Building Muscle

I always figured the harder ya work, the better your results. And that works incredibly well with strength training… for about 6-8 weeks. Then you’re fried. Overtrained. Joints are aching. Sleep goes to shit. You’re tired but wired. Anxious. Irritable. In a bad mood. Sex drive drops. Can’t get stronger anymore. Weights feel heavy as f*ck. Why does that always happen? Because the body ain’t designed for that kind of pummeling on a regular basis. No sports practices are conducted with such balls to the wall intensity.  You always leave… continue reading.

You want the simple answer? No. Even though you hear a ton of people saying it the fact of the matter is you don’t have to and, in fact, shouldn’t always use a full range of motion on every exercise you do. People who recommend this are well intentioned. I’ve recommended it myself and still do to beginners. In a general sense it’s very good advice. But when we get more advanced and examine things more closely we get a different story. Sometimes a full range of motion can be dangerous. Other times it can simply be less productive for… continue reading.

Here’s a quick way for coaches and trainers to get more out of their athletes and instantly earn their respect. Train with them. It’s that simple. Of course, you can’t do this all the time but once in a while, even if it’s a very rare occasion you should jump in on a workout to show them that you practice what you preach and lead from the front. Athletes will always respect a coach more if he is willing to suffer with them. My advice would be to join in on a grueling conditioning day. Because, let’s face… 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.

Is a pump needed to build muscle? Some people emphatically state that getting a good pump is necessary. Others say just the opposite. First of all, the ability to easily obtain a good pump is a sign that your body is in an anabolic state and ready to train. It shows us that the body and the cells are well hydrated and ready to grow. Some days, you go to the gym and can’t get a pump no matter what you do. Your body is telling you something, and that something is that you are not in an anabolic state,… continue reading.