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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 ate a few too much heavenly chocolate (my Grandmother’s secret recipe) and pumpkin pie over the holidays - I’ll admit it -

So I figured…

Why wait until 2009 to work off a few of the fat pounds I put on?

Here’s a glimpse into my 30 minute fat loss session that I just returned from (My heart is STILL beating fast). It doesn’t seem like much, but I kept the rest periods short and believe me, the intensity was high - I refuse to be fat - haha -

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The Workout - Quad Dominant, Vertical Push, Vertical Pull

A1. Neutral Grip Dumbell Push Press, 35’s - 12, 12

A2. Close Grip Chinups, BW - 10, 7

A3. Bulgarian Split Squats, 35’s - 10, 10 / leg

B1. Walking Lunges holding a 35 lb plate overhead - 10, 10 / leg

B2. 1 Arm Dumbell Swing, 30 lb dumbell - 15, 15 / arm

B3. Triceps Duck Unders (I needed this rest station, the swings killed me), 12, 10

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I tried to keep the rest to under 1 minute between sets, and I think I was in and out of the gym before some of the other people switched exercises!!

Happy New Year, and I’ll talk to you in 2009!

Technorati Tags: fat loss, Program Design, quick workouts

Question:

I have finally decided to start working out. For me to succeed in this endeavor I need to have a plan to follow to ensure my continued progress. What are your recommendations to beginners on a workout plan? For equipment, my apartment complex has a lat pull down, a bench, and two sets of dumbells, 15 and 30 lbs.

Answer:

Way to go in making the decision to start working out and seeking a plan. These two steps are absolutely crucial.

If you’re looking for a quick starter routine, do this:

A1. Pushups, 3X10-12

A2. DB Squat to Bench, 3X10-12

B1. One Arm DB Row, 3X10-12

B2. Stationary Lunge, 3X10-12

C1. Lat Pulldown (medium underhand grip), 3X10-12

C2. DB Bench Press - See how many reps you can get with your 30 lb db’s. If it’s in the 12-15+range, do 2X12-15. If it’s in the 6-12 range, you can do 3-4 sets.

D1. Bent over DB row, 3X10-12 (reps will depend on weight of DB’s)

D2. Plank - 3X30 sec.

With movements under the same letter, alternate between the exercises with a 30-45 second rest period. For example, for A, perform a set of 10-12 push-ups, rest 30 seconds, and do a set of squats. Alternate between these two movements three times and then move on to B.

Make sure you’re progressing and keep the weight as heavy as possible for the designated number of reps. With the dumbbell movements, you’ll likely have to use higher reps due to your lack of heavier weights. The key is to constantly try to set new records for yourself - whether in the amount of weight (preferable) or the number of reps.

With this method of grouping your exercises, you’re optimizing your rest of each body part and making the best use of your time. (Notice you’re not wasting any time standing around).

You should be able to get through this workout in under 20-30 minutes. This doesn’t mean it will be easy. Do this 3 days a week and you’ll get stronger, and your conditioning should improve as well due to the short rest periods.

If you need demos of the various movements, you can browse this site or check out you tube. Good luck!

Have a specific question related to strength training or program design? Ask Doug!

Technorati Tags: bodyweight-training, exercise for beginners, exercise selection, Program Design

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:

I don’t seem to be getting results with my current routine and i have noticed articles online and real life friends only work 1 muscle group a day. Like theyll do biceps monday, chest tuesday, triceps wednesday, back thursday and legs friday and abs everyday at the end of the workout. It just seems fishy to me because your only doing one group per 6 days. Im used to doing every muscle group 2 times a week. So instead of doing 1 muscle a day i did like biceps and back one day then chest and shoulders the next etc etc. what do you guys think? iv been going up in weight and eating more and i still havent seen results.

Answer:

You’re definitely on the right track in noticing that doing only one muscle group every 6 days is “fishy”.

It really only takes about 48-72 hours for your body to recovery from a typical strength session, so why wait 6 days? It makes no sense.

Also, your friend has to lift 5 days a week. It sounds like you might not have that kind of time..

With a 2 day a week program, you’re on the right track in that you’re training your entire body on both training days.

But instead of taking the mentality of hitting each “muscle group”, you need to think more about what MOVEMENTS will get you the most results.

If you’ve ever heard of the 80/20 rule, often applied to business, it means that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts.

Well, this principle can be applied to strength training as well..

You’ll see many people in the gym doing “bodypart” exercises like bicep curls, triceps extensions, hamstring curls, and leg extensions.

These are what I would call the 20% exercises. They have their place at times, but if you want results, you need to focus on the 80% that will get you results.

Key Exercises -Deadlift variations (total body) -Squats (hamstrings, quads, glutes, core) -Bench Press (Chest, arms, even some legs) -Pull-ups (Lats, traps) -Rows (Traps, rhomboids, biceps) -Single leg movements (lunges, stepups, pistols)

If you’re going to train total body, stick to these lifts. The other thing that is important for you to actually see results is lift HEAVIER weights.

I’m not sure what kind of intensity you’re lifting at, but make sure that once you get the form figured out and are confident in these movements, that you progress with more weight.

As in 3-5 sets of 1-6 rep max.

If you’re more novice or if hypertrophy (building mass) is more important, using 5-10 rep max weights with only 2-4 sets may be a better option.

I’d also consider bumping it up to three days a week.

A three day per week split would look something like this:

Monday: Total Body–Hit a little bit of everything

Wednesday: Primarily Upper body with a few leg exercises

Friday: Primarily Lower body with a few upper body exercises.

Since the lower body tends to take longer to recover than the upper body, it is placed on Friday, give you two recover days.

I hope this helps, and if you have any more questions, hit me up!

Technorati Tags: exercise selection, Program Design, strength training, total-body-training

I try not to write too much about myself on this blog. But, I’d thought I’d share my workout today at the playground. (yes, you heard that right).

The local gym where I regularly lift has been shut down for maintenance for the ENTIRE WEEK. I was so worried about how my clients were going to stay on track this week, I almost forgot about myself!

So here is my Saturday playground routine. The volume was pretty low, but I think the heat came into play, which didn’t help.

Warmup

-High Knees

-Butt Kickers

-A Skips

-B Skips

-Right and left side shuffles

-Backward running

-Single leg hops

-45 Degree walking lunges

-Side to side toe touches

-60 Yard Accelerations to a full sprint

The Workout

1A- Pullups (neutral grip on monkey bars)–> 12, 7

1B- Pushups–> 25, 20

1C-set 1, Stepups–> 15 each leg ; set 2, Split Jumps, 20 (10 each leg)

That’s it, short and sweet. I didn’t exactly have my A game today, but I was breathing hard the whole time and hopefully Monday I’ll be ready to pick up where I left off last week in the weight room.

Stay tuned, as I’m working on a post about general program design for the intermediate weight lifter.

Technorati Tags: bodyweight-training, maintenance, Program Design, workout-report

What are the best ways to get them [my abs and thighs] in shape pretty quickly but without taking over 15 minutes a day? And I’m 5′4; 125lbs and was considering getting my belly button pierced, opinions?

It is definitely possible for you to do something 15 minutes a day and see results– as long as your session is of a high intensity (meaning hard)!

You should stick to two basic types of training:

1. Total Body weight training.

These exercises consist of compound movements-these are movements that involve multiple muscle groups:

Think squats, lunges, deadlifts (picking stuff up off the floor), bench presses, rows, chin ups (assisted), and you can’t go wrong. If you lack fancy equipment or the time to head to the gym, you can perform movements that simply use your bodyweight–squats, lunges, pushups, and planks can be done anywhere-put all these exercises back to back in a circuit and should be breathing hard..

2. Interval Training (high intensity)

Rather than doing long, slow, boring cardio for 60 minutes (who has the time?? not you!), you should use high intensity interval training.

For example, on a treadmill, you could go for a minute and a half at a moderate pace like a slow jog or walk (say 3.5 mph–this is your “rest pace”). Followed by 20 seconds of an all out or close to all out sprinting (Say 10 mph–this is your work pace). After the 20 seconds, go back to your rest pace. Doing this for 7 intervals (an interval includes the work and rest period) would take about 15 minutes.

Note: I picked the speeds above as an example, but feel free to adjust your intervals to your fitness level. Your work interval should be strenuous enough so that you couldn’t go much longer than the designated time.

You can apply this principle to other things like the Elliptical, Stair Climber, Rowing machine, running outside, etc. As long as you have a rest phase and a work phase.

Just make sure that during your 20 second phase, you’re busting your butt! I’m talking, when you get to the end of the interval, you should be absolutely spent–use the rest phase to recover so you can do it again.

Feel free to play with the times if you want to change it up-a 20 second (more advanced) work phase is going to be more intense than a 40 second work phase.

Time to get to work!!

These above two types of training are meant to be hard, as they squeeze a lot of work into a short time period–the other goods news is that every new study that comes out has shown this type of training to be MORE effective than traditional cardio in that it breaks down muscle and stimulates EPOC, which speeds up your metabolism even after your workout!

Simply put, your body will keep burning more Calories throughout the day, and your metabolism will increase–meaning more fat burning–meaning abs that show.

Technorati Tags: abs, EPOC, exercise selection, fat loss, Get A Flatter Stomach, interval training, Program Design, strength training, time-management, total-body-training

Okay, so it’s your designated time to go to the gym and work out. How are you going to spend your time?

What is the short term and long term goal you are trying to accomplish?

Lose weight? Get stronger? Get faster? Get in better condition for a sport? Overall Health? Flexibility?

If you arrive at the gym and find that you don’t know what your short and long term goals are, then stop and go home. Don’t come back until you know.

The movements you choose in the weight room should serve to accomplish YOUR goals.

If you do know what you’re trying to accomplish, then you need to ask yourself at every exercise station the following three questions:

1. Is this exercise directly bringing me closer to my goals?
2. Is this exercise indirectly bringing me closer to my goals by improving an inefficiency or serving as a progression to a movement that would bring me closer to my goals?
3. Is there an exercise other than this one that would be a better use of my time?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions or if you have not even thought about them, you really need to. I see FAR too many people (of all ages) in the weight room that look like they’re there just so they can tell their friends that they worked out.

• Why are you choosing the leg extension if you’re 80 pounds overweight?
• Why are you doing 7 sets of Smith Machine inclines presses?
• Why are you spending 3/4 of your time doing ab exercises on the stability ball?
• Why are you balancing on a Bosu ball?

I guarantee if I went up to some of these people and asked them why exactly they chose that particular exercise, they couldn’t tell me the answer. And if they did, I bet they couldn’t justify their answer with anything that makes any sense with regard to training.

Your time is valuable–why wouldn’t this include the time you spend in the weight room. Everything you do should be bringing you closer to your goals–otherwise it’s a waste of time.

Wouldn’t you agree?

You really have to look at whether what you’re doing is in line with your goals and if it’s actually working.

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble but in most cases:

7 sets of Smith Machine incline presses is NOT the best way to increase upper body strength and get huge.

Walking on the treadmill for long periods of time or using a leg machine is NOT the best way to lose weight.

Spending excess time in the ab station is NOT going to melt away your belly fat.

Balancing on the Bosu ball is only going to teach you how to balance on a Bosu ball. Are you planning on joining the circus?

Do yourself a favor and start BEING AWARE of everything you’re doing. Find out if there’s a better way–your time is valuable and there could (and probably is) a more efficient and SAFE use of your time.

Find it and DO IT.

(HINT: It may be something that’s actually hard to do and that you’re not particularly good at.)

Technorati Tags: exercise selection, goal-setting, Program Design, training-philosophy