I’m going to try and make this short and sweet so grab a seat and enjoy.
I want you to close your eyes and think of the last time you were in one of those meat market gyms. In your head, look around at what people looked like exercising. What do you see?

One thing that stands out to me the most is the choice of exercise. I know, I’m weird for thinking of that but its stuff I look at. People do what makes them feel comfortable. Since the days of Arnold people have passed down the same movements (that work) from generation to generation. Which is not a bad thing but it can lead to problems later in life.

It’s the guys today who are going beyond the stereo typical gym workout and killin it in the fitness industry.

Let me explain a little more.

1) You need to start doing more of what you hate:

(This is what I mean by exercise choice) You see, people are stuck with the basics; curls presses and pulls. Our training is very segmented. What I mean by this is that you train arms with curls your chest with presses and your back with pulls. You choose the standard exercises, wipe the sweat off your brow and call it a day. It’s easy and not hard to mess up.

What about when you need to use all of those muscles at once? What about power cleans or snatches or over head squats? Lets make it simple and just reference the squat. Most everyone hates leg day. So what do you do. Either skip it all together or do a crap workout. Under developed muscle not only make you look like a lollipop but they can lead to physical issues as well. If your legs can’t support your too big of an upper body, you need to make some changes.

Start doing what you hate.

Squats, lunges, cleans, snatches, variations of pull ups, push ups and various core exercises (I’m not talking about crunches). These are just a few of some of the most common things that people just straight up hate or don’t do. Without using these multi-joint exercises your in the same at risk category in my opinion than someone who doesn’t do much at all in the gym.

You have to push pass the feeling of “Man I hate lunges” or “power cleans take to much energy”. It’s when you start focusing on the things you hate to do that you start building a body that can handle anything, a body that can pull, push and squat stronger and more confident than ever before.

I remember  when I was in high school, I HATED legs even more than I do now so I just straight up never did them. I come from a family of skinny guys so I have been fighting genetics all my life. It wasn’t until I hit college that I really started training legs and saw solid growth from my butt down. (Now I still have some pretty embarrassing legs but it’s been a work in progress!). I made the decision to start focusing on the things I hated to do. Now my body just feels overall better. I feel stronger and more balanced. Where before I only felt strong during those “segmented” movements.

It’s more of a decision than a specific technique. Choose to build workouts around your weaknesses. Don’t train for comfort but for functionality, balance and improvement of your body as a whole.

Santa’s not fat…just big boned,

William