Exercise

You guys had a ton of great questions for me this week. So this episode is packed with info you need to take your physique to the next level. We’ll get your exercise selection, set up and execution optimized. We’ll get your diet on point. And we’ll get your abs to pop.  Bottom line, you wanna know how to build a badass body, THIS is the episode for you! Scroll Down for Show Notes: Click here to subscribe via iTunes… continue reading.

Doug Bopst is an award winning personal trainer, author, speaker, and business owner.   A former felon and drug addict, he achieved his credentials through his personal journey of transformation.  He used his time locked up in jail to beat his demons and reinvent himself, with a lot of help from an unlikely mentor.   Keeping a promise he made to his mentor and former cellmate, Doug has helped hundreds of people improve their lives through the power of fitness.   The insights and tips he shares in this episode will help you too! Listen now. Scroll Down for Show Notes:… continue reading.

Just out of coincidence I’ve been around a few ex-military badasses lately. SEALS, green berets, marines. Guys who are always physically prepared and ready to do whatever, whenever. That’s a quality all men should strive for. You never know when some sh*t’s gonna go down. Even though most of us live soft, coddled lives I still like to think of our primitive roots. I like to think of men as warriors. There was a time when we had to fight to survive and hunt to eat. continue reading.

A perfect snatch is a beautiful thing. It seems that more coaches prefer the clean when it comes to Olympic lift variations for power production. But I’ve always preferred the snatch and have been obsessed with it for as long as I can remember. Before I even started lifting weights, actually. Cleans are a great exercise but they are also significantly harder to teach/learn than snatches are. The other issue I have with cleans is that they can lead to wrist and elbow injuries. There are certain athletes, such as basketball players or baseball players, that I wouldn’t want… continue reading.

IF you missed the first two parts of this post check them out at the links below- Part 1 Part 2 On to part 3… 20) Do Dips on Gymnastics Rings Instead of Parallel Bars- Unlike the bars which keep you in more of a fixed plane, the rings allow you to move naturally and you can work around the pain. If I could only do one upper body pressing exercise to build and strengthen the chest, shoulders and triceps this would probably be it. That’s not to say that dips on parallel bars aren’t… continue reading.

If the deadlift is the best muscle building exercise on the planet why do many successful strength and conditioning coaches not use the movement with their athletes? The reason is simple; the deadlift takes too much out of you and is very hard to recover from. When you have an athlete who also needs to be implementing speed work, conditioning and sport specific drills on a regular basis you can’t afford to compromise his recovery ability to such an extreme level. A hard deadlift session will usually leave him slower, less explosive and with a general, overall feeling of fatigue… continue reading.

Recently Bret Contreras asked me for my top three assistance lifts that bring up the bench, squat and deadlift. I’m not a big fan of the barbell bench press by any stretch of the imagination (the military press is a far better, more functional, safer lift) but if someone wanted to bring it up and asked for my help here’s what I would recommend, along with three lifts to bring up the squat and deadlift as well… Bench Press Rack Deadlift/ Inverted Row- To bench press a lot of weight you need a big, thick, strong upper… continue reading.

Question: If someone’s trying to build muscle, is there any benefit to including sets of 50-100 reps, either with lighter weights as a “burnout” set, or with moderately-heavier weights done to failure and then continued in a rest-pause fashion? Answer: For beginners, absolutely not. I actually do the opposite of what a lot of people recommend with beginners who are trying to build muscle; I keep their reps low, not high. Until they master the skill of a complicated exercise like a squat or deadlift I would never risk exposing them… continue reading.

Question: I have a question about how to build big calves. Mine are like string beans and I can’t get them to grow. Got any good suggestions? Answer: Whenever people ask me how to build big calves, I immediately check their training volume. High volume works best for calves. They are probably the hardest muscle to build, and if you chose the wrong parents getting them to grow is gonna be a bitch. continue reading.

Although I am not a fan of high reps on most exercises for most lifters, there are actually times when I do recommend them. So if you want to learn how to build muscle with high reps, then read on. When you are more advanced and have developed a respectable level of strength, high reps can actually be a great tool for stimulating new muscle growth. The reason I don’t recommend high reps to beginners is because they don’t have the strength, coordination or stabilization to maintain perfect form throughout a long duration set and are likely… continue reading.