• I have been able to pinpoint problem areas with my flexibility, e.g. left hip, hamstrings, and lower back. By focusing on these exercises a little longer I have started to make improvements -- especially on the hamstrings. If you never stretch, or are quite sedentary you’ll never notice your flexibility weak points. The skeleto-muscular system is a network of interlinked components, so one tight bit can affect other parts of your body. Ironing out your flexibility issues can really increase your overall well being
• These exercises are a great segue into intense exercise first thing in the morning. I have never enjoyed working out first thing in the morning because I feel too stiff and uncoordinated. I did the first 8 exercises of the daily dozen, plus a couple of slow squats, which covers most body parts and gets the blood pumping to all corners. After this, I feel much more equipped to take on an intense kettlebell set without straining something!

I have more to write, but need to get moving! Once again I recommend trying joint mobility exercises first thing in the morning. At the very least you’ll feel a bit more relaxed and ready to take on the day.

Update:

Steve Maxwell just released 3 video courses of routines similar to the Daily Dozen. There is a video for each skill level: beginner, intermediate and advance. I have bought them just now, and will post my experience ASAP! In the meantime, check them out here.

Maxwell Joint Mobility Sample Video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhEwJogsoKc

Joint Mobility and Morning Workouts
This post is from: The Strength Resource

After only 2 sessions with this, I am noticing a significant difference in my overall feelings of agility and looseness, particular in my lower back. Granted, this is a marked difference considering I’ve been lax on the mobility and stretching side of things.

This is also why I addressed this posts to the “Desk Jockeys” out there. Seasoned athletes or strength training devotees will definitely benefit from these exercises but will not notice the difference as much as someone who sits on their butt 8-12 hours a day. These exercises will get your circulation moving, and the last couple of exercises will also tax your muscles. The whole thing is low impact, so almost anyone could try these TODAY! So how about trying them now!?

I have been doing this first thing in the morning, and I can HIGHLY recommend it as a fantastic way to get your day moving. Get up, put your coffee on, and get started. Grab the coffee, and keep going! Mr Maxwell does not mention how many reps you should be doing per exercise. I looked it up, and found that Mike Mahler also recommends The Maxwell Daily Dozen and suggests doing each exercise 10 times. I am not going to disagree, but I will add that on work days, perhaps 5 reps is enough to keep the entire exercise time down to about 15 minutes. On weekends, go nuts and do 10.

Remember to do the breathing like Steve says, as holding your breath can be dangerous when stretching to your limit. The proper breathing will probably take a while to get down, but at least make sure you’re breathing naturally and calmly. A nice side benefit of this routine is that, since it is fully body, it will show you where you hold tension, or are particularly tight. You can then work on those problem areas separately later on.

For beginners, I can quote Scott Sonnon’s advice, ‘Move to the tension, not through the tension.’ In other words, do not force the stretch where you are experiencing resistance. Instead, push the stretch just until you feel the tension. Speaking of Sonnon, if this routine gets you going, you could also try the Intuflow DVD, which has 4, progressively more difficult joint mobility routines. In fact some of the Daily Dozen exercises are similar to those in the Beginner section of Intuflow.

If you feel lethargic, stiff, and low on energy, you should definitely try this routine every morning. Take 15 minutes instead of checking your email or Facebook or whatever and do this. Anything is better than nothing. You don’t need to hit the gym, pool, or running track. Start with mobility exercises and feel the difference!

So try it next time you get the chance: The Maxwell Daily Dozen

Desk Jockeys – Jump Start Your Day With Mobility Exercises
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While keeping in mind that not all of us are blessed with huge arm genes, there is a way to achieve the best you can with what nature gave you. Here are some basic pointers to consider when you train so you can achieve biceps that will make you look like a greek god when sleeveless.

Triceps Matter Just as Much

The biceps are the most visible muscles in your arms, the ones that you want to make grow. However, we have to take into account that they only make up a 1/3 of your arm, most of your arms are made up of the triceps. The key here is to focus just as much on training your triceps as you do your biceps. Training your triceps as an afterthought after blasting your biceps is not going to help you achieve the amazing arms you are imagining.

Heavier Weights, But Sometimes Less Is More

The reason you lift weights is to trigger a growth response. For your arms you need to lift heavier weights with more reps than you are used to in order to make your muscles grow. Focus mainly on heavy training with 6-8 reps throwing in an occasional few weeks of lighter training to keep it varied and your muscles from plateauing. Do not over do your bicep training, we all know this scenario: lets go to the gym, locate ourselves in front of the mirror and blast the living day lights out of our biceps ya… why just do 3 sets when we can do 10? because sometimes less is more, all you want to achieve is to out do your last workout. No point doing this just to pump your muscle up at the gym only to have it deflate later on.

Keep It Varied

Make changes to your work out routine, it need not even be anything drastic, just by changing the order you do your exercises in will help. Try out different machines at the gym or use a hammer curl bar instead of a standard bar. If you are really serious about developing your arms learn the anatomy your body and implement exercises that target specific sections of each muscle in order to gain maximum growth.

Strength Training is Vital to Huge Amazing Biceps

Do not ignore strength training, doing pull ups, chin ups, rowing and working out your overall torso, your shoulders, chest and back will provide a great benefit for you biceps you can be assured of that. Do not just train your biceps in isolation because if you do your arm muscles will always be fatigued and you will not find any growth there, not only that but if you train your entire torso you are benefiting your overall look.

Great biceps and an amazing body all over. He does not skimp on the strength training.

Eat Eat Eat, Sleep Sleep Sleep

You also have to look at other aspects of your lifestyle and make sure that you are eating plenty, try to consume a bit more calories than you burn in order to promote muscle growth. Get lots of sleep so your body can rebuild itself. Your body releases growth hormones when you sleep which you need to develop the biceps of your dreams so SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP.

Basics of Huge Biceps
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Why not be a muscle girl instead of starving yourself with fad diets (think the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet, Subway diet, and even dieting pills)? The best way to achieve that sexy, buff and toned body is through weight training.

Too much emphasis has been placed on cardio training as the best way too lose weight, often overlooking weight training completely.It is a scientific fact that muscle burns fat. So the more muscle you have the more fat you burn. This means that muscles burn fat while you sit on the couch and even while you sleep. Muscles burn fat all the time! Many women fear that working out their muscles will cause them to look bulky and huge, the truth is that women do not have enough testosterone in their bodies for this to be possible. The result of weight training is a gain in muscle strength and density.

Muscle Girl

Your muscles’ main source of energy is fat. Muscles are tissues that are constantly renewing themselves and burning up calories, this is the driving force behind your metabolism. So as you start building muscles and increasing your metabolism you can eat a reasonable diet without gaining extra weight.

Keep in mind that you should throw away the scales as muscles weigh much more than fat. So although your waistline will be significantly trimmer you may weigh about the same as you did before. What you have to look at is muscle mass percentage and body fat percentage.

A butt to aspire to

The Three Main Fat Burning Muscle Groups to Workout

1. Legs and Butt
The leg muscles (hamstrings and quads) and the butt (glutes) are the largest muscles in our body. Take advantage and train this muscles and they will so most of the fat burning work for you. To get that perfect butt looking perky and tones you will need to do many weighted squats and lunges. To begin with you can start by using your own body weight.

2.Chest
We are talking about the pectoral muscles here. The way a womans breasts look are directly associated with the pecs. Build up your chest muscles and you will lift your breasts. This is good news indeed, not only are you burning fat but you are getting a natural boob job.

3. Back
Building back muscles not only help us on our quest to burn fat, they are essential to our health as they help support our spine. Weak back muscles can casue back aches and pains.

Great back on this girl

So this was our first post for the ladies – tell us what you think!

Hey Girls, Muscles Burn Fat!
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Deadlifts will basically stress out every muscle in your body while also improving your posture. But don’t be fooled, it is not all so easy as deadlifts are one of the hardest exercises to perform. Deadlifts will leave you gasping for air and feeling nauseus. But if you want excellent and fast results, this is definitely the way to go.

How To Deadlift Properly
This is a very basic guide to deadlifting. Make sure you consult a professional trainer before trying this on your own at home.

1.Place the barbell on the ground with weights according to your strength and fitness level. It is important to remember to not overdo it with the weights if you are just starting off as you could easily injure yourself.

2. Position the bar 2″ to 4″ from your shins when standing.
With thighs parallel to the floor lower your hips making sure that the lower parts of your leg remain vertical. Stick your butt out.

3. Squat down and grasp the bar. Lift the bar up, keeping your shoulders pulled back.

4. Flatten your back and always look straight forward. If you look down you make your neck round and if you look up you can injure your neck.

5. Keep your back straight while lowering the bar in a controlled manner back to the starting position.

Deadlift Your Way to an Awesome Body
This post is from: The Strength Resource

Yesterday, I received Ross Enamait’s latest book (and DVD) Full Throttle Conditioning in the mail! As I expected it’s full of practical advice related to setting up a comprehensive conditioning workout. The vague focus is toward boxing, however he writes about conditioning for many types of athletes. There is a great section on fat loss, and why aerobic exercise is not the way to go. I haven’t read it all yet, but will write up a review once I’ve finished it and have used it during workouts. I can say that it contains a heap of material to help you expand your conditioning repetoire. I’d say that most people will find something in there that they haven’t seen or thought of before. In usual Ross style, most things are low-tech and can be done with not a lot of space. In my opinion, that is why Ross’ books are most worth getting – they cut right to the chase, and you can start using them after 10 minutes reading.

There is also a DVD containing video tutorials and demonstrations. This appears to have reduced the size of the book quite a bit, as he hasn’t had to include the many pages of images. The previous books had time-series collections of images used to demonstrate exercise moves.

Go check out his site now. I definitely recommend getting either Infinite Intensity or Never Gymless as these have full discussions on nutrition, rest, supplements, and of course many explanations of strength and conditioning routines.

Until next time. Write to us – ask questions, let us know what you think, etc.

All the best
Joe

The Strength Resource updates
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Video of the Day – Cross Training for Parkour
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Video of the Day – Mike Miller’s World Record Squat
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Video of the Day – Strongman Compilation
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Vid of the Day – Plyometric Training
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