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Question: I wanted to get your thoughts on this. I'm a college student and next week I'm taking a new job unloading trucks at UPS. I worked there over Christmas peak season and my training went to shit. When I start next week I'll probably be working around five hours a day, five days a week. After a couple days of working there it begins to be a bitch. I'm planning on adjusting my training schedule from 4 days/week to 2 days/week. Keep in mind, I'm trying to stay as north of vag as possible, but I was wondering how you would recommend balancing my training schedule with my work schedule and avoid burning out.

Answer: I did this for a year as a job. I lifted 4 days/week and ran hills 4 days/week. You’ll be fine. First week sucks but you’ll adapt. Quick tucking it and let it swing.

One of the keys of doing grip work is to make it economical - there is no point in doing direct grip work when you can EASILY add to an exercise you would already be doing. And the BIGGEST excuse is "but I can do more weight if I don't use overhand grip or X". Well, guess what? If your grip ain't strong, it won't matter what you can tug. You are simply WEAK. Get over your own ego and do things right.

Before we start with the simple process, let me define the Kroc Row. Named after everyone’s favorite Polish American Powerlifter, Matt Kroczaleski, the Kroc Row has quickly become a staple exercise in many lifting circles. In its infancy this exercise was simply a single set of high rep dumbbell rows with the heaviest weight possible. Matt did this because of necessity – the dumbbells he had access weren’t heavy enough to perform the requisite “10-12” reps that is often prescribed. To combat this, he just did a ton of reps with the heaviest dumbbell available. Initially done to build his upper back for his bench press, this exercise also gave him great deadlift lockout strength as well as grip strength.