Neil Rigney
Resides: Toms River, NJ
Age: 20
Height: 5’10
Weight: 160 pounds
Favorite Body Part: Chest & Abs…of course
Waist Size: 30”
Body Fat Percentage: 5%

About Neil

I'm 20 years old. Health and fitness is my passion in life. I love everything about it. I used to compete for years in the sport of powerlifting, where I hold several state and national records. From there I joined the United States Marine Corps. After my six months of training I returned home again determined to get back to the weight room. It took awhile to get back to form after such a long absence, but my muscle memory was there, and before I knew it I was being asked to do fitness modeling shoots. From there I just kept chiseling away at my physique and progressing further. Picking up my personal trainer certification along the way. I will be appearing in some upcoming fitness publications, and hope to be a force in the fitness world.


My Workout:

I workout every morning, make it my number one priority. Days off come and go randomly from travelling or not being home. I focus on remaining very lean, yet muscular. I always pyramid down my reps and up my weight every set. I try and keep my rep range between 8-15. I separate each muscle group into a particular day, like a typical bodybuilding routine. I always warm up properly before getting into it, to loosen up my joints and muscles to prevent injury and get 100% from my body. That would begin with a 5-10 minute walk on the treadmill or stationary bike followed with dynamic then static stretching of the muscle groups that will be working. Abs are typically worked after every workout, unless I'm totally exhausted and can't devote anymore energy. I'd rather give my abs a rest rather then go through the motions. Which brings up a very important point..don't just go through the motions! If you do the same routine all the time, your body and muscles adapt to it, you need to change up your workout all the time: different exercises, different reps, different techniques, etc to continue to improve. My split looks like this:

Day 1---Chest
Day 2---Back
Day 3---Triceps / Calves
Day 4---Shoulders / Traps
Day 5---Legs
Day 6---Biceps / Forearms / Calves

Cardio:

Of course to see your abdominal muscles you have to burn body fat, and the best way to do that is to do cardiovascular exercise. Some may enjoy it, others may hate it (like myself) But if you want to get ripped cardio has to be done in one way or another. I find since I eat a very strict diet and don't cheat, and lift weights for high reps at a high intensity and follow that with abdominal training, my metabolism is through the roof, and I don't need to do crazy amounts of cardio. But I do some, including running, walking on a high incline, stationary bike or even swimming. It's all about just keeping your heart rate elevated to burn body fat. This is best achieved on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, to tap directly into body fat stores. ( not after you cheated on your diet and feel guilty so you hop on the treadmill!) At least 25 continuous minutes is recommended to burn fat.

Diet:

Diet is of the utmost importance. I can talk about proper nutrition all day, but here I'll try and keep it short and provide you with some basic guidelines to follow, some tips, and a sample of my own diet.

You've probably heard of it plenty of times, but...... EAT SMALL FREQUENT MEALS. It may seem like hard work to eat 6-10 meals a day, you may even say to yourself won't I just gain weight eating so often?...the answer...no! And I will explain why. A typical person would say there's 3 meals in a day..breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and probably dessert as well) and most people would eat so much food at that meal to satisfy their cravings till the next meal, hours later. But by stuffing yourself to hold you over ,you stretch your stomach, and say it wasn't a healthy planned out meal, and you over indulge in high glycemic carbohydrates or unhealthy saturated fats; you over indulge at one sitting and your body does not know what to do with all that excess junk, and your body's reaction to that is to store it as stubborn body fat. (so the scene from a TV show, where you see an old man loosening up his belt after eating dinner and such...that's something you want to avoid. By eating smaller healthier frequent meals, your metabolism rises (thermogenic effect of feeding) Which means your body has to assimilate, process, digest, etc the nutrients you put into your body, your body is working to do this and work requires energy, when your body uses this energy you burn calories. So by eating frequently your body is constantly working revving up your metabolism thus burning calories. Protein has a higher thermogenic rate then the other nutrients; carbohydrates and fats. A reason why high protein diets are recommended to anyone not just people trying to be muscular.

I recommend a diet high in protein, low to moderate low glycemic carbohydrates (high in fiber), and moderate amount of healthy fats.

Fiber processes so slow in the body, it is great for dieting. It expands when it gets into your stomach and takes up space, making you feel fuller, and by taking up space, it speeds up the digestive process of food already there. (meaning it helps you kick other stuff out of your body)

Stay away from any beverages with calories in them, they are unnecessary, stick with water, crystal diet, diet green tea, and diet beverages.

Stay away from carbs at night....notice in my diet the carbs gradually fade away as the day goes on.

Here's a sample of my diet: *take note I workout in the morning.

1.Egg whites/oatmeal

2.whey protein
(workout)

3.whey protein/ raisin bread (to raise insulin..only directly after a workout to refuel lost glycogen in muscles)

4.fish/sweet potato

5.turkey sandwich (low carb bread) / almonds/ yogurt

6. High protein bar (low sugar)

7. Chicken breast/ green vegetables

8. Protein shake/ cottage cheese


Supplementation:

I've tried many supplements. They all have their separate functions. A lot of have come and gone, but the ones I would recommend to anyone would be: whey protein, multi-vitamin, omega 3 fish oils. Also drink diet green tea throughout the day. I love to take caffeine right before my workouts, it gives you energy, raises your body temperature so you burn more fat as well.

Abs!!

Okay now we get to the ab section. Obviously there is a ton of information on this site regarding ab training, but I will fill you in on what I do and what I know. First of all if you want to develop your whole midsection, you have to hit it from every angle, with different exercises. I won't go too in depth so we will just separate the abdominals into 3 different sections to make sure we do exercises to stress each section. The Rectus Abdominis (upper and lower) and the external oblique muscles that run along the side of the abs. Different things work for different people, others will debate you can't hit different portions of your abs when you train them, but you most certainly can. Just like if you do bench presses for chest, yes your triceps and deltoids get a workout as well but they are not being isolated and can't reach there full potential unless you train them separately. So I separate the them to stress each section. By just doing crunches your not going to get your abs completely ripped from every way you look at them, yes you can develop a nice mid section, but it could be even better. I keep my reps for abs between 25-30 every set. That is a good rep range for abs, if you do that easily slow down your reps, squeeze, pause make it difficult to reach that number, on the other side if you can't do that many keep at it until you can with smooth controlled reps exhaling on the contraction. Abs are worked best after your resistance or cardio portion of your workout. I don't use too many weights when training abs, because I don't want to add bulk to my midsection or waist line. I do abs at a fast pace and switch up my routine every time, but always hitting the upper, lower, and oblique's.

Sample ab routine:

Roman chair sit ups x 30 superset with roman chair twists (upper, obliques)

Hanging leg raises x 25 superset with hanging side leg raises (lower, obliques)

Exercise ball crunches x 25 superset with exercise ball side crunches(upper, obliques)

Seated knee tucks x 25 superset with broomstick twists (lower, obliques)

Training your abs doesn't have to be a marathon session, that is an example of an ab routine I'd do after weight training, but I do different exercises every day, always switching it up keeping your body guessing. There's 8 different exercises there stressing different sections of your abs.

Thanks for taking a look over my routine and diet.

Neil