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Muscle soreness and the importance or lack of it is one of the most contested aspects of working out. Some will argue that muscle soreness plays no role in muscle growth and is not a requirement for building muscle. While it might be easy to see why that conclusion was drawn, it fails to consider the fact that the other two mechanisms for growth are likely not going to provide an unending stimulus for new size. Ultimately, you are going to have to resort to other methods of training. In this video, I discuss the three major stimuli for creating muscle growth and for building new muscle. One of these is the use of eccentric loading in order to create mechanical damage to either the muscle fibers themselves or the connective tissue around the muscles (depending on which research you read). Either way, it is the mechanical disruption that takes place during the high tension lengthening of a muscle as in eccentric contraction that sparks the need for repair, resynthesis and regrowth. The downside to this mechanism of growth however is that the soreness that is created can ultimately impede your ability to perform your next workout or train with a high enough intensity to see much progress from your next workout. Which is why the argument is often made in error that you do not need to use this pathway. Instead, you can simply train with sub maximal loads and create a metabolic overload or you can pursue overload via getting stronger or by increasing your volume. It isn’t that easy however. You see, if you pursue the method of progressive overload you run into a wall within a rather short period of time. If the gains you are seeing for example are coming from neurological adaptations that are improving your ability to lift heavier weights, those will begin to slow down as soon as you become adequately efficient at performing the lift. From there, you will need to rely on the act of adding more weight to the bar to produce your strength gains and ultimately size gains. The problem with this assumption is that you will never be able to keep doing this on end. At some point your progress will slow dramatically and you will not be able to rely on new strength at every workout. This may lead you to turn to lighter loads and the metabolic overload that comes from training deep into the burn of a muscle while taking your sets to failure. Occlusion training is one of the more popular mechanisms of sparking growth along this metabolic pathway. The advantage of lighter loads is that you can take it easy on your joints while still seeing the benefits of new muscle gains. The downside? This type of training is brutal and downright uncomfortable. In order to do this right you have to embrace the pain that you feel during these sets and resist the urge to give in. Just at the moment when you want to stop your set is the time when the real benefits begin here. If moderate loads with higher volume becomes your tactic for gaining new muscle you need to be cautioned about that as well. As a physical therapist, I can tell you that the largest amount of gym training injuries and issues that keep people from training are due to overuse. High volume puts you on the fast track to experiencing that first hand. In fact, when you combine the fact that sub optimal form is used on many exercises that are being used for higher volume, it quickly becomes apparent why this can become a problem. The bottom line is, your training plan needs to incorporate all of these methods of growth. Saying that you will not need to create soreness to gain muscle is overlooking the fact that ultimately, you cannot continue to make gains

If you want to hit a certain area of the pecs then you need to know how to target the chest with different exercises. In this video, I’m going to show you the best chest exercises for targeting the upper, middle and lower pecs. Keep in mind, you cannot isolate one area of the chest instead of another. When the muscle contracts, it does so in an “all or none” fashion. That said, because of the separate nerve innervations feeding the upper pecs and lower pecs as well as the orientation of the fibers in these two areas it is possible to more heavily influence one over the other. The key to identifying whether a chest exercise you are doing is working the top or bottom of your pecs, just look at the position of your arms when you are doing it. Are your arms angled downward or below the horizontal plane or are they angled up? What I mean by this is if you were to hold your arms straight out away from your body in standing they would be parallel to the floor. If during a particular chest exercise your arms are angled below this, then you are more heavily influencing your lower pecs. If on the other hand your arms are angled slightly up from the horizontal plane, then you are more heavily working your upper chest. Don’t be fooled by the position of your arms when you are laying down. This can be deceiving. In order to see what area of the chest the exercise you are doing is actually working, you need to stand up maintaining the same position of the arms as you had when doing the movement. Check and see where they reside when you stand and that will tell you the answer you are looking for. Using this information, it becomes easy to see how the incline dumbbell bench press or barbell incline press is a great upper chest exercise while the decline dumbbell or barbell bench press is good at targeting the lower pecs. The situation becomes more confusing when you take this and apply it to pushups however. An incline pushup might be thought to work the upper chest but this would be incorrect. Given that the position of the arms is down from the horizontal, the incline pushup actually works the lower chest or bottom of your pecs more readily. Vice versa, the decline pushup is a great bodyweight chest exercise for hitting the upper chest a bit more than just regular pushups can. This same chest workout chest can be applied to any chest exercise. Even the dumbbell chest pullover tests out as an incline chest movement. In fact, it is one of the more obscure chest exercises that I know for helping to build a thicker and bigger upper chest. The area that is seen even when you wear a shirt with a slightly low neck line. Finally, dips are a classic lower chest exercise. With the arms held tight to your sides and pointed well below the horizontal plane you can be assured that the majority of the work and stretch is being directed at the abdominal head of the pectoralis major. Learn to also keep your shoulders from shrugging during this chest exercise as I’ve pointed out in previous videos and you are in store from some serious gains doing this chest workout classic. As you see, it isn’t just what exercises you do but how you do them that makes all the difference when it comes to seeing your fastest gains. If you want to learn how to get the most out of every exercise you do while getting a complete step by step program that puts it all together for you from day one to ninety, head to http://athleanx.com and get one of our ATHLEAN-X Training Systems. For more chest workout videos and exercises to build a bigger chest and pecs be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtub

If you want to build bigger triceps but don’t have access to equipment or a gym, there is no need to worry. In this video, I show you a 6 minute bodyweight triceps workout that you can use anywhere to build big triceps in a short period of time. In fact, you are only going to use two different triceps exercises to get the job done. If you are ready to trade in workout length for intensity, then this workout is just what you have been looking for. To start, you will only need a surface that is elevated to perform the exercises. If you are training at home, this can be a bed or the back of a couch. If you are training in a gym you have endless options to get the job done. Here, I’m using a power rack bar stop to put my feet on but I could have just as easily have used a bench. The first minute consists of a single home tricep exercise known as the cobra pushup. Instead of just repping out here however you are going to perform them in “21” style. You have the full 60 seconds to complete 7 reps in the lower one third of the range of motion, 7 from the upper one third of the range of motion and finally 7 reps using the full range of motion. All of these are going to be performed in this first minute with your feet elevated. Whatever time you are left with after completing your reps is your rest time for the remainder of that minute. As soon as the next minute begins you need to put yourself in position to perform the second and last exercise in your tricep workout, the walk in bodyweight extensions. This triceps exercise killer allows you to train not just to failure but through failure as you unweight your body and squeeze out more reps even when fatigued by simply changing the position of your feet. Your goal is to try and perform the entire one minute of exercise here without having to rest. If you must, keep it short and then get right back on the bar and complete the rest of the minute of that exerise. For the third minute you are back to the floor to repeat the “21 style” cobra pushups but this time you are going to perform them from the floor on your toes. This standard pushup position will be slightly easier than the elevated version which should make it possible for you to finish all twenty one reps even though your triceps are likely torched. Again, the rest you earn here is the time you have remaining after finishing all 21 reps of the exercise. Back to the walk-in bodyweight triceps extensions for another full minute. You may find that you are walking your feet in closer than before and sooner than before. That is ok. It is normal to feel the intense burn in your triceps. This isn’t called the Sore in 6 Minutes Triceps Workout for nothing. Finally, wrap up the last two minute time period by repeating the entire exercise sequence one more time. The only thing here is that you will likely need to drop to your knees to perform this cobra pushup combo to accommodate and combat the fatigue. Power through and don’t give in. See if you can make it the entire 6 minutes without stopping! The Sore in 6 Minute triceps workout with bodyweight exercises is just another example of how leaving the excuses at the door can allow you to build a fantastic back without needing any equipment. If you are looking for a complete workout for your entire body that requires not a single piece of equipment, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. No bars, no bands, no benches and most of all, no bull. For more bodyweight workouts that you can do at home to build bigger triceps, chest, legs and biceps be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at htt

If I could give you one tip for your ab workouts that would improve the results you see on every ab exercise you do, this would be it. I’m calling this one the ab workout “master tip” for good reason. In this video, you will see how you can instantly fix one thing about every abs exercise you do that will increase the results you see from doing the exercises and your chances of getting a visible six pack. It starts with a quick test. Lie on your side and perform a side crunch. Make sure that you are not pulling on your neck when you do this abs and obliques exercise. After cranking out ten or so reps, look down at your body and see if you might be doing what I’m about to point out. Are you ever actually releasing the reps and letting your body elongate fully or are you crunching repeatedly from a half rep or shortened range of motion? Likely, you are not ever going through a full concentric and eccentric contraction. You are instead, isometrically contracting your abs and obliques and just half repping your side crunches for the entire set. Now, it’s important to understand that while you are always going to be stronger in the isometric contraction of a muscle group than the concentric, that doesn’t mean that you want to train that way. Here, the isometric hold is just giving your abs a chance to be let off the hook while the rest of your body does the majority of the moving. This is not ideal if you want to fully develop a muscle. Instead, the master tip for ab workouts requires that you take each and every ab exercise repetition through its full range of motion. It sounds like a simple concept until you start to apply it to other ab exercises and realize just how much you have not been doing this. If you ever struggle to feel the contraction in the abs, obliques or serratus when you are doing a core exercise this is likely your problem. If you stay in a contracted state you will never feel the excursion of a full rep as you take it through the concentric and eccentric contractions. To fix this, start becoming aware of the elongation of the rectus abdominis or obliques during your ab exercises. Don’t just get into a semi-shortened muscle contraction and crank away with all kinds of movement occurring in ever area of your body but your abs. Instead, let the abs themselves do all of the work. You might find that this drastically limits the number of reps that you can do in your ab workouts and that is fine. Over time, it is going to be the accumulation of quality reps that is going to give you the results that you are seeking and the six pack abs that you’ve been wanting. This can be applied to every single abs exercise you do, which again is why this is called the master tip. While performing a hanging abs exercise for example, you want to fully extend your body and let the abs undergo a stretch. Think of it as trying to elongate your entire spine. From here, crunch with the abs and curl your pelvis up until your butt is showing in front of you. This is a quality ab contraction and exactly what you should strive for on every rep. For more results from every abs workout you do, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and overlook nothing in your training. Take your gains to the next level. For more ab workout videos and exercises for six pack abs be sure to subscribe to my channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Determining the best workout split is one of the most popular questions being asked by every person that works out. The answer however is not a simple one if you want to be truthful. Anyone that pretends to tell you the one best training split should be avoided when looking for helpful advice. This is because in order to know how to best split your muscle group training you need to ask many questions. The first thing you need to understand is what your current training goals are. Are you trying to build new muscle? Are you trying to improve your conditioning while losing body fat? Are you trying to develop explosive power and athleticism? The answer to that question can greatly alter the training split that would best fit your goal. Next you need to understand what type of training split you just completed. For instance, some workout splits are much more successful than others depending on the one that immediately preceded it. Following a period were you were doing high volume low weight training, your muscles are more primed and ready than ever for a change to lower volume. Whether or not you accompany that with an increase in weight would depend on whether strength was a priority for you or not. Additionally, not all splits are right for every body. If you were going to attempt to build bigger triceps because they were a weak muscle group for you then you would want to prioritize them with additional volume over the course of a training cycle. This could come in the form of a few additional sets at the end of 3 workouts in a week or as an additional day of training per week geared at the triceps. Finally, while push and pull muscle group splits have their advantages in helping to manage training volume they can’t be relied on as gospel for how you should train. For example, biceps and back are two muscle groups that act to “pull” when active. Training them on the same day would allow you to work the two similar functions without subjecting yourself to overtraining by continually training them on back to back days. That said, thinking that a push and a pull muscle group can’t be worked together because of this synergy would prevent you from realizing the gains you could see by training this way. See the example of how the back and triceps work well together in this video for an example of this. At the end of the day, the most important thing to do is make sure you are strategically varying your training splits. Never listen to someone that tells you the best training split to do unless they are aware of what your goals are and where in your training plan you currently are. They need to know what you’ve been training like leading up to this point as well. If you’re looking for a step by step workout plan that varies training splits from phase to phase and does so with science leading the way, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System For more workout videos and best ways to split your muscle groups when training, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Bodyweight back workouts can not only be done, but they can be brutally effective if done right. In this video, I show you a 6 minute back workout routine that you can do with just bodyweight exercises to build a bigger back and get wider lats. All you need to perform this back workout is a straight bar and something to rest it on. It does not have to be an Olympic bar. You can use a broom stick or mop from home and get just as good results. To perform this 6 minute back workout you will only need to know three back exercises. The first is a bodyweight straight arm pushdown. Perform this by laying underneath the bar supported on two chairs. With your arms outstretched and your feet as far away from you as your strength can tolerate, start by pushing down into the bar with your hands and pulling your body back under the bar and up. This should simulate what a straight arm pushdown for your lats would feel like done in standing with a cable machine and straight bar. Perform this back exercise for 20 seconds. Immediately proceed into the next home back exercise which is the one armed row. Here you want to keep your feet in the same position, the same distance away from the bar, and grab the middle of the bar with one hand. Begin by pulling your body up to the bar and reaching for the ceiling with the opposite hand. Make sure that you don’t just let your body drop but that you slowly lower yourself back down to the ground and repeat. Keep doing reps with this arm for 20 seconds. Repeat for the final 20 seconds of the first minute using the opposite arm to do the exact same exercise. Immediately, without resting, head into the next exercise; the plyo inverted row. Here you want to place both hands on the bar and forcefully pull yourself up. You want to pull hard enough that you can briefly let go of the bar as you propel your body up. Regrip on the way down and slowly lower your body to the floor. See if you can perform this exercise for the entire second minute. If for some reason you need to rest, try and do so as quickly as you can and get back to doing the exercise for the remainder of the minute. The rest of this six minute workout will be performed exactly the same however the distance your feet move towards the bar is going to change. In order to make the exercises easier as your level of fatigue mounts, you will want to bring your feet in closer to your body with each successive round of 2 minutes. On your final two minutes you will be repeating the same three exercises but moving your feet in closest to your body. This will enable you to squeeze out more reps when you thought you were already too fatigued to do so. The Sore in 6 Minute back workout with bodyweight exercises is just another example of how leaving the excuses at the door can allow you to build a fantastic back without needing any equipment. If you are looking for a complete workout for your entire body that requires not a single piece of equipment, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. No bars, no bands, no benches and most of all, no bull. For more bodyweight workouts that you can do at home to build a bigger back, chest, legs and arms be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Tricep pushdowns are one of the most commonly performed exercises in the gym. Given their ease of setup, they are actually a great exercise for home workouts too since you can do them with a single resistance band hooked over a doorway pullup bar. The problem is, the triceps pushdown is also one of the most abused and misperformed exercises which can quickly ruin your tricep gains if you don’t fix how you’re doing them. In this video, I’m going to show you how to perform a tricep pushdown properly so you can build your muscles without even having to use very heavy weights to do it. The problem with the pushdown is that like with every other exercise you do for your triceps (or any other muscle for that matter), your body is always going to look for a way to make it easier. You may even start out doing this exercise for your triceps the right way and quickly find yourself doing an exercise that is training your chest and shoulders way more than your arms. It has to do with the fact that your body looks for ways to compensate and take strain off of a working muscle. When doing pushdowns, in order to keep the tension on the triceps you want to keep your elbows pinned to your sides and slightly behind the body. Your hands should be at about the level of your chest and, most importantly, out in front of your body as far as you can. At the same time that this enables the right position to put the maximum amount of tension on the triceps it is also making the weight that you are lifting effectively the heaviest that it can be. Now some people take this as a blow to their ego and they look for ways to bump that pin up the stack a few more plates. The compensation that comes with this adjustment however is that the body starts to hunch over the rope or straight bar and the elbows flare out to the sides a great deal. While you will find new found strength in this position it is not because your triceps became suddenly stronger. It is because you just recruited the strength of the pecs and deltoids by putting them in a much more advantageous position to help. This is good if you are looking to build your chest and shoulders, bad if you wanted to build your triceps. Need even more convincing? See if you can identify what exercise this resembles when you position your elbows flared out to the sides and perform the exercise. If you’re drawing a blank I will help you out. This should look like a dip. Bring the hands just a little more out away from each other and the downward action of the hands and arms will look just like a dip or even moreso, a straight bar dip. Not that this is a bad exercise, especially if you are a parkour runner and need to build your strength for scaling to the top of a wall. For building your triceps however it just isn’t the best way. If you are looking for a complete training program that will not only train you to make the best muscle gains and fat losses than at any other point in your training without compromising your joints in the process, head to http://athleanx.com and get on of our ATHLEAN-X Training Programs. When you train like an athlete you realize that it isn’t just about which tricep exercises you are doing but how you are doing them that matters the most. Athletes can’t afford to give away an inch on the field or in the weight room preparing to compete. If you train like an athlete, neither will you. Your gains will shock you when you realize just how much more you were capable of. For more videos on how to squat, how to bench press and how to gain muscle without ruining your joints, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://you

If I could give you one tip for your back workout that would improve the results you see on every back exercise you do, this would be it. I’m calling this one the back workout “master tip” for good reason. In this video, you will see how you can instantly fix one thing about every back exercise you do that will increase the results you see from doing the exercises. It starts with an understanding of what we are trying to accomplish when we train our back muscles. The lats are located on the back side of our body and in order to fully contract them, we need to get the arms (where the lats are attached to) behind our body closer to the origin of the lat muscle on our spine. This means that we need to get our elbows behind our body and our arms into extension. When you think about the easiest way to do that you quickly realize that if you can get your spine into extension (mostly your thoracic spine) then you can get your arms back a lot easier. In order to do this, there is something we can do without even touching a weight that is going to allow us to feel what it should feel like when we get it right. I call this the superman move. Place your hands on your chest and pretend that you are ripping open your t-shirt to reveal the big “S” on your chest like Superman. Notice, in order to do this right, you don’t just pull your elbows out to the sides but you pull them back and behind you at the same time. Beyond that, you also need to actively push your chest (sternum) forward as you do this to make this even easier. This same movement can be translated over to every single exercise you do in your back workouts and help you to get more out of them in the process. Starting with a lat pulldown is probably the easiest. Notice in the video that you aren’t just trying to get your elbows down and behind you. That won’t be enough. In order to get the lats maximally contracted you need to push your chest out as your pull your elbows back. You will instantly feel the intensity of the lat contraction go up when you do this right. The same can be said about a pullup as well. Don’t just let pull down with the elbows (as you have likely been told by many experts) but pull down and back with the elbows at the same time that you are pushing your chest bone forward. If anything, you should feel as if you are at least not letting your chest bone cave in when doing the movement. Rows are even easier to get this movement down right. As you pull the bar or dumbbell up to you, be sure to actively and consciously push your chest away from you. The two points should be moving in equal and opposite directions. This is not necessarily a leverage move since you don’t have anything to post your chest on to gain a mechanical advantage. This is simply a biomechanics move that allows your back to get into thoracic extension which makes the extension of the arm behind the body even easier and ensures a peak lat contraction (maybe for even the very first time if you have not been doing this all along). Finally, even a straight arm pushdown can be done with this technique. As your arms are traveling down towards your sides and slightly behind your body, be sure to stick your chest out. Using ropes here will allow you to get the arms behind the body even more than a straight bar would. Either way however, without the pushing of the chest forward you won’t be getting everything there is to be had from doing this exercise so make sure you get this part right. You see, everyone of us can do the same exercises but that doesn’t mean that we are going to see the same results from our efforts. If you want to

If you want to know how to lose weight forever you have to start by looking at how you look at the food you eat. If the way you are eating now has you looking forward to the chances you get to depart from that diet then you are setting yourself up for failure. In this video, I’m going to show you how the mentality of a “cheat meal” is what may be single handedly responsible for keeping you from losing weight and keeping it off forever. To start, the mentality of cheat meals means that you are splurging or indulging. You are enjoying something that you aren’t capable of experiencing or having during your non-cheating periods. When the regular, every day foods and diet you follow cause you to have a clear dichotomy between foods you actually enjoy and those you only eat because you feel like you are supposed to be eating them, then you are setting yourself up for failure. If on the other hand, you were able to identify foods that you actually enjoyed that were still nutritious and in line with your goals of losing weight, body fat and building muscle then you would be on the way to nutritional freedom and permanent weight loss. Too many people think that the only way to lose weight and have abs is to eat steamed broccoli, dry asparagus and iceberg lettuce. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The best way to lose weight is to start looking at food as fuel for your muscles and your performance and stop hating the limited food choices you have left yourself. The avoidance of carbs, fats and even some proteins in the pursuit of six pack abs is a mistake. Rice, pasta, potatoes, butter and oils can all be (and should be) part of a nutrition plan that is capable of helping you lose weight and put on lean muscle mass. If you fall victim to the carb phobia that is far too rampant these days then you are likely to be robbing your muscles of the exact nutrients they need to perform at their best. Beyond that, it is these very foods that tend to help us maintain our sanity when changing our eating lifestyle. If you completely eliminate starchy carbohydrates from your diet then you are going to quickly fall off of your eating plan. Carbs and fats are preferred energy sources for our bodies and avoiding them for any length of time in the pursuit of fast fat loss is a recipe for failure. When you incorporate these back into your eating plan, you will suddenly find that the choice to have something like carrot cake, beer or even cupcakes is something that you are making because you wanted them not because your body felt as if it needed them! There is a huge difference between the two. Once you string together a period of time that you are doing this your results become self motivating and you will find that you make less choices for “cheat meals” and more decisions are made to continue eating your nutritious food choices since you prefer them and actually enjoy them. This is the best way to lose weight long term because you aren’t basing your attempt on deprivation or diets. This way works regardless of the way you are eating now. Even if you are using intermittent fasting as your method of eating at the moment, the principles are still the same and will help you to lose weight forever. For a complete step by step meal plan along with my best fat shredding workouts to compliment your fat loss efforts, head to http://athleanx.com and get the MAX SHRED program. Burn fat for 12 weeks straight and keep the ripped body you build for the rest of the year. For more videos on how to lose weight and the best way to lose 5 pounds of body fat, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on you

The best way to lose 5 pounds of body fat is a question that I get almost every day. People want to know if burpees are the best exercise for getting the job done. Others want to know if battle ropes or even jump rope are better at burning calories and burning fat. While all of them are at the top of the list for the most calories burned on a minute per minute basis, they still are not the best way to lose five pounds of body fat the fastest. In this video, I show you how you can never outtrain a bad diet. If you refuse to pay attention to the quality of your nutrition and the foods you put in your mouth you are never going to have the low levels of body fat that you desire long term. Sure, anyone can follow a short term diet that allows them to lose fat for a few weeks however if you can’t keep it up then you will never be satisfied with your body fat levels over the course of the year. Mistakenly, people look to exercises as the best way to drop body fat. While you definitely need to train, achieving fat loss is and always will be better accomplished via the right nutrition plan. This goes back to the comment about never being able to outtrain a bad diet. You simply cannot make up enough calorie burn via exercise (even the most intense) to overcome bad food choices. For instance, our very own Jesse is a big sugar fanatic and a worshiper of gummy bears. Just 17 measly gummy bears has 150 calories. Even if Jesse were to do 10 minutes straight of high effort high intensity burpees, he would only burn 120 calories and he would lose that battle with a net calorie gain of 30. Now Jesse, being a hardgainer, is not concerned at the moment with his body fat levels. He was the only one wiling to do the burpees while I talked during the video being the good sport that he is. If you are looking to burn 5 lbs of fat however, you need to be sure that you are paying attention to what really matters. Your nutrition will always be at the top of the priority list for getting that job done. Now, does that mean that conditioning exercises like burpees, jump rope, battle ropes and split squat jumps don’t have a place in your workout program if you need to lose fat? Not at all. In fact, with a good nutrition approach in place these exercises become even more effective since they compliment the losses that you are already making because of your improved diet. Not just that, each of these exercises helps to improve your stamina, work capacity, endurance, power endurance and your heart. If you are looking for a way to improve your nutrition and get it locked in almost effortlessly 365 days a year, then head to http://athleanx.com and get one of the ATHLEAN-X Training Systems that best fits your goals. If pure fat loss is at the top of your list then you should opt for Max Shred. If, like Jesse, muscle gain is your priority but you don’t want to gain fat in the process then look for the Max Size program. If you are looking for more videos on how to eat to burn fat and the best fat burning workouts, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If I could give you one tip for your shoulder workout that would improve the results you see on every shoulder exercise you do, this would be it. I’m calling this one the shoulder workout “master tip” for good reason. In this video, you will see how you can instantly fix one thing about every shoulders exercise you do that will increase the results you see from doing the exercises. It starts with a quick test. Stand up and raise your arms out to your sides to shoulder level. When there, take a look at yourself in the mirror and see if you did what I am showing you not to do; shrug your shoulder. You can test by reaching across and grabbing the upper trap on the opposite side. Did you notice that it is very tense? If so, you likely used a great deal of upper trap activation to lift your arm and minimized the contribution of the deltoid. This is a big mistake if you are trying to get your delts to grow. The upper traps are overactive in virtually every single person, mostly because of the postures that we find ourselves in every single day. We are either sitting at a desk hunched over or texting on our phone, both of which tend to cause us to inadvertently shrug. The traps can get a bit tight and tend to jump into action every time we go to execute a chest exercise where we are pushing a lot of weight. We can’t allow this to happen. Not only is this not wanted but it is actually getting in the way of a complete and isolated contraction of the delts. For best results and strength of contraction in your delts you want to be able to get your shoulder girdle depressed not elevated. The lower traps are the primary muscles responsible for depressing the shoulder blades prior to executing reps on your shoulder exercises. When depressing your shoulders during a shoulder exercise you immediately feel the intensity of the contraction increase in your deltoids without the substitution that occurs commonly in the upper traps. This can be applied to every single shoulder exercise you do, which again is why this is called the master tip. Prior to performing a shoulder press for example, you want to depress the shoulders when in the 90 degree position at the start of the exercise and then proceed into the press. Doing this, you ensure that you aren’t cheating the weights up but using the contraction of the deltoids to drive the weights up. For even more of a contraction, think of pulling your biceps in towards your ears rather than just pressing the weights overhead. This should make the deltoids contract even harder and perhaps the hardest you’ve ever experienced in a shoulder exercise. The next exercise you can do this on is side delt raises. Before you fix this, you may want to actually just check your traps. Likely they are going to automatically shrug because of the overactivity. Correct it the same way by activating the lower traps and pulling your shoulders down. From here, reach your arm out and away from your body to lift the weight without letting the traps kick back in and shrug the weight up. You will actually be able to see the difference in the contraction if you try this with and without the attention of keeping the shoulders down. Finally, you can do this on the other shoulder raises as well. The rear delt raise and the front delt raises present the same challenge. Before simply lifting the weights up be sure to actively depress the shoudlers and then lift the weight. Remember in the case of the rear delt raise you aren’t pressing down towards the floor but back and down towards your butt because of the altered position of your body during the exercise. For more results

The best mobility and flexibility drills are those that take the least amount of time to perform and deliver the most bang for your buck when it comes to getting you ready for your next workout. In this video, I cover the 10 best mobility and flexibility drills that you can do prior to your workout as a quick 5 minute warmup that will get you ready to perform your best. The added benefit of the exercises and stretches shown in this routine is that they all flow in one sequence. You won’t need any equipment to do these and you will be able to do this anywhere. No need to spend long doing this either. The Matrix is meant to be completed in just minutes so that you can spend the rest of your time focusing on your training rather than turning your warmup into a workout in and of itself. To start this flowing mobility routine you perform the inchworm for 10 reps. The inchworm is a great drill for stretching out the entire posterior chain. Reach down for the floor and begin walking your hands out away from your feet until you get into a full pushup position. You aren’t just stretching your hamstrings and back (by trying to keep your knees pressed back) but you are working on your shoulder stabilization as well from the compression you get in your shoulders from the floor. Next, you get into the 90/90 position for your hips. This is a tremendous drill for hitting the internal and external rotators of the hips while getting the added benefit of a posterior shoulder capsule and lat stretch. You aim for 5 reps on each leg here before smoothly moving onto the next exercise in the flow, the rolling crucifix. This next mobility drill is great for working on the ability of your spine to assume proper mobility. Keep your hands high overhead so you can reinforce the thoracic extension in your mid back as you reach and rotate your trunk. You should feel rotation of the mid back as well and a release of the lumbar spine during every rep. From here you proceed into the reverse table position and continue working on improving your thoracic rotation and extension while getting the additional activation of your glutes. This overly dormant muscle group gets the benefit of being turned on and coordinates with an active stretch of the hip flexors on the other side of the joint during the press up portion of this exercise. You next assume the standing position and perform the 3 way lunge. The one two combination of having additional glute activation in multiple planes along with the stretch of the groin and adductor muscles is an incredible asset to this flowing matrix. The adductors tend to get very tight but are also often times ignored when it comes to getting your legs ready for training. The mobility drills and flexibility stretches continue and work on your shoulders, elbows, and ankles to finish out this 10 exercise routine. No stone is left unturned and all of this can be done in less than ten minutes. If you are looking for a way to get your body ready to train rather than using a warmup that winds up becoming a workout in and of itself, then you have found the solution in the Matrix. For workouts you can do after the matrix that will help you to build muscle and burn fat at the same time, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete today and see how workout efficiency does not have to equal workout inferiority. Get better results faster by using the same training methods, exercises and strategies used by top professional athletes. For more videos on shoulder mobility drills, hip mobility drills and exercises to in

Do you have what it takes to get a shredded set of 8 pack abs? Well, even if your enthusiasm is there I’m going to show you how to determine if you can get an 8 pack or whether your sights should be set on six pack abs or maybe even 4 pack abs instead. There is a quick test that I’m going to reveal in this video that you can do to determine the genetics of your anatomy and find out what your abs will look like if your body fat is low enough to see them. First thing is to assess your current level of body fat. If you are carrying a lot of body fat around your waist at the moment (not just a little bit that is hiding your abs) but enough that you would consider yourself too fat to see any ab definition at all then you probably won’t gain much from this test. If you are under 20-25 percent body fat this will work. To start, stand up and grab as much of the fat and skin that you can around the area of your belly button. Make sure to point your fingers inward when you do this. Once you’ve grabbed hold of this, pull it outward. Contract your muscles underneath your skin and fat and you will notice that they pull away from this tissue and make it easier for you to distinguish the pure muscle below. From here, use your pointed fingers to “strum” up and down on the rectus abdominus muscle below. Make sure your fingers are below your belly button when you are doing this. If you can feel a line at the level of the belly button then you can develop a solid six pack as the connective tissue band that runs from the linea alba is present and dividing your abs in such a way so that you can have six separate areas if the body fat is low enough. From here, move your fingers lower and see if you can strum or palpate another horizontal band of connective tissue. If you can, then you have the genetics capable of developing an 8 pack. Now, as I illustrate here, I do not have and cannot develop 8 pack abs. I simply do not have the genetics for them despite my very low levels of body fat. You may find this to be the case as well, but so what? Never let yourself be discouraged by meaningless tests like this since there are so many other things you can do to make whatever abs you do have look amazing. Firstly, you can work to develop your obliques. This will visually give you a tapered and framed out midsection making them instantly look better regardless of whether you have a 4 pack, 6 pack or 8 pack abs. The next thing you can do is make sure you add weighted ab work to your ab routines. As you hypertrophy your abdominal muscles they will stand out more and help to make the cuts become more visibly deep in the process. Finally, you can work on training the transverse abdominis muscle which will help to compress the connective tissue of the rectus which can improve the visibility of the abs anatomy that you do have. The bottom line is, we all have abs and can make them look better by training them the right way and by following a nutrition plan that enables you to keep them year round. The ATHLEAN-X Training Systems at http://athleanx.com can allow you to do just that. Start training like an athlete and start looking like one without compromising muscle growth or fat loss goals. You can do both at the same time and I’m going to show you how step by step. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24 if you want to get more ab workout videos and ab exercises you can do for six pack abs or even 8 pack abs if you’ve got the genetics for them.

If I could give you one tip for your chest workout that would improve the results you see on every chest exercise you do, this would be it. I’m calling this one the chest workout “master tip” for good reason. In this video, you will see how you can instantly fix one thing about every chest exercise you do that will increase the results you see from doing the exercises. It starts with a quick test. Stand up and raise your arm up over your head as far as you can. When there, take a look at yourself in the mirror and see if you did what I am showing you not to do; shrug your shoulder. You can test by pulling your arm downward without bending the elbow. If you see the space increase between your head and shoulder then you likely did what most people would when asked to lift their arm and used a great deal of upper trap to do this. The upper traps are overactive in virtually every single person, mostly because of the postures that we find ourselves in every single day. We are either sitting at a desk hunched over or texting on our phone, both of which tend to cause us to inadvertently shrug. The traps can get a bit tight and tend to jump into action every time we go to execute a chest exercise where we are pushing a lot of weight. We can’t allow this to happen. Not only is this not wanted but it is actually getting in the way of a complete chest contraction. For best results and strength of contraction in your chest you want to be able to get your shoulder girdle depressed not elevated. The lower traps are the primary muscles responsible for depressing the shoulder blades prior to executing reps on your chest exercises but your pecs assist. When depressing your shoulders during a chest exercise you immediately feel the intensity of the contraction increase in your chest. This can be applied to every single chest exercise you do, which again is why this is called the master tip. Prior to performing a bench press for example, you want to lay back on the bench and pull your shoulders down towards your feet. Think of it as trying to elongate your neck. While holding the shoulders down the whole time you begin pressing the weights. Feel the stronger contraction in your pecs and make sure to keep the traps from migrating up as you continue your set and fatigue. The next exercise you can do this on is pushups. Before you fix this, you may want to actually just check your traps. Likely they are going to automatically shrug because of the overactivity. Correct it the same way by activating the lower traps and pulling your shoulders down. From here, continue to do your pushups feeling the stronger contraction every rep. Finally, you can do this on the dip and the crossover as well. The dips present a special challenge just because it’s harder to control the tendency of the shoulders to shrug up due to the weight of your body that has to be lifted. Either way, the same tip applies and when you fix it, you will see much better results from every exercise in your chest workout. For more results from every workout you do, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and overlook nothing in your training. Take your gains to the next level. For more chest workout videos and exercises for a bigger chest, be sure to subscribe to my channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Do you have what it takes to get a shredded set of 8 pack abs? Well, even if your enthusiasm is there I’m going to show you how to determine if you can get an 8 pack or whether your sights should be set on six pack abs or maybe even 4 pack abs instead. There is a quick test that I’m going to reveal in this video that you can do to determine the genetics of your anatomy and find out what your abs will look like if your body fat is low enough to see them. First thing is to assess your current level of body fat. If you are carrying a lot of body fat around your waist at the moment (not just a little bit that is hiding your abs) but enough that you would consider yourself too fat to see any ab definition at all then you probably won’t gain much from this test. If you are under 20-25 percent body fat this will work. To start, stand up and grab as much of the fat and skin that you can around the area of your belly button. Make sure to point your fingers inward when you do this. Once you’ve grabbed hold of this, pull it outward. Contract your muscles underneath your skin and fat and you will notice that they pull away from this tissue and make it easier for you to distinguish the pure muscle below. From here, use your pointed fingers to “strum” up and down on the rectus abdominus muscle below. Make sure your fingers are below your belly button when you are doing this. If you can feel a line at the level of the belly button then you can develop a solid six pack as the connective tissue band that runs from the linea alba is present and dividing your abs in such a way so that you can have six separate areas if the body fat is low enough. From here, move your fingers lower and see if you can strum or palpate another horizontal band of connective tissue. If you can, then you have the genetics capable of developing an 8 pack. Now, as I illustrate here, I do not have and cannot develop 8 pack abs. I simply do not have the genetics for them despite my very low levels of body fat. You may find this to be the case as well, but so what? Never let yourself be discouraged by meaningless tests like this since there are so many other things you can do to make whatever abs you do have look amazing. Firstly, you can work to develop your obliques. This will visually give you a tapered and framed out midsection making them instantly look better regardless of whether you have a 4 pack, 6 pack or 8 pack abs. The next thing you can do is make sure you add weighted ab work to your ab routines. As you hypertrophy your abdominal muscles they will stand out more and help to make the cuts become more visibly deep in the process. Finally, you can work on training the transverse abdominis muscle which will help to compress the connective tissue of the rectus which can improve the visibility of the abs anatomy that you do have. The bottom line is, we all have abs and can make them look better by training them the right way and by following a nutrition plan that enables you to keep them year round. The ATHLEAN-X Training Systems at http://athleanx.com can allow you to do just that. Start training like an athlete and start looking like one without compromising muscle growth or fat loss goals. You can do both at the same time and I’m going to show you how step by step. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24 if you want to get more ab workout videos and ab exercises you can do for six pack abs or even 8 pack abs if you’ve got the genetics for them.