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Question:

I’m a 16, male, have been lifting for about 2 years, i weight about 160lbs and my wrestling season just got over. Before wrestling, started I had about 12% body fat, then I dropped about 8lbs for wrestling. Anyway, I will be a junior in high school next year and I started varsity as a sophomore at linebacker. I hope to play college football at a linebacker, but I need to gain some weight, and I was wondering: -What is the best way to gain a lot of muscle fast? -What muscle will give you best success on the field? -Which ones to work on the most, and are there any supplement’s you would recommend?

Now I feel where you’re coming from because I was in a similar situation in high school. My primary sport was baseball, and it was the sport I wanted to focus on. But, I wrestled from the 6^th grade through my sophomore year in because I liked the sport and the competition. Read the rest of Gain Fast Muscle for football: What to do, what to eat?

Technorati Tags: audio, diet, exercise philosophy, exercise selection, football, hypertrophy, Nutrition, Performance, strength training, supplements, wrestling

I’ve been itching to experiment with some video on here so here you go! An explosive clap push-up, a standard medicine ball push-up, an explosive medicine ball push-up, and an elevated feet push-up.

Enjoy these push-up variations.

Related Posts

How do I increase my push-ups for the military?

9 Ways to Increase the Difficulty of a Push-up (Part 1)

9 Ways to Increase the Difficulty of a Push-up (Part 2)

Technorati Tags: bodyweight-training, exercise demo, push-ups, pushup progressions

In Part 1, I wrote my first four ways to increase the difficulty of a push-up. Now I’ll include the next five:

5. Use a narrow grip: This one is simple, but effective. Try putting your hands closer together. This increases the difficulty, while also putting more emphasis on your triceps. A side effect of performing a push-up with a close grip is that it allows you to get more flexion at the elbow join, which automatically increases your range of motion. And we already know from my previous list that a greater range of motion increases the difficulty. That makes the close grip push-up kind a double threat.

6. Elevate your feet. In a conventional push-up, you are lifting about 2/3 of your overall bodyweight. When you elevate your feet, this percentage goes up. Like all bodyweight exercises, the greater percentage of your weight that you’re lifting, the more absolute weight you’re lifting, making the movement more difficult. Start by placing your feet on a something fairly low like an aerobic step. To increase the intensity, slowly add height to the step. As you become more advanced, you’ll progress to placing your feet on a bench. Before progressing to this harder version, make sure that you can keep your legs, torso, and neck in a straight line without letting your hips sink. Once you can perform 10-15 reps with perfect form at a certain height, you can raise your feet to the next level.

7. Place more emphasis on one arm. The one-arm push-up is an extremely difficult variation that most people won’t be able to perform. It requires an extremely strong core along with adequate upper body strength. Until you can do the complete one-arm version, you can progress by simply placing more emphasis one one arm when you go up. An easy way to do this is to come down normally, shift your weight at the bottom so that one hand is supporting a greater percentage of your weight, then come up, pushing mostly with the “working” arm. As you get better, you can put less of your weight on the “non-working” arm.

8. Place only one foot on the ground. This makes the push-up more difficult by narrowing your base of support. This version isn’t going to increase the loading on your upper body, but it will greatly intensify the use of your abs in keeping your body in a straight line. If you’re pressed for time, try this variation is especially useful as you’re killing two birds with one stone in that you’re working your upper body and your core.

9. Place your hand(s) on an unstable surface. It has been shown that placing your hands on an unstable surface during a push-up increases muscular activation. You have a few options here - I suggest starting by using two medicine balls, with your hands at shoulder width. To keep it fun, you can experiment further some more variations. Here are some to get your started:

• Change the width of your grip by putting the balls closer or further apart.

• Place one hand on a med ball and the other on the ground (This puts more emphasis on one arm).

• Place both hands on the same medicine ball in order to get a close grip effect (very challenging).

• Perform explosive push-ups one one ball by exploding from with one hand on the ball with your body on one side, up and over so the hand that was on the ball is now on the ground and your body is on the opposite side.

• Use one or more stability balls instead of a medicine ball.

If you haven’t checked out Part 1, go check out the first four variations there.

Do you have any other push-up exercises that you’ve tried and would like to share? Post a comment and let me here them!

And make sure you check out the podcast below.

Have a specific question about strength training, fat loss, or nutrition? Ask Doug!

Technorati Tags: bodyweight-training, exercise selection, push-ups, pushup progressions, strength training

Think you’ve graduated from using the push-up in your program? You may want to reconsider. There are many benefits of including the push-up in your program including better core stability, upper body strength, and shoulder health.

The reason some lifters think they’ve graduated from this exercise is that the loading just isn’t the same as on the bench press as you’re only lifting 2/3 of your bodyweight.

Not only do these variations take a great exercise and progress it, but they can serve to add variety to your program and keep things interesting. Here are the first four ways to progress the difficulty of the conventional push-up.

1. Explosive Push-up –> Do you remember the clap push-up? From the up position, come down as in a normal push-up and push off the ground fast enough so that you’re upper body comes off the ground, allowing your to clap your hands in mid air. You don’t have to do the clap, and can instead decide to push as hard as possible. These will get you fatigued quickly and are great for upper body power.
2. Use Chains. I see many guys trying to balance plates on their back in an attempt to add external loading. I’ve tried this, and found it to be a pain in the butt. If you have access to chains, you can drape these over your back. You can make them even more difficult by simply adding more chains or moving them closer to your neck. It helps to have a partner help you out with these.
3. Use Bands. Take about a 1 inch band, loop your hands through the ends with the middle of the band behind your back. Get in normal push-up position so that your hands are over the ends of the band, keeping it in place while you perform the push-up.
4. Increase your range of motion. Putting your hands on blocks or using dumbbells will allow you to go down further on your push-ups. You’d be surprised at the difference a few more inches makes in doing your push-ups.

I’ll include the next 5 ways of increasing the difficulty of your push-ups in the next post so stay tuned!

In the mean time, if you’d like to know how to increase the amount of push-ups you can do, be sure to check out my post, How do I increase my push-ups for the military?. It contains a useful link to Bill Hartman’s blog, which goes into some great detail.

P.S. Be sure to check out the audio below.

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Related Posts

9 Ways to Increase the Difficulty of a Push-up (Part 2)

Video Demo of Push-up Variations

How do I increase my push-ups for the military?

Technorati Tags: bodyweight-training, exercise selection, push-up progressions, push-ups, strength training

Maybe this type of person is more annoying to the personal trainer than to the average gym goer.

But nonetheless.. I was in a crabby mood at the gym in that I have a cold (boo hoo I know), but this person just annoyed me today.

On with the rant..

While at the gym today, I noticed a girl chatting with her friend while she was performing lunges. Of course her form was flat our horrendous–and she wasn’t even looking straight ahead, but to the side so she could talk with her friend.

If you listened to the tone of the conversation, you may have mistaken her for being out to lunch, while having a nice friendly chat–lunges were the last thing on her mind..

Is she getting any stronger? Not really..

Is she stimulating any kind of fat loss? Not really..

Is she improving her technique so she can progress in the future? NO WAY..

Does she care? Who knows!

Maybe I’m biased because I read about strength training and exercise a lot of the day, and I train clients the rest of the day, but why not try to accomplish something while you exercise??? Even if you don’t consider yourself an “execise nut”.

I don’t get it.

If you can offer an opinion on what’s going through her mind, please let me know by commenting on the blog–ANY IDEAS ARE WELCOME–really.

Technorati Tags: annoying gym goer, exercise-form, training-philosophy

Every gym has an annoying type of lifter. You know - that one person that always seems to be there when you’re trying to get your work done.. And for whatever reason, they ANNOY the crap out of you.

Being a personal trainer, I spend more time in the gym in one day than most people do in an entire week (or month). Combine this with that fact that I can’t help but observe other people’s sessions, analyze their exercise selection and exercise form, and it’s inevitable that there is going to be a lot of stuff that gets under my skin.

This week’s winner is: The Lat Pulldown Guy.

Who is the lat pulldown guy? All I can tell you is that he’s an older gentleman, with a protruding gut who apparently thinks it’s effective to stack as much weight as possible on the lat pulldown and use any means necessary to get the weight to move.

No joke - He actually lifts his butt completely off the seat, grasps the handle, and then flings himself back down into the seat while swinging his body backward in order to move the weight.

Really.

Why don’t you just stand up, grab the handle with both hands, and walk the weight back tug-of-war style?

What is he trying to accomplish? I don’t know.

Does he look strong by lifting three quarters of a stack using the technique of standing up out of the seat and violently rocking backwards? NO

Is what he is doing working in getting him to his goals? NO (remember his gut).

It’s amazing how you I can tell from watching someone perform one exercise, that they are completely wasting their time in the gym. Usually it won’t bother me, but when the gym is crowded and my client and I can’t get on the lat pulldown because lat pulldown guy is showing off how “strong” he is, I get a little bit frustrated, to put it lightly.

There’s also the added bonus that he likes to ignore you when you try to work in with him. Yeah, he just kind of stares straight ahead, pretending to mentally prepare for his next grueling set of violently rocking back and forth.

I mean, if you’re so strong, go do a bodyweight pull-up. I’d pay to see that. Of course, he’d probably grasp the pull-up handles and jump in the air to get up (that is, even if he can jump that high).

So what can we learn from lat pulldown guy? Bear with me here..

Though he is an extreme case, we all may have an exercise where we could benefit from knocking back the weight a little bit, and getting back to proper form. We must remind ourselves the purpose of the particular movement that we’re trying to execute. An article I read recently reminded me how important proper form is on the deadlift, and I realized my form has been a little sloppy of late - so I cut back the weight a little bit and returned to deadlifting with solid form.

WEW! I feel better.

Do you have a particular annoying gym goer you’d like to rant about? Please comment and get it off your chest!

Technorati Tags: annoying gym goer, exercise-form, lat pulldown, rant

Question:

What are the 3 major groups to be worked out for upper body? ex. Back+Biceps, i forgot

Answer:

Instead of answering the question directly, I’m going to challenge you to rethink your approach to designing your program. Rather than focusing on body parts (which is actually an outdated method), try focusing on your movements.

The basic movements are:

Upperbody

• Horizontal push (like bench, pushups)
• Horizontal Pull (rows)
• Vertical Push (shoulder press,military)
• Vertical Pull (Pullups, lat pullovers)

• also, elbow flexion, and elbow extension movements

Lower Body

• Bilateral Hip dominant (deadlifts, RDL’s)
• Bilateral Quad Dominant (front squats, back squats, explosive squats)
• Unilateral Hip Dominant (stepups, 1 leg hip extension)
• Unilateral Quad Dominant (Lunges, 1 leg squats, split squats)

and CORE

Any program should include each of these types of movements to be complete. If you include these, the body parts will take care of themselves.

Another good idea is to superset opposing movements- Like a horizontal pull with a horizontal push, etc..

That’s right - no more worrying about which body part to hit when - just include each one of these movements, and you’ll have a complete, balanced program. Depending on your training frequency, you may want to split these movements up throughout the week - but this approach should be a good start for you and to get you thinking differently.

Do you still use body part splits?

Have you had success with movement based splits?

I’d love to hear them so please let your voice be heard. And be sure to click play below and listen to my amateur podcast.

Technorati Tags: body part splits, exercise selection, movement selection, Program Design, strength training

Question:

Hey, Doug! Whenever I’ve gone to the gym to do high interval training, I usually lift (three of the six days per week). I’m in pretty nice shape (15″ toned biceps, 42″ chest), but I want to take it to the next level. For the last 5 years, I’ve used machines, and they seem to have worked very well. That is, up until now. Is there a point where you can “max out” or should I switch to the more traditional free weights?

Answer:

Great job committing to a regular training plan and sticking to it, and congrats on seeing results in the form of increases in strength and muscle mass.

Before I get directly into your question, I’d like to get in to why I prefer free weights over machines by starting with a question of my own..

When moving an object or your own body in real life, is it on a fixed axis where all you have to do is apply force?

The answer is no–you have to use coordination and balance along with your overall strength in order to perform real life movements.

Machine movements have very little in common with real life movements like picking things up, bending down, lifting stuff over your head, etc. Not only does this type of training not train balance and coordination, but it renders your stabilizer muscles, tendons, and ligaments useless because the axis of the machine is acting in place of these stabilizers.

Imagine for a moment learning to walk as a child. You must go through the steps of the learning process–standing up, taking a step, falling over, trying again, etc. etc..

Now imagine this..

Instead of learning to walk in real life, (which is difficult) you are restricted to using four machines to build up your leg muscles so that you will be strong enough to walk. With one machine, you have to extend your knee, with another machine, you flex your knee , with another machine you extend at the hip, and with the final machine you flex at the hip. You could add resistance (instead of gravity) so that you could build strength in your leg muscles.

What’s going to happen when you take the machine away and try to walk?

You guessed it..

You’re going to fall flat on your face.

Sure, you have built up “strength” in your main leg muscles, but your stabilizers are extremely weak and, more importantly, you don’t have the coordination to carry out such a complex task.

The same principle applies to your strength training.

I’ve read some articles that do a great job explaining the importance of using free weights in much more detail (unfortunately I don’t have them with me), but what I can tell you is it important to be able to move your own bodyweight and other weights without the security of a fixed axis. Using free weights forces you to actually develop the coordination and balance that you need in order to carry over in to the real world movements.

Isn’t that just as important if not more important than training purely for aesthetic purposes? If not, it should be, in my humble opinion.

Also by using free weights, your tendons, ligaments, and stabilizer muscles will develop properly, which will allow you to lift more weight, which will get you stronger and prevent injury, which will actually allow you to develop more muscle and to “look the part”.

So go out and start learning some basic free weight movements like squats, deadlifts, lunges, pushups, pullups, and rows. You’ll likely have to begin with lighter weights than you do on your machines until you develop the coordination and appropriate stabilizers to execute these movements safely with more weight–this can be tough to swallow at first, but it will be worth it in the long run. Leave your pride at the door!

To answer your question more directly, in addition to being healthier you’ll definitely have more room to grow in mastering the use of free weights–especially when you’ve implemented an optimal strength or muscle building program.

I hope this helps. As always, questions and comments are encouraged on the blog!

Technorati Tags: bodyweight-training, exercise selection, free weights, functional training, machines, stabilizers, strength training