It is a sad state of affairs when the area in my gym dedicated to machines is about 3 times the size of the area dedicated to free weights.

Everyone and their mother obviously know that training and exercise is beneficial to anyone and everyone. Why people don’t train on a regular basis is beyond me, but that’s a different story. This article is dedicated toward body types. What? Well, in a nutshell, everyone’s body, technically, is different. There are three different kinds of body types, and I will discuss each one in detail and how training and nutrition are different for each. That’s right folks, not everyone is the same, and despite what the personal trainer at Bally’s will have you believe, the same style of training does not apply, or work, for all people.

Let’s start. Here are the three different types of body types: Mesomorph, Ectomorph, and Endomorph

Mesomorph Body Type

Mesomorph bodies are regarded as those with a genetic gift, or advantage. This type of body is more inclined to gaining muscle mass quite easily. Mesomorph body types are usually very athletic looking and are aesthetically pleasing to the eye (jacked, ripped, and cut up), and walk with a very good posture. Mesomorphs can build muscle faster than any other body type and can also lose fat much faster than other body types, when eating right that is.

Training for the Mesomorphic Body Type

Scientifically speaking, the best form of training for a Mesomorph would be lifting heavy weights with a great power output (explosive training). Different strength-building exercises should be utilized in each and every training session targeting every muscle in the body with heavy weights to increase size and strength. Cardio exercises should still be performed, but kept to a minimum. 2 days a week of cardio would be good to keep fat down and muscles ripped, and definitely no more than 3 days a week of cardio. 30-40 minutes for each cardio session is ideal for Mesomorphs. Intensity should be kept at a high intensity to focus more on the fat burning process rather than the chance of minimizing muscle mass.

Diet for the Mesomorphic Body Type

Protein, protein, and more protein. Protein is the key to muscular success for us Mesomorphs. Ingest mostly protein into your body with a moderate amount of good carbs (low glycemic, natural carbs), and an even more moderate amount of fat (don’t count fat out; we need it to survive and to help push our bodies to the next level). Keep the food clean and natural; best advice I can give ya.

Endomorph Body Type

This body type is more prone to gaining fat. These body types usually have a soft and squashy look to the eye, and it is harder for endomorphs to lose weight. Endomorphs are generally big boned and have broad shoulders as well as a broad back, so if they put their minds to it and stick with a good workout regime and dietary plan, they can be some nasty lookin, ripped up motherf*’ers. See, it’s not so bad to be fat, as long as you know how to get it off and make the most of your body type.

Training for the Endomorphic Body Type

Weight training should be kept at a high rep type of workout, since training the muscle with aerobic type training is best for burning off fat and increasing metabolism. Each muscle should be hit with compound strength training exercises as well as isolation exercises for each muscle, but still keeping the exercises in the 10-15 rep range to keep the workout cardiovascular as well as toning and some strength addition. Cardio is a big plus for endomorphs. 5-6 days of cardio work is recommended for endomorph body types. 45-60 minute sessions should be incorporated into each cardio/workout session and different type of cardio exercises should be utilized (see my running article, “The Best Running Techniques” for some ideas).

Diet for the Endomorphic Body Type

It is best to eat about 7 or 8 small meals through the day; seriously. This type of eating increases your metabolism, and every time you digest your meals, you are burning calories, so it’s an added bonus. Keep each meal to about 200-300 calories. Concentrate more on protein and carbs, and keep fat to a bare minimum, especially saturated fats.

Ectomorph Body Type

Ectomorphs are referred to as “hard-gainers.” What does this mean? This means that in order for Ectomorphs to gain muscle, it takes A LOT of hard work and dedication. This body type usually carries small muscles as well as a very low level of body fat.

Training for Ectomorphic Body Type

HEAVY WEIGHTS. Can’t preach it enough. All compound strength training exercises daily with heavy weight and low reps. That’s not all though. With the heavy weight training, you also want to be doing hypertrophy training, which is about 8-10 reps of each isolation exercise to give the muscle some fill. Rest periods between exercises should also be taken into consideration. I recommend that you rest about 2 minutes before each exercise so that you can get a lot of rest and use a lot of weight for the duration of each exercise.

Diet for Ectomorphic Body Type

EAT, EAT, EAT, EAT, and after that, EAT some more. You skinny bastards have metabolisms faster than a bullet. You need to constantly be eating. When you’re not hungry, eat. If you just ate and you\’re full, eat some more. Keep the foods extremely clean and natural, and eat a lot of protein, a lot of carbs, and a fair amount of fat (more so than Ectomorphs and Mesomorphs would be eating.)

*pictures credited to http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology/somatotypes.html

Oh boy, this has been a long debated topic among gyms across the world. What do I use, machines or free weights? As you guys continue reading the articles on the site and appreciate my whacky writing, you’ll learn some things along the way. Things like, that I don’t care what the popular thing is. I am blatantly honest, never hesitating to be “mean” if I have to. I don’t treat fitness as a “fun” thing to do when I have spare time, and I am ALL about hardcore optimal performance. Keep these things in mind when reading my articles. Some will say my information is biased, while others will say it is false.

Guess what? The information I give is the information that works. I never preach what I don’t practice first. So listen up, and don’t just listen, but hear me too. You won’t regret it in the long run. The only thing I’m great at is working out. I don’t want to do anything else, so I know what works and what doesn’t! Well, with that little mini biography of myself, let’s carry on to the topic at hand. A very interesting topic…

What the Common Man Says

The first thing I’m going to write about is the general consensus view of free weights versus machines, and then I am going to write about my view: the true view. Let’s proceed. I guess the most obvious advantage to free weights is that they are more efficient at strengthening the whole body. More of the body’s muscles are activated when performing a free weight lift, or push, or pull, or whatever. Lifting with the use of weights also strengthens bones. More stability is required when working with free weights, causing the body to balance the weights, and make the muscle work under not normal conditions.

A disadvantage of free weights often looked at is the safety issue. Most retards will get on a bench and try to bench press the whole world without a spotter so the pretty woman in the gym will be impressed. Stop being an idiot and giving free weights a bad name! Free weights also may put excess strain on areas such as the elbows, the knees, the ankles, etc. and may cause injury when done incorrectly. Free weight lifting usually requires a spotter for optimal workouts, and a daily spotter is not always easy to find that will go the gym with you.

Ere go, we have machines. The benefit of machines (this is through popular media only. By no means will I ever in my life support the use of machines) is that it’s safe and easy. WOW! We can all be sissies together! The machine guides the weight up and down, or back and forth, on a sliding path, and the user can control the intensity of the lift. On machines, increasing or decreasing the weights is very easy and simple, which is why people love sitting on their asses on all that big beautiful steel. A disadvantage of the gym machine is the intensity of the exercise. On a machine, the weight is guided for you and the motion of the exercise is not in your control.

Also, on a machine, you will never get the full range of motion of the exercise because the exercise is started on a different plane and ends in a different plane, so only a certain path of the motion is allowed. There’s the skinny of it according to most average gym heads. Now let’s get into Lush’s version of why free weights are king, and machines are the court jesters.

What I Say

What’s the first question a guy asks another guy when talking about weight lifting? “How much can you bench dude?” Why is that? A man’s strength has always been correlated with the good old bench press. Great exercise, great strength builder. But why won’t they ever ask, “Hey man, how much can you do on the seated chest press machine?” Besides sounding like a total douchbag, I’ll tell you why. Because machines are for chumps, that’s why. Let me tell you the advantages and disadvantages of free weights versus machines in my world.

Overall Strength, Core Strength, Muscle Definition, and Vascularity

Free weights are amazing for increasing overall strength, core strength, muscle definition, and vascularity. When performing a free weight lift like the shoulder (military) press, you’re not only working your shoulders, you’re working your abs (stabilizing), your triceps (secondary) , forearms (antagonist), obliques (stabilizing), and your traps (antagonist). Woah, all those muscles get worked in that one simple action? Yes! When you lift weights your muscles use their friends in any way they can to help you lift the weight so you don’t hurt yourself (natural human response), so more muscles will be stimulated in one simple action than any machine can ever provide.

When doing the military press, you make your own range of motion. For example, you can go full range of motion to work the whole shoulder, or you can do half press ups, to work on power. You choose the movement of the exercise. Sit on a machine, and you your pressing up and down and the machine is dictating where you’re going, not you. Why would you even waste your damn time on that? Not only does free weight lifting increase muscle size and strength, it strengthens the bones, which prevents osteoporosis, and it also strengthens tendons and ligaments, which allow you to go longer in life without cramping up and falling victim to arthritis. When you sit on a machine, you’re moving the weight in only one way, on the same plane of motion, and you can’t change angles to “shock” the muscle.

You see, our muscles our just like our brains without the thinking process. We have what is called muscle memory. Muscles will “remember” and get used to certain movements over a long period of time. That is why it is important to hit the muscle with angles to trick it into constant improvement. Machines will never allow you to change the angle of a lift during the mid-lift. When you’re doing the bench press versus a seated bench press machine, about a thousand times the motor units of your muscles get stimulated during the lift, causing you to have more of a “full” and “real” lifting sensation. Again, with the bench press, your chest is getting hammered, but so are your shoulders (secondary), triceps (secondary), and forearms (antagonist).

Another reason iron is superior to machines is functional strength. Free weights allow you to move your body in the natural way it moves, with the weight attached to it. So when lifting weights, the muscle size not only increases, but the strength also increases. This is called functional strength. With a machine, you are applying your force against an apparatus and it is pushing back at you. You’re not utilizing your full body movement to complete the lift, and you’re not utilizing your strength, you are only using force. Free weights allow you to build your core strength better than any machine in this world. Your core strength is the general brute power and strength a person has. With machines, you’re isolating each muscle, which is OK for guys like bodybuilders, but not OK for guys like me.

I promote functional strength against having big muscles that are useless. That’s about the only thing machines are good for, isolating each muscle to make it look more “cut.” Who the hell cares how cut you look?? You should be in the gym in pants and a long sleeve shirt working out, using the mirrors for good form, and not checking yourself out in them. Work your body as a whole and you’ll be plenty “cut.”

The Safety Issue

Now, the safety issue of free weights versus machines; I only have one thing to say about that: don’t be a freakin’ idiot! Do some research on what you’re getting into and be smart about when you go to the gym to lift. You’re lifting for yourself, not for anyone else, so don’t load more than you can handle just to feel tough. Safety issues?! If you want to be a hardcore athlete, there are risks involved, just like doing anything else in this world. Don’t base whether you’re going to use a machine or not on safety.

With all this, I will conclude with a very simple ending. The body is natural, and moving is natural. Free weights allow you to move naturally with a weight at the end of the movement, while a machine controls the movement for you and dictates the range of motion. You want to let a machine control your workout or you want to control it? Don’t listen to the Men’s Fitness jackasses and the dumbass personal trainer dudes walking around with their spandex and their bottle of steroids. Go to the iron and start working, and don’t even look at those machines. In the old days, we gained strength by our body resistance alone. With free weights, it is exactly like we are using our bodies for resistance with added weights at the end of the movement to stretch out the muscle fibers and make them stronger and longer. Of course the machines were invented to make lifting “more fun” and “easy.”

Let me to tell you something. If you’re in the gym lifting weights, and at any point you say to yourself, “this is fun,” then you belong on the Nordic Track with the rest of gym rats who live off Slim-Fast shakes and infomercial gadgets guaranteed to give you a six pack in only twenty minutes a day! Bottom line is this- machines guide the motion for you, dictating the movement and range of motion. Free weights allow you to move the weight with your natural body motion while providing adequate resistance based on your choice of weight.

More motor units are active while moving a weight, creating a better body response, and more variety and angles of motion can be utilized to have a better lifting effect. Lifting weights also increases testosterone levels in men, which allow for better, stronger, and faster muscle growth. I’m trying to think why anyone would use a machine, and besides for rehabilitating an injury, I can’t think of one. So there it is folks: the why’s and why not’s. Hope everyone understands the importance of weight lifting. Now go the gym and worship the iron!

So you say you’ve gone away on business and you can’t find a gym within 100 miles. Instead of complaining and retiring to watch TV for evening, you’re about to learn how to get a decent workout without machines or free weights. Now get up off your ass and try these exercises as I’m explaining them.

Firstly, you could just run down the road for 30 minutes to get exercise, if you want to train like an Ethiopian. Endurance running will improve cardiovascular health and function to actually break down (catabolism) the muscles that you have accumulated from your serious strength training program. Since typical strength training involves using your fast-twitch muscle fibers (type IIa, type IIb), we are going to discuss how to do that most effectively. Fast-twitch fibers utilize the anaerobic energy system, in that they split adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) molecules at a fast rate, thus providing an abundance of energy, but also fatiguing quickly.

In order to train these muscles properly we need to generate a lot of power, enough, in fact, to exhaust your target muscle within the first 10-20 seconds of exercise.

The Gym-Less Exercises

Exercise 1: Sprints; lower body.

– OK, here’s your chance to go for that run we were talking about earlier. Instead of running for 30 minutes however, you’re going to sprint all out for about 20 seconds. The proper sprinting form involves keeping your chin up, kicking your knees up high in the front, and swinging your arms to generate momentum. After the sprint you may feel free to put your hands on your head and walk around huffing and puffing for about 2 minutes. The best practice is to pick two points, perhaps telephone poles or the length of the local high school track, sprint from one to the other, and rest by walking back to the original point. Even better, if you have a stopwatch you can try to beat your time. Six sprints should suffice. Don’t forget to go for a 5 minute jog first in order to warm up your body.

Total Time: 15 minutes

Exercise 2: Clap pushups; upper chest, triceps, shoulders

– Everyone loves a good set of pushups. But for strength training you want to avoid endless sets of 50 pushups at a time. In order to correctly utilize your fast-twitch muscle fibers, you want to push up as explosively as possible. Clapping push ups are the solution. The proper push up form to target chest involves positioning your hands just outside shoulder width, upper arms perpendicular to shoulders, head up, and body straight like a board. Now, lower yourself down until just before your body and chin touches the floor. Push up as hard and fast as you can, your hands should leave the floor and you will attempt to execute a clap in mid-air.

If you are not strong enough to clap, place two books beside your hands and use the momentum to jump your hands up on top of the books. Do it again to jump back down. You should not be able to do more than 20 reps if you are pushing AS HARD AS YOU CAN off the floor, unless you’re resting far too long between reps. Four sets should suffice; rest 60 seconds between sets, and don’t forget to do a set of 20 without a clap to warm up your upper body first.

Total Time: 8 minutes.

Exercise 3: Pull ups; back, biceps

– I don’t really care where you are, you can find a place to do pull ups. Find a tree branch, a playground, a ledge, a flag pole, I don’t care… use a doorway if you have to. If you look hard enough you will find a place to do pull ups. Since most people can’t execute more than 20 pull ups with strict form, you don’t really have to add much to this exercise to get sufficient type II fiber training. If you need or desire extra weight just find something to hold between your feet. Proper pull up form means your hands should be 2 inches wider than shoulder width, and you want to get your chin OVER the bar on every rep. Your palms should also be facing away from your face (probated).

If you can’t get your chin over the bar then maybe you should find a new hobby like stamp collecting, knitting, or perhaps curling (no, I don’t mean biceps curls, but I suppose that is also a viable alternative hobby if you don’t want to be serious about strength training). Four sets should suffice; rest 60 seconds between sets, no warm-up is necessary unless you plan on hanging a lot of weight between your feet.

Exercise 4: Close grip, diamond push ups; triceps, lower chest

– Basically the same exercise as regular push-ups, but you want to place your hands directly under your chest. Make an L with your thumb and forefinger on each hand, and touch opposing thumbs and opposing forefingers on the floor. The shape of the empty space between your hands should resemble a diamond. At this point there is no reason to jump or clap since you should be significantly fatigued from the last two exercises. Just bang out as many as you can for 2 sets, resting 60 seconds between sets. No warm up necessary.

Total Time: 5 mins

Exercise 5: Chin ups; back, biceps

– Basically the same as regular pull ups, but you want your palms to be facing your body (supinated), and you can place your hands a bit closer; an inch inside shoulder width. This should be completed for 2 sets, resting 60 seconds between sets.

Total Time: 5 mins

Exercises 6 & 7: Standing heel raises

– performed in series with lying sit ups; calves and abs. No want wants to forget about those look-good feel-good muscles! For the heel raises you want to toss a book on the floor, standing with the toes of ONE FOOT on the edge of the book, drop down into a full stretch with your heel well below your toes, and pop up into a full flexion with your heel well above your toes. The flexion should be executed as fast as possible to stimulate the type II fibers. You may use a wall or a chair for stability, but don’t you dare lean on anything. This might be tough at first, especially if your balance leaves something to be desired. When you are done with the first foot, switch.

For lying sit-ups you will want to lie down flat, cross your hands over your chest or put your hands on your head to make it harder (hold something above your head to make it even harder). Pick a spot on the ceiling or wall to stare at, and sit-up so that your upper body is ALMOST perpendicular to the floor. Then lay back down until your body is ALMOST parallel to the floor, keeping tension on your abs at all times, and sitting up as quickly as possible. These should not be slow, controlled sit ups, but rather explosive abdominal contractions which result in your upper body rising up off the floor to a sitting position.

The calf raises and sit ups should be executed without rest for a total of 3 sets each. Warm ups are not required.

Total Time: 12 mins

Now stretch for about 10 minutes and you are done. This entire workout can be executed every other day as total body training workout. There are also other exercises that can be substituted for variation including bed/table/chair dips for triceps, plyometric jumping for the legs, curling furniture of various sorts for the triceps, pick anything heavy up and press it over your head for shoulders, or you can be creative and make something up on your own. Those of you that are serious about strength training will find a way.

www.betterbodyjournal.com will be your source of inspiration and ideas so be sure to check back often.

There are lots of different lifts that a person can do to increase their strength, speed, and power. All kind of weightlifting is great for your body, but I prefer to not waste time in the gym going from lift to lift when you can do only a few lifts and gain a much more superior anabolic effect. After all, the whole point of lifting is to throw your body in a state of anabolism (muscle growing) to increase muscle mass and decrease body fat. You won’t get this by doing your little bicep curls and triceps extensions. You gotta hit the body as a whole, because that’s what is, a whole. While there are many notable supplemental lifts to help in overall body improvement (will be noted later), we will focus on the very best, the crem-de-la crem!

SQUAT – quite possibly the best overall strength-building exercise known to man. While most think the squat is only for your quads, they ain’t squattin’ the right way. With a proper squat, you will work your quads, your hamstrings, your calves, your hips, your abs, and your obliques. Even your lats and your chest get stimulated as stabilizer muscles. If you’re not ready to squat for real, don’t even bother with this exercise, because if you do it wrong you’re wasting a great exercise on nothing. You need to be extremely flexible to perform a proper squat. Why? Because when you got that bar on your upper back across your neck, you’re going to look up at the ceiling, and squat down very slowly until your ass touches the floor, then you sit for about 2-3 seconds and stand up as fast as you possibly can. If you can jump a little bit at the top of the squat…God bless you!

DEADLIFT – an extremely tremendous power lift for increasing size and pulling power. When doing the deadlift, do not use the alternate hands grip (one hand facing you, one hand facing away). I don’t know who the hell invented this grip, but all this does is create different tension on the bicep muscles and cause a muscular imbalance in the arms. To perform a proper deadlift, hold your hands shoulder width apart, back straight, head looking towards the ceiling. When you stand up don’t lean backwards because that does not give you more range of motion, it puts strain on the lower back. The deadlift is a simple up and down movement. When you stand up, go FAST! When you go back down, try to go as slow as possible. If you can manage it, don’t let the barbell touch the ground, but don’t get discouraged if it does. This is a very hard lift to master properly.

BENCH PRESS – I know I don’t need to write much about this exercise. This is everyone’s favorite. Why? Why are so many lifters in love with the bench press? While it is a great exercise for the chest and shoulders, there are tons of other exercises that work many multiple muscle actions than the simple bench press. I’ll tell you why everyone, me included, loves the bench press. After you are done benching, your whole body is in a state of shock from the intense breathing patterns involved in benching, and the extreme cardiovascular response immediately following the exercise. It is a great exercise to build the upper body into a mountain of solid rock. Many gym rats put on way too much weight on the bar, then they almost drop the weight on their chest then they explode off of the bench with their legs and lower back to push the weight back up. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!! That is not bench pressing, that is moving a weight up and down with ill effect. When you bench, your feet shouldn’t even be on the ground; they should be elevated to keep your upper back and lower back as flat as possible on the bench so that you are only pressing with your chest and triceps. Not only will this ignite the chest, but it will also greatly increase upper body balance and coordination.

Basically speaking, these three lifts can make up a solid weightlifting regime for even the experienced lifters, because there are so many variations of each exercise. Every muscle in your body will be worked from these three vigorous power lifts. These lifts will increase brute strength and power in the body. They are a must! A staple in every lifter’s workout.

Now let’s look at some important supplemental lifts that should be added to a regime so that the squat, deadlift, and bench press can be improved.

MILITARY PRESS (SHOULDER PRESS) – This is a very simple, yet extremely effective exercise to target the shoulders. It can be done seated or standing. It is very easy to perform; it can be done with dumbbells or barbells. I prefer to do this exercise with dumbbells as you get far more range of motion. Standing military dumbbell press is one of the best exercises you will do. Make sure is back is straight and you’re looking straight ahead. The weights will be down on the top of the shoulders, then you press up as fast as you can, and back down slowly. If dumbbells get to light for you, then load up the bar and do the same thing. The bar is in front (or in back, but I prefer in front. Funny, I just said that to a lady friend last night…) and you press it up from the middle part of your chest so that you can go up and down with as much range of motion as possible.

PULL-UPS / CHIN-UPS/ PUSH-UPS – Pull-ups and chin-ups have been around for thousands of years and have withstood the test of time. It is the single best exercise you can do for your back. Your back is used for pulling and pull-ups and chin-ups do just that, they pull on the second biggest muscle in your body, the BACK! They can be done with a shoulder width grip to target the entire back, close grip for your inner back and lower lats, and a wide grip for your outer lats and your traps. Pull-ups and chin-ups can (and should) be done daily in my opinion. Push-ups have also been around for thousands of years, and I strongly believe that without them a man cannot be truly strong. When doing push-ups, a different kind of muscle fiber is stimulated than in any other chest exercise, causing “real” strength to grow in the upper body, even the abs, because they are keeping you on balance. Do push-ups the right way – back straight, chest and nose to the floor, and full extension all the way up.

Shoulder width grip targets the whole chest and shoulders, wide-grip is for the outer areas of the chest and the lats, and close grip really really hits the triceps hard and also your inner chest, which is possibly the most under worked area of the upper body and is critical for overall power.

DIPS – One of my favorite exercises ever. Dips are excellent for upper body power. They are great for the chest, the lats, the triceps, and the shoulders. When you are dipping, dip down as far as you can possibly go until it hurts, then push yourself back up. With your elbows flaring out more, you target the chest and shoulders, with the elbows in close to your body, you target the triceps and shoulders.

That’s it! But what about bicep curls and triceps extensions and leg press? If you asked that question slap yourself in the face. While all those exercises are OK for adding more “look” to the muscle, they are more than unnecessary. Compound movements such as the pull-up work your bicep more than a standard bicep curl (we’re talking about real strength here, not just size). The bench press will put more anabolic effect on the triceps than any cable machine ever will. Dips will blast your entire upper body to phenomenal strength levels. Compound movements are superior to the body than isolation lifts. There you have some exercises that should be the staple of every workout regime out there. No matter what your goals are, these exercises will get you there if done properly. Now go try them out with proper form and tell me you need to do curls!

Shoulders for the Masses

Before I was a software engineer, before I was a personal trainer, before I was a nutritionist, and before I could shoulder press my own bodyweight, I cleaned playgrounds to help pay my way through college. You know, those tall, colorful, fun playgrounds at your local McRestaurant or Burger Fling? Yeah I cleaned those. We needed a modicum of strength and endurance to climb all around the outsides of these things, so I would frequent the weight room several times a week. Over the course of a couple years I had actually built myself a pair of respectably sized shoulders using machines and side raises with dumbbells. These were shoulders that received questions such as, “dude, have you been going to the gym?” and “hey, you lift weights right?” Wow, please guys don’t let the praise rain down too hard!

As if the disbelieving attitude towards my gym attendance wasn’t bad enough, August 1998 brought forth a day that changed my life forever. On this day I was cleaning a playground with 40-year-old Pat, whom probably never had been inside of an actual gym in his lifetime. We were rebuilding a section of wire mesh fence, and I was tasked with handing a 120 lb roll of wire mesh fencing to the boss, who was waiting on a ledge just over my head. Needless to say, I struggled and I struggled, and I got the wire up to my head, but could not jostle it up over the ledge. Pat came over and shoved me out of the way, tossed the wire up over the ledge with moderate but not overly taxing effort, and proclaimed to me, “It’s a good thing that you look really strong, because I’m way stronger than you.”

At that moment I wanted to do one of two things: a) pick this man up and throw him off the playground to be impaled by the spikey hair of the giggling children below, or b) hide my head like an ostrich and, with any luck, suffocate myself in the dirt. Because I could do neither, due to my lack of throwing strength and the fact that I could only find concrete for miles in any direction, I was forced to suffer through the rest of the day knowing that I was inadequate as a man when compared to this lanky 40 year old.

That night I went home and decided it was time for a change. No longer would I focus on building “caps” on my shoulders, or defining the separation of my front deltoid from my medial deltoid. I wanted to be able to pick up men and throw them. I wanted to use the 100 lb dumbbells for shoulder pressing at the gym. I wanted to shoulder press cars! Hell, I wanted to be able to lift the wire mesh fencing over my head!!! Yes, it was time to get strong, and my research led me to 3 fundamental rules that would help me formulate my strength training for years to come.

Rule #1: Lifting Heavy Weights Will Make You Strong.

Find the exercises that allow us to lift as much weight as possible. We want to focus not only on the shoulders but all of the muscles that will work in conjunction with the shoulders during maximal exertion.

Rule #2: High training frequency will make you strong.

Perform our strength training as many times as possible in a certain time-frame, allowing for both active and inactive recovery.

Rule #3: Injury prevention will keep you healthy.

Obvious and simple: if you have muscle imbalances you will get injured. Training for injury prevention will keep you in the gym rather than on the couch or in the OR.

These rules are very easy to understand and even easier to implement. First we must choose between the options we have for training our shoulders: upright rows, pressing, lateral raises; then throw in a bit of power: high pulls, cleans, push press; and finish it off with some injury prevention: internal and external rotations. Clearly any form of pressing or compound exercise will allow us to move a maximal amount of weight. We want to work our shoulders from as full a range of angles as possible.

The Program

Given these conditions we arrive at the push press for maximal power and shoulder socket stability. Standing behind-the-neck shoulder presses will target muscles that are not ordinarily used in military presses and dumbbell presses. Standing alternating dumbbell presses will be utilized to train the shoulder stabilizers as well as provide maximal unilateral stimulation. Internal and external rotations are our best choice for saving our precious rotator cuffs. Finally, those tried and true lateral raises are great for raising work capacity and assisting with active recovery.

We will not be employing the use of upright rows due to their lack of transference to pressing and their predisposition to cause trauma to the shoulder capsule.

Notes

This program is designed to focus solely on shoulder strength. It should be performed for either 40 or 80 days before switching your focus to another muscle group. Remember rule #3: muscle imbalances = injury; by switching up our focus we are allowing the rest of our muscles to catch up with our newfound shoulder strength. I recommend focusing on lower body for a couple months after this program is over.

The program is set up as a 3 day split over the course of 8 days. Ideally, the main workouts would occur on M/W/F/Su/Tu/Th/Sa/repeat, but for the sake of scheduling it is acceptable to take a 2-day weekend, inserting the additional off-day as necessary, resulting in a M/W/F/M/W/F/repeat split.

The active recovery sessions are optional, but by skipping them you are limiting the total effectiveness of this program.

Thanks to my own personal experience, I know that abs and calves tend to be problem areas for most people. To combat these deficiencies I tend to use a super-set scheme wherein I perform sets of abdominal and calf training in conjunction with my other exercises. If you decide to do this, simply add in your sets of abdominal and calf training as outlined below, resting only after the abs and/or calf sets. These can also be ignored if you so choose, but I have not otherwise allowed for abs or calves throughout the program.

1-2 additional sets may be added as warm-up sets before performing your working sets for each exercise. Only the final set should be your maximal intensity attempt. Do not attempt to go to failure on all sets, and in fact attempt to avoid going to complete failure in most cases. Use your own instinct to decide if you can perform the next rep without help, if not, do not try it.

You should never, for any reason, reach the point of failure on an active recovery session. If the prescribed rep range is 20 you should use a weight that you can handle for 25-30.

Workouts should not last longer than 60 minutes from the time you execute your first work set. You should not take longer than 2 minutes rest between super-sets, and in fact shorter rest periods are recommended based on personal work capacity.

Editors Note: For those unfamiliar with training programs, the numbers following the exercise name are your (sets x reps). The reps are the number of repitions you should do, and the number of sets are how many times you repeat the repitions. For example, (3 x 7) would mean 3 sets of 7 repititions, with rest in between each set.

Days 1-8: Testing your 7 Rep Max

Day 1: Power & Strength (Shoulders, Chest, Triceps)
• Push Press (3 x 7)
• Flat Bench Press (3 x 7) & Seated Calves (3 x 10)
• Incline Dumbbell Press (3 x 7) & Abs Exercise (3 x 10)
• Skull Crushers (3 x 7) & Standing Calves (3 x 10)

Day 2: Active Recovery
• Cardio: 20 minutes (optional)
• Dumbbell side raises (2 x 20) & Dumbbell front raises (2 x 20)
• Fly Machine (2 x 20) & Reverse Flies (2 x 20)

Day 3: Leg Day (Legs, Horizontal Back, Biceps)
• Squats (3 x 7)
• Bent Over Rows (3 x 7) & Abs Exercise 1 (3 x 10)
• Stiff Leg Deadlift (3 x 7) & Standing Calves (3 x 10)
• Bicep Curls (3 x 7) & Abs Exercise 2 (3 x 10)

Day 4: Active Recovery
• Cardio: 20 minutes (optional)
• 1 minute of bodyweight squats (3 sets) & Neutral Grip Cable Rows (3 x 20)

Day 5: Maximal Strength (Shoulders, traps, triceps)
• Standing Behind Neck Shoulder Press (3 x 7)
• Barbell Shrugs (3 x 7) & Calf Exercise 1 (3 x 10)
• Standing Military Press (3 x 7) & Abs Exercise (3 x 10)
• Close Grip Bench Press off Pins set 2 inches above chest (3 x 7) & Calf Exercise 2 (3 x 10)

Day 6: Active Recovery
• Cardio: 20 minutes (optional)
• Dumbbell side raises (2 x 15) & Dumbbell front raises (2 x 15)
• Fly Machine (2 x 15) & Reverse Flies (2 x 15) – Use Same Weight as Day 2

Day 7: Uni-lateral & Injury Prevention Shoulder, (Vertical Back, Legs)
• Standing Alternating Dumbbell Press (3 x 7)
• Deadlifts (3 x 7) & Standing Lateral Rotations (3 x 10)
• Pull Ups (or downs) (3 x 7) & Abs Exercise 1 (3 x 10)
• Lying or Cable External Rotations (3 x 10) & Cable Internal Rotations (3 x 10)

Day 8: Active Recovery
• Cardio: 20 minutes (optional)
• 1 minute of body weight squats (3 sets) & Neutral Grip Cable Pulldowns (3 x 20)

Days 9-16: Learning to Push the Limit

• Replace all (3 x 7) with (4 x 5) and (3 x 10) with (4 x 7)
• Keep active recovery the same

Day 17-24: Full on Strength Training

• Replace all (4 x 5) with (5 x 3) and (4 x 7) with (5 x 5)
• Keep active recovery the same

Day 25-32: Full on Strength Training

• Same as Days 17-24

Day 33-40: Active Recovery Week

• Day 33: Same as Day 1, but 2 x 10 on everything
• Day 34: Cardio optional
• Day 35: Same as Day 3, but 2 x 10 on everything
• Day 36: Cardio optional
• Day 37: Same as day 5, but 2 x 10 on everything
• Day 38: Cardio optional
• Day 39: Same as day 7, but 2 x 10 on everything
• Day 40: Cardio Optional

Days 41-80: Doing It One More Time

You should strive to use more weight than the first 40 days for every set of every exercise. After the 80 days it might be a good idea to take an entire week off, utilizing active recovery for all muscles during that week.

Now go out there and overhead press a car!