Leg Press | Buffing Up

Bodybuilding Tip How Many Sets & Reps Per Workout

Jun 122011

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Gym Etiquette – Ten Rules

Build Muscle No Responses »

Jun 242010

Observe these ten basic rules of etiquette and you will help make the gym a pleasant place for everyone who uses it:

Wipe Up With A Towel

A towel is essential (as fans of Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchikers’ books will be aware!). If you sweat on a bench or machine, give it a wipe with your towel when you’ve finished.

Tidy Up When You’re Finished

Bars, plates and dumbbells usually have specific storage racks, so use them. If you use something like the Powerblock Elite Set, make sure you replace them in the case when you’re finished. Put all equipment back where it should be when you’ve finished with it. I’ve seen people finish exercising and leave 400lb on the leg press machine then some tiny young lady has to come along and struggle to remove it when she wants to use the machine.

Switch Your Mobile Phone Off

Little is more annoying and distracting that some idiot barking into a phone in the middle of a gym. If you must use the phone then go outside. Better still, use it only for dire emergencies. Give gym users a break!

Don’t Hog The Wrong Kit

I’d like a dollar for every time I’ve seen someone doing barbell curls in a squat rack. Sure, if nobody wants the rack then go ahead and use it but it’s a squat rack so give precedence to anyone who wants to use it for its intended purpose. The same applies to all equipment.

Don’t Hog The Right Equipment

If someone is waiting to use the kit you’re using, don’t waste time. You were there first, so take the time you need to workout properly but don’t hang around chatting and hold people up needlessly. Or let people work in with you if it doesn’t harm your routine and you both lift similar weights. A little cooperation goes a long way and will usually be reciprocated.

Don’t Hog The Treadmills, Bikes etc.

Gyms sometimes have limits on treadmill and other aerobic machine use during crowded times – please respect them and give everyone a chance to use it.

Treat Beginners With Respect

If you’re an experienced weight trainer or bodybuilder, go easy on those who are new to it – remember you were a beginner once. Don’t mock them or laugh at them – offer to help them do things properly instead.

Pick Your Moment To Ask Questions

Most experienced gym users are only to glad to help out beginners but don’t interrupt them mid-exercise. Wait until they have finished and then ask them if they’ll answer some questions for you or show you how an exercise should be done.

iPods, MP3 Players And Such

If you must listen to music then do so through headphones and make sure it’s not so loud that others can hear the annoying, tinny rattle. Better still, forget the music – concentrate on your workout instead.

Safety First

Always keep one eye on safety, both yours and everyone else’s. This means not leaving things lying around on the floor, making sure barbells and dumbbells are collared safely and helping someone out who gets into trouble with a weight.

The gym will be a better place for everyone if you follow those ten simple rules.

Vertical Jumping Workouts – 3 Fantastic Workouts To Get You In The Air

Exercise No Responses »

May 192010

So you would like to know some good vertical jumping exercises? There are a few out there.There are some particularly that may beef up your capability to jump higher. You need to be sure you follow them exactly. Many people perform the right exercises, but they do not do them in the right way. Add these three exercises to your vertical coaching and you will be well on the way to adding major inches to your vertical.

You may think the only muscles you need to work on during your vertical jumping workouts are your leg muscles, but that is’s not right. Your lumbar region and erector muscles need to be strong too. The erector muscles are the most powerful in the back and take on the most work. Vertical jumping exercises should include working on this area. Dead lifts are great. Arch your back, bend your knees while holding the weighted bar. Come to an upright position while holding the bar. Slowly lower the weight back down. The first three sets of 6-8 reps should be done quickly but continuously to avoid injury. Take a rest. Then do the following set, but this time take your time and feel the full range of your muscles.

Another healthy exercise is leg presses. Load a leg press machine with weights. Place feet high and away from you. Bring the plate down slowly until your knees bend at your chest, and then quickly push it away. It’s not about the slow and steady here. You need to practice the explosive force to get the most out of the muscles you may use when jumping higher. Do 5 sets of six reps. Permit muscles to rest between sets.

Finally, use a heavy medicine ball in the place of a basketball. Pretend you’re going to slam dunk, but do not basically throw the ball! Exaggerate the movements and reach for the rim.This may help bolster all the muscles you’ll be using when you slam dunk for real . Do not forget to push yourself to the maximum. This is still exercise!

These three exercises are just 3 of many that may help raise your vertical jumping. Mix these with more jumping exercises. Make sure you do them properly, though. You don’t want to do all that work for nothing.

Get jump training with the best vertical jump program on the market, Jumping Exercises. the Jump Mentor here Jumping drills.

What Do You Need To Bodybuild At Home?

BodyBuilding No Responses »

Apr 202010

Basics

If you are think about starting to train alone at home you need to take a few things into consideration. One of the most important things to consider is safety. When you train with someone else they can spot for you but if you train on your own you need to make sure you get kit with spotter bars, like those on the Powertec Half Rack.

How Much Will It Cost?

You can probably get started with a simple bench and some weights but cheaper equipment may not have spotter bars and you could be risking injury. Furthermore, cheap kit will often not last the distance. That does not mean you need to spend a fortune to set up a useful home gym but you are probably looking at about $500.

Space Required

You can use a small garage, a basement or a spare room for your home gym, although obviously the more space you have the better. Avoid putting your gym on an upper floor though unless the floor is reinforced – dropping a heavily loaded barbell onto a thin floor could end up in disaster.

Essential Equipment

Minimally, you need a rack with spotter bars, a bench, a barbell and some free weights. A good rack will allow you to bench press, shoulder press and squat safely and free weights can be used on dumbbells and barbells in many ways.

In terms of your weights, you need to consider whether to buy standard weights or Olympic weights. A lot of good quality rack systems will only take Olympic weights, so this might be the deciding factor. Olympic kit is often a little more expensive than non-Olympic kit but you can still get dumbbells and such to take Olympic weights, so it does not limit you in any way.

Depending upon where you are training you might also want to put something on the floor. If for example you are training in a garage with a concrete floor you might consider putting some cheap underlay on the floor.

Getting More Kit

If you have the money and the space you might want to expand your gym with things like Smith machines, leg press machines, calf machines and similar, although this is not compulsory because with the essential equipment described above you can have perfectly decent workouts.

Always Consider …

Safety first! If you are training without a partner make sure you get the correct equipment to allow you to train to failure without killing yourself! It is beneficial for raw beginners to start off by going to a gym regardless of any plans they may have to train at home. This is because it is important to learn how to perform the various exercises properly, which is not always as easy as it might at first appear.

Something like the Powertec Workbench Half Rack and some free weights is a good combination to get your home gym started with.

You need to be quite self-motivated to train on your own at home – so it does present some challenges – but it is extremely convenient to be able to get to your gym in seconds and train whenever you like.

Most Effective Leg Exercises

Build Muscle 1 Response »

Dec 292009

Many people in the gym overlook the legs, and that’s a shame, because your legs are your locomotor unit and your foundation and you can’t build a strong body without laying the groundwork.

Your legs have essentially three main sections that all need to be trained equally, which means that you have to do lots of work to see appreciable gains in the size and strength department; those sections are — the hamstring, the quadriceps and the calves.

The topmost exercise for muscle development in the legs is the SQUAT, or at least it used to be (I’ll explain latter). Well, over 200 individual muscles get called into play when you perform squats, and because you are moving your body through space (not only the weight) you have more control of the weight that you are lifting and you activate more muscle fibers with each rep.

Squats blast your glutes, upper hamstrings and quads like no other exercise, not the leg extension or the leg press. A correct and proper form of execution is vital for you to get the best results as well as to avoid injuries.

When done correctly, you will use your hip extensors to get moving off the bottom of the stroke and then the quads will kick in at the top or lock-out portion of the exercise. Keep your shoulder blades collapsed together and your chest out and use your butt to hunt for something to sit on as you descend, stop when your thighs are at or just past parallel and then push through your heels and butt to drive yourself back up. You can vary your foot position to accent adductors or abductors.

Now that I’ve spent all that hot air telling you how to do squats, I’m going to recommend that you don’t do them, here’s why. Turns out the limiting factor on squats is your low back and in that bilateral squat position it’s not as stable as it could be, and therefore, you are more prone to injury there.

Your lumbar spine and S1 vertebrae are locked together and more stable in a one foot forward stance and therefore you can drive more work to your legs that way. So my recommendation is to sack squats in favor of split squats. This is like doing a lunge, but, you don’t come out of the lunge position until you are done with your reps and then you switch legs and do the other side.

This is also the reason it’s more functional, we are designed to walk, and that stance imitates a step. You can do this with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, resistance bands, sand bags and TRX suspension straps. I explain more about lunges in a little while. I will post a video on split squats in the near future.

The same with every exercise, stretches must first be performed before squats, however, it is better if you perform the stretches after every set.

Since we’re talking about squats, you must include the HACK SQUAT (using the machine) in your routine to bombard not just your quads but your abductors & adductors. Your abductors and adductors are notoriously hard at work, but the Hack Squat really targets them. You can place emphasis on your gluts and quads depending on the placement of your feet on the platform. A wide stance will emphasize your adductors, narrow will get a little more abductors. Feet forward will get more glutes and feet under you or back further will emphasize quads (careful not to hurt your knees on these).

Another quality leg exercise is the STRAIGHT-LEGGED DEADLIFT. This exercise assaults your upper hamstrings and glutes, and forces you to keep your lower back flexible and strong, too. Once again, collapse your shoulder blades together and stick your chest out.

You want to start with a comfortable, but challenging weight, and perform these by using a mixed grip on the barbell (one hand palm up and the other palm down), then lower the weight while keeping your legs and back straight.

Keep your knees bent a little. You want to push your buttocks out and keep the bar as close to your shins as possible. To feel fatigue in your upper hamstrings and glutes, you’ll have to perform either a good number of reps.

Another great exercise is the LUNGE. Your hip extensors, upper hamstrings and glutes, will be worked on by doing lunges with the proper form and posture. When lunges are done with improper posture and bad form the load is thrown onto your knee extensors, your quads.

It will be best to ask a coach to teach you proper posture, especially if you feel your lunges and deep squats in your quads. It’s very effective when you lunge with a barbell, as it requires you to utilize your balance and stabilizers as you do each rep. You can do lunges with dumbbells, too, but you can’t use as much weight.

Three other great tools to do lunges with are: 1) Resistance bands, you can use the bands for either resistance or assistance. In my humble opinion, these are the ultimate tools for doing lunges, hell, you can use a barbell and use the band at the same time. 2) TRX suspension straps. You can use the bands with this also. 3) Sandbags, due to the shape and ever shifting nature, these require different gripping and/or carrying strategies and more core stabilization. Yes, you can use bands at the same time.

We must not forget the calves as developing them will improve you vertical leap as well as balance the legs.

For calf work, the donkey press is probably the most effective for building size and strength.

Form is critical for the donkey press, make sure you keep your knees straight and plantar and dorsiflex your ankles as far as you can, this bent over position adds a prestretch to the back of your legs and especially your calves.

It’s important to note that you can injure yourself quite badly when doing any of these leg exercises. So proper form and being honest with yourself regarding how much weight you can successfully lift.

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