Squat training @ Iron Athletics

Squat training at the new Iron Athletics training centre. Quick and intense! Base week so starting with 3x8 this week on my main movements and increasing intensity (weight) and volume as the weeks progress. It's a 4 day split similar to Jim Wendlers 5/3/1 except for the rep ranges and a little extra work done. Monday: squats, Wednesday: bench, Friday: deadlift, next monday: overhead press repeat!

THE SECRET TO GAINING WEIGHT

As a trainer I'm suppose to tell you to eat clean. Eat your damn veggies. Get lots of fiber. And stop eating out all the time. Fair enough if you're trying to lose weight...the problem lies when you try to apply this to weight gain.

If you've EVER tried to bulk with clean food, WITHOUT using any assistance (aka steroids), you already know how freaking hard it is. Unless of course you are a damn asshole mesomorph who can stay at 200+ pounds off fig newtons, a couple handful of mixed nuts, and a protein shake or two (you bastard, you know who you are! If only I was so blessed). There is only so much calories in a chicken breast, cup of broccoli, or egg whites. Eat enough of these things and you're gonna start hating food! You'll pretty much hate life itself. You'll come to the point that you'll rather punch yourself square in the nose instead of eat another dry ass excuse for a chicken breast (maybe it's just my lame cooking skills).

The bottom line is, eating clean sometimes just doesn't do the job. Especially for Ectomorphs. You can try all the latest exercise routine "guaranteed to make you ripped and huge in 1 month" but if you aren't getting enough calories in, it ain't going to do SHIT

I'll tell you a story about what I went through. I'm not an ectomorph, nor am I a true mesomorph. Without doing much I usually hover between 175-185. A few years back, determined to get to 200+ lbs I tried eating clean. Eating every two hours. Pushing food down my throat and washing it down with water. One day I'd barely choke down 3500 calories...but the next day I'd suffer from a food hangover and probably only get 2500 calories.

I got to about 190 lbs but that was it...the cursed weight scale wasn't budging. I got obsessed with that thing. Trying to lean just a little bit to the left or right trying to find that sweet spot on the scale which would read half a pound heavier (don't hate, you know you've done it). Eventually I had to figure out another way.

What did I do? well it got ugly, but it worked. I put cheese on everything. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING! I think I once put cheese in a god damn peanut butter sandwhich. I made my protein shakes with whole milk, lots of fruit, peanut butter, and added a magical ingredient to help with my weight gain. Oil. That's right, good old fashioned olive or grape seed oil. I'd throw down at least 3 of those a day. Sure I'd eat clean food here and there...in between the sittings of burgers and pizza.

One day...finally I hit 205. Not amazing by any means, but the heaviest I had ever weighed. I felt huge. My strength went through the roof! Unfortunately my joints hated me. I couldn't jump without my knees feeling like they were going to shatter. I snored every freaking night to the point I'd wake my damn self up...pretty sure I blamed it on my girlfriend. I was fast...if you gave me about 10 seconds to accelerate (only on straight stretches though...none of this fancy agility shit). I did it though! Just shows how dirty you gotta get sometimes to reach your goals. There's what they write in the magazines...and then there's reality. The two rarely crossover.

I'm not saying this is the "healthiest" or text book way to gain weight but for you hardgainers sometimes you gotta put in work. Balance that out with a good routine focusing on heavy compound movements. Lots of rest. and sitting on your ass every chance you get, and you might be able to get to your goals.

This message was inspired by Nate green's article "37 tips and tales from Dave Tate"

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!

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!

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