Thursday, April 23, 2009

















I know my posts on different ways to do exercises seemed to be liked by all so I thought I would post a few more for you.

1. Exercises:

• Lying Bicep Cable Curl: If you have access to a cable machine at the gym, attach a straight or EZ curl cable bar to the machine at the very bottom (can also do this one handed shown in the link). Lie down with your feet to the cable machine & legs almost straight but keep back to the floor to protect it. Now, lock those arms to your side & curl!!!! You can also do a wide, medium or narrow grip. The narrow grip will have your arms more on top of your stomach/abs. You can also do this with a rope as a hammer curl  or curl & flare your hands out to more of a V. Here is a link with a one handed version & the lady has her legs bent which should make it easier plus if you have a bad back, will help protect it. If you work out at home, use an exercise band around a solid object that will not move. See it here: Lying Biceps Cable Curl
• Incline Bench Concentration Curl: I discussed this last time but here is a good picture of it: Incline Bench Bicep Concentration Curl
• 21's for Biceps: This is hard stuff so reduce your weight by up to as much as 50%. Either with a barbell, dumbbell or cable, start by curling up from the bottom range of motion (hands down to midpoint) for 7 reps. Without stopping, curl from the midpoint to the top for 7 reps. Finally, without resting, do 7 full bicep curls from bottom to top!!! If will be hard at first & you may have to do less reps & work toward the 7-7-7 but I know you will feel the burn on this one!!!!
• Tricep Dips: Have you tried these? Good stuff! If you can't do these alone, have someone hold the bottom of your feet to assist or there are machine assisted dips. If you are alone, put a dumbbell under you to help & at least try to hold yourself up & work towards doing the dips. See the exercise here: Tricep Dips
• Shoulders: I think you all know what a lateral (side) raise & a front raise is for your shoulders. Now, try this. With arms at your side holding a dumbbell in each hand, raise them out to the side for a lateral raise. From there (DON"T DROP THEM YET!), move them to the front of your body in a standard front raise position & then lower them down to your thighs. NOW, lift them up in a front raise, move them to the side in the lateral raise position & return them down to your side. So, it is out to the side, move forward, lower. Raise to the front, move them to a side raise & lower to the side. Hope you understand this! You can change the order if you want to & do use lighter weights!

2. Tips: Just a couple today since I think this is getting too long!

• Don't count repetitions unless you are doing a certain heavy weight or light weight cycle. If you are not, do your exercise & then just keep going until you can't anymore. We tend to have a set rep range & stop when we can actually do more. From there, if you feel like it, do a couple more drop sets... meaning start again with a lighter weight & again if possible. One thing this will do for you is really tell you how many reps you can do with that 10 or 12 pound weight. By stopping at, let's say 12 reps, you don't give yourself the chance to know if you can do more and if you can do more, you can lift a heavier weight for those 12 reps!
• If you know that you can control your form & core, stand while doing certain exercises. Burns a few more calories because you are not sitting & you do have to engage the core to stabilize yourself so the core is worked too!
• Cardio: Do you do the same thing all the time.. change it up! For example, if you do intervals, do you always do the hard part at the same speed (say speed 9 on the treadmill is your high intensity interval). Why not try to bump your speed up a small bit. In the previous example, maybe you try to do that hard part at 9.2 or 9.5 .. OR, do the 9.0 a bit longer .. OR shorten the rest in between. You can do this on any cardio machine or outside. Push yourself a little to challenge yourself!

If anything above was confusing, just let me know & feel free to offer up your fav exercises!