Exercise Spotlight: Reverse Curls

All you need for this exercise is either dumbells or a barbell (our example pictures are with a barbell). Or really any object that you can lift. Maybe your cats are the perfect weight to be your dumbbells! Just kidding (kinda, only if you’re gentle can you do that!). We’re all about doing a workout ANYWHERE so we encourage you to get (safely) creative. So, what exercise are we talking about today? Reverse curls.

What are reverse curls? Reverse curls and curls (lifting something toward you by extending your elbow), but flipped! What does that mean? Basically, instead of the soft (under) part of your arm facing you, your arms will be faced downward in their neutral position. To put it most simply: your palms are facing down instead of up. And then you latch those strong hands onto a weight and bend your elbow, bringing it toward your face/chin. You won’t be able to do as much weight this way, because it’s a bit harder on your muscles.

Jun132018

Full Body Bodybuilding Workout

Yesterday, we talked about one aspect of a lot of our recent life changes; we’ve been going to Fortune Gym for a few months. Hungry has been recovering from two (new) significant injuries over the past year: a torn quad/adductor in his right hip girdle and a torn soleus/gastroc in his left calf. Therapy has only yielded minimal results and rehab workouts have been hindered by a lack of consistency. Finally, after having some success, Hungry has decided to transition his full rehab training plan into one that is a bit more dynamic. While the full workout split hasn’t been completed yet, since today was only day three (started Monday), and it takes weeks/months to make sure a performance based program is created properly, Hungry was relatively happy with his full body bodybuilding session today, so he wanted to share it.

It is approximately 60 minutes long, with no warm up or cool down. Rest is minimal in between sets and it isn’t truly a bodybuilding workout. It is bodybuilding-inspired in the movements, but mainly focuses on accessory lifts to complement weightlifting exercises performed on Mondays and powerlifting exercises performed Friday. The sets and reps vary between 3 sets of 20 reps or 4 sets of 12-10-8-6 reps depending on the exercises. We’re still working out those details, but here are the exercises that were performed.

Feb232018

How to Keep Up Your Workout Routine When Traveling (MOTIVATION!)

This doesn’t include one of our notorious hotel workouts. This doesn’t have a ton of exercises and numbers. You won’t find any programming here: No sets, reps, rest, etc. This is strictly motivational and completely intended to help you remember that you can make up as many excuses as you want, but you can also take them away. It is all on you.

Dec202017

How Much Do You Bench?

Hungry talking here. We receive a lot of questions through our various platforms. While we’re most responsive to email and text/phone calls (as long as it isn’t blatant spam), we try to give as many personal responses to comments on the blog as well. Sometimes, Facebook Messenger, YouTube comments, Instagram direct messages, and Twitter whatever-they-haves (plus all of the other platforms… LinkedIn, etc.) are lost, and we apologize if you’ve never received a response.

Often, these questions are repetitive. That is, if you weren’t aware, one of the reasons that we created the blog. As we moved across the country, and left clients behind in the process, we decided to use the blog as a way to communicate with our former clients. When the blog picked up, and we started seeing tens of thousands of views in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, we decided to use the blog to provide free advice.

Dec192017

The Perfect Addition to Your Home Gym

New year, new you, right? Well, we’re not quite there, but two of the most challenging weeks of the year are separating you from 2018. Most people focus on their struggle with large family meals and tins full of cookies, but why bother stressing about that when you can focus on something else… something rewarding.

What’s this crazy rewarding thing we’re talking about? Well, it’s simple and it is all based on performance. Looking in the mirror feels good; we don’t disagree with you there, but nothing feels better than feeling better! Huh? When you’re physically capable of something, especially something you were never capable of doing before, you feel amazing.

Nov292017

Cardio and Core Workout: Get It!

Happy Workout Wednesday, everyone, and welcome to one of our favorite workouts! Everyone has a different approach to training, and it may take a trial with every single one of those to find out what works for you, but one popular tactic is taking care of two important aspects at once. Combining core and cardio can be effective, since they’re extremely important to overall health, but can be painstakingly boring. It’s like vacuuming and scooping litter at the same time, in a way.

Now, to be clear, core refers to exercises that will help strengthen muscles throughout your abdomen, on your front and back. That means, you’ll be working your abs, obliques, lower back, hips and even glutes since they all work closely with one another when you’re performing more complex, or demanding, exercises and activities. Cardio is a misunderstood and overused word that we’ll use today to refer to exercises that will help you elevate your heart rate significantly in an effort to either burn fat or increase your athletic performance by building endurance. I hope that explanation makes sense.

Nov252017

Advanced Boxing Tips

Jose James Hyland is an amateur boxer with a college degree, multiple certifications and years of experience as a personal trainer. He has worked with dozens of paraplegic and quadriplegic through the AXIS Project, helping them find their own form of fitness through boxing, with him as their coach. For those of you that aren’t working with a coach, but have practiced enough to no longer be considered a beginner, here are some more advanced tips to improve your technique. Essentially, if you’re just starting and don’t have the knack for boxing yet, you shouldn’t burden yourself with these more advanced ideas.

(Also, please remember that an amateur boxer has more experience than an expert. By that, I mean, an expert in the gym with no fight experience, hasn’t competed at the level of an amateur boxer. It takes a lot of time and effort to become an amateur. Unless you’ve been registered, fought in the ring with a referee, and even seen your face on an official poster for the card of a legitimate organization, you are not an amateur boxer.)

You can check out more tips from Jose at Flexing Fitness but until then, enjoy!

Nov082017

Why You Aren’t Getting a Six Pack!

Recently, someone in the gym asked us about an exercise we were performing, specifically inquiring if it was targeting our abs and then questioning how it differs from the abdominal crunch machine he was using. We explained that this particular variation of the abdominal crunch would activate more muscles in his core, since the weight could force his body left or right as well.

When he showed obvious frustration and explained how he’d been using the machine for years with no progress, we asked how he was using the machine, specifically referring to how many reps and sets he was doing. When he told us that he performed 30-40 reps per set, we asked him if he was happy with his upper arms. When he said that he was indeed happy with that body part, we asked him how he trained his arms, specifically referring to how many reps and sets he was doing. When he told us that he performed 8-12 reps per set, we presented the question: why are you training your abs differently?

Oct262017

What Men NEED to Wear!

Okay, okay… I know what you’re thinking. Men are (generally) far more comfortable in the gym than women, but we’re not talking about that. Ladies, imagine if we told you how important it is to wear a good sports bra during a workout. Wouldn’t you agree with us? Well, for men, it is equally important to make sure the body is kept under control during a hardcore training session. The sweat stinging your eyes and that burning feeling in your throat is distracting enough, right?

Personally, I used to wear your typical briefs growing up and back then they only had them in one color… white. While all the other boys started wearing boxers, I stayed true to my briefs since I was an athlete and was most comfortable in them. Can you even imagine boxers under baseball pants? Yikes! Then, I came across boxer briefs and my world was changed. If you look in my underwear drawer, you’ll only find boxer briefs and trunks, which we’ll say are just slightly shorter than boxer briefs.

Now, we’ve all seen compression shorts gaining popularity over the past decade through exposure on social media. Since everyone wants to be like they’re favorite athlete, they start by dressing like them, but compression shorts are not only very expensive, but also aren’t necessarily built to last very long. Professional athletes can afford them, but not all of us have those huge contracts. So, we look elsewhere and find boxer briefs that provide us with that compression. That way, we don’t have to worry about shopping for so many different items and packing one of each in our work or gym bags.