Gym Rat Fitness Personal Training Magazine

QHow did your fitness
journey begin?

I am the proud wife of a retired Air Force senior master sergeant. During the early years of our marriage, I stayed home with our children. My focus was on them, not on my fitness. When I returned to work, I took a high-visibility job that required long hours and frequent travel. My limited fitness went down the tubes in the face of airport food and stress. In 2009, the Air Force moved us to Phoenix, Arizona, where it jump-started an incredibly positive change in my life even if I didn’t know it at the time. A good friend of mine talked me into attending the high-intensity, functional fitness cross-training classes on base. At first, I was very skeptical and didn’t take it very seriously, but before I knew it I was in love. I loved how I felt and the transformation that took place.

After training for about six months, my friends encouraged me to enter a bodybuilding competition on base. I didn’t know a thing about nutrition or training for that kind of event, but I did it anyway. To my surprise, I came in second. This was only the beginning of my foray into bodybuilding.

As luck would have it, there was an Organization of Competitive Bodybuilders show in Phoenix the following weekend. On a whim, I entered. I got my butt kicked, although I still managed to come in seventh. Amazed and inspired by the incredible showings of the other competitors, I wanted to learn more and compete again.

My first step in the direction of serious competition was obvious: I’d buy a suit. I found a suit on eBay being sold by a competitor also in Phoenix. She and I arranged to meet at her gym so I could try the suit on before buying it. I ended up loving the suit and the owner of the gym, too! Mr. Tim Sparkes, the owner of Die Hard Gym and Fitness, agreed to take me on as a client. As they say, the rest is history.

He’s been a dear friend and coach. He still does all my nutrition, even though I moved to Alabama two and a half years ago.

What workout regimen delivered the best results?

What nutrition plan fueled your body?

Off Season Plan

Competition Prep Plan (8-12 Weeks Prior to Show)

What supplement schedule gave you the greatest gains?

“You have to be relentless in your training, your nutrition, your recovery and rest. All the factors have to be in balance. You have to give it 100 percent effort to be successful.”

How did your passion for fitness emerge?

Bodybuilding is an incredible test of willpower and motivation. It is a sport of control in which you control your results: You get exactly what you put in to it. It’s a great feeling to know you’ve done your very best, no matter what place you come in during competition. You have to be relentless in your training, your nutrition, your recovery and rest. All the factors have to be in balance, and you have to give it 100 percent effort to be successful.

What or who motivated you?

My husband of 18 years is my greatest motivation. He supports me and encourages me, even during the darkest days of dieting. Also, my trainer Tim Sparkes of Die Hard Gym and Fitness in Phoenix pushed me harder than I ever thought possible. He always believed in me.

Where did you go for inspiration?

Having a contest to train for is the best way to stay inspired. Any time I feel like skipping the gym I remind myself that I’ll be on stage, basically in my underwear, in front of hundreds of people. Am I willing to present less than my best? The answer is “no.”

“Am I willing to present less than my best? The answer is ‘no.'”

What are your future fitness plans?

I hope to continue to compete, but I’m considering a transition to fitness competition. Despite having no gymnastics or dance background, it’s something I’ve been interested in for a long time. I may be the worst fitness competitor ever, but I want to at least give it one shot.

What is the most important fitness tip?

This quote from Muhammad Ali always motivated me: “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

Who is your favorite bodybuilder/fitness athlete?

Erin Stern is my favorite bodybuilder. She is an incredible athlete and real a class act. Plus her longevity in the sport is inspiring.

How did Bodybuilding.com help you reach your goals?

I have used resources from Bodybuilding.com in every stage of competition prep – from learning better form for lifting to reading how other competitors prepare to tips on choosing the right suit and even tanning.

Jodi’s Top 5 Gym Tracks

1. “Here Comes the Boom” by P.O.D.
2. “Get Low” by Ying Yang Twins
3. “Heart of a Champion” by Nelly
4. “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins
5. “Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine

Competition History

• 2010 Luke Air Force Base Bodybuilding and Figure Competition 2nd place
• 2010 Organization of Competitive Bodybuilders Arizona Natural 6th place
• 2010 Fitness America 7th place
• 2011 Luke Air Force Base Bodybuilding and Figure Competition 3rd place
• 2011 National Physique Committee Western Regionals 3rd place
• 2011 Heart of Dixie 2nd place
• 2012 Panhandle Showdown N/A
• 2013 Clash at the Capstone 1st place

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Vital Stats

Name: Heather Welsh
Height: 5’9″
Weight: 147
Occupation: CrossFitter, elementary school teacher, coach, mother

Heather Welsh, an incredibly fit mother and high-level CrossFit competitor, is on a mission. Not only does she want to be one of the best athletes in her region, she wants to be on the podium at the end of the 2014 CrossFit Games.

As a semi-professional athlete, Heather has a lot on her plate. She has to travel, train, and build relationships with sponsors. Her elite athletic endeavors might seem like enough to keep anyone busy, but Heather is also a mother, a teacher, and a coach.

Her ability to maintain a Games-worthy level of training and teach, coach, and mother is beyond extraordinary.

Heather’s fire to be one of the world’s best CrossFitters means that she has to stay ever dedicated to her training. Even on vacation, Heather has to find ways to come back a better athlete than when she left. This holds true even if there’s not a nearby gym or CrossFit box.

One of her favorite things to do when she’s taking a break in San Diego from the cold mid-western winter is high-intensity interval training. But don’t think for a second that Heather spends 20 minutes on the treadmill. Instead, she runs mountains.

Check out this intense outdoor workout and try it for yourself!

Heather’s Mountain Run Workout

Don’t think for a second that Heather spends 20 minutes on the treadmill. Instead, she runs mountains.

The Mountain

Half Way there

The Top

Sure running up a mountain would seem like enough for most of us, but Heather takes it a step further. On the trail are three spots that are steeper than others. Before each of these steep spots, Heather does 10 burpees and then sprints up.

These burpees and sprints help Heather jack up her heart rate so her run is even more challenging. Workouts like these help Heather build endurance so she can crush those brutal CrossFit WODs.

Endurance For Anything

Even if you’re not a CrossFitter, you can do workouts like these to help you burn fat and increase your stamina. Mountain runs and hill sprints are a great break from the gym. Now that it’s spring and the snow is beginning to melt, take a break from the treadmill and hit the trails!

If there aren’t many hills where you live, you can still get a great interval workout. If you’re running on the road, use utility poles to measure sprint distances. You can also do burpees, jumping jacks, tuck jumps, or push-ups every 10 minutes or so to make your run more difficult.

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Name: Ryan Hurst
Occupation: Program director, Gold Medal Bodies Fitness
Location: Osaka, Japan

Gymnastics rings are showing up in more gyms than ever before. However, many people mistakenly believe these wooden implements are only useful for athletes who use them in competition, like gymnasts or CrossFit athletes. In reality, anyone can use the rings and benefit from them tremendously, because they help simultaneously build strength, stability, and coordination like no other apparatus.

If you’ve ever watched the gymnastics events at the Olympics, you know how much strength the rings require. What you may not know about the rings, though, is how effectively they can be used to build incredible muscular size and definition. The rings may not be the first tool that comes to mind if hypertrophy is your goal, but as the incredible physiques of elite gymnasts show, ring work can help pack muscle on the upper body.

Are they easy? No, but nothing worth pursuing is. If you’re willing to start at the bottom and master the techniques and routines I outline here, you’ll find they’re a great tool for building a muscular upper body that’s every bit as strong as it looks.

Gymnastics Rings for Hypertrophy
Watch The Video – 05:50

Getting Off The Ground

The primary exercises that I’ll show you are leverage holds and fundamental pulls and pushes that emphasize control over the rings and your body.

For now, you won’t be doing any swinging moves on the rings. Instead, the primary exercises that I’ll show you are leverage holds and fundamental pulls and pushes that emphasize control over the rings and your body. You’ll soon realize that these are the best for hypertrophy and muscle conditioning anyway.

Most of these moves are classics with which you’re familiar, but not like this. Why would you need to watch another tutorial on doing a pull-up, row, or dip? The answer: Because everything is different on the rings.

It makes perfect sense when you think about it. If you do a bodyweight pull-up on a stable object like a bar, the only moving object is your body. All you have to worry about is pulling your body to reach the bar.

With the rings, you can’t rely on the stability of a bar; you have to stabilize the rings while also pulling your body up to meet them. This requires more control, tension, concentration, and effort.

You can’t just jump on the rings and let your mind wander as you pump out the reps. This in itself is a major benefit to using them. As any experienced bodybuilder will attest, the mind-muscle connection is both real and highly effective at changing your physique, and it is front and center in ring training.

Right away, you’ll notice improved muscular contraction and sensation, and even if you’ve been training for a while. This “new” style of training can also produce DOMS like you haven’t felt since the first time you picked up a weight!

Gymnastics Rings Workouts

These two routines will help familiarize you with the unique challenges and stimulus offered by the rings, and they’re great for building that coveted V-shape. If you can’t manage all the reps at first, don’t be surprised. Keep practicing until you can manage all the reps with good form and a full range of motion on pull-ups and dips before trying anything more advanced.

Keep practicing until you can manage all the reps with good form and a full range of motion on pull-ups and dips before trying anything more advanced.

Start with the fundamentals workout, and when you’re feeling confident with it, mix in the superset workout.

Ring Fundamentals Workout

Dynamic/Isometric Superset workout

Why These Exercises?

Exercise 1

Holding this position correctly will give you an intense triceps involvement, along with a contraction of the posterior deltoid and mid and lower trapezius. It’s a great move to start your routine; it “wakes up” the upper body and core and prepares them for the work ahead.

Exercise 2

Ring Dip

This classic bodyweight exercise is made exponentially harder by the unstable rings, so don’t be alarmed if you can’t do as many repetitions as you normally would on a fixed object. Again, be prepared for significant triceps contraction and pectoral involvement, especially if you pause for a second in the bottom position of the rep.

When fatigue hits, you’ll notice the last few inches of the repetition seem impossible to complete. Keep pushing hard! This is where the benefit happens.

Exercise 3

Reverse Row Sit-Back

This unique combination move joins together a rowing movement with a pull-up and assists in that transitional strength between the two moves. It stimulates development in the lats, biceps, and shoulders.

It’s not unusual to see a jump in performance on your regular rows and pull-ups after performing this exercise on the rings regularly for just a few weeks.

Exercise 4

This leverage hold takes abdominal training to the next level. Just as in the top position hold, your arms and shoulders will be working as hard as possible. But the added positioning of having your knees or entire leg lifted up makes it even more difficult.

Be prepared to hold for less time and do more sets in the beginning to get used to doing these moves on the rings.

Exercise 5

The lats, rhomboids, deltoids, biceps, abdominals, forearms, and even the pecs get worked hard in the ring version of the mighty pull-up. The moving rings make it more difficult, but they can also be a lifesaver for people who experience elbow or shoulder problems when doing pull-ups on a straight bar.

The free rotation of the rings lets you change your positioning in a way that you can’t on a fixed bar, and this often helps alleviate the strain that may be giving you problems.

Practice, Practice, Practice

There is one important thing to keep in mind if you’re looking to incorporate rings into your training regimen: They require patience and dedication. One of the most common things we hear from our clients is how humbling they found ring training to be initially. You may be strong, but you’ll be required to use your body in a different way than you’re used to.

I recommend choosing one of the routines described above and sticking with it for at least 4-6 weeks exclusively. This will give you the chance to get acclimated with this new training style. Don’t worry about losing ground in your other upper body lifts; if anything, you might find they’re stronger when you go back to them.

After you feel a bit more comfortable using the rings, incorporate rings exercises into your regular training as you see fit.

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Learn The Olympic Lifts: Snatch And Clean And Jerk Progression Lifts

The snatch and the clean and jerk are difficult movements. So before you load a barbell and try one of them, give these progression lifts a go. They’ll help you develop the speed, mobility, and power to be successful.

Vital Stats

Name: Cassie Smith
BodySpace: cassie1162
Height: 5’6″
Weight: 145 lbs
Occupation: Associate editor of Bodybuilding.com, CrossFit athlete, and weightlifting competitor

The sport of weightlifting is a polarizing enigma. Some think the snatch and the clean and jerk are the epitome of strength and athleticism. Others find them dangerous, hardcore, and completely out of the realm of normalcy.

As a weightlifting competitor and CrossFitter, I’m firmly in the pro-snatch camp. I think it’s a shame people don’t do the “Olympic” lifts and feel sad when trainers clutch their pearls at the thought of allowing their clients to perform such “dangerous maneuvers.” As it turns out, weightlifting training and competitions are actually safer than other sports.¹ With the right coach and the right equipment, there’s no reason to forego your interest in weightlifting because these moves look scary.

The snatch and the clean and jerk aren’t bodybuilding lifts, though. Doing them won’t help you build particular body parts like that troublesome upper pec or that lagging vastus medialis. These lifts will, however, aid your mobility, make you a more powerful athlete, increase your lean muscle mass, and, believe it or not, tax your cardiovascular system.

Now, before you run to the nearest platform to grip it and rip it, slow your roll. You can’t throw plates on a barbell and hope you can get it over your head. That would be like dumping an 8 year old into the front seat of your car, handing him the keys to the ignition, and then giving him the green light—now that’s scary.

The snatch and the clean and jerk are difficult lifts. To do them safely takes a lot of flexibility, speed, and power. So before you even attempt the real thing, try these progression lifts. They’ll help you develop the mobility, speed, and power you need to snatch or clean and jerk successfully.

Clean Foundation Moves

EXERCISE 1

If you’re a bodybuilder, you’ve probably been doing front squats with the bar resting on your shoulders and your arms crossed over the top of it. If you want to clean, drop the habit. Start doing front squats with the bar in your hands and your elbows pointed forward. It gets really difficult to pull the bar off the ground and onto your shoulders if you can’t bring your elbows up to near-shoulder level. If you can’t even hold the bar in that position without wanting to scream in agony, it’s time to start practicing more mobility.

For most people, the enigma of the clean stems from a lack of flexibility. To do a clean, your T-spine, lumbar, and shoulders have to be supple and strong. You may be able to hold the bar in a front rack position, but as soon as you squat down, you freeze. You don’t have to front squat 250 to work on your mobility. Grab an empty bar and practice holding the bar in the front rack and squatting down.

“It’s also important to squat to full depth—that means your hip hinge needs to be below your knees.”

It’s also important to squat to full depth—that means your hip hinge needs to be below your knees. One of the keys to a good clean is getting under the bar quickly. Do one right, and all the sudden you’ll be ass to grass with a bunch of weight on your shoulders.

If you can, sit at the bottom of a light front squat. Practice keeping your chest up and your spine neutral. Don’t round forward. Allow your back and your shoulders to stretch. Learn how to get comfortable in this position.

EXERCISE 2

Undoubtedly, you’ve practiced the deadlift. The clean pull is similar, but you’ll actually be pulling the bar as high as you can. This is an important movement to practice because it’s what you’ll do before you fall under the bar in a real clean.

Clean Pull

For the clean pull, keep your arms just slightly bent and the bar close to your body. The point is not to use your biceps to pull the bar up, but to practice using the energy stored in your ankles, knees, and hips—we call this triple extension—to drive the bar upward. Before the bar even leaves the ground, make sure your lats and hamstrings are engaged.

As you pull, don’t let the bar drift forward. To be good at the clean, you have to learn to control the bar and make it do what you want it to. Don’t let the bar control the movement. Use light weight to begin so you get the feel of how your muscles are working. Your form should stay the same, no matter how heavy you load the bar.

EXERCISE 3

True plyometrics aren’t exactly “lifts,” but they will help you learn how to produce more power. To jump on or off of a box, your muscles have to stretch and then contract rapidly. The faster your muscles can do this, the more force they can produce. Force, as any good student of physiology knows, is a primary piece of power. And power is an essential aspect of performing the clean.

Box Jump

Adding plyos to your regimen is beneficial no matter what your goals are. Jumping on or off of a box will fire up your central nervous system (CNS). Your CNS is responsible for delivering messages to your muscles from your brain. If your CNS works quickly and efficiently, you’ll be much better at doing complex movements.

Jerk Foundation Moves

EXERCISE 1

The push press differs from a strict press in that you get to use momentum from your legs to help you lift the bar over your head. To do a clean and jerk, you need to get comfortable having weight over your head. It might be scary at first, but by doing this lift you’ll build strong, stable shoulders and an iron core that, together, are more than capable of putting up big numbers.

Push Press

I see a lot of people doing this lift with a lot of chest action. The bar goes more forward,than out and there’s a lot of scary back-arching going on. The push press is not a standing incline bench press.

Grab the bar with your hands slightly more than shoulder-width apart. The movement should begin with a dip in your knees; don’t start by sticking your ass out. As you push upward with your legs, think about that energy traveling all the way up your shoulders, through your arms, and into the bar. As your arms reach full extension, poke your head through and let your whole body take the weight.

EXERCISE 2

A push jerk is a little different than a push press because you re-bend your knees after you dip and drive the bar over your head. This movement is a little more complicated and thus takes a bit more athleticism and coordination.

Push Jerk

The point of doing a push jerk is to work on “catching” the bar with your legs. In other words, your knees absorb some of the weight as the bar goes over your head. You should be able to push jerk more than you push press.

The lift actually ends when you re-straighten your knees and your arms are at full extension. Just like in the push press, your head should poke through your arms. If someone was standing to the side watching you, she would be able to see at least a little bit of your ears.

Snatch Foundation Moves

EXERCISE 1

Maybe one of the most difficult exercises ever invented, the overhead squat is the king of exposing your weaknesses. If you have any sticky points in your shoulders, back, or hips, the overhead squat will make you feel like an old lady.

Overhead Squat

The overhead squat is a great foundation because the bottom portion mimics perfectly the landing position of the snatch. If you can sit—with your hips below your knees—and the bar over your head without wanting to cry like a little girl, you’ve got the start of a squeaky-clean snatch.

The overhead squat is also great for working balance, stability, and mobility. Even if you aren’t interested in ever trying the snatch, throwing an overhead squat into your regimen will only help you.

EXERCISE 2

The snatch balance is a fun little exercise that’s challenging at every level. Even with light weight, putting together the speed and coordination necessary for this lift can be difficult.

Snatch Balance

Start with the bar racked across your shoulders like you would for a back squat. Your hands will be wide, like they would be for a snatch. Dip like you would for a push press and then drive upward. As the weight unloads from your shoulders, drop into the bottom of an overhead squat position.

It takes speed to get down and athleticism to figure out how to drive the bar up and then squat down in rapid succession. And, like the overhead squat, it requires a lot of mobility.

What do you think?

Have any other ideas for weightlifting progression moves? Having trouble with any of these movements? Hit me up in the comments below!

References

1. http://www.liftbigeatbig.com/2011/11/benefits-of-olympic-weightlifting.html

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