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. View More…

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) View More…

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).

As per a couple of posts ago…I am on a diet. This is somewhat strange to me, because my whole life I’ve been trying to get huge-a-normous. I feel that I’ve gotten to an acceptable size and strength however, and now I want to see how far I can push my body and how shredded I can get…thus the diet.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to fully implement all of my dietary rules, but once I find the time to actually go out and shop for myself, I plan to really up the stakes. Until then, however, here’s an update on what I have been doing.

View More…

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. View More…

After about a five month hiatus, I decided that it may in fact be time to start posting again. I must admit, however, that I had an outside source of inspiration. A good friend of mine started a video game blog, and posts on it just about every day while at work. I enjoyed reading his blog so much that it reinvigorated me to start writing again, and i figured if he can do it at work, then so can I.

Since it is so close to the new year, I figured I would touch on one of the most dreaded subjects known to man and woman kind (we don’t discriminate here at yogymbo)….the New Year’s Resolution. I’ve only really made joke resolutions in the past, because I figured I just didn’t have the desire or the willpower to make a serious attempt anyway, so why even try. Not this year though….this year….it’s personal (insert dramatic sound effect). View More…

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!

Today’s exercise of the day is the single arm cable extension, which is an excellent shoulder exercise. I especially like it because it replaces the dumb bell shoulder extensions, which never seem to get any easier.

Single arm cable extension shoulder exercise in HD from Nash on Vimeo.

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. View More…

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! View More…