Posts Tagged ‘legs’
Friday, July 30th, 2010
How to Deadlift
Deadlifts are one of the primary, fundamental exercises for all serious weight training programs. Deadlifts work 100% of your legs and they require functional stability from 95% of the rest of the muscles on your body. Using proper form, deadlifts will help you get stronger, gain more muscle, and burn more calories than any other single exercise after the squat.
Deadlifts build lower back and hamstring strength, and they teach you to keep your lower back tight against a heavy load, which is critical to avoid injuries when lifting objects from the ground or floor. Unfortunately, this is also why deadlifts have gained a bad reputation of causing a variety of injuries, including spinal injuries and hernias.
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Tags: back, build muscle, deadlifts, exercise technique, gain muscle, legs, muscle gain, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
How to Perform Overhead Squats
Among the best exercises for strength, size, speed, and power, are squats – no exceptions. Front squats, jump squats, and overhead squats are all great alternatives to the king of squat exercises – the barbell back squat.
Squatting will help you develop powerful legs and a rigid core, have no doubt, but when we get creative we can mix and match exercises for an even more effective exercise that trains the whole body.
Sometimes we must think about our upper body as well and there is no better way to look and feel jacked, than to build massively strong shoulders. And there is no better way to feel sexy as a female, than to have sleek, strong, healthy shoulders. It is also equally important to build structurally invincible shoulders to proactively protect yourself from injury.
Combine everything together that I’ve just mentioned, and you get the overhead barbell squat. Let’s see how to do them correctly.
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Tags: hamstrings, legs, overhead squat, quads, shoulder, shoulders, squat, squats, squatting, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 7 Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
How to Perform Front Squats
The best exercises for speed, strength, size, and power, are squats – bar none. Back squats, front squats, overhead squats… they are all great, and will help you develop powerful legs and a rigid core.
Front squats are just about the best alternative to back squats, so let’s see how to do them correctly.
Barbell front squats are just about the same as back squats except the bar is placed across the front of your shoulders, using one of the two styles detailed below.
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Tags: barbell, front squat, hamstrings, how to, legs, quads, squat
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 6 Comments »
Friday, April 16th, 2010
How to Perform Squats
There are many different lifts that a weightlifter can do to increase their strength, speed, and power. All kind of weightlifting is great for your body, but I prefer to not waste time in the gym lifting with tunnel vision, going from machine to machine and seeing little results from my hard work.
Instead, I would rather do 3-4 exercises with maximal intensity to wipe out my whole body in order to reap a maximal anabolic effect. The most well known and most dreaded of these exercises is the squat.
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Tags: Conditioning, leg training, legs, squats, technique, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 5 Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Increasing Your Vertical Jumping Ability
A single vertical jump for maximum height is one of the most intense exercises you can do.
Why? Because it requires you to utilize your entire lower body chain in a maximal effort contraction, to produce a maximal amount of force in a split second.
The important aspects of training to work on, to increase your vertical leap include:
- Squatting strength – Maximal leg strength transfers directly to a vertical jump. A strong 1 rep max = a big jump.
- Squatting speed – The faster you can squat, the more power you can generate, the higher you can jump.
- Squatting power – Tied in directly with speed and strength, squat heavier and squat faster and you will jump higher.
- Acceleration - You want to continue accelerating out of the hole all the way through the top of your jump.
- Single leg strength – To eliminate strength imbalances and to improve neuromuscular coordination, train your legs individually.
- Calf strength – Your calves are used at the end of the jump, so max calf strength can mean an extra inch on your vert.
- Sprint speed – Sprinting trains the Type-II Fast Twitch muscle fibers, which are what you need to attain your highest jump. Acceleration applies here as well.
- Hip drive – Your hips are responsible for a significant portion of jumping power from a parallel squat position to standing.
- Glute activation – Your glutes are responsible for driving you out of the hole at the bottom of a squat or jump.
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Tags: glutes, hips, jump squat, jumping, jumping rope, jumps, leaping, leg training, legs, plyometrics, squats, squatting, vertical
Posted in Conditioning, Fitness Tips, Weight Training, Workout Routines | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Double Your Calf Size with These Two Simple Tips
Calves tend to be a bodybuilding problem spot. Even Arnold used to worry about the size of his calves in relation to the rest of his body.
Here is a simple tip to double the size of your calves in no time:
Since your calves are made up of two muscle groups, you will need to train your calves in a standing and seated position. Most calf exercises can be tweaked to include straight-knee and bent-knee variations. Use them both.
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Tags: bodybuilding, calf training, calves, legs, weight lifting, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Fitness Tips | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
How to Train with a Busted Arm or Leg
When you hurt one of your arms, you shouldn’t necessarily stop exercising the healthy arm.
A study at the University of Oklahoma suggests that when you train a single arm (or leg), the muscle nerve fibers in the opposite appendage are stimulated. This means you will still get the benefits of Central Nervous System (CNS) adaptations in an injured limb as long as you train the opposite healthy limb, over a short period of time.
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Tags: arms, injuries, injury, legs, Medical, Weight Training
Posted in Fitness Tips | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Look, now I’m turning up in other places online!
Somehow dietsinreview.com gave me an opportunity to write a guest post. You can find it at How to Train Legs part 1.
I had originally written a 1500 word article for this, but ended up having to shorten it to 2, 500 word pieces. Now I know what it feels like when a Hollywood director is forced to cut 20 minutes off of his movie to be able to get his R rated movie down to a PG-13 rating.
Thanks to Diets in Review for giving me my first chance to write a unique guest post on a high profile website.
I also published a guest post from Heather Ashare of Diets in Review fame. You can find that post at Yoga for Men. Thanks Heather!
Tags: diets in review, Guest Post, legs
Posted in Business, Guest Post, Social Networking | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 9th, 2008
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 »
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Male weightlifters want to be able to lift thousands of pounds off the ground with minimal effort. It makes us feel good to be able to pick up anything we want. Especially when most guys in the world struggle to pick up even 100 lbs off the floor.
Female weightlifters want to sculpt and tone their thighs and buttocks. It makes them feel good to have a tight butt that can fit into size 2 pants. Especially when the majority of American women are roley and poley, thanks in no small part to low fat dieting in the 80′s and 90′s, and to the yo-yo dieting of the new millennium.
The number one way to make all these things happen? Train your hamstrings, lower back, and glutes (your bum) with complex free weight exercises.
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Tags: deadlifts, exercise, good mornings, hamstrings, legs, workout routine
Posted in Best Exercises, Weight Training | 18 Comments »
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