Archive for the ‘Weight Training’ Category

Heavy or Light: Shoulder Workout 101

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

Just like you should not skip leg day, you definitely shouldn’t go easy when it comes to your shoulder workout. Not that you need a dedicated “shoulder day” but at least try to hit them from all directions with proper intensity.

Properly building shoulder size and strength makes for a vital part of that lusted-after “V-Shape” body physique. That physique starts with a wide top, and big shoulders make up a wide top.

But despite the importance of training shoulders, they are often done wrong, which makes you vulnerable to injury and a frustrating lack of growth. It is very easy to stumble into a pretty severe injury if you train shoulders wrong.

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Tags: delts, exercise, shoulders, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | No Comments »

A Generic Full-Body Workout Routine

Tuesday, December 14th, 2021

There are about 8,675,309 workout routines that you can try. One of the most effective types of routines I have found in the first 14 years of my training career is total body training. A full-body workout will stimulate all of your muscle chains sufficiently to elicit a powerful physiological response.

The Principles of Total Body Training

Train every muscle group 3 times per week.
Select one exercise per muscle group, per day.
Hit each muscle group from a different angle or intensity in each workout.
Never go to absolute failure on any exercise; leave one rep in the bank, except sometimes on the last set.
Keep workouts under one hour, not counting warm-ups and stretching.
Change everything up after two months.

Why Might This Be the Most Effective Form of Training?

High frequency (how often you train any given muscle) means more chances to recover and grow stronger/bigger.
Low daily stimulus (# of exercises and sets per day for any given muscle) lowers your chances of overtraining.
Avoiding training to failure also lowers the chances of overtraining.
Hitting muscles from all angles each week strengthens stabilizers and is proactive injury prevention.
Avoid muscle adaptation by changing up the whole routine after 2 months.

Let’s take a few minutes to example one of the better full-body workout routines I’ve written. The next time you want to change up your routine, try this for a month or two.

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Tags: exercise, full body, weightlifting, workout plan, workout routine
Posted in Conditioning, Weight Training, Workout Routines | 339 Comments »

Werewolf Training: A Weightlifting Routine to Gain Muscle

Friday, October 29th, 2021

Gain Muscle with Werewolf Training

This training routine is designed for you to gain muscle. That’s it.

If you’ve come here to lose fat, you are better off using the Full Body Fat Loss Routine for Men or the Full Body Fat Loss Routine for Women. This routine definitely has nothing to do with fat loss.

If you came to learn how to bench 700 lbs, you are better off reading Werewolf Training for Strength Gains. Although, truth to tell, you will get significantly stronger following this program.

Use this menu to skip to:

Werewolf training is not designed to get you ripped or “toned” (::barfs::), or even super strong, but you will get stronger anyway. This is much more of a bodybuilding routine than anything else, but with great strength benefits.

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Tags: gain, gain mass, gain muscle, mass, muscle gain, taylor lautner, training, twilight, weight lifting, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Weight Training, Workout Routines | 1,905 Comments »

How to Get Started with Weightlifting

Thursday, September 9th, 2021

Weightlifting is extremely good for you. It helps your body remain strong as you age, helps increase sports performance, helps maintain muscle mass while trying to lose weight, and even helps prevent blood clots and stroke. That being said, lifting, especially lifting heavy weights, can be intimidating if you don’t know where or how to get started. Here are some starting points if you’re thinking about how to get started with weightlifting.

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Tags: 101, exercise, fitness, weightlifting
Posted in Health, Weight Training | No Comments »

Weightlifting Injury Prevention: Protect Your Back!

Wednesday, August 25th, 2021

This is a guest post from Shaun Sinclair, founder, and author of Stay Fit Bug. Shaun is a former 100/200-meter runner and professional athlete.

Look after your BACK!
Because once that goes you are FINISHED!

It really is that simple.

The spine and the muscles surrounding it are the backbones to our physical existence ‘Pun intended’.

However, it is a part of our body that is prone to injury. Now, prevention isn’t a difficult thing to do. But one thing I am certain of is that trying to cure the issue of back pain is an entirely different matter (Yes… not always easy).

Good form
Good exercise execution
Embracing good posture

All of those things are highly important when it comes to protecting your back. Heck, embracing good posture isn’t even something you need to worry about in the gym only. In fact, that has a lot more to do with your activities outside of the weight room.

How you sit at your desk in the office.
In your bed and how you sleep (sleeping on the floor is still one of the best things you can do).
How you position your body when using a computer at home, which of course, is where most of us spend most of our time in today’s world on Facebook and the like.

These lifestyle habits are highly important in regard to back injury prevention. Now let’s see how you can change your lifestyle to proactively protect yourself from back injuries.

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Tags: back, deadlifts, Healthy Lifestyle, injuries, injury, injury prevention, legs, prevention
Posted in Healthy Lifestyle, Medical, Weight Training | 2 Comments »

The Top 5 Best Lower Back Exercises

Monday, June 21st, 2021

While the lower back may be the easiest part of your back to acquire mass, it is also the easiest to injure. Think about all of the people with factory jobs spending all day picking up heavy boxes. These people will have very developed backs from doing this all day and they aren’t weightlifters or bodybuilders; they likely don’t do any of the best lower back exercises unless they are hitting the gym after a long, demanding workday.

The way people get injured isn’t necessarily the injured. I swear, you hear people all the time say all this shit about deadlifts being bad. This could not be further from the truth.

It is the way you perform the exercise. If you pick the bar off the ground with your back rounded like crazy, then yeah, of course, you are going to get injured.

How to Get a Muscular Lower Back

Like mentioned above, this may be the easiest muscle to get built up. Obviously, the deadlift will be the best exercise to utilize to achieve this goal.

Deadlifts can also be dangerous since a lot of people just never figure out how to use the correct form. Either that or they will try to go too heavy to inflate their ego and sacrifice form in doing so.

Here’s a hint: if you have to round your back in order to deadlift 500 lbs, then you should probably lower the weight. Drop the ego and use the right form, please.

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Tags: back, erector spinae, lower back
Posted in Best Exercises, Weight Training | 16 Comments »

The Top 5 Best Neck Exercises

Wednesday, May 26th, 2021

The neck really is an important muscle. Think about it; unless you are wearing a turtle neck, everyone will see your neck. It can distinguish you from a bodybuilder to just a normal person. Furthermore, next to forearms and calf training in muscles being neglected, neck training is next in line. Actually, I would say that people neglect neck training more than anything else. Many people have never even heard of it or would even know what to do. This is why we are mandated to publish this list of the best neck exercises with guidance for how to build a tree trunk neck.

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Tags: best exercises, exercise technique, fitness, neck, neck training, traps, weight lifting, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Best Exercises, Bodybuilding, Weight Training | 9 Comments »

How to Overhead Press

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

How to Perform the Overhead Press

The overhead press; also known as the press, shoulder press, barbell press, and standing press; is often confused with the military press; and is quite possibly the best upper body exercise known to man. Sure, the bench press gets all the glory, but this is only because it is easier to lift more weight benching than pressing.

In many ways, the overhead press is actually more effective than the bench press at building upper body muscle mass. With the overhead press, we are standing up rather than laying down, which already means a better workout for the back, legs, and core. And seriously, massive, powerful shoulders are far more impressive than a puffy chest.

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Tags: exercise, Exercise Equipment, overhead press, pressing, shoulders, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 2 Comments »

The Top 5 Best Shoulder Exercises

Monday, May 10th, 2021

How to Build Solid Shoulders

It doesn’t matter how big your chest and biceps are, if you have narrow shoulders you will appear to be weak and puny. Someone will surely kick sand on you at the beach, and Arnold would not approve of that.

For bodybuilders, powerlifters, athletes, and all other fitness buffs in between, wide shoulders will make you look tall, broad, and powerful so that you can be the one defending geeks from sand kicking bullies and they can help you throw the ball hard enough to win the game. Flabby or narrow shoulders lend absolutely nothing to your physique.

Everyone needs to train their shoulders.

Strong shoulders help with every other exercise from bench press to pull ups, and for all you boxers and MMA guys, well conditioned shoulders will help you to win a fight.

It is also very important to have a strong shoulder girdle, including the rotator cuff area, to prevent injuries from sports and heavy lifting.

How to Get Strong Shoulders

Firstly, chest and back are two muscle groups that are important to train, when training for stronger shoulders. As a unit, the chest, shoulders, and back form the core of your upper body strength. Once you’ve read this article you can move on to the top 5 best chest exercises and the top 5 best back exercises.

Secondly, no one developed great shoulders by focusing on dumbbell side raises or shoulder pressing on machines. The compound exercises that involve your whole body will be most effective at building big, strong shoulders. Isolation exercises will be necessary, but only for developing super strong rotator cuffs.

We should have a working knowledge of how the shoulder is put together, to better understand how to train them effectively.

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Tags: deltoids, shoulders
Posted in Best Exercises, Bodybuilding, Weight Training | 95 Comments »

The Top 5 Best Leg Exercises for Your Quads

Tuesday, May 4th, 2021

Serious fitness enthusiasts and athletes want to be bigger, stronger, and leaner. The number one way to make that happen? Train your legs with complex free-weight exercises such as these best leg exercises.

Your legs are the largest group of muscles in your body. They are the foundation of your strength and power. Never will you be able to bench press 315 if you can’t squat 315 first. By training your legs hard, you will be setting yourself up to gain the most progress compared to every other muscle group.

Arnold loved squatting, and look what happened to him. If you want to be Mr. Olympia, a famous Hollywood actor, and the governor of California, you need to squat! This article will give you great direction on training the quad, while our best hamstring exercises will give you some great ideas for supersetting or dividing leg day into a push and pull split.

By training your legs, you will:

Lift the most weight of all muscle groups.
Burn the most calories of all muscle groups.
Form the foundation of your body’s strength chain.
Stimulate the highest growth hormone release through training.

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Tags: legs, lunges, quads, squats, weight lifting, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Best Exercises, Bodybuilding, Weight Training | 61 Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Weight Training’ Category

Heavy or Light: Shoulder Workout 101