The Most Anabolic Foods Known to Man
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
By Terry Grant
“Every major food company now has an organic division. There’s more capital going into organic agriculture than ever before.” – Michael Pollan
Living a successful life and building the physique of your dreams, all comes down to choices.
And your local supermarket has a TON of foods for you to choose from.
Unfortunately, what is stocked on most of the shelves are crappy, processed foods that are manufactured in a lab somewhere. If you’re smart you’ll avoid 95% of anything that comes in a bag, box or can.
The late Jack Lalanne wisely reminded us that “If man made it, don’t eat it.”
As for the small percentage of foods you may get in such packaging… the fewer ingredients on the label the better! You do read the labels, right?
Today I want to eliminate some of the confusion by covering some of the most anabolic foods you can select. I should also mention that you should choose organic 100% of the time if it is available and you can afford to do so.
Don’t be like most people who buy the cheapest food they can find. This isn’t a commodity item… we’re talking about making an investment in your health and future life experience.
What you spend now could possibly save you thousands of dollars later on in pharmaceuticals and hospital bills… not to mention unnecessary suffering! (more…)
Tags: Anabolic Cookbook, anabolic foods, bodybuilding nutrition, Dave Ruel, muscle building foods
Posted in Ectomorph, Fat Loss, hardgainer, Muscle Building, quality nutrition | 4 Comments »
The Foundation of a Mass Building Workout Routine Part III
Monday, June 13th, 2011
By Brandon Cook
“If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.”–Herschel Walker
“The mistake most trainees make is that they try to move too quickly for complex movements before getting the form down. But greatness resides in those who have the patience to master the patterns first, then add complexity later.” –Dan John
In Part I we learned that Squats and Deadlifts should be the cornerstone of your workout routine because they are two of the most effective exercises for building muscle mass known to man. We covered 9 tips to help you prepare your body to perform these exercises and greatly reduce any risk of injury.
In Part II we learned the importance of having a healthy level of respect for the iron and thus a strong focus on lifting with proper form and technique. I also revealed three different progressions for safely working up to a top end lift.
In this final installment, I plan to cover several variations of the squat and deadlift that you can pick and choose to use in your training programs. These variations offer many benefits:
- Allow you to learn proper form and technique
- Work your way into more advanced variations of the lifts
- Prevent muscle imbalances and overuse injuries
- Stave off boredom by rotating them in and out of your program
- Select certain variations that correlate with your goals
- Choose variations that work best with your structure and biomechanics
Tags: work out routines, workout routine, workout routines
Posted in Ectomorph, hardgainer, Injury Prevention, Muscle Building, optimal training, Strength | No Comments »
The Foundation of Mass Building Workout Routines Part II
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
“He who gains a victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful.” –Lao Tzu
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a single weight-training movement that’s more “complete” than the deadlift. It’s not just an upper or lower back exercise, or a grip exercise, or a posterior chain exercise, or a core exercise; it’s an every thing exercise. To that end, it’s a must-have in any lifter, athlete, or weekend warrior’s training arsenal.” –Eric Cressey
In Part I we learned that Squats and Deadlifts should form the foundation of your work out routines because they are two of the most effective exercises for building muscle mass known to man.
They’re also two of the hardest!!! That’s why we also covered 9 tips to minimize your risk of injury. If you haven’t read Part I– you probably should!
Now, one thing that I must confess is that I am far from a squat and deadlift master. I’m not incredibly strong in either lift and will probably never be breaking any world records. On the other hand, I am getting stronger every day and am doing my best to practice what I preach by “leading from the front” as Zach Even-Esh likes say.
Remember, this blog is my brother’s and my journey to size, strength and living an awesome life as we learn from the strength coaches and other experts we recommend on the website. You and I are on the same path… so I guess that makes you pretty cool too!
Everything that I share here comes from my personal experience, years of research and my desire to apply and share what I’m learning with you (while continually improving and growing as a person.)(more…)
Tags: beginner workout routine, free workout routines, workout routines
Posted in Ectomorph, hardgainer, Injury Prevention, Muscle Building, optimal training, Proper Mindset, Strength | 5 Comments »
The Awakened Warrior Unleashed…
Monday, March 21st, 2011
By Brandon Cook
“When life is victorious, there is birth; when it is thwarted, there is death. A warrior is always engaged in a life-and-death struggle for Peace.” – Morihei Ueshiba
“Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment.”
– Morihei Ueshiba
Every man must balance the paradox that is the mystery of life and death. One must choose his own purpose in life and train to refine the body and the mind. He must train, so that one day, he may achieve his full potential. Each of us must follow his own path…and so… I continue mine.
Here’s the program and the path that I’ve been following:
=====>>> The Path of the Awakened Warrior <<<======
This is the program I’ve been using since January and have been getting great results. So, naturally, I’d like to share it with you in hopes that you can make the same or better progress. (more…)
Tags: awakened warrior, Strength Training
Posted in Ectomorph, Hybrid Training, Muscle Building, optimal training, Strength, Transformation | 10 Comments »
How to Adapt Hybrid Training for Ectomorphs Struggling to Build Muscle
Monday, February 28th, 2011
By Brandon Cook
“The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strongest. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.” – Unknown
While we know Hybrid Muscle Training is Awwwesome for athletes and martial artists OR even your average weekend warrior (who wants to be as strong as he looks)… YOU might be wondering if this type of training is appropriate for the ectomorph, whose main purpose is to put some meat on his bones!
I mean, after all is said and done…. Elliott Hulse and Mike Westerdal (the creators of Lean Hybrid Muscle Program) are NOT ectomorphs. In fact, they are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are endomorphs and basically have the opposite problem of your average hardgainer. Meaning… instead of finding it difficult to build muscle, these guys find it easy to gain weight… muscle and fat. The difficulty for the endomorph is staying lean as they can gain fat just by looking at a donut! (more…)
Tags: ectomorphs, how to build muscle, hybrid training
Posted in Ectomorph, Genetics, Hybrid Training, Muscle Building, optimal training | No Comments »
Hybrid Muscle Training for Hardgainers
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
By Brandon Cook
“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”
– Bruce Lee
I hope you’ve been following along with the guest posts on the blog by Mike Westerdal, the co-creator of Lean Hybrid Muscle. If you missed them… well than you really messed up!
Only kidding … here’s the links below:
It’s Time to Get Primal!
Hybrid Muscle Training For Athletes and Martial Artists
The Superiority of Functional Strength Versus Gym Strength
This type of hybrid training is something that a lot of the top strength coaches are moving towards. I, myself, have been using hybrid training in my own personal quest to develop “Super Hybrid Muscles.”
One of the top coaches whose training philosophy I really like is Jason Ferruggia. Jason has trained a ton of combat athletes and even wrote a book geared towards mixed martial artists called “Fit to Fight.”
Ferruggia’s training style is also very hybrid-like itself (in my opinion), even if he doesn’t refer to it in such a way. I’ve never really used that term “hybrid” either, yet this is what Mike and Elliott like to call it… and I, for one, am NOT going to argue with these huge behemoths!
So, in honor of the successful release of Lean Hybrid Muscle Reloaded I decided to unleash my own “hybrid-style” training program that is a mixture of everything I’ve learned so far. I’m calling this The Awakened Warrior Workout and I’ll reveal it VERY SOON! (more…)
Tags: bruce lee, Ectomorph, hardgainer
Posted in Ectomorph, Genetics, hardgainer, Muscle Building, optimal training, Strength | 4 Comments »
YOU Can Learn How to Gain Muscle!!!
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
By Brandon Cook
“What one man can do, another can do.” – Anthony Hopkins
“The only limits to what we can create are the ones that we have imposed upon ourselves.” – Brandon Cook
Read the quote above from the movie the Edge, “What one man can do, another can do.” In this movie, Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin’s characters are forced to survive in the wilderness after a plane crash. As they seek to find their way back to civilization, a grizzly bear begins stalking and hunting them down.
After several close encounters with the bear, Hopkins realizes that their only chance to survive is to face the bear and kill it using a spear technique he read about in book.
This technique is very risky and must be executed precisely as the bear rears up on its hind legs and comes down to claim his kill aka YOU!. At that exact moment you wedge the spear into the ground or rocks behind you and allow the bear to impale itself upon the long spear and hope that it doesn’t survive or crush you.
So yeah, it’s pretty risky… but whatchya gonna do when a huge Kodiak bear wants to turn you into a mid-day snack, huh? (more…)
Tags: gain muscle fast, gain muscle mass, how to gain muscle
Posted in Ectomorph, Goal Setting, hardgainer, Inspiration, Muscle Building, Proper Mindset, Subconscious Mind | 3 Comments »
10 Tips for How to Gain Weight Fast
Friday, November 5th, 2010
By Brandon Cook
“We are all brainwashed to believe that you can get bigger and stronger and leaner in a very short time, with very little effort and even less dedication. But nothing could be further from the truth, my friends.” – Jason Ferruggia
If you want to gain weight fast and have made up your mind to transform your body once and for all, then you’re in luck.
Today, I’m going over the top 10 tips that I’m personally using to gain another twenty-thirty pounds of muscle. These tips may seem simple and that’s because they are. However, applying them to your life is definitely not easy.
If you want to gain muscle fast, then you need to make this your primary mission (at least for a little while.)
I used to weigh 130lbs at 5’11” tall and through training, persistence and hard work I’ve gotten my weight up to 165lbs. However, adding another 20-30 pounds of muscle would be pretty awesome. That’s why I’ve made that one of my prime missions in life.
This blog exists to keep me focused and accountable to that mission and so that I can share with you what I’m learning along the way.
So, if you’re ready to learn how to gain weight fast, then let’s do this! (more…)
Tags: Gain Weight Fast, How to Gain Muscle Fast, How to Gain Weight Fast
Posted in Ectomorph, hardgainer, Muscle Building, optimal training, Proper Mindset, quality nut\rition | 41 Comments »
The Standard American Diet Will Kill You!
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
By Terry Grant
“We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.”
~ Jeff Arder
“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
~ Mark Twain
Growing up I ate the Standard American Diet, which forms the somewhat humorous (and at the same time depressing) acronym S.A.D. This consisted of sugary breakfast cereals, lunch meat sandwiches, gummy fruit snacks, spaghetti O’s, macaroni and cheese, lots of sweets and candies, potato chips, soda, ice cream, hamburgers, french fries, pizza, hot dogs and hot pockets and all the things “kids love!”
Maybe you can relate? Is this the diet you grew up on too or may still be eating? (more…)
Tags: standard american diet, unhealthy diet
Posted in Ectomorph, Fat Loss, quality nutrition, Rest & Recovery | 5 Comments »
How to Gain Muscle Mass in 2010!
Monday, December 21st, 2009
By Brandon Cook
“We all have great inner power. The power is self-faith. There’s really an attitude to winning. You have to see yourself winning before you win.”
-Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.”
-Bruce Lee
The New Year is RISING and my plan for how to gain muscle mass in 2010 underway…. I’ve made up my mind to DO THIS and to increase accountability I’m documenting the whole thing on my body transformation page. Stop by and leave me a few words of encouragement and support.
The pressure’s on and I can already tell a BIG difference in my dedication to making a transformation this year just knowing that I’ve announced this to the world. I’m fully committed. (more…)
