Fitness

The Front Squat:

As you may have already discovered, the squat is at the top of the heap (along with deadlifts) as one of the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all exercises. In fact, university research studies have even proven that inclusion of squats into a training program increases upper body development, in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during the squat. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and deadlift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution. If you don’t believe me that squats and deadlifts are THE basis for a lean and powerful body, then go ahead and join all of the other overweight people pumping away mindlessly for hours on boring cardio equipment. You won’t find long boring cardio in any of my programs!

Squats can be done with any free weighted objects such as barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags, or even just body weight. Squats should only be done with free weights - NEVER with a Smith machine or any other squat machines! Machines do not allow your body to follow natural, biomechanically-correct movement paths. You also perform less work because the machine stabilizes the weight for you. Therefore, you get weaker results!

The type of squat that people are most familiar with is the barbell back squat where the bar is resting on the trapezius muscles of the upper back. Many professional strength coaches believe that front squats (where the bar rests on the shoulders in front of the head) and overhead squats (where the bar is locked out in a snatch grip overhead throughout the squat) are more functional to athletic performance than back squats with less risk of lower back injury. I feel that a combination of all three (not necessarily during the same phase of your workouts) will yield the best results for overall muscular development, body fat loss, and athletic performance. Front squats are moderately more difficult than back squats, while overhead squats are considerably more difficult than either back squats or front squats. I’ll cover overhead squats in a future article. If you are only accustomed to performing back squats, it will take you a few sessions to become comfortable with front squats, so start out light. After a couple sessions of practice, you will start to feel the groove and be able to increase the poundage.

To perform front squats:

The front squat recruits the abdominals to a much higher degree for stability due to the more upright position compared with back squats. It is mostly a lower body exercise, but is great for functionally incorporating core strength and stability into the squatting movement. It can also be slightly difficult to learn how to properly rest the bar on your shoulders. There are two ways to rest the bar on the front of the shoulders. In the first method, you step under the bar and cross your forearms into an “X” position while resting the bar on the dimple that is created by the shoulder muscle near the bone, keeping your elbows up high so that your upper arms are parallel to the ground. You then hold the bar in place by pressing the thumb side of your fists against the bar for support.

Alternatively, you can hold the bar by placing your palms face up and the bar resting on your fingers against your shoulders. For both methods, your elbows must stay up high to prevent the weight from falling. Your upper arms should stay parallel to the ground throughout the squat. Find out which bar support method is more comfortable for you. Then, initiate the squat from your hips by sitting back and down, keeping the weight on your heels as opposed to the balls of your feet. Squat down to a position where your thighs are approximately parallel to the ground, then press back up to the starting position. Keeping your weight more towards your heels is the key factor in squatting to protect your knees from injury and develop strong injury-resistant knee joints. Keep in mind - squats done correctly actually strengthen the knees; squats done incorrectly can damage the knees.

Practice first with an un-weighted bar or a relatively light weight to learn the movement. Most people are surprised how hard this exercise works your abs once you learn the correct form. This is due to the more upright posture compared with back squats. To see photos of proper form on the front squat, visit http://truthaboutabs.com/Front-Squats.html.

Visit http://truthaboutabs.com/Training-and-Nutrition-Articles.html to receive your own personalized metabolic rate calculator as well as 4 of my secret hard-body workout routines - all FREE.

Michael Geary is a nationally dual certified personal trainer (NCSF-CPT, AFAA-CPT), and author of The Truth about Six Pack Abs ©2004-2006.

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Big arms and bodybuilding go together like Coffee and Coffee-mate, don’t you think? In fact, I think alot of us (especially men) would have first grabbed a weight or walked into a gym dreaming of massive python-like arms!

However, the problem is that many think that they will be able to build great arms by performing endless bicep curls till the cows come home. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but doing so will not create large arms. In fact, you’ll be on your way to the point of diminishing returns in no time.

Here’s why - Your upper arm is made up of two major muscle groups the biceps and the triceps, and many lifters make the mistake of only training the biceps, failing to realise that the triceps only make up two-thirds of the upper arm mass. The triceps are a beautifully-shaped muscle when well developed. Surprised?

I’ve had friends who want bigger arms but only ask me what the best biceps exercises are. I normally end up giving them my favourite triceps exercises instead.

For good arm development, allocate a few more sets for your triceps rather than biceps. If you always start your arm training with your biceps first (almost everyone I see in the gym does this), try switching the order. Train your triceps first before you train your biceps.

Though you should always strive for a balance of all muscle groups, trust me when I say that if your biceps development are weaker but if you possess well developed triceps - your arms would still look spectacular! The same can’t be said for the reverse.

The bottomline? If you want big arms, get big triceps!

Josh Stone, also known as DM, is the author behind the site http://www.dailymuscle.com which offers the author’s personal views on real-life fitness, bodybuilding, sports nutrition, cardio, fat loss, training information, and on all things that surrounds fitness.

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Machines are bad, there I said it again. How many of us join health clubs or purchase expensive home exercise equipment under the notion that the machine will protect our back, make the exercise easier or guarantee your results quicker. In sports and life for that matter if you are sitting on your butt or laying flat on your back you lost! , so why do we insist on exercising that way. We spend way too much of our existence sedentary, sitting, driving, typing, talking etc..

Has anyone noticed that the commonality of back problems from doing nothing (a traumatic), joint replacements and other injuries of non-traumatic origins continue to escalate?. Did anyone ever put two and two together and realize that maybe the way we have and are exercising is precipitating the problem. My last article went into some specifics on the traumatic forces that the joints experience using common machines. Research continues to emerge validating that most machines place the body and joints in such horrible positions that injury is inevitable.

So what is a health conscious exerciser to do, well, life moves so we better learn to exercise that way. Try performing your current exercise routine standing. That’s right, chest presses, shoulder presses, arm exercises, rows all performed standing. This will enable you to engage all of your ‘core’ muscles, work on balance and lower extremity joint stability.

When was the last time you performed a standing squat, on one leg, on a ball or foam disk? What if you tried training the whole workout using an adjustable cable machine, standing?. Wait, I said machine, yes some machines or good. There are a few pieces out there that I like. If it has an adjustable cable or articulating arms, that we like. Why, simple it forces you to stand and that engages almost all of the core muscles, and as I’ve stated if you are standing you are using many more muscles than if your were sitting down. Machines that do not force you to remain in a set joint position and allow you to move as biomechanics dictate will by default give you a better and safer workout.

Lunges are one of the best exercises to do, anyone can argue for or against this, but combined with proper hip and leg stability / flexibility they are among the best. Try combining with shoulder presses, abduction, scaptions. You can also combine with bicep curls, torso rotations, stabilization movements, as you can tell the combinations are almost endless.

Dumbbells, almost beyond the scope of this article the amount of exercises you can perform. A ball, BOSU tm, floor and an adjustable bench is all you need.

Bands, yes almost as good as cables, they travel better and the exercises are almost endless. One word on bands, they are easier in the beginning and harder at the end of the movement. This changes the firing of the muscle slightly but they are still an excellent adjunct for fitness, and yes they force you to stand while using them.

What about the floor, generally there is very little floor space in a gym, got to fill it with machines. For the last few years the popularity of Pilates, Yoga, Tai Chi and other movement techniques have become popular. Thanks to the baby boomers looking for alternatives for fitness these regimens have become mainstream. They all require a balance of breathing, flexibility, strength, postural awareness and muscular endurance. The message with these techniques is performed by themselves they are good, add strength training and aerobic conditioning and the package is complete.

Does this mean never train on a machine, absolutely not, many still provide a good isolation workout and for some with medical conditions machines allow a degree of safety. My point is that so many of us have spent so much time training wrong and placing our bodies in bad positions that we need to spend much of our time correcting the imbalances and injury that are already there. I tell a lot of my clients that people do not feel there arteries clogging but they sure know when the crushing chest pain starts. We spend much of our lives denying that injuries, both musculoskeletal and internal, will never happen to us, yet we consistently do things to encourage that damage to occur. Let’s change how we think and exercise or you may end up laying flat on you back.

Bryan Fass, BA, ATCL, CSCS, NREMT-P

Bryan Fass holds a bachelors in sports medicine, is a Certified / Licensed Athletic Trainer, Nationally Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Nationally Registered Paramedic. Bryan is also a highly skilled soft tissue and Myofascial Release therapist, And has over 10 years of experience in clinical and fitness settings. Specialties in Spine and postural re-education.

Precision Fitness is an advanced personal fitness, corrective exercise, post-rehabilitation, and sports performance facility with locations in Cornelius and Mooresville.

http://www.lakenormanfitness.com

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