Posts Tagged ‘strength’
Sunday, April 7th, 2013
Strength and Balance Conditioning
When it comes to exercise, people often find one type of workout they like and focus on it almost exclusively. For some people this means jogging until they can run a marathon. Others engage in weight training in order to build muscles, bulk up, or bench press their own body weight. Still others rely on yoga and Pilates to help them increase flexibility and muscle tone while restoring a mind-body connection or adding a spiritual element to their workout routine.
The point is that it’s easy to get stuck in a rut with one type of exercise. Sometimes we’re seeking specific results, but more often than not we simply end up doing what we like. But this may not be the best way to increase your overall fitness since the practice tends to focus on only one benefit of exercise at the expense of others.
So if you’re looking to improve both your strength and balance, here are a few tips that can help you to reach your fitness goals.
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Tags: balance, Conditioning, exercise, fitness, Fitness Tips, strength, tips, workout
Posted in Conditioning, Fitness Tips | No Comments »
Monday, October 17th, 2011
First a quote, then an excerpt from Henry Rollins’ The Iron
“Strength is the product of struggle, you must do what others don’t to achieve what others won’t.”
“Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.
The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.”
Henry Rollins – a legend
Tags: bodybuilding, henry rollins, muscle, powerlifting, quote, strength, struggle, the iron
Posted in Celebrity, Quote of the Day | 2 Comments »
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
For those who still don’t believe Werewolf Muscle Training works, here is more support of my theory that increased frequency combined with stopping short of fatigue, produces equal if not better results that training a muscle once a week for an hour, with a ton of volume, going to failure on most sets.
The central nervous system is extremely important for performance, and should be stimulated aggressively and frequently, but should not often be fatigued. This also helps explain why you can train muscles when they’re sore… it works just as long as the CNS has recovered.
In this video you will find Christian Thibaudeau from T-Nation. He is way stronger than you or I, and he is just about as ripped as I could ever hope to be. A true inspiration.
“Never Chase Fatigue, Chase Performance”
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Tags: build muscle, build strength, fatigue, gain muscle, gain strength, muscle, performance, strength, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Fitness Tips, Quote of the Day, Videos, Weight Training | 3 Comments »
Monday, August 15th, 2011
Eat Right, Train Right and You Can Have it All
A couple days ago I posted the first 5 reasons you are not gaining weight. Here are 5 more reasons you are not gaining weight. Check out the first article if you missed it: 10 Reasons You Are Not Gaining Weight Part 1
Peep these second 5 five items in my list of 10 possible ways you could be sabotaging your muscle building plan.
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Too Much Cardio
To lose fat while maintaining muscle, you’ll want to stick to 2, thirty minute HIIT sessions; and 1, forty five minute endurance session in a week. Adding HIIT like that will help you to elevate your metabolism, which increases fat loss, and will keep cortisol levels in check to preserve existing muscle mass. The HIIT should be a max sprint for an interval of 30-60 seconds, followed by a light jog interval for twice the length of your sprint interval (60-120 seconds).
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Tags: bodybuilding, exercise, fitness, gain mass, gain muscle, mistakes, muscle, muscle building, muscles, strength, tips
Posted in Bodybuilding, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | 6 Comments »
Friday, August 12th, 2011
Attention Hard Gainers and Dudes Who Want to Gain 10 lbs of Solid Muscle!
You use protein shakes. You eat lots of food. You workout like a maniac. Yet you still weigh 50 pounds less than your goal weight. Sick of skinny wrists and stick figure calves? Stop making the mistakes that compromise your weight gain strategies.
There are several components that go into a proper weight gain cycle. Nutrition is most important, exercise is next, and lifestyle can make or break you. Today we will cover some nutrition mistakes you might be making. Fix them today so you can gain muscle tomorrow!
Here are the first 5 points in my list of 10 mistakes you could be making to sabotage your weight gain.
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Tags: bodybuilding, exercise, fitness, gain mass, gain muscle, mistakes, muscle, muscle building, muscles, strength, tips
Posted in Bodybuilding, Diet, Fitness Tips, Nutrition Tip | 6 Comments »
Friday, July 29th, 2011
It’s not this easy, but these 10 basic tips will get you started in your quest to accomplish your strength and bodybuilding goals.
- The basics have always and will always work best. You can build a core workout routine with just squats, deads, bench, overhead press, pull ups / chin ups, dips, and situps. Rows and curls can be added as needed.
- Find what works best for you and keep doing it until it no longer works. Start with the basics, optimize for your personal needs, repeat until you plateau.
- As long as you are making progress, stick with your routine. No need to change workout routines every month just because you don’t want to plateau. If your routine is working, stick with it UNTIL you plateau.
- Strength is greater than bulk. If you are strong you have nothing to prove and it is easy to get bigger. If you are big it’s tough to get stronger and strong guys will tell you “well, at least you LOOK strong.”
- Three months is the minimum trial length before you can pass judgement. Six months is even better. What I’m saying is, you need to stick with a plan for 3-6 months before you can say it does or doesn’t work.
- Free weights rule.
- Excuses will hold you back for your entire life if you let them. Stop making excuses, stop reading and researching, stop thinking. Just do it!
- You will become your environment. If you want to be weak and small, surround yourself with weak and small. If you want to be big and strong, hang with those guys, ask questions, and take advice from those who have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
- You have to really want what you think you want. If you REALLY wanted to be strong, you’d be strong by now. So change your mindset today. If you really want to be something, you have to want it more than anything else.
- Eat to grow. You have to eat if you want to get stronger. You have to eat if you want to get bigger. If you’re not getting bigger or stronger, eat more food. Especially protein.
Tags: basics, bodybuilding, Fitness Tips, Motivation, muscle, strength, strong, strongman, tips
Posted in Fitness Tips, Motivation | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Plyos, Olympic Lifts, and Dynamic Efforts are not the Only Ways to Increase Speed and Power
Strength coaches around the world prescribe plyometrics and Olympic lifts to increase force production – to build speed and power. Powerlifters around the world utilize dynamic effort lifts – box squats, speed deads, board presses – to increase their speed and power.
We can all learn A LOT from those methods, but there is one constituent of force development that the above methods don’t take into account. Consider reversal and/or starting strength, acceleration, and stretch reflex actions of the muscles that act as the antagonists to the primary sports movement.
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Tags: agonists, antagonists, athletes, concentric, eccentric, force, muscle, power, speed, Sports, strength, weightlifting
Posted in Martial Arts, Sports, Weight Training | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Do Bodybuilders Have to “Max Out” to Gain Muscle?
You may have seen or heard cliche slogans like “Go heavy or go home.” You may have been asked “How much do you bench?” You may even be impressed by Olympic lifters, powerlifters, and professional strongmen, all of whom regularly use maximum effort triples and singles to prepare for competition, to try to set a personal record, or just as a component of their regular training routines.
Well guess what? None of those sports are like bodybuilding. Sure, Olympic lifters are typically pretty jacked, powerlifters and strongmen are just plain “big”, but very few of them could compete in a bodybuilding competition and hope to win, without first dieting and training like a bodybuilder for several months.
This brings us to the question – do bodybuilders ever actually have to test their 1 or 3 rep max on any exercise? Do they have to lift super-heavy?
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Tags: bodybuilding, building muscle, fitness, gain muscle, heavy, max, max effort, maximum effort, muscle growth, myth, myths, powerlifting, strength, strongman, training, weight lifting, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Should Bodybuilders Train When They Are Sore?
This is one of the top offending bodybuilding myths. Have you ever canceled a workout or skipped training a body part because it felt sore, even though at least 48 hours had passed since you trained it? If you said “Yes”, then after reading this post you will never make that mistake again.
Your muscles will get sore when you use:
- heavy weights
- slow negatives
- forced negatives
- assisted negatives
- drop sets
- high volume
Do you need to avoid these training methods completely in order to prevent soreness, so that you can train again in two days? Not necessarily.
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Tags: bodybuilding, building muscle, doms, fitness, gain muscle, heavy, max, max effort, maximum effort, muscle growth, myth, powerlifting, sore, sore muscles, soreness, strength, strongman, training, weight lifting, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | No Comments »
Friday, March 4th, 2011
Extra Workouts Part 1 – Neural Activation Training
Today I am going to unleash your next greatest training tool.
First we are going to talk about training frequency and extra workouts, then I will get into something I call Neural Activation Training, which you can use upwards of 2-3 times a day in addition to your regular workout routine. This type of training won’t induce overtraining and can help you develop speed and power like you’ve never had before, which leads to increased strength and size. Neural Activation Training also just happens to increase fat loss.
*** Do I have your attention? ***
Good! Read on.
Extra Workouts
If you want to know about adding extra workouts to your routine, you are on the right track. If you don’t know what an extra workout is, which many of you don’t judging by my recent poll, then this is the place to learn.
For some time now I have written about using extra workouts to increase training frequency, and the benefits of increased training frequency over time. When I say increased training frequency, I don’t mean increased volume in a single 60 minute workout. I mean putting varying types of stress on every muscle group as frequently as possible, such that the target muscle group can still optimally recover. Volume is increased over time, but frequency is maximized.
I referenced increased training frequency in my Werewolf Training routines and in my Fat Loss for Men & Fat Loss for Women routines. In fact, I base most of my workout routines around increased training frequency at this point because I know how effective it is.
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Tags: bodybuilding, extra workouts, neural adaptation, power, powerlifting, speed, strength, strongman
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 22 Comments »
Friday, June 4th, 2010
I recommend training with bands specifically in the Werewolf Training routines, but also in any routine you might currently be following.
Recent studies investigating the effects of training the bench press with added bands and chains, have confirmed that strength and power increased faster by using bands and chains than by using free weights alone.
The Study
In this 13 week study on the effects of training with elastic tension on the bench press, 11 men in their early 20s started with a 1 rep max (RM) baseline strength test.
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Tags: bands, chains, gain strength, powerlifting, strength, strength gain, strength training, weight traning, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Equipment, Research, Weight Training | No Comments »
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Strength Training is Good For Kids!
It’s official! After many long years of arguing with fools, I am validated! Based on hundreds of studies and thousands of hours of research, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) have finally taken the position that age-appropriate resistance training is not only good for kids, but recommended.
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Tags: acsm, children, Kids, nsca, Research, strength, strength training, teenagers, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Kids, Research, Weight Training | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Now you can download the Werewolf Training for Strength Gains workout routines in Excel spreadsheet format. You can use these files to print out the routine and take it to the gym on a clipboard, keep track of your progress on the computer, or both.
The routine with 2 days of rest on the weekend and with rest every 4th and 7th days are both there.
Click this link to go to the download section of the post so you can download your spreadsheets!
Other workout logs are coming shortly. I’ll try to whip up some workout logs for the full body routine, 3×5, and some of the other routines too, but right now I’m working on the Project Swole redesign so don’t hold your breath.
Tags: gain strength, strength, strength gain, werewolf, Workout Logs, Workout Routines
Posted in Workout Logs, Workout Routines | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
1 Rep Max Calculator
I had published this post once before, but recently a couple people have asked for such a tool, so I’m busting it out again for all the new Project Swole readers.
There are many strength training programs that involve calculating your 1 rm or 1 repetition maximum. Some programs want you to use a % of your 1 rm, which is sometimes even harder to calculate.
Most of us do not how how to figure out this number without performing the actual rep itself. Use this easy calculator to get a basic idea of how much weight you can lift once.
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Tags: calculator, max, powerlifting, strength, weight lifting, Weight Training
Posted in Motivation, Weight Training, Workout Routines | 8 Comments »
