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Finding some decent straight talk about supplements is no easy task. There are plenty of companies out there who are willing to say whatever they have to in order to make a sale to you. There are plenty of good supplements out there, but there are plenty of crap supplements too.
And let’s be honest, none of us has the time to go out and try everything on the market to see what works. Fortunately, you don’t have to go out and try everything in order to know the basics of what’s going to work. This article is intended only to point you in the right direction and help you know where to start with supplements.
Do I need supplements?
If you were to ask me if you really need supplements, I’ll tell you that technically the answer is no. You don’t need supplements, and technically you don’t need a ton of muscle or a really low body fat percentage either. What I’m trying to say here is that “need” is a very relative term. It’s relative to your goals.
If your goal is to build a huge amount of muscle, then obviously you’re going to need more nutrient intake than what the average person needs. But a supplement is exactly what the word means: a supplement to your diet and training.
That means that before you even think about getting near supplements, you need to get your diet in place first. Buying newest version (more…)
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Getting a good warm up before you attempt any heavy lifting is an absolute necessity. The purpose of a warm up should be pretty obvious from its name. You need to get your body warm and the blood pumping before you start lifting heavy.
Another fact that should be pretty obvious is that your ability to get your body warm will depend on the temperature the place you’re exercising in. If it’s winter time, a cool evening, or if you life in a cold place, then your body will probably require more warm up than it would on a hot summer afternoon.
Why warm up:
Why you need to warm up is a matter of safety. Just to help you visualize what’s going on, I’d like you to think about a rubber band. This will represent your muscles and other tissues. What happens if you stretch a rubber band that has been sitting in the freezer?
The rubber band probably snaps before you are able to stretch it very far. A warm rubber band, on the other hand, can probably be stretched a long ways before it breaks. This is what rubber bands were designed to do, after all. They are designed to stretch, but they can’t do that job very well cold.
The same is true for your muscles. They can’t do their job nearly as well when they are cold, and starting out with a heavy weight before your muscles are nice and warm can lead to injury and muscle tears. Trust me, you don’t want to be like that rubber band that snaps when it’s cold.
Warm ups are even more important for the bigger exercises such as the squat, deadlift, and the bench press. These will require a more extensive warm up, while other exercises will likely only need a a set or two with a light weight to get warmed up.
How to warm up
1. Clothing: Let’s start off with the right clothing. Wearing a sweater or workout pants is a good idea in cold weather until you’re able to raise you body temperature. Consider wearing several small layers instead of one heavy layer. Smaller layers can be peeled off one at a time until your body temperature is high enough.
2. Do static stretches at the end: In case you don’t know what this means, static stretches are those done without movement. The traditional stretches that you are familiar with are probably (more…)
We’ve talked before about how lifting more weight isn’t always the best for creating more muscle mass. You could always go a little heavier on your set and do less reps… train more like a powerlifter to get more weight up.
Here at World Fitness Network, our number one goal is not to put as much weight on the bar as possible, but to build muscle and lose fat. But gaaawsh, it still feels pretty great to put that bigger plate on the bar and hammer out a set with a little more weight. Being able to put more weight on the bar is also great feedback that you are making progress with your training.
Unfortunately, sometimes that great ego trip comes with a price on our training. If you’re not careful, that extra ten pounds on the bar can often come at the expense of your form. The incline bench press is one exercise where it happens all the time.
Excessive Arching
The benefit of doing the incline bench press is that it places stress on the upper chest muscles and helps to give you a more round, full look. Great for how your chest looks under a T-shirt.
In order to effectively hit your upper chest muscles, the incline bench press is best when set to an angle of somewhere between 30-45 degrees or only slightly higher. You can experiment with slightly different angles to see which one you feel is best for your upper chest.
Continue reading about How to Prevent an Arching Back on the Incline Bench Press
I had the chance to speak with a friend who lived for several years in
“Well, for one thing, they’re not nearly as fat as the women here.” He continued, “In America, if a person is fat, we can’t say anything about it. In
Readers of WorldFitnessNetwork.com are a smart group of people. You are smart enough to know that your training is important and that you lifting weights will help you achieve your goals. You understand things about living strong that most people just don’t get.
And since you are already such a smart group of people, I already know that I don’t need to tell you that you should never workout naked. There’s no need for me to explain why it would be bad if your flip-flopping appendages were to get caught in the weight stack.
You guys are smart. You already get this stuff.
But there are a few other advantages to not working out naked that you should be taking advantage of. Here we go:
1. Warm up clothing: Wearing some extra clothing until your body warms up is generally a good idea, especially if it’s winter time or if you live in a colder climate. This extra clothing allows your body to retain more heat until it reaches the optimal temperature for going heavy on a workout.
Keeping your body warm is especially important for injury prevention. You are much less likely to pull or tear a muscle that is warmer. Wear that sweater at the beginning of your workout until you are nice and warm.
2. Protection: I’m not talking about that kind of protection… this is about why you shouldn’t workout naked… so get your mind out of the gutter. Any commercial gym these days will require you to wear shoes in case (more…)
Continue reading about 5 Reasons Why You Should Never Workout Naked
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