Just when you thought we couldn’t climb any higher…
Let’s be honest with ourselves, we’re getting fatter year after year. With every sugar drink and super-sized soda consumed, we hobble yet another step higher up the fat chain. Staying lean and toned from our workouts becomes more and more of a distant dream.
But climbing up the fat chain represents more than the expanding state we are in. The fat chain not only shows us that we occupy the very top of this top-heavy hierarchy, but it also tells us how we arrived there. The fat chain is also a chain of events that leads us to arrive at the state we are in. It’s a repeating cycle, or a chain reaction that only becomes harder to stop with time.
This is because getting fat isn’t something that “happens” to anybody. Nobody rolls out of bed in the morning to suddenly find themselves overweight. Instead, we slowly climb the chain link by link. Whenever it seems that the top of the chain is reached, we add another link and climb a bit higher.
These tiny links accumulate slowly, day by day, over time. We can add these links in so many ways, but we are hardly conscious of the links we add through what we drink. And most people aren’t aware of the triple hit that our system takes when we drink soft drinks. (more…)
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I could hardly believe what I was reading.
I sat in absolute bewilderment as I read an article in a recent muscle magazine. It explained in detail why you should lift your hips as high as possible off the bench (called bridging) when you bench press.
Was the author seriously recommending this type of thing to people who are trying to improve their workouts? I could hardly believe that any widely distributed magazine would publish this sort of “advice”.
Of course, I don’t think that the muscle magazines are very good reading for most people out there. They focus on what the pros are doing for their workouts instead of telling the readers what will help them the most. I’ll drop by once a month or so and read them just to see what’s out there (and only because I blog about this).
But there it was, right in the magazine. The author was praising the advantages of arching your back as high as possible and shooting your hips into the air on the bench press.
His argument was that arching your back and lifting the hips gives you more power for your bench. More power lets you lift heavier weights, and lifting heavier weights means you’re building strength and muscle.
So how could that be wrong? (more…)
Continue reading about You Gotta Be Kidding Me- Bridging on the Bench Press
I love the term “resistance progression”.
I mean, really, think about it. Without any resistance, there would be no progression. Whether it’s in the weight room or in our own lives, facing resistance is how we make progress.
And at the very core of this term lies a simple message: if we continue to do things the way we have always done them before, we’ll always continue to see the same results we’ve seen before. New results come with new actions.
Without deviation, progress is not possible
-Frank Zappa
In order to continue our weight lifting progress, we must find ways to increase the resistance placed on our muscles. As promised, here are 10 ways to achieve resistance progression: (more…)
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How long should you let your muscles rest before working them again? You may have heard that your muscles are ready to be trained again after 48 hours of rest.
Editor’s Note: This is Jason’s take. To read Darrin’s take, click here.
I’d like to set the record straight on that number. If you’re one of those genetic supermen with incredible recovery abilities, 48 hours is probably right for you. For the rest of us human beings, a little more recovery time is probably needed.
Very few people out there have the stamina and experience to be able to handle training every body part 3+ times a week with heavy loads. Think about it, that’s exactly how many times you would train each muscle group in a week if you’re only giving them 48 hours of rest on a consistent basis.
So let’s talk about some numbers that are more down to earth for most of us. In actuality, most people will need somewhere between 48-96 hours of rest for each muscle group. This means that you will need 2 days at the very least, while 3-4 days is probably a better fit for most people out there. (more…)
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Doing squats is one of the best ways to increase your overall lean body mass and power. Squats involve more muscle groups than almost any other exercise, and if you’re not already doing squats, adding them to your routine can help you to add strength quickly.
Learning the correct squatting stance will go a long ways in helping you to avoid injury. Lower back and knee injuries can happen if you’re not careful to use correct technique, and having the correct stance is necessary to help prevent these injuries. If it’s done correctly, the squat can be a very safe exercise.
Taking the correct stance
One mistake that you should avoid is to place your feet directly forward when you take a shoulder-width stance. This causes your knees to travel directly forward and makes it very difficult to squat all the way down. Take a look at the picture below.
This is about as far down as you’ll probably get with a narrow stance and the knees straight forward. The awkward stance causes the weight to shift forward and away from your correct center of balance. This is bad for both your lower back and your knees. (more…)
Most people do not realize how powerful water is in the healing process.
No, this is not an article about spa therapy, holistic medicine, or anything like that. This is about using simple methods to build muscle and strength as well as maintaining your overall health.
Your body might be 60% water overall, but your muscles are actually 70-75% water. Each time you work these muscles as you lift weights, small tears and rips form in the fibrous muscle tissues. Your muscles grow when these small tears are repaired. Guess what happens if your muscles aren’t able to heal:
Nothing.
Nothing happens at all. That means no growth, no toning, no strength increases… nothing.
Here’s a quick breakdown of why you need water to heal and how to harness its power to help your muscles after a workout.
Got Water?
Not getting enough water has serious side effects. Even a 1 percent change in your body’s water levels can seriously impair your exercise performance. Even worse, your ability to recover goes down the toilet… and the toilet it goes down is one of those water-saving dry flush things that doesn’t quite get the job done.
Some other reasons you need extra water when you lift weights: (more…)
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If you ask me, calves are probably the most stubborn muscles on the body.
Getting them to grow and take on the shape you want is no easy task. One possible way to help shape your calf muscles is to either point your toes in or out as you do calf raises.
Actually, there’s a bit of disagreement out there as to whether this helps to shape your calves or not. Let’s take a look at both sides of the issue.
Pointing Your Toes
I’ll explain the idea behind pointing your toes on calf raises. It goes something like this: placing more weight on the outside of your foot and onto your little toe causes the muscle opposite of your little toe to do more work. Your little toe is on the outside of your foot, so the outer calf has to do more work.
To accomplish this, get into position for calf raises with your feet facing straight forward. This helps to make sure that your feet are the correct distance apart. Once your feet are in place, rotate your heels outward so that your toes are pointing inward and proceed to do your calf raises as usual. (more…)
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I saw something interesting the other day at the gym.
I saw an average-sized guy in his mid 20’s who was obviously trying to build up some muscle. He looked like he had some padding (weight) on him, but he didn’t look too out of shape. The thing that caught my eye is what I saw him doing.
He was using the cables to do cable crossover flyes. I watched as his arms wildly flapped up and down in an uneven way. His upper body lurched forward and downward with each rep as he strained to move the weight at all costs. I watched him move on to other exercises and perform them with a similar style.
Who knows, maybe he really didn’t know how to lift weights. But then again, like a lot of other people out there, maybe he was just too embarrassed to lift the proper amount of weight for his strength level.
If his goal was to avoid looking silly in the gym, he certainly didn’t achieve it. Honestly, I thought he looked a lot more like a monkey trying to figure out how to fly than someone who’s serious about getting in shape. (more…)
Continue reading about I Respect the Little Guy with Good Form
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