A Day at the Gym - Female Training 1.

Here is a typical day at the gym, you walk into the gym and see ladies in a corner on treadmill, bike or an elliptical trainer working at moderate - low intensity, followed by 20 minutes of Abs work and sometimes if lucky 5-10 minutes on weight training machine like multi gym, leg press, leg Extension.

This routine sucks big time and would not take to your desired physique. Reasons are:
1. Low intensity vs High Intensity : Low intensity exercise only burn calories while you are exercising, on the other hand High Intensity exercise ramp up your metabolism and you keep burning fat even long after you have finished doing your exercise.

2. No Fun: Jogging on treadmill is no fun and same abs routine day in and day out is even more boring. so if you do not enjoy your workout its highly difficult to stay motivated.

3. Back pain: It has been shown that endless sets of crunches are bad for your back, so if you are having back troubles then you can relate your crunches to that.

4. Knee Problem: Due to the Pelvic bone structure Females are highly prone to ACL injury so running is actually bad for you. More over Running is a high impact movement and as its said, "you should be fit to run not run to get fit". To further worsen the problem Leg extension is one of the worst thing you can do for your knees.

5. No result: Low intensity cardio may work, the first time you begin exercise but after some time you would stop getting result. Moreover you would end up having a skinny fat look, also called Pear look.

Apple vs Pear Shape.

Most women tend to have problem with there lower body. Most of them are not satisfied with how there hips and thigh looks. Majority of these women have skinny upper body thus giving a Pear shape. Pear shape is most likely due to Genetic/ hormonal issue, but bad eating habits make it worse.


Now hours of slow cardio and doing twists will not help. The solution is :

1. Strength Training : Refer Next post.
2. Proper Nutrition : Refer Here and here.

Poor Man Grip training.

Training for grip can be very exciting. If your aim is to build strong grip and huge forearms nothing beats the big exercise like Deadlifts, Weighted pullups and Farmer Walk..basically lifting heavy stuff what ever it may be, stones , sand bag, barbells, dumbbells etc...

There are few things you can do challenge your grip to a greater extent, like using a thick bar, lifting an object which you can not grip properly.

Below are two tools which I have prepared at dirt cheap price, these are excellent for working fingers and wrist.

1. Sand in the Jar

I took my 5 lbs Jar and filled it with sand. There are two ways in which I can Work my grip.

1. Finger Extensors work. With your fingers straight and closed tight together, thrust your hand into a bucket of sand. Next, spread your fingers apart as quickly as possible. Remove hand and repeat

2. Sand Grabbing. Thrust your hand into the sand and grab it as explosively as possible. remove hand and repeat.

3. One hand lift. Grab the top of the jar with one hand and lift for time. wide are of the top makes gripping extremely difficult. For progression you can fill the jar with heavier stuff like stones.

2. Thick levering bar.

I Just took a pipe and wrapped an end with cloth to thicken the grip. and used a screw to hold weight from the other end. Remember that the thick handle will make it difficult to grip the bar.

Now stuff you can do with this :

1. Front Lever.

Hold the bar in front of you and without using any momentum and using your wrist only try to bring the rod as close to your face as possible.

2. Back Lever.

3. Side Lever

Rotate the bar side to side using only wrist. Going from extreme left to right i

4. Bar swinging.





Hold the Bar in front of you and swing this around your head in a similar fashion as a phelwan swing a club around his head. Rotate in both clock wise and anti clockwise direction. This is not only good for your forearms but this will also train your shoulders in a completely different plain of motion.

You can progress in two ways. you can make this more difficult by increasing the weight used. Or you can increase the length of the road thus increasing the leverage.

Another simple way to practice levering is using a Sledge hammer. Be creative and use anything you have available.

Drop me a comment if you have any home made equipment that you use for training.

The Prison Workout

Great post by Mark regarding Prison workout. You can use your body weight for great workout, so stop making excuse that you are too busy to hit the gym.

Blast from past - Jack Lalanne

Here are two great videos by fitness legend "Jack Lalanne" . These videos may be old but they are still relevant.

Why are people tired ?
In this video he explains why people are all pooped up when they wake up in the morning, they feel lazy all the time. He explains 3 main reasons for these :

1. Lack of Exercise.
2. Empty calories.
3. Nervous Tension.

Enjoy the video


10 point self improvement plan.

Here is 10 point self Improvement plan by Jack :

1. Exercise
2. Nutrition
3. Positive Thinking
4. Good habits
5. Grooming
6. Smile
7. Posture
8. Help others
9. Relaxation
10. Faith

Enjoy the video

Warm up...

Not a good way to warm-up

Yesterday I saw a very strange warm up routine..A guy aged 30-35 comes into gym and first thing he does is "Preacher Curls" . As i go to a commercial gym I have seen many strange things but after watching this I was just dumbstruck .

Charecteristic of a Good warm-up

• Elevates Body Temperature.
• Promotes mobility in Joints.
• Develop proper movements.
• Works whole body in multi planes.
• Prepares for athletic movement.
• Teach correct Posture.
  

How to perform warm up correctly.

My favourite warm up routine is based on Olympic exercise performed with just bar in a continuous fashion.

It goes like this (Performing 5 reps of each exercise) :

• Romanian Deadlift
• Cleans
• Snatch
• Overhead Squat
  
• Military press
• Push Press
• Push Jerk
• Rows
• Overhead reverse Lunges
• Good Morning
  

Things you would note is that there are lots of Over head movements like
Squats and lunges. These Would test out your balance and will provide mobility throughout the shoulder and hip complex

Also note that its not advisable to do static stretching before lifting. It has been shown that static stretching before lifting leads to significant decrease in strength.


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You cant go wrong with these

Running Backward.

I was just looking on a crossfit WOD some days back which involves around running forward and then backwards. I have been running backward for quite some time and here are some thoughts on why its a good exercise.

• Balance out things: Backward Running is just opposite of Forward running so while running forward puts stress on Hamstrings and calves on the other hand running backward but more stress on Quads and shins. Running backwards also have place in rehabilitating knees injury.
  
• Builds Stamina : Running backwards require much more stamina and is tough on cardiovascular system. Don't believe me, Run 200 meter forward and then run same distance backwards now compare which is challenging. Probable reason is that running backward requires more leg muscle and after long years of forward running you have adapted to forward running.
  
• Add variety to workout : If you are bored from running forward then running backwards is a nice change.
  
• Improves awareness of the surroundings : As in the case of running forward you are not sure what is behind you so you tend to take cue from other things like sound and thus are better aware of your surroundings.
  
• Landing on toes: There is no way you can run backward while landing on heels and thus it promotes landing on toes which is lot better. Using this can be a good way to build leg strength for running using Pose Technique.
• Looks on People face: People will look you with awe when they see you running backwards faster then they can run forward.
  

Word of Caution

Running backward can be dangerous if you are running on uneven surface and if you fall you can hurt yourself. So if you are doing it first time do it on a field or a track. Another safe way is to run backwards uphill. Running uphill will reduce your speed and will also reduce the distance from ground so if you fall you would land on hip rather then head.

Workout

One of my favorite workout related to running is running 200 M forward then running same distance backward immediately followed by running sideways thus covering all possible plain of motion.

What would you prefer.

On left is the Pic of tennis player Rafel Nadal and on right is the pic of a body builder. Now my question to you is which physique will you prefer ? If you prefer Nadal physique then why are you still doing same routine that you picked from a bodybuilding magzine that only works for bodybuilders loaded with steroids ??

What you should do ?

• Train for functional strength - Train for Functional movement i.e the movement that have carryover in real life. for example deadlift is just like picking something from ground, now think of any real life movement where you need to curl the weight up ?
  
• Train for Maximum strength - Train for Maximal strength i.e lift in range of 1-3 reps. Stronger you get more reps you could lift of a lighter weight.
  
• No curls in squat rack - If you are a fat guy who needs to shed some weight or a skinny guy who needs to pack lot of muscle, then isolation exercise is the last thing you should be doing. Do big three exercise - Squat, Deadlift & Military Press.
  
• Ditch your 5 days body split routine. - Ditch your 3 X 10 5 days a week body building routine for 3 days full body routine while doing squats or deadlift each time. you would be amazed with strength as well as size gain.