John Greaves III's Blog, page 22

Weekly Motivation featuring Ryan Di Pompeo

Training in the garage by yourself is tough. You usually don’t have the camaraderie of other gym members to help push you.  To help out, we combed the web to find videos that will help motivate you to keep striving to be your best.

Today’s video features Instagrammer Ryan Di Pompeo aka @workingclassbeast . What’s motivating about this video is this was at the end of a pretty crappy week of training. He was sick after getting back from vacation, drained from working outside in the heat all day and then on bench day everything just clicked!  That’s how it is in the Iron Game especially if you live the garage gym life solo.  You grind and grind and then suddenly BOOM! Breakthrough!

Train hard until people start posting videos of you!

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Garage Gym Life On A Deserted Island

What if I were stranded on a deserted island? How would I train?  (Note that I won’t entertain the idea of whether or not I would train.) That depends on what I have available. Are there trees with branches? Okay, we just took care of back day and started our plan for how to get off this here island.  But while we wait for the raft to be finished here’s my three month plan for what to do between growing my beard and looking for protein rich food sources.

Find Three Heavy Things

Newsflash: Barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells have not always been with us. Ancient garage gym athletes had to make do.  I believe that farming accelerated the development of strength because not only did it require lots of strength to do (it’s even got exercises named after it: farmer’s walks, farmer’s carries etc.) but the act of plowing a field uncovers rocks.  Those rocks need to be moved out of the way.  That takes strength. So in many fields around the world there stood fields with rocks that were hard to move and it became a test of manhood to be able to move said rocks. I would copy that behavior and find three heavy objects.

Object one: Something I could lift ten times but no more than that.
Object two: Something I could lift five times but no more than that.
Object three: Something I could pick up once or twice but no more than that.

Phil Bennett of completemmatraining.com wouldn’t miss a beat on a deserted island.
The Training Plan

 

Every day I’d do pull ups on that tree branch I mentioned; never training to failure but always doing multiple submaximal sets throughout the day.
Three days a week, I’d lift object two and carry it ten to twenty feet. Put it down. Rest until my breathing slowed down and carry it back where I started. Rest until I got my breath back and repeat. Probably do the whole process three to five times.
On days that I didn’t play with object two, I’d carry object one 500ft, probably by going fifty feet back and forth ten times resting as I needed to.
Once a month, I’d try to pick up object three as many times as I could.

I wouldn’t do any running as I’m assuming that I’d get enough cardio searching for food and carrying it back to camp.

By the end of three months, I’m betting that I’d:

Have an amazing beard
Know seventeen ways to cook fish
Be able to carry object three the distance I used to be only able to manage with object two.

You may not be stranded on a deserted island, but what I just told you incidentally serves as an excellent way to start your home gym lifestyle and will serve as a great way to add variety to your training even after you’ve bought a ton of the latest bells and whistles.

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Elliot Hulse on Starting A Garage Gym

Elliot Hulse, the founder and owner of Strength Camp is an accomplished strongman competitor and warehouse gym owner.  In this five minute YouTube video he covers some helpful ideas for starting your own garage gym business.

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marcbewegtschwereszeug= Marc Moves Heavy Stuff

How long have you been training? Where did you get your start? (your parent’s basement, a commercial gym, high school weight room etc.)

I’ve been playing American Football in Germany for about 5 years now.

What position do you play in American football?  

I played Defensive Tackle for the first year, changed to Offensive Line for about 3 years. This season I came back to Defensive Tackle. In the picture below I’m number 76.  But this season is my last one. I want to go on the journey to strength (“wegzurkraft”).

 

So wegzurkraft is Journey to Strength? That’s cool! How did you decide to begin doing Strongman?

During the 2015 season I injured my right knee and right ankle. While in rehabilitation I saw some YouTube videos from “Strength Wars” – the series where 2 athletes compete in strength exercises. From Strength Wars I came to Strongman.

Where in your house is your gym located?

In 2015 I had different bars, some plates, a platform with bench and squat stand in the basement of our house. In April 2016

I got the chance from a good friend to use a part of his garage and his farm for my training for free.

Training for football and training for Strongman are similar but different at the same time. Are there any things that surprised you about the training when you started doing Strongman?

It´s hard to train for Strongman and Football at the same time. During the week I train up to 7 times. Every end of the week I can feel the missing power and concentration. Both sports at the same time is too much for my body. During the season every week is Game Week, I can´t really train on a high level with high weights. This is not the way I want to train, so I will concentrate on Strongman after this season.

What is your best Strongman event so far?

I haven´t started at a competition for now, but I like to carry heavy weights like Yoke or Conan’s Wheel and lift something overhead like Log Press.

You’ve created a lot of stuff but I know that we are always adding to what we have as we discover other training needs. What other equipment do you plan to add?

Next projects are loading kegs and a safety squat bar.

Garage gyms often start out barebones. Especially when you do a sport like Strongman where you can’t always buy what you need. What did you start out with?

Strongman equipment is very expensive but I will need it when I compete in Strongman. So I started to build this equipment on my

own. All pieces of equipment from my pictures and videos except the Oly lifting bar and the plates are DIY.

So where did you buy the Olympic lifting bar and the plates? The equipment that isn´t DIY is from Strengthshop.de and Ebay.

Okay. So back to how you got started with making equipment.

In the Football preseason 2015 I tried to develop a better punch on the line. So I decided to build a different barbell for bench press. The role model was the Rogue Multi Grip Bar. This worked very well. So the next steps were my DIY Fat pad bench and my DIY squat stand with spotter arms.

How did you learn to make your own equipment? Have you always worked with metal or did you learn so you could build your own gym equipment?

At my education as an industrial mechanic I learned all the skills I need to create equipment.

So what led you to train where you train? I saw on Instagram that you wanted to leave Gold’s Gym but like you said, Strongman equipment is expensive. Aren’t there other gyms where you could train; you train at CrossFit Amboss sometimes don’t you?

The Gold´s Gym from the IG pic wasn´t my local gym, I trained there while a business trip. At the Gold´s Gym and my local Gym I can´t train the way I like to. At the basement gym there isn´t someone who wants the squat rack, the bar or the plates. I can train 24/7 and when I drop the weights nobody comes around the corner and admonish me that I shouldn´t do that. Sometimes I train at Crossfit Amboss. This is a Crossfit Box managed by two friends. I build up there Rig and have made them 2 Log Press Bars. It’s a distance of one hour driving and they do Strongman classes once a month.

So who is Johannes Luckas and how does he fit into your strongman training?

Johannes isn´t my trainer. The plan is made by me and my friend (Personal Trainer at Crossfit Amboss). It´s inspired by other powerlifting and strongman athletes that I follow on YouTube and Instagram. Johannes Luckas is one of the best personal trainers in Germany. He lives in Berlin this is 300 km one way to my hometown. This weekend in Berlin was my vacation this year. I had two hours with Johannes this year to let him check my deadlift, squats and bench press.

Some people might be afraid to start their own gym because they might not know how to build equipment. What advice would you give to anybody who is thinking about starting a gym in their home?

KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid. Start with simple equipment. Know what you need and make some plans / drawings about it. Don’t be afraid to ask other people to help you. For example my dad helped me a lot; he knows the old school way to form metal.

How is your family involved in your fitness journey?

My mom says every time that I shouldn´t do this heavy things. She thinks that I get too big! My dad is proud that I put hard work into my dreams.

How can people follow your training?

Follow me on Instagramm marcbewegtschwereszeug – I made this for my journey to strength

By the way, what does your Instagram name mean in English? marcbewegtschwereszeug = marcmovesheavystuff marc = my name bewegt = moves schweres = heavy zeug = stuff

Outstanding!

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Four Ways To Burn Fat Without Running!

Need to burn fat but have bad knees? That may be a blessing in disguise. Too many athletes focus on running as their only conditioning option.  That is an inefficient  use of the many low-tech options available to you as a garage athlete.  Before I get into the meat of this post, I’ve got to shout out Anna Woods because the video below of her practicing double unders was what inspired this post.

Now I’m trying to tell you that running doesn’t work. Jogging, sprinting, even walking with a weighted vest all work. But they all take time and unless you use a treadmill require distance. So what if you’re short on time or can’t leave the house for some reason? In peak condition, I could run three miles in 21 minutes, nowadays it’s probably more like 26 minutes. So if I take off running I’m half a mile from home in about thirteen minutes and I’m only at the halfway point! No bueno if I’ve just put my kid down for a nap and I’m the only adult at home. So here are my go to alternatives to running away from home.

Jumping Rope

Ah! The humble jump rope. Now I freely admit that I never mastered the art of jumping rope or doing double unders as the CrossFitters like to say. Even when I was a fighter, I struggled with the coordination necessary to jump rope successfully. But for our purposes that makes it a good thing because to paraphrase Coach Dan John the harder it is to do a movement the more calories you

Can you believe that the guy doing the punching sucks at jumping rope?

burn doing the movement. Or more specifically, the less efficient you are at something, the more muscle it takes to get it done and the more calories you’ll burn trying.  Jumping rope is an excellent solution for when you need to get your conditioning in and you don’t have a lot of time or you need to stay in a specific location such as the next room while your baby is asleep.  The other thing I like about it is even if you get good at it, you can always just increase the time so it still meets your needs if you can’t leave where you are.  It’s not necessarily friendly to the shins and knees so if that’s your reason for not wanting to run, you should probably leave jumping rope alone until those issues are addressed. But I bet you can punch the air…

Shadow Boxing

Since I’ve got you thinking with a combat mindset anyway consider shadow boxing? I admit that if you are in a commercial gym and you start throwing punches and kicks at the air people will look at you strangely. But you are a garage athlete so who’s going to look at you strange? Your cat or dog? So what? After all that you control the food supply. One thing to be careful about is to avoid hyper-extending your elbows when you throw punches so I would avoid going to full extension and if you have shoulder issues you don’t want to rotate the punch past a quarter turn from vertical. Do these in timed rounds and all you need for that is a stop watch and enough room to avoid hitting something. Add in head fakes, circling and bobbing and weaving to engage the legs and I promise you that a few three to five minute rounds will be all you need. But let’s say you don’t think you’re coordinated enough to defeat attacking oxygen molecules. Okay, here’s something we’ve all done before that will fit the bill for you…

Crawling

Sometimes more commonly known as animal movements crawling is just as tough as it was when you were in gym class (if you’re old enough to remember that sort of thing). Bear crawls, crab walks, Spider-Man crawls, lizard crawls and leopard crawls are all excellent ways to burn calories and reset your motor skills. In fact there’s an excellent DVD on the topic called Pressing Reset by Geoff Neupert and Tim Anderson of Original Strength. They hold seminars to teach people how to

Crawling is great exercise
photo courtesy of Original Strength

reconnect with the ability to get on the ground and move the way a baby learns to walk.  Crawling offers additional benefits in that it helps reconnect our upper and lower body together the same way it does for babies who are first learning to walk.  And quite frankly too many adults lose the ability to get up off the ground . You might laugh but it’s true. I know  simply getting on the ground and getting back up may not seem like much but there’s a reason why they have football players & wrestlers do it every day. If you’re somebody who is fairly sedentary at work this is an excellent way to rediscover your inner athlete without a lot of other movements which are not kind to seasoned joint capsules. An excellent source for information on how far you can take animal movements is Vahva Fitness on YouTube.

Calisthenics

Things Are. Mountain climbers, jumping jacks or side shuttle hops if you prefer a military Target, Hello Dolly, Windmills, In-N-Outs, the list is only limited by your imagination. If you do not have an imagination you can borrow @working_womans_workout’s. She has a new time efficient, usually bodyweight only exercise circuit every day on her Instagram feed that will help get your heart rate and waistline moving in the right direction.

Programming Options

So there you have it: Four conditioning options that don’t require you to leave your living room. Personally I like to switch things up every two weeks. Why? Because I hate cardio but I can put up with anything for 2 weeks.  If you find that you enjoy a particular training modality we can always do it 4430 days but I still recommend switching to something else every month so that you don’t become neurally efficient and decrease the conditioning effectiveness of the movement protocol.

Here’s one quick example: A sedentary adult with knee issues might start out with simply getting on the floor then getting back up as quickly as possible. Then they’d progress to basic crawling the length of their living room. After thirty days of that, move to shadow boxing incorporating movement. Two weeks after that, go back to crawling until month’s end. The next month try light calisthenics for two weeks and back to crawling, trying some of the more advanced crawls this time. Set a distance goal and crawl until you get it. Then switch back to shadow boxing for two weeks and finish up with learning the basics of jumping rope. Set a goal for number of skips without a mistake. Keep at it for four weeks or until you reach your goal whichever comes first.

Simple yet effective and you’re still in the house for when the cable guy finally shows up.

Post in the comments what your favorite conditioning ideas are for when you’re stuck in the house.

 

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Home Gym Inspiration: @jennanp1

Garage Gym Showcase is where we feature pictures and video of cool home gyms. @homegymideas our sister site on Instagram is a treasure trove of, well, home gym ideas.  I like looking through the pictures on their page for ideas on tweaking my own garage gym.  I use it most often when someone tells me they’re planning on setting up a home workout space as it’s a good way to get your creative gym design juices flowing.

This picture comes from @jennanp1 by way of our sister site Home Gym Ideas.

 

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Weekly Motivation featuring Flo England

Training in the garage by yourself is tough. You usually don’t have the camaraderie of other gym members to help push you.  To help out, we combed the web to find videos that will help motivate you to keep striving to be your best.

Today’s video features Instagrammer @floengland doing cleans with perhaps the best view possible. It’s awesome to watch her training in a natural environment. Train hard until people want to post videos of you!

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Flat Belly Overnight by ‘Andrew’ Is A Scam!

Flat Belly Overnight by ‘Andrew’ is nothing but a desperate scam by a desperate, talkative scammer!” according to Obinna Ossai of contrahealth.com, “This is one of the most desperate scams I’ve ever encountered online … and after reading this review you will realize why I said this.”

When I read this article I knew that I needed to repost it. Garage Gym Life has some awesome contributors who make this site a great resource for home based athletes. But I freely admit that we don’t know everything. So I scour the web to find the best articles from yesterday and today (I’d get them from the future as well but the DeLorean is in the shop) and bring you the links here. Today’s article comes by way of my subscription to the OTP newsletter which includes Dan John’s Wandering Weights which you can find and like on Facebook.

Read the original post to discover how this scam seeks to prey on vulnerable people hoping desperately to be able to shed stubborn pounds.

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From Skinny Kid To Multi Sport Champion! Get To Know Tony The Trainer

Anthony Springman’s story could have come straight out of one of those old Charles Atlas ads in the back of comic books. But nobody’s kicking sand in this multi sport champion’s face now! Read on to find out how he does it!

Anthony, thanks for talking to all of us garage meatheads around the world. How long have you been training? Where did you get your start? (your parent’s basement, a commercial gym, high school weight room etc.)

I have been training for 42 years. I started training at home, in my parents basement at 13 years of age. I was the typical skinny kid, who got tired of getting sand kicked in his face. I guess it worked, because I gained 30lbs in one summer. Needless to say, I was hooked for life.

Where in your house is your gym located?

My gym is primarily in the basement, but I also have some equipment in my garage.

You have a pretty impressive pedigree which of your accomplishments stands out to you most?

Number one would be having the first drug tested 600lb squat in the state. That was in the first ADFPA competition in Nebraska in the late 80’s. After that it would be my last win at the NPC Central USA in the Masters Men’s Physique division. I won the overall at 54, against guys in their mid-thirties. I was in the best shape of my life.

What are your best numbers in the gym and competition?

Gym

Squat 610lbs

Bench 355lbs

Deadlift 535lbs

Clean 270lbs

Snatch 190lbs

Competition

Squat 600lbs

Bench 340lbs

Deadlift 540lbs

Clean 255lbs

Snatch 185lbs

You’re a Physique athlete, Olympic lifter and power lifter. How have you been able to successfully integrate your different training goals? 

You just train specifically for each one. Pick your meet and plot out your plan and stick to it. With physique you are obviously doing more volume, and your diet must be tight. Training, diet, posing, tanning…know what you are getting into! It is much more regimented than powerlifting and Olympic lifting. That is not to say either of those are easy!

Robby Robinson is famous for saying that he prefers basic barbell moves but a lot of physique athletes prefer to train in commercial gyms so they have access to a wider variety of equipment. You train in a home gym, do you ever wish you had more toys or trained in a commercial gym with access to what your competitors might have?

Never. I like to use what equipment, when I want to use it! I train individuals in commercial gyms and it is a pain. You constantly have to be ready make variations in the daily program because you do not know when a certain piece of equipment will be available to use. I do not experience that with a home gym.

I have seen some toys in your gym that many garage gyms don’t have like a lever squat/standing calf raise, t bar row, leg extension and reverse hyper. What’s your favorite piece of training equipment?

That is tough! I will probably say that Lever Squat. Barbell squatting to me is numero uno, but when the day comes that I cannot put that bar on my back anymore, I will still be able to get into that lever squat!

Have you ever sold something and wished later that you hadn’t?

Oh, have I!!! Ok, here goes. Compact leg press, Leg extension/hamtactor combo, ab/lower back machine, standing calve, seated calve, pec fly/rear delt machine, and seated overhead press/lateral raise machine. That hurts to write this. We finished our basement and because of room constrictions, this stuff had to go.

That’s rough man. What one piece (or pieces) of equipment land on your “absolutely never sell” list?

Power rack. There’s a limitless amount of exercise you can do with just the rack.

Garage gyms often start out barebones. I know mine did. I started with a set of 70lb dumbbells and a wooden box to use for bench and Bulgarians. What did you start out with?

I think it was a bench and a small power rack. Very basic.

What’s on your most wanted equipment list?

I recently am in negotiations (via Craigslist) for a vertical leg press!

Do you ever get stuff fabricated? How about DIY equipment?

A few small items, but I stress to everyone be very careful with “home made equipment”. Your safety and that of other people training with you are very important. You do not want to be on a homemade bench that gives out during a bench press. Be smart, and be safe.

How do you stay motivated to train at home?

I love it. It’s therapy. I cannot imagine not training, and I thank God every day that I am healthy enough and have the opportunity to do so.

What’s your favorite part about training in your home?

Like I said before, there is no waiting for equipment. No specific hours of operation, I train whenever I want.

Being in a home gym doesn’t mean you’re on house arrest (unless you are). What are your favorite gyms to visit?

I always train at home, unless I am on vacation, then I will seek out a local gym. It is still fun trying different equipment.

What advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about starting a gym in their home?

Do it. Consider it an investment in yours and your family’s health and fitness!

Nutrition is a key part of getting in shape. Especially as a physique competitor, do you try to stay in shape all year round or do you adjust your diet as your goals change throughout the year?

I have a brutal sweet tooth, so yes, if no competition is in sight, the body fat definitely goes up. I just try and maintain a certain level of conditioning and not get too far out of shape.

What is your favorite garage gym conditioning tool?

I have a prowler in my back yard. That is amazing for kicking your butt. I push it on grass and rarely have to add extra resistance. The only thing to deal with is the looks from the neighbors!

How is your family involved in your fitness journey? (I think I saw a picture of you towing some happy kids on a sled!)

My family all uses the gym. My wife recently completed a 5K and used the gym for her training. The kids have all played sports at the varsity level and at the collegiate level and used the gym. My son still plays college basketball and will bring over other athletes during the summer to train in the basement. It is a blessing to see.

How can people follow your training or get in touch with you if they want to hire you?

Instagram: @tonytheetrainer

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