So many people do nothing all week and then participate in sports on the weekend. These are people we refer to as “Weekend Warriors”.  The problem is that so many of these weekend warriors wind up injured. Whether it is overuse injuries or something more severe, these injuries occur because of lack of conditioning, lack of warm up time or lack of strength and endurance to complete the task. I want you to understand this and to understand how to avoid these injuries. That's the purpose of this article.

1. Maintain a regular routine. Don't just jump in on the weekend and expect to be a major athlete. Be sure that during the week you are consistently doing cardiovascular exercise, weight training and stretching.
2. Use the right equipment. Be sure that you are using the right equipment for the activity you are performing.
3. Listen to your body. People say “no pain, no gain” and that isn't correct. Discomfort is something you expect when exercising, but pain is not something you should experience. If you feel pain, stop what you are doing. This is your body's way of telling you to slow down.
4. Slowly increase your activity and intensity. Don't just jump in at full crazy intensity. Start with an intensity and duration you can handle and only increase that by 10% per week.

If you happen to suffer an injury use the RICE technique on it:

• Rest the injured area.
• Ice the injured area 10 to 15 minutes throughout the day to minimize pain and swelling.
• Compress the area in some way.
• Elevate the area.

If pain persists see your doctor for further treatment.

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Today's Monday Madness is about lifting heavy. I have a motto and that is lift heavy or go home. Yes, I undersatand the need to periodize your training and that includes changing up the amount of weight you lift, but my motto takes that into consideration. If you are hitting the gym you need to do it with maximum effort and that is all my motto is saying.

I personally love lifting heavy weights. It is one reason that High Intensity Training (HIT) is one of my favourite methods of training. HIT has you doing 1 to 2 sets per exercise and taking those to complete and total failure. It makes you lift very heavy because you are using much lower repetitions. I love this style of lifting as the intensity cannot be faked.

With that said, if your program calls for you to lift at 50% of your 1RM, make sure you are doing it. Do not cheat to get the repetitions in. Push yourself. There is no point in training if you are going to take it easy on yourself. You only see changes in your body when you push it out of its comfort zone. That's what my motto will force you to do. It is saying “push yourself as hard as you can or don't bother coming to the gym at all.”

I've told you all many times before that there are many variables to training, but intensity seems to be the one I love playing with the most. No matter what else I am doing I like to lift with extreme intensity. The next time you are in the gym ask yourself if you could have done more reps. Undoubtedly the answer is going to be “yes” unless you are already pushing yourself as I am suggesting. If you find that you can do more reps, do them. As CT Fletcher would say, “It is still your motherf***ing set!” Quite simply put, don't ask how many reps you should be doing, just do as many reps as you possibly can. That's the true secret to training success and that's the madness I want to leave with you this Monday.

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I was thinking about the type of information I provide and realized that a lot of it is theoretical. I wanted to give you some insight into my own training techniques. Going forward I will be writing an article a week about my personal approach to training. I want you to get a feel for who I am and what I am doing. Today I am going to start the trend by discussing a list of my favourite exercises for each body part.

My Explanation

• Biceps Curl. I love this exercise because I can change the width of my grip and hit the biceps in a different way (see my article 5 Ways to Build Better Biceps)
• Arnold Press. This exercise can be done on a bench or standing with your back pushed against the wall. When done correctly it gives your shoulders a major burn.
• Rope Pushdown. This one is never done correctly by anyone I've seen do it at the gym. I love this because I have a constant burn in my triceps while executing this.
• Deadlifts. This is my favourite exercise of all of them. It hits multiple muscle groups. It makes you feel like superman!
• Squats. Again, another exercise that increases hGH and hits your body hard.
• Stiff Leg Deadlifts. This hinge movement is very tough to execute. I love the stretch I get in my hamstrings while doing this lift.

What are your favourite exercises? Let me know in the comments below.

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How many of you actually have the time to be in the gym for a couple of hours each day? Maybe an even better question is how many of you really want to be in the gym for a couple of hours each day? If you are like me you want to get maximum benefit in the shortest possible time span. This means developing strategies that work, but also save us time. One such thing is the use of compound movements.

What Is A Compound Movement?

Exercises can fall into two groups: compound and isolation. Both groups serve important purposes when training. I am not going to spend much, if any time discussing isolation movements in this article. Just be aware that they are also very helpful and have serve some important purposes in an exercise regimen.

A compound movement is any exercise that involves more than one major muscle group at a time.

What Are Some Typical Compound Movements?

Listed in the grid are some of the most common compound movements along with the primary and secondary muscle groups they each effect.

How Will Compound Movements Save Time?

As you can see, all compound movements work at least 2 muscle groups at a time. This means that instead of needing a dedicated arm day, you are going to hit your biceps and triceps through a compound movement for another muscle group. This is typically done in a full body workout, but you can easily adapt it to a body part split. Below is a suggested workout using this principal. It is a full body routine, but as I already said, you can easily adapt this to a body part split.

Barbell Bench Press
Dumbbell Military Press
Dips (no lean forward)
Chin ups
Deadlifts
Squats

This routine hits every major muscle group. It can be done quickly as there are 6 exercises total. If you push hard and make use of intensity you will find that this is a very effective workout that will save you a great deal of time. The formula is really simple.

Compound Movement Formula

Take that formula and start applying it at the gym to see some amazing results. These simple things get ignored, but they are powerful tools in your arsenal. Don't leave them out of your training.

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So many people ignore training their legs. I am going to suggest that they do so because to see real results you must really hit legs as hard as you can manage. I believe in making leg day as brutal as possible. Legs are my favorite body part to train and they are the only body part that training them has caused me to puke.

Today I am going to present a brutal leg workout that you can use on your next leg day. Beware: You are going to have trouble walking after this one!

Preparation for Workout

Please note: I have am listing the warm up sets as separate from the rest of the workout. I do this so that you won't skip them.

Rest time is 90 seconds between sets.

The Workout

** Use rest/pause technique where you do some reps and then pause for a count of 3 and then continue the set until you reach 20.

The Concept Explained

The concept of this workout is fairly simple. I have you hit exercises that will pump blood into the muscle before I have you hit the big exercises like Squats or Leg Press. I also use a progressively more difficult set scheme on the biggest exercises. I finish with the SLDL because it is yet another hinge movement (like the squat) and your hamstrings will already be fatigued, so this will destroy them. Growth happens outside the gym, but it is spurred on by what you do during your gym time. Give this workout a try and let me know what you think!

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