Tips to Make the Gym Trip Easier

I have noticed obvious frustration on the faces of gym-goers due to the larger crowd the last couple days and I wanted to share some dieas to make your trip to the gym easier:

1. Gym too crowded? Ask the desk worker when the least busy time is during the day. Chances are you can get in the gym when it is less of a fight to get everything you need to get done accomplished.
2. Define what makes you miss the gym- Do you leave work and stop by your house with intentions to go to the gym, and then end up staying at home. Make it your goal to go straight to the gym after work. When you go home, things come up and distratctions are there. Pack a snack to eat at work to hold you over until dinner after your workout. Pack your workout clothes and change at the gym.
3. Surround yourself with go-getters- If you really want to transform your body and improve your health, find some friends and/or family that want to do the same. Pick people that stick to goals. You will fail at attaining your present goals if your workout partner is the one trying to get you to skip the workout.

If you are just starting to workout again then it is a large enough of a task to break your bad dietary habits and sedentary lifestyle, use these tips to make the transition to a healthier you as easy as possible.

Legs are back!

Man it feels good to get back under the bar pain-free. It seems like injuries have been a common theme of my last 6 months. I have taken some time off from compound movements with my lower body and finally feel able to start getting back in a squat rack.

Around Thanksgiving I couldn't even do a rep with 275 without my back feeling like a gnashing of my teeth. Seriously, I tried multiple times to do 275 and was so beaten by not even being able to do one rep with what I used to use for a set of 12 for a warmup. Progress is to be made on this, but I am encouraged by my last two leg days.

1/14/2011
Back squat
the bar x 10
135 2x12
185 2x10
225x6
275x6
315 x 4,1

I felt like myself again. I had my max squat PR in March 2010 at 445lbs, obviously raw.

I felt so good I did squat again on the following Monday. I am going to continue the really low volume leg days and continue to inspect my form to make sure it is flawless. As my confidence increases, so will the volume.

1/17/2011
135 2x10
185 x 10
225 x 10
275 x8
315 x6
345 x 1-----> could have gotten more but wanted a heavier set
355 x 2

I am really pleased with my legs coming back and even happier about the soreness in my quads.

what are you currently working on? how are those resolutions going?

Happy Thanksgiving

Try these exercises today, more than likely you will be taking some time off of the gym this week with traveling and family time. Hey, I'm realistic. I would hope you at least worked out yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

1. Walking Lunges holding an EZ curl bar Overhead- Make sure there is room for you to walk with the weight OH. I did ten steps with each leg with just a 30lb EZ curl bar and I felt it in my quads and shoulders. An excellent exercise to incorporate multiple muscle groups. I also superset these with one-legged leg extensions for an extra burn
2. RDLs with a Barbell Row at the bottom- Obviously you want to pick a weight that is somewhat light for RDLs since you have to be able to Barbell Row it, but push yourself. Complete 12 reps each of rows and RDLs and superset in some jump squats.

Both of these exercises will kick your butt and you can shoot through them quickly if you are crunched for time. GET AFTER IT!!!

Conditioning Circuits

Need some new conditioning ideas? Use this as part of your routine, killer at the beginning or end of a conditioning workout.

Complete 4 times through, with 30-45 seconds in between cycles:

1. 8 knee-tuck jumps
2. 6 burpees
3. 30 second jump rope

Starting Smart

I had a very raw beginner yesterday for her first session and I thought I would throw some important reminders to those starting a new program.

1. Warm-up first- get your blood flowing and heart rate elevated, but don't kill yourself.
2. Focus on proper technique- use minimal weight and have a certified trainer observe and cue you through a couple sessions.
3. Openly communicate- if something hurts, tell your trainer. As their client, they should want to take care of you and you might call their attention to something they might not have noticed.
4. EAT- I had a client about pass out and she is not in terrible shape. When I asked her what she ate that day she listed off about 500 calories worth of food and it was 6pm!!! You have to have fuel in your body for it to go.
5. Drink plenty of water- Be adequately hydrated with WATER. Save the energy drinks for later once you have got accustomed to working out regularly.
6. Properly cool down- Know how to end a session, never just abruptly end activity. Lower the intensity (how hard you are working and/or the weight you are using on a particular exercise) and/or jog a lap around a track then stretch. stretch your major muscle groups- latissimus dorsi, quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, chest and shoulders.

I am ready to help some new clients reach their goals safely, and educate them on how to properly continue an active lifestyle.

Training to Look Better

I have gotten several emails & facebook messages from people wanting exercise programs. I have no problem helping someone out and getting them to their goals. One of my few pet peeves is when they add "I don't want to get huge" or "I put on muscle really fast" to their request.

It actually makes me watch to punch the computer screen.

For the men: Even with the best physiologic gift of testosterone that flows through our bodies, any one that has put some serious time in the gym knows that consistency and long-term goals are almost always the focus. I have gone through phases of just adding 10lbs to my max raw bench in a year and I was thrilled about it. I actually had an employee tell me that he was only doing sets of 20 reps on everything because he puts on muscle too fast...

what a joke. If you are such a physical specimen, train for a month and then go dominate a bodybuilding or powerlifting competition. Let me know how that goes for you.

For the women: Some of you have probably said it before... "My legs get HUGE after one week of doing squats." There are a couple underlying issues here. I feel that most women are more self-conscious about the way they look and about weight training. I know one female that is a really gifted athlete and works her tail off in the gym, yet she parties with Iota Tappa Kegga and eats sweets throughout the day.

The real issues to address here are pushing yourself through consistent, intense workouts and what you are putting into your body as fuel.

When women say their legs get bulky rather quickly, it is more than likely because they actually have worked hard in the gym and have added some cross-sectional area to their quadriceps and hamstrings. However, the garbage that they are putting into their body is in the incorrect quantities for dropping fat from their legs, therefore, they successfully add muscle to their legs, but do not decrease their body fat percentage.

So instead of continuing to use resistance training as a method of attaining their goals and cleaning up their diet, they drop weight training altogether and run like somebody is chasing them.

Every one can see some amazing results if they were just as dedicated at the dinner table as they are in the gym.

Cardiovascular training has a place in heart health and burning some calories, but the real shock to kick your metabolic drive into high gear are frequent weight training sessions. This goes for men and women. Guys, you aren't going to get huge overnight and, possibly, ever. If you are genetically a smaller framed guy with an ectomorphic body type they chances aren't great that you will be gracing a bodybuilding stage, unless you make a couple trips to Mexico for some real supplements. Ladies, continue to kick butt in the gym, but a lot of it boils down to eating better.

You do not have to get on a competition diet by any means... it's simple really:

• ALWAYS eat breakfast. Think about it, you haven't eaten since some time the night before so you need to kick-start your metabolism in the morning AND give your body some energy for work, class, or the morning workout.
• Find meats that you like and research ways to prepare them. Very few people will stick to a meal plan that they think tastes terrible.
• The same applies to veggies. Steam them, mix them in with brown rice or quinoa, eat them raw, whatever. You need your greens!
• LIMIT sweets. We are in a culture that is blessed to be able to turn almost any corner and indulge in manufactured crap that more than likely we will regret later.
• Limit liquid calories. Do you know how many calories are in your Moca-Frappa-Chocolate Latte?
• Limit carbohydrates after 6pm-ish. Think of carbohydrates as your body's main source of fuel. For the later part of the day you have no need to fuel up just to go to sleep. Our body does not let the carb-fuel just sit in a tank for use in the morning, it turns excess unused carbs into fat and over time the pounds will add up.

GYM Etiquette

With all the newbies in the gym lately, I felt like it was a good time for a refresher course in gym etiquette:
1. RERACK EVERYTHING YOU USE: It doesn’t make sense, you come into a gym to tear your body apart, get a good sweat going, and morph yourself into what you want to become… yet you can’t put away the 45 pound plates you used on leg press.

You can go balls to the wall on squat, but you can’t strip the bar?

You chase the elusive 400 plus pound raw bench press, yet you can’t put any weights back where they go.

QUIT BEING LAZY!!!!!!!!!!!! Rerack your weights, slide your dumbbells back under the sissy dumbbells, and don’t hide small plates in with bigger ones. There are multiple pegs on a bench rack, weight tree, and squat rack for a reason… use them.

2. When refilling your water bottle, ALWAYS let people go in front of you that just need a drink. No one needs to wait on you to fill up your 44 ounce shaker bottle while they just need a drink.

3. If you know how to spot, lend a hand to the little guy with too much weight on the bar.

4. Chalk has its uses… dips are not one of them.

5. If you need advice or help, ask for it. If you have advice, keep it to yourself until asked. I have figured out that you will save yourself a lot of wasted time if you keep your thoughts to yourself (unless someone is going to be injured). When I first got to UK I tried to fix every one’s form on everything, most people don’t listen to you if they don’t know your experience level and a lot of those people aren’t teachable. Those few "sponges" that want to learn and better themselves will find you.

CREATE YOUR OWN SUPPLEMENT

Gym-created products are the best at fitting the gym's needs. Any time you have a dedicated staff that is in your facility working out as much as they are there to work, you have the opportunity to develop a giant think tank.

Of course a huge topic in all meathead circles is supplements... when to take it, what to take, how much to take, etc. Obviously you should not be soley dependent on supplement powders and pills, food comes first. Supplements are supposed to be just that, a "supplement" to your diet of nutritious whole foods.

However, liquid protein shakes for peri- or post-workout nutrition are a nice additive if you are not able to get to solid food within a two hour window after training. Other supplements are easier taken in powder/pill form, like creatine, because in order to get enough creatine daily you would have to eat a lot of fish and/or red meat. For some people, that just isn't in the budget. Others supplements are great energy boosters prior to a training session, like caffeine. Some staples for me are glutamine, creatine, protein, and caffeine. Of course BCAAs are a plus that's why I choose a protein that has them mixed in with it.

Luke Beggs is a PhD student in applied physiology at the University of Florida and I had the pleasure of having him as a graduate assistant for the last year and a half at the University of Kentucky. He threw out the idea of just making our own pre-workout supplement... and then the rest of us started salivating on the possibility.

Luke started looking into buying the no frills version on the staples we wanted to include in our first Underground Labs Inc. concoction. There was five of us that jumped on board to fund this product. Here is what we came up with for the ingredient list:

We ended up having to add some more sugar free flavoring to it since the flavor wasn't the best... BUT it has given all of us a ridiculous pump when working out. Luke was also able to modify how many milligrams of caffeine each of us wanted, due to tolerance levels. I wanted 200 mgs of caffeine in mine.

I ended up naming it INCREDIBLE HULK for obvious visual reasons, but also named for how disturbedly hyped I was during my workouts on it.

Have you ever thought of creating your own supplement? If so, what would you need in yours?

H.E.A.T. Coach

I was approached about three weeks ago by the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Transylvania University (TU) about doing some conditioning for their athletes in their off-season. Since TU is a D-3 university they cannot have an organized mandatory off-season conditioning program for their athletes, but they can offer voluntary conditioning times in which a certified professional can oversee technique and safety... this is where I step in. The time periods have been named High Endurance Athletic Training (HEAT) sessions and I am pumped to start working on the programming for it.

I am excited about the opportunity to work with athletes again, since I haven't worked with collegiate athletes since the football team and the University of Kentucky in the Spring of 2009. I wanted to fill you in about the opportunity that I have accepted and start on Monday.

Are there any opportunities that you could take advantage of to further your experience and career?

MOTIVATION TO EXERCISE WHEN BUSY

YOU MUST LEARN TO TRAIN THROUGH ADVERSITY

For the past couple weeks I have been preparing for student move in, getting all of my employees back into payroll, training the graduate assistants, helping students move in to campus, help'n people move, and getting some high school students ready for the upcoming year. BUSINESS IS GOOD. I have still been training, and once I figure out my new phone, I should be able to expedite the process of uploading videos.

I have sent a couple clients back to Florida with a new-found vigor for health and five weeks worth of workouts. I was approached by Transylvania University about conditioning their athletes in the off-season... I am supposed to start next week and AM STOKED!!!

I have to be able to stay focuswed on training with a job and a half, family, and church responsibilities. You can sleep when you're dead, right?

what are roadblocks to your training program? have you figured out ways to overcome them?

Tour of the Underground Fitness Center

A couple weeks ago I noticed that a lot of people are posting what their gym looks like, so here is where I work and train.







and gett'n nasty in said gym on shoulder and trap day







go nuts

New Equipment!

It's been busy around the Underground. We have tripled our attendance from last summer... I love it when the gym is being used. The fitness director at the Johnson Center, Beth Atnip, across campus hooked me up with this list of equipment:
-Assisted dip/pullup machine
-7% grade smith machine
-Leg press machine
-weighted crunch machine
-glute ham raise
-pullover machine
-seated calf machine
-dip machine
-cable crossover
-three adjustable benches
-decline bench

Couple this new addition to our new dumbells and we should shock some returning students in the fall. A couple weeks ago I noticed that a lot of gym are posting "Tour of my gym" videos on youtube so I will bring my camera in tomorrow and show you all the Underground. I got a new camera some I will get some training videos up soon as well.

CURRENT GOAL: get to 12%

The Underground Strength Challenge is past, I have been settled into marraige and my new job for over a year... I need to achieve something. I need to pursue something. Although I was happy with my pr on squat (445) and bench (375), I recently had Luke Beggs check my body fat with calipers (he measured each site twice and I took the average of the numbers). Here are the numbers he got on me:
tricep: 22.5
pectoral: 14.5
midaxilla: 22.5
subscapular: 19
abdomen: 29.5
suprailiac: 17.5
quadriceps: 18
bicep: 10
lower back: 22
calf: 24

I put these numbers into equations on this website and got the following results:
Jackson/Pollock 7 site: 19.77
J/P 4 site: 20
J/P 3 site: 17.93
Parillo: 21.2
Durnin/Womersley: 22.83

Talk about a giant kick in the man-parts. I'm going to use the Jackson/Pollock 7 site for the current goal to get down to 12% bodyfat. Currently I have 177.6lbs of fat free mass and 47.79lbs of fat mass. WHEN I get to 12% body fat, I should weigh 206lbs... and I want to get there by August 6, because that is about as random of a date as I can pick.

I have a sticky note on my desk that says 206 and 12% to help keep my mind stuck where it should be. I'll be giving you all progress updates AND I should be able to finally post some more training videos since I just bought a new camera.

cool song


What are you currently training for?

My better is better than your better

Here is some of what I read or watched today:



http://www.chasekarnes.com/- "Get Outside"
http://www.tmuscle.com/- The Russian Approach to Size and Strength by John Paul Catanzaro
Sucker Punch: Dr. John Berardi
Beauty and the Cortisol Beast by TC



in the below video, skip to 2:25 to see real training.



I try to keep up with several websites, youtube channels, and blogs to keep training ideas fresh and motivation to keep getting better myself. Complacency leads to mediocrity which is certain to lead to death.

SUMMER FREAK PROGRAM

For the last two weeks this has been my new split:
Monday: Deadlift, back thickness (all rowing movements), and hamstrings
Tuesday: Chest and core
Wednesday: Arms and calf muscles
Thursday: off
Friday: Quads and back width (pullups, chinups, pulldowns, etc)
Saturday: Shoulders and Traps
Sunday: Off

The goal here is to individually tear up every body part and to shock my system into adapting to something new. I also want to bring up my hamstrings, traps, and arms. these are self-defined weak points that I don't have a reason to have around.

I also have some consistent workout partners, which I have been lacking for about five months. This is important to gains, if you don't remember why, read this and this. The group of present and future freaks that I get to hit the gym with are: Luke Beggs, Andrew Lewis, Tyler Brewer, and Jake Beggs.

I also am throwing some type of cardio into the week... whether it be sled pushes, full contact basketball, sprints, jogging, plyometrics, etc... something is thrown in.

Let me know what you are doing in the comments

Full Body Workout to finish April

I got the chance to hit the gym with Chase Karnes yesterday... he was visiting the area anyway and of course I was ready to get a session in. Chase is an accomplished body builder and he now competes in Strongman competitions at 200lbs. For more info on him and his training styles, click his name above to get to his website.

I usually don't do full body workouts, as I have been on a body-part split for a while. But as long as I'm lifting weights and I'm sweat'n... it really doesn't matter what the program is that day.

THE workout:
Cleans
135x12
185 2x8
205 2x3

barbell incline
135x12
185x6
225x4
270x 6,5,4
265x4

chins- used this new protocol that Chase thought up that has taken his bodyweight chins from 7 to 25... it works
bodyweight x12
+25lbsx5
+35lbsx5
+45lbsx5
bodyweight x amap... i think i got 17

supersetted these two exercises:
standing military press
135x12
155x5
185x3

facepulls
3x12 with varying weights... focusing on contracting rear delts

solid work put in, good day

Summer approaching... dedication lacking

I went into the Underground today to hit some back, biceps, and some single-joint leg work because my hammys desparately need some work. I wa amazed that I was the only person working out in the gym... there isn't a holiday break going on and I went in at around 3pm, not some outrageous early morning workout time by any means.

People have shifted their priorities to lazy gear. Sure school work takes up some time, with finals approaching, but really... you didn't have an hour today to come in and get crazy??? Maybe it's the weekend blues. Maybe some sort of flu bug is going around.

I don't know, but like these guys... I caught a different type of bug

Pics of the new Trap bar

Mad props for Shannon McMahan of Paducah, KY, for putting this together for the gym. It is a beast!!!

I went to use it and the little pin on the edge seen above had to be tapped a couple times by my sledgehammer before plates were able to fit on it. This trap bar is going to get worn out.

And since you are green with envy about the trap bar, take a look below at the results of my first grill out of the season.

Periodization = Changing Your Workout's Sets and Reps with the Same Eventual Goal

I was flipping through my workouts that I completed during my masters program (last 2 years) and since I got my current job in May 2009... I noticed something peculiar. Out of the rough 148 weeks that I have been training since I arrived at UK, I only completed 15 weeks of sets of 12 reps (mainly focusing on hypertrophy, which is increase in muscle size).

source: elitetrack.com

Periodization can be linear (seen above) in which volume graduallt decreases and intensity of your workouts gradually increases to peak at your season, spring break, competition, or some other random end point) or undulating, seen below, in which intensity increases, but the ride looks more like a roller coaster, with dips and small peaks before the highest peak at the end.

source: elitesoccerconditioning.com

Aside from those 15 weeks (only 10% of my training since august 2007) I have been focused on strength. All my core, structural lifts (bench, squat and all its variations, deadlift, and all back movements) had been 4-6 sets of 6 or less repetitions... needless to say my periodization graph would look more like a horizontal line at a high intensity with a couple of twitches in it.

I am not a fan of lifting for high reps, but I should be... at least for a couple months a year. I love the shock undulating periodization gives to your body. If some skinhead looking guy approached me with this past programming, I would smack him in his fat head and tell him that you (and more importantly your joints) need some type of break from going heavy on every lift ALL THE TIME.

Now I'm sure there are some nay-sayers out there that never, EVER go for higher reps. I can only assume that they have their fair share of injuries as well. I am not talking about one set of 25 reps per exercise... that would be moving you into an endurance program for some one that could care less about any real type of results. I do not mean 5 sets of 20 reps--- you might as well shoot yourself. I am talking about 3-5 sets of 10-12 repetitions, with a drop set once a week per muscle group.

I am on week three of my high rep month and hitting every exercise as hard as I can, knowing that my master plan is playing itself out. I want to be strong... like, what is he taking strong, you know? I don't want to be a powerlifter whose stomach combos as a table/shelf when he sits down. I also don't have any attention of getting super lean (sub 6% body fat). Don't get me wrong, being a giant powerlifter means you work hard, being a body builder that gets to 4% body fat menas you work hard. I want to be around 11% body fat and still be pushing 315 on flat bench for reps.

I am going to do one more week of this high rep scheme and then go to sets of 8's, then 6's, then 5's, at 4-6 weeks at each interval. I will let you kow how it goes. What does your current program look like? Let me know in the comments.

Strength Challenge Pics

Two of my desk workers modeling the free t's and their guns!

Above is a 10lb personal record (pr) for me on squat, 445! Below is a 5lb pr on bench at 375!

Below is Luke Beggs killing 480 on squat, another pr!

Biggest pull of the night is below, Luke got 525. Luke's total was 1325lbs and he also won the percentage total. He is a beast.

Jake Beggs benched 345 for a pr and got the biggest percentage of bodyweight on bench press. He weighed in at 185lbs.

Below is a picture of me dieing under 380. Didn't get it, maybe later this year...

We don't have a picture of the top of this lift, and his form might not be flawless, but Clay Brady pulled 470lbs and only weighed 171lbs... that won the percentage on deadlift at a ridiculous 274%!!!

Jake pulling 495, one last pr for the day! FIVE BIG PLATES!!!!!!!!!!

YEA BUDDY! LIGHT WEIGHT!