Grip Strength Workout

Whether you’re having a hard time opening a jar of pickles or can’t lockout that 600+ lb deadlift, your grip is an essential component to your overall strength. Instead of buying a pair of straps or the most technologically advanced chalk, the best practice is to develop a grip that can crush apples and tear phone books. These exercises will help you develop stronger hands and have a direct practical application to competitions such as powerlifting and strongman since you’re simulating the same technique. Even if you’re a martial artist who grapples or throws, being able to hold onto a gi is key and no matter what your goal, this routine will push your mind (and forearms) to the limit every set.

It’s important to note that in between every set, I will stretch the muscles that are being contracted for such a long amount of time. For example, I might use a thick rubber band (like the one from broccoli at the grocery) to expand my hands so they and my forearms are not in a state of constant flexion. I train many lab workers, nurses, and bakers who have developed the equivalent of a shin splint in their forearms because they’ve created such an extreme muscular imbalance. We want to avoid that in our effort to strengthen our grip. We don’t want to cause injury when trying to squeeze that level 3 Captain of Crush.

(I will mention that you’ll notice Captain of Crush work is not included in this workout. I generally superset every exercise in my bodybuilding upper day with my CoC so I avoid using them in this workout.)

Feb252016

Why Women Should Lift

As you may know, we here at Hungry & Fit are strong proponents of lifting to get in shape and build confidence. Women especially lack the desire or knowledge to lift. We want to be a part of the movement to change that! We’ve partnered with our friends at TrainedTo to show you this epic infographic of WHY women should lift! Can I get hoo-rah?! Lift to stay hungry and fit!

Source: Why Women Should Lift Weights – 5 Myths Busted

Nov062015

30-Day Yoga Program

Last week, I told you guys that I need to learn how to stretch again. I’m here to report I’m doing a fairly good job! What’s one of the best ways to stretch? Yoga! I wanted to restart my stiff, non-flexible body so that I could feel limber again and be able to touch my toes. I found that I had really isolated a big part of my physical health: my flexibility. These 30 (hopefully) consecutive days of yoga will open up my hips, my hamstrings, and overall help my flexibility. I learned the hard way that you can’t ignore one part of your fitness; each part of our physical health is important. If you ignore one part, something bad is going to creep up on you. I am happy and look forward to my yoga each day. But how did I pick one?

Nov042015

Join a Society of Strength

This is a post that I recently wrote for Society of Strength, a new organization trying to bring all strength sports together in one supportive group. The article is called “Defining Strength” and while you might read the post here, please visit Society of Strength after and look around! You never know what you might learn! Often I have seen individuals fall in love with powerlifting, strongman, Crossfit, and more. What’s even better is that more often that not, those individuals are not athletes but just average people who love the cooperative nature of those sports, as opposed to bodybuilding or some other disciplines that can be very lonely. Either way, your experience is what you make it! Read this and you’re already going to be one step closer to being hungry and fit!

Jun252015

Limiting Factors: The Keys to Your Success

In this video, Hungry introduces a concept that has helped him reach high levels of competition and build stronger professional and collegiate athletes. If you ever train with him, you’ll surely hear “limiting factors” be thrown around often, instead of strengths and weaknesses. It’s the key to his strategy to help not only performance athletes, but also the average Jack and Jill. Find out what is preventing you from reaching your goals, target them, and improve drastically.

Apr292015

The Truth About Women’s Weightlifting

When I train females, I always hear about their fear of getting “bulky.” It’s a real concern of a lot of women and I want to tell them to stop. Lifting weights and getting muscles doesn’t make you bulky–it makes you strong and it gives you definition. For too long, the fear of “getting bulky” has stopped women from lifting weights, leading them to only do cardio. There is nothing more empowering than lifting weights and feeling strong. Here I go with another infographic from ChuzeFitness.

So I want to ask the female audience a question.

*If you do lift, why do you lift?

*If you don’t lift, why don’t you?

And as always, stay hungry and fit!

Apr162015

Beware the Text Neck

On Saturday, April 4th, the LA Times came out with an article called “Head’s up on ‘text neck'” in their awesome Saturday Mind & Body section. I believe this is one of many articles, studies and research journals that are to come in the future. Why are they coming our way? Because of our current lifestyle habits regarding electronics. It’s frightening to think how quickly cell phones, tablets, and such invaded our lives and started messing with our posture and behavior. It’s also frightening how much this behavior can severely damage our bodies–especially our spines.

Talk about bad posture

Dec172014

Hungry Meets TRX

It might seem weird that after all these years in competitive sports and then the fitness industry, I haven’t really come across TRX before. None of my coaches, trainers, or sports medicine staff ever had me use it for my sports performance and I never felt the need to take a class or take a course to be an instructor. Well, that changed when we moved to LA and I found myself working at a new fitness facility where all three of the personal training staff were also TRX instructors. After some pressure was applied by my boss, I said… what the heck, why not?

In TRX, you don’t get certified; instead, you obtain qualifications for every course you take. With one TRX qualification, you are considered an Equipped TRX Instructor. (That’s me.) With three or more, you are Advanced and so forth. The system is based on the number of qualifications you have and the points that each is worth (Level 1s are worth 8000, Level 2s are worth 16000). The tiers also are color coded, like belts in Martial Arts.

All of this information is on the TRX database on their website, www.trxtraining.com. It’s a great system and free as a resource. If you want to pay a little bit every month, you can be a member of TRX Core, which gives you access to every TRX resource online, including a library of workouts, live chats with Master level trainers and Gurus, etc.

Fitness training courses

As for the qualifications, I took the Group Suspension Training Course, an introductory course to teach group exercise classes. Now, I’m signed up for their RIP trainer course and their level 2 TRX TEAM. It’s something different and it’s effective. It’s more challenging than elite athletes think and less challenging than health-seekers feel it might be. They find the straps intimidating but it can be scaled to hit any fitness level.

I would recommend beginners and people recovering from injuries do a few TRX personal training sessions before jumping into a group class, but since you’re on your own straps, you can go on your own pace. If your instructor is pushy and tries to make you go at the class pace when you shouldn’t, get a new instructor. Once you grasp the fundamentals and trust the straps, it’s fun. And while you should still be doing strength training to get stronger or practicing your sport to increase your skill, this is a great addition to any exercise regiment. It keeps you humble, builds balance, increases stability, and eventually mobility.

It has a lot of benefits, just be mindful of your knees and shoulders. Make sure you warm up properly, even before your instructor starts class. And make sure you change your grips so that you aren’t constantly squeezing the handles like you’re going to fall off a cliff. You don’t want to stress those forearm muscles.

Image source

Stay in touch, I’ll keep you updated as I teach more classes and get a few more qualifications under my belt. Still, feel free to ask any questions about TRX and I’ll let you know if you should give it a shot! And as always, stay hungry and fit!

BONUS PUPPY PIC

Little wet face

Nov212014

Don’t Lift Those Heavy Weights!

Last night while getting back into squatting regularly, someone else was making some serious mistakes in their form and training program. I was concerned for their health and said something to their friend, hoping he could convince him to clean up his act for his own good. Then, the friend asked me about his own issue relating to some pain in his shoulders when he is doing what his demonstration seemed like dual bent over posterior deltoid flyes with 35 lb dumbbells.

This all leads to my point, to stop lifting heavy weights… if you’re not ready for it. I know you want to get big and strong fast, but this process is a progression that needs to be taken slowly. The muscles in your chest are large and can handle a significant amount of weight, but with poor form (or even with proper form) your shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints might not be conditioned to do the same. It will take correct technique and a significant amount of training to make sure your stabilizing muscles that protect your joints are prepared for a larger load.

Here are five tips to protect yourself and maximize your effort!

1. Warmup! It’s important to perform warm up exercises to loosen muscles fibers that are shorter, tighter, and colder from inactivity. Some internal and externals rotations can really help maximize your bench results without fatiguing your shoulders for the lift.

2. Set a rep range and stick to it. If you’re going for five reps of 135 lbs on the bench press, you’re doing that for a reason. Make sure you can perform all of those repetitions almost perfectly before considering doing five reps of any more weight in the same exercise.

3. Use assistance when necessary. I’m not telling you to let your spotter row the weight from your chest, but protect your joints when performing heavier weights or higher repetition ranges. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of using belts, straps, and wraps often (because I want to strengthen my core and stabilizer muscles), but it’s important to protect your body!

4. Rest! Someone at my facility benches and curls weights every single day of the week. When you isolate a body part and damage muscle fibers to the point that they need to be repaired, you actually have to let them repair before you hit that muscle group hard again! Don’t waste your progress by being reckless.

5. Do it properly! When you walk in the gym, leave your ego at the door. No one is going to be impressed by your 1/3 squats with two plates on each side. Well, no one who knows what they’re talking about. Ask for advice, learn proper form, use a coach, and make sure you are getting the most out of the exercises without risking getting injured.

So there you have it. Be smart. Condition your joints and strengthen your stabilizer muscles. Everyone complains about elbow pain after doing chest and triceps with flared elbows and heavy skull crushers. Everyone complains about their lower back hurting when they deadlift and squat. Avoid being sidelined and train smarter! And as always, stay hungry and fit!

Sep102014

Bring the Sexy to Your Back Workout

From one person to the next, people want nice backs. Whether you’re male or female, a sexy, strong back is desirable. It’s not hard to get there! All it takes is time, effort, and perseverance. For more than cosmetic purposes, having a strong back is incredibly useful in everyday life. We will outline a great back workout in a gym to get you that back you’ve been wanting. Please ask questions below if you are unsure about a particular exercise. We enjoy this workout because it hits all parts of our back. We also enjoy it because we did this workout together! Find a workout buddy–it keeps up the level of fun and motivation!

Quick Workout Summary

Seated cable rows
Lat pull downs
Pull-ups
T-bar rows
Straight-arm pull down
1-arm row
Rack pulls
Back extensions

1. Seated cable rows. The reps and sets all depend on what you’re going for. I usually do 4 sets of 1-5 reps for strength. If you’re going for muscular endurance, try 12+ reps. This applies for the rest of the workout. Make sure to isolate your back, and just pull with your arms.

2. Lat pull downs. Make sure you’re not using your whole body to pull it down, but instead using your arms to once more isolate your back. And don’t pull it behind your head!

3. Pull-ups or assisted pull-ups. Make sure you go through these with every last bit of juice in you. These are pull-ups, not chin-ups. What’s the difference? Pull-ups have your knuckles facing you, chin-ups having them facing away from you.

4. T-bar rows. Not every gym has this, so we are lucky to be able to use it. It’s a lot of fun! Make sure your body is tight and strong as you row it towards yourself. If you don’t have a T-bar, try using a regular old barbell.

5. Straight-arm pull down. Make sure your arms are straight on this one and you use your back rather than your triceps.

6. 1-arm row. Try to lean against something to give yourself more of a challenge and a way to stabilize your other muscles. Go hard!

7. Rack pulls. For this one–first off–you need to be making a cute face like Hungry is making. Second, make sure the bar in the squat rack is in the right location so that you can do a small pull and then release it slowly back to the bar. It should make some noise and it should be heavy because this is a small movement.

Rack pulls

8. Back extensions. We always like to finish off with back extensions to work our lower back as well as everything else. You can do this with or without weight and make sure you are contracting the proper muscles.

And THAT will bring sexy to your back! This was a really fun workout and it’s even more fun if you get into it and work hard. Get a great playlist ready for yourself and kill it! Each exercise is important in a certain way. It’s important to keep form at tip-top shape and keep isolating your muscles for an effective workout. Remember, we are always here for advice or questions! If you have a question, please comment below! Use this workout to stay hungry and fit!

BONUS PUPPY PIC