It’s time to upgrade your training education! Whether you’re new to the bench press or a seasoned veteran of the squat rack, you can always benefit from more iron knowledge. Make the most of your hard work, intense effort, and dedication to the gym with these 30 tips! You’ve probably seen a few before, but you’re bound to learn—and lift—something new.

1 Focus On Compound Exercises

The biggest mistake you could make is choosing isolation movements over compound exercises. A compound exercise is a multi-joint movement that works multiple muscle groups at one time. Compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, rows, shoulder presses, and lunges should always make up the foundation of your workout program.

“Compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, rows, shoulder presses, and lunges should always make up the foundation of your workout program.”

Engaging more muscle groups at once means that you’ll be able to increase the load. Heavy lifting helps build lean muscle, strength, and your mind-muscle connection. Another benefit? Compound exercises engage your core, meaning you won’t have to spend those last 10 minutes of your workout doing non-stop crunches.

2 Start With A Warm-Up Set

Aiming for a max load first thing in a workout is an injury risk waiting to happen. Perform a warm-up set on the first set of any big exercise, if not the first 2 or 3 sets. Warming up will stimulate blood flow, help you groove tough movements, and prime your body for heavier weight.

3 Never Sacrifice Good Form

No matter your training program or technique, keep one thing in mind: Form is the key. Never lift with your ego at the cost of proper technique. Sacrificing good form puts unnecessary stress on your joints and muscles, increasing the risk of injury. Poor form also increases the chance that you’re not working your targeted muscles to their full potential, which may cost you gains.

4 Check Yourself

If you struggle to keep good form, consider exercising in front of a mirror or videotaping difficult exercises. This allows you to watch your body more closely and asses your movements. If you have a tough time on a particular exercise, the mirror can be a quick and useful guide. Sometimes you need the visual component to make sure you’re properly positioned and aligned.

“If you struggle to keep good form, consider exercising in front of a mirror or videotaping difficult exercises.”

5 Slow Down

Don’t cheat your reps by using momentum—rather than your muscles—to move a load. To help avoid swinging a weight, slow down each exercise. Go one step further by pausing and squeezing at the top of each lift. This will eliminate any momentum in the equation and ensure that you only use brute strength to lift those weights.

“Focus on lower reps for compound movements and higher reps for isolation exercises.”

6 Adjust for Fat Loss

When you work to lose fat, you typically eat fewer calories. Because you ingest less potential energy, you probably have to adjust your workout. To prevent muscle loss during a cut, don’t drop the amount of weight you’d normally lift. To compensate for the reduced fuel coming in, decrease your volume instead. Cut your reps and sets back by up to two-thirds, but keep an emphasis on heavy weight.

7 Use A Variety Of Rep Ranges

To achieve a balanced muscle- and strength-building program, include sets of both 5-8 and 8-12 reps. Varying your rep ranges and load will allow you to make optimal strength gains while stimulating increased growth. Focus on lower reps for compound movements and higher reps for isolation exercises.

8 Utilize Grip Changes

A simple adjustment can make a world of difference when it comes to breaking through a training plateau. Add in a new stimulus, like switching from a regular grip on bent-over rows to a reverse grip, to make a big difference over time.

If you want to mix things up, target your muscles with more drastic exercise variations. Switch your back squat to a front squat, for example, or focus on the close-grip bench press instead of using a typical wide grip.

9 Branch Out From Dumbbells

Just as grip changes help bust through plateaus, so does adjusting your training tools. Try switching from dumbbells to barbells and kettlebells. Or, incorporate cable pulleys into your workout. While the exercises may be similar the nature of the stress will be slightly different, which could be just what your muscles need to progress.

10 Strengthen Your Core

Maintaining a strong core is a must if you’re going to lift heavy. Be sure to devote attention to core training—and I don’t mean endless sit-ups. That “traditional” ab exercise takes the fast track to slow results. Why? It doesn’t put proper stress on the target muscles. Instead, focus on compound movements that require balance and core activation. Single-leg deadlifts, single-leg squats, and split squats are all fantastic choices.

11 Mind Your Spine

The stability and position of your spine, neck, and pelvis can often reveal weak links in core lifts. A compromised spinal position also puts you at risk for injury. Brace your spine with your core to keep it protected, and lift safely by keeping your neck neutral. Strong, active glutes will also help keep your spine safe.

12 Use a Spotter

If you plan on going heavy to evoke the greatest strength gains, make sure you have a spotter. Knowing your spotter is there to assist you will free you to push your body to the max with each rep. Chances are you’ll test your boundaries, challenge yourself, and even push through one or two more reps than you would without a spotter.

13 Deload Every 4-6 Weeks

A deload week can be beneficial and help manage total training stress over time. By dropping your total volume or lifting lighter, you’ll give your body time to recover. A deload week saves you from having to take a complete week off training and lets you hit your next training phase fresh and full of energy. Deload once every 4-6 weeks of heavy training.

14 Don’t Overdo Cardio

If you aim for optimal strength gains, keep cardio to a minimum. Worried about adding extra body fat? Turn to your diet instead of the treadmill. Adjust your calorie intake and focus on incorporating more lean protein into your diet to see strength gains without the addition of extra fat.

“If you aim for optimal strength gains, keep cardio to a minimum.”

15 Squat Lower

Going only halfway down through your squat is the fastest way to short-circuit results. To avoid this, be sure to squat as low down to the ground as you can. At the bottom of your squat, your thighs should be at least parallel with the ground. This will evoke maximum glute and hamstring stimulation, ensuring better overall results. Only people with pre-existing knee problems or other injuries should modify the depth of their squat.

16 Watch Your Knees

Make sure that your knees move in line with your toes during lunges, squats, and split squats; it’s essential to keeping your joints pain free. Make sure you pay attention to their placement as you execute these movements; never allow them to move too far inward. You don’t want your knees to cave during a big lift.

17 Sumo Squat

If you want to work your inner thighs, sumo squats should be your exercise of choice. The foot placement—a wider stance with your feet angled outward—will place more stress and tension on your inner thighs and glutes. Who knows, the different movement pattern required might also help you bust through a progress plateau!

18 Regularly Interchange Implements

If you always lift barbells on the bent-over row or bench press, you might want to consider swapping to dumbbells for a few sets. If one arm is stronger than the other, barbells allow the stronger arm to overcompensate for the weaker side; this causes increased imbalance in growth. Lifting with dumbbells will prevent this from occurring—or it will make the strength imbalance so obvious that you have to address it.

19 Respect Your Rest

If you aren’t resting sufficiently, you won’t build strength or size. Lifting tears down muscle tissue; rest and nutrition build it back up. This is a simple point, but it’s crucial: Don’t ignore the importance of rest inside and outside the gym. Take at least one day to recover each week. Inside the gym, aim to rest 1-3 minutes between low-rep sets of near maximal effort and 30-90 seconds between lighter, high-rep sets.

20 Know Your Body

Every human body is different and each can handle a different amount of volume. Always listen to your body and adjust accordingly. Don’t keep pushing yourself if your body tells you no. Take a break from your program and rest. Remember that each person has a different recovery capacity. It’s your job to listen to and respect yours.

21 Strength First

Before you start adding supersets, dropsets, or pyramid sets to your workout program, focus on building a strong foundation. Take advantage of the fact that, if you’re new to training, you’ll experience remarkable gains from basic programming and big lifts. You can start adding additional intensity techniques when you’ve spent more time under the bar.

22 Lift First, Cardio Later

If you plan both cardio and strength training on the same day, lift first. Lifting is more taxing on the central nervous system, so you must be at your strongest for it. Cardio also uses more muscle glycogen, or stored energy, which you don’t want to deplete prematurely.

23 Track Your Workouts

Don’t leave progress and possible gains up to memory. Write down everything you do during each workout session, including reps, set, weight lifted, and how you felt. This will allow you to make steady progress from session to session. If you leave what you did to memory, your recollection may become muddled. Keep a workout log either on paper or on your phone with a free app like the BodySpace workout tracker.

24 Hydrate

Make a dent in that water jug, especially before your workout begins. Hydration is essential for proper workout performance, so make sure that you go into each session fully hydrated. Even slight amounts of dehydration can sap strength and performance levels in a hurry, so drink up. Drink a few liters of water in the hours leading up to the workout and another liter of water during and after the session.

25 Tune Out Distractions

If you’re mentally distracted during your workout session, your mental intensity will suffer. Since intensity is the cornerstone of progress, you can’t let it slide. Tune out all distractions at the gym so you can attack the task at hand. Sometimes you just have to rely on your buds—your ear buds that is. Research suggests that listening to fast, upbeat tunes can increase respiration and elevate your heart rate, gearing you up to fully attack that workout.

26 Wear Proper Footwear

Sure, you know not to wear loafers to the gym, but the importance of lifting in proper shoes is often overlooked. Wearing the wrong kicks is a fast way to get an ankle injury or nagging blister. If you use the same shoes for strength training and cardio, make sure to replace them regularly. Remember that, even though they may look new, a shoe’s structural support can get worn out. Replace running shoes every 350-550 miles. If you’re interested in minimalist training shoes, check out this full round-up.

“Wearing the wrong kicks is a fast way to get an ankle injury or nagging blister.”

27 Frequency for Growth

If you’re not building your desired amount of size, you might not be training frequently enough. To ensure optimal results, aim to hit each major muscle group in the body at least once every five days. Think about it like this: If you only train your chest once per week, it means you then take six days off from that particular muscle group. To keep muscle protein synthesis elevated and stimulate consistent growth, you could hit that muscle every few days.

28 Don’t Fear Bulking Up

Guy or girl, I’m sure you’ve heard a friend say, “I just don’t want to get too big.” If you want to build muscle, regardless of your gender, then you have to overcome your fear of “bulking up.” You won’t turn into a hulk overnight, believe me. Substantial muscle growth takes years of hard work, intense effort, and stellar nutrition. If you’re a female, it often takes even more work because of lower testosterone production. So banish your fear of “getting huge” and commit to progress.

29 The Post-Workout Fuel Factor

For optimal workout performance, future growth, and faster recovery, you can’t consistently neglect solid post-workout nutrition. While there’s a lot of debate over nutrient timing, the right nutrients shortly after a workout will kick-start repair, stimulate protein synthesis, restock your muscle glycogen, and help you recover between training sessions.

“For optimal workout performance, future growth, and faster recovery, you can’t consistently neglect solid post-workout nutrition.”

Consume at least 20 grams of protein after your workouts—preferably whey, or whey and casein —to stimulate growth. If you’re focused on building size and strength, fast carbohydrates can help replenish muscular energy stores and support growth. Shoot for 50 grams or more if you’re not on a low-carb diet or cut. Creatine and beta-alanine support muscular strength and endurance, and they also mix well in your post-workout cocktail. Beyond these staples, you can get even creative by adding branched chain amino acids, betaine, and more.

30 Become an Eccentric

People often mistakenly put all their attention on the lifting phase—the concentric—portion of an exercise. Concentric action contracts the muscle you target; eccentric movement lengthens that muscle. In a dumbbell biceps curl, lifting the weight up is the concentric action, and lowering it under control is the eccentric portion of the life.

If you blow off the eccentric portion of a movement and let gravity do your work, it’s time for a change. By performing the eccentric movement in a slow, controlled manner, you’ll tax your muscles, create more damage, and stimulate new results. You can see remarkable strength gains if you stress this movement pattern and maintain the tension in the muscle.

Tell Us Your Favorites

You probably use many of the tips above, plus a variety of your own favorite techniques. Help the community and share some of your favorite lifting tips in the comments below!

Vital Stats

Name: Noah Siegel
Height: 5’10″
Weight: 218 lbs
Occupation: Physique athlete, Optimum Nutrition-sponsored athlete, personal trainer
Website: www.siegefitness.com

QSiege, I’m going to be honest: I’m in the gym to carve a six-pack. But I was wondering if it’s possible to look good and be strong. You seem like the right guy to ask.

I know all about you, bro. You’re in the gym for one thing, and one thing only: aesthetics. Forget about eating, sleeping, or drinking—if you don’t have that coveted V-taper, you might as well pack it in because your life has lost all meaning. Oh, I get it, aesthetics are the new “big.” Nobody talks about how big guys are anymore; it’s all about, “Oh, damn, that guy’s aesthetic as hell!”

Well, that’s nice and all, but pretty little guys have to learn how to look good and be strong. That’s the new rule of fitness. I’m calling it “strengthetics.” Yeah, you can walk around with a good physique and leave everybody ‘mirin, but if you don’t have any go with your show, strong people are going to call you out on it… or laugh at your weak lifts.

Prepare yourself for more articles on this subject—it’s dear to my heart. Today, we’re going to concentrate on your core. A six-pack is a matter of diet; a strong, healthy core is a matter of training. Here’s what you need to know.

“Strengthetics” For Your Abs

A lot of guys like the thought of having a tiny waist and carved six-pack. Shoulder-to-waist ratio is like Hollywood magic—the bigger the ratio the better you look. Abs training, however, doesn’t work how you think it does. If you spend half an hour at the end of every workout doing crunches and can’t figure out why your belly isn’t looking any better, I’ve got some new rules for you to follow.

You’re never going to do another sit-up or crunch again. One of the biggest problems in society is caused by everyone sitting on their asses so much. This sedentary lifestyle makes the hip flexors shorter and the pelvic tilt more pronounced—that’s why back problems are so common. Crunches and sit-ups just add to the stress in your back, so stop doing them!

“Crunches and sit-ups just add to the stress in your back, so stop doing them!”

Do you seriously think that your body evolved the way it has so that you could lay down on the floor, curl up into a fetal position, and somehow grow yourself a six-pack? Your abs were built to stabilize your body through isometric, eccentric, concentric, and rotational contraction in an upright position. Stop lying down on the job.

Compound Your Six-Pack

If you want six-pack that’s actually strong, you need to do standing compound movements like standing presses, squats, front squats, and deadlifts. When you do compound exercises, you train your entire core, along with the other muscles you activate doing those lifts. That means you don’t have to do any extra abdominal work. It’s built in to your workout.

Instead of doing all your shoulder presses seated, stand up and engage your abdominals, lumbar, and a whole mess of other muscles! Doubt that you can work your abs doing presses? Then try a heavy front squat. Unrack the barbell and tell me you can’t feel your abs engage.

Ab-Strength Exercises

If you’re not getting enough compound action in your program, add the exercises below to your workouts a couple times per week. These movements will keep your core nice and tight without making your waist overly wide, and without affecting the hip flexors. We want to keep our midsection slim and trim, so keep that volume down and your strength up!

1 Cable twists

2 sets of 12-15 reps at each height
These can be done from three different positions: low, middle, and high. I suggest a mixture of all three. If you do it from the top, the movement should mimic a sledgehammer swing. Put the cable at the midpoint and make sure your feet are wide so you only engage your upper body. A top-to-bottom cable twist should mimic a bad golf swing.

Each of these variations provides rotational, concentric abdominal work which engages your entire midsection, including the obliques. Make the movement fast and powerful. Go for speed.

2 Overhead medicine ball slam

3 sets to failure
This is full-body movement requires energy generated from the core. Raise a medicine ball above your head with both arms and throw it down as hard as you can. Pick it up and repeat until you are fully exhausted.

3 Planks

2 sets of 30 seconds
During each training session, your goal should be to increase the time you can hold a plank position. Have a partner assist you once you can hold a plank for more than 20 seconds; have your partner push you down or place weight on your back.

4 Ab roller

3 sets of as many reps as possible
I like the ab wheel because it can be scaled to skill level. Start on your knees so you can limit the amount of extension. The extension portion should be slow and controlled. As your strength increases, try doing them from a standing position.

Depending on your skill level, you can do other forms of eccentric work. An advanced athlete could perform dragon flags, but a beginner probably should start by perfecting the ab roll-out and progress from there.

Vital Stats

Name: Nick Tuminello
Occupation: Trainer, owner of Performance University, author of Strength Training for Fat Loss.
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Effective training is all about getting the most out of using the equipment you have. You can dream all you want about the specialized gear you see lifters and athletes using in online videos, but until you strike it rich, they’re about as real as light sabers.

So are you out of luck? Hardly! The weight room is an ideal laboratory for crafting “hacks,” which are clever, non-obvious ways to solve problems and increase efficiency. In action, they can easily mean the difference between an airtight 45-minute workout and an inefficient hour or more. They can also help you stay uninjured, work around an injury you have, or get stronger in a way you thought was beyond your options.

Sure, you may already know about some of these hacks, but keep in mind that many people haven’t heard of or tried them. So instead of commenting “I’ve known this for years” or “every serious lifter should already be doing this,” share some of your own hacks and tricks that can help the community!

Think of it this way: There’s nothing more frustrating than waiting while someone else uses the equipment you need, so when you share your knowledge, the time you save may be your own!

1 How to Strip Plates Off the Bar After Heavy Lifting

Slipping a 5-pound plate between your 45-pounders gives you space to get your fingers under the big plates.

Our first hack comes from my man Bret “The Rear Admiral” Contreras. It involves a simple and easy way to drag plates off the bar after doing heavy deadlifts or hip thrusts, a cumbersome task that often requires lots of extra time and energy. Take a minute to watch the life-changing video below.

Did I just hear the sound of your palm hitting your forehead? Maybe it was a glute-smack. In either case, this technique may be common knowledge to many serious weightlifters, but here’s a newsflash: Serious lifters aren’t the only people doing deads and hip thrusts anymore. That’s a good thing—a great thing, in fact.

Iron game legend Richard Sorin told me, “Athletes are not in the gym to be weightlifters. They’re there to be athletes made stronger.” This applies to people with physique and general fitness goals, as well.

All of us can benefit from building stronger posterior chains, and now we can shave off a few precious seconds when we do it.

How to Strip Plates Off the Bar
Watch The Video – 00:50

2 How to Rack Weight Plates

I’ve been all over the world and seen hundreds of weight rooms and fitness facilities. Unfortunately, the way almost all of them have their weights plates set up simply doesn’t make sense. And when I say, “doesn’t make sense,” I mean that it puts all of their clients, athletes, coaches, and members at a higher risk of injury.

If you’re a gym owner, work at a training facility, or just want to rack weights in the safest and most considerate way possible, try this method. If you’ve ever tweaked your back before even setting up under a barbell, you know how important simple solutions like this can be!

Your weight room is set up wrong!
Watch The Video – 01:18

3 How to Stack Plates on a Sled or Prowler

If you use a sled, you know it can be a real pain in the butt pulling the plates off the vertical weight-retaining bars. If you’re not careful, it can be an even bigger pain in the finger. It doesn’t have to be!

All you have to do is load a 5-pound plate first, then alternate 45-pound plates with 5-pound plates afterward. Not only does this make it easier to grab and pull off the 45s, it also gives you nice and simple 50-pound increments to monitor your resistance.

Feel like you’ve seen this technique before somewhere? As some physique training enthusiasts know, this sandwich technique is also great for loading and unloading the seated calf-raise apparatus.

4 Use Ab Straps for More Than Just Hanging Leg Raises

If an injury affects your grip, it doesn’t have to mean the end of your upper-body training. You can use ab straps as a handle option even if you’re unable to hold anything in your hands.

For example, you can use them to perform bent-over rows at the cable stack. Sure, it’s not the full range of motion you’d get with a dumbbell or cable handle, but it’s far better than doing nothing at all. You can also keep up your rotational power by using the same straps for a rotary cable pull.

Bent-over cable rows

Give either of these moves a try, and you’ll start to see what a versatile tool these can be. Let me know in the comments if you have success using them for anything else.

The bigger lesson here is that an injury, joint pain, or limitation doesn’t have to cancel your workout. This was the focus of my Joint Friendly Strength Training DVD set, which includes more than 100 innovative exercises for building muscle and strength while sparing your joints and working around wounded knees, shell-shocked shoulders, hand and wrist limitations, and a bad back.

5 Use Barbells As a Personalized Dips Station

A common knock against strength training machines is that they don’t allow us to follow our “natural” path of movement. Every user has to set up the same way, with the same hand width, foot placement, and so on. But the same people making this complaint happily head over to the dip station, where—you guessed it—they put their hand placement at the same width, regardless of their respective shape and size.

You may think there’s no way to adjust the width of your hands on a parallel bar dip station, since the handles are already preset at a specific width—and you’re right! Even the adjustable parallel bar dip stations only have one adjustment, where you rotate the handles either farther apart or closer together. This still leaves out plenty of people whose ideal placement would be in the middle or outside those two positions.

Parallel bar dip

Don’t try to fit yourself to a movement. Make the movement fit you by abandoning the dip station and performing dips in a way that’s fully adjustable to every individual. All you need is a squat rack and two empty barbells. Set the safety pins a little higher than waist height, set up between the barbells, and start dipping.

If you’re worried about the barbells rolling when you perform the dips, don’t be. They won’t budge once you put your weight on them. That said, as with every other exercise, there is always some idiot factor involved, so don’t do anything you know may push your luck.

6 Wrist-Wrap Front Squats

Just when I think that using wrist straps to perform front squats is a hack that everyone knows, I find someone who has never seen this technique before. So it’s definitely worth sharing—especially if it eliminates your best excuse not to do front squats!

This trick is simplicity itself. If you feel like front squats bother your wrists, or you are simply unable to get your wrists into the proper position, loop the wrist straps around the bar (as shown in the photo below) and hold on tight as you squat.

Wrist-Wrap Front Squats

When using wrist straps to perform front squats, keep upward tension on the straps by pulling them vertically throughout the exercise. Keep your elbows at a roughly 90-degree angle to your torso in order to maintain the bar in proper “racked” position. Otherwise, the same cues that apply to regular front squats apply.

7 Use a Trap Bar as A Four-Way Neck Machine

I’m a big fan of neck-strengthening exercises, especially for athletes competing in impact sports such as rugby, football, grappling, boxing, Muay Thai, and MMA. An effective tool for strengthening the neck is a four-way neck machine, but it’s rare to see one outside of specialized training centers. Even such centers struggle to find the space and budget for this machine.

No neck machine? No problem! In this video, Richard Sorin shows you how to turn a trap bar into a four-way neck machine:

DIY Neck Machine and Shoulder Press
Watch The Video – 02:39

As you can see in the video, this technique works best with a trap bar that’s long enough to be placed in a rack, like the Sorinex Diamond Bar. If you’ve got a good one, you’ll find that, like ab straps, it’s a great tool that can be put to many uses in the gym.

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© Bodybuilding.com, 2026 S Silverstone Way, Meridian, ID 83642 USA – 1-877-991-3411

Home | Store | Products | Careers | Help | Contact Us | Terms of Use | About Us | Checkout | Site Map | Advertise With Us | Affiliates

© 2014 BodyBuilding.com, LLC. All rights reserved. BodyBuilding.comsm and BodySpace® are trademarks of BodyBuilding.com, LLC.

© Bodybuilding.com, 2026 S Silverstone Way, Meridian, ID 83642 USA – 1-877-991-3411

Home | Store | Products | Careers | Help | Contact Us | Terms of Use | About Us | Checkout | Site Map | Advertise With Us | Affiliates

© 2014 BodyBuilding.com, LLC. All rights reserved. BodyBuilding.comsm and BodySpace® are trademarks of BodyBuilding.com, LLC.

© Bodybuilding.com, 2026 S Silverstone Way, Meridian, ID 83642 USA – 1-877-991-3411

Powerlifting, like baseball and various racing sports, often seems to be more about numbers than people. Competitor X pulled or pushed X pounds at X bodyweight, or totaled X to break the previous record X. Great—but who is this human hoist moving all those pounds?

Universal Nutrition recently used the 2013 CAPO Powerlifting Nationals in Hobart, Tasmania, as the opportunity to shine a personal light on five of the world’s elite strength competitors, in a unique online documentary series titled “The Road to CAPO.”

The athletes run the gamut in size, from 300-pound Brandon Lilly to Richard Hawthorne at less than half that weight. They come from equally diverse backgrounds and professions. What they all shared was the potential to leave Australia as the strongest pound-for-pound lifter in the world on that day.

The Road to Capo, Conclusion
Watch The Video – 24:02

Barring such a singular achievement, they all were threats to add a new world record to their resumes, because powerlifting, unlike baseball, is a sport where no stat is sacred. New lifters set incredible new standards of strength on a regular basis, and in Hobart, every member of the team had a benchmark in his sights.

Got a half-hour? Watch this dramatic video of the meet. If you have a few minutes to spare, watch the short video features on the athletes. Either way, you’re likely to end up with a new appreciation for what happens both on the platform and on the road leading to it.

Eric Lilliebridge:

It would be easy to call Eric Lilliebridge a powerlifting prodigy, but the label doesn’t quite do justice to the depth of experience he has accumulated in just 23 years. Eric, his father Ernie, Sr., and his brother Ernie, Jr., all accomplished pro powerlifters and Animal athletes, constitute three stout branches on what must be the world’s strongest family tree.

Young Eric asked his father to coach him beginning at age 13, and by 18, the baby of the family could deadlift 800 pounds and had systematically climbed to the upper echelon of the sport. His accomplishments have only grown since then. He has set multiple world records including a 903-pound raw squat in a competition last November. On his very next lift, he increased his own record by an additional 22 pounds.

Eric Lilliebridge is the toast of the 275 weight class at age 23, with multiple squat records already to his name.

In his chapter of The Road to CAPO, “The Bonds that Hold,” Eric and his filial training partners open the door into what it’s like to lift and train as a family. They also visit the hard Chicago neighborhood where Eric and his brother grew up—and where spotting one another was a question of life and death.

Garrett Griffin:

Garrett “Gunz” Griffin was strong long before he was a strength competitor. One fateful day, he had casually bench-pressed almost two and a half times his bodyweight in a gym in his hometown in Louisiana, when a bystander mentioned a local bench press contest with a $1,000 prize.

“I really didn’t put too much into it. I just showed up at the competition,” Griffin recalls. “There were like 17 powerlifters there with their big gym bags and all their equipment. I just walked in: Me, myself, and nothin’.” He left with the money after pressing 440 pounds at a bodyweight of 188 pounds.

That was in 2010, and in the ensuing years, the powerlifting newcomer has quickly established himself as one of the world’s top raw benchers, getting comfortable in the rarified air of 500-pound benches. In “The Weight of Expecations.” Griffin tours the bayou where he and his family have persevered and gotten stronger in the years following Hurricane Katrina.

5-foot-4 Richard Hawthorne played defensive back in college. “They couldn’t see me, but you best believe they felt me,” he says of his opponents.

Richard Hawthorne:

If you’ve ever seen Richard Hawthorne lift you probably remember it, even if you didn’t know his name at the time. It’s not often that you see a 5-foot-4, 130-pound man lift nearly five times his bodyweight off of the ground.

Hawthorne has made enough of a habit of doing this, both in competition and in exhibitions like the Animal Cage at the Arnold Classic, that he has earned the nickname “The Ant.” Pound-for-pound, he’s as strong as they come, which Hawthorne attributes to his dedication to building three specific types of strength: abdominal strength, strong technique, and mental resolve.

“Just because you’re made a certain way don’t mean you have any kind of limits. You can do anything you want. It’s a mental thing,” Hawthorne says in his feature, “No Limits.” “When I lift, people see the intensity. I don’t say much, I don’t yell, or do all that much, but they can see it.”

Sam Byrd:

Sam Byrd is a classic “powerbuilder,” the type who makes unthinkable poundage look puny while maintaining a level of conditioning that could earn him a bodybuilding trophy any day of the week. But the longtime competitor is best known best as one of the all-time greats in the squat. He holds records in both raw and equipped lifting, and admits that CAPO presented a special opportunity to add to his legend. “Of course I have numbers in my head,” he says, “but I want to do my speaking on the platform.”

Fortunately, Byrd is more willing in his feature to speak openly about his goals in life, as well as his ambitious and tireless approach to goal-setting. In “Unattainable,” he explains how he has progressed from one seemingly unreachable goal to another, and how his role as a world-class powerlifter and ambassador of the sport intersects with life as a practicing attorney.

Can your attorney squat 900 pounds? Sam Byrd can.

Brandon Lilly:

“I hated the weight room,” Brandon Lilly admits. And with good reason: His initial experiences in his middle school gym class were utterly humiliating, leaving him flat on his back with his peers watching all around. But he came back, and kept coming back, until he eventually built a kinship with the iron that allowed Lilly to thrive as a powerlifter and strongman. He also helped bring a number of other strong lifters to new competitive heights along with him as the creator of the Cube Method of powerlifting training.

In “From Nothing,” the burly, bearded Kentucky native gives his frank appraisal of the challenge of finding motivation over a long career, and how he balances thankfulness and intensity in the heat of competition. At CAPO, he would have his best opportunity yet to see how his philosophy prepared him to face global competition.

If you take your health seriously (and you must since you’re reading this), then you likely already know which foods to eat and which to avoid (hint: any processed foods). Even though you’re armed with this knowledge, you might still be shortchanging yourself on some real health benefits hidden in the foods you eat.

To unlock the complete nutritional potential of your food, remember that vegetables, fruits, and the other whole foods we eat are also living organisms. As such, they have their own self-defense biomechanisms to protect them from predation. It just so happens that the byproduct of these biological machineries—things like trace elements, carotenoids, polyphenols, flavonoids, and phytochemicals—can protect us from health problems, too.

Our bodies are smart like that. Throughout history, humans have uncovered a host of medicinal benefits and compounds within our food. It’s time to think about maximizing the full nutritional potential of these same foods. While you think you’ve got something as simple as a potato all figured out, some lessons about spuds may still surprise you.

Hack No. 1:

Garlic offers tremendous health benefits, but many people shoot themselves in the foot by the way they cook with it. People tend to chop garlic and immediately toss it into a heat source. There’s no doubt the added garlic adds an incomparable depth of flavor; unfortunately, the rush to the skillet kills garlic’s primary health benefits.

Once you chop the garlic, keep it away from heat and let it sit for 8-10 minutes before you cook with it.

Garlic contains a protein element called alliin and a heat-sensitive enzyme called alliinase. Only when you slice or puncture garlic’s thin membrane do alliin and alliinase synthesize into the antimicrobial and cancer-fighting compound allicin, which may have the ability to fight cancer and heart-related conditions.

Garlic sounds amazing so far, but here’s the rub: A group of clever food chemists pointed out that applying heat immediately after cutting garlic destroys the alliinase—that same enzyme required for forming the most valuable component of garlic. By that point, a majority of its healing properties literally go up in flames.

The good news is that you can still cook garlic and reap its rewards (and tastiness) simply by letting the cut-up garlic rest a bit. That’s it. Once you chop the garlic, keep it away from heat and let it sit for 8-10 minutes before you cook with it. This brief waiting period allows the allicin to fully come together. It’ll stay intact even through later cooking.

Alternatively, you could eat your garlic raw—but then you’d be repelling more than just vampires. Your mate, friends, and coworkers might steer clear, too.

Hack No. 2:

The skin is its biggest nutritional asset of many fruits and vegetables. Far too often, people will discard the top layer, thinking it’s dirty and gross, but they end up throwing away many helpful nutrients in the process.

The solution to getting around excess amounts of pesticides and still being able to enjoy produce in its entirety is to buy organic versions.

The outer layer functions as a defense against hazardous elements like mold, grazing predators, insects, fungi, and ultraviolet rays. This protective effect builds a higher concentration of nutrients—like antioxidants and —within the skin and the tissue below it.

Think of how your calluses form in response to repeated chafing. By eating the produce skins, you take in all the nutrients a vegetable or fruit has to offer.

“But, won’t I ingest a bunch of pesticides?” you ask. Current agricultural practices make this a legit concern, but it just means you have to be extra careful.

Despite your rigorous scrubbing and washing, nasty chemicals can still penetrate deep into the produce’s inner tissue and then enter your body.

The solution to getting around excess amounts of pesticides and still being able to enjoy produce in its entirety is to buy organic versions of produce listed under the “dirty dozen,” which tend to be the most contaminated.

Hack No. 3:

The fast-digesting starches in a typical modern-day spud actually spike your blood sugar about as high and as quickly as eating sugar with a spoon. This is especially true of the standard supermarket varietals like the white-fleshed Russet or Idaho potato.

Although our bodies are designed to manage the rapid rise of blood glucose from high glycemic foods with a hormone called insulin, consuming copious amounts of sugary foods on a regular basis can lead to a condition called insulin resistance.

At that point, blood glucose can no longer be properly controlled without meds. The unfolding of this process usually leads to type 2 diabetes, which can lead to heart problems, kidney failure, and amputations if left untreated.

What is a tater-loving person to do?

Simply cook the potato and then chill it in the refrigerator for approximately 24 hours.

Simply cook the potato and then chill it in the refrigerator for approximately 24 hours. The cooler temperature lowers the glycemic index of the starches, which makes for 25 percent or so reduction in the resulting rise in blood glucose. Your pancreas will thank you, since it’s responsible for releasing that ever-so-important-glucose-corralling insulin. Excess demands placed on the pancreas by repeated glucose spikes are thought to damage the organ over time.

From that point on, the chilled tater will keep its low glycemic rating for you to enjoy, free from worry. You could also slow down starch digestion by adding dietary fats to your potato (and really any other starch).

So ignore those judgmental head shakes, as a pat of grass-fed butter or even some bacon bits won’t necessarily turn that baked potato into a nutritional trainwreck.

Hack No. 4:

Adding fats to otherwise low-calorie vegetables may sound counterintuitive, since in some cases the act of eating vegetables is a way to avoid consuming excess fats. But you’re not doing yourself any favors by skipping out on them.

Dark leafy greens—kale, swiss chard, and spinach—as well carrots and tomatoes, which have beta carotene (the precursor to vitamin A) and lycopene, respectively, are chock full of fat-soluble vitamins like A, E, and K. They need to partner up with dietary fats in order for our digestive systems to adequately absorb and utilize them for our body’s benefit. Not including these fats is like bringing a hot date to the prom, but ditching him at the punch bowl for the rest of the night—no point.

Dark leafy greens need to partner up with dietary fats in order for our digestive systems to adequately absorb and utilize them for our body’s benefit.

This doesn’t mean you should drown your vegetables in a vat of full-fat dressing or wads of butter to ensure nutritional benefits. A study in the “American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” concluded that a minimum of 6 grams is needed for optimal absorption. That’s about a small handful of nuts or a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.

Plus if you’re already eating said vegetables with other food sources like a 6-ounce steak, you’re already well on your way to fat-soluble vitamin paradise. Your best bet, though, might be to toss in slices of avocado, a tasty, fatty super-food.

Hack No. 5:

Boiled vegetables remain a staple among people on low-fat and bodybuilder diets. Boiled chicken and vegetables, anyone? Certainly, it’s fast, convenient, and easy to clean up. But have you ever wondered why the cooking water turns green after the broccoli floats around for a while? Perhaps even sadder is that the water gets promptly dumped out without so much as a shrug, leaving nothing but a fibrous clump of less-nutritious green matter that can barely be called broccoli.

If you want to take advantage of eating vegetables in the first place, consider sauteeing your vegetables with some grass-fed butter, or even steaming them.

It turns out that boiling vegetables is perhaps the fastest way to lose nutrients. Aside from being the quickest step toward absolutely tasteless food, boiling vegetables leaches all the valuable water-soluble nutrients into the cooking water. At that point, you should just drink the water in order to salvage the loose nutrients. (No, I’m not joking.)

If you want to take advantage of eating vegetables in the first place, consider sauteeing your vegetables with some grass-fed butter, or even steaming them. That way you avoid losing nutrients to the water bath and increase the nutrient bioavailability from the added fats (as I mentioned previously).

Hack No. 6:

For reasons that are as mysterious as the ingredients list of a Twinkie, slicing up carrots after they’ve been cooked provides more nutritional value than doing so before they’ve been cooked.

For some, this can be a disappointing realization, since raw carrots are some of the most portable and convenient vegetables to snack on.

Surprisingly, cooking the carrot whole and then chopping it up works both as a nutritional and a flavor enhancement. Cooked carrots tend to taste more sweet, but more important, you retain approximately 25 percent more of a cancer-fighting compound called falcarinol, which protects the carrot from fungal diseases in nature.

Since carrots also contain beta carotene—the healthy stuff that makes them orange—you’ll need to remember to eat them with some fats to absorb the nutrient.

Hack No. 7:

Nuts of all kinds are packed with protein, omega-6 fatty acids, and trace minerals, and are a fantastically filling and convenient snack. Unfortunately, nuts in their unaltered form also contain high amounts of “anti-nutrients,” more specifically phytic acid, lectins, enzyme inhibitors, and in some cases, even mold.

Phytic acid and these anti-nutrients are not digestible in humans and wreak havoc in the body because they hungrily cling to minerals like calcium, iron, zinc, and others. Consuming a large quantity of these nuts without first putting them through a process called sprouting could lead to serious mineral deficiencies and bone density loss.

Sprouting a nut essentially involves soaking it in water (salt water, or sometimes an acidic solution works, too) for a preset length of time. The exposure to wetness mimics something that occurs in nature when the nut releases enzymes to break down the anti-nutrients. What this ultimately means is that properly sprouted nuts have increased nutritional value for your body and make them more digestible.

The soak time depends on the type and quantity, and can range from a few hours to a full day.

Start Hacking

There’s certainly no shortage of information on which foods enhance vitality, fight disease, and help to preserve quality of life. Yet I am willing to bet that you didn’t know about one or more of the “nutritional hacks” I just mentioned. And there’s no shame in that.

Centuries if not millennia of passed-down wisdom on how to cultivate, store, and prepare these foods set the foundation; it’s up to you and me to help educate others on how they, too, can reap greater health benefits from their food.

You have any kitchen secret or nutritional hacks to share? Log in to BodySpace and join me in the comments below!

References

1. Ankri, Serge, and David Mirelman. 1999. “Antimicrobial Properties of Allicin from Garlic” Microbes and Infection 2:125-29.
2. Song, Kun, and JA Milner. 2001 “The Influence of Heating on the Anticancer Properties of Garlic” Journal of Nutrition 131:1054S-57S.
3. Ek, Kai Lin et al. 2012. “Glycemic Effect of Potatoes.” Food Chemistry 133:1230-40.
4. Hornero-Mendez et al. 2007. “Bioaccessibility of Carotenes from Carrots: Effects of Cooking and Addition of Oil.” Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies 8:407-12.
5. Brown, M. “Carotenoid Bioavailability is Higher from Salads Ingested with Full-fat than with Fat-reduced Salad Dressings as Measured with Electrochemical Detection.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August 2004; vol 80: pp 396-403.
6. Hurrel, Richard F. 2003. “Influence of Vegetable Protein Sources on Trace Element and Mineral Bioavailability.” Journal of Nutrition 133:2973S-2977S.

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Vital Stats

Name: Brian Casad
Occupation: Gym Owner; 2013 BodySpace Spokesmodel
Website: titleboxingclub-uptowndallas.com

Brian Casad has the look a lot of guys want. His stage physique reveals every full muscle. He has big arms and round shoulders, a jaw that can take a punch, and a brush-thick head of hair. This is what a muscle model looks like, but you can’t see Brian’s past self on stage.

You can’t hop into your way-back machine and shake hands with the overweight Brian, the chained-to-a-desk Brian, the Brian who tread a path of mediocrity. The Brian who, in college, slipped into the party life and took on extra weight. You admire his six-pack now, and it’s hard to imagine this physique athlete rocking a beer gut.

He needed a transformation of body, mind, and occupation. When he had enough, Brian walked into the Title Boxing Club in Kansas City for a new kind of workout. He took some classes, dropped about 40 pounds, and his eyes opened to a career in fitness.

He was all in. He quit his job, sold everything he owned to strangers on Craigslist, borrowed flow from his family, and invested it all in his own gym, the Title Boxing Club Uptown, in Dallas, Texas. Brian took a big risk, but that’s how you earn big rewards.

Brian Casad Fitness 360
Watch The Video – 10:21

Brian’s Training

Brian’s gym is more than a boxing ring. He designed the building himself, and he couldn’t live without a full-fledged weight room. Follow his full training plan!

Brian’s Nutrition

Clean eating isn’t as tough as people make it out to be. It’s simple: eat food you cook yourself, and stick to whole foods with basic ingredients. Try Brian’s plan!

Brian’s Supplementation

This portion of Brian’s plan can be freestyle. The only daily supp he takes is his multivitamin. He changes up his pre-workouts and juggles different brands.

The Big Risk

College students don’t have much. They don’t need much, either, beyond a place to party and people to kick it with. That lifestyle isn’t healthy and, although Brian Casad lifted weights through college, he graduated overweight.

The Kansas State grad took a job with his uncle, Jerry Chatam, consulting clients on the invigorating world of real estate taxes. Brian got a name plate, a desk, and settled into the drudgery of adult life. He lived for 40 hours each week at a desk. The crew would take group lunch breaks to “shit-ass” restaurants and his body felt worse than ever.

“I hated it,” Brian says. “I found myself falling asleep at the mouse, even if I got a good night’s sleep. I was done with it and started running at lunch instead.”

The office life wasn’t cutting it for Brian, so he risked it all to break free.

The running led to a surge in his want-to. He remembered liking boxing and started taking classes at his local Title Boxing Club. Over a matter of months he dropped 40 pounds and slowly got it into his head that he was in the wrong profession. “I knew that fitness was an industry I wanted to be in, live in, work in, breathe in, eat in … I dropped the weight and found my passion.”

Brian wanted out of the office, and his uncle knew he wasn’t happy. Chatum gave Brian two months of severance pay and told him to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. “That gave me a little bit of time to look back at myself and figure out where I wanted my career to go,” Brian says. That same month he discovered that Title wanted to expand and create new franchise affiliates. The idea seemed perfect and Brian was in, but he still needed help.

“Bottom line, I didn’t have the money,” Brian says. “Family helped. They are partners. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was something I was passionate about.”

That passion drove Brian to pack up everything he couldn’t sell on craigslist and move to Texas. “It was an emotional roller coaster,” Brian says. “I picked up everything and took off trying to make something happen. Granted I was stoked to move, but once the reality sets in—’Hey, this gym isn’t up and running yet!’—there’s a big process: signing a lease, equipment, lawyers, contractors, and franchise paperwork.”

Brian’s Gym Music

1. Disturbed – I’m Alive
2. Disturbed – Another Way To Die
3. The Notorious B.I.G. – Juicy
4. Gorilla Zoe – What It Is
5. Erick Sermon ft. Marvin Gaye – Music

The Big Reward

Now, Brian wakes up every day and pursues his passion for a living. He teaches workout classes and talks to people about his transformation, about how he wants to transform their lives. He selects a person every three months and trains them for free, because he enjoys assisting them with such a big change.

“I prefer to have clients who are overweight,” Casad says. “I want to help them lose weight. That’s the reason I’m in this—to help people.”

As much as Brian wants to be in the gym, helping people transform, he has a business to run. So, yes, he has to spend a little time behind his desk each day. “But, I’m not being forced to,” Casad says. “I’m doing this of my own accord. I make my own destiny.”

Brian used boxing to transform his body. He cut 40 pounds. He then decided to make the sport a focus for the rest of his business and fitness life.

Last year Brian won the BodySpace Spokesmodel Search Competition at the LA Fitness Expo, but he won’t be competing again anytime soon. “I don’t like the competition aspect,” he says. “I don’t like the whole greased-up stage thing. It’s not my style. I like doing things for Bodybuilding.com. I’m more of a fitness entrepreneur. I like representing fitness as a whole, not standing up being judged on how big I can become.

“I will stick to fitness boxing. I like to think. I don’t like to just knock each other around. Any slight movement and you can get hurt. When I first got into it I really saw something in boxing. The amount of weight I lost doing it was pretty cool. I hate cardio, but I love boxing.”

It is dangerous to enter the ring, whether it’s boxing or business. Brian took a big risk. He worried, borrowed, and fought to make it work, and the big reward was worth it.

Among lifters, there aren’t many people who will shy away from wanting to build a strong, chiseled chest. After all, they know beastly chest muscles scream strength and power, and look great on the beach.

Functionally, strong pecs also assist with performing everyday activities, lower the risk of shoulder injuries, and provide that extra edge in sports and in the gym. Simply put, a well-built chest is, well, pectacular. Sorry.

It’s high time for you to get your chest training out of a rut. Use and share these tips to reassess your chest routine and pave your way to pec success.

1 Stick With Basics

When the chest game starts to falter, some people react by piling on ridiculous-sounding accessory work like a one-handed, reverse lay-up upper-cut. No need to reinvent the wheel here; there are no secret exercises.

Perfect your technique and form and identify the best rep range for your objective. The basics will help your chest grow!

Tried-and-true foundational exercises like ye olde bench press, dumbbell press, incline press, and chest flye have helped top lifters such as Steve Reeves, Arnold, and countless other folks throughout the years. So why wouldn’t they work for you?

Before trying to change things, make sure you master these movements. Perfect your technique and form and identify the best rep range for your objective. After all, any structurally solid building must rise from a strong foundation.

Exercises like the bench press are the cornerstones for a powerful chest. Still doubtful? Look to IFBB Physique Pro Craig Capurso, who uses these exercises to build his rock-solid chest.

2 Everyone Should Train Chest

Yep, that includes you, ladies. Unfortunately, some women need to banish these false preconceived notions of how chest exercises could negatively impact their bust. No, they will not shrink your bust. No, they will not make you look like She-Hulk. So stop worrying over these unfounded concerns!

Despite fears of lost bust size, both men and women should train their chests regularly.

If there’s someone who has both a strong and good-looking chest, it’s WBFF Pro Jen Jewell. Jen knows the importance of chest day and likes to include as many different movements into her chest workout as possible, including presses, flyes, and push-up variations.

“Just because [women] may not be out to build the biggest pecs out there doesn’t mean we should neglect chest training,” she says. “Our chests are a major muscle group. We wouldn’t neglect training our back, so why would we skip out on chest day?”

It’s like those dudes who exclusively train upper body and end up with chopsticks for legs. The same concept of imbalance echoes here: Working out one group of muscles but ignoring another group could make you look (and function) disproportionate.

Jen continues: “If we neglect training our chests, it could lead to a muscular imbalance in our physique and impact our training all around—we can’t have that, now can we?! When we are working our chests, our shoulders and triceps are involved, too. And ladies, there’s another bonus! Even though you can’t increase the size of your breasts themselves with training, you can tighten the muscles of the chest, which makes for an even perkier bust line.”

3 Squeeze

Squeeze what, you ask? Well, there’s your problem.

When benching, you want to squeeze two things: the bar handle and your pec muscles. When I say squeeze your pecs, I don’t mean using your hands to actually squeeze them. On the concentric, or lifting, portion of your reps, think about contracting your pecs. Squeezing increases the pump and the work involved, as well as the density of the muscle. It won’t be easy, but your hard efforts will be rewarded.

Squeezing the bar with your grip increases the pump and the work involved, as well as the density of the muscle.

Also make sure you squeeze the bar or dumbbell handle as if you want to crush it in the palm of your hands. This clench will invite more fibers to the pump party, resulting in increased strength down the road.

4 Focus On Form

Proper lifting form trumps everything else. If your form collapses, it doesn’t matter that you’re slinging twice your body weight.

If the intended muscle fibers aren’t recruited correctly, other muscle groups may dominate the exercise, which adds unnecessary stress to muscle groups that aren’t designed to bear heavy loads. That’s how you get hurt. No one builds a strong chest while sitting in physical therapy or dealing with an injured back or shoulder. Throwing up big bench numbers may impress the bros at your gym, but it’s not a good long-term strategy if those numbers come at the expense of good form.

Executing proper form, performing reps at a slower tempo, and focusing on using your chest throughout the movement will maximize the intensity and effectiveness of the workout, while minimizing injury risk.

5 Push Yourself

Your body is an amazing, intelligent machine that will adapt to stress quickly. If you don’t push it hard enough, it won’t grow. It’s as simple as that.

While proper form still rules the day, muscle growth requires progressively increased stimuli. This increase leads to breaking down the muscle fibers and rebuilding stronger and bigger ones, preparing you for the next time you go against the iron.

Dumbbell Flye

As you grow more comfortable performing the movement perfectly within a certain weight range, push yourself to take on more weight—as long as your form stays tight.

6 Rest, Pause, Drop

When adding more weight is no longer a challenging option, there’s another method for making your next chest workout a sufferfest. I call it the “rest, pause, drop” method—RPD, for short—and no, it isn’t a new dance routine.

I combined two intensity-raising techniques: rest-pause and dropsets. The former breaks up one set into several subsets with brief rest worked into the whole set. The latter is a technique that allows you to continue an exercise with a lighter weight after your muscles have tapped out at a heavier weight. My rest, pause, drop methodology applied to a chest workout makes for absolute muscle-building brutality and is designed to train all your muscle fiber varieties at once.

The final result is a 25-30 rep set. Beginners can do one set of this at the end of their chest workout, but I don’t recommend any more than that. Advanced lifters can include this RPD set with each exercise next Monday. (Everyone still does chest on Monday, right?)

7 Dust Off the Decline

You know that decline bench? The sloped brute that gathered a thick layer of dust from underuse? Well, this underrated angle can be a huge boon to your chest routine. It is approved by strongman Colton Leonard, who knows a thing or two about strong pecs.

Comparing exercises done on a flat bench versus a decline bench, some studies have shown that more muscle fibers in the pec are recruited while on the decline. Try this out with both a barbell and dumbbells.

Put these tips to the test and share your results with me and the rest of us in the comments below!

Main | Training | Nutrition | Supplements | Get Started

Coupled with a great diet and killer training program, supplements can help you reach the boundaries of your genetic potential. They’ll never supplant hard work and smart nutrition, but they can support your performance and physique goals. Here’s the science behind the supps Erin Stern uses and how you can utilize them to build your elite body.

Erin Stern’s Elite Body Trainer
Watch The Video – 09:13

You can’t just train hard in the gym and expect incredible results. Training is only one slice of the proverbial fitness pie. After you work out, your job has just begun. You need training, nutrition, and supplementation to reach your physical potential. Each aspect of fitness builds upon the other, so focus as much on your diet and supplementation as you do on your training!

Even with an incredibly clean diet, it can be difficult to get the nutrients you need in the right amounts to support muscle growth and get the most from your hard work. Although they won’t make changes for you, certain supplements can help you maximize your muscle-building and fat-loss efforts.

Dr. Jake Wilson and Erin Stern have chosen supplements to help you burn fat, build muscle, and develop an elite body. At first, Erin’s recommended supplements might seem like a lot to take in one day, but if you break it down like she does, you won’t spend the entire day popping pills or eating powders.

It can be difficult to get the nutrients you need. Supplements can help you maximize your muscle-building and fat-loss efforts.

Multivitamin

Although fit-minded people often try to eat a balanced diet, it can be difficult to ingest ample levels of important micronutrients on a daily basis. This is especially true for hard-training athletes, who have different nutrient needs than sedentary individuals.

Multivitamins won’t necessarily correct a poor diet, but they can help cover any major micronutrient gaps in a well-formulated diet. Multivitamins are great because they deliver necessary vitamins and minerals in two or three pills, rather than multiple single-ingredient doses.

Whey Protein

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Protein is essential for muscle growth and repair, so it’s a big component of any fitness diet. Whey protein has an incredibly high amount of essential amino acids (EAAs), which are critical for growth and can’t be produced by the body. In 20 grams of whey, you get as many EAAs as you would in 30 grams of meat.

Whey protein packs a massive muscle-building punch at a low calorie level, which is important when you’re building an elite body. Whey protein is also fast digesting. It delivers amino acids to your bloodstream quickly and effectively. The more rapidly you can have amino acids in your blood, the quicker you can turn on muscle protein synthesis.

Whey protein also aids your immune system. When you’re training hard, your immune system gets taxed. Whey protein contains peptides that can actually strengthen your system.

Casein Protein

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Like whey, casein provides your body with the protein it needs for building and maintaining lean mass. Unlike whey, however, casein protein digests very slowly. With casein, your muscles get a steady flow of amino acids for hours. It’s a great supplement to take at bedtime so you don’t get hungry and your muscles stay well-fed through the night.

Fish Oil

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Fish oil is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, particularly EPA and DHA, which are incredibly beneficial essential fats. EPA and DHA support cognitive function, vision, fatty acid metabolism, muscle protein synthesis, and more. In order to gain the body composition and metabolic benefits of these two fatty acids, shoot for 2-4 grams of EPA and DHA combined every day.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA)

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CLA is another fatty acid that’s been shown to enhance fat metabolism. In particular, it speeds up the enzymes that break down fat tissue. CLA occurs naturally in meat and some dairy products, but if you’re on a meal plan, you can skip the extra calories and just get right to the good stuff. CLA isn’t a stimulant, so you don’t have to worry about the jitters.

Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)

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Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. The three branched chain amino acids—leucine, isoleucine, and valine—can stimulate as much protein synthesis as all 20 of the other amino acids you’d find in chicken or steak. In other words, they’re incredibly important to muscle growth—especially leucine.

Before and after you train, you don’t want to spend a lot of time digesting. You want blood going to your muscles, not to your stomach. BCAAs are easily digestible, deliver a rapid source of amino acids to your bloodstream, and can stimulate muscle
protein synthesis in only 20 or 30 calories.

Pre-Workout

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The window before your workout is the perfect time to take advantage of specific sports supplements like caffeine, creatine, beta-alanine, and BCAAs. Creatine and beta-alanine support muscular strength and endurance, while caffeine can increase your training energy and work capacity.

Erin Stern is mentally adept at getting herself prepared for a workout, so she prefers to train without caffeine. If you’re like Erin, you can grab the caffeine-free version of Dymatize Xpand 2x, which contains performance-boosting ingredients without the buzz.

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L-Carnitine

L-carnitine is a fatty acid transporter. It helps move fat into your cells’ mitochondria where it can be used as fuel. L-carnitine supports fat loss by helping your body burn fat for energy. It can also encourage a healthy environment for lean muscle growth, which means it supports your hard work in the gym with added gains!

HMB

One of the branched chain amino acids, leucine, metabolizes to a compound called beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutrate, or HMB. HMB’s job is to repair tissue damage. It can also prevent tissue breakdown and support muscle recovery.

The 28 days of the Elite Body Trainer can be brutal. You’re going to wake up and feel sore from training with maximum effort. HMB can help you feel less sore, recover faster, and be prepared to train hard.

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Glutamine

Glutamine supports your immune function, especially during times of extreme physical stress. Glutamine can also help you replenish muscular energy. Using glutamine with a moderate carb intake has been shown to speed your glycogen replenishment, which can prevent catabolism and increase muscle growth and recovery!

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GABA

Gamma-aminobutryic acid, or GABA, is an amino acid, but it doesn’t help build proteins like the branched-chains do. GABA occurs naturally in the body. It supports the nervous system and hormone production. It also supports more restful sleep, a stable mood, and fat loss. Take GABA at night a couple hours before you go to bed. It’s best not to take it with a meal, however, because it could affect your digestion.

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ZMA

ZMA is a natural testosterone- and sleep-support supplement. Like GABA, ZMA may help you get more restful sleep. Athletes who are on an intense training program may be deficient in zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B6. ZMA is a powerful combination of these micronutrients that supports recovery and healthy levels of free testosterone.

Elite Body Supplement Regimen

* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Rest is a crucial aspect of building your elite body. The intense workouts of compound movements, multiple supersets, and short rest periods will have taxed your muscles, central nervous system, and cardiovascular system to significant levels. To recover and give your muscles time to repair and grow, give yourself this day of rest.

Some people have a “more is better” mentality when it comes to fitness. Swimming 40 laps or going for a two-hour run in the hills instead of taking the day off might seem like a good idea, but doing extra work can actually be detrimental to your progress. If you over-work your body, you run the risk of acute overtraining or incomplete recovery. Overtrained bodies have difficulty hanging on to hard-earned lean muscle mass, have compromised immune systems, and don’t function efficiently. Overtraining can also impact your energy levels, making you feel lethargic and unmotivated.

Giving your body a day to recover will help you maintain intensity and focus over an entire week of workouts. You won’t see the best results if you can only give 50 percent at the end of the week. So, corral your burning desire to run a 5k and chill out for the day.

If you want to do something fitness-related, use rest days to take progress pictures, update your workout and nutrition logs, and set goals for the next week. By the time tomorrow rolls around, you should be so amped for the workout that you’re practically running into the gym!

Corral your burning desire to run a 5k and chill out for the day.

Elite Body Meal Plan

Check out the table below to see what Erin eats on a daily basis. You don’t have to follow these meals exactly, but take some cues from Erin’s template: Eat 5-6 times per day, eat protein at every meal, stick to complex carbs, don’t skimp on healthy fats, and taper your carbohydrate intake as the day goes on. Follow these rules to build your own elite meal plan.

Because each of us has particular caloric and macronutrient needs, feel free to add or subtract calories, increase the protein, and make other adjustments. Be smart about your choices, stick to the same food categories, and try to adhere to the schedule. What you eat is just as important as what you do in the gym, if not more. There are a lot of healthy options in these example meals, so you shouldn’t ever feel deprived or hungry.

* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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You’ve just crushed your workout and, after catching your breath, the first thing on your mind is food. Yes, you need protein, but you’re probably hankering for carbs. After all, your depleted glycogen stores aren’t going to replenish themselves. Whether your tooth is sweet or savory, a stuffed potato could be the way to go!

We all harp on the importance of post-workout protein, but we often forget about the importance of carbs. So, next time you go to grill that steak, throw on a side of baked potato. Or, better yet, make that hot potato the star of your dish. Try these three muscle-building recipes to satisfy your hunger, kick-start recovery and growht, and get you primed for your next gym session.

1 The Muscle-Gainer: Salmon-Stuffed Red Potato

If you want to build muscle and add size, eating salmon and potatoes is the way to go. It’s hands-down delicious when you prepare it the Fit Men Cook-style. Adding salmon is a great way to “dress up” a staple bodybuilding meal. You may never eat salmon and red potatoes the same way again. Ever.

• 6 oz Wild Salmon (measured raw)
• ~240 g Red Potato (baked)
• 1/8 cup 2% Greek Yogurt
• 1 tbsp Parmesan
• 1/4 cup Green Onion
• 1 cup Grilled Asparagus

• Pepper
• Coconut aminos
• Mrs. Dash Chipotle
• Garlic (optional)

1. Set oven to 375 F.
2. Bake a red potato until soft.
3. Season wild salmon with 1 tbsp coconut aminos, pepper, and Mrs. Dash chipotle seasoning.
4. Bake salmon in the oven for about 10 minutes until finished. Then, flake the salmon with a fork and set it aside.
5. Once the potato’s finished, slice it down the middle and remove the insides with a spoon. Place the contents in a bowl.
6. Mix the potato contents with Greek yogurt, green onion, and fresh garlic. Keep stirring until the contents are creamy.
7. Add salmon to the mixture and blend with a fork. Season with sea salt to taste.
8. Top with parmesan cheese (if desired) and enjoy!

The Muscle-Gainer: Salmon-Stuffed Red Potato PDF

2 Bodybuilding Budget Potato: Chili-Stuffed Sweet Potato

You can’t beat building muscle on less than $3 per serving! Not only will this meal satisfy your wallet, but it will also put your muscles on the road to recovery. This is a perfect combo of sweet and savory flavors with high-quality protein and complex carbohydrates. Even better, it’s an easy meal you can prep in advance-just top it with chili when you’re ready to eat. Now, go grow!

• 6 oz extra lean Ground Turkey
• 150 g Sweet Potato (baked)
• 3/4 Roma Tomato (diced)
• 1/8 cup low-sodium Black Beans
• 1/8 cup Green Onions

• 1 tbsp McCormick low-sodium chili seasoning
• Mrs. Dash Chipotle seasoning (optional)

1. Bake a sweet potato in the oven until soft.
2. Set a skillet on medium heat and add ground meat.
3. Break apart the meat in the skillet with a spatula and, as it’s cooking, add seasonings. When the meat is 70 percent finished, add tomatoes, green onions, and black beans. Mix together.
4. Reduce the heat to low, cover the skillet, and cook for another 5-8 minutes.
5. When the sweet potato has finished baking, slice it in half and scoop out just a little from the top to create a small hole.
6. Top the sweet potato with the chili mixture.
7. Enjoy!

Bodybuilding Budget Potato: Chili-Stuffed Sweet Potato PDF

3 Antioxidant Crunch: Honey-Stuffed Purple Sweet Potato

Nope, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on ya! That’s definitely a purple sweet potato, and it’s delicious. If you’re like me, you probably have pretty aggressive sweet cravings after a tough workout. The first thing on your mind might be smashing a pint of ice cream. Try this recipe instead!

In addition to the regular vitamins and minerals that sweet potatoes provide, a single serving of purple sweet potatoes are loaded with more antioxidants than a single serving of blueberries. Crush your goals and get those nutrients in!

TIP: When selecting orange or purple sweet potatoes, I like to choose ones that have darker, richer colors. If you can’t find purple sweet potatoes at the local grocery store, check your local farmers market or specialty grocery stores.

• 150 g Purple Sweet Potato (baked)
• 1/8 cup Blueberries
• 2 tbsp Almond Milk (unsweetened)
• 1 tbsp Organic Raw Honey
• 1/2 tbsp Coconut Oil
• 1 tbsp Granola

• Cinnamon to taste (optional)

1. Bake a purple sweet potato in the oven until soft. If you are unable to find larger purple sweet potatoes, simply bake several small purple sweet potatoes to meet your desired serving size.
2. Set a skillet on medium heat and lightly spray with coconut oil. Toss blueberries into the skillet and saute until they appear as if they are going to burst open—about 5-6 minutes.
3. Remove purple sweet potato from the oven. Remove the insides with a spoon and place in a bowl.
4. In the bowl, add almond milk, coconut oil, 1/2 tbsp honey, and cinnamon. Mix together to form a puree.
5. Add the mixture back to the potato. Top with sauteed blueberries, granola, and 1/2 tbsp honey.
6. Remember to add your choice of protein! I recommend grilled chicken breast or baked white fish.

Antioxidant Crunch: Honey-Stuffed Purple Sweet Potato PDF

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