Rock Hard Fitness - Body Weight Training For Strength!

Who says you need equipment and heavy weights alone to get stronger? The truth is that lifting heavy weights can get you stronger, but its not the only way that will get you stronger. You can apply body weight exercises that will be highly effective in building your strength levels by making the body weight drills more intense through movements and various methods of creative weight distribution. Read on if I have your attention.

Body Weight Exercises For Strength

Body weight exercises can help you to achieve extraordinary strength by building your core muscles through stabilization and control. Traditional exercises such as push ups and pull ups can be manipulated by doing one arm drills and creative movements to make the exercises extremely challenging. It is my professional experience that has led me to believe that the fittest individuals and athletes that can handle their own resistance in these types of drills allows them to be the best in their sport and personal levels of competition.




To make better sense of what I am talking about I want you to imagine doing a normal set of push ups. Now I want to assume that you can properly perform a push up by keeping your body perfectly straight and rigid from your shoulders all the way to your ankles. This doesn't mean that you can crank out a 100 sloppy reps of push ups. I am talking about executing a full range of motion with your chest to the floor and not bobbing up and down from the hip up. Your body should move at a pivot from the balls of your feet to your shoulders. Now in order to intensify this drill you can do many things. You can elevate your feet on a bench, lift one leg off of the ground, or even execute a one arm push up. The key is learning how to redistribute your body weight to make the exercise more intense.

If you can intensify these drills you will find that the push up exercise can become much more demanding. By doing this you are maximizing the tension on your muscles by creating more force to get through the drill. Tension is the law of strength! If you can maximize the load or tension on your muscles more and more over time you will develop power. You can do the same thing with pull up exercises as well. Take the time to practice these and you will see just what I am talking about.
If you haven't already started on an effective body weight strength training program then feel free to access the rest of my articles to learn how to do so. You have to put in the time to get the results. Remember that most anyone can train hard, but only the best train smart my friend!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Brandon_Richey/17

What Is The Best Cardio To Burn Fat Not Muscle?

In this article I'm going to discuss some a controversial subject that most experts will argue on. Which is, what is the best cardio to burn fat not muscle. Hopefully some of the stuff I'm going to mention will really get you to think if you are maximizing your time as you do cardio.

Now, throughout my fitness career I have always sounded like the anti-cardio pro, when in reality I'm not. I just know that traditional cardio is not the way to ultimate fat loss and keeping all your muscle.

If you do your own research and interview some of the leanest people in your gym you will find out that they almost always don't do traditional cardio. And that most of the people who do traditional cardio are the ones that are the weekend warriors or people of average physiques. Now, what comes to your mind first when I mention the word, cardio?




For most people they see treadmills, ellipticals and stationary bicycles and pumping away for 45min while they watch their favorite TV show or sports game. That's the cardio I am against, and this is the #1 reason why people get bored and don't stick to their workouts after a few weeks at a time. Now, that might be what you think of cardio. But in reality what does the word cardio really mean?

Cardio, is just the definition for any exercise that strengthens your cardiovascular system. Now, lets not get to geek here with science. But if that's the simple definition for cardio, that means that anything that raises your heart rate can be considered cardio.

So that means squats and weight lifting exercises can be considered cardio because they are going to elevate your heart rate.

One of the best ways to really kick in some cardio with weights is to do complexes. A complex is a term for using one weight, doing 3 or more exercises and not putting down the weight.

So for example, you can clean the weight from the ground, press it above your shoulders, then put it on your shoulders to squat it, then press it back up and then set it down to do it all over again.

This is a complex and it will really get your heart rate up there and build you a solid cardiovascular system, with no boring hours of cardio on the TV machines. You can also do the same thing by doing high reps with just one exercise.

For example, take barbell squats. Take a lighter weight, that would normally only do 15 and do it for 20, taking short breathing rests as you still hold the bar and finish you your set of 20. This will really get your heart coming out of your chest, after a week of doing these try and tell me you are not conditioning your heart to function better, as you burn heaves of fat and add slabs of muscle to your frame.

I urge you to use these examples as your best cardio to burn fat and not muscle. In turn you will start seeing some immediate results.

I mean, who doesn't want flat abs and muscle by just doing simple, brief and intense weight workouts. Instead of boring themselves to death on machines with little to nothing to show for it.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Daniel_Dash/758867