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

Don’t HIIT it and quit!

So everyone and their momma’s been talkin’ about High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT). What’s so great about it? If you’ve ever seen a sprinter, they don’t look like scrawny long distance runners, they’re usually ripped. This logic applies to HIIT, it effectively helps you keep muscle/pack on lower body muscle while burning fat. In test groups of runners, HIIT vs. steady-cardio, those who train using HIIT burn more calories, lose more body fat, and lose less muscle. So do it to it.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Have you ever noticed that our health and nutrition “experts” never seem to get anything right? For example, one day a food may be proven to cause cancer, then the next day they’re telling us that it prevents cancer. Then they keep switching back and forth so you have no idea what to believe, and in the end it probably doesn’t even matter the slightest bit.

Well that’s how I’ve been feeling with supplements lately. I used to use whey protein after my workouts, but then I just got lazy one day and stopped and haven’t really used it since. Recently I decided to try to find some good supplements to enhance my workouts and results. Nothing too hardcore with crazy side effects or anything, mostly natural things that your body already has or creates, or naturally uses, shit like that. I came to one difinitive conclusion…screw it all. Read the rest of this entry »

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).

After reading Jimbo’s post, I was refueled to start making posts of my own. A little update as to my life in general - I just moved, and had to join a new gym. This was really an interesting experience, which I will be discussing over a series of posts where I complain about the process. 

I’ve also been working full time on starting a fitness company which I’ll talk more about later (and which has been keeping me from being more active on here). 

The first area of gym etiquette I’d like to discuss is short and simple.

“Racking Weights.” 

After you use an exercise with free weights (such as bench press for example), one should generally put the weights back in their appropriate pegs on the weight tree (as pictured - mind you, the weights are not put back correctly). This is helpful for the next person, who will be using those weights, as well as the next person to use the exercise you were just on.

Continue reading for scientific theories about racking weights. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever been told a physical activity is all mental? For example, baseball, golf… other sports where you swing objects at other objects. Well even though you may not be swinging anything around while lifting weights, its still a mentally intensive activity.

“How so?” you ask, well, its pretty simple. A person who is mentally pumped up, and excited will have a faster heart rate then someone who is just bumming around. The person with the faster heart rate will lift more (assuming all things are equal).

I remember a few years ago, reading one of Arnold’s books, and he said that for him, his mental motivation was essentially competition. He would go to the gym with friends, who would in turn be able to motivate him. To this day, many of my personal friends are the same way, always lifting more when they go with someone (often trying to out lift the other person).

For some people, that doesn’t work, mental motivation must be created from something else. For me, I like to think about all the things which have made me livid, in the past day, week, month, year, etc. Anything I can recall that can make me angry. The biggest problem I find with this, is that after awhile, I have nothing to be angry about, because I’ve just “taken it all out” on the last set.

When thats no longer working for me, I’ll try to just flex all the muscles I’m about to exercise repeatedly, and sometimes even muscles I’m not about to exercise. I always feels like this helps warm me up before a set, and gets me going. One of my friends who I lift with very consistently, always makes explosive noises to pump himself up. I make fun of him for it, but hey, whatever works right?

One night at the gym (think around 11PM - 12AM, 24 hour Golds Gym), I was lifting with some friends, and a guy came over to us to suggest some new exercises (some people are offended when this happens, but as long as the person is bigger then me, I’m all for learning new things. And if it doesn’t work out for me, who cares.) anyway, while showing us some chest exercise, he started talking about what he used to motivate him. He said, “I’ll look at a guy who I dont know, and I’ll pretend he just raped my girlfriend.” I know, I know, pretty intense. While my friends and I found the whole thing rediculous and funny (especially that late at night), it demonstrated how important mental motivation is when lifting weights.

Bottom line, figure out what works for you, and keep it up!

Now when I say a totally negative workout, that’s not to imply that the workout itself was unenjoyable, but rather that every rep of every set of every exercise I did was done in the form of a negative repetition. The main reason for this is that I’ve been working out in some friends’ basement for the past couple of weeks while away from home. The problem isn’t so much that I don’t have the necessary equipment, as long as you’re creative, you can get a good workout most anywhere. The real catch is that it’s entirely a free weight setup and I’m working out by myself, making it very difficult to lift at my desired weights. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been back home working out in my old gym for a couple months now and I’ve really begun to appreciate the importance of a lifting partner, or at least someone in the gym who knows what they’re doing when it comes to spotting.

One of the biggest changes when working out at home is that I can’t necessarily do the same workouts that I had been doing up at school. For example, Nash and I would do the 5×5 workout and mix it with a push/pull approach. Essentially what this meant was that we needed two separate exercises free for our use at all times so he and I could be constantly rotating, and that on some of the freeweight exercises (bench especially) we would need at least a lift off and usually a spotter. With no lifting partner at home, it becomes much more difficult to run back and forth between exercises, as there is no one to save the machine for you, and it’s just a huge pain in the ass to have to ask for a spot five separate times on JUST ONE EXERCISE! Read the rest of this entry »

A lot more goes into a proper bench press lift than a lot of people realize. One of the most common mistakes that I see is how far apart people place their hands on the bar. People will do a full bench workout and their triceps or shoulders will be more tired than their chest. The reason for this is most likely where they are putting their hands.

Ideal Grip: To get the best pure chest workout on a bench press, do a few practice reps just with the bar. A basic rule of thumb is that you want your hands to be placed so that when your triceps are parallel to the ground, you have a 90 degree angle at your elbow. Another way to get your ideal distance is to get into your body’s natural pushup position and measure the distance between your hands. Your body usually knows what works best and will automatically put itself in the most efficient position.

Feel free to lower beyond this 90 degree angle when lifting, it’s just a reference point for hand placement.

Variations: A lot of people either place their hands too close or too far apart. The close grip works your inner pecs and puts a huge load on your triceps and the wide grip emphasizes the shoulders. Most people lose some weight on their max bench if they have their hands too close/far.

I’m not saying the close and wide grips aren’t legitimate techniques. They’re actually very useful for building up the shoulder and tricep muscles necessary to improve your bench press, but they’re not helping you if you don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.

Just as one last tip, even if you are trying to work your shoulders/outer pecs, I wouldn’t go too too far past shoulde width on the grip and if you do be careful with the weight. If you’re not careful it can really wreck your shoulders.