67 Ways To Build Strength, Lose Fat And Be Fucking Awesome In 2013

With another year in the books, it’s a common tendency to look back at what did and didn’t happen in 2012, wondering what shoulda, coulda, woulda been…

Did you have a solid plan for getting stronger, building muscle and shedding fat, knowing exactly what to do every time you set foot inside a weight room? Or were you simply going through the motions of working out, without clear direction, focus and progression?

How were you dealing with inner resistance on days that you didn’t particularly look forward to making the trip all the way down to the gym? Were you able to overpower the sorry excuses your mind was coming up with? Or did you give in like a gutless wimp, rationalizing to yourself it was okay to skip training this time and you’d start again next Monday? We all know how that ended…

Did you prepare healthy, unprocessed, nutritious meals from fresh ingredients? Or was the sweet siren song of delicious pizza, pastries and candy too much to handle once you parked your lazy ass on the couch after a long, exhausting day at work and flipped on the telly?

Were you sound asleep by 23.00 on most nights, like you know you should have been? Or was watching stupid infomercials and late night talk shows more important than quality sleep and regeneration?

Which course of action did you choose at social gatherings? Staying up late and getting hammered at parties week after week with deadbeats or waking up refreshed and completing an early morning training session while everybody else was nursing a terrible hangover?

Maybe you did some stupid stuff, got injured and spent the better part of 2012 focusing on bodyweight exercises and rehab activities, building yourself back up like I did.

Or perhaps you simply got lost listening to too many people, chasing contradictory goals, ending up spinning your wheels with no progress to show for your efforts.

Whatever choices you’ve made in the past, now is the perfect opportunity to wipe the slate clean and make sure 2013 is gonna be your best year yet. I know it’ll be for me. I expect continual progress, consistent strength development, injury-free training, new personal records and shitloads of hustlin’ in and out of the gym.

Here’s how to make it happen…

This Ain’t Oprah’s Goddamn Book Club Part 5: Maximum Strength

Between plowing through research papers and Siff’s Supertraining over the holidays, my head was about to explode like a Pakistani land mine.

In search of something soothing for my overworked brain, I walked over to my sturdy, trusty bookshelf and pulled out Eric Cressey’s Maximum Strength, which I vaguely remember reading a few years ago.

A relatively quick read with demonstrations of over 60 exercises, it features a 16-week strength training program designed to build lean mass and strength with four weekly training sessions.

Disclaimer: I’ve nothing to gain by recommending or not recommending a certain book. All opinions are unbiased and these reviews simply stem from the fact I like to read a lot and write down my thoughts. Yes, I’m geeky like that.

Background

“Eric Cressey is president and co-founder of Cressey Performance, a facility located just west of Boston, MA.  A highly sought-after coach for healthy and injured athletes alike, Eric has helped athletes at all levels – from youth sports to the professional and Olympic ranks – achieve their highest levels of performance in a variety of sports.

As a competitive powerlifter, Eric holds several state, national, and world records. A mainstay in the Powerlifting USA Top 100 lifts in his weight class, Cressey is rapidly approaching Elite status with competition bests of 540 squat, 402 bench, 650 deadlift, and 1532 total in the 165-pound weight class.  He is recognized as a coach who can jump, sprint, and lift alongside his best athletes to push them to higher levels – and keep them healthy in the process.”

Random Venting, The Big And Bulky Myth Revisited, Pics Of Hot Chicks Who Lift Weights And Why You Should Too

Disclaimer: I wrote this post over a period of several weeks. Taking the time span into account – plus the fact that I’m quite possibly a bit insane – may have translated the original text into a rather incoherent, distorted rambling even by my standards. You’ve been warned.

A while back I wrote about women lifting weights and how they shouldn’t fear becoming too muscular in the process.

In a world where strength training gets confused with bodybuilding, everyone who touches weights that need to be moved with more effort than a bag of groceries is frowned upon. Particularly so if that person happens to be a woman.

Consequently, an entire generation of young adult women buy into the asinine notion that lifting weights turns them into a freakish bodybuilder chick and choose to use lesser means of or skip effective training altogether. For those brave enough to attend the gym outside of group training classes, Smith machine squats, stability ball training and the elliptical machine comprise a large part of their workouts.

Of course, we could argue until the second coming (mmm… don’t you just love that expression?) about what “effective training” means. My definition for it is:

Maximum results as fast as humanly possible.

As I’ve been saying for a long time, barbells, dumbbells and advanced bodyweight exercises provide the fastest, most quantifiable results when structured into a smart training plan.

Depending on the equipment available and the specific goals of the individual, strongman training/odd object lifting/kettlebells can be very effective tools as well.

But telling a woman to start training for strength is almost useless unless we tackle and remove the more pressing issue at hand…

A Client Testimonial: Michael, USA

Atlas stone - 320 pounds

Starting out at 6’4″ and 279 pounds, Michael was bigger and stronger than the average gym bro. During our initial consultation he told me the following:

“The first program I started with and stuck to for a while was the eating five meals a day 3 hours apart that were high in lean proteins with only slow carbs like beans and veggies. I was working in the gym with 3 sets of 10 reps hitting different muscle sets each day (back and bi’s, chest and tri’s, legs, shoulders and abs).

While I was on this plan I did experience great gains and fat loss but they came to an end and I stopped changing.”

After that he had switched to Intermittent Fasting and 5×5, seen some improvements but was now looking to take his knowledge of training and nutrition to another level.

When designing Mike’s program, the focus was first on scaling the weights back while re-learning picture perfect technique on the big lifts, which would build the basis for him to eventually move on to match and surpass his previous bests with solid form.

Another goal we set for Mike was to drop 6″ off his waist in 13 weeks. He was well on his way to reaching that after having shed 4″ in 8 weeks, when he notified me that there’s a strongman competition taking place near him in a few weeks – something he desperately wanted to partake in.

So we put the fat loss goal on the back burner for the last remaining 5 weeks in order to prep him for his first ever strongman meet.

Sandbag carry - 275 pounds

Q1. What was your fitness/training/nutrition background like before working with me?

This Ain’t Oprah’s Goddamn Book Club Part 4: Strength Life Legacy

Disclaimer: I’ve nothing to gain by recommending or not recommending a certain book. All opinions are unbiased and these reviews simply stem from the fact I like to read a lot and write down my thoughts. Yes, I’m geeky like that.

Background

Paul Carter is a competitive powerlifter who shares his knowledge resulting from 20+ years in the Iron Game on his excellent blog over at Lift-Run-Bang. It was there that I first picked up small nuances that contributed to my training, such as paused squats (apparently they were a staple in powerlifting legend Ed Coan’s training as well, which should tell you something) and switching over to a thumbless grip on the military press.

Furthermore, my left hip flexor flared up several months ago. Consequently, squatting and sprinting went out of the window for a while. Even squatting to depth with a broomstick was painful, so I started doing more mobility work which helped a bit but the injury was still there.

I found the gamebreaker on Paul’s site – the good girl machine. Yes, the one old ladies use whilst gossiping about that bitch Irma from knitting class who was seen with some rich, silver-haired, handsome fella at dinner last weekend. After a few weeks of high rep rehab work on the GG machine, the hip flexor returned back to normal – and hasn’t bothered me since.

The Good

* Any book that begins with the words “Strength reigns. Strength is king.” can’t suck in my eyes. All too often we forget that we lift weights to get stronger, and that the simplest way to get stronger is increasing performance in the rep ranges most suited to reaching that goal.

Thus, if you’re DB bench pressing 20kg for 10 reps today, you better get out of your comfort zone and start pushing the envelope so that 3 months from now you’ve worked your way up to 25kg for 10 at worst – or at the very least can move 20kg for 15 reps.

I enjoyed tremendously the aspect that Paul Carter does not try to overcomplicate matters. Getting stronger is quite simple when you boil it down to its essence and you won’t find any long lost “secrets” in his book.

A Client Success Story: Kari-Matti, Helsinki

[Updated 22.11.2012]

I met Kari-Matti several months ago at the gym where I used to train people. He came across as a smart, open-minded guy (which most trainees are not), so we ended up talking about nutrition and training on a few occasions, and I gave him a couple of pointers on how to improve his technique on deadlifts and squats.

Later, he wanted to get leaner and we devised a proper training and nutrition plan for him. Here’s what happened during the 13 weeks we worked together.

Weight: 93.5kg -> 86.6kg (-6.9kg)

Waist: 98cm -> 87cm (-11cm)

No drop in strength despite shedding a respectable amount of fat. Some lifts went slightly up, with the deadlift increasing most notably 140kg x5 -> 162.5kg x5. This indicates that muscle was not sacrificed during his cut. The pics below tell a similar story.

Even though the lighting is somewhat skewed on the left, the difference in pecs and abs is obvious. Other pics demonstrated that his face leaned out considerably as well. No more puffy cheeks for this guy.

Still a work in progress though. Now that his upper abs are popping out, Kari-Matti told me he wanted to lean all the way down to a full 6-pack after his summer vacation, which would require still another 10cm or so off his waist (my estimate).

He was an exemplary client. Intelligent, observant, no excuses. I asked him for a testimonial, because I knew it would be good and thorough.

Q1. What was your fitness/training/nutrition background like before
working with me?

Your Body Is Your Gym

Every four years an interesting phenomenon takes place.

Billions of people sit glued in front of the television for hours (nothing new there actually) watching corrupted politicians and other assorted assholes deliver grand speeches where they praise God, hard work and human spirit while cozily spending the rest of the Games secluded from peasants, enjoying refreshments in unlimited quantities and – drunk from their own power as well as the free flowing booze – end up molesting the shit out of young, gullible VIP hostesses (again, this is standard procedure) who believe it’s part of their job description.

Meanwhile, the server systems at Askmen.com crash down when they release their gallery of TOP 20 hottest female Olympians pouting their lips and posing all sultry for the camera, disguised in what the fashion industry refers to as “clothing” but is merely an arbitrary piece of garment supposed to accentuate their tanned, nicely shaped buns.

These babes are allegedly athletes. Don't ask me what their sport is. I've no idea whether this pic was taken at practice or during the opening scenes in an adult movie. But whatever, they're hot which is what truly matters.

When I was a young lad, you had to pull a girl’s panties aside to get a glimpse of her buttocks. These days you gotta pull her buttocks aside in order to see the panties.

Hey, I ain’t complaining!

Furthermore, the world gets exposed to the tremendous strength levels and ridiculously chiseled upper bodies of male gymnasts, and guys start wondering “Yo homie, whadda ya gotta do to get ripped like that?”

Functional Training. For Fuck’s Sake, Here We Go Again

“I know of no better example of functional training than a 600-pound deadlift. Except a 700-pound deadlift.” – Mark Rippetoe

One of the highlights of my weekly schedule includes a trip to the adjacent library. I realize this statement will get me labeled a nerd – albeit a very good-looking nerd – by all the internet tough guys out there frequenting online training forums, powered by delivery pizza and cans of Red Bull in their parents’ basement. Alas, I’ve never been one to particularly care about what people think of me, hence I choose not to give a shit this time around either.

Between flipping through Max Brooks’ zombie tales and a less-than-stellar Baldacci novel, my gaze fell upon a book on training. I have a terrible habit of digesting any and all works related to training and nutrition, even the ones aimed at gen pop. I say terrible because many of them are not worth the paper they’ve been printed on, which implies a waste of my time and yet another chopped down forest somewhere in Amazon. Yes, the treehugger in me is weeping.

This one was no different. A book on functional training contained everything I had imagined it would contain. Cutesy pictures, self-professed gurus showcasing their “expertise”, very little substance for the price. I counted about 100 different movements or exercises and in the end my head was spinning like a b-boy on the dancefloor.

Why is it that athletes generally get far better results with a fraction of that and have striking bodies as well?

Why are the most reputable strength & conditioning coaches – those whose clients include Olympic athletes, NFL/NHL/NBA players, sprinters – sticking to the basics of basics in strength training?

If certain compound, multi-joint movements have been proven to produce results for the athletic elite, then why is there a need for hucksters to be marketing completely dissimilar methods to the masses?

Why is every functional training guru obsessed with the notion that no basic exercise is perfect without adding some twist, crunch, turn, hippety-hop, kung-fu kick or other gimmicky modification to it?

Since when is the pull-up – possibly the king of all upper body exercises – not sufficient enough performed on its own? How come you need to attach a cable pulley around your left ankle for “increased carryover”?

WHY?

WHYYYY??!!?

Not functional enough? Fuck off.

Keeping It Simple

Albeit the fact that most people in the fitness industry try to tell you otherwise, making great progress doesn’t require complex and expensive methods, gadgets or diets.

Follow these 5 guidelines until the day you kick the bucket and you’ll be good.

1. Increase resistance over time. Barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, stones, calisthenics?

What equipment you use is secondary. Just get stronger.

2. Do more reps with a given resistance.

3. If you’re struggling to gain weight, eat more.

4. If you need to lose bodyfat, eat a little less and do more (smart) work.

5. Do hard conditioning. Sprints, sled work, farmer’s, rope jumping… Anything that is brutal and makes you more awesome.

Now get the hell out of this site and go crush some shit.