Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is James but all my buddies call me Jimmy & I’m from Jersey. I’ve always played sports - football (my favorite), basketball, baseball, swimming, soccer, track, and wrestling. I lifted occasionally through high school but nothing serious. After my freshman year of college I started to get into it a little more.

I was always the smallest kid on the field. I used to eat anything and everything in sight and could never put on a pound. I wrestled at the 112 lb weight class my freshman year of high school! Going into my sophomore year of college i recall weighing in at 135 lbs. I packed on some ”bad” weight, I guess you would call it, my freshman year of college. I started lifting during the second semester with little knowledge of working out. I started using a protein supplement and used to watch the exercises the bigger guys were doing. I started to see changes in my physique very quickly. Soon it became addicting and you could find me in the gym 4-5 times a week. I began to feel more confident about myself and had more energy as a whole.

I remember some of my friends coming up to me saying, “Hey Jim, you workin out or what kid?!” I’m not gunna lie, it made me feel good seeing that other people noticed some of the work I was putting in.  At this point I didn’t really have a set routine in terms of a lifting schedule and exercises. I would just go to the gym and just experiment trying different machines and equipment. At first, I felt like an idiot because I didn’t know how to work some of the equipment and wasn’t really sure how much weight I could do, so it was a little embarrassing to say the least.

After freshman year was over, I moved back home for the summer and didn’t have a gym membership. I also didn’t have much money to get one so instead I borrowed some equipment from my cousin. He gave me an old bench which was adjustable (incline, flat, decline), a bunch of plates, a pair of dumbbells and some other random stuff like an ez bar and other old equipment he never used. I worked out of my garage where it would get scorching hot during those summer days. I tried to convince my mom to let me move the equipment into the basement and turn my brother’s room (he moved out) into a weight room…..she was not having it. I used that old equipment every winter break and summer until I graduated college. It wasn’t worth it to get a membership somewhere when I was just going back to school anyway. The toughest was during the winter months. I used to wear hoodies with layers underneath and winter gloves (the barbell would be cold as ice!!!) It was a little ridiculous but I did what i had to do and toughed it out. If I could, I would workout outdoors all the time during the summer - you get a really good burn when it’s warmer out.

I didn’t get realllly serious about weight lifting until I graduated college and came home. Freshman year I weighed in at 135 and when I graduated I weighed 150. I’m proud to say that I put on 15lbs and no it wasn’t the freshman 15….. it was 15lbs of SOLID muscle by the end of my college career. When I got home in December (I graduated early) I decided enough is enough. The old equipment wasn’t doing it for me anymore and it was time to get serious. I joined a gym nearby and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Currently I go to the gym 5 times a week and have a very healthy diet. It’s sooo much easier to eat right when your at home - thanks mom.

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

Granted some people are consistent, motivated fitness oriented individuals(like Maverick and Iceman), the rest of the universe may not be ready to look their best for the coming summer season. Well fret not; this guide will whip you into shape in 4-6 weeks. This is part 1 of 3 part series to get you looking your finest for the summer ladies and gents. That strapping young gent in the photo is a 1980’s Val Kilmer in a little known cinema-gem known as Top Gun.

Let’s start simple; you need to modify your diet. I’m not talking about eating celery sticks and drinking crystal light and nothing else for 8 weeks.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since I haven’t formally introduced myself, this is my shalom to our readers. I’m the newest addition to the yoGymbo team but I’ve known Nash for way too long, we did a sixth grade project in English class on Greek mythology together(along with Dan Hung). I’m the skinny guy in the mix, at least compared to the other two bro’s, but in my defense from freshman year to senior year of college I did pack on around 45 lbs of muscle. I’ve been weight lifting for six years, in addition I have a black belt in tae kwon do, four years of XC/Track & Field experience(highschool), was on the UMass Men’s Crew team, and am an avid cycler(co-founder of the UMass Triathlon club). I have been trying to find the delicate balance between having mass along with cardiovascular endurance. I’m a fiend for random info so I’m full of useful(and useless) information on cardiovascular exercises, weight lifting, and dieting.

What else… I make way too many bad jokes. I wear free/old t-shirts to the gym cause that’s how I roll and listen to ridiculous music when i run. I dance like a white dude, but the ladies go crazy for my sugar lumps(for all you flight of the conchords fans).

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.

Since I am temporarily separated from all of my workout partners, it’s been somewhat of a challenge trying to continuously push myself. Not just in how hard I work out, but also with changing up the routine. By the way, Marissa Miller wasn’t actually my trainer, I just thought we should finally get a picture of a hot girl on the site…and I love her.

As luck would have it, when I joined my gym, I got a free personal training session. Most gyms do this, so go ask about it if you haven’t already. I set up the time and when I met with the trainer he of course asked me what my goals were and why I wanted the session blah blah fuckin blah. I basically told him that I wanted him to hurt me, kill me, push me, take my body to the edge, make me cry like a little school girl panzy ass bitch, so on and so forth. 

HUGE MISTAKE (But an awesome huge mistake) Read the rest of this entry »

To those loyal fans of yogymbo, I apologize for the lack of daily updating recently, but there has been an absolute sleu of events that have been eating up my time before graduation. For about the next five days I will be in the Bahamas and unable to post any new articles (poor me I know). I did feel it was necessary to comment on what was most likely the last workout that Nash and I will have at Bentley College. That’s not to say we won’t workout together in the future, but it probably won’t be at bentley. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve noticed the minor change to our logo, you will have learned that we now will be broadcasting in HD. What this means is that our demonstration videos will begin to be of much much higher quality, real HD as a matter of fact.

Although we’ve already started to work on new demonstration videos, we still have a few more of less quality which we still have yet to post. So stay tuned!

Pushups are a great exercise to do because they are so simple and you can work so many different body parts at the same time. One problem with a regular pushup is that you might not necessarily get the range of motion you desire on the way down. The Perfect Pushup and the Pushup Pro are two items which really help you work your back and outside chest muscles on your pushups. Additionally, the handles on both items can rotate at your own discretion. Read the rest of this entry »

When most people hear “core training” the first thing they think about are your abs. While the abdominals are definitely a part of your core muscles, there’s much more to it than that. The list of muscles that actually make up your “core” is open to interpretation, but generally they’re the muscles that run the length of your spine/torso. I don’t really consider chest and upper back core muscles, but that’s just me. These muscles are responsible for stabilizing everything from your hips to your spine to your shoulders and they give you a strong base so you can better control your body. Read the rest of this entry »