How To Build Your Foundation – The Process Of Building Powerful, toned and incredible Legs

How To Build Your Foundation – The Process Of Building Powerful, Muscular Legs

When you hit the gym, it’s important that you don’t make the mistake that so many other people commit on a weekly basis, skipping over leg training.  Your legs are going to build the foundation of your body and since you are standing on them for support in many other exercises, if they’re weak, this could be your weakest link.

And this doesn’t even take into account that since your legs are such large muscle groups – the largest in the body – this makes them great for provoking a strong hormonal release, kicking your testosterone into high gear. This can then eventually mean greater muscular strength and size gains in other areas of your body as well.

This said, leg training is brutal. There’s no way around that – if you want to put together an effective leg training session, you’re going to have to be willing to endure a bit of pain in the process.  Note that this shouldn’t be tendon, joint, or ligament pain, but rather, the sheer exhaustion and burning sensation your muscles feel when placed under extreme stress.  Getting through a well-planned leg workout is also going to be one of the best ways to build psychological tenacity, making you stronger for each workout that comes your way.

What’s the best way to go about lower body training? Let me give you a few tips to kick your own leg training into high gear.

Combine Unilateral And Bilateral Training Together

The first quick tip to remember as you set up your lower body workout program is that it’s going to be best if you can combine both unilateral and bilateral exercises together.  What does this mean?

Basically, don’t always work both legs together.  Bilateral training would be performing a squat for instance, where you are standing on both legs and working at the same time.

Alternatively, a single leg horizontal leg press for instance would hit just that one leg itself with each rep you take.  Add in some of these unilateral moves as well.  They’re great for making sure your stronger side isn’t overcompensating for your weaker side, leading you down the road of a strength imbalance.

Hit The Big Moves First

The second quick tip that you must remember at all times is to make sure that you hit the big moves you have planned first. Unless you are specifically using a concept such as the pre-fatigue protocol, never perform say a leg extension before a squat.

Always start with the moves that demand the most strength and energy so that you are at your freshest and can give your all.  The big moves to be aware of with this include squats and deadlifts. These should always come first.

Then you can follow those with any leg pressing you might be doing, lunges, or split squats.  From there, you can then move into hamstring curls and leg extensions, along with calf work if you desire.

Periodize Your Reps And Structure

In order to keep your lower body muscles constantly responding at all times, it’s vital that you periodize your reps and structure of your workout. Don’t go into the gym and do the same thing day after day or your body will soon be in a serious plateau.

Change it up.  Decrease your reps over time as you increase the weight and get stronger.  Then, once you’ve hit a certain weight level for a lower number of reps, go back to the higher rep range again, this time increasing the weight from what you did at that rep range before.

This is a great way to not only ensure that you keep your body progressing, but also ensure that you are not constantly placing great strain on your joints from that heavy weight.  Those higher rep, lighter weight sessions will give your joints, ligaments, and tendons a chance to heal, allowing you to sidestep injury.

Never Sacrifice Form

As you go about your lower body training, make sure that you never let yourself sacrifice good form.  As the weights you lift will get quite heavy with lower body, it’s easy to let a little error in form take place. But, if this happens, your risk of injury will be significant.

Think of it this way, which poses a bigger threat?  Bicep curling 30 Kilos and moving out of good form or squatting 150 kilos and moving out of good form?

Hopefully this makes it clear just how important good form is.  One small wrong move and you could suffer from a serious knee or back injury.

Leave your ego at the door when you go in to do legs. Only do a weight that allows you to maintain perfect form.  Only if you have a spotter should you go higher.

Small Changes Yield Big Results

Finally, don’t forget to make small tweaks to your program over time. For instance, swapping out a front squat for a back squat still has you squatting, but these two moves are going to challenge the body in a totally unique manner.

Likewise for regular squats versus sumo squats.  Small changes like this can yield big results and don’t require you to change much about your overall workout plan.

So there you have some fast and easy tips for hitting your lower body properly to see remarkable strength and size gains.  When was the last time you really truly trained legs properly?

The following is a 12-week example of using both alternate exercises and rep ranges throughout the program.

Week 1-4

Barbell Squat                                  10-12 reps

Barbell Lunge                                 10-12 reps

Bi-lateral Leg Press                       20-22 reps

Leg Extension                                 12-15 reps

Standing Calf Raise                       20-22 reps

Week 5-8

Barbell Squat                                 8-10 reps

Barbell Lunge (On step)             8-10 reps

Bi-lateral Leg Press                     16-18 reps

Leg Extension                                10-12 reps

Standing Calf Raise                      16-18 reps

Week 9-12

Sumo Squat                                     6-8 reps

Barbell Lunge                                 6-8 reps

Uni-lateral Leg Press                   10-12 reps

Leg Extension                                 8-10 reps

Standing Calf Raise                       10-12 reps

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The Cardio Method That Burns Fat, Improves Health – And Takes Just 20 Minutes

The Cardio Method That Burns Fat, Improves Health – And Takes Just 20 Minutes

Feel like if you have to face yet another long drawn-out cardio session again you might just scream? You aren’t alone in these sentiments. Cardio training can be dull and boring and for most people, that’s the name of their game. Each day they force themselves into the gym, ‘putting in their time’ as they go through the cardio workouts they have come to hate.

It’s time to put an end to this. Not only are these cardio sessions causing you to form a negative association with exercise in your mind but they aren’t all that effective.  Just take a close look at the results you’ve seen over the last 3-4 months of doing them. Do you look leaner? Do you feel fitter?  Chances are you don’t – and as such, something needs to change.

Let’s look at some information you need to know and remember regarding cardio training and introduce you to what is the most effective type of cardio you can do.

The Types Of Cardio Training

First let’s talk about the types of cardio training. There are two key forms that you can do:

·      Long, slow distance cardio

·      Interval training

Long slow distance cardio basically involves what the name suggests – lots of cardio done at a slower pace.  This is the type of cardio most people are doing in the gym and tend to think will yield the best possible results.  You basically go in, turn on the bike, treadmill, or elliptical to a moderate pace and zone out for the next 45-60 minutes.  Chances are you watch the seconds on the clock tick by the entire time.

Then you have interval training. Interval training involves alternating very intense bursts of exercise with shorter intensity exercise.  So you’ll speed up and push yourself hard and shortly after, back off and give yourself some downtime to rest.

Because you are exercising so hard during the intervals, you simply can’t sustain this type of cardio long and as such, it typically only lasts for 15-30 minutes at most.

Now let’s go over how each of these impacts your body.

Issues Associated With Distance Training

When it comes to the distance training described above, you will burn some calories. Any exercise will have you burning energy so that’s the good news. And since you are going for that longer duration, there’s a good chance you’ll burn 300-500 calories per session. This will add up and it can help you lose weight.

But the bigger problem here is that often this form of cardio training will have you losing muscle mass tissue along with the small amount of body fat you also lose. The translation is that you look softer despite the fact that you actually weigh less. You’ve just reduced your lean mass, which is what gives you that fit, toned appearance.

Furthermore, as you begin burning up lean muscle mass, your metabolic rate will also slow down as well.  Muscle is highly metabolically active in the body so the more of it you have, the faster you’ll burn fat overall.

Next, while you will gain some cardiovascular benefits while doing this exercise, you won’t really see much improvement. To see continual improvement, you need to be pushing the intensity level up higher than it’s currently at.  You can only do this if you are speeding up the pace.

Finally, this form of cardio can also wear you down. It’ll create overuse injuries with your knees, ankles, and back, leading to great pain in the long term for many people.  Plus, it can hamper your recovery ability. If you are doing five to six hours of exercise each week, it’s going to get hard to recover from. This could eventually go on to cause overtraining.

So as you can see, there are many negative issues associated with this long distance slow cardio.

The ICE Program

Which now brings us to the second type of cardio intervals, or as I like to call it, ICE. ICE stands for intense cardiovascular exercise and has you alternating between those full out minute long bouts of exercise with active rest periods.

For instance, after doing a warm-up, you might perform one minute going as hard as you can. I’m talking a 10/10 for effort here. Then once that minute is over, you’ll drop back down on the intensity so you’re at around a 7 out of 10 for the next four minutes. Then you’ll repeat the minute long bout again and following that, another 3-4 minute moderate intensity bout of exercise.

The difference between this method and conventional interval training is that rather than dropping back the intensity to a 2 or 3 out of 10 and resting for just one minute, you keep the intensity to the moderate side, resting for a longer period of time before doing that second interval again.

This helps bring greater cardiovascular benefits and will help to elevate your metabolic rate even higher so that you not only burn calories during the workout session, but continue to burn calories for hours after the workout is over as well.  Science has clearly illustrated that this style of cardio will provide greater fat loss results, improve your heart function, lower stress, and can also enhance endorphin levels, causing mood boosting and feel-good benefits.

Additionally, because of the fact this cardio is intense and requires great muscular power, that also means you’ll reshape your body, burning fat while preserving lean muscle mass. This translates to you looking far fitter than you did before.

So next time you’re heading to the gym, consider the ICE method of cardio training. It’s a superior way to train, yielding you better results, taking less time, and ensuring you have a lot more fun while you train as well.

Stay Solid,

Lochs

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Why You Should Include Dark Chocolate In A Fat Burning Program

Craving chocolate? It might just be time to give in once and for all. If you’ve been avoiding chocolate at all costs – despite thinking about it 24/7 – it’s time to relax and eat up.

Chocolate may just do more good than harm.

Here’s why.

Feel-Good Endorphins

It’s true.  The fact that you feel good when you eat chocolate isn’t just in your head.  Well it is, but not in the way you think.

Chocolate will cause a release of positive feel-good neurotransmitters that do literally boost your mood and induce a feeling of calmness in the body.

So by eating it, you literally are making yourself feel better – chemically speaking.  There’s a reason why it seems so addicting…

Antioxidants

When you choose the right type of chocolate, it can also be a very good source of antioxidants. This means it’ll help combat against free radical damage, which can be very powerful in keeping you feeling as healthy as possible.

It’ll help to boost your immune system as well, keeping the common cold and flu away along with other illnesses.

A strong immune system is especially important for those who are physically active because with each workout you do, you will stress your immune system slightly.

Craving Control

Finally, as mentioned in the introduction, going ahead eating that piece of chocolate might just help you fend off those cravings, making it easier to maintain your fat loss diet the rest of the time.

You can’t expect yourself to never eat foods you enjoy again – this is unrealistic thinking and will only lead to you falling off the diet completely if you try and do so.

Instead, you need to treat yourself – on occasion – so that way you know that no food is never off limits. The minute you allow for these treats once in a while is the minute your mind will stop obsession about what you ‘can’t have’.

The Caveat

So now that you can see why you should be adding chocolate back into your plan, take note that there is one caveat to this all.

It must be dark chocolate.

Eat regular milk chocolate and you will be taking in a whole lot of sugar, and not much else. That is not the healthy option. You can do it, but the only benefit you’ll be getting is craving control.

If you opt for dark chocolate however (the darker, the better), you won’t be taking in all that much chocolate at all and the antioxidant content will be higher as well.

You’ll also take in some healthy fat along with this, so it’s a win-win.  Just do note that the calories contained in this piece of chocolate will be quite high, so keep your portion under control.

One square every few days is all you should need to boost your health and satisfy that craving.

So don’t disobey those cravings any longer. Give in, but wisely. It might just help you stick to your plan and burn fat faster.

Stay solid, Lochs :-)

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Water, Fat Loss, And Six Pack Abs: What You Should Know

                      

Craving six pack abs? If you’ve been putting in the time and effort at the gym to get one step closer to seeing those abs showing through, you need to make sure that you are tending to your diet as well, including hydration.

Many people completely neglect the hydration requirement of their plan since they’re so caught up in analyzing what foods they’re eating. But, make no mistake about it, how much water you’re drinking – or not drinking as the case may be, will definitely influence the results that you see.

Here are a few things that you need to know about proper hydration for fat loss.

Why Water Helps

First let’s discuss why water can help you see faster fat loss progress.  First, it keeps your metabolic rate high, as was noted in a study where researchers saw a 30% decrease in metabolic rate upon chronic water restriction in test subjects.  While this is unlikely in a real world situation, even slight amounts of dehydration can slow your metabolism down, making it harder to burn calories all day long.

This in turn means sluggish fat burning.

Second, water also helps to prevent hunger. Many people often mistake thirst for hunger, eating when they really just need to drink. By having more water in your day, you prevent this from happening.

Finally, water also helps to flush out the body, cleansing toxins and waste that would otherwise drain your energy levels. This means you have more to give with each workout session that you do, improving how you feel on a day to day basis.

How Much Water To Drink

So all of this said, how much water should you drink? Can you drink too much?

The answer is yes.  Hyponatremia can occur if you drink too much water, which causes a lower than normal level of sodium in the body. This can get quite dangerous if left untreated, so you do need to be careful.

Most people will not willingly drink enough water to cause this however, so it is of little concern to most. Just note that there is such a thing as too much water and you’ll be fine.

In more cases, too little water is the problem, so your aim should be to bring this up.  Aiming for around 8-10, 250ml glasses of pure water each day is a great place to start and on days you are especially active of when it’s warmer outside and you may be sweating more, increase that to 10-12 glasses.

If exercising, drinking one glass for every 20 minutes or so of physical activity is a good way to get your water needs met and replace those lost fluids.

Keep in mind that the more you are sweating – if the exercise is much more intense – the more water you are going to need to drink accordingly.

So don’t overlook your hydration status any longer.  Find ways to get pure water in throughout the day.  Your health and fat loss depends on it.

Reference:

Haines, H. & Reese, J.B. (1977).  Effects of dehydration on metabolic rate and fluid distribution in the jackrabbit, Lepus Californicus. Physiological Zoology. Vol. 51, No. 2. April.

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