The Superset Advantage
June 6, 2008
Supersets give you the most bang for the buck. They give you more muscle in less time, and don’t bore you from how long it takes to actually do the exercises.
If you’re into body building at all, you’ll know the basics of what a Superset is. It’s when you switch between different exercises with a little rest between them, instead of doing all your sets for one exercise before going to the next one on the list.
Now let’s figure out a superset to build bigger muscles.
There are 2 kinds of muscle fibers. The smaller ones are “slow-twitch” fibers wich are mostly used for endurance. The bigger ” fast-twitch ” fibers are mostly used when strenght is required. But both of these can get bigger, so if you want the biggest muscles possible, you’ll have to work both. Here’s what you’ll do:
- Do 10 reps of one exercise
- Do 20 reps of a different exercise for the same muscle without rest.
- Rest 1 min.
- Repeat 2-3 times.
Focus on Both Consistency and Variability in Your Workouts for the Best Results
June 4, 2008
In one of my recent articles, I spoke about the fact that you must alter your training variables that make up your workouts if you want to continuously get good results, whether it is losing weight, building muscle, or toning up.
While changing your training variables is an integral part of the success of your training program, your workouts shouldn’t be drastically different every single time. If you are all over the place on each workout and never try to repeat and improve on specific exercises for specific set and rep schemes with specific rest intervals, then your body has no basis to improve on its current condition. The best way to structure your workouts to get the best results is to be consistent and try to continually improve on a specific training method for a specific time period. A time period of 4-8 weeks usually works best as your body will adapt to the specific training method and progress will slow after this amount of time.
How to Increase Your Bench Press by Doing Squats
June 1, 2008
My Legs Are Already Big Enough. I Keep Hearing Working Legs Is A MUST. Why Is That So Important?
Believe me? I hated leg workouts. Until I realize the true potential that a simple set of squats could unleash.
Frankly? I see the same people on the leg press machine, leg extensions, doing lunges and doing squats week after week. But for every other muscle group, it’s like a new day. There’s the familiar faces of course, but there’s always new people. It’s like working leg is an exclusive club.
And yet that is 50% of your body! Your entire lower body you will neglect because:
? You don’t like working legs
? You don’t want bigger legs
? Your leg are big enough
But let’s suppose? you do work legs. And without much weight at all. Just enough to stimulate your entire body propelling it into new levels of growth. Do you think that is possible?
How can doing squats increase our bench press? If you are stuck on bicep curls, how can incorporating legs into your routine break you thru those plateaus?
The Ultimate Hard Body Exercise
May 29, 2008
The Front Squat:
As you may have already discovered, the squat is at the top of the heap (along with deadlifts) as one of the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all exercises. In fact, university research studies have even proven that inclusion of squats into a training program increases upper body development, in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during the squat. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and deadlift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution. If you don’t believe me that squats and deadlifts are THE basis for a lean and powerful body, then go ahead and join all of the other overweight people pumping away mindlessly for hours on boring cardio equipment. You won’t find long boring cardio in any of my programs!
Four Powerful Tricks for Successful Lucid Dreaming
May 26, 2008
By definition, Lucid Dreaming means "conscious awareness during the dream state." But how can this be? Every book I’ve ever read on dreaming has described the dream state as being an entry into the unconscious, so how can you possibly be conscious during dreaming, and be able to enter your dreams. It’s an interesting theory, and I’ve discovered some very positive information that will help you in your Lucid dreaming attempts.
Can you be Conscious while Accessing the Subconscious?
According to Charles McPhee in his book "Stop Sleeping Through your Dreams," the answer to the question on consciousness during sleep is a resounding NO! "Our ability for consciousness-our ability to achieve reflectivity in our minds-is specifically denied us during dream sleep. Single-mindedness is a quality that defines dream experience." If you had the ability to reflect in a dream, you would recognize instantly that you were dreaming, and wake-up, and this is why it becomes difficult to judge and evaluate our dream experience.
Boost Your Anabolic Hormone Levels - Naturally!
May 23, 2008
Anabolic steroid use appears to be on the rise. With the great increase in modern recombinant DNA technology, steroids such as growth hormone, growth factors and testosterone-based analogs have become increasingly more available and affordable. Despite their renewed popularity however, anabolic steroids are illegal and have negative effects on health, reproductive status and even personality. In response, this article aims to provide some basic information on anabolic steroids and how to boost the body’s own production levels naturally, using exercise.
What is an anabolic hormone?
The definition of anabolic is "to build up"- therefore anabolic steroids are hormones that cause increases body and muscle size. Actually, not all "anabolic steroids" are steroids but they are all hormones. An example of an anabolic steroid hormone is testosterone and its analogs. An example of an anabolic polypeptide/non-steroid hormone is growth hormone. Basically, hormones are chemical messengers released from certain tissues into the blood in response to a stimulus. Their role is essentially to help the human body adapt and remain in a state of balance or "homeostasis". While the body is quite efficient at regulating its anabolic state on its own ? the temptation exists to use large quantities of anabolic hormones to magnify the results. As recently as 15-20 years ago, growth hormone had to be extracted form the pituitary glands of cadavers. Now however, modern science is able to manipulate the DNA of bacteria to produce large quantities of the hormone. Steroid use has always been rife in bodybuilding arena, but with peer pressure and ever-increasing expectations of sport performance, anabolic steroid use has become commonplace in sports too - even among high school age athletes.
The Anabolic Evolution of Modern Bodybuilding
May 20, 2008
Since the early days of physical culture, modern man has been searching for the elusive ‘’Fountain of Youth'’. The promise of radiant health, enduring strength and a Herculean physique has drawn millions on this quest for physical perfection.
Through the early decades of bodybuilding, the forefathers of physical culture established basic guidelines for the muscle enthusiast to follow. Natural foods, resistance training, plenty of rest, and a positive outlook in life were the primary ingredients for achieving ones goals. The demand for knowledge on ‘how to’ reach the stars would result in millions of booklets being sold by mail order, while magazine stands and bookshelves were continually restocked with the latest ‘muscle building secrets’. Tons of steel and exercise equipment would find its way into the homes of thousands of Americans all across our nation. Health clubs and iron gyms would sprout up in local neighborhoods and towns, while physique competitions were held to determine whom the best in the land was. The strong roots of physical culture were taking grip in our society, and the mighty oak of bodybuilding would soon branch out through every city in America.
Whats Your Body Type?
May 17, 2008
Yep, there are more than ones body types. I’m sure you’ve noticed it too. The ones who, even if they eat whatever they want, never gain a pound, and others who exercise like there’s no tomorrow and STILL manage to gain weight. Well that’s a key thing when it comes to training your body. You have to train for your body type, or else your actions may not be doing anything good! There are 2 bodytypes: ectomorphic, mesomorphic & endomorphic. To find out what type of body you have, think back to your teen years and try to remember what your body looked like before age began rearing it’s ugly head. So let’s get to each body type shall we?!
The Ectomorph
The ectomorph is usually very thin. This person has a hard time gaining weight of any kind. So it takes longer for them and takes much more work to gain muscle. Most people with this body types are models or endurance athletes and such.
So what does an Ectomorph have to do to gain weight? Well the first thing is he has to start eating more calories. Not by eating larger meals, but by eating lots ( around 6 ) of smaller meals throughout the day. Look at the foods your eating now and add to them or seek foods wich have a higher number of calories.
Bodybuilding on a Budget - It Doesnt Have to Put Your Wallet in a Wheelchair
May 14, 2008
As you probably remember the last time you looked at a proposed grocery list or visited the nearest supplement store, you realized you needed to take out an equity loan first in order to get your month’s supply of food and supplements.
Believe me?
I’ve had my fair share of large bills especially when I’m trying to bulk up and gain weight.
Am I right about this so far?
Don’t’ worry? there are some really overlooked and rather inexpensive methods to get all the food you need without breaking the bank. But I have an even better idea? let me just start off with a quick list of foods that you can find at most grocery stories and warehouse locations that are cheap and are excellent sources of protein, carbohydrates and fats.
Low Cost Bodybuilding Foods (no particular order):
1. Tuna
2. Nuts
3. Olive Oil
4. Whey Protein Concentrate, in bulk
5. Pasta
6. Chicken legs
7. Beans
Of course you’ll want to get servings of fruits and veggies but normally it’s the other foods that are expensive in bulk. With just the above foods, you can get many of them in bulk or for discounts and have plenty of wholesome foods for your bulking, cutting and bodybuilding endeavors.
How to Build a Bigger and Better Chest
May 11, 2008
Creating a larger more powerful chest is difficult but if you follow this easy workout you’ll see results in no time.
Each of the chest exercises listed should be done with proper form to not only avoid injury, but the better your form is, the better results you will get. Please also note that even though these are only a few chest exercises, these are the most effective. You may or may not want to do every one of these chest exercises in your chest workout routine.
Flat Bench Press - This exercise works the whole chest area. 5 sets, 6-10 reps per set at 70% of your 1 rep max
Incline Bench Press - This exercise works the upper chest area. 4 sets, 6-10 reps per set at 65% of your 1 rep max
Decline Bench Press - This exercise works the lower chest area 4 sets, 6-10 reps per set at 75% of your 1 rep max
Dumbell Flyes - This exercise works the entire chest area, focusing mainly on the inner chest.
5 sets, 8-10 reps per set at 75% of your 1 rep max
