What would you choose if you were limited, for the rest of your life, to one lifting exercise?
If you say barbell curls, I’m going to reach through the computer and smack you!
By now you know I live and breath The Big 7 as the core of any lifting program.
But which single one is the best?
Today’s article is SURE to cause a lot of debate and disagreement!
“What is the best lifting exercise?” is a really hard question, and of course it’s a silly question too. Nobody is every confined to a single exercise. But it’s a fun point of debate, and an instructional one. Because it forces you to consider what gives you the best results for the time and effort involved. Right away, that clearly eliminates any isolation-type movement from the list.
For years I’ve avoided taking a stand. Until now.
I’m sure to get a lot of people disagreeing with me – that’s ok, I can take it.
The single best, most important, most impactful lift is … (more…)
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I’ve started doing a particular movement, purely as an Interest*, to work my traps a bit more. I’d like to share it with you, but keep in mind that this isn’t a required movement for beginners. Below is the explanation, plus a video for you.
* Interests are defined as non-critical exercises that you do simply because you like them or because you want to do something extra for some muscle group. In my 6x6x6 Routine, you’ll see a place for them. I want to stress again though, that beginners really don’t need to do this and in fact beginners (and even intermediates) need to be careful of time-wasting and/or over-training that can come from doing too many Interests…
I call this exercise “Wheelbarrow Lifts and Shrugs” and hopefully it will be clear why.
Take a set of heavy dumbbells. “Heavy” is a relative term of course – depending on your strength, maybe start with 25 lb to 30 lb dumbbells until you get the movement down. Whatever you use, it will be much lighter than if you were doing regular shrugs. (more…)
Continue reading about Wheelbarrow Lifts and Shrugs – How To
Last week I described a running injury I developed and asked for your guesses about the cause.
Of course, there were many contributing factors.
I’m not a physical therapist or any kind of medical professional. So this is all opinion based, not medically based.
But one stands out, because
a) it was the most significant
b) even the other factors might have contributed, each of them alone wouldn’t have caused this; in contrast, even without all the other factors the main factor probably would have resulted in injury all by itself.
The Main Cause
The main cause was simply (more…)
Continue reading about The Cause Of The Problem – The 3 Percent Rule
- Can you guess the cause of my running injury?
I made a stupid exercise mistake last week. One that could impact my fitness routine for months because of the resulting injury. I want to share it with you, because hopefully you won’t repeat it.
Even though injury is no laughing matter, what I’d like to do is make this into a game of sorts. What I’ll do is first, describe the resulting injury. Then I’ll give you various facts about my exercise, eating, and lifestyle leading up to the injury.
Then you guess what the biggest cause of the injury was.
For some of you it will be obvious but for others not so much. In this case, the injury was from running. But lifters could make the same kind of mistake.
Everyone who leaves a reply will get a prize! And the best answer (based solely on my opinion) will get an even bigger prize.
The Prizes
Everyone who posts an answer in the comments section at the end (by Wednesday), with their guess as to the most direct cause, will get a copy of my ebook called Train Better. This 200 page ebook has some of the best WFN articles consolidated for you.
The best answer, in my opinion, will get Train Better AND will get a copy of my lifting routine Fat Burn Furnace.
Duplicate answers are fine, but if the “best” answer is given by more than one person, then the first person gets the routine.
Ready?
Here’s What Happened (more…)
I continually have discussions online and offline about what the perfect size for a guy is, in terms of muscle mass. Is the goal to be like Arnold? Or to be really lean but having a nice layer of muscle? Something in between?
Of course, it’s going to vary by individual tastes.
And I suspect that in general, guys will say other men look best with more muscle mass than women would say.
I also occasionally catch flack from some reader because I personally am not huge – of course, that’s fine by me. Getting huge is NOT my goal! [By the way, this might be a good time for you to review the WFN Vision.]
So let’s make this a fun post today. I want you to vote for one of 4 pictures below. You vote by simply posting a comment here (it’s really easy – if you’ve never posted a comment before, don’t be intimidated – it takes 20 seconds). Just add a comment with your vote, and your own gender – I want to see if women rate the pictures differently than the men. If you want to add other comments, that’s fine but keep it pretty short.
Oh, and I’ve intentionally chosen pictures of guys that are pretty lean, but not unrealistically so. I want these pictures to be within the realm of possibility for just about any guy reading this site. All these guys are in the 8 to 10 % bodyfat (so, not competitive bodybuilders by modern standards). But of course, given our focus on the site, they all have great muscular development. And do NOT vote based on how handsome the guy is – we’re talking about the ideal muscle mass, not what his face looks like…
Ready? Here are the four: (more…)
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I’ve got two great exercises for you today. And these two are ideal to superset – do one, then the other, back and forth. And I bet one of these, you’ve never heard of before…
The videos tell the whole story so watch them here. Please rate them with 5 stars on youtube if you like them! Then you can post comments there too. Let me know if you have any questions.
Oh, and if you are looking for a lifting routine ideal for burning fat this summer, you need to get Fat Burn Furnace. I don’t have my typical “sales page” up where I hype it up and try to convince you to buy – this is just a link to the simple order page: http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/more/fatburnfurnace.html. So I’m counting on the trust I’ve built up with you by providing you all this free info – you know I’m putting my reputation behind this (as I do all my ebooks). Go ahead and buy it – if you don’t like it just send me a note and I’ll refund your money, ok?
This first video is for overhead squats: (more…)
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