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The bench press is one of the best exercises we have for training the chest muscles and triceps. We use the bench press because we can easily add weight to the bar or grab a heavier dumbbell for increased resistance. Probably the biggest drawback to the bench press, however, is that only your arms are moving.

Technically (and I hate getting too technical), pushups are a better movement in terms of total body mass trained. But you already know that trying to increase the resistance on pushups can be a real pain. And let’s be honest, even if pushups are better than nothing when you’re out of town, doing a few sets of 30 pushups won’t have the same mass-building effect as heavy benches will.

The dip

The weighted dip is an excellent movement because it allows for the training of the chest and triceps together in a way that uses a greater mass of muscle from more muscle groups. You’ll notice that you should be able to dip more weight than you are able to bench press for a given number of reps. That should indicate that more muscles are working together to move your body through the full range of motion.

Dips place greatest stress on your “lower chest” and triceps. When I say “lower chest” I’m not referring to the mythical lower pectoral muscle that doesn’t exist, but rather meaning that the upper chest is less involved in this movement for some pretty obvious reasons if you think about how the exercise is performed.

Also, don’t confuse the dips as being a variation of the decline press. The decline press has a decreased range of motion when compared to dips, and dips are generally a superior exercise when compared to the decline press.

When it compares to the bench press, however, dips can really make a great addition chest/triceps routine, and they make a decent replacement for the bench press if you’re not able to bench press for whatever reason.

Proper execution

The first thing you’ll probably notice when you come up to a dipping station is that the grip bars are not parallel to each other, but increase in distance the farther away they are from the base. This is so that you can choose a grip width that suits you best.

• Grip width: In general, a wider grip will place somewhat more emphasis on your chest muscles. A narrower grip will hit your triceps somewhat more.
• Leaning: You can adjust your form slightly depending on how much you bend your knees. Bending your knees more places the weight of your feet further behind your body and requires you to lean forward to compensate. Leaning forward involves the chest muscles in the movement more. On the flip side, keeping your legs straight below you and keeping your body more upright will use less chest muscle and involve the triceps more.
• Recommended form: The form that I recommend the most is to take a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder width (don’t go too crazy here) with the knees bent. This forward lean involves the larger chest muscles and allows you to get more reps with a heavier weight. Working more muscles overall means building more muscles overall.

Range of motion: All the way. Go down as far down as you can comfortably and safely go. Increasing the range of motion on your dips will increase the amount of muscles fibers that are recruited to complete the movement. Your chest muscles are more heavily involved in the bottom portion of the movement, and so are your shoulders to a certain extent.

So, in this way, doing full dips is important for the same reason that doing full squats is important. They simply work more muscles mass. And as you know by now, working more muscle mass means building more muscle mass (yes, I’m repeating myself on purpose here).

Adding weight

Ok, so we already established earlier that pushups are technically a great movement but that they don’t always get the job done for us because it’s tough to add weight. Well, that’s the nice thing about dips… adding weight is easy with the right equipment.

A special weight belt with a chain that attaches in front is all that is needed. You can buy your own and some gyms will have one available. Simply use the chain to secure a weight plate or a dumbbell in front you and proceed to do your dips as usual. Apply the same principles of resistance progression just as you would to any other exercise by adding weight to your dips once you’re able to do full sets at body weight.

Also, be careful when setting up the weight in front of you. The weight belt sits on your hips and the chain runs downward in front of you, and it comes close to a very sensitive area for guys. I’d hate to hear about any of you getting something important caught in the chains, if you know what I mean…

Image credit: wok

I did my first article of shame in late November of last year. Well, I’ve been back to the magazine rack, and I’ve got another wonderfully educational article to share with you.

Today’s article of shame comes from page 80 of the March 2008 edition of Maximum Fitness For Men. The tag line on the cover of this magazine reads, “No B.S. Just Results”.

Honestly, this is the best quote ever:

Is dropping 5,000 calories in one day possible? Yes, it is. All you have to do is be smart. It doesn’t involve killing yourself twice a day or splitting hairs either. You’re 19 steps away from becoming a new man.

Wow, I can really cut 5,000 calories and it won’t split my hairs? Really though, I’ve only seen women worry about the ends of their hair splitting. Maybe this article accidentally got put here instead of in Maximum Fitness for Women. I don’t know…

Cut 5,000 Calories in one day!!! And Get Super Duper Frickin Ripped!!

OK, this article was pretty much screwed right from the beginning in my mind. The first red flag that went up was that you could cut out 5,000 calories and that it would somehow be a good thing. Let’s do a little math first.

Former bodybuilder and fat-loss expert Tom Venuto’s Quick Method of calculating calories shows us that you need to eat about 18-19 calories for every pound of body weight if you’re trying to get heavier (build muscle). Also, the average male needs about 2,700 to 2,900 calories per day (that’s average- some are much more, some are much less).

So let’s give the article the benefit of the doubt and say that the guy who is eating 5,000 calories in a day is trying to build muscle and needs 18-19 calories per day. If he’s trying to build muscle, he wouldn’t be cutting calories in the first place, but these numbers are more conservative, so we’ll use them.

5,000 calories / 19 calories needed per pound = 263 pounds.

So, the simple method says that 5,000 calories per day is appropriate for a man (or woman) weighing 263 pounds who is trying to get bigger. Never mind the fact that cutting out all 5,000 calories pretty much means he’s eating nothing for a day… I hope none of the smaller teenagers read this…

All you have to do is be smart

Here are a few of their awesome tips on how to be smart:

• 47 minutes of light office work: They say you’ll spend 100 calories doing this, because if you didn’t read the magazine, you wouldn’t have moved at all and would have wasted the chance to burn that extra 100 with light work!
• 35 minutes of self-grooming: This needs to be written in a magazine because you wouldn’t spend enough time doing your hair if they didn’t mention it. 100 calories.
• 1 hour of passionate kissing: I like this one. But you will either rip a tongue muscle or move far beyond kissing before an hour is up. 180 calories.
• 1 hour fixing your car: Just like we always say: if ain’t broken, fix it anyways. 343 calories.
• 1 hour of playing cards: Mega fat burner, right here. No joke. 140 calories.
• 50 minutes of handwriting a letter to a friend: Again, writing notes to your best friend forever probably got placed in the wrong magazine. This one belongs in Pink Dumbbell Magazine. 100 calories.
• 30 minutes in the gym, 30 mintues jogging: These were put at the very end of the list. First try the make-out marathon, the half-hour of doing your hair, or writing a note to your best friend forever. If those don’t work, then give the gym a shot. 632 calories.

Oh, by the way, actually doing all of their listed activities for the recommended times would require over 8 hours a day. I hope you can fit it in.

This article is a special guest post written by RT from Real Muscle Online.

When you start to learn about bodybuilding and weight lifting you also start to hear a lot of myths. People will tell you all sorts of thing to either make themselves sound expert or to try to sell you something. So for any newbies out there here are four horrible weight lifting myths… busted!

MYTH 1 - Light weights tone your muscles
This is the worst myth of all. I see so many websites where “professionals” are telling their readers to use light weights if they want to tone their muscles. It is an absolute myth.

Muscles themselves do not actually “tone”. Toning is the process of removing fat that is covering the muscles. So if you want to tone your muscles you should still lift heavy so as to gain as much mass as possible, but start fixing your diet and doing more cardio. This is the only way to get toned.

MYTH 2 - You need as much protein as possible
Protein is the hot word when it comes to bodybuilding circles. And what I am about to say now is probably going to get me into lots of trouble. But I don’t care; I am trying to help!

Too much protein is not a good thing. Instead we should be trying to get quality protein from natural and healthy sources. It is a much better idea to have a more moderate amount of quality protein than to have huge amounts of dead, cooked and lifeless protein.

Why? Well protein is made up of enzymes that are in certain shapes. When you heat those enzymes they lose their shape and no longer form proteins as well as they used to. All protein poweder, whey, soy supplements, etc. are heated to massive temperatures to kill the bacteria. It is dead.

Try some natural sources like free range eggs from well fed chickens, raw goats milk that is uncooked and so on. You’ll be surprised at the difference.

MYTH 3 - More sets equals more muscle growth
While this myth can be true in certain scenarios it is not true for the majority of people reading this article. More sets does not mean more muscles. It means sloppy technique, weak muscle contraction and underutilized muscles. What this means is that if you are pumping out eight sets for each exercise you probably aren’t lifting as much weight as you could be. Try cutting back to half that amount of sets and increase the weight.

MYTH 4 - You should do lots of cardio to get cut
Bodybuilders often fall into the trap of getting on the treadmill for hours at a time when they want to lose fat and cut up. This is a big mistake.

The problem with this is that long bouts of cardio burn muscle. All that hard earn mass that you have been busting your guts for will start to burn with the fat.

Instead of long sessions of cardio try fixing your diet and cutting calories. Weight training is, in itself, an excellent fat burner. If you still aren’t seeing the results you are after then get into some high intensity cardio that only goes for 15 minutes or so. This is an excellent way to speed up your metabolism without sacrificing muscle mass.

Conclusion
Bodybuilding is shrouded in myths, lies and deciet. Many of these lies are designed to sell products like protein and steroids. Make sure you always do your research before trying any new exercise or food product and always put your health before muscle gains.

The key to any beginner routine is to build a base of strength and to learn good training technique.

This is the World Fitness Network beginner through intermediate routine. This routine was designed to use the best exercises available to produce maximal results in the shortest time.

The beginner routine is meant to be adjusted progressively so that it helps you to smoothly transition into the intermediate routine. If you have prior experience and are already working out, you might be able to jump straight into the interemediate routine.

This routine will help you to do the following:

• Build a base of muscle and strength as quickly as possible
• Lose fat through an increased metabolism
• See results by training 3 times per week
• Avoid overtraining
• Learn proper technique on the most important exercises
• Transition smoothly into an intermediate routine
• Customize the routine as necessary

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Trying to figure out the perfect routine can be tough. It’s especially tough when you consider the fact that there’s no such thing as a perfect routine.

Instead, you’re going to have to assess your personal needs and decide which muscles to work on which days. A number of factors will go into this decision, such as:

• What your current training level is, i.e. beginner, intermediate, or advanced
• What type of routine motivates you to work out in the gym
• Which muscle groups are lagging or will require special attention
• What type of routine your training partner is on
• How your body is responding to the workouts you have in place

There are many ways you can divide up your muscle groups to achieve the best workout for you. There are so many combinations, in fact, that I couldn’t possibly cover them all here. Instead, I’m going to point out a few principles that can be used as guidelines to help you choose the routine that’s best suited for you.

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Which type of exercise is better? Basic or Isolation?

That all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to build strength or size, or are you trying to refine the musculature that you already have?

Basic exercises, also referred to as compound movements, are the exercises that work several groups of muscle together with a single movement. The best example of a basic movement is the squat.

Each time you squat down and then press your body back up, you are working muscles in your quadriceps, hamstrings, buttocks, lower back, and other back muscles. Many muscles throughout the body are also actively involved in stabilization during this lift.

Isolation exercises are the movements that stress only one muscle group at a time. An example of an isolation exercise is cable chest flyes. With each repetition you do, the weight is moved almost completely by your chest muscles.

Building the Right Foundation

If you are trying to build a base of strength or muscle size, basic exercises are key to your success, and for most people out there, basic exercises should compose a majority of their workouts.

This is because basic movements will give you the best gains for the amount of effort you put in. It’s true that working more muscles with a single workout is clearly more time efficient than working each muscle separately, but there’s more to it than that.

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