Exercise of the Week
May 3, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
This week’s exercise of the week is the quadruped hip extension. I used to laugh at my little sister when she did these at home while following along to her Buns of Steel tape (no DVDs back then). Come to find out, this is a very good exercise that really hits the glutes. So Tootie, it looks like the joke is on me. Go ahead, laugh at me and call me names, I deserve it. 
Anyway, Strength Coach Bret Conterashas done a great job of letting us (us = those interested in achieving a better booty) in on his glute studies. Bret has been doing some experimenting – he places electrodes on different parts of the body while measuring the EMG activity in the various muscle parts. His experiment shows that the peak activation is very high in the glute medius and upper glute max while performing the quadruped hip extension. And here is how it is done…
At the top of the movement SQEEEEEEZE the glutes for a second and make sure NOT to hyperextend your lower back.
Getting a Sexy Butt Looks Easy
Not so fast. Simply throwing in some quadruped hip extensions is a great way to improve your butt. But it will take a lot more than this body weight exercise to maximize your bootylicious potential. I still want you to perform different squat variations (back squats, front squats etc), different single leg variations (bulgarian split squats, reverse lunges etc) aBduction variations (X-Band Walks), and hip extension variations (RDLs, glute bridge, etc). As you can see, the quadruped hip extension is an effective tool, but it is only one tool. You need to use all of the above from time-to-time to complete your tool box.
Do you want to run faster for your sport? Do you want to keep your body healthy? Do you want a much more round, shapely back side? If you answer yes to any of the above, make sure you are incorporating the quadruped hip extension into your program.
Are You Ready?
April 29, 2010 by danny · 3 Comments
Danny, how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat should I eat each day? Oh, and do you think I should be carb cycling? And when it comes to my weight training, do you think I should use the pre-fatigue or post-fatigue method?
These are the type of questions I get from people all the time. While I’m flattered that my opinion matters to them, more often than not this person is not ready to even worry about this stuff. What do I mean by this? Well, most people don’t come even close to taking care of the basics. I don’t really care if you are eating 175 grams versus 183 grams of protein per day if you not doing the following….
-supplementing with fish oil
-drinking your green tea daily
-drinking approximately half of your body weight in ounces of water per day (i.e. you weigh190 lbs so you drink ~ 95 ounces of water per day)
-preparing your meals in advance so you are never find yourself absolutely starving, which will make you more susceptible to binging. I consider myself a pretty disciplined person, but if my blood sugar is dropping fast and I’m starting to get that, “kill me know” feeling, I’m going to find myself pulling in to the nearest pizza joint yelling… GIVE ME SOME PEPPERONI, NOW!
There you go, take in about 2-3 grams (minimum) of combined DHA/EPA per day from your fish oil supplement. So, if you read the label on the back of your bottle and it says, “DHA – 200 mg; EPA – 300 mg per softgel,” then you would have to take 6 per day to get 3 grams of combined DHA/EPA (500 mg X 6 = 3000 mg, Or 3 grams).
Get at least one serving of green tea per day.
Drink mucho agua.
Prepare your meals in advance, store it in a glass container, bring it to work and eat the “leftovers” there.
4 tips that anyone can incorporate without killing themself. Just takes a little prep. Before you know it, it will become a habit and a lifestyle.
Do all of the above day-in, day-out, then we can talk about advanced training methods. And we can talk about whether or not carb-cycling would be a good choice for you. And we talk about the best game show of all time. Wait, we can talk about that even if you are not drinking green tea. The answer to that is obviously the Family Feud.
Halftime of the Nuggets/Jazz game is approaching, so I’m off to do some cooking (seriously I am, I’m not just saying that…I promise). I hope you follow these simple life-changing tips and then a few weeks later hit me up with, “Danny, I’ve been doing “extended-5s” for the past 3 weeks and my gunz are getting hyooge! If I switch over to “classic clusters” do you think the chicks will be all over me?”
Umm, I like the classic cluster, but even that training method won’t save you. Let’s start off by unrolling your pants, and go from there…
Overrated and Underrated Exercises: Part III
April 26, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
Installment # 3 in this series is here. Just as I did in the previous overrated/underrated posts, I’ll start off by explaining what I mean by “overrated” and “underrated,” when it comes to exercise selection… I think Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. BUT, if the general public was to make this statement; “You give me Michael Jordan with 4 guys off the street, and I’d take Jordan’s team in 6 games over the ‘86 Celtics.” Well, IF that was the thinking of the majority of people, then I’d have to say that even Michael Jordan is overrated! So, if one of your favorite exercises gets tossed in the overrated category, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should never perform that exercise again, and/or call me mean names. It just means that in my opinion, this particular exercise is way overused by the majority of trainees, often times at the expense of an exercise that could be a much better option.
Bulgarian Split Squats
Out of the hundreds of clients that I have trained over the years, I believe I’ve had 2, maybe 3 of them say; “We have bulgarian split squats today? Yes!” This is an exercise that is generally NOT a crowd pleaser. Why? Because they are hard. Yeah, but they are very effective. Most of us don’t spend enough time performing unilateral (one leg at a time) exercises. And bulgarian split squats are a must, if you are looking for big-bang-for-your-buck exercises. To perform them, keep your chest high, abs tight, and the weight on the heel of the down (working) leg. Do not add weight until you are able to get nice and deep (hip down to knee height) on each rep. The glutes come more into play the deeper you get. If you want a nice round, firm booty, work on getting low! Perform all reps on one leg, before switching legs. It will look something like this…
Again, not enough people are using this movement in their training, and it is as very effective exercise. Soooo …
Underrated!
Tricep Kickbacks
The tricep kickback – an exercise that I see people performing in the gym all the time. And usually, it is a female using the 3-pound pink dumbbells. To top if off, if I was to ask her; “what are your goals?” She would probably respond; “to lose fat.” Well, with such a little movement, and with such light weight, the tricep kickback is NOT going to burn a whole lot of calories. Would I ever be ok with someone using this exercise? Acutally, yes. If you have put at least a couple of years into training and have gotten a lot bigger and stronger, then go ahead and throw in some kickbacks every once in awhile. But if you are fairly new to training, and/or have a main goal of fat loss, do yourself a favor and ditch the tricep kickback.
Definitely goes in the overrated category.
Going forward, make sure to include bulgarian split squats in your training! And ask yourself; “with my experience and my goals, are tricep kickbacks a good choice for me?” Only you can answer that, but make sure to keep my above comments in mind when making your decision. Best of luck in accomplishing your goals!
Make Your Cardio Sessions a Competition
April 21, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
Raise your hand if you look forward to cardio. My hand is down. Raise your hand if you are competitive. My hand is up. Actually, my hand is WAY up in the air. The idea of competing always gets my blood flowin’. I don’t care whether it is a board game, basketball, or, “I’ll give you $5 if you can name 7 movies with Denzel Washington in them in 15 seconds or less. GO!” Now that is fun, I look forward to anything that involves competition. As a matter of fact, the majority of my day involves some kind of competition… when I drive to the gym; “over/under on how many minutes it will take me to get there?” Of course, being the model-citizen that I am, I make sure to follow the rules of the road in my attempt to “win.” Carson and I play this game quite often; “Carson, over/under on when your mom will get home?” And through experience, here is how I set the line; whatever I think the normal time would be that she would be walking through the door, I multiply times 3. So, if she is coming home from the grocery store and 15 minutes sounds about right, I set the over/under at 45 minutes. Women! What? I love y’all, but you take a long time to do schtuff.
I could go on and on with examples of things that I do throughout the day that make me not-so-normal, but I think you get the point. Back to competitive cardio…
My Day At The Field
On Sunday I decided to suck it up and head to a local field to get some conditioning work in. It is a beautiful “field turf” field with lines all over the place. My goal was to find two lines that looked like it would take me about 15-20 seconds to run. So I went with two yellow lines and gave it a try. I told myself to run at about 85% intensity on set 1, and from there I just timed how long it took me to get from one yellow line to the next. 100% would be like I was running from a hungry grizzly bear.
So, this first sprint was fast, but not quite all-out. It ended up to be a 17-second sprint. I estimate it was about 300 meters .*** I then rested twice as long on every set. So, 34 seconds of rest (a 2:1 rest:work ratio). My goal was to see how many sets I could get in before hitting the 18-second mark on any sprint. I ended up getting 8 sets at 17 seconds or less, with set #9 taking me 18 seconds. I then called it a day. And I’ll tell you what, I’m actually looking forward to my next cardio session. Not because I enjoy cardio, but because can’t wait to attempt to beat my numbers.
Bottom line, there are ways to make cardio “fun.” Making your cardio sessions a competition is the best way to make sure that you, 1) actually get your cardio in, and 2) encourage you to make progress with each session, getting you one step closer to your goals. So, get that notebook out, record your results and try to beat your numbers each and every time!
***More like 150 meters. 
Exercise of the Week
April 12, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
The exercise of the week is the chin-up. The chin-up is a great compound movement that works many muscles simultaneously. The latissimus dorsi is the prime mover. But other muscles of the back also come into play – the rhomboids, teres major, lower traps, etc. The biceps get a good amount of work with chins as well. Also, whenever I go a couple training blocks without doing chin-ups, my first day back at them, my abs get very sore the next day – especially when adding a lot of weight and going with lower reps. This happens because our abdominals fire like crazy to help stabilize us. As you can see, chin-ups (and pull-ups, which are done with the palms facing away from the body) are a BIG bang for-your-buck movement!
Proper Form
Start each rep from the full hang position. To initiate the movement activate the lats and picture pulling with your elbows (this helps you to pull with the proper muscles). Keep your chest high, and shoulder blades down and back. I tell me clients to, “go get the bar with your chest.” In other words, if the chest leads the way up, it will help you keep your shoulder blades down and back. As soon as you lose range of motion (you can’t get your chin above the bar), or you start shrugging your traps, stop the set. Make sure you do NOT look up and hyper-extend your neck up over the bar. You cheater you! Keep your head/neck neutral throughout (look straight forward).
The first video is a video of me doing chins with weight added. You’ll notice I pause between each rep because I am performing “classic clusters.” If interested in what a classic cluster is, you can read more about it here.
Modifications
Strength-wise, if you aren’t ready for chin-ups on your own, you can always have a partner push up on your feet on the way up, and you do all the work on the way down. Or, what we usually do is use bands for assistance. The thicker the band, the easier it is. We use bands from performbetter.com. You can see the link up and to the right of your screen. Just search for “superbands.”
Basketball Strength Training for Newbies
April 7, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
Take a look around. What are you seeing more and more in basketball? Guys on the court that are as big and wide as a barn-yard door. I was watching a NBA game last night and there happened to be a game playing on that ESPN classic channel at the same time. I found myself flipping back and fourth between commercials.
Exercise of the Week
April 6, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
In previous weeks, I focused on lifting for the exercise of the week. Today, I’m going to put the focus on improving mobility. Getting leaning, stronger, and more muscular is great. But if you don’t work on your mobility, it will lead to problems down the line. These problems could be; injury – if you don’t spend time getting the proper joints mobile, your body will go to another joint to get this motion. Quite often this ends up being a joint that is designed for stability, NOT mobility. So basically, you’re getting mobility at the wrong joint. Another problem is a drop in performance. This drop could show up on the athletic field, or in the weight room. If you are trying to get the most out of each training session, this is not a good thing. You want each training session to be as efficient as possible.
Exercise of the Week: Walking Spiderman
I picked up this exercise from a great product called Access & Correct. This is an exercise me and my clients use pre-workout to improve the length of our hip flexors (which are tight for just about everyone out there…from all the sitting we do, day-in-day-out), and the adductors. As described in Access & Correct;
-Take a long stride forward into a lunge position.
-Keeping the chest up and out, lower the same-side elbow to the heel of the your forward leg.
-In the bottom position, squeeze the glute of the trailing leg and drive the hip towards the ground.
-Stand up and return to the starting position.
- Maintain a neutral spine and do not allow your back to round.
-Keep the chest up and out.
-Make sure to take long strides to lengthen the adductors.
New Service…
March 24, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
Beach Season Is Right Around The Corner!
I want to make everyone aware of the new service I just added. I’m calling it , “The Cook Training Program.” One of the reasons I started this website, was to be able to help as many people as possible reach their health and physique goals. I designed The Cook Training Program with the intention of reaching the masses. It is very affordable for just about anyone.
You choose your main goal. With beach season right around the corner, maybe you are looking to lean out a bit. If so, go with the fat loss program.
If you are one of the “lucky ones,” and are already lean, maybe you are looking to add a little size. If that is the case, go with the muscle gaining program.
To get all of the details, check out this link.
Overrated and Underrated Exercises: Part II
March 16, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
In the first installment of overrated/underrated exercises, I covered bicep curls, and rows. Just as I did in that article, I’ll start off by explaining what I mean by “overrated” and “underrated,” when it comes to exercise selection… I think Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. BUT, if the general public was to make this statement; “You give me Michael Jordan with 4 guys off the street, I’d take Jordan’s team in 6 games over the ‘86 Celtics.” Well, IF that was the thinking of the majority of people, then I’d have to say that even Michael Jordan is overrated! So, if one of your favorite exercises gets tossed in the overrated category, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should never perform that exercise again, and/or call me mean names. It just means that in my opinion, this particular exercise is way overused by the majority of trainees, often times at the expense of an exercise that could be a much better option
Upright Rows
First, let me clarify. I’m speaking about barbellupright rows in particular. If you perform dumbell upright rows, you can adjust the plane of motion and grip, making this movement less risky. Ok, back to barbell upright rows.
When you perform a barbell upright row, you are doing so with your humerus maximally interally rotated. (palms facing towards your body, like the lady’s hands in the picture above) This is especially problematic when you are abducting/flexing the humerus with this hand position, (pronated grip) which is exactly what is happening when you raise the bar towards your sternum. Can upright rows contribute to better looking shoulders and traps? Yes. Does a snickers bar have protein in it? Yes. Do you see where I am going with this? Just because there is some good that comes along with upright rows, (and snickers) there is also a whole lot of bad that could come your way. So, my advice is to pick exercises for your shoulders like push presses, shoulder presses, and lateral raises. Don’t forget, ANY exercise has the potential to be harmful. But when looking at the risk:reward ratio of the barbell upright row, it just doesn’t make much sense to me to include these in my programming.
Conclusion: Barbell Upright Rows = Overrated
Single Leg RDL
The single RDL (Romanian Deadlift) is an exercise with many benefits. It works the often neglected “posterior chain.” (back side of your body) This single leg version obviously has you working one leg at a time. This is important because single leg exercises work your stabilizers way more than a bilateral lower body exercise does. Plus, the majority of sports are spent with one leg on the ground at once. Even if sports aren’t your thing, RDLs do wonders for your butt and hamstrings, from an appearance perspective. So, if you want to look better, perform better, and keep yourself healthy, I highly suggest incorporating the single leg RDL. On the occassions that I go to a commercial gym to train, I rarely if ever, see people performing this exercise. So, the single leg RDL gets a BIG, fat…Underrated.
In conculsion, if have been using the barbell upright row, please give this exercise a second thought. And it’s time to add the single leg RDL into your toolbox. You can’t, or shouldn’t, only perform exercises that work the “mirror muscles.” You do have a backside of your body you know! 
Exercise(s) of the Week
March 11, 2010 by danny · Leave a Comment
Yesterday I went over “X-Band Walks,” and how they can be use to get your glutes “turned on” and firing on all cylinders. Today I am going to cover the very underrated, push-ups. Most people seem to think push-ups are too difficult, (many newbie females) or too easy (guys that think they’re “Mr. Everything”). Typical guy workout; bench press 2-3 times per week and hit every different angle on the bench – incline/flat/decline/slight incline/high incline/upside down/inside-out. Ok, so a couple of those are made up, but you get the point. I have nothing against any of these exercises, but ALL this pressing, combined with a lack of rowing exercises, and way too much sitting at the computer all day, can lead to shoulder pain/injuries. Well, let me tell you, of the pressing exercises out there, push-ups are the easiest on the shoulders. As a bonus, it also strengthens the serratus anterior (a muscle that is important for posture) and is a great exercise for your core. Check out the video below for some of your push-up options.
While there are more options to make push-ups either easier or harder, this list of pushup variations covers quite a few. Before we go over the different examples in the video, lets talk about proper push-up form. This is important because most people have been doing them wrong for years, thinking they’ve been doing them right. Going forward, don’t let that be you.
The Perfect Push-up
Push-up Variations
Easiest to hardest from the video…
-Bench Push-ups
-Step Push-ups
-Floor Push-ups
-Feet Elevated Push-ups
-Spiderman Push-ups
-Band Push-ups (to make it even more difficult, just use a thicker band)
As I mentioned in yesterday’s X-Band post, I got my bands from Perform Better. The link to right of the screen will take you to the bands and can be found under the category of “superbands.”
That raps it up for this weeks exercise(s) of the week. Make sure to start incorporating X-Band walks for a more sexy booty. And if you’ve ditched push-ups because they aren’t hardcore enough, please think again. Good luck!
