Daniel Cortés

Daniel Cortés

Working the Chest
There are many chest exercises to choose from but only a few are really good for building up and adding bulk to the chest area. The best exercises are the ones which require more effort such as bench presses and parallel dips. Flys are a great exercise for the chest but do NOT have much ability to produce intense stress. For this reason they will not add much muscle size to the chest, the same goes for chest exercises like cable crossovers and pullovers.

Now you know the exercises needed, next you need to make a workout plan such as the number of sets and repetitions required. Often beginners mistake the length of a workout with effort. In other words they may believe the longer the workout the harder they have trained. In fact it is impossible to train hard for long periods. The secret to adding mass to the chest muscle is NOT to do tons of exercises during one chest routine but to select one and workout very hard for only a few sets. Don't overdo it!

Also its best only to do a total of 3 sets. In fact its best to use 2 sets as warm ups where you use a lighter weight and gradually build up until your warm enough to perform a lest set. This is the one where you'll attempt to reach failure with the 6-12 repetition range. Its when we reach failure that muscle growth is best stimulated, so once this is done why do any more, leave that enthusiasm for the next chest workout, this way you'll keep stimulating muscular growth without overtraining.

A word of warning though!

Remember training to failure requires lots of effort so you must warm up thoroughly, also make sure you have a partner or someone around who can spot you on the exercises. You must also remember to make sure the chest muscles are fully recovered before attempting another workout, this will help avoid an over-trained state.

If we train very hard (after thoroughly warming up) for only a few sets its possible to place all effort into that set. Once done the muscle need rest to recover in order for growth to take place.

Later on you can attempt to hit the muscles from all angles by using a multi-joint chest exercise. Remember the muscles become used to exercises which are repeated over and over. The best way to gauge how long an exercise should be used is to change it when you cease to make any strength gains within three consistent workouts. Remember to do only a few sets and concentrate more on weight increases!

Best exercises for building chest muscles are 1)Bench Press 2) Incline Bench Press 3) Decline Bench Press 4) Parallel Dips 5) Push Ups 6) Dumbell Flyes.

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How To Perform A Complete Abdominal Workout

Abdominal Workouts:
How To Perform A Complete Abdominal Workout
The Truth About Abs
There are MANY abdominal exercises... crunches, leg raises, situps, hip thrusts, side bends, weighted situps, crunches with your legs bent, not bent, straight up in the air, 100's of different ab machines, 1000's of ab exercises and workouts on video tapes, 100's of abdominal exercises and machines shown in infomercials, etc. The list goes on and on. BUT, let me ask you a question.

The truth is, every one of those abdominal exercises that mentioned above, plus every ab exercise that we didn't mention, will NOT help you have a perfect 6-pack. EVERY one of these abdominal exercises will only help to strengthen and build your ab muscles. BUT, that won't do a thing for you if you have a layer of fat covering them! The reason is that no abdominal exercises burn fat. None of the ones you see in infomercials, none of the machines you see in your gym, no special ab workouts, and even good old crunches and situps, none of these abdominal exercises will burn the fat on your stomach. All they will do is help make your ab muscles stronger, and help build them. You can make your abs as strong as you want, and build them as nice as you want for as long as you want, but as long as you still have fat, even the slightest amount of fat on your stomach, your abs will not be visible.

You see, nothing, I repeat, NOTHING will burn the fat off of your stomach to let your abs become visible except for a perfect diet and enough cardio/aerobic work. The key to getting perfect abs is having a low bodyfat. That is it right there, if you have a low bodyfat, then you have visible abs.

No matter how many abs exercises you do, if your diet and cardio/aerobic workout isn't getting rid of the fat, you will NEVER be able to see your abs! Forget what you saw in those TV infomercials featuring athletes and ab machines and how you will get great abs using this machine. WRONG! If you are thinking that, then you now know how these people make money. They don't want you to know all of the stuff that we just told you, because once you know the truth, you will never buy their useless products, and they won't make money!

So, now you know the big secret and the truth about abdominal exercises. Before you look to the ab machines and different types of crunches, look at your diet and your cardio/aerobic workout because those are the two things that will get you perfect abs

How To Exercise Your Triceps Using Weights

Weight Training:
How To Exercise Your Triceps Using Weights
Building big biceps does not mean performing set after set of arm exercises like bicep curls and dumbell curls. Arm muscles are made up of two-thirds triceps and one-third biceps. Both triceps and biceps muscles are relatively small, meaning it wont take much stress to stimulate muscle growth for the arms. Performing too many sets will simply cause the biceps to become over-trained.

The secret to building big biceps and arms is to use the push and pull principle. All pulling movements place stress on the biceps muscle and although this stress is secondary, its often more intense than performing the single-joint exercises like curls.

The same is true for the triceps. All pushing or pressing movements place stress on the triceps as the arms straighten to push the weights. The intense movement causes more fibres deep within the arms to respond resulting in a higher muscle cell stimulation.

As the triceps muscle makes up two-thirds the size of the arms it would also make sense to train the triceps as hard as the biceps in order to build big arms quickly.

The best exercises for building big arms are 1)Bench Presses 2) Bar Dips and 3) Shoulder Presses for triceps. For biceps use 1)Chin Ups 2) Barbell Rows.

Remember: concentrate of building strength in the push and pulling exercises
train less on the arm exercises
concentrate on the bigger triceps muscle for big arms

How to get really big biceps!
The above suggestions will give you nice arms but if you really want super arms then this is the routine for you. First of all building really big biceps is hard work! No one ever said it was going to be easy. You can read all day about how to get big biceps but it's the hours in the gym and the hard work you put in that will really give you big biceps!

Step 1:- Eat Lots!
In order to get big biceps, you need to eat, eat eat. Your body needs to have an excess of calories each day before you can start to build muscle. Make sure you eat lots of protein (meat, eggs and fish) and lots of carbs (brown bread, brown rice and potatos). Protein is what makes up your muscles, and you need a lot of it to actually build muscle. Eat as much protein as you can.

For an extra boost, try a protein shake (a protein drink) or a good meal after your biceps workout. This is when your bicep muscles are repairing and need the nutrients. Also, make sure you eat before you go to bed. Most of actual muscle building happens while you are asleep.

Step 2:- Lift Heavy, Low Reps!
Don't overdo the sets and reps! If you want to get strong and big biceps, you need to lift heavy weights at low reps (from 2 to 8, depending on the exercise).

Step 3:- Rest Up!
Most of your muscle building is done in your sleep. So if you want to get big biceps, get plenty of sleep (9 hours would be good, but 8 is fine). Also try to limit your cardio to 1-2 workouts per week. When you're training your biceps, cut out the cardio.

Step 4:- Vary the Routine!
No matter how many hours you spend building your biceps, sooner or later you'll hit a plateau You've hit a plateau. This is why you need to vary your biceps workouts and shock your muscles into growth! Your muscles tend to get "used" to the biceps training exercises, so you need to change you biceps workout every 2 - 3 months.

Step 5:- Train Smart!
Only train your biceps once per week and hit them with 5 different exercises, train your back at least 48 hours before/after your biceps (because the biceps are secondary muscles in back exercises), never train your biceps if they are still sore from the last workout and always do the biggest and heaviest biceps exercises in your routine first (bicep curl, chin up, preacher curl).

Weight Loss Strategies

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General Nutrition:
Weight Loss Strategies