Today, we celebrate the engagement of ANOTHER fitness expert who is tying the knot to one of the nicest girls in the world.

(Believe me, he’s “marrying up” BIG time!)

I’m talking about my friend and mentor, Jason Ferruggia. Yes, the original Renegade trainer, who I fly down to Jersey twice a year to learn from, is getting married to the wonderful Jen Grasso.

And Jay is celebrating with a sale on his Triple Threat Muscle program here.

She’s a sweetheart, a great cook, and can do 10 chinups and can squat 135 pounds.  Yet I guarantee you the last thing you’d ever call her is, “bulky”. She’s proof that weight training doesn’t cause women to bulk up.

Jen’s going to have her own blog soon showing women what they can do with good nutrition and training, but in the meantime, I have a NEW interview with Jason Ferruggia about the hottest workout and diet tips coming out of his gym these days.

CB: Jay, what’s new in the workouts you are giving folks down at the Renegade Gym in Jersey?

Jay:
Well, since I am almost unhealthily obsessed with strength training I am always trying to improve upon our systems and find better ways to get faster results. What’s weird is that often times the programs that will elicit the  fastest results are not the programs that make people happiest.

What I mean by that is that if someone comes to me and says they want to get bigger and stronger, the program automatically has to be low volume, has to consist of a limited number of exercises and probably won’t be exhausting in the least.

In other words it will be the complete opposite of something like CrossFit or a typical bootcamp style workout that is so in vogue these days.

A lot of people can’t mentally accept that.

They have been brainwashed into thinking that all workouts must be as tough as going five rounds with Georges St. Pierre.

Conditioning workouts should be, but size, strength and power workouts should not be.

So when you own a gym and are working with the general public on a daily basis you have to take all these things into account and write productive workouts while still making them fun.

What’s fun for me might be very boring for the average guy because he wants to do what he sees Tito Ortiz doing on YouTube. So I try to always stick with what I know will get results while adding a tiny bit of entertainment value in here and there to keep people that aren’t as into training as I am interested.

Some of the things I have been experimenting with lately are an upper/lower/full body split on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. It’s been years since I had tried that so I wanted to go back and play with it a bit. I like it a lot.

Monday will be maximal strength upper body work and Wednesday will be maximal strength lower body work. Both days include barbell lifts and some lower rep assistance work.

The Friday workout is predominantly upper body based but does include some lower body work that doesn’t stress the knee or the spine. So glute hams, back extensions, swings, glute bridges, sled, prowler, farmers walks, stuff like that.

There are typically no barbell lifts on this day; just bodyweight, dumbbell and strongman. And most of the stuff is in a bit of a higher rep range.

We’ve gotten great results with this split and it nicely blends the best of both worlds.

The other thing I have been experimenting with is using percentages more frequently for some of the big lifts. Typically, in the past I would pick a number and have the guys work up to one maximal set of eight or five or three or whatever.

When working with large groups, percentages definitely make things easier and keep the workouts moving a lot faster and more smoothly.

It also helps guys to not pick a weight that is too heavy; which is often a problem when I am trying to oversee everyone at once and can’t always watch each and every set.

However, percentage based workouts are a long term plan based on improving certain lifts. While this type of thing definitely works very well, I’m not a big fan of having guys constantly do the exact same lifts over and over for months on end. And more so with the upper body than the lower body.

You can’t beat squats so they could stay in the program forever. But I really don’t want guys benching fifty two weeks a year. Or doing any form of pressing for that matter. Simply because it’s not good for your shoulders.

I just like to get guys strong overall and have them moving heavy weights on a regular basis, but I prefer to rotate the upper body lifts to keep the shoulders healthy and avoid overuse injuries.

So when we finish up this current percentage based program I will go back to rotating the maximal strength work for the upper body where we just work up to a max for the day of somewhere between one and five (or even as high as 8-10 on occasion) reps.

For the squats, we may stick with the percentages, though. I haven’t decided just yet.

CB: Nice. Now I read on your blog that you are now a self-confessed health nut. So what’s new in healthy choices in your life?

Jay:
Man, I am so obsessed with being super healthy these days. More so than ever before. I completely stopped using a microwave. The last few years I barely used it at all but now it’s gone completely. I got rid of all plastic and Tupperware food containers. I only eat or drink out of glass or stainless steel containers.

I threw out any soaps or lotions or sunscreens I had that weren’t 100% natural and organic. I even put a shower filter on my shower head. I figured, why have one to drink out of and then go shower in that polluted water, which also gets into your system. That might seem a little obsessive to some people but I’m not taking any risks anymore.

Even though I have always recommended that people get to bed by 10:30 I was never really able to do it myself. I have always had trouble getting to bed on time because I’m usually up reading about training and nutrition. And sleeping well has always been a challenge for me.

But the last few months I have ritualistically forced myself to be in bed by 10:30 every single night. Making smarter food choices at night and cutting off my food intake earlier has helped as well.

I also make sure I get my twenty minutes of sun each day, without sunscreen, for optimal Vitamin D production. And if I want to go swimming I try to avoid harmful, chlorinated pools and opt instead for oceans or lakes.

Because I know how dangerous excessive cortisol production can be I have even been more relaxed and on cruise control than ever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still intense and a little wacked, but I’m working on it.

Jen and I have been consciously trying to eliminate any complaining we may do; no matter how trivial the complaints may be. We’re even thinking of doing a thing where if one of us complains about something we have to put money in a jar or something.

Now we just cut each other off, like if I were to say, “I can’t believe my entire website just crashed,” and then start getting all ticked off and cursing about it, her job is to cut me off, tell me she doesn’t want to hear it and tell me to get it fixed as soon as possible and move on.

We’ve been working on that system, keeping each other and check and trying to always remain positive and never focus on the negative. It may seem silly or trite but I believe it’s important.

CB: Very nice. Jen is awesome. She’s been a great influence on you. Let’s finish by having you tell us what’s new in your diet?

Jay:
Diet wise I have completely eliminated all fake foods and am really cutting down on grains of all kinds. Many grains cause inflammation and digestive problems so I have been limiting my consumption of them and have definitely experienced improved digestion and recovery from training.

We used to have cheat meals on the weekends where we would eat some
vegetarian meatballs or burgers or ribs, but I can no longer bring myself to put anything fake or processed in my mouth. I only eat food that is 100% natural and organic.

We got a guide to all of the farmers markets in the state and are constantly visiting one of them every few days. Instead of doing a huge shopping load for the week I like to go more frequently and get only the freshest foods.

I’ve been reading and studying a ton about nutrition lately and really believe that eating only natural foods is of critical importance.

I have also consciously bumped up my saturated fat intake through the consumption of a lot more coconut oil on a daily basis and have noticed symptoms of improved testosterone levels.

And I’m sure Jen would agree

As far as cooking and recipes go we have been on a big raw foods kick, making a lot of wacky, unusual recipes that are all 100% raw.

Some of this stuff is quite time consuming to make but the taste is amazing. Unfortunately, I can’t really share any of the recipes since Jen makes most of them. I’m just lucky enough to get to eat them. But we’ll definitely try to post some in the near future.

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Thanks Jay.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Recently, Men’s Health magazine asked me, “Should guys train if they have sore muscles?”

Here are my thoughts…

1) It really depends on…

- why are you sore from yesteday’s workout
- what type of workout are you doing today
- what is your training goal

2) If someone’s goal is simply fat loss, they should be able to do some other activity to burn calories and sculpt their body without putting too much tension on the sore muscles.

3) If the muscles are extremely sore, there is no reason to exercise them again. Soreness means there is damage, and you put more stress on them, you will end up altering your form and that could injure a different muscle group.

And that final point might be the most important…

If you are quite sore, you will compensate and change your form to avoid working the sore muscles, and that will put a new stress on possibly unprepared muscles, and you could hurt yourself.

4) Light activity for sore muscles has been shown to increase the rate of recovery…but very light…loads of less than 10%. I would suggest gentle stretching for sore muscle groups and focus on the non sore muscle groups for the workout part.

5) A day off is not going to make anyone overweight. A day off is not going to cause someone to lose their fitness. A day off from hard training and replacement with stretching and a few different exercises will help people stay active and overcome that “mental fear of missing a workout”.

But really, its all common sense. Why do you really need to work a muscle group that is sore? Is it for a training effect or is it obsessive compulsive exercise addiction?

Last day in my interview with New Jersey based underground strength coach, Jason Ferruggia, we learned the critical mistake he was making when it came to his workouts. Find out in part 7 if you’re making the same mistake, too. 

Jason shares some great tips on meditation and his holistic transformation in part 8 of my interview.  Find out what he does to start out his day with some good heavy breathing!

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Craig Ballantyne: Let’s talk about some muscle building stuff. You can talk about what you’ve got going on in terms of how you work with your guys to build muscle. You talked a little bit about it so far, but what are your main philosophies?

Jason Ferruggia: Always get stronger.  That’s the main theme no matter what the goal is.  Again, we stick with big basic exercises. I do a lot of bodyweight stuff.  I’ll have one to three big barbell exercises a week where we’ll usually try to work up to a new max, a new PR.

I do this in a variety of different ways.  I wave it, so maybe three weeks we’ll work up to an eight rep max, a six rep max, a four rep max, and then we’ll “deload” on week four.  Then, the following month we’ll go seven, five, three and “deload”.  The next month we’ll go six, four and two. Then, the following month we’ll do five, three, one.  I’ll do that with two to three exercises a week with a bench squat and a dead lift.

Guys who are getting tested on a lift or guys who just want to improve a certain lift will stick with it longer through that 12 or 16 weeks cycle.  I find you get great results by doing that.  If a guy is just into getting bigger and stronger, they don’t necessarily have to stick with the same lift for too long.

I might stick with the squat longer because you don’t adapt as quickly to a lower body exercise as you do an upper body exercise.  We might switch the upper body max effort exercise a little bit more frequently, so each month we might rotate from an incline press to a floor press to a military press, or something like that.

Again, one to three barbell exercises a week and then the majority of the assistance stuff is going to be all bodyweight or bodyweight plus resistance, bodyweight on blast straps or TRX straps.  Then we do a lot of dumbbells and nontraditional stuff, like the strong man stuff.

All the assistance work is going to be in the 6 to 12 range for the most part.  If it’s a beginner, I’ll keep them lower in the 5 to 8 range. For everyone else, we’ll keep it at 6 to 12.  We minimize the rest periods, usually no more than 60 seconds.

I do a lot of alternating super sets.  Let’s say you do a dumbbell press and then you alternate it with a row, you’re working antagonistic muscle groups to get more results in less time.  That about sums it up.

Craig Ballantyne: That sounds pretty good. Let’s talk about nutrition. How many extra calories do you recommend for someone that wants to gain just a little bit of weight and still try and lose fat at the same time? How many extra calories do you recommend for the real skinny person who needs big transformation?

Jason Ferruggia: I wish I could give you an exact number.  I’ve never been an exact number and formula kind of a guy.  I find that everyone is different.  I know that some guys do have complex formulas that work pretty well, but IT DEPENDS exactly on how much body fat you’re carrying, how much extra activity you’re doing outside of the gym, how old you are and how fast your metabolism is.

I basically just take someone’s weight so I can see their body fat.  I see where they’re at and I kind of just know.  I can ballpark where they should be. I know for people listening or reading this, it’s kind of frustrating because I’m not giving you an exact formula.  But, through experience I can tell when I’m working with someone.

For Shawn’s transformation, I kind of just ballparked it.  I saw where he was at, did a couple of calculations in my head and then I said, “Let’s start with this.” We basically stayed in touch every few days and he told me what was happening. I said, “Okay. We’re going to drop your calories by 200 to 250 a day for the next three days and then we’re going to jack for 500 the next day.  Let me know how that works.” It always worked out pretty well.  Then if anything didn’t work, I knew how to change it to make it work.

So, I can’t give exact numbers.…

You could say an extra 500 a day would be an average for someone looking to gain weight and try to keep those calories clean.  If it was someone skinny with a fast metabolism, you could really eat anything.  You could eat pizza and you’re going to have to actually.  It’s really hard to get 4,000 and 5,000 calories just from clean sources like chicken breast and sweet potatoes and broccoli.

So, skinny guys, definitely don’t be afraid to add in some junk food.  I wouldn’t go to McDonalds, but you can eat some pizza here and there, some coconut milk ice cream, throw down a couple tablespoons of olive oil after every meal, things like that.  Just keep the calories clean and obviously, minimize the processed food, the fast food and the fried food.

Craig Ballantyne: Very good. Just to finish off, is there anything else that you want to bring in and recommend in terms of everybody’s whole life holistic transformation? I know that you talked about the center point stuff, the holosync CDs. Is there anything else that you recommend people get in their life, whether it’s yoga, stretching, anything at all?

Jason Ferruggia: Yes, definitely.  I do love the holosync meditation program.  That’s helped me out a lot. I’m a pretty intense person, so it helps me mellow out.  I do that for a half hour a day.  I do believe that everyone should get out in the sun a lot. That helps you sleep better, just getting a lot of fresh air.

People spend so much time inside and that is a lot worse for you than being outside, no matter how polluted the air may be.

You always read reports of all kinds of toxins and chemicals leaching from your cabinets.  Sitting in front of a computer all day is not the healthiest thing.

So, get outside, get your vitamin D levels jacked up to adequate levels with some sunshine.  Definitely, breathe in fresh air.  It’s huge and incredibly healthy.  Go outside and play, run, or even just do some deep breathing exercises outside.

People may argue that effective cardio, like a walk every morning doesn’t burn a ton of calories, but for me I do it just because it clears my head and I got a lot of fresh air.  The first thing in the morning, I’m breathing heavy, and then I just feel so much better throughout the day.  I can think more clearly and I have more energy.

Those two things really have made a huge difference for me and I think they’ll make a huge difference for everyone.  Get some fresh air, breathe deep and get sunlight and meditation.

Craig Ballantyne: Jay, why don’t you tell everyone where they can learn a little bit more about you? You’ve got a really cool blog where you really lay it out there with some exercises and some philosophy and also what’s your best program?

Jason Ferruggia: My blog is JasonFerruggia.com, or if that’s too hard to spell, RenegadeFitness.com will actually take you there or RenegadeStrengthCoach.com.

Right now, we recently came out with Triple Threat Muscle, which is at TripleThreatMuscle.com.  That’s my newest program.  It’s a muscle building program, but it’s also meant to increase your athleticism as well, not just a big bodybuilder type of program.

So, you’re going to get conditioning out of that.  You’re going to get some speed and power work, and you’ll do some fun, nontraditional kind of stuff.  I think everyone will really enjoy that.

Craig Ballantyne: Very good.  Well, thank you very much for being on the call. I really appreciate that. It’s a completely different way of looking at transformations and especially at nutrition.  Any last words, my friend?

Jason Ferruggia: That’s it. Thanks for having me.

Craig Ballantyne: All right. Thanks everybody. This is Craig Ballantyne filling in for Joel with this month’s Transformation Domination call. Bye.

Today we’re finishing off my interview with underground hardcore strength and fitness expert, Jason Ferruggia. Have you ever heard of the 5×5 training method?  Ferruggia, himself has played around with it and come up with the perfect way to maximize your muscle-gaining results. Read on to discover his secrets.

For those of you just jumping into the interview now, Ferruggia has spent the past week going over some of his closely-guarded tips for gaining muscle and losing fat. From the best body part exercises, to effectively training younger athletes, to determining just how much cardio you should be doing, Ferruggia delivers a boatload of meaty information you can start following immediately.

So let’s finish ‘er off….

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Craig Ballantyne: There are a couple of other questions here. I totally blew this, there was a really good question. Actually, why don’t you just explain to everybody what the difference between Triple Threat Muscle and Muscle Gaining Secrets is?

Jason Ferruggia: Muscle Gaining Secrets was more towards the skinny hard gainer, the beginner. Triple Threat Muscle, even though I just said a few minutes ago not to be so obsessed with conditioning, it is more of an athletic based program.

Where the focus was just pure strength and size gains in Muscle Gaining Secrets, there is a conditioning component to this and there is also a more athletic based component to it where we include power exercises.

So, you will get faster, you’ll get explosive, you’ll get bigger, you’ll get stronger, and you will improve your conditioning.

I do mention in there that if your main goal is size, you can feel free to skip the conditioning component. That’s entirely up to you. It’s still a great program for just size and strength. That is the main focus, size and strength. You will gain size, but for those that want the explosive power you’re going to get that in the conditioning. That’s optional.

Craig Ballantyne: That was a good read last night. It looked like a lot of fun. Just going through all the studies that you talk about and the plant recipes in there are pretty cool stuff. It really is kind of what you’re doing now, a real good look into inside of your dims.

Jason Ferruggia: Absolutely. Those recipes are killer, by the way. I think people will really enjoy those.

Craig Ballantyne: A couple more questions. I did find them. Scott Addeman asks about rep ranges. We talked about rep ranges a lot, but he asked about five by five. Have you ever used that? I’m just kind of butchering his question here, but he brings that question about using five by five.

Jason Ferruggia: Yes, I’ve used it plenty of times.

Craig Ballantyne: It’s in Triple Threat, right?

Jason Ferruggia: Yes. There’s different ways to do it. It depends on the exercise. I like to work off to heavier set. You can use the same weight for all five sets.

This is kind of off topic here, but there’s different exercises that are volume exercises and there’s different exercises that are intensity exercises. So, for example, to me a squat and a dead lift is an intensity exercise. You basically work up to a heavy set and that’s it.

Whereas a pushup, or an inverted row, or a face pull, that’s a volume exercise. You’re not going to work up to one heavy set that’s going to destroy you where a heavy set of squats will. You couldn’t do another set.

Something mindless like a curl, I consider that a volume exercise. Inverted rows, I might do five sets of eight to ten, the same number of reps. But, with a big lift I won’t just because it’s too STRESSFULL physically and mentally to get up to that lift again.

Five sets of five just really depends on the exercise.

With a speed exercise I will definitely do that. Like with a clean, five sets of five is no problem, because you’re never going anywhere near failure, it’s just explosive and you need to learn the lift. Your CNS gets fired up with each successive set, so you get better at it, you get stronger, you get faster.

For guys like you and I who have been training for awhile for strength I would do one set of five. Four sets would be a warm up. I don’t like doing five sets at the same weight, I think that’s too much. With a beginner I would do five sets of five.

So, there’s no real clear specific answer there. It just really depends on the situation and the athlete.

Craig Ballantyne: Okay. Just the last couple of questions here. When you’re doing weights, do you use weighted pushups in your program?

Jason Ferruggia: Yes.

Craig Ballantyne: Okay. So, what kind of rep range are you doing? What set and rep range are you using for that?

Jason Ferruggia: That could vary too. It’s usually between six and 12 reps. You can do this with a weight press, you can have someone hold weight on your back, or you can get one of the Lifeline USA power pushups. Those are great too.

Craig Ballantyne: Okay. Then I guess the last thing is what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you? Obviously, you have a Facebook page, but probably more important is you have the forum and the membership site now. So, where do people find out about that?

Jason Ferruggia: The membership site, I would love to answer all of the questions that I get all day long, I just don’t have that much time. I know people email me a lot and I apologize for not being able to get back. We get hundreds of emails.

The best ways is in my membership site. I’m on the forum every day. I do answer questions there. If you go on my blog at JasonFerruggia.com you’ll see the members link. I’m actually redoing the blog, so it will be a little more clear where the members site is.

The members site, like I said, there’s a new workout every month. I post videos and I answer questions in there regularly.

Craig Ballantyne: That’s awesome. I think we covered pretty much all of my questions and as many Facebook questions as we could. Anything else you want to say about the new program?

Jason Ferruggia: No. I think we covered quite a bit. March 29th Triple Threat Muscle will be available. I just want to thank you for the call. It was great.

Craig Ballantyne: It was great. Maybe we’ll do another call in the future. Jay, thank you very much for doing this call. I really appreciate it.

What’s that website again?  TripleThreatMuscle.com?

Jason Ferruggia: Yes.

Craig Ballantyne: Perfect. Probably the best way to get a real good load of Jay is from going to his blog at JasonFerruggia.com. Thanks again, Jay.

This is Craig Ballantyne. Everybody, have a great day. You’ve got everything you need now to get bigger, stronger, faster, and of course more conditioned. Talk to you soon. Bye.