Hope everyone's holiday is going well.
I just felt the need to bring this up [vent/rant]. I was reading the latest issue of a bodybuilding mag. [no names when being negative] and something just grabbed me. This particular magazine recently printed the same arm workout in 2 issues [in a 3 month span!] and even gave the workout cover headlines both times. The workout was about putting 1" on your arms in 1 day. By the way the workout consists of doing a superset of a Bi and aTri exercise every 30 minutes for 8 hours. The workout is an "oldie but goodie" as it is described in one of the articles. The thing that gets me is that in the latest issue the publisher puts down kettlebells because they are old school and cause blisters [WEAR GLOVES %&##@!]. I don't get it, was he serious??? His magazine was one of my favorites, but recently it has become more and more a catalog for his supplements, which I am not for or against but keep up the quality magazine, try new/alternative things even if they are "old school". Stop recycling, at least not so close together, and bring back the posters!!!!
Continue having a great Holiday Season!!!
IKFF
Monday, December 26, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Happy Holidays
This will be my workout starting January
Squats [of course] 1x20+
A Ladder consisting of:
Incline presses, done to mimic a punch, start palms facing and as you press up rotate so palms face away, elbows out, explode up, and slowly down.
Renegade Rows [or regular rows or pull-ups], these are done with kettlebells, go into a pushup position, row up with one arm and press into the ground with other arm you can go back and forth or one arm then the other.
Cleans, I prefer with kettlebells
I will then finish with as many squat thrusts/ snatches that I can do in 2 minutes again using kettlebells.
If needed you can throw in a set of arm work.
I will be doing this 2-3 times a week
Here is an interesting change of pace for a workout from Dragondoor, a new Dragon Door author, Master Zhongxian Wu, whose Chinese Shamanic Tiger Qigong DVD that they are releasing today with a $5 discount.
Have a great Holiday Season and Support the Troops!!!!
Squats [of course] 1x20+
A Ladder consisting of:
Incline presses, done to mimic a punch, start palms facing and as you press up rotate so palms face away, elbows out, explode up, and slowly down.
Renegade Rows [or regular rows or pull-ups], these are done with kettlebells, go into a pushup position, row up with one arm and press into the ground with other arm you can go back and forth or one arm then the other.
Cleans, I prefer with kettlebells
I will then finish with as many squat thrusts/ snatches that I can do in 2 minutes again using kettlebells.
If needed you can throw in a set of arm work.
I will be doing this 2-3 times a week
Here is an interesting change of pace for a workout from Dragondoor, a new Dragon Door author, Master Zhongxian Wu, whose Chinese Shamanic Tiger Qigong DVD that they are releasing today with a $5 discount.
Have a great Holiday Season and Support the Troops!!!!
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Diet Basics, Fitness, Exercise, and Weight Loss with Marty Gallagher
A cool link with a lead in from Pavel
Power by Pavel: 'Purposefully Primitive' Fitness
When I recently visited my friend Marty Gallagher
in his PA compound I witnessed something
extraordinary. Together with his star pupil Kirk
Karwoski the former coach of men's Powerlifting
Team USA was coaching a group of overweight folks
in his garage. There was not a single stationary
bike or Pilates gimmick in sight. A barbell, a
bench, a power rack.
'The Cat Herd', as Marty calls his students, does
only the three powerlifts. No curls, no crunches,
just the squat, the bench, and the dead. They
follow the classic American powerlifting template
of the Coan and Karwoski fame and lift for a mere
30min three times a week. They walk outdoors for
cardio and learn cooking from Chef Gallagher.
Now what sort of results could such a primitive
system produce? Judge for yourself. Following are
two examples of what the Cat Herd has accomplished
in sixty days.
63-year old Betty came to Marty weighing 303 lbs.
and was unable to deadlift an empty bar from the
knees. Two months later Betty gained 8 lbs. of
muscle and lost 43 lbs. of fat. And pulled 135x4
off the floor!
Ron, a 49-year old factory worker, took his
bodyweight from 235 lbs. to 189 - while adding 12
lbs. of muscle in the process. Ron'd deadlift shot
up from 95x10 to 340x4!
Read the rest of the Cat Herd success stories on
www.martygallagher.com
Power by Pavel: 'Purposefully Primitive' Fitness
When I recently visited my friend Marty Gallagher
in his PA compound I witnessed something
extraordinary. Together with his star pupil Kirk
Karwoski the former coach of men's Powerlifting
Team USA was coaching a group of overweight folks
in his garage. There was not a single stationary
bike or Pilates gimmick in sight. A barbell, a
bench, a power rack.
'The Cat Herd', as Marty calls his students, does
only the three powerlifts. No curls, no crunches,
just the squat, the bench, and the dead. They
follow the classic American powerlifting template
of the Coan and Karwoski fame and lift for a mere
30min three times a week. They walk outdoors for
cardio and learn cooking from Chef Gallagher.
Now what sort of results could such a primitive
system produce? Judge for yourself. Following are
two examples of what the Cat Herd has accomplished
in sixty days.
63-year old Betty came to Marty weighing 303 lbs.
and was unable to deadlift an empty bar from the
knees. Two months later Betty gained 8 lbs. of
muscle and lost 43 lbs. of fat. And pulled 135x4
off the floor!
Ron, a 49-year old factory worker, took his
bodyweight from 235 lbs. to 189 - while adding 12
lbs. of muscle in the process. Ron'd deadlift shot
up from 95x10 to 340x4!
Read the rest of the Cat Herd success stories on
www.martygallagher.com
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Friday, December 09, 2005
Continuous Tension
Here is a training idea that is another great way to increase intensity and also bring up a lagging body part. This is cut from an Ironman training article
"We’ve talked about Ronnie Coleman, the current Mr. Olympia, who does only partial reps on almost every exercise—and those partials always include the max-force point, where fiber activation is red-lining (the X Spot). Another interesting detail is that he rarely does low reps as you’d expect—they’re usually up around 12. So what he’s doing is keeping tension on the muscle for a considerable length of time (we’ve said that around 30 seconds or more is best for hypertrophy). He’s also enhancing fiber recruitment by using a controlled explosion right at the semistretched point on the stroke—like near the bottom of a bench press. But let’s talk tension time first...Locking out on exercises where the target muscle can rest is useless because it kills continuous tension. That means moving the bar all the way up on bench presses and squats is costing you mass gains. The top range of the squat is almost all glutes, so the quads get a rest. At the top of a bench press your pecs relinquish the load to the triceps and front delts. So if you lock out, it’s like doing a series of singles, which is fine for powerlifters interested mostly in strength development and who have to lock out in competition (we’re interested in maximum muscle mass first, with a strength side effect).We’ve come to the realization that if you’re after the most mass stimulation possible, you should avoid the top third of the stroke on those types of exercises. Remember, continuous tension blocks blood flow to the muscle (occlusion), which triggers an incredible anabolic response—if that tension lasts long enough. (Longer tension times is one reason Ronnie Coleman is so freaky huge!)Time under tension—King TUT—is very, very important. In fact, we’ve labeled short, or lower-rep, sets as one of the biggest mistakes, if not the biggest mistake, in muscle building. Why? Because most bodybuilders are obsessed with using heavy weights and lower reps, so time under tension is cut short on every set. They’ve been conditioned to believe that low reps build the most mass, which isn’t true.Extended tension times—up to a point—do more for muscle mass than lower reps (one reason is the size principle of muscle-fiber recruitment, which is explained in "The Ultimate Mass Workout" [See IronMan link on the right] Low reps are more for strength with a slight size side effect. Nevertheless, lower-rep sets every now and then can enhance your bodybuilding progress by increasing your nervous system response—more strength may allow you to involve more fibers eventually on any one set (Coleman does low reps every so often, like on squats). If you want to insure more muscle stimulation, we suggest you add X Reps to those low-rep sets. That way you exponentially jack up the mass-building effects. For example...Let’s say you do a set of bench presses with a heavy weight that allows you only seven reps. If every rep lasts about three seconds, that’s only 21 seconds of tension time—good for strength, not so good for size (and remember not to go to lockout so that your pecs stay engaged throughout). When you miss on rep eight, you want to somehow keep firing the muscle to extend the tension time. Lower the bar to just above your chest, the X Spot, and blast up to just below the midpoint of the stroke. You may need help from a partner, but the growth response you’ll get from more stress right at the max-force point will be well worth the extra effort. (X Reps are impossible on free-bar squats, so you may want to do your X-Rep set on a Smith machine or hack machine.)Think about it. If you can get six X-Rep partials, each one lasting more than one second, you can push your low-rep set closer to 30 seconds of total tension time, the anabolic time zone. That gives you a double-whammy—strength-building effects from the lower reps and more size stimulation by extending the tension time.You get bigger muscle dimensions with more continuous tension, so blast out some X Reps on most of your lower-rep sets. It’s like size-building insurance! "
Try using that on your next workout
Tom
"We’ve talked about Ronnie Coleman, the current Mr. Olympia, who does only partial reps on almost every exercise—and those partials always include the max-force point, where fiber activation is red-lining (the X Spot). Another interesting detail is that he rarely does low reps as you’d expect—they’re usually up around 12. So what he’s doing is keeping tension on the muscle for a considerable length of time (we’ve said that around 30 seconds or more is best for hypertrophy). He’s also enhancing fiber recruitment by using a controlled explosion right at the semistretched point on the stroke—like near the bottom of a bench press. But let’s talk tension time first...Locking out on exercises where the target muscle can rest is useless because it kills continuous tension. That means moving the bar all the way up on bench presses and squats is costing you mass gains. The top range of the squat is almost all glutes, so the quads get a rest. At the top of a bench press your pecs relinquish the load to the triceps and front delts. So if you lock out, it’s like doing a series of singles, which is fine for powerlifters interested mostly in strength development and who have to lock out in competition (we’re interested in maximum muscle mass first, with a strength side effect).We’ve come to the realization that if you’re after the most mass stimulation possible, you should avoid the top third of the stroke on those types of exercises. Remember, continuous tension blocks blood flow to the muscle (occlusion), which triggers an incredible anabolic response—if that tension lasts long enough. (Longer tension times is one reason Ronnie Coleman is so freaky huge!)Time under tension—King TUT—is very, very important. In fact, we’ve labeled short, or lower-rep, sets as one of the biggest mistakes, if not the biggest mistake, in muscle building. Why? Because most bodybuilders are obsessed with using heavy weights and lower reps, so time under tension is cut short on every set. They’ve been conditioned to believe that low reps build the most mass, which isn’t true.Extended tension times—up to a point—do more for muscle mass than lower reps (one reason is the size principle of muscle-fiber recruitment, which is explained in "The Ultimate Mass Workout" [See IronMan link on the right] Low reps are more for strength with a slight size side effect. Nevertheless, lower-rep sets every now and then can enhance your bodybuilding progress by increasing your nervous system response—more strength may allow you to involve more fibers eventually on any one set (Coleman does low reps every so often, like on squats). If you want to insure more muscle stimulation, we suggest you add X Reps to those low-rep sets. That way you exponentially jack up the mass-building effects. For example...Let’s say you do a set of bench presses with a heavy weight that allows you only seven reps. If every rep lasts about three seconds, that’s only 21 seconds of tension time—good for strength, not so good for size (and remember not to go to lockout so that your pecs stay engaged throughout). When you miss on rep eight, you want to somehow keep firing the muscle to extend the tension time. Lower the bar to just above your chest, the X Spot, and blast up to just below the midpoint of the stroke. You may need help from a partner, but the growth response you’ll get from more stress right at the max-force point will be well worth the extra effort. (X Reps are impossible on free-bar squats, so you may want to do your X-Rep set on a Smith machine or hack machine.)Think about it. If you can get six X-Rep partials, each one lasting more than one second, you can push your low-rep set closer to 30 seconds of total tension time, the anabolic time zone. That gives you a double-whammy—strength-building effects from the lower reps and more size stimulation by extending the tension time.You get bigger muscle dimensions with more continuous tension, so blast out some X Reps on most of your lower-rep sets. It’s like size-building insurance! "
Try using that on your next workout
Tom
Friday, December 02, 2005
Bicep Workout from “Ironman” newsletter
I know I never give an individual bodypart workout but if your biceps are lagging you can throw this in at the end of a workout.
“…sometimes to build a muscle, or at least make it appear larger than normal, you have to look beyond attacking only the target bodypart.
What the heck are we talking about? Well, the biceps is a perfect example. There’s a muscle that snakes underneath that upper-arm mass, and when you build it, it pushes the biceps skyward. You may have heard of it, because Arnold was a big proponent of training it for arm mass. It’s the brachialis. If you want your arms to take on new dimensions fast, you gotta build this muscle!
When your upper arm is up and flexed to show off the biceps, the brachialis is a knotty mass on the outside of the arm that sits between the biceps and triceps. And when that sucker is pumped and plumped, you’ll get a more gnarly, jagged peak to your biceps so that every time you flex, people’s eyes will pop out of their heads. (Your arms will look much bigger just hanging at your side too because of the new thickness and density.)
First, the best exercise: According to MRI studies, the incline hammer curl really lights up the brachialis. Why is it so good? Because lying back on an incline bench with your arms straight down angling back behind your torso and your thumbs facing forward puts the brachialis in an elongated state. Remember what we said about stretch-position exercises? They trigger extreme anabolic responses in muscle tissue and also have the potential to stimulate fiber splitting. One study produced a 300 percent muscle mass increase in a bird’s wing with stretch overload—in only one month! (Stretch-position exercises for each bodypart are identified in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book.)
But getting a muscle bigger faster takes more than just working it in the stretch position. Remember, you want capillary bed expansion and maximum fiber recruitment as well. Here’s how to get it all in just two sets:
Set 1: Use a pair of dumbbells that allow you to get 10 reps in pistionlike fashion—no rest at the top or bottom, 1 1/2 seconds up and 1 1/2 seconds down. Keep tension on the brachialis muscles throughout the set, and when you reach nervous system exhaustion, do X Rep pulses from just out of the full stretch position at the bottom to just below the middle of the stroke. If you can’t pulse, do a static contraction—hold the weight steady—at that max-force point till you can’t stand the burn. Rest about two minutes and admire the swelling that’s happening—but it’s just the beginning. Now for the money set...
Set 2: Use less weight on this set, as you’ll be using the Double-X Overload technique. Between each rep, do an X Rep at the bottom—the max-force point again for maximum fiber recruitment. When you can’t manage another full rep, do X Reps or a static hold at that sweet spot—but you’re not done (even though your arms will be screaming). Now stand up and do regular hammer curls to extend the set. You may only get a couple, but it will be the muscle-building icing on the cake!
Do this quick-hit torture session after your normal biceps routine, as biceps curls hit the brachialis with big midrange work. The above brachialis attack will be the finisher and provide unique fiber activation, occlusion and extended tension time for capillary bed expansion—and the stretch will kick up anabolic hormone release and may even trigger some fiber splitting. In other words, it’ll put some freak on your biceps peak!—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson www.X-Rep.com"
Best of luck
Tom
“…sometimes to build a muscle, or at least make it appear larger than normal, you have to look beyond attacking only the target bodypart.
What the heck are we talking about? Well, the biceps is a perfect example. There’s a muscle that snakes underneath that upper-arm mass, and when you build it, it pushes the biceps skyward. You may have heard of it, because Arnold was a big proponent of training it for arm mass. It’s the brachialis. If you want your arms to take on new dimensions fast, you gotta build this muscle!
When your upper arm is up and flexed to show off the biceps, the brachialis is a knotty mass on the outside of the arm that sits between the biceps and triceps. And when that sucker is pumped and plumped, you’ll get a more gnarly, jagged peak to your biceps so that every time you flex, people’s eyes will pop out of their heads. (Your arms will look much bigger just hanging at your side too because of the new thickness and density.)
First, the best exercise: According to MRI studies, the incline hammer curl really lights up the brachialis. Why is it so good? Because lying back on an incline bench with your arms straight down angling back behind your torso and your thumbs facing forward puts the brachialis in an elongated state. Remember what we said about stretch-position exercises? They trigger extreme anabolic responses in muscle tissue and also have the potential to stimulate fiber splitting. One study produced a 300 percent muscle mass increase in a bird’s wing with stretch overload—in only one month! (Stretch-position exercises for each bodypart are identified in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book.)
But getting a muscle bigger faster takes more than just working it in the stretch position. Remember, you want capillary bed expansion and maximum fiber recruitment as well. Here’s how to get it all in just two sets:
Set 1: Use a pair of dumbbells that allow you to get 10 reps in pistionlike fashion—no rest at the top or bottom, 1 1/2 seconds up and 1 1/2 seconds down. Keep tension on the brachialis muscles throughout the set, and when you reach nervous system exhaustion, do X Rep pulses from just out of the full stretch position at the bottom to just below the middle of the stroke. If you can’t pulse, do a static contraction—hold the weight steady—at that max-force point till you can’t stand the burn. Rest about two minutes and admire the swelling that’s happening—but it’s just the beginning. Now for the money set...
Set 2: Use less weight on this set, as you’ll be using the Double-X Overload technique. Between each rep, do an X Rep at the bottom—the max-force point again for maximum fiber recruitment. When you can’t manage another full rep, do X Reps or a static hold at that sweet spot—but you’re not done (even though your arms will be screaming). Now stand up and do regular hammer curls to extend the set. You may only get a couple, but it will be the muscle-building icing on the cake!
Do this quick-hit torture session after your normal biceps routine, as biceps curls hit the brachialis with big midrange work. The above brachialis attack will be the finisher and provide unique fiber activation, occlusion and extended tension time for capillary bed expansion—and the stretch will kick up anabolic hormone release and may even trigger some fiber splitting. In other words, it’ll put some freak on your biceps peak!—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson www.X-Rep.com"
Best of luck
Tom
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