Archive for September 2013
3 Tips To Maximize Your Exercise's Potential
It is never enough to just do a movement and expect results. The movements must be done correctly. I am going to share 3 tips that will make every exercise more effective and help you maximize its potential.
Elbows
In almost every upper body movement, your elbows will dictate whether that movement will be effective or not. When you get sloppy or begin to cheat, your elbows will drift either inward or outward depending on the movement. For pressing movements, elbows tend to drift inward. During curling exercises, the elbow will drift outward.
Not allowing the elbows to drift will keep the tension on the muscles being worked. During bench presses, you must keep your elbows slightly behind the bar. This slight position keeps all the effort on the pec muscles and maximizes stretch at the bottom. Those who cheat will allow the elbows to move in front of the bar. This will bring more shoulder and triceps action into play. You also have less control requiring even more body english to complete the movement.
The more you control your elbows, the more effective an exercise will be. It is just that simple.
Grip
The harder you grip a bar, the more poundage you will be able to move. It's amazing what a strong grip will do for you. Obviously, gripping hard will be great work for your forearms. But more than that, gripping hard focuses your efforts and "magically" makes you stronger. Of course, there is nothing magical about it.
Next time at the gym or where ever you work out, you should make a conscious effort to really, really grip hard during every exercise. Grip hard when you are squatting. Just because the bar is sitting behind your shoulders is no reason to just use your hands to keep it from sliding down. Grip that bar hard and feel the energy; you will be able to crank out 2 or 3 more repetitions.
Tense Your Body
As you exercise, tense your whole body. In particular, tense and flex your legs as you exercise. Whether you doing a prone bench press, bent-over rows, or standing curls; you should tense your torso and envision your legs as pillars of strength that you can call on for added help. Before you start curling, tense and flex your legs.
There is a synergy that comes from tensing your whole body. And you are less prone to injury when you activate all the muscles in your body instead allowing some to be just passive. When you squat, your entire body is flexed. It needs to be. Deep in the well of a heavy squat, your body is in a fight mode to get up. Having the whole body flexed keeps you from injuring yourself, among other things. You should be in the same mode when curling or pressing.
These 3 tips will help you crank out one more repetition. And that is the key. One more repetition may be what you need to break through the plateau or help you get to the next level.
Squats at Home
Squats at Home
This test is part of the home fitness prorram, fitness you can do at home with minimal equipment
Guide to Muscle Building for Beginners
If you are interested in building muscle and really want to tone up your body, then you can give yourself a great start with muscle building for beginners. By doing this you can build up your muscle building technique from the basics. Of course you need to push yourself but at the same time you are going to want to make sure that you don't start off with to advanced exercises and get disheartened early on by the lack of progress.
Motivation is a key part of muscle building, especially for beginners so it is vitally important that you get some early success to build up your motivation and energy towards exercise.
Here are a few steps that you are going to want to take.
Clean Out the Cupboards
The first step if you are looking to get into some muscle building for beginners is to clean out your cupboards, literally. You will probably be surprised at just what you will find as well as just how much of the food you have in there that is unhealthy. You are going to want to get rid of a lot of the salty and sugary foods you have, especially highly processed foods. A good guide to working out what is healthy and what is not, is to look at the ingredients list, if it is really long or has many items you can't pronounce it is best avoided.
Getting Into the Groove of Things
If you want to get into muscle building for beginners, you are going to need to start getting into the groove of things. This means that you are going to have to start exercising routinely on a regular basis; it is no good just doing it once or irregularly. You need to come up with a routine that you can work to and that you will enjoy, the best workouts are the ones you customize for yourself. If you are not used to working out, then you need to get motivated to do it, it doesn't matter what motivates you as long as it keeps motivating you, me and my wife use each other as motivation. Make sure that this is something that you are going to be willing to put the time into, the only way it will happen is if you do it for yourself, it is one of the biggest parts of muscle building for beginners.
The basics are to make sure you get a routine and regime you are comfortable with and you can enjoy. Push yourself as hard as you can without being silly. Sorting your diet out so it is balanced and gives you what you need is key. Finally staying motivated, if you're not motivated you will not be successful. Also don't be afraid to give yourself a pat on the back when you start achieving, success breeds success.
Best Exercises for Major Muscle Groups
The best exercises for all nine of the major muscle groups is really up for debate. Some trainers will not agree with my list which is okay. These are the staple exercises of most people's routines. In alphabetical order we have:
1. Best Exercises for Abs
Most will argue you have to do crunches, decline sit-ups and that is it. I would add any move that takes your knees towards your head like hanging knee raises and leg raises. Twisting moves will work the obliques as well so add in twisting crunches.
2. Back Exercises
Wide grip and reverse grip pull downs are good choices. As are both types of rowing movements: barbell and one-arm dumbbell rows. A combination move to work more than just your back can be effective so use dumbbell pullovers.
3. Best Exercises for Biceps
I love working arms as do most guys. Using a variety of moves to hit them at different angles is important so use seated and incline dumbbell curls, standing barbell curls and hammer curls.
4. Calves
Work this muscle group to failure using seated and standing calf raises, one-leg calf raise. Like biceps, change the angle and point your toes in or out to work the muscle differently.
5. Best Exercises for Chest
You can't go wrong here with the four most popular best exercises - barbell and dumbbell bench press, dumbbell incline bench press and of course dumbbell flyes.
6. Hamstring
Legs are tough on you psychologically because it can hurt working big muscles. In this case, use dumbbell lunges, leg curls (standing and laying) and the best one of all, straight leg deadlifts. Deadlifts will work more than just legs - your core, back and shoulders will all be involved.
7. Best Exercises for Quads
Using machines is not always a bad thing so try leg press and leg extensions for starters. The best one is still squats so try variations like barbell squats (on shoulders in front) as well as dumbbell squats.
8. Shoulders
You will normally try to hit all three areas: front, middle and back deltoids. Overall moves include seated dumbbell press and standing barbell press then isolate areas with dumbbell raises - side, bent-over and front variations.
9. Best Exercises for Triceps
Great biceps need solid triceps with definition to show them off. I really like standing and lying dumbbell extensions, bench dips and close-grip pushdowns.
You will notice links in each section above. I have previously done a complete exercise description for these separate articles. Each link will take you to them. Enjoy your workouts!
