Category Archives: How To Build Lean Muscle

Build a Powerful Chest and Punch Without Weights

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A guy with a puny chest pretty much looks like crap, not matter how big his other muscles are. There’s something about well-built pecs that screams “Warrior!” Or maybe it’s that a thick chest makes you more likely to reflect a lone spear that’s flying through the air? Beats me, but one thing’s for sure: all guys want a big chest, and all women want a guy with impressively powerful pecs. It’s hard-wired into our DNA.

Research shows that women are more sexually attracted to men who have who a low waist-to-chest ratio. You know, that V-shaped look. And yes, research was actually performed and money was spent to come to this blatantly obvious conclusion.

The cool thing about building a more powerful chest is that it can be done remarkably well without any equipment whatsoever.

I’ll tell you right now that adding meat to your chest doesn’t require much ingenuity. Start doing 100 push-ups every day and you’ll get the job done. However, there are two shortcomings with this approach.

First, you won’t build a powerful chest that way. Developing muscular power to elite levels requires a more explosive approach. High volume push-up training develops muscular endurance without regard for power. Since the pecs respond well to sets of high reps, doing 100 push-ups each day might make your pecs bigger but it won’t make you punch much harder. Second, it’s likely that the length-tension relationship around your shoulder joint will regress when you do nothing but traditional push-ups all the time. At the very least, it will magnify underlying shoulder dysfunction. This leads to pain that eventually makes you stop all chest work, and damn it if you’re not back to where you started.

So I’ve put together a plan that will supercharge your pecs, improve shoulder health, and build knockout power at the same time.

Warm-up the Shoulders: arm circles

Preparing for chest training couldn’t be any simpler. Start with 20 arm circles in each direction. The circles should start small and get progressively larger every few reps. By the time you reach rep 15 you should exaggerate the range of motion as much as possible. Also, do these arm circles faster and faster over time. Don’t rip into 20 high-speed arm circles for the first workout because you can strain your pecs, but train those muscles over time to withstand fast arm circles.

Activate the Core: side plank with rotation

Before my clients do any chest training, I always have them perform the side plank with rotation. This exercise activates the lats and side core muscles which immediately enhances your upper body pushing power.

If you’re ever in a bar with one of those punching bag machines that measures the power of your punch and your buddy bets you $50 he can puncher harder than you, run to the pisser and do this exercise first. When you return, he won’t suspect a thing and you’re sure to beat him. Well, unless he’s Shane Carwin. In that case you’re screwed.

Perform one set of 10 rotations on each side. This exercise should be performed slowly with maximum core tension throughout the movement.

Build Shoulder Stability Strength: hand over hand

Once the core and lats have been activated it’s not time to jump into any explosive training just yet. To protect the shoulder joints it’s important to activate and strengthen the rotator cuff while boosting stability in the glenohumeral joint. The hand over hand exercise gets the job done.

Perform one set of five holds on each side (10 holds total). Hold the position for 1-2 seconds each time before switching sides.

Explosive Power: 3 Position Hand Hop

Now it’s time to turn up the juice with an exercise I use to build explosive power in the chest and core. The 3 position hand hop is an outstanding exercise for fighters because it trains your chest to fire with the core. When you jump your hands out to different positions, your core has to perform a powerful contraction to stabilize your torso. Each set should be performed with maximum speed.

Perform three reps as fast as possible. You’ll jump your hands out to three different positions and back to the center for one rep. Perform five sets of three reps with 30 seconds rest between each set. This exercise is ideal for building explosive punching power.

For fighters who need more shoulder endurance, perform as many reps as possible before your technique breaks down as an alternative to just three reps. This approach is also excellent for building muscle.

Hypertrophy and Endurance: push-up (optional)

At this point you have two choices. You can stop here if your chest is already smoked from the hand hop, and if chest power is your primary goal. Or, if you really need more chest mass this is the perfect time to knockout two sets of as many reps as possible with the good ol’ fashioned push-up.

Use a hand position that’s shoulder width, or slightly wider, and use a variation that allows 25-30 reps for the first set. For most guys this will be a regular push-up. However, if you can do more than 30 at this point in the workout, elevate your feet on a flat bench or Swiss ball.

For the second set, repeat the same exercise and do as many reps as possible, even if it’s not 25 reps.

The Plan

Perform the following routine every other day for four weeks. Put this at the beginning of your workout on the days you perform your regular training.

Arm circles for 20 reps in each direction
Side plank with rotation for 10 reps on each side
Hand over hand for 5 holds on each side
3 position hand hop for 5 sets of 3 reps, rest 30 seconds between each set
(optional) Push-up for 2 sets of AMRAP, rest 60-90 seconds between each set

Stay Focused,
CW

3 Ways to Improve Your Pull-up Performance

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The pull-up is the king of upper body exercises. It builds strength and muscle in your forearms, biceps, lats, and upper back better than any other upper body strength exercise you’ll find. But many people don’t get it right. Like any potentially effective exercise there are ways to screw it up. Elbow, shoulder, and neck problems can creep up on you.

That’s why I’m here to ensure that you get it right. Here are the three essential elements to get the most out of the exercise.

1. The Hang: Start from a full hang position. That’s easy enough, right? But this is often the place where people immediately put their shoulders in a high risk position. When you’re in the full hang it’s important to keep distance between the top of your shoulders and your ears. It’s common to see a guy’s head get buried between his shoulders like a turtle going back into its shell. As my friend Pavel Tsatsouline likes to say, “Think of your shoulders as poison to your ears.” Keep your shoulder blades somewhat down when you’re in the full hang.

Now, I want to be clear here since the “keep your shoulder blades down” tip has gotten a lot of criticism. There should be some shoulder elevation in the full hang – that’s natural and healthy. What I’m advising against is a full hang where your shoulders go all the way up to your ears since that’s not a healthy position to constantly pull from. There’s a happy medium between keeping your shoulder blades all the way down and tight (a position I don’t recommend) and letting your shoulders relax and shrug up to your ears (another position I don’t recommend). Find an intermediate spot that feels right to you in the full hang.

2. The Pull: As you pull your body up, focus on pulling your elbows down and in to activate your lats. This simple trick will strengthen and grow your lats much faster. Pull until the elbow joints can no longer flex. Lower under control but keep your shoulders away from your ears in the hang.

3. Hand Position and Rotation: Like most body weight exercises, I favor a very high frequency of training for the pull-up to build the muscles fast. The upper back muscles are difficult to overtrain, and that’s one of the reasons why the guys who do pull-ups all the time have the best upper backs. However, elbow problems are common in lifters who start doing them every day. The problem is with their hand position on a fixed bar. As you pull and lower your body the wrist joints want to naturally rotate to take stress off the elbows. When you’re gripping a fixed bar, they can’t.

The chin-up (a pull-up with the palms facing you) is typically the worst culprit since there’s excess strain on the elbows right from the start. If you’re someone who suffers from elbow pain with the pull-up or chin-up, the solution is simple: do them from rings, TRX straps, or anything that allows your hands to rotate. If rings aren’t an option, focus on pull-ups with a neutral (hammer grip) hand position since it’s the least stressful to the elbows.

To embark on a high frequency pull-up plan, do them five days per week on a 3 on/1 off and 2 on/1 off schedule. So if you start on Monday you’ll take Thursday and Sunday off each week. If you can do 5-10 continuous pull-ups perform 20 reps in each workout. If you can do 10-15, perform 30 reps in each workout. It doesn’t matter how many sets it takes to achieve those reps, just get them done.

Stay Focused,
CW

Perfect Your Single-leg Squat

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Single-limb exercises, especially for the lower body, are essential for everyone, regardless if they’re a pro athlete or weekend warrior. The benefits of single-leg exercises are numerous, but a few key points to mention are that they recruit additional hip muscles that often get minimal stimulation with double-leg exercises, and they make the core play a larger role in each movement.

The single-leg squat has gained a lot of popularity over the past few years. But there’s a problem: most people do it with terrible form, as evident by extreme spinal flexion. It’s not your fault, as the saying goes. You just haven’t been given the right information to make it work for you. To perform a full single-leg squat requires a lot of strength, mobility, and stability. So you must improve those qualities to get it right.

I could honestly write an entire book on perfecting this exercise. I mention this because I’m about to outline the common problems that are probably holding you back, but there could be other factors working against you.

Now, before I get to the good stuff I must differentiate between a single-leg squat and a pistol. A pistol is the exercise that requires you to squat on one leg with the opposite leg held straight out in front and off the ground. It was popularized by my friend, Pavel Tsatsouline. It’s a good exercise, but it’s extremely advanced. To get it right you must have crazy hamstring flexibility and plenty of strength. Most people are severely lacking the hamstring mobility needed to keep your spine from bending like a fresh twig.

Perfecting the pistol requires another set of guidelines. This post is about the single-leg squat for people who have average mobility. Here’s how to get it right.

Step #1: Start with a few minutes of rope jumping or similar exercises to increase your body temperature. Do some foam rolling at this time if you wish.

Step #2: Stretch your hip flexors: the rectus femoris and psoas. I’m not a big fan of static stretching before a workout, but when it comes to the hip flexors it’s usually a good idea. Stiff hip flexors can diminish your ability to build maximum tension in your glutes and lockout your hips. That’s why stiff hip flexors are often referred to as a “parking brake” that’s partially engaged, thus limiting your hip power. Another reason to stretch your hip flexors is that it allows you to remain more upright in the single-leg squat.

Step #3: Groove the right motor pattern with a single-leg squat facing a wall. When most people do a single-leg squat they shift their torso forward. This can be caused by subpar thoracic extension and a lack of dorsiflexion in the ankle joint. This exercise restores both. It’s a fantastic technique-builder that I learned from spinal expert, Dr. Craig Liebenson. Perform 10 reps with each leg.

Step #4: Activate your hip abductors. Another problem people tend to have is that their leg buckles in as they squat. This is caused by weakness in the gluteus medius/minimus muscles that must fire strongly to hold your leg in proper position. The hip external rotation exercise strengthens and activates those muscles. This can be used as a stand-alone exercise when weakness is evident, or as an activation drill.

Step #5: Perform the single-leg squat on a high bench. The first way to build this exercise is to start by standing barefoot (or with Vibram shoes) on a relatively high bench. The key point is that you must be able to maintain an arch in your low back. If you step down and you feel your low back round (your spine will flex), the bench is too high. Start at a height that allows you to maintain lordosis (low back arch) and increase the height – or the distance you drop down – to build your single-leg squat. The goal is to be able to perform a range of motion that allows your hips to drop below knee level while maintaining an arch in your low back. This can take time so be patient.

Perform these exercises a few times per week and focus on increasing your range of motion with the single-leg squat while standing on a bench. Your hips, legs, and core will get stronger and more powerful than ever!

Stay focused,
CW

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Build Big Triceps Fast

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To make fast progress you must focus on the areas that give you the greatest return. When it comes to building big arms, the triceps are the shareholders with the most power. After all, they make up two-thirds of your upper arm girth. Every guy wants big biceps because he wants big arms, but doing curls all day won’t get the job done as quickly as building up your triceps.

John Cena has absolutely massive arms. Having seen him in person I can say that most pictures, believe it or not, don’t give those guns any justice. One of the reasons his upper arms are so huge is because his triceps’ girth is nothing short of extraordinary.

Not only do impressively large triceps look cool but they’re also essential for physical prowess. Throwing a hard punch in the ring or pushing your opponent away on the field rely heavily on the strength of your triceps. And as any good lifter knows, adding quality meat to your muscles boost their ability to produce more force.

The problem with many triceps exercises is they can be very hard on the elbow joints. This is especially true with isolation exercises that limit movement at the elbows. The triceps, by design, are intended to work with the shoulder joint. Punching, pushing, and throwing work the shoulder and elbow joints together, and in perfect harmony. Don’t get me wrong, exercises such as a lying triceps extension with dumbbells has its place and can be very beneficial.

However, the one of the best triceps exercises I’ve ever used is a close hand position push-up with the feet elevated on a Swiss Ball. I like to call this a “triceps push-up” since it works your triceps harder than just about anything else.

Perform 5 sets of as many reps as possible every three days and your triceps will get bigger and stronger faster than ever before. Keep your abs tight and don’t try to go fast at first. This exercise is tougher than it looks!

Now for other related news…

I posted a cool, full body fat loss workout in my Training Lab on T-nation that you can see by clicking HERE.

Also, I wrote an article for Pavel Tsatsouline and Dragon Door on the importance of lifting speed, to read it click HERE.

Stay Focused,
CW

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The 3 Best Biceps Exercises

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The biceps are the most coveted muscle group known to man. Since the first bodybuilding mag ever hit the stands, the biceps has been a showcase muscle and building an impressive set is a big business.

Yet, most guys can’t get the damn things to grow.

So I’m going to outline the three best biceps exercises to catapult your development. But before I do that, let me explain two common errors.

First, the biceps are designed to work with your forearms and upper back. Many machines take those muscles out of the movement so the biceps are left in isolation. The biceps, like most muscle groups, only respond to exercises that challenge them to work the way they’re designed. Just check out the picture in this blog. I used an Olympic rings gymnast for good reason. Those dudes have the most impressive biceps on the planet, but they aren’t bodybuilders that do machine curls all day. Instead, they’re athletes that hang from the rings for hours each day. Exercises on the rings challenge your forearms and upper back, along with your biceps. That’s why their biceps are so incredible – they train them with the muscles they’re designed to work with.
Biceps Training Error #1: Training the biceps in isolation.

Second, the biceps respond best to high training loads. Guys love to train for a pump, and the best way to get a pump is to do slow-grind sets with high reps. But slow training with long sets don’t overload the largest motor units that have the most potential for growth. You need to do multiple sets of low reps with a relatively heavy load to get the biceps to grow. This is why so many people love the 10×3 (10 sets of 3 reps) approach I often recommend for building a muscle group. The biceps respond especially well to that set/rep combination.
Biceps Training Error #2: Training the biceps with light loads and high reps.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the three best exercises that will quickly add muscle.

1. Rope Climb/Neutral grip Pull-up: Of all the exercises I’ve used that overload the biceps, the best one is the least practical. I’m talking about climbing a rope. If you have the luxury of hanging a 2″-2 1/2″ rope from 15 feet up, consider yourself lucky. All you need to do is climb up and down that rope for 10 sets 2-3 times per week and you’ve get all the biceps stimulation you’ll ever need.

But I know that’s not practical for most. The next option is to do pull-ups with a narrow, neutral (palms facing each other) grip. I’ve often talked about the benefit of pull-ups to build the biceps and some coaches scoff at the idea claiming that the stronger upper back will take over the exercise and biceps won’t grow. This is only true with pull-up variations that give the upper back muscles an effective line of pull. By placing your hands close together with your palms facing each other, your arm flexors are effectively targeted and the upper back can’t take over.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Double D attachment that you see sitting next to the cable stack in your gym. Grab that attachment with both hands and look at how close together your hands are – that’s the perfect hand placement for pull-ups. Perform 10 sets of 3-5 reps while alternating it with a chest or triceps exercise.

2. Palms-up Row: A barbell row is one of the best upper back exercises, but it’s also an outstanding biceps exercise when you perform it with your palms up and hands wider than shoulder width. Dorian Yates, the great bodybuilder with impressive biceps, made that exercise famous and he called it the “Yates Row.”

The tricky part of a bent-over barbell row is that it’s very easy to mess up the exercise by leaning back or bringing your hips into play. Therefore, I recommend a more effective, user-friendly alternative. First, set an adjustable bench to a 45 degree angle. Next, lie face-down on the bench while holding a moderately heavy dumbbell in each hand. Start with your arms hanging straight down, palms facing forward, and row the dumbbells. This takes your lower body out of the exercise and ensures that your arms and upper back are doing the work. Perform 10 sets of 3-5 reps while alternating it with an exercise for your chest or triceps.

3. Standing Hammer Curl/EZ bar Reverse Curl: I’m not against direct arm training exercises. They certainly have their place, but many variations do next to nothing. The two best I’ve used in 17 years are the standing hammer curl and standing reverse curl with an EZ bar. For these exercises I like to use slightly higher reps: 6 sets of 6-8 reps works well. Again, you should alternate each set with an exercise that trains your chest or triceps.

The essential component for getting the most out of your direct arm training exercises is to challenge your forearms. That’s why I highly recommend Fat Gripz. They fit around any traditional barbell, dumbbell, or pull-up bar and they work incredibly well to overload your biceps and forearms. Fat Gripz are one of the best training tools out there. Just throw a pair in your gym bag and you’ve got an excellent tool to make any arm exercise more effective.

You can find Fat Gripz by clicking HERE.

Stay focused,
CW

The 10-Second Rule

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Training for maximum power requires you to recruit the high-threshold motor units. To recruit them, you must lift maximal loads (>85% of 1RM) or you must lift submaximal loads (50-75% of 1RM) with high acceleration so the actual lifting velocity is fast.

There’s a simple way to ensure that you get maximum power from each set: limit the duration of each set to 10 seconds or less. Why?

It has to do with the endurance capabilities of your high-power motor units. Your largest motor units are known as fast-twitch, fast-fatigable (FF) motor units that contain a large bundle of type IIb muscle fibers. Type IIb fibers have a very limited capacity of energy so they fatigue within 10 seconds. After you recruit the FF motor units, it’s tough to keep activating them because they don’t recover quickly.

However, the second most-powerful motor units come from the fast-twitch, fatigue-resistant (FFR) motor units that contain type IIa muscle fibers. Like all motor units, they range in size and endurance. You have FFR motor units with fewer muscle fibers that get activated before a FFR motor unit that’s any larger. In other words, you have FFR motor units that are bigger and stronger than others. The largest ones have the lowest endurance capacity. So by keeping your sets to 10 seconds, or less, you’ll target and develop the most powerful FFR motor units that have plenty of growth and power potential.

With heavy loads, this 10-second rule is easy to follow because you can’t go past 10 seconds, even if you tried. For submaximal loads, it’s much easier to screw up. As a gross generalization, shoot for three reps per set with submaximal loads.

For example, when you need to build explosive power, start with a load that allows around 20 reps. For those of you who like percentages, this is around 60% of your 1RM. Then, perform only three explosive reps for 10 sets with approximately 45 seconds of rest between each set. This ensures that each set lasts less than 10 seconds, the actual lifting velocity remains fast, and stay far away from failure. Remember, when you approach failure motor units start dropping out.

So whether you’re training heavy, or light and fast, limit the duration of your sets to 10 seconds and you’ll build new muscle and power fast!

Stay focused,
CW