If regular chin-ups are just getting WAY too easy for you,
THIS exercise is going to challenge you in a way that NO regular chin-up can…
The Chin-Up is, quite honestly, one of THE best exercises you can do not only for your back but for your entire body. It’s a classic bodyweight exercise that never gets old.
Now, if you’re a fan of the chin-up, THIS version of it is one you’ll LOVE. It’ll blow your lats and your biceps up like crazy!
To perform it, you should be able to do at least 8 to 10 regular chin-ups. It’s a tough exercise and requires some base chinning strength to perform.
For this one, you’ll just need a chin-up bar. I’m using the one that goes across the frame of my power rack and that works just fine.
So first, go to one end of the bar and stand perpendicular under it (NOT like you normally would directly under the bar).
Take a staggered grip on the bar (like a baseball bat grip).
Now pull yourself up to one side of the bar – the side you’ll want to pull to is the same as the hand that is FURTHEST from you. Basically, if your left hand is furthest away, pull up on the left side of the bar.
Now lower yourself down PART WAY…NOT the whole way. You should have some bend in your elbows. At this point, move your furthest hand over behind your nearest hand (hence the hand-over-hand name!).
The key here is to be sure you’ve got a bend in the elbows and tension on the lats. Because when you take one hand off, you’re basically putting your entire bodyweight (just for a moment) on the one lat. VERY big time tension here.
Once you’ve placed the hand, pull yourself up to the OTHER side. Lower yourself down, step your hand backward on the bar again. Now pull up to the other side again.
Continue along the bar until you run out of bar then go back the way you came, moving your hands forward this time. Keep going forward and backward along the bar until you can’t do any more reps.
It’s a BRUTAL back exercise that makes regular chins look like nothing. By the time you’re done, your entire back and your biceps will be so swollen full of blood, you won’t believe it. The continuous tension and bodyweight combination really makes for a potent back attack!
By Nick Nilsson
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Be sure to grab your FREE copy of Nick’s 30-day “Dirty Little Secret Program for Building Muscle and Burning Fat FAST,” available here!
Yes, it seems like such a simple thing. Now consider this…
HOW you breathe during your training can have a HUGE impact on your strength and muscle activation! Breathe wrong and you could be throwing away results.
Breathing is one THE most often overlooked pieces of the puzzle when it comes to weight training…and it can have a tremendous impact on the results you get from your training!
Here’s the thing that a lot of people don’t know about breathing…different exercises require different breathing strategies.
Yep, how you breathe in a heavy squat is not even close to how you should breathe while doing a pulldown.
So here’s a rundown of how to breathe while doing some of the more popular exercises (I will assume your form is generally good – going in depth into proper form for each exercise would make this a book instead of an article!).
** Please note, if you have high blood pressure or any issues with holding your breath (e.g. you easily get light-headed), you’ll need to adjust these breathing recommendations accordingly. These instructions (for a few of the exercises, at least) are intended for those who don’t have issues with short periods of breath holding.
1. Squats
As you start the descent, inhale deeply so that you complete the inhalation by the time you’re about halfway down. Hold your breath from this point on, all the way to the bottom and then about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way as you come back up. Then exhale until you come all the way to the top. The reason you want to hold your breath like this is to maximize the stability of your abdominal region.
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For those who work for a living, it can be extremely tough to get the 5 or 6 meals a day often recommended. I’ve got a plan that
can help you get the calories you need on limited time (and appetite!).
Three square meals a day…breakfast, lunch and dinner. Can a person achieve great muscle-building results with just three meals a day?
Absolutely…and I’ll tell you how.
It’s all about meal timing and quantity.
Before I get started, please note it IS very true that you’re better off eating smaller, more frequent meals, both for muscle building and fat loss. I’m not going to argue with that.
The problem arises because many people simply CAN’T get more than 3 meals day.
Here’s my solution…
- Plan to train in the late afternoon/early evening, if you can. For our meal timing, this will be the best option.
- Have a moderately large breakfast…eggs, oatmeal, broccoli…whatever else you normally eat. Breakfast is the second most important meal of the day (for our purposes here, at least) and it’s not going to be your biggest.
- Have a medium-sized lunch…at this point, you’re looking to not overload your digestive system with food (you already did that with breakfast) because you’ll be training fairly soon.
- Do your workout and have your post-workout shake.
- DINNER is going to be your biggest meal of the day. Because your body is primed to take full advantage of whatever you eat after training THIS is the time to load up. You should get at least half your days calories or more in this meal…overloading calories like this is extremely anabolic and your body will thrive on it.
- Next day, repeat.
That’s the plan! It’s nothing complicated, of course, but I’ve been using this type of eating and training schedule for a long time and it’s been extremely effective for me.
If you can squeeze in a few small snacks during the day, go for it! But if you don’t have time for 5 or 6 meals a day, don’t stress about it. Your body can cope and you can definitely still make great progress!
By Nick Nilsson
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Be sure to grab your FREE copy of Nick’s 30-day “Dirty Little Secret Program for Building Muscle and Burning Fat FAST,” available here!
Are you looking for some easy ways to help you learn how to lose belly fat? It can be more difficult to lose belly fat than it is to put it on, but there are a few easy things that you will be able to do to start noticing a difference in the way that your belly looks. One of them has to do with the attitude that you take towards losing belly fat. If you do not have the right attitude and determination you are not going to follow through with the goals that you have set for yourself. You will also have to have a fair amount of discipline to be able to stick to the goals that you have set; otherwise, it will not matter what diet you are on or what kind of exercises you do. With that in mind you will need to make some lifestyle changes to be able to make it easy for you to lose belly fat.
One thing that you will need to do is change the diet that you are currently on. The belly fat that you currently have did not appear on its own. Most likely it came from the things that you are eating and a lack of exercise. You will want to make sure that you are eating the correct types of food instead of eating a lot of junk food and things that will only cause you to have more belly fat. If you like fast food hamburgers then you will want to replace those with meat that is at least 95% lean. You can also eat baked skinless chicken breast instead of a fast food chicken sandwich. You want to make sure that you do not eat foods that have a high sugar content as well.
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Everyone would love to learn some fast weight loss tips that actually work for them. Most people have tried every diet out there with little to no success. The pounds just always seem to come back no matter what they do. However, making a few small changes to your eating habits and exercise can have a giant impact on your weight loss throughout the year. Follow these simple weight loss tips and be guaranteed to lose more weight throughout the year.
Many people are doing a great job going to the gym. It has become part of their life. However, many of these people spend a disproportionate amount of time at the gym in relationship to the actual exercise they get done. Too many of these people use the gym is a social gathering place. Instead of getting a good workout and burning calories, they spend their time talking with friends and meeting new people. This can be fine if you are actually getting your work done; however, try to take a good hard look at your workout and see if you are actually burning the calories you need for weight loss.
Another tip for losing weight is utilizing meal replacement drinks. Read the rest of this entry »
About three years ago, I began to suffer with a niggly pain in my left shoulder. It started out in the little nobbly bone at the very extreme edge of the shoulder before becoming a niggle around the area of my bicep every time I moved my arm.
Eventually it became so bad that it was interfering with my every day routine so I went to see an osteopath.
He took one look at me and told me that my posture was terrible. My age meant that I was suffering from a certain amount of natural degeneration in the spine which meant that I was slouching forward, but it was worse than that.
My shoulders had actually moved so far out of position that if I lay flat on my back they were proud of the floor. It was impossible for me to put my shoulders down to the floor. The consequence was that the nerves that run down the front of my arm had become impinged between the bones of the shoulder, clavicle and upper arm. Things were getting squashed and trapped in areas where they should be moving freely. No wonder it hurt so much.
He told me that my regular abdominal crunches had compounded the problem, resulting in an over-developed six-pack, which was dragging everything in my upper torso downwards because the muscles in my back were so under-used that they could not compensate.
In addition, the cutting of my internal abdominal muscles through several caesarean sections had left me with no core strength whatsoever, belying the appearance of the defined six-pack.
A many-pronged exercise regime was necessary. We had to loosen all the ligaments and muscles across my chest to permit my shoulders to sit flat to the floor when I lay down. Then we needed to strengthen the muscles around my shoulder blades to hold the shoulders back in the correct position. Plus we needed to work on my core strength so that I could hold myself upright.
Pilates was ideal for all these and I embarked on a programme of exercises to accomplish this. Read the rest of this entry »
It is no secret that one of the best ways to lose weight is to build more muscles. Having more muscles will help your body get rid of fat cells and this will make you feel and look better and at the same time you will lose the extra weight. This is a process that has 2 parts. The first part is how to lose weight and the second part is how to build more muscles.
Let’s see below how you can combine the two for optimum results.
How to lose weight and fat
Losing fat is a difficult process, it needs more time and effort than weight loss but in order to achieve both you need to follow a balanced diet and exercise. To create a good start you can adjust your diet so that the daily calorie intake is less than the calories needed for maintenance. This will force your body acquire more energy by burning fat. You can do this for a limited period only because you do not want to push your body too much.
As we said real weight loss results can only be achieved through exercise. Exercise at this stage includes both strength training exercises and cardio. You need to increase the intensity of your strength training exercises as this will boost your metabolism. One way to do this is to perform more repetitions and another is to reduce the rest period between sets. You can also combine your body building exercises with cardio training. Cardio exercises can accelerate further your metabolism and assist you in burning more calories.
A diet also plays a vital role in losing weight. You need to follow a balanced diet so as to get maximum results from your training. A balanced diet is high in fiber and protein and low in fat and carbohydrates.
Build more muscles
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