8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman said it best: “shut up and squat.” [1] After all, there’s nothing better for building lower body mass. Squats force you to use numerous stabilizing muscles and exhaust hamstrings, quads, and glutes.
To get the most out of squats, however, they must be executed with correct form. Avoiding these common squat mistakes will take both your performance and physique to the next level.
Mistake #1: Not Engaging Your Core
The core is the body’s center of gravity and is where movement originates. [2]If you have a weak core, it will be much harder to keep the weight stable. It also places you at a greater risk for hip or lower back injury. To properly engage your core when performing a squat, concentrate on sucking your belly button towards your spine. A strong core will be able to maintain this posture throughout the exercise. If you have a weak core, using a weight belt around the waist protects the spine and keeps you from relaxing the core.
When you start working out, whether you’re preparing for a triathlon or pumping iron in order to bulk up for a competition, you may find that early successes give you the motivation you need to push harder, exceed your boundaries, and reach your fitness goals. And anything that helps you to stay on track when all you want to do is veg out on the couch with a bowl of pasta is a good thing.
Of course, there’s always the chance that you’ll get a little over-zealous with your training and end up doing more harm than good. So if you’ve been putting a lot more into your exercise routine than normal and you’re starting to wonder if you’re overtraining, here are a few signs that could help you to determine if you should forge ahead or take a breather.
There’s something you might not know about type 2 diabetes: anyone can get it. The onset of this form of the disease need not be related to heredity, although instances in your family may raise your risk for developing diabetes. However, you should also know that the condition is not unavoidable, even if you do have a family medical history to contend with.
What is Diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes develops when there is too much sugar in your blood, a condition known as hyperglycemia. Normally, your body creates insulin that breaks down sugar so that it can be stored in cells and burned off as energy. But over time, excess fat in the body can reduce levels of insulin being produced and create an insulin resistance in cells.
While the main cause of type 2 diabetes onset is thought to be obesity, the truth is that you can have a slim physique with a high percentage of body fat. The point is that even people who don’t necessarily look like they’ll develop diabetes may be prone to the disorder. And lifting weights can definitely help to lower your risk.
Here is a brilliant leg training article from the team at JackedPack. If you don’t know, JackedPack is a membership subscription service that sends you a monthly box of the samples of the best in sports nutrition supplements.
You can subscribe for 50% off your first month by using the coupon code SWOLE at checkout.
One of the best feelings in the world is when someone says to you, “Oh my gosh, are those Giant Sequoias or are those your legs?” We hope that all JackedPack members and non-members alike are able to experience the satisfaction and benefits of leg strength and size, and that’s why we’ve dedicated this post to giving our lower extremities the attention they deserve. We want everybody to be squatting school buses and deadlifting beached wales back into the ocean. We have included a stellar legs day workout that incorporates some awesome exercises that are sure to have people singing Sir Mix-A-Lot every time you walk in a room.
Any physical activity makes you expend more energy and as a result, if you are an active person, you will burn fat. Normally, the body will transform carbohydrates into energy. However, fat is used as fuel for metabolism and movement.
You could also use thermogenic foods and supplements, such as caffeine and hot peppers, to facilitate faster results, but diet and high intensity exercise are the two top ways to lose weight fast.
Weight Training and Burning Fat
Aside from a sensible diet, your fat loss program should include physical activities such as weight training and conditioning drills. However, the training sessions should implement an appropriate fat loss strategy for optimal results. Training with heavier weights and fewer reps has shown in numerous studies to preserve muscle mass on a low calorie diet, increase strength, stimulate fat burning, and elevate metabolism.
It is a common myth that we should train with low weight and high reps when trying to lose fat – that strategy is just a prescription for strength and muscle loss.
While navigating a fitness website or browsing through a fitness supplement store, you may notice various muscle building supplements. You may wonder whether any of these 10,000 products really work to build quality muscles and enhance strength, or will they merely flush into the toilet? The answer is both yes and no.
The answer is ‘No’ for people who do not have patience and want fast results while they opt for an unhealthy approach. However, the answer is ‘Yes’ for people who go for the right kind of supplement, use proper exercises and diet, and wait for weeks or sometimes months to see the result.
Fortunately, you have a couple of good supplements which guarantee good results. These supplements for fast muscle growth can deliver the desired result within a short span of time. These include Whey Protein, Nitric Oxide and Creatine. Which happens to be the right choice for you?
Have a look in detail about the three supplements given below:
You may have seen or heard cliche slogans like “Go heavy or go home.” You may have been asked “How much do you bench?” You may even be impressed by Olympic lifters, powerlifters, and professional strongmen, all of whom regularly use maximum effort triples and singles to prepare for competition, to try to set a personal record, or just as a component of their regular training routines.
Well guess what? None of those sports are like bodybuilding. Sure, Olympic lifters are typically pretty jacked, powerlifters and strongmen are just plain “big”, but very few of them could compete in a bodybuilding competition and hope to win, without first dieting and training like a bodybuilder for several months.
This brings us to the question – do bodybuilders ever actually have to test their 1 or 3 rep max on any exercise? Do they have to lift super-heavy?
This is one of the top offending bodybuilding myths. Have you ever canceled a workout or skipped training a body part because it felt sore, even though at least 48 hours had passed since you trained it? If you said “Yes”, then after reading this post you will never make that mistake again.
Your muscles will get sore when you use:
heavy weights
slow negatives
forced negatives
assisted negatives
drop sets
high volume
Do you need to avoid these training methods completely in order to prevent soreness, so that you can train again in two days? Not necessarily.
There are plenty of signs be aware of when it comes to your body’s signals about pushing yourself too far. Over training your body will cause you to plateau or worse – regress.
The most common sign of overtraining is the total loss of motivation to train, and exhaustion mixed with some the symptoms listed below. (more…)
Calves tend to be a bodybuilding problem spot. Even Arnold used to worry about the size of his calves in relation to the rest of his body.
Here is a simple tip to double the size of your calves in no time:
Since your calves are made up of two muscle groups, you will need to train your calves in a standing and seated position. Most calf exercises can be tweaked to include straight-knee and bent-knee variations. Use them both.
This training routine is designed for you to gain strength. That’s it.
So you have already been through two or three Werewolf Training for Muscle Gain cycles. You gained 5-10 pounds of muscle in that time and you got a little stronger. You are psyched about your progress but you’re a little bored with the program.
It is time to change up your training a little bit, but you know you can’t jump right into a strict fat loss phase, or you risk losing most of your new muscle. What to do? What to do?
I had published this post once before, but recently a couple people have asked for such a tool, so I’m busting it out again for all the new Project Swole readers.
There are many strength training programs that involve calculating your 1 rm or 1 repetition maximum. Some programs want you to use a % of your 1 rm, which is sometimes even harder to calculate.
Most of us do not how how to figure out this number without performing the actual rep itself. Use this easy calculator to get a basic idea of how much weight you can lift once.
Need another reason to add either HIIT or HIRT into your workout routine?
A university study has concluded that a combination of cross training and strength training produces the same strength adaptations as strength training alone, while also eliciting the wonderful benefits of cardiovascular conditioning.
I get plenty of questions in various comments throughout the website, but I also get comments and questions via the Project Swole Contact Form.
Generally I address those questions through e-mail, but often I do not have the time to reply to each and every question personally.
From now on I want to take a more proactive approach to answering Your Health Questions by posting them separately in the blog. This way we can be sure that everyone benefits from the Q & A.
Russel wrote:
“Is there an age limit to starting to do body building or can you start at any age?”
There are at least 100 good reasons to lift weights. Fat loss, muscle gain, sports specific training, powerlifting, general fat loss, and so much more. These are all great reasons to start weight training.
Have you ever thought there might be some bad reasons to lift weights? I was contemplating this while watching the New England Patriots stomp the Miami Dolphins yesterday, and I decided that the following 8 reasons to lift are probably ill conceived for the most part. What do you think?
