Fitness

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.