CHICKEN SQUAT

We are now in the middle of January, and those who really kept to their new year resolution of starting to get fit and eat right, have probably started to exercise or train hard….so let’s start talking about actual exercises and training. So this week’s blog is about training the legs or more specifically thighs, or what people who are already familiar with training denomination, the “Quads”.

The first question that should be asked is DO YOU TRAIN LEGS? Do you know why the bodybuilders and fitness professionals hate training them? And when you are training legs are you activating the thigh muscles properly? Are other muscles from the leg activated? How should they be trained? Even if you are going up on stage in a bodybuilding contest, do you know how you should warm-up so that you can?

The reason for talking about leg exercises, in the fight to lose that extra fat gained during the holidays, is because when you train your lower body it is easier to burn more calories due to the need of more energy use for blood flow to lower extremities, and production of energy to contract the muscles. So do you know why people call them Quads? Well the beginning “Quad” means the number 4 and in the human body relates to Quadriceps, or 4 muscles. The individual muscles that are included in the Quadriceps are the Rectus Femoris, Vastus Lateralis (front outer thigh), Vastus Medialis (front inner thigh), and Vastus Intermedius, which is located underneath the other three.

So how do you get those toned Quads that we see on strength athletes? And what better to start off with then the Barbell Squat Exercise. Do you know why the Squat is one of the best exercises to do for lower body? How low should one go? And should you bend your upper body while going down? Can anyone do this exercise? What are you really supposed to feel while doing this exercise?

You squat when you are going to stand up, or sit down. So basically the movement that should be done is of sitting down and then standing up. But in the gym you see people throwing their knees forward and down, in direction of the tips of the feet. Is this the proper form? Maybe they should pay attention to how they sit and stand before putting weight on their shoulders. Well when you sit down the knees bend with almost no movement of the lower legs. The upper body slightly leans forward without being rounded, so that your hips bend and your backside is seated. So when you do the squat, the knees should not go beyond the tips of your toes if you are not doing the full ROM. If you are doing the full ROM it is only physically natural that the knees are aligned with the feet or even slightly pass it to maintain balance, but that means you are on the tips of your toes. As for upper body, leaning forward is also natural. But there really isn’t a need to go lower than having your thighs at 90 degrees with your calves. This will recruit all front and back muscles of your legs. Yes, the Squat is an exercise that works ALL the muscles of the legs and your core and abdominal muscles, for you need to stabilize these muscles. For maximal contraction one should do the full ROM, maintain the proper posture (don’t slouch or hyperextend your hips when coming up), and to feel it more in the Quads, push off the balls of the feet. Now the intensity (weight) that one should use depends on the individual.

Yes there are many variations of the Squat, such as wide stance squat, dumbbell squat, fitness ball squat, and seated box to name a few, and changing it up can activate certain muscles of the legs a little more. The question at hand is who can do them depends on the individual. Generally, the Squat is an exercise used for improving strength to stabilize the joint of the knee, so almost everyone should do it with the variation that they are most comfortable with, regarding the purpose of training (hypertrophy, fat loss, rehab, or others). How low you should go, and what intensity should be used depends on the ROM capacity of each individual. For example, those with knee (anterior/posterior) ligament injuries will be able to do isometric (no movement) strengthening exercises with the fitness ball at the 90º. And some may be able to do it actively at shorter knee angles (20º – 60º). Today many injuries in non-athletes are caused by weak muscles of the legs, where the knee takes on all of the body weight pressure due to improper posture and overloading. With the obesity epidemic many suffer from problems due to the lack of a support system of the Quads and the lower leg muscles for the knees (Ice cream Cones and Toothpicks).

 So as commented on before (Ice Cream Cones and Toothpicks) train your legs! And remember advanced weightlifters are bothered by leg days because if trained right, one can hardly walk after, and not because they don’t think it’s not important. And if trained right, you might not fit into your pants until the muscle swelling improves, which is why on a contest day you DON’T warm up your Quads.

COLD HEARTED TRAINING

Now that the holidays are over and everyone is looking to improving get back into shape or already has started on this path, and the winter is finally here with below freezing days, before there are posts about training let’s warm-up to it. Hardcore Peeves always begins with a general question, but this week the question is directed to everyone! Do you warm-up before you exercise? Do you do the correct warm-up for training with weights?

Yes, you do see people warm up in the gym, but most are doing general warm-ups that aren’t even directed to resistance training that they are about to do. First of all the “Warm-up” in exercise and sports is divided in to General Warm-up and Specific warm-up. The General warm-up has the purpose of increasing Heart Rate (HR), blood flow and deep muscle temperature, respiration rate and perspiration, and the Specific Warm-up prepares the parts of the body that specifically are going to be used for the movement, exercise or sport.

(Dennis Wolf The Beginning - 2008)

So let’s say a General warm-up in the gym would be 12 – 15 minutes of any cardio equipment, and a specific warm-up would be doing an exercise with a light weight, such as the barbell bench press, for example in a slow controlled movement, doing 20 to 30 reps with the bar or low intensity weight.

Did you know that your body is really ready for physical activity after about 12 minutes of Warm-up? According to the Journal of Sports Medicine (Warm-up and stretching in the prevention of muscular injury, by Woods, Bishop and Jones, 2007) to prevent injuries a warm-up should consist of low intensity active warm-up which is usually done on cardio equipment in the gym.

According to Tudor Bompa and G. Gregory Haff from the 5^th Edition of the book Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training the benefits of Warm-up include increased muscle and core temperature, which increase nerve conduction rate and speed metabolic reaction, such as hormonal changes to regulate energy production with more availability of carbohydrates and fatty acids. These then can increase the speed and force of muscle contractions. While the temperature rises there is an increase to the amount of oxygen delivered to the working muscle due to the increase of vasodilation and blood, which increases the possibility of range of motion around the joints. It also helps for the mental preparation by clearing the mind. This all can help reducing the risk of injury.

In the gym you usually find that those who do a warm-up before their workout are on a cardio machine for about 5 minutes, then, they go straight to the program, without even the specific warm-up. But as stated before, they really aren’t physically prepared for exercise yet. And what about the ones that do a specific warm-up before they start their program, beginning with the first exercise on their list, but they are doing uncontrolled movements, jerking their joints, stressing the muscles before the workout, which could cause injury. Then the worst cases are those that don’t even think about the program they are doing and specifically warm-up the wrong region of the body that is going to be worked out, such as those that do the warm-up for their arms with or without weights, and end up working out their legs or vice-versa.

Besides stressing your body more with inappropriate movements, and possibility of causing injury, people look ridiculous doing a warm-up for a run, when they are going to do resistance exercises. So before you hit the weights, warm-up to the work out and get your results. With a proper warm-up, especially now when it’s cold, you are looking ahead to protect yourself from having to stop training because of undesired reactions to the growing intensity of future workout routines.

EAT SMART OR DIE-T

Now that the holidays are over, and one of the new year resolution for many is to start exercising, the first thing people think about after excessively eating and drinking is to start a diet and become a member of a gym or start doing some kind of physical activity program. So since it is included in the 70% of results (Optimal Ratios to Success), why not start with what and when you eat?

There are some that don’t like to use the word diet. That could be a true statement, for when speaking of diet, people think of fad diets which usually are extreme, work for a short period and contain the word “Die” in the middle. There are many famous diets out there such as the Atkin’s Diet, Diet by Blood Type, Mediterranian Diet, and many more. But since some of them use extreme guidelines, cutting out some foods that could be of important nutrient source, especially if you are starting and exercise program, where you have to maintain or increase muscle mass, it could prevent you from achieving your results and work against them.

During this year it will be discussed what is considered the best proportions for each of the macronutrients (carbs, proteins and lipids – fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) for the different desirable results. But for now, all meals during the day should include all the macronutrients, which its sources contain micronutrients. First of all when starting a new meal plan, whether it be most of the fad diet or from nutritional background according to your individual needs, it is stressed out that there should be 6 to 7 meals a day with 2 -3 hours in between. This isn’t science, because if you notice the timing of a newborn, they feed every two to three hours, which according to the American Academy of Pediatrics can last up to 2 years of age, even after they start eating solids. So why is it that after elementary school, eating habits begin to deteriorate because of busy schedules and lack of time? Even though an individual is young, that is when the accumulation of fat probably begins, especially with the sedentary.

The solution to get results and to maintain them is re-educating your body to eat properly, and get back in to feeding yourself as if you are a newborn. This also means that it doesn’t matter that you aren’t hungry. How the body works is if you are not giving it nutrients to metabolise, when it finally does receive something it will store any extra for a rainy day when you need energy, such as running from a pitbull or lifting a car to rescue someone. But this almost never happens so the body keeps storing what it does receive as fat. But if you give the body something throughout the day, it will know that in the next few hours, there will be nutrients that can be transformed into energy in case there is an emergency.

  

So you are thinking: I will keep eating proteins and avoid carbs now! Remember that after a few weeks, if you were able to get rid of the water retention, but you have noticed that certain areas of your body have accumulated fat over the holidays where there wasn’t before, fat will keep stored if carbs aren’t available to metabolise. This happens because if the body doesn’t have complex carbohydrates to digest and produce energy, it will find other sources from your own body, in this case your muscles (Catabolism-Glycolysis), after all “fats burn in carbohydrate flames” to keep your energy reserves high. Fat won’t be accessed because you need to increase your heart rate to sub-maximal levels which doesn’t always happen with every day physical activity, and only a meal plan. It only happens with when you do continuous cardio exercises for more than 2 minutes. Without extra physical activity, such as exercise, there is a way to lose your fat stores and that is through a negative energy balance. Your energy balance is calculated using the variables of how many calories you waste in a day and how many you take in (food). If you eat less calories than you waste then you will lose weight, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will lose fat because you need the right proportions of nutrients.

So you need the right amount of proteins to keep the muscle mass that you already have, increase it if you want more, you need carbs for energy, and to complete all this, and burn that extra fat off properly the right amount of unsaturated fats in all your meals. That basically is making sure you get enough macro and micronutrients. To boost your metabolism in to reducing water retention, you may consider using one of the cleansing methods, such as soon as you wake up before you ingest anything, drink 300ml of water with 1 lemon juice or even take a day to just eat fruit in all of your meals for the first week or two when starting your meal plan. And remember you also have to consider the other factors for results, your training (30%), how you sleep plus how much stress your daily life causes you, besides how you eat (Ratios to Success).

NEW YEAR CHEERS LEADS TO BEER BELLY TEARS!

No matter what end of year religious holiday you celebrated, whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah, or any other, a lot of eating was involved, especially all the holiday treats. But they are coming to an end and you are trying to recover in one week, for that last drinking binge to celebrate the end of the year, and a beginning of a new year with maybe goals of becoming more fit and getting those results that have been put off for a long time, how much damage to your metabolism do you think you have already done? Or maybe one of your New Year resolution is to stop drinking, and think that one last large binge will put you off alcohol for time planned to get the results. How will that affect your results in the future? Do you really know what are the effects of alcohol on your body’s metabolism especially after binge drinking? Does it affect your training? Do you know how it can affect your body and your training?

If you were smart, you followed some of the tips given by last week’s Blog (Custom Fitness). But first of all you have to understand how the production of energy occurs in the body and how the body uses it. The metabolism is a series of chemical reactions inside our body, produces energy through Anabolism, building stones and the breakdown, Catabolism. Weightlifters mostly use the anaerobic systems (which doesn’t use oxygen) to produce energy, which mostly consists of the breakdown of glucose (product from the digestion of carbs). This is part of the anabolic process, and re-using stores (glycogen) from muscles or liver, in Glycolysis is a catabolic process.

Energy for physical activity deriving from Glycolysis also produces pyruvate and lactate. Without the presence of oxygen (or under 2 minutes of physical activity) pyruvate is transformed into lactate, electrons (which are carried by enzymes that can be used in Aerobic production of energy) and water. We feel the effects of lactate accumulation on the muscle, when we feel the burning sensation in a certain muscle group. This occurs because there is no oxygen to carry it to be used to produce more energy. But if oxygen is present, then that lactate that also has been stored can be transformed in to pyruvate to be used for aerobic exercise.

But with the presence of alcohol (ethanol) there is an accumulation of the enzymes that carry the oxygen and prevents the reaction with lactate. It also provides the right environment for the synthesis of fatty acids causing it to accumulate. Without the transformation of lactate into pyruvate, it can’t enter the aerobic system to produce energy. This causes the accumulation of fatty acids, which means accumulation of fat over the muscles, especially in the abdominal area and resistance to insulin by the muscle (5^th Edition Biochemistry – J.M. Berg, J. L Tymoczko, L. Stryer) causing protein synthesis, and fat burning to stop. And if you think that alcohol will just go through your system, and your body will quickly return to your original metabolic state before drinking, you are fooling yourself, for it contains 6 calories/gram of metabolic energy. Consider that 1 serving of any alcoholic beverage can increase the amount of calories added to your total consumption per day. Especially at this time of year, who can say they will only have one drink?

So if you have been drinking during the whole holidays, what it has been doing directly on your workout is reducing blood flow to your muscles, and accumulating fats in the bloodstream, increases the conversion of testosterone into estrogen, and causes lack of oxygen to the brain (National Institute of Health). Physically you will feel weakness, cramping, and increased friction on joints due to dehydration, and longer to recover from the workout. Through other metabolism pathways, prolonged alcohol consumption causes the process of other enzymes (Acetyl CoA) to be blocked. This leads to the production of ketone bodies that are released in the blood causing an acidic condition. This acidic condition could cause liver failure.

So before you go out partying, think twice about how much drinking you are going to do, for it will be more effort to get back on track.

INDULGE WITHOUT BULGE

Now that the end of year celebrations have started with a lot of good food, many must give up and stop worrying about gaining the holiday weight for they think it is useless….but if you are training hard and eating right all year round is it alright to gain that weight, and forget about what you are eating? Those of you beginners and who have been trying to lose weight, and are succeeding, will it compromise the results you have already achieved?

So far this blog has mentioned little about how you should eat when training, but it will be discussed. To give a short introduction, to build muscle or to lose weight, or even just keep a healthy lifestyle it consists of dedication and discipline. And today more than ever, science is showing that the best way to keep healthy is the translation of the old phrase “you are what you eat”. So even with all those diet fads out there, which prove to give results for a short period of time, the correct way to go about your meals, is to have the right quantity of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats (lipids) included throughout the day. It should give you the correct amount of vitamins and minerals, especially if you decide to make your food from raw ingredients and take in the right amount of water. And the best way to go about it is to eat every 2 or 3 hours. Of course there are ways to manipulate your meals to maximize your results, but this will be looked at another time.

So what should one do for the holiday season? Should you just forget about indulging in the goodies? Should you forget about eating and fast until party time? Well to be honest, every bodybuilder and athlete knows that if you have been training hard all year round, there is a time in the periodization, that should be separated for rest, which is called the off-season. But that doesn’t mean that all activities stop, and the athlete is allowed to eat everything that shouldn’t be eaten during the competition phase. It just means that the time is for restoring energy levels, rehabilitating your body, and giving your body rest from the hard work that is done during the year, and not just letting go. Athletes usually workout in lower intensities, and still eat healthy maintaining the level that they are in, but may ingest more carbs, proteins and fats, to help in restoration.

For people who aren’t athletes, just trying to continue building muscle or losing weight during the holidays could be equal to the off-season. It means that people should maintain the smaller meals every 2 to 3 hours a day, with the increase of the amount of protein so that when finally the time of a party comes, they won’t be indulging in all of the high-fat, high glycemic goodies. Athletes know that sometimes, the body might need some foods that are considered junk, which can be a shock to change the metabolism, in case it has stabilized and stopped producing results. But it doesn’t mean that it should be done in all meals. You can consider taking in more fiber and more water. Continuing to exercise is a must, where cardio can actually be increased, so that you can keep the shape that you’re in, or makes it easier and faster to lose that water retention after the holidays.

So during the holidays it is not useless, and keeping your body with all the indulging, as is during the year, is discipline, continued commitment and hard work. It doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy what it has to offer, it just means that you should watch what and when you eat so you won’t bulge.     

CUSTOM FITNESS

We are coming to the end of the year, and people are training hard to lose some fat and weight to enjoy the end of year celebrations, and some have just postponed working hard at their bodies because they don’t have enough time. In the New Year, this Blog will relate more to Hardcore training, the muscles, and the proper way to eat. But for now how many people out there in the gym really know what they are doing, or the muscles that they are training? Do they know that some exercises aren’t only for one specific muscle group? What about the different techniques and methods? Do people know the other factors that could intensify a workout?

The sustainability muscle groups of the body have already been discussed, and there also have been comments about, what some consider methods of jerking, bouncing and swinging. But when you are working out do you really know what muscle group is being trained? As said before, people think they are working out their six-pack when they are doing their core (Strength from the Inside Out), but now you know that is untrue. So what are you working out really when you include a certain exercise in a muscle group routine?

For example, what is the inverse peck deck used for? The muscle group back, shoulders, or both? In this case what is being worked on most depends on the height of the seat, but depending, certain muscles can aid (synergists) in movement which means they are also being worked. Some equipment present specific markings, such as the bars, such as when doing the flat bench press, people make sure that their grasp is on top of these. So is a basketball player at 7 ft tall with long arms grasping the bar in the same place as a 5.5ft person also working out their chest? A shorter grasp on any bar, where the elbows when lowered come close to the body is considered a triceps exercise. If you are not adjusting the machines and equipment to the size of your body, you might not be adequately targeting the muscle that it’s intended for, or even the right muscle. This is why you should pay attention to what you feel being worked when you are doing an exercise, and depending on the position of a certain body part or of the equipment being used, you can intensify your workout because you know where to feel it. You can maybe also change the intensity just by changing the type of grip (supinated, pronated, or alternate) or the width and position of your feet (wide, shoulder length, inward, outward) but this might jeopardize your form, and also may target other muscles of that group.

Did you know that you can change your workout routine without changing the exercises used? There are methods that a routine can be intensified such as by doing them in supersets, or even reducing or increasing the rest interval time in between sets. That is why so many when they spend hours on the gym floor complain they don’t get results. They do rest in between the sets, but each time interval is of a different time period. And there is also the fact that some take the time to socialize in between sets. This is affecting the intensity of the workout, and thus the results. If you really are paying attention to timing you should be fatigued and sore by the last rep of the last set of a muscle group. Pay attention to timing which also includes paying attention to the rest days in between muscle group workouts because you could be not giving the synergists enough rest.

Did you ever question what is better? Fast or slow movements when doing exercises? People usually speed up the exercise because they are too heavy on the weights. With this they aren’t getting the full contraction of the muscle, they aren’t keeping the right form and doing the whole ROM, which probably makes them use other muscles to perform the movement, and aren’t even feeling the workout. This is just to prove that they can train with a heavy weight. In order to work all the muscle fibers of a certain group, the slower you can go the more fibers are recruited, and if you are able to keep it continuous the intensity is higher. If you pause at the end of the concentric phase (shortening of the angle of the joint) or at the eccentric phase (increasing the joint angle) it is also considered rest. If you maintain the right tempo you will feel the workout of a muscle group more.

These are just some of the ways that a workout can have more intensity besides changing the routine. You can also add to these different methods of training, such as supersets, pyramids, opposite muscle group workouts and more. Each individual has to get to know his own body, and advance weight lifters are still always learning new things about their own bodies and the way that is best to train the different muscle groups. So don’t be a copycat. Some exercises that you see in the gym might not work for you. If you don’t know how to do something, look for professional help especially if you are not experienced. To learn about how to train properly is to maintain form, use different methods, time properly, most important of all make sure you know what muscle you are training and if you are doing it appropriately. But don’t forget not to jerk, bounce or swing.

MUSCLEHEAD READS!!!!!!!

If you are not an athlete or a fitness professional and have never hired a personal trainer where are you getting your information on how to train from? Are you training with a partner or just learning by watching others? You could research on the internet, but not all information on the internet is trustworthy. You can buy books that are used by professionals of the fitness industry. You also could also buy some manuals on how to train or even buy Weightlifting for Dummies, but a quick way to learn some tips, keep updated about what is going on with weight training at the moment, and nutrition is to buy the male bodybuilding magazines.

There are many magazines or journals to choose from, such as Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness Magazine, Ironman Magazine, Musclemag, Natural bodybuilding Magazine naming the most famous, and some of them separate magazines for her. But one that is starting to stand out is Muscular Development for its expanded content. Besides the common information to all Training magazines, it actually informs you, and summarizes all new scientific studies about a variety of subjects related to sculpting your body and nutrition in the articles. All the information included in the articles whether it be about how to train a muscle group, or information about increasing muscle mass and strength, weight loss and fat burning, supplements, nutrition, steroids and more, is backed up by published scientific research that the authors referred to. These are listed after each article which can be of use to you for deeper knowledge.

The bodybuilding champions are also joining in to make this one of the best magazines. Some of the best competitors of today and of the past have their own say in matters of the Bodybuilding world, and reaching out to fans in their own columns where they put their personal lives and training in writing. Of course the athletes that are still competing provide fantastic photo shoots of their own training and provide readers with their own programs and paths to the competitions that they participate in. And in all, the magazine gives the before and after overview of competitions keeping the reader informed.

The only set back of some of these magazines is that even though they do include news about the women of the bodybuilding and fitness world, or they are featured in their own female version of the magazine, the women who are really Hardcore are left out. The female magazines usually contain information about fashion, dieting and light training for a leaner body, but no real information for muscle building women to a greater extent. The bodybuilding magazines such as Muscular Development should have parts for the Hardcore women for they are also faithful followers, because they find that the information given for males, could also be useful for their training, nutrition and competitions. There are many female athletes out there, and if there was more publicity about the aspect of female muscle, then in general bodybuilding would become more popular. But as the world is progressing into gender equality, soon in bodybuilding it will happen too.  

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.