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July12, 2007 - BetterU News Issue #53 is now online >> |
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Issue #53 BetterU News July 12th, 2007 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A Free Email Newsletter from BetterU, Inc. “The World Leader in Innovative Internet Training” Inside: Secret Training #668 – Barbell Cursing Lunges To TORCH Your Quads There is a very good reason I call these “Cursing Lunges”... This exercise is SO tough on the quads, that’s EXACTLY what you'll be doing for almost the entire exercise! This one puts leg extensions to shame AND without the knee stress you can get from leg extensions. How To Train To Reduce Muscle Size ON PURPOSE While this is very rarely the goal with weight training, there ARE people who actually DO want to reduce the size of a specific muscle or muscles (but without just stopping training and losing too much strength). Learn how to do it the right way! 10 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW To Increase Your Bench Press FAST Improving the bench press is ALWAYS at the top of almost every lifter’s list of goals. Put these 10 tips into practice and power up your bench press fast! The Winner Of Last Month’s Contest and a NEW Contest For July! Tell Us Your Funniest Workout Story! Find out who won our “Toughest Workout” contest from last month and learn more about this month’s “Funniest Gym Story” contest! Read MY funniest workout story here, too! NOTE: All articles in BetterU News are written by Nick Nilsson - http://www.fitstep.com/ unless otherwise credited. -------------------- Secret Training #668 – Barbell Cursing Lunges To TORCH Your Quads There is a very good reason I call these “Cursing Lunges”... This exercise is SO tough on the quads, that’s EXACTLY what you'll be doing for almost the entire exercise! This one puts leg extensions to shame AND without the knee stress you can get from leg extensions. Yes, this may be an extremely "unique" name for an exercise but the first time you do this exercise, you'll know EXACTLY why I called it that (one other name I had in mind included the word “evil” in it). This exercise gives you the best of 3 worlds: 1. You get a good stretch on the quads at the bottom of the exercise. 2. You get a GREAT contraction at the top (stronger even than with a leg extension). 3. Your quads get NO break through the entire movement (for example, when you’re doing a squat or regular lunge, at the top of the exercise, the tension comes completely off the muscles and is carried by the bones and joints). Put all these together and you’ve got an exercise that will DESTROY your quads! The first time I did it, I ended up doing more sets than I was originally planning on doing for legs because I could tell it was such a powerful exercise! Be very sure to check out the pictures and video of this exercise in action (side view and front view). Viewing the video and still makes it a LOT easier to understand the mechanics of the movement and really get the most out of it when you take it to the gym yourself. How To Do It: Basically, you're going to be doing what looks like a hack lunge with a barbell. It will resemble a lunge holding the barbell behind your back instead of on your shoulders. That's about the best way to describe it but there are some key points that take the exercise from a mere lunge to something that will light a fire in your quads that will leave you the floor - pretty much every set I did of this exercises ended with me falling down! This exercise is best done in a rack for safety reasons - doing it in a rack will allow you to really push your legs HARD and maximize the effect of the exercise. It CAN be done starting with the barbell on the floor but it does make the exercise a bit more difficult to manage and you have to end the set a little sooner for safety reasons rather than pushing yourself as you can with the rack. Having the bar a little higher up at the start also makes it easier to begin the exercise, which helps a lot. First, set the safety rails in the rack to about a foot or so off the ground. Set a barbell on the rails then load up a moderate weight. The first time you do it, start light to get the feel for the exercise, e.g. 25’s to 45’s on either side. Stand with your back to the barbell (it will be up against the back of your legs), squat down and grab it with an overhand grip (I grab it about the same width as I would use for bench press, using the smooth rings as a guide). Once you've gripped the bar, stand up, bringing the weight up behind you so it's resting on the backs of your thighs, just under your glutes. Now step your left leg forward into a typical lunge position stance. Go down into the lunge with the barbell resting on the back of your right thigh (your back leg, basically). Now the fun begins...instead of standing upright, keep your torso leaning forward at an angle. And as you stand up and straighten your front leg, straighten your back leg, PUSHING THE BARBELL UP AND BACK as you do so. Basically, even though your left leg is forward, it's the RIGHT leg that actually is working directly against the resistance of the barbell. The harder you push to straighten your leg, the stronger the contraction you'll get in the quads. You're supporting the entire weight of the barbell on your right hamstring/thigh and quadricep contraction is what's keeping it there. The left leg gets some work but not NEARLY as much as the right leg - that back leg is the one to really focus on with this exercise, which is contrary to how the lunge normally works. And here's the beauty of it...at the bottom of the lunge, when your right leg is bent, you're actually putting a good STRETCH on the right quadriceps as well. THAT is the reason I call this the “Barbell Cursing Lunge”...the quads of your back leg get NO break through the whole exercise from stretch to contraction and through the ENTIRE set. With a regular lunge or squat (as I mentioned above), when you come to the top, your skeleton is supporting the weight, not your muscles. It's tough to keep a hard contraction and maintain tension in the thighs without shortening the range of motion and never coming all the way up. With this exercise, the more you try and lock out at the top, the stronger the contraction you'll get in the quads and the harder the exercise will work you. Take my word for it, it's a serious experience in leg training and it'll really open your eyes. It blew my mind when I came up with it. And THAT is the reason I'm telling you to do this exercise in the rack... because when you're done, you're DONE. Your leg will give out from the burn and you'll have to set the weight down. The shorter the distance the barbell has to go, the better. As far as the other leg goes, because BOTH legs get worked with this exercise (even though the back leg is doing most of the work) the second leg you work is going to already be fatigued and you won’t get as many reps with it. If you like, you can rest a minute, then do the other leg instead of going immediately into working the other one. Give this exercise a try in your next leg workout and let me know what you think! Click the following link to see the pictures and videos for this exercise in action: http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue53-curse.htm P.S. If you watch carefully in the videos, you can actually see me cursing as I'm doing this exercise... :) I won't include the transcript but just know that as you do this exercise, you may starting cursing involuntarily... -------------------- How To Train To Reduce Muscle Size ON PURPOSE While this is very rarely the goal with weight training, there ARE people who actually DO want to reduce the size of a specific muscle or muscles (but without just stopping training and losing too much strength). Learn how to do it the right way! It may sound strange that anybody would want to REDUCE muscle size on purpose, but honestly, if that’s one of your goals, you’re not alone! Reducing the size of a specific muscle group or all your muscles in general is a more common goal than you might think. And there certainly ARE ways of decreasing the size of your muscles through exercise! But let me just start by saying, if you feel your calves are too big, please go ahead send them my way... :) Basically, in order to reduce muscle size, we need to utilize a two-pronged approach, focusing on a very specific training style and then on post-workout nutrition. For training, we’re going to accomplish the goal of reducing muscle size by utilizing VERY high rep sets (upwards of 80 to 100 reps per set!). This type of training can be done with pretty much any exercise you choose and will be dictated by which muscle group(s) you want to reduce the size of. To properly explain the reasoning behind how this type very high rep training can be effective, you should first know that there are two basic types of muscle fibers: fast-twitch and slow-twitch. Fast-twitch fibers are responsible for high-power, short-duration activity (like sprinting and heavy weight training) while slow- twitch fibers are responsible for low-power, long-duration activity like jogging, walking and other endurance-based activity...basically anything you can do for longer than a couple of minutes. Fast-twitch fibers are larger than slow-twitch fibers and when you have a high percentage of fast-twitch fibers, you will have larger muscles. You can see the difference when you look at a sprinter compared to a marathon runner. So what does this have to do with making muscles smaller? Well, most likely, if you find a specific muscle group too big for your liking, you probably have a high percentage of those fast-twitch fibers in that muscle group. They are much easier to develop and you probably don’t even have to work that muscle group to keep it larger! What you WILL have to do, then, is focus ONLY on endurance- oriented training for that specific muscle group that you want to make smaller. This will preferentially detrain the fast-twitch muscle fibers and train the smaller, slow-twitch muscle fibers. So how you put this type of training into practice? My best advice would be to pick an exercise or two that work the muscle group you want to reduce. For example, if you want to decrease your calves, standing and seated calf raises will work. Now, at the beginning of EVERY single workout you do (no matter what other bodyparts you’re working or even if you’re just doing cardio training), perform 2 sets of VERY high reps (80 to 100 reps) on one of those exercises (you can use the same exercise for both sets or do one set of each). Rest two minutes in between those 2 sets to clear out lactic acid build-up. The reason we do this every single day is that slow-twitch fibers require frequent work and lots of volume. Doing these two sets every single workout is the most efficient way to accomplish that stimulus. Naturally, you’re going to need to use some fairly light weight to be able to get that many reps, but don’t just be a rep counter and stop when you get to 80. Push yourself to keep going and get as many reps as you possibly can. The high reps are what will train your slow-twitch muscle fibers. DO NOT do any heavy or even moderately heavy training for your target muscle group. It should be ALL light-weight, very high rep whenever you work it. We want to really take away all stimulus to the larger, fast-twitch muscle fibers and focus on training only the smaller slow-twitch endurance-oriented fibers. For the REST of your workout (for the muscles you aren’t trying to reduce in size), you can feel free to use heavier weights and lower rep ranges. It’s only the target muscle group you want to absolutely keep to very high reps. And just because you’re training to reduce muscle size, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy work! You do need to push yourself on these high-rep sets, not just go through the motions and count to 100. As I mentioned above, this is a two-pronged approach...training and nutrition. So now that we’ve got the training covered, let’s move on to nutrition, specicially post-workout nutrition as that is going to have the biggest impact on your muscle reduction program. Your muscles require protein to rebuild and recover. So what we’re going to do is deprive your body of protein during the post- workout period by not eating any protein for a few hours after training. By not eating protein right away, you will force your body to eat up some of its own muscle tissue for recovery purposes, further helping to reduce muscle size. Immediately after your workout, take in some simple sugars to help get the recovery process started (sugary drink mixes like Tang or Gatorade are good). Eat only carbohydrates such as grains, fruits, and vegetables for a few hours after exercise. You can eat protein during the rest of the day, just not during the post-workout period (for at least 3 hours after). It does take a bit of time for the muscle fibers to respond to this type of training but it will happen if you stick to the high rep sets and keep it up consistently. The size of your muscles will obviously be your main gauge as to whether the training is working for you or not, so use a good tape measure and measure your target muscles (at the same place on the muscle each time!) on a weekly basis and at the same time of day to control for outside factors such as food and water intake (first thing in the morning before you’ve eaten or drank anything is best). So if you’re looking to reduce muscle size without getting flabby, give this type of training a try! The high reps may be painful, but they will transform your muscles and reduce their size, getting your muscles where you want them to be! ------------------- 10 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW To Increase Your Bench Press FAST Improving the bench press is ALWAYS at the top of almost every lifter’s list of goals. Put these 10 tips into practice and power up your bench press fast! The flat barbell bench press...the lift that everyone wants to know how much you can do when they find out you train. So you want to get your numbers moving in the right direction again? These 10 quick tips will make a difference in your strength and boost your bench FAST. Keep in mind, these tips are coming from someone who has almost NO genetic gifts as far as bench press is concerned (bad shoulders, long arms). It’s among my weakest lifts and I have to struggle for every single pound I add onto it. Yet with those limitations, using the tips I’ll share with you below, I’ve managed to work up to a maximum single at 350 lbs. So it CAN be done! At the end of the article, I’ll include a link where you can see pictures and video of some of these tips in action. 1. Work your Rotator Cuff muscles Yes, this is completely unglamorous but it has the potential to add 20 to 30 pounds to your bench press in a matter of weeks. The reason? The Rotator Cuff muscles are the four small muscles that stabilize the humerus (your upper arm bone) in the shoulder socket. Most people rarely, if EVER, work the Rotator Cuff but a couple of sets at the end of each workout can really make a HUGE difference in your bench press by helping to stabilize the shoulder joint. The exercise that I use is one I call the “3 In 1 Rotator Cuff Raise.” It’s an exercise I invented to work all 3 major planes of movement that the Rotator Cuff muscles operate in in one basic movement. It’s very effective and very time-efficient. Two sets of 8 reps of this at the end of each workout is all you need. I have a video and pics of this exercise at the link at the bottom of the article. 2. Get your grip-width right Where you grip the bar can make or break your bench press before you even do a single rep. If you grip the bar in too close, you’re putting more stress on the triceps, which limits your pushing power and increases the distance you have to press the bar. If you grip the bar too wide, you do decrease the distance the bar travels but you put excessive stress on the shoulder joints. So what is the best place to grip the bar? This is best determined with no weight on the bar at all and with somebody watching your form. Lie down and take the bar off the rack and lower the bar to your chest. Have your spotter eyeball your forearms. At the bottom of the press, your forearms should be perfectly vertical. THAT will give you the greatest pressing power as you won’t lose any power inside or outside. It’s the same concept as throwing a punch – if the bones of the arm aren’t lined up properly when it connects, you lose a lot of power at impact. 3. Learn how to breathe When you’re doing a heavy press, trunk stabilization is much more important than when you’re doing lighter, higher-rep training. You need a strong, solid base to push off of to really move the most weight. When doing a heavy lift for only a few reps, breathe in deeply on the way down, inflating your chest as much as possible (this has the dual effect of increasing the stability of your trunk AND decreasing the distance the bar must travel, which is a bonus!). But as you press the bar off your chest don’t immediately blow out all your air in one big blow. That will destabilize the chest and weaken the base you’re pushing from. Think of it this way...it would be like trying to do a dumbell press on the Swiss Ball as somebody is letting the air out of it FAST! So as you start to press the weight, blow your air out through pursed lips. Basically, pretend you’re blowing up a really thick balloon. You want to keep your breathing muscles in your rib cage absolutely solid as they very slowly force the air out. This keeps your trunk solid and stabilized as you press, which is critical. The moment you lose that stability, you lose the lift. 4. Don’t neglect back training Back training is important to your bench press in 3 major ways. Remember what I said about stability in the previous point? Your back makes up a BIG portion of that base that stabilizes your body. The wider the base, the bigger the structure it can support (i.e. more weight). A comparatively weak back will reduce the amount of weight you can bench. The second point is thickness. The thicker your back, the shorter the distance the bar has to travel and the more weight you’ll be able to lift. Look at how thick the torsos of the best bench pressers in the world are – they have huge barrel chests, thick backs and relatively short arms – their range of motion is probably about HALF of what a “normal” person’s range of motion is with the bench press. The thicker your back, the shorter the range of motion and the more weight you’ll be able to press. The third point is muscular balance. If you’re constantly doing pushing movements, your body will overdevelop those pushing muscles, which will lead to unnatural shortening and potential weakness. You MUST work the back muscles to pull everything into proper alignment. Walking around with your shoulders hunched forward and your arms bouncing around in front of you doesn’t look cool – I can promise you that. 5. Don’t forget to press with your legs, too Leg drive is VERY important to maximizing your bench press strength on maximum lifts. When you set your feet for benching, don’t just place them anywhere and let nature take its course. Set your feet solidly on the ground and bend your knees a little past 90 degrees. Here’s why...when you’re at the bottom of the bench press, driving with the legs can help you get that weight moving. You can demonstrate this to yourself by lying on the flat bench and setting your feet on the ground. Now think of how you’d need to set your feet if you wanted to use your feet/legs to slide yourself up the bench. THAT is what you do when you drive with your legs – you basically try and use your legs to slide yourself up the bench. But because the weight is holding you down, that force goes to helping push the weight up. This leg drive is used at the bottom of the press to get the weight moving and makes a HUGE difference with getting big weights moving. 6. Get those shoulder blades squeezed together This goes back to trunk stability. If you’re not consciously and religiously squeezing your shoulder blades together when you set yourself up on the bench press, you’re instantly putting yourself at a disadvantage. To do this, lie down on the bench and grab the bar. Lift your body up off the bench then try and touch your shoulder blades together behind your back. Get them tucked in as tight as possible. When you set yourself back down, you’ll find you’re not only more stable on the bench but your shoulders are in a stronger pressing position AND your torso is actually a little thicker (which means shorter range of motion)! 7. Do partial-range training to strengthen your connective tissue One big thing that’s often missing in the training routine of a person looking to maximize strength is a focus on connective tissue training. You can build huge, strong muscles but the movement is only as strong as the weakest link. If that weakest link is connective tissue, best case is it will limit the amount of weight you can lift. Worst case, you’ll snap your tendons when your muscles move weights that your connective tissue can’t handle! So how do we strengthen connective tissue? That requires VERY heavy weight, the kind that can only be used with partial-range training like lockouts in the rack. For building up your connective tissue specifically for bench press, DEFINITELY work on rack lockouts and static holds with monster weight. I’ve got more information specifically on lockout partial bench press here: http://www.powerfultrainingsecrets.com/trial-membership/19-partial-bench-press.htm Personally, I really enjoy lockout training because you can use a LOT of weight (up to two times or more of your one rep max!). 8. Use training bands Bands are one of the most useful training tools you can use with the bench press. There are two main ways to go...working AGAINST the bands to increase explosive power and working WITH band assistance to move more weight and more closely mimic the strength curve of the bench press (harder at the bottom, easier at the top). When using the bands to work on explosive training, you attach them to something solid on the floor and then to the bar. You use a lighter weight on the barbell for these. Then, when you lift, you explode up as fast and as powerfully as you can against the bands. The bands stretch as you come up, slowing the bar so your muscles don’t have to. This teaches your muscles to fire at a much faster rate. The other method is to use the bands for assistance (called Reverse Band Bench Press). With this technique, you attach the bands to the top of the rack and to the bar below. As you lower the weight, the bands stretch, making the bottom of the press easier by removing some of the resistance. As you press up, the bands lose tension, making you press more of the weight yourself, which exactly mimics the mechanics of the bench press. Both of these techniques are great additions to your bench press training routine. You can grab bands here: http://www.fitstep.com/goto/bands.htm 9. Don’t forget about decline bench press One of the best things about the decline bench press is that you can use a bit more weight on it than you can on the regular flat bench due to the change in biomechanics and somewhat decreased range of motion. Working with heavier weight is good in two ways – mentally and physically. Mentally, it helps prepare your mind for working with heavier weight. Physically, it helps prepare your body for handling heavier weight on the flat bench. 10. Do your bench pressing in the power rack Even if you have access to a regular bench press station at your gym, I HIGHLY recommend doing your bench pressing in the rack. Why? Two reasons. The first is safety. You can easily set the rails to just slightly below the bottom-most position of your bench press. If you can’t finish a rep, you just set the bar on the rails, roll the bar forward and slide yourself out from under it. No harm done, no spotter necessary. You can’t do that on a regular bench press station! The second is the freedom to REALLY PUSH YOURSELF without fear of dropping the weight and not being able to get out from under the bar. When you’re in a regular free bench press station, there is always that nagging fear that if you don’t make a lift, you’re going to have the bar come down on you. When you do your pressing in the rack with safety rails set, that will NEVER happen and you can really free yourself to push things to the limits without having to worry about crushing yourself under the bar! I have ALWAYS found it ironic that the station where people do one of the most dangerous exercises in the gym (and quite often lift more weight than they can safely handle on it!) is the one station that has almost NO safety measures built into it! Think about it this way...when was the last time you saw somebody get crushed under a barbell curl, yet how many times do you see people doing curls in the rack while doing bench presses on a free station! So basically, set yourself free and do your pressing in the rack. You can push yourself harder and fight through those sticking points without worrying about getting stuck under the bar if you don’t get it. Conclusion: If you want to maximize your bench press, put these tips to work. You’ll starting noticing a very big difference in how much weight you can lift almost immediately AND in the long-term! For pictures and video of many of these tips in action, click on the following link: http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue53-bench.htm -------------------- The Winner Of Last Month’s Contest and a NEW Contest For July! Tell Us Your Funniest Workout Story! Find out who won our “Toughest Workout” contest from last month and learn more about this month’s “Funniest Gym Story” contest! Read MY funniest workout story here, too! Well, we have ourselves a winner in the “Toughest Workout” Contest from last month! Congratulations to Bonnie Hardie from South Florida, who wins the brand new pair of 1 Ton Hooks! Bonnie received 24% of the vote in the contest. Thanks again to everyone who submitted a workout and who voted in the contest! Curious to read her “Toughest Workout”? Check it out: *********** My toughest workout came on leg day. I put 360 lbs on the free weight leg press machine then did 10 sets of 10 reps leg press and 10 sets of 10 reps calf press, supersetting the exercises with no rest in between. After I did 100 repetitions of leg presses and 100 repetitions of calf presses, I put 1000lbs on the machine and did 10 repetitions of 10 second static contraction holds. My legs were really shaking bad at this point, but I was not done. I then proceded to, after about 5 minutes rest, grab a 100lb barbell and do squats and lunges. Supersetting 10 sets of 10 repetitions with both exercises. After these, my cardio consisted of sitting on the recumbent bike for about 30 minutes barely moving the pedals. I could hardly move for the next week - everytime I sat down, it took me about 10 minutes to get back up. To recap, my toughest workout was: leg press - 100 reps – 360 lbs calf press - 100 reps – 360 lbs leg press – 1000 lbs - 10 reps - hold for 10 seconds each squats - 100 reps – 100 lbs lunges - 100 reps – 100 lbs Considering that I am a 42 year old woman, this was an extremely tough workout. *************** Now THAT is the kind of workout that would leave just about anybody on the floor... You can read the other submissions here: http://www.fitstep.com/cgi-bin/voting/poll.cgi?load=lastpoll Now check out our NEW contest for July! We’re looking for your all-time FUNNIEST workout stories – something that will leave a person lying on the floor as well, but just in a different way. This month’s prize is the “Lebert Equalizer” – a GREAT piece of training equipment that you can use at home OR at the gym. It’s perfect for bodyweight-based training and solidly put together – I’ve even brought mine along on road trips to use in the motel room (works like a charm for that!). Marc Lebert (the inventor of the equipment) has generously offered the prize and has even put together a quick demo just for this contest of some exercises and techniques you can use with the Equalizer! You can read more about the Equalizer here: http://www.fitstep.com/fitness-equipment-reviews/equipment-reviews/the-lebert-equalizer-review.htm You can see Marc’s video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMsoLT2oQUo&mode=user&search Here’s a quick link to the contest submission page before I give you my story: http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/contests/funniest-workout-story.htm --- My funniest workout story is actually an ENTIRE workout that I witnessed a number of years ago at a university gym in Canada where I was going to school (Lethbridge, Alberta to be exact). It was almost UNBELIEVABLE that this guy was still functioning at the end of it all. Naturally, you don’t need to submit anything THIS long but I just had to get the whole thing out, it’s that good... Now, if you've spent any time in a gym, you've probably seen people using exercise form that is less than perfect. What I was about to watch, however, was the most atrocious exercise technique I've ever seen in all my years of training. It still holds up to this very day. Let's begin... It was about 1 in the afternoon and I was just starting into my workout when I saw "Dave" (not his real name) lay down on the bench adjacent to the one I was on. Like me, he was doing flat barbell bench press that day. He was fairly short, medium build, hairy in all the wrong places and wearing a tank top to show off what he plainly thought was a magnificent physique. It wasn't, let me tell you that right now. "Dave" proceeded, without an ounce of warm-up, to load 225 pounds on the bar. He convinced some poor sap to spot for him then took the weight off the rack. It dropped straight down onto his chest like a stone. His spotter freaked out and pulled desperately to get the bar off his chest while "Dave" struggled and kicked to get the weight up. It was a titanic struggle. He looked like a fish out of water with a tomato stuck on his head. That's how red in the face he was. Finally, they got the weight up and his spotter attempted to put the bar back on the rack. "What are you doing?” Dave spat out, “I've got 5 more reps!" I almost choked. This was going to be an interesting workout... "Dave" finished off by struggling out 2 more reps, then did 2 more sets just like that (with a new spotter each time, of course – nobody in their right mind would go through that twice!). "Dave" must have learned his lesson though, because instead of letting the bar drop and stop like on his first set, this time he actually bounced the thing off his rib cage like a trampoline, arching his back like he was being electrocuted. I guess the concave-chest look was “in” that year. It was time for squats. Now, I wasn't supposed to do legs that day but I just had to see this spectacle so I did legs anyway, just to be in the area. "Dave" put 315 pounds on the bar right away. I watched him wrap his knees and cinch his lifting belt so tight he looked like a toothpaste tube that had been squeezed in the middle. He recruited another sucker... I mean spotter, for his first set. He stepped under the bar, unracked it, stepped back and started to lower it. It was like putting a bowling ball on a celery stick. His legs were shaking like Elvis on 10 cups of coffee. His back was so rounded over, you could have set a dinner plate between his shoulder blades without dropping a potato. He lowered the bar exactly three inches then held his breath and began to try and come back up. No luck. His spotter stepped in, helped him back up and tried to guide him to the racks. No dice. He immediately dropped back down again. Two inches this time. I swear his knees didn't shake this time simply because they bowed in so much, they were braced up against each other! He made his spotter do one more rep after that one, dropping only an inch on the last rep. Two more sets just like that followed. By this time I had pretty much scrapped my workout for the day, completely out of morbid curiosity. I told the weight room attendant to dial "9" and "1" and keep his finger on the "1." The workout wasn't over yet! "Dave" unloaded the bar then set up in the same rack for barbell curls. He put a pair of 35's on the bar, which he SHOULD have been doing for the "squats" he had just finished with rather than barbell curls he was ABOUT to do with it. Luckily, he hadn't yet uncinched his lifting belt from the previous exercise, thereby saving precious seconds of time and, also, evidently cutting off the flow of blood to his brain. He stepped up to the bar, took as wide a grip as I've ever seen anyone take on a bar, then lifted it to the start position. He took a deep breath and held it. Then, with totally straight and locked legs, he thrust his rear end backwards then forcefully thrust his hips forward, catapulting the bar up and off his thighs. He looked like he was trying to angrily ring a doorbell with his hip bone. The bar made it about halfway up before he locked his elbows and leaned back about 45 degrees to keep it moving. Finally, the weight made it to the top. He held it there for a microsecond then dropped it heavily to his thighs. Then he did it again. And again. And again. The only good thing I can say about it is at least he had the decency not to subject a spotter to it this time. I can’t say the same for the mirror that got subjected to a shotgun blast of spit on every single rep, though... I sat there wondering what he could possibly come up with for a finale and I was not disappointed. He walked, or rather, strutted over to the pec deck and set the pin to the bottom of the weight stack. Hmm...interesting. I motioned at a few nearby people to watch this as I felt something special was coming. He sat on the machine, arms covered in sweat. He wrestled one arm pad up to the center position. Impressive. He turned and, with Herculanean effort, wrestled the other one to the center position. Veins started popping out and his face was beet red. I had a feeling this was it. I was right. With the loudest bang I've EVER heard, both his arms slipped off the pads, the weight came crashing down, and "Dave" was shot 6 feet straight out of the machine across the floor, skidding on his face right at somebody's feet. Now, as an adult, I have never wet my pants, but I have to tell you, that moment was the closest I've ever come. That's how hard I was laughing. I didn't see "Dave" back in that gym ever again. The moral of the story? Big weights only look cool if you can lift them without getting shot 6 feet across the floor on your face. --- Time for you to send in your funniest workout story! Click the following link to go to the submission page right and enter for your chance to win a Lebert Equalizer! http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/contests/funniest-workout-story.htm -------------------- Want to know what you've been missing? Check out our online newsletter archive featuring past issues of BetterU News at: http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/archive-home.htm ------------------- Have you downloaded your free e-books yet? Click on or copy and paste the following links: 79 Fat Loss and Exercise Questions Answered E-Book http://www.fitstep.com/cgi-bin/schlabo/dl.pl?79questions Do It With Your Dog E-Book - Learn How To Exercise With Your Canine Companion http://www.fitstep.com/cgi-bin/schlabo/dl.pl?withyourdog You will be taken directly to the download page and your download will start automatically. Both Books in PDF Format - Right-click on this link and choose "Save Target As" from the menu that pops up. http://www.fitstep.com/freebooks/Dogquestions.pdf ---------------- UNSUBSCRIBE: This is a 100% opt-in newsletter. If you no longer wish to receive it, click on the link at the bottom of this newsletter and you will be removed automatically. SUBSCRIBE: Send a new email to betteru@fitstep.com with the word "subscribe" in the subject line. Our Mailing Address: BetterU, Inc. Box 342 Grayslake, IL, 60030 U.S.A. |
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