The 2 Types of Strength Training

There are two different genres of muscle training. What are they called? Body weight training and free weight training. Both take a long time to get really good at, and both take a long time to build muscle with. So which one is better? Let's talk about this, and you can decide as I share my opinion as well.

So the differences, what are the difference? Body weight tend to strengthen connective tissue and focus more on that than deep muscular strengthening.

   Weight training hammers the ligaments pretty hard, don't get me wrong here, and you're just as capable if not more so prone to tearing a ligament during a weight training session.

   With my own experience from the gathered thoughts of others who have done so as well has made obvious that connective tissue is broken down more in body weight than in weight training. My days I've done 1,000+ push ups workouts I've been very sore in my frontal deltoids and the edges of my shoulders where the muscles connect to bone and each other.

   In the days of heavy weight training with barbells and dumbbells, I've experienced a deep almost bruise like muscular soreness deep within the muscle tissue focused in the center of my targeted muscle tissue. This is what breaks your muscles down fully and causes a large boost in testosterone and makes them grow more than in body weight because with the time under tension, you can stay in the same rep range and just increase the weight which you cannot do with body weight. Thus resulting in a harsher muscle fiber breakdown. Your muscles will grow larger and harder to support heavier weight.

   Now, bodyweight exercises, they truly focus on the connective tissue of the muscles as equally as the muscle fiber. To gain size in body weight, you work with time under tension. You ligaments with resistance that isn't your own body weight tend to beef up and get used to things as they're under the stress for a specific amount of time and your muscles are on overload.

   With body weight, you have to increase the time under tension, so 500 push ups vs 1000 push ups, is say ten minutes of push ups all together vs 20 minutes of only push ups all together.

   It's like friction on a rubber band, let's pretend the ends of a rubber band is the connective tissue in your muscles. You put a ten pound weight on this rubber band and swing it around until it snaps in the middle, thus mimicking what weight training does.

   But now, you take a bunch of small lead weights, and put them on the rubber band which come to out to be say five pounds. You swing the rubber band many more times than with the ten pound weight and it snaps at the ends. You take out the middle piece and it's frayed and torn up and has little tears all over, this is what bodyweight is like because the time under tension. There is a heavier focus on the connective tissue verses the inner tissue. It breaks it down, indefinitely, but gives a more resistant and hard strength that keeps the muscles from tearing like your chances are higher of in weight lifting.

   There are very difficult movements in body weight that will tear your muscles apart I do guarantee, and I have been just as sore after as after weight lifting. What are these exercises? Ones with added resistance and the very difficult compound movements.

   Weighted pull ups, weighted push ups, one arm pull ups, pistol squats, one arm push ups, so forth. These things are very hard on the muscle fibers.

   The other difference between weight training and body weight training is body weight is easier on the joints and free weights are harder. Body weight is what your body is meant to do but just with many many more repetitions, and free weights are your own weight plus added resistance when advanced thus causing more joint pressure. 

   But with your time and work, both offer stronger joints, harder muscles and ligaments, a healthy heart, and tougher bones.

   So it's up to you to decide what's best for you. I've seen people get incredible results off of both, weights tend to add more mass. Body weight adds mass, but is mostly toning. All is good on the contrary though. So good luck!

  -The Fitness Cookie

Leg Workout

I am adding yet another workout routine with body weight. This will be the last one I have to offer as it is from the top down. Otherwise email me. My email is in the blog description.

   Not to mention do these exercises in desired sets until you reach the recommended reps.

Beginner:

.50 squats

.40 lunges each side

.30 Bulgarian split squats each side

.20 jump squats

.75 calf raises

Intermediate:

.80 squats

.10 pistol squats each side

.45 lunges each side

.40 Bulgarian split squats each side

.35 jump squats

.100 calf raises

Advanced:

.100 squats

.55 lunges each side

.20 pistol squats each side

.55 Bulgarian split squats each side

.50 jump squats

.50 1 leg calf raises on each side

Very advanced: 

.140 squats

.40 pistol squats each side

.70 lunges each side

.65 split squats each side

.75 jump squats

.100 1 leg calf raises each side

My workout:

.60 pistol squats each side

.100 lunges each side

.75 jump lunges each side

.15 jump pistol squats each side

.100 jump squats

.200 squats

.400 1 leg calf raises each side

Safe training! 

-The Fitness Cookie

Resting Time

I'll make whoever is reading this happy by saying that becoming fit requires adequate rest. Proper sleep, and proper time away from working out specific muscle groups after you break them down. 

Every muscle group you work out needs at least 36 to 48 hours rest between a thorough break down. Now some people may have the ability to do a lot, and be able to work the exact set of muscles out again the next day but that's because their body response is so used to that that it's no more than day to day living. 

   But even the best of the best need rest. Everyone has their muscular tissue break down limit. And so you need to rest and let those fibers come back together and bond stronger.

   Now another thing is, if you work out, you need to get at least 8 hours of sleep. 10 At the most as an option. Studies show that sleeping too much is bad for your health. But sleep is a recharge of the body, your eyes take up to 50% of your daily energy, so the other 50% is going to breaking your body down. And at the end of the day when you're spent, you need rest to bring your 0% to 100%. Some days when you're sore, like days off and such, it's a good idea to not workout and let things rejuvenate further.

   Get your rest.

Exercise No. 32 90 Degree Push Ups

Another one of the hybrid body weight exercises that I enjoy teaching. It provides a lot of stress and causes the body to become stronger and grow.

   The 90 degree push up is a combination of a handstand push up and a planche push up. But, to make things a little different between the two other than the combination of both, you are moving your entire torso at a ninety degree angle of which it's name comes from. Maybe later on I'll post about the 180 degree push up... But going on with the subject, there are a few things you need to know prior. Right? Can't just start this cold.

So some quick things that you need. A good handstand, a good handstand push up, a good bent elbow planche of any kind I'd say that lasts about five seconds, and at least one straddle planche push up.

   Now when you do the ninety degree push up, you start out in a full handstand, or a straddle handstand, whichever you like, and as you come down in the push up, you become parallel with the ground.

   Now requirement for control is immense in this movement because you are flattening into a planche position as you do a handstand push up while you remain free of touching the ground.

   Now that you've learned to decline into the press slowly, it's time for the difficult part. The push up itself.

   When you are in the planche position, your full bent elbows will now start to extend at your push up, you will move your body as if you are pressing from a tuck planche into a handstand but this time it is from a full or straddle planche. When you come up gain the full handstand and straighten your elbows.

   Good luck!

-The Fitness Cookie

Mass Depletion Before Fast Progression

This is a different kind of subject. People would think, "But aren't you supposed to gain mass to progress?" Yes and no. It depends on where you intend to go with this. For those of you looking to gain mass for strength, you will gain mass as you deplete fatty tissue. But for those of you looking into nailing the more abstract kind workouts, you actually become light from those when you start.

   I don't really think there's much else about that, other than that your body's response is to get lighter before it nails something then when it's good at that you variate in harder ways and then it decides to put on mass... Here's a cool picture.

About Water

This is an important subject to cover. So starting with a question, do you drink a lot of water? If so, then you'll gladly understand the point I'm getting across here.

I discuss matters on account of water with a lot of people who claim to be dehydrated, and claim to hydrate with energy drinks and sports drinks ninety percent of the time. Now believe it or not, that's not ever good for you if you're replenishing with that kind of fluid more than ten percent of the time. Now there's the question, why am I saying this?

   Listen here, scientific studies and living proof shows that if you consume sports and energy drinks on a daily basis, the sugars in there make it very hard to lose weight, in fact it even makes you gain weight if anything. Why? Energy and sports drinks contain many many more sugars than needed and the body puts those into storage.

   To be completely honest with you, energy drinks aren't good for you. There have been several cases where those have caused people to have raw kidneys and see more blood in their urine than they ought to. I'll have a set of links at the bottom of this post.

   Concerning more of this topic, we've been drinking water for thousands of years before energy drinks came along and if not, humans were stronger then than now because we weren't taking in such depleting toxins from our day to day diets due to food science and manufacturing for preserving and so forth.

   Don't get all weirded out on me thinking I'm one of those oddball naturalists because I'm not, I'm merely stating facts. But let's get to water why not?

   Water is excellent first off because it's what our body's are mostly made of. It leaves no residue, and it cleans us out. Other than having to make frequent tinkle breaks, it also keeps you regular in your digestion which is beyond important.

   As well as you don't have to drink a specific amount of water a day. So many glasses is strongly recommended due to that's usually what people need, but only drink what you need to replace. People like myself who lose a lot of water due to heavy respiration and frequent if not constant perspiration in the afternoons drink up to a gallon a day because well, that's what we need to replace it all.

   Water also flushes out your kidneys and liver. It's a natural cleaner, and if you're drinking purified water, that takes in toxins on the inside of your body and leaves with them once it leaves the body.

   Also you need to have a bit of salt in your diet to retain water. Because believe it or not, you do need some to retain enough water to keep hydrated. Salt is like insulation for water. Now don't take this to the extreme, but a bit of table salt, and a little in your food is good. Some people are sensitive to it and retain too much water.

   Water is natural and the best thing for the body, there's a reason we can't live without it. So use water as the supporting bulk of your hydration, not just sugary beverages. Don't get me wrong occasional sports drinks for the heavy athlete are not bad, but in excess it isn't good for you and that's what I'm pointing out here.

   Now to mention carbonated beverages are among the dehydrators like alcohol and so forth. A carbonated beverage has a lot of sugar, a lot of sodium, and the air inside of it, more of like the carbon monoxide inside of it isn't the best thing for your digestive system since your body is already expelling that like crazy.

   Now athletes that train heavily, so I've read the idealistic thing to do is drink sports drinks because they overcome a condition called hyponatremia which is over consumption of water without proper sodium which helps retain it.

   But to entirely honest with you, that's not really completely necessary chugging a Powerade every ten minutes. For those of you that train intensely, or more than an hour at a time, hourly between rest periods, you can have something to do with a little peanut butter, a bit of dehydrated fruit, or crackers. Just a small snack between and it also allows for the energy release that comes from carbs. It's all something to think about, but throughout the day, water is the best alternative you could go for, and those of you that don't train so hard, sports drinks are not your best bet. And energy drinks with caffeine additives are just bad all over. Read up, give it some thought. This is my idea on things, I hope you enjoyed the post.

-The Fitness Cookie

Links: http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-drink/sports-drinks-vs-water

   http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/6-reasons-to-drink-water

Planche Tips: Full Planche

So occasionally there would a be a few things to keep in mind when you're doing a planche. The full planche especially, so that way you can train it right and get it with good form. Because generally speaking, those who just train straddle planches had to worry about form and hip position and things of the like, but if doing a full planche, that usually means you've mastered the straddle planche but maybe there are some set backs from keeping you from doing your full planche as good as you could be doing it.

When performing this one verses a straddle planche, pay attention to arm positioning and angle. This is incredibly taxing on your frontal deltoids. Your arms generally speaking for this one to work well need to be straight. Every muscle in your arms is under tension as well. So both sides, triceps to hold your arms back and biceps for support to keep your arms from hyper-extending. If your elbows bend too far back in the planche you need to train your biceps to contract a little more than you have been.

   Your arms lean forward a lot further, so you should actually be closer to the ground in your full planche. Nothing like a maltese, but that same mindset. Street style as I've heard with your hands back is not a way to start learning full planches. Acquire fingertip status or side ways positioned palms.

   Your back shouldn't be arched whatsoever. Because that either means you are doing a hanging planche, or you are in a extroverted handstand position as I like to call it, or just that noob planche that everybody does when starting out and coming down from their handstands.

   Also there's a form concern I've been noticing in these. People will keep a straight back, or a slightly bent back. If you want it to be a full form full planche though, pay attention the picture and if you notice, in the perfect form, your hips should look bent in the back, but the front of your body is straight. I've been training that way and have seen dramatic improvement.

   So keep in mind as you work and practice this move. Fingertips or hands sideways when learning,  arms at a more dramatic angle so your hands sit further back, and work to keep the front part of your torso as straight as possible because that is the best form.

   Training right is how you learn best. Good luck.

-The Fitness Cookie

How To Be Happy So You Can Exercise

There's a famous saying I see on the internet all of the time. "You don't have to be great to start, you have to start to be great." But what if you're not content with that? Well then, I can offer some answers to that question myself to the best of my ability.

To be happy to begin with, you might have to stop some bad habits when you being working out. Luckily bad habits can be easily broken when good ones are started. As far as I can tell personally.

   Unhappiness is a bad habit. Happiness is a good habit. So to get happy enough to workout, simply tell yourself you can do it and that you will enjoy it. That simple.

   Once your force yourself to be happy with what you're doing despite loss of motivation and such you can still get through the tough times because it's something that makes you feel good and usually people who start to enjoy exercise find it to be an outlet for anything wrong.

-The Fitness Cookie

Get Tougher

There is one thing that comes with fitness and that would be making your body tougher. There's a certain kind of fitness that makes you much tougher than regular old boring fitness. A time required task, with proper training and a good number of days spent being sore in weird areas of the body, you can get there.

This is a large topic to cover. I have a lot to talk about. But to begin with, we each have our own methods of empowering our bodies to resist what we want them to resist. It can go from being tough enough to handle a punch or two from a school yard bully, to being able to break a stack of bricks with your hand.

   Now, there is pain involved in becoming stronger and resilient to forms of pain and force that you want to avoid. The human body rather incredibly can handle a number of horrendous things with proper training and by the abuse it's put through, it strengthens itself and lasts even longer than if you do nothing to it.

   Now why is that? When something rebuilds itself, by courtesy of creation, makes itself even better and stronger. It's like when you remodel a house that's filled with press-board and hideous furniture and you fill it with wood, granite counter tops, and leather furniture.

   It's a lot like a home really. In fact, your body is a home. The housing of your soul and spirit is something you want to take care of, but you can abuse it properly and call that a form of care. It's like gutting a home and filling it with strong lasting materials. You hurt for a while, and things become depleted, but they toughen up every time they don't hurt anymore.

   Now I'll tell you why I say things when I refer to becoming tougher. When you become tougher, it's not just your muscle mass and density as such. Your joints, feet and palm padding, bones, muscles, and tendons all become harder, thicker, and stronger.

   Simply enough, you cannot achieve so desired "toughness" by just, exercising. You have a required style of physical exertion to incorporate into your exercise if you want to develop a shock resistant body that can offer any desired and controlled force as well.

   So, to be tough and build muscle at the same time, you can choose the form of exercise that gives that to you, or you could choose multiple forms which would offer it.

   Now as you know, martial arts is excellent to do to become tough. What if you want to be one of those super tough people that can fight and stand on their thumbs?

   Hardening your bones starts with a series of options. Weight lifting hardens everything, but what I've discovered does as well and does an incredible job at that is body weight training. Repetitive motion from plyometric push ups hardens your rib cage, turtle freezes and elbow levers toughen your stomach, bar workouts give you a wall of muscle on your stomach, and there's so much.

   Body weight I can tell you gives you strong, flexible, bones that are very hard. Weight lifting gives you strong hard bones that are thicker and more powerful. Combined together, it causes your bone and muscle structure to remain in a state to where you body can easily lift itself, but is also dense and hard enough to remain steady and strong to support your weight and much more.

   On top of this, you will also have the power to offer immense force in any shape fashion or form if you combine strength training with explosive exercises. You have the force of a low geared truck, but the speed of a jet fighter with this kind of combination, and if your physic is strong enough to deal with that kind of power, it's tough enough to receive what you need it to.

-The Fitness Cookie

The Mindset For Becoming Fit

There's a place in your mind you reach when you want to get fit. Then there's a place in your mind you reach when you start doing it. And then there's another you reach when you make it a habit and it takes effect on your lifestyle and physic.

So there's the weight you want to lose if you're heavy, there's the weight you want to gain if you're a twerp, and there's the physic you want to achieve if you're somewhere in between.

   So how do you get somewhere with this mind set? There's a lot to it. I'll begin with the habits of good and the habits of bad that many are quite unfamiliar with but ought to be.

   To begin, you have bad habits. I'll talk about these first. A bad habit is something hardwired into the mind. It's the design of the natural man to follow bad habits, and they're easy to fall into. There's a thing, you call falling out of a good habit falling out because it's easy to leave it, and then you call breaking a bad habit breaking it because bad habits bind you.

   The psychology behind bad habits is simple enough. You fall into it without an issue. Bad habits are easy, because the mind looks for something easy, so it's easy to fall in,  but it's harder to keep it up without even realizing it.

   You may get tired from a healthy lifestyle, but that's supposed to happen. If you over consume food, don't sleep enough, sit around too much, your body becomes lazy and gets tired from the energy  you consume daily because it can't feed it enough and you're not restoring it properly.

   Being overweight causes discharge of too much energy because you also have excess body mass to carry around and that's hard on the system. Everything from your bones  to your heart having to pump all of that blood everywhere. It's easy sitting around to your mind because you don't have to push and work mentally. But physically in the places you don't have to conceive thoughts and such, your mind and body are in overload.

   So on that, I'll go to good habits.

   Good habits take work to keep up, and work pays off with time. It takes a while to get into good habits, you don't fall, you climb. Climbing is good for the body, did I mention that?

   A good habit requires time, dedication, and motivation. Your personal dedication should be enough for your motivation, consider it a concept...

   To work yourself into a good habit, you work one step at a time. The first step would be wanting to get fit. The second step is getting the idea of what you will be doing. The third? How to start. The fourth is when to start. Fifth is starting. Sixth is doing something. And they keep going on as you move into changing your habits and physic. It's all hard stuff, working there, getting there,  and staying there.

   Once your there, it's easy to stay there. Progression feels good, motivation is fun, and strength is something that you don't use when you open the mayo jar.

   So your mindset all begins with thinking about it, and then step by step as you build yourself up, you notice changes in how you feel, look, and see yourself. Perspective changes, life becomes brighter, your world looks better, and even on rainy days the sun shines.

    The trail to fitness, is learning how to strengthen your body,  anywhere and in any way. Step along, there's stones and such to cross, but you work your way over and around them, and you get better with each one.

   A day can be changed with just a little bit of physical exertion and training for a few minutes, makes all the different, you're not tired anymore, and you feel better.

   Join the trail, it's been tread on many times, left, and found again, lost forever, and found until death, and will stay around for forever. It's never too late to do your body good, and you can do it that good now. Let the light of fitness shine on your day, it fixes many ailments and changes your body to something you love and  cherish because you take such good care of it.

   You can turn rocks into gold, and you can do the same with your body.

Exercise No. 31 Pike Walks

So this is for those of you who hand balance and are looking into it. Pike walks are challenging to get right, core intensive, and they help out with flexibility if you're having trouble with that for your hand balance variations requiring hip mobility and upper body flexibility in certain such as I do. It's excellent and helps a lot, and I've found it induces progression quite well into many other exercises.

Regardless the picture of the pike stall, I do not require you to hold that position. But! You will be going into it for a short lived amount of time. Performing this properly isn't difficult, just hard to keep going.

   So the pike walk is easy to explain. I made it up myself, I'm not quite sure if other people use it, but it helps. So you lean to one side, and put your hand on the ground. Only one, lift your hips up, and move your feet forward.

   Once your feet come forward, they must come onto the ground, once they touch the ground, you lift you hand and put it out again and lift your feet and move them once again. For results, repeat the process about ten times on each side for every set. Enjoy!

-The Fitness Cookie

Exercise No. 30 Handstand Push Ups

This is something I failed to touch up on early into things, it's an excellent base exercise that prepares you things like planches and such because it gives you strength and balance which are both necessary means in the feats of strength I talk to you about in this blog.

Handstand:

   It's considerably a somewhat difficult move to master, the handstand push up that is. You have to go from handstand push ups with bent hanging legs and more of an arch in your back so your body will spring with the movement, to handstand push ups with just hanging legs, to handstand push ups with straddled legs, all the way to full form handstand push ups. It's about a four to six month journey for the stronger of you. So we shall begin.

   So first, master your handstand. Get a good grip of the ground, hold it well. Get to about thirty seconds. Next, do not have a terrible handstand where you can't stop moving or your elbows bend inwards! You will not, I repeat myself, will not! Be able to do handstand push ups with bad form.

   Another thing is, learn the tuck planche. Learn the freaking tuck planche, so many people ask why they can't do handstand push ups, so I ask them to do a tuck planche and they fall over. That's the main problem here, is lack in deltoid strength, something not many people have is the stability for such a movement. Tuck planches shouldn't be that hard either if you're training for handstand push ups and such, because that's where you actually start with the handstand push up.

   A handstand press up out of the tuck planche prior to handstand push ups is a necessity for handstand push ups because it's not the full motion, but it strengthens you properly, makes everything steadier, and you have the core control.

   How you do this, is you start out in a tuck planche and lean forward on your hands until your legs are facing upwards and you push your feet out and up until you are in a full handstand as well as you push straight up with your elbows.

   Another thing is, I advise handstand push ups training without the wall because that doesn't teach your body anything other than getting strong because you don't have to counter balance your weight. Sorry, but I'm knocking hard on a lot of these terrible techniques people use to learn solely because they don't progress anywhere nearly as fast as they could if they followed the proper way of doing things which will get you a handstand push up in just a few months compared to a year, year and a half, maybe two. I progressed past all of my friends who were good at handstands the day I started training these the right way.

   So next once you get your press out of the tuck planche, you can go from kicking into a handstand and doing handstand push ups. First, go into a handstand, and slowly but surely go downwards until you're on the floor. Practice this a number of times until you get comfortable with it.

   After you figure out your handstand drop down and the press out, the upwards part of the handstand push up shouldn't be hard. Mainly because of the press from the tuck planche. So, go into a handstand, and go downwards, once your elbows bend right up to your limit of strength handling, just push up as hard as possible with your deltoids and your triceps.

Tips:

   It's also good to learn handstand push ups in the beginning with a somewhat wide handstand stance, not to the point to where you're using your deltoids and your biceps only to hold you up, but about a shoulder widths and a half, at least. Once you get that down, and you're holding handstands in that position decently, well, have fun and keep practicing.

Good Luck!

-The Fitness Cookie

Joint Shock and Stress

I discussed this previously a time ago, but I have a few more words on the matter since it's generally important. A fair amount of movements that people are concerned about mastering from time to time are incredibly taxing on the joints. Since I'm discussing all around fitness in the body calisthenics area, I'm going to offer some important tips on this subject that you must follow carefully to avoid damage.

First off, I'll give you tips on getting used the movement and making your body stronger. To begin, you need to build yourself up to these things, because things like one handed turtle freezes and hammers, flips, whatever it is, are incredibly rough on the joints if you don't know what you're doing or you're not prepared.

   For both ankles, knees, and wrists since those tend to be the main pressure spots in fitness, you need to build up to it as usual. But you need to strengthen your ligaments, and build up some dense muscle in the areas that you are going to be using. For concerns of break dancing and parkour and such since those are becoming more popular, you really should build up some forearm muscle before getting into handhops, any kind of turtle power moves or freezes, and airchairs as well.

   Your forearm muscle decides how long there won't be cartilage destroying pressure on your joints. The under part of your forearm, and the most meaty part of it, should have very decent strength. Build it up doing pull ups or lifting weights. If you build that muscle up you have more control on the ground and can push out with your hand relieving a fair amount of the pressure on your wrists.

   Another thing is, don't workout to pain or pure exhaustion in these movements, you will destroy your body if you do. Sure, weight lifting, calisthenics, all that, it's a good thing to work out until you're fully exhausted and will be nice and sore the next day. But, you should not work to full exhaustion in holding freezes and positions on your hands that are taxing on the wrists. You only need to practice enough to become good, and trust me when I say that tiring yourself to just resting on your joints is way more practice than needed to get good. Rest between sessions and come back with renewed power as well. Three, four minute breaks in these things are very important.

   For the knees, and the ankles, well... I can't say too much but that if you want to learn how to flip, sticking things in practice unless you're a gymnast is kind of stupid, and even then it's stupid. The thing about flips is that it's an entirely different kind of momentum compared to that of a regular high jump or run because when you rotate, it's more like you're jumping from an object that's about your height plus half of that because when you flip you go higher with the block and rotation causing more joint stress. Move after your flips. Before you get into flips, build yourself up. Prerequisites are dearly important, learn what comes first, and strengthen your legs. Toughen up your calves, run a mile three times a week, do one foot calf raises, and about one hundred squats in a row for a good leg workout. The strength preparation makes your muscles stronger for learning things such as flips. If you land a flip but your body isn't very strong, the momentum and the power does not go into your muscles as it should, but into your joints which is dangerous and unsafe for your body causing problems later on.

   Another tip is safe practice. Don't show off, don't do stupid things, teach yourself first hand, learn what you are going for, study it, and build yourself upwards. The Fitness Cookie himself, (me) has never shown off. Only have I practiced and shown what I know and can do. Build upwards, don't work until exhaustion or pain in the joint taxing movements, and safe practice and performance.

-The Fitness Cookie

Exercise No. 29 Flag Pole Push Ups

Ever wanted to know how to do flagpole push ups? They're a great workout. But here's the secret to getting results from them, you have to be able to do them on both sides. Got it? Great. Let's get to work!

So, how do you learn? First, you need a good flag pole. You ought to be able to hold yourself out with straight legs for a good ten to fifteen seconds. It's hard, I know, but this will give you the core strength and stability for this challenging movement.

   This is a very involving movement. You need to hold your body in alignment with the pole. If your stomach is facing upwards, you will either dislocate your shoulder, it's going to hurt, or you are superhuman. But then again, I'm super human too. :D

   I recommend before you do these you be able to do a solid amount of handstand push ups, and window wipers. Your core strength is about three quarters of this. And then from there it's your upper body strength.

   When you go into the flag position, you can't let your arm on the top go limp. Hold everything tightly, but control your muscles. It's like a mixture of a pull up and a handstand push up really. In fact, that's what'd I say a human flag pole push up is. A handstand push up and a pull up. Huh, who knew? There you go. Go from there! Enjoy! And practice safely.

   -The Fitness Cookie

   

Muscular Stimulation

I hear questions on how to get bigger, people ask me how to get rid of their chicken arms, how to get six pack abs, how to do all of these things to bring up their physic, make it stronger, bigger, and better looking. So then I'll get questions on why they aren't progressing very fast. Well, to be truthful, it takes time to stimulate your muscles and make them big.

First, we'll check your workout. What are you doing? Is your workout, kind of intense? A bit powerful? Not too hard? But you are getting sore once in a while?

   No, that's not how you do it. With exercise and gains, you have to do things that hurt. Things that leave you sore. After every workout, you need to feel accomplished, powerful, like your body hates you the day after, but when you get back into things for another workout it's thanking you.

   Your intensity level distinguishes the way your muscles are stimulated and the way that they grow. The harder you workout is, the more your muscles will grow. Making your workout harder means you have to change things up every few weeks and make them hard for yourself. That is your objective in working out. You have to challenge your body. The more you challenge your body, you will stimulate muscular growth.

   Over time, you will start to discover that when you do something like, five pull ups, you won't get sore, because it's easy. But say you do, ten front lever pull ups in four sets. The next day your lats and your biceps are going to be a little sore. Well gee, I wouldn't guess! For gains and stimulating your muscles you have to go the rout of high intensity and hard work. The more you put into it, the more you will get out of it. It's very simple.

Exercise No. 28 Front Lever Pull Ups

This is a hard but very intense movement that gives you massive amounts of strength and is one of those exercises with body weight that gives you big arms and a big back because it's so difficult. The strain of this move I would say goes through most of your body. It's incredible what it will do and the results it gives you. The muscle groups it works out are your forearms, biceps, lats, shoulder blade muscles, a little of your traps, your abdominals, for holding your legs up your quads, and your obliques.

Also to keep your arms comfortable together your pectorals are slightly engaged.

   Would you like to know how to do these now? I would presume you do. Let us begin.

   First off, for prerequisites, you need to learn how to do a regular front lever and be able to crank out some serious pull ups. Many of the exercises I provide in this blog will give you such benefits and abilities to progress to this movement.

   So first, you must go into the front lever position, for this movement you may need to tuck a leg in at first. Step one is to hold your core tight and strong. When you pull up do not bend your elbows to the side, they must directly go forward in the direction that they face as you go upwards. Keep your chest somewhat rounded and continue on.

   There you go. Front lever pull ups. They're a little simple, but they take time to master because of their difficulty. Have fun and safe practice.

-The Fitness Cookie

Wrist Care

A question from time to time is, "How do I take care of my wrists during exercise?" Not hard. Follow the simple steps The Fitness Cookie uses.

To begin with, your wrists are pretty valuable to you. Everybody has a lifestyle that requires their wrists. Gamers, office managers, chefs, and anyone who goes to the gym. Right? Correct. And everybody else requires their wrists.

   Keep them in good shape, don't abuse your wrists. When doing things that are hard on your wrists, make sure that they are able to stand up to that kind of abuse. As well as you can get wrist supports. A bit of compression and comfort helps a ton.

   Recently I wanted to get some wrist bands to keep my hands dry when I was doing things like flares and power tricks on wooden  floors and when I was on the pull up bar, so I bought some and noticed that just that tiny amount of compression helped them with support and comfort when I was doing jackhammers and flares which are incredibly taxing on the wrists.

   As far as weights go, if you feel the need for wrist supports because of some discomfort during your presses, give it a go.

   Now another thing is, don't hammer relentlessly on your wrists. That's mainly an issue for people who break dance, but build your wrists to the point of being able to take that kind of abuse, don't just jump on and start beating yourself up. You have to built up to everything to avoid injury.

   Good luck and safe training.

- The Fitness Cookie

One Handed Planche Tutorial

As of being a person to watch street workouts and Asian's break dancing from time to time as well as I've subscribed to some incredibly abstract channels on youtube, I've seen this form of exercise successfully mastered by only five people. Three of them didn't have a leg condition. So yes, there are extra terrestrial life forms on this planet. Myself being from Jupiter, I will teach you how to convert to the ways of the others by knowing how to do the one armed planche as I do.

So first off, you can't come from earth. Just doesn't work. Second, you have to be pretty confident in your planches.

   I can't stress being confident in your planches. Get a bit of a shoulder warm up done as well. You really ought to make those muscles a bit warm because this move is massively taxing on whichever is your fully dominant arm.

   To begin, you need to have a good understanding of your planches. You need to learn the full planche, every variation of the finger tip planche, your one handed handstands must exceed normality, you have to learn flag freezes and get those down, you cannot go on and do this without being able to do planche push ups, you have to be able to planche with fully straight elbows for more than ten seconds, and the word planche must be your free time expression. Let me demonstrate, "What's up man!" "Oh, not much, how about you?" "Just hanging out at the house, doing planche push ups and planches."

   You want to be cool and do on armed planches? Do you want to be superhuman? Well here's how you do it after you've earned your confidence, your planche badge, and the motivation to do this.

   We'll start from the one handed handstand. Hold your balance arm out, lean to the side like you're doing a flag freeze, once you're in the flag position, you have to hold your body to the side of your dominant arm for the sake of your balance, but it gets hard here. You have to bend your elbow, crazy I know, it's superhuman, but you have to bend your elbow in the one handed balance position, lean more on to the heal of your hand, pivot your hips, and flatten your butt out. Hold your body straight as possible, it can be at a bit of an angle.

   When you come in from the flag position, your dominant foot should be considerably close to the ground, but when you pivot your hips, it should lift up and become parallel with the ground. 

   Your hand positioning in this should be to your comfort, try it out in different ways. When you feel the need to attempt in different ways, such as coming off of the ground, hold your body straight, bend towards your dominant side, and lean up onto your hand. Good luck

  

-The Fitness Cookie

Core Workout (From the Top Down)

A strong core is valuable thing in today's society. Just as it was a thousand years ago. So why make it strong? It keeps you out of back injuries and being able to pick yourself up easily, full body control since your core is the main support of your body other than your back. Now lets make it stronger!

I've got some simple core conditioning exercises for on the ground and on the pull up bar. Surprisingly, I'm going to leave crunches out of this because they are entirely useless in my opinion.

   So to begin with, I have beginner, intermediate, and very advanced. Shall we begin?

Beginner:

1. 3 sets of 5 Hanging leg raises. Bring knees up as far as possible to chest.

2. V sit hold for 20 seconds.

Intermediate:

1. 2 sets of 10 extended leg raises. Do not bring knees up, keep legs straight and extend to a hanging L position.

2. 2 sets of 10 hanging leg raises. Knees to chest.

3. 15 Ground leg raises.

Advanced:

1. 2 sets of 10 Toe to bar leg raises.

2. 10 Pull up position leg raises.

3. 5 Window wipers.

4. 15 Swinging window wipers.

5. 30 Ground leg raises.

Very Advanced:

1. 2 sets of 25 Toe to bar leg raises.

2. 20 Pull up position leg raises.

3. 2 sets of 20 Window wipers.

4. 25 Swinging window wipers

5. 15 L sit leg raises.

Shoulder and Elbow Pain With Calisthenics (body weight)

Now I'm going to talk concerning you calisthenics lovers and street workout addicts. I have a deep passion for working out with body weight, but sometimes, your shoulders and your elbows hurt when you learns something new, have over done it, or done something with a cramp, it goes on and on. But I'll point it all out.

There are a lot of bad and messed up things you can do to your body in body weight training. To be honest with you, weightlifting dangers are bigger and scarier because those are more dangerous, but you can wreck joints, rip tendons, fracture bone structures, and tear muscles just as easy in calisthenics.

   So when you have joint pain, you take care of it. You don't just keep going, you're going to make it worse.

   I'll start at the elbows like I did with the last post. Your elbows are important, and connect your forearm which is connected to your hand which either holds onto stuff or pushed you upwards from the ground.

   First, I'll start with the presses and push ups. Your shoulders have a series of tendons leading down to your elbows and then your hands. The tendons in your elbows will sometimes shift, pop, and move around. If they're doing that during a workout, you need to rest a bit, check your form out, and fix things. I really haven't found much in the ways of push ups to cause elbow pain unless it's damage from too many of them, or from something else that happened that has nothing to do with exercise.

   I'm not physician, but when it comes to pull ups and levers, those are dang hard on your elbows if you're doing the super advanced sets and workouts!

   To begin with, one armed pull ups. Those are essentially one handed handstand push ups (I've seen them done) but in reverse. So if you think about it, one handed handstand push ups are incredibly difficult, you're balancing your body, as well as the crushing force of every ounce of your being is resting on your elbow. You're going to want to be careful.

   In a sense, one armed pull ups are harder on your joins than one handed handstand push ups, (hypothetically) because you don't have to use so much of your core balancing yourself which allows you to put more energy into pulling yourself upward, therefor allowing you to exert even more strain into muscles which breaks them down, makes them stronger and denser, but it also puts more strain on your joints.

   Goes for your shoulders too. If you jump into one armed pull ups, you simply aren't able to do them without conditioning your shoulders. But you can mess your shoulders up with these. Bad form in the one arm pull ups is possible. If you hold your shoulder just right, you can mess your rotary cuffs up and hurt yourself. So be prepared, keep a safe number until you know you can handle the worst, and good form. When the injury does happen, (you're working out, something somewhere somehow some way will need some kind of repair time no matter what) you need to give it time, and let it repair itself. If you can work out around the injury, great, keep going.

   Now concerning things with hand balancing techniques and odd and awkward positions for your body, you need to baby your shoulders. For those of you who do hollow backs, or just generally enjoy doing bridges, or possibly bridge push ups, (tutorial for later) because of the position that you are in and your body is not used to that, you can mess your shoulders up.

   I certainly have. I would do hollow backs with straight elbows and the moment I put my shoulders to the max and bent my elbows to get close to the ground, my right shoulder would pop and go out, as well as even if I tried pushing back for shoulder flexibility practice in the bridge.

   In a case of this, don't push yourself to that point of discomfort so you can make yourself tougher and get used to the pain, that's incredibly stupid and I've seen it done. Where you go from here is you work around it. If it corrects itself like my issue did, I'm back into hollow back push ups for instance, but I had to wait.

   Time is medicine here, and if it's a permanent issue, you might as well ditch that exercise and stick to the ones that don't cause you problems. Work around your problems, fix your problems, and you will have no problems.

   The Fitness Cookie

Shoulder Pain For Gym Rats: look at my previous post.

Shoulder and Elbow Pain For Gym Rats

Your common workout issues consist of joint pain. Muscular soreness is something that comes from breaking your muscles down and making them stronger, denser, and bigger with any kind of exercise. But joint pain is something you really have to watch out for because if not handled with care, it can lead to permanent damage.

To begin with, shoulder pain is really something you need to pay attention to. Your shoulders are generally a fragile joint. Nowhere near capable of amounts of shock resistance that your hips and knees are capable of. Obviously because you stand on your feet all of the time, but how many times a day do your stand on your hands unless you're a hand balancer or a a break dancer? Even then.

   Dealing with shoulder pain is simple, as of having past minor afflictions with my shoulder joints just from general working out too much or getting used to a new movement, I talked to my doctor and the best medicine for your shoulder pain, is time. Your body miraculously rebuilds itself, and repairs itself if something is wrong.

   To begin with, you're already experiencing pain, so that's a sign that your body knows something it wrong, because by pain, that triggers weakness, which will also keep your muscles from overworking themselves and making you heal.

   It's seriously stupid to train with shoulder pain, you can destroy your body that way. Now if you realize you have a lot of pain in your shoulder or shoulders, it's advised you talk to your doctor. But if it's just some simple you can get over it pain, my personal waiting time is two weeks, but yours may be a little more. So I'll repeat it again, time is a very good medicine when it comes to joint and muscular discomfort.

   Also, if your shoulder pain is repetitive, you might want to work on your form. Something is wrong, and your form is bad. This is mainly an issue in weightlifting because it's far easier to do something very wrong in weight lifting than it is in calisthenics. I speak from both experiences as of having the issue of doing too many handstand push ups and making the transition into new weight over the course of two days and having to take a two week break because it pushed my upper back out of place.

   Also, if your shoulder pain spreads to your back, you need to see a doctor. That's just a given.

   Let's move on to elbow pain.

   Surprisingly, this is common. I've never had it because I've made sure my form is good and my elbows have become ridiculously tough from training for certain movements such as the handstand flip and so forth, but for a lot of people who just lift weights, are going through the process of their skeletal structure becoming denser, or just plain bad elbow genetics, I've got some good tips on that.

   For gym rats,  your presses are probably the cause, and it's probably bad form. From what I understand, perfect your form, and learn how to engage the right muscles in your presses. For say, elbow pain in the bench press, you would need to get the right arch in your back, not too much, and not too little. If your chest is barely at an angle, not a ton like those cross fitters and power lifters, (they do their own thing, but here we talk about good and safe form) just right, okay? Because what you want to do, is avoid pain, but workout your muscles just right and break them down. So form perfection on the bench press is fully essential, and try out different positions with a light weight to see which your elbows most prefer, and it comes from when you go really heavy, just stick to doing what you're body doesn't mind and build up that strength. There are people out there just like you who can't max out because their elbows can't handle it.

   The overhead press is also common. Check your form, go a bit lighter, learn how to hold your elbows right, and proceed. For barbell overhead presses, if you put your elbows out to the side with heavy weight, it hurts anybody. Stick your elbows out mostly forward, it's okay if they stick a bit to the side because that's the way they were designed, but mostly facing forward would be what you want. For the dumbbell overhead press, go a bit lighter, straighten your body, and do them entirely parallel with your body. It's a different kind of lift and one that requires balance, so if you don't balance the weight right, your elbows will hurt. that goes for your shoulders too.

   The repetitive shoulder pain for gym rats is important to pay attention to as well because you're obviously training wrong somewhere.

   Because your shoulder connect your arms to your body, there are a lot of things that can be done wrong. If you're doing barbell calf raises, and you bounce, and you have shoulder pain, you're probably yanking on your shoulder ligaments which you really don't want to do.

   Your back work outs are important as well, if you do a row too heavy, a little wrong, it's going to make your shoulder hurt. Perfect your form on rows, to find out if you're doing those wrong, just watch yourself in a mirror, or take a video of yourself working out.

   Your presses can very easily connect to shoulder pain, in fact, those are the other half of the cause. Without engaging the proper muscles, you can cause some serious shoulder problems, put too much strain on the joints, and certain heads of your deltoids, it goes on and on. So watch for your form and keep an eye on it just to make sure your not doing anything wrong.

   If it's from overworking yourself, take a break, your body needs to heal.

Mid Back Workouts With Body Weight

Now I understand that some of you don't have the resources for weight training, so you weight train with your body. Obviously, some muscles are a little harder to work out than others without weights. How can you build those muscles and make them stronger? It's not too hard, you just have to know what to do.

It's entirely simple. Well not really. But if you're into serious body weight workouts, your mid back is fine because of what you're already doing.

   The control you put into your mid back doing things like squats, pistol squats, burpees, flips, things that require force from your lower body because you're mid back has to support the rest of your upper body and hold it steady and erect to avoid and damage.

   To continue, things like supermans, or dead bugs, whichever you like to call them, are good for your mid back. It's like an reverse abdominal workout. But the better things for your mid back would be hollow backs because of the control you need, planches to hold your legs up, and back levers to hold your legs steady as well. Anything really though, something that requires you entire body to support itself in an unnatural way is a form of working out your lower back.

   Believe it or not, I've seen break dancers with a mid back who don't lift weights. How? Because of the hand balancing, the hollow backs, the planches, it's all things that require strength from the back to hold you up and about. 

   Some thoughts and ideas.

The Top Priority

So there are some things you have to make a priority. What would those things be? The things that aren't as good as the others.

Now I'm not talking about the ridiculous and unneeded things, the things that are imbalanced. Say, you have great shoulders and pecks! But your back is small and useless. Right? How do you make that better? You make it a priority. Sometimes you have to make it more of a priority than the others for a while. Just to get things balanced out. But over time, your muscles will adjust to your program, and growth and imbalance will no longer be a problem.
   Now another case is that sometimes people will leave out certain workouts, and they don't make them a priority. It's easy to balance that out as well. Just put in the workouts that you don't do that you should be doing.
   Not to mention, sometimes certain muscles are very large, and the others are considerably normal. It doesn't necessarily make you look like a freak in every case, but generally speaking, you may look a little imbalanced, or somebody will say, "Dang man! You've got big shoulders and tiny traps!" What do you do? A little more shrugs and dead lifts. It's not too hard, just pay attention to your muscles, and you'll know which ones need perfecting.
   Enjoy you're training. - The Fitness Cookie

Longer Breaks

So once in a while, we have to take a week break, or maybe, sometimes even longer than a week break. What's going to happen? Are your muscles going to shrink? Will they become weaker? Softer? Will you lose your tone? Your power? Your energy? The list is limitless, but it depends on how you take your break and for how long.

So sometimes, you just have to take a break that's more than a week long. Why? There could be plenty of explanations. But so to speak, sometimes those breaks are good for you.

   Now I don't advise, workout a month, take the next month off, and then rotate your exercise programs. But you have to take a week break as said every two to three months.

   As of suffering injuries in the past, and things of the like, I've had to take two, three, and sometimes four week breaks myself.

   Usually during the holidays with all of the hullabaloo that's going on and how busy things are, I personally take a two week break once a year. It's a good time to rest the body, let the immunities reevaluate themselves, and gives your muscles a break from that constant stress that's put on them. 

   Sometimes, if not all times, with a break that lasts more than a week, you're going to see gains in your muscles because they will have time to completely rebuild themselves. They won't be entirely accustomed to your workouts as they once were at the beginning of your break, so you will be pretty sore at first when getting back into things.

   Sometimes your joints could use a rest, your tendons, ligaments, bones, all of it. It's good to just take a rest that lasts more than a week once in a while. Find that time, maybe once or twice a year where you let your body completely repair itself, and when you get back into your workouts, you'll be a bit back, but feel a little better, and a little stronger each time. It's not like your muscles will go away, or get a lot weaker. What's a ten pound difference? You can get that back in a week. Take a break once in a while, let things get stronger where they need to. It's good for you.

The Leisure Time Hobbies

So as a person who loves fitness, you find joy and love in fitness as you make your body become stronger. But what about your leisure time and breaks from fitness? Don't you do something? I'd just like to talk about that.

Why not find something you like to do between workouts? There's plenty of opportunity if you have the time. Filming, music, art, writing. It's all there for you, you just have to explore your world of opportunity. Why not do it if you have the time? Nobody minds, it won't upset anybody if meanwhile when you're on a day off, you're sitting at home working on that novel, editing videos, doing photography, there's just a world of opportunity out there.

   And your leisure time hobbies don't have to be average. Unicycling? Breeding birds? Volunteering at homeless shelters, it doesn't matter much with what you do, if you put your time to good use, and don't end up feeling like all you do is, work, school, working out, ect...

   Discover what there is for you to do out there. There are plenty of opportunities and ideas. The things you will find yourself doing and loving may shock you. Find out if you like writing, maybe you have an easy time with numbers, you have the patience to make films because your work looks so good, it can go on and on. Just have fun with life, you don't have to spend it completely bored, find something productive to do with what you have, it's good to find something you like once in a while.

Fingertip Conditioning

There's good reason to condition your fingertips. Planche push ups, handstands, making your fingers more resistant to breaks and possible injury that life so generously provides us fitness lovers with. And really, being able to say you can stand on your fingertips without lying, is pretty cool! I've got some good exercises that helped me out and a few other things I've been learning lately for progression in my fingertip balancing. And I'm more than glad to share these things with you!

The first exercise to start out if you have considerably weak fingertips, is going back to push ups on your knees, and your fingertips. Easy enough? Continue with those for about a week, let things get easy, because if you jump right into things, you can hurt yourself pretty bad to point of causing permanent damage to your hands.

   But bringing your hands to point of withstanding your entire body weight on your finger tips, is pretty incredible and beneficial to your body.

   So where do you begin when conditioning your fingertips for the superb strength you so desire? It's pretty easy, girl push ups. You know, the ones on your knees? It's not hard, and you can have control of the weight being dispersed into your fingertips simply by use of your back muscles if you're not quite there yet.

   You can do half of these exercises if you're not looking to stand on your fingertips but simply strengthen your hands.

   So when you get to the point of regular push ups but on your finger tips, do multiple reps, but not too many to the point of severe discomfort. It will hurt at first because your hands are getting used to your body weight being dispersed in such an unnatural way, but over time they will become stronger, more resistant, and less irritated by the movement and force being exerted into them as natural adaption to what they're being put up to.

   If you can't quite do things like, planches, or fingertip handstands and you're training to get into them, simply enough, you can stick to fingertip push ups, or just sitting on your fingertips in push ups position. Also if you become accustomed to those movements, you can try fingertip tuck planches, and fingertip L sits.

   Now for those of you looking into becoming more advanced with your fingertip balance, I'll offer some ideas and tips from my own experience in this.

   To reduce the amount of fingers you have on the ground with performing a planche or something, simply do the beginning exercises by reducing your finger count. You can easily bring yourself to a tuck planche or  straddle planche on three fingertips with each hand. It just takes time and practice, you can subtract a finger from each hand as you progress, and slowly but steadily advance.

   Now for the even more advanced terms of balancing on your fingertips, things like two finger balancing, thumb balancing, and balancing on your fingertips without your thumbs is incredibly difficult. But don't give up because you're going to be able to do it with hard work and determination.

   Now with the fingertip balance without your thumbs, just stick to push ups without them. I quickly figured out on my own that the thumb is the equivalent to about, four fingers. So just start out with push ups.

   Now two finger balance, the third finger that you have out acts as a stabilizer, so also consider some hard work with just doing the same exercises as advised with two fingers on the ground until you feel comfortable enough to support all of your body weight on them.

   Thumb balance? Well, that's up to you. Go through everything except for the thumbs free balance, even then do that because it teaches the control required, and work hard. 

   Good luck.

The Hardest Workouts

So maybe you've asked the question, what is the hardest kind of workout? An intense street workout? Or an intense weight workout? The answer is neither.

It doesn't matter if you're the man who can fly or the man who pick up a truck, the hardest workout you can possibly do, is the one that pushes you to your furthest limits for the longest time, also to be known as the workout that makes you progress, and become stronger.

   So when you start out, you can already be doing your best and getting the hardest work out! Because if you test your limits each and every time and take the time to make your body sore and respond to what you're doing with it, it doesn't matter if you lift weights, throw tires, do yoga, spin on your hands and head, or do triple back flips, (seen them done) it's all a matter of, are you working your hardest? Are you doing your best? Are you making what you can with what you've been given? That is the hardest workout, when those questions are all answered as yes. 

Stretching Thoughts

I've got some good questions that I've been thinking about on this. And have come up with a few conclusions throughout studying things concerning these matters. It's some obvious things, but just a few thoughts.

So generally speaking, if you want to be flexible, you have to stretch and do movements that improve flexibility. But there's a few reasons why some people have the issue of not being as flexible as others.

   It's pretty simple, some of us do not have muscles that are as soft as other people, or as loose, as stretchy, or as long. Generally speaking, if you stretch a lot though, you'll get a little stronger too in some ways since you're putting your muscles to their maximum potential like if you're doing a max weight lift or something.

Becoming Superhuman

Really though, superhuman is only a label, but the concept of it can be taken differently. When you become strong in some way that takes you to the point of being the exact opposite of average, you can consider yourself superhuman. You brought yourself to that point, and you can be proud of it.

You can reach your own limits of power. It's not too hard. The only thing that humans can't do is fly, and even then, we can come close to it!

   It doesn't matter how you access your power. You can do anything! Become so disturbingly flexible that you can go over a counter without touching it, or become a calisthenics king and learn how to squat on one foot on a tight rope, or go to the gym and learn how to pick up a barbell that weighs more than your car.

   I'm going to say all of this as if it's nothing more than just progressing to another grade in middle school because to me, becoming superhuman, is just second nature. I see it happen all over the place, and as I observe it, it makes sense to me, the human body's limits aren't what people think they are! They are so widely dispersed that it's incredible!

   It's pretty easy to become superhuman, you just have to work hard and you can do it. It's that simple.

Back Building

The back is probably the most powerful part of your upper body. You may think the opposite considering you cannot pull as much weight towards you as you can push away, but there are some things that your back does that your chest simply cannot do.
   Also, this is a post for weight lifters, so if the thought of iron plates and a long metal bar makes you faint at heart, you can still read this post.

Looking at the shape of your back, and how defined it becomes from exercise, and how powerful it looks, and the progression from it, is pretty amusing at times.

   You may not be too concerned about it, but when you think about it, you may not be able to see your back, but everybody else can. So why not work on it? There's plenty of reason to work on your back.

   Let's talk about aesthetic appeal first. When you work out your back, it gives you a powerful appearance, a large back will also result in a powerful look, and substantial pulling strength since the muscles in your back contract to make you pull.

   There are a series of exercises for you to do with a barbell that will make your back become large. Also, working out the back works out your rear deltoids and your biceps. So larger shoulders and biceps, every man wants that! And the occasional power lifting woman. You thought I was going to leave you out, didn't you?

   A large back ads to your upper body girth, thickness without having a big gut, and a powerful look. You also looked more balanced out with a strong back.

   Now let's move on to the actual results and requirements for a large back and building one.

   To begin, your back is built up out of multiple muscles. If you look at your chest, you have two muscles, and those are pectoralis majors. Excluding your arms of course. But I'm only talking about the chest right now.

   Your back has about sixteen major muscles in all that work together to pull things and hold them in place. And different ones work in different positions.

   So lets go from the bottom up. First off, you have your lower back. How do you work that out? Dead lifts and squats! And lots of them! As well as rows. Pretty much any kind of exercise where your upper body has to support weight while it's bent over. 

   The main exercise that works out your lower back is dead lifts. Your lower back doesn't get very big to begin with as of it just becomes incredibly powerful because it's a very dense muscle compared to others, it's the one that controls about half of your hip movement  if not more.

   Now to your middle back, that's also worked out with squats, but best with dead lifts and rows. If you ever look at weightlifters or bodybuilders from the side, they have a middle back from their various exercises that require support of serious weight.

   Now to get to the latissimus dorsi. There are some great exercises for that muscle. You have bent over rows, pull ups, lat pull downs, reverse dumbbell flies, T bar rows, and a number of other exercises. Your lats are triggered by three motions if I'm correct. Being bent over and pulling up towards your body, pulling down towards your body with your hands above your head, so either lat pull downs or body weight pull ups, and pushing downwards with with your arms. So that body weight lat pull up exercise I gave in one of my previous back workouts post, is a great exercise for that.

   Next you have your shoulder blade muscles. Not quite sure what to call those other than their commonly used name. Those are mainly triggered by the arms being pulled back and extending the pectoralis and contraction of the back muscles. Obviously. Also by the pulling motion done in pull ups.

   Then you have your traps, also known as the trapezius. This is one of the strongest muscles in your body to think about it. It's what holds your shoulders aligned and on your body when you are picking up heavy objects such as a barbell in a dead lift. So they can be worked out with shrugs, dead lifts, rows, and a number of other fun exercises.

   I would say that the reason the traps are so incredibly strong is because of how strategically they are placed compared to all of the other muscles in the body. For reasons of remained compact and not being hideous shapes and blobs of muscular structuring, the muscles in the human body are illogically placed, but made so incredibly strong that they can perform the challenges they are required to stand up to. But the trapezius is placed right on the shoulders, and contracts for a pulling motion bringing things upwards resulting in immense power.

   So just some thoughts on back workouts, enjoy!

The Fitness Cookie.