Building A Foundation: Properly Progressing

Lets say you have a brand new car, new tires, new interior. Everything is perfect except...theres no spark plugs. Does that shiney new car serve its purpose? No, you pretty much have a giant paperweight. The same thing goes for your body. What do i mean you ask? Simple, working out your big show/mirror muscles is great but not at the expense of the smaller "spark plug" motor muscles. This is where knowning how to properly progress from exercise A to exercise B and eventually C comes in handy.

For example, I train a big 300+ linemen right now. In order to get his strength on part with his size, his former trainer just jumped straight to heavy lifting with the goal of him benching 225 easy and maxing at like 315.

Sleep Your Way To Muscles

Now I know a lot of people got excited reading this title thinking it will be a excuse for their Garfield the Cat type habits (eat, sleep, repeat) but sorry, not the case. Unless your like my gorgeous friend Jessica Gott whose voice completely changes to a hot Disney character when shes tired, some people don't realize their body telling them when its time to shut it down for the night.

One of the main overlooked aspects of training, other than diet is your sleep habits. Everyone wants to workout for 4 hours a day, but completely ignores the rest habits to go hang out or party in a tight affliction shirt. Biigggg mistake.

Ouch, my kneeee!!! Avoiding Injuries and Playin Strong

This summer I had the joy of training my teammate Ray Stever back from his knee injury that cost him a season. Since some people would like to complain like they have the most original revolutionary ideas for how to avoid knee problems and then just mention squats but don't correct form or things like that, I'm going to take it to a whole different level. Keep reading to learn how to stay stronger longer.

What is a Torn ACL?

An ACL tear most often occurs during sporting activities when an athlete suddenly pivots causing excessive rotational forces on the ligament. Other mechanisms that can cause an ACL tear include severe trauma and work injuries. Individuals who experience ACL tears usually describe a feeling of the joint giving out, or buckling--patients also often say they hear a "pop."

Most Common Signs of a torn ACL:

Sudden giving way of the knee
Hearing a 'pop' at the time of injury
Sudden swelling of the knee joint
Pain in the knee when walking
Ready to erase your pain and raise every area of your fitness?

More Diets YAYY Part 2

I posted week one a few days ago and hopefully your moving along well with it. Below is part two which is actually HARDER. You'll see your gains at this point so it will be worth it but chances are your going to want to eat. Bare with me and if you get too hungry healthy snacks are allow. Avoid snacks loaded with sugar and excess calories. And on to Week 2...

Perception or Reality: Fat or Body Fat

Many people perceive overall weight as a general determining factor of just how “in shape” you are. Even things like BMI “body mass index” going off height and weight can really kill a person’s motivation (trust me, my WII fit character looks like a square with a head because of that). Sure being scale heavy sucks but more importantly, a high body fat REALLY SUCKS.

More Diets YAYY

In all my years of training (8 to be exact) it never ceases to amaze me just how many people don't understand the effect of diet while exercising. So many people give the "I don't get it, i work out 24/7 but the scale isn't showing it" response and usually all you have to ask is....how are your eatting habits..

So in order to one again do my job and make it easier for all of you reach your goals in a healthy and safe way, hears another diet to compliment your workout routines. Now before we get started, reminder, most diets are not to be done full time. Unless your turning vegan or something do it for a week or 2, see how your body handles it and guage from there. This one is to be done for 2 weeks..yes 14 days straight folks, no cheating, and see your results and let me know.

WEEK 1:

For breakfast each day: 1 grapefuit, 4oz low fat yogurt and 1 slice of ham.

For mixed greens you may use salt, pepper, oil and lemon juice, but NO dressings.

Day 1:
Lunch: 1 steak, tomatoes, coffee or tea
Dinner: Turkey or chicken cultet, mixed greens, 1 toast, grapefruit, tea.

Day 2:
Lunch: 1 beef patty, 1 grapefruit
Dinner: 1 steak, tomatoes, mixed greens, celery, olives, cucumbers, tea

Day 3:
Lunch: 2 eggs, spinach, tomatoes, tea
Dinner: 1 cutlet (pork), cottage cheese or yogurt (fat free), cabbage, 1 toast, tea

Day 4:
Lunch: 1 turkey, chicken or veal cutlet, spinach, tomatoes, tea
Dinner: 2 lamb cutlets, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, tea

Day 5:
Lunch: 1 filet mignon, spinach, tea
Dinner: fish, salad, 1 toast, tea

Day 6:
Lunch:  fruit salad - as much as you want
Dinner: 1 steak, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, tea

Day 7:
Lunch: grilled or roasted chicken, tomatoes, grapefruit
Dinner: 1 steak, tomatoes, cucumbers, tea


I will post week 2 in a few days. Now big KEY FACT, just like with workouts, I can give you the best diet but its up to you to use it properly. Follow it best as possible. Sure you can modify it alittle here and there but the general diet idea needs to stay that same. Also, eat in moderation, even a healthy food can make you put on weight if you eat 50 pounds of it in one sitting. Take your time, enjoy the meal and be health.

New Sports Performance Promo

Shake Weight: Bang for your Buck, or Invented by someone with TOO much alone time?

By now we have all seen the lovely Shake Weight Promo....if your lucky you've seen the SNL spoof of it which is what we all were thinking when we first saw it anyway...


At first I didn't think anyone would take this thing serious, but once again, fads win and people started getting it. My dad even got one for christmas, so trying to be unbias I decided to try it out. As appealing as the Shake Weight might seem when you’re watching late night TV, there’s not much muscle behind its infomercial hype.

A spring-loaded weight that moves up and down. You try to hold it steady (and try not too look too raunchy). Ads claim the weight forces up to 240 muscle contractions a minute, resulting in a complete upper-body workout in only 6 minutes. Sounds good in theory. Who doesn't want to do hours worth of work in 6 minutes? Sadly like most things that seem too good to be true, this one is. Simple logic and research says even if muscles contract, it doesn’t mean they’ll grow. You need to progressively add weight to challenge your muscles, says Mark Peterson, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at the University of Michigan. The Shake Weight for Men weighs only 5 pounds, and hundreds of reps with minimal resistance won’t grow muscle. Sure you will feel some muscle fatigue but I could have you tap your index finger on the table for 60 seconds and eventuallyt your hand will cramp up...does that mean in 4 weeks you will have the hands of the hulk? More likely some kind of crippling finger arthritis. Save your money and your time here, just use normal weights.

P90x: Life Saver or Latest Fad

Each year, a handful of fitness fads explode onto the American scene. And, each year, an equal number fizzle out in far less spectacular fashion. But every so often, one sticks around, and for the last several years running it has been P90X—a wildly popular home-based fitness routine with a growing (and near fanatical) following among weekend warriors and A-list celebs alike (Ewan McGregor, Ashton Kutcher, and Donavan McNabb are among its devotees). It’s also one of the most popular search terms on MensHealth.com. But if you’re reading these words, you’ve found the only ones we’ve ever written about it. Why? Because while P90X might be able to accomplish what it claims for $120 (i.e., “transform you from regular to ripped in 90 days”), it’s likely not the total-body fitness solution that most people are looking for.

If you watch late night television, you’ve seen the infomercials: Fitness trainer Tony Horton and a handful of attractive models explain that by constantly introducing new exercises and workouts—which run the gambit from traditional strength sessions to Kenpo karate classes—you’ll achieve a constant state of “muscular confusion.” The less your muscles adapt, Horton explains, the faster they’ll grow.

The idea of “muscular confusion” isn’t new. And unfortunately for Horton and the folks at Beachbody—who also introduced the world to Hip Hop Abs and the Turbo Jam workout—it’s not based on science. “It’s a marketing term invented by Joe Weider [the creater of the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest] back in the 1980s,” says Bill Hartman, C.S.C.S, a strength coach in Indianapolis. “And it’s kind of counterproductive.”

5 Diet Tricks That Over Deliver To Get You Faster Fat Loss

Tired about reading all those diet tips that seem to sound smart but never really make any difference in your progress? If you’re like most people you are very much looking forward to sporting a new and improved you in a few months time and don’t want to be wasting weeks, if not months, on techniques that simply just do not work.
You’ve put in the effort and now, you expect results. The problem is that if the effort you’ve been putting in isn’t on sound strategies that actually do deliver, that effort is going to be effort that’s sadly wasted.
That’s why your job is to figure out which tricks work so that you can start making the progress you’re after.
To help you cut to the chase, we’ve eliminated all those junky types that will only waste you time and stripped it down to the essentials. If you implement these into your diet, I guarantee you will see results because of it.
Let’s get you started.