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Archive for the ‘Weight Training’ Category

How to Avoid Rotator Cuff Injury

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

All About the Rotator Cuff

We all need to take a second to examine the most frequently injured area of the shoulders: the rotator cuff. The muscles that make up the rotator cuff are small and can be strained easily.

The four small muscles that make up the rotator cuff:

Gotta Have
Strong Shoulders

infraspinatus
supraspinatus
teres minor
subscapularis

Each of these smaller muscles can easily be strained, pulled, or even sometimes overtrained. So important are each of the muscles of the rotator cuff, that once one muscle is damaged the whole cuff is thrown into disarray, often requiring rehab.

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Tags: injuries, injury, rotator cuff, shoulder, shoulders
Posted in Medical, Weight Training | 6 Comments »

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Workout for X-Men Origins

Friday, May 15th, 2009

I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine last weekend and it was great. Many a-hole fanboys will hate on this movie because it doesn’t stay 100% true to the comic book origin of Wolverine or Deadpool, but those guys should just go see Star Trek or something, because Wolverine was just awesome.

Hugh Jackman: Wolverine

Standing at 6′3, Hugh Jackman is looking pretty large and jacked these days and I was curious about what he did to prep for the Wolverine role. Here is what I could find out about Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Workout.

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Tags: hugh jackman, strength training, weightlifting, wolverine, x-men, xmen
Posted in Conditioning, Motivation, Weight Training | 6 Comments »

Why Women Need Muscles

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

This article is written by Kat Sanders, who regularly blogs on the topic of online surgical technician school at her blog iScrub. She welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: katsanders25@gmail.com.

Weightlifting Girl

Why Women Need Muscles

There was a time when women were referred to as the weaker sex, but not anymore. While the feminists are doing all they can to prove that anything a man can do, a woman can do better, the women who are endowed with common sense are going ahead and putting their money where their mouth is by doing what’s good for them – training with weights and building their muscle mass even as they go in for regular cardio workouts.

Strength training is no longer a man’s world, and women are building muscles for reasons that vary from good health to looking good. And if you’re a woman who’s reading this and shaking your head that you’re never going to be seen with weights around you, read on to see why you must work on increasing your muscle mass:

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Tags: build muscle, female, women
Posted in Guest Post, Healthy Lifestyle, Weight Training | 6 Comments »

How to Squat with Bad Knees, to Fix Bad Knees, and to Avoid Bad Knees

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

SQUAT

At one point someone asked me a question about squatting with bad knees. I knew a little bit about it, but I wanted to get more professional opinions before I wrote a full response.

I have compiled the results here and would like you to also read the resources listed at the bottom of this post for more information.

Much of this information was comprised from articles written by Dr. Fred Hatfield (aka Dr. Squat) and from the training certification guide from the ISSA.

Squats are both difficult to defend and difficult to disparage. There are pros and cons to both sides. Let’s examine the facts.

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Tags: health, knees, safety, squat
Posted in Weight Training, Your Questions | 11 Comments »

The Top 5 Best Chest Exercises

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Arnold Benching

Bench presses and curls are two of the first exercises that are learned by new weight lifters. For men, the chest or “pecs” (short for pectorals) are second only to biceps as the top show muscles in teenagers and young adults.

For women, the chest is even more important. Keeping well built, toned pecs can be useful in maintaining a solid, perky appearance of the breasts.

More importantly, the pecs are involved in one of the main powerlifting exercises, the bench press. The bench press is one of three exercises, including squats and deadlifts, in a standard big 3 powerlifting competition. For this reason, it is always important for powerlifters to increase their chest strength.

Therefore it seems to me that everyone has a reason to train their chest, including men, women, athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen… everyone; and here are the top 5 best chest exercises you should use.

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Tags: chest, chest training, training
Posted in Best Exercises, Weight Training | 67 Comments »

A 3×5 Approach to Strength Training

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

This is an updated version of a previously published article from June 2008.

bodybuilder and ultimate fighter If you have been reading weightlifting materials for any length of time, you have probably heard of 5×5 training. It has definitely worked for many trainees. I even made excellent progress on a 5×5 program. But with all this 5×5 hype, has anyone stopped to think that there might be an even more efficient way to train? Well, from my experience, there is.

This is not a powerlifting routing or a bodybuilding routine. This is not a conditioning routine or a cardiovascular routine. In fact it is all of those and none of those.

A 3×5 approach to strength training is a free weight routine designed to get you back into shape, to give you a break from a more mundane routine, or to blast you through a plateau.

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Tags: 3x5, 5x5, routine, strength, workout routine
Posted in Weight Training, Workout Routines | 24 Comments »

The Top 5 Best Biceps Exercises

Friday, December 19th, 2008

Arnold Biceps

Biceps. The ultimate show muscle. From age 10 on, every boy, teenager, and man want to have bulging biceps. This is, apparently, a true sign of manliness and strength.

Biceps are among the most famous muscles in the body. When somebody asks you to “make a muscle” or “flex”, they aren’t asking you to flex your hamstrings. They want to see your biceps!

This whole notion of flexing the biceps as a measure of anything, is completely ludicrous to me, but it is a reality. When someone asks me to flex, I ask them if they’d much rather discuss max effort PRs, perhaps dynamic powerlifting strategies, or better yet how to put together the most effective HIIT complexes. Most folks walk away thus. But I digress…

How to Get Big Ass Arms

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Tags: arms, biceps, weight lifting, weightlifting
Posted in Best Exercises, Weight Training | 42 Comments »

Sexy Girl Power Clean Demo

Friday, December 5th, 2008

I found this one surfing around on YouTube watching Olympic lifting clips. It’s a pretty good demonstration of how to execute a proper power clean.

Don’t get me wrong, power cleans take a bit of practice to get the form right, but once you get it you will want to clean every day.

Power cleans help us with force development. By using Olympic exercises like this, you will train your central nervous system (CNS) to develop maximal force while recruiting all the muscles in the body to work as a single unit. Good stuff.

Tags: girl, olympic, olympic lifting, power clean, sexy
Posted in Weight Training | 2 Comments »

What Are Zercher Squats?

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Zercher Squats

In a recent training log, I mention Zercher squats as an alternative to barbell squats, and you might have asked, “What is a Zercher squat?”

So, What is a Zercher Squat?

The Zercher squat was developed by Ed Zercher, a well-known powerlifter and strongman from St. Louis who competed back in the ’30s. Rumor has it that Zercher’s home gym lacked a squat rack, so he would load a barbell on the floor, squat in front of it, hold it in the crook of his arms and lift the weight with his legs and lower back.

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Tags: legs, squat, zercher
Posted in Weight Training | 1 Comment »

The Top 5 Best Back Exercises

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Arnold T-Bar Row

Nothing is more impressive than being able to bang out 30 pull ups in a row or finishing a set of 10 with 90 lbs hanging from a belt. Nothing LOOKS more impressive than being able to hit an impressive front or rear lat spread with confidence. Furthermore, how many women do you know that can finish a set of 10 pull ups? Trust me, there aren’t many.

The reality is that we can accomplish all of these things with intense free weight back training.

Your back muscles comprise the second largest set of muscles, after the legs. Therefore, putting some serious effort into training your back will pay off huge dividends whether you are looking to burn a large number of calories, better fill out your shirts, condition your body for functional strength, or even to fix your posture from focusing too long on chest training.

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Tags: back, lats, traps, weight lifting, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Best Exercises, Weight Training | 68 Comments »