Handstand Pushups

"Please tell me about some bodyweight exercises for the shoulders. Thanks."
- Ghznfr Turi

My Answer: Handstand pushups. Your welcome.

New Article at T-Nation: The Shotgun Method

Thought I'd give a heads up to a new article of mine at T-nation: The Shotgun Method. It's a simple, flexible but effective program that you can use to address the dual bodybuilding needs of size and symmetry.


Reader Mail: "As a former LEO I hope that everything is going great and wish you a safe tour everyday. I saw your article about widening the back in Bodybuilding.com and wanted to know what type of workout would you perform for total back development."

Thanks
Carlos

My Answer: Any one of the Wingspan Workouts would be good for lat width and will give you some thickness as well. But if you want maximum thickness as well as width in your back, then do some heavy partial deadlifts in a power rack in addition to any of the Wingspan Workouts. That will thicken your midback, traps and spinal erectors to give you the freakishly strong look.

A Couple of Lesser Known Exercises

So I thought I'd showcase a couple of unusual exercises: a bodybuilding exercise for the biceps and a bodyweight exercise for the quads.

The Spider Curl- A true spider curl is done a specially constructed bench, one that you won't find in 99.99% of gyms in the entire world. However, you can approximate the exercise by doing it on a preacher bench. Instead of curling on a 45-degree angle, however, you use the vertical 90-degree side of the bench. This will force your biceps to contract hard on top of the movement.




Pistols (a.k.a. One-Legged Squats)- Here's a bodyweight exercise that you can perform anywhere at anytime and still give your quads a good workout. Sometimes I like to workout in the outdoors and get some fresh air and sun. With pull-ups and pistols, I get a complete full body workout.

Vegetarianism Revisited: A Review of "The Genotype Diet"

I was at Barnes and Noble again, and I was flipping through a book on mixed martial arts. The name of the book escapes me, but I was reading how Randy Couture eats an "alkaline diet." Essentially, it is a diet of vegetables, fruits, nuts and beans, but no meat or grains. If you know of Randy Couture, then you know he is a big strong fella with excellent conditioning.

I've written about my experience with vegetarianism before. I'm still on a flexible pesco-vegetarian diet, which is a fish and vegetables diet with meat and starches on occasion. Since that last post, my conclusions are still the same:

- Vegetarianism is great for conditioning. My endurance is much better on a pesco-vegetarian diet, and I don't do any cardio. I believe that cardiovascular health is much more dependent on diet than exercise.

- You give up size and muscle density as a vegetarian. Big muscular vegetarians were big and strong before they took the meat out of their diet.

I found that my genes are geared for fish and veggies after reading the book "The Genotype Diet." This book goes over 6 distinct genotypes, each with different dietary needs. The concept is that you must eat right for your genotype, otherwise you'll encounter health problems and weight gain.

At first I thought genotypes would run along racial and ethnic lines, but this is not the case. The genotypes came about from thousands of years of evolution. Some people are geared to eat a hunter's diet, some are geared for a gatherer's diet, and so on and so forth. Even though my wife and I are of the same ethnicity, she and I have completely different genotypes.

If you subscribe to the genotype diets, then this is the one major difficulty: you may find it harder to cook and eat in a family or group situation, because you'll likely have more than one genotype. What my wife and I ended up doing was creating a list of common foods we could both eat and a common list of foods we were to avoid. Although the Genotype Diet has made things more complicated, it has also made my dietary decisions much clearer.

Common Training Plateaus

Plateaus. Everybody hits a plateau or two in some aspect of life, whether it's in your career, relationships, education or creative endeavors. Sometimes I get the plateau of writer's bloc, but I get over that pretty easily.

Plateaus are there for a reason, and that's to tell you to change things up. People do not learn or work at a constant increasing linear rate. That's not natural. Growth and changes in life always come in bursts, but it's up to you to create those bursts of development.

With strength training, it is no different. Having trained a number of clients, I've across these common training plateaus:

1) Sporadic/Infrequent Training- Technically, this is not a plateau at all, because a plateau indicates something has been started and maintained, but progess has leveled off. Someone who trains sporadically just needs to train regularly to see results, at least 2 times a week.

2) Inconsistent Training- This is different from sporadic training. Inconsistent training simply means you're changing things up without rhyme or reason. The inconsistent trainee has exercise A.D.D. and does whatever s/he wants for that day or, in extreme cases, for that minute. This erratic type of training doesn't build any foundation of strength. For this guy to see any results, he just needs to pick a program and stick with it.

3) Static Training- This is the exact opposite of inconsistent training. This guy does the same thing over and over, workout from workout. Even when this guy changes it up, he doesn't stray far, because he can only think of one parameter to change up: the exercise.

In reality, there are many parameters to a program that can be changed up. For example, if you train with high reps, then you'll gain by training with lower reps at heavier weight. Your muscles have to adapt to the higher tension of the weight by growing in size and thickness. Conversely, if you train with heavy weight and low reps, then you'll gain size by training with higher reps. Your muscles adapt to the longer time under tension by getting bigger. So for the static trainer to blast through plateaus, he just needs to shake things up.

Butter vs. Margarine

I love butter, and I've known for a long time that it's much healthier than margarine. Here's an interesting forward from Craig's List my wife sent me:

"Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback. So they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal, so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings."

"Do you know the difference between margarine and butter? Read on to the end. Gets very interesting!

- Both have the same amount of calories.
- Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.
- Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

- Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
- Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few,
only because they are added!

- Butter tastes much better than margarine, and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
- Butter has been around for centuries, whereas margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine:
- Very high in trans fatty acids.
- Triple the risk of coronary heart disease.
- Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol)
- Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold.
- Lowers quality of breast milk.
- Decreases immune response.
- Decreases insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact. HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC. This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently, because it has no nutritional value. Nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share this with your friends (If you want to 'butter them up')!

Minimizing Catabolism During Marathon Training

"Thanks, as always for your great blog. I just ordered your book. May I ask you a question? I'm 33, and I started bodybuilding 8 months ago. During the first 6 months I went from 230 to 200, and now I'm starting to tone and pack on the muscle. The key for me was diet. I'm an ectomorph and eating a LOT of the right things at the right times was just what I needed. At the moment I train with weights 3 times a week with light (10 minutes) cardio, plus some sports one or two days a week (snowboarding, swimming plus Muay Thai).

My question for you is this: I've been asked to do a marathon (or a half marathon) in September. Is it practical to train for this and keep doing weights 3 times a week, or will it screw up my muscle gains? I'd really like to keep developing the muscular physique that's just starting to appear. If you think it's possible for me to achieve both goals, then how should I balance my training. How should I eat and drink before and during running practice over the next 4 months?

Cheers
Steve M.
Oslo, Norway

My Answer: Thanks for ordering my book, Steve! I know you'll enjoy it. To answer your question, I think it's not practical at all to train for a marathon AND to train for muscular size. Training for a marathon will screw up your muscle gains in multiple ways:

1) you'll lose the muscle size that you have now
2) it'll prevent you from gaining any more size and muscle
3) hormonally-speaking, you'll be castrated

Marathon training will raise your levels of cortisol through the roof and inversely deplete your testosterone. My advice to you is prioritize which one you want more: a muscular rock body or to run a marathon. If you can avoid a marathon, then just avoid it. But if you must do a marathon, then let me give you a few suggestions:

1) Keep eating mega amounts of food. An overabundance of calories will exert some damage control over the cortisol release.

2) Bring the reps down to the 4-8 range and do multiple sets per exercise in the gym. The book will go over the Machine Gun Method, and that will help you maintain some muscle.

3) Start cutting out the sports for the time being. You're being overtrained as it is. Pick up the sports after you complete the marathon.

4) To minimize overtraining, your workouts in the gym should not exceed 45 minutes.

Like I said, I don't recommend training for different goals. But if you must do it, then good luck to you, Steve.

Protein Intake

"I am a State Trooper here in Ohio. Our academy was exactly like the one you described. I made it through our academy, but almost immediately, I lost interest in running long distances, or even any distances at all. I never saw the point in running 5+ miles a day or doing 143 pushups and situps every morning (as that was my class number). I haven't been working out for 2 to 3 years. I was wondering if I should just jump into your program or if you would prefer me to try something else first?"

Thanks,
Scott

My Answer: Dear God, Scott! Don't jump right into the program if you haven't been working out for 2-3 years. The program outlined in Return to Copland is BRUTAL. You should start off with a low number of sets per body part (2) and build up your volume from there. Once you get back into the swing of things and can handle high volume, high frequency workouts, then try the Professional Warrior program.


"The Strength and Physique, Volume One book is absolutely incredible! I'm so thankful I bought it. I have a question about page 67 on your book, 'For Those Who Want Muscle.' Would it be ok to take a protein supplement (even though it's mostly artificial) along with the Paleo Diet? And why are bananas excluded from the fruit section on the daily diet plan?"

Thank you,
-J.G

My Answer: Thanks for purchasing the book, JG! I'm glad you like it. As far as protein intake, it's OK to take a protein supplement, but when it comes to weight gain, it is ALWAYS preferable to eat your protein rather than drink it. I find people gain more muscle on high protein foods than high protein drinks, even when they drank more grams of protein than grams from eating real food. Chewing your food stimulates the digestive process and preps your body to absorb it. Drinking liquefied food doesn't stimulate the digestive process at all, which is why people lose weight on liquid diets.

Protein supplements are really meant for convenience, but if you must use it, then ask yourself this: are you lactose intolerant? If so, then you should avoid most protein powders. Drinking a protein supplement would do more harm to you than good. If not, then choose a protein according to your needs. If you need a post-workout drink, then choose a protein powder designed for quick absorption. Preferably something with a lot of simple fast-acting carbs and whey hydrolysate. If you're a skinny bastard who has a high-speed metabolism and no appetite, then consider a protein powder with micellar casein.

Now as far as bananas, I don't recommend bananas, because it's fairly high on the glycemic index. If you want to gain muscle, but stay leaner, then bananas will interfere with that goal. This is why I only recommend it for poor skinny bastards: Poor Man's Bulking Diet.

Incorporating Isometrics into the Big Lifts

Every red-blooded male with natural testosterone pumping through his veins wants to get big and look strong as an ox. When it comes to exercise selection, whole body compound movements such as the deadlift and squat are the way to go. Any moron can tell you that.

But there is a way to perform these movements to not just develop the lower body, but to stress portions of the upper body into hypertrophy as well. It involves isometrics. Simply choose whole body movements where your upper body must stabilize the weight by isometrically contracting an upper body muscle or 2. Here are 3 of my favorites:

Snatch grip deadlift: Steve Reeves performed a variation of this one where he gripped the first two plates of the barbell and performed wide grip deadlifts. But for us with short levers, we have to do the snatch grip deadlift. This is a great exercise not just for the legs, but for your lats, since they must isometrically contract to hold the weight. If you don't know how to do a lat spread bodybuilding pose, then this harsh exercise will beat the snot out of you to teach you.


Front squats: To perform the front squat, you have to isometrically contract yor biceps to hold onto the weight and your abs to avoid tipping forward. If you do the front squat correctly, then you will be incredibly sore in the quads, biceps and abs the next day.


Overhead reverse lunges: Although overhead squats are an excellent exercise to access strength and flexibility imbalances, I prefer the overhead reverse lunge, since it activates the same muscles but more so. To perform the overhead reverse lunge, take a barbell and press it overhead. Keep the barbell pressed overhead, arms locked and perform reverse lunges. It takes quite a bit of coordination, flexibility and strength to perform this movement. But it's a great exercise that will stress your quads, glutes, hamstrings, triceps, shoulders and rotator cuff muscles.

Tactical Strength and Conditioning

"Hello, I just recently became a CSCS through the NSCA after getting my bachelor's degree in exercise science: strength and conditioning at UCONN. I read your latest article on training law enforcement officers, and your knowledge base and certification caught my eye. I was wondering how exactly you got into the field of tactical strength and conditioning (TSAC), and if you have any pointers for someone such as myself aspiring to work in a similar field. Any information or advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated!"

-- C.L. Brown, BS, CSCS University of Connecticut

My Answer: Well my story is best explained by this
blog post.

First and foremost, I'm a peace officer. I'm a physical trainer, second. Which means I do the physical training, the articles and the book as a hobby and not as a full-time endeavor. I train my department in defensive tactics (which is police martial arts), but that's not TSAC. Whereas fire departments typically have trainers or exercise physiologists to point firefighters in the right direction as far as physical training, real TSAC is hardly addressed in most police departments across the nation. There is no formalized training for TSAC.

I've known a couple of personal trainers who became law enforcement officers. One still does his training, and the other let his CSCS expire. I would say that if you want to specialize in TSAC, then you would have to:

1) Become a peace officer. Know the physical, emotional and mental demands and rewards of the job on a personal level.

OR

2) Take the easier way and partner up with a peace officer so that you get an understanding of what physical demands are involved.

I've seen former law enforcement and ex-military become physical trainers and specialize in TSAC, or start their businesses of defensive tactics training or martial arts training. You cannot build a business solely on that niche, however. Just look at Pavel. He trains, writes and does videos for multiple niche markets.

Bottom line: if you want to train law enforcement in TSAC, then you should get to know lots of law enforcement officers. You'll be training them on an individual basis, but you will not be able to train entire departments unless you're a peace officer training recruits in the academy.

Exercise Control in your Life

How you eat sometimes reflects upon how you are as a person and whether you exercise control over your decisions and your situations. Do you control the things that happen in your life, or do you allow yourself to meander and drift into bad situations? Do you allow someone else to control and dictate what your choices are?

The best way to avoid making bad food choices in a restaurant is to avoid eating in a restaurant. Don't eat out more than 2 times a week. That goes for takeout too. Control what you eat and pack your lunches for work, so you don't put yourself in a situation where you are tempted to make bad choices.

But you gotta live life, and that means eating out with friends and family. I'll be honest with you, I don't put any restrictions on myself when I eat out. The whole point of eating out with friends and family should be to enjoy yourselves. Just make the experience a little more special by eating out only twice a week instead of everyday. You can still exercise damage control and not be a prude when you eat out though:

1) No drinks other than water.
2) When given this choice, choose salads over soups.
3) Never order an individual dessert. However, your friends will sabotage you by saying, "Hey you want to split a dessert?" That's OK, but never intitiate the dessert ordering.
4) Same thing goes for appetizers. Do not initiate the ordering of appetizers. But your jolly friend may want to "share" some appetizers, so that's OK.