So yesterday, my son’s friend (my boy is 16, his friend is 18) comes over after school yesterday. His buddy is skinny as a rail…I mean, I think I was born bigger than this poor kid…and is looking for advice on how to pack on some muscle.

So naturally, he came to talk to the expert.

*puffs chest out* LOL

Anyway, I spent a couple hours going over some of the basics on what he’d need to do to put a bunch of muscle on. Of course the first thing we talked about was diet, and since the poor guy was so skinny, I told him all about drinking a gallon of whole milk per day.

He looked less than enthused about that.

Then I got into my favorite stuff – the kinda characteristics your workout has to have (volume, heavy weight, overall tonnage, density, etc) in order to build muscle. I then outlined a real simple – yet *highly* effective – program for him to start using.

After he left, it totally dawned on me that the basic sets and reps structure I was telling this kid to use was just a simplified version of exactly what’s used in Phase 3 of “Body Armor – The 2nd Chapter”.

(Which is gonna be available this Tuesday, by the way…)

It’s pretty simple really – you lift heavy with a certain sets/reps goal in mind. You keep that up until you can’t anymore, and then keep doing sets until you get all your reps. The next workout, you try to improve.

So for instance, in the case of talking to this kid yesterday, I told him I wanted him to do 5 sets of 10 reps for 50 total reps on an exercise. BUT, I wanted him to use a fairly heavy weight, and he likely wouldn’t get all 5 sets of 10 reps – and that was fine.

When he could no longer get 10 reps, do sets of whatever reps he could get (as long as he’s using good form) and keep going until he got 50 total reps.

So sets 1 and 2 might be for 10 reps. Set 3 might only be for 8. Set 4 for 7. Set 5 maybe only 6. At this point, he’s done 5 sets, but only 41 total reps (10+10+8+7+6). So he would keep up with sets of however many reps he could get until he got 50 total.

The next workout, the goal is to use the same weight, start out with sets of 10 again, and get all 50 reps in fewer sets total.

And he would keep repeating this until he were to get all 50 reps in 5 sets of 10 reps. At that point, it’s time to increase the weight.

This kind of training is a huge part of Phase 3 of “Body Armor – The 2nd Chapter”, and will put muscle on you like nobody’s business.

Got a really cool announcement I wanna tell y’all about, but I think I’m gonna wait until tomorrow to drop it on you…it being Friday and all. (I like to end the week on a good note. )

So be sure to check back to tomorrow’s blog post…

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

(Holy shit – did I *really* just say ‘summer shape-up’?)

*face palm*

The past couple days we’ve been talking getting in shape for summer – you know, different things that can help you look good in a swimsuit and/or with no shirt on.

By now, we know that intense circuit training is the best way to get started on this, as it’s gonna help you blast fat off you (giving you definition, helping you attain that “v-taper”, and making you highly injury-resistant to boot).

But when it’s time to really put the muscle on, there’s nothing that’s gonna beat plain, old-school heavy lifting.

Sure, there are plenty of dudes out there who make huge claims and tell you that they can show you the easy way out. Hate to tell you this, but they’re bullshitting you. If you wanna get big, you need three basic things in your workout:

• lifting heavy-ass weights
• volume (you’re gonna have to do a bunch of reps in total)
• density (getting a lot done in a short-ish amount of time)

This means hitting new PRs for 3RMs and 5RMs, heavy sets of 6-8 on basic compound exercises, and volume that puts you in the 40-70 rep range for larger bodyparts (shoulders & chest, back, legs, etc).

BUT, the one thing you *DO NOT WANT* to do is lose out on all that conditioning you just did, right?

I mean, didn’t you just spend a bunch of time busting your ass on the hardcore circuit training to get yourself in shape? You don’t wanna let that all go to waste, do you?

And at the same time, while you’re lifting heavy to put more muscle on, you still wanna stay relatively lean, right?

Well, you can’t go balls-out on conditioning while you’re doing your heavy strength work, because you need to save your CNS, recovery abilities, and effort for the heavy stuff. But, you *can* do some real basic ‘maintenance’ work that will keep you in check.

(This is what I have you doing in my upcoming “Body Armor – the 2nd Chapter”.)

First of all, start your workout off w/GPP. (This should be no surprise to any of y’all that have seen my workouts.) Then, your workouts will be made up generally of heavy, compound movements for strength and size.

But, between each strength exercise, toss in a quick bout of conditioning. This doesn’t have to be anything crazy – maybe do 20-30 burpees, jump rope for 1-2 mins, do some shadowboxing…that sort of thing. Anything that is short (usually a couple mins or less) and gets your heart going real hard, real fast.

This jacks up your breathing and heartrate, and will help keep it there during your next exercise. Do this between every exercise, and you’re keeping it up overall through the whole workout.

Cool thing about this is that it not only helps you maintain some of that cardio, but it also burns more calories, keeps your metabolism revved up post-workout, and helps you build more work capacity.

It’s like a win-win-win-win-win type of scenario.

Pretty sweet, huh?

Try it out and lemme know what you think.

More cool stuff coming your way tomorrow.

And mark your calendars – next Tuesday (24-May-11), “Body Armor – the 2nd Chapter” will be released.

You’re soooooo gonna dig it. (And you’re not gonna wanna hit summer without it! )

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

Well, it’s the middle of May…already! Hard to believe, huh?

Before long, school will be ending, summer will be in full effect, and the weather will be warm (if it’s not where you are already).

With summer and warm weather means wearing fewer and fewer clothes – be it a swimsuit at the beach, or just working shirtless in the yard. And when that time comes, you wanna look good.

(And I don’t mean just having a tan.)

Now, people can give you all the BS they want, but pretty much everybody, at least a little bit, has the goal to “look good nekkid” from their workouts.

Well, lemme give you one quick tip on how to do that.

For dudes, one of the best things you can do is to develop that “V-taper”…you know – wide shoulders and narrow waist. It gives the look of strength and power, not to mention is highly aesthetic.

In other words – chicks think it looks good and you look tough. And it’s one of the things that you can develop that makes you look good even with a shirt still on.

So – how to do it?

Most dudes think it’s all about building wide shoulders and lats, so they go nuts on lateral raises and back work. Which is fine. But remember, this is all about perception – what ‘looks’ good…not necessarily what it is.

The quickest (and easiest) way to build that “V-taper” and have that muscular and powerful look is not to build wider shoulders. I mean, that’s necessary, but it takes a long time.

Instead, focus on dropping some excess flub around the middle.

It doesn’t matter if your waist stays the same, and your shoulders get wider, or your shoulders stay the same, and you waist gets narrower – either way you’re building that “V-taper”…

…but the latter takes a lot less time and can be done much more quickly. And you’d be surprised at how it makes you look. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me “how big I’m getting” when I’ve actually been *losing* weight…I just looked better.

It’s all about perception.

So when you go to get in shape for the beach this summer, look for a program that actually gets you dropping some bodyweight first, *then* has you putting some size on.

I’ll have more tips coming your way tomorrow.

PS – More details soon, but if you have “Body Armor”, keep a look out – “Body Armor – The 2nd Chapter” is coming your way VERY soon.

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

One of the questions I hear a lot is if somebody wants to build muscle fast, then how should they lift?

I mean, there are a lot of different ideas out there – some say you should do a lot of volume (sets & reps) with moderate weight. Others say one crazy, all-out set to failure. Others say light weights and high reps to pump a bunch of blood into the muscle.

Which way is best?

While I’ve got my ideas on how many sets & reps you should be doing, the one thing you need to do is be lifting heavy weights.

Lifting heavy weights are necessary because it’s the heavy lifting that creates myofibrallar hypertrophy. Or in other words, that dense muscle that looks rock hard.

There is science behind all this, but think about it in a pretty simple and logical manner for a minute.

The human body is naturally lazy. Why? It’s a defense mechanism. Even though we’re living in modern society and with modern conveniences, our body doesn’t know that. It’s still programmed to work as if we were all living in caves and hunting down our food every day.

So, in order to preserve itself, the body takes every natural shortcut it can, in order to making sustaining itself in its current state as easy as possible. (Longer sustainment = longer life.)

When you lift a heavy weight, you’re placing a stress upon your body that it’s not normally used to having to endure. You’re literally making things hard on yourself.

Since the body is naturally lazy, it wants to make this extra work you’re making it do easy. So what does it do? It builds extra muscle to make moving that heavy weight easy.

That’s why you have to be consistently and progressively adding weight to the bar over time. When it builds enough muscle to make the weight you’re lifting now easy, you need to put more weight on the bar to make the body uncomfortable, that way it continues to build muscle.

See how that works?

So to maximize this whole process – and build as much muscle as possible – what you need to do get on a workout that has you consistently progressing and moving forward…

…a program like Body Armor.

What makes Body Armor so kickass is the specialized scheme I created for your “main” exercises – one that has you putting more weight on the bar each week, so you’re lifting heavier and heavier.

BUT, it’s also designed so that even though you’re lifting heavy, you can also lift *fast*…and lifting fast means more power. So you’re not only getting stronger, but you’re getting quicker, too.

And with the volume that’s built in (it’s all laid out for you, step-by-step) – not to mention the extra accessory work – packing on the muscle mass is just a “given”.

Your body might naturally want to be lazy…well, make it use that to not only build muscle, but get stronger AND faster, too.

=>CLICK HERE to get Body Armor NOW

…whether you’re lazy or not.

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

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned a set, rep, and percentage scheme I put together (and subsequently put in my Body Armor muscle building workouts).

With that scheme, I mentioned that you only had to do your main exercises ‘once per week’, and evidently from the emails I got in response, that caused a bit of confusion.

So lemme clear it up a bit.

I’m not saying you only work out once per week or do main exercises once per week. Instead, I mean that you’ll only do each main exercise once in a given training week.

See, with many workouts out there now, you have to do all your main exercises multiple times per week.

So, if a main exercise for your upper body workouts was the bench press, you might bench one time with heavy weight and low reps and another time with lighter weight for max reps.

This is all well and good, but it ties up a lot of your training time, resources, and recovery. You are then limited to the overall number of exercises you can do (both in a workout and in your program overall).

If you wanted to work in another main exercise (say and overhead movement), you have to wait until your next training cycle…or do really long workouts…and/or risk blasting your CNS into overtraining.

Same goes with your lower body workouts and the main exercises you use for those.

But with Body Armor, you don’t have to worry about any of that, as the set, rep, & percentage scheme it uses allows you to:

-lift heavy enough to build strength

-use a weight that lets you still move the bar fast to build power and explosiveness

-do enough overall volume to stimulate muscle growth

Pretty cool deal, huh? Gotta love hardcore, effective, and best of all, EFFICIENT training.

=>CLICK HERE to get strong, move fast, and be big & muscular

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