If there is one subject, when it comes to fitness, that is close to my heart.

It is building muscle and getting strong for harder gainer and scrawny dudes.

That was me.

I told this story many times , I was in auto repair shop and I was trying break lug nut.

I was struggling, putting my whole body behind it and I heard a few kids begin me laugh at me.

That afternoon , I joined a gym. I was 17 years old.

The rest history.

There has been many things, I’ve learned since than.

I’ve been working out for the past 16 years.

Here are some of those lessons, I’ve learned.

Bodybuilder Don’t Have The Answers(At least not for guys like you and I)

This was one of my first mistakes Following bodybuilding program in the magazines. . Body builder have a few things, most of us do not have.

Fundamental levels strength and muscle

Great genetic

Taking drugs

So, the programs that you’ll see in magazines might work great for genetically gifted guys, like the ones who would play football in high school.

But, for people like us, they suck. Too much volume and accessory exercises.

What we need to do is to build a strong foundation of strength by

Mastering the basic compound exercises and getting strong at them.

The basic exercises would be a

• Squat
• deadlift
• single leg exercises
• upper push like bench press
• upper pull like row

Shoot for staying in the rep ranges of 5-8 reps, until you build strong strength foundation. Unlike bodybuilding, your not going hit one muscle group once week.

You want hit it with frequency, hit the same muscle group 2-3 x week. So , full body workouts are great for beginners.

A quick examples

• Squat
• DB press
• 1 arm row
• Reveres lunge
• Plank

Supplements Are Never The Answer

With picking up bodybuilding and fitness magazines. You get a ton of shitty workouts.

But, you get bombarded with ads for all theses supplements, that clam, they will change your life.

I got sucker in , spending so much money on these.

Supplements are exactly, what they are. They should supplements your diet. There far from the most important things.

If you take them, focus on the ones that comes from food and that your having trouble getting in your own diet.

Things I like are

• Protein powder
• vitamin d
• fish oil
• magnanimous oil
• Green powders

High Intensity

Like I said earlier, I would follow these body building program ,the problem with this was, the volume was way too high, for someone who was very weak.

When you do high volume but your not loading that much weight, this is highly ineffective.

One of the first times, I realized how important intensity was, when I got in to this training program called Heavy Duty by Mike Mentzer

It was doing 1-2 exercises per body part but only doing 1 set to absolute failure.

At that time, I saw my best gain with this way. Way better than any gains I did following workouts, that had 20 set per body part.

Although, I now do more sets, than 1 . It taught me how to train all out and how effective it can be.

You don’t know intensity until, you know what failure looks and feels like. Having parts of your workout, where go to failure, is important. Just from a stand point of learning to go all out.

You might, think ,you did a hard set of 10, but maybe if you did that to failure, you would got 20 reps instead.

Which mean that set of 10 wasn’t really, as intense as you thought.

There was this squat, challenge I’ve done in the past. That I loved. Where you put your body weight in pound on the bar and squat for max reps and see what you can get.

There were times, where after 12 reps, I would feel like I was done, like I only had few reps left.

But, I would take it one rep at time and and push it until I couldn’t. Before I knew, I would be at 25+ reps.

Intensity is important .

A method of tracking this, is rating your RPE after each set

RPE is rate of perceived exertion, rate from 1-10

Most of your working sets should be a 7-9.

A good way to think about this, is if you went all out for , how many more reps you could get past the given rep range.

Say your doing sets of 8,

If you could get 3 extra reps or more it is probably a 7 or lower

If you could get an extra 2 reps, it might a 8

If you could get 1 extra reps, it might be a 9

If you could get 0 extra reps, it would be at 10.

This is great way engage intensity , this is also a great way to know, when you should add weight.

If you do a set of 8 chest presses and the RPE was 9, you probably know, that you don’t need go up, for your next set, or next week, you should stay at that weight.

Ramp Up Sets

This was a game changer, for the longest time, when I did a workout. I would do the prescribed sets and reps, that was it. Maybe I would a 1-2 warm up sets for real heavy lifts.

But, when I started to incorporate ramp up sets, notice huge difference.

A ramp up set are 1-4 easy to harder sets, that help, you get ready to handle heavy weight, but also give you the opportunity to practice great form, when the exercises are easier, thus increasing your performance at that lift, when the weight is heavy.

I kinda did this for big lifts, but when I took it more seriously and did this with almost every exercises. I added more muscle and got stronger.

The reason for this is most likely due a few things.

1. Your better prepared to handle heavy weight.
2. The little extra volume, may have help build muscle.
3. Because I’m warmed up better , I has the ability to go harder on my working sets.
4. It help me know which weights, are the best for my working sets, instead of guessing, and going to heavy or light for my first 1-2 sets, which used happen often.

Here an example for ramp up sets with a bench press.

Say your workout call for 3x 8, to me a hard set of 8 might be 155lbs

I might do this

• bar for 8
• 95lbs for 8
• 115 for 8
• 135 for 8

Than do my first working set at 155

If your not doing this, start doing this and notice more strength, more muscle and maybe more importantly less injuries or aches and pains

Mix Methods (conjugate)

Typically we work on one thing at time, during weeks and months of training.

We might focus on, just building muscle, than strength and maybe than power, etc.

But, I’ve seen my best gains working on multiple methods at a time.

I don’t like working on different thing each phase.

Like a few months of strength work than, than building muscle and than power development.

I find that, doing this causes you to lose your gains in one area, too fast.

I prefer working on everything in each workout or at least each week.

Popular by westside BB conjugate system.

Does this, you work on multiple modalities simultaneously.

For example my strength workout yesterday for my group training was.

1A DB Press 2/3x 4-8 (max strength)

1B Rotational MB Slams (power)

2 Push ups 3x 15 (hypertrophy/muscle building work)

3A Strap rows 15 (hypertrophy/muscle building work)

3B Forward and backward lunges 8 per side (hypertrophy/muscle building work)

3C Rack Walk 30 sec (core development)

Repeated for 10 minutes

Finisher: Hill sprints 10 sec 5 sets( conditioning and lactic power development)

In one workout we built multiple, things : max strength, power and focus on building muscle. As well building conditioning.

This work well because it hits the three triggers of building muscle

Mechanical tension aka heavy lifting

Time under tension aka high reps with controlled tempos

Metabolic stress- combination of higher reps with incomplete rest and the intervals

This is fun way of training, with a huge bang for your buck.

Recovery

Last thing I want point on is recovery. After , I grew frustrated with bodybuilding workouts, I found in magazines.

I discovered this old school body builder, who taught the complete opposite.

Instead of more sets, he said one.

Instead of training 6x week, he said train 2-4x week.

He emphasis recovery.

I saw at that time, my best gains by following his guide lines.

Although, I don’t agree with all his thoughts now.

He was way a head of his time, with how important intensity and recovery are to build muscle.

He advocated 1-2 exercises per body part and 1 brutal set taken to failure and than you would take 3 days off.

If you want build muscle, you have to respect the recovery process, that is focusing sleep and structuring your workout in way, that allows for recovery.

For sleep , I’d shoot for going bed by 10pm and trying get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep.

Than for workouts, try not to lift 3 straight days. Here are a few splits I like

Mon Weds Fri Fullbody

Mon Tues Thurs Fri Upper/lower split

Mon Weds Fri lower upper and pull

Now, let take this stuff and hit the ground running . Let me know if you have any questions.

Summer is coming and I’m sure, you wouldn’t mind being a little leaner. Today I’m going to go over Weight loss mindset. The underrated aspect of weight and fat loss.

I actually had to work on some of these idea myself to reach my goal of being promoted to blue belt, last year.

Weight loss mindset

How we think and how we react when things go wrong. Is a major contributor to our success.

Weight loss mindset is important, our brain literally controls everything we do. So, if we don’t address this first. Most approaches will not be sustainable.

The first thing about mindsets, is shifting from an all-or-nothing approach to always something.

Often times when we, do something. We expect to do something in a certain way. And when we can’t!

Instead of doing less.

What do we do?

We end up doing nothing. So , if we have an all-or-nothing mindset. As we get older , things come up more and more. We end up doing, really nothing. This is a poor weight loss mindset.

We need to start learning to be ok, with doing less. Trust, me you’ll get leaner doing something everyday for 365 days a year.( Even if it is something small)

Than only doing something for 30-90 days a year,

A few examples.

• If you mess up and have a muffin for breakfast, you can still have a healthier lunch.
• If you miss your workout on Monday, workout for the rest of the week.
• You are super busy, maybe just make sure you drink enough water and go for a little walk after dinner.

This , might seem small and insignificant, but over time it builds up. It will create results.

This is how results are produced and maintained. Consistent Action.

Anyone can do something for 30 days but, it’s the person who can do something for years, that we want to become. I’m sure you have been able to do something for 30 days before.

Which is why a sustainable approach to fitness and diet, is the #1 reason why people fail or succeed.

Believes

What we believe, is what happens most of the time .

If feel like you can not lose fat due to this or that. You probably wont. Despite, if you actually could.

We often develop believes, from what we expose our self to, our child hood, and past experiences

The issue is just because you believe in something.

Does it make it true?

I used to believe in Santa, but that never made it true.

If you feel like you can’t lose weight because of your age or genetics. Doesn’t mean it is true.

It is often important to test out your believes and really discover , how true they are. They might be true like you feel or maybe there a little off.

What are some of your believes ,that you have about fitness, diet etc?

You may or may not be right. But, the only way to know for sure is to.

Try prove your self right by going all in on a fitness program or diet, that is right for you. Than see what actually happens

If you don’t think you can get leaner. Go all in on sustainable program for 90 days and let’s see for sure. But, you have to go into it whole heartily. This is a way to test your weight loss mindset .

Growth Mindset

Growth mind means, that where you are right now, isn’t where you’ll always be.

Fixed mindset, is thinking you are, where you are and there is little you can do to control it.

Now, you might have growth mindset in one area and a fixed mindset in another, this common.

Say two people try lose fat.

They both slip up on day day 3 and hit McDonald.

But, they think through this set back very differently.

One says, “you know this diet thing isn’t for me. It’s my bad genes and I am over 40 now, “

While the other person says. “How could I make sure, that doesn’t happen tomorrow. They start brainstorming , maybe if I drink more water and have a good breakfast, I’ll be less tempt to stop at McDonald.”

So, than he tries that and he may or may not have some success with stopping for fast food.

But, who do you think will have more success overall?

Confidence/ Self Efficiency

This is something, that will make or break our success.

When you start a task, how confident are you that you’ll be able to succeed? This your self efficiency.

If it’s low, often times, we wont succeed.

This why people end up quitting after struggling time and time again.

But, the good thing. This isn’t static. Say, you scaled your self efficiency on losing 20lbs from 1-10.

When you first start, it might be an 8.

Than after a tough weekend it at 5.

Than a stressful time at work its 2.

The thing about this is, once we start building a high self efficiency , we are motivated and action becomes easier.

You may have notice, the things your naturally good at, you like to do more. The things you stink at, you don’t like.

But, How do we get from a lower self efficiency to something, higher, that will lead to more success?

You have to vote?

Think of all your action as votes, to become more confident or less confident in achieving your goals.

Everything, is a vote to one of them. The more you vote in one area, the more that becomes who you are.

So, the best way to build this self efficiency or confidences. Is to start small and do all these small things, that are all votes in the direction you want to go.

This works because subconsciousness, when you start doing more and more stuff, that pushs you towards your goals. You start to building confidence and a deep believe in yourself. Because, you have proven to yourself, by having your action align with your goals.

But, other way is true to, the more you vote against your goals, the less you will believe it will ever happen.

This is why, it is important to do something, everyday towards one of your big goals. But, the action it self doesn’t have to be big. As long, as it is a vote towards, who you want to be.

But, if we start with things that are too hard or big. And you are unable to follow through with them. This will destroy your confidence. Sadly, this is what most do.

Another thing, I think is important to mention, if your goal is fat loss.

Is not judge your entire success on the scale,

The scale is fickle, it goes up and down.

A raise doesn’t always, mean you gained fat. Most of the time it is water weight change from stress, carbs or salt you eat(carbs or salt make your muscle store more water) poor sleep or sometimes you’ll gain some water weight, the day after you lift.

If you are going to use it to measure progress, you should pay attention to the trends. In the last 2-4 weeks, is it overall going down. As well as pay attention to things like, how you feel, energy, clothes fitting and how we look.

Keep that in mind.

The mindset topics we went over are

• All or nothing trap
• Growth mind set or fixed mind set
• Investigating your believes
• Self confidence and self Efficiency

If you got this far, thanks you for reading. I really hope this will help you, work on the most important muscles in our body. The one between our ears. Once we strengthen that, great things will start to happen for you .

If you want more fat tips go, check some of my articles

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