There comes a point when all of us think we can not go anymore. Another step would kill us, turn of the pedal drain what little energy we have left, rep under the weight of a barbell. Well the truth is, you are thinking you can’t so how the hell could you possibly expect go any farther? No matter what you are doing, this point is what many of us like to call the wall.

Time stops, its a surreal moment actually, and you are given a choice. I mean this very literally — your body actually asks your mind if it wants it to go further even though it may hurt, even though our bodies think we are spent and have nothing left to give. Those of us with the courage to take the harder path will say no, I want you to keep on going; whatever happens after that I will deal with when the dust has settled.

I mean it is true isn’t it? Stop when your body says to and you will go home a little sore, sweat on your brow dried and with a little rest you will be fine. You are no warrior because you can lay claim to conquering no great feat. When I say great feat I mean personal accomplishment, you only did what you knew you could. Yah you say, who wants to go home beat and dead. This is who.

Be your own warrior. When your body is asking you to go home or fight take the reigns and fight. This is where the pain begins. The burn becomes intense and you can actually feel the fibers in your muscles twitching from the continued stress but they are now slaves to your mind. This ship is not going to stop until you tell it to. It really is an amazing state of being. Our bodies begin producing endorphin in higher quantities, a substance similar to opiates to quell the pain to some degree because it now recognizes that you are not going to let it stop.

When all is said and done you will likely be in pain but who told you pain does not go away. It is a temporary thing, but what you accomplished is forever. Nothing can take away what you did and you can revel in the fact that you did something that you might have thought was impossible.

So next time you are running, biking, repping weight, swimming laps or whatever, and your body asks you which road you are going to take, do not even hesitate and forge the unpaved path. Trust me, it will not kill you but it WILL show you who YOU really are.

Be strong, everyday.
Be your own warrior.

As Lance Armstrong said, Live Strong.

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Thanks!

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Awesome exercise, try it! I love how he says, “How many repetitions should you do? Probably 5-6. I do 30.” What a badass. Here’s another angle so you can see his entire body in the view:

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A spotter helps you get those last reps out of each set. You know the ones that usually threaten to crush you because you cannot push the weight anymore, well a finger or two from a spotter allows your good workout to become an absolutely mental one.

By getting those last reps out you push your body harder into an adaptive response which means your body will work harder to get stronger and bigger post workout. Your pumps will be massive and your muscles huge.

Take a friend with you, someone that is somewhere around your fitness level and help each other. Yell at each other under the weights because that is what we need every so often. Someone to yell at us and remind us that we haven’t quite got it yet, though we are most certainly working towards our goals.

So next workout push it that much harder with a proper spotter.

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Ree as the author calls herself, is a “desperate housewife. I love to cook delicious, abundant, satisfying food using the simplest of ingredients.” Where have you been all my life?!?! Everything from the lasagna to the chocolate sheet cake is superb. She provides amazing pictures for each step of the process so if something does not look right you will be able to figure it out soon enough. But really, take some time to browse around the offerings she has posted for us all. In college and need help keeping variety in your diet on a short wallet, this is your answer. Get home late and still need to whip something up for yourself before bed but do not want microwave tv dishes, this is your answer.

Nothing is overly flamboyant, there is no black truffles, no fruits from Rangoon or flour made in some small province in Italy. Just stuff you can find easily, make easily, and enjoy immensely.

Tell me what your favorite recipe is. Always looking to try new ones!

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Dynamic warm ups are not exactly new, but they have yet to really go mainstream. What are they? Well its warming up your body by stretching through movement. Examples of this are lunges, side bends, high knees, back pedals, scorpions, side stepping, high knee skipping, Frankenstein walk and MORE! Descriptions will follow.

So what is the deal with old school static stretching. Well get on pubmed @ ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/ and if you do a little research you will find numerous studies, all new that are all showing the same finding. That is, static stretching before an athletic event notably impairs the capability of our muscles to produce peak force output. It has been studied in specific sports, runners cannot sprint as fast, basketball players can’t jump as high, rugby players can’t push as hard, when they do a static stretching routine before these events.

Why? Well static stretching does not raise your core temperature at all, so your body is not becoming any more ready to go into full drive. You are stretching your muscles past their normal flexibility and this decreases the force capability of the contraction thereafter. In some cases, hyper extension injuries were shown to be higher when an athlete followed a static stretching regimen prior to an event. Now hear me out, I am not saying stretching is bad! It just should not be done prior to a performance but rather after as a part of a cool down.

Dynamic warm ups get our bodies ready to do what we need them to. They increase our range of motion dramatically, warm up our bodies significantly, stretch all core muscles including the legs trunk and upper body and can be made to be sport specific.

Another benefit is a dynamic flexibility regimen can be done significantly faster than a traditional 10-15 minute static stretching routine. This is how

Pick 6-8 of any of the following exercises:

• lunge
• side bend
• frankenstein walk
• high knees
• jumping jacks
• back pedaling
• scorpion
• high knee skipping
• side lunges

Then find yourself 15-20 yards of space. One way do one of the previous exercises and on the way back jog then repeat with the next exercise until you have done all the ones you chose for your routine. Do this three times and that is your warm up. Simple huh? Yeah I thought so to. Take a short 30 second rest between each set of 6-8 exercises. But other than that it is pretty straightforward. Now for a description of the above mentioned exercises.

Lunge - Step forward with one leg keeping your upper body straight and diving your knee into the ground. There should be about 2 and a half feet between your feet and you should feel the burn in your hamstrings and quads.

Side Bend - Bend at the waist from one side to the other keeping your torso straight and using only your obliques to pull you up. Best when done with an exercise ball for added mobility.

Frankenstein Walk - Just as they sound, put your arms straight out and kick your toes up to your hands as far as you can trying not to bend at the knee. This gets your hip more flexible and works your legs at the same time.

High Knees - While trying to run kick your heels up to your butt or around your waistline if you can while pumping the opposite arm. Great mobility enhancer for all the joints in your lower body. These are not about distance so do not try and cover the 15-20 yards quickly.

Jumping Jacks - Ah how we all love this arcane exercise. Try some variation to keep things new by having your arms in front of you instead of above or crossing your legs instead of just spreading them. Anything you can think of.

Back Pedaling - Run backwards making sure you are not dragging your heels or toes on the ground. Great for your calves and the muscle that wraps in front of your shins.

Scorpion - Lie face down on the ground with arms extended to your sides, palms facing down, so your body forms a mock T shape. Keeping this facedown position and keeping your shoulders flat on the ground, bring your left heel and swing it back towards your right hand. Repeat for the other leg.

High Knee Skipping - Just as we did when we were little go and skip! Only difference is with each skip try and bring your knee up as high as you can exploding of your toes with each skip.

Side Lunges - Get in a low athletic position, like a wide squat almost. Step to the side with one leg maintaining the same athletic position and not getting any taller. Much like I envision a ninja looks like. Yes you are the NINJA! Now step together with the other leg. Switch sides and repeat for the distance. These mega burn the glute and quads!

And there you have it, a dynamic flexibility warm up to get you ready for anything you might need to do. Want a sport specific routine? Drop a line in the comments.

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Everyone wants to be the best, be at the pinnacle of whatever sport or activity they may be participating in. We get it in our heads that to beat everyone else, we have to give ourselves a one up and this is where steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PEDS) enter into the equation. Sure there are side effects to their use, but they can be mitigated by incredibly careful, doctor assisted monitoring. What I mean is frequent blood work and hormone panels. 98% of PEDS users do not fit into this category. So why even decide to go that route? You are short changing yourself, determining that you will fail at achieving your goal without even trying.

Some will say, oh but I have peaked after one year of training. It has been a damn year you idiot. Even two or three still leaves you in the relative area of newness to lifting. You might know how to train better but as far as packing mass, you have not been doing it for all that long. If you are 6 foot 200 pounds, you have not peaked. Genetics will limit us to some degree but different training method, can and have been proven to overcome a weak genetic predisposition to being a hard-gainer.

Be brave for once in your life, please. Accomplishing anything is not easy, and getting bigger or changing your body is no small feat. It takes time and dedication, a steadfast mindset. Create who you want to be, do not accept an image. You are who you want to be, and that is the final word on that. A majority of you all out there WILL have to work harder. A lot harder. This challenge is what we call living your life. You see something you want and so you do everything in your power to achieve it; you sweat you bleed, wake up at 6 o’fucking clock in the morning just to get a meal in or to run 3 miles before work because you know you will not have time later.

Do not settle to simply exist, squander the life you have been given. You do not know your limits… No one does for that matter and with this in mind go out and DO because you can. Because you want to, because somewhere down the line someone said you couldn’t. Make this testimony to yourself now, today, not tomorrow or the day after. This is the trap of simply existing on this Earth. Recognize that now if you are this kind of person.

There is a distinct reward to accomplishing your goals naturally. You know that every pound, every striation, every line of muscle that clings to your body was created by you and struggle you have endured. And guess what you have ENDURED and you are that much stronger now. Both mentally and physically.

You are your own weapon. What will you do with yourself tomorrow?

For all those out there busting ass the natural way
The AITank Crew recognizes you

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I would suspect that 80 percent of the people that will read through this article are or have experienced the effects of over training in their workout regimen. “Love to lift” syndrome as I call it. Amateur and experienced lifters alike just think that being in the gym 7 days a week doing 20 sets per muscle group is the key to size. Well ask those people how long its taken them to get to whatever size they are. Likely answer is many years.

What everyone out there needs to understand is that our bodies get used to a routine. Their are specific neurological processes that I am referring to and will talk about in depth in a later article, but for now lets simplify the idea to, our bodies need to be confused if we want them to keep growing. This necessity for confusion is why all good routines offer variety in the exercises one can perform.

Think cycles. Optimally a workout cycle should last 7-9 weeks depending on your physiology. This means you workout for those 7 to 9 weeks then take a whole week off. Do not step into the gym at all. This is when your body undergoes a massive repair and recovery phase and so it is critical that your nutrition is as good if not better than it normally is. Do not believe me that taking a week off is good for you perform your own at home experiment. Go through two cycles and on one take the week off and the other do not. See if you do not come back much stronger and ready to move much more weight after the cycle where you let your body rest and recover.

High intensity training focuses on this style of rest and recovery. Many proponents, and there is an army of them, of HIT training say 3 days in the gym per week, 1 set to failure for the major muscles is all you need. This is great and yes it has been proven to work wonders but not everyone wants to just get bigger. As we talked about in our functional strength article their is more to strength than simply size. It would definitely be beneficial to work in at least 4-5 days of HIT training per entire 7-9 week cycle. It “adds to the mix” and keeps the confusion high. Have 2-3 complete cycles written out or described in some way so that you can go through them and never be stuck in any type of boring repetition.

What do I mean by have complete cycles written out, well have your workouts for each 7-9 week cycle written out. This way you can check to make sure you are changing your exercises, using new techniques, or focusing maybe on explosiveness vs size that cycle. Anything to keep it new to your body.

Here is an example of what a HIT training day looks like for those wondering:

• Dead lifts 1 x 15
• Overhead press 2 x 6~8
• Chinups 2 x 6~8
• Calf Raises 1 x 6~8
• Barbell Curls 1 x 6~8
• Shrugs 1 x 8~10

The key is to give it your all every rep, resting for a few seconds between each rep if necessary. There are many many techniques to HIT training which will be discussed in depth later but for the novice this will suffice. What you are trying to do with a HIT workout is trigger our bodies natural response to stress, the adaptive response, and then get out of the gym. Most HIT workouts are not longer than 45 minutes and some are even broken down so much to last 15 minutes per day. Look for more on this to come.

Till next time. Go hard, get big.

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So it’s about 9 pm, and the gym closes at 10:30. I still haven’t eaten and my mom has cooked some sausages and she wants to know if I’d rather eat before or after my workout. They smelled so good that I decided to eat them before.

Let’s just say pausing multiple times in the middle of sets to burp isn’t exactly beneficial to your lifts.

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If you’re in the middle of a set and talking to the person next to you, you’re not working out. If you’re looking across the room and checking out some girl stretching, you’re not working out. And if you feel exactly the same at the end of a set as you did at the beginning, you damn sure aren’t working out.

(more…)

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