Get Jacked on Game Day (Football)

I’m not saying do an all out workout on game day.  That would be just stupid.  Everybody likes a little psychological edge on game day though so here’s my game day workout I partially stole from Laron Landry, NFL safety of the New York Jets, pictured below.

THE WORKOUT:

• Two-Arm Banded Curls: 4 x 25
• Banded Pull-Aparts: 4 x 25
• Push-ups: 4 x 25

Now this is just a sample size of what Laron Landry does as he does 45 sets of various exercises with the resistance bands which is crazy!  I like the template above because it gets me jacked on game days and it won’t effect you at all before the game!

Here’s a link to purchase the resistance bands:  http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?m=PD&cid=114&pid=515

http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?m=PD&cid=114&pid=246

Jordan Anderson

12 weeks of PR’s and Lifestyle Changes

I am upon completion of my 12 week program called “Built Like A Badass.”  I really wanted to up my bench and deadlift because I thought that personally a 290 pound bench and a 465 pound deadlift was downright pussy!

So what did I do?

I assessed myself.  What did I find?

I found that a few things were dragging me down; diet, drinking, “friends.”  So what did I do to fix these things?  Everything I possibly could!  We’ll start with my diet!

I was under-eating a great deal and in return was getting weaker!  So I made a big emphasis on eating more healthy, natural foods.  I got the help of Nic Peterson on how to jump start my diet.  My sample diet every day consisted of this:

Breakfast: (6 AM):

7 whole eggs

3 whites

2 cups of dried oats (This was a lot!)  In water

Post-Workout Meal: (8:30 AM):

10 oz lean ground beef or grilled chicken

2 cups of white rice (Yes this again is a ton of food)

 

Meal 3/Lunch: (Noon):

10 oz lean ground beef or grilled chicken

4 sweet potatoes or 2 cups of white rice (depending on weeks budget)

 

Meal 4: (3:30 pm):

10 oz lean ground beef or grilled chicken

2 cups of white rice

 

Meal 5: (7:30 pm):

10 oz grilled chicken

4 sweet potatoes
Bedtime Snack: 10:30 PM:

Peanut Butter sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread

 

This is what my diet looked like on training days.  It was usually one meal less on non-training days.  My stomach right away felt bloated but after a week or two it went away and I could see my abs again.  Again my diet was very limited because I am a college student that works about 15 hours a week so my diet was very basic and I spent most of my money on food!

 

Next on the list was drinking.  I am in college and yes I use to drink a lot.  I knew this was affecting me so guess what?  It had to go!  The whole school year before the last 12 weeks I drank way more than I should have.  Some times 3 days a week and it wasn’t just one or two drinks a time.  But guess what?  To get where I wanted it needed to go!  In the past 12 weeks I can count on two hands if not one how many drinks I have had.  Was it fun drinking?  Sure, but with my goals and where I want to be it isn’t necessary so it had to go and it did!

Lastly the people you hang out with DO have an impact on what happens to you!  If you hang out with people who don’t want what’s best for you or don’t respect your direction in life than why have them in your life?  I learned the hard way that some people just don’t care about you!  I cut drinking out of my life which is great but I quickly found that wasn’t enough.  I needed to make more life changes.  I took the fall for other people’s dumb actions.  I am not going to go into what happened as I will do that in another post.  I could have gave up after this happened.  I could have played the “Be sorry for me” card. I just chose which friends I could rely on and which ones I couldn’t!

BUT I DIDN”T

I used it as a learning experience.  I grew from it.  It has made me a stronger person.

So after I made changes in three areas: diet, drinking, “friends”, what happened?

Last week I maxed out on the bench press.  I have never hit 300 lbs in my life.  I hit 295 easy.  I was confident I could hit 315.  Hit it easy.  So why not 325?  I did that too!  After 12 weeks of hard work my bench went up 35 pounds and I promise you I got 325 with “room to spare!”

Last Wednesday it was my turn to max out in the deadlift!  My previous best was 465 which simply isn’t good enough!  I got 475 pretty easy so I threw on 515.  It damn near killed me but I pulled it up!  I improved my deadlift by 50 pounds!

Where will I go from here?

Although I smashed PR’s I am still not satisfied!  I want to keep going!  I want to bench 350 next and deadlift 600!

I found a new passion along the way for Strongman Training.  I want to get into a sanctioned contest by next Spring!

All I have to say is keeping thinking positive.  Keep striving to be the best and do things the right way!

Your biggest limitation is yourself!

 

Jordan Anderson

 

 

 

 

 

Common Mistakes Made When Training For Your Sport

1. Running Until Exhaustion is NOT Speed Training

Doing countless sprints until you “CAN”T” run anymore is not how you get faster!  People think that high volume and low rest times will get you faster.  Sorry to tell you but doing sprints when you are really fatigued really only helps your cardiovascular endurance and won’t aid in getting you faster it will actually probably make you slower in the long run.  Don’t get me wrong every body needs a good base of cardiovascular endurance but it won’t make you faster.  So what is the solution?

When training for speed you want to be fully rested and recovered.  So take LONG rest periods between sprints, even on 10 yard sprints you should rest between 3-5 minutes between runs.  If you don’t know how long to rest listen to your body.  If you are huffing and puffing you probably aren’t ready to do another sprint.  These workouts may seem long but if people can train for two hours just to hit a “pump”  than you can take long rest periods and do speed training in 30 minutes to an hour and see adequate results.

2.  Strength Training in itself won’t put you over the top as an athlete

What do I mean by this?  You see a lot of guys who look like Arnold but can’t make a tackle to save their lives.  Why is this?  Because you have to develop sports specific skills.  These skill cannot be mastered entirely in the weight room.  So if you are a Defensive Back you have to work on your back peddles and your pass drops.  This must be done on the field or in a multi-purpose room.  There are certain things that the weight room won’t help you with and these are sport specific and position specific drills.  Sure lifting weights will help you be better at the drills but the best way to master sport specific drills and movements is by repetition and doing them over and over again until they get fully ingrained in the CNS.

3.  Not Training For Your Specific Sport

To be better on the field you need to do lifting exercises and drills that are sport specific.  So if football is your sport, training like a soccer player will do close to nothing for you.  Football is a sport of strength, speed, power, and endurance a little bit.  So you should gear your workout program around those things.  Ditch the calf raises and do explosive movements such as box jumps, broad jumps, med ball variation tosses, and sprints.  Do drills   These will aid you in becoming a better athlete and football player.

Jordan Anderson

Supplement Rant

You get done with your lift for the day and are leaving the gym exhausted after you just tossed around some heavy weights and Joe Schmo walks up to you and congratulates you on your TYPICAL day in the gym.  He doesn’t bother to ask what kind of training you do or what program you are on.  The first thing he asks is “What supplements are you on?”

How many times have you heard this at the gym?

I know I have on MANY occasions.

To me it’s an insult!

A slap in the face!

To me you are discouraging everything I’ve worked for by assuming supplements are the reason I got there!  What has this world come to?

Supplements aren’t the cure to your problems in the weight room!  You can’t maintain a poor diet and try countering it by taking Whey Protein.  It doesn’t work like that!  I don’t think the freaks of the early 1900’s ever bought Whey Protein to get huge!

Companies will tell you anything to get you to buy their products!  After all they are salesman, that’s what they do!  They want to make as much money as they can so they put their product out to be the best in the business.  I can guarantee the guys working at GNC didn’t get jacked off Wheyabolic Extreme 60, the supplement they always market whenever you step into the store after hearing that annoying scale that asks you “Did you check your weight today?”

So if supplements aren’t as magical as they appear what is the solution?

Eating a healthy, well balanced diet will give you everything you need and more!

If you eat a healthy diet I GUARANTEE you will spend less money then you would if you had a below average diet and relied on supplements.  Supplements aren’t cheap!  So why not eat clean and get most if not all your vitamins, proteins, fats, and carbs in the food you eat rather than spending hundreds of dollars on supplements!?

Supplements have their place and time.  Don’t get me wrong some times you will be too busy to cook so you will need to rely on a protein shake or bar to get your source of protein.  I use supplements but I don’t buy into the fad that they are why I have become what I have in the weight room!

I am having this rant because supplements aren’t magical.

People who get big will always credit their protein and pre-workout for their success.  But you get the same amount of protein if not more in a chicken breast or lean ground beef than a scoop of protein!  Why don’t we credit Tyson for the brand of chicken they produce?  If you can credit GNC or CytoSport for their whey protein why can’t I credit food companies or farms for the food they produce?

The problem I have is people hand over their success to supplement companies when they should be congratulating themselves.

I was going to go more into this however the day I was working on this Mike Guadango came out with two GREAT articles about Supplements which are very straight forward!

Check them out:

http://freakstrength.com/2012/04/09/mandatory-supplements/

http://freakstrength.com/2012/04/10/mandatory-supplements-continued/

Also a special shout out to Dylan Poesch who encouraged me to write this blog!

Jordan Anderson

New Look Blog

I hope everyone had a great weekend spending time with family over the Easter break this year!!!!

I’m sure all of you stuffed your face full of whatever Grandma made on top of all sorts of candy and sweets!!!! Because I know I did!

Now Easter is over it is time to get back to it!

No Excuses!

No Bullshit!

No Nonsense!

The year 2012 is 3 months gone what have you done to separate yourself from the pack!?

Reach higher than you ever could imagine!  The year is far from over!  But attack it now because tomorrow is a long ways away!

On a side note I updated my blog.  I went with a new look.  Let me know what ya think!  Hit me with blog ideas on anything in the fitness world!  I’ll see what I can do!

Until Next Time,

Jordan Anderson

Jordan’s Weight Room Playlist

I am a big believer that music helps you lift heavier weights and break PRs!  I listen to upbeat music that really gets me going.  My music of choice when I lift is rap sprinkled in with a little rock.  Here is my 20 track weight room playlist that helps me break PRs!

1. Blindside– Waka Flocka Flame & Slim Dunkin

2. I Don’t Dance– DMX & MGK

3. World’s Greatest– DMX

4. Where The Hood At– DMX

5. Writing On The Walls– UnderOath

6. Ball– Slim Thug

7. Houston– Slim Thug, Paul Wall, & Z-Ro

8. Inked Up– SJ13 (Stevie Johnson)

9. Cash & Profit– Rocky Diamonds

10. Stay Schemin‘- Chamillionare

11. No Easy Way Out– Robert Tepper

12. Dreamer– Ace Hood

13. Bodies– Drowning Pool

14. Emergency– Ace Hood ft. Movado

15. Shit Done Got Real– Ace Hood ft. Busta Rhymes

16. All The Above– Maino ft. T-Pain

17. Can’t Be Touched– Roy Jones Jr.

18. Power– Kanye West

19. Out Here Grindin‘- DJ Khaled

20. Never Too Late– Three Days Grace

I want your suggestions.  What music do you listen to?  Comment Below!

Jordan Anderson

Up Your Bench with The Ultimate Bench Program

Last week I completed The Ultimate Bench Program created by Mike Guadango and Jeff Carr.

I broke a PR!

This is a program to up your bench so I highly recommend not doing a lower body program while on this to seize optimal results.

I did The Vertical Jump Bible, a program designed to up your vertical jump while on the bench program and the volume of the jump workout was very high and at times I felt drained from both programs so I suggest not doing an intense lower body workout while on this program!

My previous PR was 285 on the bench press.  After the program I broke a PR and benched 290.

Watch here:

I feel my PR would have been higher but I cut ten pounds while on this program and they say to maximize strength you need to keep gaining weight.  So I feel that although my PR only went up 5 pounds I took a lot out of this program and feel this program is a must for anyone who wants to up there bench press!

There is a 10 week program and an 18 week program.  I did the ten week program and plan on doing the 18 week program this summer!

Buy the program here:  http://freakstrength.com/shop/ultimate-bench/

A special thanks to Mike Guadango and Jeff Carr for this program!

Jordan Anderson

Why You Are Doing Sprints But Not Getting Faster!

Training athletes for speed has become commonly misused by coaches not knowing how to incorporate them properly.  But how do you know you are getting a proper training session in to increase your speed?

Speed coach Charlie Francis who was most famous for coaching sprinter Ben Johnson says that you should not do sprints between the ranges of 75-95% of your fastest time.  He said it is too slow to build speed and too fast to serve as a low intensity run.  He basically goes on to say running in this range makes you slower.

For more on this go to anthonymychal.com subscribe to him and read his “The 11 Commandments Of Athletic Development” ebook.

So how do you go about sprinting above 95% of your fastest time?  LONGER REST PERIODS BETWEEN SETS

If you do even a ten yard sprint and only rest for 30 seconds that is still not enough recovery time.  Remember you are training for speed not endurance!  So if you sprint ten yards and rest 30 seconds you will not have enough recovery time to run above 95% of your max.  And the more sprints you do with inadequate recovery time the farther you get away from your top end speed.

Take longer rest periods between sprints.  Even on ten yard sprints rest between 90-120 seconds or until full recovery before you do your next sprint.  How do you know when you are fully recovered to do your next sprint?  You will be able to tell when your body is fully recovered from your previous sprint to go onto the next one.

 

Jordan Anderson

twitter: @realjordyand34

facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/jordananderson34

youtube channel: Adandesgym

 

 

 

 

The Tortoise Does Always Win

Lifting weights to me relates to the story of the Tortoise and the Hare.

I’m sure you all know the story of the Tortoise and the Hare and how the Hare is faster than the much slower tortoise but along the way he takes shortcuts and cheats himself due to arrogance and ignorance that eventually led to failure for the hare.

This relates to people gunning for their one rep max.  People who come with the “Hare Approach” to lifting will also see the same fate as the Hare did.

The Hare Approach:

1. You will burn out

Lifting weights close to your 1rm (one rep max) will show results right away as may jump up ten pounds in a month on your bench max however lifting that heavy weight will eventually catch up to you and cause muscle fatigue and will lead you to failure.

2. You will get injured

Training with heavy weights day in and day out WILL take a toll on the body.  Lifting such heavy weights puts a ton of stress on the muscles and joints in the body and could potentially lead to serious muscle and nerve damage.

3. You will plateau

You will hit a point training maximally that you won’t be able to get out of.  You will get stuck at a certain weight and won’t be able to break that plateau because of the high demands the heavy weights will put on your body.

The Tortoise Approach

The Tortoise approach type of lifters are going to see results at a slow, steady pace but will eventually get to their goal by minimizing the chance of injury and reducing burnout.

1.  Puts less stress on the body

Training at percentages of 50%-85% of your 1rm may not seem like much and you may feel weak doing them but by doing this you are saving your body from serious injuries.  It is also proven that you can still get stronger training nowhere close to your 1rm.  The complimentary exercises you do along side of the bench press will help you increase your 1rm also!

2.  Slow Progressions equal big gains in the end

You bench 250 pounds but you want to get your bench press up 300 pounds so what do you do?  Well sorry but you won’t be able to do this overnight, next week, or next month so go with the mindset that you are going to increase your 1rm 5 pounds every month.  If you do so you will be able to add 60 pounds to your bench in as little as a year and end up breaking the 300 pound plateau without having to train anywhere close to you 1rm in the bench.

3.  Don’t train to failure

Bodybuilders and power lifters can train to failure sure.  Most of them take banned pharmaceutical’s so they can handle a heavier training load.  But that is not you.  Keep in mind that the tortoise approach will have you cut out a few reps short of failure.  Training to failure will also lead to injuries.

To wrap things up in the world of lifting heavy ass weights the fictional story, The Tortoise and The Hair is actually a Non-fictional outcome!  Remember that training smart is more important than training hard!  Just because you do all sorts of lifts to FATIGUE yourself it doesn’t mean it is a GOOD workout!

 

 

 

 

Should Athletes Do Olympic Style Lifts?

High school and college coaches have had their athletes doing Olympic style lifts such as the power clean forever it seems.  Most coaches have their athletes do them because they say it makes their athletes “explosive.”  But are Olympic style lifts such as the power clean necessary for athletes?

The snatch, clean, and jerk is a sport in itself in the Olympics and takes a great deal of time to master.  The people you see on television train specifically to improve those three areas so their training each time is aided to help up the snatch, clean, and jerk.  If your sport is football you can’t just do power cleans once a week and expect to master the technique.  It’s just like if an Olympic lifter were to throw the pig skin around once a week?  Would it help him become better at the snatch, clean, and jerk?  NO!

Most coaches who have their athletes do Olympic style lifts have them do them because they make their athletes “explosive.”  The problem with this is that you can turn any lift into an “explosive” lift if you use 50% of the athletes 1 rep max (maximum amount of weight a person can do one time).

The problem with having athletes do power cleans to get explosive is most if not all the athletes can NOT master the form.  Sure they will make you more explosive but why waste so much time with your athletes trying to get their form down when you can have them do simple but effective movements such as box jumps, broad jumps, and sprints.  These simple but effective exercises will build up just as much explosion in athletes than the power clean.

Jordan Anderson