The King of All Bodyweight and Weighted Exercises - The Lunge

If you want to gain functional strength, muscular endurance and quicker first step reactions, something all athletes and Martial Artists need, you’ll start adding lunges into your routine.

There is no other group of exercises that packs as much punch for training as the Lunge Evolution. Nearly all traditional bodyweight and traditional weightlifting exercises are one-dimensional, you are locked in place in a stable atmosphere. With squats you stand in one place, with the bench press you lie on your back, with pushups you are stationary on your hands and feet.

Lunges are the exact opposite. They are multi-dimensional, and as you’ll soon discover, the last stage of the evolution packs all the punches of Proprioception, teaching your body where it is in space. When your body has a better understanding of where it is when you’re not fully balanced, they benefit are quicker movements, reactions and faster movement patters.

Breaking down the Lunge into several of the movement patterns that take place in the exercise, you can see:

1. A squat
2. Running
3. Throwing a punch
4. Rotational trunk movement
5. Controlling an unbalanced load with one leg in the air, as in a punch or kick
6. And on and on…

The gains of lunging have to be seen and felt to be fully appreciated.

As with any exercise, you should start at the conservative level and gradually up the intensity. When a stage becomes easy, and you’ll know when this happens, you move on to the next stage. You’ll do yourself no good jumping into the hardest part of the evolution, that will only lead to your frustration and inability to get the very most out of the training.

The Lunge Evolution

The stages of the Lunge Evolution are as follows:

1. Lunge
2. Weighted Lunge
3. Weighted Lunge and Rotate
4. Proprioceptive Weighted Lunge and Rotate

The Lunge The Lunge is done with no weight and begins to get the body use to using its’ lunging muscles. When starting out, repetitions should be very conservative, even in the single digits as you begin to get those hamstrings use to the work.

1. From a normal standing position
2. Take a long step with the right leg…
3. As the left knee barely touches the ground…
4. Take your next step with the left leg
5. Keep your torso straight

The Weighted Lunge

The Weighted Lunge increases the challenge by forcing a body using forward momentum and stepping to manipulate a weight. This is akin to teaching the moving weight of the body’s limbs to stay within the body’s balance plane and use efficient movement patters. When the body throws a punch, if the hand gets out of the body’s balance plane, all bets are off. This is something that happens when you throw one punch too many on a punching combination.

1. Lift a medicine ball, or weight, only light weight is needed
2. Take a long step with the right leg…
3. As the left knee barely touches the ground…
4. Take your next step with the right leg
5. Keep your torso straight
6. Maintain balance as you continue to hold the weight over your head

The Weighted Lunge and Rotate

The Weighted Lunge and Rotate now adds in the rotational movements of the torso. Every strike in the Martial Arts contains rotational movement. This is also true of a jab and front kick, there is just not as much rotational movement in those strikes, but it is there.

1. Hold a medicine ball or other weight above your head
2. Step with the right foot while bringing the left knee to barely touch the ground
3. As this is done, rotate the medicine ball to the side of the forward leg, in this case, the right one
4. Step with the left leg forward, right knee barely touching the ground, and medicine ball having traveled up above the head and over to the left side
5. Continue until finished, using distance in place of repetitions for this exercise

The Proprioceptive Weighted Lunge and Rotate

The last piece of intensity added in is forcing the body to balance itself from the ground up. This is accomplished by wearing Proprioception footwear. I’m seen in this picture wearing Jumpsoles with the Proprioceptor Plug inserted in the bottom, it’s like walking on two mini stability balls.

When you can do this exercise for 20 yards, you’ve arrived.

1. Wearing Proprioceptive footwear, hold a medicine ball above your head
2. Step with the right foot while bringing the left knee to barely touch the ground
3. As this is done, rotate the medicine ball to the side of the forward leg, in this case, the right one
4. Step with the left leg forward, right knee barely touching the ground, and medicine ball having traveled up above the head and over to the left side
5. Continue until finished

Increased Athleticism

When I work with athletes, many feel the effects of lunges sometimes after only a couple of training sessions. Their feelings are always the same as they tell me they feel stronger and more athletic.

The reason for the increased athleticism is the Proprioception training that’s taking place. With the Lunge Evolution, the smaller micro-muscles of the spine become engaged, and essentially are woken up by this exercise and told they are needed. I refer to these muscles as the “athleticism muscles”.

No matter what sport you play, when you start adding Lunges to your training, you’ll be amazed by the gains you produce.

About the author: Joe Driscoll, is a former Martial Arts world champion and the author of "Conditioning and Beyond" and several other books on fitness, conditioning and Martial Arts Training. Find out more about Joe and his training concepts at http://www.FightingShape.com

Home Bodyweight Exercises: You don't need to go to the gym to get bigger and stronger

I'M TIRED OF EXCUSES. People often complain to me about how they don't have time to go to the gym or they trained only once or twice last week because their gym closes early. MUSCLE & FITNESS publishes routines that you can do at home with nothing more than a bench and dumbbells, but I'm going to take the home-training concept one step further: Here's a workout that doesn't require a health club (do it in your living room if you like) or equipment. But when you finish it, you'll absolutely feel like you just got home from the gym.

Perform the following exercises circuit-style, meaning you do a set of one exercise, then move to the next without resting. Go through the circuit 4-10 times, depending on your fitness level. While this continuous training will tax your cardiovascular system to an extent, you should step outside and go for a walk or run after the workout for further cardio benefits.

• Push-Up (Chest) Sets of 30-40 reps or to failure (whichever comes first). Not much to explain here--we all know how to do push-ups. To make them tougher, you can put your feet up on a chair (this position also hits your upper pecs more), or you can do close-grip push-ups to target your triceps. Advertisement
• Pike Push-Up (Shoulders) Sets of 8-12 reps or to failure. Find a table or chair that's a few feet high and sturdy enough to support at least half of your bodyweight. Position your upper body in a handstand position (hands on the floor, arms extended vertically in line with your torso), then flex your hips and place your feet (or toes) on the table or chair so that you're in a pike position. Lower yourself by flexing your elbows until the top of your head lightly touches the floor, then push your body back up. Note: These are tough.
• One-Legged Squat (Thighs) Sets of 15-20 reps per leg. Since you aren't using added resistance, do these one leg at a time to make them more difficult. Extend your nonworking leg out in front of you, hold your arms out to the sides for balance and squat down as far as you can on your working leg.
• Standing One--Legged Calf Raise (Calves) Sets of 30-40 reps or to failure. Stand on the ball of one foot on something like a wooden block or stair, then place your other foot behind your working ankle and grasp something stable for balance. Rep out as you would doing regular calf raises in the gym. Hold onto to something (like a bag full of books) to add resistance.
• Chair Dip (Triceps) Sets of 20-30 reps or to failure. Find two solid structures (like a chair, bench, table or couch) and put your feet on one and your hands just behind your lower back on the other. Dip down until your elbows are past 90 degrees, then explode back up. To add intensity, place a heavy object on your lap and do weighted dips.
• Crunch Time (Abs) Sets of 20-30 reps. Here's a great finisher: Pick your favorite abdominal exercise and rep out.

To complete this workout, perform pull-ups--if you have an appropriate place to do them--to hit your back (and your biceps, especially with an underhand grip). Do sets of 8-12 reps or to failure, whichever comes first.

Top 4 Ways To Make Fitness Fun For You

Do you wake up every morning anxious as heck to start your fitness training routine?

Do you come home from a hard day’s work and look forward to focus on your nightly workout session, or some family fun fitness?

Do you?

Well, you should?

In fact, you should be fired up!

Don’t laugh……….I’m serious.

Exercising and fitness should be something that you can’t wait to do!

Other than the many documented benefits of exercise (and the many that I have talked about, and will continue to talk about)………..you should feel refreshed to do something different during the day and something that will directly benefit you and your life.

Your fitness routine should not be “routine”…if you catch my drift.

Make it different, make it challenging, and test yourself………

Now that is fun.

Ok, on to the specifics…

I’m going to give you 4 EASY ways to make your exercise regimen fun for you……..

Here goes…….

1.Do something fun as your workout……….not to make this sound too simplified, but your workout should not be the same thing everyday. Nor should it be a trip to the gym every other day seeing how much bench press you can throw up. Your routine should be varied………from bodyweight exercises, to rock climbing, to running/walking hills, to sprinting etc. Make it fun and make it exciting……you will come back for more, much more.

2.Challenge yourself – Let me tell you, doing the same routine (i.e. bench press, arm curls, tricep extensions, etc. etc.) will BORE you quickly. When you are BORED, you get complacent, which means your workouts are less intense, which means you are not focusing on your muscles, which means you might as well go back home and lay on your couch with some greasy potato chips because you are wasting your time. If you can only do 8 pullups, try to do 9 (even if you have to cheat a little to get to 9)…test yourself, make challenges for yourself, and make everything a game. Try and see if you can 1up yourself every workout (in some way, large or small). You will be amazed at what you can do.

3.Focus on your end goal – I can assure you……..if you lull around every workout and say things to yourself like “it’s gonna take me forever to get in shape”, and “I’ll never look like him/her, that’ll take too long”, well your just gonna make yourself depressed. EXERCISE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO CAUSE DEPRESSION, lol! Exercise naturally makes you feel good, and puts you in a better mood…take advantage of that. Focus every workout on how GREAT you’re going too look now and in the future. Be your own motivational speaker. And SURELY don’t worry about what others think of you. We don’t care about them.

4.Workout with a friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife etc…..(by the way, working out together makes for a great date). This is a great way to keep you motivated, especially when you see someone you care for working out just as hard or harder than you. Encourage each other, help each other, and push each other. Get together with the family, and have some family fun fitness time together. Here’s another free tip: If you really want to strive for success, workout with people who know MORE than you. That way, you can ask questions and LEARN along the way. One thing that I found out is, people LOVE to talk about themselves (especially fitness), and tell you what they are doing. Use this to your advantage.

Always remember that you have to exercise CONSISTENTLY (keep up with your fitness training routine), you cannot expect to follow my instructions, yet only exercise once a week. That will never work, you have to have discipline, you have to be consistent, and great things will happen. Talk to you soon.

Smart Weight Loss

Christopher C.: Chris Callegari, founder of http://www.fitnesswithchris.com is unleashing his real-world exercise, fitness, nutrition, and healthy eating tips to the world, to help support lifestyle changes for any and everyone.

5 Easy Tips To Make Any Exercise Program A Success

People seldom "fail" with their exercise program. What does happen is that they fail to achieve the success they had hoped for. Far from a failure, this is usually the result of their not really understanding what is required from them for an exercise program to be successful.

The five main reasons that most people are not successful with their exercise program are these:

1. They try to do much too soon.

2. They have inaccurate or inappropriate expectations.

3. They get bored.

4. They lose their motivation.

5. They quit too soon.

Since these are the main reasons that many exercise programs don't seem to do the job, then addressing them may make us more successful with the exercise side of our fitness and weight loss plans. So, let's take a look at each in turn and see if we can figure out what to do.

The dangers of overdoing exercise.

A factor that figures into all five issues is simply ignorance. I don't mean that as an insult, it's just that people go out and buy a piece of equipment or a Richard Simmons DVD and jump in with both feet. Even if they read the directions, those are normally written from the viewpoint of "this is what you should be doing" rather than "this is how you get to the point where you can do what you should be doing". Since most people don't really know much about exercise or how it works, and I was once one of those people, they tend to make a lot of mistakes, even though they have the best of intentions.

One of these mistakes is to try to do too much too soon.

Let's say your new barbell set says, that for maximum effect, you should be able to three sets of ten reps a certain exercise with the weight set at one-fourth of your body weight. So, you figure you weigh 160 lbs, set the bar at 40 lbs, and do ten reps. You're a little winded. It was a bit hard, but you were able to do it. You rest a minute, and try again. It's harder, but you're still able to get through it. You take another short rest and do the third set. Wow! You had to squeeze out the last couple of reps, but you did it! You feel good. You've got what it takes, and you can't wait until the next exercise day.

What has happened is that you have produced a large amount of damage to muscle tissue that your body will now have to spend the next couple of days fixing. Since you are out of shape (even if you were able to do all three sets), your body is going to have a hard time getting that work done. This is going to impact almost every physical and mental event over the next several hours or even days.

The next day, what happens? You hurt like hell! That's what happens. Even if you can convince yourself that this is a good sign, continuing on in this manner will eventually either produce a real injury, or will set you up mentally and physically to begin wanting to avoid your workouts, whether you are doing aerobics, lifting weights, running, swimming, bicycling, or working in your garden.

Most people simply do not realize how much is going on internally when they take an out-of-shape body and begin demanding that it perform as if it were already in shape.

So, just take it easy. Start off slow and gradually ease your way up to higher levels. Many highly successful marathoner runners were barely able to walk to the end of their street and make it back without stopping to rest when they first started. Many a housewife has begun her "exercise program" with a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup in each hand. Start light and increase gradually. Don't worry if you don't see "results" at first. All sorts of good healthy things are going on inside your body.

When it comes to expectations, get real.

As trite as it is, one of the best remarks to remember is: It took you years to get this way and you're not going to change things in a couple of days. No matter how badly you try, you simply will not lose 20 lbs in 10 days. It happens, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Also, each of us is different. If your neighbor tries an exercise routine or diet and loses weight right away, you cannot assume that you will respond the same way. The one main thing you can say is that if you do your exercises regularly and gradually challenge yourself, your body will make the appropriate changes in outward appearance and inner capabilities.

Yes! Exercise CAN get boring.

Doing anything day after day can be boring whether it's exercise, sex, or eating ice cream...at least for most of us. A few people can do things over and over and never get tired of it, but most of us aren't built that way. Even if you are doing everything the right way, have good expectations, have a great program, and are seeing good results, getting up 45 minutes early for the 150th day in a row and strapping on those running shoes is going to get old eventually. Do what you can to liven it up a bit. Even if you just like to go for a walk, can't you walk somewhere else today? Why not substitute a swim, a bicycle ride, a visit to the zoo, or an hour's worth of yard work for your walk? If your normal routine is comprised of Press, Curl, Bench Press done with a barbell, why not substitute Triceps Extensions, Preacher Curls, and Chest Flys all done with a dumbell once in a while? Or, you could go to the park, do some chin ups and pushups and then take a long walk yourself. Who says you have to do exactly the same thing in the same place every day?

I listen to the news or play a motivational video while I'm on my walker. Before I know it, the walk is over and I didn't even notice it.

Your goal is to stay motivated.

How many times have you begun a program or project with a very strong motivation, only to find that after a few days, you just didn't feel like doing it any more? The other night, you saw a documentary on the potential dangers of heart disease in sedentary people and were so affected by it that you took an oath to begin exercising regularly. Perhaps you were in Sears or Dillard's shopping for some new clothes, or even worse, a bathing suit, and found that you needed the next size up...again! You went home and vowed that you would do whatever it took to get back to the size you were in high school (unrealistic expectation) and that afternoon you began your exercise program and felt so good about what you were doing. A few days later, you just couldn't find the time or the motivation to do your workout. In fact, you weren't even thinking about whatever it was that kicked you into gear in the first place.

Write it down. As you are writing it down on paper, try to relive in your heart and mind every boliling emotion...pain, fear, embarrassment, anger...whatever got you started on the exercise pathway in the first place. Make it a statement about what you feel, what you want to change, why you want to change, and how you intend to change. Put it in your purse, wallet, or pocket, and take it out and read it a few times a day. Every time you read it, try to read it out loud, and try to reconstruct in your very being the thoughts and feelings you had when you wrote it down. Paste it on your mirror, put it on the fridge, tell your best friend if you dare, but revive it in your heart several times a day, every day.

Whatever you do, don't quit.

One of the main reasons many people feel that their exercise program has failed them is because they quit too soon. Remember that thing about how it took you years to get this way and it's not going to change overnight? The visible results of a day's exercise, a week's exercise, or a month's exercise may not give you a reason to keep on getting up at the crack of dawn or paying those gym fees. However, six month's worth of steady, regular, moderate exercise will awaken most people to the wonders of life that await them in their newer, slimmer, physically fitter body. Oh, six month's won't be enough, and some people may have to wait a year or more to see the real results, but science and several million people have proven that if you are exercising regularly, challenging yourself and moving upwards, you WILL see the results you have been hoping for.

You will see results, and so will everybody else.



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Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer. He is a University of West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa, and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. His interests include nature, animals, the environment, global warming, health, fitness, yoga, and weight loss. Learn more about exercise and weight loss at nodiet4me.com/articledirectory/

5 Great Reasons Why We Need to Bodyweight Exercise

I had never thought of sharing on “why exercise” and always assumed that we all believed and agreed that it was an essential part of everyone’s lifestyle regardless of whether one had the time or discipline to do it, until about two years ago I gradually pulled myself out from a sedentary lifestyle and I established a workout regimen in the morning and started to read more about the different types of workout such as aerobic training, resistance exercise and weight bearing activities. I reckon that exercising may be very often emphasized by all, but sometimes, its benefits may not be so clear and obvious to everyone.

Helps Strengthen Your Heart

Aerobic exercises benefit the circulation of your blood through your heart and blood vessels, that is, your cardiovascular system. They make our heart work harder, pump more blood, and reduce the risk of developing heart disease. With each beat of your heart, a surge of blood is pumped into your body's intricate web of blood vessels. The pressure exerted on your artery walls as blood passes through helps keep the blood flowing smoothly (what you know as ‘blood pressure’). A build-up of plaques in your arteries, caused by cholesterol in your bloodstream can affect your blood flow and cause serious damage to your cardiovascular system.

A workout on a regular basis benefits your heart because it helps lower the buildup of plaques in arteries by increasing the concentration of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol) and decreasing the concentration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol) in your blood, while keeping the blood pressure at the optimal level. As a result, your heart is able to do a better job in delivering oxygen to all parts of your body. Blood travels more efficiently, bringing much-needed oxygen from your lungs and nutrients to the rest of the body. That’s why people generally feel more refreshed and energetic after exercising.

Want to consider some aerobic activities? Try swimming, basketball, rope skipping, jogging (or brisk walking), in-line skating, soccer, or biking.

Maintains Strong Bones and Muscles

I am sure most of us have tried doing push-ups, weight lifting in some form, or repeatedly used your muscles to counter some kind of resistance. These are called resistance exercises which the experts believe could strengthen our muscles; preserve bone mass, increase bone density. Regular resistance training can help prevent the bone-weakening disease, osteoporosis.

Walking and jogging are also important activities that bear your body's weight and help build strong muscles and bones. Other resistance workout include pull-ups, running, biking, and rowing.

Helps Manage Your Weight

This benefit is well-known to all who are weight conscious or trying to lose the extra pounds. Your body needs a certain amount of calories every day just to function. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it may be stored as excess fat. For instance, if you have an excess of 10kg fat, and each gram has some 9 calories, then you have 90000 calories for your body to use!

Exercising helps you achieve or maintain a healthy weight by utilizing and burning the extra calories. And if you exercise, your body works harder and needs more fuel. Even after you stop exercising, your body continues to burn calories at a modestly increased rate for a few hours. The more intensely you workout, the more calories you burn. By burning more calories than you take in, you can reduce body fat, giving you a healthier body composition. Losing body fat can make you look and feel better and can reduce your risk of obesity.

Induces Quality Sleep at Night

Many people who have problems sleeping find doing moderate exercise at least three hours before bedtime help in relaxing and sleeping better at night. The recent Hibernation Diet Theory teaches that regular exercise could activate production of recovery hormones during sleep, increases our body’s metabolic rate and promotes fat-burning. It makes a powerful association between poor sleep and obesity, a disease that has been rising dramatically in developed countries and has reached epidemic levels in the United States. While most of us would associate poor weight control with aging, low metabolism rate, and poor eating habits, many other research studies have also reported and pointed to the relationship between insufficient sleep and weight gain.

So start today, get a good night's sleep, aim for eight hours a night if you can, and add resistance workouts will speed up your weight loss and the body will worker harder at night.

Puts You in a Better Mood

We all know that it definitely feels good to have a strong, flexible body that can do all the activities you enjoy and be able to move your arms and legs flexibly without feeling tightness or pain. But you may not know that exercising can actually put you in a better mood.

Exercise combats depression by activating the neurotransmitters, which are basically chemicals used by our nerve cells to communicate with one another and often associated with avoiding depression. The balance of these neurotransmitters, namely serotonin and norepinephrine plays a role in how we respond to daily events. When experiencing depression, our level of serotonin, norepinephrine or both may be out of equilibrium. Workouts may help synchronize those brain chemicals.

Exercising also stimulates the production of endorphins, another type of neurotransmitters that produce feelings of well-being, provide for "natural" pain relief, and help you relax.

Sounds good? If you just had a tough day at work and need to let off some steam, go for a workout or a brisk 30-minute walk to calm yourself down.

Well, if you have not any form of physical training for a long while and find it a pain to do so, I suggest that you start doing it 2 times a week and slowly increasing to 3 and then 5 times or more a week. You can do 10 or 15 minutes bouts of workout each time to make up a 30 minutes session a day.

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5 Best Tips For Building Muscle At Home Easy and Quickly

By: Darren MacLeod

I have always believed that you have a much better chance of reaching your fitness goals if you join a gym and get advice from a professional trainer or coach. However, many MuscleandStrength.com readers do not have the time, money or desire to join a gym and prefer to workout at home. I believe that working out home has a its disadvantages, but the one huge advantage it does have is…you don’t have to leave the house!

If you are one of these people that plans to workout at home then this article is for you! Like I just mentioned, you will have a far better chance of achieving your goals when you join a gym but it is possible to get into shape and build muscle without leaving your home with limited equipment.

So here at my top 5 tips for building muscle at home:

1) Don’t waste your money on “miracle” gym equipment
Getting in shape takes time, motivation and hard work. If you are not willing to put in those three things then you may as well not start. Avoid gym equipment that says “get in shape in 5 minutes a day”, or “flatter abs in 14 days”. These types of equipment are a total waste of money! You can literally do hundreds of exercises just using a set of dumbbells and a barbell, and these happen to be some of the cheapest pieces of gym equipment. If you are unsure of what equipment best suits your needs you should consult a fitness professional (see tip 5).

2) Wherever possible, use your bodyweight
If you have limited equipment, bodyweight exercises are your friend. You can potentially pack on a huge amount of muscle without ever lifting a dumbbell or barbell. Good bodyweight exercises to do at home include chin ups, wide grip pull ups, dips, bench dips, push ups and bodyweight rows.

3) Plan your diet around your workouts
If you have the flexibility of working out at home then you also have the ability to plan your meals around your workouts. Diet makes up 70% of the building muscle process so you can see how important it is. Make sure you eat a good serve of complex carbohydrates about one hour before your workout and a nutritious meal containing protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals within 1 hour of finishing your workout. You should spread your meals out evenly throughout the day. Eat six small meals throughout the day instead of three large ones. This promotes a fast metabolism and limits fat storage.

4) Avoid distractions
One of the problems with working out at home is getting easily distracted. If possible, set up your gym equipment in an empty room with a stereo so you can focus on working out and not what’s happening around the house. A friend of mine who has a home gym told me he often used to put his favorite bodybuilding DVDs on while he was training to keep him motivated. This is an awesome tip to stay motivated at home. Another tip would be to try and workout when no one else is home.

5) Consult a fitness professional
I recommend this for people who are new to weight training and home workouts. Even if you have trained in a gym before, working out at home is much different and a fitness professional with working out at home experience should be able to help you out. In addition to helping you with your home gym setup, he/she will be able to plan a good routine and give you some tips to maximize the equipment you’ve got. You should be able to get all the help you need in one or two sessions so it shouldn’t break the bank!

These are just a few important tips for those of you working out at home. If you are serious about workout out at home for the long term, I would recommend that you pick up a few more basic pieces of equipment. These include an adjustable bench, weight rack (this can be used for bench and squatting) and a good range of dumbbells and weight plates.

If you have any more questions about working out at home head over to the forum on MuscleandStrength.com, our members will happily help you out with some free advice. Well, good luck with your home workouts and thank you for reading this article. See links below for further information.


Learn how to build muscle, gain weight and shape up by reading this free muscle building information. Muscle&Strength.com has over 700 page of free info including muscle building supplement advice.

Bodyweight Exercise: Putting Body Weight to Work

In Geezer's perfect world, there would be no Bodyweight exercise equipment heavier than 1.5 liters of wine (and no 1.5 liter of wine would sell for more than $15) and swimming pools would sprout new lanes every time someone showed up in a Speedo. In his next-to-perfect world, there would be no exercise equipment, and people would simply use their bodieis to hone their bodies. How would that work? Not so great. In this piece, the L.A. Times tell us exactly how not great, and looks at the potential of using our bodies for things like push-ups and pull-ups and other exercises that put one at odds with the force of gravity. The piece comes with a bodyweight exercise starter kit that includes instruction for two exercises:

Push-ups:Work your chest, shoulders, triceps and upper back.

• Hands approximately shoulder-width apart.
  
• Back, hips and legs in straight line.
  
• Lower yourself to three to five inches off ground.
  
• Don't brace feet against the wall (unless your can't do push-ups without this aid).
  
• If you can't do even one, start from your knees.
  
• Take two seconds pushing up, five seconds as you let yourself down. Hold the bottom position for two seconds.
  

Squats:Work your glutes, quads and hamstrings.

• Feet shoulder-width apart.
  
• Heels flat throughout exercise.
  
• For balance, lift arms out in front.
  
• Reach back with your rear, as if attempting to sit on a chair.
  
• Don't let your knees pass beyond the plane of your toes.
  
• Go down no farther than the point where thighs are parallel to floor. Or just go down as far as you can comfortably, and increase depth as you progress.
  

Bodyweight Exercise: 20-Minute Fat Burning Workout Secrets

Zach Even-Esh: Craig, thanks for taking the time out of your insane schedule to talk with us. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your clientele and your overall training philosophy.

Answer: Zach, I'm a Strength & Conditioning coach in Toronto and I write for Men's Fitness magazine. I work extensively with clients on advanced fat loss and muscle building and with young athletes.

ZEE: We have a growing number of hard core corporate / executive members on our site. They are leading busy lives running their own business or managing companies but they love to train hard, except they need to do so with short intense work outs. How do you train individuals like this and still get kick ass results?

Answer: I use supersets, moderately heavy weights (allowing 6-10 reps per set), limited rest interval periods, advanced bodyweight exercises, and interval training. These efficient and effective principles are the foundation of my Training philosophy.

These workouts are designed to crank up the body's metabolism because of the intense demands imposed during the workouts.

After the workout, your body has to work hard (i.e. burn calories and repair muscle) to fully recover and return to a normal, resting state (that is why I compare Training workouts to the Turbulence encountered in an airplane - a neat little analogy that the magazines really love).

I tend to stick with traditional weight training Bodyweight exercises, however, it is easy to adapt the Training principles when using strongman implements and advanced bodyweight exercises.

For intervals, I tend to stick with 30 seconds of work and 90 seconds of active recovery, although it will vary between workout phases and for athletes of different sports.

The great thing about heavy weights and intervals is efficiency. You don't have to do either for more than 20 minutes to get a great response. So if you are a busy Bodyweight executive looking to get lean, build muscle, and lose fat, you can get a great workout and shower in less than 30 minutes per day. Combine Training with the right nutrition, and you are well on your way to success.

ZEE: You're known for using training not just for getting people to look better, but for greater performance with your athletes. How do you incorporate TT with your athletes?

Answer: This system is like the Conjugate System used by Westside. You are able to modify the specific details so that anyone can use the general principles. You just have to modify the workouts based on the goals and current condition of the individual.

I will modify the traditional fat Loss workouts for athletes by adding supersets of Athletic Movement Training (my terms for a dynamic flexibility and warm-up), and then making sure that the strength training component focuses on the posterior chain (i.e. glute ham raises, wide-stance squats, RDL's, etc.).

Then we will modify the interval training so that it is sport-specific (I believe that conditioning is the only training method that we can give the term, "sport-specific").

ZEE: If you were limited to a 20 minute work out with an executive client, what would that work out look like? Take us through a work out here.

Answer: Providing the individual is injury free, we will move through a general warm-up circuit of bodyweight exercises (3 minutes), and then into specific warm-up sets for the first superset of bodyweight exercises (2 minutes).

Then we will spend 5 minutes on the first superset pair of exercises, and then 4-5 minutes on another superset pair. We might finish with a third superset pair or some ab work, and a 2 minute cool-down if it is necessary based on the individual's fitness level.

On non-weight training days, we would do intervals. It would look like this: 5-minute warmup 12-minutes on intervals 3-minute cooldown

Flexibility and mobility would be addressed on the client's own time or in a separate session. Generally, there is a great amount of mobility developed from the exercise selection on training days.

ZEE: With regards to nutrition playing a role in how a person looks and performs, do you help guide your clients in a specific direction with what they should / should not do in this realm?

Answer: I like to mash up a variety of nutritional expert's advice into my own approach.

It's mostly a John Berardi-based approach, but I might not be as picky as he is with certain meals. Basically, I start with 200-250g of protein per day for a man (depending on size) and then go with 30% fat and then the remainder is carbohydrate.

Then I split that up into 8 meals preferably (6 for busy people, but no less). I think it is important to have, as Berardi recommends, a serving of high-fiber, high-nutrient vegetables with each meal. If you have a high-fiber diet, you will control your appetite and blood sugar.

I don't think that people need to exclude fruit from their eating (in fact we should aim to eat at least 3 servings, and preferably berries, grapefruits, apples, and oranges), but instead we should avoid white, processed carbohydrates from a bag or a box.

Foods that should be in every healthy person's nutrition plan:

Green Tea Almonds Broccoli Berries A variety of lean protein sources Basically, for nutrition, just choose healthy, whole natural food.

ZEE: Last question Craig. What is the greatest misconception that you find people to have when it comes to performing better and looking better when they come to you. In other words, they tell you everything they have been doing in hopes of getting results but the results simply aren't there. Are there any common mistakes going on here?

Answer: Most of the time I try and get people to be honest with themselves and realize they have to change things if they want to improve.

A lot of people really just want me to approve their current workout (when it is clearly not working). But in reality, they have to change their workouts drastically to finally get results.

And most people think they are eating better and using a better program than they really are.

Even when most people they list out their food intake (as I have them all do on fitday.com), some people (including some trainers that I train) still don't see the obvious problems in their diet.

I suppose it is human nature not to see our own shortcomings, so it is helpful to have a professional review your training and nutrition or even an honest, knowledgeable friend.

http://www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Great Bodyweight Exercise For Explosive Power Fitness

When you think about bodyweight exercises you probably think pushups, situps, bodyweight squats, pullups, dips, etc. There are so many bodyweight exercises that you probably never heard of, Thrusting Pushups, Grasshoppers, Frog Pushup etc.

There is one exercise that is a sick and result producing, yet most won't do it, it's painful, it makes your lungs burn, makes your legs scream, the intensity is incredible, the exercise is the Burpee.

A few seconds into this exercise will show you the benefits, this is not a exercise for the weak, it's for the hard trainer, the person that won't give up, and your fitness level will soar beyond what you have ever thought.

The Burpee should be used as part as a fitness program for the person that wants a high level of fitness, they are very demanding you will either love them or hate them and most hate them, they hurt, they make you breath hard, your lungs hurt and your legs will burn.

You can get a great workout in as little as 2 to 3 minutes, and this is great for a busy lifestyle. If you can workout for only 2 to 3 minutes and get great benefits wouldn't it be worth it.

If you believe what you read, you can't get a workout in 2 or 3 minutes. This is where the fitness experts and doctors maybe wrong. You don't need 30 minutes of exercise to get into great shape, you don't even need half of that.

The Burpee is a great way to push yourself to the next level. The Burpee is a total body workout, you will burn more fat, build better endurance, and a greater level of physical fitness.

You can do the Burpee anywhere, indoors, outdoors, in a bedroom, a hotel room where- ever you are, the Burpee will get the job done.

To do the Burpee:

1. Start in a standing position 2. squat down and put your hands on the floor.
2. Kick both legs back at the same time ( you are now in a pushup position ).
3. Bring both legs back under you, towards your hands, and jump up in the air.

This is 1 fast movement and should be repeated for as many as possible.

For a quick workout try this:

Do 10 Burpees, rest 10 seconds, Do 9 Burpees, rest 9 seconds, Do 8 Burpees rest 8 seconds, continue until you get to 1 Burpee, when you get to 1 Burpee work back up to 10 Burpees.

John Grube is an expert on the subject of bodyweight training. He has over 25 years of training experience and is the author of The Wildman Training Program manual , The New Expanded version The Wildman Training Course and The Super Strength Playground Training Manual.For more info http://www.wildmantraining.com

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