There are a lot of fitness tools out there, and I mean a lot. They can track everything from the frequency at which you workout to the level of effort you put into each lift. They come on ipods, probably ipads, computers, cell phones etc. But in my personal opinion - they’re all just too much for me.

At the end of the day, the only thing I care about is how much I lifted today, and how much I lifted 6 months ago. I want to see if the weights I’m lifting now are heavier, if I’m plateauing, if I’m gaining at a steady rate. I want to see if I’m getting stronger in one muscle and not another. It should be relatively simple - the only data I need is the weight I lifted.

This is why I recently built liftrr.com. It only tracks a few exercises (after a quick survey - I determined these were the ones people cared most about) - but all you need to do is enter the maximum weight you lifted on the site, each time you lift. It takes less than a minute, is easy to do, and gives you some really great charts to visualize your progress.

Whats the real benefit though? Besides the ease of use, and the neato charts - the benefit is charting multiple exercises on one graph and being able to compare your progress across exercises and muscles groups.

This is of course just the beggining of the site however, so I’ll be adding some deeper statistics as I get more data points, but for now its really just about keeping it dead simple.

Also, I’d love to hear any thoughts/feedback etc.

Thanks!

-Nash

After writing an article which truly accomplished nothing, I felt I owed it to everyone to post something of value. That said, I’ll be describing a new workout program I’m on called “rest pause” training.

First of all, I injured my lower back - how is not important - but lets just say I decided it was a good time to take a week off (a.k.a. deconditioning) and starting up a new workout program. Based on my diet, I’m cutting but I wanted to try something that increases strength and mass anyway, because I can always eat more if I need to.

Rest pause training essentially works like this:

If I can do 1 set of 5 reps of bench press at 275, 3 sets of 5 bench press at 275, or 285, or 295 etc. seems impossible. But, if those sets have 10-15 second pauses (racking the weight) in between each rep - it makes it much more realistic.

The reason for this type of workout, is you can lift much heavier weight, many more times. Yesterday for example I did 275×5 twice, and then 295×5 once. Whereas I used to do 135×10, 225×10, 275×5, 225×8.

With rest pause training you do 1 or 2 exercises per muscle group twice a week - and you want reverse motions (so your muscles are already pumped up and ready to go). So bench press would be followed by rows for example (or the T bar).

Because you’re lifting so much more weight, this workout program should stimulate muscle growth (assuming your diet is on key).

Right now I do chest and back on Monday & Thursday.

Read on for more… Read the rest of this entry »

This article is kind of a hodge podge. You read that correctly, h-o-d-g-e p-o-d-g-e. If you hadn’t realized, we haven’t updated in about 4 months. The reason unfortunately, is we all stopped working out and got really fat. So fat, in fact, that we were too fat to blog…Thats right, we were fatty mcfatfats.  But then, we decided to get back into shape, and quit being fat. Speaking of the adjective fat, when a person is clinically defined as being overweight, or obese, is it an insult to call them fat? I don’t know, but I don’t think so - if they’re fat, and its a fact then - Fat. Boom!

Now, back to reality. I haven’t had time to blog about fitness because I exercise 11 times a week right now. Yes, 11 times a week. I also work full time, 10 hour days, every day. And I’m still building other fitness sites in my free time (more to come on that later). Lucky for everyone (read:nobody) who reads this blog, I have found some time to make a post.

So, working out 11 times a week means: I lift 5 times a week, I do a boxing workout 5 times a week and I do one day of cardio once a week. Yea, that means working out twice a day, quite a few times. As someone who gets shit done - I wonder how people say they don’t have time to workout? If you’re someone who says that, I have a solution for you: sleep less. If you manage your time properly, there is always time to exercise. There is always time for everything you set as a priority. If you’re not ready to seriously commit to exercise, then #1, I don’t know why you’re still reading this post, and #2, don’t ever go to the gym to begin with, because unless you’re going to make a habit out of it, you’re wasting your time.

That said, I have stopped working towards the planche pushup which was recently discussed on yogymbo. I just know its not realistic for me at this time, considering everything else I’m working on. I do however have abs now, and will add the photo later.

As I assumed it all came down to diet, and working out 1000 times a week. What also occurred to me, is that genetics play a big role, and that I fucking hate genetics.

Here is an open letter to people who have natural abs:

come fight me.

Posts to be coming soon:

1. Rest Pause workout training
2. New fitness tool I’m developing
3. Boxing workouts
4. MMA Workouts
5. Dieting while gaining
6. Supplements as maintenance

If anyone has any requests or questions (that they’d like answered in one of those posts) feel free to ask in the comments!

-Nash

6 days of the week - I eat healthy. What does that mean? Well, right now for me it means no carbs, no sweets etc. Some of those days, I work in an office. What do people in offices like to do? Well, when they’re not on facebook, they’re eating a cake for any number of reasons: birthday, new baby, new kidney stone etc. If its not cake, its pizza. Why? because its Friday, or because certain company goals were reached or because there is a pepperoni surplus and we’re doing our job to help the economy. The bottom line is, in many offices, your peers will find any excuse they can to shove crap down their gullets.

The first thing this directly relates to is will power. If you don’t have the will power to avoid these foods in your place of work - you probably shouldn’t be on the diet to begin with, as everytime you “cheat” its like taking a step backwards.

I understand that will power isn’t easy, so let me try to make an analogy that you can think about to make things easier for yourself next time:

When you’re driving a car, everytime you step on the gas - you make a purchasing decision. Equally so, everytime you step on the brake you’re also making a purchasing decision. With both motions you’re essentially spending money. Just like with your diet, when you eat healthy food you’re consciously making an exercise & body image decision - which says the same for eating unhealthy food. So its something to consider everytime you’re going have that cookie, slice of cake, etc.

I know what you’re probably thinking now. “Its just not that easy, if I don’t eat the cake or pizza like everyone else - they give me shit. Why aren’t you eating this cake? What you don’t eat cake? Who doesn’t eat cake? What are you a health nut? etc. etc.” Its really easy to fall into these traps and just give in to the shit food. The bottom line is this - nobody feels good about eating the cake if they’re concerned about their health or how its going to help them - but they certainly don’t want to be the only ones doing it. Could you imagine being the only one to eat cake if you were surrounded by health nuts? Of course not! If you and one other person decided to eat the cake, it would seem much more acceptable however.

From my experience, the best thing to do in these situations is just say you don’t like cake, or you’re allergic to something in it, or you can see you’re working towards a fitness goal. You might get some pokes here or there, but if you can’t stomach that level of commitment, maybe you shouldn’t be working out anyway.

One of my common theories about working out & diet is, if you’re going to do it - do it all the way. Half-assing anything doesn’t have the same effect. Do an exercise till failure, don’t cheat more than one day on your diet, and most importantly - don’t be a damn baby.

-Nash

So, this is part 2 - the workout. It’s been about two and half months since I started this madness and I’ll say this: I love it. I’m in the best shape of my life, and I don’t have any plans to stop anytime soon.

Let me reiterate, the diet is the most important part.

Firstly, I exercise 7 days a week. It’s easy after the first few weeks and you start to notice results. For me, the best part of my day is the end of my workout - when I can really just feel great about what I’m doing for myself. That is a really intrinsic motivator.

read on for the details… Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I went through a lot of big changes - moved, new job, etc. etc. I decided with all of these things going on, why not change my workout routine and goals?

That being said, I always used to tell myself and others - that I had a 6 pack at one time, and that if I really wanted to - I could get one again. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I questioned myself, “could I really commit to that kind of diet and exercise regiment again??” I remember hating it, and never wanting to do it again. And I thought about how much I loved crap food.

Well - as you can guess, I decided to go for it. If you’ve read any of my articles about abs, than you know I had to start with the diet. I know I’ve said it 1000 times already, but you’ll never see abs without a proper diet.

FUEL FOR YOUR BODY

As I worked on my diet, I consulted Team Scivation (which is made up of professional bodybuilders). They put me on a diet which essentially eliminates carbs. One thing I really took away from the diet plan, was they said carbs could be considered “cheap gasoline” while the proper fats could be considered “rocket fuel.”

That one analogy put everything into perspective for me. I cut out the grains and all other obvious carbs.

To get a better idea of my diet:

I eat a lot of chicken, tuna, almonds, avacado, shrimp, (some steak), apples, vegetables, and protein shakes.

And one day I week I eat a lot of disgusting food, and drink a lot of alcohol - i refer to this as my “cheat day.”

As I’ve followed this diet for about a month and half, I’ve gotten down to a four pack, but I’m still slowly trimming away.

After finding an appropriate diet which is working for you - I can’t stress enough, be strict.

In part 2, I’ll discuss my current workout regiment.

Get ready to have your mind blown. There are about 3500 calories in one pound of fat. When it comes to losing weight, that is THE key factor in my opinion.

Whenever someone asks me, what can they do to lose weight, I always tell them the same thing, “sure, you can do cardio - but the only way you’re going to see a change is through changing your diet.” Not to say its impossible to lose weight with cardio (its certainly not) - its just a lot more work, and I know a lot of lazy people.

For someone who is just starting to try and get healthy, running 10 minutes a day would seem like a good start. But if that person is only burning around 100 calories, they’re going to lose about 1 pound per month. Which I have a feeling is less than most people will aim for when trying to lose weight.

This is why eating healthy is so important. But for it to be really effective, you can’t just eat as much healthy food as you’d like, you need to eat proper portions (think the size of your palm).

Our parent/sister/relative site Excycle, recently launch an entire section devoted to health food recipes, which you can find here.

Whats really great about the way excycle, is the way they’re going about displaying the recipes. You can browse by food (chicken, beef etc.), by category (high protein, low carb etc.), by goal (fat loss, muscle gain etc.) and even by course type (dinner, lunch, protein shakes etc.)! This can help anyone trying to find exact foods to fit their diet!

Check it out and feel free to add your own health food recipe!

Well, it’s live. Excycle.com We’ve launched excycle to revolutionize the supplement industry.

I know, I know, thats a tall order. But - we’re going to do it through a community, and a new approach to reviewing and buying supplements.

What does excycle do?: I’m glad you asked, excycle focuses on the person taking the supplement. They post a before review, and an after review. They can then view their results from taking the supplement. The data from all reviews are then aggregated for each supplement and shown to display how effective a supplement is, based upon the people taking them.

What’s the point?: The point is, most supplement reviews suck because you don’t know enough about the reviewer. If they have a totally different body type, goal, regiment, and diet, they’re also going to get totally different results. Thats where excycle is different!

We have A TON in store, and are rolling out new features every day! (We’ll try to keep you posted here as well)

We’re still in beta right now, so we’d love to hear any comments/thoughts/or suggestions!

Excycle.com | The most innovative supplement store online

I wanted to reach out and apologize for my lack of updates in particular, but I wanted to assure everyone that I’m still around. I’ve just been in the process of finishing up an HST cycle which I’ll be posting about soon, as well as some more gym related rants.

In other news, the main reason behind my lack of posts has been my current occupation: entrepreneur. I’ve been in the process of building a fitness company, which will be featured on yogymbo in the upcoming weeks! Until then, hold tight!

P.S. The other day my gym’s radio wasn’t turned on, and my friend and I who were working out together, seemed to be the only two people who knew each other in the entire gym. I never realized how awkward it can be when it feels like everyone in the building is listening to you. Well, awkward for them at least, I talk about some pretty weird shit in the gym.

Today I’m going to discuss a very important secret in gym culture. Only people who are serious athletes, or are jacked out of their minds know it, so you should feel very privelidged to even be reading this.

Loud noises. 

Thats right, loud noises. “What kind?” you ask?, well, all kinds, but mostly dropping heavy weights, so it makes a really loud “CLANGBANG!!!!1!!” type noise. This practice of dropping weights after a set is to show people how jacked you are. The louder the noise, the heavier the weight, and the more respect you ultimately gain from your subordinates. 

Whenever I hear the “CLANGBANG!!!!1!!” I always say to myself, “wow, that guy must be jacked, because that was really loud… I really respect him - what a cool guy.” Then if I know the guy, I’ll walkover and give him a congratualatory high five. Right on his fucking face with my fist. 

Don’t be a moron, if you drop the weights, you look like a fucking retard, no matter how heavy they are (unless its clearly an accident).