LOL – poor Andy.

On Tuesday, I went up to Thomasville, NC to visit my buddy Andy Hepler of Hepler Strength & Conditioning (http://www.heplerstrength.com, http://davidsoncountypersonaltrainer.com).  We hung out for the day talking training, business, and a variety of other things.

At one point in the day, we ended up at a gym/sports performance facility owned by a buddy of his.  When we first got there, the Crossfit coach (not Andy’s buddy) was there, and we were introduced.  He kinda tried to give me the typical Crossfit spiel.  I countered with a simple argument – “Crossfit has a complete and total lack of programming”.

Things just went downhill from there.  LOL.  I think the guy was a tad butt-hurt by the time I was done talking to him.  Oh well.

Soon after, Andy’s buddy showed up and we all shot the shit for a little bit.  This was my first time meeting him and he was cool as hell.  He’s a former collegiate linebacker and sorta like most of us – what I call a ‘career meathead’.

Andy’s buddy also owns another business that buys and sells training equipment (almost anything you can think of) wholesale.  We went over to his warehouse just to look around…I felt like a kid in a candy store.

While looking around, I came across a Football Bar.

Now, if you don’t know what a Football Bar is, it’s a a bar that has several sets of handles.  The handles aren’t perpendicular to the bar itself, neither are they parallel to each other.  Rather, they’re at an angle.  Football Bars are great because they allow you to put your hands at a position that is easy on the wrists and the shoulders.

(There’s a pic of a Football Bar right there.^^)

I’d never seen a Football Bar in person, so you *know* I had to try it out.  I slapped a 45 on each side and banged out a few Clean & Presses.  Then a few Rows.  Then a few Cleans.  Then a few more Cleans & Presses.

As Joey Styles might say….Oh.  My.  GAAWWWWDDDD!!!!!

I was freakin’ hooked on this bar.

I loved just how it changed the movement pattern for Cleans – put a lot more upper back into it, and allows you to snap your hips with a lot more force.  It really takes technique out of the movement.  Presses were AWESOME.  The positioning of the handles puts your wrists at ease, and even better, it forces your elbows to be pointed in front of you throughout the entire Range of Motion – which is *much* more healthy for the shoulder than having them pointed at your sides while pressing.

I could go on for a while – suffice it to say, I really liked this bar.

A few hours later, Andy and I had left, gotten lunch, and were on our way to pick up his daughter from school.  We were talking marketing, and how to target specific markets, how to attract customers, whether hyped-up sales copy was ‘cool’, and other such topics of badassery.

At one point, I made the simple comment that “You know, I’m just a simple guy…”

Andy immediately retorts – fairly loudly, I might add – “I know you are – I had to listen to you talk about that damn Football Bar for 45 FUCKING MINUTES!!!”

Luckily for me, Andy is patient and never gave me the proper STFU I probably needed.  LOL.

LMAO – what can I say?  I was really impressed with the Football Bar.  In fact, I told Andy I could probably develop any program for any goal and never need more than a Football Bar, a Trap Bar, plates, a station for doing chins and dips, and a T-Handle you could load to do swings with about 10 square feet of space.  Wanna get fancy?  Add some adjustable DB handles and weight plates and maybe an adjustable bench.  Wanna really get sophisticated?  Add a Prowler.

Tell me – is there anything you couldn’t do with just that stuff?  Nope.

In fact, speaking personally, I’ve probably done 99.9% of my own personal workouts with nothing more than adjustable DBs, a medicine ball, a pair of KBs, bodyweight calisthenics, roardwork, and hill sprints for nearly 3 years.

What’s my point?

My point is this – too many people in the fitness industry are trying to over-complicate things and make them out to be more than they really are.  You don’t have to be unnecessarily complicated.  All you need to do are use basic principles and work your ass off.

Yeah…doesn’t sound real sexy, does it?  Too bad – because that’s what works.

Take my own programs – do they work because of some sort of crazy formulas or complicated algorithms or insanely tweaked exercise progression?  No way.  They work because they apply basic principles in a certain way to achieve certain results.

For example, take the Championship Edition 2.0 MMA Workout.  That takes principles of building strength and aerobic capacity, then concentrates on converting that strength to power, then adds in anaerobic conditioning, then uses a smart blend of the two (power and anaerobic conditioning) to simulate the conditioning needs of a professional MMA fight.  Nothing overly complicated or ultra-complex exercises.  Hell, you don’t even need fancy equipment – you can do the whole thing in your high school weight room.

But it works, because it’s simple.

(You can see more about the Champ Edition 2.0 MMA Workout here.)

Take Working Class Cardio.  Many of y’all know the drill here – have great cardio without ever doing cardio.  Utilize compound movements with explosive athletic exercises using relatively heavy weight, with moderate to high volume.  Circuit the exercises together to give localized areas of your body rest, while the heart and lungs work like mofos the entire time.

Use DBs, a medicine ball, and bodyweight calisthenics only to make the workouts easy to perform in any location you want, as well as do many of the movements one limb at a time, which makes you do more work overall (making your heart and lungs work more) while giving your lower body more work and conditioning.

Again – simple concepts applied with a lot of intensity.

(You can see more about Working Class Cardio here.)

Or maybe think about Body Armor.  The key to Body Armor is one simple set and rep scheme used with 4 main compound movements.  You work at a weight heavy enough to develop strength, but not so heavy you can’t move fast.  You move fast enough to develop power, but it’s not so light you won’t get stronger.  And you have just enough volume to trigger muscle building, but not so much you can’t concentrate on strength or power.  Upper body assistance is centered around strength work and getting bigger.  Lower body assistance is centered around power and conditioning.

(You can see more about Body Armor here.)

Is there anything here that’s overly complicated?

These programs all work because they’re simple.  I *routinely* get emails from people telling me that they are surprised there’s not more ‘to’ some of my programs, but when they actually do them, they can’t believe how effective they are.  They love feeling like they’ve worked their ass off, but not to the point of injury or burnout.  They love feeling like they’re hitting a new PR each time they train.

And this is all because the workouts are…well…simple.

Not easy…simple.

And that’s exactly why they’re so damn effective.

Is your training effective?  If not, maybe you should simplify.

Have a kickass weekend.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins
Muscle Building Workouts | Cardio Workout | MMA Workout | MMA Workouts

You know, the one thing I like about the peeps that read my blog is that y’all dig training and working out just as much as I do.

I’m *always* reading about stuff and trying to get a leg up – seeing what others have done, reading what the top coaches are experimenting with, and especially seeing what my buddies in the industry have going on.

But that leads to a MASSIVE problem, though.

See, I’ll read or check out something new and wanna try it out ASAP. Or maybe I’ll read the results somebody had with a new program and wanna give that a shot. Or maybe there’s an exercise or style of doing reps that looks cool.

The PROBLEM with this kinda thing is that it ends up distracting me from what I’m already doing…which I know works!

It’s kinda like getting distracted by a bright, shiny object…you wanna leave what you know is smart and chase what looks new and appealing.

Do this enough times, and you never end up spending enough time on anything to ever get any real results. Which is pretty much why I designed the “4-Week Blast” programs. (I’m sure you probably remember those, so I won’t go into it again.)

But what do you do when your “blast” is done?

Well, what if I told you that could you do “blast” programs so that you actually had a long-term program, accomplish all your workout goals, yet only have to focus on a single type of training for 4-weeks at a time?

(I mean, *anybody* can stick to a workout for 4-weeks, right?)

=>Enter “Blast Off”

“Blast Off” is my brand new program (these are all-new workouts, nothing recycled here!) that stacks “4-week blast” style workouts back to back, but has them all integrated and designed with a long term, linear periodization format.

In other words, this isn’t just a few random 4-week blasts tossed together and called a workout.

There is a uniform and dedicated design to the entire program, and each blast actually integrates with the others (stuff from Blast 1 is done in Blast 3, you’ll compare Blast 3 results with stuff you did in Blast 2, etc).

Basically, “Blast Off” was meant to give you enough variety to keep you focused on your workouts, while still giving you a long term plan to your overall program.

It’s like the ultimate plan for consistent and result-producing workouts…and we all know how important consistency is.

Go read more about “Blast Off”, and see just what all it can do for you (not to mention all the super-cool stuff you get with the programs!):

=>Click Here NOW to Learn More About “Blast Off”

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins
Muscle Building Workouts | Cardio Workout | MMA Workout | MMA Workouts

Ouch…that was one nasty kick. Vitor got caught…and freakin’ hard.

In case you missed it, Anderson Silva (considered by most to be the world’s best pound-for-pound MMA fighter) dispatched his latest competition last night at UFC 126, by KOing Vitor Belfort in the first round…

…via front kick to the face.

And call me crazy, but I think it was a perfect example of the 80/20 rule I was trying to explain the other day.  (Read about it here.)

In case you missed it, the 80/20 rule is an old rule of business that says 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

Same goes with your workouts. Basics – stuff like:

-heavy lifting (presses, rows, deadlifts, etc)

-bodyweight calisthenics (dips, chins, etc)

-intense conditioning (hill sprints, circuit training, good ole’ burpees, etc)

None of this stuff is glamorous or fun/exciting to talk about. But it will all get you into great shape. And it will get any of you to that “80%” level I was talking about.

Problem is, is that most guys don’t wanna spend time on the basics – they’d rather go for the ‘extra’ stuff. You know, the added little bit of whatever (supplement, latest training fad, etc) that’s supposed to eek out that last little bit of your training.

Here’s the thing, though – what good does it do you to “eek out that last little bit” of your training, when you haven’t done all the front-end work in the first place?

Not very smart, IMO.

I mentioned it the other day, but personally, I’d rather spend my time making sure I’m at that 80%…and then some. Because I can hit the basics – and hit them hard – and my “80%” ends up going up because I’m increasing my overall capacity.

So the 80% I might have been at before, isn’t as high as the 80% I’m at now…

If that makes sense.

And here’s the great thing (and I’m getting back to that kick) – when you’re at 80%, and you’re only having to do the 20% type workload, you’ve got plenty of time, recovery, motivation, and everything else to really focus on what you want and need to.

Think of it like this – I’m sure both Vitor and Anderson were in great shape last night. But neither even got a chance to show it…because Anderson got in a kick to the mush. A kick, BTW, he said he’d been working on with his coaches.

So did it make more sense for Anderson to do the basics, then work his MMA skills, or to do the basics, then a bunch of other frilly crap with his workouts?

(I think Vitor flat on the mat answers that question.)

Think about it – if you could get to a pretty damn tough level of 80%…with only 20% of your efforts…what else could you do in your own life to be awesome? All because you’re not chasing the latest workout fad?

See what I mean?

Get yourself to that 80% =>CLICK HERE NOW!

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins
Muscle Building Workouts | Cardio Workout | MMA Workout | MMA Workouts

PS – Out of all the workouts I’ve put together, I’ve had people tell me this is one of the most well-rounded and overall beneficial. Try it out for yourself and see what you think. =>CLICK HERE

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Supersets (stacking sets of two exercises back-to-back without rest) are something I’ve seen used in workouts for years – dating all the way back to the days (back in the early to mid-’90s) that I closely followed the bodybuilding scene. I used to see supersets used in all kinds of workouts.

I remember guys like Vince Taylor being a big fan of them, and in reading older material, I knew that the “Blonde Bomber” Dave Draper was a huge proponent of supersets, and even tri-sets (stacking three exercises back-to-back-to-back).

In many strength & conditioning and athletic training circles today, supersets are still a popular way of getting a lot done in a little bit of time, and are utilized as a way of letting a muscle group rest a little longer between sets, but not increasing the length of the workout itself.

These days, instead of supersets consisting of two exercises that target the same muscle group, they target different muscle groups, and are generally done in a 1A / 1B sort of fashion which you simply alternate exercises. So you’d do a set of Exercise 1, then rest. Do a set of Exercise 2, then rest again. Repeat until all sets of both exercises have been completed.

While this is a great method of training, I gotta say…I don’t get what the hell some trainers are thinking when they pair up some exercises. It just makes no friggin’ sense.

Give my new podcast a listen as to why, and some of the stuff you should take into consideration when pairing up exercises.

Don’t have time to listen now?  Feel free to download a copy of this podcast HERE.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins
Muscle Building Workouts | Cardio Workout | Cardio Fitness | MMA Workout | Ways to Lose Weight Fast | Best Way to Lose Weight Fast

So not long ago, I get an email from this guy, and he’s telling me that he’s got my Championship Edition 2.0 MMA workout programs, but they just don’t work for him.

????

Was kinda surprised, as most people rave about how kickass the workouts are, and the awesome gains they get.

But not this guy.

He tells me that while he likes the workouts, he’s an amateur fighter, and in trying to get all the experience he can (plus, being a sort of ‘throwback’ to the early days of MMA), he fights as often as he can – often just on a few days notice.

Good as the Championship Edition 2.0 is, it’s just too damn long. He can’t build up to being in shape to fight – he’s gotta be as close to ‘fighting shape’ as he can be all the time. He doesn’t have 3 months to get ready.

Hmmmmm.

Then, two days later, I’m talking to a buddy of mine – a guy that has literally every single program I’ve ever put out. And he tells me that while he likes my programs, they just don’t work for him.

(Jeez…I’m getting this 2x in one week? WTF?)

His problem, he tells me, is “Workout ADD”. Or in other words, though he knows he shouldn’t, but with all the information and programs and stuff out there, he gets distracted *way* too easily, and never sticks to a program for more than a few weeks.

Like the fighter, he just can’t (or won’t) stick to a program for 90+ days like mine require. He wants something that he can focus on for a few weeks, and get done. Sort of a “get in and get out” kinda deal.

Hmmmmm again.

That’s when I decided I had to create something that was pretty much “excuse-proof”.

So, I put together Wiggy’s “4-Week MMA Blast”

This 4-week MMA workout ebook has:

–4 workouts/week

–everything spelled out for you (workouts, exercises, sets, reps, etc…just add effort)

–uses “micro-periodization” (remember that recent blog post?) to cycle your strength work, power training, complexes, roadwork & sprints, “Singles & Doubles” work, “Power Complexes”, and more

–can be done in any gym (no fancy or special equipment required)

–progression to increase you work capacity

…plus a bunch of other cool stuff.

And you can get it all for a cool $17 =>CLICK HERE TO ORDER RIGHT NOW

You gotta know this kinda offer ain’t gonna be around forever. Come Friday night at midnight, the offer as it stands now goes away. Not quite sure how yet – either I strip some of the cool stuff away, the price goes up, or I just simply pull it down completely…

(…which is what my marketing mastermind buddies are telling me to do – bring it back next friggin’ year sometime…what is it with them wanting me to keep all my stuff to myself? sheesh…)

Either way, the deal goes away Friday night at midnight. So you’d better jump on it while you can.

=>CLICK HERE before the deal goes away

Have an awesome week and I hope you enjoy the new workouts!

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins