Most people aren’t aware that there’s receptors on the bottom of your feet and if you wear shoes they get de-sensitized. This will slow down your strength and muscle gains. Besides wearing no shoes, which I’ve heard is how a lot of athletes trained in the eastern bloc countries, the best shoe to wear (my opinion) is the old school Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars. converse_all-starsThey’re light, have a flat sole, and easily bend. Almost like a slipper. Besides my feet feeling a whole lot better, I also noticed a size increase in my calves.

If you’re trying to get bigger, add a protein shake with all your solid meals and one tablespoon of a nut butter. My favorites are almond butter, cashew butter, or macadamia butter. Whatever you do, don’t get regular Jiffy or Skip peanut butter. Practically anyone I’ve ever spoken to that has gained a significant amount of muscle (besides true beginners) have added a considerable amount of protein to their diet, myself included. While on the topic of fat, here’s a few more great fat sources that will help get you lean and jacked.

  • Almond, Coconut, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Cheese
  • Full Fat Yogurt with Live Cultures (my favorite is Fage Greek Yogurt)
  • Whole Eggs
  • Red Meat
  • Avocados
  • Heavy Whipping Cream (I learned about this from Vince Gironda. A trainer back in the 60’s and 70’s that was way ahead of his time).vincegironda91

Those are my favorites.

If you’re one of the people that thinks fat makes you fat, you’re wrong. In fact, prolonged low fat diets can wreak havoc on your testosterone levels because of a lack of dietary fat, cholesterol, and energy needed to manufacture the hormone. Cholesterol is almost identical in carbon make up to testosterone. Not only will a high fat (good fats like the ones listed) raise test levels, it will also increase dopamine and acetylcholine, two important neurotransmitters that are responsible for brain power and speed. According to Dr. Eric Braverman, if you’re craving fats you probably have an acetylcholine deficiency.

One of my clients Ryan Burns has been on Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale’s Anabolic Diet now for several weeks and has lost 34 pounds. The premise of the diet is to eat no more than 30 carbs throughout the week but lots of fat and protein. Then on the weekends you basically eat whatever you want. Come sunday night you get right back on the diet. One interesting thing the doctor recommends is to have a 150 percent splurge day, which is backed by Charles Poliquin. The calories don’t have to be from clean foods either, but you do want to avoid trans fats. Poliquin recommends protein pancakes with butter and organic oatmeal cookies. I’m definitely going to give this a try since I love pancakes.

Weak forearms and grip are often a limiting factor to your overall strength. Increasing strength in those two areas will lead to increased strength in a lot of important lifts. Anytime you increase the diameter of a barbell or dumbbell you’re training these areas harder. I just got a pair of Fat Gripz and they’re unbelievable. fat-gripz-picI highly recommend you pick up a pair.

The hardest grip and forearm exercise I’ve ever done…rock climbing. I went down to my friend Greg’s work to climb his rock climbing wall which was seven stories high. Now I know why his forearms are so jacked even though he claims there from working at an ice cream shop scooping ice cream all day.

Check out the video.

 

We’ve been conducting our strongman style workouts now since March 27th. I’ve posted several videos on my Youtube page as well as the blog. We just ordered a sandbag. Can’t wait to try the sandbag squat broad jump.


Anyone from Gracie Barra interested in coming out we train Sunday’s at 2PM. 

One of the most brutal exercises for developing a strong glute max is the forward lunge onto a step.


If you keep your knee on the back leg farther behind your hip it’s also a great hip flexor stretch on the back leg. Lower body unilateral exercises will jack your heart rate up pretty high making them pretty brutal when thrown into a circuit for fat loss or conditioning. Here’s a lower body workout we did the other day with it included.

1. DE (Dynamic Effort) Dead Lift: 8X2 with 50% or 1RM  Rest: 60 secs
 2A. Standing Good Morning: 4X6-8  Rest: 90 secs
 2B. Forward Dbell Lunge onto Step: 3X8-10  Rest: 90 secs
 3A. Duchaine Calf Raise: 3X1-12  Rest: 60 secs
 3B. Hanging Alternating Leg Raise: 3X AMAP (As Many As Possible)  Rest: 60 secs

Question: So yesterday I had yogurt, bananas, pancakes, chicken and noodles. I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong, I die on the matt if I roll 2 days in a row. You have any suggestions at all?

Answer: Here’s some quick tips in no particular order of importance:

  • Make sure you’re getting an adequate amount of good fat in your diet. I don’t see any unless there’s some in your yogurt in the meal you just listed and even if there was it’s not enough. I like Fage Greek yogurt, the full fat version.
  • Eat more dark fruits, eat lots of green vegetables, they’ll increase your vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant levels. 
  • Try adding fish oil and coconut oil into your diet. At least 12 grams of fish oil spread out over all your meals except your post training shake. Coconut oil will be used for energy because it’s a medium chain triglyceride (MCT). 
  • Drink a protein shake immediately after training. Include carbs if you’re lean, glutamine and glycine if you’re not lean. Anything under 12% is lean. 
  • Get adequate rest with good sleep hygiene, which is 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. 
  • Try drinking coconut water while you do jiu jitsu or BCAA’s. Take magnesium glycinate before going to bed. At least 600 mgs. One of the ways you lose magnesium and zinc from sweating a lot and from stress, and you probably have both. If this still doesn’t work, try taking pantothenic acid in the morning and rhodiola rosea during the day. These will help rebuild the adrenals and mitigate stress without making you feel drowsy.

    • A few weeks ago we got the Supra Curl Bar from EliteFTS and have been using it for curls, tricep extensions, and rows. Since your wrists aren’t locked in a fixed position and can go where they want there’s less stress on them. I highly recommend picking one up.

    Here’s a video of it in action with the California Press.  

     

    Don’t ask me why it’s called that. You could just call it a Supra Bar Extension to Upper Chest.