Soon a whole explosion of this type of information flooded the internet. I wasn’t alone. Instead, I was just a small voice among many. I decided to switch over to covering other topics, ones where I could have a competitive advantage. I rebranded. Thus, the Renaissance Man Blog was born.

However, my fitness journey continued. I am a firm believer in the ancient adage of having a good brain in a healthy body. Of course, being a constant learner, I am always looking to soak up new (and old) information when it comes to fitness. There is so much contradictory information out there now, that it’s hard to tell apart what is good advice and what isn’t. However, there are a few fitness channels which for the most part put out good information. They are my go to source, when I need a bit of advice.

Here some of the main fitness channels I follow.

Athlean X

Juggernaut Training Systems

Shredded Sports Science

Jeff Nippard

Buff Dudes

Rob Riches

Jeremy Ethier

Overtime Athletes

PJP Performance

Calisthenic Movement

Tao Physique

Bob and Brad Physical Therapists

Knees over Toes Guy

Corexcell Sports Training

X Pollination Productions

The Prehab Guys

Lee Weiland

Conor Harris

Many people go to the gym, but end up seeing very little results. The reason for that is not the routine they are doing. The problem is often much more basic, especially for beginners, office jockeys and weekend warriors. So if you fit in one of these categories, then try to examine what you are doing and what things you are doing wrong.

If you thought that this post was going to be about progressive overload, compound exercises and deadlifts, then you are in for a surprise. The main mistakes of most people are much more basic than that. If you are a more advanced lifter than this is most likely “well, duh” for you, but unfortunately most people keep on repeating these mistakes, sabotaging their own progress.

Here is a list:

1) You don’t go regularly to the gym

You might go to the gym one time one week, three times the second week, skip the third week and go back the fourth week. Your gym schedule is irregular and you do things haphazardly. No wonder you are not seeing results.

If you want to see results, then you need to go regularly. Pick a number of days a week (whether 2 or 4 or whatever) and stick to that number.

2) You are not consistent with your routine (you don’t stick to your routine)

Many people try to look for the perfect routine. In reality, it doesn’t really matter what routine you do, as long as it encompasses a few basic principles and most importantly you stick to it.

Many people go the gym, do cardio one week, then work on some chest presses the next week and do something totally different the third week. You need to pick a routine and stick to it. The key to anything is staying consistent.

Also don’t forget to work all your major muscle groups, a lot of guys go to the gym and keep on working their chest and biceps over and over again. Yes, they are being consistent, but it is a stupid type of consistency which can only lead to muscle imbalances and injuries.

3) You think some magic supplement will solve all your problems

I have a friend who I noticed had not being going to the gym for a while. I asked him why that is and he replied:

“I can’t train if I don’t buy protein powder first.”

He is obviously under the impression that some magic bullet (especially in the form of supplements) will make the difference. However his problems are much more fundamental: he is not consistent and his routine does not follow the basic principles of lifting. No wonder he never sees any progress. Yet, he still doesn’t listen.

4) You spend too much time fiddling with your smartphone

Seriously you don’t need to check your cell phone in between sets or play with it when you are on cardio machines. In fact, leave it in the locker room or at home.

5) You train through injuries and don’t give your body time to rest and heal

Contrary to popular belief, your muscles don’t grow in the gym doing exercises, but after that during the time you are at home and at rest. If you are not resting, then you are not giving your body time to recover and grow.

Also when you train through your injuries, you are settign yourself up for bigger problems later on. If you have a major injury, then take a break and give your body time to heal. That way you can continue on training for a long time.

6) You don’t pay attention to your diet

Whether you are fat or skinny depends on what you do in the kitchen: what you eat. If you want to see results, you need to fuel your body up with nutrients.

7) You can’t take a hint

If what you are doing isn’t producing results, then you are doing something wrong and need to change what you are doing. This is pretty obvious, but it’s amazing how many people can’t take a hint and continue on doing things in the wrong way.

Read More:
Top 12 exercises that must be a part of your routine

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You might have seen the latest movie remake of the Spartacus story. Spartacus was a Thracian warrior, turned slave, turned gladiator. He is famous for escaping from his gladiator school and leading a slave revolt that kept the Romans busy for years.

Many people are interested in how the ancient gladiators used to train. I wrote an article on ancient Roman gladiator training techniques.

Unfortunately we only have partial information on how the Roman gladiators really trained, so all the modern “gladiator” workouts are really just inspired by the ancient gladiators or just use the word “gladiator” to sound more hardcore. Most of these workouts incorporate circuit training and focus more on functional exercises.

Here is how the stars of the “Spartacus” series trained:

Bodybuilding.com Spartacus workout:

Read more:
The real gladiator workout

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The problems is that many guys spend most of their time working on their show muscles, and totally neglect the legs. If you are one of those guys, then you should remind yourself of the fact that legs make up half of your body. If you don’t work them, then you will never see the total gains you want.

With that said, I will assume that you do spend a considerable time working your legs with such staples as deadlifts, squats and a variety of other exercises. However your calves have not attained the size that you want.

For many people, the calves are their most stubborn muscles and even if you spend considerable time working them, they still refuse to grow. If you have that problem, then you should consider changing your approach.

The calves support and stabilize your legs and the rest of your body. So having big and strong calves, isn’t just a matter of having good looking legs, but also results in many functional advantages. With stronger calves your performance in many sports will improve, you will be able to jump higher, run faster and perform many activities in a more explosive manner.

In order for you to better understand how the calves work and what types of things you need to do to train them, you should have a basic understanding of what the calf muscles actually are. The back side of the lower leg (the calf) is made of two main muscles, the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The entire system of calf muscles is sometimes called the triceps surae muscle, or the three-headed calf.

The gastrocnemius is the externally visible muscle and has two heads with attachments above the knee and running all the way to the heel.

Running under the gastrocnemius is the soleus muscle. It also starts a bit above the knee and runs all the way to the heel.

Both muscles join together to form a tendon at the heel, which is known as the Achilles tendon.

While both of these muscles are located right next to each other, their internal make up is totally different. The size of the calves is largely dependent on that make-up.

The soleus muscle is made up mostly of slow-twitch muscle fibers, while the gastrocnemius is made up of mostly fast-twitch muscles. However it’s not so simple, since the percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers in the gastrocnemius varies greatly from person to person. This amount of fast-twitch fibers is the main determinant of the initial size of the overall calf.

The people who have a higher percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers in the gastrocnemius will find it harder to add size. On the other hand, people who have a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle will find it much easier to add size.

That’s because slow-twitch muscles are smaller than fast-twitch muscles and their potential to grow is also rather limited. So don’t despair if your buddy starts doing calf exercises and suddenly his calves get huge, while your calves grow only a little. Most likely his calves have a different make up than yours. Persistence is key here.

The two types of muscle fibers respond to different types of training. The fast-twitch muscles respond better to heavy loads, while the slow-twitch muscles respond better to more reps and longer types of training for endurance.

In order to get your calves to be as big as possible, you need to combine trainings for both the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles, using several varied strategies in order to hit all parts of the calves and force them to grow.

There are two main ways of doing calf workouts: straight leg exercises mostly hit the gastrocnemius, while bent leg exercises mostly hit the soleus.

Your lower leg routine should however not be all about these two muscles.

Not many people know this or pay attention to it, but the front side of the lower leg contains the tibialis anterior muscle. This muscle is rarely paid attention to by most gym-goers, but if you want to have more powerful and functional legs, you should not neglect it.

Here are the exercises:
First off, you can do 100 bodyweight calf raises every day in the morning after you wake up. You can change up the positioning of your toes, sometimes doing them with your toes pointing straight, sometimes out and sometimes in.

The exercises to do in the gym:

Standing calf raises (either with barbell, or on machine)

Seated calf raises

Calf raises on seated leg-press

Tibialis raises (for front of leg)

Principles to remember when training calves:

• Train them as often as you can
• Change it up – with one workout go for lower reps and higher weights, while another workout go for higher reps and lower weights
• Form – raise your heels up as high as possible, stay there for a bit, don’t bounce
• Don’t forget to stretch your calves
• Since the make-ups of the calves of different people are different, you will need to experiment a bit with what works for you
• Calves usually respond well to higher amounts of reps (I usually do 3 or 4 sets of 20 reps for each type of calf exercise)
• Calves are functional muscles – you need to use them for them to grow – all my brother does is cycle to work every day and go on hikes in the mountains on the weekends, and he has big calves

Calf training is something that I will try to incorporate more of in this year’s routine. While I don’t have chicken legs, I admit I could use some work on my calves.
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If you are a beginner or an intermediate lifter, forget about isolation exercises for now (you can add them once you are on the upper intermediate or advanced level) and just focus on a few key exercises. These should be heavy compound multi-joint exercises that recruit muscles from various parts of your body and work the entire muscle chain.

However you should also remember that if you have been leading a sitting lifestyle all your life, then you are most likely imbalanced and need to work out to try to lessen those imbalances. Even if you have been playing sports for most of your life or just led a less stationary lifestyle, some of these imbalances can still be present in your body, whether that’s due to the nature of the sport you played, injuries or a myriad of other reasons. Also heavy lifting can be very taxing on your body and can cause injury.

So in order to try to straighten out those imbalances and also to lessen the chance of injury, your routine should also have a good set of stretching and rehabilitation exercises. Injuries can kill your growth and the best way to avoid them is to try to prevent them by having a routine which tries to strengthen and stretch vulnerable parts of your body.

Here are the essential exercises that need to be a part of your routine:

The lifts –
Lifting free weights is one of the easiest ways to really create huge muscles. That said, you need to keep a few principles in mind while doing them. Proper form is very important, as doing things wrongly can ultimately lead to injury. Also the principle of progressive overload is the basis of getting bigger. If you want to get bigger, you need to keep on lifting heavier and heavier weights.

1) deadlifts
The deadlift is the king of compound exercises. It is one of the key parts of my current routine. The deadlift works all parts of your posterior chain, including the back muscles, the glutes and the hamstrings and is essential for any routine which has as its aim the growth of muscles. Deadlifting also stimulates the creation of things like testosterone and the human growth hormone. There are several variations of the deadlift, including the normal deadlift or a stiff-legged deadlift. With the deadlift, you need to watch your form, as it is very easy to get injured, if you make a mistake.

2) squats
The squat is also a must-do exercise. Unfortunately most gyms today don’t have a squat rack, making it hard to perform it. It works primarily the quadriceps, but also recruits other muscles as well.

3) bendover rows
You seriously need to pay proper attention to your back muscles and the bendover rows are a good way to do that. Whether you do them with dumbbells or a barbell, bendover rows need to be in your routine.

4) dumbbell bench presses
Bench presses are probably in your routine already, so no need to explain more. However I prefer doing bench presses with dumbbells, as you need to lift each dumbbell separately with your individual hands, which prevents you from cheating.

5) cable rows
Cable rows are really great for your back, as they keep the tension on. This is a good exercise for people with bad postures.


The bodyweight exercises –

6) pullups
Another staple of my routine. You need to do pullups. End of story.

7) muscle ups
Muscle ups are good, but the only exercise of the ones listed that I don’t have in my routine. The reason is that if I were to do them in my gym on the pullup bars, I would hit my head on the ceiling.

8) planks
Planks are really good for your core.

The stretches –

9) foam rolling
Foam rolling is a must in today’s society. You probably have various little pains and tight muscles everywhere and this can help you loosen them up. You need to do foam rolling for myofascial release. You can foam roll on different parts of your body where you feel pain and tightness, for example the back, your hamstring, your quadriceps…etc.

10) supermans
If you have a bad posture, then the supermans are a very good exercise to shape your back muscles in order to straighten out your posture.

11) hip stretch
If you spend most of the day sitting on your ass, then you most likely have tight hip flexors. This can cause a lot of pain and limit your mobility. These tight hip flexors can often be manifested in pelvic tilt and a bad posture. There are some good stretches that you can do to stretch those tight hip flexors.

12) shoulder stick rotations
Rotator cuff injuries and other shoulder problems can prevent you from being able to do most pushing exercises such as the bench press or shoulder press and can also be quite painful. You should try to prevent injuries to your rotator cuffs and shoulders by doing shoulder rotations with a stick. Trust me, if you feel slight shoulder pain and start doing these shoulder rotations with a stick exercises on a regular basis, your shoulder pain will disappear within a few weeks.

Save this post for later reference.

Read more:
You are imbalanced, so do something about it

Your lifestyle will influence whether you get fat

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The Ancient Roman gladiators were some lean, mean killing machines. Fighting was their way of life, the very essence of their being. This gave them an unwavering strength and a tremendous drive and determination. Their courage was legendary. If a gladiator wanted to be the champion, he could not let his focus waver. A single mistake, a slip up, a short lapse in his attention or a bit weaker stamina could end it all for him. His very life depended on being in peak physical condition and the master of his weapons.

Gladiators needed to be driven, not only to become the best they could be, but also to always be better than their opponent. For them, being second best could often mean only one thing: death.

Unfortunately only very few fragments describing their training survive, so it is very hard to reconstruct their training regimen. There was also never just one specific way of training gladiators. Gladiator training varied across time and geographic location. The type of training they received, as well as their diets, also often depended on how rich the owners of their schools were.

The richest and most prestigious schools could employ the very best trainers and physicians and also provide the highest quality food, while the poorer schools, especially in the outlying provinces often suffered from a lack of resources.

This article will focus on the ancient gladiator training techniques and what we can determine about them from the ancient sources. If you are looking for a modern “gladiator” inspired workout, then click here.

Sport specific training
The most important training for any gladiator was the training done with the specific weapons that he would use in the arena. If he wanted to win in a fight, he needed to be extremely proficient in their use.

The main weapons used by the gladiators included different types of swords, knives, shields and special weapons such as the trident for the retiarius, or a spear for some other types of gladiators.

In practice, the gladiators utilized wooden replicas of these weapons. Much of the training was spent sparring with these wooden weapons against other gladiators. Part of the time, wooden weapons that were heavier than the ones the gladiators wielded in actual combat were used. The idea of training with heavier weapons was that once they got used to fighting with these, it was much easier to fight with normal weapons.

During sparring, gladiators were taught the proper way of using the sword. They were taught not to slash at the opponent, but instead to stab him. This was considered the most efficient way of killing the opponent or causing him the most harm.

One of the most important exercises was called the “post” exercise. This was done using wooden weapons of normal or larger size against a large pole stuck in the ground. The exercise was described by Vegetius, a writer from the period of the Late Antiquity, in his book called “De Re Military“:

“They gave their recruits round bucklers woven with willows, twice as heavy as those used on real service, and wooden swords double the weight of the common ones. They exercised them with these at the post both morning and afternoon.“

The gladiators also spent considerable time practicing fighting without weapons. Things like wrestling were a very important part of training for any gladiator. Not only did they need to be skilled in the use of the sword, but they also needed to be good at hand to hand fighting.

Some descriptions of ancient hand-to-hand fighting survive. For example boxing, wrestling and an ancient version of MMA called pankration were official sports in the Ancient Olympics.

We do not know how the actual gladiator training without weapons proceeded, but it probably involved a lot of drilling of different moves and resembled the instructions for wrestling moves found in one 2nd century AD Greek papyrus or the even more ancient scenes from Ancient Egyptian wall paintings.

General training for physical condition

The historical record for what type of physical training the gladiators did is very patchy. There undoubtedly were a lot of manuals produced during Roman times, however very few survived to the present. So unfortunately we cannot produce a full “real” gladiator workout, but we can only surmise at the types of exercises they did from some of the writings that do survive.

The trainers of Roman gladiators did realize that fight specific training is not enough in order to build the ultimate fighting and killing machine. They knew that in order to develop strength, speed and stamina, the gladiators would need to do a variety of generic exercises in order to do that. Many of these were based on what was developed by the Ancient Greeks.

Different ludi (gladiator schools) organized their training regimens differently, however at the time of the Roman Empire, the most popular organization of training was based on the “tetrad” system developed by the Ancient Greeks. This divided training into 4-day cycles:

• Day 1 – day of preparation, which consisted of toning and short, high intensity workouts

• Day 2 – day of high intensity, which consisted of long, strenuous exercise

• Day 3 – day of rest (short, very light workouts were also done, but it was mostly about resting)

• Day 4 – day of medium intensity

In his work “Concerning Gymnastics” (one of the earliest surviving works on sports science), Philostratus, a Greek philosopher who lived during the time of the Roman Empire, described the tetrad system like this:

“By the tetrad system we mean a cycle of four days, each one of which is devoted to a different activity. The first day prepares the athlete; the second is an all-out trial; the third is relaxation; and the fourth is a medium-hard workout. Regarding exercise of the first day, it is made up of short, intense movements which stir up the athlete and prepare him for the hard workout to follow on the next day. This strenuous day is an all-out test of his potential. The third day employs his energy in a moderate way, while on the day of the medium workout or last day, the athlete himself practices breaking holds and preventing his opponent from breaking away.“

Once this cycle was over after Day 4, a new cycle of the tetrad would begin.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans used different types of exercise equipment, some of which is very similar to what we use today. For training, they used halteraes, an ancient version of the dumbbells. There were different types of halteraes and they were used for different purposes. One purpose of the halteraes was to help a jumper jump farther. For example in their version of the long-jump, Greek jumpers carried these weights in their hands in order to help them with their liftoff.

Halteraes were also used in different types of resistance training, just like we use dumbbells today. Basically all the moves that we do today with dumbbells could be performed in the ancient world using halteraes.

Other equipment that was used in the ancient times were all kinds of types of more natural equipment, such as big stones, logs or sandbags. There were different types of stones that were utilized by the fighters for their training. These stones could weight 100 kg or more. Some of the stones had grips for hands cut into them, while others were just round and natural. A variety of exercises could be performed with them, for example picking them off the ground, hoisting them above your head, throwing them, or for the heaviest just rolling them around.

The equipment that many of the ancient doctors recommended as the best equipment for exercise, were balls. For example Galen, a Greek doctor in the Roman Empire, wrote an entire book on exercises with small balls. There were different ball games played with them, but they could also be used by themselves to perform different exercises. Galen is a very good source of information on gladiators, since he started the practical part of his professional career as a doctor in a gladiatorial school in Pergamon, where he worked for 4 years, treating all kinds of injuries.

For practicing punching and kicking, the gladiators used a variety of different types of punching bags. A very significant part of the training day was spent practicing their technique and strengthening their punching power on them.

Another type of equipment that we have records of, was the pommel horse. Today, the pommel horse is used in gymnastics and a version of it existed in the ancient times as well. There are different descriptions of it by various authors and it was used by the Roman army to train their soldiers, so it is possible that the gladiators used it for their training as well. Other types of equipment that we know from modern gymnastics were also known in Ancient Greece and Rome and it is very possible that they were used by the gladiators to train.

Many of the principles that we use in our training were also used in the ancient world.

There is a story that was often told of Milo of Croton. This was an Ancient Greek athlete from the Greek city-state of Croton located in what is now southern Italy. He lived in the 6th century BC and was training for the Olympics.

One of the ways that he was training was by taking a newly born bull, hoisting it up on his shoulders and carrying it for some distance. He would do it every day. As time passed, the bull would grow larger and so Milo kept on hoisting more and more weight. This culminated with him walking into the Olympic stadium with a full grown bull on his shoulders.

So over time he was increasing the weight he was lifting. This is basically the birth of progressive overload. The ancients knew that if you want your muscles to grow and get stronger, you need to lift heavier and heavier weights.

Another principle from the ancient world is that of periodization. Many gladiator schools probably used periodization training, which is an organization of training that splits training into blocks of time, each one focusing on different skills. They would be training all day and split their training into units of time during which they would focus on just one skill.

The ancient gladiators also knew about the intensity of training and that you should not go into training full speed at the beginning, but need to warm up first, otherwise you risk injury. Galen wrote that intensity should be increased gradually: “Intensity should be gradually increased, peaking at the end. This should be of special concern in order to avoid injury to competitors.”

The cool-down process was also important. Hippocrates (an Ancient Greek doctor) said that “those who walk after exercising will then have a stronger and more rested body.” This means that there should be a period of cool down after intense training and people should not fall down and lie on the ground immediately, but instead the person should cool down by walking around. Also on rest days, according to Hippocrates, the athlete should not do completely nothing, but instead do something of low intensity.

The ancients were very aware of the dangers of over-training and many of the doctors preached against it. They knew that the body needs rest in order to recover from intense training and also that your body achieves the best results if rest is a part of your routine.

Throughout their training, the gladiators would use different types of equipment and do all kinds of varied exercises.

Galen divided exercises into three types:

Vigorous exercises: These were exercises performed with strength, but without speed. Examples of these include: digging, picking up any kind of heavy load and either standing still with it or walking (especially up a hill), climbing a rope, hanging from rope or beam for as long as possible, holding arms up (with or without weights) while partner tried pushing them in a downwards direction…etc. These exercises show that the Ancient Greeks and Romans had an understanding of overload (including progressive overload) and its positive effects on building strength and muscles.

Speed exercises: Here the primary objective was speed, apart from strength and force. Examples of these include: running, shadow boxing, hitting the punching bag, running around with balls, arm and leg exercises like drill stuff…etc.

A particular example of this type of exercise that was performed has the Greek name “pitylysma”. The exercise goes like this: start by standing on tip toes, stretch your arms upwards, move one arm quickly forward, while moving the other one backwards, roll quickly on the ground, quickly come up, stand erect and start jumping up and down, sometimes with a backward kick, sometimes bringing each leg forward in an alternating fashion.

Violent exercises: These combined speed and strength. Exercises classified as vigorous became violent if you increased their speed – jumping continuously without rest, or any speed exercises performed with weight became violent – moving around quickly in heavy armor.

The word “violent” in this context could be better understood if you use it as a synonym for the word “power”. A recommendation of Galen for these types of exercises was to rest between the different individual exercises.

Most of the training that the gladiators did could be classified as functional training. Their training program was designed to build functional strength and besides strength training also consisted of a variety of different types of movements such as jumping and running. When done in long intervals, these also functioned to build stamina.

Jumping was a very important component of any gladiatorial training. This included different types of plyometrics training like jumping on high objects, sometimes with weights in hand, or doing an obstacle course where you had to jump over different obstacles, in different ways: from place, with running start, high jump, long jump…etc. One example of an exercise that was a favorite among trainers was the scissors jump, which is an exercise that is still in use today.

Running also featured prominently in the workouts of gladiators, either short distance for speed, or long distance for stamina. In his work “Anarchasis“, Lucian (an Assyrian commentator who wrote in Greek and lived during the time of the Roman Empire) wrote about the place of running in a training routine and especially recommended running on sand:

“We train young men to run, getting them to endure long distances as well as speeding them up for swiftness in the sprints. This running is not done on a firm springy surface but in deep sand, where it is not easy to place one’s foot forcefully and not to push off from it, since the foot slips against the yielding sand. We train them to jump over ditches … or any other obstacles and we train them to do this even when they carry lead weights as large as they can hold.“

Stamina was practiced throughout the entire course of the training. The gladiators would go on long-runs or just practice different drills for a long time, until the fighters got tired. Another very important part of training stamina was playing different types of ball games.

One example was a game called harpastum. No one is exactly sure about the rules of this game, but from descriptions it seems to be similar to modern rugby, but played with a small ball. This game usually lasted for many hours and was a favorite among gladiators.

Resistance training was already mentioned as being a very important part of any athletics training, and was also included in gladiatorial training. Gladiators would use halteraes made of stone or metal, or use other objects such as stones, wooden logs or sandbags.

They would do things that we do today like lateral raises, bicep curls, or walking lunges. There was a special gladiatorial twist that they added to their version of the walking lunges. They did them with arms outstretched in front of them when holding the halteraes.

Another exercise that is mentioned by Galen is one where two halteraes are placed 6 feet apart, the person stands in the middle between them, reaches out on one side and raises up the halterae on that one side, then goes to the other side and raises the one on the other side.

Sandbag training was probably also used. This type of training was already practiced by the Ancient Egyptians. It is good for stabilizers and a lot of things can be done with sandbags. One example of an exercise with a sandbag is rotation. This would be done by putting sandbags on your shoulders and then rotating your trunk from side to side. Another exercise with sandbags is putting them on your shoulders and doing squats. There are a variety of other types of exercises that can be done with sandbags and that were done in the ancient world for training and getting stronger.

Besides the different types of training mentioned above that was done with a variety of equipment, the gladiators relied on body-weight exercises in order to build a big and strong body. Calisthenics or body weight exercises were a huge part of gladiator training. Common calisthenics exercises that were also performed by gladiators include: push ups, sit-ups, lunges, jumping jacks, crunches, pull ups, squats, dips, planks…etc.

In order to add more resistance these can be performed in a variety of ways. The gladiators would perform different types of push ups on their knucles, on their fingers, with one arm, one leg, chest push ups and in a lot of other ways. They would similarly perform other types of calisthenic exercises in different ways.

Galen, in his writings also mentioned the benefits of rope climbing. The gladiators spent a significant portion of their time climbing ropes. These ropes hung from the ceiling, but oftentimes they were secured to the ground as well. Another favorite activity of the trainers was to have the gladiators hang off ledges or beams for as long as they could. These types of exercises served to build a strong grip, as well as other muscles, especially the stabilizers.

For becoming the best, the gladiators knew that they needed to train other things besides just speed (and quickness), strength and stamina. They also needed to train their balance and agility. For agility, they used different types of machines or swinging bags, where they had to run through a gauntlet of these different things and not fall. Also hand-eye coordination was important, and in order to improve this, Galen recommended a variety of exercises with small balls.

To help with recovery, many of the gladiatorial schools included bath complexes, which the gladiators used after training. For example the gladiatorial school that was recently discovered in Austria (the site used to be called Carnuntum in Roman times), included a large bath complex, among other things. Baths were a common way of relaxation and recovery in Ancient Rome and many sections of Roman society used baths regularly.

Visiting baths frequently was actually one of the main recommendations to promote good health by Celsus in his work on medicine titled “De Medicina”. These baths often resembled what we know as spas in the modern world, and included tanks of cold, warm and hot water and apart from relaxation could also be used for swimming.

Nutrition
The importance of eating in order to perform was recognized in the ancient world and great attention was paid to diet. There was no one gladiatorial diet, but the diet of gladiators differed based on place, time, money, availabity and the philosophical approaches of the trainers and doctors of that particular ludus.

Just like the nutrition debates of today, the ancient Greek and Roman world was full of bro science. The different commentators were always arguing over what type of diet is the best and diets for training ranged from an all-meat diet (this was used by a few Greek athletes) to something which was almost an all-carbohydrate vegetarian diet.

Another problem is that literary evidence is sparse. There has been some archeological evidence found from digging at a gladiator cemetery in what is now Turkey, but that has also sparked different interpretations. Recently another gladiatorial school in good condition was found in what is now Austria and once archeological digs are more advanced we can get better ideas.

Most of what we do know about the different gladiatorial diets is from the writings of Ancient Roman commentators. From the writings it seems that one of the staples of the gladiator diet was barley. This could come in different forms, such as soup, porridge or pancakes. They ate so much barley in fact, that Pliny the Elder called them “barley-men”.

Galen also commented on how when he became a gladiatorial physician, the most frequent meals of the gladiators in his ludus, were bean soup and barley. He complained that this diet did not toughen the flesh, but instead made it flabby.

Other commentators mention that dried figs, moist cheese, and wheat for breakfast were the standard for many athletes. It also seems that beans and cheese were quite popular among them. Different types of fiber were also considered important.

The Ancient Greeks discovered that meat helps athletes grow strong. It became a staple in the diets of many athletes. Diogenes Laertius in his “Lives of the Philosophers” mentions how this came about:

“Pythagoras is said to have been the first to train athletes on a meat diet. The first athlete he did this with was Eurymenes. Formerly, athletes had trained on dried figs, moist cheese, and wheat.”

It should be mentioned that the Pythagoras he talks about here is not the famous philosopher, but instead an athletic trainer of the same name.

Mythology also talks about the diet of the famous Milo of Croton. Supposedly he ate 20 pounds of meat and 20 pounds of bread daily!

There was also much discussion on what types of meat is best for athletes. Galen said that it was pork. Some other commentators agreed. The discussion on pork can illustrate the type of bro science that the Ancient Greeks and Romans got up to. They were actually discussing from what types of pigs you should eat pork. It was said that the best pork comes from pigs fed on berries and that you should not eat the meat of pigs raised near rivers!

While some gladiatorial schools had diets which were to a large extent close to vegetarian and full of carbohydrates, some gladiatorial schools instead focused on a diet full of meat. Since meat was expensive to obtain, a large part of the meat that was eaten in the ludi often came from the venationes or animal hunts that occured in the arenas together with gladiatorial fights. So the gladiators would often end up feasting on elephant or ostrich meat.

The ancients also realized the importance of calcium to have strong bones and they had different sources of it. One of the ways that the gladiators used to replenish calcium was through drinking an old-school “sports drink” made out of the charred ashes of plants. Move over Gatorade, we got some Charredashade.

Other related training
The gladiators didn’t only train their bodies, but they had to train other things as well. They also received training as actors. Having the crowd on your side could often be the difference between life and death. So every gladiator needed to be a bit of a showman. It was a lot like the modern WWE, except the blows were real and the loser would not always make it out of the arena alive.

That’s why they were also taught how to die. Every gladiator had to be indifferent to death and had to die in a stoic fashion. A gladiator should die with honor. They had to die like it was nothing and be at peace with it. Even in their ultimate moments of life, it was necessary to show contempt for death.

Except for the superstars, most gladiators led a simple life. They only had few possessions and slept in very meager conditions. Seneca, in his “Allegiance to Virtue” even compared the stoic life to the life of a gladiator:

“You have promised to be a good man; you have enlisted under oath; that is the strongest chain which will hold you to a sound understanding. Any man will be but mocking you, if he declares that this is an effeminate and easy kind of soldiering. I will not have you deceived. The word of this most honorable compact are the same as the words of that most disgraceful one, to wit: “Through burning, imprisonment, or death by the sword.”

From the men who hire out their strength for the arena, who eat and drink what they must pay for with their blood, security is taken that they will endure such trials even though they be unwilling; from you, that you will endure them willingly and with alacrity. The gladiator may lower his weapon and test the pity of the people; but you will neither lower your weapon nor beg for life. You must die erect and unyielding.

Moreover, what profit is it to gain a few days or a few years? There is no discharge for us from the moment we are born. “Then how can I free myself?” you ask. You cannot escape necessities, but you can overcome them. By force a way is made.”

They were supposed to represent the ultimate virtues to the ordinary Romans.

Yet they also had to be motivated. It was a tough life and an unpredictable fate and their trainers also had to be masters of sports psychology. The gladiators were encouraged and motivated to overcome their fears and become the best.

What lessons you can apply to your own training
So if you want to train like a gladiator, how can you do it? Follow the basic principles of progressive overload, periodization and varied intensity and train for strenght, speed and stamina. You won’t be able to reproduce their entire workout since they trained all day, but you can certainly put elements of their training into your workouts.

A big part of gladiator training were bodyweight exercises. Try to incorporate them in your routine and periodically do more and more challenging moves.

Also start training a bit more like a strongman competitor. The gladiators had to lug around heavy things in order to get stronger and so can you.

The farmer walk is a good exercise for that:

Gladiators also had to lift heavy stones:

Incorporate some jumping exercises into your routine:

You can also incorporate different wrestling exercises in your routine and train like modern Greco-Roman Wrestlers do:

You can also do static holds until failure. A lot of exercises that the gladiators did involved this. For example they would outstretch their hands to the sides and hold them for as long as they could. For added resistance, they would hold halteraes in their hands, so you can hold dumbbells.

In order to increase your stamina, you can also go running around in a weighted vest. Many gladiators used to go on long runs in full armor and you can simulate that by wearing a weighted vest.

Last of all remember to have fun while you train. You have the luck of not being born in an era where stepping out in the arena was a life or death situation. You will survive. You only have to concentrate on getting better, without all that nasty stuff. Embrace the challenge…

Read more:
Who were the Roman gladiators?

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Today I got to my parent’s house. I live far away from them, so visit just a few times a year. The scale at my house is broken, so I wasn’t really aware of my weight. I thought I had actually lost weight, as I had not really been eating right and my working out routine has been severely limited due to the fact that I am still trying to strengthen up my knee after the ACL operation I had in the fall of last year. My focus this year has been recovering from my ACL injury and not gaining weight and muscle.

So today for the first time I had access to a functioning scale. Imagine my surprise when the scale showed 86 kilograms! That basically equals my all time high weight ever. And I had actually thought I had lost weight and was probably howering somewhere around 80 kilograms.

That’s great news, since not only am I close to my biggest weight ever, my abs are showing as well, and all this after not even trying to eat properly.

What can I thank this to? I think it’s due to my routine now heavily relying on pullups and deadlifts.

This is what my routine consisted of:

I would go to the gym after work and started off with some light stretching, usually of the chest. Then I would do 5 to 10 riding on a stationary bike (sometimes stretched out to 20 minutes). After that I would go over to the pullup bar and do 4 sets of 10 reps of pullups. My most frequent grip was the wide grip, but sometimes I would vary the grip.

Then I would go down and do stuff focused on the legs (with some back work thrown in). Since my gym has no squat rack, I can’t really go too heavy on the squats, so I would always squat with 10 kilogram weights on each side of the barbell (so 20kg in total). I would usually do 4 sets of either 10 or 20 squats. Sometimes I would do the full squat, but sometimes a 1/4 squat, depending on how my left knee felt. I am recovering from an ACL injury and I still don’t feel really secure with my knee and sometimes feel things moving around in there. That’s why I am a bit afraid of doing squats.

After the squats would come the deadlifts. I started off with using the same weight as for the squats for 4 series of 10 repetitions. I should also add that these are stiff-legged deadlifts that I was doing. However over time, I started putting on more and more weight and at the end I was doing 4 series of about 8 repetitions of 80 kilogram deadlifts. After the deadlifts, I would do 3 series of barbell bend over rows. Sometimes I would finish off this part of the routine with very light-weight overhead squats.

Then I would move upstairs and do some work on a bosu ball or with some other types of exercise balls. Remember I am still trying to rehab from my ACL injury, so I am doing these exercises as well. After this when I still had power, I would go do some dumbbell bendover rows. I would finish off the routine by doing anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour on those stationary skiing elliptical machines.

Even with all this cardio work, I still blew up to my biggest weight ever without even trying. Remember that all this what I am telling you is bro science, meaning my observations after having followed a certain workout routine. All fitness advice is basically bro science and so you might or might not get the same results.

Even my eating routine wasn’t really something that I was paying attention to. I would usually eat a sandwich and an orange juice for breakfast. Then have a big lunch of whatever was being served in the cafeteria. A few hours before training, I would eat a chocolate bar. After coming back home after training, I would eat some yoghurts. Sometimes I would skip dinner, but sometimes I would have a steak with some vegetables, and sometimes I would just have hard-boiled eggs.

My explanation of this phenomenon is that I was probably getting enough nutrients in order to have proper muscle growth. My breakfast and lunch were big enough to sustain my body and the chocolate bar a few hours before training provided some
needed sugars in order to train hard. The Greek yoghurts after training, then gave me some good protein. Whatever I ate for dinner after just added to this. Also a lot of times, I had steak, which includes things which are precursors to testosterone.

Also a big role in all this played the fact that big compound lifts are good at releasing things like testosterone, HGH and other good things in large numbers, leading to your body swolling up and getting huge.

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There are times when you need to forget about the pain you are feeling, clench your teeth and continue, yet at other times, when the pain is too great, you need to stop and turn back. The smart man can distinguish between the time when he should not give up and the time when he should. This is a vital skill, which will help you succeed in life.

When you are working out (or doing any other type of physical or even mental activity), your body will feel pain, you will be reaching your limits, yet you continuing to push through, forgetting about the pain and finishing up those reps, will be the key to achieving your goals or even surpassing them. Getting big (and gaining weight) means having to go through a rigorous exercise process and not giving up when the going gets tough.

So why am I talking about times when the pain is too great and you should give up? There are two types of pain: the pain you feel when your body is working harder than it ever did before, that is a good pain, and the pain you feel when your body is breaking down, that is a bad pain.

When you are lifting heavy or sprinting hard and you feel you can’t push anymore, using your mind to supress that pain will help you finish up strong, which will give you the ability to lift heavier and sprint harder the next time. That is the key to improving.

However supressing your pain, when you feel your knee or head hurts, when you feel you have been injured, can lead to fatal consequences. The pain you are feeling is your body’s way of telling you that what you are doing is bad and that you are hurting your body. This could mean that your body could break down and stop functioning properly.

For example when you injure your knee and you feel it hurt, continuing to play on that knee, could just aggravate that injury even more and lead to you damaging your knee beyond repair. This in the long-run could take you out of the game for good.

So how do you distinguish between good and bad pain? One way is to ask yourself, what am I risking if I continue? If the answer is that the risk is permanent damage and that risk is high, then you should most likely stop.

Last summer, I went for a hike into the mountains. We chose a hike to the top of a mountain which was over 2500 meters high, with the last part being basically a climb over rocks. I had previously been diagnosed with a torn ACL, however I decided to do the trip anyways.

The uphill climb was quite a challenge. It was a really hot day and many parts of the mountain were barren, exposing us to the sun. As you get to higher elevations, the sun becomes stronger and you can burn yourself quite easily. It also becomes a bit harder to walk, as the air becomes thinner.

The walk on the gravel and dirt path was not that much of a problem, however I started having problems when we got closer to the top. There the gravel and dirt path ended and you had to climb over rocks in order to be able to reach the top of the mountain.

There were a bunch of other people trying to do the same thing as us and sometimes you had to overtake them or watch your back when some people were trying to overtake you. At one point I had gotten a second wind and felt a bit more energetic, despite the thinner and heavier air, and so decided that I wanted to reach the top faster.

There was a lady who was climbing over the rocks quite slowly and I decided that I didn’t want to be stuck behind her and so needed to get in front of her quickly. I hopped on one rock, then another and lastly I had to jump on top of another rock. I got in front of her, but then I heard a pop and felt that I tore something.

The knee is made up of several ligaments and I was afraid that I had torn some other ones as well besides the already torn ACL. I started mentally blaming myself for becoming so reckless and not paying attention to where I was going and also the speed I was going at. The mountains are a dangerous territory and one little mistake could have grave consequences.

However I decided to continue. I was very close to the top and maybe there was no damage, so I decided to go on and try to reach the top. However with each step, I could feel the knee and I was becoming more and more mentally agitated and angry at myself.

I was very close to the top. I was pondering what to do. At that point I decided not to risk it and instead to turn back. I would have loved to have reached the top and feel the pride of a great achievement, as I looked down at everything below me.

But it was not worth it. I was risking aggravating my injury. This could have grave consequences for the rest of my life. One short moment of glory was not worth a lifetime of misery. If I turned back now, I could always still come back and repeat this when I got better, but if I did permanent damage to myself, it could affect everything.

Plus there was still the way back down. The way down was a horrendous journey, since with each step, I was putting a lot of pressure on the knee and it hurt really bad. I felt like I was never going to make it, but pushed on, knowing that unlike reaching the top, there is no other decision, but to continue on down.

At the end, I made it down. Later I had the operation and had to undergo a tough rehabilitation process. In fact, I am still struggling to recover and my knee doesn’t feel as before. However I made the right decision by turning back at that point. Maybe I could have continued and not damaged myself further, but it was too much of a risk.

I hope that when I recover, I can still go back to the mountains and conquer them. I gave up in order to be prepared to fight another day.

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Here is a video that can serve as inspiration:

Lazar Angelov Transformation and Inspiration