Go heavy or go home!!!!

Firstly apologies with the lapse in my regular posts, I've been really busy with work. Anyway back to the more important stuff, training. Over the last few weeks as you may have seen from my Instagram posts I’ve somewhat reduced my usual high volume workouts with a focus more to going heavier, improving strength. 

My workouts have consisted more of a focus on the compound exercises, with a few isolated exercises just to finish off the muscle group. Going heavy doesn't always mean going up to your 1 rep max or 5x5, mix it up. I use both of these however, I also like to use 7x3, 8x2 and 6x6. Give these a try, some may work better for you or work better for each exercises. I prefer using the lower reps based sets for squats and going higher for deadlifts. Whatever you do, make sure to keep mixing it up and you will be less likely hit that wall with these exercises. Record each workout to see improvement, thus motivating you with an attempt to hit your 1 rep max every fifth workout. 

Try with the remainder of the workout through isolation exercises to focus on the tempo of the rep along with contraction. This will aid both strength, endurance and bring size to the muscle. Limit this however to no more then 6 working sets. I like to add a giant set onto the end of the workout as a perfect finisher. 

One more point which I have been asked a lot on social media recently is what is a deload week? Now many people think this is where you reduce your workouts to very little weight, along with high reps, giving the muscle a semi rest week. My opinion on this however is you've taken 3 steps forward, so why take 2 steps back? Keep the weight high so that the muscle is still being hit hard, however just reduce the volume. Cutting the working sets in half is always a good option.

So there you have it, a few tips to keep you going but there shall be a few more tips coming soon.

Jack. 

Fasted Cardio

Fasted Cardio

I'm trying to cut weight for the new year as I'm off to Australia for a few weeks in the new year and I'm going to use this type of cardio. There is a lot of controversy over fasted cardio, but I am personally a supporter of it.

Why people dislike this form of cardio is they are worried about losing muscle gains. Glycogen levels are very low in the morning, causing you to have very little energy, your body starts using muscle as an energy source. To help with this I use MyProteins BCAA mix along with some maltodextrin, protecting against falling into a anabolic state and low energy levels.

Furthermore along with a fasted programme you can use HIIT (high intensity interval training). This can be completed using a variety of cardio, I prefer sprints. HIIT training is short bursts of effort with an elongated period of rest. Most people think cardio means sitting on a bike for hours but a HIIT session can be over in 20 minutes. HIIT is proven to boast your metabolism, which is the one thing which is needed to burn unwanted body fat. Another reason why I do it early, purely because my metabolism is then on fire for the remainder of the day. 

My favourite workout is 

10x60m hill efforts, 1 minute rest. 

You can cater the workout for yourself, making the effort shorter or the rest longer. Also put things such as burpees in after each effort will really get the heart rate and fat burning up. So why not try this instead of long, low intensity fat burning cardio. 

Hope this helps

Jack

How to train effectively?

How to train a effectively?

Recently I was reading in a Q&A section of a magazine and it made for an interesting read. Training effectively can mean a numerous number of things but mainly aimed at are you reaching the goal that you set out to. So the point I'm getting at is set yourself goals in training, here are a few you could set yourself. 

Strength goals - set yourself a goal of a certain exercise you want to lift more weight on, thus building further strength. The big three are always good for this. I like to go with the most reps at BW for bench, 1.5 BW squat and 2xBW deadlift. 

Muscular Endurance - you could set yourself a certain goal through time based or number of reps completed for an exercise or numerous of exercises. A circuit/crossfit WOD is always good for this. Set yourself goals and strive to beat these, this will motivate you to push yourself further and train more effectively.

A competition or event - this is the best way to push yourself further as if you're competitive like me it shall push you more and more to achieve a better result at the event. Setting your sessions round this will always mean you'll train effectively.

Nutrition - this is in my eyes the most important. If you're not eating the right foods, not just pre and post workout but daily you won't train effectively!! As you may have heard many times if a car didn't have the right fuel it wouldn't work the most effectively it could. This is the same with the food you consume. Stick to your slow digesting carbs pre workout so not to feel sluggish, with fast digesting both during and post workout. Eat plenty of fruit and veg, lean protein options with a little diary and you'll be on the right track. 

So there you have it, get training effectively. Follow this points and you won't be going far wrong. Let us know if these points help. 

Killing Shoulders, Mike O'Hearn and Rob Riches

As many of you will know who regularly read my posts I talk a lot about shoulders. This is because out of all muscle groups, this is my weakest both in size and strength. However, I recently watched a collaboration video on YouTube between Mike O'Hearn and Rob Riches which very much demonstrates a different way of training shoulders, this I then out into practice yesterday in my workout. 

The first exercise he uses is a single standing DB press. I love all standing exercises just recently because it really helps activate the core, stabilising your upper body especially when going heavy over head. Mike is explicit about going heavy in this video. You just go heavy , don't chase the pump. 1-5 is my normal rep range. He goes on to mention how the opening exercise should always shock the nervous system and the rest of the workout will feel light. Furthermore be careful with warm up sets, don't go to far, only 5 reps over 2 sets are really needed otherwise all your doing is putting strain and fatiguing the muscle before you've even hitting it with the big stuff. I really stuck by this in my recent workout and boy does it work. My shoulders were on fire and I only really went heavy for one set at 37.5kg for 5 reps. Nothing compared to Mike getting up over 140lbs for 6 with ease. The guy has insane strength and I think one of the best bodies in the game so who wouldn't take advice off him.

The rest of the workout continues with a huge focus paid on not over doing it on every set you complete, but real attention paid to the heavy sets, always to failure!! He goes on to talk about how form can sometimes be slightly comprised within reason to reach those extra few reps. Giving the press, a more so push press towards the end of a set by a little bounce from the legs. After 3 more exercises, including a upright DB row, rear delt fly and a horrible looking lateral into a front raise movement, done light with control focusing in the roundness of the shoulder, and boy did it burn, the workouts done. 

So there you have it, check the video on Rob Riches YouTube page, if it gets 2 million views then Mike has said he'll fly you out to LA to train with them, so get liking, sharing etc. Now go and kill shoulders.

Jack

Keep clean eating whilst on the move, Squats, Deadlifting and Spectre.

Recently I have been away a lot with work however as discussed in previous posts this hasn't stopped me from eating clean and the fundamental reason for this is meal prep, but also my 8 pack bag from MyProtein. 

Now this allows me to store up to 8 meals in the bag along with side pouches to store secondary items, this is where I like to put my cottage cheese, fruit and greek yogurt. This bag goes everywhere with me and allows for me to eat wherever, whenever. Its so durable unlike most bags where the zip breaks after a few weeks, this will survive the most brutal of users. Its currently priced at £29.99 in both holdall and back bag, couldn't recommend this enough, so get over to myprotein.com. 

On greek yoghurt I’ve recently just swapped to Skyr yogurt. This stuff is in my opinion the best yogurt currently on the market. It’s fat free, high in protein tipping the scales at 11 grams per 100 grams and has only 4 grams of sugar. This is a must buy!! Great as a pre workout snack and pre bed snack or even on top of my favourite banana omelettes. Get down to the supermarket where it is currently a bargain with two 450 grams tubs for £3. You can’t beat that. 

Lastly as many of the long term followers will know I’ve recently been focusing a lot more on the big compound moves. Last week was a great training week for me. If you follow me on Instagram you'll see that I managed to get out 170kg back squat for 5 reps which is a new personal record for me. For some reason training in a jumper inspired me to go heavier than normal, working my way up slowly to this weight. When I go heavy my back often gives way, however with my deadlifting routine being on point recently my lower back seems to be a lot stronger and be managed to put up bigger weight. On the point of deadlifts I managed to max out at 220kg this week, not that far away from half a ton. This was with pretty sore legs so I was really pleased. Points to note when going heavy is really bend down and use your legs more in the movement as oppose to just your back. Furthermore warm up correctly, I went up from 160kg in 10kg intervals, this really helps prepare yourself mentally when going heavy and often don't notice the difference in weight. 

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In other news I was inspired by a viewing of Spectre on Sunday as I got invited to the cast and crew viewing, prior to the premiere on Monday. If you haven’t yet checked it out do, you won’t regret it.

Anyway have a great weeks training

Jack

What rep range do I use?

Today being international chest day I thought what better than to train chest of course. I met up with one of my mates at the gym and over a pre workout espresso he asked me an interesting question, ‘what is the best rep range in order to building muscle?’. 

This is a point that is always being discussed and many people will tell you 10-12 reps, otherwise known as the hypertrophy range. To build strength you should be hitting 5 or below and to increase endurance aim for anywhere from 12-20 reps per the set. However, I was recently reading a study in Men’s Health which had shown you should perform no more than 8 reps if you're looking to build muscle. This ends up with you questioning what rep range should I be using? Well I’ve got the answers in order to make you hit all of this easy, based on todays chest workout. 

1. Start with your compound move of the session. For me today this was flat bench press. I warmed up to 3 working sets of 3 reps in a pyramid fashion. I then dropped the weight by 20% to hit 8-10 reps for 2 sets, then lastly bodyweight for 12 or failure. This straight away is recruiting a good few rep ranges.
2. I then like to move onto incline flies purely to flood the muscle with blood, for this I used ascending pyramids hitting sets at 15,12,10,8 and 6 reps. The last set add in a triple drop set. The first two sets you are treating more like pump sets, however the triple drop set in total will add up to 20 reps, more of what can be described as a endurance rep range. Again you have used all rep ranges, perform these with a good slow tempo and contraction, not all to failure. I’ve recently gone a lot heavier in these movements and have noticed such a difference to growth in my chest. 
3. My third exercise was incline dumbbell press again with a similar fashion to above however I ascending up in weight to then decrease back down. By this point however I was quite fatigued however still managed to push out a good weight with the rep scheme 12,10,8,12,15. 
4. I always like to mix this exercise up in my routine so today it was a competition between me and my training partner performing dips. 100 reps in total, fewest sets wins. This really pushes the muscle to failure and beyond as you can compete against one another. No matter rep ranges, a muscle pushed this hard will have to grow. 
5. The finisher today was high to low cable fly triple drop sets followed by prison press ups, reps determined by your age. Do this for three sets. This keeps things a little more interesting as oppose to the normal rep scheme you'd use. For a demonstration check out Steve Cook’s channel on youtube. He always uses them and they are great to use as a finisher. 

So there you go, a workout which demonstrates how you can target the muscle with all different types of rep ranges. This will keep the muscle guessing, pushing it in different ways but more importantly keeping things interesting for you. Fundamentally a muscle pushed to failure will instinctively grow stronger, thus bigger so don’t get to hung up on rep schemes. 

Hope this helps

Jack

I want bigger shoulders

I want bigger shoulders!!

This seems to be a goal of many recently, with a lot of people asking me how can I build boulder shoulders after seeing people like Ryan Terry and Steve Cook. It's kind of like the new chest and huge arms. 

The one thing you must remember about shoulders are that they are often secondary muscle group or stabilising muscles in most of the exercises you do, this therefore means when it comes to training them don't always use a lot of volume. Front delts get a big hammering when training chest, and even more so performing exercises with an incline.

Warm you shoulders up! Shoulders are prone to injury and if you have a recurring injury in your shoulders say goodbye to ever building big shoulders. Always spend a good ten minutes before any upper body session really warming up the shoulders, particular attention paid to the rotator cuff. 

Focus more on the lateral and posterior head, more than the front delt. As already mentioned the front delt is used often in through other exercises. The lateral and posterior will is also give more depth and roundness to your shoulders, thus making it appear a lot larger. This is in my opinion the easiest way to build size fast through isolation, high rep, low weight and focus on the contraction, squeezing the muscle. 

Lastly is split the shoulders into two workouts. This is something I'm using at the minute and absolutely love it. I do a anterior workout focusing on the push press to begin with then upper chest along with the lateral head of the muscle. The following day I deadlift heavy at the beginning, slightly using it as a secondary back day. Then I focus on face pulls and flies to recruit my rear delts, finishing with a shrug marathon. It is certainly working for me as this has always been a lacking muscle of mine. If you're cut for time add triceps onto the end of the anterior workout and biceps onto the posterior day.

So there are four easy steps you can adjust into your training in order to build bigger shoulders. Have a fab weekend. Eat clean, train hard and get plenty of rest.