While the muscles on the back side of our body get overstretched and weak, the ones on the front get overworked and tight. This muscle imbalance causes us to move and perform at a lower level than we’re capable. It compresses our lungs, so that instead of taking deep, long breaths into our belly like we were born to do, we take short, shallow breaths into our shrunken chests. It also makes us look weak and unconfident—at least compared to the rare few who can still stand tall with their chin up.

There is hope, however. And there is one exercise that, if you incorporate it into your routine daily, can easily combat the ill effects of poor posture and a weak backside while making you stronger, better conditioned and more athletic overall. You might even say it’s one exercise that solves 99 problems.

Kettlebell Swing Benefits

If you were about to be stranded on a deserted island with only a kettlebell, and had to make a short list of exercises you could do to while away the hours there, the swing would probably top it. Here are the benefits that make it so necessary.

Better Posture

The swing strengthens all the major muscles on the back side of your body, from the various movers of the upper back to the lower back and hips. Stronger posterior muscles keep the shoulders and hips in better alignment, which not only improves your appearance, but helps to prevent injury.

No-Quit Conditioning

While technically a strength-training exercise, the kettlebell swing can double as cardio when performed for high reps. Set a timer for a minute or so and see how many reps you can do in that period, and try to break your records over time. Or, perform rounds of kettlebell swings with short breaks in between. You’ll see why combat athletes such as wrestlers and MMA fighters have relied on this move to build fight-specific endurance for years.

Core Strength

Your core muscles’ most important function is to protect the spine from outside forces that try to bend it out of shape. Whether there’s an opponent trying to tackle you, or you’re lifting a heavy weight off the floor or overhead, the core muscles brace your spine to prevent injury. The kettlebell swing teaches your body to be strong while the spine is moving into end ranges that can be dangerous—deep hip flexion, when the lower back is at risk of rounding, and hip extension, when the spine may hyperextend. Get comfortable in these positions, and you’ll keep your back healthy for life. As you progress in your training and experiment with single-hand and alternating kettlebell swings, you’ll learn to resist rotation, which challenges the core to an even greater degree (see Kettlebell Swing Alternatives below). Basically, once you get good at swings, you can bet that nobody—and nothing—will push you around anymore (literally). 

Power

Most sports require explosive hip extension. Blocking a lineman, taking a jump shot, suplexing an opponent, and running down the field all demand that your glutes and hamstrings extend your hips quickly and with great force. The kettlebell swing mimics that movement perfectly, loading up these muscles and training them to slow down oncoming forces (decelerating the kettlebell as it swings back between your legs) and then change the direction with a quick burst (swinging the weight up). It’s one of the most athletic movements you can do.

Grip Strength 

Your grip muscles get a workout just from holding onto the kettlebell handle and keeping it from flying out of your hands. It may not seem like much at first, but when you work up to heavier bells and use higher reps, you’ll see how quickly you develop the grip of a bear.

Muscles Used In The Kettlebell Swing

Here are the major muscles used in a kettlebell swing, from head to toe.

– Trapezius

– Rear deltoids

– Rhomboids

– Lats

– Wrist flexors and extensors

– Spinal erectors

– Core muscles (transversus abdominis, rectus abdominis, obliques)

– Glutes

– Hamstrings

How To Stretch Before Performing The Kettlebell Swing

The following mobility drills will help to warm and limber up your hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine before performing the kettlebell swing. Complete 3 sets of 5–10 reps for each exercise before your swing workout.

Hip-Opening Mountain Climber

Step 1. Get into a pushup position with hands directly beneath your shoulders and legs extended behind you, feet shoulder-width apart. Tuck your tailbone and brace your core—your head, spine, and pelvis should form a straight line. Draw your shoulder blades back together and downward. Think: “proud chest,” and “long spine.” Take a deep breath.

Step 2. Exhale your breath and, keeping your core braced, raise your right leg to the outside of your right arm, landing with your foot flat and the knee pointed straight ahead. Try to maintain your spine and pelvis alignment as you do this. It’s OK if you can’t do it perfectly now, but be aware of how you’re moving so you can correct it. When your leg is in position, pull it inward while driving your right arm out so the knee touches the outside of your arm firmly.

Step 3. Allow your hips to sink a bit and adjust so you re-establish your proud chest and long spine position. Hold for 3–5 seconds.

Step 4. Return your right leg back to the original pushup position, and repeat on the opposite leg. That’s one rep of each.

Sky Reach To Arm Thread

Step 1. Get on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees directly beneath your hips. Brace your core.

Step 2. Inhale as you draw your right arm up and across your chest, twisting your right shoulder toward the ceiling and reaching overhead. Be careful to keep your hips facing the floor.

Step 3. Exhale as you reverse the motion, reaching your arm across your body and behind the support arm. Twist as far as you can, ideally until the back of your right shoulder touches the floor. That’s one rep. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides.

How To Perform The Kettlebell Swing

About the only thing we don’t like about the kettlebell swing is the way most people perform it. Go into any gym and you’ll see inexperienced exercisers turning a swing into a combination front squat and shoulder raise, which works more of the front of the body than the posterior muscles, and therefore defeats the whole purpose.

The kettlebell swing has a lot more in common with a deadlift than a squat, as it relies on hip hinge mechanics—the ability to bend purely at the hips and drive your butt backward while keeping a long spine.

Here’s how Onnit’s Chief Fitness Officer says you should do a kettlebell swing (demonstrated in the video above). It breaks down into four parts.

Step 1. Hinge

Place the kettlebell on the floor just in front of your feet, and stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder width. Draw your elbows back so your shoulder blades pinch together. This creates a posture we call “proud chest.” Notice your back muscles engaging, and keep this shoulder position throughout the exercise.

Now bend your hips (if it helps, you can chop your hands into the crease of your hips to cue you to move only from the hips and not the spine). Bend until you feel a deep stretch in your glutes and hamstrings and your fingers can barely reach the kettlebell handle. If you’re keeping the proud-chest position, your chest should still be visible from the front.

Step 2: Root and Wedge

The kettlebell handle should be directly under your eyes. Reach to grasp the handle—it’s OK if you have to lower your hips a little further to do so, but don’t round your back or shoulders. This is called rooting, which means developing a solid base of support. Now think about tucking your shoulder blades into your back pockets, which will draw your shoulders down and prevent any shrugging. Try to bend the kettlebell handle in half, which you’ll feel activates your lats. Drag the bell back a bit—not enough to move its position on the floor, but enough to feel your back and hips coiling up like a spring. This is known as a wedge—as in, you’ve wedged yourself into a tight position from which the exercise can begin.

Step 3. The Hike

Now you’ll put the swing into motion. Hike the kettlebell back as if it were a football, aiming for the triangular area formed by the space between your knees and your crotch. Think about pulling the weight back between your legs, not bending forward at the waist. When the weight hikes back, your forearms should lightly touch the inside of your thighs. 

Step 4. Drive and Float

As the weight swings back from between your legs, drive your feet into the floor and stand tall, locking out your knees. This will cause the kettlebell to swing up to shoulder level and prevent you from hyperextending your lower back (keep your core tight too, just in case). If you do it right, the kettlebell will feel weightless at the very top of the movement (called the float). As the weight swings back down, think about catching it and absorbing the momentum with your whole body by bending your hips to accommodate it. Then begin the next rep. 

If all else fails, “Think of the swing as doing an Old Granny pass,” says Wolf, like you did as a kid playing basketball. On the way down, “picture yourself catching a water balloon.”

Kettlebell Swing Alternatives

When you feel you’ve mastered the basic kettlebell swing, you’re welcome to try some more advanced variations of the lift to heighten the challenge even more. The single-hand swing and alternating single-arm swing are natural progressions.

Single-Hand Kettlebell Swing

Once you’ve got the classic kettlebell swing down, you can take the challenge up a notch by performing the movement one hand at a time. This places more demand on your core and the muscles of the working shoulder, as you have to resist the body’s need to rotate when it’s loaded asymmetrically. See the video above for a complete demonstration (at 5:40).

Perform the same four steps as described for the regular swing, but on one hand. You’ll have to use a lighter kettlebell to start. You should also let your free arm follow the working one and allow it to lightly touch the kettlebell in the float position. This will help you maintain stability and proper timing on each rep. 

Alternating Single-Arm Kettlebell Swing

This movement builds on the skills you’ll establish with the single-hand swing, adding an extra rhythm component that helps you develop timing. Swinging the bell up with one hand and catching it with the other prepares you for more sophisticated kettlebell training later on, such as flows and combination movements that will have you switching hands and lifting the bell in all different directions. See the video above for a complete demonstration (at 6:40).

Perform the single-hand swing, but let go of the bell at the top of the float. Quickly catch it with the other hand (this is easier to do if you follow the working arm with the free arm, as described above). Use a light kettlebell to start until you get the hang of it.

Chest Swing

If you find you’re having trouble with the basic kettlebell swing, back up a step and try the chest swing (aka goat-belly swing). In this case, you simply hold a light bell against your chest (or the top of your abdomen) and work your hip hinge mechanics. It’s a great way to get familiar with hip hingeing while you practice holding a proud chest and gripping the bell at the same time. After a few workouts with the chest swing, you’ll feel ready to give the kettlebell swing another shot. See the video above for a complete demonstration (at 7:47).

Step 1. Grasp the kettlebell by the horns and place the bottom of the bell against your belly, just under your sternum. Pull it in tight while you hold a proud chest. Take a wider than shoulder-width stance and soften your knees.

Step 2. Bend your hips back and then stand tall again. As you get more comfortable, you can pick up the pace so you’re moving explosively like you would doing the normal kettlebell swing.

For more beginner kettlebell training, check out our Full-Body Kettlebell Workout for Beginners.

The post Kettlebell Swing: The 1 Exercise That Fixes 99 Problems appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Don’t believe us? A 2016 study from McMaster University in Ontario gathered 49 college-aged guys who all had several years’ experience lifting weights. Half the subjects trained light, using just 30–50% of their one-rep max on exercises for sets of 20–25 reps. The other half went heavy, using 75–90% of their max for sets in the 8–12 rep range. Both groups trained as hard as they could, taking their sets to failure—the point at which they couldn’t do another rep. Lo and behold, after 12 weeks, the muscle and strength gains between the groups were virtually identical.

If your shoulders already ache from years of heavy training, you no longer have a gym membership that provides access to heavy duty equipment, or you find yourself quarantined with little more than a light pair of dumbbells, or your bodyweight alone, you can still build cannonball-sized delts that make your upper body look broad and your waist tiny. And you can do it in your own home.

How To Stretch Your Shoulders Before A Workout

Onnit Durability Coach Natalie Higby (@nat.trill.fit on Instagram) offers these two mobility drills to increase range of motion and stability in your shoulders and upper back.

The Best Bodyweight Shoulder Workout

This routine requires only your bodyweight, and uses careful exercise sequencing to exhaust the delts front to back. It allows you to train your shoulders with the heaviest, most challenging exercise when they’re well warmed up and activated, reducing the risk for injury while maximizing muscular tension without the need for heavy loading.

The prone snow angel serves as a warmup, activating the full spectrum of delt muscle. From there, the sliding lateral raise offers a much harder but more joint-friendly version of the classic shoulder isolation move, since your shoulder has to lift your whole body on every rep. Next is the modified handstand pushup, which simulates a heavy overhead press. Finally, you’ll finish with the plank with shoulder tap—a hard balancing act that will once again ask your delts to support your body weight, and your core to prevent you from falling.

Directions
Perform the exercises as straight sets, completing all sets for one move before going on to the next. Except where otherwise noted, always leave two reps in your tank on every set, for the sake of safety. In other words, if you feel you have 15 reps in you, perform only 13. Seek to improve your performance by one rep each time you repeat the workout.

1 Prone Snow Angel

Sets: 3  Reps: 10–15  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Lie on your chest on the floor and brace your core. Extend your spine to raise your chest off the floor slightly, and raise your hands overhead.

Step 2. Extend your arms out to your sides and draw them down, rotating your palms to face the ceiling. Continue until the back of your hands touches the small of your back.

Step 3. Rotate your hands back and reach your arms overhead again. It should look like you’re making a snow angel upside down. That’s one rep.

2 Sliding Lateral Raise on Wall

Sets: 3  Reps: Work for 40 sec.  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Stand next to a wall or other sturdy surface that can support your body weight. Bend your elbow 90 degrees, and draw your shoulders back and downward. Brace your core.

Step 2. Lean against the wall with the outside of your forearm. Raise your arm, sliding it up the wall so it moves your torso more upright. Control the movement so it’s smooth. When your upper arm is 90 degrees to your torso, reverse the motion. Continue performing reps for 40 seconds, and then switch arms and repeat.

3 Modified Handstand Pushup

Sets: 3  Reps: 8–10  Rest: 90 sec.

Step 1. Rest your feet on a bench, chair, or other stable surface, and place your hands on the floor, shoulder-width apart. Walk your hands back while bending your hips and driving your butt up into the air so that your torso is as vertical as possible.

Step 2. Lower your body until the top of your head touches the floor, and then press back up.

If that’s too hard, simply perform a pushup on a very steep incline. If it’s not challenging enough to stay in the 8–10 rep range, try a handstand pushup against the wall.

4 Plank W/ Shoulder Tap

Sets: 2  Reps: As many as possible  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Get into pushup position with your hands at shoulder width. Brace your core.

Step 2. Hold the position as you tap one shoulder at a time with the opposite hand. Avoid any twisting at the shoulders or hips.

The Best Shoulder Workout for Light Dumbbells

High reps and short rest periods can always substitute for heavy weights. This workout is so fast-paced and burn-focused that a strong man could literally do it with his mom’s dumbbells, or maybe even a pair of water bottles. Another cool feature: you don’t even have to stand up to do it. Sit on the edge of a bench and move from one exercise to another. You’ll start with dumbbell raise variations to pre-exhaust the delts, and then finish with an overhead press to burn them out. Doing the press first wouldn’t be very challenging with light weights, but placed so far back in the workout when you’re already fatigued, whatever weights you have access to will be more than heavy enough.

Directions
Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set for each in sequence without rest in between. So you’ll do one set of the Y raise, then immediately go on to the lateral raise, rear-delt swing, and so on. Afterward, rest two minutes, and then repeat the circuit once more.

1 Y Raise

Reps: 10–15

Step 1. Sit on a bench with a light dumbbell in each hand. Bend at the hips so that your torso is 45 degrees, but keep your head, spine, and pelvis aligned.

Step 2. Raise your arms in front of you and slightly out to the sides, as if making a Y shape.

2 Seated Lateral Raise

Reps: As many as possible

Step 1. Sit up straight with your arms at your sides. (You may keep a slight forward lean if that feels better for your shoulders.)

Step 2. Raise your arms out 90 degrees with your palms facing down.

3 Rear-Delt Swing

Reps: As many reps as possible

Step 1. Bend forward at the hips again, as far as you can while keeping a long spine and your lower back flat.

Step 2. Use momentum to raise your arms up to 90 degrees, so you’re performing a swinging motion. Control the descent, and use momentum to begin the next rep.

4 Rear-Delt Row

Reps: As many as possible

Step 1. Staying bent forward, turn your palms to face down.

Step 2. Row the weights with your elbows pointing outward until your upper back is fully contracted.

5 Arcing Overhead Press

Reps: As many reps as possible

Step 1. Sit upright and brace your core. Raise the weights to shoulder level with your palms facing forward.

Step 2. Press the weights overhead in an arcing motion, stopping short of locking out the elbows.

The post The Best Home Shoulder Workouts for Getting Bigger Delts appeared first on Onnit Academy.

– Bruce Lee

This post originally appeared on https://jasonferruggia.com

67 Tips on Happiness, Fulfillment & Life

1) Always have a quest.

2) Don’t feel the need to justify your opinion.

3) Cut your expenses in half. Then cut them again.

4) Don’t die without any scars. Like Tyler Durden advised.

5) Remember that everyone wants to feel important.

6) Don’t fall into “the busy trap.” It’s okay to not always be “on your grind,” 24/7.

7) Learn something from everyone you meet.

8) Take more risks without fear of making mistakes.

9) Sweat every day.

10) Get Facebook and email off your phone.

“No one ever got rich checking their email more often.”
– Noah Kagan

11) Never “grow up.”

12) If you haven’t worn something in more than two months, get rid of it.

13) Send more handwritten notes.

14) Not everyone will like you. You need to be okay with that.

15) You don’t have to respond to every Tweet, email, call or text message. That’s a form of slavery.

16) Question authority.

17) Learn to do something artistic – paint, draw, play an instrument.

18) Keep your cell phone off the dinner table.

19) Get punched in the face at least once. Everyone needs that. (Keeping your phone on the table is a good way to facilitate that)

20) Say “please” and “thank you” more than everyone else.

21) Repeat a person’s name aloud when you first meet them.

22) Never waste time arguing on the internet.

23) Carry a book with you wherever you go. A real book.

24) When you’re with friends or family members, be with them 100%. Don’t think about work or check your phone.

25) Make a difference in someone’s life.

26) Never discuss how much money you make.

27) Go for a walk every day.

28) Be the first one to try everything.

29) Slow down.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
– Lao Tzu

30) Don’t watch the news. It’s depressing. If something important happens, you’ll know.

31) Tell your friends you love them.

32) Smile before you pick up the phone and say “hello.”

33) Give advice only when it’s asked for.

34) Don’t give it a second time if the person didn’t listen the first time.

35) Do things that make you uncomfortable.

36) Everyone’s looking for a leader. Stand up and lead.

37) Turn off your cell phone after 8 pm. Or at least set some kind of boundaries.

38) Get out of debt. Take it from someone who was buried in it.

39) Spend more time doing only things you’re passionate about.

40) Change the way things are normally done.

41) Say less, listen more.

42) Think long and hard before you make the decision to go to college or grad school. Read The Education of Millionaires before you do. And visit this website.

43) Challenge the status quo.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
– Mark Twain

44) Spend some time to come up with a really fucking cool bucket list and start working your way through it.

45) Make more time to spend with your friends and family.

46) Get your hands dirty.

47) Daydreaming and saying “I want” or “I wish” are the signs of an amateur. Be a pro.

48) Do things that scare the shit out of you.

49) Remove all stressful people and situations from your life.

50) Whenever you see a member of the military, thank them.

51) Pick up the check.

52) Travel more. This doesn’t always cost as much as you think. Read this book for some ideas.

53) Help others make their dreams come true.

54) Anger, jealousy and bitterness ruin your life. Be happy for everyone.

55) Laugh every day.

56) Pay your credit cards off each month.

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
– Will Rogers

57) Reinvent yourself.

58) Dream bigger. Most people don’t think they can accomplish big things, so they settle for mediocrity. Don’t be like everyone else.

59) Quit your job if you don’t like it. Life shouldn’t be spent doing shit you hate. Benefits and security aren’t worth your happiness.

60) Save more of your money. Trust me on this.

61) Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

62) Everyone wants to change the world. That doesn’t make you unique. Acting on that desire does.

63) Eat your steak rare.

64) Try completely unplugging one day per week. Or at least, per month.

65) Remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

66) Eat more greens.

67) Call your mom more often. Now would be a good time.

Increase Your Happiness and Fulfillment

The post 67 Tips on Happiness, Fulfillment & Life appeared first on Onnit Academy.

That’s what this definitive guide is all about. Getting big, strong, lean and built like a badass.

It’s the summation of everything I have learned over the course of 25-plus years in the Iron Game.

The techniques I’m about to reveal helped me overcome horrible genetics and gain 47 pounds of muscle over the years. They’ve also helped thousands of my in-person and online clients achieve similar results.

If you work hard and smart, they’ll do the same for you.

But first the bad news…

If you’re a genetically average (or worse), “skinny-fat” dude who really struggles to gain strength, build muscle, and lose fat, I gotta tell you something…

You’ve been lied to.

You’ve been fed a bunch of crap about how to transform your body that’ll never work for  guys like us.

I’m talking about all the typical nonsense you hear and read all the time like:

● You should do nothing else but the big power and Olympic lifts.
● You should always go heavy, no matter what.
● Isolation exercises are useless.
● You should always do full body workouts.
● Circuit training is the fastest way to get ripped.
● Crunches and cardio give you a six pack.
● You have to eat 6-7 meals a day.
● You should eat 2 grams of protein per pound of your body weight.
● Carbs are the devil.
● You have to buy this supplement or take that drug to build muscle.

All total and utter bullshit.

The only thing you’ll get from following that advice is a laundry list of nagging injuries and an overdraft of your checking account. I should know. Been there and done that.

Because I don’t want you to have to waste all the years and money that I did (not to mention the surgeon’s bills), I came up with a method of training and eating specifically for skinny-fat, injury-prone hard-gainers: guys who historically can’t gain muscle doing the workouts they find in magazines or on blogs. It’s also perfect for all guys over age 35 who need to be smarter with their training as they age.

I call it the Renegade Method, and I’m going to lay out the rules for it below.

The Renegade Method has been tested on thousands of trainees, both at my private gym and online. It’s been tweaked, retooled, upgraded and perfected.

And why should you trust me?

I’m a genetic misfit when it comes to building muscle. I was frail and weak for the first 20 years of my life. I tried every training system, diet, and supplement imaginable over the last three decades. I found what worked, kept it, and got rid of what didn’t.

The result is an all encompassing training and lifestyle plan that is guaranteed to build size and strength without the typical injuries, burnout, and plateaus that most programs result in.

If you’ve followed my blogs, podcasts, and social media long enough, you’ve seen the incredible transformations my clients have made and the features in Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Muscle and Fitness, ESPN, and CBS, so you know this stuff works.

The Renegade Method is designed specifically for the average, busy guy and hard-gainer who wants to get built like a badass but…

● Don’t have a lot of time.
● Isn’t on steroids and performance-enhancement drugs.
● Doesn’t have great genetics for building muscle and strength.
● Is sick of getting injured from workouts and feeling like crap all the time.

Now, I’m not gonna make you an outrageous promise, like gains of 84 pounds of muscle in the next month or something. You’ve still gotta be patient and put in time. But you’ll see some results within a few weeks on this plan, and big results in a few more months.

If you follow the program and put in the work, you’ll get the results. Don’t bail after a few days because your arms aren’t an inch bigger. People who cop out like that are sheep. They can’t get anywhere in life.

If you follow the program and put in the work you’ll get results. But the reality is most people won’t even finish any training program that they start. They’re too mentally weak. They’ll keep looking for shortcuts and an easier way. Those people are sheep. They can’t get anywhere in life.

Don’t be a sheep. Be a fucking lion.

Now, without further adieu, here are the rules of my Renegade Method. The ones you must follow to get jacked, strong, and powerful—as fast as your body will allow.

Rule #1: To Build Muscle, You Have to Get Strong

You can’t expect to transform your physique by doing the same workouts over and over. You have to force adaptation to occur. The easiest way to do that is by adding weight to the bar. Get stronger, primarily in the range of 5–10 reps, and you’ll get bigger.

Training heavy will always deliver better results than training light. That’s just common sense. The more weight you use, the more muscle fiber you can activate.

How do you know you’re getting stronger? By regularly setting PRs (personal records).

Pick a few key exercises that together train the whole body. Presses, chinups, rows, and squat and deadlift variations are the best choices (more on these in Rules #2 and #3). Write down how much weight you can currently do for 5–10 reps on each of them, and, over the next few months, work your way up to where you can either add 10–20 pounds to each of those lifts or do 3–5 more reps with the same weight. That’s how you force your body to grow.

When you get to the higher end of the rep range, add weight and start over with 5 reps again. Simple, but brutally effective; no advanced calculus degree required.

The bottom line is to get big you have to get strong.

Rule #2: You Have to Use Compound Muscle-Building Exercises

The exercises that allow you to use the greatest amount of weight are the ones that help you build muscle the fastest. These also happen to be the lifts that allow for the greatest percentage of increases in loading. We’re talking compound (multi-joint) exercises here, done with free weights. You’re not going to grow at nearly the same rate with a workout comprising machine exercises and isolation movements.

You have to overload your body with big, manly, testosterone-producing lifts. There’s no way around man.

The best compound weight-training exercises for building muscle are:

● Military (Overhead) Presses – done with a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, or log.
● Low-Incline Presses – barbell or dumbbell. I like the bench to be set higher than flat but not as high as 45 degrees. Around 30 degrees is good. This will help protect your shoulders, which are at a greater risk for injury during flat bench presses.
● Squats – back, front, safety bar, Buffalo bar, belt.
● Deadlifts – conventional, sumo, trap bar, Romanian, rack.
● Rows – 1-arm dumbbell, chest supported, landmine.
● Loaded Carries – This can be a farmer’s walk or carrying a sandbag or stone in several positions: bear hug, carried in the bend of your elbows (Zercher), under the chin (racked position), or shouldered.
● Weighted Sled Work – pushing and dragging a sled or Prowler.

Get strong on those exercises, slowly adding weight and reps.

When you can load impressive numbers on those lifts for sets of 5–10 reps, you’ll be one big-ass dude.

Rule #3: Complement the Big Lifts with Body-Weight Exercises

Big compound barbell and dumbbell lifts lay the foundation, but you’ll need more than that for a well-rounded physique and injury-free training over the long haul. Those exercises should be complemented by an equal amount of muscle-building, body-weight exercises, like:

● Chinups
● Dips
● Single-leg squat and lunge variations
● Pushup variations
● Inverted rows
● Plank variations
● Glute-ham raises

Body-weight training builds core strength and stability throughout your body. It’s also easy on the joints, allowing you to blast muscles without straining the connective tissues that they act on.

The combination of big lifts and body-weight exercises will produce an athletic, balanced, muscular physique that performs for the long haul.

Rule #4: To Build Muscle Safely, You Have to Use Perfect Technique

Yeah, this should go without saying, but walk into any public gym and you’ll find that it’s rarely the case. People will lift with any form that allows them to get the weight up, but that doesn’t mean they’ve done a good rep. The perfect set has several components to it. Here’s what you need to do:

● Get tight from head to toe before you lift. Squeeze the bar (or other implement) like you’re trying to crush it. If you’re doing a standing exercise, be sure to squeeze your glutes and brace your abs. Total-body tension creates stability, which makes for stronger, safer lifting.
● Control the lowering or (eccentric) portion of the lift. It helps you control the weight better for safety and creates more damage in the muscle, which contributes to muscle growth. A review in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research indicates that eccentrics should generally take 2–4 seconds to perform.
● Let the muscle stretch in the bottom position, but don’t go so deep that you feel pain. You shouldn’t feel any joint stress, either.
● Start the positive (concentric) portion of the lift by forcefully contracting the target muscles. So, if you’re pushing up from the bottom on a dumbbell bench press, squeeze your pecs first.
● Don’t use excessive momentum. Lift with your muscles, not the stretch reflex. No bouncing reps.
● On big barbell exercises, you should lock out at the top and reset for the next rep. Don’t try to pump out your reps fast.
● On body-weight and dumbbell exercises, you should stop just shy of lockout at the top and immediately reverse the direction. Think constant tension and continuous movement.

Rule #5: Train with the Optimal Amount of Volume to Build Muscle

I said above that you want to spend most of your time getting stronger in the range of 5–10 reps. For younger guys who really want to push their strength gains, 5–8 reps is ideal.

If you’re over 35, or after you have trained properly for a couple of years, you can bump the reps up a bit and start doing more sets of 10–12 reps in addition to 5–8.

When you get more advanced, or you’re over 40 years old, you will want to spend a bit more time in the 8–12 rep range and less in the 5–8 range, simply to protect your joints from the heavy loading and reduce injury risk.

For most intermediate guys, and myself, I like mixing low and high reps in for the same exercise. So, after you get some heavy work in on a lift, do a few sets of slightly higher reps and get a pump.

When you’re doing higher reps, focus on the muscle you are trying to build and squeeze every ounce of effort out of it. Yes, cheesie as it may sound, visualizing the muscles working and growing while you train them can be helpful. A 2016 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that, when lifters thought about their pecs and triceps during a workout, they activated them better.

If you have been training properly for at least three years, you’ll find that advanced pump-enhancing techniques like rest-pause sets, drop sets, and some of the other old-school bodybuilding techniques you’ve no doubt heard of can be effective when used sparingly. Just be sure not to overdo the use of them. And never get away from the most important rule: setting PR’s to get stronger.

While the number of reps you do per set is important, of equal importance is the total number of reps you do per muscle group. The National Strength and Conditioning Association has determined that, to maximize growth, you need approximately 20–70 total reps per muscle group. Depending on which end of a rep range you’re working, this can be done in one session or over a few days (a training week, for instance), but that’s the spread you need to cover to see gains.

That means that if you’re doing 6 reps per set, you need to do at least 3 total sets—and upwards of 12—for that particular muscle group.

I always recommend starting on the low end of the scale. Only increase volume when you absolutely need to. So, if you’re training chest, you could do 6 work sets of dumbbell bench presses to start out, breaking down to two sets per workout for three sessions per week. You can gradually add sets from there, experimenting with different training splits that will allow you to get in more volume without overtraining (we’ll discuss training splits next).

As you get more advanced, you can alternate phases of both lower and higher volume through a properly periodized training program.

Rule #6: Train With the Proper Muscle-Building Workout Split

First of all, you don’t need to train six days a week like a bodybuilder. Three to four hard strength-training days per week is perfect for most steroid-free, genetically-average, busy people.

The best training split is one that allows you to:

● Recover properly.
● Make the greatest strength gains.
● Spare your joints and spine.

The frequency with which you train each muscle group generally decreases as the number of years you’ve been training increases.

Beginners:

If you’re a beginner, you should train with three full-body workouts per week. In each one, do a compound pushing movement (like a bench press), a compound pulling movement (like a chinup), and a compound lower-body exercise (squat, trap-bar deadlift, for example). If you want to add in 1–2 other exercises like loaded carries or kettlebell swings as a finisher, that’s fine, but three exercises is enough to work the whole body.

A 2015 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that subjects who did full-body sessions three times per week gained more arm size than another group who did a body-part split, hitting each muscle just once.

Intermediates:

If you’ve been training longer than 6–12 months, you can split your workouts into upper- and lower-body days. The most common setup is to train upper body one day and lower the next so that each area gets trained twice in one week. If you train four days per week, you can train upper body on Monday, lower Tuesday, rest Wednesday, and then do upper body again on Thursday, lower body on Friday, and then rest on the weekend.

You should still rely mainly on compound lifts, but adding some isolation work—such as lateral raises for the shoulders and dumbbell curls for the biceps—is acceptable.

If you train three days per week, you can rotate upper- and lower-body days every time you train. It could look like this over the course of two weeks:

Week 1

Monday: Upper body
Wednesday: Lower body
Friday: Upper body

Week 2

Monday: Lower body
Wednesday: Upper body
Friday: Lower body

I can’t recommend this rotating upper/lower split highly enough. I have made incredible gains on it, as have hundreds of clients I have worked with personally, and thousands of others online.

If you train three days per week and prefer to have set training days each week instead of rotating them, here is what I suggest…

Do a heavy upper-body day on Monday, legs on Wednesday, and then a lighter upper-body day on Friday where you bump up the reps slightly and use exercises that aren’t quite as stressful. So instead of a barbell incline press for sets of 5–6 reps, you might do a dumbbell incline press or weighted pushup on rings for sets of 8–12 reps.

Advanced:

An upper/lower split can last you forever. A lot of massive, strong powerlifters stick with that throughout their entire lifting careers. However, if you’re older and/or have some trouble recovering, you may prefer a push/pull/legs split that has you training everything directly once per week. This is how most famous bodybuilders have trained in the past and many still do.

You could do exercises for chest, shoulders, and triceps on Monday, exercises for back and biceps on Wednesday, and exercises for legs on Friday. If you want to do an arm or “beach muscles” day on Saturdays, you can extend it to a four-day per week program.

Most typical bodybuilding programs have way too many sets and reps and use the wrong exercises. However, if you lower the total volume, go heavier, and use compound movements as I’ve outlined above, there is nothing wrong with a body-part split for advanced lifters. In fact, it’s often less stressful to the joints than your average upper/lower split.

As far as the frequency goes, training a muscle group once every 5–7 days is actually safer and more effective for advanced lifters than training it two or three times per week.

If you want slightly more frequency, there are ways to do it without adding more workouts. You can add a lighter set or two of work for a muscle group you need to bring up on days other than that muscle’s main training day. For instance, if you want to target your arms, you can do one or two sets of dumbbell curls to start off your leg days.

Rule #7: “Stimulate, Don’t Annihilate”

This is a quote from eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney. It means you should train hard but smart.

Don’t kill yourself in the quest to get big and strong. When you leave a little in the tank, both at the end of each set and each workout, you increase your chances of making progress.

Don’t take sets to the point of failure—where you absolutely can’t perform another rep. You should never get to where you’re turning purple and screaming like you’re getting interviewed by “Mean” Gene Okerlund before WrestleMania. Most of the time, you want to end your sets two reps before total failure. Not sure when that is? The moment your form breaks down, or you’re pretty sure it’s going to break down, end the set.

A great analogy that I like is that the balance between training and recovery is like digging a hole. Each time you lift, you dig yourself deeper and make it harder to climb out of the hole. To get back out again, you have to fill in the hole to return to ground level, and the only way to fill it is with food and rest. If you overdo it in the gym by pushing too hard, you won’t be able to train as often or at a high capacity. Eventually, you’ll get injured.

Rule #8: Keep Your Conditioning Up

Doing cardio does NOT make you small and weak, even if you’re a skinny hard-gainer to begin with.

Skipping conditioning work, however, WILL make you a lazy, out of shape, fat ass. Conditioning helps you stay lean and athletic, and it improves your recovery between strength training sessions. It’s hugely beneficial and has to be a part of your weekly routine.

My favorite type of cardio? High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). It’s been proven to be extremely effective at burning fat and boosting conditioning levels while preserving muscle mass.

You should still do a minimum of one 15–30-minute HIIT workout per week even when you are trying to build muscle as quickly as possible. If you are trying to lose body fat, you should do 2–3 HIIT workouts per week.

To do HIIT properly, choose an exercise (or series of them) and go just shy of as hard and as fast as you can for 30–60 seconds. I actually prefer going about 90–95% of your maximum effort for the sake of safety. Then you coast/cruise (or rest, depending on the exercise) for 60–120 seconds. Repeat the sequence for 15–30 minutes, total.

My favorite exercises for HIIT workouts are:

● Sprinting up hills.
● Sprinting while pushing or dragging a weighted sled.
● Sprinting on a bike with the resistance cranked up.
● Kettlebell swings or snatches done for high reps.
● Jumping rope.
● Swimming.
● Rowing (if your back can tolerate it).

In addition to the HIIT sessions, it’s always a good idea to go for a 30–60-minute walk as many days per week as you can. I recommend getting a minimum of 10,000 steps every day. Use a phone app to track them. If you’re into jogging, swimming, hiking, or some other form of long-duration, fairly low-intensity cardio, that is fine to do as well, and as often as you like.

Rule #9: Make Recovery a Huge Priority

Training is just the stimulus for growth to take place. You can train your balls off all day, every day, but you won’t grow from that alone.

You grow outside of the gym when you’re recovering; not during workouts. If you can’t recover, you won’t grow. Plain and simple.

So how do you ensure that you will recover properly from workouts?

By adhering to the following:

● Don’t do more than you can handle in the gym.
● Don’t train much more than an hour at a time.
● Don’t use extreme levels of psyche on every set.
● Keep your stress under control.
● Getting 8-9 hours of sleep every day.
● Meditate.
● Doing at least 15–20 minutes of mobility and self-myofascial release work (like foam rolling) per day.
● Doing some low-intensity conditioning and/or yoga (or other stretching exercises) on off days.
● Taking contrast baths and showers.
● Getting a massage once a month or as often as you can afford to.

Rule #10: Eat For Health and Longevity First and Foremost, and to Gain Muscle Second

No matter how skinny you are, you should never follow an all-you-can-eat diet, gorging on whatever you can get your hands on (including junk food) for the sake of gaining weight. It’s unhealthy and makes you fat.

The healthier you are, the faster you will make progress.

You have to fuel your body with high-quality, real, wholesome food. Eating pizza, burgers, ice cream, and fast food just because it’s high in calories is a really bad plan. You’ll feel terrible, and while the extra calories will help muscle gains to an extent, most of them will turn to fat. It’s not worth it. Your recovery will be slower and you will be riddled with inflammation.

Your diet should consist mostly of the following foods:

● Grass fed meat.
● Organic eggs.
● Wild-caught fish.
● Starches like white rice, potatoes, and quinoa.
● Nuts.
● Fruit.
● Veggies.
● Water.

You don’t have to count calories to put on muscle. Many people find it easier to just track macros (intake of protein, fat, and carbs) based on their body weight.

Eat around one gram of protein per pound of your body weight each day. That’s more than enough. You could probably get away with less, but one gram per pound is a safe target to maximize muscle mass.

Eat 0.4–0.5 grams of fat per pound of your body weight. Fat is essential for hormone optimization, brain function, and joint health. Now, if you’re following a ketogenic diet (or modified keto diet), or you just feel better with more fat in your diet, you can certainly add more fat and lower your protein and carb intake to accommodate it. The 0.4–0.5 grams per pound recommendation just represents a starting point and a minimum so that you don’t eat too little fat, either out of fear that it will make you fat or damage your heart (both untrue). For more about ketogenic diets, see Onnit’s guide HERE.

Eat 1.5–3 grams of carbs per pound of your body weight. As with fat, this amount can vary greatly, depending on your personal needs and preferences, so consider these numbers only a starting point. If you’re very skinny and feel that you handle carbs well (i.e. you can eat a lot of them without getting fat), go ahead and eat according to the higher end of the spectrum. The same applies if you’re desperate to gain weight—you should increase your carb intake. If you’re prone to weight gain or feel lethargic on higher carbs, you should eat fewer of them. Again, see our keto guide for more details and options.

For the sake of mental focus, it’s best to keep any carbs you eat low during the day when you’re working and active and get the lion’s share of them at night with dinner. A typical breakfast could include eggs, yogurt, and fruit, or a shake, and lunch could be meat or fish and steamed veggies. For dinner, have meat or fish again, along with sweet potatoes or rice, and vegetables.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to bulk up when you should be on a diet. While you might have muscle on your mind, most people need to get leaner first. If you’re fat and you start eating for size, you’re only going to get fatter. Get rid of the excess blubber first, to the point where you can see some abs, and then worry about getting big. You should be as low as 12% body fat before you change your diet up to focus on mass gain. That will ensure that your insulin sensitivity is high. When it is, you can eat more carbs and your body won’t store them as fat.

Bonus Rule: Consistency Is King

All of the above information is completely useless if you don’t apply it consistently. I’m not talking about a week. I’m not talking about two months.

The person who makes the greatest progress is the one who is consistently getting in 3–4 workouts per week. The guy who never misses a meal, always gets to sleep on time, spends a few hours per week on recovery techniques at home, and repeats the process 52 weeks per year, year after year. That’s how real progress is made.

You have to commit and you have to believe in what you are doing. You can’t be second-guessing everything all the time. You can’t change your routine every other week. You can’t be on the internet constantly searching for a better program.

There is no magical supplement or yet-to-be-discovered secret training technique that will help you build 100 pounds of muscle in the next three months. Those things will never exist.

The only things that get results are passion, commitment, and hard work. Every damn day.

Lift weights. Eat steaks. Run hills. Sleep. Repeat.

The post How to Build Muscle: A Complete Guide appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Strength Exercise #1: Barbell Clean & Press

The first is the barbell hang clean and push press. Perform this exercise by bending over with a barbell in your hands and a shoulder width grip. Start with the barbell just above your knees and be sure to maintain perfect posture with your head in line with your spine, chest up and back arched.

Initiate this barbell exercise by driving your hips forward and shrugging your shoulders. Pull the barbell to your upper chest and catch it there by dipping at the knees slightly.

Stand up all the way by powerfully exploding up out of the slight squat position that you caught the barbell in and simultaneously press the barbell straight up overhead to lockout using the momentum generated by your legs.

This barbell exercise can be done with an Olympic bar (make sure you have a good one or your elbows will be screaming), angled or neutral grip bar, or a strongman log (my personal favorite).

Another variation of this exercise can be done with dumbbells. This allows for a more natural motion since your arms aren’t locked into a fixed range with the barbell. You can do these with two dumbbells at once or do them one arm at a time.

This barbell exercise will not only build big delts, but also pack size on the traps and upper back while simultaneously developing explosive power.

Strength Exercise #2: Incline Bench Press

My personal preference and a much better option for building the chest is the low incline bench press with the bench set at no higher than 30 degrees. This reduces the injury risk and hits the pecs far more effectively; especially the upper pecs, which most people are lacking. I would recommend using a 15-30 degree angle over flat bench presses in most cases. Former six time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates used this as his staple chest building exercise and it would be hard to argue with his results.

Again, use a somewhat narrower grip (around shoulder width or a hair wider). If you have access to a neutral grip or angled grip bar I’d recommend using it as that can make the exercise even less stressful on the shoulders.

To keep the tension on the pecs and off of the joints and connective tissue you can stop the bar 2-3 inches off your chest.

Obviously this advice wouldn’t apply to someone who was looking to measure their strength in some sort of contest. Full range only in that case.

Any type of barbell pressing should be done for 5-8 reps when the main goal is to build muscle.

Strength Exercise #3: Barbell Back Squat

If you want to build lower body strength, you have to squat. For the first few years of your training you should squat, squat, and squat some more. A good goal is to squat double bodyweight. I’m talking about real, full squats, at least to parallel.

The back squat is a great exercise, yet a lot of people can’t perform it correctly. Even if the athlete in question has a perfect back squat a smarter choice for some would be a safety bar squat or a front squat with a harness

I do have to tell that the one thing I recommend to 99% of people out there is a good pair of high quality squat shoes. These will make a TREMENDOUS difference in your form and keep you safer. Guys usually benefit more from these than females do but anyone with a minor tuck can usually eliminate it instantly with a pair of these.

Strength Exercise #4: Neutral Grip Chin Up

The straight bar chin up with your palms facing your body places too much stress on the wrists, elbows, and shoulders and should be eliminated from your program. Even if you haven’t experienced it yet, chances are good that a steady diet of supinated (palms facing you) straight bar chin ups may come back to bite you in the ass… or elbow, eventually.

Pull ups (palms facing away from you) on a straight bar are a bit safer, but could also be eliminated if you want to be ultra conservative or you have any shoulder problems. The simple solution is to stick with neutral grip chin/pull ups with your palms facing each other. You can mix up the grip width and have numerous options to play with.

Strength Exercise #5: Deadlift

If you’re new to deadlifts or have questionable form, I’d start with high handle trap bar deads. Stick with these for at least six months and never go above five reps.

A lot of people will never have the mobility/flexibility to move any lower than this. If that’s you don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine and will still get the benefits of deadlifting, minus the risk. Eventually you can move to the low handle trap bar deads and then the straight bar if you so desire.

Athletes that want to deadlift should stick with high handle trap bar deads, keep their reps low and drop the bar rapidly.

Jason Ferruggia’s Top 5 Strength Exercises

The post How to Build Muscle with Jason Ferruggia’s Top 5 Strength Exercises appeared first on Onnit Academy.