Image Credit: Cronfeld
Deadlifts, if they’re done properly, can be one of the best exercises for developing overall muscle mass on your body.
If you’re not careful to use proper form, however, deadlifts can also be one of the most dangerous exercises. Don’t let that scare you too much – if you start out with a light weight and perfect form and then slowly work your way up, you’ll be just fine.
In addition, the deadlift is going to help you avoid future injuries. It will strengthen your lower back and stabilizer muscles in a way that will make other lifts safer. Even every-day activities such as lifting heavy items, doing yard work, and other tasks will become safer as you strengthen your back and other muscles.
Let’s walk through the deadlift and discuss the proper form every step of the way:
1. Start light: Light is a relative term. Light might be 95 pounds for one person or 135 pounds for another. No matter where you are at, don’t do any more than 135 pounds for your first try. Building muscle (more…)
Just starting out with weightlifting? Want to get bigger muscles this winter?
Get my full-body lifting routine here: FullBodyAttack!
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What would you think if I were to tell you that there was a way for you to love working out?
I know what you might be thinking. You might be remembering how terrible it feels when you try to run while you are gasping for breath, or how tough it can be to keep pushing when your muscles are screaming for mercy.
Who in their right mind would ever love this???
Everybody who gets into the right frame of mind can learn to love their workouts.
It’s only a matter of time, but you can get there. The secret to loving your workouts is to realize first and foremost that love is a verb. It is something that you do. As you do the actions of loving something, the feeling of love will eventually follow.
Let me share with you an excerpt from Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
At one seminar where I was speaking on the concept of proactivity, a man came up and said, “Stephen, I like what you are saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I’m really worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?”
“The feeling isn’t there anymore?” I asked.
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This is a little break from the usual flow of exercise-related posts.
I sat in my living room and looked at the Christmas tree and thought about all of the commercialism that we are bombarded with every year. Maybe it’s a little cliché to say this, but I hope we can remember the true meaning of Christmas.
The holiday spirit is all about turning your mind away from yourself and looking towards others. If you do it with the right frame of mind, you will quickly discover that helping those around you also brings joy to yourself.
I’m sure you’ve already gone out and either made or purchased your Christmas gifts and they are sitting under a tree, just waiting to be opened. In another week or so you will be thinking of your New Year’s resolutions for the upcoming year.
Take just a moment this Christmas and think about those around you and how you can help them to make progress as well. That could mean deciding to bring someone else to the gym with you after the holidays, or maybe it means just giving some encouragement to them.
Whatever you do, just try to help someone else’s life become better. Make a little plan today so that your upcoming New Year’s resolutions will do something more than just help yourself. Help another person to discover the joys of working out and going to the gym. Who knows, it might just turn out to be the effective and long-lasting gift you could give.
After all — ‘Tis better to give than to receive.
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There is a commonly held phobia that weight lifting will make a woman look like a man. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Weight lifting can make a man look more like a man, but it also makes a woman look more like a woman. The idea that women should look like nothing but skin and bones is absolutely wrong, and weight lifting will not make a woman become massively muscular either. Weight lifting helps to shape a woman and give her a better figure.
It’s sad that these kinds of ideas and rumors have become so prevalent in the world today. It’s as if society has dictated that women must become unhealthily skinny to be attractive.
The truth is that most women are suffering from a lack of muscle. Many of them suffer from the pains of having a weak body, lack of energy, and difficulty lifting moderately heavy objects in every day life.
Building muscle helps women to keep fat levels down without having to starve themselves skinny. All of the benefits of weight lifting that I mention throughout this site apply just as much to women as they do to men.
If you’re a woman and afraid that lifting will make you look like a man, here are 5 reasons why you don’t need to worry:
- First off, you’re not a man: Plain and simple. You won’t look like a man (more…)
Ever heard somebody say that you better watch what you eat? Watching what you eat is very important, but you’ll also need to pay attention to what you’re not eating if you want to keep muscle on your body.
I’m sure you’ve already heard that you need to eat plenty of protein to keep your body in good shape and build muscle, so I probably don’t need to repeat that to you.
But if you’re wondering how much protein you should get with each meal, when to eat it, and how to eat it… I might be able to help you out there.
Protein Every 3 Hours
First, let’s talk about the when and the why. Imagine, for a moment, that your body is a factory. This small factory works each day to produce the materials that it needs to keep its own walls and floor in good shape.
Imagine that the bricks in the factory walls are constantly wearing out, so a conveyor belt is needed to bring new materials into the factory. This is pretty similar to what’s going on inside your body as your cells are constantly being replaced. Just as the bricks in the factory wall need to be replaced, your body needs protein to rebuild it’s cells.
Your body is good at storing all those excess calories that you eat as fat cells, but protein isn’t really stored in your body for long periods of time. Protein only stays in your body for about 3 hours.
So, going along with the conveyor belt analogy, if more bricks end up on the conveyor belt than are really needed, they just fall off the end of the conveyor belt and are swept away to another place. They aren’t stored or used to build the walls. If you eat too much protein, it isn’t stored for later. (more…)
World Fitness Network went online approximately 6-7 weeks ago. I spent the first couple weeks writing some very basic articles that absolute beginners can read when they arrive at the site. I began working on getting the word out about this blog shortly thereafter.
Since that time, WFN has seen a steady increase in RSS subscriptions and visitors. Just within the past 30 days, WFN saw more than 30,000 page views for an average of higher than 1,000 page views per day.
Individuals have come to the website from every state in the
RSS subscriber numbers have also jumped from 5 to 100. I’m very excited that WFN is slowly beginning to gain some momentum.
Here’s what to expect in the coming months:
- Training tips to improve your workouts
- In-depth coverage of the most important exercises
- Getting the right mentality for what works and avoiding all the hype
- How to eat better and keep yourself from getting fat
- I’m currently working on an ebook about how to transform your body type. It will discuss topics such doing simple things that will change your life, in-depth coverage on weight lifting principles, and proper eating.
Please contact me or leave comments below with any (more…)
This is an excerpt of a guest post that I did for RealMuscleOnline.com. To read the full article, you’ll have to follow the link below to read it there. My wife is a real bargain shopper. Sometimes she takes me to all these yard sales on Saturdays to look at other people’s garbage. She thinks it’s great… I hate it. But sometimes I can realize something important (more…)
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Some people will try to tell you that anger is an unhealthy thing… they are lying.
The truth is that anger can lead to an unhealthy thing if it makes you do something unhealthy. Really, think about it for a moment. How could anger possibly be something unhealthy? Isn’t anger a natural human emotion that every person feels at some point or another in life?
Your natural emotions are never an unhealthy thing. But what you do with them… now that’s another story.
Yin, Yang, and Your Workout
The Chinese are full of good stuff that’s thousands of years old. Take the yin and yang for example. You may have seen the symbol many times in your life, but do you know what it means in your life?
The yin and yang represent two forces. They are two things that are really opposites, but the two opposites fit together in the world we live in. The two forces have to live in harmony with each other. Without this simple harmony comes disorder.
The same thing is true in your own life. Hey, let’s admit it, bad stuff is going to happen no matter what you try to do about it. You’ll never be able to avoid all the jerks in life or people that cut you off while you’re driving. It’s just not possible. (more…)
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