How To Get Ripped

How to Avoid Getting Sick

Now that the new year is upon us, droves of people will start exercising. The holiday season is a time when people typically exercise less and eat more, so they double-down on training come January. Pair that with cold winter temperatures and plenty of germs crawling around and you’ve got the perfect environment to get sick – or do you?
Some types of exercise can positively or negatively affect your likelihood of getting sick. Stress, exercise and illness can all affect the immune system so it’s important to have each in check.

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Squeeze More Muscle into Your Training

blog biceps squeeze Muscle growth requires tension. If you haven’t been gaining muscle, one likely culprit is a lack of high-threshold motor unit recruitment during your sets.
When the tension of your muscle contractions is too low, you’re not stimulating the muscle fibers that have the most growth potential.
This holds true for any muscle group.
However, the calves come to mind here since they’re one of the most notoriously stubborn muscle groups – if you chose the wrong parents. In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding he mentioned that one of the ways he got his proportionally puny calves to grow was with super-heavy sets of incline leg press calf raises.
In essence, he forced his calves to produce more tension and they grew because of it. But you’ll quickly run into a wall of fatigue and joint strain if you only add weight to your exercises.
There’s a simpler, safer and more effective way to get more tension and growth out of your sets: the squeeze.

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Q&A: Fasting, Protein and HFT

Here are two questions I recently received that I thought would be a good fit for today’s blog:
Q: Chad, you have written that it’s possible to gain muscle on a 16-hour fast/8-hour eating phase. But to gain muscle you need enough calories, protein and carbs. Can the body make use of that much protein eaten in such a short amount of time? I heard that the body can only use 20-30 grams of protein and the rest will be stored as fat. – Andreas
CW: First off, the research that showed 20 grams of protein was sufficient to achieve peak levels of protein synthesis has caused an overreaction. While it might be true that 20 grams is no better than 40 grams for triggering protein synthesis, there are certainly other reasons to eat protein such as: increased thermogenesis, higher IGF-1, and a positive nitrogen balance, just to name a few. There’s no reputable research to support the idea that eating more than 20 grams of protein will cause fat gain.

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Climb Your Way to New Muscle

rope climb l If I had to choose one upper body exercise for the rest of my training days it would definitely be the rope climb. Of course, we don’t live in a world where we’re relegated to only one exercise, but if I had to choose one that would be it. No other upper body exercise works as many muscles as intensely, from your abs to your forearms, and everything in between. However, the rope climb is an advanced exercise that might not be appropriate for many of you, at this point.
The people who run into a problem with the rope climb, whether it’s pain in the shoulder, elbow or anywhere else are usually not ready for such a challenging move. No matter how great the rope is, you must pass through the ranks before adding it into your program.

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