Weight Training

Back in the mid 90’s in a small town in Dirty Jersey, I opened Renegade Gym. It was one of the original hardcore, underground, warehouse style training facilities. The atmosphere was legendary, the results unmatched. Long before it was mainstream to push sleds and flip tires we did it. Way before you ever saw gymnastics rings in a gym we had them. Twenty years before it was cool to “train like an athlete,” we were doing it. Group workouts? Competitions? Record boards on the wall? Yup, we were doing that in ’96, son. As you approached the front door you… continue reading.

I always found it odd that training would make you worse. At least the way most people do it. You’d think it would make you faster, more athletic and able to do more real world stuff. But it usually ends up being the opposite. People use methods and exercises that continually make them less functional. They just turn into Frankenstein and are often riddled with pain and injury. That was always me for many years. Until I discovered a better way. When I share those methods… continue reading.

Choose Your Goals and Train Accordingly I like kettlebell snatches. Only I don’t do too many of them because my workouts already include a lot of overhead work in the form of handstands, presses, barbell snatches, carries, chins, etc. When I throw in too many kettlebell snatches on top of all that my injured, surgically repaired shoulder gets a little flared up. So I’d rather jump rope, push the prowler or run hills like I have since ’84 when Walter Payton inspired me to start doing so. That’s not to say that I won’t do a… continue reading.

By Nick Nilsson Overtraining is NOT evil. In fact, overtraining can be exactly what you need to achieve continuous and rapid results in your training and breakthrough muscle-building plateaus! So first, what IS overtraining? Overtraining is, most simply, training too much. Your body is unable to recover from the volume or frequency of training and begins to break down. You not only lose motivation to train, you become more susceptible to injury and illness, and you may even start to go backwards in your training, getting smaller and weaker on almost a daily basis. So how can overtraining possibly be… continue reading.

This is an old article from 2004, originally written for Elite Fitness.  Since it was quite popular and many of you may have missed it, I figured I would reprint it here today… **** I sometimes wonder if there are any prerequisites at all to getting a job as college strength and conditioning coach. As the owner of my private athletic training company (Renegade Strength & Conditioning) I have had the opportunity to work with athletes from numerous colleges and universities across the country and have witnessed their disgust with their schools strength and conditioning programs. Some athletes, such… continue reading.

By Brad Pilon The theory of Starvation Mode is something that fuels Obsessive Compulsive Eating in North America and throughout the world. To use a very basic definition, Starvation mode is when your metabolism supposedly slows down when you don’t eat enough calories. More often than not this definition is used to support very complex diet programs. These diets will tell you that not eating enough food will cause you to store more fat. Right after delivering this pseudo-science message of fear they then tell you the only solution is to keep eating, and here is the catch, you… continue reading.

Originally published at EliteFTS.com 11/2005 Last night I closed the doors to my strength and conditioning facility for the last time. After over ten years in the same town and the same building, it was time for me to move on to new challenges. When I finished carrying the final few medicine balls out to my truck I locked the doors permanently. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to meet a few friends for dinner. When I arrived I walked into a surprise party thrown for me by over thirty of my closest clients. I was touched… continue reading.