8 Time Mr Olympia Lee Haney Shares His Secret To Quality Muscle
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Bob Gardner Courtesy of Weider Health and FItness / M+F Magazine
[RELATED2] QUESTION Pro bodybuilders talk about adding “quality muscle.” Is that basically mass and definition, or is it something more? ANSWER Adding “quality muscle” to your frame is the result of the consummate art of combining mass and definition. It’s a rare and difficult accomplishment. You can have muscle mass without definition and vice versa — you can even throw in symmetry, “lines” and other assorted idioms — but you won’t have “quality muscle” until all of that definition erupts out of your muscle mass like fissures and faults on a mountain. Every muscle in your body must stand out on its own, bold and bursting; this, you may think, is the definition of “definition.” Not so. Definition won’t stand out if it’s not big enough to get your attention; otherwise, it’s just strings and threads. Conversely, muscle mass alone is an unstructured blob. Quality muscle, on the other hand, is sculpture, hammered, and chiseled into prominent but detailed features from years of purposeful sweat and toil. By that, I mean you can’t achieve quality from simply lifting the heaviest weight possible without regard to technique, nor from pumping out endless reps with a feeble weight. I was very serious when I said you must hammer and chisel with sweat and toil, but that takes heavy reps and a lot of them. [RELATED1] In my quest for quality muscle, I realized that I had to maintain both mass and low bodyfat, so I used two different workouts for each major bodypart. The first was designed to build mass, the second was oriented toward definition. Sets and reps differed for each type of workout. For mass, I relied on extremely heavy weight for lower reps (six to 10 per working set), the objective being to take the muscle group to failure for each set. The definition phase incorporated more reps (eight to 15 per set) to build an isolated burn in target muscles. Did my exercises differ for each type of workout, you may ask? Not really — I believe that the best exercises for each bodypart can be counted on one hand, so why not concentrate on those? Instead of including inferior movements for the sake of diversity, I simply varied the weight and reps for my objective that day. To develop a complete and mature physique with the two qualities of muscle — definition and mass — I recommend rotating two workouts for your larger bodyparts (delts, thighs, chest, back and shoulders, at least). I have included an example of the thigh workouts I used in the offseason before the 1991 Mr. Olympia contest. Each type of workout requires maximum intensity. Even if you’re facing a definition sequence, with its lighter weights and higher reps, that doesn’t mean you need not push each set to absolute failure. Effort, after all, is more important than all the techniques in the world. [RELATED3] HANEY'S QUALITY TRAINING FOR LEGS WORKOUT A: MASS
WORKOUT B: DEFINITION
*First set is a warm-up.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 27, 2019 at 01:41PM
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Build a Back Like a Golden-Era Bodybuilder With This Workout
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EDGAR ARTIGA / M+F Magazine
If your goal is to be classically built, you’ll have no choice but to attack your back with intensity, focus, and a meticulously designed program that will build the perfect combination of width, thickness, and separation. This means that each exercise must be carefully selected and serve a specific purpose each workout. A haphazard, kitchen-sink approach has no place in the quest of a classic physique. What follows is a three-week program I have put together exclusively for M&F readers who covet the classic look. It provides you with three unique training protocols meant to stimulate growth via different pathways, using strategically chosen exercises and intensity techniques meant for creating a jaw-dropping, showstopping back that is purely...classic. [RELATED1] ASPECTS OF A CLASSIC BACK
[RELATED2]TRAINING BREAKDOWNWEEK 1: THE SPEC (STRETCH/PEAK CONTRACTION/ECCENTRIC/CONCENTRIC EMPHASIS) METHOD This training protocol utilizes four distinct rep tempos (one for each movement), each emphasizing a different “section” of the range of motion. This forces the muscle to withstand a unique form of tension with each exercise, allowing one to tap into several muscle-growth (anabolic) pathways. WEEK 2: THE FTX2 (FAST-TWITCH EXPONENTIAL) METHOD This training protocol helps set up maximum fast twitch muscle fiber firing through the utilization of high reps (to exhaust slow-twitch fibers) and then heavy explosive lifts (to excite the central nervous system). This combination will make the final two movements substantially more effective for igniting hypertrophy. WEEK 3: THE PRRS (POWER/REP RANGE/SHOCK) HYBRID METHOD This training protocol utilizes various rep ranges, lifting tempos, and intensity techniques to blast all your muscle fibers, manifesting a massive pump and shocking the system into igniting growth. It is the perfect way to put the finishing touches on this three-week program. [RELATED3]TEMPO EXPLAINEDTempo is the term used to describe how fast you lower, lift, and pause with the weight in each phase of a repetition. It is expressed in seconds and begins with the negative (lowering) portion of an exercise, then the midpoint (stretch) portion, then the positive (lifting) portion, and if there is a fourth number used it will be the peak contraction (squeeze).
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 27, 2019 at 01:05PM
10 Proven Metabolism Boosters
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Eating a Lot of Junk Food Permanently Harms Your Sperm Count
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Gentlemen, you might want to think twice about eating that Big Mac. Diets that contain high amounts of processed foods not only deplete men’s sperm counts, but also cause irreversible damage to the little swimmers, according to a new Harvard study. Healthy men typically have at least 39 million sperm per ejaculate, according to the World Health Organization. Men who ate a "Western diet"—one filled with pizza, chips, refined grains, high-energy drinks, and sweets—had a sperm count that was 25.6 million lower, the study found. The highest sperm count was found in people who ate mostly fish, chicken, vegetables, fruit, and, water; vegetarians had the second-highest sperm count. “Our findings support the growing evidence that adhering to generally healthy diet patterns, including local variations, is associated to higher sperm counts and more favorable markers of sperm function,” the researchers wrote in their study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. [RELATED1] For the study, the medical tests of 3,000 Danish men ages 18 to 20 were examined. Not only did those with a poor diet have a lower sperm count, researchers found, but the food seemed to cause irreparable damage to their sperm health. Meaning, even if they ate healthier later on in life, their sperm counts were still much lower than clean eaters. In recent years, the issue of male infertility has been gaining steam in headlines and studies worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 35 percent of couples have problems with infertility, and in 8 percent of those cases the man is the only factor. Additionally, according to the CDC, 9 percent of men aged 25 to 44 have sought treatment for infertility. Low sperm count could be the result of genetics or a disease, but much research has also found that external factors are adding to the problem.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 27, 2019 at 12:00PM
Four-Time World's Strongest Man Brian Shaw Sets Out to Lose 40 Pounds
https://ift.tt/2Ydjvbq Four-time World’s Strongest Man Brian Shaw has a new challenge, and it has nothing to do with hoisting heavy weight. Shaw, who placed sixth at this year's World's Strongest Man contest, wants to lose 40 pounds. In his latest YouTube video, Shaw said he wanted to drop weight in an effort to become more athletic and faster. He plans on doing this by changing his diet, which he discussed in-depth in the video below:
Shaw weighed in at 434 pounds during the video (while wearing sneakers and clothes, which added to the total), and added that his goal weight is 400 pounds. He explained that he's probably already lost weight since coming back from WSM 2019, noting that he’s stopped force-feeding himself and “missed a couple of meals” since then. In a prior YouTube video, Shaw said he was proud of his performance at WSM but that there were things he needed to be better at, mainly his speed in events such as the loading medley. This would explain his desire to lose some pounds, as a lighter Shaw is a faster Shaw. This year marked Shaw’s worst showing at a WSM since 2012, when he placed fourth. At 37, he’s also considerably older than most of the other performers--Martins Licis, winner of this year's WSM, is only 28, for example. Still, it doesn’t seem like he has any plans on slowing down. He said he wants to improve his conditioning during training sessions, but whether it’ll be enough to push him back to the top of the mountain remains to be seen. He’s also not the only strongman to be on a weight-loss journey. Recently, 2017 WSM Eddie Hall posted a YouTube video in which he revealed he’s lost 20 pounds in body weight in 17 days and got his body fat percentage down to 20.1 percent. Shaw and Hall are set to compete at Giants Live Wembley on July 6.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 27, 2019 at 09:55AM
The Bathroom Break Kettlebell Strength Plan
https://ift.tt/2X0Xlrj I drink a lot of water and coffee. Consequently, I run to the bathroom almost every hour. It is down the hall and takes no more than a couple of minutes. I hardly notice these breaks.
Despite my peculiar love for time management and my obsession with avoiding distraction, it has never crossed my mind to schedule these bathroom breaks or shift my habits so that I take fewer. Nor have I ever felt my productivity suffer because of my body’s need for waste removal. I just go.
Similarly, bosses do not require wage-workers to clock out for bathroom breaks. There is an understanding that the lost time is negligible, if not a beneficial mental reprieve. Sometimes a lot can be gained from a five-minute break.
The reality is we all have time to work out. We just need to start looking at our workouts a different way. The typical exerciser will train three or four days per week. They’ll meander around the gym for a while doing five to eight exercises at about three sets each. At the high end that makes 24 sets. Each of those 24 sets will take 30 seconds or less, on average. That translates to 12 minutes of actual work.
This is not to belittle the work. Those 12 minutes create a cascade of changes in the body and they’d be less effective without some time between the sets. Still, it is about 10 to 12 minutes we are after and any extended rest between those sets will only improve the quality of subsequent work.
You may be thinking, "I don’t do strength training. I’ve always worked out differently." There are a billion other ways that you could train—the treadmill, stairstepper, spin classes, HIIT/metabolic conditioning, or pilates—but strength should always be one of the primary considerations.
Strength training staves off brittle bones, promotes a full range of motion, increases the metabolism, and lays the foundation to safely navigate other training modalities. Particularly when you add in time constraints, supersetted strength circuits become the lead domino. Very little will be as beneficial as a well designed (and it’s ridiculously simple) simple strength plan.
What you need is a kettlebell or a couple of kettlebells near your desk and four exercises with a lot big bang for the buck:
The weights should offer an appropriate resistance, but they needn’t be excessively heavy. This is part of the grease-the-groove philosophy popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline. By working out every day with sub-maximal weights and never hitting failure, you can make tremendous strides in strength and overall fitness.
The point is to focus on quality every time and get better at the skill of each movement. By not approaching failure, you offer the body a dose it can quickly recover from. Exercising in this manner leaves you refreshed and more active. It is actually a far more natural way of training and, most importantly, it works in congruence with the science of habit installation.
You Are Your HabitsDesired changes almost always fail because:
I call this self-mastery and for a deeper dive, see my free ebook, The Essential Guide to Self-Mastery. For now, I’ll summarize the habit-loop.
Most actions are the product of a habit loop: a cue, followed by a routine, followed by a reward. Your phone chimes. You check it and then are rewarded with the satisfaction of that curiosity and possibly some juicy information. You feel boredom, then head to the pantry for chips, and get the reward of tasty satisfaction.
If you want to install a new action (routine), you’ll need to find a cue and a reward, and you’ll want to practice these patterns consistently. That is why this program is best done every day, or at least every work day. It is perfect for a Monday to Friday work schedule.
The CueFor your cue, I recommend setting a phone alarm for the last five minutes of six specific hours within your work day. For example:
At each alarm you’ll do the simple routine outlined below:
1. 40 Second Warm-Up
2. Main Event
I’ve naturally progressed the movements in an order that promotes safer movement and ensures you are warm enough, despite the short warm-up. Still, if you ever feel unsafe, lower the weight. Over time the exercises can change as I’ll demonstrate with later iterations, but just do these exercises in a straight circuit at each of your six cues.
The RewardThe final consideration is the reward. Soon enough, the reward will take care of itself. You’ll simply feel better after each of these 3-4 minute breaks. Still, I recommend starting with another reward. Most of us check our phone and email too often.
You could make a rule that you didn’t get to check either until after one of these exercise blocks. That is far more than I check email every day. You could have a small fruit or mixed nut snack ready for after each block. The sky's the limit if you are creative, but the point is to have a consistent cue, especially in the first month of this program.
The principles of this program are simple and allow busy people to get an effective training dose, despite their hectic schedules. In fact, that time restriction may be the limitation that reveals a better way.
As the Stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius, mused, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” We are better off for having a plan that forces us to master habits and move in frequent short blocks.
It is better to move a bit all day than to get it all in one clump and spend the rest of the day in a sedentary slump. The optimal lifestyle would be doing this intermittent strength program along with active daily habits like taking the stairs, parking at the furthest spot, biking to work, mowing your own grass, gardening, and occasionally playing games. After you see the results of these short habitual patterns, you’ll start to see the world and movement differently. Fitness via Breaking Muscle https://ift.tt/1GxgPEe June 27, 2019 at 04:37AM
Double Compound Movements
https://ift.tt/2NhDMeX The ’70s and ’80s saw the birth of the globo-gym era and with it a limited, narrow conception of what training looked like. Most people who exercised chose either bodybuilding or “aerobics.”
Despite all the headbands and flashy colors, aerobics was not much different than a lot of the popular weight loss programs of the modern world. The basic concept was to move a lot and you’d lose weight. It works. There doesn’t need to be a lot of rhyme or reason. More movement tends to have that effect.
Where aerobics focused on shrinking the body, bodybuilding was all about isolating muscle groups to make them as large as possible. Thus, the majority of weightlifters flocked to machines where they would individually work their biceps, triceps, pecs, shoulders, quads, hamstrings, abductors, and calves. Knee extensions and lat pull-downs replaced squats and pull-ups. When weightlifters used free-weights they, likewise, isolated individual muscles, doing preacher curls, and skull crushers. Of course, there is an obvious exception—the bench press.
Like the monks of the dark ages who copied the works of Plato and Aristotle, only a rare few kept alive the compound movements. Typically these were athletes who, driven by a need to perform, remained committed to finding the best way to train the human body. This is to train movement patterns, not isolated muscles. All humans are athletes, at least in how they are meant to move. We must maintain the fundamental human movement patterns: the push (vertical and horizontal), the pull (vertical and horizontal), the hip hinge and hip dominant movement family, the squat and knee dominant movement family, and locomotion.
Compound Movements Are EffectiveToday, compound movements have been restored to their rightful place atop the exercise hierarchy. Whether you are trying to lose weight, tone, or add muscle, your program almost certainly involves squats, lunges, hinges, hip thrusts, rows, and presses. But does it combine these movements? You probably do RDL’s and maybe you’ve even worked up to one of my favorites, the single leg RDL. But have you done a single leg RDL row? By adding a rowing motion at the bottom of the hinge your glutes, core, and balance are worked even harder.
There are tons of these double compound movements that can be combined to create a fast, extremely powerful training effect. Because they combine multiple movements at once they get more work done in less time.
Try the following circuits, where I pick six of my favorite double compound movements and combine them for a fast, extremely metabolic training dose.
Double Compound Circuit 13 Rounds
Double Compound Circuit 23 Rounds
Variation of deadlift high pull courtesy of Greg Walsh of Wolf Brigade.
Fitness For Busy SchedulesThat is it—both circuits hit every muscle in your body. You’ll be soaked in sweat in no time at all. These circuits are perfect for fitting in a lot of fitness on a busy day, or for those days where you want to start with a lot of skill work and end with a bang. For more unique exercise combinations check out my Push, Pull, and Thrive program.
Fitness via Breaking Muscle https://ift.tt/1GxgPEe June 27, 2019 at 04:37AM
Larry Wheels Takes Spotting to Another Level
https://ift.tt/2J9iNFO This takes spotting to a different level. Larry “Wheels” Williams recently manhandled bodybuilder and YouTube personality Zac Perna during a training session the two posted on Instagram. See the video here: ZacPernaAndLarryWheels
@zacperna / Instagram
Perna, an Australian personal trainer, is by no means a small guy, but he’s absolutely dwarfed by Wheels’ massive stature. The two were training at The WareHouse Gym in Dubai. Perna has been documenting his journey on YouTube, so there’s no doubt we’ll see more of him and Wheels in the near future. Wheels, meanwhile, is training for the July 6 “Giants Live: Wembley” show, where he’ll hope to qualify for World’s Strongest Man 2020 through a series of strength competitions. Seeing as he’s able to easily curl what Perna benches, we have no doubt Wheels will do well in London. Whether he’ll be able to go on to defeat reigning WSM Martins Licis remains to be seen.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 26, 2019 at 05:02PM
Alementary Brewing Company Names Beer After Jean-Claude Van Damme
https://ift.tt/2XrExWH Alementary Brewing Company in Hackensack, New Jersey, just unveiled its new Jean-Claude Van Damme-inspired beer, simply called Van Damme. You can check out their Instagram post announcing the new arrival here. For those who know their action movie history (as embarrassing as it may be), the caption is full of side-splitting JCVD references (even Timecop gets a mention…despite being…well, you know…Timecop). How many of these have you seen? “New this week, our tribute to the Muscles from Brussels... The one... The only... Van Damme!! We've brewed this Belgian-style Golden Strong Ale, dry hopped with Hallertau Herkules hops as both a Street Fighter and a Kickboxer. With a Lionheart to hit any Hard Target, this Universal Soldier accepts No Retreat, No Surrender. We've taken Maximum Risk to brew this beer, forged in the Inferno and made sure it doesn't get Derailed on it's way from our brewhouse to your fridge. Ummm uhhhhh....Timecop” JCVD has yet to comment on his new namesake beer, but we are sure he will be excited when he sees it—just look at how excited he gets drinking coffee over on Instagram. If you’re looking to get some Jean-Claude Van Damme beer for yourself, head over to Alementary Brewery’s website here for more information.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 26, 2019 at 02:18PM
Polish Powerlifter Deadlifts 953 Pounds for a World Record
https://ift.tt/2ZQeh5Q Polish powerlifter Krzysztof Wierzbicki is known for his deadlifting, and he pushed it to the limit this past weekend with an incredible 432.5kg (953.5-pound) equipped deadlift for an unofficial all-time world record, Barbend reports. Wierzbicki, also known as Mr. Deadlift, pulled off the feat at this past weekend’s Deadlift Challenge III in the Czech Republic. He weighed in at 216.2 pounds and competed in the "Monster Division," according to Open Powerlifting, meaning his epic lift was 4.4 times his bodyweight. Wierzbicki’s lift at the Czechia-UA-sanctioned event nudged Cailer Woolam, aka Dr. Deadlift, out of the top spot by a three-pound margin. Woolam broke the all-time world record in the 100kg class back in April with a raw 950.2-pound lift at the Kern US Open. Unofficial or not, Wierzbicki’s record-breaking lift is impressive as hell. Woolam even shared a post to congratulate the Polish powerhouse.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz June 26, 2019 at 02:11PM |
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