Cut Me In Half

By Louise Levenson

There are a lot of workouts available for women who want to strengthen their abdominal muscles and develop a fabulous midsection. There are exercises designed specifically to acquire tightness and definition for a woman’s body.

Here are some of the best workouts for women who want to get flat abs:

1. Bicycle Crunches. This exercise is highly regarded as the most effective out of all the workouts for abs as it works both the upper and lower abdominals. It is known to tense the abdominal muscles the most. The key to doing this exercise correctly is to focus on your abdomen and your breathing. Start out by extending one leg out fully while the other leg is bent. Touch your opposite elbow to the bent leg as if performing a twisting crunch. Do the same thing to the other side, all the while making sure that you don’t let your torso drop back down.

2. Hanging Knee Raise. For the best workout for your lower abs, try to do the hanging knee raise. This is done by grabbing onto a bar above your head and slowly lifting up your legs by contracting your abdominal muscles. Make sure that you don’t swing your legs as you are hanging from the bar. The exercise should be in a controlled motion and make sure that you tense your abs throughout the whole workout.

3. Sprinting. Performing sprinting exercises can greatly help strengthen your abdominal muscles and produce flat and strong abs. It helps you burn calories much faster and lose weight. Running is a good daily exercise that can help you get fabulous abs so make sure that you incorporate sprinting and running exercises to your daily workout routine.

4. Decline Crunch. This exercise is ideal for when you want to get a strong midsection and allow your abdominals to perform a bit more work. Doing crunches or sit-ups on a decline board is one of the most effective ways to get flat abs and develop a powerful midsection. There are a bunch of ways to do workouts on a decline board aside from doing full sit-ups or crunches such as doing really slow declines, changing the decline board’s height, and adding weights to your chest.

5. Fitness Ball Crunches. This exercise is guaranteed to produce excellent results for your abs as this targets your abdominals directly and takes the pressure off of your back. To do this, you must crunch down while you roll the fitness ball backwards and making your butt get closer to the floor. Perform the opposite on the reverse part then do this workout repeatedly. When this exercise is done properly, the results will be extraordinary.

To get fabulous results, both your upper and lower abdominal muscles should be worked for absolute power and strength. Make sure that you always warm up before performing any kind of exercise and stretch before and after working out. Maintain a well balanced diet and a daily workout routine for better result

By Michael Ed Clarke

Arm exercises for men are some of the most important exercises that we do. While lots of people try to sell you the latest powders or shakes to add protein, they ignore the fact that good, quality exercise makes the difference between being ripped and not being ripped. Workouts for your arms are probably more important than other exercises because women say they instantly notice your arms when they see a man. If you have big arms then you are immediately deemed more powerful, attractive and you’ll feel a lot better about your physique. I want to share with you the best biceps, triceps and forearm super-set arm exercises for men so that you can get bigger arm muscles as fast as possible…

First I’m going to explain some exercise theory that I learned when I was starting out. This stuff has helped me go from super-weedy to super-ripped. I mentioned super-sets. They are sets where you work all the muscles in a muscle group after each other. This actually helps you to gain 30% more muscle than if you didn’t do them. 30% is a lot in the long term. After a month or two you begin to see how beneficial super-sets can be. Arm exercises for men are very important here because we want bigger arms. Women, on the other hand, should probably stay away from super-sets!

Arm Exercises For Men – The Muscles We Target

There are three main arm muscles that we’re targeting when we do arm workouts. These are forearms, triceps and biceps. The best way to see any real gains is to do a super-set on each of these arm muscles. Therefore, our arm workout needs to be focused on the best super-set routines.

Arm Exercises For Men – Forearm Super-Set

The forearm is often ignored by guys who want to get bigger arms. But when you have big forearms you don’t get the case of having big upper arms and weedy lower arms. These forearm super-sets shouldn’t be ignored.

Forearm Workout Exercise 1: Seated Dumbbell Wrist Curl

For this exercise, sit on a workout bench and lean forward and put your arm flat on the bench between your legs. Your wrist and hand should be hanging over the side of the bench. Now you should take a dumbbell and curl your wrist. So you go all the way back back and all the way towards you (with your palm facing up). Aim to do 15-20 reps at high weight. Remember to use your weaker hand first, then match the reps and weight with your stronger hand. Move immediately onto this:

Forearm Workout Exercise 2: Seated Barbell Reverse Curl

This time kneel on the floor and put your forearms on the bench. Your palms face down and your wrists and hands are over the edge of the bench. Grip the barbell and allow your hands to drop, then raise them as far back as you can. That’s one rep. Again do 15-20 at heavy weight.

You should do two sets of this forearm workout. (Remember: The arm exercises for men that I’m revealing cause muscle growth. If you’re female then use light weights!)

Arm Exercises For Men - Triceps Super-Set

Lots of guys believe that biceps are what make your arms look big. In fact, 66% of what makes your arms look muscular is triceps. Here’s the best triceps super-set that you can do for fast, explosive muscle growth…

Triceps Workout Exercise 1: Close Grip Bench Press:

First, lie on your back with your head underneath bar, eyes aligned with bar and feet flat on the floor. Then position hands on bar together in the centre of the bar so that hands are touching (this is different from a normal bench press if that’s what you’re thinking – we’re targeting the triceps muscles!) To start, lift the bar off the rack with the bar directly over head. Lower the bar to your mid chest area. Press the bar up to start position. Remember: Don’t do this exercise using your normal bench-press weight. This is a triceps exercise and the weight you use should be significantly lower. However, it should still be hard to do 2 sets of 15 reps! If you can, use a spotter!

This is one of the best arm exercises for men in my opinion. It’s my favorite triceps exercise ever because it works very well!

Triceps Workout Exercise 2: Reverse Grip Press down:

First, secure a door strap overhead at top of door. (This is on the exercise machines where you can adjust the height – you want this at the very top.) Now, stand approximately 2-3 feet away from the attachment point with your feet shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent.

To start the exercise, grasp the handles with your palms facing down. Lower the handles to chest level so that elbows are bent at 90°. Then, keeping your shoulders stabilized and elbows close to sides, extend your arm and lower bar to hip level. Repeat! This is two sets of 15 reps.

Arm Exercises For Men - Biceps Super-Set

Whenever you think about arm exercises for men you think of the classic biceps curl… That is included in this super-set. Here it is in full:

Biceps Workout Exercise 1: Supinated Incline Bicep Curls

Start by lying on an incline bench with your arms at your side holding dumbbells with palms facing downwards (you have to bend your wrist to achieve this). Then slowly curl the dumbbells up rotating your palms so that your palms are facing up at the top of the movement and your elbows at your side. Then return to the starting position and repeat for 15 repetitions.

Biceps Workout Exercise 2: Reverse Barbell Curl

Hold a barbell with an overhand grip and your palms facing your body. Then, keeping your elbows at your side curl the barbell up to chest level. Return to the starting position and repeat 15 times.

Arm Exercises For Men - Hints & Tips

When you do this routine, start with the forearms. Go from forearm workout exercise 1 to 2, then back to 1 and then 2. Then move on to the Triceps circuit, and follow the same format.

Remember that you should struggle to complete two sets of 15 reps. If you’re not struggling speed up how long it takes and raise the weights. (Be very careful on the close grip bench press! Use a lesser weight so you don’t hurt yourself unless you have a spotter.)

To get an incredible physique you need to work on every aspect of your body. I’m Michael Ed Clarke and I’ve become an expert at muscle building…

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With annual gym membership fees running well into hundreds of dollars these days coupled with the current economic climate, joining the gym to get fit certainly seems to be a bit of a luxury right now. Luckily the gymnasium is not the only place where you can get back in shape. In this article, you will discover 6 great inexpensive, fun ways to burn those excess calories without burning a hole in your wallet at the same time.

1. Walking

This has got to be the cheapest and most readily available method of exercising. Everybody already knows how to walk and you don’t have to have any fancy shoes to do it. Just get up off your couch and go! A brisk 30 minute walk that would raise your heart rate a few times per week will do very nicely. Consider going for a brisk walk during your lunch break for example, to work the exercise into your day.

2. Home Gym

Unless you live in a one storey accommodation, you are bound to have stairs in your home. So why not take advantage and use them to run up and down several times in a row to tone up your legs. The stairs can even double as a means to work your triceps by performing small dips at the edge of a stair. All you need to do is to sit at the edge of a stair, hands face down on either side of you and then lift yourself up and down using small movements. Keep your arms in towards your body as you do the dips.

If you have tin cans of food in your cupboard and let’s face it, most people do, you can use the tin cans as weights and do arm lifts. Small bottles of mineral water can also be used for the same purpose.

3. Exercise DVDs

This is ideal for people who don’t want to exercise in front of strangers. There is a vast array of exercise DVDs available on the market and if you don’t want to buy your own, you can always borrow them from your local library.

4. Dancing

This is a fantastic way to burn loads of calories and incredibly fun and enjoyable too. You can do it in your own room or you can go out and dance in clubs and parties. Whether you choose to dance freestyle or learn a particular type of dance like hip hop, country and western, swing or latin dance is up to you!

5. Swimming

Swimming is one of the best exercises for general toning up of the body. It is great for people with knee joint problems as you are not putting pressure on your joints in the water and is perfect whether you are young or old.

6. On Your Bike

Cycling is environmentally-friendly, gives you a brilliant work-out and much less stressful than driving! You can cycle to work, to the grocery store or cycle round to see friends at their homes etc. This being the case, you can see how easy it could be to find yourself doing a bit of cycling every day.

So there you have it! These are just a few great ways to get fit on the cheap; I hope that you feel inspired to start doing something to improve your health and fitness. Do not forget that your diet will play a large part in your fitness program so choose your diet plan carefully.

To find out which diet plans really work to help you to lose weight plus further tips and advice on weight loss, go to => http://www.BestNYDiets.blogspot.com.  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Young

I’ve told you about a bunch of types of workouts, but if you tried to do them all in one week you would put yourself in the hospital. One the most common questions I get is how do you put together a weekly plan. I usually set things up in 4 week blocks but for illustration purposes we’ll just put a single week plan together.

While this will show how I put a training week together, you have to bear in mind that we cycle the loads and intensity over the course of the training season. Some blocks will have low volume (less time) and more intensity while in other periods this will be reversed. It all depends on what the goal of the block of training is. The week I’m going to show you will be aimed at increasing threshold power, anaerobic capacity and over all body conditioning. When I’m creating a monthly plan the load will increase a little each week for three weeks and the fourth week will ease off allowing the body to recover. This can vary per athlete but the 3 week build, 1 week recovery is a good place to start. An example would be 60 minutes week 1, 65 minutes week 2 and 70 minutes week 3.

Warm-up 15-20 minutes before each workout. Stretch or do Yoga after each workout.

Monday

Rest

Tuesday

60 Minute Aerobic Ride – steady pace, breathing is elevated but you should be able to talk. (75-80% of your threshold power)

Wednesday

30 Velmax Intervals – 30 seconds Hard ( 135% threshold power) / 30 seconds Easy

Cool down 10 minutes then

Cross Training Workout

3 rounds with as little rest as possible

15 Pushups

25 Bodyweight Squats

15 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (20 lb dumbbells)

Thursday

60 Minute Aerobic Ride – steady pace, breathing is elevated but you should be able to talk. (75-80% of your threshold power)

Friday

Cross Training Workout

3 Rounds with as little rest as possible

20 Dumbbell Swings

20 Walking lunges (20 steps per leg)

20 Russian Twists

Saturday

90 Minute Aerobic Ride – steady pace, breathing is elevated but you should be able to talk. (75-80% of your threshold power)

Sunday

30 Velmax Intervals – 30 seconds Hard ( 135% threshold power) / 30 seconds Easy

Cool down 10 minutes then

Cross Training Workout

3 rounds with as little rest as possible

20 Thrusters

20 Pull ups or body rows

20 Burpees

Do a quick Google search if you don’t know how to do the exercises.

This plan takes about 6 hours per week not counting warm-up and cooldown. If you need to miss a workout on this plan, cut out one of the aerobic rides rather than the Velmax or cross training workouts.

The cross training workouts take 5-15 minutes depending on how little rest you can get away with.

The layout is pretty simple with a couple of hard bike workouts that will increase power and sustainable speed. Between the hard workouts are more moderate aerobic rides that are longer. The aerobic rides provide a cardiovascular load and improve your bodies ability to access fat as a fuel source but only take 8-12 hour to recover from. The Saturday workout is stretched out a little.

And it’s all topped off with three cross training workouts to build muscular endurance and balance out the body. As a bonus, workouts like these that have a lot of muscles involved with a lot of lactic acid and oxygen debt, trigger an increase in your bodies production of growth hormone and testosterone. After the age of 30, these hormones decrease so spiking them up with exercise will help with fat burning, energy and recovery.