1st Phorm

I can relate to this question. My years throughout college and after I rarely did any form of cardio exercise. I lifted weights several days a week and moved at a pretty fast clip when I was in the weight room, so I didn’t feel the need. More importantly, I just didn’t [...]

Answer: Thank you for your question. First of all, I want to take this opportunity to thank my family and the 1st Phorm team for all of their support. I am so fortunate to have the backing of my fiancée Gillian who has competed herself and knows the rigors of contest [...]

Congrats for getting back into it. This is really a common occurrence, and unfortunately not a very clear cut answer. Studies have shown that strength is able to be sustained for quite some time after not training (1), but growth and endurance are lost more quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t have many magical things to say. [...]

Weekly shoulder training is essential for a competitive bodybuilder. Early in my competitive career, I attacked shoulders with a vengeance every time I trained them. As I progressed, I got away from training them as I should, knowing that my chest workouts were working my delts as well. But let me tell [...]

I’m now three weeks into my contest prep for the IFBB North Americans in Cleveland, Ohio on September 3rd and 4th. As I have mentioned previously, this year I decided to go back to good friend of mine, Ronnie, who I worked with from 2001-2005. After a few years of doing my own diet [...]

I just returned on Saturday from a week in Mexico with Gillian and some friends of ours. We had a blast! Sunday marked the initiation of the pre-contest diet phase for my next show: the IFBB North Americans, September 3rd in Cleveland Ohio. I’m very grateful to have overcome an almost career ending [...]

I recently completed a 1st Phorm bodybuilding transformation project, and it was a major success. The subject was a friend of mine by the name of Jerry, also known as: “the squirrel”.   You may wonder how a bodybuilder like Jerry would end up with a nickname such as this. Jerry got this nickname a few [...]

The scientific basis of resistance training and muscle growth (hypertrophy) is fairly straightforward and based on a few key principles: the overload principle, the progression principle and the specificity principle. All principles collectively should be the cornerstone of any exercise program. The overload principle states that you must ‘overload’ your body with some level of [...]

I got the nickname “Midwest Chest” a few years ago, when I filmed a video with MostMuscular.com titled “Midwest Chest” that featured my chest training. These are principles I continue to use in my chest training today. When I was new to lifting, like many newcomers I trained my chest 2-3 times a [...]

Dear Next Best Thing…yeah, that’s one I haven’t heard before. You may not want to hear this, but I applaud your parents. You would be an idiot to leave school for what you call a semester, because once you hit the weights in lieu of the books, you are very unlikely to return [...]