If this sound familiar, then yes, it probably is time for a detox.

We all know that there are millions of toxins in and around us every single day. We simply can not escape them. They are in our water, in out food, in our homes, at our work, in the air we breathe, all around us. These toxins fill our system, attack our internals and generally make us feel like rubbish.

What is Detoxification?
This is simply a process of neutralizing or eliminating toxins from the body, and clearing excess congestion, which in turn, cleanses and flushes out the system. It is a good idea to detox your body a couple of times a year to flush out all the excess toxins we get from our diets and from the external environment.

What happens if I don’t detox?
All those extra toxins sit in your system and start to clog up the works. The most common symptom of excess toxin build up is constipation. While it is not the most inviting subject to bring up with the colleagues at the office water cooler, it is one of the most important functions that our bodies perform.

Bowl movements clear out the excess toxins and rubbish that your body does not need nor want, and over indulging in highly processed and highly refined foods can slow up that process. This is usually the reason you feel so sluggish, tired, bloated and run down, because all these excess toxins are blocking up the system. This causes irregular bowl movements or in most cases, constipation. When you are constipated, the toxins sit in your bowls for extended periods of time and start to putrefy and ferment, and this causes all sorts of problems, and can be the starting point of many diseases. Unfortunately colon cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in the USA, so ensuring your system is cleared out regularly is very important.

What are the benefits from detoxifying?
Well apart from the obvious side step around the likes of colon cancer and other diseases, as mentioned above, detoxifying and cleansing out the colon makes you feel like new. It gives you a boost in energy, clearer skin, regular bowel movements, improved metabolism and digestion, improved concentration, and you will start to lose some weight as well. Generally speaking, you will be much healthier and will feel amazing.

What to expect during a detox?
Whether you are on a natural detox diet, eating nothing but fruits, vegetables and the like, or whether you are taking a colon cleanse herbal supplement, or doing a full detox program, you will feel a little unwell for the first few days. In fact you will feel like you are coming down with the flu. You will likely get headaches, feel even more fatigued than you did before. Some may get diarrhea as the body eliminates the toxins, so take care to stay hydrated. This happens because all the old toxins stored in fatty tissue are being released into the bloodstream. The first time you detox is normally the worst, but each time after that will be better.

Get some advice first.
Be sure to check with your doctor first before you decide to detox. Especially if you are pregnant or breast feeding, have an eating disorder, heart disease, low immunity, low blood pressure, ulcers, cancer, are underweight or are suffering from alcohol or drug dependency. If unsure, it is always best to seek out advice from your doctor or health physician.

One of the best ways to cleanse and detox is by using herbal products. They don’t contain all the usual chemical rubbish that most detox supplements do, and they are much more efficient at clearing out the system.

If you are looking for a good quality colon cleanse product, then grab yourself a free trial of Digest It Colon Cleanse

Also, Acai Berry Select is one of the most amazing antioxidant boosting and toxin clearing products on the market. Check out their Free Trial Offer Here

You can check out some antioxidant supplements here or if you prefer you can check out some antioxidant drinks. Much better than pills.

Good for you, yes?
Absolutely. Antioxidants are extremely good for you in a number of ways.
They fight free-radicals, slow the aging process, make you feel younger, prevent cancer, heart disease and many other diseases. Now if you still do not think that antioxidants are cool then check this out, they will also help your body recover faster and more efficiently from that intense workout you just had.

Now why is that a good thing?
Well the faster you recover from your workout, the quicker you can get back into the gym, the harder you can exercise, the faster you will see results.

So how do they aid in recovery?
When you exercise, your body produces all sorts of free-radicals that can start to damage your muscle tissue. Antioxidants help to stop the production of those free-radicals during your workout. Now for this to have the greatest effect you should aim at getting a boost in antioxidants about an hour or so before your workout. This will greatly reduce any damage done to the muscles from those nasty free-radicals, your muscles will recover mush better, and in turn, you will see better results. That’s got to be a good thing.

Now there are no scare tactics at play here. You don’t have to rush to the green grocer right now to grab a bag full of blueberries because you won’t tone up if you don’t. Not at all.
What I am saying however, is that it can help.

Muscle Recovery
Most of us know the effects of over working your muscles. It can be detrimental if you do not give your body enough time to recover. Think of recovery as the growing stage, your muscle fibres repair themselves and grow bigger and stronger. If your aim is muscle growth, then recovery is one of the most important parts, and if you can not stay away from the gym for very long, then any extra help with recovery is essential. Antioxidants can help.

Yes, there are a number of post-workout supplements on the market that aid in recovery, some are good, many are not. I’ve always been a strong believer that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That is why I like to get some antioxidants into me about an hour or so before my workout. Obviously this can be a bit of a hassle if you are an early riser and early exerciser, and if you are like me and your memory is not so hot, you can simply forget. But for all those times where you do get some extra antioxidants into you pre-workout, you will start to notice better muscle recovery, and better overall results, regardless of your fitness goals.

Antioxidants from Whole Foods
Some of the greatest antioxidants can be found in some yummy whole foods which could be ideal to snack on before your big workout. The usual ones are berries, such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, cranberries, and cherries. Acai fruit is really good, and also green tea sweetened with a little raw honey, yum! Some of the less well know foods are nuts and seeds, beans, grapes, cinnamon, purple potatoes, and of course dark chocolate and red wine. Although the last one might not be such a great idea before your workout.
So there are certainly plenty of pre-workout snacks to choose from.

You also get plenty of antioxidants from eating fruit and vegetables, so if your diet is packed full of both, as it should be, then the majority or your meals will be packed with antioxidants anyway. Also, most multi-vitamins have a good source of antioxidants in them, so if you take them, again you may already have a healthy level of antioxidants in the system.
Still, every little bit helps, so planning a quick “antioxidant packed” snack before your workout will add an extra boost to your workout and recovery.

While I do prefer eating raw whole foods rather than taking supplements, there are a few good quality supplements around. Unfortunately though, it can sometimes be a case of trial and error. Find one that works for you and stick with it. Even if you are taking an antioxidant supplement once a day, a quick “whole foods” boost before your workout can top it off nicely.

So to conclude our little article on antioxidants and muscle recovery…

• Antioxidants help fight free-radicals during and after exercise and a little boost before your workout will aid in faster and more efficient muscle recovery
• Continue eating plenty of the good stuff (fruits, vegetables, antioxidant rich foods like berries and green teas)
• If you feel your diet is lacking a little in the antioxidant area, and you are interested in supplements, find one that works for you and stick with it
• Have an antioxidant rich snack an hour or so before each workout to really boost your recovery

Obviously antioxidants are only a piece of the health and nutritional pie. To find out some more interesting ways to boost your metabolism, burn the body fat, and build the muscle, check out AbTrainingSecret.com

Also, if you feel you need an instant boost of antioxidants and you are interested in some supplements, why not check out this Free Acai Berry Offer

In this article we will look at the barbell squat, and why it can be beneficial to try a couple of alternatives to the normal barbell back squat.

University studies have proven that squats can increase development of the upper body as well as the lower body, even though there are no specific upper body joint movements performed during the squat. There are a number of ways to perform squats, for instance, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags, or just body weight. These are all forms of free weighted squats and are far more beneficial than the Smith Machines you often find in your local gym. Smith Machines or any other squat machines do not allow your body to follow its natural movements. They also stabilize the weight for you, which means you perform less work, and in turn get weaker results.

There are many ways you can perform free weighted squats but the squat that most people are familiar with is the barbell back squat, where the barbell rests on the back of the shoulders. There are two other types of squats that many training and strength coaches believe are more useful to athletic performance, and offer less risk of lower back injuries compared with the back squat. They are the front squat and the overhead squat.

The two names really describe themselves, as in the front squat, the barbell rests on the shoulders in front of the head, and in an overhead squat, the barbell is in a snatch grip above your head. Not the most exciting names in the world, but they do the job I suppose.

Whether your goal is weight loss, muscle development or athletic performance, for best results, you could try adding all three squats to your workout program, spread across your routine of course.

Front squats are a little more difficult than back squats and overhead squats are much more difficult than both front and back squats. If you have never tried the front or overhead squats before, it could take a couple of sessions before you feel comfortable with them, so you should definitely start out light. Once you get the feel for things you can start adding weights and building intensity.

The Front Squat

The really good thing about the front squat is that in order to perform it properly, you have to really engage your abdominals. Obviously the squat is more of a lower body exercise, but you engage several other areas at the same time, especially when you are performing free weighted squats, which is why I tend to shy away from Smith Machines.

One of the more tricky parts of the front squat is learning how to rest the bar on the front of your shoulders. There are two ways you can do this. The first is to cross your forearms like an X while resting the bar on the dimples in your shoulders, which are created when you cross your forearms and lift your elbows. Ensure you keep you elbows up high so that your upper arms are parallel to the ground. From there you simply hold the bar in place with the thumb side of your fists against the bar.

The second way is to hold the bar by placing your palms face up while resting the bar on your fingers against your shoulders. Again, ensure that your elbows are up high enough that your upper arms are parallel with the ground.

Find out which method works for you by practising with the bar only, and perform a couple of reps to see which one you feel comfortable with. Once you’re comfortable with the grip, start the squat from your hips by sitting back and down, and place the weight on your heels rather than the front of you feet. You should squat down to a position where your thighs are roughly parallel to the ground, then move back to the starting position. By keeping the weight on your heels, you protect your knees and there is less chance of injury.

Front Squat with “X” Grip

Start of Front Squat with "X" Grip

Middle of Front Squat with "X" Grip

Alternative Palm Grip

Start of Front Squat with Palm Grip

Middle of front squat with palm grip

The Overhead Squat

This is by far the hardest of the three basic squats, and it can take a while before you become comfortable with it, so starting out with an un-weighted bar is the best way to go.

To perform the squat, you first need to get the bar above your head and your hands in a wide snatch grip. When you are starting out with lighter weights, you can snatch it, and when you get much better at them and move up to heavier weights, you can clean and press it over your head, then adjust your hands to a wider snatch grip.

When your barbell is up and stable, you need to ensure your arms are locked really tight and that the weight is positioned slightly towards the back of your head. You must keep your entire body extremely tense or the weight could fall forward or back. Keep your head up, keep the weight on your heels, and sit into the squat until your thighs are roughly parallel with the ground then move back to the starting position.

As I say, this squat is quite hard and it does take a few sessions to really feel comfortable with it, so it is really important that you get your grip and movements nailed down first using an un-weighted bar, before you start to increase weight and intensity.

Overhead Squat

Start of the overhead squat

Middle of overhead squat

You will be quite surprised at how hard these two new squats will workout your abdominals when you nail down the correct form. This is because you need more of an upright posture to perform them compared with the back squats.

Again, I stress that with any new exercises, try them out first without weights, until you feel comfortable with the exercise and are performing it correctly, and then you can start thinking about adding weights and increasing intensity.

If you are interested in finding out more about hard body workouts like the squat or deadlift, as well as many other fat burning and muscle building strategies, check out these Ab and Muscle Training Secrets.

Also, grab a free copy of Training and Nutrition: Inside Secrets for a Lean Body by Mike Geary, for 27 specific metabolism-boosting and muscle building secrets.

This is not because we workout with any less intensity than those that do have muscle. If anything, we scrawnier folk probably workout harder and more often than those that have more muscle, simply because we do not see the gains and think we need to workout more. This is probably one of the main reasons for not seeing any real gains, because over working your body can be just as bad as not working out at all.

The reasons for little or no muscle gains can be as varying as the people themselves; testosterone levels, metabolism, over working the body and not giving yourself enough recovery time, wrong training routines for your particular body frame etc…  
But fortunately there are a number of important things that we can do that really make the difference between no gains and large gains, and the best thing is, it does not involve any supplements or drug. Simply adjusting the way in which you exercise and eat will change your reflection in the mirror very quickly.

1.    Large multi-joint compound exercises

Regardless of whether you are trying to lose body fat or are trying to gain muscle mass, you should focus the bulk of your training time on big multi-joint exercises, and treat targeted isolation exercises secondary to the rest. It is the large multi-joint exercises that should make up the majority of your workout if your goal is to get lean, build muscle, get ripped and become powerful and strong. You should think of these multi-joint exercises as the major movement patterns such as those below.

• Upper body horizontal rows (1-arm dumbbell rows, seated cable rows, bent over barbell rows)
• Upper body horizontal press (dips, push ups, bench press)
• upper body vertical pull (pullups, chinups, lat pulldowns)
• upper body vertical press (overhead barbell and dumbbell presses, barbell or kettlebell clean & presses)
• lower body squatting (bodyweight squats, back squats, overhead squats, front squats, etc)
• lower body deadlifting (sumo deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, regular deadlifts)
• lower body single leg (step-ups, lunges, jump lunges, etc)

This could also include abdominal and core exercises, but these are still second priority to the major upper and lower body multi-joint exercises. Your abs will get a solid workout anyway from most major multi-joint exercises.

Some of the single-joint exercises that you might frequently focus on to build muscle, such as tricep presses, bicep curls, calf presses, shoulder lateral raises, etc… should again be 2nd priority to the major multi-joint routine. You can add these to your main workout, but always remember that these should be treated as additions and should not be your main focus.

2.    Keep your workouts short and to the point

The goal should be high intensity workouts, 3-4 days a week, 45-60 minutes per training workout.
You probably don’t need to be told that you should workout at a high intensity rate, that’s something you know already, and have likely been doing since day one in the gym. But maybe it should be mentioned that you should not workout any longer than 60 minutes, as training too much beyond this point can start to trigger excess catabolism, where your body starts to use its own proteins (which are found in cells), as a substitute energy source. Basically if you workout too long, your body can start to burn tissue as fuel, and that can’t be a good thing. There are supplements around that can help counter excess catabolism and protect muscle tissue, but a more efficient 45-60 minute, high intensity workout is going to give you the greatest results.

If you tend to train longer than 60 minutes in any one session, you could try a super-set style of workout program, which will help to condense training time and greatly increase intensity. The super-set is a very simple concept… you simply do two exercises back-to-back, with no rest break in between.

You can make them any combinations you like, for example you could combine pullups with squats, or bench press with deadlifts. The choice is yours. Your super-sets could consist of a combination between upper body and lower body workouts, or two consecutive upper body workouts, or lower body workouts. To mix it up even further you could play around with varying sets and reps and heavier weights. Remember, your workout routines should be fun so mix it up until you find some combinations that you enjoy.

You will quickly find that you will experience significant muscle mass gains when you start adding super-sets to your workout program, and of course you can simply adjust your calorie intake to suit your goals, whether it be to lose body fat or to gain muscle. Super-sets are very effective at doing both.

3.    Eat quality whole foods

Once again, we can not escape how important nutrition is to your dieting or weight training. You should eat healthy whole foods and do your best to stay away from highly processed foods and even some of those over hyped supplements, bars and meal replacements. More often than not, a healthy, whole food diet will beat supplements hands down. Sure they have their place, but they could never be a substitute for real whole foods.

Whole foods such as eggs, meats, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts, and dairy, provided it is raw whole dairy, offer the best quality protein, as well as extra nutrition you get from vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The body absorbs these best when they come from whole foods. The more greener, organic and grass fed this whole food, the better. This is much better than processed bars, meal replacements and protein powders.

I will go out on a limb here and make an assumption that many people who either find it difficult to pack on the muscle or find it hard to lose the excess stomach fat, will have a heap of over hyped supplements in their cupboards. Yes? Sure some of them are really helpful and do make a difference, but the majority are not.

My advice, give whole foods another try. Rather than spend the money on five different supplements a week, start seeking out the whole, organic and grass fed food. You will notice a huge difference.

So in conclusion, change what exercises you focus on in the gym and spend the bulk of your training time on large multi-joint exercises, which will get you lean and ripped.
Cut back the time you are in the gym, and lift the intensity by adding different super-set combinations to your training program. This will fire up the muscle gains in no time flat.
Last but not least, cut back on all the over hyped meal replacements, protein bars, and supplements. Instead seek out raw, whole, grass fed food and start giving your body what it actually wants.

If you are interested in finding out more about the multi-joint exercises listed above, as well as many other fat burning and muscle building strategies, check out these Ab and Muscle Training Secrets.

Also, grab a free copy of Training and Nutrition: Inside Secrets for a Lean Body by Mike Geary, for 27 specific metabolism-boosting and muscle building secrets.

I know… crunches right? Or sit ups? How about the marvelous pieces of abdominal equipment out there on the market? You know, the ones you see on the infomercials at 2am. Those seem to work right?

Hmm… somehow I don’t think so.

Unfortunately, those with a little excess stomach fat that are looking for a miracle abdominal exercise will never find it. Why? Because the best ab exercise for getting rid of stomach fat and bringing out those sexy abs of yours does not exist. At least not one that works all by itself.

The truth is you do not burn stomach fat by doing ab workouts only. You see, focusing only on working out your abs does not create enough of a metabolic response in your body to start burning fat. You might feel the burn, and you might work up a sweat, but unfortunately it is not enough to truely get the results you are looking for.

You should instead focus on building an intensive full body workout routine, that incorporates specific exercises that actually burn fat. Sure targeting your abs or any other part of your body for that matter, does have its place, but only when part of a strategic high intensity full body workout.

There are numerous exercises that you could add to your full body routine, and here are some of the best and most effective…

• Various forms of squats
• Lunges
• Deadlifts
• Clean & presses
• Snatches
• Swings
• Presses and pulls
• Mountain climbers
• Sprinting

etc…

Focusing on a full body workout that incorporates many of those listed above, will produce the greatest hormonal and metabolic response within your body. This in turn will burn more body fat, especially around the mid section.
This is much more beneficial than targeting your abs alone, and is the fastest way to burn the fat, and get a rock solid stomach.

Now it’s also important to mention that healthy eating is really the deciding factor when it comes to losing body fat and bringing out those 6-pack abs. It does not matter how hard you work out, if you are still eating junk every day then those tight abs that you want will never become reality.

So in the end, if you want to lose belly fay and develop your abs, do not focus solely on abdominal exercises, instead focus on building a high intensity full body workout routine that will really burn the fat. Combine that with a healthy eating plan, and in no time flat, you will have the sexy flat stomach that you have always dreamed of.

If you are interested in finding out more about the full body exercises listed above, as well as many other fat burning strategies, check out these Ab Training Secrets.

Also, grab a free copy of Training and Nutrition: Inside Secrets for a Lean Body by Mike Geary, for 27 specific metabolism-boosting secrets.

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