DUMBBELL FRONT RAISE

This is one my favourite exercise for developing the anterior deltoid or the front part of the shoulder.  The most popular exercises that develop the anterior deltoid involve lifting heavy and placing a lot of stress on the lower back too, in the process.  They also hit the triceps hard, sometimes limiting the strength of the deltoid.  But dumbbell front raises supersetted with front presses or military press circumvent all these hurdles and is perhaps the best way to develop the anterior deltoid.

1. This exercise can be done seated or standing, but I would always advise you to do this exercise standing.  Seated position may put a lot of stress on the lower back and hip joints when you go heavy on almost all exercise, which involve the weights to be lifted over head.  Adopt a comfortable stance with each hand at the side of the thighs, holding a dumbbell, with the palms facing your thighs.  This is also called a neutral grip.

2. Without arching your back, slowly raise the dumbbell to the level of your eyes and bring it down.

THE DEADLY SUGAR

It is very normal to call your loved ones ‘sugar’, but I am sure, a time will come when the term will be as repugnant and undesirable as what that very object does to your body.  Yes, refined sugar is a deadly poison, which robs you off some of your physical and mental abilities, dries up your zest and enthusiasm by making you lethargic, makes you into a despicable bundle of lard and fat and torments your entire body with diseases such as diabetes before eventually killing you.  

Most people are aware that sugar is not good for them, yet treat themselves to a good helping of it, in the form of chocolates or biscuits or bakery food or ice cream.  It is addictive and the only good thing you can say about it is it tastes  sweet.   There are also many forms of refined sugar which are not so sweet but equally addictive; the most infamous of them being alcohol.   Government or the health department which ban advertisements of cigarettes and liquor should take a closer look at the myriad ways refined sugar can be harmful to the body and insist on a leaving a warning insignia on any food product that contains refined sugar.

I shall now proceed to mention why refined sugar is dangerous to your health.   Let’s start from where it all begins; the ingestion of sugar into your body.  Refined sugar quickly increases the blood sugar levels, causing your pancreas to send insulin to bring the sugar level to normal.   Insulin does so by pushing sugar into your cells, to be used as energy, but when more and more sugar enters your blood stream, more insulin is produced, which results in too much sugar being removed from your blood.  This condition is called hypoglycemia,  which eventually exhausts your pancreas, liver and adrenal glands as they have to work harder to keep your sugar levels in correct balance.   Sooner or later, this leads to diabetes and a host of other problems associated with it.

One of the major causes of obesity has been linked to eating refined sugar.  Excess dose of sugar always gets deposited in the fat cells.  Over a period of time,  coupled with an inactive life style, body starts to suffer from insulin insensitivity which makes even the smallest amount of sugar to be pushed into fat cells.  This is one of the reasons why most people complain of getting fatter even though they do not overeat or over indulge in their favourite refined sugar or sweets.

Refined sugar also uses up your B- vitamins stores for digestion, in addition to calcium and magnesium.   Lack of B- vitamins can be stressful on your nervous system and you may start to suffer from fatigue, anxiety, depression and tend to feel lethargic.  Low on calcium and magnesium can lead to arthritis and osteoporosis.

Now, here is something all the women should worry about.  It has been observed that women tend more to have a sweet tooth than men and more prone to this terrible side effect of refined sugar consumption.    Glucose in your blood attaches to protein, causing rogue molecules called AGE [Advance Glycation End products].  The more sugar you eat, the more AGE you have and they tend to damage protein, especially the collagen and elastin fibres that keep your skin elastic and taut.  The skin loses its elasticity and wrinkles are formed which are not reversible.   Moreover, AGE also affects your antioxidant enzymes to reduce antioxidant levels  and that, my friends, is a lot of damage.

Your body needs a high dose of vitamin C to build up defenses against diseases.  Unfortunately, the glucose molecule which almost similar in structure,  prevents the entry of vitamin C into the cells and needless to say, badly affects your immune system.

Here are some more reasons why refined sugar should be banned in your home.

1. It feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, lung, gallbladder and stomach.

2. It can cause auto-immune diseases such as arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis.

3. It can increase the amount of liver fat.

4. It can produce problems in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.

5. Increases risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

6. It can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.

7. It upsets the mineral balances in your body causing chromium and copper deficiencies.

All parents who love their children and wish them good health should forgo the use of sugar in their houses and never let their children develop a craving for the same.  Grown ups who have developed an affinity for the use of sugar may find it very difficult to give up the use of sugar as it is very addictive in nature.  In women, it results in eating disorders as women tend to rely on refined sugar and such other food to elevate the mood causing a high level of dependency.

As you see, it is not so easy to wriggle free from the clutches of this “sugary” monster.  A systematic, dedicated approach and a highly supportive group of family and friends are very important in freeing yourself from the talons of this addiction.  Most who read this article may decide that they have to give up eating sugar, but give themselves a few more days  to adjust themselves to the idea.  Believe me, unless you take immediate action now, it will never happen.  You have to start now to lower the levels of sugar intake from your dining table and slowly, but steadily let that habit permeate to other areas, such as the tea time in your office or social parties and other outings.

And yes, you may call your girl ‘Honey’, but do not ‘sugar’ her anymore.  All those sugar may not be good for her and if anything, it is only going to make her look terrible and feeling wretched.

The Thing About Abdominal Exercises.!

It never ceases to amaze me that people are so gullible and easily fall prey to exploitation.  How else could you explain away all the advertisements that insult your intelligence?  It is not as though there is no vestige of truth in the content; if it did not, the promoters of the ads could be sued and made liable.  It is the total inability of the public to see through the projected picture or the reluctance to question anything that teases and taunts their intellectual taxidermy that is so disconcerting.  It may be that humans, as a race, believe in miracles and fervently hope that one day they will stumble upon something which is an answer to their prayers, which would relieve them from the onerous burden of the hard work involved.

Yes, I am talking about the easy ways offered, as you see in the ads, to lose abdominal fat and overall size.  If all that is required to lose fat is just a few minutes on these machines, nothing could stop you from trying it out.  But there is no such thing as a free trial run and you have to buy the machine for a “not so expensive” price.  You try it out for a few days and realize that it does not work at all.  Yet, you refuse to complain nor take it up with company that sold you this machine.  You do not even bother to find out why this piece of metal contraption that promised wonders did not give  you what it promised.  If and only if you had just as much as tried to find out why it did not work, you would have come to terms with the most profound and pertinent saying of all time; “there is no replacement for hard work”.

That is what I said…there is no replacement for hard work at all.  And guess what! you cannot get rid of the abdominal fat by working out the abdominal muscles either.  The abdominal muscles and the abdominal fat simply happen to be found in the same area but are not connected in anyway.   You may do any number of different exercises for the abdomen and still retain all the lard around the waistline.   Yes, exercise will make your abdominal wall strong, improve your posture and the stronger abdominal muscles being supporting muscles to all other exercises, will play a lead role in making your overall strength go up.  But your belly will never flatten out or come down in girth.

So how do you lose fat from the abdominal area?  First and the foremost thing about fat or fat cells of the body is that they cannot be removed from the abdomen at all.  They will always be there regardless of whether your waist girth measures a whopping 50 inches or you have a six pack.   They can be removed only by surgery.   But a 50 inch waist can narrow down to 30 inches and become an enviable washboard abdomen.  The fat cells simply come down in size which is all that happens in the transition.

Another important thing that is to be understood about fat is that it is a form of energy that the body can use with the right kind of exercise or stimulation.   Not every exercise will help you in the fat loss process.  Sumo wrestlers spend a lot of time doing exercise and build huge muscle size and strength.  So do the WWF wrestlers.  When the sumo wrestlers sport a massive mid section, most of the WWF wrestlers flaunt a flat, tight tummy.   Yes, eating habits do play a big role in deciding whether you have a flat or bulging belly, but so does the kind of exercise that you do.

In most of the gymnasiums, there are hundreds of people who work out very hard to build muscle size and increase body weight, to no avail.  Many seem to be stuck at a certain body weight regardless of how much they eat, prompting them to try out steroids and food supplements. Marathonrunners, football players and the like can eat tons of food without absolutely no change in body weight.  All this points to one important thing that the nature of exercise is a deciding factor in shaping your body.

Exercise demands that the body adjust to the load placed on it and adapt by growing in size or improving in endurance and stamina.   Depending on the type of exercise, the body may remain in highly “excited” state for upto 72 hours, which uses up a lot of energy, some of which come from fat stores.  When this happens on one side, make sure you do not add to the fat content of the body by eating junk food.  Sooner or later,  the fat cells come down in size, creating a shapely physique.  Once you have come down to your required level of fitness and shape, you need not diet ever again.  You can retain the shape with just exercise.  This is where the type of exercise you follow becomes important.

Weight training, gymnastics, long distance running as in marathon or football or any non stop movement that requires a moderate to highly intense exertion, will make sure that your body does not add more to its fat stores.  Intensity of exercise also plays a key role in keeping you in shape.  I have seen people who claim to do one hour of “morning walk” or who play shuttle badminton “doubles” put on weight and fat if they did not watch their eating habits.  Very intense exercise, if it is very brief, does not help you either.

The body produces energy for exercise by a myriad of chemical processes.  First eight seconds of action is done by ATP [Adenosine Tri Phosphate] which the muscle has stored in itself.  This energy is what that gives that explosive burst of speed and strength.  After about 8 seconds, the muscle runs out of ATP and turns to other sources for energy.  Availability of creatine phosphate helps produce more ATP and yes, more energy, for about another 8 seconds.  Glycogen, which is the stored form of glucose is what gets tapped next for action and continued performance of exercise.   Prolonged exercise becomes impossible from this point unless the intensity of exercise is brought down considerably and the body drudges on using stored fat.  This also requires that the body is “aerobically fit” to continue with exercise and the muscles must be able to utilize oxygen to produce more energy.  By this time the body will already have crossed two minutes of non stop movement.

So if your body is to use fat for fuel it must have sufficient oxygen supply to meet the demands of exercise. If exercise is intense and the cardiovascular system is unable to supply cells with oxygen quickly enough, carbohydrate must be used to produce ATP. Put another way, if you run out of carbohydrate stores (as in long duration events), exercise intensity must reduce as the body switches to fat as its primary source of fuel.

Most gym goers sport some amount of fat on their body as they seldom do any non stop movement which lasts around 20 minutes.  Intensity of exercise also plays a key role in getting rid of the fat faster.  If you look at the amount of energy expenditure per hour, it hardly ever crosses 500 calories, which does not require the body to make adjustments to adapt and improve upon its previous best performance.  Low intensity exercises such as walking at a moderate pace, playing doubles at the badminton court, table tennis and a lot of such sport do not demand much from the body.  But if the intensity is more, the body is forced to adapt, improve and grow in strength, size, endurance and maintenance.   Body is made to work more efficiently even on those times of rest period that it uses up a lot of energy.  This accounts for the fact that a marathon runner or foot ball player or any athlete involved in moderately intense exercise long enough, do not have to watch what they eat.

Now comes a key role played by an organ in our body that weighs a little over 1.5 kg.  We all know about it, but take it for granted that nothing can go wrong with it if we do not drink booze too much.  And we know its function gets affected if we suffer from a disease called the Jaundice.  Yes, it is a gift of God that we have ally in our body called the Liver and if it wasn’t for the liver, we wouldn’t be moving around much.   That is what I said; liver supplies energy by using up glycogen stored in it or by using protein or fat.  The energy stored in the muscle does not last very long and the liver rises to the occasion and make sure your blood glucose level are always maintained and your energy requirements are constantly met.  Do you understand what that means?  Fat metabolism happens in the liver and it is the liver that uses up fat and not the muscle.  This means that when you exercise your abdominal muscles, most energy comes from the liver and not from the fat stores seen in front of the abdominal muscles.  The abdominal muscles cannot use the fat located around the belly and but the liver taps the fat stores for energy, if the exercise duration is long and intense enough.  This also means that you do not have to exercise the abdomen at all, to deplete the fat level of the body and to have a six pack.

I hope you understand now, why the three minute ab exercise machine does not work at all.  Same goes for all the other machines that ask you to work the abdominal muscles for two or three minutes to carve out a washboard abdomen.  It is a pity that we are so prone to believing anything and everything that does not have scientific backing.   Most of the gymnasiums and health clubs also promote this theory that abdominal fat can disappear only if hundreds of ab exercises are done every day.   To make matters worse, the internet is full of exercise routines to flatten the tummy in a few days, with no mention of diet or good eating habits at all.   Unless the trainers are taught a bit of exercise physiology and nutritional biochemistry, there is very little hope that such trends and practices will ever get corrected.

WHAT DOES EXERCISE DO TO YOU?

Or should I ask you “what does exercise do for you”?. I guess they sound very much the same, but in reality one is as different from the other as a cricket ball is from a foot ball. Everyone knows that exercise keeps you fit and healthy. Well, that is something exercise does for you, but do you know what it does to you to keep you fit and healthy? I think we still have not learned to receive the gifts of exercise and take for granted whatever that is gained from spending about an hour doing exercise. 

It is like owning a bike. You could ride to office, curse the moments you spend on the road, having to deal with the reckless riders and drivers around you, bear with all the dust blowing into your nostrils and mouth and at the end of it, curtly thank the bike for getting you to the office on time. You could also listen to drone of the engine, revel in its speed, marvel at your ability to balance on two wheels that is about three inches in width, let all the wind hit you on the face and body, see each moment when you have to apply brakes and change gears as an interesting & challenging maneuver and at the end of it, reach your office with a smile and feeling good.

More than 70% of the people who exercise everyday, do so only because they feel should or they have to. They are either plump or obese or need to exercise to meet certain prescriptions meted out to them by their physicians. Much more than fitness is to be gained from exercise, if only we knew how to receive them. 

From the moment you start your exercise, your mind is forced to adapt to the stress induced by exercise. Whatever you do gets recorded in your mind and the mind commands the body to adapt to the stress, just so that things start to get easier. The body pays heed and makes necessary preparations to meet the challenge and thus improves in strength and stamina. The mind is always focused intently on the intensity of exercise and soon, a certain type of conditioning takes over. This means that the mind does not have to concentrate so much as it did the previous days and starts to “wander” away from the task at hand. This does not, in anyway, mean that the performance will be affected, but only that further improvement comes in slower than before. It is not always just lack of focus that has slowed you down, but it is definitely one of the major reasons. 

Now, the mind also start to develop some muscle. The more intense your workout becomes, the more focused the mind becomes and thereby, improves in its efficiency to concentrate. Most people can sense that they have reached this far, but are unable to make most of this condition. A hard working athlete or sportsperson is almost always the least stressed mentally and he can always handle his emotional problems better than normal people. 

I would like you to go to any stadium or any other place where you can watch some women athletes do their rounds of exercise. They seem to be the least self conscious of all people. They can simply walk past a few guys who are staring hard at every inch of their body drooling all over the place and yet not seem affected by the stares at all. This is so because, inadvertently she has brought in her power of the mind to focus better on the problem at hand and has been able to keep away the unwanted negative thoughts. If you are a competitive sportsperson, you will find that there is no verbal chattering or distractive thoughts when you are playing a match. Most people hardly even hear the crowd cheering, but only focused on the job at hand. 

Exercise produces certain chemical changes in the brain. One such change brings in a compound or neurotransmitter called the “Serotonin”, which gives you a feeling of well being. In fact, this compound is produced more when you eat dark chocolates or sweets and may be responsible for some eating disorders in people who are emotionally very depressed or stressed. This is especially obvious in the case of mentally depressed women, who take to eating lots of sugar coated food or chocolates or sweets that translate into increase in fat levels. 

Remembering to concentrate on the task at hand is all that one needs to do to bring about the best effects of exercise on the mind. By giving such a command, the mind, which is used to focusing hard during the time of physical training, simply blocks all negative thoughts that keeping flooding in. Most of the emotional problems cease to exist if only the mind would cease to relive or re-enact or prophecy the imminent advent of a stressful event. So physical exercise is an important integral part of keeping oneself emotionally healthy.

The physical effects are multi fold. A major change is the effect on insulin insensitivity. Haven’t you seen these ‘lucky guys’ who can eat the whole day and lose weight, when you could gain a few pounds just watching them eat? Bad eating habits has created such a condition as insulin insensitivity, which can cause you to gain weight even when you eat less than you should. Yes, exercise simply allows you to get away with eating a lot more than you should. The football players, swimmers and most hard training athletes are examples of such metabolic condition. Of course, it does not mean that all you need to do is walk a few meters until you sweat a little bit and then gorge on all goody goodies you like. If you need to have a metabolism that will help you get away with a bit of overeating, it should be an intense workout that will last about 30-45 minutes.

Are you the kind of person who couldn’t wait to get bed and get as much as sleep as possible, ignoring your wife’s nudges and subtle hints and suggestions? Your excuse in the morning is almost always the same, isn’t it? “Had so much work in the office. Was too tiring and couldn’t think of anything else”. Do you realize the biggest lie you ever said is “Now I am more matured and sensible, sex and lust do not rule my mind now.”? Isn’t that a very shrewd way of fooling others and also accepting the fact that you are almost a ‘good-for-nothing’ now? Do you hear a low moan deep in your heart when you say that?

Being sexually active is very important to do your best in life. Almost everything in a man-woman relationship ultimately boils down to enjoying good sex life. Everything, from the way you dress to the car you drive, your mannerisms, your desire to succeed in life can be indicative of or connected to a healthy sexual relationship you enjoy. Needless to say, a depressed person may not be able maintain an aroused sexual passion, which leads to further mood swings and heightened depression. Well, here is something else exercise does to you. It could turn you back into the animal that you were, when you were eighteen years old, if only you would use the power of your mental muscle and physical energy derived from working out hard. I am just letting some hard facts sink in just so that you do not go too soft on your flaccid ego that has given up on the best moments of your life. 

Yes, exercise is a form of meditation. Your approach and involvement should be akin to how you would enjoy a chocolate; letting it melt in your mouth, rolling your tongue over and over the sweet paste of chocolate, savouring every moment of it, not wanting it to end and craving for more the moment all the sweetness has disappeared into the cavernous cavity of your stomach. The only physical activity or exercise that comes as close to this feeling is a coital embrace lasting a few minutes. If you can approach exercise with the same mind set, a certain intensity that reflects your mood to do your best and a passion spurred on by a desire to be better at it than anyone, then and only then do you get to see what exercise does to you. 

And when the effects of your physical start to sink in, take root in your system, your body & mind start to reap the fruits of your hard work and enjoy life with a zest that was hitherto unknown to your lethargic self

LYING TRICEPS EXTENSION

Most women find it very depressing that a lot of fat accumulate on the triceps or the underside of arms.  No matter what they do, it stays put. Men who do not exercise, on the other side, may become huge and obese, yet sport frail and thin hands. Men can bring up the size of their hands with exercise for the triceps and biceps, but women can never bring down the size of their hands with just exercise for the hands.

A beginner always puts so much effort into developing the size of his hands, when what he should be doing is concentrate on the basic exercises that build overall strength and stamina. Hands always get a thorough workout whenever an exercise for the upper body is performed and so doing a lot of exercise for only the hands result in the hands getting too tired and injured.

This is a must-do exercise for body builders. As the name denotes, the triceps has three heads, the long head, the medial head and the lateral head and ‘lying triceps extension’ hits them all hard.

Execution

1. Warm up the triceps well before starting this exercise as it places a lot of pressure on the elbow joint.

2. Always have someone to assist you with this exercise.

3. Lie on your back on the floor or on a bench, keep your knees bent and firmly place your feet on the bench or floor.

4. Hold the barbell with a grip with about six inches width between the hands.

5. Let the spotter help you lift the weight and you hold it above your chest with your hands straight.

6. Without spreading your elbows too wide, bring the weight down to your forehead.

7. Slowly push the weight back until your hands are straight and elbows locked.

8. Lower the weight only until your elbow joint has reached a 90 degree position and any movement further down may result in injury of the elbows.

Variation for improvement

Use an inclined bench to do this exercise instead of lying down on the floor or a horizontal bench. You may also hold the barbell with a palm down grip, i.e., a reverse grip. You may have to reduce the weights by 20% while doing the reverse grip lying-triceps-extension.

Muscles involved in action

The entire triceps brachii work hard to do this exercise as also the pectoralis major and the anterior deltoid, which contract isometrically to bring stability of the torso.

Most beginners who have never done any exercise for their triceps may find this exercise very tough to handle and may discard it forever. Neglecting to do this exercise will not give your hands   the full and complete look and may keep your hands full, in future, trying to bring out the size of  the triceps in proportion to the biceps development.

TREADMILL

Have you noticed that your body has a certain way of doing things, I mean, when you acquire proficiency at something, the body sets about doing it in its own pace and rhythm. If you had a twin brother and both of you were asked to answer the same question with some chosen words as answers, you will find that both of you have different style of saying it. From your mannerism to how much space you provide between words, even the passion with which it is said.. all will be so unique. Now try saying the same answer without following the same mannerisms and body language. You will find that you are starting to stammer and grope for the answer. It will not be smooth and controlled as before. Have noticed the way you ride your bike, or drive your car? You have your own way of doing it.

It is the same with jogging too. Even when you set about to run at 5 km/hour, you will probably do it at 4.9km/hr for some time, then 5.1km/hr etc etc and it is your body that decides its own rhythm and pace , not your conscious mind. The body is very aware of your stamina, strength and when your conscious mind gives a command that it has to run non stop for 3 or 4 km, the body decides on the speed which may not be exactly the same as you decided but close to it. You try to break the rhythem and anything from ankle to hip injury may occur. You may even tire out faster because you have chosen to break your body’s natural and most efficient way of handling things.

 This is what happens on a tread mill. You set the treadmill in motion, let’s say at 5km/hr and start to run on it. There is no way you can slow down or speed up once the pace is fixed on the treadmill. You start to break your body’s rhythm after a few minutes and then it becomes less efficient at handling the stress developed on the joints. Some say, you burn more calories that way. How much can it be? 300-400 calories?, which is nothing . A good exercise routine will make the body burn energy for more than 48 hours and there is no way you can measure that. It is not calories that matter, but how efficient the body has become at handling the energy that you supply. And to do that, it is a good idea to let the body decide how best to do it. Some of the heavy weight training sessions burn upto 15 calories a minute and it would seem that heavy power weight training is what that counts to burn fat efficiently But looking at the power lifters , it is very obvious that it is not fatthat they have used up with power lifting exercises. Slow, steady and sustained effforts do burn up fat consistently and that is why jogging burns a lot of fat. You can jog longer on the road [ with the right kind of footwear] than you can on the treadmill. Another reason for the tread mill for being not so good is the steady, continuous pounding the ankles, knee joints and hips take, on the tread mill. The pounding and the beating is so well timed and bring about injury faster than when you do jog on the road, where the body is allowed to slow down or adjust to the impact on the joints. Military personnel, marching [ which is rhythemic pounding in itself] on a bridge are always asked to break the march ,as such steady beating by so many people can bring about instability and cracks to the structure of the bridge. That is pure civil engineering.

 Brisk walking on the treadmill  may not be as bad as jogging. But definitely the hip joints are going to tire out and give way fast. It is so painful for the body to sustain such regularity of pace [ however slow it may seem] . It has to be allowed to adjust and rejuvenate. Have you noticed that simply sitting somewhere without moving, for sometime is also strenuous. The body will, after a few minutes, shift and turn to release stress and settle down again. Try not to do that and it will become very stressful to stay put in that position. But let the body shift a little bit and settle down and you may be able to hold that position for hours. The same happens with every action of the body. The bottom line is that never fight the body natural way of doing things. It always knows what is best. You just give the command to do certain things and try doing it and soon the body will come up with the best way to do it. How did you learn to cycle? You just sat on seat and tried to get it to move. You fell down a few times and one day…lo!! you were balancing the cycle so well. How did you do it? You know so well that you couldn’t do by reading how to cycle, now could you? But the body has its own unique way of handling and adjusting to circumstances and sometimes it is a good idea to sit back and watch things happen. Believe me, when you learn to trust your body’s gut feeling and abide by it, things will start to happen as smooth as breathing itself. For the above mentioned reasons, I never recommend the tread mill to anyone. But  you can use it once every now and then, when you cannot go for jogging on rainy days or do not have much time. But then elliptical cycle is certainly much better for it

BARBELL ROWING [For the Latissimus dorsi]

Barbell rowing or heavy barbell rowing is for the serious and experienced body builder. Beginners who have not learned to focus on the latissimus dorsi while working out may not benefit at all from this exercise. It requires great deal of concentration, effort, skill and a certain mental toughness to do this exercise. 

EXECUTION

1. Warm up your lower back, upper back, biceps and forearms thoroughly well before you attempt do this exercise.

2. Bend forward, always remembering to keep your back straight, and hold the barbell with a shoulder wide grip.

3.Bendforward only until the upper body is parallel to the ground and that is the position you have to maintain while doing this exercise.

4. Pull the weighted barbell towards your abdomen. Always remember to thrust your chest and shoulder up and keep your lower back straight. [The word straight is actually a misnomer. The spine is slightly arched inwards at the lower back region when you stand up straight and you have to maintain that arch even when you bend down].

5. Slowly bring the weight down until your hands are fully stretched and gently dip your hands a little bit to give that extra stretch to the lats.

6. During the execution of this exercise, it is normal for the body to move up and down from the hips a little bit, but to attempt to do violent bursts of such motions can and will eventually lead to serious back injuries.

VARIATION FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE

Barbell rowing hits the lower back, trapezius, biceps and forearms hard besides the main muscle group, i.e., the latissimus dorsi and so any of these muscles other than the main muscle group getting tired first would severely affect the efficacy of this exercise. The only solution is to do an exercise that does not involve the biceps, trapezius and forearms a lot first and then proceed to do barbell rowing. The bent arm pullover is the only exercise that fits the bill. Also doing bent arm pullover first to tire out the lats would mean that you cannot go too heavy on barbell rowing , which is not very bad, when you consider what a back breaking exercise this is.

MUSCLES INVOLVED

The main muscle group is the latissimus dorsi and the supporting muscle groups are the biceps brachii, brachialis, brachioradialis, flexor and extensors of the forearm. The trapezius and the serratus anterior also work hard help in the movement. The lower back perhaps works as much or even more during this exercise as it has to maintain the bent position throughout the exercise and so doing heavy barbell rowing would also mean developing the strength of the lower back..

Barbell rowing is for developing the latissimus dorsi or the muscles you call “wings” and heavy barbell rowing is for the serious body builder.   Though this may be included in the regular aerobic exercise routine, barbell rowing really flexes its wings only when the going gets tough and only for the tough who like it when it gets tough , i.e., for the best effect go heavy on this exercise.

AB-SOLUTION WITHOUT AB EXERCISES

This is perhaps one of the most controversial topics I have discussed in my career as a consultant. For some, it takes the hard way to find out, some believe you outright, but most do not even bother to find out, and give up exercise without reaching any where. For those who wish to know only the gist of what I am going to say and cannot be bothered to read the entire article, I sum it all up in just a few words. DOING ABDOMINAL EXERCISE DOES NOT HELP LOSE FAT FROM THE ABDOMEN. That is a fact. Yes, you have wasted a lot of time doing all those silly exercises.

I found out the hard way. Those days, in the early eighties, when I started out in the gym where I used to work out, a word such as diet was unheard of. You were supposed to workout like crazy and eat big. And if you had a big belly, you worked it off with just exercise. Yes, putting in about two and a half hours of hard work for more than fifteen repetitions did take away a big chunk from the belly. It flattened out and nobody knew you had some fat around the lower tummy until they saw you without your shirt. But that little bit around the lower abs just refused to vanish. There were those who had excellent eight pack, the lucky ones who would not pack on some fat around the waist no matter what they ate.

I was not one of them, though I was not big, I had a bit of lard that defied the toughest of abdomen exercises. I was around 51 kg when I started out, added about a kilo of muscle per month and in two years weighed a little over 70kg, but the same amount of fat stuck to my abs and I could not stomach that anymore. My exercise routine was basically built around Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Education of a body builder”, in which he mentions diet but never bothered to read it.

At 70-plus kg of body weight, I decided enough was enough and had to bring some quality to my physique by flattening the tummy and showing all eight pieces of abs. And I thought it was the easiest thing I could do. I used to do a three day on, one day off exercise routine as suggested by Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I did in the morning and devoted one hour in the evening to my abs, doing crunches, leg raises.

My abs got stronger and stronger, but the fat refused to budge. And then I started looking around for help. I consulted everyone who had perfect abs and tried every single one of the suggestions I got from them to no avail. Then it dawned on me that may there was something that I missed and checked with all the guys one more time and they furnished the missing piece in the jigsaw. CUT DOWN ON EATING!

I ate four times a day, and ate heavy and I thought I could burn it all off with just ab exercises. Now I was starting to feel a little desperate. By how much should I bring down and I had to find out the hard way. I immediately proceeded to cut and avoid all fatty foods [maintained the carbohydrate intake the same] and realised that all I could eat safely were egg whites and fish as everything else had hidden fats. I followed this pattern for about two months with absolutely no visible change and so went back to my previous eating habits. This brought about immediate results on my belly. It increased in size by about half an inch. Now I was hopping mad. And my friends were a great help. They would say “Look at Venu, he lifts heavy, eats heavy, drinks heavy and is heavy. Bet you can’t see the reading on a weighing machine which is right under your feet.”

I was 26 years old, weighed around 75 kg. Apart from weight training, I boxed three days a week and that was good aerobic exercise and still had a belly to sport. Then a chance comment by a friend brought about a sea of change in my eating habits. I wasn’t what you called someone with a sweet tooth, but occasionally I would gorge on all the goodies I could lay my hands on. Especially after a drink or two of rum, I could sit down to eat and polish off whatever there was on the dining table. And on one occasion, for a birthday party, I ate about half a kilo of cake and about four drinks to warm up and then proceeded to polish off twelve parattas and four plates of chicken, which made my friend comment thus, “no wonder you have so much lard around your waist, you eat so much sweets and chemically alcohol is also a sugar.”

I did not know how close to the solution I was then, until I checked with my mother, who is a chemistry professor in a college. She confirmed what my friend said, that alcohol was indeed a sugar. And I drank at least four pegs once every two or three days and never gave it a second thought. I also realised I had to give up all kinds of sweets. If alcohol which does not taste sweet in your mouth qualified as a sugar, there must be a lot of other stuff which was sugar and I was gorging on them all.

Cutting down on sugar and going off booze brought about some changes and my waist measurement came down by one and a half inches in two months. I was eating only just enough and sometimes, even, going hungry. I had to get the cuts on abs and was willing to do whatever it took me to get there. I also spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, checking out belly and my mother would sometimes say thus, “Venu, I wish you would do something more constructive than spend so much time in front of the mirror, even your sister takes only half the time”.

I knew the answer was within reach, only just out of sight. “May be you should read a bit of nutritional biochemistry” was what a doctor asked of me and I bought my first book on bio chemistry. And boy! Was the subject vast? It took me weeks to decipher and pinpoint just that little amount of “wisdom” required to change my eating habits forever.

Here is what I came up with and this makes boring reading, not to mention what you have gone through so far.

When you eat a meal, the presence of glucose, amino acids or fatty acids in the intestine stimulates the pancreas to secrete a hormone called insulin. Insulin acts on many cells in your body, especially those in the liver, muscle and fat tissue. Insulin tells the cells to do the following:

• Absorb glucose, fatty acids and amino acids
• Stop breaking down glucose, fatty acids and amino acids, glycogen into glucose, fats into fatty acids and glycerol, proteins into amino acids
• Start building: Glycogen from glucose, Fats (triglycerides) from glycerol and fatty acids, Proteins from amino acids.

The activity of lipoprotein lipases depends upon the levels of insulin in the body. If insulin is high, then the lipases are highly active; if insulin is low, the lipases are inactive. The fatty acids are then absorbed from the blood into fat cells, muscle cells and liver cells. In these cells, under stimulation by insulin, fatty acids are made into fat molecules and stored as fat droplets. It is also possible for fat cells to take up glucose and amino acids, which have been absorbed into the bloodstream after a meal, and convert those into fat molecules.

When you are not eating, your body is not absorbing food. If your body is not absorbing food, there is little insulin in the blood. However, your body is always using energy; and if you’re not absorbing food, this energy must come from internal stores of complex carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Under these conditions, various organs in your body secrete hormones:

• pancreas – glucagon
• pituitary gland – growth hormone
• pituitary gland – ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone)
• adrenal gland – epinephrine (adrenaline)
• thyroid gland – thyroid hormone

These hormones act on cells of the liver, muscle and fat tissue, and have the opposite effects of insulin.

When you are not eating, or you are exercising, your body must draw on its internal energy stores. Your body’s prime source of energy is glucose. In fact, some cells in your body, such as brain cells, can get energy only from glucose. The first line of defense in maintaining energy is to break down carbohydrates, or glycogen, into simple glucose molecules — this process is called glycogenolysis. Next, your body breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty acids in the process of lipolysis. The fatty acids can then be broken down directly to get energy, or can be used to make glucose through a multi-step process called gluconeogenesis.

So far, so good. From what I have read, I inferred that the culprit was the hormone, INSULIN, and insulin management was all it required to have your fat stores used up. Any food product that stimulated an increased production of insulin was decreed bad. I even started to note down the list of foods that caused an insulin spike. For this purpose, I had to be in touch with so many people, put my students through torturous dieting sessions and finally designed a diet programme that worked for everyone. Now coming back to the point, I realised how stupid it was to offer weight loss without diet. I also realise that it is not required to exercise the abdomen directly at all to lose fat from that area.

There are lots of people who still can’t “stomach” this idea and is still “belly full” of the old theory that you have to do abdominal exercises to lose fat from there. It is high time that they realised that they are wasting a lot of time on the waist line and incorporated a diet replete with all nutritional content and started on an aerobic exercise programme.

FOREARMED IS FOREWARNED

You could hide your potbelly by sucking it in, those two pimple-like-formations you call chest under a shirt, your scrawny legs with your pants and biceps behind your shirt sleeves, but you have to show your forearms sometime and they’d better look good, lest you be taken for a wimp. Good, strong forearms give you that man-of-action look and if you have good forearms, it also means that you have a good physique.  And do not mess with a guy with good forearms ‘cause he not only has a good physique, but is probably as strong as a bull too.

The forearms and the calf muscles usually come last in the workout routine and unless you are a competitive bodybuilder, the chances are that you will neglect or ignore their development and so, are the most neglected muscles.

The exercise that I mention here is a forgotten exercise. I do not see any of the modern gyms having this facility. But then, this happens to be one of the toughest forearm exercises and unless you like your workout routine to be tough and challenging, do not ever bother to try it out.

Starting from this feature on, there will be explained an exercise routine which you can do at home,  for every single muscle. No single muscle can be worked in isolation and requires help and support of other muscles in its action. So it goes without saying that there is such a thing as strength proportion between muscles and naturally the weights you choose to use should be based and built, with this particular point in mind.

Try this exercise for size [no pun intended]

1. Tie a thin but strong rope around the middle part of a small rounded rod and attach a light weight to the other end.

2. The length of the rope should be such that, when you hold your arms parallel to the ground from the shoulder, the rope should just about touch the floor.

3. Hold the hands parallel to the ground and slowly roll up the weight attached to the rope by rolling the bar forward with each hand taking turns, alternatively, to do the forward rolling action.

4. Once the entire rope has been wound round the bar, start the downward movement, by rolling the palm of the hand backwards. The movements of wrists are very similar to revving the accelerator of a bike.

5. Never relax the grip on the bar to let the weight roll down on its own downward pull, but the idea is to slow down the downward slide by applying a brake to the movement.

For most people, a weight of 4-6 kg is good enough. You could choose to do two non stop rounds to bring more intensity to your workout. There are exercises for the flexor muscle of the forearms called the wrist curl and reverse wrist curl for the extensor group of muscles, but wrist roll works both the muscle groups at one go and so saves a lot of time. Moreover, the pump it brings with it gives an awesome feeling that can last one or two days.

A word of caution to all the fans of weight training

Do not ever hold the view that doing more will bring more benefit. On the contrary, an exercise routine should leave you pleasantly tired, not out cold.

ISOMETRIC EXERCISES FOR FAT LOSS

I am a body builder. I eat, drink and even breathe body building. I have done and will do everything in my power to make body building the most popular sport of all. But, only about 10% of those who work out in a gym are body builders or body building fans. They all love a shapely physique, though, yet no one wants to get as big as a body builder.

But there is a sport that offers the kind of physique that is appealing to all. I have to hear anyone say anything against it. It is the physique of a gymnast. He is not too big like a body builder, but he could be termed a body builder in a small package. What do a body builder and a gymnast have in common, that is appealing to everyone.

As we all know, some exercises do not ever help us to burn fat. We have seen sumo wrestlers, power lifters and the likes of some boxers too, who do regular exercise but have a lot of fat in the body. But we also have seen the WWF wrestlers, who weigh an average of 250 pounds and not an ounce of fat to show and the incredible fat free body of the gymnasts.

Yes, the gymnasts and the wrestlers have six pack and a fat free body. Could it be that it has something to do with the exercise routine they do? Grappling and some gymnastic movements require you to hold and hang on to some positions, exerting all your strength. About 20-40% of all their movements are about holding or sticking to one position. This particular way of exerting strength, by keeping your muscles from moving and yet exerting force is called isometric exercise. It seems that those who do a lot of isometric exercises are indeed in good shape.

Simply put, you are doing isometric exercise if you hold the muscle tense, without any movement for sometime. All the regular bodybuilding movements do hold the muscles tense for sometime, but there is certainly a positive and negative phase of movements. But if the body builder, at any point, stops the movement and holds the weight at a particular point, then it becomes isometric in nature.

The first ever time I heard of the word isometrics is when I bought a “bullworker”, about thirty years ago. It is spring load equipment on which you apply about 60% of your strength from various angles and hold that position for about 7 seconds. Regular use of the bullworker started to burn off a lot of fat in my body. This was so with other people too and bullworker sales soared and reached a fever pitch in the early eighties.

Isometric training is a fantastic form of exercise that can build incredible strength while sculpting the body at the same time. It involves exercises that force the muscles to TRY to contract, without actually allowing them to do so. If you place your palms in front of your chest and press them together, tremendous force can be generated although there is no movement. This is an isometric contraction and it has been a major part of such disciplines as yoga and the martial arts for thousands of years.

Here’s why isometric training works. Every muscle in your body is made up of thousands of individual muscle fibers. Further, your body is always trying to do things in the most efficient manner possible. So, when you pick up an object, your body will activate the bare minimum of muscle fibers required to pick up that object.

If you are weight lifting, the whole goal is to do as many reps as required so that most of the muscle fibers get worked, leading to “muscle failure”. This forces your body to add more muscle and build strength for the future. This is where the power of the isometric contraction comes in.

When you work your muscles against something that can’t be moved, either another body part or a wall, your body keeps recruiting more and more muscle fibers in an attempt to contract the muscle and move the attached limb. As the muscle is never able to contract due to the nature of the isometric exercise, your body will recruit ALL of the muscle fibers available. This is why it’s possible to exhaust a muscle with only one isometric contraction lasting between 7 and 12 seconds, whereas something similar might take 3 sets of 12 reps without standard weight lifting.

Old time strongmen like Alexander Zass were famous for the feats of strength they  would perform. Zass, known as the “Amazing Samson”, was famous for bending bars, breaking chains by expanding his chest, as well as carrying small horses. How did he get this strong? Through a program of isometric training exclusively.

There are many advantages to using isometric exercises. The first advantage is for you to learn how your body should feel when you are isolating muscle groups. (If you are performing a bicep curl you do not want to feel it in your lower back.) By learning which muscle group or groups you want to work, an isometric exercise will allow you to accomplish just that. You will be able to target specific muscles to be worked.

Another advantage of using isometric exercises is it can be done anywhere and anytime. You do not always need machines and equipment to feel your muscles working. This is great for busy individuals who can never find the time to go to the gym. You can perform isometric exercises at your desk, while watching children, TV, or even reading. You can perform some isometric exercises while flying in a plane or sitting all day in a conference.

Another advantage of isometric exercises is ANYBODY can perform them. The morbidly obese, elderly, youth, baby boomers, those on chemotherapy, even those with physical limitations.

Breathe right while doing Isometrics

Most people are unaware of how they breathe … and many are likewise unaware that their usual method of taking in oxygen is shallow, short and highly inefficient. When you’re breathing correctly and more deeply, you’re taking in more oxygen, and enabling your body to use that oxygen more efficiently. This makes it possible for your muscles to function at top capacity.

How that works with isometrics is that by increasing the oxygen supply to the brain, you’re enhancing the brain’s ability to send messages to the muscles to contract. As you contract a specific group of muscles and have a targeted focus for your breathing technique, you’re actually forging new pathways of communication between the brain and the muscles you’re working.

It’s somewhat similar to Hatha yoga – which, in itself, is a kind of isometric exercise because you hold certain postures while you breathe deeply and slowly through the nose. But Hatha yoga isn’t specifically focused on physical fitness, whereas the combination of targeted isometric exercise plus a proper breathing technique is.

The one major item that is recommended is that you BREATHE. If you were to hold your breath while performing an isometric exercise your blood pressure will increase.

You can get light headed and possibly pass out. Always make sure that before starting any exercise program that you get an ‘ok’ from your physician. If you are on any form of medication even those that are over the counter drugs, you can have your blood pressure jump up higher than normal, and that is not a good thing. So no matter what, never hold your breath, always breathe.

Isometric exercises can be very safe for everyone if you listen to your body and know when enough is enough. Also slow deep breathing is the best way to get in more oxygen to your bodies so that your muscles can work more efficiently. Don’t forget that you are either inhaling or exhaling consistently. Never hold your breath.

Two words that in physical culture and fitness forums around the world pop up on a near daily basis. Bruce Lee.  Many of us today still marvel at Bruce Lee’s physique. His low body fat and sinewy, steel muscles have inspired dozens of young men to devote themselves to health and fitness in the quest to attain Lee’s legendary physique.

Not only did his physique influence the average school kid, but experienced weight lifters, athletes, and even bodybuilders – the men who spent their every waking moment in the pursuit of physical perfection were in awe…

But how did Bruce Lee develop such an incredible physique? Well the answer, comes from his widow, Linda Lee Cadwell…

“I know millions of his fans are convinced that Bruce was born with a special body, they have watched him exercise his extraordinary strength, seen his agility, studied him as he flexed his small but marvelously muscled frame. Many of them simply do not believe it when I explain that Bruce built his outstanding physique through sheer application and willpower, through intense training.”

Intense training, part of which included Isometrics. It was so successful that Lee practised it daily. That’s right he trained every day in these particular exercises because they produced incredible and dramatic increases in his strength and his muscle density. That system, of course, was isometrics.

In Tai Chi, you use a form of isometric contraction and since Bruce Lee’s father was a practitioner of Tai Chi and trained Bruce Lee in that art. It’s no wonder then, that he continued to use isometric exercise and improved his use of them.

Consult a doctor before starting on any exercise programme

I have yet to see a gymnast who is on a diet. The way his body shapes with gymnastic exercises is proof of what Isometric exercises can do for you. I do not think any other sports or games use the principle of Isometrics and with great result.

Isometric exercise do build up joint strength and from this angle of thinking, isometric exercises are important for all sportspersons.

Isometrics is not for people who:

1. suffer from High Blood Pressure

2. has had any kind of heart ailment

3. suffers from cardio vascular problems