Training Update

I've been training hard for the last 7 months, and just a few weeks ago decided to sign up for a powerlifting meet at Apollon Gym in Edison, NJ December 11, 2010. It'll be my first meet and I'm really excited for it. I plan on hitting some serious PRs that day. Here's a glimpse of a circuit I perform after deads on my Deadlift day. I use Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program, and if you're not familiar with it, you should absolutely buy it.

The videos show the first and fourth rounds of the circuit. It consists of:

Safety Squat Bar Good Mornings x 10reps (alt. btwn wide and narrow stances)
Walking DB Lunges x lap around gym
Squat Jumps holding KB x 10
KB Side Bends x 12-15/side

It's an ass-kicker!



In this 2nd video you can see I can't even walk correctly and the stance is much narrower on the GMs. The Good Morning is primarily a lower back, glutes, and hamstrings exercise, but with the safety bar it forces you to keep your upper back tight and it rocked my Abs hard.



Stay tuned for more posts on the topics of Nutrition, Recovery, Health, and how I train my clients and myself.

Peace!

Are you sick?

Yup, a blog post. Now that the semester is over and I actually have energy again, these will be coming alot more frequently. Sorry about the crappy audio and that you can hear the TV in the background. Won't let that happen again.



Tons and tons more to come!

Special Guest Post

My friend and co-worker Joe Meglio wrote an awesome article you guys should read if you're looking to get cut up. Great ideas and tips for getting the body that you want in as little time as possible. Joe's got plenty of other great articles over at his blog. Read and take notes.

So You Want to Get Ripped?

*Joe Meglio is a strength and conditioning coach at the Underground Strength Gym in Edison, New Jersey. He specializes in the training of baseball players. When he is not training athletes at the Underground Strength Gym, Joe runs his training business in Staten Island, New York. Currently, he attends Fairleigh Dickinson University-College of Florham where he is a member of the FDU baseball team. To learn more about Joe and his methods check out www.nystrengthcoach.blogspot.com*

Enjoy your hump day!

An Inconvenient Truth

Different people exercise for different reasons. I personally derive great pleasure from nailing a heavy set of squats and feeling like I gave it everything I have. Others do it to take out aggression, some do it to clear their heads, and some do it because they want to look good nekkid. There's no right or wrong answer as to "why?". For me, I know that exercising keeps the body healthy, and by this I mean that exercise improves my body's ability to perform necessary functions that keep my organs and complex systems working their best. This means longevity, and honestly, I want to live to be over 100 years old and still look young. (It's a lofty goal but I'll do my damnedest to achieve it). I also believe in the "sound body, sound mind" theory. Even Thomas Jefferson advocated exercising 2 hours per day in order to keep the mind sharp. This seems a bit excessive, and most people don't have 2 hours to devote to exercise each day, but you get the point. However, exercise isn't the only factor in the quest for health and longevity. In fact, just as important (if not more) is proper nutrition. Here's just a few things to think about: stored fat releases toxins into the bloodstream; chemicals in foods that are consumed everyday can cause brain cells to kill themselves; and many chemicals found in water, food, and objects that we consume or surround ourselves with every single day are linked with cancer. I don't know about you, but I don't want cancer. So I think it's pretty obvious that living a healthy lifestyle, which involves consuming health-promoting foods and avoiding health-degrading products, as well as being involved in regular exercise that promotes over-all health (including joint health, a.k.a. training smart), will lead to a healthier, happier, longer, and more productive and rewarding life. But the question becomes "Do we as Americans, or more generally, as residents of Earth, have the option of consuming the health-promoting products?" My answer to that is "PROBABLY NOT."



This is just a taste of what's to come. My research has been opening up to me much larger problems and issues. These ideas are going to take some time to develop fully. Also, I don't want to publish garbage with incorrect information and half-truths. Stay tuned for updates!

Update

I'm now about 17 days out from my first bodybuilding show. Crazy crazy times. For the next 2 weeks I'll be posting just one new blog post each week. Once the show is over I'll have plenty more time though. So far things are going pretty well. Leaner than I've ever been. Starting to get tan. Working on poses. Diet isn't easy but ya gotta do what ya gotta do to be competitive. Here's some more cool videos:







That's all for now. Stay Strong, and Improve every single day!

A Conditioning/Fat Loss Vid

I hope this first Friday in April finds everybody doing well. Hopefully you're all making great progress towards whatever goals you've set for yourself, whether its weekly, monthly, or yearly goals. Another quick post today. I'll be hitting up a Strongman Seminar tomorrow up at CrossFit Relentless in West Hartford, CT and I'm sure I'll get tons of great knowledge to bring back and share with everyone. Remember when I posted sample fat loss workouts and said I've used them all personally? Well here's a video shot probably 2 months or so ago of me cranking one of them at full speed. It was brutal but awesome and deadly effective. Enjoy:



It's supposed to be beautiful this weekend so get outside and do some barefoot training in the sun. It's always good to get back to our roots and train like our ancestors. (it's also a good idea to eat the way they did, but that's for another time). Take care and have a fun, active weekend!

Insanity

Things are pretty insane right now between dieting, lifting, cardio, work, and school. The seminar I attended on this past Saturday was great. Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell (www.westside-barbell.com) spoke about training athletes to improve speed. It was incredibly educative and I know I will absolutely apply what I learned to the training of my own lifters/athletes, as well as myself. Here's a few videos of Louie and the training that goes on at Westside.







I threw in Chuck Vogelpohl at the end because he is a BEAST!!! And he used to train at Westside. Enjoy your Hump Day.