Gently down the stream...

Switched it up a bit last week with a big volume, row-heavy back workout that led to some INSANE pump and serious soreness the next day.  Make sure to eat your carbs before this 39 set MONSTER training session. “Overtraining” is a made up fairy tale.

Probably nothing you haven’t seen before, however a few twists that made all the difference. Changing up my form on barbell rows a bit was night & day. Pre-exhausting my lats is something I have never done before but, by the time I was done with my weighted pull-ups, I could have sworn I was able to fly away…

6 Sets 10-15 Seated Cable Rows (pre-exhaustion)

Using straight bar and a shoulder-width palms-down grip. Aim directly below the belly button and sit up straight 90 degrees or with a SLIGHT recline. I suggest using straps, pull with your elbows- keep them tight, shoulders rolled back.

The idea here is that during pull-ups, even with using good form and straps, the tertiary muscles (forearms, biceps) will exhaust before your lats do. By pre-exhausting the lats beforehand, you can bring them to hypertrophy more effectively.

5 Sets of Weighted Pull-ups.

See last week’s article.

Deadlifts 15 12 8 5 5

I don’t do these every week now that bodybuilding is my main focus (rather than powerlifting). I could write a whole article about them. I still like to get down to low reps with as heavy a weight as possible. There’s a reason this movement used to be called the “health-lift” in the early 1900s.

If you’re curious about form, obviously there is no better man than Mark Rippetoe. I do these with no shoes because I don’t own lifting shoes or Chuck Taylors.

(Kind of) Pendlay Rows 15 15 12 8 6 - Form Video

I would do that form but not come to a dead stop each time (thus “kinda” Pendlay Rows). And keep in mind you are rowing towards your lowest rib- little higher.

Dug up an article that explains the form that I like better than I ever could:

Once everything is nice and tight, your back is flat and neutral, and your lats are good to go, pull the bar to your xiphoid process, or lower part of your sternum. When you pull, you want your elbows close to your body. They don’t have to be rubbing against your sides on the way up, but you also don’t want them winging out away from the bar.

Visualize gripping the bar and using your elbows to throw it back, as though you’re trying to elbow someone behind you. The barbell row can turn into more of a grip exercise, where you’re desperately trying to hang on until you reach your belly button. Feel your way through your Pendlay rows by leading with your elbows instead.

When you’re working with heavy weight, the temptation will be to cheat, by using your legs and lower back and trying to stand up. Pendlay rows should be brutally hard, and you want to struggle with those last three inches of your range of motion, instead of turning this into a lower back extension move.

In order to get the most out of those last three inches—the part where you’re going to want to cheat—try to force your shoulder blades together, and really squeeze your lats. Most people, when they’re doing any type of back exercise, never really flex their lats. Instead, the mistake everyone makes is to shove their belly down, shove their chest up, and straighten their legs. Stay in position.

 Underhand Yates Rows 15 15 12 10 8 - Form Video 

This guy is doing them real heavy- I would utilize this form but do not move your back midrow- this engages your lower back more and is cheating. However, stand up at 45 degrees and pull to your belly button like him.

I feel these in a totally different area of my back compared with the previous barbell row. Obviously the grip is different, but the difference in stance coupled with difference in where the bar is hitting (ribcage vs. belly button) really affects the lift as well. Between the two barbell rows you’ll be putting slabs on your back in no time.

T-Bar Rows in the corner 15 15 12 8 6 - Form Video

A classic mass builder. Towards the heavier sets its okay to use a little body English but don’t make a habit of it. I also like to really like to get a good lat stretch at the bottom of these. Here’s Ronnie Coleman doing about 12 plates if you need something to make you feel weak and/or motivate you.

Kroc Rows 3x20+

This article goes over Kroc Rows top to bottom. Why you should be doing them, how to program them, form, etc. The idea is to pick a weight you think you can do about 20 of, and run your back to exhaustion. I use no straps on this exercise to help my grip out a bit while I’m at it. This exercise should be enough of a staple in your back day that it’s worth reading the entire piece…written by Matt Kroczaleski himself.

Straight pulldown 5x15-20 - Form Infographic

A lat isolation exercise to put the final touches on your back day. Hopefully you’re still alive.

Pull up or shut up.

There is an exercise that I see far too many folks not giving the proper attention it deserves, or even disregarding it completely. The pull-up.

Pull-ups are the classic back builder, and have been for decades (centuries?). In such a simple movement, you activate almost every muscle in your upper body:  grip strength (hands), forearms, biceps/brachialis, traps, lats, lower back, and abdominals. You get so much bang for your buck I would be tempted to call this “the bench press of the back.” As in- this is a movement you should be putting real focus on and performing early on in your training that day- before any isolation movements or direct arm work.

Step 1 – Okay, so I know I bring my chin above the bar. But… How do I actually do a pull-up?

Use an overhand grip- palms facing out. The area for pull-ups will vary from gym to gym obviously. My gym has these thick bars on top of the set of tables with loose rubber on them for “grip.” I hate these. I really prefer doing pull-ups on a simple knurled, straight bar. Believe it or not, I put the bar on the Smith machine all the way up, lock it, and use that for my pull-ups. It’s just comfortable.

It’s okay to use straps. I don’t think any of us are doing powerlifting competitions anytime soon. We’re in the gym to work our back, not our grip strength. Your grip on your tiny fingers will obviously fail before your massive lats do, so, why not? I recommend doing some grip work later in the lift to keep yourself balanced (Kroc rows), but, for pull-ups I prefer to use the straps.

Grip the bar about shoulder width. Too wide can put excess pressure on your shoulders. Too narrow and you’re limiting the muscles you recruit to do the movement.

 

Focus on using your lats, NOT your biceps or forearms. A good mental cue here is to pull with your elbows. Think about driving your elbows downward, almost like you’re trying to hit a guy in the head that’s trying to grab you from below.

Scapular retraction. I’ve talked about this in a previous article, pull your shoulder blades together- back and down.

Pull your chest up towards the bar, get your chin over the bar, and control yourself on the way down.

Step 2 – How do you program them?

For a long time, I understood the value of pull-ups, but I just couldn't get over sets of 10. I even got up to 5 sets of 10… but I just couldn't get over that hump. Maybe 12 on my first set, but that was IT. This is very, very common. Two months ago I decided I was going to attack this movement and started reading up, reaching out to trainers, and strategizing.

My first step was to lean out a little. 5’10 225 was not a good look when trying to pull my bodyweight up.

The real revelation came when I purchased a dip belt and started doing weighted pull-ups.  Honestly, if I wanted to get stronger (aka, do more), why was I training the exercise utilizing the same exact weight every week, every rep? It makes no sense. If I want to build a big bench, should I just pop on 135 and try to do more reps each week? No, I should load a few plates on and toss some heavier iron around, increasing each working set.

Lately I've been on a big 15-15-12-8-6 kick in terms of how I do my rep schemes for compound movements. So I figured I would do something similar. For the first two sets, I would do as many pull-ups as I possibly could with bodyweight and then cheat my way to a few extra using my legs for pumping power at the bottom.

Aside: doing an actual pull-up, and cheating using leg pump, resistance bands, or jump/negatives, is INFINITELY more effective at improving your pull-up than doing lat pulldowns or the assisted pull-up machine. With lat pulldowns, they do have their place. However, doing the movement sitting down completely removes the lower back, abs, and stabilizers from the movement. No bueno. The Assisted pull-up machine keeps helping you throughout the movement while realistically you probably only need a little kick in the ass at the bottom. You read last week about cheating- it’s OK to do it on this movement to bang out a few extras. Pumping legs or wrapping a resistance band are options.. another option to push past failure if you are completely spent is to simply JUMP to the pull-up position and do a slow, tight negative on the movement.

From there, I’d simply at a 10 pound plate on my belt, and try to get within 2-3 of my first two sets.

Then another 10 pound plate, dropping the reps another 3 or so.

For the last set, I’d really overload it and do 3-5 reps.

With this said, I was starting in a decent spot. Being able to do 10-12 bodyweight pull-ups is OK, but maybe you can only do 5. Well that’s okay too. I still recommend that you add some weight, cheat a little if you need to, and really struggle with it. Do 2 or 3 at a time if you need to, rest a little, then grind out a few more. Follow a rep scheme similar to the 15 15 12 8 6, and just break the sets up with mini-rest periods. There are a lot of ways to attack it, but step 1 is to add some damn weight. If your gym doesn't have a  dip belt, or you don’t want to spring for one, you can even just hold a weight in between your sneakers or thighs.

For me, it seemed futile at first. Struggling to do a set of 5 pull-ups with a 35 lb plate around my waist. However, 8 weeks later, today my scheme was…

15 Bodyweight

12 (+3 cheating) 25lb

10 (+2 cheating) 25lb

6 (+2 cheating) 35lb

4 (+1 cheating) 45lb… then I took the belt off and banged out 12 bodyweight right after. So, on my fifth set, AFTER 4 pull-ups with 45 lb, I was able to do better than my first set from 8 weeks ago.

This doesn’t make me the best pull-up artist in the world but I was damn proud of my progress in such a short time. For cheating, that means a little leg pump at the bottom to help get me out of the hole.

In addition to all of this, aesthetically, I am seeing my back get wider and thicker, and I feel I’m getting better back days overall.

In short… take pull-ups seriously. Use good form. Add weight. Grow wings.

If you'd like to read further on the subject, here's a great T-Nation article: Take your Pull-ups to the Next Level.

Week's worth of chicken... recipe post coming soon

I fell in love with the girl at the GUN SHOW

There’s a guy in the gym, seems like every god damn time you see him he’s doing curls. Well, either rocky, legs/back/shoulders curls, or sloppy, leaning-forward rope pushdowns. The Arms Guy.

I hate this guy. I am the opposite of this guy. For the first few years of my training, I actually didn’t train my arms directly at all. I figured, if you go to the gym, do heavy back and heavy chest, those movements will incorporate the tertiary arm muscles enough to keep your arms big and strong. This is true to some extent. Big compound movements like chins and presses will certainly activate your bis and tris, and depending on form, genetics, and nutrition, you can get away without doing any arm isolation work at all. The compound movements should make up the majority of your time in the gym, really.

Eventually I discovered that I needed to do a few arm isolation exercises, not only to aid my strength for the bigger movements, but also to pack on a little size (don’t judge me, beach season is coming up). I usually train with a pretty classic split, adding 3-4 sets of tris after chest day, same thing with bis on back day.

Every once in awhile, it can be a nice shock to your body and give your tree trunks their own day- a “gun run” if you will. I probably do this once every 6 weeks, on am “extra” gym day- a lazy Sunday where I end up going to the gym out of boredom or something like that.

Given that I’ve been doing all types of weird shit with my workout splits lately (back/chest, legs/shoulders, splitting upper back and back width, etc.). Today I figured I’d do an arm day, stealing a move from Arnie again and supersetting Tris/Bis. Doing supersets like this left me with INCREDIBLE pump- like, “hard to do skullcrushers with my biceps in the way” pump. To the point where some random guy actually commented on my vascularity… score.

One thing that I did for this workout that is different from the average gymgoer is…  strict form. I cannot stress this enough.  Here is a GREAT video with my bodybuilding hero, Kai Greene, discussing his philosophy around executing arm movements, specifically curls. Using legs, moving your elbows around, and cheating is only going to sabotage your workout and potentially get you hurt. Drop the weight. Use the proper form.

With this said, I will cautiously offer a technique that I use to train past my natural limitations and increase intensity. Cheating, when used properly, can be an effective way to fully tax the muscles when arm training. Arnold said it best…

Say you are doing a heavy barbell curl. You curl the weight up five or six times, and then find you are too tired to continue to do strict reps. At this point you begin to use your shoulders and back to help you in the lift slightly so that you can do another four or five reps. But you cheat just enough so you can continue the set, and your biceps continue to work as hard as they can. By cheating you have forced the biceps to do more work than they could have done without help from the other muscles, so you have to put more stress on them, not less.

In short, during the last few sets, after failure with proper form, if you can break past that by cheating for an extra few reps, do it. You don’t want to do this every time. But it can help get to a higher level.

Finally, to the workout.

Warmup Superset – LIGHT, 2 Sets, 20 reps

V-Bar Pushdowns

Rope Hammercurls

For all working exercises, we are doing 5 sets, with the first 4 being in the 10-12 rep range, last one a little heavier for a 6-8. Ideally, going up in weight at least 3 times over the course of the exercise, but not sacrificing form.

First Superset

V-Bar Pushdowns – Don’t lean into these! Stand up straight, bring the V-Bar up as far as you can without losing tension on your tri. Definitely past your elbow being 90 degrees at least.

Barbell Curl – Hands shoulder width

Second Superset

Skullcrushers – Keep your elbows tucked in. Imagine there are two pieces of wood jutting out of the bottom of your chin and the top of your head as you’re laying down. When doing the skullcrusher movement, keep the bar within that “box.” (Does this make sense?)

Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl – Remember the Kai video!

Third Superset

 High Pulley Triceps Extensions (with the rope) - It's important to keep the ends of the rope apart about as wide as your head- don't go narrower as you do the movement, this is cheating. Keep your elbows stationary and not flared out. Go as far back as you can to get a very deep triceps stretch and extend to lockout.  This video shows the basic movement but keep your hands farther apart, palms facing each other, and don’t change what your hands do throughout the movement.

Seated Preacher Curl – I actually used the Hammer Strength machine where you can load plates on the bottom, you can do this with a  EZ bar if you want as well.

Fourth Superset

Single arm reverse grip pulldowns - Here is a good form video, although I’m not sure why that guy is recording bodybuilding videos in the first place.

Narrow, reverse grip curls from the low pulley - Here's a simple form video.  At the top, crank your wrists to hit the forearms even harder. Don’t lean back.

To finish off, I did 4 sets of wrist curls, about 15-20 reps each. At this point my arms were absolutely TOASTED.

Overall, the workout was very fast because of the supersets, and I got a lot of work in, only spending about an hour and a half at the gym total. If you can squeeze an arm day into your routine, try it out!

Supplement Spotlight: Beta-Alanine

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I made a decision to begin crafting my own pre-workout supplements, comprised of individual amino acids. This not only gives me flexibility to dose at the levels appropriate for my bodyweight and goals, but also gives me the ultimate control over what I am ingesting.

I spoke about the power of Citrulline Malate- one of the main building blocks of my everyday preworkout cocktail. Another building block is Beta-Alanine.

Beta-Alanine is a precursor of the amino acid Carnosine. Supplementation with Beta-Alanine has been shown to increase the concentration of Carnosine in muscles which leads to decreased fatigue in athletes and increased total muscular work done.

To put this in layman’s terms, Beta-Alanine is going to make your workouts better by increasing your endurance- you won’t tire out as quickly. You will eek out a few extra reps during your exercises, and maintain higher energy levels deeper into your workout, compared to not using BA. This is incredibly important as these few reps often make the difference between exhausting the muscle and truly achieving hypertrophy, leading to more significant growth. To really break this down, being able to do more reps than usual, while maintaining the same poundages, means you are STRONGER. In addition to augmenting performance, there is more than one study that suggests Beta-Alanine can stimulate lean mass accrual, leading to a more favorable body composition.

You can see how Beta-Alanine complements Citrulline Malate nicely. Citrulline is going to increase blood flow and help you recover faster, while Beta-Alanine aids in amount of work your muscles can effectively do before exhaustion. All of this is going to lead to increased hypertrophy, increased growth, increased strength.

The recommended dose for Beta-Alanine is between 2-5g. I take 4g preworkout. One thing to take note of is that BA will cause paraesthesia-  essentially, a tingly feeling right on the last layer of your skin. This is harmless but does bother some people- I’d say start small and asses your tolerance.

The best bang for your BA buck is going to be NOW Foods Beta Alanine Powder. For $23 you get 500g. If you take 4g on training days like me, this will last you almost eight months. See what I was saying about making your own preworkouts being cheaper?

As always, I’d encourage you to do your own research. One of the best sites in the industry is Examine.com, here’s a link to the Beta-Alanine page.

So far, our preworkout looks like this:

8g Citrulline Malate

4g Beta Alanine

Stay tuned for articles on the other four components!

Saturday boulder shoulders.

You ever have one of those workouts where you feel like Superman? The weights are moving, you feel every muscle hitting hypertrophy the way it should, and you feel like a balloon you’re filled with so much blood. That was my quickie shoulder workout today.

I rode my bike to the gym as a little warm-up, but mostly because it was just a gorgeous day out.  Only about three miles, and I usually don’t condone pre-workout cardio, but it felt good to step into the gym with warm muscles and joints. I think it was just enough where I was warmed up but didn’t really tap into my energy stores enough to impact my lift.

Lately I’ve been training shoulders with very high volume, with light weight. 40-45 sets, usually staying in the 15-25 rep range. When I was coming back from my shoulder injury, I thought it would be best to ease in. In addition, I had never really trained like this before, so I was hoping my body would react well to the change.

Today, I wanted to go more traditional. Back to normal rep ranges for size and strength, back to humanlike volume.

Standing Military Press, Barbell – 15, 15, 12, 8, 6

Shoulder-width grip here will cause your poundages to go down, but it’s a healthier way to execute the movement. Powerlifters would frown on my form here, but I go down to just below my chin, then press the bar above my head to lockout, passing my body under the bar during the movement, so by the end the bar is directly over my skull. A pitfall to avoid on these is leaning your upper back away from the bar.

So much about shoulder training is really thinking. Thinking about using your delts to press this weight overhead. It’s very easy to use a lot of triceps or even chest in this exercise, but if you use good form and really think about recruiting your deltoids to push the weight, you will get better results. Years ago, I would do military presses and barely get a pump in my delts. That should never happen.

I did two warmup sets before the work sets.

Seated Facepull – 15, 15, 12, 8, 6

I went over to the seated row machine for this exercise this week. I’ve advocated doing it standing up at the pulleys before, which works well when doing super light weight for high reps. However, now that I was going to be going a little heavier today, I didn’t want to be standing there and having my body move back and forth from the momentum. Sitting down and having my legs against a plate would stabilize me a bit. I’ve written about the form on these guys before, I just went a little heavier today.

Standing Lateral Raises – 15, 12, 10, 10, 8

Simple, standard shoulder-building movement. I usually go very slow and controlled on these, with my arms returning to my sides and slow negatives. Due to my theme of heavier weights today, I brought the weights to the front instead, but really tried  to keep the exercise true to form.

Wide-grip upright row – 15, 15, 12, 10, 8

I recently read an article in FLEX advocating the classic upright row exercise to be done with a wider grip. Normally I take everything I read in that magazine with a grain of salt, however these felt really good. I gripped it at not quite double shoulder width, but, almost. I’d recommend doing whatever’s comfortable for you. I let the bar go all the way down to a dead hang between each rep in order to stretch my traps. From there, I pulled the bar using my traps and delts, really squeezing the delts at the top of the movement, with the bar ending up within a few inches of my chin.

Front Raises – 15, 15, 12, 8, 8

Another classic, I took front delt work out of my shoulder routine for the last few months, as I figured I was getting enough with my chest workouts. I’d like to get back into these, probably once every other week. I like to do them with dumbbells, both hands at a time, with my arms going about 15 degrees above parallel with the floor. Really focusing and actively thinking about lifting the weight with your deltoid is imperative here.

Bent over rear delt neutral grip raises – 5x15

Form: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i45WpmWmCrI&t=0m40s

Now, there are a million other shoulder exercises I could have worked in. You’ll notice it’s light on presses- I used to swear by 3 or 4 different pressing exercises every shoulder day. Standing barbell, behind the head, dumbbell, machine… now, I focus on other types of movements and it’s been working well. Ideally I’d like to do another press, but again, always cognizant of the bum shoulder. I always enjoyed behind the head pulldowns for my delts, but I have cut out all behind the head movements as well. I skipped the heavy shrugs as well due to the facepulls and upright nows hitting my traps.

Overall, this was a quick and effective workout that had every head of my delts, as well as my traps, absolutely smoked.

Big quads, big hammies, big meal

Dinner this evening after a brutal, BRUTAL leg workout. 8oz lean steak with two eggs, topped with a little bit of salsa. On the side, a ton of arugula dressed with a bit of oil and Stop & Shop's highest quality house brand Balsamic.

718 cals
6g carbs
48g fat
63g protein
623mg sodium
2g sugar

Not the cleanest meal in the world- in reality I should have skipped the salsa- adds a ton of sodium.

Pull and push.

For the last few months, I’ve been following a simple split. Chest/Tri, Back/Bi, Legs, Shoulders. I was in the middle of a pretty routine chest workout last Monday when I felt a little tightness in my shoulders, and was also starting to get a incredible pump in my lats from the new focus I’ve been putting on activating them during my bench press. Not really thinking too much about it, I hopped up from the bench and did a set of 10 pullups.

When I got down from the bar, I realized that not only did I get an incredible stretch on my shoulders, lats, and chest, but also, I had an INSANE pump. My entire upper body- pecs, shoulders, triceps from the benching, back and biceps from the pull-ups. When I laid down to do my final set of bench, the extra blood in my lats helped me crank out a few extra reps. I was intrigued.

As I sat and caught my breath after this brutal superset, I thought back to my readings in Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. While I haven’t read it in years, I remembered that he was also an advocate of push-pull supersets. And, I'm pretty damn sure it worked for him.

Here’s Arnold’s original workout from the book:

Barbell Bench Press 15 15 12 8 6

Wide Grip Pullups 15 15 12 8 6

Incline Barbell Press 15 12 12 10 10

T-Bar Rows 15 12 12 10 10

Flat Bench Dumbbell Flyes 15 12 10 10 10

Wide-grip Barbell Row 15 12 10 10 10

Weighted Dips 5x15

Close-Grip Pullup 5x12

Stiff-Arm Pull-Over 5x15-20

This  is a GREAT starting point, mainly because it uses only big, compound lifts that hit multiple muscle groups. This was Arnold’s specialty. I also love the volume as well- 45 sets! This is just the thing to shock your body and help bust plateaus. Also, it helps to balance your body and keep healthy shoulders. If you do too much pulling, or too much pushing, without the opposite to even it out, it can lead to injuries.

Anyway, here’s the workout I did today, which was very similar..

Incline Bench Press 20 20 15 12 8 8 5

Wide Grip Pullups 12 10 10 8 8 5 5 (Palms facing out. Adding weight on a belt at the end)

Incline Push Ups 5x25 - used the 5lb dumbbells on the ground instead of palms on the floor

Shoulder Width Chins 5x12 (palms facing towards me)

Flat Bench Press 12 8 8 8 8

Yates Rows 15 15 12 10 8

Cable Flyes – High pulley, low weight, leaning over slightly with a pec squeeze at the bottom of the movement. Use open palms and touch them together for a rep. 25 25 20 20 15

Wide Grip Barbell Row – 15 12 12 10 8 (I know this is very similar to the Yates row- you can sub in one arm rows for this if you really want. However I felt it hitting different spots than the previous exercise due to varying stances and where I was pulling to.)

I was completely spent after this lift and couldn’t bear to do anymore. Last week, I tossed in some supersetted tri/bi work at the end, and some isolation exercises for the rhomboids. This week I was just too dead from all the big movements.

This isn’t something you’ll see a lot of people in the gym doing. However, there are a few reasons I really enjoyed doing this:

-          It will allow me to hit chest and back twice a week

-          I got incredible pump and a great stretch

-          Will help to correct any imbalances in my body

-          Muscle confusion

My only concern is that over the last few weeks, I’ve been training chest and back with HIGH volume: 25-35 sets total for each muscle group. This lift today only got me 20 working sets each. However, I think it will be good to dial down the volume a bit and hit the groups twice a week. I also would definitely work the stiff-arm pullovers into the lift next time, just because that’s an exercise that hits both chest and back in a single motion. You need to really concentrate on the form to get that one right though.

Anyways- if you feel like trying something a little different, give this a shot! 

Date night

Supplement spotlight: Citrulline Malate

I made a conscious decision about a year ago to stop taking supplement compounds. Compounds as in, pre-mixed blends of various supplements with promises of various results. Things like NO-Xplode or ANOTest. I had gotten results from these types of supplements in the past. However, all of them contained proprietary blends of various amino acids, stimulants, or "natural enhancers." Why should I let a supplement company decide the best combination for my optimal pre-workout shake? Oftentimes they don't even list exactly what is in the proprietary blend, making it impossible to determine what your body is responding to and what it's not. There are also often fillers, sugars, or other junk that you don't want in your body in the first place. AND this stuff is all really expensive!

I decided that I would do research, and find which specific supplements had been proven in reputable scientific studies to produce results based on my goals. From there, I would purchase supplements on a standalone basis and create my own pre- and post-workout blends. This would allow me to ingest the supplements in the proper doses for my goals, and be a hell of a lot cheaper. After perusing some of the studies, I found that the optimal dose for most supplements was 2-3x what I was getting in the proprietary blend- I had been effectively lowballing myself.

Quick aside: as the years have passed, I've realized that supplements truly are the bit players in the Broadway play that is fitness. They absolutely have their proper time and place, but, nutrition is INFINITELY more important. If you eat like shit or half-ass the gym twice a week, woofing down a few scoops of magic powder isn't going to make you Superman. I think back to my college years, tubs and tubs of various supplements: my preworkout, my postworkout, my peri-workout, my AM compound, my before-bed compound, my test booster... I just wish someone would have slapped me and said "EAT BETTER" instead of my regimen choking down 9 shakes and 20 pills a day. If you're just getting started, get your arms around your diet and your workout routine. From there, you can start adding in a few supplements. 

With that said, I will write up a few short articles on the supplements that I use today. I am not saying that my stack is the optimal one for every person, and it certainly doesn't contain every single supplement that has positive research behind it. But I think it's a nice mixture between cost, result, and convenience..

One of the components that's included in 99% of preworkout mixes is L-Arginine. In a sentence, L-Arginine is a precursor for the synthesis of nitric oxide, and thus, a  potent vasodialator (widens blood vessels). In addition, there are some studies that show it may increase circulating growth hormone. In layman's terms, this is the main ingredient for insane "pump." Pretty simple concept, widen the blood vessels going to your muscles > more blood to muscle. L-Arginine's problem is that it isn't easily absorbed, and much (the majority) of it is wasted in the process of digestion. Here is the examine.com article on L-Arginine.

This brings me to the supplement of the day: Citrulline.

Citrulline turns into L-Arginine after absorption and being sent to the kidneys, so it is actually a better method of getting supplemental L-Arginine into the blood rather than L-Arginine itself. It's simply taken up to a much greater degree in the stomach.

Citrulline has been proven to improve aerobic and anaerobic performance at 8g/day (taken preworkout). Feel free to explore some of the links or do your own research. But the net-net here is that Citrulline will help give explosive pumps, increase recovery rates (less soreness), and delay time to exhaustion (squeaking out a few more reps). It can also help with erectile dysfunction. 

I have been taking 8g of Primaforce Citrulline Malate 30 mins preworkout for about a month now, and I have to say that I absolutely see a noticeable effect. A good example is, the other day I had a brutal chest workout, started with 6 sets of heavy flat bench, then moved on to incline barbell. On my fifth and final set of incline presses, I put 225 on the bar expecting maybe 5 or 6. I got a spotter, got in the zone, and before I knew it I had exploded through 9 perfect reps. This was my eleventh set of heavy bench of the day! I was incredibly surprised that I still had the gas to toss up that kind of weight, and blown away by how engorged my pecs were with blood. I find myself being able to use bigger weights and squeeze out more reps deeper into my workouts. In addition, I'm seeing myself becoming a lot more vascular in the gym as the pumps increase- getting veins in weird places like my delts, traps, and calves. 

That isn't the only supplement I'm taking preworkout, but the rest of the stack's for another week. In the meantime, go out, do some research, and decide of Citrulline is for you.

Man hands.

Tips for International Bench Press Day tomorrow!

One thing that is ubiquitous in gym culture is that Monday is international bench press day. I’m not sure how or why this occurs, but each Monday, every twice-a-week jamoke is pumping their pectorals with the go-to upper body compound movement.

With that coming up tomorrow, I figured it would be appropriate to discuss the bench press. This topic has been analyzed and written about to death, but I just wanted to share a few quick tips that might lead to a better chest day tomorrow.

Going back about six months ago, I was diagnosed with ACJoint Osteolysis- essentially a wearing down of the AC joint resulting from repeated lifting of maximal loads and not enough rest time in between. So, after a few months off, I needed to rethink my entire routine, being more cognizant of movements that compromised my shoulder mobility or otherwise impinged my rotator cuff/AC joint.

It’s no secret that the bench press isn’t the most shoulder-friendly exercise. However, there are steps you can take to make it a hell of a lot easier on your joints. The first fundamental rule to constantly be mindful of is scapular retraction.  Your scapula- shoulderblade- has more to do with bench pressing than most people realize. It has more to do with most exercises actually, but that’s for another week.

When you lay down on the bench, your ass needs to be firmly on the pad, and your shoulders need to be dug in.  When lowering the bar to your chest, you want to think about your shoulderblades pinching together. I find that I am more comfortable and able to retract better if I incorporate a slight arch. You should be letting them retract as you lower the bar, then spreading them back out as you push up. Situations where you are lowering the weight to your chest and not moving your shoulderblades at all (they are, in fact, trapped under your body) lead to shoulder impingement and potential injury.

This actually leads in nicely to the second tip of the week, which is: use your lats. Every article I’ve ever read on benching says how huge lats are the best foundation for a huge bench, etc, etc… but never actually went over how to get the damn things to activate during a push movement.  Now that you’re concentrating on retracting your scapulae, it’s a lot easier to think about recruiting your lats to stabilize your bench and help explode at the bottom. This is not easy. A trick I use that has worked very well is- when you unrack your bar, don’t just let it fall to your chest. You want to PULL the bar towards your chest instead. You should think of your lats as a spring- as you lower the bar, you’re keeping them tight until the bottom where you’re releasing all of that energy. Pulling the bar towards your chest and thinking about scapular retraction will help to also recruit your lats into the bench press movement.

There are a million other factors to think about when benching. How wide of a grip? What do I do with my feet? Elbows? On and on and on. For now, I think these two quick tips, incorporated into your routine, can lead to a healthier bench.  They can also be incorporated into pushups as well!

Face pulls.

A new exercise I've been working into my shoulder routines is the face pull. By no means a new or exciting movement, I read about a little twist on it that I tried and have been getting great results from.

So, to back up a little, what is a face pull?  A very similar motion to a row, but, instead of puling towards your stomach, ribcage, or even chest, you pull towards your (you guessed it) face. This activates the muscles of the upper back, trapezius, and (rear) delts.

Here is a short video to use as a baseline.

However, here's how I would recommend setting it up. Set the cable at about chest level and attach the rope. Grab the rope as he does the video (palms down), but try to stand up straight, staggering your stance if need be- I wouldn't advice leaning as much as he is. From there, pull the rope towards the top of your forehead, ending in a pose very similar to front double biceps- palms facing forward. While you're pulling, think about pulling with your traps and delts- NOT your arms. Once you get the metal piece of the rope almost or just touching the top of your forehead, pause and squeeze for a 1 count. Let your arms extend all the way back for the negative and a stretch, then repeat. I've programmed this with light weight, high reps, higher volume. Something like 20, 20, 20, 15, 15. In the beginning, if you're cheating or unable to pause at 15, lower the weight. If you do this correctly, your entire delt should be SCREAMING towards the end, and very pumped.

The other positive aspect of the exercise is that it strengthens the rotator cuff as you move from having your fists in front of you, to your fists beside your head. As a person with past shoulder injuries, I have found this a way to help work towards a healthier shoulder joint while getting a hell of a workout on my traps and delts. I use this as a replacement for the upright row because of said shoulder injuries, but you can certainly work this in alongside.