Fitness

A lot of times people like to look for weaknesses too early on. The reality in most cases is, that you just have to practice the exercise more, perfect your technique and get stronger. In his prime Ed Coan may have had specific weaknesses and addressing them would have enabled him to go to set new PR’s. For most people who are at a beginner to intermediate strength level it’s really just going to come down to getting better at the exercise and using a lighter, more manageable weight. If I put 20% more weight on the bar than you… continue reading.

Guest Post by the creator of The Truth About Fat Burning Foods, Nick “The Nutrition Nerd” Pineault Your healthy food sucks. Wait a minute…. What the hell is this nerd talking about? Let me explain. What I mean is… your healthy food probably sucks. You know the grass-fed beef, free-range eggs, alternative sweeteners, olive oils, etc. that you’re paying a boatload of money for? They’re not what you think. After spending hundreds of caffeinated hours in front of my computer being the real self-educated nutrition nerd I am, I realized that most people get scammed when shopping for… continue reading.

Hey Renegades, I’ve got a great interview for you today with my colleague, Martin Rooney, the creator of the Training For Warriors system. Check it out… Jason:  Let’s start with an exercise that both of us share a common love for – sprinting. Why should people be doing it? Martin:  Thanks Jason.  Funny we start with sprinting because I say that sprinting is the exercise that most people stopped doing a long time ago.  Most trainers aren’t doing any speed work and it’s a shame. Lifting weights and then sitting on the couch is not complete training.  Sprinting, even… continue reading.

It’s pretty common practice in the fitness industry to tell females to throw out the scale. We say this because their goal is to lose fat and the scale doesn’t always accurately reflect what’s actually going on. More often than not it becomes a source of mental torture. What I’ve come to also realize, is that guys trying to gain muscle should throw out the scale too. I mean take that fuckin thing and heave it into the nearest dumpster immediately. Why? Because guys trying to get jacked obsess over the scale the same way that girls trying to… continue reading.

Guest Post by Tyler Bramlett, Creator of the CT-50 System One of the most common mistakes people make is getting married to the idea that the only way you can progress with your training is by increasing the amount of muscle you have or how much weight you can lift. While it’s nice to stand in front of the mirror and know for certain that you’ve packed on a few pounds of lean muscle or shed some unwanted body fat, there’s another area where you can make some serious gains. You see, strength training… continue reading.

Guest Post by Dave Dellanave I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I am traveling I always turn the TV on in my hotel room and I swear to you the show MythBusters follows me around. Every time I flip the TV on, the two main characters, Jamie and Adam, are dissecting some new half-truth. I love the show because they savagely, gleefully test the validity of a wide range of myths, movie scenes, YouTube videos, and news stories — often leveraging explosions and destruction to put the term “indestructible” to the test. Often,… continue reading.

As a young meathead, I did a lot of stupid stuff in the gym. I mean really f’n stupid. But I was in my twenties and thought I was invincible. Not to mention charming and handsome with the bloat of youth filling my puffy face. Oh, where have ye gone? Father time, you’re a cruel bastard… The point is that stupidity eventually led to shoulder surgery. That’s why I cringe every time I see someone doing upright rows or lateral raises.   I see it in… continue reading.

I just got a great message from a Renegade trainee: “Your workouts are my favorite form of training I’ve ever done in 20+ years. I’ve gotten in the best shape of my life and never enjoyed training more than I do right now.” – Optimized You (on IG) My inboxes are always flooded with messages like this. But I never tire of the feedback. It fuels to keep going, to keep leading more people toward the light. I love getting people off the merry-go-round of bad training programs and… continue reading.

Everybody knows that squats, deads and presses get you huge and that bodyweight training is just for conditioning, right? Wrong. One look at rings gymnasts or a quick YouTube search of dudes dominating chin up bars in every park in New York City will show you that bodyweight training can get you jacked. That’s because exercises that force you to move your body through space have a higher level of neuromuscular activation than those where you are simply moving your limbs. It’s one of the reasons why back squats are better than leg presses. Some of my favorite bodyweight exercises… continue reading.

Guest Post By Renegade Inner Circle Member Kevin Cassidy I was lost. For seven years of my life I was living in chaos, pollution of my body, and destruction of my mind. My life was in a downward spiral leading to my bottom. I started off with the world in my hands, and became willing to give it all away for another drink. I have been involved in athletics my entire life. I grew up playing football, roller hockey, ice hockey, basketball, baseball, and soccer with my friends. When I grew older my love for the game… continue reading.

There aren’t many things worse than being an un-athletic doofus. But a lot of times that what we let ourselves become in our quest to get bigger and stronger. You freak out and obsess over size and strength gains and you let your movement efficiency and conditioning go down the crapper. A lot of that comes from heeding the old “hardgainer” advice of doing no more than two or three short workouts per week and laying on the couch the rest of the time. Yeah, that sounds like the epitome of health and fitness. continue reading.

As a strength training newbie, if you do everything right you can gain twenty pounds of muscle in your first year of proper training. In some rare cases I’ve even seen some gifted kids gain thirty. But to gain thirty you have to also be growing at that time anyway, with or without strength training. That means it’s only gonna happen if you’re 16-22, maybe even up to 25. Gaining much more than that is going to be damn near impossible. That’s not a defeatist statement but rather a reality check so that you don’t frustrate yourself and get disappointed. continue reading.

Let’s talk about everyone’s favorite show muscle today; the pecs. You can’t train them like every other muscle group. The reason being that they’re made up of predominantly fast twitch fibers. Fast twitch fibers have the greatest potential for growth, but also fatigue quickly. They respond best to lower duration sets with heavy weights. They thrive on explosive contractions.  They can’t handle as much volume and need more rest. They’re “performance muscles.” Not every muscle group is like that. Some are slow twitch, meaning you train them… continue reading.

Guest Post by Natural Bodybuilding Champion, Tyler English The “Renegade Way” as I’ve come to understand it, has given me more then ever imagined. Since stumbling upon this blog after graduating college, it’s been a combination of the way in which I approach my life, training and business, in which one could deem, the Renegade Way. To say this happened overnight would be a fallacy, much like my approach to training, life, bodybuilding and business, it’s been a natural progression of growth. And it’s taken me a few years. My progression continues today and this growth will continue until the… continue reading.

Renegade Strength Club member, Michael Hodge sent us this message recently: *** My name is Michael Hodge, and I have been a member of the Renegade Strength Club for over 5 years. In October of 2011 I was weak and skinny fat, and I could not, for the life of me, figure out a way to break through my “plateau.” After finding Jason, I discovered that there was no plateau, and I was, in fact, just training the wrong way. Since I had seemingly tried everything else, I figured I… continue reading.