Benefits Of Using Kettlebells To Work Out Your Legs

(See 00:44 in the video above)

“Kettlebells are easier to manage than barbells and plates,” says Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education. If you don’t have access to a gym, or you need to train in hotel rooms due to frequent travel, the kettlebell is the more practical option than conventional free weights. Furthermore, you don’t need a wide array of poundages to get a good workout for any body part. One 16-kilo kettlebell can make for a pretty grueling routine.

The shape and design of the kettlebell allows you to move it in ways that can’t be done with other implements. This means you can train your legs while holding the weight aloft, in front of you, while rotating, and otherwise moving in multiple planes in order to get a unique training effect that prepares you for the movements you’ll make in everyday life and sports. The offset load, however, is what made kettlebells famous. “The bell’s center of gravity is set at a distance from its handle,” says Heins, meaning that you’ll have to work much harder to control the weight than you would with a dumbbell. That raises the stakes on every exercise you do, increasing the benefit to your stability and overall body control.

Why And How To Do The Single-Leg Kettlebell Deadlift

(See 01:27 in the video)

“Just because we have a greater sense of evenness when standing on two legs doesn’t mean both sides are doing their part evenly,” says Heins. Everyone has strength imbalances between sides, and while you’ll probably never smooth them out completely, it’s worth it to at least try to minimize the discrepancy. The single-leg deadlift strengthens the glutes, hamstrings, and adductors in each leg in turn, while improving your balance and body control on one leg. Single-leg training also lets you work through a greater range of motion, and that helps with mobility. All of these things are important for preventing injury, as lopsided strength and mobility between limbs can set you up for accidents. You’ll also find that when each leg works better on its own, the two will come together to produce more force on your bilateral exercises, such as conventional deadlifts and back squats.

Here’s how to perform the single-leg kettlebell deadlift with good form.

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell with both hands at arm‘s length in front of you. Retract and depress your shoulders—think: “proud chest.” Now stand with feet hip-width apart and pick your left foot up off the floor an inch or two (just high enough so it doesn’t scrape the floor when you begin your reps).

Step 2. Soften your right knee so there’s a slight bend, and begin pushing your hips straight back as if to touch a wall behind you. This motion is called a hip hinge, and it’s the same type of movement you’d perform in any deadlift variation.

Step 3. Push your left leg back and straighten it as you hinge at the hips, and try to keep the leg moving in a straight line, as if you were aiming to touch a target that was directly behind you. If you have trouble balancing, you can gently tap your left foot to the floor as you go, but try to keep it elevated. The left leg will serve as a sort of kickstand that supports you while you train the right leg.

Keep a long spine from your head to your tailbone as you bend your hips—don’t let your back round forward. Stop when you feel a good stretch in your right glutes and hamstrings.

Step 4. Extend your hips to come back up to standing tall, touch your foot down to reset, and repeat for reps. Afterward, switch legs and do your reps on the left leg.

Heins says to grip the floor with your foot as much as possible. (If possible, do the exercise in socks or bare feet so you can make better use of your toes). “Your weight should shift to your heel as you hinge,” says Heins. “Push your foot into the floor, and that will create stability up the chain.” Also, avoid twisting your hips and shoulders to either side. Strive to keep both square to the floor at all times.

Single-Leg Kettlebell Deadlift Alternatives

(See 06:20 in the video)

If you’re fairly new to lifting or don’t have a lot of single-leg work under your belt, your biggest challenge may be keeping your balance. In this case, try what Heins calls the sliding single-leg deadlift, where you’ll rely more on the kickstand leg to provide stability.

Sliding Single-Leg Deadlift

(See 06:40 in the video)

Step 1. Set up as you did for the single-leg deadlift but keep the toes of your left foot on the floor and raise your heel.

Step 2. Now bend your hips back and slide your left foot gently along the floor. Maintain contact with the floor throughout the set so you keep balance.

If even the sliding single-leg deadlift feels like a high-wire act, regress the movement one step further to the staggered-stance deadlift (also called a B-stance deadlift). All you have to do is split your legs and hinge the hips. The staggered stance takes a lot of balance out of the equation but still allows you to emphasize one leg over the other, so you get the benefits of unilateral training.

Staggered-Stance Deadlift

(See 07:05 in the video)

Step 1. Stand with your left foot a bit behind the right one so your left toes are in line with your right heel.

Step 2. Perform your hip hinge as normal, using the left leg only to maintain balance.

Yet another option is to hold the kettlebell at your chest rather than at arm’s length. By keeping the weight closer to your body, you’ll have better control of it and can focus almost exclusively on the deadlift motion itself. “The chest-held single-leg deadlift is a good way to instigate sitting back deeper into your hinge,” says Heins.

Chest-Held Single-Leg Deadlift

(See 08:02 in the video)

Step 1. You know the drill… Do any of the single-leg deadlift movements described above but with the bottom of the kettlebell held tight to your sternum and your chest proud.

Sample Kettlebell Leg Workout

(See 09:30 in the video)

Here’s a workout that incorporates the single-leg deadlift with other movements that build strong, balanced, and muscular legs.

DIRECTIONS

Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set of each in sequence without rest in between. Afterward, rest 2 minutes, and repeat the circuit for 3–5 total rounds.

1. Single-Leg Deadlift (Any Variation of the Above)

Reps: 10 (each side)

2. Kneeling Leg Extension

(See 10:23 in the video)

Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Get on your knees and hold a light kettlebell at chest level. Flatten the top of your feet into the floor. (You may want to put a towel or mat under you to protect your knees.)

Step 2. Keeping your hips locked out, SLOWLY bend your knees, allowing yourself to fall backward under control until you feel a big stretch in your quads. Stop before you lose control of the movement, and extend your knees to come back up.

Not only is this a challenging exercise, but it can be hard on your knees and quads if you’re not warmed up, so ease into this slowly after you’ve done a thorough warmup (see the video below!).

3. Single-Rack High-Knee March

(See 10:52 in the video)

Reps: 10 (each side)

Step 1. Hold the kettlebell in your right hand at shoulder level and stand with feet hip-distance apart.

Step 2. Drive your right foot into the floor while you raise your left knee up as high as you can. Lower it, and repeat on the other leg. After 10 reps, switch the kettlebell to your left hand.

4. Modified Sumo Squat To Figure-Four

(See 11:24 in the video)

Reps: 3 (each side)

Step 1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and turn your toes out as far as you can. Hold the kettlebell with both hands in front of your chest.

Step 2. Squat as deeply as you can, pushing your knees out as you descend. Keep your chest facing forward and maintain a long spine from your head to your tailbone—don’t let your pelvis tuck under (stop short of where it does).

Step 3. Extend your hips and knees to stand up tall again and then turn your body to your left, raise your right leg in front of you, and rest it against your left leg in a figure-four position. Depending on your mobility, you can rest the leg above the knee or against your shin—either is fine.

Release the right leg, return to the modified sumo stance, squat, and repeat the figure-four on the other side.

How To Stretch Your Legs Before Working Out

Perform the following mobility routine from Onnit-certified coach Eric Leija (@primal.swoledier) before you take on the workout above. It will stretch out your hips, glutes, and hamstrings for the work to come, and raise your core temperature for safer training.

How Often Should You Train Your legs?

(See 12:28 in the Single-Leg Kettlebell Deadlift video)

You can perform the workout outlined above three days per week on non-consecutive days. Heins says you could do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and perform your upper-body work on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Discover more single-leg training options, such as the B-stance hip thrust.

The post A Pro’s Kettlebell Leg Workout With The Single-Leg Deadlift appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Let’s explore how to do the landmine squat for better squat technique, more quad development, and safer, user-friendly squatting in general.

What Is The Landmine Squat And What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:35 in the video above.)

The landmine squat is done with the barbell in a landmine unit, which is a metal cylinder that swivels on an axis. A landmine allows you to lift the barbell in various arcing motions rather than straight up and down, letting you perform a number of exercises with a less complex squatting technique that can be easier on your joints.

In the landmine squat, the weight is held in front of your body rather than behind it, so landmine squatting resembles the front squat as well as the goblet squat that many people do with a kettlebell. Therefore, it’s sometimes called a landmine goblet squat. One big advantage of the landmine squat over the kettlebell goblet squat is that it’s more stable, and the barbell allows you to load more weight, so landmine squats in general can be done heavier and are usually a better choice for building muscle than the goblet squat.

Like the goblet squat, the landmine squat reinforces good squatting mechanics that keep you safe—for example, sitting your hips back and keeping your chest up as you descend. If you have trouble squatting with a barbell on your back—that is, if it bothers your low back or knees, or you just can’t seem to keep form—the landmine squat can be an awesome replacement exercise. Use it to ingrain good squatting mechanics, and then go back to the barbell back squat or front squat. You’ll probably find that your technique is sharper, and you can squat deeper than before.

How To Do The Landmine Squat?

(See 01:35 in the video.)

The landmine squat is pretty easy to perform, making it a great move for beginners, or other people who don’t have much experience squatting with load. You want the bar right up against your chest, and keep your torso as upright as possible as you squat down.

Step 1. Load a barbell into a landmine. If you don’t have a landmine unit, you can wedge the end of the bar into a corner in your gym. It won’t be quite as stable, but it should still work. Set a box or bench on the floor in front of the bar, right next to where the barbell plates will be loaded. Pick up the end of the bar and rest it on the box and load the plates you’ll use. Now you have a platform to lift the bar off, making it easier to get into position for the start of the exercise.

Step 2. Squat down in front of the bar and wrap your hands around the end of it. Tuck your elbows to your sides. Keeping your back straight and flat, lift the bar off the box and step away from the box if needed so it’s not in the way of your squat. You should end up standing with the bar right at your chest. (Don’t hold the bar any higher; that will make your shoulders work harder than they have to, and you’ll fatigue your upper body before your legs.)

Adjust your stance so your feet are between hip and shoulder width and your toes are turned out a few degrees. Now you’ll have to play around with your position and see what’s comfortable. You can lean forward so your weight is more on the balls of your feet, or you can stand tall—whatever allows you to squat with the deepest range of motion and good form.

Step 3. Draw your ribs down, take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core. Keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone, squat as deeply as you can, driving your knees apart so that they line up with your big toes. You should be able to go much lower than you normally could in a back squat without your heels rising off the floor or your lower back rounding.

Step 4. Extend your hips and knees to stand tall again. When you’ve finished your set, rest the weight on the box again.

What Muscles Does The Landmine Squat Work?

(See 03:05 in the video.)

Like the back squat, you can count on the landmine squat to work the following muscles:

• Quadriceps (front thighs)
• Glutes (butt)
• Rectus abdominis, obliques (core)
• Various muscles of the upper back (they act as stabilizers here)
• Deltoids (shoulders, again, working to stabilize)
• Spinal erectors (lower back)

The landmine squat is a perfect choice for people who want to emphasize quad gains. Because the range of motion is so great at the knee joint (greater than a hip-dominant back squat), your quads will work hard throughout each rep. It’s also ideal if you suffer from lower-back pain during back squats. Your torso stays very vertical on a landmine squat, minimizing shear forces on the lumbar. In other words, landmine squatting lets you train legs heavy and hard without undue stress on the spine.

How To Do The Landmine Hack Squat

(See 03:34 in the video.)

The landmine can also be used as a substitute for the hack squat—the squat machine you see in most gyms where the weight is held behind the body and your back rests on a pad. The landmine hack squat may allow you to squat even deeper than the regular landmine squat, making it a great tool for emphasizing the quads. That said, it’s a little more awkward to set up and, for most people, will take some getting used to.

Step 1. Set up the barbell in a landmine as you did for the regular landmine squat. You don’t have to use a box to rest the bar on if you’re using light weights that you’re sure you can control, but if you do, make sure that when you squat, the bar will be clear of the platform. Wrap your hands around the bar and lift it up, turn around, and rest the bar on one shoulder.

Step 2. Play around with your foot position until you feel balanced and stable. Your feet should be between hip and shoulder-width apart and a little in front of you, and you should lean your bodyweight backward into the plate on the bar—that’s right, let the barbell support your weight just like a hack squat machine would. In this case, the bar really should be in a landmine unit. A corner alone may not provide the stability to support your body—so be smart and stay safe!

Step 3. Lower your body into the squat, going as deeply as you can without your pelvis tucking under and your lower back rounding. You should be able to get your knees almost fully flexed.

Step 4. Drive through the balls of your feet to stand back up. On your next set, switch the shoulder that the bar rests on so you don’t develop an imbalance.

How to Stretch Before Exercising

Use the following drills from Onnit-certified coach Eric Leija (@primal.swoledier) to warm up your hips and knees for strong squatting.

Landmine Squat Alternatives

(See 05:15 in the Landmine Squat video at the top.)

If you don’t have a landmine or a barbell, you can perform a goblet squat with either a kettlebell or a dumbbell. Like the landmine squat, the goblet squat is an excellent movement for learning and refining good squat technique, as it automatically forces you to squat with your chest up while driving your knees apart and sitting back into your hips.

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell in front of your chest by the sides of its handle. Draw your shoulders back and downward (think: “proud chest”), and tuck your elbows in close to the bell—try to get your forearms as vertical as you can. Stand with your feet between hip- and shoulder-width apart, and turn your toes out a bit—up to 30 degrees if you need to.

Step 2. Tuck your tailbone and draw your ribs down so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor. Take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core. Actively twist your feet into the floor, but don’t let them move. Think of your legs as screwdrivers, or that you’re standing on grass and trying to twist it up beneath you. You should feel the arches in your feet rise and your glutes tighten, creating tension in the lower body.

Step 3. Keeping a long spine from your head to your pelvis, push your hips back and squat down, as if sitting down into a chair. Squat as low as you can while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis aligned. Push your knees apart as you descend. You should feel most of your weight on your heels to mid-foot area. If you feel your lower back beginning to round, stop there, and come back up. Keep your torso as vertical as possible—you shouldn’t have to lean forward or work extra hard to hold the bell upright. Avoid bending or twisting to either side.

Step 4. Drive through your feet as you extend your hips and knees to come up.

Learn more about squatting variations for different goals with our guide to Front Squats Vs. Back Squats: Everything You Need To Know For Building Muscle.

The post How To Do The Landmine Squat: Hack Squats, Goblet Squats, and More appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Let that sink in for a moment.

You only get to eat animal foods. No fruits. No vegetables. But all the burgers and rib-eye steaks you can get your claws on.

Most people have one of two reactions to this. A) “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Or B) “Sign me up!”

Of all the trends that buck conventional nutrition advice, the carnivore diet may seem like the most radical one yet. It’s one thing to recommend cutting carbs (the ketogenic diet) or eating only plant foods (the vegan diet), but to suggest that animal foods are all you need to be healthy, and that vegetables can actually be detrimental to health is a giant punch in the face to everything we were taught in school and all the recent nutrition and health headlines.

After all, everyone knows that meat is dangerous, especially if you eat a lot of it… right? And that you need at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day… Or do you?

Well, Onnit investigated the carnivore diet down to the marrow, and found out what happens to your body when you consume animals and nothing else. Here’s our guide to eating meat, bones, and organs for better health. (Spoiler alert: it’s not as crazy as it sounds.)

The Carnivore Diet For Humans

Animals with big teeth and short digestive tracts are meant to eat meat. But what about people? We’re omnivores. Is an all-animal diet even possible for us?

According to Brian St. Pierre, R.D., Director of Performance Nutrition at Precision Nutrition, an education and consulting company (precisionnutrition.com), plant foods aren’t absolutely required in the human diet. “What do we actually need to live? We need protein, fat, and vitamins and minerals in certain amounts,” says St. Pierre. Animal foods—and meat, specifically—can arguably cover those needs (see “Does The Carnivore Diet Create Nutrient Deficiencies?” below). That certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t eat plants, but, from a nutrition standpoint, it isn’t vital that we do, at least for short-term health.

The thing is, though, aside from some isolated tribal people in far corners of the world (such as the Inuits of arctic regions), few people have ever tried to live on animals alone. Those who have did so simply because no other sources of food were available. However, the carnivore diet (also called a zero-carb diet) has recently caught fire. And people are following it by choice!

Why? For many of the same reasons people try a ketogenic diet: weight loss, clearer thinking, fewer digestive problems, and a simple approach to eating that lets them consume foods they enjoy. It may also offer performance benefits. Though scrapping all plant foods seems like a severe step, it instantly removes nearly all of the allergens and antinutrients that some people find cause health problems and discomfort, and, as with ketogenic diets, the lack of carbs alone can offer a range of advantages.

With his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in late 2017, and his promotion through the website nequalsmany.com and Instagram (@shawnbaker1967), Shawn Baker is the most famous proponent of the carnivore diet. An orthopedic surgeon and lifelong drug-free athlete, Baker is in his 50s, ripped, and a physical marvel, having recently set two indoor rowing world records. He claims to have eaten only animal products—limiting himself mainly to rib-eye steaks—for more than a year, while suffering no ill health effects and watching his gains in the gym soar.

He hosts an ongoing and informal experiment, encouraging anyone who’s willing to follow the diet to record his/her experience with it, but admits that he hasn’t had his own health officially appraised since he started eating animals only. Rogan, in fact, cringed during their interview when Baker confessed that he hadn’t had any blood work done to check where his cholesterol, triglycerides, and inflammation markers rated. Fortunately, other (human) carnivores have been tested.

But before we discuss the health effects of a carnivorous lifestyle, let’s define exactly what it entails.

Carnivore Diet Food List

The carnivore diet consists of animal foods alone. As long as the constituents of your meal walked, crawled, flew, swam, or otherwise had parents, they’re fair game (no pun intended). You don’t have to follow any rules as far as food timing, macronutrient breakdowns, or portions. Simply eat when you’re hungry and until you’re full. The following are examples of approved carnivore diet foods.

Meat

Steak, burgers, and red meat in general are the main food sources for carnivore dieters. Because you’re not eating carbs—or any plant foods at all—it’s crucial that you get enough calories to keep your energy up, so fattier cuts of meat are best. Poultry and organ meats are also fine, as are processed meat products such as bacon and sausage.

Fish

Any kind is OK, but again, fattier types such as salmon and sardines are the smartest choices.

Whole Eggs

You’ll need the fat in those yolks.

Dairy

Milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter all come from animals and are technically admissible, although most carnivore dieters seem to omit or at least limit them. This is usually due to people discovering the carnivore diet as an outgrowth of the ketogenic diet, in which milk and yogurt are generally not permitted due to their lactose (sugar) content. (See “What’s The Difference Between The Carnivore Diet and The Ketogenic Diet?” below.)

As one of the goals of a carnivore diet is to eliminate nutrients that your body may not be able to process optimally (see “Carnivore Diet Benefits”), you should experiment with dairy foods one at a time and in small doses to see how you handle them. You may find you feel better with none at all.

Bone Marrow

Bone broth is allowed.

Fatty Meat Products

Tallow, lard, and other fat-dense foods derived from meat are greenlit.

Note: Baker doesn’t believe that your food needs to meet USDA organic, pasture-raised or wild-caught standards. However, we do. If you choose to follow the carnivore diet, or consume animal products as a cornerstone of whatever eating philosophy you follow, we strongly suggest that they be of the best quality that you can afford. See our discussion of organic foods in our rebuttal to the documentary What The Health.

Condiments

Salt and pepper are your friends here, as salsa, horseradish, mustard, and various herbs and spices don’t technically qualify. With that said, most sugar-free condiments don’t contain substances that cause digestive problems in most folks, so we don’t see any harm in using them just because they come from plants (especially since people typically enjoy condiments in small servings). With that said, due to its fat content, meat—particularly red meat—is quite flavorful on its own, so you’ll probably find that salt, pepper, or small amounts of butter provide the taste you want without the need for further add-ons.

Supplements

None. Although products such as whey protein and creatine come from animals, there’s virtually no need to supplement with them in this case. Eating animal foods exclusively pretty much guarantees you’ll meet your daily protein needs, and relying on red meat, which is rich in creatine naturally, leaves little reason for further supplementation.

Carnivore dieters who work out do report consuming coffee or caffeine supplements for an energy boost pre-exercise (in spite of the fact that it isn’t an animal product). If you’re concerned that you’re not getting enough micronutrients from your food, a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement may be a good idea.

What’s The Difference Between The Carnivore Diet and The Ketogenic Diet?

The carnivore diet and ketogenic diet both permit protein and fat while restricting carbs, but the carnivore approach is considerably more extreme. Because you aren’t eating any plant foods at all, your carb intake is virtually zero. This isn’t to say that your body won’t have carbs in it though. As with a keto diet, the body learns to make its own carbs to fuel activity in a process called gluconeogenesis. So while the carnivore diet may also be called a “zero-carb” plan, that’s somewhat of a misnomer.

In a ketogenic diet, the emphasis is on fat. Protein is limited in order to prevent excess gluconeogenesis, which can take a person out of ketosis. In the carnivore diet, however, you’re encouraged to eat both protein and fat liberally. As a result, depending on exactly what foods you eat and how much, you may or may not achieve technical ketosis following a carnivore plan. Whether you do or don’t doesn’t matter. The only goal is feeling better and getting healthier.

Unlike with keto, there are no clear guidelines to follow for the carnivore diet regarding macros or percentages of total calories. Because the diet has never been formally studied, there is no hard science to define how to set it up optimally. But Baker and other carnivore dieters seem to agree that relying on red meat makes the diet simple to follow and takes care of every nutritional need.

Remember that your food must be sourced from animals, so the avocados and coconut oil that typically abound on a ketogenic diet have no place in the carnivore plan. On the other hand, you can eat any animal foods you like in any amount or combination you prefer.

Dairy foods containing sugar, such as milk and yogurt, are generally not found in a keto diet plan, but may be included in a carnivore one, even though they contain some carbs.

See the table below for a quick comparison you can use as a reference guide.

*The classic, medically-defined ketogenic diet calls for only five percent of calories to come from carbs, but there are many versions of the diet (including the Mod Keto Diet described HERE) that allow for more and are more appropriate for athletes and active people whose energy needs are greater.

Carnivore Diet Benefits

Eating meat, meat, and more meat may sound like a nightmare to your doctor, but it has some strong advantages backed both anecdotally and by research.

1. Weight Loss

On an all-meat diet? Most people’s first reaction is that you’d get fat, but that’s highly unlikely. As with the ketogenic diet, failing to take in carbs keeps your blood sugar low at all times. You don’t get insulin spikes, so your body has no reason to store incoming calories as body fat. Additionally, the limitations on what you can eat make it almost impossible to get a calorie surplus without a concerted effort.

Ryan Munsey, a performance coach with a degree in food science and human nutrition (ryanmunsey.com), has been on a ketogenic diet for years. Last fall, he experimented with the carnivore diet for 35 days. “I wasn’t trying to lose weight,” he says, “but I went from 188 to 183 pounds in the first week.” Despite the weight loss and the severely restricted food list, Munsey says he never felt the least bit hungry—probably because protein and fat are highly satiating nutrients. To put weight back on, Munsey found that he had to discipline himself to eat two to four pounds of meat daily. “It wasn’t like I was stuffing myself, but it did feel weird at first to eat so much meat.”

If you’re the type who absent-mindedly noshes on nuts, pretzels, or other snack foods, taking in hundreds of calories without even noticing, the carnivore diet can help keep you in check. “You have to be truly hungry to eat,” says Munsey. It may be easy to throw handfuls of popcorn down your gullet, but you can’t accidentally eat a hamburger or cook a steak. You’ll get in the habit of eating only when you need to, and taking in just enough to keep you satisfied. “You learn the difference between physiological hunger and mindless eating,” says Munsey.

Also, though it wasn’t his goal, Munsey’s body stayed in a low level of ketosis throughout the five-week diet (he tested ketone levels to know for sure). “Most people in the keto camp would say if you eat more than a pound of meat a day you’re not going to be in ketosis,” says Munsey. “But I ate up to four pounds a day and I was.”

2. Better Heart Health

First of all, as we explained in our defense of coconut oil last summer, there’s still no clear link between the consumption of saturated fat and heart disease. There is also a solid pile of evidence that saturated fat can potentially improve heart health. Munsey himself found that to be the case.

A few months before starting his carnivore diet experiment, Munsey’s blood work revealed that his total cholesterol was 180mg/dL, his HDL level (frequently called the “good” cholesterol) was 57, and his LDL (the so-called “bad” cholesterol) was 123. All good scores. After 35 days of carnivore dieting, he had his numbers checked again.

His total cholesterol climbed to 241mg/dL. While many doctors consider anything over 200 to be too high, part of the reason was the increase in his HDL—it went up 10 points. His LDL went to 162, but his VLDL levels—considered a major marker for heart disease risk—were measured at 12, which is extremely low.

The Mayo Clinic says your cholesterol ratio is a better risk predictor than total cholesterol or LDL. To find it, you divide your total cholesterol number by your HDL score. That gives Munsey a ratio of 3.6 to 1. As 3.4 is considered optimal, he’s in a very healthy range.

Another thing about cholesterol: even though higher LDL numbers are seen as risky, the type of LDL particles you have shuttling through your arteries is most important. If they’re small and dense, they’re considered more dangerous than if they’re bigger and “fluffier.” Therefore, two people with the same LDL value could be at very different levels of risk.

According to the Cooper Institute, a good way to determine what kind of LDL particles you have is to find your ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol. The lower the ratio, the less the risk. Munsey’s triglycerides came in at 59mg/dL, making his triglyceride-to-HDL ratio less than 1, which is exceptional.

Of course, Munsey followed the diet for a very short time, so it’s impossible to predict what would happen to his body long-term, but it should ease your fears about the dangers of meat for the cardiovascular system. Five weeks of eating cow parts didn’t give him a heart attack. In fact, it seemed to reduce his chances of having one. (For more on what he ate specifically, see “Does The Carnivore Diet Create Nutrient Deficiencies?”).

If you don’t believe us, or Munsey, see his official blood lab, direct from his doctor, below.

3. Lower Inflammation

According to some vegans, fat-rich animal foods promote inflammation to a degree that’s on par with smoking cigarettes. The truth, however, is that they can actually lower it. A 2013 study in the journal Metabolism compared subjects who ate a high-fat, low-carb diet to those following a low-fat, high-carb diet. Calories were restricted in both groups, but the high-fat eaters had lower markers of systemic inflammation after 12 weeks. As a result, the researchers concluded that high-fat eating may be more beneficial to cardiovascular health.

The liver produces C-reactive proteins (CRP) in response to inflammation, so measuring CRP levels can indicate how much inflammation is in your system. A level of 10mg/L or less is normal, and 1mg/L or less is good. Munsey’s CRP score post-diet was incredibly low: 0.34.

Simply cutting plant foods from your menu can lower inflammation by itself. “If you had a food sensitivity to some of the plants you were eating and had low-grade inflammation,” says Brian St. Pierre of Precision Nutrition, “then removing them will make you feel better.”

Lower inflammation can mean less achy joints. Plus: “There’s some evidence that eating more gelatinous proteins, as you find in bone broth, collagen, and gelatin,” says St. Pierre, “can improve cartilage health.” This is discussed further in our guide to bone broth.

4. Higher Testosterone

Diets high in fat have been shown to boost testosterone levels. In fact, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who followed a high-fat, low-fiber diet for 10 weeks had 13% higher total testosterone than subjects who ate low fat and high fiber. It’s no surprise then that Munsey’s total testosterone levels leaped from 495 ng/dL to 569. Not bad for age 33. “I was pitching a tent first thing every morning,” he says.

5. Fewer Digestive Problems

We’ve been told how important it is to eat fiber our whole lives, and have been sold everything from bran muffins to Metamucil to make sure we get enough. But carnivore dieters think it’s more trouble than it’s worth, and science may prove them right.

A 2012 study in the World Journal of Gastroenterology investigated the effects of reducing fiber intake in people with chronic constipation—the complete opposite of what most doctors would recommend. Subjects were told to consume no fiber whatsoever for two weeks. Then they were allowed to increase their fiber intake to a level they were comfortable with, or follow a high-fiber diet. Incredibly, most of the subjects were doing so well that they opted to continue on the zero-fiber plan. The study lasted six months.

Those who ate high fiber reported no change in their condition, but those who ate no or small amounts of fiber noted significant improvements in their symptoms—including reduced gas, bloating, and straining. Furthermore, the ones on zero fiber actually increased the frequency of their bowel movements!

The reason fiber-filled eating could be problematic for the gut isn’t clear, but carnivore dieters blame certain compounds in plant foods as the source of digestive issues. They cite the book The Plant Paradox, by Steven R. Gundry, M.D., which argues that the natural defense mechanisms that plants contain to dissuade predators cause bloating, gas, and other digestive distress that may make them not worth eating for humans. Lectins, gluten, and phytic acid—common in fruits, greens, beans, grains, nuts, and seeds—can contribute to inflammation and auto-immune disorders such as IBS, Leaky Gut, and more. While this is a controversial opinion (see “Reasons The Carnivore Diet Might Still Be Totally F@#$ing Crazy”), it does provide an explanation for why carnivore dieters claim to feel better than they did eating plants.

“We’ve been told for so long that you need all this fiber,” says Munsey. “But maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t need any. The carnivore diet challenges what we think we know.”

6. Increased Mental Clarity

Just as with the ketogenic diet, carnivore dieters report thinking more clearly and having better focus almost right away. Again, as with going keto, there is a break-in period where your body has to figure out how to fuel your system without carbs, so you’ll probably feel lethargic and moody at first. You may have difficulty sleeping and even develop bad breath (an early sign that your body is making ketones), but you can ride it out. Within a few days, or just over a week, you could feel sharper than ever. Perhaps even better than if you were doing a standard ketogenic diet (see “The Carnivore Diet for Athletes”). “By the second week, your system comes online,” says Munsey.

7. Simpler Dieting

There’s one thing about the carnivore diet that no one can argue: it’s not complicated. You eat animal foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it. If you’re the type of person who gets confused counting calories or macros, is tired of weighing portions on a food scale, or isn’t sure what’s gluten-free and what isn’t, a carnivore diet will all but relieve you of having to think.

“I started by trying to eat one rib-eye in the morning and one in the afternoon, or the equivalent amount of protein and fat,” says Munsey. “It worked out to be about a pound of meat in the morning and then two in the afternoon. I never measured anything or tracked ratios.” It’s also worth noting that Munsey prefers to follow an intermittent fasting style of eating, having his first meal between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. and his second between 3 and 5 p.m. But you don’t have to.

“As far as your lifestyle goes, it’s quite enjoyable,” says Munsey. “You get to eat steak and bacon all day. I never got tired of eating meat. I actually started craving it.”

And while a meat-rich diet may sound like it would break the bank, the amounts you actually consume may not be high, since meat is so satiating. That should keep costs down—especially if you literally aren’t buying any other food.

Is The Carnivore Diet Safe?

Because it’s similar to a ketogenic diet, and we’ve already shown that meat isn’t to blame for heart disease, it appears fair to consider the carnivore diet safe for most people—at least in the short term. However, if you’ve ever seen the movie Beverly Hills Cop, there’s one question you’ve been dying to ask: is all that meat going to get stuck in my gut?

In the film, one character reads a (fictitious) article to another, citing science that claims that “by the time the average American is 50, he’s got five pounds of undigested red meat in his bowels.” Based on this one scene in a popular movie from more than 30 years ago—and an Eddie Murphy comedy at that—the urban legend has perpetuated that beef somehow blocks up your intestines, colon… you name it.

However, just as you can’t disable a police car by shoving a banana in its tailpipe (another bit of wacky science from the movie), your body won’t choke itself to death from eating rib-eyes.

“Like most foods, meat is absorbed in the small intestines before it reaches the colon,” says St. Pierre. “The idea that meat gets impacted in your GI tract is silly.” It’s possible to get a bowel obstruction due to disease or physical injury, “but red meat isn’t something that blocks your GI tract.” Since there isn’t much coming out, people who have small bowel movements tend to assume that waste is getting stuck inside them. But St. Pierre says that small movements, including those of carnivore dieters, are simply due to low intakes of fiber. “Fiber adds bulk,” he says. So the reason your poop is small is because it doesn’t have veggies in it.

“I never had any distension, bloating, or water retention throughout the whole process,” says Munsey. “In fact, I felt light and had a bounce in my step.”

A more serious concern on the carnivore diet, however, is the risk of cancer. “There’s so much evidence on phytonutrients from plant foods and how they help with DNA protection,” says St. Pierre. “If you’re not consuming those things, your guess is as good as mine as to how that’s going to impact you long-term.” Bacteria in the GI tract and colon ferment fiber into butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid. Butyrate decreases inflammation in the GI tract, potentially decreasing the risk of colon cancer.

“I would highly suspect that an all-animal diet would increase your risk of colon cancer,” says St. Pierre. Not because animal foods are carcinogenic in any way, but because “you wouldn’t be consuming things that help to inhibit colon cancer. So the dose makes the poison. Having a few servings of red meat each week is no big deal, but when you’re eating three steaks a day with nothing else, that’s a different story. You’re changing the equation substantially.”
Not to mention, eating fruits and vegetables offer benefits for eye health, brain health, and overall longevity, says St. Pierre. “You’d be ignoring so much research on their potential benefits by cutting them all out.”

Another popular carnivore diet question: what happens to the gut biome? That is, the balance of bacteria that help digest your food and prevent disease. Surely, those critters must require some carbs. Or not.

“I had zero dysbiotic flora [the bad bacteria] at the end of the diet,” says Munsey, who had his poo tested. “And I had pretty good numbers on all the beneficial flora.” He chalks it up to the carnivore diet being, if nothing else, an extreme elimination diet that starves sugar-hungry bad bacteria to death. “Yeah, it would starve some of the good ones as well, but maybe we don’t need as many of those. Maybe we only need them if we’re eating a high-plant diet. It’s never been studied, so for people to jump right out and say the carnivore diet is wrong and bad for your health… well, we don’t know that.”

Does The Carnivore Diet Create Nutrient Deficiencies?

The risk of life-threatening illness aside, the carnivore diet—somewhat surprisingly—doesn’t seem to lead to many, if any, serious vitamin or mineral deficiencies. Red meat alone contains copious amounts of iron and zinc, and seafood and dairy supply vitamin D, which usually has to be added to plant foods. The one micronutrient that nutritionists like St. Pierre aren’t sure you’d get enough of is vitamin C, which is otherwise extremely easy to obtain when eating fruits and vegetables.

In rebuttal, carnivore supporters make the argument that, in the absence of carbs, your body may not need much vitamin C, thereby making small intakes sufficient. Stephen D. Phinney, M.D., Ph.D., author of The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living, has speculated that the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate—which your body will produce when you remove carbs from your diet—replaces the need for vitamin C, at least in part. On a balanced diet, one of vitamin C’s roles in the body is to form collagen, but Phinney says that the amino acids you get from a large meat intake get the job done without it. Indeed, neither Munsey or Baker have come down with scurvy, and neither have hundreds (thousands?) of other zero-carb dieters at home and abroad—as far as we know.

St. Pierre adds that if you make the effort to eat a diverse range of animal foods—i.e. NOT just rib-eye steaks—you hedge your bets that you’ll get the micronutrition you need. That means venturing beyond lean muscle meats and taking advantage of foods like bone broth and organ meats. That’s what Munsey did. “I was just being extra cautious,” he says. And “organ meats,” he points out, “have more micronutrients than vegetables.”

The Carnivore Diet for Athletes

The ketogenic diet has taken a lot of heat from critics who say that people who exercise must eat carbs to supply fuel, but science has shown that not only is it possible to work out on a low-carb diet, you can even perform at an elite level. But take away ALL carbs and all plant foods and it could be a very different story. The short answer is that we don’t know exactly how a long-term carnivore diet would affect muscle mass, endurance, or overall performance yet. But many carnivore dieters report making some of the best gains of their lives on the plan.

As mentioned above, Shawn Baker is a world-class indoor rowing competitor and deadlifts 700-plus pounds at over 50 years old. He could well be a genetic outlier, but what about Ryan Munsey? Without adding body weight, Munsey made dramatic strength gains on the diet. Below are the improvements he made on his two-rep max in the various lifts he tested. All were accomplished within five weeks of carnivore eating.

Front squat: from 235 pounds to 265
Deadlift: from 335 to 375
Incline bench press: 205 to 220
Weighted pullup: 60 pounds of added weight to 100 pounds

The first week on the diet, Munsey says he felt sluggish and had little motivation to train. But by the second week, he says, he was a “samurai” in the gym. He credits the gains to the increased amount of protein he was eating, as he had been doing a ketogenic diet prior. “With keto, I felt great mentally, but I never felt like doing much physically. On the carnivore diet, I just felt like a warrior.” He was getting 120 to 150 grams of protein per day before when he weighed between 185 and 188 pounds. After adopting a two-to-four-pounds per day meat habit, Munsey estimates his protein intake was between 200 and 300 grams.
It’s worth noting that Munsey did not do cardio, apart from daily walks (he averaged 5,000 steps a day, total). Therefore, it’s difficult to say how he would have fared had he been running, rowing, or doing more metabolically-demanding workouts such as CrossFit. “I think the adaptation period before you would excel again at those activities would be more brutal than what I went through,” says Munsey.

To be fair, Baker claims he needed six months to fully adapt to the diet and get his performance back on track.

“Just because we can live on a carnivore diet,” says St. Pierre, “doesn’t mean we’d necessarily thrive on it. If you’re an intermittent sport athlete, competing in sprinting or something else that requires high output for 60–120 seconds, it would be very challenging to perform well when you’re not eating any carbs. There are people who adapt really well to fat and their performance does improve, but I think performance would suffer for most.” As with any diet, you’ll have to try it and see what happens.

If you are an athlete or gym rat, you may do better to modify the carnivore diet just as we discussed modifying the ketogenic diet HERE. St. Pierre suggests starting by adding some vegetables. “Cruciferous ones like broccoli, cauliflower, and kale would be my vote.” If you find that your workouts are suffering, “maybe that means having the occasional sweet potato or apple,” says St. Pierre.

Carnivore Diet Meal Plan

Here’s an example of how you could eat in a day if you want to get the broadest possible nutrition from an all-animal diet.

Breakfast
Coffee (black, or with whole milk)
Scrambled eggs and bacon
(You may also choose to skip breakfast and fast till lunch)

Lunch
Rib-eye steak, OR chicken liver, seasoned with salt and pepper

Snack
1 cup bone broth, OR a few slices cheese

Dinner
Hamburger patty seasoned with cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper
OR salmon fillet

All meats and dairy products should be organic and pasture-raised whenever possible

Reasons The Carnivore Diet Might Still Be Totally F@#$ing Crazy

If you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re probably realizing that the carnivore diet isn’t as ridiculous as it may at first sound. Nevertheless, there are some compelling reasons to not try it—or at least not follow it for very long—apart from what we’ve already mentioned.

Environmental Impact

It’s safe to say that, if everyone adopted this diet, the world would run out of animals pretty fast. Supporting organic farming practices and eating locally is a noble, smart way to improve the welfare of animals and reduce pollutants, but drastically increasing the demand for meat would undoubtedly have a detrimental effect on the planet—at least while conventional farming methods remain pervasive.

Vegetables Are Still Good

Carnivore dieters blame digestive problems on plants. Grains, legumes, and nuts are indeed sources of phytic acid, an antinutrient that can prevent the body’s absorption of iron and zinc. But according to St. Pierre, the negative impact it has on your nutrition is minimal. “The data on phytic acid, lectins, and tryptin inhibitors is nowhere near as bad as people like to make it out to be,” says St. Pierre. Plants have innate defense systems to discourage predators from eating them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t be eaten. Similarly, “a lobster has a shell and claws to defend itself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t eat it,” says St. Pierre.

Also, the way we prepare food reduces the potency of the antinutrients within it. When bread is baked with yeast, the phytic acid content in the grains dissipates. Levels are also low in sprouted-grain and sourdough bread. “At the same time,” says St. Pierre, “in reasonable amounts, phytic acid also has some potential health benefits, one of them being anti-cancer, and it can chelate heavy metals.” One such heavy metal, iron, can be toxic in high amounts. And you risk getting such amounts on an all-meat diet.

This isn’t to say that some people aren’t especially sensitive to certain plant foods. If you know one that bothers you, don’t eat it. But it’s probably best not to weed out every bit of vegetation in your diet based on a reaction to one or two types.

Sustainability

The planet isn’t the only thing that could suffer if you go all meat, all the time. You may end up hating life, no matter how cool the idea of eating burgers and bacon all day sounds to you now. A strict animal diet means no beer, no avocados for your Fajita Night… and, in fact, no fajitas at all (tortillas are a no-no). You can bend the rules and have your cheat days, but then you’re not really doing the diet, are you?

Munsey says he didn’t get many cravings on the carnivore diet, but has since added back some plants and the occasional carbs for the sake of long-term health. “I still pretty much follow the carnivore diet because I love the way I feel on it. But it’s really difficult to do when you travel.” If you can’t find high-quality meat on the road, you need to be careful where you eat out. But that can be part of the thrill of going carnivore, too.

“It’s fun to order two rib-eyes and nothing else and see how the waiter reacts,” says Munsey. “I was in an airport and got four hamburger patties and the manager came out to confirm that my order was right. It definitely throws people off.”

The post The Carnivore Diet: Is Eating ONLY Meat Healthy, or Totally F@#$ing Crazy? appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Is A Steel Mace?

(See 00:35 in the video above.)

We won’t sugarcoat it: the mace was invented to kill people. But it wasn’t long before folks realized that lifting one could help them get into great shape too.

The use of a mace dates back to the days when fitness was a fortuitous byproduct of training for war. More than 2,000 years ago, Hindu soldiers in India wielded maces that were nothing more than bamboo sticks with stones tied to the ends. One of their deities, Hanuman, was a monkey-man hybrid who carried a mace and, as the legend went, could lift the Himalayas with his hands. Called a “gada,” the mace was primarily used to help condition warriors for their combat training, which included wrestling, archery, and sword fighting.

“If we look back at various martial cultures,” says John Wolf, co-creator of Onnit’s unconventional training curriculum, “they all used some kind of mace.” Historical records indicate that different varieties of maces were present in India, and later Russia and Western Europe during the Middle Ages, as each culture experienced a time when the armor of its warriors became more advanced than the weaponry used against it.

As anyone who’s seen Braveheart or Robin Hood knows, maces evolved to where they had spikes on the ball end, and they helped turn the tide of many a war. But the gentler, more primitive models were never discarded as a tool used off the battlefield to get a great workout.

When you think about it, a steel mace is really just another barbell, albeit with a weight on only one end. They usually range from around seven pounds to 25 or more, and you can do everything with a steel mace that you ever learned to do with a barbell. And that’s just the beginning.

Performing classic strength exercises such as the squat, overhead press, Romanian deadlift, and bent-over row with a mace works all the same muscles that the barbell will, but with a bonus. The imbalance created by the load of the mace head (the ball at the top of the mace handle) will make it difficult to lift the mace evenly. It wants to pull you out of position, twisting you in the direction of the heavier end, so you have to work that much harder to keep the path of motion even—calling on your core, grip, and various stabilizer muscles to do so. Spend a few weeks doing these exercises with the mace and then see how you feel doing them with a regular barbell again. Don’t be surprised if you feel more stable and strong, and break strength plateaus shortly thereafter.

What Are The Benefits of Steel Mace Training?

(See 01:40 in the video.)

You don’t even have to work out with the mace, per se, to reap some benefits from it. The long lever that the handle creates makes it fantastic for increasing mobility. If you have tight shoulders and a rounded upper back, for instance, as a result of too much chest training and/or sitting at a desk in front of a computer for too long, try holding the mace behind your head with the mace head pointing to the floor. Swing it gently side to side to feel the mace gradually pull your shoulders into greater flexion, opening up your chest and stretching your thoracic spine. Many people find this helps relieve shoulder pain, and warms them up for an upper-body or pressing workout.

Rotational Strength

Once you’ve gotten a feel for the steel mace, you can begin to unlock its greatest potential—using it as a tool to train rotation. The fact is, most people’s training is limited to the sagittal movement plane. This means exercises where the trunk or limbs move forward and back, as in a bench press, curl, squat, deadlift, and running. Nevertheless, most of the movements we make in sports and everyday life aren’t that simple. They’re combinations of all three planes of motion—moving forward and back, side to side, and in rotation. With that in mind, doesn’t it make sense to train these movements in our workouts?

The steel mace facilitates the body’s ability to rotate—and resist rotation, when needed—more so than the kettlebell, steel club, or any other training implement.

It lends itself perfectly to performing chopping and paddling motions that make your shoulders, torso, and hips twist—something they can’t do as well or as safely with a barbell or other conventional equipment. The length of the mace handle is ultimately designed to be swung. Swinging the mace creates tremendous force—a force that threatens to knock you off balance and out of position unless you learn to control it. As a result, steel mace training is one of the best ways to instill good posture and movement mechanics. It trains you to maintain what trainers refer to as the body’s structural integrity, so that you can stay stable and in control of how you move no matter what storm you find yourself at the center of, be it running and cutting on a field, fighting an opponent in a cage, shoveling snow out of your driveway, or a million other challenges.

Power Development

Of course, with greater rotational movement comes greater power.

Knockout punches and kicks, 90-miles per hour fastballs, and 300-yard drives off the tee all depend on your ability to coil and uncoil your body rapidly and efficiently, and steel mace exercises can simulate the movement mechanics involved in all of the above.

When you’re ready, you can advance your training to include an infinite number of more complex moves that are unique to the mace and really take advantage of its rotational potential, such as the 360, barbarian squat, uppercut, and various other techniques you’ve no doubt seen demonstrated on YouTube (some of which we’ll introduce you to in this article). You’re even welcome to make up your own exercises, as one of the mace’s greatest attributes is its ability to help you express yourself, using it to flow through movements that train your body as well as communicate your passion, not unlike a dance, martial art, or other physical art form.

Fun!

If you’re the kind of person that just can’t get excited about going to the gym and lifting weights from point A to point B, the mace might be the thing that finally motivates you to work out. Wolf says there’s a primal rush you get from lifting the mace overhead that has to be experienced to be understood. Because of its origins as a weapon, it makes you feel like a warrior when you use it. Curling a barbell? Not so much.

“I think part of the appeal is that you can feel the applications the steel mace has immediately,” says Wolf. “Whether or not we feel removed from our history as a tribal people who fought wars, there’s an innate knowledge of how to use tools like the mace that’s still in us. The steel mace can help you tap into that, even if it’s just to get in better shape.”

The Science of Steel Mace

It’s a little ironic that the mace is one of the oldest fitness tools on earth and yet remains among the least studied. Fortunately, that may be changing, as researchers at California State University conducted a trial using Onnit’s steel maces. (Onnit did not suggest or commission the study—the researchers acted entirely on their own.)

“I have a grad student, Christian Ison, who’s a trainer, and he implements the mace in
the training he does with his clients,” says Dr. Eddie Jo, Associate Professor of Exercise Physiology at Cal Poly Pomona, and director of its Human Performance Research Lab. “We were talking about the mace one day and realized there haven’t been any studies done on it, to our knowledge, so why not do one ourselves?”

Jo’s team gathered subjects who had recreational training experience—people who were already performing some kind of resistance training at least three days per week and for at least an hour per session. They had no prior experience using the steel mace. Jo had them work out with Onnit steel maces, following the directions provided in the manuals that were packaged with them.

“We wanted to look at muscle activation patterns during common steel mace exercises,” says Jo. The exercises chosen were the overhead squat, 360, reverse lunge, and lap squat. “We put EMG sensors on the dominant sides of the subjects, and we had them do a set of each of those exercises with the mace head positioned on the dominant side as well as the non-dominant side to see how the dominant side muscles reacted.”

Unsurprisingly, the muscles on the dominant side (for instance, the quads, traps, deltoids, pecs, and triceps during the overhead squat) showed greater activity when the lift was done with the mace head on that side (i.e., pointing to the right on a right-handed person). “But what was interesting,” says Jo, “was when we looked at the oblique and core muscles. The activation of those muscles was greatest when the mace head was held on the opposite side. So if you’re doing the switch squat and the mace head is pointing left, the right obliques will fire harder. It shows that the mace gives you a very unique muscle activation pattern compared to normal barbell exercises, so this could introduce a whole new type of stimulus for your muscles to adapt to.”

Jo adds that being able to work one side of the body and then transition to the other side by simply flipping the orientation of the mace makes the training effect unique as well as convenient. “Your ability to shift core activation is very dynamic and fluid with the mace,” he says. “You can also accomplish more than one type of movement in a single set if you want to, going from a lunge into a lap squat and then an overhead squat, for example.”

More studies need to be done to determine what the long-term benefits of steel mace training can be, but Jo speculates that the mace has great application to sports training. “In life and in sports, when you’re jumping, you’re usually turning also. With the steel mace, you can produce those same multi-planar movements, but with increased resistance. That helps athletes develop power, and should carry over to the playing field—as well as have benefits for general fitness.”

Beyond the physical advantages of steel mace training, Jo noticed some mental ones too, explaining that the subjects said they “loved using the mace,” and that the offset weight helped them to focus on their form more. “They reported feeling sore the next day, too,” says Jo, “saying that they felt they had gotten a good workout.”

What To Look For In A Steel Mace

So you’re ready to buy a steel mace. Congratulations! But before you plunk down your hard-earned funds on another piece of exercise equipment—or try to sand the spikes off a medieval antique—make sure you know what kind of mace is best for you. Consider the following.

The Handle

The bigger your hands, the bigger your mace handle should be. The smallest mace Onnit sells is a seven-pounder, which offers a 30.5-inch long handle. Most women find this model to be appropriate to start. On the other end of the spectrum, our 25-pound mace has a 40.5-inch handle, which is really only for advanced mace wielders.

Remember that steel mace training is humbling. Even a big, strong guy won’t be able to start out with a 25-pound mace for most exercises. And (as most women say) longer isn’t necessarily better. A longer mace is harder to control and puts more stress on your body, so start small.

The Feel

A mace that’s too slick can fly right out of your hands when you get sweaty. Meanwhile, one that’s too tacky can pull the skin off your palms. You want a mace that provides some friction but still allows your hands to glide up and down the handle. Onnit maces feature knurling, like a barbell, and a powder coating for a no-slip grip.

The Weight

Onnit makes maces that weigh 7, 10, 15, 20, and 25 pounds. Most women start with the 7 or 10-pounder, and most men can handle the 10 or 15. For some mace exercises, a lighter weight will serve you better, while other moves can be loaded up more, so you should consider buying two weight increments at once.

Beginner Steel Mace Workout

(See 03:00 in the video.)

The following routine strings together some basic but challenging steel mace moves that will not only give you a feel for mace training but help you start building stability and rotational movement skills right away.

DIRECTIONS

Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set for each move in sequence without rest. After the last exercise, rest up to 90 seconds, and repeat the circuit for 3–4 total rounds. Perform 8 reps on each exercise (8 reps per side).

1. Overhead Walk

(See 03:27 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold the mace with an overhand grip, hands about shoulder-width apart. Curl at the elbows and press the mace overhead. Keep your ribs pulled down and your pelvis tucked under so it’s parallel to the floor—don’t allow your back to hyperextend as you reach overhead. Brace your core.

Step 2. Find your balance and begin walking in place, raising one knee at a time up to hip level. The mace will try to pull you toward the side that the weighted end is pointing—don’t let it. If you’re having a hard time controlling the mace, widen your grip a bit. A step on both legs equals one rep; do 8 reps, and then switch the direction the mace is pointing and repeat for another 8 reps.

2. Switch Curl

(See 04:38 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold the mace with one hand close to the mace head and palm facing up. The other should be close to the bottom of the handle with the palm down.

Step 2. Extend the arm that has the palm up so the mace head points down at a 45-degree angle (curl the other arm up and point your elbow out to the side).

Step 3. Now raise the mace head so the mace is level in front of you, and then raise it up to point about 45 degrees (diagonal through your shoulder). Continue raising the steel mace until it points straight up. Now slide the hand on the bottom up the handle to meet the other hand. Your hands will come together for a moment like you’re praying.

Step 4. Slide the hand that was on top down the handle while the one you just moved up grasps the mace head underhand. Go to 45 degrees, level, and then 45 degrees toward the floor again. Continue rotating the mace in this fashion, pausing a moment in each position to make sure you control it. Over time, you can smooth out the motion so you spin the mace more fluidly. Perform 8 reps with the mace head pointing to the right, and then 8 pointing to the left.

3. Split-Stance Counter-Side Row

(See 05:50 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold the mace with hands overhand and shoulder-width apart—one hand should be at the bottom of the handle. Twist your torso so that the mace head points behind you. Stagger your stance so that your front leg is the same side as the direction you’ve turned. Put most of your weight on your front foot. Your back leg should be nearly straight. Drive the ball of your back foot into the floor—the heel can be raised.

Step 2. Row the hand that’s closest to the mace head up. The range of motion will be small, but focus on holding your rotated position.

4. Uppercut

(See 07:07 in the video.)

Step 1. Take a wide grip on the mace so one hand is flush against the mace head. Rotate your body in the direction the mace head points, but keep your hips braced and pointing forward. Keep your elbows locked out.

Step 2. Leading with your elbow, raise the mace up and across your body so it’s angled 45 degrees in front of your chest. Continue raising it until the mace is over your opposite shoulder. Your front arm should look like you’ve just thrown an uppercut punch. Keep the mace close to your body at all times.

5. Cross-Body Lateral Lunge

(See 08:43 in the video.)

Step 1. Grasp the mace with a wide grip and one hand flush against the mace head with your palm facing up. Step laterally with the leg opposite the mace head, bending your knee and lowering into a side lunge as you rotate the mace downward so the head points toward the floor at a 45-degree angle.

Step 2. From there, step back to your starting position while spinning the mace back up to point 45 degrees upward, and then vertical, bringing your hands together in prayer position.

Step 3. Switch your hands, and perform the lunge on the other leg.

Intermediate Steel Mace Workout

(See 10:05 in the video.)

When you’re ready for a greater challenge that incorporates even more multi-planar movement, step up to this intermediate mace routine.

DIRECTIONS
Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set for each move in sequence without rest. After the last exercise, rest 45 seconds, and repeat the circuit for 3–5 total rounds. Set a timer and perform each exercise for 30 seconds straight, switching sides at 15 seconds where applicable.

1. Switch Squat

(See 10:27 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold the mace with one hand flush against the mace head and your palm up. Draw your shoulders down and back and tuck your elbows to your sides. Turn your toes out a few degrees.

Step 2. Keeping a long line from your head to your tailbone, squat down until the mace is just above your thighs.

Step 3. As you come back up, slide one hand up the handle and the other down to prayer position, and then continue twirling the mace so the head faces the other direction. Squat again. Inhale as you come up on each rep, and exhale as you squat.

2. Alternating Archer Press

(See 12:22 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold the mace with one hand flush against the mace head and your palm up. Begin with the mace head pointing 45 degrees over one shoulder.

Step 2. Push the mace straight out in the direction the mace head is pointing until your trailing arm is raised to shoulder level and the one nearest the mace head is fully extended, or as close as you can comfortably go. It should look like you’re about to fire an arrow from a bow.

Step 3. Draw the mace back in so it faces upward, make a prayer position, and repeat the archer press on the opposite side.

Rear-Lunge Uppercut

(See 14:43 in the video.)

Step 1. Take a wide grip on the mace so one hand is flush against the mace head. Rotate your body in the direction the mace head points, but keep your hips braced and pointing forward. Keep your elbows locked out.

Step 2. Step back into a lunge with the leg that’s opposite the mace. Lower your body until both knees are bent roughly 90 degrees.

Step 3. Step forward to return to the starting position. As you do so, raise the mace up and across your body so it’s angled 45 degrees in front of your chest. Continue raising it until the mace is over your opposite shoulder. Your front arm should look like you’ve just thrown an uppercut punch. Keep the mace close to your body at all times. Perform reps for 15 seconds, and then switch sides and repeat.

Steel Mace Flow Workout

When you’re comfortable with the steel mace basics, move on to this flow routine, which links familiar steel mace exercises into a fluid circuit.

If you enjoy working with the mace, try experimenting with its cousin, the steel club, starting with our guide to club training.

The post The Steel Mace: Benefits and Uses appeared first on Onnit Academy.

In the video below, Shane and Francheska demonstrate an “I Go, You Go” style routine, in which one person leads the other through an exercise of their choosing, and then the roles reverse. You can apply this kind of workout to virtually any training you like to do. It can make your session more spontaneous and fun, and it helps both you and your partner learn new workout techniques. The workout Shane and Francheska came up with here—improvised on the spot, we might add—is for total-body mobility. You can do a round or two of it as a warmup before a weight-training workout, or do it by itself to help improve flexibility and body control. Done at a brisk pace with short rest periods, it can also double as a cardiovascular routine for endurance gains. Of course, it’s more fun to do the workout with a partner, but you can certainly use it when you’re solo as well.

Directions

The workout should take about 30 minutes. Perform the exercises in sequence, doing reps for 1 minute on each move. Repeat for 5 total rounds, resting as needed between rounds. Perform the workout up to 3 times per week on days in between your normal strength training. If you do it at a brisk pace, it could double as a cardio session as well.

1. Tai Chi Twist

Reps: Go for 60 seconds

(See 1:14 in the video above.)

Step 1. Take a wide (double shoulder-width) stance with your feet facing straight forward. Shift your weight to your right leg, bending your right knee and driving it forward, while you maintain a tall posture.

Step 2. Twist your torso so your body turns to the right. Squeeze your shoulder blades together as you draw your arms back to chest level, and then straighten your knee, shifting your weight to your left leg, as you extend your arms and spread your shoulder blades. Keep your torso in line with your right leg.

Step 3. Twist your torso to face the left knee, bring your arms back, and straighten your left leg, lunging back to your right.

2. Mobile Table

Reps: Go for 60 seconds

(See 2:56 in the video above.)

Step 1. Sit on the floor and bend your knees so your feet are flat. Press your palms into the floor behind you. Your fingers can face any direction that’s comfortable (many people prefer fingers pointing out to the sides).

Step 2. Roll your shoulders back and drive your arms down as you extend your hips, raising your butt off the floor as high as you can—ideally until your torso and upper legs form a straight line (think: table top). But stop before your shoulders shrug. It’s OK if you can only lift your butt a few inches off the floor, as long as you keep your shoulders drawn down.

3. Spinal Roll To Mountain Climber

Reps: Go for 60 seconds

(See 4:51 in the video above.)

Step 1. Stand with feet hip-width apart and tuck your chin to your chest. Slowly bend forward at the spine, lowering your head down your body, one vertebrae at a time. Allow the weight of your head and arms to drag your torso down.

Step 2. Place your hands on the floor and step your legs back into a plank position (the top of a pushup, with your body forming a straight line from your head to your heels).

Step 3. Step your left foot forward so it’s in line with your left hand, and try to straighten your back again as much as you can. Now twist your torso to the left and reach your left arm overhead until your shoulders are stacked.

Step 4. Return your hand to the floor and walk your right foot forward so that it’s even with the left foot. Bend your knees forward and begin extending your spine, slowly, to come back up to standing. Repeat on the opposite side.

4. Internal Rotating Squat

Reps: Go for 60 seconds

(See 7:06 in the video above.)

Step 1. Step your right foot out to just outside shoulder width. Bring your left foot in so the ball of your foot is lined up with the middle of your right foot. Plant the left foot with your heel raised.

Step 2. Squat down (you’ll only be able to go to about one-quarter depth) and rotate to the right so that your left shoulder is lined up with your left knee. Come back up, and repeat on the opposite side.

5. Shoulder Roll

Reps: Go for 60 seconds

(See 9:50 in the video above.)

Step 1. Press your fingers into one another so your palms are open and straight, and glue them to the sides of your legs—try to keep your hands tight against your legs while your shoulders slide. Maintain that tension.

Step 2. Shrug your shoulders as high as you can, and then retract your shoulder blades to pinch them together.

Step 3. Draw your shoulders down so you feel a stretch in your traps, and then push your shoulders forward, spreading your shoulder blades apart. Continue making shoulder circles, striving for fluid movement between all positions.

6. Squat Sprawl

Reps: Go for 60 seconds

(See 11:30 in the video above.)

Step 1. Place your feet a little outside hip width and squat down until your knees are bent about 90 degrees. Keep a long line from your head to your pelvis so your lower back stays in its natural arch. Place your hands on the floor and extend your legs behind you so that you’re in the top of a pushup position.

Step 2. Lower your hips to the floor as you drive your palms down and extend your back, drawing your shoulders back and down (an upward dog position in yoga).

Step 3. Reverse the motion to return to pushup position, and then step your feet forward again so you’re back in the bottom of your squat. Stand up.

To increase the challenge, jump your feet back to the pushup position instead of walking your feet back.

See another bodyweight circuit in our guide to circuit training.

The post Partner Mobility Workout appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Here’s what you can expect of yourself when you’re expecting…

What Exercises Can I Do When I’m Pregnant?

The first thing you should do is take a deep breath and let it out—working out while you’re pregnant will NOT harm your baby. (Obviously, check with your doctor first to see if there’s any kind of exercise that you should specifically avoid, but if you’re in good health, there’s no reason you should sit on your butt for nine months.) Staying active and pushing yourself will help prevent unnecessary weight gain and keep your fitness level up, so that after the baby comes, it won’t be so difficult to get back into your pre-pregnancy shape.

Eden says that you can gauge the intensity of the exercise you’re capable of by simply listening to your body, and doing training that’s appropriate for your current level of fitness. If you’ve been working out one to two times per week for the past three months or so, consider yourself still a beginner. If you’ve been at it for the last 12 months or more, going to the gym two to three times per week, call yourself an intermediate. Finally, ladies who have worked out two to four times a week consistently for more than a year can consider themselves advanced trainees who can take on the most challenging exercises we present here.

For each exercise you do, rate your perceived effort on a scale of 1 to 10. In other words, if 1 is easy activity that barely registers as effort, 10 is going all-out, as hard as you can. Eden recommends that beginners keep their intensity under a 4, intermediates at a 7 or under, and advanced people 8 or less. You should never approach a 9 or 10, so if you feel yourself starting to struggle, stop and back off a bit.

Additionally, Eden offers the following warning signs that you might be pushing too hard for you or your baby to handle (see 01:48 in the video above):

1. If your belly pushes out, called “coning,” you may be putting too much pressure on your intra-abdominal wall. Stop the set.

2. This kind of goes without saying, but if you lose control of your bladder and wet yourself (or worse), stop. Unexpected leakage can happen suddenly during jumping or other high-impact exercise when you’re pregnant, so take it easy on these movements, and stop if you spill!

3. An inability to speak at a normal cadence due to breathlessness is a warning sign that you’re pushing too hard. Essentially, if you can’t hold a somewhat normal conversation with a friend/partner during an exercise, take it down a notch.

4. If you stop sweating, or feel exhausted, you may be dehydrated. Stop at once. Be sure to drink extra fluids before, during, and after your workout to help prevent this.

5. Another obvious point but it warrants a mention: stop if you feel woozy or like you’re losing your balance. This is a more serious risk toward the end of your pregnancy when your body is really working for two.

6. If you feel an ache in your groin, stop. That could mean extra pressure on your perineum, the tissue that covers the bottom of the pelvic cavity.

How To Breathe During A Pregnancy Workout

(See 02:43 in the video.)

When working out for two, it’s doubly important to breathe properly—that is, breathing into your belly rather than your chest. Doing so enhances stability when you train, lessening the risk of injury, while also maximizing the amount of air you can take in and circulate to your muscles. Before you do your workout, take a few moments to practice your breathing as follows.

Step 1. Stand tall and tuck your tailbone slightly so your pelvis is level with the floor. Place one hand on your belly and one on your lower ribs and breathe in, trying to expand your abdomen 360 degrees. Think about directing the air into your belly, sides, and back.

Step 2. As you breathe in, relax the muscles in your pelvic floor. These are the muscles you’ll use to push the baby out, so get connected to them. It may help to imagine your sit bones separating as you take the air in.

Step 3. As you exhale, contract your pelvic floor as if squeezing the air out. That’s one rep.

Do 2–3 sets of 8–10 reps.

The Best Pregnancy Workout

Eden chose the following exercises for two main reasons: they’re tried and true muscle and strength builders, and they also mimic the kinds of activities you’ll need to perform once the baby comes—i.e., standing up with a bundle of joy in your arms, carrying the baby upstairs, picking him/her up, and so on. One prominent feature of this workout is the use of off-set loads, meaning that you’ll lift two weights at a time and one is heavier than the other. This imbalance will challenge your ability to stabilize your body and even things out, just as you have to do when you’ve got a baby in one arm, on one hip, etc. (Switch the heavier load to the opposite side each time you repeat the exercise to ensure balanced training.)

DIRECTIONS

(See 04:40 in the video.)

Perform the following exercises as a circuit, completing one set of each in sequence. Rest as needed between exercises, and then rest again at the end of the circuit. Repeat for 4 total rounds. Select the appropriate version of each exercise according to your experience level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and choose loads that allow you to stay in the intensity range for your experience level (a 4 or below, 7 or below, or up to 8). In other words, use weights that are challenging but will allow you to perform all the required reps with good form and no straining.

1. Swiss-Ball Wall Squat

(See 05:05 in the video.)

Reps: 10

Beginners:

Step 1. Place a Swiss ball on the floor against a wall and stand with your back to the ball, feet hip to shoulder-width apart.

Step 2. Bend your hips and knees and squat until your butt lightly touches the ball. Drive through your heels to come back up. You can extend your arms in front of you to help you balance during the squat.

Intermediates:

Step 1. Place the Swiss ball against the wall and rest your back against it to hold the ball in place. Get into your squat stance.

Step 2. Press into the ball as you squat as low as you can without your pelvis tucking under. Drive through your heels to stand back up.

Advanced:

Step 1. Set the Swiss ball against the wall and lean back against it while holding a kettlebell with both hands. Drive your shoulder blades back and together and brace your core.

Step 2. Squat as low as you can without your pelvis tucking under, and drive through your heels to come back up.

2. Off-Set Suitcase Carry

(See 06:18 in the video.)

Reps: Walk 20 yards

Beginner:

Step 1. Place two weights of different loads on boxes or benches set to the outsides of your feet, and stand with feet shoulder width. The boxes/benches should elevate the weights several inches above the floor, so you don’t have to reach so far to grasp them. Both weights should be light, but one can be 2.5–5 pounds heavier than the other.

Step 2: Hinge your hips back, keeping a long line from your head to your tailbone, and grasp the weights.

Step 3. Extend your hips to stand tall, finishing with the weights at your sides and your shoulder blades drawn back and together.

Step 4. Start walking forward using small steps—think heel to toe. Keep your shoulder blades back and your chest proud. When you’ve walked 10 yards, turn around and walk back to the platforms you took the weights off and return them (20 yards total).

Switch the weights to the opposite hands in the next round of the circuit.

Intermediates & Advanced:

More experienced trainees can increase the challenge by using heavier weights, creating a slightly greater discrepancy between the two weights (opt for a five to 10-pounds difference), or by walking backward. If you opt for the latter, walk 10 yards forward and then 10 backward—have a spotter/partner around to watch and make sure you don’t stumble.

3. Swiss-Ball Pushup

(See 07:23 in the video.)

Reps: 10

Beginner:

Step 1. You don’t need the Swiss ball for this version. Place your hands on a wall at shoulder-width apart. Spread your feet apart wide enough so that you feel balanced, and position them far enough away from the wall to make the exercise challenging (the closer your feet are to the wall, the more upright your body will be and the easier the exercise will feel). Tuck your tailbone so that your pelvis is perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core.

Step 2. Lower your chest toward the wall, keeping your body in a straight line with your abs braced. Tuck your arms 45 degrees to your sides as you lower, and go until you feel a stretch in your chest. Press yourself back up.

Intermediates:

Step 1. Place a Swiss ball against the wall and grasp its sides at arms’ length.

Step 2. Perform pushups against the ball, bracing it on the wall with your hands. Squeeze your triceps at the top of each rep.

Advanced:

Perform the pushup on the ball as shown, but with your feet further away from the wall so that the ball must support more of your body.

4. Lunge With Off-Set Load

(See 08:33 in the video.)

Reps: 10 (each leg)

Beginners:

Step 1. Place a weight on a box or bench as you did for the suitcase carry above, and hold a PVC pipe, dowel, or other object for stability. Hinge your hips back to reach down and grasp the weight with your free hand.

Step 2. Extend your hips and knees to stand tall. Now reach the pipe out in front of you to the length of your lunge stride. Using the pipe to mark the distance, lunge forward with one leg, planting your foot next to the pipe, and bend both knees until your front knee is 90 degrees and your rear knee is just above the floor. Come back up, and then repeat on the other leg, lunging in one place.

Intermediate:

If you feel strong and well enough to keep your balance without the pipe, place another weight on the benches/boxes so you have two loads and ditch the pipe. One weight can be heavier than the other. Perform walking lunges, alternating legs and stepping forward on each rep until you’ve done 10 reps on each side across the room. Stop a moment between reps to reset your feet and keep your balance.

On your next round of the circuit, switch the weights.

Advanced:

Perform the lunges with weight in both hands, but don’t reset between reps. Walk fluidly across the room.

5. Swiss-Ball Biceps Curl

(See 09:58 in the video.)

Reps: 10

Beginners:

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and sit on a Swiss ball with feet set hip to shoulder-width apart. Sit up tall with your pelvis level to the floor and your core braced, and turn your palms out away from your sides.

Step 2. Keeping your upper arms close to your sides, curl the dumbbells, and then control their descent back down. Do your reps slowly so you can maintain balance on the ball.

Intermediates & Advanced:
Do the exercise the same way as the beginner level, but you can challenge yourself with heavier weights, or offset the load as you see fit.

Want more of Eden? See her top 6 beginner kettlebell exercises.

The post The Best Pregnancy Exercises and Workouts appeared first on Onnit Academy.

“What are you guys training today?” he asked.

“Well, we were going to hit legs, but we can’t get a squat rack and we don’t have machines. Oh well, see you next week!”

“Not so fast,” said Leija. “I can take you through a leg workout using only some kettlebells and your bodyweight. It’ll turn those twigs into tree trunks in no time.”

What could we say? Leija’s quads were blocking the door. And if you’ve seen them, you know why we refer to him as Onnit’s resident redwood.

Defeated but inspired, we downed some Alpha BRAIN^® Pre-Workout, gritted our teeth, and followed Leija into the weight room.

See the routine he showed us below to build your quads, hams, and glutes.

Can I Get Big Legs With Kettlebells?

Heavy barbell squatting, leg press machines, and leg extensions may get all the publicity for producing thick, muscular legs, but they’re certainly not the only tools that can do it. If you train with modest equipment at home, a gym that only offers the basics, or a facility that is so crowded after 5 p.m. that you can’t get your hands on anything but a few kettlebells, kettlebell and bodyweight training is your answer.

Leija’s workout starts with the kettlebell swing, but not for sets to infinity as you often see done. The swing is a great exercise for endurance, but it can also build power and strength in the glutes and hamstrings when performed for low reps. After five heavy sets here, your hips and knees will be plenty juicy for the rear-foot elevated split squats that follow.

Ask a cross-section of trainers which leg exercise they dread most and we bet these split squats come up near the top of the list more often than not, and for good reason. One leg has to support your whole body—your rear foot is really just there to help you keep balance—and you’ll work through a greater range of motion than you do with back squats. Like the swings, most people do split squats light (if they do them at all), but don’t be afraid to go heavy here. Sets with as much weight as you can handle for five reps will light up your quads, glutes, and adductors—the inner-thigh muscles most people neglect.

From there, you’ll train straight power with the squat jump. Focus on jumping as high as you can and controlling the landing. These burn like normal squats, so you know they’re activating plenty of muscle, but the goal here is explosiveness. Being able to recruit muscle fibers quickly and produce fast contractions translates to stronger lifts with heavier weight, not to mention greater running, jumping, and sports performance in general.

Next up are goblet squats, which teach the squat pattern like nothing else. Holding the kettlebell in front of your chest acts as a counterbalance, allowing you to stay vertical as you descend without fear of losing balance. You’ll most likely be able to sink into a deep squat, getting more out of your quads and glutes, while reinforcing good mechanics. The next time you back squat or front squat with a barbell, you’ll have better control of the movement.

Finally, Leija chops your legs down with some walking lunges. You’ll burn out whatever is left in the muscles by performing 100 total reps—and doing whatever it takes to get them. Aim for five sets of 20 reps, 10 sets of 10, sets of 50, 30, and 20, or whatever other configuration you’re capable of, resting as needed in between, but get 100 total.

Only then have you earned the right to a smoothie and sauna.

For a six-week program of kettlebell-only workouts you can do at home, see our Onnit 6 Kettlebell course.

Kettlebell Tree Trunk Workout Directions

Perform the exercises in the order shown. Do not perform any other leg routine for at least three full days before and after this workout. For the best results, repeat the workout for four to six weeks, adding weight and reps to the exercises wherever possible.

1. Jump Rope

Reps: Jump for 3 minutes

(See 00:08 in the video above.)

This is your warm up. Jump 3 minutes at an easy pace. You can mix up the type of jump you do (for instance, jump with one leg at a time, alternate legs, or swing the rope backward), or just do two-legged jumps as shown.

2. Kettlebell Swing

Sets: 5  Reps: 10

(See 00:20 in the video.)

See our full tutorial on how to perform the kettlebell swing here.

Take a few warmup sets to work up to the heaviest kettlebell you can handle for 10 reps, safely. Make sure to keep your lower back flat and extend your hips to drive the kettlebell up (don’t lift with your shoulders).

3. Rear-Foot Elevated Split Squat

Sets: 4  Reps: 5 (each leg)

(See 00:45 in the video.)

Step 1: Hold a kettlebell in each hand and stand lunge length in front of a bench, step, or box that’s about 12 inches high.

Step 2: Step your left foot back and rest the top of your left foot on the bench so that your knee is bent 90 degrees. Your right foot should point straight forward.

Step 3: Hinge your hips back a bit so you feel like you’re leaning forward, but keep your spine straight and tall. Slowly bend your right leg until your left knee is just above the floor. Your front leg should be bent about 90 degrees.

You may want to spend some time in the bottom position before you start your set to figure out your best distance from the bench. You should feel like your front foot is forward enough that your heel won’t come off the floor, but not so far that you feel your hamstrings getting stretched in the bottom position.

When you’ve found a good stance, come up to a standing position. Then begin your set. Rest as needed between legs.

4. Squat Jump w/ Reset

Sets: 4  Reps: 3

(See 01:07 in the video.)

Step 1. Stand with feet between hip and shoulder width. Reach your arms straight overhead and get up on the balls of your feet.

Step 2. Drop your heels to the floor as you swing your arms back behind you to gather power.

Step 3. Swing your arms forward and overhead as you jump as high as possible. Land with soft knees and take a moment to reset yourself. Then begin the next rep.

5. Goblet Squat

Sets: 3  Reps: 10–15

(See 01:20 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell in front of your chest by the sides of its handle, or by the bottom of the bell itself. Draw your shoulders back and downward (think: “proud chest”), and tuck your elbows in close to the bell—try to get your forearms as vertical as you can. Stand with your feet between hip and shoulder width, and turn your toes out a bit—up to 30 degrees if you need to.

Step 2. Tuck your tailbone and draw your ribs down so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor. Take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core. Actively twist your feet into the floor, but don’t let them move. Think of your legs as screwdrivers, or that you’re standing on grass and trying to twist it up beneath you. You should feel the arches in your feet rise and your glutes tighten, creating tension in the lower body.

Step 3. Keeping a long spine from your head to your pelvis, push your hips back and squat down, as if sitting down into a chair. Squat as low as you can while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis aligned. Push your knees apart as you descend. You should feel most of your weight on your heels to mid-foot area. If you feel your lower back beginning to round, stop there, and come back up. Keep your torso as vertical as possible—you shouldn’t have to lean forward or work extra hard to hold the bell upright. Avoid bending or twisting to either side.

Step 4. Drive through your feet as you extend your hips and knees to come up.

6. Suitcase Walking Lunge

Reps: 100 total

(See 01:40 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell in each hand and take a long step forward. As your foot lands, bend your knee and lower your body until your front thigh is parallel to the floor.

Step 2. Step forward with your rear leg and lunge on that side. Each rep should have you walking forward, and each lunge counts as one rep. Do as many sets as needed to complete 100 total reps (50 each leg).

For another great lower-body routine, see our Pro’s Guide to Dumbbell Leg Exercises and Workouts.

The post Kettlebell Tree Trunk Leg Workout appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The hex press feels intense, but it looks weird, and it seems to have only gained popularity in the past 10 to 15 years, so trainers have questioned whether the hex press is really a worthwhile exercise in a chest-training arsenal, or just another training fad that’s about to run its course. Lucky for you, we researched the move and got to the bottom of it, finding that it can be both a solid pec builder and a real help to those with shoulder problems that hamper their training.

How To Do The Hex Press Properly

The hex press takes a lot of concentration to perform correctly, but it’s technically very simple.

(See 02:55 in the video above)

Step 1. Lie back on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand and press the two weights into each other. They should meet in the middle of your breastbone, just over your chest.  Arch your back, pushing your chest upward. The weights should be very close to your pecs—even touching—but not resting on your chest.

Step 2. Squeeze the weights together—hard—as you press them straight over your chest and lower back down again. Don’t let up on the tension—you have to keep the dumbbells in tight contact the whole time. That’s one rep.

It’s easier to get the weights to stay together comfortably—and without slipping—if you use hexagonal dumbbells, or another model of dumbbell that has flat sides and corners, but any dumbbells can work. (Note that if you do use round-plated dumbbells, your grip can slip while you’re pressing them together and one weight can end up mashing the fingers holding the other dumbbell, so be careful.)

“With the hex press,” says John Rusin, PT, a strength coach and founder of the Pain-Free Training Methods Certification (drjohnrusin.com), “you can knock out two different motions for the pecs at the same time—dynamic pressing, where you’re lifting the dumbbells from your chest to straight up in the air—and horizontal adduction, where you’re moving your arms toward your midline and holding an isometric contraction [that is, the weights don’t move horizontally but you’re tensing the muscles as if they were].” Essentially, you’re combining a dumbbell press and a flye exercise into one movement. That alone should be enough to classify the hex press as a good chest exercise, but wait, there’s more.

“The hex press limits the range of your pressing motion,” says Rusin. You’ll notice that, because your arms are pressing together the whole time, they won’t be able to lower as far on the downward portion of each rep, so you won’t get much of a stretch on the pecs in the bottom position, like you would if you were doing a regular dumbbell bench press. Normally, that’s not good, because muscles often grow better when they’re taken through full ranges of motion and forced to contract hard in a stretched position, but if you have shoulder pain, this reduced range may allow you to press again without irritation! Some chest pressing is better than no chest pressing, so if the hex press lets you carry on with your training, chalk that up as a win.

Furthermore, Rusin notes that pressing the weights together—maintaining that isometric contraction—“makes the rotator cuff and other stabilizer muscles in the shoulders more active. Herky jerky shoulders usually feel bad because the stabilizers aren’t working hard enough, and the hex press ensures that they will.”

One more benefit: the hex press requires maximum concentration to maintain the squeezing action while you press the dumbbells, and that means you’ll build a really strong mind-muscle connection in your training. You can’t zone out when you do this exercise, and research shows that focusing your mind squarely on the muscle you’re training may help to activate more muscle fibers and spur growth.

So that’s the classic, original dumbbell hex press, and while Rusin loves the concept, he doesn’t dig the execution.

The flaw he sees in hex pressing is that the forearms will tend to point inward as a result of the dumbbells being so close together. “If the forearms point inward,” he says, “you’re training an isometric in internal rotation under load. This won’t necessarily kill your shoulders, but it’s not ideal,” especially if you have pre-existing shoulder injuries. “The perfect position is with your forearms parallel to each other/perpendicular to the floor throughout the rep.” This is a much more natural way to press, but it’s difficult to do unless you’re using very heavy weights. You’ll typically need hexagonal dumbbells in excess of 50 pounds to allow your forearms to remain parallel while maintaining the squeezing motion (bigger dumbbells will cause the forearms to rotate outward further), and since the hex press takes a lot of energy combining movement in two planes, it doesn’t lend itself to going that heavy.

Enter the hex press with a medicine ball.

Placing a medicine ball on your lap and then squeezing it between the dumbbells will allow your forearms some space and will keep them more vertical, making for near-perfect pressing without sacrificing that isometric feature. This is the hex press variant Rusin recommends for most people, especially those who are new to the movement.

Hex Press With Medicine Ball

(See 01:57 in the video)

Step 1. Sit on the edge of a bench with a light medicine ball in your lap—six pounds or less is plenty. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and squeeze the ball in between the dumbbells. This should cause your forearms to be parallel, but if not, get a bigger ball until they’re closer to the ideal position.

Step 2. Now lie back on the bench with the ball and dumbbells at your chest. Arch your back and push your chest up. Squeeze the ball hard, and press the weights up to lockout. Continue squeezing as you lower back down.

TRAINING TIP

Whether you choose the medicine ball version or the original, the hex press can be done in place of your normal dumbbell bench pressing whenever the latter aggravates your shoulders. It can also be a good choice for those who don’t feel their pecs working on conventional presses, in which case you might want to do it early in a session in order to warm up the chest and give it your best attention. Two to three sets of 8–12 reps are a good place to start.

If you’re just looking for a new pec exercise to experiment with, however, Rusin suggests using the hex toward the end of a chest or upper-body day to burn out the pecs. Go for the pump with higher reps, such as 15–25. Three to four sets is more than enough.

What Muscles Does The Hex Press Work?

The hex press targets the pectoralis major, the main chest muscle you’ve been trying to build with more conventional bench press movements. Pressing the dumbbells together reduces the distance your arms can travel at the bottom of the range of motion (when the dumbbells are close to your chest), so the hex press won’t put the same stretch on your pecs that a regular dumbbell bench press would. But the squeezing action means that the contraction will be stronger at the opposite end of the range—at the top of the press, when the muscles are shortened. Therefore, it can be said that the hex press emphasizes the shortened position of the pecs more than other dumbbell presses, and that alone could provide a novel training stimulus.

Some coaches, and Rusin among them, believe that hex presses can produce more activation in the inner chest—where the sternal pec fibers (the ones that run horizontally across the middle of the pec major muscle) connect to the breastbone. This is a very controversial point, as most research shows that, while the pecs can be divided into upper, middle, and lower regions and trained to bring out one area over another, inner and outer divisions don’t exist. In other words, when you contract the sternal pecs, they share the tension from one end of the muscle to the other.

Nevertheless, muscle research is still in its infancy, and bodybuilders have proven it wrong in the past (scientists used to think the mind-muscle connection was sheep dip too). “I think we’re going to see the research catch up with what the bros have known for years,” says Rusin. “You can target and place more emphasis on different portions of the pec, and it’s highly dependent on mind-muscle connection.” So, if you do an exercise that helps you focus your mind on the innermost portion of your pec fibers, it’s not out of the question that they’ll grow as a result.

Because the shoulders and triceps work synergistically with the pecs in the hex press, you can count the hex press sets you do toward your total volume for those muscles groups as well.

Why And How To Do The Incline Hex Press

(See 03:47 in the video)

Performing any bench press motion on an incline can shift its emphasis to your upper chest, and the hex press is no exception. Incline pressing involves the shoulders to a greater extent, and that can irritate the joints, so the hex press done on an incline may be a way to get around otherwise painful incline pressing and still target the clavicular head of the pecs.

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree incline and lie back with a dumbbell in each hand at chest level.

Step 2. Squeeze the weights together, and maintain the tension as you press the dumbbells up and come back down.

How To Stretch Before Doing The DB Hex Press

Warm up your shoulders and pec muscles, and lubricate your joints, before any workout that includes hex presses with this mobility sequence from former Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf (@coachjohnwolf). Do 3–5 sets of 3–5 reps for each movement.

Alternatives To The Hex Press

Some coaches argue that the hex press doesn’t work the chest as advertised because the tension from the adduction (the arms pushing inward) comes from your active squeezing, not from overcoming resistance in the horizontal plane. It’s the same, they say, as flexing any other muscle—sure, you can feel it working and maybe even burning, but it’s not being overloaded to produce gains.

This point is debatable, but if you’re an advanced lifter and want to make the hex press even more challenging, you can attach exercise bands to it. The tension of the bands will try to pull your arms apart, so you’ll have to work that much harder to hold the weights together, and that undoubtedly makes the hex press more like a hybrid press-cable flye movement.

Hex Press With Bands

(See 04:00 in the Pro’s Guide To The Dumbbell Hex Press video)

Step 1. Set up as you would for a normal hex press but attach bands to dumbbells on the floor, or some other sturdy objects. The bands should be set to where your hands will be when you lie back on the bench. Now hold the end of each band along with your dumbbells and lie back on the bench.

Step 2. Squeeze the dumbbells together, fighting through the band tension, and press them up.

The post A Pro’s Guide To The Dumbbell Hex Press appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Why Do People Usually Work Out Back and Bis or Chest and Tris?

Back and biceps is a common workout pairing, as is chest and triceps… so what’s with this chest and biceps idea? To understand why these are popular options, let’s back up a bit and look at the whole idea of workout splits.

A workout split is the way in which you break up the muscle groups you train over the course of a week. One of the most common splits among lifters of any kind (regardless of their goals) is the push-pull, wherein you train the muscles that perform pushing movements one day and pulling movements on another. A push day, for instance, could train the chest and triceps together—or chest, shoulders, and triceps—because all of these are involved in pressing exercises of any kind.

A pull day would target the back and biceps directly, and may also include some extra work for the rear delts and forearms as well, since all these muscles are recruited for row and pulldown movements. (Legs may be trained on a third workout day, or they may be split up and added to the push and pull days. For example, you could train quads and calves on the push day and hamstrings and glutes in the pull workout.) There are many benefits to this kind of programming.

For one thing, training two or three body parts at a time allows you to focus on just a few areas, as opposed to the whole body, which saves you energy and time, and it lets you direct more effort into each exercise and muscle group. For another, each workout works totally separate muscles, so you don’t have to worry about training a body part again (however inadvertently) the day after you just worked it—for example, it’s not a great idea to train triceps the day after chest and/or shoulders, because the triceps will still be recovering from the pressing you did.

The push-pull split is also a very convenient, intuitive way to train. On push day, for instance, you’d typically start by training the biggest muscles first, and work your way down to the smaller ones. So you could do bench presses for chest, overhead presses for the shoulders, and finish with triceps extensions for the tris. The chest exercises warm up your shoulders and triceps, so the rest of the workout flows smoothly. You won’t need many warmup sets by the time you get to your triceps exercises. All the muscles that perform related functions get worked on the same day, and therefore don’t need to be worked again for a while. (I.e., you don’t need separate days for chest, shoulder, and triceps training.)

The same goes for back and bis. Back exercises work the biceps and forearms automatically, so you might as well finish the workout with some direct arm work while those smaller muscles are warmed up and ready.

Why Train Chest and Biceps Together?

Push-pull splits are perfectly fine, but, like any split, they can have their drawbacks. One argument against the push-pull split is that, because the shoulders work to support the chest and the triceps are trained in all pressing movements, the delts and tris can get fatigued from the chest work, limiting your ability to train them with the heaviest possible weight and the greatest focus.

In other words, by the time you get to triceps, you’re tired, and not able to train them as hard as if you were fresh. The same goes when biceps are trained after back. If your goal is to drastically increase your strength or muscle in these areas because they’re lagging, the push-pull split may not be ideal, particularly if it’s the only split you’ve followed for years.

Pairing the biceps with chest eliminates any carryover fatigue. Since the biceps really aren’t involved with pressing exercises (well, they are as a stabilizer, but not to a degree that causes real fatigue), you can train them when they’re very fresh. “I think a great change of pace is to group together muscles that are not synergistic,” says Jonny Catanzano, CES, an IFBB pro bodybuilder and coach to physique competitors as well as recreational lifters (@jonnyelgato_ifbbpro).

Catanzano points out that since the pecs and biceps don’t compete at all, you can do sets of each in alternating fashion. (Note: this is sometimes called supersetting.) For instance, do a set of bench presses, rest briefly, or not at all, and then a set of curls. Your chest can rest while you work your biceps and vice versa, so your workout moves along at a brisker pace while each muscle gets a little extra time to recover.

A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that, when lifters alternated sets of unrelated muscle groups, they saved workout time and were able to lift more overall weight. “Practitioners wishing to maximize work completed per unit of time,” said the study authors, “may be well advised to consider [paired set] training.”

If you train chest and biceps together, it would make sense then to have a back and triceps day, or do a shoulder and triceps day and train back by itself on a third upper-body day in the week. “This kind of split is a good idea for anyone who considers their arms to be a weak point,” says Catanzano. The biceps will be fresh when you train them with chest, and the triceps will be able to handle more load if worked with back or shoulders, so the extra stimulus should produce gains.

One caveat here is that while the biceps don’t compete with the pec muscles, they do overlap with back—remember, any back work you do will work the biceps to a degree by default. So it’s best not to train back the day before or after a chest and biceps workout. You shouldn’t do triceps a day before or after either, because you’ll have worked them when you hit chest.

Dorian Yates, a six-time Mr. Olympia and widely considered one of the cleverest bodybuilders when it came to program design, used this very split himself (as laid out in his book, Blood and Guts). Yates trained delts and triceps on Monday, back on Tuesday, and took Wednesday off. He then did chest and biceps Thursday, legs on Friday, and took Saturday off. On Sunday, the cycle repeated. (Notice how Yates spaced out the chest and biceps day in his training week.)

Such a training split will probably require you to take a day off every third day or so, as Yates did, but that’s OK. You won’t be able to train each muscle group quite as frequently as you would following the classic push-pull split, but it will be frequent enough to elicit growth.

In its 2021 position stand on muscle-growth training, the International Universities Strength and Conditioning Association reported that the training frequency needed for a muscle to grow may be only one session per week—provided that a minimum of 10 working sets (not including warmups) are performed for the muscle area. As 10 hard sets can be difficult to achieve in one workout, many coaches recommend training a body part twice every seven days to get adequate volume—so chest and biceps workouts as prescribed in the split above (repeated every 6 days) would suffice just fine.

The Science of Chest and Biceps Training

“When approaching chest training, I try to focus on different angles to place tension on the different heads of the pec major muscle,” says Catanzano. Flat pressing, or exercises where your arms reach straight out in front of you, will emphasize the sternal section of the pec muscles (“middle chest”), while incline movements and an arm path that reaches upward at an angle will target more of the clavicular heads (“upper chest”).

Decline pressing, where the arms move downward at an angle, targets the costal heads of the pecs, or the muscles’ bottom-most division. “You don’t need to work all the parts of the pecs in one workout,” says Catanzano, but a complete program should attack one or two of these areas each session. He emphasizes the upper pecs in the workouts he designed below, because it’s such a common weak point in most physiques.

For biceps, Catanzano likes to stress the muscles at different lengths, which is accomplished by curling with the arm in different positions. Curls done with the elbows in front of the body make the biceps work hard in their most shortened position, while just the opposite is true of incline curls and stretch curls. (Standard curls with the elbow in line with the torso work the muscle most at its mid-range.) As with chest training, playing all the angles, so to speak, leads to the greatest development, forcing the muscles to get stronger no matter what their leverage advantage (or disadvantage).

How To Stretch Before Your Chest and Biceps Workout

The shoulders are the most mobile joints in the body, and that means they’re also the most unstable, which makes them susceptible to injury. When you’re doing a chest and biceps workout, remember also that the biceps get trained after chest, and chest pressing and flyes don’t do much to pump blood into the biceps muscles. Your biceps can be nearly cold when you go to do your first set of curls, and that’s not ideal from the standpoint of preventing injury (it’s not ideal for promoting good performance either).

Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, put together a sequence of mobility drills that will warm up your shoulder joints, chest muscles, elbows, biceps, and forearms, preparing your body to lift heavy weights and stimulate the muscles you’re training safely. They’re also great for maintaining flexibility in these areas, which can diminish if you add a lot of muscle size but fail to balance it with mobility training (and what good is being big and strong if you don’t have the athleticism to use these qualities?).

DIRECTIONS

Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set of each in sequence. Do 10 reps for each exercise, and repeat the circuit for 4 total rounds.

1. Scap Pushup

(See 01:06 in the video above)

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

Step 2. Squeeze your shoulder blades together so that your chest lowers toward the floor, and then spread your shoulders apart so that it rises back up. Your arms do not bend—keep the movement at your shoulders. That’s one rep.

2. Kneeling Pushup Elbow Circle

(See 01:45 in the video)

Step 1. From the same quadruped position as the scap pushup (all fours), turn your elbows to point out to the sides and then bend them, lowering your body to the bottom of a pushup.

Step 2. Turn your elbows toward your body and extend your arms to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.

3. Mobile Table

(See 03:02 in the video)

Step 1. Sit on the floor and place your hands by your hips, fingers pointed out to the side.

Step 2. Press your hands into the floor as you extend your hips until your torso is parallel to the floor. Be careful not to extend your hips above your shoulders—that would mean you’re hyperextending your lower back. That’s one rep.

4. Shinbox to Tripod Extension

(See 03:50 in the video)

Step 1. Sit on the floor as you did for the mobile table, and let your knees fall to your left side. Reach your left hand behind you and plant it on the floor behind your tailbone.

Step 2. Press your hand into the floor as you extend your hips and reach upward with the opposite arm. Keep your core braced so you don’t overextend at the spine. Spread your shoulders apart as wide as possible, allowing the rotation to open your upper back. That’s one rep.

At-Home Chest and Biceps Workout

Forget the heavy bench presses, fancy chest machines, and variety of curl bars—you don’t need more than a few pairs dumbbells and some resistance bands to work your chest and biceps at home, or in a bare-bones gym. The following workout, designed by Catanzano, should take about 45 minutes and can be done almost anywhere.

DIRECTIONS

The exercises in the workout are organized into pairs, marked A and B. Perform a set of the A exercise, rest, then perform a set of the B exercise, rest again, and repeat until all sets are complete for each move in the pair. Then go on to the next pair and do the same thing. Rest 2 minutes between sets. You’ll do 3 sets of 15 reps for each exercise.

1A. Feet-Elevated Pushup

(See 00:43 in the video above)

Pushups work your chest, but when you elevate your feet on a bench or boxes, you recruit more of the upper-chest muscle fibers, the same way you do if you were performing an incline bench press.

Step 1. Get into pushup position with your hands shoulder-width apart, and rest your feet on a bench or boxes so that your body is angled toward the floor.

Step 2. Keeping your body in a straight line and your core braced, lower yourself until your head is just above the floor, and then push back up. That’s one rep.

1B. Resistance-Band Stretch Curl

(See 01:13 in the video)

Curling with a band that pulls from behind you puts more tension on the biceps in their lengthened position, an effect you don’t get from conventional barbell and dumbbell curls.

Step 1. Anchor a resistance band to a sturdy object behind you and hold the free end in one hand, allowing the band to pull your arm behind your torso. Stagger your stance for balance.

Step 2. Without moving your upper arm forward, curl the band until your biceps are fully contracted. Complete your reps on that arm, and then switch arms and repeat.

2A. Single-Arm Incline Dumbbell Chest Press

(See 01:46 in the video)

Here’s some more work for the upper part of the chest, and you don’t even need an incline bench to do it.

Step 1. If you have an adjustable bench, set it to a 30 to 45-degree incline. If you don’t have a bench that inclines, elevate the head of a flat bench on some mats or weight plates. Hold a dumbbell in one hand and lie back on the bench with the weight at shoulder level.

Step 2. Press the dumbbell over your chest. Complete your reps on that arm, and then switch arms and repeat.

2B. Standing Single-Arm Preacher Curl

(See 02:14 in the video)

You can use a flat bench here, or really any sturdy, flat, object to sub for a preacher curl bench. Just elevate it so that your armpit can rest at the top. The preacher curl stresses the biceps in their shortened position and makes for a very strict movement.

Step 1. Incline your bench or elevate the surface you’re using so you can brace the top of your arm against it. Check that your forearm won’t be completely vertical at the top of the movement—that would mean your wrist and elbow are stacked and there’s no tension on the biceps.

Step 2. Hold a dumbbell and curl the weight with strict form. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the other arm.

3A. Seated Band Press

(See 03:11 in the video)

This move mimics a cable press exercise. An advantage here over pressing with free weights is that the bands keep tension on the pecs at the end range of motion, rather than letting the tension drop off, which is what happens when you reach lockout on dumbbell and barbell pressing.

Step 1. Attach resistance bands to a sturdy object at about waist height and grasp the open ends in each hand. Sit with your back braced against a bench or a sturdy chair. You can also do the exercise standing if you don’t have a bench.

Step 2. Press the bands as if they were dumbbells, but bring your hands together to meet in front of your chest in order to fully shorten the pec muscles.

3B. Arnold Concentration Curl

(See 03:45 in the video)

This is an old-school move we all owe the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for popularizing. The concentration curl really lets you stretch the biceps in the bottom position, and allows you to focus your mind on the muscle while you’re training it.

Step 1. Stand and hold onto a bench or other sturdy object for stability. Hold a dumbbell in your other hand, and bend at the hips. Allow your working arm to hang.

Step 2. Without moving your upper arm much, curl the weight to a full contraction and control its descent back down. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

The Best Intermediate Chest and Biceps Workout For Getting Stronger

If you’ve been training a year or more, try this chest and biceps routine from Catanzano (who also demonstrates it in the video below). It uses dumbbells and cables (or resistance bands), and will work the muscles from some angles and positions you probably haven’t tried before. It should only take you about 45 minutes to complete.

DIRECTIONS

The exercises in the workout are organized into pairs, marked A and B. Perform a set of the A exercise, rest, then perform a set of the B exercise, rest again, and repeat until all sets are complete for each move in the pair. Then go on to the next pair and do the same thing. Rest 2 minutes between sets. You’ll do 3 sets of 12 reps for each exercise.

1A. Neutral-Grip Dumbbell Press

(See the video above at 00:52)

This hand position creates an arm path that’s easier on the shoulder joints and gives the pecs better leverage for more muscle recruitment.

Step 1. Lie back on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand and turn your palms to face each other, hands at shoulder level.

Step 2. Keeping your elbows tucked to your sides, press the weights over your chest. That’s one rep.

1B. Standing Cable Pulley Curl

(See the video at 01:23)

Curling with a cable or band while your elbows are in front of your body stresses the biceps in their shortened position.

Step 1. Attach a handle to the low pulley of a cable station and grasp it with your palms facing up, hands at shoulder width. You can also use resistance bands.

Step 2. Curl the weight, allowing your elbows to move forward in order to fully shorten the biceps. That’s one rep.

2A. Incline Cable Pulley (or Band) Press

(See the video at 01:41)

The incline press done with cables or bands keeps tension on the upper pec muscle fibers throughout the range of motion, and particularly as you reach lockout with your elbows.

Step 1. Set a bench at a 45- to 60-degree angle and place it between two facing pulley stations. You can also use resistance bands. Set the cables or bands to a height that will allow them to line up with your upper chest fibers—around waist height or below when you’re sitting on the bench should work. Lie back on the bench and hold the cables or bands at shoulder level at your sides. Make sure there’s tension on the cables or bands in this bottom position.

Step 2. Press the cables or bands over your chest to lockout. That’s one rep.

2B. Stretch Curl

(See the video at 02:10)

Curling with a band that pulls from behind you puts more tension on the biceps in the fully contracted position, an effect you don’t get from conventional barbell and dumbbell curls.

Step 1. Anchor a resistance band to a sturdy object behind you at or below knee height, and hold the free end in one hand, allowing the band to pull your arm behind your torso. Stagger your stance for balance.

Step 2. Without moving your upper arm forward, curl the band until your biceps are fully contracted. Complete your reps on that arm, and then switch arms and repeat.

3A. Incline Flye

(See the video at 03:00)

The flye motion can be done with dumbbells, cables, or bands. It isolates the pecs better than pressing does, and, if you’re using bands, they’ll give you more tension in the top position (where it usually drops off with free-weight exercises).

Step 1. Set a bench at a 45- to 60-degree angle. Lie back on the bench and hold the weights over your chest.

Step 2. Lower your arms out to your sides, bending your elbows as you go to take tension off the shoulders. Your elbows should be bent 45 to 60 degrees in this bottom position. Bring your arms back in front of your chest again as if you were hugging somebody, straightening your elbows as you do. That’s one rep.

3B. Alternating Cross-Body Hammer Curl

(See the video at 03:28)

This move puts more focus on the shorter head of the biceps, contributing more to a biceps peak.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and turn your palms inward to face your body.

Step 2. Curl the weight in one hand in the direction of your opposite shoulder. Lower it, and repeat on the other arm. One curl on each side equals one rep.

The Best Advanced Chest and Biceps Workout For Getting Stronger

If you’ve been training for a few years and feel you’ve hit a plateau in your gains, try this routine from Catanzano to break through. It has a finisher at the end that combines three exercises with little to no rest in between. Called a tri-set (or giant set), it’s an advanced training technique used by bodybuilders to completely exhaust a body part and force as much blood into the area as possible.

DIRECTIONS

Most of the exercises in the workout are organized into pairs, marked A and B. Perform a set of the A exercise, rest, then perform a set of the B exercise, rest again, and repeat until all sets are complete for each move in the pair. Then go on to the next pair and do the same thing. Rest 2 minutes between sets.

You’ll do 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise. The last three exercises are done as a tri-set. So you’ll do one set of 4A, then 4B, and then 4C before resting 2–3 minutes.

1A. Cable (or Band) Incline Press-Around

(See 01:08 in the video above)

Even though you’re not lifting on an incline bench, this exercise targets the upper chest in the same way, but puts more tension on the muscle in its fully contracted position.

Step 1. Set a cable or resistance band at around knee height and grasp the handle or open end, holding it at shoulder level. Stagger your stance for balance, and rest your free hand on a bench or other sturdy support in front of you for extra stability.

Step 2. Bring your arm up and across your body so you feel a full contraction in your working pec. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

1B. Seated Curl on Lat Pulldown

(See 01:50 in the video)

Curling against the knee pads of a lat-pulldown station may seem strange, but it’s one of the strictest movements you can do for the biceps. The stability that the pads provide lets you really isolate the biceps, avoiding any momentum from swinging the arms.

Step 1. Sit at a lat-pulldown station with your back to the machine. Hold dumbbells and brace your arms against the knee pads.

Step 2. Curl the weights using the pads to keep your arms stationary and stable. Note: if there are people waiting to use the lat-pulldown for actual lat-pulldowns, be considerate and pick a different biceps exercise!

2A. Converging Chest Press with Cables (or Bands)

(See 02:24 in the video)

Bringing your arms together in front of you fully shortens the pec muscles, an effect you can’t get from dumbbell and barbell pressing while keeping tension on the muscles. A converging press done with cables or bands does it perfectly.

Step 1. Attach handles to the pulleys of two facing cable stations, or, use resistance bands set to knee height. Bend your elbows up to 90 degrees in the bottom position to take pressure off your shoulders.

Step 2. Press the cables or bands in front of your chest, bringing your hands together in front of you.

2B. Dumbbell Preacher Curl

(See 03:07 in the video)

The preacher curl stresses the biceps in their shortened position and makes for a very strict movement. You can perform it one arm at a time, or, if you have a preacher bench, you can train both arms at the same time.

Step 1. Incline your bench or use a preacher bench and brace the top of your arm against it. Check that your forearm won’t be completely vertical at the top of the movement—that would mean your wrist and elbow are stacked and there’s no tension on the biceps.

Step 2. Hold a dumbbell and curl the weight with strict form. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the other arm.

3A. Decline Dumbbell Press

(See 03:50 in the video)

The decline press targets the costal head of the pectoral muscles—“lower chest” in layman’s terms.

Step 1. Set a bench to a 15 to 35-degree decline. If you don’t have one that adjusts to a decline, elevate the foot of a flat bench on some weight plates or mats.

Step 2. Lie back on the bench holding dumbbells at chest level, and press the weights over your chest.

3B. Incline Dumbbell Curl

(See 04:18 in the video)

The incline curl trains the biceps from a stretched position, which research has specifically shown helps build muscle.

Step 1. Set a bench at a 45- to 65-degree angle and lie back against it with a dumbbell in each hand.

Step 2. Without allowing your upper arms to move, curl the dumbbells until your biceps are fully contracted, and then control their path back down.

FINISHER

4A. Landmine Press

(See 05:43 in the video)

More work for the upper chest here. If you don’t have a landmine unit, you can wedge a barbell into a corner.

Step 1. Load a barbell into a landmine and hold the opposite end with both hands at chest level. If you have the V-handle from a cable row machine, use that on the bar to give yourself a better grip. Stagger your stance for balance and lean forward so your weight is on your front foot.

Step 2. Press the bar up—it will move on an angle, similar to the path your arms travel when you’re performing an incline press.

4B. Iron Cross Chest Flye

(See 06:13 in the video)

Since your arms are moving on a downward path, this flye targets the lower chest.

Step 1. Use cables or resistance bands, set to above head level. Allow the cables or bands to pull your arms out to your sides at shoulder level.

Step 2. Keeping your arms fairly straight, flye the cables/bands down in front of your belt line, bringing your hands together.

4C. Alternating Cross-Body Hammer Curl

(See 06:44 in the video)

This move puts more focus on the shorter head of the biceps, helping to develop the biceps peak.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand at your side, and turn your palms inward to face your body.

Step 2. Curl the weight in one hand in the direction of your opposite shoulder. Lower it, and repeat on the other arm. One curl on each side equals one rep.

See a great series of back/lat exercises from Catanzano in a similar article, How To Lat Spread Like A Bodybuilder.

The post The Ultimate Chest & Biceps Workouts for Building Muscle appeared first on Onnit Academy.

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Perform the exercises with light weights, concentrate on speed and power, and hold back from going to failure if you want a warmup that increases alertness and raises your core temperature. Go heavier and closer to failure if you want a workout that builds power and blitzes your whole body in 10 minutes or less.

Either way, this routine is great for breaking out of the normal plane of motion most people are used to training in. Traditional exercises like chest presses, forward lunges, and curls have your limbs moving forward and back, but this workout gets them moving side to side and with rotation, which adds a real-world, athletic component to your training while still activating plenty of muscle—including, of course, the core musculature, which helps transfer power from the lower body to the upper.

Dynamic Core Warmup

Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set for each in sequence. Rest as little as possible between sets, and repeat for 3 total rounds.

1. Rotational Ball Slam to Toss

Reps: 5 (each side)

Step 1. Stand a few feet away from a wall (preferably one that is padded, to protect it), and turn 90 degrees so that your left side faces the wall. Hold a light medicine ball with both hands and stand with feet outside shoulder width. Raise the ball to your right side and overhead in a circular motion, and throw it down to the floor as hard as you can. Allow your body to pivot toward your left so you can throw the ball with maximum power.

Step 2. Catch the ball as it rebounds from the floor, and take a step forward. Twist your torso to the right to coil your body for another throw, allowing your knees to bend.

Step 3. Throw the ball into the wall and catch it on the rebound again. Shuffle your feet away from the wall to set up for your next rep. (Both throws equal one rep on that side.)

2. Lateral Lunge Clean to Twist Press

Reps: 6–10 (each side)

Step 1. Clean the kettlebell from the floor (see our tutorial on how to clean a kettlebell in our Top 6 Kettlebell Exercises for Beginners article) and step to that same side, lowering your body into a lateral lunge. Your lead leg should be bent 90 degrees and your trailing leg straight.

Step 2. Come out of the lunge, and rotate your body to the opposite side as you press the kettlebell overhead. Allow your feet to pivot as you turn your torso 90 degrees.

3. Star Crunch

Reps: 20

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor and flatten your lower back into the floor. Extend your arms and legs.

Step 2. Perform a crunch, raising your torso until your shoulder blades are off the floor. Bend your elbows and knees as you crunch, bringing them to meet in the top position.

Get another warmup (this time for upper body) in our article Shoulder Mobility for Strength and Injury Prevention.

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