building muscle
Six-Pack Abs: Clues from Athletes
Tags: abs, better workouts, building muscle, burning fat, weight training
I was a gymnast for 12 years. My teammates and myself included – grew up with nice, lean defined, abdominal muscles, and in the world of high level gymnastics this is more the norm than the exception. It was not because we were all genetic freaks, or did thousands of crunches. In fact, we did NO standard crunches at all! But what we did do, strengthened our core and worked our bodies in such a way I believe contributed greatly to that to sculpted, quilted abdominal look.
Well, the great news is that you do not have to start gymnastics classes to get visible abs. But I do think every fitness athlete or enthusiast can learn something from their training and put to use a variety of these principles. So how does gymnastics core training differ from the standard crunch? The 3 major components that differ are:
3) working the muscle in various planes of movement
Full Extension – Muscles stretched with resistance through their entire intended range of motion (ROM), receive the most overload. I can remember way back to my gymnastics training days, where my coach would start and end every practice with 3 to 4 sets of hanging leg raises or leg lifts as we gymnasts called them. For these leg raises, we would hang from the high bar, with our body fully extended and lift our legs to meet our hands. Our coach was a stickler for form and – none of the reps would be counted if we used momentum and did not begin from a “dead” hang – with full extension. As young gymnasts, we knew it was harder to start from the “dead hang” fully extended position, but we certainly didn’t know “why” – but we did it anyway. You can incorporate the same movement into your own workouts – either grabbing onto a chin up bar or abdominal chair (Captain’s Chair), lifting legs (straight or bent). These devices can be found in just about every gym. The key is starting from that “dead” hang position – getting a full stretch in the abdominal muscles.
Isometric Contractions – of the abdominal muscle. Isometric contractions are where tension is created in the muscle with no visible change (movement) in the joint angle. The muscle(s) is contracting without moving through a ROM. For this principle, the goal of course is not to achieve a full extension of the abdominal muscle but to hold and contract it in one position. So much of gymnastics is isometric in and of itself (balancing in a handstands, upside down or right side up positions with leg up/ leg down – you name it – we were probably required to do it)- so many of the drills we did to learn new skills isometric of isometric nature.Planes of Motion is the third component vital to core training. In gymnastics, we flipped and twisted in all different directions. Even on the uneven bars, we had requirements in our routine for elements that contained a direction change. I remember really disliking this, because once you got going in one direction – you had to switch and go the other way – and have enough momentum, technique, and CORE strength to do so. Hanging windmills was one way we trained for this. It was an advanced version of the hanging leg raise, but instead of just going in one plane of motion- lifting your legs up to the bar and back down again, you lifted your legs in a circle in one direction, then switched directions the other way. It targets the oblique muscles, part of the abdominal core, responsible for rotation.
Desiree Walker is an IFBB pro fitness competitor and general dentist
practicing in Lumberton, NC. She shares her love for health and
wellness with her husband Ash and 2 crazy cats.
My Gym Trainer’s Top 5 Tips for Leaner Legs this Summer!
Tags: building muscle, burn fat, Circuit Training, leg workouts
Photo © John Lund
1) Regular weight training is a must. Leanness in the legs comes about as a result of several factors: strengthening the underlying muscles, burning the layer of fat on top of the muscles and then finally, tightening the skin and shedding water. Weight training not only helps tone the underlying muscles, but signals the release of certain key fat-burning hormones like testosterone and the anti-aging human growth hormone, the latter of which also helps to tighten and firm skin. Best movements are lunges, squats, step-ups and leg presses.
2) Do interval cardio for overall fat loss. Doing short, but intense cardio intervals (push hard for 1 min, followed by a 1 min rest) helps speed up the metabolism for hours after the workout is over. We love hill sprints and stair climbing to hit those key troublesome areas for women, particularly the glute-hamstring tie-in where many women store fat.
3) Increase fruit and veggie intake. Most vegetables are natural diuretics, which can help shed water under the skin, leaving legs (and arms and tummies!) looking leaner with more definition. Also, fruits and vegetables help produce a more alkaline environment in the body, which helps create a more favorable condition for fat burning.
4) Drink lots of H2O! Though it seems counterintuitive, the more water you drink, the more water you will shed, creating more of that coveted “defined” look. Staying hydrated with at least 3 liters of plain water per day helps speed the metabolism, and keeps you feeling fuller and more satiated for longer.
5) Skip the dairy and sodium. Dairy is an insulin-producing food, a hormone that directly impacts the kidney to increase water retention. Sodium will drastically increase water retention also, though through a slightly different mechanism. So try to limit cheeses, milk, cream and of course ice cream (!) as much as possible if the goal is to lean out the legs and bring out more definition. Finally, check the sodium content on any processed food labels and aim for less than 200 mg per serving.
My Gym Trainer Favorite Leg Circuit: 20 Minutes to Leaner Legs in 1 Month
Tags: building muscle, burning fat, Circuit Training, fitness training, leg training, training for women
At My Gym Trainer, we are all about getting results quickly and effectively: short, easy-to-follow workouts that deliver. Each of the three My Gym Trainer books (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) contains 8 leg workouts (2 per week). A minimum of twice-per-week lower body workouts will yield best results, and also offer plenty of variety. Here is an example of a leg circuit that will generate great results in only 20 minutes. It contains our 5 Must-Do Moves for Leaner Legs in 1 month!
In all of the My Gym Trainer books, we use circuit-training exercise like this exclusively because it is great for both cardiovascular fitness and strength training, not to mentions burns ton of calories in a short period of time. It is a way of exercising that maximizes fat-burning by keeping the heart rate and breathing up throughout the workout, and generates an after-burn so the metabolism stays elevated for hours after the workout is over. Instead of doing 1 set of an exercise and then sitting and waiting to do the next set of the same exercise, circuits are designed so that you move from one exercise to the next with little rest in between. For more workouts like this, grab a copy of My Gym Trainer at www.MyTrainerFitness.com or www.amazon.com!
Directions:
• Do the following leg circuit 2x/week for 1 month (3x/week for best results), allowing at least 48 hours’ rest in between each leg workout.
• To complete the circuit, perform the allotted number of reps for the first exercise, then immediately move to the second exercise and perform the allotted number of reps for it. Go on to complete the 3rd exercise, then the 4th and then the 5th.
• Once you complete one full cycle of all 5 exercises, begin again at the top, continuing to cycle through the movements until you complete 20 minutes. o Each time you do the workout, record how many “rounds” you complete in the allocated 20 minutes. On your next time through, try to beat your previous measure. Good luck!!
My Gym Trainer 1 – Who is it for?
Tags: best workout, building muscle, burning fat, fitness trainer, personal trainer, Weight Lifting
My Gym Trainer workouts are for anyone who is a relative beginner to gym exercise and who:
- Wants to get the most out of their gym membership
- Wants to improve their physical appearance, conditioning and health
- Wants to improve their emotional and mental well-being
- Wants to feel better about themselves and their life
- Has reached a plateau and is ready for a new challenge
- Can’t afford a personal trainer but would like the benefits
- Utilizes a personal trainer and wants additional professional workouts
In addition, My Gym Trainer is very useful for busy trainers as a handy, at-your-fingertips integrated workout program they can incorporate for new clients.
My Gym Trainer:
- Provides six workouts per week, averaging an hour each.
- Structures workouts for best results: approximately 50% cardiovascular and 50% strengthening and toning.
CLICK HERE to purchase My Gym Trainer!
For more information, visit: http://www.mytrainerfitness.com
WOMEN: Build Muscle, Burn Fat and Lose Inches with My Gym Trainer
Tags: building muscle, burn fat, get in shape, heavy weights, lose weight, my fitness, my gym trainer, personal trainer, weight lifiting
By Jill Coleman
Women love to lift light pink weights to prevent bulking up. As a trainer, I personally savor the moment when a female client comes to me and says that she doesn’t like to lift heavy weights because she doesn’t want to get “big” or because her “legs get big really quickly with weights” or some similar precaution. These comments from women excite me because it means that I get the chance to change their perspective and show them amazing results with challenging, heavy weight—results they never dreamed of: inches lost, improved energy, better sleep quality, increased sexual drive, stress dissipation, improved self esteem and sense of empowerment. I usually begin by saying that I guarantee that without challengingly heavy weight they will not see a single change in their physique, period. They can literally do hundreds and hundreds of reps with light weight and end up with no curves, no definition, no cuts, and no inches lost to show for it.
The problem with light weights
In general, 90% of female gym-goers unknowingly train for endurance by doing things like jogging on the treadmill, zoning out on the elliptical or taking a 60-minute Power Pump “toning” class. Essentially, in my opinion, lifting light weights for reps on end is the same thing as jogging, i.e. applying a light stimulus for a longer duration (endurance training). Interestingly, 90% of female gym-goers are wanting fat loss, and yet they are training for endurance; in other words, they doing long, slow workouts with light-to-moderate resistance in order to be able to maintain a steady exertion for the duration of the workout. If it is fat loss we want, why are we not training ourselves for it???
Hour-long toning classes require the participant complete hundreds of reps, with the goal of increasing weight lifted, all the while performing the same exercises. Though incremental increases in weight are a great way to increase intensity, how much weight can you really add when you are expected to complete 100 reps with it? Moreover, you are always doing the same exercises, class after class, to which we know that our bodies adapt more and respond less (i.e. burn less calories, build less muscle, release fewer amounts of fat-burning hormones) over time.
Furthermore, besides being a ridiculously-inefficient use of time, lifting with a weight light enough to complete sets of 30, 40 or even 50 reps elicits a very different hormonal response than that of heavier, more intense training. At the physiological level, completing hundreds of reps using pink dumbbells essentially does the same thing as jogging in terms of the hormonal response. It increases the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine, but without the complementary release of fat-burning hormones like growth hormone, testosterone and even lactic acid, which acts as a chemical messenger in the fat-burning process. The low-intensity resultant hormonal soup promotes muscle break-down and potentially even fat storing in the middle (cortisol is known as the “belly fat” hormone). Doing these kinds of workouts day after day promotes stripping of muscle, not building. The stimulus used is never enough to promote growth and development. The only way to increase fat-burning while building muscle is to lift heavy weights, preferably quickly and get more done in less time.
Why lift heavy
In the “My Gym Trainer” books, we encourage you to train with challengingly heavy weights. Here’s why:
Contrary to what many trainers may say, bulking up does happen, however it is not what you think it is. It occurs when muscle is built underneath layers of fat, without any attention paid to fat-burning. Thus, you appear larger. By now we know that we must lift heavy weights to elicit any physique change, but we also need to burn fat simultaneously to lose inches and gain more definition. Most educated personal trainers know that in order to increase fat-burning during and after the workout, you must breach your anaerobic threshold. In other words, when lifting, you must get breathless, you must get burning in your muscles (signals lactic acid accumulation) and you must lift heavy enough weight to reach the point of mechanical muscle failure. There should be no fear of bulking up when fat-burning is being maximized.
Lifting heavy weights to the point of muscle failure, in general, enhances the release of testosterone, which when increased naturally through weight training will increase fat-burning in women (one of the reasons men are leaner than women). Lifting heavy enough to generate a strong burning in the muscles enhances the release of human growth hormone, which also aids in fat burning and has female-friendly anti-aging benefits.
Finally, adding lean muscle mass will enhance your fat burning potential while you are not working out. A pound of muscle burns 15-30 calories per day at rest, while a pound of fat burns 2-5 calories; it’s a no-brainer of which composition is more desirable. More muscle makes us more metabolically active. Furthermore, a pound of fat takes up more physical space than a pound of muscle. So, burning fat and increasing lean muscle will NOT create bulk, but instead strip inches creating a lean, tight, defined physique, not to mention your clothes hanging off you.
Build Muscle, Burn Fat and Lose Inches with My Gym Trainer
So how do you do this? First, stop doing “toning” workouts. If you can complete 50 reps without stopping, you are not “toning,” you are wasting both muscle and time. Using the workouts contained in “My Gym Trainer,” choose a weight that elicits failure by the last rep. For example, if the workout calls for 10 reps, choose a weight with which you can barely complete 10 reps, and definitely not 11. Next, maximize your time in the gym by training quickly, sticking to less than 60 seconds between sets. Workout sessions (cardio OR weight training) should be no longer than 35-40 minutes in duration for best results. Long rest periods between sets is power lifting and does not burn fat.
“My Gym Trainer” uses circuit training. You have 3-4 exercises per circuit, through which you move quickly from exercise to exercise with little-to-no rest. The workouts in MGT are designed this way in order to keep the heart rate up and generate a greater lactic acid burn in the muscles because there will be less time for the burn to dissipate between sets. My Gym Trainer offers tons of variety in the exercises in order to keep the body responsive. Compound movements like pull-ups, squats, lunges, push-presses, rows and bench presses use multiple muscle groups across several joints. The more muscle tissue recruited by an exercise, the larger the metabolic effect of the workout.
Go heavy and leave the pink to the babies! We would love to hear from you, and about your My Gym Trainer experience! info@mytrainerfitness.com
CLICK HERE to purchase My Gym Trainer!
For more information, visit: http://www.mytrainerfitness.com
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