We will return soon with dieting tips, a plethora of new training ideas from the pro's themselves and coverage of the event itself.
<3
-Pq
Showing posts with label antoine valiant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label antoine valiant. Show all posts
Saturday, February 23, 2013
This is a filler article before something bigger.... deal.
We will return soon with dieting tips, a plethora of new training ideas from the pro's themselves and coverage of the event itself.
<3
-Pq
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Hyper Hypertrophy - 3 special sets you're most likely not doing
Everybody that has ever set foot in a gym has done a "set" of something with an X amount of repetitions.... duh. The problem is that people sometimes get too comfortable and adjust to the typical sets with a given rep range. Sometimes this isn't enough and something is further required to really shock your muscles into hypertrophy for more growth. When your workouts are looking prime, your failure points and weights are dialed in it's time to start tweaking your sets into something more savage (yeah we're going there.)
Triple Drop Sets
If anyone has every done Neil Hill's Y3T - 9 Week Trainer then you know all about these but can still be incorporated into your workout to help maximize gains. Well what is a triple drop set? It's much more than your standard 8-12 rep range because it's tripled. How? By lowering the weight each time.
Here's how it breaks down per set for something simply like chest fly's.
1. Pick a weight with for a desired failure point and carry out your set normally until failure
2. Without resting, lower the weight in accordance to fail within the same rep range and work again until failure
3. Drop the weight a final time, without rest, and perform the same rep range.
Hill's program has you go through this with varying rep ranges of 10-12 or 14-16 per drop depending on the workout. I personally find satisfaction in starting this out heavy for a solid 8 reps and gradually increasing the rep target to the 14-16 range if possible. This is definitely something to gear toward the end of your workout and can be combined to enhance endurance and super muscular breakdown of your troubled areas.
Another cool tip for triple drop sets?
Use them on a final set of an exercise. Why stop at the last rep of your leg press? Throw some plates off, bang out another few reps and drop the weight again! It's a last ditch effort to milk each exercise for what it can truly be worth.
Breathing Ladders
Taking a page from The Governator's Blog is something called a Breathing Ladder. This is a sort of pyramid of repetitions that are determined by your breathing; stay with me.
The ladder works out like this (using squats as an example):
1 squat - 1 breath
2 squats - 2 breaths
3 squats - 3 breaths
4 squats - 4 breaths
5 squats - 5 breaths
6 squats - 6 breaths
7 squats - 7 breaths
8 squats - 8 breaths
9 squats – 9 breaths
10 squats - 10 breaths
Each is basically it's own set but rest is determined by your own breathing intervals. When I use these, adjusting the weight accordingly, it can be an helpful tool to incorporate a lot volume into a workout as well as keeping the exercise heavy and proper without beating myself to death.
This is great to throw either in the beginning or middle of a workout and is meant for compound movements after a good warmup. Further isolation really gets the blood flow to all the right spots once you're good and primed after these.
Timed Sets
Sometimes a muscle won't grow, you get mad and need to get savage... it's ok we feel you. Time to let loose and hit up some timed sets and always leads to great experimentation. The basic idea is to set a timer (3-4 minutes can do it for me) and just go.
Had enough of chest day? Hop on a chest press machine and start pressing!
Need to get those abs hurting? Hop on a bench and start crunching!
Legs not busting out of those pants, yet? Grab a squat rack or leg press and get going!
They key is not to go heavy but to pick a weight that the first reps can be obtained relatively easy. After that you still might have another three minutes to go and will have to take pauses and pump out as many as you can before resting. The lighter the weight will yield a higher volume and lower injury chances (which is what I prefer).
3:33 mark shows Antione Vaillant going heavy on deadlifts at the end of his back workout. This is right where the maniacal kind of volume and little rest needs to be. This is a great finisher to those stubborn parts that you're just sick and fucking tired of.
-Pq
Triple Drop Sets
If anyone has every done Neil Hill's Y3T - 9 Week Trainer then you know all about these but can still be incorporated into your workout to help maximize gains. Well what is a triple drop set? It's much more than your standard 8-12 rep range because it's tripled. How? By lowering the weight each time.
Here's how it breaks down per set for something simply like chest fly's.
1. Pick a weight with for a desired failure point and carry out your set normally until failure
2. Without resting, lower the weight in accordance to fail within the same rep range and work again until failure
3. Drop the weight a final time, without rest, and perform the same rep range.
Hill's program has you go through this with varying rep ranges of 10-12 or 14-16 per drop depending on the workout. I personally find satisfaction in starting this out heavy for a solid 8 reps and gradually increasing the rep target to the 14-16 range if possible. This is definitely something to gear toward the end of your workout and can be combined to enhance endurance and super muscular breakdown of your troubled areas.
Another cool tip for triple drop sets?
Use them on a final set of an exercise. Why stop at the last rep of your leg press? Throw some plates off, bang out another few reps and drop the weight again! It's a last ditch effort to milk each exercise for what it can truly be worth.
Breathing Ladders
Taking a page from The Governator's Blog is something called a Breathing Ladder. This is a sort of pyramid of repetitions that are determined by your breathing; stay with me.
The ladder works out like this (using squats as an example):
1 squat - 1 breath
2 squats - 2 breaths
3 squats - 3 breaths
4 squats - 4 breaths
5 squats - 5 breaths
6 squats - 6 breaths
7 squats - 7 breaths
8 squats - 8 breaths
9 squats – 9 breaths
10 squats - 10 breaths
Each is basically it's own set but rest is determined by your own breathing intervals. When I use these, adjusting the weight accordingly, it can be an helpful tool to incorporate a lot volume into a workout as well as keeping the exercise heavy and proper without beating myself to death.
This is great to throw either in the beginning or middle of a workout and is meant for compound movements after a good warmup. Further isolation really gets the blood flow to all the right spots once you're good and primed after these.
Timed Sets
Had enough of chest day? Hop on a chest press machine and start pressing!
Need to get those abs hurting? Hop on a bench and start crunching!
Legs not busting out of those pants, yet? Grab a squat rack or leg press and get going!
They key is not to go heavy but to pick a weight that the first reps can be obtained relatively easy. After that you still might have another three minutes to go and will have to take pauses and pump out as many as you can before resting. The lighter the weight will yield a higher volume and lower injury chances (which is what I prefer).
3:33 mark shows Antione Vaillant going heavy on deadlifts at the end of his back workout. This is right where the maniacal kind of volume and little rest needs to be. This is a great finisher to those stubborn parts that you're just sick and fucking tired of.
-Pq
Monday, December 10, 2012
Product Review: Universal Storm
Everyone who sets foot in a gym is dying for the biggest and best "pump" they can get. Along side this comes the immensely flooded marked of "Pre-Workout" boosters and N.O. enhancers (nitric oxide). What does that mean? Mix some sweet powder in your fluorescent colored shaker bottle and drink a magical concoction of typical ingredients to get your mind energized (via caffeine) and your muscles primed for blood flow and performance (arginine, beta-alanine etc.) The problem with these is that you sometimes want something basic and effective to help you get the job done when tossing around the iron.
While toying around with a few thermogenics and working days (only being able to hit the gym at night) my muscles wouldn't be primed enough for lifting after a long day and didn't want to supplement additional caffeine late in the evening as it would disrupt my sleeping (or make me jittery as all hell). I thought to myself "There has to be a better way!" Not too much later it was found...
This is Storm by Universal Nutrition. More so labeled as a "Creatine Cell Volumizing Supplement" this magical blend of essential manhood can be used as a pre-workout and a post workout supplement as well (a post? yeah I know right?!).
Ok cool, a bunch of scientific mumbojumbo and a bro flexing on the container; who cares right? How is the experience?
The flavor I had was grape and was about as awesome as any grape Kool-Aid will get. The mixability leaves a minimal amount of grit but considering this is a creatine based product some can be expected. Keeping the formula simple allows for a modestly small serving size as well and the 9.4g scoop doesn't require a ton of water to take in and goes right to work.
Where the Beta-Alanine "tingle" side effect is not as present as some other pre-workouts (i.e. Cullucor's C4 or Muscle Pharm's Assault), it makes up for in an unbelievable swelling and engorging of your trained body parts. Most notably, for myself, was the incredible swell in my legs for leg day. I was impressed at how much swelling my legs would contain considering it is a rather large muscle group to work and yet the muscular stamina induced was top notch.
"Well I see you get a great pump... but it's not as awesome as Assault of Jack3d!" is what a lot of kids might be saying but here's where it gets good.
-No Caffeine in exorbitant doses (which is a nitric oxide inhibitor anyway!) but can be supplemented additionally and in your desired amount if need be.
-80 servings per container (More than that big ol' jug of whey you have!)
-An unbeatable price! This can usually be purchased for around $30 or less making this less than $.40 a serving!
Why is this not a more popular pre-workout? Could it be that it doesn't feature a bunch of gritty and maniacal pictures of Frank McGrath in a dungeon of a gym? It could be.
Cheer up Frank! I love this stuff and will recommend it to any beginner who may be sensitive to caffeine, a more advanced level lifter looking for a pure nitric oxide enhancer, or a fellow bro who can't afford the sky rocketing prices of other name brands.
So go ahead and pick up Storm and make Frank McGrath smile a little (he's so sad looking.)
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/univ/storm.html
-Pq
While toying around with a few thermogenics and working days (only being able to hit the gym at night) my muscles wouldn't be primed enough for lifting after a long day and didn't want to supplement additional caffeine late in the evening as it would disrupt my sleeping (or make me jittery as all hell). I thought to myself "There has to be a better way!" Not too much later it was found...
This is Storm by Universal Nutrition. More so labeled as a "Creatine Cell Volumizing Supplement" this magical blend of essential manhood can be used as a pre-workout and a post workout supplement as well (a post? yeah I know right?!).
-
So what’s it got?
o
4 different kinds of creatine
§
Creatine Monohydrate
§
Dicreatine Malate
§
Tricreatine Matrix (consisting of Creatine
Gluconate, Creatine AKG, and Creatine Orotate)
§
Magnesium Creatine Chelate
o
INOXsulin-7 (wtf?)
§
A blend of supplements that help speed up the absorption
and helps keeps insulin maintained during and after a workout for proper
nutrient absorption (your “window of opportunity”).
·
L-Taurine
·
Betanine Ahydrous
·
Citrulline Malate
·
Arginine AKG – Nitric oxide enhancer
·
Beta-Alanine – inhibitor of lactic acid
·
Aplha Lipolic Acid
·
4-Hydroxyisoleucine (20%)
Ok cool, a bunch of scientific mumbojumbo and a bro flexing on the container; who cares right? How is the experience?
The flavor I had was grape and was about as awesome as any grape Kool-Aid will get. The mixability leaves a minimal amount of grit but considering this is a creatine based product some can be expected. Keeping the formula simple allows for a modestly small serving size as well and the 9.4g scoop doesn't require a ton of water to take in and goes right to work.
Where the Beta-Alanine "tingle" side effect is not as present as some other pre-workouts (i.e. Cullucor's C4 or Muscle Pharm's Assault), it makes up for in an unbelievable swelling and engorging of your trained body parts. Most notably, for myself, was the incredible swell in my legs for leg day. I was impressed at how much swelling my legs would contain considering it is a rather large muscle group to work and yet the muscular stamina induced was top notch.
"Well I see you get a great pump... but it's not as awesome as Assault of Jack3d!" is what a lot of kids might be saying but here's where it gets good.
-No Caffeine in exorbitant doses (which is a nitric oxide inhibitor anyway!) but can be supplemented additionally and in your desired amount if need be.
-80 servings per container (More than that big ol' jug of whey you have!)
-An unbeatable price! This can usually be purchased for around $30 or less making this less than $.40 a serving!
Cheer up Frank! I love this stuff and will recommend it to any beginner who may be sensitive to caffeine, a more advanced level lifter looking for a pure nitric oxide enhancer, or a fellow bro who can't afford the sky rocketing prices of other name brands.
So go ahead and pick up Storm and make Frank McGrath smile a little (he's so sad looking.)
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/univ/storm.html
-Pq
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