Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Training economy

Training economy is a term I like to use to describe how useful, effective, and results driven a particular routine, exercise, or equipment may be. Bottom line is most Fakeness World members (or any corporate gym member) waste way too much time at the gym!

Instead of getting in and out and killing their workout with the intensity of a warrior. They freaking bullshit with their "training partner" while they bicep curl a dumbbell that might as well be painted pink and have fluffy feathers with one hand and talk on their cell phone with the other. STOP IT!

If you want results whether it be losing weight or gaining muscle you HAVE to pick exercises with high training economy aka the best bang for your buck! Compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses, olympic lift variations, chin ups, and lots and lots of rows! For conditioning there's nothing better than complexes and high intensity interval training, sprinting, bodyweight circuits, and sled dragging. If it's hard, makes you sweat so much you're leaving butt sweat angels all over the benches, and you have to will yourself to do it, then it's probably a DAMN GOOD EXERCISE

Why does heavy compound movements work!? well the more muscles and joints involved in a specific exercise, the more of a hormonal response your body produces. The goal is to trick your body into thinking it's going to war. If your pushing a really heavy weight, in reality your body has no freaking clue if that weight is a barbell or a 400 lbs man who want to make you his date. All it knows is that if you don't push that weight something bad might happen...so testosterone levels are increased dramatically! more testosterone=more strength and muscle

Finishing up your workout with a brutal high rep low rest complex or circuit is a great way to end the day! The more it burns the better it will be. Pick compound movements again but the rest periods are really short. When the body produces lactic acid a secondary response occurs which also produces growth hormone. Another wonderful hormonal response! Growth hormone will help increase your metabolism, burn extra fat, grow muscle, as well as restore connective tissue. Now that's a freaking BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

If you're pressed for time GET YOUR WORK DONE! THEN GET OUT OF THE GYM! If you have any damn juice left and time to spare throw in some arm work and isolation work, but only if you've done the rest.

Killer full body strength and conditioning!

I've been super busy with the new Iron Athletics business stuff so I had to rock out a quick intense full body workout to save time. This one was great! I also got to make use of my new TRX suspension bands. These things are damn useful!

Strength
1a) Back squats work up to a heavy set of 3
1b) Dumbbell snatch work up to a heavy set of 3 per arm

Bodyweight work
2a) TRX Inverted rows 3x max reps
2b) TRX suspended push-ups 3x max reps

Conditioning (pick a dumbbell and go back and forth between the two exercises starting at 10 reps each and working down a rep until you reach 1. You aren't allowed to drop the dumbbell until you are done)
3a) dumbbell swings 10-1
3b) dumbbell zercher squat 10-1

-This one killed me! I'm recovering from a cold so I've got the lunge capacity of a 70 year old smoker at bingo! my biceps and forearms were burning like I got some sort of rash from a toilet seat and my mid back was screaming like a wild banshee! IT WAS AWESOME! (god I'm sick)...but this is the stuff we live for! It smacks us and brings us to the present! It reminds us to keep living to the fullest!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Ground Zero

Geeze I'm on top of this blog thing aren't I

Well...as you can see I've definitely been VERY active on this blog lately. Unfortunately I've been really busy juggling some big changes in my work life so it has been difficult. For you who don't know I'll be venturing into starting my own IRON ATHLETICS training centre! I'm super pumped for this! While I've been very active in the industry thus far...I've never started my own business, so everything is a learning experience!

I'm doing as much research as possible from the greats in the industry, but there is still lots to learn. I thought it would be interesting to write as well as upload video of the whole process. I've been toying with the idea but figured it should be done!

So far I've purchased some equipment and put it into the building which i'll be operating out of. I'll be keeping the equipment pretty basic. Nothing fancy just hard work. The space I have is tiny but it has a great parking lot to pull sleds, flip tires, and basically anything else that will build some serious ass kicking strength! As well there are plenty of schools, fields, and playgrounds to mix it up with! They just recently cut down a tree in the lot so there is big pieces of wood to use for lunging, squats, overhead pressing...you name it! Anyways that's it for now homies! I'll keep you posted and I'll shoot some video of the place tomorrow!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

2nd week 3 day full body split!

This one was nearly the same as last week. I put the sandbag lunges onto the day 2 instead of the first day. Deadlifts went to 5x3 for this week instead of 4x4 and upped the weight. Increased the weight vest for part 2 a little while also increasing the ROM on the handstand push ups. The swings were increased by 10 seconds.

Killed it! Workout was quick! only took about 45 minutes including warm up

1a) Deadlifts 5x3 (last set the heaviest)

2a) Handstand push ups (this time with extra ROM) w/ weight vest
2b) Pull ups w/ weight vest

3a) Cable wood choppers 3x10 each side
3b) 32 kg kettle bell swings 3x 40 seconds