ATHLEAN-X™

If you do this before every workout you do, I guarantee you will get better gains in no time. I’m not talking about a secret exercise or workout that will pile on slabs of muscle simply by performing 3 sets of 12 reps. No, it’s actually much simpler than that. That said, it’s not going to be easy. In this video, I’m going to make you aware of your own efforts in the gym and hopefully reveal to you how much more you have to give.Do I think you are purposely holding back? Not really. I think that many of us simply get comfortable in our workouts. We start to call them workout routines. Nothing should be routine about your training other than the fact that you routinely show up to perform them. When it comes to your intensity levels however when doing your workouts I would bet that you are likely falling a little short in that department.I showcase resident ATHLEAN-X trainees Jesse and all pro steelers wide receive Antonio Brown here to point out the difference in training intensity and effort. You can see in a simple landmine plyo just how much effort Jesse was holding back in comparison to Antonio. It’s not that Jesse is lazy or any less committed to wanting to look better. The difference is in the actual work that gets put in when it’s go time and action has to trump desire.Antonio Brown’s workout is full of high effort intensity from the first set to the last. Just like on the field, he takes no plays off. He practices like he plays. He trains like every set matters, which it does if you have been watching this channel for any length of time. I say all the time, you can either train hard or you can train long but you can’t do both.Once Jesse became aware that his workout intensity wasn’t what it should be, he was instantly able to put in more effort and get much more from the exercise he was doing. And that’s the thing, there is no secret exercise that is meant to force effort. Even a one thousand pound squat performed with crappy quarter rep range of motion is not going to demand a response from your muscles to dramatically improve your body and appearance.You have to use full range of motion and use focused effort and intensity that allows you to get the most out of every single rep you do in your workout. This doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to train to failure on every set. If you are training for power for example you wouldn’t want to take your sets to failure. This could create compromised safety since your muscle fatigue could not only impair your explosiveness but also your ability to land safely as in the exercise shown. Regardless, the key is that you become self aware of your own efforts before every workout that you do. Once you know that you can likely fall into the trap of taking sets and reps off then you will be more likely to intervene and not do this. Your own conscious awareness of your body’s desire to seek shortcuts should be enough to keep you focused on preventing this path from being taken. From here, it’s all about accumulating more and more of these high quality sets over time.The more quality and intensity you can deliver in your training over the course of workout to workout then the faster you will see muscle and strength gains from your efforts. If you are looking for a program that lays out the exact exercises and sets for you to do every single day, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System.For more videos on how to increase your strength and muscle mass and the best workouts for building muscle fast, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube

Not all triceps exercises are created equal. In this video, I’m going to show you the best triceps supersets and why I chose the exercises that I did. It starts with a quick anatomy lesson of the triceps muscle.The triceps consists of three heads, the long, lateral and medial heads. The lateral and medial heads of the muscle originate on the upper arm bone and cross the elbow to insert on the ulna. Their only function is to extend and straighten out the elbow joint. The long head on the other hand crosses the shoulder joint and attaches to the scapula. This means that the position of the arm and shoulder can greatly influence the contraction of that head.When it comes to planning out the best triceps supersets it is very helpful to know this information. Since getting the long head of the triceps into it’s fully contracted state and fully stretched state require such a polar opposite positioning of the arm, it is tough to hit them both in the same exercise. That said, the provides us with the perfect opportunity to pair them up together in a superset fashion with different exercises back to back to accomplish this.On the other hand, putting together two moves like the close grip bench press and diamond pushups would be more of a redundancy. These are both hitting the medial and lateral heads of the triceps in much the same way by targeting the midrange of the muscle. For this reason, these make for a better drop set than a superset. In fact, with the load being able to be dropped considerably from the first exercise to the next this serves as a great mechanical drop set rather than a superset.So back to the exercises that make for the best tricep supersets, we want to ideally include those that hit the triceps in each it’s fully contracted and fully stretched state. The first of these is the Incline Lying DB Extension into Incline DB Kickbacks. The stretch on the long head is accentuated by the fact that we can get our arms up over our heads and the elbows back. On the kickback, you can get the arms into extension and squeeze the elbows to full lockout for that extra tight contraction.Next, we can use a cable machine to do the overhead triceps pushaways (making sure to stretch your elbows back over your head a little more on every rep) and immediately proceed to the rocking tricep pushdowns. This variation of the move not only puts the long head into a fully contracted state but it also helps to keep peak tension on the muscle throughout the range of motion.Finally, a bodyweight option to accomplish the same thing would be the bodyweight triceps extension using a bench immediately into a bench dip. Be sure to pay attention to the key points on shoulder positioning here that I make in the video to keep those shoulders healthy in the process of doing this one.I threw a bonus superset for triceps in here as well that has the unique benefit of getting the long head into both its contracted and stretched position in the same exercise. You will definitely want to try that. Also, don’t forget to continue to include those big exercises like the close grip bench and dips for building the mass of the triceps in straight sets to compliment these supersets.If you found this helpful, you’ll likely love the ATHLEAN-X Training System. This step by step workout and nutrition plan will help you to put the science back in strength and train like an athlete. Head to http://athleanx.com and start training with me starting today.For more videos on how to build bigger triceps and the best triceps exercises for building mass, be sure to subscribe to our channel here

If you experience elbow pain when you work out then you need to watch this. In this video, I’m going to show you not only the real cause of the pain and discomfort you’re feeling in your elbows that is wrecking your workouts, but how to fix it once and for all. It starts by stopping your focus on the elbow itself. Let me explain.The elbow, much like the knee in the lower body, is a hinge joint that is heavily influenced by the actions and conditions of the joints above and below it. In the case of the knee we are talking about the ankle and the hip. We know that dysfunction at either of these joints will cause the knee to torque in unnatural ways which will lead to eventual breakdown and injury. Even though the wrist is not the same weight bearing joint that the ankle is, the situation still applies and can rear its ugly head if not addressed.In order to fix elbow pain once and for all you need to really start focusing on improving the stability of the shoulder and wrist joints while increasing the strength of the forearms. This can actually be achieved in one simple exercise sequence that anyone can do regardless of their ability level in the gym. All it takes is a bar to hang onto and position your body below with your feet on the floor. It starts by setting the bar at about chest height and getting behind it. Grasp the bar with two hands to get yourself in a slightly reclined position with your feet flat on the floor. With your shoulders completely level, squared up and parallel to the bar, place one of your hands in the middle of the bar and release the other. From here, work hard to prevent your torso from dropping even a millimeter to the side of the released hand. That is what your body will want to do, especially if you are lacking stability through the wrist and or shoulder on that side.See if you can hold this for up to one minute without moving. If you can, you will move onto the next progression but not before testing the other arm and making sure that your strength is symmetrical. If so, then you now want to widen your grip so that the hand that holds the bar is now more in line with your shoulder than the center of the bar. This just makes the challenge of keeping your torso parallel that much more difficult.If you can do these again then you’d want to move onto the more difficult version of the challenge by getting your bar lower under the bar and more subjected to the force of gravity as a result. Same thing goes for the hand position. Start with one in the center and then move them to the outside. Finally, if you want to turn this into more of a dynamic challenge for your elbow pain and start to fix it once and for all, do the hand swap shown at the end of the video.All in all, the key to fixing elbow pain lies in the shoulder and wrist/forearms. If you are lacking strength and stability in the shoulder or wrist as well as the surrounding muscles then you can almost guarantee that you will likely see the end result of that issue wind up causing pain in the elbows. This can be fixed. Simply add this one exercise to your routine about 3-5 times per week at the level of challenge that is appropriate for your given state.For a complete program where we overlook none of the important details of training, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start using the same workouts used by today’s top athletes and start looking and feeling like an athlete in no time.For more videos on how to fix anterior pelvic tilt and how to get rid of shoulder pain from working out, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://y

If you want to build a big, wide back and sleeve splitting biceps you have a lot of options but one of my all time favorite moves that hits them BOTH at the same time is the weighted chin up! With this single back and biceps exercise you can stimulate hypertrophy in both your lats and your biceps at the same time. In this video I’ll show you the proper loading parameters, rep ranges and techniques to add mass, strength and power to your upper body pulling without having to resort to split muscle group training.Many people know about the power of the chin-up in building back and biceps but since it’s a ‘bodyweight’ move, they tend to overlook one very important element; the ability to load. Once you are able to perform sets of 12, 15, or even 20 reps on the chin up you need to start adding some weight to continue to elicit the proper response for strength and size. If not, those super high rep sets start turning the move into an endurance challenge which is fine; but not what we want when our goal is increased biceps or back mass.From a biomechanics stand point the chin up puts your shoulder in front of your body so not only are you getting a better lat stretch but you’re also getting the protective effect on the shoulder joint when it is elevated (as in the bottom of the chin up) as opposed to the abducted end point of a pull up. Make sure you squeeze your biceps at the top of the movement, even if it means lowering the weight that you’re able to use, if you want to put them on overload and create increased biceps size. As you will see, I’m weighting my chins with over half my bodyweight for the heavy sets (around 90 lbs) but it’s important to make sure you respect form, and full range of motion to get the most out of this move. As always never let your ego dictate your loading parameters. When you put it all together you have a one two punch that can quickly kick start your back and biceps development. Add this into your pull day and you will see results fast. As always, you can get a complete workout program to start looking like an athlete by heading to http://athleanx.com and getting your ATHLEAN-X Training System. See what the top pros are using to build biceps, back and a complete athletic body in just 90 days.For more back and bicep workout routines as well as tips to get bigger arms and lats be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Are you strong or do you just think you’re strong? I’m not trying say anything offensive since you should know that the most important role of my channel I believe is to help my viewers. That said, in this video, I’m going to show you there is a very important difference that must be accounted for when developing strength and the failure to do so can lead to many breakdowns and physical issues down the road.First it helps to define strength. Strength is the ability to generate force against an external load or resistance. This means that the more force you can produce against an external load, the stronger you are. While this is absolutely the case, there is no discrepancy made here about the type of strength we are talking about. You see, there is your true strength and your compensatory strength. They often times go hand in hand and where true strength leaves off, compensatory strength takes over. What this means is, on any given lift, your ability to perform it with good form and free of compensation (meaning that you are directing the force that you generate through the exact muscles you are trying to train and to the object you are trying to move) is paramount and reflective of your true strength. Should you recruit unwanted muscle action or make alterations in joint mechanics that while helping you to perform the lift also compromise the health and integrity of your body during the lift, then you have tapped into your compensatory strength.Now, I’m not talking about the egregious examples of bad form. Those are obvious to anyone watching them and can be easily coached out in a few sets. I’m talking about the subtle compensations that occur sometimes within a joint, that are not very visible to an untrained bystander and sometimes to even the person performing the lift. Continue to either load these movements even more or rack up more and more reps with these compensations present and you are going to put yourself at risk for eventual breakdown from the accumulated damage these high load reps perform.The importance of heavy lifting cannot be understated. After all, lifting heavy weights is one of the truest ways of developing strength. Progressively overloading the bar provides an objective way for you to increase your strength and get bigger over time. The thing that you need to question however is the timing of the increases. The goal should not be to push as hard as you can as fast as you can. Instead, building the base foundation should be something that takes place first (free of subtle compensation) before pursuing weight increases as the sole goal of each session.Now, strength will increase over time (especially if you are new to lifting). You may see dramatic increases in strength in a short period because of a more efficient neuromuscular patterning being developed on each lift. These increases may well come without any change in body mechanics that lead to compensation and should therefore be encouraged and embraced. What I am saying is that if the increases come at the inclusion of compensations (biomechanical) then you need to reevaluate the importance of those in the first place and the repercussions of doing so.The ATHLEAN-X Training System is a program designed for pro athletes that has been configured to accommodate all strength and ability levels. The principles of training like an athlete remain the same and the refusal to compromise on them is what has allowed the program to be so successful and helpful to those using it. To start using it yourself, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System and start training like an athlete.

There are plenty of ways to gain muscle and pack on muscle mass, but many of them are either ill advised or dangerous. In this video, I’m going to show you the nutrition and training principles that Jesse has followed over the last 14 months that have allowed him to pack on 20 pounds of muscle mass without putting on fat. Even if you have been training for awhile and are close to your genetic potential for size, this video is going to help you to add at least a few pounds of muscle if you listen to the key points shared.The first thing we need to do is break the video up into the two major focal points, training and nutrition. They obviously go hand in hand and both are required to see your best gains. On the training side of things however, it starts with the order in which you attack your workouts. Many people will advise you to stick to a few basic lifts and simply aim to get stronger in them. As you increase your strength you will increase your size.While this is certainly true, there is a big problem that often comes along with the infatuation with adding weight to the bar as a measure of your progress and that is that true strength is eventually eclipsed by compensatory strength which leads to structural issues down the road. Think about it. Our bodies are masters of compensation. Give them a chance to figure out a way to take stress off the muscles and divert it to the joints and they will. This happens all the time on the big lifts since there are so many joints involved in performing them.The problem is, the compensations we make are often disguised and hidden really well. You still complete the reps and sets you were aiming to complete and you aren’t aware of the faulty patterning you are ingraining. As you continue to add strength and weight to the bar over the next few months and years, you are only worsening a problem that could have been overcome by instead first focusing on building proper body command and mind muscle control before being conscious of how quickly you were adding weight to the bar.The same can be said for being infatuated with the numbers not just on the sides of the weights you’re using but in the sets and reps you are performing. Far too often people become fixated on performing a certain number of reps that they forget the most important factor in lifting weights and that is the intensity of your effort and the amount of tension you are providing to the muscles you are trying to grow.Beyond this of course is the tendency to overlook the accessory lifts. I recently did an entire video dedicated to this and showed you how important these smaller exercises were to helping improve the performance on the big lifts. Here I show you once again how that can be so impactful on your strength and size when you correct this.On the nutrition side of things the eat big get big mentality simply isn’t true, not at least if you want to maximize lean gains and not have to worry about having to cut unwanted fat. See how quality of food should come before quantity and how nutrition consistency is ultimately the holy grail of keeping the gains coming for a long time to come.For a complete program of nutrition and step by step training that will help you to safely pack on as much size as you can in the shortest time possible, head to http://athleanx.com and get the Max Size program. See how training like an athlete can accelerate the rate at which you build explosive muscle and keep it forever.For more videos on how to build muscle fast and the best way to eat to gain muscle, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/

There are exercises you likely avoid because you either don’t want someone seeing you doing them or you have heard them called “sissy” exercises by other gym goers. In this video, I’m going to show you not only why you need to be doing these but how not doing these is actually holding back the muscle gains that you should be seeing from your workouts.There are 7 exercises in particular that I’m going to showcase. The first is the much maligned triceps kickback. This is supposedly one of those “muscle shaping” exercises for your triceps that is incapable of building muscle mass. This couldn’t be further from the truth. When you realize that heavy weights are not the only way to add mass, but focused tension to the working muscle then you see how powerful the kickback can become.Due to the fact that the triceps are being fully contracted through both elbow extension and shoulder extension, the long head of the muscle is maximally hit. Stop avoiding this exercise because you have to use lighter weights to perform it. Instead, try to generate as much tension as you can on every rep and you’ll start to see triceps size because of it.Next is the angle and devil exercise for your upper back. Here you are likely to use either 5 pound plates or nothing at all, showcasing yet again that heavy weights is not the only key to muscle growth. In this case, it should underscore just how imbalanced the strength is between your front sided muscles like your chest and shoulders and those in your upper back and give you even more reason to make sure you start doing more of these.The shoulder side lateral raise is another one of those exercises that people tend to want to load up to perform it with heavy dumbbells. The problem is, when you do this you wind up using a lot of momentum and ruining the focus on the side delt head. Instead, what you want to do is drop the ego and the weights you’re using to slow down the reps and force the middle delt to do more of the work. You should feel the incredible burn if you are doing this right.Next we have to hit the legs and here it is even harder to convince someone to use light weights to perform the exercises. In this case, the exercise itself is a tough pill to swallow since it is one of the classic old school exercises done in Jane Fonda aerobics, the side left lift. That said, you are likely going to be shocked by how weak you are in your muscles in and around the hip. Do 50 of these and see if you can tolerate the burn (or even complete all the reps).Finally, any exercise using the physioball may come with a stigma of being outdated or ineffective. Neither of these could be further from the truth. In fact, the physioball allows us the opportunity to do closed chain hamstring work without having to risk damage to our hip flexors from doing the standard machine version of the movement. We can also hit the often underdeveloped glutes for a double bonus on the equipment.If you are looking to get the most out of every single exercise you do and are less concerned about your ego since you’re focused on getting crazy fast muscle gains, then you should start training like an athlete. There are no unimportant muscles in the ATHLEAN-X program available at http://athleanx.com and your body will quickly realize it. Start training like a pro today and watch how quickly you make gains never thought possible. For more videos on the worst exercises to avoid and the best exercises for building muscle, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

There are a lot of exercises for hitting your lower abs, all of which involve some bottom up movement of the pelvis towards your shoulders. That said, many of these are performed while hanging from a bar which makes them too difficult for beginners and even leads to the forearms fatiguing before the abs on even the most advanced trainees. In this video, I’m going to show you the best lower abs exercise you’ve likely never tried and it doesn’t even require you hang from a bar.While we are talking about those hanging ab exercises however, here is why they tend to be a problem. Most often, the person doing the exercise tends to become over reliant on the hip flexors to lift the legs rather than using the abs to curl the pelvis into a posterior tilt on every rep. This can happen either by bad habit or as a compensation for weak abs. Either way, this takes the tension off of the abs and places it on a muscle group that is likely already tight and overactive.The next option is to perform these same bottom up movements but instead of hanging, you lay on the floor. The issue here is once again the hip flexors can tend to dominate the movement and cause the same detrimental effects mentioned already. Even more, the legs stop becoming a factor in the resistance of the exercise and actually help you to do the move as you get them past ninety degrees of lift.The good news is, the best lower abs exercise you can do doesn’t require you to have to hang from a bar or lay on your back. All it requires is a dip station or even the corner of a kitchen countertop. If you are going to perform it from a dip station all you have to do is position yourself in the suspended position with your hands on the dip bars and your elbows almost locked out.You don’t want to bend the elbows too much here or at any point during the exercise since this will shift the focus from the abs to the triceps and cause you to fatigue where you don’t want to. With the bodyweight supported you will actually find that you get a beneficial compressive force into the shoulder joint that can make an unstable shoulder feel much better. The hanging ab exercises while awesome for the lower abs can make it tough on the shoulder of someone that has a rotator cuff or labrum tear.Next, you let the pelvis drop naturally by dangling the legs. This will help to decompress the spine and cause a distraction force to the lumbar spine and lower back that can help alleviate any discomfort you may have developed from doing lots of hip flexor dominant lower ab movements over the years. Begin by simply bouncing your body up and down while alternating the twist of your torso as you pull up. Your main thought should be driving the movement with the posterior tilt of the pelvis and not the arms. This will engage the lower abs while at the same time, getting the obliques to fire up with each rotation left to right. Keep doing this in rapid fire fashion for 30 to 60 seconds or until fatigue prevents you from performing clean reps.If you have never tried this one then you are in for a surprise. You will see how much easier it is to influence the lower abs without having to resort to the hanging ab exercises that tend to cause fatigue elsewhere before the location that you are actually trying to hit. For a complete program that works daily ab training into the overall plan to get your abs popping and ripped like never before, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System.For more videos on how to get a six pack fast and the best exercises for abs (including the lower abs) be sure to subscribe to our channel here on yo

What happens when a 150lb former weakling (but still not that strong) challenges a 260lb professional wrestler face to face? It gets ugly really fast. In this video, Jesse from ATHLEAN-X decides to get in the face of WWE superstar Sheamus and challenge him to some sort of a match. When the ladder match and trivia are ruled out, it’s my duty to step in and lay down the workout for them to compete in.I wanted to try and keep these two unevenly matched men as competitive as possible by issuing them a bodyweight workout challenge. The two would have to perform 100 reps each of inverted rows, pushups, bodyweight squats and hanging knee raises. Whoever could finish their reps first would be declared the winner.The catch is that unlike the 400 challenge in the ATHLEAN-X Training program, you are not able to bounce around from exercise to exercise in this one to complete your reps. Instead, you need to perform this one in fixed rep style where all reps of an exercise needed to be completed before moving onto the next one. This makes the workout even more challenging and breaks become necessary in order to get to the end.Some would say that Sheamus had the advantage because he is clearly stronger than Jesse. On the other hand, it becomes much more difficult for a heavier individual to hang from a bar to complete the last 100 reps of the workout and therefore, even if Jesse is trailing at that point he should be able to catch up when it matters the most, in the end.The stakes were set for this challenge. Jesse, who was desperately wanting to appear in a video on Sheamus’ Celtic Warrior Workouts channel, would be able to do that should he beat the wrestler and finish first. On the other hand, should Jesse lose, he would be putting something on the line as well. Here’s a hint, it’s not the beard and perhaps the thumbnail gave it away. Then again, maybe we are teasing and Jesse really won.Tune in to see who wins this bodyweight workout challenge and when you are ready to start your own bodyweight workout journey, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. Use the same program that elite athletes have used to build incredible bodies with nothing but their own bodyweight and zero equipment. Sometimes, your body needs a change from all the heavy lifting you are doing to spark all new muscle growth. There is nothing more effective at doing that than this program.For more videos showcasing pro athlete workouts and how to train like an athlete to build muscle and stay ripped year round, be sure to subscribe to our channel on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

WWE Superstar Sheamus recently stopped by the X-Box to train with pro athlete trainer Jeff Cavaliere. These are some of the highlights of a posterior chain workout that Jeff took the 10 year veteran through.The importance of training the posterior chain cannot go understated when it comes to training like an athlete. Most all athletic actions are performed in front of the body or moving forward. This tends to lead to imbalances and potential injury down the road. By training the entire posterior chain as a unit (rather than splitting it up into just back or just glute training) we are getting muscles to work together that prefer to and able to be much more explosive in our workouts.This particular workout consisted of three circuits of 4 exercises. Each one hitting a different rep range and going from heavy to light with a conditioning move at the end. The key to training like an athlete is staying on your feet as often as possible and performing movements that sometimes require you to drop your ego at the door in the name of improving the strength of the smaller muscles that often get overlooked.Sheamus left it all on the gym floor in this one. After wrestling the night before in Atlanta, the Celtic Warrior flew to Hartford for RAW the next night, undeterred by the travel and was determined to get his workout in. What you see here is just a glimpse of the intensity and effort put forth and required to finish this grueling workout.The complete workout will be viewable on Sheamus’ Celtic Warrior Workouts channel. Trainer Jeff Cavaliere and Sheamus perform the workout together, pushing both each other and themselves to the max. With exercises like barbell dead rows, gorilla rows, and high pull sprinter lunges along with the humbling “light” exercises that hit the smaller muscles of the upper and lower back but are no less difficult, this posterior chain workout shows exactly why “training like an athlete” means leaving no stone unturned. There are no unimportant muscles. Train them all.Finally, the battle ropes are not only used as a conditioning tool but their capability of hitting the posterior chain (instead of the often used anterior chain options) is highlighted. See how to get your heart rate up while still building the muscles necessary to improve overall performance, posture and durability while minimizing injury risk. There is nothing more grueling than the well publicized travel schedule of a WWE athlete. With performances in different cities 4-5 nights of the week, a commitment to training is necessary. That said, the need to prioritize recovery is paramount. This is just one example of the intensity needed to train hard without having to train long. The goal should always be to get your work in and then get out of the gym so you can recover and come back stronger for your next workout without compromising your ability to perform in the ring.For a complete program that puts the science back in strength and lets the regular guy train just like a pro athlete, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Incorporate explosive, well designed workouts and meal plans that will get you performing, looking and feeling like a pro in no time.For more WWE workouts like Jinder Mahal’s and Sting’s be subscribed to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24