Fitness

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.

I got an email and very impressive before and after pics from Renegade Strength Club member, Mike Bulin. He said… “I started following the Renegade Strength Club programs 3 years ago. I must say they changed my life. I used to go into the weight room with zero guidance and zero confidence. Then I stumbled across Jay. I read a bunch of his articles and I was convinced he knew his stuff so I spent the money to join the club. I saw great results immediately. continue reading.

Everyone’s over-thinking and over-complicating this whole training and nutrition thing. You should see some of the questions I get on a daily basis. It’s mind boggling. It doesn’t have to be this hard, my friends. Lift heavy, get strong, get a pump at the end. Sprint hard, do some lower intensity conditioning. Eat more carbs on training days, less on off days. Unless you’re skinny and ripped. In that case eat a shitload of carbs every day. Sleep eight hours a night, take a nap if you can, do your best to eliminate stress. Use a foam roller and… continue reading.

Its summer so a lot of people get all concerned about having their pretty little abs showing at the beach. Because of this they crank up their conditioning and cut down on carbs. That’s all well and good but that shouldn’t be the only reason you condition regularly. You should do it all the time with passion and intensity because it makes you more of a badass. A guy who is big or can squat a lot of weight is pretty useless if he can’t make it up a flight of stairs or play some flag football or volleyball at… continue reading.

It was on a trip out to California many years ago that Diamond first taught me the importance of staying tight and how it could bulletproof me against injuries and instantly add 20-40 pounds to all of my lifts. I arrived from Newark Airport on a Wednesday night in LA and was scheduled to meet Diamond at Gold’s Gym in Venice the next morning at 10am. His name was Darren but everyone called him Diamond. Apparently it had something to do with his time playing for numerous baseball teams in the minor leagues. Diamond was about 230 and ripped at… continue reading.

You want to lose fat fast. So what do you do? Find a hill and run up it. Today. Seriously. Do it. You don’t have to go balls out like you’re trying to beat Usain Bolt in a race, just run fairly hard. About 75% of your top speed would be a good start. Walk back down, catch your breath and do it again. Then go home. That’s it for Day 1. No need to kill yourself or get injured. Only clowns train themselves into the ground like that. Smart people take the time necessary to prepare and adapt. Two… continue reading.