Health and Exercise Tips

Archive for the ‘Strength Exercises’ Category

Buns of steel is what many are after, particularly if you’re female. It’s apex of fitting in to a tight pair of jeans and is the fixation of the opposite sex. Part of the equation to getting a slimmer backside is losing weight, and reducing your body fat. That takes diet and exercise which is covered in other articles on the site. If you want a tighter looking ass or booty, then losing that excess fat and weight will be necessary.

Getting a stronger the butt is a different matter requiring weights and strength training. A good first exercise is the glute kick back. To start get on your hands and knees. You’ll use all but on leg as a base to hold you up while doing the exercise. With the free leg, keep the knee bent at a 90 degree angle and slowly lift upward flexing your butt the entire way, and bring it back down again. Ankle weights will work for resistance for this lift.

If you have a resistance cable, or a machine that does the same thing, then you can do another form of a kickback. Stand on one leg with the other attached to the cable or on the machine. Bending slightly forward at the waist and keeping your legs straight at the knees, take the cabled leg and pull it backwards by flexing the glute or butt muscles. This will help provide a fuller, shapely glute and thus a nice looking butt as well.

Looking to really add mass and get the glutes bigger? Then many compound lifts will help in this effort. Squats, dead lifts, jumping, some leg curl exercises, among others will give your butt that strength you desire.

Calves can be tricky for some people as not everyone has the genetics to get them huge. At least, it can seem like the luck of the draw when it comes to building larger calves. Luckily, there are a few simple exercises that can help jump start this muscle group starting with the most basic, the calf raise.

The calf raise is simply a natural extension of how the muscle contracts. By flexing your toes out you draw the muscle in, therefore, with adding weights will increase the resistance and thus allow us to gain muscle. Stand straight up with your feet slightly apart. You want your typical stance here. Holding any weight in your hand lift off the ground with your toes. Most anything can work as a weight in this case whether it’s a bag of potatoes or old fashion dumbbells. Also, if one calf is bigger than another it’s easy to isolate by simply standing on one leg.

If you prefer to sit while doing these lifts than that’s alright as well, particularly if balance is an issue. Or going to want to sit on something about shin height so that your knees bend at about a 90 degree angle. It doesn’t have to be exact, but the closer the better. To get your calves stronger this way, we’ll have to place the weight on the right at the edge of the thigh just before the knee. Lift up onto your toes and you’ll be essentially the same lift as before only sitting down.

Both of these methods are easy to preform and will make your calves stronger. They’re also easier to preform at home than most other weight based exercise. Whether you’re looking for massive and toned, or small and tight looking calves, these are the exercises that need to be preformed.

A sexy chest is what most guys want, if for no other reason to show off and make their pecs dance by flexing. There are a number of ways of getting a larger chest and including both some isolated and compound lifts. Let’s start with the butterfly lift, which is an isolated chest only lift. It can be preformed lying on a bench holding dumbbells or using a machine, either way the procedure is the same. Start with the weights in you hands, keep your arms straight (unless the machine is designed different), and pull the weight towards each other in front of the chest. A butterfly lift, or fly as their also referred, are great ways to get a better ripped chest and increase the size of your pecs.

Another similar isolation lift is the cable crossover. This lift is done much in the same way, holding the weights in one hand and drawing them in towards each other using the chest only. Here though you have the freedom to change the angle or the location of where your hands meet, giving the lift nice variation.

A compound lift that most everyone is familiar with is the bench press. It can be a little over rated as a huge chest lift, it can more than make up for it by working the shoulders and triceps as well. The goal of a typical bench press is to have you elbows form a right triangle or 90 degree angle when at the bottom of the lift. It may take a little experimentation but on the grip to do this but placing your hands on the bar a few inches outside of your shoulder is a good start. Be sure to have a spotter around as dropping the barbell and weights on one chest or throat is not a great idea. Also, the variation that the bench press provides is worth noting. Differing firm grip placements and alterations such as inclining the bench are some of the nice features of this lift.

With those base lifts you should be well on your way to building bigger pecs with your workouts. When time allows I’ll dig up some videos to show off the proper form of these lifts.

Everyone wants big arms as stated earlier in my bigger triceps article. And everyone wants to do it fast. Well speed is all relative as is any terms that describe it like quick or timely. Unfortunately, you’re body will determine how fast you grow even if you push it to the limits and this applies to the bicep as well. Now for those of you who know your word parts, bi- implies ‘two’ which isn’t surprising as there are two bundles of muscles.

The most basic of biceps lift is the dumbbell curl and is a nice starting point for anyone looking to get toned or slim arms. Leave your elbows near your waist with the weight in your hand. Start with your arm extended and then lift straight up towards your shoulder or chest without moving your elbow. Next bring the weight down to the original starting point.

It should be noted that one of the keys to improving the size of the biceps, or any muscle really, is to keep it flexed all the way through the lift and when bringing the weight down. This ensure that the muscle is getting the entire strain and is pushed harder while not putting the pressure on the elbow or other joints. While your at it make sure to use the full range of your arm while doing any bicep lift. It’s very easy to cheat and not go all the way down, this will only harm your progress in the future.

Another good lift is the preacher curl. This can be down with any kind of bar and has the same principles as the bicep curl only you’ll be pressing your arms against the padding of the preacher bench. To focus on strengthening the inner bicep take a wider grip on the bar. To get the outer area take a closer grip. These two lifts, along with and pulling motions from your other weight training should be more than enough to get those biceps larger and looking great.

Accounting for about 2/3 of the size of any are the triceps are a very crucial muscle group to work if you’d like to have massive arms. The problem is they can be a hard muscle group to hit because unless lifts are done with the full range of motion it can be difficult hitting every part of the triceps. Also, some of the better exercises need great form otherwise you’ll be hitting a different part of the body.

With that said let’s get right to it. Getting ripped is actually pretty simple actually as that’s a description of your body fat percentage more than anything. Lifting heavy weights aren’t going to help in this area, only a proper diet can fix this and likely have to eat below your maintenance calorie count to cut the fat. In other words, as long as you’re not gaining fat, eat fewer overall calories than you are now and when you get to you’re ideal body fat percentage go back to eating like normal. You can get more complicated for cutting weight but that’s beyond the scope of this article.

Now it’s time to get those triceps large, impressive, and huge. This will in turn and in combination with the biceps give your arm a much greater girth and make them bigger overall. A close grip bench press is a good starting point. Using either a standard bar or EZ-bar place your hands about shoulder length apart. From here, push up like a bench press as usual, only now you’re working the triceps. Keep in mind that you’ll likely won’t be able to do as much as a typical bench press.

Next go ahead and try some dips on for size. Most lifters don’t quite get this one right; it’s very important while doing a dip to keep a straight back and not to lean forward. This causes you to work more of the chest than anything else. By staying perpendicular to the ground you ensure that you get the full range out of the triceps giving them the maximum benefit.

Lastly, I’d suggest a very basic tricep extension. Placing one knee and hand on a bench with the other leg propping you up. Hold a dumbbell weight in the free arm and extend it backwards and up. There are other exercises out there for getting stronger triceps but those should more than last you. As I get some time, I’ll dig around for some good video demonstrations of these lifts, as it is often easier to see the form rather than imagine it.