Top Ten Safety Tips
My Top 10 Safety Tips for Weightlifting, in no particular order: Know yourself – Know your limitations. Getting bigger means constantly pushing the envelope. Add 10 lbs. more; force the last couple of reps out, pushing yourself. But, BUT…Do not try to bench 200 lbs when you could barely do 170 lbs last workout. Don’t add weights for sake of adding weights. Go for extra rep, take the strength increase gradually. Remember you are in this for the long haul. Know where you are – The gym is dangerous place. The weights and machinery can hurt you badly and in worse case scenario, ...
Home Gyms
Working out at Home Advantages – Privacy At your pace Time Focus No Waiting Disadvantages – Cost of buying everything (and some maintenance) Safety Lack of variety No camaraderie So, let’s say that you do decide to work out at home. What are you going to need? What’s your experience level? I am going to assume that you are completely new to strength training and looking to add weight and gain strength. I’m going to offer some suggestion and options for you to pick from. But if you are more intent on using a gym click here for a discussion on how to choose a gym. What you absolutely need – Think of your major ...
Third World Squat – Or How to Get the Perfect Form
by Craig Weller The sun wouldn't be up for another twenty minutes or so. But already the class was gathered under the feeble glow of a single streetlight, on a concrete slab that at one time had been the foundation of a building. It was now our gym. Piled in the red, volcanic soil off to the side was a rusty stack of weights and three Olympic bars. This was our equipment. We wouldn't need them today. Today was sandbag day. Each student, at the beginning of training, had been given a sandbag to fill with gravel. One smart-ass brought his back ...
Heavy Metals Found In Protein Shakes: Should You Stop Drinking Them?
Written by Guest Blogger: Tom Venuto An investigation on protein drinks published in the July edition of Consumer Reports magazine, which was then picked up by CBS and NPR, has been causing waves of concern or even alarm to ripple through the fitness and bodybuilding world. Supplement companies are up in arms and people are wondering whether they should stop drinking protein shakes after the magazine said they tested 15 protein drinks for heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury) and 3 of them came up above the proposed safe limits... "We purchased 15 protein powders and drinks mainly in the New ...
Food Basics 101: Your Diet Makeover
By Karen Lisa Borders, Guest Blogger While working out and transforming your body, a commonly overlooked factor is diet. Sure, working out hard will allow for some change in your physique, but the true task is to feed your body the necessities it requires for gaining lean muscle mass, decreasing body fat and keeping up the energy level for these extra activites. Now, I’m not talking about the diet you get out of a can or in a pill, or the one that limits your food choices to one food group (or one food!). I am talking about smart food choices; a ...
How to Tell if Your Exercises Suck
by Tim Henriques You know it, I know it. There's a ton of fluff out there. The fitness world is filled with gadgets and gimmicks that all promise rapid results but fail to deliver, if the ever-expanding size of the average North American's backside is any indication. Yet every year, a bunch of new toys are snatched up by well meaning trainers and fitness enthusiasts, only to be discarded or relegated to the already overcrowded basement rec room to make room for the next big thing. Most old school guys tend to be cautiously skeptical of any new equipment or methodologies that come ...
Dieting
How to Buy the Healthiest EggsHyo’s note: We buy organic, cage-free, and omega-3 enriched eggs from Costco. ...
How Do Bodybuilders And Fitness Models Get So Lean?
Q & A with Guest Blogger, Tom Venuto – The Fat Loss Guru QUESTION: “Tom,...
Egg Recall 2010 Due to Salmonella!
One of the nation’s largest egg producers is recalling 380 million eggs after being...
How To Build Muscle on a Vegetarian Diet
By Jason Ferruggia, Guest Blogger There are usually four to five reasons why someone...
Listen to Maintainers, Not to Losers: 5 secrets to keeping the weight off for good
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS I have very little interest these days in all the media-hyped...
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Living
8 Essential Life Lessons for True SuccessBy Donald Latumahina (follow me on Twitter), January 23, 2009 If you wish to succeed...
Too Busy to Work Out
One way some folks “guilt” trip a person into exercising is by saying,...
How much fat and sodium is in that thing?
Wow, I am stunned at how much we are willing to compromise for the convenience sake. ...
Back It Up Now!
Wow – here’s a cautionary tale. If you have not backup’ed your...
A Triple Baconator has What?
Wow, I have a bad vise when it comes to dieting. I love Wendy’s single bacon...
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Tips and Thoughts
Stone Cold Steve Austin WorkoutBy Jason Ferruggia, Guest Blogger Since I have told the story a few times before on my blog, people often ask me about the Stone Cold Steve Austin workout. I met Steve for the first time back in May of 1997. To make a long story short, we hit it off at a bar one night and spent six hours talking about everything you could possibly imagine. But one of...
Why Some Skinny Guys Will Always Stay Skinny
by Jason Ferrugia, Guest Blogger It’s funny, but in 2010, with all the advances in science and technology that have been made over the last few decades, an average skinny guy has far less of a chance of ever getting significantly bigger, stronger and faster than he did twenty or thirty years ago. Why? Because there is far too much information out...
5 Best Exercise Equipment Under a 100 Bucks
There are exercise equipments out there that cost upwards of $14,000. Okay, $14,000 is an insane, unless you can afford it. Actually, it’s just flat out insane, even if it works as advertised. You don’t need to spend $14,000. And you don’t need the vast majority of gimmicky exercise equipments out there. What you need is solid,...
5 Worst Exercising Gimmicks on TV
Fitness is straightforward. It’s even pretty simple. You take the 3 components of rest, nutrition, and exercise; mix it all up and you achieve your fitness goals. But one thing it is not- it is not easy. For most of us, there is no losing 50lbs in 3 months or gaining 40lbs of lean muscle in 4 months. But how would you look 25lbs lighter...
Can Older People Build Muscle?
Debunking a myth, with guidelines for safe workouts for seniors. by Martica Heaner, Q: At what age do you lose the ability to build muscle? I’m 64 years old and have been told that I’m too old to create new muscle and that all I can do is tone my existing muscles. A: You’re never too old to build muscle! And it’s crucial for older adults to...
Using the 5×5 System to Build Muscle
By Jason Ferruggia, Guest Blogger The 5×5 system is one of the oldest muscle building programs in the book and has stuck around forever. 5×5 is good and 5×5 is bad; it just depends on the situation. There are a few ways that the 5×5 muscle building system is implemented. The first way that people use the 5×5 system to build...
Want A Perfect V-Shaped Body? Change This Now…
By Jeff Anderson , Guest Blogger The “perfect body” is one that starts out wide at the top with broad, muscular shoulders and a back the size of a barn door, all leading down to a small waist. The “easiest” way to achieve this awesome “V-shape” upper body is to build more muscle mass on your lat muscles...
Unique Movements and Exercises You Should Be Doing
by Jim_Brewster, guest blogger Lately, due mainly to time constraints, I’ve had to get creative in some of my workouts as far as how I perform an exercise. Case in point, if I have 15 minutes to do a workout (sometimes I only have ten!) and it’s back day, for example, I will employ intensity techniques as well as using the basics with heavy...
Getting Strong for Everyday Living
Building muscle and getting strong is not necessarily the same thing. Notwithstanding the cast of “300,” I am guessing that not too many gladiators and Grecian warriors had bulging Pecs or wondrously sweeping Lats with mountainous peaks for biceps. More than likely, they had great shoulder girth, strong forearms, and strong core muscles...
Grip Harder and Get Stronger with a Thicker Bar
The simplest changes can have the most profound effects. In a previous article, I wrote about the importance of gripping hard. The harder the grip, the better the chances of finishing that last brutal rep. There is something about gripping hard that focuses our attention and brings everything we have to bear on the situation at time. Arnold Schwarzenegger...
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