Sandbags For Strength

by Matt Palfrey – 10/28/2011

Is the sandbag the key to elite strength and conditioning? Probably not. It isn’t a miracle tool and likely not the missing link between you and strength training glory. However, used properly, sandbags can certainly be an effective adjunct to a solid resistance-training program.

Before you rush out and start stealing sandbags from the stack your neighbor has holding up his kid’s swing-set, you need a rationale for using them. This article will discuss how sandbags can help you build strength, conditioning, and power.

Often regarded as a “poor man’s choice” for strength and conditioning, there’s a distinct split between those that use sandbags (and other odd-shaped lifting devices) and those that train with traditional resistance, namely barbells and dumbbells. For some reason, we rarely find people that consistently work at both ends of the spectrum. Why?

• It’s difficult to “grease the groove” with sandbag training. Although your technique will undoubtedly improve over time, you’ll still find yourself fighting for most lifts. Most don’t like this.
• Sandbag training, being unstable and constantly shifting, will prevent you from lifting as much weight as you could on a more fixed device, like a barbell. This means that most who train for absolute strength tend to write them off.
• Sandbags aren’t always employed for their unique properties. They’re often used for sandbag variations of regular barbell exercises, meaning that serious trainees just end up lifting less weight than normal. As a result, the comparable results between sandbag training and barbell training aren’t that impressive.

If you’re considering adding sandbag lifting into your training program, it’s important to first qualify what it will, and what it won’t do for you.

Functional Fiction

The annoying functional training “buzz” has come full circle. People are now wise to the fact that the modality used (barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, sandbag, etc.) and exercise selected don’t necessarily make it functional. What makes these things functional (and indeed anything) is how they relate to you and your individual needs.

Subsequently, we’re starting to see a return to programs that are more functional for most people. Programs based around good, compound lifts are now common – and this is a great thing.

Does this mean that we should avoid those other “real-life” lifts altogether? I say no, provided we realize why we’re including them in our program.

Most avoid “odd-object” lifting because it’s tough and they find themselves struggling to make many of the lifts, even at moderate loads. For those aiming to increase absolute strength this can become an issue. I’m proposing that you don’t substitute sandbag training for barbell training, but use it as an additional tool.

What Makes The Sandbag Awesome

• The sandbag is awkward to lift, requiring that you fight hard to perform exercises with it, just like working with a “real-life” object or person. (Hello, mixed martial artists, bouncers, and amateur mud wrestlers.)
• Sandbags require great levels of grip strength to lift. You’ll find that you naturally grip them in positions like the bear hug, Zercher, or shoulder.
• The sandbag is malleable. It will adjust to your body and how you’re using it. Like Spiderman’s alter ego Venom, it’s particularly effective in “molding” itself to your body and is perfect for carrying, dragging, and throwing.
• The sandbag is unstable and will develop great core strength. This is the opposite of most “core” training where the surface you’re standing on is unstable. Working with an unstable object is much more akin to the demands of real life.
• They’re a great way to push past plateaus. Get used to lifting a 200-pound bag of sand above your head and you’ll be stronger when you go back to the relatively “stable” barbell.
• Finally, sandbags are inexpensive. They’re perfect for anyone on a budget. Just show up to a riverside community in the weeks following a spring flood – they’ll pay you to take them away!

Integrating Sandbag Training

The simplest way to incorporate sandbag lifting is to use the bag as an alternative to deadlifts, squats, presses, and pulls. This isn’t the most effective use of the sandbag but it will give you a taste of the benefits therein.

How you integrate sandbag training into your strength and conditioning will be highly specific to your own individual needs. The following three options will provide you with some starting points:

• Substitute an existing session of lifting for sandbag variations. Replace the lifts you’d normally do with a traditional free weight with the sandbag. Do this 1-2 times per month.
• Add in a unique sandbag lifting session. Use some of the sandbag exercises described below and try a session that’s either strength based (high weight, low rep, long rest periods) or conditioning based (light-moderate weight, moderate-high rep, minimal rest periods).
• Use sandbags for a sport-specific session. Push it, pull it, drag it, and throw it. Treat it like an opposing shopper at Best Buy on Black Friday and be creative.

Sandbag Exercises

The following exercises will give you the best of what the sandbag has to offer. They’re exercises that you probably wouldn’t normally do, and that’s a good thing!

Sandbag Windmill

If you’ve ever tried a windmill with a kettlebell or dumbbell you’ll appreciate that it can be a tough exercise. It requires great flexibility, core and shoulder strength. Try it with a sandbag and it goes to a whole new level. The constantly shifting load of the sandbag will challenge your shoulder stability like nothing else.

Sandbag Bear-Hug Load Carry

This is the type of exercise that the sandbag was designed for. The bear hug will develop the kind of strength that’s difficult to get from regular lifting. Couple this with a load carry (or sprint for supreme conditioning) for a great strength and conditioning exercise. You could move the bag between platforms or chairs, or perhaps set out a course to cover.

Sandbag Floor Press with Bridge

The floor press is a great exercise for developing pushing strength, and the sandbag version encourages greater development of grip strength and shoulder stability. Plus, you can be creative with it. MMA athletes can try escapes and transitions with the sandbag.

Sandbag Clean and Press

Lifting a bag of sand above your head is no easy feat, and the added challenge from the sandbag is enough to justify its inclusion in the list.

Wrap Up

There’s absolutely no substitute for the basics, namely barbells and dumbbells. However, just as the Prowler and kettlebells can be effective additions to a solid weight-training program, so can the dirty old sandbag. It might just be the plateau buster you were looking for!

Wikio

Why You Need More Strength

by Chad Waterbury – 10/10/2011

In order to be powerful, you must be strong.
Developing huge levels of muscle force takes a lot of maximal strength, but it’s only after you enhance your ability to quickly reach that peak level of force that you achieve head-turning power.
Power is defined as work divided by time (P=W/T), so in order to become more powerful you must decrease the amount of time it takes you to perform a certain amount of work. Let’s say two guys can achieve the same level of peak force. The guy who can reach that peak force faster is more powerful.
The typical way a strength coach will build a power athlete is with a combination of speed and maximal strength training.
Speed training uses submaximal loads with fast tempos. For example, you’ll put a load on the bar you could lift 10 times but you’ll only perform three super-fast reps.
The goal of speed training isn’t to enhance your peak force, but instead to enhance your ability to reach that peak force in less time. Put another way – speed training won’t increase your maximal strength and this can be problematic for most power athletes.
For the purposes of this discussion, a power athlete is someone whose sport mandates lightning fast movements. Think of a MMA fighter or a running back.
Ironically, the only sport with the word “power” in the description – powerlifting – doesn’t mandate fast movements. Whether it takes you two seconds or eight seconds to lock out the deadlift doesn’t matter; either is acceptable in that sport. Nevertheless, speed work is important in powerlifting. There are two reasons.
First, speed work enhances your ability to reach peak levels of force. The inability to reach max force can cause you to miss the lift. The second reason is because, in most cases, powerlifters aren’t doing anything outside of the gym that challenges their speed. They need to train for speed in their workouts because they’re not getting it anywhere else.
You must be able to tap into your peak force very fast to get bigger and stronger. But this article isn’t an overview of how to train for speed. Eric Cressey already did an excellent job covering that in Training Speed to Get Strong.
Powerlifters aside, most power athletes don’t need additional speed work. They need to develop more maximal strength. That’s the focus of this article.

How to Target Maximal Strength

Maximal strength is your ability to produce the highest level of force possible. Based on motor unit physiology, your ability to maintain maximum continuous force decreases at the 10-second mark. So any set or exercise that lasts longer than 10 seconds of continuous tension isn’t directly training maximal strength.
There are two different ways to increase maximal strength. The first is with those big, compound exercises that you love to do in the gym because you can load plenty of plates on the bar. I’m talking about the deadlift and back squat, among others. You lift heavy, you keep the reps low, and you keep the rest periods long.
The other way to build maximal strength is with high-tension exercises. These exercises don’t require much external load but they’re brutally tough. Heck, in some cases you don’t need any external load before you have to stop.
Two examples include the iron cross on the rings or a body weight glute-ham raise. Most strong athletes can’t complete a single, full range of motion rep of either. So even though there’s no external load, it’s still maximal strength training since you can’t maintain muscle tension for more than 10 seconds.
There’s no new way to build pure strength. You need to lift heavy and use high-tension exercises. Thirty years ago a professional football player would practice to build his game and lift heavy in the gym to build his maximal strength. But then something changed.

The Sport Specific Training Setback

By the 1990′s, sport specific training became the rage. The concept was simple – try to mimic in the weight room what you’re doing in the sport. That way, what you develop in the gym will directly correlate with an increase in sport-specific performance.
Take a 100-meter sprinter, for example, whose replay video shows a high knee kick throughout the race. His strength coach has him perform a bunch of high knee kicks with a resistance band to build strength in that movement pattern because, well, that’s what the sport shows.
Yet, this type of sport specific training didn’t help. What proof do I have? Well, the progressive strength coaches who ended up removing those crazy exercises out of their athlete’s programs saw no loss in sport performance. In many cases, the athletes actually improved their speed and strength once those fatigue-inducing exercises were put on the shelf.
I was reminded of this fact when I recently met up with sprint strength coach savant, Barry Ross, to talk shop. He’s a guy who’s known for having his athletes perform an extremely basic strength-building program; I mean, really basic. His strength program focuses on building the deadlift and not much else.
A deadlift-focused program for sprinters seems about as far from sport-specific as training can be. Yet Ross consistently produces some of the fastest sprinters in the world.
He doesn’t have his sprinters perform a high knee kick against resistance because he figured out that the high kick was merely a rebound effect from the huge amount of force his sprinters were able to pound into the ground from their monstrous deadlifts.
Another example – back in 1997 I was fortunate to spend time around another legend in the world of strength training, Tim Grover. He’s the guy who trained Michael Jordan throughout his career, in addition to many other top NBA players.
One really smart thing Tim did was measure his players’ average heart rate on the basketball court. He wanted to see it decrease over time as they got further into the off-season strength and conditioning program he set up for them.
Tim didn’t have Jordan or Pippen run up and down the court wearing a weighted vest with ankle weights while shooting a 20-pound basketball. He used basic strength exercises to get them stronger. Grover knew that making his basketball players stronger would allow them to perform jump shots with less effort. This kept their heart rate down and, by default, increased their endurance.
I mention Barry Ross and Tim Grover for a reason. Ross’ athletes only need to run in a straight line for a very short amount of time. Grover’s athletes had to run in multiple directions for a long period of time. Yet both focused on a basic maximal strength-building program to improve their athlete’s performance, and both are hugely successful with their methods. They didn’t fall victim to the sport-specific training nonsense.
The problem with the sport specific training craze is that the exercises weren’t nearly as effective as training the sport itself. Those exercises just accumulated fatigue that kept athletes from practicing at their peak on the field or in the ring.
The idea of taking any sprint, punch or kick and adding resistance to it in order to build sport specific endurance is akin to prescribing a 4/0/2 tempo for the step-up. Both approaches set the strength and conditioning industry back 20 years.

The Fatigue Factor

Fatigue is the number one enemy of any athlete. Anyone who’s a fighter, or trains fighters, has a clear understanding of how detrimental fatigue can be.
Look, if you’re a running back, fatigue will decrease your agility so you’re more likely to get tackled. That’s not good. However, for MMA fighters, the inability to maintain their reflexes at the end of a fight could be a career ender.
It’s this respect for my fighter’s safety at the end of a fight that made me put such a large emphasis on speed training and sport-specific endurance development when I first started working with them. In those days, half of our training would be speed with endurance work, while the other half was maximal strength training.
But I wasn’t satisfied with their maximal strength development. I knew the problem – they were doing too much overall training throughout the week to recover. So I started tapering off the amount of speed work I had them do. Of course, their maximal strength went up.
And their endurance and explosive strength also went up!
I determined an increase in endurance by their ability to maintain a lower average heart rate while they were sparring. The explosive strength enhancement was determined by an increase in their broad jump score.
Of course, training for nothing but maximal strength won’t make you an endurance athlete. However, when I cut out the speed/endurance exercises, they were able to put more energy into their kickboxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, and boxing.
In other words, they had the extra energy outside of our strength workouts to literally build sport specific endurance by practicing their sport more frequently and with greater intensity. And remember that having higher levels of maximal strength means you can perform the sport with less effort.
The only type of sport specific training worth doing is the sport itself. I like battling ropes for MMA athletes as much as the next guy, but it’s still inferior to letting them spend that energy on actual striking.

3 Guidelines for Training Power Athletes

1. If you train a MMA fighter, sprinter, running back, or any other similar athlete you probably don’t need speed work in their training sessions because their sport is the speed work. Focus on building nothing but maximal strength with high load and high-tension exercises.

Use the deadlift as the ultimate measure of high-load training strength with being able to pull at least a raw double body weight lift with an unmixed grip as the goal. Focus on building the glute-ham raise, iron cross, muscle-up, and handstand push-up from rings for body weight high-tension exercises.
A key with maximal strength training is to rest at least three minutes before repeating an exercise. This doesn’t mean you need to sit around for three minutes, though. Here’s a sample sequence I like for developing the core and posterior chain.

	Exercise	Reps	Rest
1A	Pallof press-hold for 10 seconds		60 sec.
1B	Deadlift*	2	60 sec.
1C	Body weight glute-ham raise	**	60 sec.

* with heaviest load possible
** for as many reps as possible

Repeat 1A-1C four more times.

2. Monitor their endurance with a heart rate monitor while sparring. Their average heart rate should decrease over time. If it doesn’t decrease, I would encourage them to spend more time practicing their fighting style.

If that doesn’t work, add battling ropes, sled work, sprints or something similar into the program, one at a time. Make sure whatever you add in is improving their sparring endurance.

3. Monitor their explosive strength with one of the simplest ways to measure rate of force development (RFD), the broad jump. Here are the details:

The broad jump is a versatile tool in athletic settings. Not only is it an accurate way to test your potential increase in RFD, but it’s also a good measure of which young athlete might be genetically predisposed to being a great power athlete.
The kid with the longest broad jump is often the one chosen by an Olympic coach who’s looking to build his resume.
In science, all possible variables must be kept consistent through subsequent trials or the data will be skewed. This need for accuracy, of course, is just as important when testing athletes. The biomechanics of the broad jump must be as consistent as possible.
In subsequent trials, if the athlete uses a wider or narrower foot placement, if he’s wearing different shoes, or if he’s jumping from a different surface, you won’t get an accurate measure of his changes in performance.
Testing Surface: Ideally you’ll jump from a hard surface and land on a slightly softer one. Think of a basketball court floor for takeoff and a hard rubber surface like you see in gyms for landing. A surface that’s too soft, however, isn’t helpful either since it’s difficult for the athlete to land solid. It’s not imperative that you land on a softer surface, but if one is available, use it.
Footwear: I usually have my athletes perform the broad jump with bare feet. Any shoe with minimal cushioning will work, too. Avoid testing athletes who are wearing shoes with thick, cushioned soles.
Foot placement: When the athlete is ready to perform a broad jump, measure the distance between the inside of his heels and place two marks on the floor with tape so his heels are the exact same width with each subsequent attempt. Whichever foot placement feels most powerful is what you want to test. That stance width will be slightly different for everyone.
Attempts, Measuring and Calculations: Perform three broad jumps with three minutes of rest between each attempt. If the athlete loses his balance on the landing, it doesn’t count. Wait three minutes and perform another attempt.
Measure from the front of his toes at takeoff to the back of his heel at landing. Measure to the heel that’s closest to the takeoff line if the feet aren’t perfectly even. The longest jump is the one that counts in your data.
Testing frequency: Test the broad jump every four weeks. Ideally, you’ll test it on the same day at the same time with the same warm-up, if you choose to use a warm-up (as little as 10 jumping jacks one minute before the first jump is usually sufficient). The key is to keep whatever warm-up you’re doing consistent over time.
Now, in a perfect world the athlete would refrain from any heavy weight training for two days before testing the broad jump. If you test the broad jump two days after a heavy deadlift the first week, and retest it one day after a heavy deadlift the fourth week, you’re going to skew your data. Be smart with your timing of the broad jump test and try to keep all variables as consistent as possible.
It would be easy to get into a scholarly discussion over what constitutes an ideal broad jump distance. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that your broad jump is consistently increasing over time. Once it stops increasing, add speed exercises into your training program if you feel that’s what’s lacking.

Final Words

This article isn’t a slam on speed training. It has its place. If you’re an avid lifter who doesn’t compete in any sport and wants to get bigger and stronger, traditional speed training should be a part of your program.
However, if you’re a power athlete it’s important to remember that your sport probably gives you all the speed training you need, if you practice it enough.
What you’ll most likely get the greatest benefit from is maximal strength training. This is especially true if your goal is to be the next MMA champion!

Wikio

Wikio

The New Rules of Strength Training

by Bret Contreras – 7/18/2011

I’ve just received word that I’ve been appointed the new President of the Strength Training Industry.
As your leader, my first order of business is to address what I consider to be the greatest challenge facing the industry today: the widespread acceptance and proliferation of biomechanically dangerous exercises.
We’ve allowed strength training to become a “risky” or “dangerous” business, attracting an unsavory mix of foolish, hardcore, Jackass-inspired thrill seekers who preach lifting ridiculously heavy weights in a chalk-dusted frenzy. Their unwanted influence needlessly injures thousands of well-intentioned exercisers that just want to enjoy a refreshing workout and follow a healthy lifestyle.
I can say with confidence that it doesn’t have to be this way. And thanks to my newly acquired authority, with just a stroke of a pen I can render strength training as safe or safer than the stationary bike, lawn bowling, and Chinese checkers, current gold standards of exercise safety.
The following is a list of banned exercises that shall not be performed again, along with a brief explanation.

Upright rows

Abducting your arms over 90 degrees combined with severe internal rotation will shred your shoulders like Grandma’s 4^th of July coleslaw.

Behind the neck press, behind the neck pulldowns, and behind the neck pull-ups

The “high five” position characterized by shoulder abduction and extreme external rotation is an injury waiting to happen. While you grind away at your rotator cuff, inducing tendonitis, you’ll also be stretching out the ligaments and anterior capsule, leading to permanent elongation, hyperlaxity, and instability.
While you’re at it, why not jam the bar into your spine and damage a cervical process? Might as well multi-task, right?

Squats

All squatters have round lumbar spines and posteriorly-tilted pelvises when they go deep, and if their poor discs could talk, they’d be screaming bloody murder. The low bar position wreaks havoc on the shoulder joints, and the ACL, PCL, and patella take a beating during the descent. Too heavy a weight leads to excessive forward lean, exposing the lumbar spine to injury.
Worse, the lift requires dangerous levels of intra-abdominal pressure and can lead to rectal prolapse, a condition where the walls of the rectum protrude through the anus and become visible outside the body. Good luck riding your bike home from the gym after that happens.

Bench press

The barbell puts the wrist in a fixed position that can damage the elbows and shoulders, while the powerlifting style low-back arch will hammer the posterior elements of the spine. Going deep overstretches the delicate shoulder ligaments, and the scapulae can’t move naturally as they’re pinned against the bench. Not to mention, the scapulae will be permanently abducted and the shoulders internally rotated, which over time can lead to a Neanderthal-like posture.

Military press

Ignore that the head is dead smack in the path of the barbell and just focus on the fact that the delicate acromions can’t handle the load. Furthermore, the typical kyphotic posture will massacre the shoulders and cause spinal hyperextension.

Deadlifts

A perfectly named exercise. The deadlift will create numerous disc herniations and permanent elongation of the spinal ligaments due to a slumped posture. Weak glutes encourage lumbar flexion and posterior pelvic tilt to initiate the lift, and lumbar hyperextension and anterior pelvic tilt to finish. Just imagine, a single exercise that can create flexion and extension intolerance in one fell swoop!
Increasing or decreasing the load doesn’t improve the safety profile one iota. Heavy deadlifts over stress the CNS, leading to permanent downregulation of key brain chemicals and eventually mental retardation, while high rep deadlifts can lead to cardiac arrest.

Good mornings

If you bumped into an extra terrestrial at the gym and asked him to put a heavy bar on his back and bend over with it, he’d likely start laughing hysterically in that cute way benevolent aliens do before shooting you in the face with a phaser. It’s sad that even aliens have more common sense than meatheads.

Reverse hypers and back extensions

Most people’s hips don’t work correctly, so they move at the spine and not the hips. Down low, they flex the spine to make up for crappy hamstring flexibility, and up top hyperextend the lumbar spine to make up for weak glutes. Why not just foam roll on the freeway and get it over with?

Glute ham raises

Nobody does this exercise properly. Weak hamstrings require anterior pelvic tilt to try to improve the length tension relationship, which puts the low back into hyperextension and annihilates the posterior elements of the lumbar spine.

Lunges, Bulgarian split squats, step ups, pistols, and single leg RDL’s

All single leg exercises lead to SI joint pain and sciatica. Crappy hip stability causes the knee to move all around in the frontal and transverse planes, obliterating the patellofemoral joint. Any PT who prescribes a single leg movement is a shill for the knee replacement industry.

Hip thrusts, barbell glute bridges, and single leg hip thrusts.

Whoever thought up these abominations is a serious douchebag. Since weak glutes can’t do the job, the pelvis will anteriorly tilt and the low back will hyperextend, thereby taking a jackhammer to the posterior elements of the lumbar spine. Furthermore, the weak glutes will fail to exert a rearward pull on the femur, leading to anterior hip pain as it jams forward in the acetabulum.
If you still choose to perform these hare-brained movements, maybe you should consider the other exercisers using the facility. Unless you have an Airex pad to place under the bar, too much pressure is placed on the abdomen, resulting in volcanic eruptions of explosive diarrhea.

Dips

Extreme shoulder extension combined with external rotation will inevitably lead to anterior capsule dysfunction. Dips are for dipshits.

Push-ups

Push-ups are too hard on the wrists and elbows, and if the feet are elevated to make them more difficult you risk hyperextending the neck. Due to most lifter’s obsession with the bench press, the serratus anterior and trapezius fibers often don’t fire and can’t properly stabilize the scapula so once again the shoulders take a beating.

Leg presses and seated rows

These exercises require too much hamstring flexibility, leading to severe lumbar rounding under heavy loads and eventually herniated discs. Moreover, machines place the body in unnatural fixed positions that can lead to faulty motor recruitment in as little as six workouts, and walking like Frankenstein’s monster in twelve.

Bent over rows

I get it. Since the ribcage can serve as a trampoline in the bench press to max out at 225 lbs., it would be silly to only row 95 lbs. So you pile two plates on each side of the bar, round the back to 30 degrees, and start performing upright rows to the belly.

Chin-ups and pull-ups

Supinated chins over stress the biceps tendons, while wide grip pull-ups over stress the shoulder joints. To make the exercise easier lifters hyperextend the low back and shrug the shoulders to account for weak lower traps.

Sit-ups, side bends, and Russian twists

Sit-ups will induce compressive and sheer loading on the spine, leading to compromised neural function, mindless incoherent babbling, and eventually holding up homophobic signs at Michele Bachmann campaign rallies.
Since the hip flexors are already tight from sitting, you should never, ever try to strengthen them. Twisting sit-ups combine lumbar flexion and rotation, which is akin to a Mike Tyson right uppercut – left hook combo.
The spine was meant to stay in neutral your entire life and should never be moved. For this reason, side bends and Russian twists are out, along with getting out of bed, tying your shoes, sitting, and picking up loose change off the ground.

Shrugs, farmer’s walks, and all loaded carries

Most lifter’s upper traps already dominate their lower traps. You should never, EVER, carry anything heavy or even take a plate or dumbbell out of the rack or your traps will become perpetually imbalanced.

Pullovers, flyes, lateral raises, barbell curls, and prone rear delt raises

Single joint exercises in the stretch position such as flyes and pullovers are hard on the shoulder joint, and lateral raises, unless performed in the scapular plane, will destroy the shoulders.
Barbell curls over stress the biceps tendon and the bones of the lower arm.
Prone rear delt raises require hyperextending the neck while lying prone on an incline bench, which can cause amnesia, aneurisms, or stroke.
Let’s not forget the most important point, that single joint lifts aren’t functional. Even though they may look like movement patterns seen in swimming, tennis, and strongman, don’t let your eyes fool you! There’s zero functional transfer to the real world.

Power cleans and jump squats

People can’t clean worth a piss these days, and the wrists take too much of a pounding over time. Jump squats jar the entire body upon landing.

Pallof presses, cable chops, cable lifts

These exercises require simultaneous contraction from all the core muscles, which clamp down on the spine and create enormous compressive loads. This leads to vertebral issues and severe constipation that cases of Metamucil can’t cure.

Crunches

Since I’m President, I’ve decided to eradicate the terms “lumbar flexion” and “posterior pelvic tilt” from the Kinesiology textbooks, and the rectus abdominus will now be referred to as “The Muscle Whose Name Cannot be Mentioned.” (TMWNCBM for short.)
Before you roll onto your back and start crunching, realize that the lumbar spine only allows for 20,000 flexion cycles. When you hit this number, all five lumbar discs herniate immediately and you begin writhing in uncontrollable spasm.
Even if you’re way shy of the 20,000 limit, with every single rep your athleticism and ability to walk upright while chewing gum decreases by .02%. You do the math.
Crunches destroy the workings of the pelvic floor musculature, resulting in you pissing yourself uncontrollably every time you laugh or sneeze, or whenever the fighter jets do a fly-over on opening weekend.
Furthermore, crunches are linked to glute dysfunction. It doesn’t matter if you’re sprinting or hip thrusting, crunches override those signals and extinguish their effects. The result is now you can’t walk, run, or jump properly.
Worse, this glute dysfunction can lead to erectile dysfunction. Since the glutes no longer function properly, thrusting becomes impossible, and even the most accommodating partner is bound to start laughing hysterically at such anemic displays of ass drive, resulting in the “little general” shriveling like over-cooked linguini. This psychological catastrophe can embed itself deep into the brain, resulting in permanent erectile dysfunction.
Finally, crunches can lead to AIDS and other STD’s. Many lifters who perform crunches become so horribly kyphotic that they can’t attract a mate through conventional means, leading to encounters with prostitutes and other ladies of ill repute. This significantly increases their exposure to AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis, certain politicians, herpes, and other single-guy buzz kills.

The New Rules to Strength Training

What’s the deal? Has Contreras sold out?
Hell no! I wrote this article to make a point. If you know enough about anatomy, physiology, and strength training, you could make a case for why every exercise in the book should be avoided. Conversely, you could also make a case for why every exercise in the book should be performed.
Without further ado, here are President Contreras’ actual new rules to strength training:

• An exercise is judged by how it is supposed to be performed, not by how the jacktards screw it up.
• If you think lifting weights is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous.
• There are no contraindicated exercises, just contraindicated individuals. Learn how your body works and master its mechanics.
• If you can’t perform an exercise properly, don’t do it. If an exercise consistently causes pain, don’t do it. If an exercise consistently injures you, don’t do it.
• Earn the right to perform an exercise. Correct any dysfunction and become qualified with bodyweight before loading up a movement pattern.
• There exists a risk-reward continuum and some exercises are safer than others. It’s up to you to determine where you draw the line. Don’t bitch about your lack of progress or poor joint health as you lie in the bed you made for yourself.
• Exercises performed poorly are dangerous, while exercises performed well are beneficial. If you use shitty form, you’ll hurt yourself. It’s only a matter of time.
• If you display optimal levels of joint mobility, stability, and motor control, you’ll distribute forces much better and be able to tolerate more volume, intensity, and frequency.
• Structural balance is critical. You must strengthen joints in opposing manners to ensure that posture isn’t altered. If your posture erodes due to strength training, it means that you’re a shitty program designer.
• Body tissues adjust to become stronger to resist loading. The body is a living organism that adapts to imposed demands.
• Your training will be based on your needs, your goals, and your liking. Different goals require different training methods. The loftier your goals, the more risk entailed.
• There are two type of stress: eustress and distress. Keep yourself in eustress and you’ll be okay.
• If you believe an exercise will hurt you, it probably will.
• Injuries in the weight room have more to do with poor form and poor programming than the exercise itself. Exercises are tools. You are the carpenter. A good carpenter never blames his tools.
• Rather than drift along with popular trends, it’s more fruitful to learn how the body works, which will allow you to understand the pros and cons of every exercise and make educated decisions in your programming.

At the end of the day, how you train is your call. Whether you play it safe or roll the dice, at least you’re not sitting on the couch. Pain and injuries have a way of teaching you proper form and programming, and having a large arsenal of exercises is important to prevent boredom and habituation and spark further adaptation. In short, keep learnin’ and keep liftin’!
I’m President Contreras and I approve this message.

Wikio

Wikio

>Strong in the Stretch:5 Exercises for Size, Strength, and Mobility

>

by Jeremy Frisch – 2/22/2011Step into a commercial gym around 5 PM any day of the week. Sure you’ll come across some “strong” people who can lift heavy weights, but if you take a closer look, it’ll become painfully obvious that most meatheads have simply lost the ability to move with any semblance of fluidity.
Poor daily posture leads to tight, inhibited muscles, which leads to poor movement, which then compounds the issue, which killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built…and eventually we’re left with serious inefficiencies and often injuries.
As avid T NATIONers, we know training to be anything but thoughtless and poorly contrived. We train hard week in and week out, and as readers we’re privy to a constant flow of solid information and training advice, but no matter what our focus in the gym consists of, we come to T NATION to separate ourselves from the “regular folk” who are simply sheep in the flock.
Touching back on my original thought, however, many of us don’t realize that the focus on mobility can elude us and when it does, it’s something that can be very difficult to recapture.
This article isn’t intended for you to change your approach to training, or to take away from your main lifts. However, many of these exercises can replace current techniques you use now, and with a little hard work and effort they can help take you to higher levels of strength and movement.
This short list is something you can incorporate in your current program that will help you lengthen your range of motion, build size and strength, and oh yeah, hurt like hell.

1. The Long Duration Sumo Squat Hold

This is a great foundational exercise but can double as much more. In our young athletes, it teaches proper squat technique in regards to the pelvis and spine, and the kids find out how much mental toughness they have, fast. It’s pure hell, and it’s the last thing our athletes do on Fridays before they go home. In fact, they often crawl out of here!
The holds are between 45 and 60 seconds and we do them for 3-4 sets.
The better you become at this movement, the more gravity just keeps assisting you into a deeper hold. You’ll soon see some dramatic changes in hip mobility.
For anyone looking for size, loads and long times under tension can provide a great breeding ground for some new muscle.

Focus: Spread the floor apart with the feet. Drive the knees out while constantly PULLING yourself down using your hip flexors and abs.

2. The Dumbbell Iso-Dynamic Elevated Split Squat

This exercise is based on the standard split squat, just adding a couple of boxes to elevate both feet. By standing on boxes you’ll allow for greater range of motion and that’s precisely the goal of the exercise.
The athlete pulls himself deeper into the hole with each rep (3-5 second holds). This not only hammers away at those pesky tight hip flexors, it also develops a great amount of starting strength by working the athlete in his greatest (and weakest) joint angles.
If you’re looking for some serious upper leg development, then try a few heavy sets of these and feel sore in some places you didn’t even know existed!

Focus: Pull yourself into a deep position by pulling with the front hamstring. Flex and extend the rear leg glute as hard as possible. Always pull deeper on subsequent repetitions.

3. Elevated Barbell Reverse Lunge

This is without a doubt one of my favorite exercises for developing the glutes, hams, and adductors.
If you’re new to these be careful on your volume initially as you may find it hard to walk for a few days. Not only do they provide a tremendous strengthening effect on the front leg, but the dynamic flexibility component they provide to the rear leg hip flexor and rectus is incredible.
In some cases when we’re focusing on the range of motion in the rear leg, we have the athlete bring the rear leg all the way through and up to waist height (you’ll end in a position similar to a step up, with one leg on the box and the other knee driven up).

Focus: Stay tall with your torso. Carry much of the weight on the front leg when lowering into the lunge. Pull yourself back up to the box.

4. Iso-Dynamic Band Resisted Push-up

This exercise can be very humbling when you’re not used to full ranges of motion.
The video below will show a 320 + lbs. bencher struggling on the sixth rep of a push up. The reason for the difficulty is the combination of the extreme joint angle (weakest point) and the accommodating resistance of the bands.
In my opinion, the deep isometric push up is one of the best scapular retraction exercises out there. By lengthening the anterior shoulder and pecs, you place the muscles that move the scapulae in the best leverage position to contract maximally.
For people who have naturally poor posture or jobs that require them to sit in poor posture all day, this exercise can be just the thing to help even out their overworked anterior body.
Besides postural benefits, this exercise can be great at developing strength and size in the upper back and will allow the anterior portion of the shoulder to get a solid stretch that could also translate into better recovery and muscle production.

Focus: Don’t think about lowering with gravity. Pull yourself into the hold using your scapular retractors. Remember to squeeze those muscles of the upper back as hard as you can.

5. Band Resisted Iso-Dynamic Chin-Up

This may be the most difficult one in terms of perceived difficulty because it’s the only exercise that’s RESISTED by gravity instead of assisted. To make it worse, gravity won’t be the only thing pulling you back down to earth.
Place a band around your waist and have a partner stand on the band. Alternately, you can hook the band under a rack or dumbbell.
While in the hanging position, squeeze/contract the muscles of your chest and triceps as hard as possible, which will protect the shoulders and allow the major muscles of the back to lengthen.
After a short hold (3-5 seconds), pull up with as much speed and power as possible. The band will kick in near the top and slow you down to a snail’s pace. The answer to overcoming the added resistance? Pull HARDER. It’s just you against the band, and of course Sir Isaac Newton’s old buddy, gravity.

Focus: Start in the hang by squeezing the “push” muscles so the “pull” muscles can lengthen. Drive your chest towards the bar, and drive your elbows away from the bar as fast as possible. Most importantly, don’t give up.

To reiterate, again I’m not trying to tell you what you’re doing is wrong or that you need to replace all of your trusty go-to lifts with these options. I’m merely offering alternatives, ones that I think are of great importance and value to any serious lifter.
If you want to continue to train hard and heavy, there will someday come a time when quality of movement must be prioritized. Why not start now?

Sources:

1. Buchenholz, Dietrich. The Best Sports Training Book Ever. Inno-Sport Group, 2003. Print.

2. Shroeder, Jay. “Iso-Extreme Lecture Notes.” Be Athletic Seminar. College of the Holy Cross, Worcester. Lecture.

3. Uram, Paul, and Dave McKinnis. Refining Human Movement. Butler, PA: Paul Uram, 1971. Print.

4. Verkhoshansky, Yuri Vitalievitch., and Mel Cunningham. Siff. Supertraining. Rome, Italy: Verkhoshansky, 2009. Print.

Wikio

Wikio

3 Ways to Immediately Boost Your Strength

by CHAD WATERBURY on JANUARY 21, 2011

Imagine this scenario. You’re sitting in the audience at a strength and conditioning conference, there to learn a thing or two about building bigger, stronger muscles, and the speaker calls you up to the podium.

The speaker has a barbell onstage with a stack of plates next to it. He tells you that you’re going to test your maximum strength for the deadlift in front of the audience.

You’re a little nervous, but you get yourself onstage and go through a typical warm-up that consists of a handful of sets with progressively heavier weights. You’re not a powerlifter, just a regular gym rat, so you know the pull isn’t going to impress anyone in the powerlifting game. But you don’t care. You’re in front of a couple hundred people and this is your time to shine.

After a few minutes you’ve got the weight dialed in. With all the effort you can muster you manage to pull 350 pounds. This load, clearly evident to yourself and anyone watching, is your true one repetition maximum. Five more pounds and you would’ve failed.

“Not bad,” says the speaker. “And guess what? Today is your lucky day. Let’s see if you can pull more weight with motivation from some dead Presidents.”

The speaker reaches behind the podium and pulls out a briefcase, opens it, and shows you a million bucks – cash. This isn’t that snooze-fest television, Deal or No Deal – this is the real deal and you know it.

“All you have to do is pull 20 more pounds and the cash is yours,” the speaker says. He throws another 10-pound plate on each side of the 350-pound barbell, now making it 370 pounds, and smiles.

Think you could pull that extra 20 pounds for a million bucks? Of course you could!

With most things in life, though, reward doesn’t come without risk. This contest is no exception. You just took a million from the speaker and he wants to up the ante in order to get it back. I mean, really up the ante.

So he reaches behind the podium and pulls out a chainsaw. Like a scene straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he fires up the gas-filled tree killer, hoists it in the air, and swings it around while belting out a hellacious howl. You’re not sure what’s on the line, but you’re damn sure whatever it is ain’t good.

You were right.

The speaker looks you dead in the eyes, and with a tone that makes Johnny Cash sound like Alvin the Chipmunk, he passes on this little gem.

“You must add another 20 pounds to your deadlift or I’m going to cut off both of your legs.”

You and your legs don’t doubt his dedication to the chainsaw swinging craft, so you decide it’s best to proceed. After all, that half-inch you added to your calves didn’t come easy, and your vastus medialis muscles have been looking pretty impressive in those board shorts your girlfriend bought you at Patagonia.

The speaker adds 20 more pounds to the bar, making it 40 pounds heavier than when you started, and then gives you a nod while gripping the chainsaw with the most ominous look you’ve ever seen.

Now, here’s my question: Do you think you could pull those extra 20 pounds if your God-given wheels were on the line?

I’d be willing to bet both my legs, my arms, and my autographed Miley Cyrus poster that you could.

Why? Read on.

Release The Brake
When I speak at a seminar my goal is to leave the attendees with a few bits of information they’ll never forget.

While in graduate school one of my professors had the reputation for being able to talk about virtually anything and make it sound exciting. (I guess such a gift for gab is necessary when your goal is to make people giddy over the sodium/potassium pump.) But he was also very effective since his students, myself included, would retain most of what he taught.

Of course, I frequently asked him for advice before I had to speak in front of grad students and professors. He’d say, “Waterbury, you must tell them what you’re gonna tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them.”

Repeat whatever is important at least three times, in other words.

When I give a presentation about the nervous system to a good group of trainers, coaches, and athletes what do I usually tell them three, four, maybe 10 times?

The nervous system is akin to a parking brake that’s partially engaged on your muscles.

And this is why my introduction, no matter how far-fetched it might seem, is important to appreciate. There’s no better way to instantly boost your strength than to get really motivated, or scared to death. Indeed, neuroscientists like to amuse themselves by saying that lunatics, people who are drowning, or those suffering from tetanus are extremely powerful.

They are.

Why? Because in any of the three cases the nervous system is running full speed ahead. It’s not because the people are powerlifters or gifted strength athletes, it’s because their nervous system has released its brake and put a plethora of neural drive straight to the muscles.

Release that brake and you’ll get stronger and recruit more muscle fibers – instantly!

So, the question is, how do you release the brake without risking a limb or two? I wish I could motivate you with a million bucks because you’d have newfound respect for the nervous system, but since I can’t, these are the next best ways.

1. Light The Fire
Before you pull a heavy lift; before you start your first warm-up set; heck, before you even step foot in the gym your nervous system must be ready for action. If it’s not you’ll be relegated to playing catch up as you wait for your nervous system to turn on. You must walk into the gym and feel like you’re ready to chew on rusty nails.

The simplest way to enhance your focus and nervous system output is to drink a cup of black coffee about 30 minutes before your workout. This only works if you don’t drink a lot of coffee to begin with, and it doesn’t work equally well for everyone (coffee, believe it or not, puts me to sleep).

If coffee isn’t your thing try Spike by Biotest. Take one tablet 30 minutes before training, or drink half a can of their liquid version that you can find in 7-11. This will boost neurotransmitters, alertness, and strength.

2. Secure Your Foundation
Okay, so now your nervous system has been lit up with a pre-workout stimulant. For most people, that’s enough to add some appreciable weight and intensity to the workout. Now you can take it a step further. Your next job is to let the nervous system know your body isn’t going to crumble when it releases the brake to your muscles.

As any good engineer will tell you, the foundation must support the building. If you own a 10-story building and feel the need to add five more floors on top of it, the foundation must be able to support the extra burden. With regard to strength training, I’m talking about the added stress that comes from putting more load on your muscles and joints.

Your support system comes from your glutes, abdominal wall, and lats. When these muscle groups fire together it forms a super-stiff foundation to support whatever lift you’re pulling. That’s why Dr. Stuart McGill calls the synchronous firing of the glutes, abdominal wall, and lats, “super stiffness.” When these muscles fire together, the nervous system will release more neural input to all your muscles. This is why boosting your squat will also enhance your bench press.

Putting your body in super stiffness mode is simple. You only need two exercises to do it. Start with two sets of three reps for the Romanian deadlift. Be sure to lock out your hips and squeeze the glutes as hard as possible at the top of each rep. Then, do two sets of three reps for the ab wheel-rollout exercise. These two exercises should not waste you of any energy so there’s no need to go for a max lift, especially with the Romanian deadlift. The goal is to simply add tension and neural input to the right muscles in order to strengthen your foundation before training.

To ramp up your nervous system, do this before your strength workout:

Romanian Deadlift
Sets: 2
Reps: 3
Load: moderately heavy (a weight you could normally lift 7 or 8 times)

Ab wheel-rollout
Sets: 2
Reps: 3
Load: body weight

3. Harness the Power of a SMH 
At this point your neurotransmitters are pouring out, and your foundation is strong and solid. The nervous system is approaching its apex of neural output. Now you just need one more boost to release that proverbial parking brake.

The most effective technique I’ve ever used to instantly boost strength is the supramaximal hold (SMH). It’s a key component of my Total Strength Program program in Muscle Revolution and it’s also used in the advanced strength phases of Huge in a Hurry.

Put simply, you’ll hold a weight near lockout that’s more than you could ever lift through a full range of motion. This tricks your nervous system into releasing more neural drive to your muscles. In essence, your brain thinks you’re really going to try and lift that monstrous load so it releases the brake on your muscles. There are many mechanisms at work – some that are still ambiguous – when you hold a supramaximal load, but one of the most well-documented is postactivation potentiation. Research by Baudry and Duchateau have demonstrated the power of it.

The SMH serves as a conditioning contraction – a primer for your muscles, in other words. For all you science buffs, postactivation potentiation increases the number of cross bridges that attach by increasing the sensitivity of contractile proteins to ionized calcium.(1) This allows the muscles to produce more force. However, the effect only lasts for about a minute, so you’ve got to get straight to your work set after the SMH is finished.

The SMH works awesome, but it’s pretty taxing to your system so you must limit the amount of times you do it. It’s best to use the SMH for exercises that give you the most bang for your buck. It’s perfect for squats, deadlifts, and presses. Curls and kickbacks, not so much.

An excellent workout to reap the benefits of the SMH is the deadlift and seated shoulder press. For each lift you’ll hold 120% of your one repetition maximum near lockout for 6-8 seconds. It’s important to use the power rack with pins set just below lockout for both exercises. Within 30 seconds of finishing the hold you’ll crank out as many full range of motion reps as you can with approximately 85% of your one repetition maximum (this number doesn’t have to be exact, just a ballpark estimate).

1A Deadlift SMH
Load: 120% of full range of motion maximum
Duration of hold: 6-8 seconds
Rest 30 seconds
1B Deadlift (full range of motion)
Load: ~85% of 1RM
Reps: as many as possible
Rest 120 seconds and repeat 1A and 1B pairing three more times

2A Seated Shoulder Press SMH
Load: 120% of full range of motion maximum
Duration of hold: 6-8 seconds
Rest 30 seconds
2B Seated Shoulder Press (full range of motion)
Load: ~85% of 1RM
Reps: as many as possible
Rest 120 seconds and repeat 2A and 2B pairing three more times

This workout looks deceptively simple, but it’ll take a lot out of you. However, it’ll add strength and muscle fast. Feel free to add a few less demanding exercises at the end. Do this workout twice per week (Monday and Friday). On Wednesday, use more traditional strength building methods such as 5 sets of 5 reps, without the SMH.

Conclusion
You’ll benefit by using steps #1 and #2 before all your workouts. Step #3, the SMH, should be reserved for the times when your nutrition and recovery is really dialed in. However, keep the SMH in your arsenal to boost big lifts while your nervous system learns that you’re ready for more strength and muscle.

1. Baudry and Duchateau. J Appl Physiol. 102: 1394-1401, 2007.

Stay focused,
CW

Wikio

Wikio

Neural Charge Pushups by Christian Thibaudeau – 12/16/2010

Click on the links below to view the individual exercise videos.

Neural Charge Pushups – Overview
Incline Plyo Pushup
Close-Grip Incline Plyo Pushup
Diamond-Grip Incline Plyo Pushup
Plyo Pushup
Close-Grip Plyo Pushup
Diamond-Grip Plyo Pushup
Depth Plyo Pushup
Side-to-Side Plyo Pushup
Whole-Body Projection Plyo Pushup

There are additional neural charge exercises, listed on the right column of this page, that are part of this series.

Wikio

Wikio

5 Ways to Get Stronger Without Lifting a WeightWorkout

by: Cameron McGarr, C.S.C.S.

Few men believe it, but you don’t need barbells, dumbbells, or machines to build muscle; in fact, weight-training equipment often inhibits the process. That’s because it requires you to be in a specific location, which might explain why more men consider themselves runners than lifters. After all, running is the most accessible form of exercise—anywhere you go, there’s your gym. But learn a little bit about physics and the same can hold true for your muscle workout.

Consider the pullup: It’s the standard by which all body-weight exercises are measured. And even the most hard-core lifters will agree that there’s no better muscle builder for the upper body—with or without weights. The reason for its effectiveness: It takes full advantage of the scientific laws of motion and leverage, placing your body in a position that forces your back and arms to lift your entire body weight. Call it applied science at its finest.

Now imagine if all body-weight exercises were as challenging as the pullup. You’d be able to build muscle anywhere, anytime—at home, on the road, or even in a public park. Physical science makes it possible. So with that said . . . the Five Laws of Body-Weight Training.

The Longer Your Body, The Weaker You Become
The science: By increasing the distance between the point of force (your target muscles) and the end of the object you’re trying to lift (your body), you decrease your mechanical advantage. Think of it this way: An empty barbell is easy to lift off the floor if you grab it in the middle. But try moving a few inches in one direction and it instantly seems heavier—even though its weight hasn’t changed. The same is true of your body: Lengthen it and every exercise you do becomes harder.

Apply it: Raise your hands above your head—so your arms are straight and in line with your body—during a lunge, squat, crunch, or situp. If that’s too hard, split the distance by placing your hands behind your head.

The Farther You Move, The More Muscle You Work
The science: In physics, “mechanical work” is equal to force (or weight) times distance. And since your muscles and bones function together as simple machines—they form class 1, 2, and 3 levers—the same formula applies to your body. It’s the most basic of principles: Do more work, build more muscle. Of course, in a weight-free workout, you can’t increase force (unless you gain weight). But you can boost your work output by moving a greater distance during each repetition.

Apply it: Each of the following three methods increases the distance your body has to travel from start to finish, increasing not only the total amount of work you do, but also the amount of work you do in the most challenging portion of the exercise.

Hard: Move the floor farther away. For many body-weight exercises—lunges, pushups, situps—your range of motion ends at the floor. The solution: Try placing your front or back foot on a step when doing lunges; position your hands on books or your feet on a chair when doing pushups; and place a rolled-up towel under the arch in your lower back when doing situps.

Harder: Add on a quarter. From the starting position of a pushup, squat, or lunge, lower yourself into the down position. But instead of pushing your body all the way up, raise it only a quarter of the way. Then lower yourself again before pushing your body all the way up. That counts as one repetition.

Hardest: Try mini-repetitions. Instead of pushing your body all the way up from the down position, do five smaller reps in which you raise and lower your body about an inch each time. After the fifth mini-repetition, push yourself up till your arms are straight. That counts as one repetition.
As Elastic Energy Decreases, Muscle Involvement Increases
The science: When you lower your body during any exercise, you build up “elastic energy” in your muscles. Just like in a coiled spring, that elasticity allows you to “bounce” back to the starting position, reducing the work your muscles have to do. Eliminate the bounce and you’ll force your body to recruit more muscle fibers to get you moving again. How? Pause for 4 seconds in the down position of an exercise. That’s the amount of time it takes to discharge all the elastic energy of a muscle.

Apply it: Use the 4-second pause in any exercise. And give yourself an extra challenge by adding an explosive component, forcefully pushing your body off the floor—into the air as high as you can—during a pushup, lunge, or squat. Because you’re generating maximum force without any help from elastic energy, you’ll activate the greatest number of muscle fibers possible.

Moving in Two Directions is Better Than Moving in One
The science: Human movement occurs on three different geometric planes:

1. The sagittal plane, for front-to-back and up-and-down movements
2. The frontal plane, for side-to-side movements
3. The transverse plane, for rotational movements

Most weight-lifting movements—the bench press, squat, curl, lunge, and chinup, to name a few—are performed on the sagittal plane; the balance of exercises—for instance, the lateral lunge and side bend—occur almost entirely on the frontal plane. This means that most men rarely train their bodies on the transverse plane, despite using rotation constantly in everyday life, as well as in every sport. Case in point: walking. It’s subtle, but your hips rotate with every step; in fact, watch a sprinter from behind and you’ll see that his hips rotate almost 90 degrees. By adding a rotational component to any exercise, you’ll automatically work more muscle—since you’ll fully engage your core, as well as the original target muscles—and simultaneously build a better-performing body.

Apply it: Simply twist your torso to the right or left in exercises such as the lunge, situp, and pushup. You can also rotate your hips during movements such as the reverse crunch.

The Less Contact Your Body Has With the Floor, the More Your Muscles Must Compensate
The science: The smaller the percentage of an object’s surface area that’s touching a solid base, the less stable that object is. That’s why SUVs are prone to rolling, and tall transmission towers need guy wires. Fortunately, humans have a built-in stabilization system: muscles. And by forcing that internal support system to kick in—by making your body less stable—you’ll make any exercise harder, while activating dozens more muscles.

Apply it: Hold one foot in the air during virtually any exercise, including pushups, squats, and deadlifts. You can also do pushups on your fingertips or your fists.

Wikio

Wikio

The World’s Most Efficient Workout

By: Greg Presto
Muscles are funny things. They respond to just about any type of training, as long as it’s hard and as long as it’s not the same damn thing you’ve always done. That’s the beauty of density training: It’s a whole lot of stuff you haven’t tried yet. And best of all, it’ll hit your major muscles in a fraction of the time. Instead of counting reps and sets, you’ll focus on the total amount of work you can accomplish in a fixed amount of time. As you progress, you’ll naturally increase your sets and reps, be able to use more weight, and perform exercises that are more challenging. Try this plan, created by David Jack, director of Teamworks Fitness in Acton, Massachusetts, to increase the intensity of your workouts. In only 4 weeks, you’ll create a lean physique that looks like the product of hours at the gym.

Click on for the entire workout, or skip ahead to your skill level:
Basic
Advanced
Expert

Choose Your Workout
Perform each workout as a circuit, completing one exercise after another and resting as indicated.

Do three workouts a week, with at least 1 day off in between.

Weeks 1 and 2
Do 5 reps of each exercise, going from move to move without any rest. For weighted exercises, select a weight that you can lift 10 times. Keep repeating all four exercises until the workout time is up.

Basic: Workout 1
Perform for 10 minutes.
Basic: Workout 2
Perform for 15 minutes.

Advanced: Workout 3
Perform for 10 minutes.
Advanced: Workout 4
Perform for 15 minutes.

Expert: Workout 5
Perform for 10 minutes.
Expert: Workout 6
Perform for 15 minutes.

Week 3
Perform each exercise for 20 seconds, and rest for 10 seconds. That’s 1 set.

Basic: Workout 7
Perform 2 sets. Rest for 1 minute. That’s one cycle. Complete two more cycles.

Advanced: Workout 8
Perform 2 sets. Rest for 1 minute. That’s one cycle. Complete two more cycles.

Expert: Workout 9
Perform 2 sets. Rest for 1 minute. That’s one cycle. Complete two more cycles.

Week 4
Perform each exercise for 20 seconds and then rest for 10 seconds. That’s 1 set. Complete 4 sets, rest 1 to 2 minutes, then move on to the next exercise. Advance to the more difficult versions after you can complete at least 8 reps of each exercise in 20 seconds.

Basic: Workout 10
Advanced: Workout 11
Expert: Workout 12
Pushup
Basic

Pushup
Assume a pushup position, with your hands slightly beyond shoulder-width apart, feet together, and body in a straight line from head to ankles. Lower your chest until it’s an inch above the floor, and then push back up. That’s 1 rep.

Reverse Lunge and 1-Arm Press
Basic

Reverse lunge and 1-arm press
Stand holding a pair of dumbbells next to your shoulders. Step back with your right leg (as shown). Then press the dumbbell in your right hand straight above your shoulder. Lower it, and stand back up. Now repeat with your left side. That’s 1 rep.

Inverted Row
Basic

Inverted row
Lie underneath a secured bar. Grab the bar with an overhand, shoulder-width grip, your arms and body completely straight, and heels on the floor. Pull your body up (as shown), and return to the starting position.

Prisoner Squat
Basic

Prisoner squat
Place your fingers on the back of your head, pull your elbows and shoulders back, and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Lower your body as far as you can (as shown). Pause, and return to the starting position.

Explosive Pushup
Advanced

Explosive pushup
Perform a basic pushup. After lowering your body, push back up with enough force that your hands leave the floor.

Reverse Lunge with 1-Arm Press
Advanced

Reverse lunge with 1-arm press
Perform a reverse lunge with your right leg as you simultaneously press the dumbbell in your right hand straight above your shoulder. Stand, and then lower the weight. Repeat the move with your left side. That’s 1 rep.

Elevated-Feet Inverted Row
Advanced

Elevated-feet inverted row
Perform an inverted row, but first place your feet on a box or bench.
Goblet Squat
Advanced

Goblet squat
Hold a dumbbell vertically in front of your chest, cupping one end of the dumbbell with both hands. Keep your elbows pointed down toward the floor, and perform a squat. Then push back up.

Isometric Explosive Pushup
Expert

Isometric explosive pushup
Perform a pushup, but hold your body in the down position for 3 seconds and then push your body back up explosively.

Isometric Reverse Lunge and Press
Expert

Isometric reverse lunge and press
Do a reverse lunge, but after you lower your body, pause for 3 seconds. Then press both dumbbells above your shoulders. Lower them and return to a standing position, and repeat with your other leg. That’s 1 rep.

Isometric Elevated-Feet Inverted Row
Expert

Isometric elevated-feet inverted row
Perform an elevated-feet inverted row. But after you pull your chest to the bar, pause for 3 seconds at the highest point. Lower your body and repeat.

Isometric Goblet Squat
Expert

Isometric goblet squat
Perform a goblet squat, but pause for 3 seconds at the lowest point of your squat. Then push back up to the starting position and repeat.

Wikio

Wikio

7 Muscle-Building Mistakes to Avoid

By: Myatt Murphy

You’ve put in the time. The sweat. Maybe the tears when you don’t see results. Quit blubbering. It’ll be fine.

Entering the weight room is the first step toward building muscle, but it’s not the last. What you do before, during, and after a workout can either negate your hard work or elevate your growth to a new level.

“Your personal habits, your social life, even which exercises you choose to do can take away from what you’re trying to build,” says Jeff Bell, C.S.C.S., an exercise physiologist and the owner of Spectrum Wellness in New York City. Bell and other experts helped us pinpoint seven factors that sabotage results. “Add them up and they could be why your muscles have nothing to show for all your time served,” Bell says.

Eliminate these seven saboteurs, then watch your muscles grow—with nothing holding them back.

Skipping Basics
Plenty of lifters believe that doing isolation exercises like chest flies and leg extensions is the only way to make their muscles grow. But basic moves such as bench presses and squats force several muscle groups to work together, imposing more stress on your body for bigger gains.

“Your body reacts to all that stress by having the anterior pituitary gland issue more growth hormone to compensate for the extra effort,” says Allen Hedrick, C.S.C.S., head strength-and-conditioning coach at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Of course you need variation, but don’t abandon basic moves in favor of intermediate isolation exercises.

Fix it: Write down the exercises in your routine to see what percentage of them are compound moves. “If it’s not in the range of at least 40 to 50 percent, then you’re doing too many isolation exercises,” says Bell.

Lunchtime Hoops
Playing sports too often can sidetrack your muscle-growth goals. Muscles typically need 48 hours of rest to adapt to the stresses placed on them during exercise. “Engaging in extra activity also makes your body more likely to use any excess calories it has for fuel, and not for rebuilding itself,” says Bell.

Fix it: “Pull your cardiovascular activity back to the bare minimum—20 minutes, three times a week—to see what effect it has on your body,” Bell says. If cardio is indeed stealing your muscle, you should begin to notice strength improvements—being able to lift more weight or complete more repetitions—within 2 to 3 weeks. If your primary goal is to increase muscle size and strength, and not necessarily to build your overall health, try pulling back further. Can’t miss a game? During your workout, ease up on the muscles you use most in your extra activity so they have more time to recover.

Smoking and Drinking
You know smoking is stupid. You know you’re gambling with cancer, stroke, and other health issues. But did you know you’re also sabotaging your strength training?

“Smoking places carbon monoxide in your system, which prevents your muscles from getting as much oxygen to use for energy,” says Scott Swartzwelder, Ph.D., a clinical professor of medical psychology at Duke University. “The less oxygen your muscles have to draw from, the less efficient they are at contracting, which can limit their capacity for work.”

As for alcohol, it can cover your abs with a layer of lard and interfere with hormones that help build them. “Drinking alcohol on a regular basis can also keep your testosterone levels lower than usual and decrease muscle mass,” says Swartzwelder.

Fix it: Quit smoking, and don’t worry about becoming a cold-turkey butterball. “Getting in at least 30 minutes of exercise three or four times a week not only helps control body weight, but can also produce positive psychological effects that might diminish the need to smoke,” says Swartzwelder. Drinking moderately (two drinks or less per day) won’t harm testosterone levels and can actually improve your cardiovascular health, he says.

Starvation
You need to eat after your workout. Right after a session, your body is hustling to convert glucose into glycogen so your muscles can repair themselves and grow. “If you don’t eat after exercise, your body breaks down muscle into amino acids to convert into glucose,” says John Ivy, Ph.D., chairman of kinesiology at the University of Texas.

Fix it: After you work out, eat a high-carbohydrate meal—and don’t forget the protein. A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that a four-to-one carbohydrate-to-protein ratio can provide 128 percent greater muscle-glycogen storage than a high-carbohydrate drink alone. (They used Endurox R Recovery Drink in the study.) For even greater results, have a sports drink before and during exercise.

Craig Ferguson
If you don’t get enough deep sleep, your muscles can’t recover. Moreover, says Catherine Jackson, Ph.D., chairwoman of the department of kinesiology at California State University at Fresno, when you work out on insufficient sleep, you exercise at a lower intensity than you realize—but you feel as if it’s high. So your muscles are less likely to receive enough stress to grow.

Fix it: Go to bed and wake up at set times every day, even on weekends, to keep your sleep cycles regular. Avoid caffeine—and perhaps exercise—for 4 to 6 hours before bedtime. Elevating your heart rate before bed can interfere with sleep, Jackson says.

Sugar
Sugary drinks like soda can fool your body with a blood-sugar spike, making you prone  to skip “other, nutrient-dense foods you could be eating,” says Bell. If your sugar habit limits your intake of muscle-building amino acids, it will sap the fuel you need for your workouts, says New York City-based celebrity trainer Steve Lischin, M.S., C.P.T.

Fix it: Water and low-sugar sports drinks are your best bets. But sugar hides elsewhere. “Watch out for dried fruits, certain nutrition bars, and even ketchup,” Lischin says.

Thirst
For the active man, eating about a gram of protein for every 2.2 pounds of body weight helps build muscle—if the protein is processed correctly. “A high-protein meal has a slight diuretic effect,” says Lischin. When the body uses protein for energy, it has to remove the nitrogen component of the molecule to turn it into glucose. “This requires plenty of water,” he says.

Fix it: Drink eight to 10 glasses of water a day and divide your protein among five or six small meals throughout the day. “Eating an average of 25 to 30 grams each meal is ideal,” says Lischin. “Not only will you put less stress on your kidneys, but you’ll also utilize more of the protein you’re ingesting by giving your body only as much as it can use each time.”

Wikio

Wikio

8 Weight-Lifting Fixes for More Muscle

By: Charles Staley
I’m a sports-performance coach. For 20 years, I’ve been hanging around in gyms, coaching thousands of football, basketball, and track-and-field athletes on how to build muscle and lose weight. I show up before the gym rats and leave after they jump ship. And that means I’ve seen every mistake that is humanly possible to make. Stupid mistakes. Dangerous mistakes. And maybe worst of all, time-wasting mistakes.

Time is always a crucial factor, whether a guy is trying to survive training-camp cuts or hustling back to the office before the boss puts him in for the next round of layoffs. Save a minute, add more muscle. It’s a principle you can build on.

Here are the most common mistakes I see in the gym. Let this be the last time I warn you.
You Don’t Use a Training Log
It’s hard to break records that don’t exist. So invest in a clipboard. Then focus on lifting more total weight each workout. It’s the key to building muscle. Here’s how: Multiply the amount of weight you lift for each exercise by the total number of times you lift it. Then increase that number every workout by moving heavier weights, increasing your repetitions, or doing more sets. So if in your last workout you did three sets of 10 repetitions of the bench press with 150 pounds, your total to beat is 4,500. Accomplish that goal by doing four sets instead of three, 11 repetitions instead of 10, 155 pounds instead of 150, or a combination of the three.

Beginners take note: Training logs aren’t just for the big fellas. In a 2002 study, YMCA researchers found that 70 percent of exercisers who set goals stuck with their programs for the entire year. By contrast, three-quarters of those who didn’t set goals dropped out.
You Try Too Hard
Working your muscles to failure—the point at which you absolutely can’t do another repetition—isn’t the best way to get bigger and stronger. As your muscles fatigue, they use fewer fast-twitch fibers, which have the greatest potential for size and strength gains. For most exercises there’s an easy fix: You can simply use a weight that allows you to finish all of your repetitions.

But body-weight exercises like chinups don’t allow that luxury. The solution: Cut your repetitions in half and double the number of sets you do. So if you can do only three sets of four chinups, you’ll switch to six sets of two repetitions. That way, the total number you do is the same as in your typical three sets of four, but you’ll focus your training where it counts the most—on those fast-twitch muscle fibers.
You Have a Big Ego
Don’t feel terrible if you’re guilty of trying to lift more weight than you can handle. It’s a product of our natural inclination to be better than the other guy. (If we can’t have his job, his house, or his car, we can at least outlift the smug bastard.) But the only way heavy weights benefit your end goal is if you lift them with perfect form. Item #5, on the next page, describes a few of the signs that you’re working with more weight than you can handle. Some less obvious clues:

You can’t perform an exercise through its full range of motion. For instance, on a squat, you know you should lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor. But if you’re using too much weight, you don’t dare go down that low for fear of getting stuck, so you stop halfway and then return to the starting position.

You can’t do your entire set without the help of a spotter. You should always have one on hand for your maximum-weight sets, but he’s there for safety, not to actually help you perform your repetitions.

You can’t hold on to the bar without wrist straps. Straps are effective if you use them occasionally, but many men use them on all their sets to mask weak grip strength. You’re better off using weights you can hold without assistance, and forcing your grip strength to improve along with muscle size and strength. Trust us: Lift without straps and soon you’ll be lifting more than you ever could with them.

Your lower back arches like a sapling in a windstorm on bench presses and arm curls.

Universal ego-fixing drill: Once a month, do 10 sets of a single repetition of an important exercise such as the bench press, squat, or deadlift. Use about two-thirds of the maximum weight you’re capable of lifting on that exercise. If possible, have a trainer or knowledgeable friend evaluate your form. Strive for perfection on each repetition. Once perfect form for that exercise becomes second nature to you, you’ll reap greater gains—with fewer injuries—from your normal workouts.

You Do the Same Old Exercises
Muscles get bigger and stronger when they’re challenged with new exercises and techniques. And yet gyms are filled with guys who are still doing the same exercises they learned in their first workout program—no matter whether they learned them 2 months or two presidential administrations ago. Chances are, their muscles stopped responding to the exercises halfway through Paula Jones’s deposition.

All exercises have an expiration date. A general guideline: If an exercise uses more than one joint (for example, the bench press uses the shoulders and elbows; the squat uses the hips and knees), you can do it for 8 weeks before you should switch to another exercise for the same muscles. If it involves a single joint (biceps curl, triceps pushdown, lateral raise), find a substitute after just 4 weeks.

Below are some popular exercises and good substitutes (find exercise descriptions at www.menshealth.com).

If you’ve been doing . . . Leg press
Switch to . . . Squat
And then to . . . Wide-stance squat

If you’ve been doing . . . Leg curl
Switch to . . . Romanian deadlift
And then to . . . Good morning

If you’ve been doing . . . Deadlift
Switch to . . . Sumo deadlift
And then to . . .Snatch-grip deadlift

If you’ve been doing . . . Barbell bench press
Switch to . . . Incline or decline bench press
And then to . . . Wide-grip or close-grip bench press

If you’ve been doing . . . Lat pulldown
Switch to . . . Pullup or chinup
And then to . . . Wide-grip, close-grip, neutral-grip (palms facing each other), or weighted pullup or chinup

If you’ve been doing . . . Arm curl
Switch to . . . Preacher curl or incline curl
And then to . . . Wide-grip or narrow-grip curl

If you’ve been doing . . . Triceps extension
Switch to . . . Overhead triceps extension (French press)
And then to . . . Incline or decline triceps extension

You Use Incorrect Form
Quit flexing. Mirrors are in gyms for a reason, but not that reason. They’re the easiest way for you to monitor your form and avoid injury. Three signs you’re doing an exercise wrong:

The barbell isn’t parallel to the floor. If it’s tilted to one side, you’re applying more force with one arm or leg than the other. Keep your movement precise and consistent throughout each repetition—as if you were performing each exercise on a machine.

Your lower back is rounded. This isn’t a mistake in all exercises (you have to round your back to do most abdominal exercises properly), but it shouldn’t happen during squats, deadlifts, or rows.

Your torso sways forward and back. On power exercises—deadlifts, squats, cleans—your torso needs to move. But if you sway like a mast on the Edmund Fitzgerald while doing curls, rows, or presses, you’re doing something wrong (see #3 for the most likely explanation).

You Run Too Much
A little running—about 20 minutes on the days following your weight-lifting sessions—can help you recover from your workouts faster. But a lot of running can prevent your body from gaining muscle and strength. One possible reason: Running damages your lower-body muscles, and exercise-induced muscle damage significantly decreases leg strength, according to a 2002 study published in the Journal of Sports Science.

Don’t run or cycle the day before a weight workout in which you plan to work your leg muscles.

You can do a light run the day after a leg workout to help speed recovery and reduce muscle soreness, but a hard run will probably undo the benefits of the weight workout.

Don’t train for a triathlon or marathon while you’re trying to build serious muscle and strength. You can train for both endurance and strength throughout the year, but not at the same time.

You Warm Up on a Treadmill
For most men, warming up means running on a treadmill or pedaling an exercise bike. But that 10-minute aerobic workout only prepares the muscles of your lower body to lift.

A better way to warm up—especially when you’re crunched for time—is to focus on the specific muscles you’ll be using in your weight workout. Try this quick three-set routine. For your lower body, warm up with squats. For your upper body, use a combination of bench presses and rows. Start with a weight that you figure you can lift 15 to 20 times, but perform only six repetitions. Wait 30 seconds, increase the weight to an amount you can lift just 10 to 15 times, and do four repetitions. Rest again, increase the weight to an amount you can lift five to 10 times, and do two repetitions.

You Play to Your Strengths
It’s human nature to spend more time on the muscles that work best–a dangerous mistake, as it happens. A 2002 study found that 70 percent of men with recurrent hamstring injuries suffered from muscle imbalances between their quadriceps and hamstrings—the muscles of the front and back of the thighs. After correcting the imbalances with equal training for both areas, every man in the study went injury-free for the entire 12-month follow-up.

Use the general guidelines below to check your muscle balance. The strength ratio for each set of muscle groups represents the amount of weight that the first muscle group should be able to lift compared with the second muscle group. If one group is proportionally weaker than it should be, you have to hit it first in your workouts until it catches up.

Muscle group: Quadriceps (front of thighs)
Opposing muscle group: Hamstrings (back of thighs)
Ideal strength ratio: 3:2
Sample exercises: Leg extension, leg curl
Sample weights (lb): 90:60

Muscle group: Biceps
Opposing muscle group: Triceps
Ideal strength ratio: 1:1
Sample exercises: Arm curl, triceps extension
Sample weights (lb): 45:45

Muscle group: Front shoulders
Opposing muscle group: Rear shoulders
Ideal strength ratio: 2:3
Sample exercises: Cable front raise, cable bent-over rear-shoulder raise
Sample weights (lb): 20:30

Muscle group: Internal shoulder rotators
Opposing muscle group: External shoulder rotators
Ideal strength ratio: 3:2
Sample exercises: Cable internal rotation, cable external rotation
Sample weights (lb): 30:20

http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/get_more_muscle/index.php?cm_mmc=BONL-_-2010_Oct_20-_-HTML-_-dek

Wikio

Wikio