Build Muscle Mass, Gain Strength, and Lose Fat with Project Physique » Exercises

Build Bigger Biceps

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:57:53 +0000

Picture your arms, specifically your biceps busting the short sleeve of an extra large t shirt as you give a double back biceps pose. Chances are if you’re reading this article, you may not have the massive biceps and peaked yt with some time, dedication, and lots of effort and training you can beef up tose flat bis to impress Jane from next door and turn heads at the beach

Bicep training seems to be a lost art one by since the days of Larry Scott and Vince Gironda. Walk into the gym and rarely will you see a guy with biceps that stand out. Most guys who train the “mirror” muscles will do dozens of high repetition sets of concentration curls, barbell curls, dumbbell curls, you name it. Endless sets and reps of curls and they still don’t have biceps that make you jealous.

Doing curls alone just isn’t going to cut it. If only curls worked by itself, we’d all be sporting 20 inches pythons. There are 4 sure-fire tactics to help you build bigger biceps. Use them in your bodybuilding program and you’ll guarantee yourself results. Biceps can be a very stubborn muscle group if you don’t know how to train it and make it grow the right way.

Eat More

Eating big to get big still holds true, true for any body part of muscle group. The body likes to grow proportionately with weight gain. Rarely will you see a 225 lbs plus at 10% bf or under with small biceps. From thousands of empirical case studies and evidence and bodybuilding observations, it’s estimated that for every 10 lbs of muscle you gain, you will gain a 3/4 to an inch on your arms. And since about 2/3 of your arm is triceps, that translates into a 1/3 to 1/4 inch on your biceps for every 10 lbs of muscle gain.

You can’t grow bigger muscles if you’re not gaining muscle weight. And to gain muscle weight you’ll have to eat a lot. And you want to gain weight if you’re not eating enough for that calories surplus.

Get Stronger

What makes your muscles grow in the first place? What is the stimulus or drives of growth for any muscles of the body? Microtrauma, and to create microtrauma you have to lift weights. The connection between muscle growth and light weight boils down to how much microtrauma you can create in a given workout. The stronger you are, the heavier the weights you can handle, and the more microtrauma you create for muscle growth.

Now, in science speak, this process isn’t exact. Take a look at the real world. How many guyys you see who can bench 400 plus pounds and have small arms and chest? On the contrary, have you seen a 130 lbs. kidwith hardly any muscle deadlift or squat 500 plus pounds?

Greater strength, more muscle built. You have to have the strength foundation to build more muscle. More muscle results in greater strength gains. Greater strength gains results in more muscle built. One condition would not exist without the other. Even pure neural training with powerlifting techniques and programs have their limit.

So the bottom line is that if you want big biceps muscles, you have to get stronger. If you can strap 2 45 lbs plates to your waist and do 10 reps of chinups or pullups on multiple sets, do you think you will still have small biceps?

Focus on Back Exercises

This goes back to getting stronger with chinups, pullups, and deadlifts. In all back lifts, your biceps come heavily into play. Take the barbell row for example. When you pull the bar up to your stomach, you recruit your biceps, especially if you’re using an underhand grip. Any movement that involves you to pull your body or a weight resistance up recuits the bicep muscles, like chinups, pullups, deadlifts.

Work up to using heavy weights with these compound back movements and your biceps will grow,

Here are some of the best pulling exercises,

barbell and dumbbell rows, both overhand and underhand grip

chinups and pullups, do them weighted, on rings and on ropes

upright rows,

deadlift

Exercise variations, include curls

Putting it together

So now you know that you have to get stronger and use compound back lifts that involves both the back and biceps in a pulling motion, you need to know how to put together a bicep routine with that basic framework. Here are the rules,

Put focus on barbell or dumbbell rows, chose 1 main movement, 4 sets of 5-8 reps, then pick 2 supplementary exercises like barbell and db curls, 2-3 sets of 10-12,

if setting a body part split routine, work the back and biceps together on its own day.

focus on weight progression (link) and give example,

this covers all bases of strength foundation and rest pause (link to shock article) and post fatigue, give examples of both, use shock techniques only once a week,

use exercise variations to rotate different exercise when you hit a plateau

Eventually your back and biceps will get bigger and stronger. Your work capacity will increase. This means that you can work biceps more often for even more growth. The results are compounded.

Build Bigger Chest Muscles

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:57:04 +0000

Building a bigger chest seems to be a problem for a lot of people who have much stronger triceps or shoulders. Often the tris and shoulders overpower the chest muscles in compound pushing lifts like bench press and dumbbell press. If you’re tricep dominant, those muscles will tire out first before your chest muscles are sufficiently stimulated.

Instead, your pecs are under-stimulated. It’ll always be lagging behind your shoulder and triceps. And that’s not what you want to happen if you’re looking to build a bigger chest.

One solution is to use the post fatigue super sets (see shock article). Using post-fatigue super sets, you’ll combine a compound and isolation exercise together. You’ll do the compound lift first, then apply a chest-specific isolation lift that limits the shoulders and triceps to further work your chest in creating more microtrauma. The compound lift will leave some fresh muscle fibers needing more work.

The idea is to recruit more muscle fibers. More recruitment and activation means ore muscles worked, more growth. The compound lift will leave some fresh muscle fibers needing more work. And that’s where the isolation exercise comes in.

Combine a low rep and high rep approah. For example,

flat barbell bench press 3 sets of 6-8 reps

dumbbell flies 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Do one set of bench press first, then immediately more to dumbbell flies, without taking more than 20 seconds of rest, and crank out a set of 10-12 reps. Do 2-4 sets of this once a week and you will start seeing better gains.

Mix this with other body parts of do it on its own chest day, if you’re on a body part split program.

Use heavier weights

weight progression but cycle weights down and up

ex of weight cycling

recommend picking up pavel PTP for examples of different weight and load progression schemes with cycling, includes linear cycling, step cycling, ladder cycling

The approach of cycling weights is old school lifting, getting back to basics. A lot of muscle and strength is basically built through generations with this type of lifting.

Use dumbbells instead of babells

Exercise variation is important. Even with using weight progression as a means of progressive overload, there will come a time where you will stop getting stronger and plateau. The solution would be to swap exercises.

Use different exercises or variations of the main movements. Use dbs instead of barbells. You can do bench preses with 2 dumbbells instead of an olympic barbell. Here’s a list of the alternate list,

db bench press in flat, incline, decline positions

single arm db press- increases core balance and stresses the stabilizer muscles. You will find you will be able to handle more weight.

Build Bigger Leg Muscles

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:55:14 +0000

More than half of all lifters and gym-goers never train or work their legs in the gym. If your primary goal is to build massive amounts of muscle, then you have got to train your legs, specifically your entire lower body. This includes abs, lower back, quads/thighs, hamstrings, and calves. The single squat movement works over 200 muscles in the body. You’ll be neglecting half your body if you don’t train your legs. Build muscle in your legs and you’ll bump up in body weight.

Leg training also stimulates more natural growth hormones, HGH release, and that allows you to build more muscle all over your body. This is where the idea of squats building biceps comes from.

Don’t be one of those guys in the gym who only does bench press and curls. Train your legs. Train your entire body as a single unit. So here are 3 rules to pay attention to if you want to build bigger legs and gain lower body strength,

1) Use Compound Exercises

These exercises include squats, deadlift, and their variations. Here’s a list of what I believe to be the most effective lower body exercises for building muscle and strength,

squats, hack squats, db squats, box squats, front squat, single leg squat

deadlift, stiff leg deadlift, rack deadlift, sumo deadlift, trap-bar deadlift, suitcase deadlfit, dumbbell deadlift

glute ham raises

leg press

Your leg routine, if you’re relatively new to lifting, should focus on either the squat or deadlift.

2) Progressive Overload

Like any exercise or workouts you do, you have to progressively overload your body and make your body work harder and harder over a period of time (see progressive overload article). The best way to do this is to use repetition and weight progression. Let’s take the squat as an example,

Starting weight at 150 lbs or squat for 2 sets of 5-8 reps. Your goal is to get both sets of 8 reps using rep progression first with 5 reps being the minimum, then increase the weight by 5 lbs through weight progression and work your way back up to 8 reps for both sets.

workout 1- 150 lbs 8, 6

workout 2- 150 lbs 8, 7

workout 3- 150 lbs 8, 8, you did 2 sets of 8, now add 5 lbs or the next workout

workout 4- 155 lbs 8, 6

workout 5- 155 lbs 8, 7

workout 6- 155 lbs 8, 8

So in 6 workouts you went from 150 lbs with 8, reps to 155 lbs with 2 sets of 8. This is just a hypothetical example and your workouts might not go as smoth since you might hit a stumbling block and it might take you a little longer than 5 workouts to add 5 lbs to the bar. But the idea is the same. Use both weight and repetition progression for your lower body workouts.

Repetition Schemes

And you can take the progressive overload methods and use it with multiple rep ranges. If you’ve just starting out, go with 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps or 10-12 rep schemes. Then when you’ve adapted to the exercises, us ea heavier 5-8 or even 3-5 rep range.

A common but basic program used to build up the legs and lower body is the 5×5 program (link to 5×5 article) since each day focuses on squats and deadlift.

Build a Thicker and Wider Back

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:54:24 +0000

Most casual lifters don’t spend the same amount of time training their back then they do their chest and biceps. And that’s a big mistake if you want a proportional muscular body because an impressive wide and thick back..It increases your chest circumference measurements and gives you that “power” look from the side and back. You don’t have to walk around flaring your arms out anymore if you have a decent-sized back to match your chest proportionately. So learn how to train it correctly and build a bigger back.

The back muscles comprise of 3 main sections; Latissimus Dorsi (middle back), Trapezius, and Rhomboids. Together they are responsible for the pulling motion of resistance through your arms as the primary extension involved. So when you do a dumbbell or barbell rows, you are really pulling the weight over a distance. Your biceps activate and contract to initiate the pulling movement over that distance and the back bears the brunt of the load as the primary mover, when the exercise is done correctly.

So training the back and biceps isn’t mutually exclusive. This is why it’s recommended you build up to using the big poundages with back compound lifts if you want bigger biceps (see bigger biceps article). And if you’ve paid attention to the body part series, you will know to focus on compound lifts.

There are 2 different types of back exercises, categorized into vertical pull and horizontal pull back exercises.

Vertical Pull

Vertical pull are exercises that involves you to pull the weight while standing up or hanging in a vertical position from a bar or lever. The exercises include

upright rows

chinups and pullups

lateral pulldown

deadlift

You will find that you’re able to handle less weight with these movements because you have no platform or weight bench to support your body. Your body is the support itself. Deadlifts, chinups and pullups can also be considered full body movements.

Horizontal Pull

Horizontal pulling exercises require bending over or lying on a support, like a weight bench, or being suspended horizontally with rings, so the torso is parallel or near parallel to the floor. Exercises include,

dumbbell and barbell rows

t-bar rows

bench rows

body rows on rings

These 8 exercises are the primary horizontal pull and vertical pull lifts for getting a bigger and thicker back. Your back routine should consist primarily of these main movements or variations of these lifts for building a strong and muscular back. Use different rep schemes within the bodybuilding ranges, 5-8 reps and 8-12 reps. Alternate reps of 5-8, 8-10, and 10-12 reps and even going heavier to 3-5 reps on occassion through different training cycles.

Use shock techniques (see shock article). Use controlled and good form. Lift explosively on the concentric or “up” phase but keep it controlled on the eccentric or “down” phase of any back lift. Focus on squeezing and contracting your back muscles as you pull up.

Progressive Overload

The back responds very well to heavy weights. Look up to barbell rowing with good form using 300 lbs or deadlifting 400 lbs and I guarantee you’ll have a big back to match your strength.

How to Lose Body Fat with the 100 Burpees Challenge

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:39:40 +0000

If your goal is to lose fat, improve fitness level, get fit, look no further than the workout I’m about to reveal. You might be struggling to find a good exercise training method for how to lose body fat in the most efficient way possible.

The most simple exercise method, from my experience, to lose fat easily is to tackle the 100 burpees challenge, recenlty popularized and “rediscovered” by the highly regarded trainer Ross Enamait from Rosstraining.com. The challenge is short, brief, and lasts no more than 10-15 minutes. You can definitely get a lung-busting, fat burning workout in a short amount of time without all the high tech exercise machines and equipment you see at the gym. Weight loss is easy if you make it out to be easy.

Burpees

Burpees are one of many different body weight exercises that can be done anywhere to lose fat. They are highly effective at targeting your fat burning zone since you’ll be training in intervals. We’ll apply high intensity interval training with body weight movements like burpees for maximum fat loss. If you doubt the effectiveness of body weight movements, then do this experiment.

Drop down on the floor and crank out pushups, chinups, and crunches and situps back to back without any rest periods of pauses between each exercise, all to positive failure (failure means do as many continuous reps as you can until you can’t do another one). Better yet, set a time of 10 minutes for each exercise and do as many reps as you can in the alloted time. Break it down into sets. Minimize the rest to no more than 30 seconds between sets. I bet you’ll have a much different view of simple bodyweight workouts.

Here’s a step-by-step rundown of executing a burpee:

1) Stand erect with both feet (in shoulder width position) planted on the floor, squat down with your fingers touching the floor.

2) Kick your legs back as if you’re doing a squat thrust and put palms on the floor. Now you’re in the up or top position of a pushup. Keep your back straight.

3) Now do a pushup. Press down until upper arms are parallel or near parallel to the floor, then press up. That’s one pushup.

4) As you press up, kick your feet back to the starting position from step 1. Now squat up and jump in one dynamic and fluid motion. Just as high as you can in place. You may either keep your arms by your side or raise them to make this portion harder.

5) Land on your feet. Do not land on your heels. Rather, shift the weight to your toes and front for your feet. This is one rep. Then return to squatting position in step 1 again and repeat the movement until desired number of reps.

The entire burpee movement has to be dynamic and very fluid without stopping along the way. However, if this is your first time learning the exercise, practice it slowly first a few times until you get the hang of it. Then speed it up.

You can even bring your arms overhead rather than keeping them by your side to make the exercise more difficult.

Quality over Quantity

Always think quality over quantity. When all else fails, take a minimalist and no-nonsense approach to training. Don’t underestimate burpees. Now here’s the 100 burpees challenge in detail.

Your goal is to perform 100 reps of burpees as fast as you can with as little rest as possible. You’ll minimize the rest periods. Break the routine down into sets of 5, 10, 12, 15 or whatever amount of reps you can choose or handle. You could do something like 6 reps, 6 reps, 6 reps, 6 reps, 6 reps, then 4 reps, 4 reps, 4 reps, 4 reps, 4 reps, then 10 reps, 10 reps, 10 reps, 10 reps, 10 reps. That’s 100 total reps.

Let’s say you rest 30 seconds between each of those sets. You’ve got a fat burning workout right there that will help you lose weight and lose fat. But your main goal is to complete all 100 repetitions fast, preferably in under 10 minutes. When you first start out, you’ll likely go over 20 minutes as you body isn’t conditioned enough to handle the increased work capacity. But over time, you level of condition and interval fitness will improve allowing you to finish the workout in under 10 minutes.

The interval , “lose fat” element comes into play when you break down the workout in successive sets of 5, 7, 10, etc. You’re alternating a high work rate with short rest periods to keep the heart rate high. This increases and raises metabolism post workout for up to 49 hours, much more so than traditional steady state or slow cardio, despite burning less calories.

Here’s a video of an 8-year old doing the 100 burpees challenge,

Use Good Form

Use good form on burpees. Don’t bounce on the pushup portion or cheat yourself by not jumping high. Check out bodybuilding.com’s exercise database for a demonstration of the burpees or go to Ross’ site at Rosstraining.com for a video demonstration. You can also look up their articles database on how to lose body fat.

100 burpees looks and sounds easy but don’t trust me on word-of-mouth. It’s one of the best fitness exercise workouts at home that gets really addicting. It is an exceptional workout that shows you how to lose fat the correct way with high intensity interval workouts. Get training.

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a message below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

How the heck does this guy drop below 4% bodyfat without drugs or supplements?

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder who regularly competes at 4% bodyfat and below. The fact is, there are probably very few people who truly understand fat loss better than Tom does, simply because he doesn’t just research it or write about it – he lives it! (and has the ripped abs to prove it!)

What Tom reveals in his best-seller e-book, Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle, is essential knowledge if you want to get really, really lean, and until you understand these principles, you can’t even hope to get lean enough to see your abs – which is what we all want right? Find out how it’s done by visiting Tom’s website at:

www.burnthefat.com

Build Muscle Fast with Compound Weight Lifting Exercises

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:58:40 +0000

Your bodybuilding program should revolve around compound movements if you want to gain muscle mass and build muscle fast. Compound lifts are multi-joint exercises that work 2 or more muscle groups at a time. Isolation exercises don’t involve multiple major muscle groups to a great extent. They are secondary lifts that should be used only if you have the compound weight lifting exercises in place as the main priority and staple of your program.

photo credit: jontunn

Compound exercises include the basic lift along with it’s many variations. You get more bang for the buck and save time when focusing solely on compound lifts to gain muscle mass. Few people have time to do dozens of different exercises for the entire body, especially if the goal is to build muscle or lose fat fast.

Here’s a list of the best compound movements and their corresponding muscles worked:

Squats, front squats, hack squats, single legged squats/pistols: quads, hamstrings, core abs/lower back, traps

Deadlift, stiff legged deadlift, hack deadlifts, rack deadlifts, one arm deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts, dumbbell deadlifts, one-arm deadlifts with dumbbell or barbell: traps, entire back, core/abdominals, quads, hams, forearms, biceps

Bench Press, dumbbell bench press )decline, flat, incline variations), floor presses, close grip bench press, bent presses: core abs/lower back, shoulders, grip forearms, triceps, chest

dumbbell and barbell lunges: legs, hip, core/abs, calves

Military press with barbell or dumbbells, arnold presses: shoulders, traps, chest, grip forearms, core

Dips: triceps, chest, shoulders

Chinups and pull-ups: back, biceps, traps, grip forearms

Clean and Press with barbell or dumbbell: forearms, traps, back, shoulders, quads, hip

For a comprehensive list, descriptions, and illustrated guide of the best compound weight lifting exercises for gaining muscle mass and building muscle fast, I recommend picking up Stuart McRobert’s “Insider’s Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique: Illustrated Step-by-step Guide to Perfecting Your Exercise Form for Injury-free Maximum Gains.”

Bodybuilding.com also offers an exercise database of over 300 weight lifting exercises at its main site.

Bodybuilding.com Exercise Database

Now the reasons for prioritizing compound lifts are many:

1) The core strengthens with compound lifts resulting in a more productive and tougher body for gaining muscle mass.The muscles of the body don’t work individually. In fact, there are really no true isolation exercise because the muscles of the body are all interconnected when contracting and relaxing for a given movement.

For example, take a handball or barbell and squeeze your fist hard around it and look at your biceps. Your biceps are contracted while you’re working the grip and forearms. The body works as one unit rather than a collection of individual parts.

And once you have a decent base of strength, you’ll build and gain muscle mass fast.

2) Translates into real-life situations with increase in pulling and pushing strength to gain muscle mass.You push and pull a lot in daily life.Compound lifts are push and pull exercises with resistance.

3)Saves time if youre a busy professional while constrained of time.There is no need for isolation exercises to work each muscle group separately when you can work multiple muscles with just one exercise.In fact, deadlifts and squats are full body movements.You can get a good workout with just that two exercise alone every other day.For an example of a two exercise workout for strength and muscle, check out Pavel’s “Power to the People” book.

4)Burns more calories since multiple muscles are being worked at the same time. You expend more energy so this is also great for fat loss regimens along with a balanced diet( slight calorie deficit) and preserves muscle mass.Heavy, prolonged dieting may cause significant muscle loss.You’ll just be a smaller version of your former flabby self.

5)Stabilizer muscles, tendons, ligaments, and connective tissues strengthened.Increase in bone density and improved posture.

6)Work out at home with little equipment. Compound movements don’t involve machines. You’re able to set up a home gym with just a basic barbell, weight plates, and a bench and/or rack.With just those bare essentials you can perform dozens of compound and isolation movements and have a full body workout.

Try a set of 20-reps squats and tell me it’s easier than a set of leg presses. strength training workouts with compound weight lifting exercises are highly productive at building muscle and strength. If you want to build muscle fast, throw in the compounds and don’t be lazy!

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

Feel free to contact me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, or seeking additional advice. Good luck!

How to Build Bigger Leg Muscles

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:39:41 +0000

Building up your leg muscles requires some serious heavy weights involving squats and supplementary exercises. Squats are king when it comes to building leg muscles. I’m going to show you a basic but very effective routine for beefing up your legs.

photo credit: kitAy

But first, understand that building muscle requires one to use progressively heavier and heavier weights. You will build more muscle by lifting 300 pounds than if you were lifting only 100 pounds.

Heavier weights induces more microtrauma to the muscle fibers, allowing for more growth and hypertrophy. Building bigger leg muscles or bodybuilding as a whole is not rocket science.

Lift heavy weights. Do squats. And watch your legs grow. Don’t make this any more complicated then it really is.

We’re going to take these basic fact and apply it to the routine I’m showing you here. This is the same routine that got me squatting from 225 lbs to 350 lbs in a little over 14 months. This routine will have you using one main compound lift each for the quads and hamstrings and two other accessory movements to further thrash those muscles into new growth.

Routine Structure

For the quads, you’ll do squats as the main lift along with leg extensions and leg presses and supplementaries.

For the hamstrings, you’ll do stiff legged deadlift along with lying hamstring curls and glute ham raises.

For calves, you’ll be alternating standing calf raises and sitting calf raises each week. The entire lower body will be worked once a week.

A note of caution, only attempt this routine if you’ve been lifting for at least a year with a basic strength foundation in the lower body. I recommend you be able to squat at least 185 lbs before doing this routine. This is not a program for beginners.

Here’s the routine:

Squats 3×5 (sets x reps), rest 2 minutes in between sets

Leg press 2×15 rest pause twice, rest 2 minutes in between sets

Leg extension 2×20 rest pause twice, rest 2 minutes in between sets

Stiff leg deadlift 3×5, rest 3 minutes in between sets

Glute ham raise 3×8, rest 3 minutes in between sets

Lying leg curl 3×15 rest pause twice, rest 3 minutes in between sets

standing calf raises 10 minute timed zone; do as many reps as you can in 10 minutes

sitting calf raises 10 minute timed zone; do as many reps as you can in 10 minutes

Notes

- For rest pause, you will do the required amount of reps, then take either 15 deep slow breaths or 20 seconds rest and crank out a few more reps, rest again briefly and crank out more reps to positive failure. Rest pause saves time and adds total volume efficiently by increasing work rate and allowing your body to adapt to higher training stresses. You’ll become stronger and more efficient at recruiting motor units for bigger leg muscles.

- Increase the rest periods for straight sets if you can’t complete the required number of reps with the given exercise, this applies especially true to squats and stiff legged deadlifts since they’re very neural intensive and requires ample time to fully recover in between sets.

- For calves, alternate between standing and sitting raises each week; for example, on week 1 you will start with standing version, on week 2 change to sitting variation, record the number of reps you do each week and try to beat that number every workout.

-Use progressive overload by lifting heavier and heavier weights, you may use any method of progression here though that involves the manipulation of load: microloading, cycling load.

* microloading: increase a small amount of weight, about 1-2.5 lbs. per week

- Alternatively, if you are short on time and can’t spend 45 minutes to an hour on this routine, you can speed up the workout time by doing each exercise in a circuit. Drop the calf raises and do 3 straight sets of 20 reps instead. Do one exercise back-to-back after another without resting, then take a 2-3 minute rest and repeat the circuit. This circuit style is based on a high intensity interval approach where you keep up a high work rate to increase work capacity.

Progressive Overload through increased loading

You’ll use what I call cycling loading: increase weight by 5 lbs. for several weeks at at a time until you reach a limit of not being able to do the required amount of repetitions in a set, then scale back to starting weight plus 5 lbs. and work your way back up to a new PR.

For example,

starting weight for squat: 100 lbs. 5×5 (sets x reps)

workout 1: 100 lbs. 5×5

workout 2: 105 lbs. 5×5

workout 3: 110 lbs. 4×5, 1×4, weights feel heavier

workout 4: 115 lbs. 4×5, 1×4, weights feel more heavier

workout 5: 120 lbs. 3×5, 2×4

workout 6: 125 lbs. 2×5, 3×3, you’ve reached the lower limit of 3 reps on a set, now time to scale back to 100 lbs. and add 5 lbs. to set starting weight, workout 7 will start with 105lbs.

workout 7: 105 lbs. 5×5 and so on working your way back up to beat the 125 lbs. personal record.

workout 8: 110 lbs. 5×5, feels really light so you’ll jump 10 pounds for next workout

workout 9: 120 lbs. 4×5, 1×4, new PR, continue adding weight for next workout

workout 10: 125 lbs. 4×5, 1×4, another new PR

And this loading cyclying method continues until you choose otherwise.

-you should be able to complete the entire workout in under 50 minutes to under an hour. If not, then you’re either resting too much in between sets, exercises, or just plain fooling around/losing focus. If you’re taking more than an hour because you need the rest, then it’s probably because you’re not ready for this routine yet and need to go back to developing a basic strength foundation on the lower body.

-every 6-8 weeks, I recommend dropping this routine and doing just one full set of 20 reps for squats. This offers a nice, low volume change to the high volume routine outlined here. Check out Dr. Randall Stroussen’s “Super Squats: How to Gain 30 pounds of Muscle in Six Weeks” for a step-by-step program on beefing up your legs and entire body with a 20 rep squat routine.

-don’t go to failure on all sets for all exercises, only attempt positive concentric failure on at most one set per exercise, going to failure too often “fries” the nerves and leaves you plateauing early and easily.

Try this workout for your next training cycle and let me hear your experiences and thoughts on it. Email me at ZQH245@gmail.com and let me know how well you do. Take care and get training!

How to Build Bigger Shoulder Muscles

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:43:25 +0000

The shoulders, made up of 3 heads — anterior (front), lateral (side), and posterior (rear), are often hit and targeted with the major upper body compound chest movements like the barbell and dumbbell bench press. The shoulders are also often overtrained when they stop growing. If you’re training the chest directly 2 or 3 times a week, you’re also bombarding the shoulders indirectly the same amount of times in the same week.

Overstimulation can lead to overuse injuries surrounding the shoulder girdle and rotator cuff region. Once you notice excessive shoulder soreness that refuses to go away or a decrease in strength on all the major shoulder lifts, it’s time to take a step back and re-examine direct shoulder training.

photo credit: ShawnHenning

All bench press-related exercises involve the front anterior head of the shoulders as a supporting muscle group through the contraction and eccentric phases. So by doing just bench presses, you’re already stimulating the front delts to a great extent, especially when heavy weights are involved. However, this doesn’t mean the front shoulders are 100% isolated with work.

Every shoulder-related exercise involves all 3 heads. The bench press places stronger emphasis on the anterior shoulder head but the rear and side heads are also stressed. They’re not neglected. Now, if you bombard your upper body with multiple horizontal pressing movements like bench presses and dumbbell presses, you can easily overtax your shoulders. Once overtained, you’d see strength and mass gains level off. You might even get weaker.

One solution is to simply reduce direct shoulder training to get shoulders growing again. This works and I’ve seen this happen before many times. It’s counterintuitive to lay off training but it’s necessary if the shoulders are overtrained for an extended period of time. The shoulders would need the resting time to catch up to the training stimulus by rebounding to a base level of strength.

The overtraining of localized muscle applies to all muscle groups of the body, not just shoulders but a reduction in volume in any muscle group might result in gains, if previously focused on a program with heavy volume; lots of sets, reps, frequency, and exercises targeting one muscle group. I recommend reducing your volume, the total amount of sets x reps, by half. So if you’re doing 4 sets of 12 for shoulder presses, try 2 sets of 12 or 4 sets of 6 instead.

However, if you want to focus your efforts on bringing up lagging shoulders or if your shoulders are generally weaker than the other muscle groups, you can throw in some direct shoulder work with compound and isolation movements. The majority of direct shoulder work should be directed by the big main compound movements.

The list includes compound and isolation lifts,

Compound movements:

standing and sitting dumbbell shoulder press

standing and sitting military barbell press

machine shoulder press

dumbbell arnold press

dumbbell and barbell clean and press

standing barbell bent press

Isolation movements:

dumbbell and barbell front raise; single or double arm with dumbbell front raise

dumbbell lateral raises; single or double arm

bent over dumbbell rear raises; single or double arm

L-Fly for rotator cuffs

cable lateral, front, and rear raises; done on cable crossover machine station

Compound lifts that indirectly work the shoulders,

barbell and dumbbell bench press; includes all variations of flat, incline, decline on bench

dips; weighted and body weight

pushups, handstand pushups and all variations including weighted variations of pushups

pullups/chinups; vertical pulling movements stress the rotator cuffs and rear shoulder region

upright rows, barbell rows, t-bar rows

*use bodybuilding.com’s exercise database for proper exercise form

To gain strength and increase muscle mass with any given exercise in a routine, you need progression/progressive overload. If you can raise 200 lbs or at least 25% plus your body weight over your head (military press), you’ve obviously already got round and big shoulders. If you can press a 100 lbs dumbbell over your head at least once, you’d have big, round shoulders.

The correlation between strength and muscle mass is not direct but the relation is still there. Strength generation and force requires a certain amount of muscle fiber filaments. If you don’t have the necessary muscle fiber cross sections, you’d be weak. Lift heavy weights to get stronger and muscle mass for a given muscle group will eventually come, provided you maintain a calorie surplus muscle building diet.

Focus on heavy weights in the 5-8 rep range, the bodybuilding range for building mass and strength. For isolation, use higher reps in the 10-15 rep range. You want to train both the type I and II, slow and fast twitch muscle fibers for both strength and endurance. If you’re prioritizing shoulders on a split routine, do shoulders first in the workout. Pay attention to good form.

Sample shoulder mass routine for strength and size,

standing military press 3×8, use 75% of 1 RM (1 RM is the most weight you can lift for 1 rep, ex. 1 RM is 100 lbs so 75% of 1 RM is 75 lbs)

dumbbell arnold press 2×12, use 70% of 1 RM

dumbbell lateral raise 2×15, use 70% of 1 RM; raise dbs to ear level, it’s not necessary to raise it any higher as full contraction is normally achieved at ear level

dumbbell bent over rear raise 2×15, use 70% of 1 RM

*rest 2-3 minutes between sets and 2-3 minutes between exercises

Another routine that I’ve personally used with great success, this one involves compound supersetting two movements,

A1- dumbbell shoulder press 6×4, 85% of 1 RM

A2- lateral raise 6×12, 75% of 1 RM

B1- standing military press 1 drop set of 10 reps, reduce weight by 20-25% each drop for 3-4 drops, see “shock methods” article

*A1/A2 are done one after another without rest, do 1 set of shoulder press followed by 1 set of lateral raise, rest 2-3 minutes and repeat

*B1 is a standalone with just 1 drop set, use 3-4 drops, for ex. 100 lbs for 10 reps, reduce to 80 lbs for 6 reps, reduce to 60 lbs for 4, reduce to 45 lbs for 3 reps

*Ensure progressive overload, proper rest, and mass eating with a calorie surplus. Shoulders are no different. They require heavy weights, progression, and a muscle building diet to grow.

*If you have pre-existing shoulder injuries, consult your doctor and therapist on the amount of weight you can handle. It is always best to start light coming off a shoulder injury and build your way back up slowly and prudently. Use good form. Avoid “humping” or swinging the weight up. There is no excuse.

On the subject of a proper muscle building diet, take nutrition very seriously because each muscle group, both small and large, grows in conjunction to bodyweight poundage gains. The body functions as one collective unit and not a serious of individual muscle parts. If your biceps are looking flat and lagging, chances are that your back isn’t growing either.

If you can barbell row 300 lbs for reps, your biceps would undoubtedly be stimulated with strength and mass gains as well. To handle the 300 lbs you’d have to be at a certain body weight with some base of musculature.

In other words, eat a surplus of calories. Eat a lot. Follow a muscle-building diet. Lift heavy weights and the muscle mass involved with pressing compound lifts will grow. Think of it this way… have you ever seen a 130 lbs guy with boulder shoulders? Do you see natural bodybuilders weighing 200 lbs with big shoulders?

So to sum up shoulder training for mass and strength, a general rule is to first reduce the training volume of direct shoulder training if they’re not responding or growing. If you’re not directly training shoulders, throw in some direct compound work. As you get stronger with the military and shoulder presses, mix in some isolation side lateral, front, and rear raises to balance out shoulder work.

Remember, you cannot effectively isolate any part of the shoulder muscle with isolation movements but you can direct more stress to certain regions. But first focus on heavy weights and form and the rest will take care of itself.

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

How to Deadlift

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:28:51 +0000

The deadlift is a full body compound weight lifting exercise (one of the big 3 lifts for powerlifters) that stresses over 80% of the body’s musculature. When done correctly, deadlifts add slabs and pounds of lean muscle mass to your body. It works the entire back, traps, forearms/grip, hamstrings, quads, biceps, and buttocks.

You involve the major large muscle groups of the body (back and legs) while recruiting the underlying stabilizer muscles to strengthen the tendons, joints, and connective tissues with the body. The deadlift is a muscle mass building movement that involves squatting and then pulling or picking up heavy weights from the ground up (a natural movement since the body is made for squatting and pulling heavy stuff, and in every day life you squat and pull/pick up stuff all the time). It will help you build lots of muscle mass and get stronger with consistent effort. You’ll need an olympic barbell with weight plates.

photo credit: Cronfield

Basic Deadlift Execution

1) Load an olympic barbell with weights and stand in front of the bar. If it’s your first time doing them, then start light or start with just the olympic bar (weighs 45 lbs). I recommend practicing proper form with just the bar to avoid risking injury. Continue practicing for a few sessions with very light weight until you have the proper form and exercise mechanics for deadlifting.

2) Bend down into the bottom of a squat position near the bar. This is the parallel position where the thighs are parallel or below parallel with the ground with eyes looking straight fixed at a single point ahead. The bar should now be near the knees and/or touching the shins at this squat position.

Next, grasp the bar with hands 3-5 inches wider than shoulder-width apart using an overhand grip. The arms should be fully extended and locked. Retract your shoulders back with a slight arch in the lower back. Keep your head straight and eyes looking slightly up.

3) At this point, the bar should be in line with your head (vertical alignment from bottom to top). Maintain a flat back with a slight arch. Do not round your back forward. You can also use chalk for a tighter grip.

Notice you’ll need a decent degree of hip and lower back flexibility for the squatting/starting position. If you can’t fully squat down and grab the bar with shoulders locked/extended, then do some static stretches for the hips and lower back.

4) In this bent-over squatting position, pull the bar up slowly and controlled by driving your legs “into the ground”. Rather, think of your legs of “driving into the ground” or “feet pressing the ground away from you (you’re increasing the distance between the ground and the bar).” Do not round your back as you pull the weight up.

Driving legs “into the ground” means that the legs should do the initial pushing as you pull the bar up. Imagine pushing your legs away from the ground to move the bar up. Throughout this positive phase, tighten your body. Again, the back should not be rounded. Squeeze the bar tightly throughout the pull for stability and tightening the grip (again chalk helps).

5) Continue pulling until you straighten the knees and contract your legs until you have the bar in standing position (step 1). Hold the bar, contract/clench the buttocks, and pause for 1 second while standing.

Your head should still be straight with eyes level or looking slightly up. Do not over arch or lean your back in this standing position. Throughout this phase, keep the arms and elbows locked straight. Do not bend the elbows or arms as if you were to barbell curl.

6) Slowly lower the bar to starting position by bending your legs and knee first. Maintain a flat back and tighten body. Do not rush lowering the weight. Start lowering the bar by bending at hips, then knees, and let the arms guide down back to the floor into the starting position.

Believe it or not, the majority of injuries resulting from deadlifting actually takes place on the lowering/eccentric portion of the lift. Lower the weight all the way down until it touches the floor while keeping the bar close to your body, knees, and shins.

7) This is one full repetition. Once the bar is on the floor, re-adjust your grip and check for a flat back, level head, and locked arms extended to continue your set until desired reps are completed.

Video Demos of Deadlift

photo credit: Cronfield

Notes:

Alternatively, you can use a variety of different grips for the deadlift. A grip variation is the mixed over/under grip where you use an overhand grip with one hand (pronated palms away) and an underhand grip (supinated palms facing you) with the other hand. Another one is the double underhand grip (both hands use the underhand supinated grip). Don’t forget to keep the elbows locked when pulling the weight. You want to keep the entire body tight and stable throughout the heavy movement. Form first, then weight.

For more detailed instructions on performing the deadlift, check out Coach Rippetoe’s 5×5 training primer, “Starting Strength“. He lays out all you need to know to execute this complex movement for strength and mass. Additionally, you can pick up the Starting Strength: Basic Barbell DVD with detailed video demonstrations of the deadlift, squat, and bench press. Finally, be sure to visit the Starting Strength Wiki page; an accompanying guide for step-by-step instructions on compound free weight movements that subscribes to the 5×5 training template.

Compound Barbell Deadlift Variations:

sumo deadlift; squat wider like a sumo wrestler and place your hands on the bar inside your thighs, here’s a video demo on proper sumo deadlift form,

rack deadlift; a very popular variation of the deadlift that many powerlifters and bodybuilders use, place the bar inside a squat rack/power cage and adjust the pins at knee level (or place the bar at knee level if you’re using an open rack/half squat rack), place the bar at the knee level and start the deadlift at this height, rack deadlifts places more emphasis on the back and traps and you’re able to pull more weight from the knee at this position, remember to use good and proper form because as you get heavier, form tends to break down naturally if you don’t pay special and extra conscious attention during the movement

dumbbell deadlift; use 2 heavy dumbbells instead of the barbell, you can use the conventional grip, mixed over/under grip, double under grip, or neutral grip where the dumbbells are held at your sides with palms facing the side

trap bar deadlift; trap bar is used placing more stress on the quads and hamstrings, using a trap bar offers those with shorter arms an advantage in pulling more weight, you’ll need a trap bar for this variation

You can pick up a trap bar at amazon.com here

stiff legged deadlift, SLDL; this variation stresses the hamstrings and lower back, ensure a slight bend from the knees, do not lock your knees for the whole movement, imagine thrusting your hips and buttocks (like you’re about to sit back) back into a sitting position, dumbbells, barbell, and kettlebells can be used

one arm deadlift; use barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell and do the movement with one arm at a time, alternate each side, extremely challenging

suitcase side deadlift; not only does this stress the back, it also targets the obliques and abdominal for maximum strength-building effectiveness, stand to the side parallel to the bar and execute the lift, alternate each side, I first learned about this variation from Pavel Tsatsouline’s “Beyond Bodybuilding” and this is an excellent variation to further challenge the body in a unilateral fashion, you can do this with a barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell as shown in the video below

over/under (alternate) grip; you could use an overhand grip with both hands, underhand grip with both hands, or over/under grip

*Don’t be afraid to use chalk for a stronger grip. Avoid using wrist wraps if you’ve just started doing deadlifts.

The deadlift is an exceptional free weight compound movement for building functional strength and muscle mass. Done for low reps, they’re excellent for mass and strength building. Done for high reps (12-20+), they’re perfect for cardiovascular conditioning and fat burning. Work them today and prepare for a tough lifting journey to a stronger and leaner body.

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

Visit the Starting Strength Wiki page for a comprehensive primer on tough, productive, and result-producing strength training for muscle and size

How to Do a Burpee

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:03:23 +0000

The burpee is a body weight exercise that works the entire body. It combines 3 different movements into one fluid exercise for a heart-pumping and head- spinning workout that builds muscular endurance, explosive power, and improves overall cardiovascular conditioning/aerobic fitness. Great for fat loss. Great when used in a GPP session. Great for recreational fitness when you have no access to a gym. This is also one of those exercises that look easy on paper and video but proves surprisingly challenging when you actually do it yourself.

photo credit: scragz

You’re squatting, jumping, and pushing up during a single burpee. You can do a burpee workout anywhere and everywhere. Check out the bodyweight exercise training primer to get a better idea of how you can mix burpees into your current body weight training program. Also, the 100 burpees workout challenge is a routine that’s powerful and minimalist (one of the core principles of ProjectPhysique.com) in helping you achieve your fitness and conditioning goals.

Here’s a 4-step rundown to performing a burpee:

Check out Ross Enamait of RossTraining.com for a video demonstration here

1) Squat all the way down until hamstrings are touching and pressed against the back of your calves (you’ll need some hip flexibility for the squatting portion). Keep your fingers on the floor. Your head and eyes should be looking straight forward or slightly down towards the floor. Relax your back (however don’t round or overextend the back or neck). This is the starting position for the movement.

2) Kick your legs back to get into a pushup position with hands/palms on the floor. Make sure the elbows are straight, extended, and fully locked to support the entire body. Again, don’t over-arch the back or flex your neck to look up like a turtle.

3) Drop down and do a full push up (upper arms should drop down until they’re parallel to the floor or past parallel for a deeper range of motion to make the movement more challenging). As you come up, kick your legs back into starting position (step 1). Keep the movement fluid and smooth. The dropdown, kickback, and pushup should be continuous without pausing for more than half a second.

4) From starting position, jump straight up in place as high as you can using your forefoot. Don’t just do a lazy hop. Really jump as high as you can (you will do this for each repetition so you can already imagine how tough the workout can be ). While in the air, the arms can be either at your side or raised high for added difficulty. For starters, keep the hands at the sides and over time, you can raise both hands. Land on the forefoot rather than the heel. Immediately as you land, squat down to get into starting position again (step 1). This is one repetition. Now repeat until you complete the desired number of reps.

The easy alternative to a burpee is the burp. If you can’t perform a full burpee, then start with the burp. The burp does not require any jumping or pushup motion. Just squat down, thrust legs back into a plank position (starting position for the pushup) and then kick legs back front again to starting position, and stand up. That completes one rep. Drop down and repeat again Over time, you’ll be able to do a complete burpee.

Burpee Demonstration

Here’s an 8-year old, Owen Isham, doing the 100-burpees challenge at Titan Fitness gym,

Burpees Variations:

burpees without doing the pushups; you can do a burpee without pressing down for the pushup portion of the movement, simply drop down, kick legs back into the starting pushup position (kick the legs front) and jump up, the form is the same as the regular burpee except for skipping the pushup

jumping distance burpee; you jump forward with each leap at the end of the movement and continue for desired distance or repetition, do this at your local football park or track field with plenty of distance and space and have a friend or training partner record the distance and time

burpee with chinup/pullup; do burpees under a bar, on the jump phase grab the bar and do a pullup/chinup, drop down and repeat the movement

burpee with muscle-up; similar to chinup/pullup except you’re combining burpee with the muscle-up movement

burpee with added resistance; use a weight vest (10-20 lbs would be ideal for most people) or ankle weights for extra loading and resistance to make the exercise harder, this can be tough on the knees, shins, and ankles so do this variation with caution

wall burpee; both feet are slammed against the wall on the pushup position, the body should face away from the wall

single pushup burpee; burpee done with a single-arm pushup; extremely challenging but is a good variation for progression if regular burpees become too easy

burpee with fist pushup; use fist placement for pushup portion

Always remember to use good and proper form for the burpee and any of its variations. Try them today and reap the results.

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com