Unconventional Conditioning for Looking Good Naked and Feeling Like a Bad Ass By: Craig Weller If you're

like most men, you want to be strong. You want to be able to punch some smartassed guy in the face and make him feel like he got hit by a truck. You want to be able to pick your girlfriend up over your shoulder like a caveman and toss her onto the bed, and you want to be able to do these things over and over under less than ideal conditions. It's not just enough to possess this ability, you want people to take one glance at you and know it. In order to attain this or any goal, it must be clearly defined and then a means of reaching it must be developed. Define Your Goal In this case we're looking for strength-based conditioning, a specific body composition and a training style that fits a certain aggressive mentality. The conditioning aspect can be distilled down to the ability to produce a substantial amount of force repeatedly. The energy systems and musculature must be developed through a wide a range. We're not training for a specific activity here; we're training to be able to take on any endeavor and just keep going. In doing this, one must develop the body in such a way as to exude physical power. If you're going to bust your ass working out you may as well look like it. This is an aspect of, as Harvard Professor Dana Carney put it, the non-verbal expression of social dominance. There are very specific physical attributes that must be developed here. When a woman looks at a man and evaluates his physical attractiveness, she is looking at several particular things like powerful shoulders, well-developed glutes, a flat stomach and upper back muscularity. These factors affect visual ratios, such as the waist-to-hip ratio and waist-to-shoulder ratio. These ratios are biologically pre-programmed to trigger perceptions of physical dominance when viewed by both men and women. A major factor in these ratios is the stomach and waist. A hard, flat stomach and a waist that is considerably narrower than the shoulders all push these ratios in powerful, high testosterone direction. This requires two main things: Low body fat and strong, tight abdominal muscles that can brace instantly to form built in body armor. Low body fat will result largely from EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) which elevates the metabolism for up to 48 hours after certain types of workouts. The additional calories burned by EPOC are derived largely from stored body fat and are used primarily to build and repair muscle. High threshold training can also create an increase in growth hormone and testosterone while suppressing cortisol, an anabolic trifecta that rips fat away while promoting dense muscle growth.

The purpose of the abdominals is to stabilize the joints of the lumbar spine and transfer force. Situps, crunches and other forms of hip and lumbar flexion have near zero athletic carryover, neglect the real function of the abs and are terribly inefficient when it comes to developing a good midsection. The abs must be trained to brace and resist motion. Doing this will increase their strength and resting state of tension (read: tight, hard abs) while training the body to function optimally. Another important aspect of the way one's body is perceived is posture. The shoulders should be drawn back, the chest open and the head carried high. Particularly, the extensibility of the thoracic spine and the balance of strength between the upper back and chest are important here, as these are both commonly neglected in conventional training. This is something that can easily be addressed with the same training. Develop the Method Obviously, going for a jog is not going to cut it. With this in mind, here are three workouts that you can include in your training that will make you look good naked and feel like a bad ass: "Never Get Caught" 10X 150-pound Accelerator Sprints http://www.power-systems.com/p-3605-theaccelerator.aspx 50-meter Overhead Carry with 4"X8' Slosh Pipe http://www.tnation.com/readArticle.do?id=1749686/ 10 Ring Rows 5 Rounds The Accelerator Sprints require powerful, glute-dominant leg drive. They facilitate high HTMU (high-threshold motor unit) recruitment while producing a substantial full-body lactic acid load. This leads to a strong neuro-endocrine response, which means that the nervous system will develop the ability to more efficiently recruit muscle and produce force while the endocrine system responds with increased production of growth hormone and testosterone. These are all good things that lead to fat loss, strength and better conditioning. The Slosh Pipe carries help develop powerful shoulders, the ability to keep the thoracic spine extended and open, and will absolutely fry your abs. The only way to keep this thing over your head is to learn to tighten and brace your entire abdominal wall. This is another full body burnout that will have leave you trembling and exhausted.

Ring rows specifically develop the upper back musculature; bring an element of core stabilization into the game and using gymnast rings requires more coordination than a bar. They also permit a more natural range of motion as your wrists rotate. Complex motor control; the ability to execute elaborate movements, degrades with increased heart rate. Above 150 bpm, you're not going to be capable of the same level of dexterity as normal. This makes quite a few movements impractical for intense conditioning because the degradation in technique that occurs at very high heart rates makes them too dangerous to be effective. What I love about this workout is that there is very little complex motor control. You can be semi-conscious with fatigue and screaming with lactic acid and still throw yourself completely into the harness and power your way through the sprints. Take advantage of this. Most people shrink from physical conflict in the moment out of fear of escalation, direct confrontation or further pain. Here, you're in a controlled environment that enables you to attack something that hurts you. Embrace the hate. Throw yourself wholeheartedly into it and when it's over you'll feel like you've just finished a drawn out fight and come out standing. Start with the ten Accelerator Sprints. Lean forward into the harness as you hit the end and pick your feet up as you travel back. The cord pretty much pulls you back to the start. Maintain a forward lean at the end of the cord during the return to prevent getting a lesson in physics and being pulled over backwards. After the sprints, pull the harness off and pick the Slosh Pipe up and hold it with a wide grip over your head. Keep your elbows locked, your head up and your shoulder blades pulled all the way down and back. Brace your abs like someone is about to punch you in the stomach. Carry the pipe down 25 meters and back, then set the pipe down and knock out ten rows on the rings. Maintain tightly braced abs and glutes during the rows and pull the rings to the bottom of the ribcage. The body should stay in a rigid straight line the entire time. By this point you may not be capable of ten consecutive reps, so do as many as you can, rest for a few breaths and pull a few more until you get to all ten. Rest as much as needed whenever you need to and repeat the circuit for three rounds. Rest won't be very practical on the Slosh Pipe carry because picking the thing up and setting it down is just as fatiguing as walking with it, so you may as well just get it all over with at once. Log your total time from start to finish. As your conditioning improves, you'll complete the workout in less and less time. This is how you'll track your progress.

"Dirty" 1 minute blocks of max repetitions Muscle Ups

Sledgehammer Strikes Snatches 5 rounds For developing massive, brawny shoulders, few things are more effective than the Snatch. Muscle ups combine an explosive vertical pull with a vertical press similar to a dip while developing grip strength and proprioception. The sledgehammer is another tool that allows you to work out all your aggressions by trying to destroy something, which is just plain good for the soul. It also develops the entire anterior chain while being devastatingly exhausting. Set a timer for one minute blocks. You're going to move from one station to the next while only resting as long as it takes you to get to the next station. Perform one minute of as many Muscle Ups as possible, followed by one minute of non-stop Sledgehammer Strikes, then one minute of Snatches. There is no planned rest. Just rest when you feel you have to. You'll have to learn to game the workout a little. Going to failure immediately will shortchange all your consecutive sets, but if you pace yourself too much you won't get as much done. Find out what works for you, but push yourself past your comfort zone. If you can't lock out Muscle Ups just do chins. Lock the rings to your chest or collarbones on each rep and drop all the way back down for the start of the next one. If you are getting fewer than five chins per round, loop a purple JumpStretch band over one of the rings and put your knee or foot into it. This will de-load some of your bodyweight on the bottom of the rep and allow you to groove the movement with more reps. Ditch the band as soon as you can get more than five chins in a row. Repeat this five times, for a total of fifteen minutes. Count your total number of reps for the Snatch and the Muscle Up and keep track of it. Each week you should be able to get a few more reps in the same amount of time.

"Just So You Know" 50 meter Prowler Push http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?m=PD&cid=257&pid=1006/ One Tabata Round Kettlebell Snatch Two minutes rest 50 meter Prowler Push One Tabata Round Kettlebell Swing Two minutes rest 50 meter Prowler Push One Tabata Round Burpees

The Tabata protocol was developed by Dr. Izumi Tabata and is one of the only protocols that can develop the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems at the same time. It's also an incredibly effective fat loss workout. It consists of twenty seconds of max effort work, followed by ten seconds of rest, repeated eight times for a total of four minutes. This workout uses the Tabata protocol with kettlebell swings and snatches plus bodyweight burpees. The Snatches develop the entire posterior chain along with the shoulders. Swings are a great glute exercise and are one of the best ways to train glutedriven hip extension. Kettlebells affect the nervous system in a unique way, are a great tool for full body strength-endurance, explosiveness and ballistic shock absorption. The Prowler is an incredibly effective conditioning workout that requires maximal recruitment of the glutes. We use burpees for the final round because they're a great metabolic conditioning movement and don't require as high a skill level as the weighted implements. Perform them by dropping into the pushup position, doing one pushup, hopping back to your feet in the squat position and leaping into the air with the knees to the chest and the arms overhead. Weight the Prowler with something between 50 and 90% of your bodyweight and push it for 50 meters. Try to push it down 25 and then back so you don't have to chase your equipment around. Go straight into the Tabata round, and then rest for two minutes. Progress each week by increasing the weights used. If you get really frisky, you can even add a weight vest to the burpees. Execute You know your goal. You know the path. The only thing that can stop you now is complacency. Go take what's yours. "When you live honestly, you can not separate your mind from your body, or your thoughts from your actions." Mark Twight, Twitching