More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
If you want to boost whole-body recovery, then you would need to do something that gets your upper body working, like a rowing machine, or using your arms to pump on the elliptical machine.
Personally, I’ve been recumbent cycling two to four times per week for more than a year now, and I’ve enjoyed tremendous improvements in my cardiovascular endurance and resting heart rate. While I can’t conclusively say that I’ve built more leg muscle from it, I did notice an initial increase in leg strength as they had to adapt to the new stimulus.
The results: after six weeks of training, the subjects doing the intervals had lost significantly more body fat. Yes, four to six 30-second sprints burn more fat than 60 minutes of incline treadmill walking.
I like the recumbent bike for my cardio, and here’s how I do it: 1. I start my workout with 2 to 3 minutes of low-intensity warm-up on the lowest resistance. 2. I then bump the resistance up several notches to give me something to pedal against but not so much that my quads get fried in just one bout, and I pedal as fast as possible for 30 to 45 seconds. 3. I then reduce the resistance to its slowest setting and pedal at a moderate pace for 45 to 60 seconds. If you’re new to HIIT, you may need to extend this rest period to 90 to 120 seconds. 4. I then repeat this cycle of all-out and recovery
...more
Therefore, I recommend that you separate your weightlifting and cardio sessions by at least a few hours if at all possible. Personally, I lift early in the morning and do my cardio after work, before dinner.
I recommend having a protein shake after your weightlifting and before your cardio as this will help mitigate the muscle breakdown.
I do two to three 25-minute HIIT sessions per week.
While a small number of machines are worth using, such as the leg press machine or cable setup, the vast majority are inferior to dumbbell and barbell exercises in terms of producing bigger, stronger muscles.
you have to do a lot of heavy, compound weightlifting.
These exercises are the squat, deadlift, bench press, and military press, and their timeless power has been proven
Most guys stop their bench press six inches or more above their chests and their military press above their chins because it’s “better for the shoulders.”
squatting strengthens every muscle in your legs, which doesn’t just increase the amount of weight you can lift—it also helps you run faster and jump higher, and it improves flexibility, mobility, and agility.1 And as if those aren’t reasons enough to squat regularly, it’s also an incredibly effective core workout.
Get under the bar and place your heels at about shoulder-width apart, with the toes rotated out by about 20 to 25 degrees (your right foot should be at about 1 o’clock and your left at about 11 o’clock).
tighten your entire upper back, raise your chest up, and straighten your lower back.
Place your thumbs on top of the bar.
The bottom of the squat is the point where your hips are back and slightly lower than your kneecaps (which causes your femurs to be a little lower than parallel with the ground).
The front squat emphasizes the quadriceps and core and creates less compression of the spine and less torque in the knees, which makes it particularly useful for those with back or knee injuries or limitations.
but I recommend the position used for the Olympic lift known as the clean,
many mistakes: failing to bring the weight all the way down, overarching the back, raising the butt off the bench, shrugging or rolling the shoulders at the top, flaring the elbows, and
lowering of the bar all the way down to the bottom of your chest (over your nipples), followed by an explosive drive upward.
Use your legs to drive against the floor. This transfers force up through the hips and back, which helps maintain proper form and can increase the pushing force you can generate.
Keep your butt on the bench at all times. If your butt is lifting, the weight is probably too heavy.
Make sure to finish your last rep before trying to rack the weight. Many guys make the mistake of moving the bar toward their faces on the way up during their last rep. What if they miss the rep and it starts coming down or misses the hooks? It’s not pretty. Instead, press the weight straight up as a usual, lock your elbows out, move the bar back to the rack until it hits the uprights, and then lower it to the hooks.
As a part of the Bigger Leaner Stronger program, you’re going to do two variations of the basic bench press: the incline bench press and close-grip bench press.
do a lot of incline pressing,
When doing a close-grip bench press, your grip should be slightly narrower than shoulder-width and no closer. You’ll see many guys place their hands just a few inches apart, and this is a bad idea—it puts the shoulders and wrists in a weakened, compromised position.
If your shoulders or wrists feel uncomfortable at the bottom of the lift, simply widen your grip by about the width of a finger and try again. If this doesn’t handle it, widen your grip by another finger width and repeat until it’s comfortable (but not so wide that you’re turning it into a standard bench press!).
Thus, researchers concluded, the deadlift is an incredibly effective way to strengthen the paraspinal muscles.
Researchers used real-time X-ray imaging (called fluoroscopy) to watch the spines of elite powerlifters while they fully flexed their spines with no weights and while they deadlifted more than 400 pounds. With the exception of one trial of one subject, all men completed their deadlifts within the normal range of motion they displayed during full flexion. Ligament lengths were unaffected, indicating that they don’t help support the load but instead limit the range of motion.
Drive your body upward and slightly back as quickly as you can by pushing through your heels. Keep your elbows locked in place and your lower back slightly arched (no rounding!).
deadlift
(yes, it must go all the way back to the floor!).
Keep your elbows straight for the entire lift.
the squat stance, and it requires that the hands be just outside the legs.
Thus, I go with the seated press and recommend that you do the same.
Incline Barbell Bench Press Incline Dumbbell Bench Press Flat Barbell Bench Press Flat Dumbbell Bench Press Dip (Chest Variation)
Barbell Deadlift Barbell Row One-Arm Dumbbell Row Pull-Up Lat Pulldown (Front and Close-Grip) T-Bar Row Seated Cable Row (Wide- and Close-Grip) Chin-Up Barbell Shrug
Seated Barbell Military Press or Standing Barbell Military Press Seated Dumbbell Press or Arnold Dumbbell Press Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise or One-Arm Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise Rear Delt Raise (Bent-Over or Seated) Face Pull Barbell Rear Delt Row Dumbbell Front Raise
Barbell Squat Front Squat Hack Squat (sled, not barbell) Leg Press Barbell Lunge (Walking or In Place) Dumbbell Lunge Romanian Deadlift Leg Curl (Lying or Seated) Calf Raise (Donkey, Standing or Seated) Calf Press on the Leg Press
Working legs is very simple. Rule #1: Always do squats. Rule #2: Always do squats. Rule #3: You get the point.
Barbell Curl E-Z Bar Curl Dumbbell Curl Hammer Curl Chin-up
What I like to do is at least one barbell and one dumbbell exercise per workout for the biceps. Most of the time it’s the barbell curl followed by the hammer curl.
triceps: Close-Grip Bench Press Seated Triceps Press Dip (Triceps Variation) Lying Triceps Extension (“Skullcrusher”) Triceps Pushdown
The full six-pack look requires both low body fat levels and well-developed core muscles,
Cable Crunch Hanging Leg Raise Captain’s Chair Leg Raise Ab Roller Air Bicycles Flat Bench Lying Leg Raise Decline Crunch
I didn’t just choose these at random. Research led by Peter Francis, PhD at the Biomechanics Lab at San Diego State University showed them to be the most effective for training the rectus abdominis and obliques.
One of the biggest ab training mistakes most people make is that they don’t perform a...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Do a set of a weighted exercise like the cable crunch, captain’s chair leg raise, or hanging leg raise for 10 to 12 reps (you can add weight to the latter two by snatching a dumbbell in between your feet). • Go directly into 1 set of an unweighted exercise, to failure. • Go directly into 1 set of an unweighted exercise, to failure. • Rest 2 to 3 minutes.
For example: • Do a set of cable crunches in the 10- to 12-rep range. • Go directly into 1 set of captain’s chair leg raises, to failure. • Go directly into 1 set of air bicycles, to failure. • Rest 2 to 3 minutes.
Do 3 to 6 of these circuits two or three times per week, and your abs and...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Building muscle and strength doesn’t require that you constantly “challenge” your muscles with new, exotic exercises. It only requires that you make progress with a relatively small number of exercises that maximally challenge each muscle group and enable you to safely overload them over time.
