Sunday, February 28, 2010

Best Stomach Workout

Admit it... creating muscle is not the easiest thing to accomplish even despite frequent tough workout schedules and trying every kind of workout and supplement.

I worked for years to get any meaningful muscle mass, but over the years in my personal training business and with my own experimentation have found some important things that have helped produce significant muscle gains possible even for hardgainers.

So, I'm going to give 3 vital recommendations here so you can begin creating lean muscle mass sooner and easier.

1. Make sure that ninety five percent of the work outs you do repeatedly in the gym are large multi-joint compound workouts. It does not matter if your goal is fat loss or creating muscle... big multi-joint exercises should comprise 95% of the exercises you do in your exercises if you want to get lean, ripped, and strong.

It's best to think of it in terms of the main movement patterns such as these (focus ninety five percent of your workouts on these):

* upper body horizontal press (bench press, pushups, dips),
* upper body horizontal rows (1-arm dumbbell rows, seated cable rows, bent over barbell rows),
* upper body vertical pull (lat pulldowns, pullups, chinups),
* upper body vertical press (overhead dumbbell and barbell presses, barbell or kettlebell clean & presses)
* lower body squatting movements (front squats, back squats, overhead squats, bodyweight squats, etc)
* lower body deadlifting movements (regular deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts)
* lower body single leg movements (lunges, step-ups, jump lunges, etc)
* abdominal and core exercises (these are significant, but still are second priority after all of the main upper body and lower body multi-joint actions... your abs and core will be worked from all major multi-joint exercises anyway)

The other 5% of your workouts can focus on single joint workouts (isolation exercises) like bicep curls, tricep presses, calf presses, shoulder shrugs, shoulder lateral raises, pec flyes, etc, etc. However, these exercises are only accessory exercises to do after the core focus has been the multi-joint drills.

2. Train hard and intensely three to four days/week for forty five to sixty minutes per weight training workout. Keep your workouts to no more than 60 minutes as training too much past this point can set-off surplus catabolism. You want to stay anabolic, but you still need to train your body hard and intensely enough to set-off muscle enlargement.

Try a super-set style of workout program to maximize the depth that you can exercise. My favorite combinations are opposing upper and lower body movement patterns that will not interfere with each other, such as squats coupled with pullups as a superset, or bench press coupled with deadlifts as a superset.

Do not underestimate the effectiveness of these forms of upper/lower body supersets done with heavy weights and a elevated intensity. The first time in my life that I experienced considerable muscle size gains were when I started doing these types of workout combos frequently (although still mixing up my training variables).

These are mainstays of just about any successful workout program -- caloric consumption can merely be adjusted whether your goal is fat burning or gaining muscle mass.

3. Eat clean with quality whole foods... REAL foods instead of highly processed over-hyped supplement powders and bars.

The quality of protein (and extra nutrition from vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants) are best assimilated by the body from bona fide whole food like eggs, meats, dairy (preferably raw), fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. instead of from refined protein powders, chemical-laden bars, and meal replacements.

Forget about the hyped up exercises in the muscle magazines that only work for pro bodybuilders or individuals on steroids. Forget about the over-hyped supplement "stacks" that pay the bills for almost every muscle magazine ... In its place, make these tips in this article part of your life-style, and you'll observe muscle gains and a leaner, ripped body like you've never seen before!

If you want to get a lean ripped body, check out these tips at The Best Stomach Workout the right way.