ATHLEAN-X™

If you’ve been trying to lose body fat but haven’t been successful despite following all the good advice on fat loss that you can get a hold of, this video is for you. In this video, I’m going to show you how good advice at the wrong time can become bad advice. If you are not losing fat as fast as you would like to, likely it is because you aren’t focusing on the right things. To start, it helps to define certain levels of body fat so that we are all on the same page. If you are greater than 30 percent body fat, your number one culprit is and always will be your nutrition. It is not about the amount of cardio that you are doing or whether or not that cardio workout is being done in a fasted state or not. Given the fact that cardio doesn’t really burn that many calories at the end of the day and that a day full of bad eating can quickly eclipse what you burned in your training, it just isn’t a good idea to focus your efforts there. This is the problem however, and it is repeated frequently almost every day. People will read a tip on fat loss and think that it is the best place to focus their attention as they try to lose weight and drop body fat. For instance, you have likely heard that carbohydrates such as sweet potatoes are better for you than white rice or other less complex carbohydrates. That said, if your body fat is in the over thirty percent range however, it isn’t likely that you are struggling to choose between these two options. Instead, you are likely eating french fries. The same can be said for supplements for fat loss. People have been conditioned to think that supplements are the be all and end all, a savior for those wanting to eat better. The problem with this thinking is however that once the money runs out and you can no longer afford to purchase supplements every month then what habits have you learned to eat better? Likely none. Here again you are going to be setting yourself up for failure in the long run. I always preach how workout consistency and consistency with your healthy eating is crucial for seeing long term results. The key to this statement however is that this operates on a sliding scale. Your ability to lose fat and drop down from the over 30 range to in the 20’s and teens is going to require that you only get it right 60 percent of the time. Instead of focusing on perfection (which is nearly impossible especially for those in bad shape to start), you need to focus on what can be achieved and be inspired by the changes that occur as you make those more consistently right decisions. From here, you should start to get encouraged as you watch your body fat levels drop. Each new milestone becomes a new threshold for improvement and the changes that are required to get there. So, the advice that you were given to focus more on sweet potatoes over white rice may actually become good advice again since it will be delivered to you at the time that it actually matters. This and fasted cardio start to become relevant whereas they were not going to be able to make a difference at higher levels of body fat. The key to losing weight and body fat is to follow a series of achievable goals. The ATHLEAN-X Training Systems take what others make complicated and deliver it to you in a step by step, easy to follow format. Never guess again on how to start losing body fat and get ripped, instead start doing what needs to be done to get there. Don’t set yourself up for failure by setting the wrong goals. Let me show you how to do it all at http://athleanx.com with any of the programs that are best suited to your goals. For more videos on how to lose body f

If you are trying to build your rear delts you need to understand how to hit the muscles in the most effective way you can. In this video, I’m going to show you how to use a single exercise and a single dumbbell to build bigger rear delts without doing reverse flys. The issue with the reverse fly exercise for building your rear delts is that it relies on the use of horizontal abduction rather than the more effective horizontal extension motion. Think of it this way. In order to get a muscle to grow you want to subject it to the maximum amount of contractile force that you can. A muscle that you can get to it’s maximally shortened position is going to be more effectively stimulated than one that resides solely in the mid range of contraction. If you perform dumbbell reverse flys for your rear delts you are never shortening your posterior deltoid as much as it could be. To get to this point you need to focus more on getting the elbow behind your torso. This is called transverse extension at the glenohumeral joint. Here’s the even better part about this. On shoulder day (or whenever you are training your shoulders), you can incorporate this direct exercise for your rear delts using a very focused contraction and lighter weights to ensure you do this correctly. Beyond that however, you can add additional volume by hitting them again on back day or pull day. You see, the act of transverse extension can be easily incorporated into your back exercises like the lat pulldown, rows and one arm dumbbell rows. Take your last set of your normal back exercises and lift the elbows and allow them to drift away from your sides to take the focus off of the lats and put it squarely on the rear delts. This additional volume using heavier loads will be a nice compliment to the lighter more direct work that you are doing with the exercise shown in this video. Speaking of that rear delt exercise, here is the key to performing it correctly. You want to lean against something like the dumbbell rack so that your torso is angled forward without angling too far towards parallel. From here you want to focus on pulling your elbow up and out to the side while simultaneously supinating your forearm. The forearm movement is not meant to engage the bicep but rather to assist in the external rotation of the arm as you raise it up. The posterior deltoid is capable of helping with external rotation of the shoulder and will be maximally activated when you combine the extension with rotation. Hold the contraction for a brief moment at the top and try not to cramp up. Many who try this movement for the first time will feel an intense muscle cramp because they have never fully been able to get this small muscle to reach such a shortened state. That is ok. Just work on building up your strength in this position and you will see your rear delt growth follow suit. For a complete workout program that overlooks no muscle and trains your entire body like an athlete, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. There are no unimportant muscles in the body. They are all there for a purpose. In the case of the rear delts, they are providing more than just symmetry to your shoulders as they are key to maintaining the health of your shoulders in the long term. For more videos on how to build bigger shoulders and get bigger rear delts, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Lifting heavy weights is one of the most important things you can do as you build the foundation of your strength and start out as a beginner lifter. That said, if you don’t do this right you are setting yourself up for a harder road ahead in getting your body to respond to your training. In this video, I’m going to show you when lifting heavy is bad and more importantly, why this is. Most beginners become obsessed with the numbers they are lifting rather than focusing on the way they are lifting the heavier and heavier weights. If you are lifting heavier but loosening up on your form in order to do so, you are only ingraining stronger dysfunctional patterns in your lifts. The longer this goes on, the harder it is for you to undo the habits you’ve learned and correct the imbalances you have established by doing so. If you take the example of the squat for instance, you have a big compound exercise that lends itself to easy strength gains. It doesn’t take long for you to start adding more and more weights to the bar and lifting heavy on this staple lower body exercise. The problem comes when you get these heavier weights by slowly shortening the depth of your squats or by allowing the muscles to take a break during the exercise and instead rely on the support of the tendons. Over time, your false sense of security and strength is going to ultimately undermine you in either the form of less development than you should have given your lifts or in the form of an injury. When you lift heavy weights you should be in complete control of the lift. Obviously, you have heard how important form is, but that isn’t all there is to it. When you do this for a longer period of time your body will find it very difficult to undo the motor patterns it has learned along the way. In order to ensure that you are lifting weights that your muscles can command, I like to incorporate a pause technique into my squats. Instead of just bouncing out of the bottom of the squat, lower the weight and perform a pause squat. I want you to be sure that you are in command of the weight and not just going along for the ride. By incorporating a slight pause at the bottom, you will have to be able to control the weight and reinitiate the lift with the strength of the quads and glutes and not momentum. You may even have to back up quite a bit in order to realize the true strength that you have in your legs. That is ok. Instead of lying to yourself it will be much more rewarding and helpful to determine your true strength and then work back up from there. In the meantime if you feel like you are going to be lacking because you aren’t doing any more “heavy lifting”, feel free to take an exercise that doesn’t demand as much in terms of your form or reveal your true form flaws and use your heavier weights on those. If you are looking for a complete program that always puts the truth in training and refuses to bs you along the way, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start paying attention to all of the things that really matter in your workouts and you’ll be amazed at how much better results you’ll see by doing so. For more videos on how to lift heavy weights and when to lift light weights, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you want to build ripped, huge forearms you don’t have to do long forearm workouts to get the job done. In this video, I’m going to show you a forearm workout you can do in just 6 minutes that will help you to build bigger and more vascular forearms with just a few exercises. The key, as with any brief workout, is that you increase the intensity of your training to offset the lack of time spent training. This forearm workout consists of just three major exercises for your forearms. It begins with an empty bar. Pick it up and start trying to do bar rolls, with your wrists bending backwards on every turn. This will work the forearm extensor muscles on the backside of your arms. The goal is to see if you can complete a full minute without stopping. If you must rest, do so briefly and then get back to the remainder of the exercise. As soon as you put the bar down it’s time to go onto the next exercise in this forearm workout, the bar hang. This is as simple as it gets in terms of the execution of the exercise but it is difficult to actually perform for a full minute. Here you just grab onto a pullup bar, keep your arms straight, and just hang for as long as you can. Because of the fatigue you already have built up from the first forearm exercise in this circuit you are going to find this much more difficult than it looks. See if you can go for the full minute and then immediately go back to the bar. This time, when you roll the barbell you are going to do so with your forearms bending downwards towards your thighs. This slight change will actually put all of the work on the forearm flexor muscles instead. Curl for the entire minute if you can and then put the bar down and go pick up a pair of challenging dumbbells. The farmer’s carry is the next forearm exercise you have to try and do for one minute. Again, this normally wouldn’t be such a touch exercise, but at this point in the forearm workout and with the fatigue you have built up already this can be grueling. If you don’t have the space to walk back in forth with the dumbbells you can always walk in place. Either way, the goal is to try and get through an entire minute without having to put the dumbbells down. You are now in the last two minutes of the workout. Once again, you’ll pick up the bar but this time you are going to perform 30 seconds of the wrist roll backs and 30 seconds of the wrist roll forwards. The burn may be so intense that you want to quit and give up, but do not. This is when the magic happens. Push yourself harder than ever before to try and get through these final 2 minutes. From here, it’s back up to the bar once more to see if you can perform a simple bar hang for the final one minute. Not many can get all the way to the end without dropping from the bar early. Be one of the ones that does. Challenge yourself and use every last ounce of strength you have in your forearms to see if you can survive this 6 minute forearm workout. If you are ready to trade in unnecessary workout length for intensity and better results, then head to http://athleanx.com and get one of the ATHLEAN-X Training Systems. The program selector tool in the link above will give you the chance to see which program is best matched to your current goals and will have you training like an athlete in just minutes from now. For more forearm workouts and exercises for bigger forearms, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you’ve been trying to lose body fat but haven’t been successful despite following all the good advice on fat loss that you can get a hold of, this video is for you. In this video, I’m going to show you how good advice at the wrong time can become bad advice. If you are not losing fat as fast as you would like to, likely it is because you aren’t focusing on the right things. To start, it helps to define certain levels of body fat so that we are all on the same page. If you are greater than 30 percent body fat, your number one culprit is and always will be your nutrition. It is not about the amount of cardio that you are doing or whether or not that cardio workout is being done in a fasted state or not. Given the fact that cardio doesn’t really burn that many calories at the end of the day and that a day full of bad eating can quickly eclipse what you burned in your training, it just isn’t a good idea to focus your efforts there. This is the problem however, and it is repeated frequently almost every day. People will read a tip on fat loss and think that it is the best place to focus their attention as they try to lose weight and drop body fat. For instance, you have likely heard that carbohydrates such as sweet potatoes are better for you than white rice or other less complex carbohydrates. That said, if your body fat is in the over thirty percent range however, it isn’t likely that you are struggling to choose between these two options. Instead, you are likely eating french fries. The same can be said for supplements for fat loss. People have been conditioned to think that supplements are the be all and end all, a savior for those wanting to eat better. The problem with this thinking is however that once the money runs out and you can no longer afford to purchase supplements every month then what habits have you learned to eat better? Likely none. Here again you are going to be setting yourself up for failure in the long run. I always preach how workout consistency and consistency with your healthy eating is crucial for seeing long term results. The key to this statement however is that this operates on a sliding scale. Your ability to lose fat and drop down from the over 30 range to in the 20’s and teens is going to require that you only get it right 60 percent of the time. Instead of focusing on perfection (which is nearly impossible especially for those in bad shape to start), you need to focus on what can be achieved and be inspired by the changes that occur as you make those more consistently right decisions. From here, you should start to get encouraged as you watch your body fat levels drop. Each new milestone becomes a new threshold for improvement and the changes that are required to get there. So, the advice that you were given to focus more on sweet potatoes over white rice may actually become good advice again since it will be delivered to you at the time that it actually matters. This and fasted cardio start to become relevant whereas they were not going to be able to make a difference at higher levels of body fat. The key to losing weight and body fat is to follow a series of achievable goals. The ATHLEAN-X Training Systems take what others make complicated and deliver it to you in a step by step, easy to follow format. Never guess again on how to start losing body fat and get ripped, instead start doing what needs to be done to get there. Don’t set yourself up for failure by setting the wrong goals. Let me show you how to do it all at http://athleanx.com with any of the programs that are best suited to your goals. For more videos on how to lose body f

If you thought the only way to get bigger biceps was to lift heavy weights, then this is the video for you. Here I’m going to show you how you not only can build big biceps with light weights but how you must lift lighter weights at some point in your training if you want to have maximum bicep development. The roots of this video were covered in the one I did on hypertrophy and the three main methods of building muscle. In that, I discussed how there are three main ways of eliciting muscle growth from your workouts. The first is progressive overload. This can be achieved through either adding more weight to the bar or by increasing the volume of work that you perform in a given workout or workouts. The problem with progressive overload however is that you ultimately run into a wall and cannot continue to add weight or volume without failing to be able to do so or incurring unwanted overuse. Similarly, you can use eccentric overload training. Here you rely on the increased strength that you have in an eccentric muscle contraction that you don’t have in a concentric contraction to your advantage. The slow lowering of the heavier weights act to cause a mechanical disruption to the muscles that you are training and cause a stimulus for that muscle (in this case the biceps) to be built up bigger and stronger during the recovery process. The most overlooked tool for increasing muscle size however is the metabolic training method. Here, the goal is to increase the production of metabolites, the biproduct of muscle contraction. As you continue to rep out even when the lactic acid burn has caused you to want to give up, you are providing an incredible stimulus for muscle growth. This occurs due to the influx of water into the muscle cell in order to reduce the concentration of metabolites inside the working muscle cell. If you want your biceps to grow bigger you not only will want to do more of this type of training but you must do more of it. The first place to start is to take regular bicep exercises and start incorporating constant motion to them. Instead of taking even a brief rest at either the top or the bottom of the exercise, you will lighten the weights and work within the middle 90 percent of the rep. By eliminating the top and bottom you are able to stay in the middle of the rep and keep working until the burn is almost unbearable. The second way to use light weights to build bigger biceps is to pick peak contraction exercises like the spider curl and stick within the contracted position and rep out. Here, you are not only using constant motion but you are relying on the occlusive effect that you are creating by abbreviating the top half of the movement. The burn will once again be crazy, but this is what you need to resist and realize that every rep done with the burn present will deliver more and more of the size and growth response that you are after. If you are looking for a program that puts the science back in strength and makes sure that you never overlook any important element of your training, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and use our program selector to get the workout that is most aligned with your goals. Use the same workout programs that pro athletes use to get in their best shape ever by training smarter and harder. For more videos on how to build big arms and get bigger biceps with light weights and heavy weights, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

The medicine ball is still one of the best ab training tools you can use if you want to develop a razor sharp six pack. Why? Because in actuality, all the med ball is doing is providing you with a way to overload your ab exercises with weight. The convenience of the round ball allows you to hold onto it easily and even perform some explosive exercises that other weighted objects wouldn't allow. The first ab exercise you can do with a medicine ball is the weighted hollow rock. This ab movement is easy to perform by simply locking in your abs and preventing your torso from extending. Once you are locked in you can make the exercise harder by extending the medicine ball overhead. The next exercise is the side slam. This is a more explosive exercise that can be used to get a six pack by providing you with a lot of overload on your rectus abdominis and your obliques. Work on performing all reps to failure on one side before moving onto the other side and doing the same there. The three way slam is another great and explosive exercise for crushing your abs and core as well. A six pack is always going to look better when it is framed out by the obliques. This movement is going to do just that. The three way v-up reach is a multi-part ab exercise the combines a regular ninety degree crunch. At one point the ball is used to weight your legs and make it more difficult for you to perform the crunch. At another point you are going to reach high towards your toes with it, in what is likely going to be the most difficult of the 3 parts of the movement. The bottom line is the medicine ball is one of the most effective ab training pieces of equipment that you can use. It isn't a gimmick. It is simply a tool that is weighted that allows you to more easily overload your abs. Doing the same ab exercises over and over and expecting a different result is not rational. Change it up and go back to using a weighted med ball and you will be surprised at what you are capable of in terms of developing a six pack. For a complete program that helps you to build a ripped six pack while learning how to eat well on a get ripped nutrition plan, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on how to get six pack abs and ab exercises you can do at home with just a single piece of equipment, be sure to subscribe to our youtube channel here at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Hanging ab exercises can be very challenging. Not necessarily in doing enough reps of them but rather doing enough quality reps of them. In order to do the hanging leg raise effectively, you’re going to first have to teach your body how to stop swinging. Far too many people allow momentum to carry them through the exercise and they mistake the act of completing a rep with the action of completing a meaningful rep. In this video, I’m going to show you a simple tip that you can employ on the very next set of hanging leg raises (or any other hanging ab exercise for that matter) that will help you to gain full control of your body and prevent unwanted swinging on every rep. The key to minimizing the momentum is to not let the body be at the mercy of momentum. How do we do that? We can do this by engaging the muscles that are at our disposal that are capable of stabilizing us when the only two points of contact we have are our hands on the bar. Some will try and squeeze the bar to gain support and stability however this will only cause the forearms to fatigue faster than your abs or lats if you are attempting to do a pullup or chinup. Instead, you want to look a bit further down the kinetic chain to your shoulder blades. If you can control the scapula and prevent unwanted motion there, then you are going to be able to impact the hands through their connection to the humerus. So here is what you want to do. Before you start your next repetition of a hanging ab raise or leg raise, first engage the lower traps by pulling the shoulder blades down. You should be sure to keep your arms straight the entire time. If you bend your elbows when pulling the shoulder blades down you are likely just using your biceps to do the work. This is not going to accomplish what we are trying to do. Instead, keep the arms straight and pull the arms down to engage the lower traps and set up the stability in the shoulder blades. If you don’t have the requisite strength in your shoulder blades to perform this exercise tweak when hanging that is ok. Instead, start by performing this in a captains chair with your back pressed into the back pad. The additional surface area that you are pushing through will give you a better chance at stabilizing your body to prevent swinging while doing the hanging ab exercises. Progress to moving out to the dip bars and make sure to depress the scapula when doing the leg raises from here. Obviously, you don’t have the support of your back here so this is going to be more difficult. Once you’ve mastered this, get up on the bar and do your hanging ab exercises with just the tweak the lower trap and scapular depression. You’ll stop the swinging and start noticing better results from these exercises in no time at all. For a complete program that tells you not just what exercises to do but how to do them to get more out of everything you do, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and see how that can quickly translate into looking like an athlete. For more videos on how to improve your pullups as well as hundreds of ab exercises to help you carve up your six pack, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you watch this channel regularly, you’ve likely watched Jesse add muscle and get leaner over the last few months. In this video, I’m showcasing the muscle building changes that he has been able to make by getting serious about his training and growing up at the same time. You may be shocked to hear that I am doing Jesse no favors during this process. I told him when he started, I am not going to want this more than you should. If this really means something to you, then you will find a way to prioritize it in your day and make time for. Not only has he been able to do that over the last 6 months or so but he has been getting locked in on his nutrition as well. By trading in his gummy bear addiction for an iron addiction, Jesse has been able to start revealing his eight pack abs he’s been hiding under his skinny fat physique for years. So what exactly has he done? He started with the AX1 program available at http://athleanx.com as his base training. Other than helping him with his posture (to help him to get more out of his workouts and keep him healthy) I have provided him with no special workouts or routines. He has been using the exact same programs and workouts that I know have a proven history of working, for those willing to put in the work. It’s no secret that Jesse was not really committed to training when he first started working for me. I did challenge him however. I told him, if you ever want to step out from behind the camera and get in front of it with me, you’re going to want to start looking like you belong there. He knew that I was challenging him and rather than shrinking away from it, he rose to the challenge and decided to make a change. It started with his first workout. All I wanted him to do was string two in a row. What was two became three and what was three became four. He was determined. That is until he suffered an accident that landed him in the hospital and cost him the early progress that he was seeing. Shortly after the New Year, he was medically cleared from his head injury to resume training. In all honesty, I figured he had lost the desire to work out and would likely not get back into it. I was wrong. By the 3rd week of January he was locked in and committed more than ever to seeing his transformation through. He has never looked back. With just a little over 5 months of consistent training and watching the foods he eats, Jesse has been able to create great changes in his body and is looking stronger, feeling healthier and acting more determined than ever to succeed. His transformation is inspiring not only himself but the many others who find themselves in similar shoes and relate to his struggles. If you too are inspired by what he has done and decide that it’s time to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself “why not me” then I am ready to help you. Choose from the programs available at http://athleanx.com to see the one best matched to your current physique goals. Maybe you want to build muscle, maybe you need to mostly burn fat, or maybe you need to do some of each. Whatever your needs are at the moment, I have a program to help you and a desire to see you through to your goal just like I have been with Jesse. For more body transformation videos like that of Aamir Khan and Zac Efron, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

There are so many exercises you can do in your workouts but these 5 in particular are ones you are going to want to swap out right away. In this video, I’m going to show you the five most popular exercises that deserve to be replaced with alternatives that are not just more effective but safer in the process. The first of these exercises is the lat pulldown. While this is a great exercise for building the lats it just isn’t the most functional or powerful movement you can do if you want to train like an athlete. The same can be said for the king of the bodyweight exercises, the pullup. The pullup has your body suspended off the bar hanging freely. There is no grounding of the feet and therefore no power transfer up the kinetic chain. With the one arm cable pulldown however, all is improved. You are not only standing up but you’re letting the abs and lats work together as they prefer to while getting a much better stretch on the lat muscles on every rep. Next up is the seated dumbbell shoulder press. Once again, you lose a big amount of athleticism the second you sit on the bench to perform this exercise. Beyond that, you are driving your back into the pad and disrupting the normal scapular rotation that should occur when you lift your arm above your head. The easy swap here is to perform this exercise standing. Even better, clean the dumbbells off the floor at the start of every set for an even more functional exercise without compromising the growth of your shoulders. Next is the back squat. In no way is the back squat a bad exercise. The problem with it however is that it can hide a lot of mobility and flexibility restrictions that could make performing it long term an unwise idea. Instead, if you swap to the front squat you will see very quickly what areas and restrictions you have that need to be fixed. Maybe your thoracic extension is limited. Maybe your ankles lack mobility. Whatever the issue you will want to reveal it with the front squat and then fix it before returning to back squatting. Next is the upright row. This is a flat out terrible exercise for your shoulders. While some may like the benefits it provides the delts in terms of growth there is no debating the punishment it places on your shoulder joint over time. There is a quick and easy fix however and that is to swap it out with the dumbbell high pull exercise shown in this video. The act of externally rotating the shoulder rather than internally rotating it is enough to turn this exercise from bad to good quickly. The dumbbell fly is another potential long term shoulder killer by artificially stressing the anterior shoulder capsule under an insecure load. On top of that, it’s again a non functional pressing exercise since it removes a good deal of the cooperation from the rest of your body by having you lay down on a bench. Stand up and perform the 3D crossover instead. You will still get the horizontal adduction of the arm that the fly is known for while protecting the shoulder joint and getting muscles to work together that prefer to in the first place. The concentration curl is an added bonus. Once again, training your biceps is always going to involve some version of a curl. That is what your elbow joint does. That said, this is the worst one you can do. There is absolutely no functional carryover at all. Stand up and curl those dumbbells together at the same time. This will require the entire core to work harder than if you were to curl one dumbbell at a time. These 5 exercise swaps are just the beginning of what it means to train like an athlete. If you want a complete program to get you trainin