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Friday, November 30, 2012

BOUNCE THOSE CHEATING JERKS!

Before we start getting into more muscle groups, there are some things that should be discussed beforehand so that when you are training you are doing it properly instead of increasing the risk of injury and not getting the results you want.

How many people cheat while doing resistance exercise? There is not a problem for cheating when it is the last few reps of the last set of an exercise. The problem is that you see people cheating from the beginning of their work out, in the first rep of the first set to the end of the last rep of the last set. When you are cheating, the muscles that you are training are not getting the proper workout. There are many ways you can cheat, such as not doing the full ROM (Range of Motion), or hyper-extending or hyper-flexing, stalling or using momentum (swinging). When the full ROM isn’t done, you aren’t recruiting all the muscle fibers, which is equal to less contraction, and can also mean that the weight that you are using is too heavy for you. When you are exaggerating the movement, the weight is probably too light and you could injure yourself. Stalling at the concentric point or at the eccentric point, such as at top or bottom of a bench press also can be considered cheating, for you will require more muscle fibers if you keep the movement continuous. And last of all using momentum includes doing most of the latter, which means you aren’t concentrating the workout in the muscles intended, you are probably going to fast, you are using other muscles to compensate to be able to do the movement, and the amount of weight could also be wrong. If there is a need to cheat, you should request the help of a spotter, this way you are still keeping the right muscles working.
Now there are the Jerks in gyms, or the people who jerk every exercise and every movement. You can notice that the ones who usually jerk their joints during and exercise are also the ones that at some point wear braces or bandages or always have them around that joint of the muscle group they are working out. If they feel it in their joint, they probably have already wasted away the natural body fluids (synovial liquids) in between the joints and feel it when they are exercising because bone is rubbing on bone or because their muscles are weak. Having it wrapped up holds the joint in place, may heat it up and give a feeling of protection to the weak muscle when doing exercises, but it won’t prevent injuries or can make an existing injury worse if there is jerking during an exercise. Exercises that people are most seen jerking are for the muscles of the back in dumbbell unilateral rows and seated cable row, attached to the elbows in the bench presses, bent row, and cable E-Z bar triceps extension, the knees in the extensor machine and squats with the hyperextension of the hips, and any exercise for the biceps. If you are using braces for pain, you probably shouldn’t be training in the first place. You should let your injury heal, then start with rehabilitative exercises for strengthening, incorporate stretching, start with low intensity strength training of that muscle and build up to the intensity you were before you started wearing the brace, and then get back into training.
What about those who are bouncing around? If you take away the dumbbells it seems that the person is dancing or if they were moving hopping around like a rabbit which usually goes with the cheating. Workouts for the abs and core muscles have been discussed in past editions, and it has stated that when you are maintaining the right posture, you are already training those muscles. But when you compromise posture and body position, or stop concentrating on the contraction for the muscle group you are training, and start to bounce with exaggerated movement to compensate with other muscles, then you are taking away the intensity from the muscle that is being worked out. When you see bouncing you usually see the jerking too. Then why are results never seen in certain people’s physiques? Or they themselves wonder why they aren’t getting results and getting hurt a lot.
Many bodybuilders or advance weightlifters do some of these. But it may be an illusion due to their muscle size, example, sometimes it seems that a male bodybuilder isn’t doing the full ROM, when in reality they are. It’s that the size of their muscle is larger than most people’s so some ROM may seem to be less, when the real reason is they don’t have the normal ROM as an average man. You don’t see bodybuilders bouncing, and when they cheat they always keep their form without using momentum and know what muscles they are contracting. Cheating is used as a technique, and in order for you to use those techniques you really have to stop copying others and know what you are doing.

Friday, November 23, 2012

ICE CREAM CONES AND TOOTH-PICKS

Usually men are larger in the upper body while women are larger in the lower body to support carrying an unborn child. But how many times do you go into the weightlifting room in the summer and see those men with nice developed and sculpted upper bodies and underneath their shorts, you become amazed at how un-proportional the sticks that are showing, are to the upper body? They must have the same brains as Johnny Bravo!
Then you start to notice that these individuals are training one upper body muscle group per day, adding a couple of leg muscle exercises on a small group muscle day and even training the calf muscles on a separate day…People! When you are searching to be healthy and quality of life, or even to sculpt your body, that means not only the exercising and eating habits should be looked at, but also the symmetry of your body. In order to attain symmetry, especially if you have imbalances due to injuries, those muscle groups should be the ones that the most attention should be paid to, and not the parts that are already in good shape.
The question is can genetics of a certain body part be improved? If you are doing resistance training you are always trying to improve your physical appearance one way or another with a proper work out…so like any other muscle group your calf muscles, or your gastrocnemius, and even deeper muscles the soleus can be trained to become proportional to your upper body with the right type of program, desired result consideration, and most of all persistence.
There are many exercises that can be used for training the calf muscles. You can exercise them without any help of equipment by doing heel raises, making sure you stand on the balls of your feet lifting your heels up then lowering them so that the toes come towards your shin. That is why it should be done on a higher level, and the intensity can be increased doing them one-legged, and by holding a dumbbell. You also have the choice of the machines, such as the standing heel raise machine and the seated heel raises on the donkey machine. They can also be done on the different types of Leg Press Machines (inclined, vertical and horizontal). Different areas of the calf muscles can be targeted with adopting the inward or outward position of the feet. But as mentioned before, there is a need to take into consideration the right technique and form, and then the correct type of training for results, where they say that they grow when you feel the burn during their training. In this case it is hypertrophy of the calf muscles, so number of repetitions, sets and rest interval in between should all be considered when performing them without bouncing, jerking, and making sure they are done in the full ROM. Then for maximal results, set the right time for rest in between the workouts. This means you also have to consider that if you are training the thighs and hamstrings on a certain day, and including the Leg Press and different variations of the Squat, you are also training your calf muscles.
Remember that appropriate footwear is needed to ensure posture, and also to avoid the slipping of your feet from the foot platform from where you are training. Besides training your calves to catch up to the body parts that are perfectly sculpted, and exercising other muscles of the lower legs (shin muscles), it also gives stability to your knees (where the gastrocnemius originates), to your ankles where all the muscles (gastrocnemius and soleus) are attached to, avoiding Aquilles tendonitus, ankle sprains, and takes the stress off the ligaments and bones of the knees, to distribute it to these muscles, especially after some type of knee injury.



Friday, November 16, 2012

SCRUB THAT BLUBBER OFF YOUR WASHBOARD

What is the first question that most people ask when they meet a Fitness Professional or Personal Trainer? Usually they point to their belly, or some even lift up their shirt and grab their belly fat, and say that they want to get rid of that, and how many abdominal exercises they have to do in order to get the results.

Everyone has to understand that the abdominal muscle is part of the human body, It composes of the Rectus Abdominus, which is the six-pack and goes all the way down to our pubis, the Obliques, which are positioned on the sides of the Rectus Abd., and the transverse which is positioned underneath, and was discussed in last week’s Blog.

So since all the muscles are part of the human anatomy, no matter at what age you are, or if you can scrub your clothes on it or not, EVERYONE has a six pack. Now whether you see it or not is the issue. The reason why you do not see it in most people is because, above all our muscles, we have a layer of fat. And since most fat deposition is around our stomach, the six pack is invisible. But all advanced weightlifters know that the fastest method of losing fat, is not only doing resistance training, but the meal plan that you adopt with low glycemic carbs, right quantity of essential fatty acids (EFA), and enough proteins, adding at least 40 minutes of any cardio exercise a day, which can include a circuit resistance training program instead of straight up cardio. So doing a million abdominal exercises won’t burn off the fat and give you the six-pack, it will only make it stronger which may be an advantage for the point of view of posture and your body’s biomechanics.
 
So if you aren’t burning fat, are you at least packing on muscle mass on your Abs so that when the fat percentage is low the blocks will be shown fully? Are you training your abdominal muscles appropriately for that? You see many training their abs every single day, should they be trained every day? In order for hypertrophy to occur of a muscle group, one should not train that body part every day in order for the muscle to grow, so why shouldn’t the six-pack, which is a smaller muscle group, be treated the same way? It was already discussed that the core is being trained when you simply just hold your stomach in to keep the correct posture or even doing so when exercising. That also occurs for the abdominal muscle, so when you are training chest or arms, you are already training your abs. So why do people train it every day?

There is also the discussion about the technique and how the abdominal muscle should be trained.  A summary (Electromyographic Study in abdominal Exercises: a literature synthesis) of scientific articles published online in 2009 by the site Pubmed didn’t really show that there are differences in abdominal muscle activation when changing hip or knee position when doing an abdominal exercise, but many studies recommend that it should be done with knees and hips bent to neutralize lumbar lordosis, or the curvature of the lower back, reduce tension in the psoas muscle (in the hip) to optimize abdominal activation, and reduce compressive forces, especially at an angle of 45º to 90º. If there is movement of the hips against the lower back, a disk injury could occur. Without hip flexion there is greater activation of psoas iliacus, a hip muscle, and other leg muscles, reducing the tension on the abs. The direction which the exercise is done works the muscle that runs in that direction, for example if you rotate to the sides, you will be concentrating the workout on your oblique muscles, but all groups are trained. What can increase the load without using free weights are changing the position of your arms or changing the plane in which you workout,


So if you are doing a million abdominal exercises a day, not getting enough cardio, not eating right, or even not treating your abs as a single muscle group in your routine, don’t expect to count on your genetics for a wash board stomach.

Friday, November 9, 2012

STRENGTH FROM THE INSIDE OUT

When you are working out your core do you really know what muscles you are training? Do you really know what exercises really workout the core? Those of you who say you are training core muscles when you do the different variations of sit-ups, can stop deluding yourselves, your clients, and go and research what muscles are included in the group called core in the human anatomy.
The exercises used for training core only include the different forms of planks, which were taken from Yoga, such as plank leg lifts, plank twists, crunches done with lower back on the ball, pelvic thrust (or bridge), and exercises involving back hyperextensions, such as the superman, or back extensions on the Roman Chair or any exercise done in the initial position of these last named exercises. None of them involve the sit-ups or what we know as abdominal exercises with the flexion of the hip joint with the movement of thighs coming towards your abdominal.

One of the latest “fads” of the Fitness World is core training, which people tend to only include, and think of exercises for the six-pack without considering what muscles really compose the Core. That is because, due to the sedentary lifestyle, and habits of bad posture, many are suffering with the weakening of the back muscles, causing discomfort and pain, that in the future could lead to back injuries. The Core muscles work in conjunction with the abdominal muscles to support the trunk or torso. So if you have the right back alignment while standing, which would be walking without effort with a book on your head, and sit in the correct position without slouching, such as sitting at a computer for hours on end without feeling numbness or back pain and not having to change position, then you’re core muscles are conditioned properly.

The muscles that compose the Core muscles are muscles and tendons that run along and support the spine, the Erector Spinae (Multifidus), the Transverse Abdominal, which is the innermost part of the abdominal, and the muscles of the Pelvic Floor, which are located underneath the pelvic bone, before the genitals. So yes, muscles part of the abdominal are included, but they would be closer to the lower back on the inside of our body rather than the six-pack.

Think about it, when you are standing or sitting you’re supporting your Torso, so if you are paying attention to maintaining the right posture, you are already working out your core muscles. So if it already takes some effort to keep the correct posture and the correct alignment position of the body, especially when you are working out doing an exercise, you are already working out your core, and if you add back hyperextension, planks, pelvic lifts with a stretch after, then you are preventing risks of injury and pain.




Friday, November 2, 2012

RANT OF A DISSATISFIED HEALTH SEEKER: SPEAK-UP & STAND-UP

 
The main question about the Fitness Profession should be: why do the Educated and Experienced accept competing with those that don’t have the correct credentials, ethics, and professionalism to work in the Fitness Industry? Why are Employers looking for cheap Personal Trainers who might not even have Personal Training Certification, whose main responsibility is sales rather than hire qualified professionals that can really maintain the personal training client database, by renewing for long term contracts for sessions, or even keeping members by giving them the correct orientation?

It has been discussed before by this HARDCORE PEEVES that a qualified professional should be consulted before engaging in physical activity, so that there is the correct indication of individual program, meal plan and detailed orientation for each person. But that doesn’t happen because the professionals that ARE qualified accept competing with unqualified Personal Trainers with certification completed in one weekend that keep wages low.

Yes, as said before, since physical activity is dealing with the human body, and its functions, why is it that there is no actual demand for knowledge of the human anatomy or specific numbers of hours for practical training or a residency to deal with prescribing exercise for healthy people, when there is a need for it when treating the sick, the injured or in rehabilitation? There are some certification courses better than others of longer duration, that offer many hours of theory and practical training, but some people might not learn enough from books and slides to actually understand the anatomy and how the body works without visual and practical examples of the human body. What a Personal Training Certification from a college course could offer is continuing education to an undergraduate program with Human Anatomy, such as Kinesiology, Physical Education, or even Nutrition.

Why should someone with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree with a Fitness background, and two day Personal Training course be compared and acknowledged equally in the work force? In some countries such as Brazil, for you to work with any related area to Physical Activity, you need a BaS in Physical Education, and it is a regulated profession controlled by the Government and specific laws, where every gym employs full time with a salary instead of payment per client. Those who did not complete a University Degree were given a time period to complete a course to specifically be able to continue working in the area that they were already in, such as a Personal Training or Weight Lifting Instructing habilitated to work with resistance training, but if this person chose to conduct group classes, a University Course would then need to be completed. In Germany, it is also a recognized profession.  

Canada and the U.S are classified as First World Countries, but how come there is so much ignorance related to exercise and its correct prescription and orientation especially with the growing number of the sedentary and obesity epidemic? In these countries where services are meant to be 5 stars, Gyms are only interested in revenue, and if their professionals have liability insurance, when they should be really concerned with keeping members and Personal Training clients by giving them the best service possible, and avoiding short term employee turn around. This is where the really qualified Professionals, who have the proper Education, Training and Experience should Speak-up and Stand up for making Physical Activity related work more dependable and of better quality, so that it can be viewed better by North American and Canadian Society, and become a recognized as a profession.   

So you out there, whether Fitness Entrepreneur, Employer, Personal Trainer, Kinesiologist, Physical Education Professional, think about it and speak up for your rights and better wages to bring up the status for the growing fitness market.