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Oh you still wanna talk about testimonials?

No one gets Personal Training Testimonials like this one.

No one ELSE anyway.


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3 PBs in 3 days!

Well, I've had a pretty good week so far!

Here's a video from today, setting a new personal best on One Arm Dumbbell Rows. 65kg, for 4 (and a half!) reps. You can see it's too heavy for me to control very much on the eccentric part of the exercise, but I'm was pretty damn pleased with this all the same.



Next up is a new 4 rep max on dumbbell press, 50kg each hand. Very happy with this!



Finally here is the big one... new deadlift PB from Monday. This is 165kg, close enough to double bodyweight. You can see it took me a couple of tries to get focussed enough, but I got there in the end!



Currently feeling VERY fired up about beating all of these in the weeks ahead!

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The "Strategic Gluttony" Diet.


Have you heard about this one? You probably haven't yet because I only just dreamed it up last night, but it's my very own gimmick diet program!

A little ironic considering I've called out, exposed, debunked and ridiculed pretty much every gimmick diet going around on my Lose Weight No Bullshit website already, right?

Here's the deal though. It's like I said in my post about marketing the other day... if you eat the right amount and train hard, you get results. All diets work by reducing calories below what is required to maintain weight... some do it in a drastic and unhealthy manner with extremely low calories, and others do it with a more sensible level of intake. The thing with the gimmick diets is that they try to act like there is something else going on... like they've put it together in some special way that means extra results. Well... if you aint eating the correct amount, none of that makes a difference. And if you are eating the right amount, you're going to get results anyway... at best maybe this gimmick diet is giving you a tiny little extra edge to what you would have been getting anyway.

So like I said the other day... outside of simply "hitting your macros" the value of any diet plan should be in terms of "this will make it easy and convenient, and you're sure to succeed", not whatever bro-science type claims they want to make.

As for my Strategic Gluttony idea though, it started as a bit of a laugh talking about pizza. Now, pretty much anyone I know who is successfully getting great results from training, without too much worrying or stress is doing this already anyway... and the other people who are NOT doing it should START doing it. Simply put, the happy and successful people are in the habit of eating about the right amount that their body needs to maintain their goal weight, fuel, adapt and recover from training, and get them through the day. Either they do this through intuition, or they've done the maths (or perhaps asked me to do it for them) and built a plan to meet their requirements that way. But all the same, they have no hesitation, second thoughts, guilt or regret about saying "to hell with it" once in a while and feasting on pizza, or ice cream, or whatever takes their fancy.

So we were talking about pizza and I made a little joke like "I think it is good for your mental health to enjoy gluttony just as much as training". And the more I thought about it... it seemed like a great idea. Fuck feeling guilty about eating for enjoyment... the very meaning of life is to enjoy things and food is no exception!

There's a strategic element too though. Making allowances for a weekly "cheat meal" is a great way to take the pressure and stress out of adhering to the plan. Although it stops being a "cheat" when you have planned for it, right? Also we all know that there is a favourable (leptin) response that occurs when consuming a larger amount of calories after restricting.

Aside from enjoyment and indulgence while still getting results, this is most importantly about mental health too. People need to eat in order to survive, they need to enjoy themselves and indulge once in a while too in order to be happy. There is absolutely no room for feelings of guilt to be associated with eating... but we do need a strategy to make this work in line with our fitness and body composition goals.

I put the idea out on tumblr and the response was so enthusiastic that I went ahead and started a new website, where I'll be writing it all up properly, soon. Check it out: Strategic Gluttony.

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You guys get that the free program is a screening process for potential clients, right?

It's interesting because I've had advice from some people telling me I shouldn't give so much away for free, and to be honest that's how I felt for a long time as well - if people want something they have to pay for it, it's valuable information and I have bills of my own that I need to pay. On the other hand I've had people tell me they've recommended my free program to people, who've told them "if it was any good it wouldn't be free" and gone off and wasted their money on some other crap like fkn Ashy Bines or something.

First up though let's talk about training in real life. Training with me is not cheap. I mean, for what you get I actually think it is incredibly good value... but it's a substantial investment. That's a screening process too because I'm charging for sessions with me, instructions via email for training on days without me, nutritional guidelines and me checking that you've been logging your meals... all that stuff. And you pay for the lot, by the month... so... this is exclusively for people who are serious about getting results, right? People who don't want to train often enough to get results, don't want to fix their nutrition, don't want to commit to the program... they're filtered out right away.

NOW Online PT is similar. You gotta be serious, you gotta listen to my advice, and do what it takes to get results. And it doesn't really require anything extravagant, difficult or unreasonable. Just eat the right amount, and hit the gym for an hour most days.

There's not much that's more rewarding to me than giving someone some advice or a program and having them come back a few weeks later reporting amazing results. Unfortunately though... a lot of people will need your advice, want your advice, ASK for your advice... but they're not really to TAKE or ACT on your advice. And that shit gets FRUSTRATING.

The program actually has a lot built in to try to combat this, to make people realise that there is no reason why they should not be successful, and to spell out in a very simple and straight forward manner how to ensure success. Do the maths to estimate your calorific requirements, and hit the gym with a full body resistance program, plus interval training once or twice a week. SIMPLE.

So the situation was... concerned with how many people were picking up & following bad advice from other sources, and as for being asked for advice myself... generally speaking, people from tumblr take it, act on it and get results, people from facebook take it, don't act on it, come back for more advice a month or two later, don't act on that either. In either case my advice is always the same, so why not just write it all up in one place and if it available to anyone who needs it?

So NOW, I get more messages along the lines of "hey I've been following your free program and I love it, it all makes such good sense and it's working out perfectly... where do I sign up for the Coaching Via Email program?" and when I get asked for advice from new people I can just tell them "everything you need to know is in the free program, study up on that". If they're ready for it... they'll go study up, start getting results on their own, and come back ready for the Online Personal Training program.
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I fkn hate marketing, man

I mean... I love training, being a trainer, coaching people via internet technologies, blogging, writing articles, inspiring, motivating and encouraging people. I love scam busting too. I even like coming up with different business systems and packages and pricing options and stuff like that.

Marketing though? I'm shit at it and I hate it.

My marketing such as it is is based on writing up a heap of quality free information, helping some people get results / overcome their problems, and eventually word gets out that you're the man to listen to if you want to know what's what. And the people you've helped appreciate you and want to support you.

It's a bit like my favourite bands. Sure, it's easy to illegally download the music... but screw that. I love these guys, I want to buy the extra expensive limited edition double CD, the tshirt, the dvd, concert tickets, you name it if it says "iron maiden" on it I'll probably go buy it.

So... that's why I'm not shy about putting out free programs like on my Lose Weight No Bullshit site. People love the results, appreciate it, tell their friends and ASK to sign up for the paid services. So that's what I do and it has taken a while but now there is momentum gathering like a snowball effect and word is out.

What you're supposed to do though? Like common practice marketing techniques? I just can't.

Advertising on facebook for example... you know those "sponsored posts" on your newsfeed? How annoying are those? Usually all the comments posted are complaints... so... it's one of those "annoy 10 people to attract 1 person" type strategies, I guess. Actually come to think of it... when I first got started I had a guy in a marketing advice / consultant type role who wanted me to put those annoying "give me your email address" pop up boxes all over my website. You know, you search for some info... click through to my page, read the first line and then BOOM there's a big popup over the top you need to deal with before you can read the article. Annoying as fuck, right? But I was told "if they're annoyed that's good, it means you have gotten their attention".

Fuck that shit though man. I just seems bass ackwards to me. Give 'em the info. If they want to sign up they will, surely?

That's like legit marketing though without even going into into the other side that the scammers use. The stolen progress photos, spam bots and so on. Also the "just take this pill and eat whatever you want" scumbags.

The other stuff I learned (but won't do) from marketing courses is this sort of "whatever people want, tell them that's what you do" type approach. My issue with this is that... every 6 months there's a new fad, right? Especially relating to nutrition there's a new fad every 6 months and at the moment it's "clean eating". Jump on facebook and look at some PT groups and everyone is pushing their own clean eating plan. The next one already starting to come in is "intermittent fasting"... now... trainers shouldn't be chasing around trying to keep up with trends and fads.

Every single trainer should be saying the same thing "eat the right amount, train hard, you'll see results". On top of that there's plenty of room to have your own approach and your own style of training. There's room for different approaches to nutrition planning as well, but it should be in terms of "you'll find this approach convenient and easy", rather than "these foods are bad" or perpetuating any other urban myths.

Still, as I've posted about recently... I believe that we are entering a period where more and more people are fed up with all the fads and scams, and are looking for real answers and real results through legitimate programs.

Anyway enough about marketing. What you should take from all this is that if you're looking for a legit program that's sure to deliver results with a Personal Trainer In Brunswick give me a shout.

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The 5 rules of weight loss.

You've seen all those links on the web, right? 5 rules, 5 things never to eat, 5 things never to do. Whatever.

I thought I'd run through a list of the most often cited myths pushed by people who should know better, and my response. Here we go!

  1. Don't eat carbs late at night.

    Actually it's 10pm here and I just had a bowl of weet bix + muesli.
  2. Don't eat grains, breads and cereals.

    Actually, I just had a bowl of weet bix + muesli.
    And I'll have french toast for breakfast.
  3. Don't eat carbs.

    Actually, I just had a bowl of weet bix + muesli.
    And I'll have french toast for breakfast.
  4. Limit fruit, because of the sugars, which are carbs.

    Actually I kinda lied above. The french toast is SECOND breakfast.
    First breakfast is a massive bowl of fruits.
  5. Only eat clean, the minute you touch processed foods it is all over.

    Yeah. See all of the above. Also I'm partial to those packaged indian style vegetable curries. Those are delish with a chickpea burger.
Actually there's big news today that they've now decided carbs are important after all, and low carb diets will shorten your life expectancy by 30%. It's just like I predicted, only I thought it would take another 5 or 10 years to happen. History repeats... first it was fats that were killing people, and then they decided fats were ok and carbs were bad. Then depending on who you talk to, they either softened on carbs except grains were bad, OR they got absolutely carb phobic and started telling people lettuce has too much sugar in it. I swear to god there are people out there telling each other carrots and lettuce have too much sugar. And a shitload say the same things about fruits. Morons.

People need to forget all this crap. Ignore it. People need a varied diet that includes carbs, protein, fats, fibre, vitamins and minerals. There was a few hundred thousand years of human evolution without trying to avoid one or the other, and obesity is only a recent problem. 

The right amount, not too much and not too little. That's the bottom line.

Did you guys see my Review of The Fast Diet, a few weeks back? I think it makes my views quite clear!
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Got me some new training shoes


Could they possibly be any more fabulous? I am thinking the red ones will go with my black training gear / "uniform" and the green ones with my grey gear. I think the blue ones will be for if I'm wearing jeans to the shops or something.

OH they're Dunlop Volleys btw which is an Australian brand, although apparently now made in China which is a bit of a bummer. I like them because they are SO low tech, which is really what you want for lifting shoes. Also they're so inexpensive you can buy 3 pairs at a time! Usually I like the high top version but I had a little trouble finding those.

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Push Ups At FitX

Smashing out some push ups in the contest at FitX.

   

This was bloody hard work! I'm not used to trying to race the clock, at all.

Always nice to be told "that's the best form I have seen all day", as well! Actually I heard that at the bench press contest as well. Shame I did not get footage of that.
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Should personal trainers recommend supplements?

Since I've been doing supplement reviews all week this is an appropriate entry.

I like to use training supplements myself, and I've been reviewing the samples I've been trying out this week...  but they should only be recommended to clients under certain conditions.

Protein Supplements.

First up, remember what the word "supplement" means. If you want results, you need the right training plan and the right nutrition plan. A protein supplement is a tool you can use to help hit your calorie and macronutrition targets a little easier, but it is really only useful under those circumstances. I've known some seriously overweight dudes who thought adding a protein shake would give them a muscular physique, when in actual fact all it would be doing is putting them further into calorific surplus, aka making them more fat.

Similarly a lot of women are told that adding a protein supplement will make them lose weight or body fat. That's not exactly true either. You achieve these goals through appropriate macronutrition (as well as training, of course), and supplementing can be a great way to ensure that you arrive at the desired balance of macronutrients. Just taking it outside of an appropriate nutrition plan is pointless though, in my opinion.

So, there's your best example. Pushing a protein supplement in the same way as any other "magical solution" is misleading and unethical. Recommending it as an option that may assist in meeting a client's macronutritional requirements would be completely fine though.

There's a post on the No Bullshit blog about how they market Protein Supplements For Women's Weightloss that expands further on what I've said here.

Fat Burning Supplements

These ones... geez I don't know man. If they come from a company that I consider reputable, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is a lot like I would tell people when I was running the supplement store at the old gym; at best they're going to give you that extra 1 or 2% of results IF your training and nutrition plan is SPOT ON. If you're not even following a nutrition plan at all, how incredible would it have to be to make up for that? Unlike most people trying to sell these products as if taking them means you don't have to pay attention to your nutrition, I'd put the signs up in the gym to create the opportunity to talk to people about getting on to a decent IIFYM plan for better results.

Branch Chain Amino Acids, Creatine etc

I like to sip on some BCAAs in water to keep my energy levels up during the latter 2/3s of my workouts. BCAAs are something you need for good health, and you get them from food if you have a balanced diet. A lot like taking a multivitamin supplement, at best your body is going to be able to use the extra nutrients, at worst you're going to piss it out and you've spent a few bucks for nothing. BCAAs are relatively inexpensive though, and recently there have been studies showing that their use is beneficial in treating children with autism, ADHD and behavioural problems. It seems to me that these are a pretty safe and perhaps logical supplement to recommend.

Pre-workouts, stimulants etc.

Stimulants are where I draw the line as far as stuff that I think is ok to recommend to people. That is to say, I use pre-workout supplements with stimulants myself... and they get me fired up and ready to do a good hard training session. Telling other people they NEED or SHOULD be taking these things though... it's a bit of a stretch. Of course, some of the pre-workout supplements are stim free, which probably puts them more in line with my thoughts on BCAAs above... which come to think of it, that's probably what they consist of anyway.

It's a bit of a strange thing that even I don't feel that recommending pre training stimulants is appropriate, but we do have energy drinks for sale in every convenience store. Then again, these supplements would be like chugging several of those energy drinks at once.

These ones I put in a category of "make up your own mind, just because I use them doesn't necessarily mean that you should".

Glucosamine.

Glucosamine is often recommended to keep joints healthy and help in managing arthritis. My friend Cat Smiley has done her own Research On Glucosamine and written it up on her blog.

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Thursday Supplement Roadtest

Here's today's stash.

I went with the Amino Energy again, this time before training. About 15 minutes later, I laced up my Dunlop Volleys and thought to myself "yeah, this is some good stuff! Let's GO DO IT".

I was nicely energised and raring to go. Once in the gym I felt very strong and was pushing pretty close to my best numbers in the POWER section of my routine... which was barbell incline press today.

I actually screwed up a little here and did 4 sets of standing cable flies when I should have moved straight on to side lateral raises. Sometime in the middle of all this I started sipping on my trusty green water bottle with the Build HD supplement mixed in. I moved on to the legs section of today's routine which was PUMP sets of hack squat and leg extension. I suck pretty badly at hack squat but I was pleased with the amount of reps I got out with a decent amount of weight on leg extension.

Back to upper body and since I'd already done cable flies earlier I decided to jump back on the pec dec machine and I did a few sets of ... sevens? or 21s? as a bit of a re-warm up / prefatigue before I moved on to some pump sets on the Hammerstrength flat bench press.

Finally I finished off with a massive pump / drop set on tricep push down.

Throughout the session I felt like I had a great pump going on, plenty of energy, and I did a LOT of stuff today, more than I'm supposed to. The change in weather certainly helped a lot but some credit has to go to the supplements for maintaining energy and focus for so long.

Once I got home it was the Horley's protein. I've had Horley's before and they make a damn fine chocolate shake.

That's all for today!
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Wednesday Supplement Roadtest

OK, I believe you should always admit when you've screwed up. The truth is... my eyesight is pretty damn terrible (keratoconus) and I struggle to read the directions on these sample packets. Therefore, I assumed the Amino Energy would suit my needs as my mid-workout supplement. Truth be told, taking this after already having taken the Pump Fuel about 1/2 an hour before training was overkill, big time!

Here's the story.

The Pump Fuel went down nicely. I was thinking I might stop in at Kmart over the road from gym before training, but by the time I got changed into my training gear, tied my shoe laces and combed my beard, forget it! I was in "I need to get to the gym, NOW" mode

Today was a Pull routine and a hard one at that. Deadlifts, upright rows, heavy shrugs, pull ups, face pulls, hamstring curls, reverse hypers, back extensions and bicep curls. LOTS of heavy pulling movements. Once I'd started on the Amino Energy, I noticed that I just was not getting tired. I was pulling some heavy weight up and down for reps, and not feeling like I needed much rest in between sets. Once I got to my pull ups I looked in the mirror and noticed what a great pump I had going on all over, not just in the back muscles that I was actually targeting. Also my vascularity was even more pronounced than usual.

So. Seemingly limitless energy, muscle fullness, vascularity... everything you're looking for from these types of supplements. The only problem is... who knows which one of them should get the credit? I have more of this stuff so I'll give it another run and see!

Oh and the Platinum Hydro Builder protein! Very nice. Tasted like dark chocolate to me. Would recommend!
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Tuesday Supplement Review

Today I decided to go with the Gaspari Myofusion & Superpump Max samples, as well as Blox Amino Acids. My pre workout shake was International Protein Banana Flavour, blended with an actual banana and a couple of strawberries. It hit the spot!

Before I continue let me take a moment to complain about the weather again. It is DISGUSTINGLY HOT. And summer is supposed to be OVER dammit. So... the heat is exhausting and oppressive, how is a man supposed to get motivated to go train under these horrendous conditions? Well that's where the pre-workout supplements come into it.

If you read about Superpump Max on the Gaspari Nutrition website you'll see that they have gone against the trend of many other pre-workouts, by using less stimulants and more useful nutrients and amino acids. So, again this is not a pre-workout that sends you nuts with the high intensity of more concentrated stimulants... but I still found that I perked right up and felt ready to get in there and train hard and heavy.

Now... today was my heavy barbell lunge day and in this heat that was really all it took for me to feel like I'd blown out all of my energy for the day. I hit some calf raises as well and then took a sip of the Blox in cold water as I went to hit the PUMP section of my routine for upper body. I really felt like it made a difference right away and I definitely felt like if not for taking the amino acids mid (actually about 1/3 of the way though) workout I would not have lasted to the end of the session under these conditions.

Finally I smashed the Myofusion after training and DAMN. This has got to be the best tasting protein supplement on the market. Absolutely delicious. They have added a pro-biotic to this one as well, which seems like a really good idea to me.

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Monday Supplement Roadtest

Day two of roadtesting all the free samples I picked up at Fitx, and also day two on my Power, Precision and Pump routine.

Today I hit up all of these goodies from Bioflex Nutrition, an Australian company I actually have not tried before. So... first up was the Hydroflex Protein. Since it is disgustingly hot here I blended this up in milk with some ice + one frozen banana. It went down nicely! There's not really much more to be said about a protein supplement is there? If you want the specifics you can check it out on the Bioflex Website.

Next up was Biocharge, the pre-workout supplement. This did the job nicely. It took a little bit of shaking to get it dissolved in my ice cold water, but it went down nicely and there are no complaints about the taste. Some pre-workout supplements can be pretty intense, bordering on scary if you're not used to them. This one I found was quite mild. It did get me fired up and enthusiastic, but not with that crazy level of intensity of some other supplements. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you.

Now, once I started training, that's when I new this was a good supplement. I felt strong and powerful. My POWER move on today's card was One Arm Dumbbell Rows, and I worked my way up to 60kg for 5 reps. For an 83kg guy, that was pretty good!

Finally the Recover X supplement, intended as a post-workout supplement but I took mine about 1/3 of the way through training as is my wont. I wasn't nuts about the orange flavour, but it was ok. That's a minor complaint at worst. This is one of the hardest days on my routine, it is a ridiculously hot day, and for some reason I decided to do lots of isolateral stuff. One arm dumbbell rows, rear delt laying lateral raises, glute isolation machine... it seemed like I was in the gym for a LONG time working very hard indeed. I got through everything though and was pretty happy with all of my numbers from start to finish. The supplement has to have played a part in that.

ALSO after training I hit up some International Protein Cookies & Cream flavour. Delicious!


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Sunday Supplement Roadtest

As promised, here is the first Supplement Roadtest Report, testing out all the free samples I picked up at FitX over the weekend.

Raw Fusion Vegan Protein Powder

I took this as my pre-workout shake today. Now, usually my pre-workout shake is vanilla whey concentrate, blended in milk with a frozen banana. Blending a Vegan powder in with milk seemed silly so today I used iced water instead, as well as the banana as usual. The results were good! I actually used two serves of the powder, creating rather a massive shake. I wouldn't say it was amongst the best tasting protein supplements I've tried, but it was certainly not unpleasant either. It went down nicely, didn't feel gritty like other vegan protein supplements I have tried, and I didn't feel like I needed to wait as long as usual afterwards before taking my pre-workout supplement and then hitting the gym.

So, for any vegan or lactose intolerant people, I would have no hesitation in recommending this product.

Click this link for more info on this Vegan Protein Supplement on their official website.

Next up was Cellucor C4 Extreme.

Oh wow. I took the sample of this in a nice ice cold cup of water and the taste was good. Gave it a little while to start kicking in, and then headed off to the gym. It's only a short drive and I had some cool heavy metal (Blaze Bayley) on in the car... by the time I got to gym I was in an awesome mood... smiling at people, whistling, not even complaining about the horrible heat and humidity... fired up and raring to go!

And I tell you what boys and girls... once I started I was full of energy, strength and power. Didn't quite break any of my personal best numbers, but I came pretty damn close. And the harder I worked, the better my mood got.

I'll definitely purchase this great supplement in the near future when I run out of what I've got now.

More information the Cellucor C4 Extreme Pre-workout supplement courtesy of AAA Supplements. Gee I hope I am remembering who gave me what correctly!

Next up was Ultimate Nutrition BCAA 12000.

I like to start sipping on some Branch Chain Amino Acids from about 1/3 of the way through my training session, and I feel like it keeps me going when I've already burned up a huge amount of my energy reserves on my first POWER & PRECISION exercises. This stuff did the job nicely today, and tasted good as well!

More info on Ultimate Nutrition BCAA 12000, again courtesy of AAA Supplements.

Finally after training, the brand new Ready To Grow from International Protein.

What can I say really? I had this chilled in the fridge, and it was DELICIOUS.

International Protein is a great Aussie company and you should support them and enjoy the benefits of their great products.

That's it for today but I have LOTS more stuff to review in the days ahead.

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Had a good time at FitX this weekend

I braved the crowds and the HEAT and headed out Friday evening and Saturday day time to the FitX Sport And Fitness Expo in Melbourne.

It was a top event. Firstly the Exhibition Centre has very good air conditioning so that was a good start!

My haul of free samples I'll be reviewing this week!
We caught a bit of the qualifying for various categories in figure, physique and body building competition,
watched a decent amount of the strong man contest, cheerleading demonstration, and a little of the boxing and kickboxing. Also I went in the bench press and push up contests... didn't win but did some respectable numbers! Bumped into a few people I know and hadn't seen for a while as well, so that was nice.

Mostly though I picked up a huge stash of supplement samples, including proteins, pre-workouts, intra workouts and post workout recovery supplements. So in the week ahead I'll be roadtesting all of these and I'll post my reports right here.


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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day One

OK, back to the start again!

I've been posting videos most days for the past week or so, with a run through of what I did each day. Also every day I point out that the videos are kind of crap and there'll be some better ones coming before too long.

Today was back to Day 1 which is a big PUSH day.

Supposedly POWER day for horizontal pushing... but I dunno if it was the heat (we are in the middle of a record breaking heat wave down here at the moment and I am finding it hard to function) or what, but I couldn't seem to muster much power today. So after four sets instead of going heavier as planned I decided to go lighter and get a decent amount of reps out instead.

I dunno why my legs look so skinny in this video either! Here it is:



After the POWER horizontal pushing section we move on to a Precision move, in this case Hyght Flies. These are quite unpleasant but I find they force a really hard contraction in my pecs, which is where I want it.

Next up, PUMP stuff for lower body. I considered doing some supersets here but then I decided that was a bloody stupid idea in this heat, so it was Leg Extensions followed by Hack Squat. Hard work at the best of times!

Finally I always finish this routine with prefatigue supersets of Dumbbell Lateral Raises into Machine Shoulder Press.

Really a hellacious day, and tomorrow I get to do it all again in the opposite direction for Pull day!
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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day 8

I missed a few days of training reports & videos, but I'll catch up on those in the week coming. Again in case you missed it in earlier entries, the videos are crap but we have plans of doing some better ones soon. This is just me leaning my phone against something while I'm training, and hoping for the best.

So Day 8 on my program is PULL day and also double duty for legs!



I started out with deadlifts. I'm just easing back into these after some time off them and to be honest I'm not that impressed with my form on this video. I'll work on that next time and do a better job, and hopefully pull some better numbers too. I followed these with some Reverse Hyper Extensions which I'm in love with lately, before moving on to my upper body section.

First up here was High Row machine. On my card this is a "high to low" pulling movement, opposite to Incline Press which I did at this point yesterday. You see how it works? The video shows my last set on this exercise, not so heavy, lots of reps.... pulling back hard and fast.

Next up I decided to try some pull ups for something different, instead of latt pulldown which I do more often. Pull ups usually aggravate some problems with my forearm tendons but I figured I might get away with a neutral grip. I figured correct, but only 8 reps at a time? That's crap, I'll have to improve on that.

Finally some straight arm pull downs. I mix these up as I see fit on the day... sometimes with a rope, sometimes a little wider like this. Once again I watch the video and think to myself "wow that's a bit fast isn't it?"

To finish up it was back to hamstring and hip extension type movements, and for something different I decided to superset Reverse Hyper Extensions with Glue Isolation machine. It was quite horrible, I liked it!

That was it for Day 8! Tomorrow, back to Day 1!
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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day 5

OK here we go with day five, push day.

First off in case anyone missed it in the previous entries, I'm well aware that these videos are crappy as hell! I'm just leaning my phone up against stuff and hoping it is pointed in more or less the right direction. We ARE going to do a proper video soon though.

Anyway day five is a lot like day one, except we start with the vertical pushing movements and accessory exercises. Except for me, my "vertical" movement is more like a incline press. A little steeper than usual for an incline press... sort of half way in between. This program is designed to be customisable to each person's individual requirements, and this suits mine. On day one I do a stricter vertical push as you'll see four days from now.

So... watch the video and you'll see my "almost vertical" press from various angles... the first angle being not particularly dignified. I worked up to 40kg dumbbells in each hand for 6 reps here, which I was quite pleased with. I throw in some Dumbbell Flies after this just for good measure (that's not on most people's cards) and then move on to Side Lateral Raises.



Take a good look at my Side Lateral Raises for two reasons. One, the video is crappy as hell, and two this is how I want you to do them if you're on my program. Start out standing at attention, then rotate your shoulders in slightly. Now lift out to the side keeping your arms straight (but not locked out at the elbows), a little pause at the top, and lower down sloooowly. You'll see people do these a million different ways but in my opinion this is the best way to isolate those middle deltoid muscles. At the top of the movement, imagine you're pouring water out of a jug or something... that's the position your arms should be in. Pinky finger higher than thumb, you dig?

Next up is LEGS and today I supersetted some 45 Degree Leg Press with V Squat Machine. It was horrible. 240kg leg press in this video though. I was pretty happy with that.

Finally you have me doing some Cable Flies. A lot like the Dumbbell Flies earlier (and the Pec Dec the other day), I am trying to keep my shoulders back, squeeze those pectoral muscles, control the weight on the way back to the starting position and release the contraction slooowly. Sorry the camera positioning was a bit crap on this one. More so than usual.

I finished up with some flat Barbell Press (aka horizontal pushing), but I was knackered so that shit was NOT worth recording! Great session all up though!

Now, the drive home on the other hand... that's a different story!


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DHPT Power Precision & Pump Day 4

Yesterday I spontaneously decided to record some of my training and post it up here, and then today... about half way through training, mind you... I decided I should do that every day until there's a video and a post for each day on my 8 day split. Yeah, 8 day split. You heard me.

This is my Day Four of my Power, Precision & Pump Program, and it's a PULL day. 

POWER movement is DEADLIFTS. I did an OK job of these and worked up to 140kg for 3 reps which was quite satisfactory after having a couple of weeks off deadlifting with some tenderness in the lower back. Also I did some Reverse Hyper Extensions after this, just to stretch out a bit.

Now... today's a bit of a weird day on my card because I have a few movements where I'm focussed on going as heavy as I can aka POWER mode. Of course you always want to go as heavy as you can, but usually there's only one POWER movement and then some stuff that's more about doing more reps, more precise techniques and so on.

Anyway. After Deadlifts and Reverse Hyper Extension I did a little warm up for upper body and then went into Upright Rows. I recorded a set, watched it back, and noticed that I wasn't terribly happy with my technique. In the first set on this video you can see my elbows coming backwards a bit... which I don't want. This is one of the few exercises where I want to rotate my shoulders forward a bit, rather than pulling them back. I'm happier with my form on the second set in this video. Oh also with these pulling movements, we do want to pull nice and fast to really activate those back muscles (trapezius in this case)... so, this tempo is fine IMO even though it looks kinda fast and uncontrolled on the video.




Next up is shrugs on the Hammerstrength Machine. I love this machine cos I can pile a lot of weights on to it (140kg today) and it makes me feel like a big strong man! You can see in these videos I'm trying to keep my shoulders back, chest up, and squeeeze up nice and high. You'll see a lot of people doing more of a rotating type of shrug, but IMO that's no good. We're trying to work our traps here, and they're on your back. Pulling your shoulders back from the start of the exercise pre-engages the targeted muscle group and makes sure you get a strong muscle contraction.

All of this is moot if you're a woman though because I'll probably swap this exercise out and give you an Assisted Pull Up instead.

Next up in the video is Face Pulls which is one of my favourite exercises these days. In this one I'm really trying to hit the rear deltoid muscle which is at the rear of the shoulder. This is a precision movement and I'm focussing on keeping my wrists, elbows and shoulders even. There's a tendency with these to rotate from the shoulder and end up with your forearms more vertical.... that's not what I want though.

Finally some Hamstring Curls to finish off, and then I did more Reverse Hyper Extensions. I'm a bit embarrassed to include these Hamstring Curls in the video... they are WAY too fast and I'm not resisting / controlling the weight enough on the way down. This is why it is good to take videos once in a while if you train on your own and don't have a trainer or a lifting partner, you can spot any little mistakes than you'll know to keep in mind next time.
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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Training Videos

We're going to do a proper training video soon, where my friend & photographer will bring a good camera and I talk and stuff as well as showing how I train. These ones are just me leaning my crappy phone against a wall, pointing it in the general direction of where I'm training and then hoping for the best! Just for a bit of fun really.

Let's run through today's session.

It was PUSH day, one of the big legs days on my card. I started off with some hack squats to warm up, just using the machine with no extra weights on it. Then into my POWER movement of the day, which was barbell lunges. I recorded my final, heaviest set which was 80kg for 6 reps. I feel like I can probably go a bit heavier next week.



Next up and not shown in the video was some Standing Calf Raises.

Moving on to upper body, first off a little warm up on the Pec Dec before moving on to some PUMP stuff. Watching this back I feel I could have gone a bit slower on this... my focus here was on keep my chest up and my shoulders pulled back to really activate the pectoral muscles. You see a lot of people leaning into this one, with shoulders pulled forward and I just don't think that's a very efficient technique. Lighter weight here, and lots of reps, stretching out at the end of the movement, and then squeezing in again.

Now PUMP movement for upper body. Decline Press. Again, it always seems a lot slower when I'm doing it than it looks when I watch the video later! On this one though we're using a lighter weight (relatively speaking) than we would in POWER mode, so we can really focus on technique and tempo. Again shoulders are pulled back to activate more pectorals, and on the downward part of the movement I want that bar coming down SLOOOOOWLY like you're a bit afraid of it or something. And then an explosive movement to push it back up again. You can hopefully see that even at the top of the movement my elbows are not locked out and my shoulders are still retracted. The last few reps start to speed up cos I was feeling the fatigue and wanted to make sure I got a few 12 reps. This was also 80kg!

Not shown in the video, I hit some cable flies and machine lateral raises next before heading back to the leg room for something horrible in the form of a Hack Squat & Leg Extension Superset. Straight from one to the other with no rest, just trying to squeeze every ounce of energy out of those quadriceps and get them pumped up full of blood and nutrients. In those Hack Squats I'm focussed on getting as low as possible, and on keeping my butt and lower back against the pad. There can be a tendency to roll the hips underneath at the bottom of the movement, and that's not good. Again, we're using a relatively lighter weight on these PUMP rep ranges so really lock in some solid and safe technique.

And that was it for today! Thank goodness the weather is a lot more mild today, so I didn't end up as much of a disgusting, sweaty stinking mess as usual the past few weeks!

There are also some Power, Precision & Pump Resistance Training Videos from last week, in case you missed those.
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