ATHLEAN-X™

If you rely on the overhead press for building big strong shoulders, as you should, then you’re going to want to check out today’s video. The overhead press is a great compound movement that develops strength and overall upper body mass. Unfortunately a lot of guys get sidelined from doing the over head press because of shoulder stiffness and mobility issues. Today’s warm up will help you get those stiff shoulders greased up so they don’t feel so locked in place. While this won’t cure any injuries or structural issues, it will help prevent them from happening as well as help anyone who has overall stiffness or who struggles to get full over head range of motion. To perform this move you’re going to need a physioball and a wall. Start by kneeling down, facing the wall. With your arm out to your side in an L shape, press the physioball into the wall. The key here is to keep your elbow in front of the body and make sure you’re pushing through your wrist and not with your hand.Perform about 6 or 7 reps with the right hand, then move the physioball to the middle of your body and perform another 6 or 7 reps with both hands. Lastly, move the ball all the way to the left and perform the final 6 or 7 reps with the left hand. It’s important to move deliberately and to push through the wrist while maintaining proper elbow positioning. If you have any doubts about performance refer to the video for my demonstration. This move isn’t intended to build muscle or develop cannonball delts but rather to set the stage so that you can better perform the heavy compound lifts, like the overhead press, that will accomplish the goal of building massive shoulders. This move is intended to engage the rotator cuff and lower traps to help support the shoulder girdle. This provides a more stable base to press off. As I always say, you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe...if you’re shoulders are all locked in place forcing your to compromise your range of motion, you’re not going to get the most out of the over head press and you’re leaving strength and size gains on the table. Not to mention the fact that you’re more likely to suffer an injury. Once these stabilizer muscles are activated you’re going to notice a lot more strength and a lot less stiffness. If you are looking for a science based step by step workout plan that helps you to build muscle by getting the most out of every exercise you do, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. See how training like an athlete and taking your training more seriously can speed up the gains you get and help you keep them for years to come.For more videos on how to build bigger shoulders as well as tips for fixing sore shoulders, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you have skinny biceps that you want to make wider, then you are going to want to watch this video. Here, I’m going to show you the best way to widen your biceps and get bigger, thicker arms in the process. Many times people focus on the height of their arms by working on building up the bicep peaks. While this is an approach that is sound it is not the only one. Incorporating brachialis work into your arm workouts is something you do not want to forget to do.The brachialis muscle is situated beneath the biceps and is slightly visible if you flex the arm and palpate on the outside of it. Just underneath your long head of the biceps is a muscle that might be popping out a bit that is located between the biceps and triceps. This is the brachialis. The function of this muscle is to flex the arm.Unlike the biceps however, this is its only job. The biceps on the other hand will supinate the forearm and flex the humerus at the shoulder while still helping to flex the elbow. The main difference however is that due to the fact that a muscle is strongest in its midrange, the brachialis is going to be more strongly contributing to elbow flexion in the beginning third to half of an elbow bend and the biceps will kick in more strongly from the midpoint up.Since the two muscles share a common function it is impossible to get one to be removed completely from the action of flexing the arm. That said, there are things you can do to favor the action of the brachialis by slightly defavoring the contribution of the biceps by impairing its preferred action. This can be achieved by pronating the forearm primarily.You have probably heard that the hammer curl is a great exercise for building up the brachialis and thickening the muscle beneath the biceps to help push it outward and give you thicker looking arms. That is correct, however many times people don’t perform the exercise properly and don’t see the results they should from doing it. The key is the positioning of the forearm and elbow during the movement. Instead of just keeping your hand in neutral with your knuckles pointed straight ahead, fold the arm against the chest and pronate the forearm. From here, simply flex and extend the elbow to lift and lower the dumbbell. This will really ignite the brachialis while minimizing the contribution of the biceps to the movement.There are other exercises you can do that will accomplish this as well. One of them is a modification on the greatest upper body builder there is, the pullup. Rather than doing chinups which have a high contribution of biceps because of the supinated forearm required to do the exercise, you would want to do a pullup. But not just any pullup. Instead, take a very close grip on the bar and aim to close down the angle of the elbow joint as you pull rather than worrying about getting your elbows behind your body.This movement can be done from a inverted row position as well if it is too difficult to do while hanging from a bar. Either one is going to light up the brachialis and have you filling up those shirt sleeves in no time. If you are looking for a science based step by step workout plan that helps you to build muscle by getting the most out of every exercise you do, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. See how training like an athlete and taking your training more seriously can speed up the gains you get and help you keep them for years to come.For more videos on how to build bigger biceps and the best bicep peak exercises, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

I don’t care what you have planned for your next leg workout, but you better make room for what I’m going to show you in this important leg training video. Here, I’m going to reveal to you the number one thing you need to do every single time you workout your legs. Some may have given you alternative advice, and I’m going to tell you that what you have been given is just bad advice.For instance, if you were told that all you ever need to do is squat, you have been given bad training advice. Likely, the person telling you this has never trained an athlete and doesn’t understand that the extent of leg training encompasses more than just the quads and hamstrings. The muscles of the hips are some of the most underutilized and undertrained areas on the body and can only be targeted with multiplanar movements and exercises.The squat is a bilateral, sagittal plane movement. If all you ever do is squat then you are not training your legs and hips in the transverse and frontal planes. Basically, you are avoiding two of the three dimensions in space. Not good if you ever plan to call yourself an elite level athlete. Here I show you why incorporating single leg training is not an option but a requirement of a complete leg training plan.Now, am I bashing on the squat? Not at all. The squat is the single most important leg and hip movement that you can do and should form the basis or foundation of your leg workouts. That said, as I pointed out, this is a sagittal plane exercise that has some shortcomings that need to be addressed with additional single leg exercises.One of the key benefits to single leg exercises like the Bulgarian Split Squats and multi-directional lunges are that they not only train you to be strong on each leg individually but they help to reveal strength imbalances between sides. Intervening early when a strength imbalance is detected is one of the fastest ways to fix the problem and the best way to prevent this from resulting in a lower body injury that keeps you away from the gym for too long.You will see that no matter which athlete I train, at some point in a given leg workout we are going to be doing single leg exercises and training. It can either be explosive or controlled. The bottom line is, not an athlete gets out of the gym without first completing at least one of these leg exercise options in their leg workout. Here I showcase Pittsburgh Steeler wider receiver Antonio Brown and the single leg movements that he performs to be the best at his position in the league.If you are looking for a complete training program and plan that is the same one followed by today’s top pro athletes, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Every workout and meal is laid out step by step so that there is no guesswork involved. Simply start today and I’ll coach you through every workout and make sure you make no mistakes.For more videos on how to get bigger legs and the best leg workouts for building big quads and hamstrings, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you have rounded shoulders or a slumped posture then you are going to want to watch this video to see how building bigger biceps can fix this. Here I’m demonstrating how the biceps actually work in concert with the muscles of the shoulder that help to externally rotate the arm into a better position to keep you more upright. It is very important to understand the anatomy of the muscles you are trying to train when you work out. The reason for this is that it allows you to perform certain exercises that might not seem all that helpful at first glance for a purpose you would have never expected. That is the case when it comes to the options of biceps exercises.Bicep exercises like the hammer curl and even cross body curls actually do the opposite of what you want them to do. While they are good at building the brachialis they are not as good at building the biceps. At the same time, you perform these exercises with a great deal of internal shoulder rotation which will contribute to poor posture long term.You may not think that there is anything that serious about having rounded shoulders other than the way it looks. This is incorrect. Having internally rotated shoulders is one of the fastest ways to injure yourself in the gym since performing exercises overhead with this posture is likely to cause inflammation and breakdown in the structures of the shoulder.Here I show you an exercise called the no money curl that requires only a single pair of dumbbells and a wall for feedback to make sure you are doing this properly. The exercise gets its name from the position of the hands at the top of the curl. It looks as if you are saying to someone that you have no money if they asked you for some.The key is to stand up against a wall and keep the dumbbells in contact with the wall to start. Begin by contracting your biceps, supinating your forearms and curling the dumbbells up and out over the shoulders. This should occur naturally due to the carrying angle of the elbow that is anatomically in place to help us carry things at our side without bumping into them when we walk.At the top of the movement you want to actually make sure to make contact with the wall with the dumbbells. This is key. This will require a great deal of shoulder external rotation in order to do so. This is the exact movement that needs to be strengthened in order to help eliminate rounded shoulders, a slumped posture and a forward head.Hold the contraction at the top for a moment and then bring the dumbbells back down to your sides. This is a great way to build bigger biceps but at the same time, given its impact on the rotators of your shoudlers, this will help to counteract and fix bad posture as part of an overall complete workout regimen. If you are looking for a step by step workout plan that will help you to improve your posture while at the same time building a ripped athletic physique, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and check out the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and build a ripped athletic body by fortifying your muscles and joints against injury.For more videos on how to build bigger biceps and how to improve your posture in just 4 steps, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

WWE wrestlers Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre joined me in the gym recently for a light back workout prior to wrestling later in the evening. When you are an athlete, you cannot forgo your workout entirely in order to preserve energy for your sport. Athletes must learn how to train in-season but know how to modify their workouts to stimulate without preventing recovery for competition. In this video, we take some traditional back exercises and apply intensity techniques to each to deliver an effective back workout that still leaves energy in the tank for them to compete.The key to getting more from your back exercises and back workouts in general is to figure out ways that you can apply more intensity to the moves you are doing. This has the end effect of potentially lightening up the weights you are using but not compromising the effect and tension that you are able to deliver to the muscles you are training.Here, we covered some pretty basic back and lat exercises with the goal of getting more out of each of them. The first back exercise we did was barbell rows. The angle of the back during this traditional heavy pull exercise is critical if you want to deliver as much force and tension into the lats as you can. It is important to sit back and hinge at the hips in order to angle your torso almost parallel to the ground. Taller athletes will tend to have more difficulty with this but it is no less important, so they have to learn how to drop the hips back further.One of the best techniques available to you when you do get this right however is that you can easily perform a drop set and intensify the set you are doing simply by changing the angle of your body. When you can no longer perform reps of the barbell row in good form when bent over parallel to the floor, you can simply stand taller and take away some of the steepness of the angle of the back. This allows the weight to be moved easier and additional reps to be performed when already fatigued.Next we covered the dumbbell pullover for the back. Here the key is elbow positioning and the initiation of the move through the lats instead of the elbows. Too many times, people performing this move will let the triceps take over and do the majority of the work. This is fine if you are trying to build bigger triceps but not if you are trying to build a bigger back!You also want to increase the stretch on the working muscle, in this case the lats, by remembering to drop the pelvis and hips lower to the floor while reaching back with the hands since we know that this will stretch the lats. The lats have attachments on the back of the upper arm and to the pelvis, so it stands to reason that increasing the distance between these two areas will do that.Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre performed each of these movements with these new tips and tricks and felt immediate differences in the effect the exercises had on their backs. We continued on to perform other back exercises like one arm high cable pulls, seated rows, deadlifts and lat pulldowns. All of these are pretty classic back workout exercise selections and each have unique tips that can be applied to them to help you get more out of every one of them.When you are an athlete, all of the exercises you do matter. You need to be able to select the ones that are going to give you the best bang for your buck without compromising your ability to recover in time to perform in your sport. The WWE and wrestling in general is a highly physical, incredibly demanding sport that also brings an element of fatigue into play due to the strenuous travel schedule. All of this must be managed if you want to l

It doesn’t matter whether you have a workout planned for the day or not, you are going to want to do what I’m showing you in this video every single morning. This 2 minute and 30 second routine is something that is going to help you improve your posture, abs and even your grip strength. Not to mention, if you stay consistent with this, you will have a way to determine whether or not your workouts are causing your CNS to burnout a bit and that you might need added recovery.The first thing you need to do in the first 30 seconds of rolling out of bed is drink 20-24 ounces of water. We are chronically dehydrated and we often times forget how important it is to start our day off by rehydrating after being asleep for the last 6 to 8 hours. We often just get up and get on our way without making a concerted effort to replenish the water that we have lost and not taken in while asleep.This can have a dramatic impact on the energy levels we have throughout the rest of the day, our ability to focus and the amount of strength we can output when we hit the gym for our workout. I do this by keeping two bottles of lukewarm bottled water by my bathroom sink that I ingest quickly after waking up. This portion of the morning routine should take no more than 30 seconds.Next, I walk towards my closet, but not to start picking out my outfit. Instead, I make a pitstop at the pullup bar that I have hanging over the doorway. Here I take 2 minutes to hang from the bar (each one with a different intention) to complete my morning routine. The first is a one minute decompression hang. The goal here is to try and decompress my spine and do a dead arm hang from the bar. It helps to keep your feet lightly in contact with the ground so you can drop your pelvis and feel as if the weight of it is stretching out your hips and lower back. Beyond that however, you want to try and address the lack of thoracic extension that we get by being in a slumped posture throughout much of the day and even at night when our heads are propped up on a pillow. Here, you want to reach your head through to improve the extension of your spine and help to correct this with consistent daily efforts.Of course, the accumulated hang time between this and the second minute we are about to embark on will help to increase the strength of your grip and forearms. Regarding the second minute, now you want to try and engage your abs by lifting your feet off the ground and hollowing out your lower abs. Do not just hang here, instead engage the shoulder blades as well to get better shoulder stability. The goal of this movement is to be able to hold it for one minute as well.And there you have it. That is a simple routine that you can do every single morning regardless of whether you have a workout planned for that day or not. The amount of work being done here is not enough to cause you to fatigue or negatively impact your workout later on but is going to have an impact when it is done consistently every morning.If you are looking for a complete workout and diet routine that you can follow to get ripped abs and athletic muscle year round, then head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. If you want to look like an athlete you have to train like an athlete and this is my step by step system for doing it.For more videos on how to improve your posture in four steps and the best way to get ripped abs be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

The most common gym injury is also the one that we have the least amount of understanding of how we are doing it. That creates a major problem. In this video, I’m going to show you what the number one workout injury is and most importantly, the real cause of it and how to prevent it from happening in the first place.The source of the pain we are talking about is in the elbow. The all too common burning, knife-like pain that you get at the inside of your elbow when doing any pulling exercise like chin ups, weighted chins, rows or even pullups is unique and debilitating. Ask anyone that is dealing with this pain currently and they are sure to tell you they have either had to modify the exercises they are doing or stop working out all together.This doesn’t have to be the case. If we can understand the way the body is being overloaded here and help to take the brunt of the force away from the muscles that aren’t equipped to handle them then we can be well on our way to preventing this injury from happening and a step closer to never having it happen again.The formal term for the injury is medial epicondylitis or golfers elbow. Some will tell you that this is an overuse injury and I would strongly disagree. This is definitely more of an overload injury and one that can occur or reoccur with a single rep on a single set of a workout done with heavy weights on a pulling exercise. The mechanism is one that the flexor digitorum superficialis is ill equipped to handle the stresses placed on it by having the bar or pullup bar too distal in your fingers rather than in your hands.If you allow the bar to sit in your last two joints of your fingers then you are asking the SDF to bear the load and resist extension of the fingers that is induced by either the weight of the bar or the weight of your body during the exercise. This is avoided by simply shifting the bar lower into your hands and grasping it with a stronger grip, much less of a false grip. One of the rules of thumb I use is for you to check how visible your finger tips are to you when you look down at them grasping the bar.If you can’t see all of your fingernails, and ideally even the first knuckle of every finger, when you look at your hand gripping the bar then you have too weak of a grip and are likely to have it drift on you during the later reps of the sets as the bar starts to feel heavier with mounting fatigue. You need to be able to see all of your first knuckles to ensure that the bar is wrapped tightly in your hand across the callouses. When you make this tweak you will instantly find that the pain will subside. You will also want to become more aware of the amount of pressure you are putting through your 4th and 5th fingers (the ring and pinky fingers) when you grab a bar or pullup bar. The tendency is to want to grip these very tight with the last two fingers but you should intentionally ease off with those two and increase the force you press through the fist three with.If the injury has already occurred and you are now dealing with the stabbing like symptoms that come with doing certain exercises the best advice would be for you to ice the area, stretch it as I show you in the video, and lay off the movements that are difficult for the next 6-8 weeks. While this is tough for some to swallow, it will help you to get back to baseline from which you can build back up and prevent this from ever happening again by following the advice given here.We put the science and anatomy in all of our training videos in order to take your training and understanding to a whole new level. When you want to look like an at

If you thought the occasional cheat meal was not going to hurt your chances of having abs, I’m here to tell you otherwise. In this video, I’m going to tell you why cheat meals are killing your gains and why you should never have one ever again. I know it sounds harsh, but let me explain.In actuality, it’s not the composition of the cheat meal itself that I find objectionable. It’s the concept of the cheat that makes this something difficult for me to swallow. The whole idea behind this type of food or meal is that it is something that is far more satisfying or gratifying than what you are currently eating right now.If your day to day meal intake is filled with foods that feel like a nutritional compromise to you, then you are setting yourself up for long term failure. Too many diets are based off of the concept of deprivation. Don’t eat carbs. Don’t eat fat. Never have sugar. These are all diets that will leave you ultimately frustrated and seeking the very things that you are telling yourself you can never eat. When this happens, the diet fails and you wind up putting back on any weight that was lost by following this type of restrictive eating plan.I don’t believe that is what is best for long term weight loss and fat loss. To me, if the way you eat is only temporary and incapable of being followed for a lifetime, then it is an unsuccessful eating plan regardless of what type of temporary weight loss you experience with it. I am only interested in long term solutions and these are going to be meal plans that allow you to eat what you like in moderation depending on your specific body or performance goals.For instance, if you have to be at the front of your brand on youtube like I do and you want to practice what you preach with a 5 percent body fat level then you will want to cater your eating plan to one that never deprives you of what you like but limits the occurrences of things you know are not consistent with that goal. If your standards of leanness can be eased up however then you are free to do this more often without repercussion.The key however is finding foods that are consistent with your long term goals (even if that is to look absolutely shredded year round) and make them the basis of your plan. You want to be able to enjoy the foods you eat so that you aren’t constantly looking for options that are perceived to be more tasty or satisfying. In the end, the only thing that matters when it comes to fitness and keeping a low body fat level is consistency. Being consistent with your eating, training and dedication to both will always be the key to looking your best year round and year after year. The ATHLEAN-X Training System is known for its ability to produce ripped athletic bodies and then maintaining them for years to come. There is no short term satisfaction or fad diet in the program. Everything is based on real world science proven on the top athletes in the world that is going to help you to be ripped and muscular consistently. If you are looking to try the program you can find it at http://athleanx.com and can get started instantly with our digital access from any device.For more videos on how to build a ripped body and meal plans that won’t leave you looking for cheat meals, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If your goal is to increase your deadlift then don’t overlook the details specifically accessory lifts. In this video I’m going to show you the top three exercises for increasing your deadlift without focusing solely on the actual movement. Joining me, once again, in the X-Box for today’s video is accomplished powerlifter and overall strong dude KC “That 1 Legged Monster” Mitchell. KC shares some of his favorite accessory lifts that he’s been using to smash records and build a monster deadlift. When it comes to deadlifting one of KC’s go to accessory lifts is the Pendlay row. The Pendlay row differs from other rows by starting from a dead stop on the floor. The goal here is to go heavy and be explosive. This not only builds back (and grip) strength but helps groove the pattern of being explosive at the start. If you can’t generate max force at the start of the movement you don’t have to worry about the rest of the lift because the weight isn’t going anywhere!Another of KC’s favorite accessory lifts is the straight arm push down. We’ve talked at length about the importance of straight arm scapular strength on this channel and how it correlates to other movements and overall upper body health. Want a big deadlift? Well, all that scapular strength you’ve been building will come in handy here too! Having a strong scapular will allow you to keep your lats tight and keep the bar close to your body. One of the biggest mistakes made by athletes new to the deadlift, and even some experienced lifters, is bar drift. A strong stable scapular will engage the lats and help provide a tight compact upper body that doesn’t leak energy. KC’s final accessory lift for building a monster deadlift is the high pull. If you’ve been watching my channel for any length of time you know that I do not recommend doing upright rows. It’s not because they don’t work but because of the compromised position they put your shoulder in. All of that can be mitigated by simply switching to dumbbells and maintaining a ‘thumbs up’ grip. Even though your traps are busy stabilizing the upper body in the deadlift they’re still playing an important role and you need them to be strong. This safe alternative to the upright row allows you to load up and hit them along with the rest of the upper back. The deadlift is all about using the power of your posterior chain and hips and transferring that into the bar. There are people out there that will tell you to ignore the accessory lifts and focus on the main lift alone. These are usually the same people who have maxed out on their strength or have developed some interesting and unhealthy compensations for performing exercises.There are some very important accessory lifts you need to do when you are trying to increase your deadlift. If you feel your lifts have been stuck in a rut, give these three lifts a try. If you want a program that focuses on your whole body, then head over to http://athleanx.com and start training like an athlete. Details matter when you train like an athlete, and when you pay attention to the details, all of your lifts will increase.For more videos on how to get a better deadlift and the best workouts for building size and strength, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you want to build bigger shoulders but don’t have access to a gym and prefer to train at home, then this shoulder workout is going to be key. In fact, in this video, I’m going to show you a routine that can be done with a single weight plate that can be performed as either a warmup routine or a full on workout for your shoulders depending on how heavy you load it.The key to any routine that is capable of warming up your shoulders before you train them is that it must activate the key muscles of the shoulder (not just the delts) and provide mobility in all three planes. The “deltoid dozen” as this is called, is a series of 12 shoulder exercises that hit all of the above and can really help you to loosen up your shoulder joints prior to training.Up the weight of the plate you are using and this continuous routine can be a real metabolic hypertrophy monster for your delts. The key is not to underestimate the cumulative damage the lighter weight can have when compared to the more traditional heavy overhead pressing you might be doing. Metabolic stimulus for growth is real and something that any experienced lifter can benefit from especially when the progressive overload gains have slowed or in some cases stalled completely.Begin with deciding which focus you are pursuing. Use a lighter plate for the shoulder warmup (maybe around 5 or 10 lbs) or a heavier plate for the workout (anywhere from a 25 to 55lb plate or higher). The first two moves are meant to help loosen up the shoulders with sweepers in the frontal plane and then the rotations that occur in the transverse plane. Let the weight of the plate make your shoulders feel progressively looser with each swing.Next we move onto the two rowing variations. Rowing is actually a great shoulder activator since it hits the often overlooked posterior deltoids while introducing extension of the humerus (a much easier to manage range of motion than pure flexion or abduction will be if you are not yet warmed up). Move the plate up (from a low row to start to a high chest row at the end) to progressively introduce more activation of the rear delts and upper back.Now we perform the pendulums. These are meant to now start involving the middle and front delt in addition to the rear delts. Swing the plate side to side and make sure that you are muscling the weight up not just using momentum. This will help to activate all three heads of the delts and really start either getting your shoulders loose or your shoulders fried depending on your focus.With the delts properly warmed up now we want to start working on the external rotation of the shoulder and the activity of the rotator cuff. We can accomplish this with the sword raises. The bottom hand can serve as a spot as you lift the weight making this achievable even when using the heavier weight plate as during the workout version of this routine. Continue to warmup the rotators of the shoulder with the tight rings of the halo exercise. This is perfect for getting your cuffs loose as long as you make sure to circle the plate both clockwise and counter clockwise.The pressing begins with press outs and gets progressively harder with diagonal press outs. Both of these are going to place more demand on the front delts but your shoulders should be adequately loose and ready to handle this at this point. Finally, load it up and finish strong with the plate 8’s, trap raises and bus drivers to put the final nail in the coffin of those shoulders.As you can see, this routine can be used to both warm up your shoulders or train them depending on the weight you select. Either way, just a s