a daily basis I receive emails from newsletter subscribers asking variations of the very same question: What is ‘step over drive down?’ How do you ‘step over drive down?’ What does ‘step over drive down’ actually do? I think you understand what I mean. And this is a great question that clearly needs some further explanation. The only way to get faster is to learn to apply more force to the ground. Simple Physics state that every action has an equalAnd opposite reaction. So it stands to reason that the more… continue reading.

Here are 5 random muscle building tips that may make a big difference in your training. – Don’t exceed 5-6 reps on most of your warm up sets. Your first set could consist of a very light weight for 10-20 reps just to get loosened up and get the blood flowing but beyond that you want to keep the reps low. The reason for this is that you don’t want to build up too much lactic acid or accumulate too much fatigue with your warm ups. – Don’t stretch before your workout in the hopes of preventing… continue reading.

You want to know how to gain muscle? Sick of being skinny and weak? Then start eliminating these five mistakes and you’ll be on your way. 1) Training Too Often In order to grow you must provide your body with the optimal stimulus and then back off and allow it time to rest and recover. Without ample rest time you will never grow to your maximal potential. For this reason I recommend that most average, busy, drug-free guys don’t do more than three big weight-training workouts per week. You can do some easier stuff on the other days, but three… continue reading.

I’m taking off for my birthday today and have handed the keys over to my buddy, and someone I admire and respect greatly,  Jon Hinds of Monkey Bar Gym. Enjoy… What does it mean to be truly physically fit? Feeling physically fit is definitely different for each individual. Some people feel physical fitness is the ability to bench press 300 lbs, other people say it’s making it through a full hour aerobics class, or completing a 5k run. To me, true physical fitness is the ability to do all of these things and more, at any… continue reading.

When people ask me how to gain weight the first thing I ask them is if they do deadlifts. If you are trying to get big but aren’t including deadlifts in your program you are wasting your time. There is simply no more effective mass building exercise than the deadlift. From your neck to your calves, nearly every muscle in your body gets activated and receives a powerful growth stimulus from deadlifts. Not only is the deadlift the most effective mass building exercise there is but it is also the most basic ,and has the greatest carryover to the… continue reading.

In part one of this series we discussed how to build muscle like the always-jacked-big-biceps-and-triceps sporting male gymnasts. In part two we are going to address the other most muscular athletes at the summer Olympics, the sprinters. If you took a survey of most average guys I am willing to bet that 99.9% of them would choose to look like an Olympic sprinter over just about any other physique option you gave them. Lean muscular and athletic looking; what could be better than that? I would even go so far as to argue that guys like Maurice… continue reading.

This is a great article by a colleague of mine and I guy I have the utmost respect for, Steve Maxwell. It reinforces what I have always said about doing sprints, strongman conditioning, playing sports, etc to get in shape instead of just mindlessly pumping away on the stair climber. To see that Steve practices what he preaches check out his pic to the left and take note of the fact that he is FIFTY FIVE years old! ——– By Steve Maxwell One morning, while observing a female endlessly running the treadmill-to-nowhere-fast, I realized… continue reading.

By Jim “Smitty” Smith When you think about the most basic abdominal exercises, the first one that pops into your head is probably planks. Planks are where a person lays out into a push-up position but instead of being on their outstretched hands, they rest on their forearms. In this position, the athlete or lifter will remain for a specific length of time. If the time exceeds one and a half minutes that is considered pretty good. The benefits of planks include rehabilitating a back injury, glute activation, developing proficiency for bracing the torso with intra-abdominal pressure and an… continue reading.

If you have been around the Iron Game for a while, there is one name that comes instantly to mind when people discuss leg training. That name is Tom Platz. “The Golden Eagle” is widely regarded as having the most massively muscular legs in the history of bodybuilding. His thighs measured a whopping 35 inches and were shredded to the bone. Tom’s program that created those unforgettable wheels revolved around one exercise and one exercise only; the barbell squat. If you want to add some serious mass to your legs you had better familiarize yourself with this… continue reading.