Showing posts from November, 2012

Beta-alanine for Muscular Endurance

Hello James, 

I'm currently going through a Police Academy, and I'm having a rough time adapting to the recovery aspect after some of our PT sessions. My fitness background is rooted in traditional barbell training with an emphasis on the big movements - bench, squat, clean, dead lift, and military press. Needless to say, I became a fish out of water when we began PT, and I've been playing catch-up ever since. As you can imagine a great deal of what we do is run. Luckily, we get to do some semi cross fit type of workouts, but overall it's running, push ups and crunches. 

My lungs are nearly up to speed with all of the endurance work now as we approach our 8th week, but I find myself sore for about 3 or 4 days following our more intense sessions. I want to follow my typical post workout recovery protocol from my weight training, but I have no clue if that's going to be productive. I used to have a serving of chewable aminos immediately post workout, followed by a 4…

Back Cycle to Sustain Muscle Mass

Hi James, 

 I have a question, well actually a few:

I've used your 10-8-6-15 program, and I did see results. I followed up with trying something completely different, using Neil Hill's y3t program, which is high volume, less frequency. 

The problem is two fold: I don't know if I'm a true ectomorph. I'm 37 years old and 187 lbs. I've struggled with gaining weight my entire life. If I miss a meal, then it shows after a day or two. But still when I did the Neil Hill routine, and I stopped for three weeks, people commented on my weight lifting physique more than ever. So I dove back into the Neil Hill routine. I've been doing it for 3 weeks now, and I feel like my body needs more frequency. I'm ready to go back to the 10-8-6-15 and do low volume, high frequency. 

2nd problem: after lifting off and on for the past 15 years am I a beginner or intermediate? And should I return to the classic ectomorph routine? 


My Answer: You didn't say how tall you a…

Squats Once a Week

G'day James,

I will be starting your program today, do I need to do the entire 24 sets each day, or can I split 2 muscle groups per day? My last program was the 5x5, and I got a leg injury from squatting 3 times a week.


My Answer: If you're doing 2 muscle groups per day, then this means you're only doing 8 sets per workout.  What I would suggest is do squats once a week, but do the rest of the workout 3 times per week. 

Q: I just got done doing a high volume workout. I'm thinking of doing this:
Bench press-5x5 Deadlift-5x5 Squat-5x5
I have also been doing a thousand pushups a week. Do you think this is too much? What are your suggestions to make it better?

My Answer: I don't see the point of doing a 1,000 pushups a week, but whatever floats your boat.  You should get pretty muscular and ripped doing a 1,000 pushups, but you can get the same fat loss and muscularity if you lowered the total to 100 a week.  In fact, 100 rep targets are a good way to get ripped an…

Deltoid Compound Set: Bradford Press and Upright Row

So SPV5: High Tension Exercises for Muscular Growth is now available on Amazon. A couple of the exercises that I feature in the book are the Bradford press and the wide grip upright row. Check it out:

SPV5: High Tension Exercises for Muscular Growth also talks about how to construct compound sets and trisets in order to fully blast a muscle into explosive growth.  When you string together exercises targeting one  muscle group, you got to make sure to either stress the entire strength curve or stress all portions of the muscle.  SPV5: High Tension Exercises for Muscular Growth reveals how to do this for each body part.

SPV5: High Tension Exercises for Muscular Growth

When I do my YouTube videos, I always try to showcase little known bodybuilding exercises.  These are exercises that very few people know about, and yet they're extremely effective at targeting specific muscle groups or building overall mass.  My viewers always wanted more videos on these hidden gems.

Well guess what?  I've compiled these forgotten bodybuilding exercises into a book.  Strength and Physique Volume 5 is now available!  All exercises work muscle, but not all exercises BUILD muscle. With over 200 photos, SPV5: High Tension Exercises for Muscular Growth showcases exercises that build muscle and build muscle in all the right places. Many of these esoteric exercises create HIGH MUSCULAR TENSION and can be performed in a home gym with barbells, dumbbells and body weight.

In this book, you will discover:

How to build MASSIVE MUSCLE over your entire frame.How to refine your musculature and give it the classical V-taper.Why high muscular tension is the primary factor in …

When to Superset

Q: I been working with the density and decompression workouts, and I think it is time for a change.  I took a look at the Shotgun Workout in your book, and I think that might be right for me.  I want to gain size but still reduce body fat.  I live over here in PA, and even though winter is coming I don’t want to put on some cushion.  I have a couple quick questions for you:

1)      Is that a program you would suggest I move to?
2)      On the shotgun day you have the exercises broken down as:

A1) Bench press
A2) Deadlift
B) Pull ups

Those are just off the top of my head, but I didn’t understand why you have A1 & A2 then B.  Are they to be performed is superset?


My Answer: That is not how the exercises are listed in the book.  But you can go with that combination.

A1 and A2 mean the exercises are supersetted.  Just make sure you follow the rest periods when alternating back and forth between the exercises.

The reason exercises are supersetted on Shotgun days is that you want to sa…