Home Gym Set-Up Guide, Bonus: Free Training Program Included

The most common reasons people don’t exercise are: time, location, money and kids. If you are like me, you find public gyms annoying, distracting and restricting (e.g. bad bars, no heavy dumbbells, TV’s (seriously!), non-round plates, no banging weights, squat racks turned into curl racks, no chalk, no grunting and no farmer’s walk bars, no specialty bars, no rings or room to sprint, throw a med ball or do loaded carries). Beginners also often mention that they find public gyms intimating. The good news is that all of these problems magically disappear when you train at home – if you get the right stuff and know what you are doing.

Burn Fat and Get In Great Shape with this New Kettlebell Finisher

The quest to get in great shape has many challenges. These include lack of equipment, skill, space and most of all time! Today many folks use high intensity finishers as a fast, time-efficient way to boost conditioning and melt off unwanted body fat. However many of these workouts are high skilled, high impact and high risk. Here is a fast, simple, safer high intensity finisher to crank your metabolism into overdrive! 

The Refresh & Rejuvenate Program

Ever wonder why they call Christmas time the holidays? For many people this is a very busy time of year. Also after a year of hard training, it may be time to take a break. If your body is honestly asking for a break, I've got just the program for you!

How to Build Muscle In a Busy Gym

You walk into your gym in January and scan the crowded craziness. You look over to your gym’s four squat racks. Three of the racks have now become curl racks. One is being used for 1/16 squats while a buddy captures the epic squat session on the latest iPhone to share with the world on YouTube. Every bench press station in the gym has one guy doing half bench presses with elbows flared while the “spotter” lifts 75% of the weight while yelling the famous, “It’s all you bro!” which is most accurately translated from bro slang as, “I don’t know how to spot!” Frustrated, you take a deep breath in and wisely tell yourself that this is what your gym needs to pay the lease so you have a place to train year round. Now, you resolve yourself to make the best of this situation. If you want to pack on some high-performance muscle this year, here is a plan that will work for you even in the busiest gym. 

Hard Core Fat Loss in a Busy Gym

Even in a busy gym, there is
always room to deadlift!

Oh the joys of training in January. Despite the cold January weather, you arrive at your gym already warm since the closest parking spot was 3 blocks away. As you walk into your gym, you mourn the loss of your once sacred training haven. Last month it was just you and a few other dedicated lifters. Now it’s January and you are over-run with New Year’s Resolution crowd determined to burn off the Christmas cheer. You wisely tell yourself that things will die down soon and resolve to make the best of this situation. With a little creativity and hard work you can make this year one of your best training years ever! You can strip off unwanted fat and build a hard, lean athletic body. To do so, follow these guidelines and check out the sample program to follow.

A Simple Way to Get Better at Pull-Ups

Want to build muscle, burn fat, test your strength, improve your performance, train in a time efficient manner or just impress people at the gym? If so getting good at pull-ups can help! However for many people – especially ladies, pull-ups can be a real struggle. This is why it is so impressive to see a lady cranking out quality pull-up reps. If you want to get good and pull-ups and you are willing to put in the work, I have just what you need to seriously improve your pulling strength. Are you up for it?

Is Your Body Battle Ready?

Image courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With tomorrow being a special day for many as we honor our veterans who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. Because of this and in light of recent world events, I have been thinking about some questions that I encourage you to think of. If someone tried to attack you, would you have the ability to protect yourself or get away? If someone tried to attack one of your loved ones, would you be able to stop it? If an innocent victim was being harmed, could you step in and help? If our country had to go to war that required ground fighting, would this generation be physically ready for it? While there are many skills that could be invaluable in these situations one important aspect to being ready for emergencies is making your physical body can handle what these situation could require. Here are some guideline and a complete sample program help you be ready when you need to be.

Strength Training for Endurance Athletes

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FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the sporting world, each sport has its own you unique culture and traditions. While strength training is a staple in many sports (e.g. football), it is still missing in many others. One classic example of this is endurance sports.  Many endurance athletes do not understand the value of strength training and what it can offer endurance athletes – IF it is done right. If you want to take your endurance performance to the next level, keep reading.

How to Gain Muscle Without Getting Fat Part 2: The Training

Whether you want to build muscle to look on the beach or to enhance your sports performance, you want to do it without getting fat in the process. In part 1 of this post, I gave you some tips about how to eat for lean gains. Now, it is time to look at what to do from the training side of things…

Effective Training Solutions for When You Travel

Got big travel plans this summer? What does that do for your training? For many people the summer months are horrible for training. Vacations and long weekend get-a-ways mean lost training time and moving away from instead of towards their training goals. But this does not have to be the case for you. With a little discipline and some careful planning and packing, you can have fantastic training sessions, continue to make great progress and look your best during and after your vacation.

With adjustable dumbbells and a bag of training gear, I'm ready to go!

Dumbbell-Only Home Gym Training Routine

Some people for a variety of reasons choose to do all their training at home. Others prefer to train in a regular gym, but find themselves stuck without access to a full training facility from time to time. While I'm a huge fan of barbells, a fantastic, cost-effective, space-efficient option for home training is a set of adjustable dumbbells (note: I would still encourage the purchase of a barbell set if at all possible). To help maximize your home-training results, here is a complete sample athletic-based training program that you can do in the privacy and convenience of your own home with a pair of adjustable dumbbells.

While no replacement for the barbell, adjustable dumbbells
can provide you with a solid training session

Q & A: Hotel Training

I am going to be traveling for a little bit this month. We will be staying in a hotel and I was wondering if you had any suggestions regarding this?

Q & A: Resistance Training for Distance Runners

"Andrew, I am a distnace runner and have a long and lean frame. I want to build muscle or at least have more muscle definition but don't want to cut down my milage. Do you have any suggestions for building muscle for a distance runner?"

Stand Up for Effective Fat Loss

I love it when I see people using weights when trying to lose body fat.  However, far too many people minimize their training effectiveness by selecting inferior exercises. When you go to the gym for fat loss, try to do your whole routine without sitting or lying down. In most cases this forces you to pick better and harder exercises.