BEAUTY KLINIC

I had a subscriber who inquired:

“Is it possible to build strength, put on muscle and burn off fat if I don’t have a power rack and I only have access to a barbell? Not even an Olympic barbell, but one of those old crappy cement filled barbell sets”

I know exactly the weights this guy is talking about. I think most of us grew up with them right? They were basically cement weights covered in plastic, and over time the plastic busted up and the cement started to get busted underneath remember?

I guess I’m showing my age
Anyways

Yeah! Exactly! Even, an old-school equipment like the barbell can certainly make you achieve maximum strength and power!

You just need somebody to teach you exactly how. Fortunately you met me. And thank heavens I just read a large amount of Dan John’s awe-inspiring “From the Ground Up″.

In this outstanding little ebook Dan John explains the “Rapid Ascent Program”, which contains three workouts:

1. Power Clean

2. Military Press

3. Front Squat

And here’s how you did the program (from his book):

“The program was very simple. First, groups of four boys were given a bar. The bars were weighted from very lightmaybe 25 poundsup to perhaps close to 100 pounds. Each cohort of boys would lift one at a time, put the bar down, then the next boy would lift. The four would constantly move from lifter to watcherthe bar never stopped. The three sets (explained in just a moment) would not take very longin fact, sometimes it was hard to catch your breath in time for your next set.

The reps were very simple:

* First set: 8 repetitions

* Second set: 6 repetitions

* Third set: 4 repetitions

The goal was simple: once you got all 18 reps (8+6+4), you added weight. If you started with a bar that was excessively light, the succeeding workout, you would be bumped up to the next weight and a stronger group. (Needless to say, actual variations could include making a whole new group with more weight, tooor whatever necessary to make the group work together).”

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

That’s the beauty of this program!

You don’t need a lot of equipment to build strength, muscle and power all while increasing your cardiovascular fitness and burning off pounds of fat.

What you DO need is a little “do or die” perspective. You must make your mind up you surely WANT to reach your fitness goals, then you’ll find a way to utilize whatever equipment you have available to make it happen.

I love program in view of the fact that it follows the DoubleYourGains’ philosophy of training movement patterns rather than a bunch of exercises. The Rapid Ascent program has a press move (military press), a pull move (power clean), a squat move (front squat) and an explosive/hamstring move (power clean).

How to carry out the “Rapid Ascent” program for cardio and fat loss:

Coach Dan points out that you could also get a great cardio workout and burn some fat:

“To “hurry up″ the trainingas if it was necessary, there were times when Mr. Freeman recommended combining the Power Clean and Military Pressesone clean and one press, repeated for a total of eight reps. this was done with a lighter weight. One could also do the Front Squats after the clean and presses, too. I have only done this onceand it was an amazing cardiovascular workout.”

So if you believe you don’t have enough equipment to get into your best shape and reach your fitness goals you are incorrect. You are incorrect. You are incorrect.

In fact, you don’t even need a barbell. You can get underway with the DoubleYourGains’ bodyweight program. You can do pullups on your door frame (for extra strong fingers) or just grab the top of a door and go to town (or a tree limb, anything you can hang from, etc) Have faith in me, if THAT workout gets easy for you - you will be a certified STUD.

After that, as soon as you get hold of good Olympic barbell set you can start the DoubleYourGains’ 3-5 Program.

Exercise is vital to building muscle and also will help in loosing fat; however, you need to dig into those fat burning muscle building foods as well.

The question is what is a fat burning muscle building food and will they break the piggy bank?

If your answer is yes, then why not work out like them to get that way, too. You don’t necessarily have to work out every day constantly to build those bulging muscles, however, your goal should be to lose weight and gain some tone, making your body look sexy.

Let’s start with fruits. Fruits, like lemons, limes, apples, blueberries, and watermelons are the best example of fruits that will help you lose weight. They contain large amounts of Vitamin C and low calories, which will help in burning fat without adding more into your body with high calorie count. They also are very acidic, which will help you to break down some of the harder fats, while also helping your digestive system break down other foods. Vegetables are the other fat burners, like cabbage, zucchini, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, and asparagus.

The property making them all good fat burner foods is that they have cellulose, a low in calorie substance that is broken down in your digestive system and targets fat, along with the Vitamin C.

Feeling less energetic because of eating a large amount of these foods is a possibility. You need to give your body time to figure out to resort to your fat for other energy. Usually, it will go for stored fat, which is the hard, long term fat to burn. This will regain you energy.

You have to remember to exercise when you are eating these fat burning muscle building foods. Exercising will boost your metabolism, getting a better circulation of foods and nutrients.

So eat your fruits and veggies and you can expect these fat burning muscle building foods to lose you weight naturally.

Ever workout and start to wonder how to build muscle tone.

Here’s how you can build muscle tone.

The key in building muscle tone, is not to concentrate on the tone, rather focus on building your muscle. When you work out, if your goal is to have good muscle tone and look “ripped”, you need to concentrate on working every muscle and building them up efficiently. However, you may wonder, “why is he talking about building big muscles? I want to get toned out!” You must understand that you need muscle to build tone. Without muscle there is no tone to be developed. Take the well known Steve Earcle. If he was to work on toning his muscle, it just wouldn′t work. He has nothing to even tone out. Build your muscles and tone will follow right behind it.

To build up your muscles, use exercises that will provide the most effect with the least amount of exercise. This does not mean cut out some exercises, it just means to substitute many exercises, for one better one, called a compound exercise. Exercises, for example the pushup, pull up, deadlift, squat, bench press, and military press, can help you to build many muscles at once, while also building up the joints they use, too.

After you have made some kind of foundation of muscle, you can begin to work on the tone. This is done by losing some body fat. A normal, average person has 15% to 25% of body fat. Your goal should be to lower yours to about 10% in order to uncover those muscles and build muscle tone.

Drop your calorie intake. Eating fewer calories a day will cause your body to look for other sources of energy to make up for the loss of calories. Your body will turn to your body fat that is covering your muscle.

In your diet, because you have dropped your calorie intake, you need to make sure you are getting the right amount of nutrients. You cannot keep eating things like fast food, boxed meals, and large amounts of candy. These will give you many calories and ruin what you are trying to do. Start eating healthier, eating clean foods, such as home grown foods. Resort to eating things like chicken, fruits, and vegetables in order to get these nutrients your body needs.

Use these tips, and start building your muscle tone today.

When people start working out and want to build muscle quick, while losing fat, most already know they have to eat healthy.

When first looking at eating healthy, one would always seem to picture salads. Salads are a part of eating healthy; however, there are many choices of other foods to eat healthy.

I can’t even imagine the number of people who hear eat healthy and immediately picture eating salads. Although, yes salads are good for you, it’s not the only thing out there you can eat to help build muscle quick and loose some extra fat while doing it.

You don’t have to give up many foods and stay eating green! You need multiple nutrients when you are trying to build muscle, and only eating green, like salads, won’t help you in the long run. Yes, of course you will see some weight loss, but this will make you sick and weak, because you’re not getting the nutrients you need to build muscle.

3 Main nutrients you need to eat healthy, build muscle and lose weight are proteins, carbohydrates, and the natural grown garden items.

Protein is the food of the muscle, making it durable and solid. A high protein intake diet will help you to provide the main nutrient to heal and build the muscle quick. You can get this protein from chicken, fish, and lean red meat. A whole egg is a good source of protein, minus the shell of course. Yes, even the yolk. It has a good source of protein and vitamins. Salmon contain a high amount of protein with a large amount of Omega-3 fatty acids and a good portion of vitamin D.

Carbohydrates are the fuel of the muscles. It burns quick when you are working out. Your body will work off these until it runs out, making it resort to body fat. If you choose to eat a low amount of carbs so you can work off more fat right away, you will be in pain during and after your workout. Your body will build more muscle after the workout, even more than during the workout. In this case, you will be glad to have eaten carbs in order to last the workout. You will feel little to no pain during the workout, and a fast healing after the workout.

Carbohydrates come from many things. Most people think of bread. Try to stay away from the high processed and sugar foods for this. Look into oats, cereal, and pasta. Yogurt is also good for both carbohydrates and protein. Eating some type of carbohydrates after your work out will help with your recovery time, giving that added boost for energy to your body.

The garden grown items are like the fruits and vegetables. These have vitamins, fiber, and minerals that help your recover and also prevent from getting sick by building up the immune system.

Mainly eat foods with good sources of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, fiber, and minerals that will all help to build muscle quick.

Your spine is arguably the most important structure in your body, so it’s important to take care of it. Your spine gets a lot of compression from daily activities, gravity and general life. Add to that the extra compression you give it with strength training and you better start decompressing it.

Back health is extremely important, and I’m willing to bet most of you have back pain currently. I myself hurt my lower back about a year ago, and this is one of the methods I used to get it back to 99% (still sometimes gets tight or painful). I’ll do a complete post on why you have back pain and how to fix it later, but read this now.

What you want to do is follow a trouble-free decompression technique that helps to keep your backbone strong and mobile by helping it decompress to its original length.

Here’s all you need to know…

How To Do Spine Decompressions

You’ll need a pull-up bar to do your decompressions. After you have that piece of equipment, there’s two ways to go about this:

1. Take Gravity Boots: This is the technique that I employ. These are boots that you tie onto your ankles and have hooks on them so you can hang upside down from your pullup bar without harm and let your spinal column to decompress. I utilize Teeter Hang Ups Gravity Boots. An additional bonus is that with these boots I can execute reversed sit ups for my abs and other hip “upside down” exercises.

2. Hang With Your Hands: This is easy. Simply hang from your pull-up bar and relax all your muscles-hold it for as long as possible. The longer you hang the better shoot for at least 5 minutes and build up from there. You probably can’t hang that long, so here’s

How To Hang On Longer With Your Hands

The longer you hang the better, though your grip will most likely give out. While I would never suggest making use of lifting straps for your usual lifting, I recommend them for decompressions since it will allow you to grip longer. Prefer nylon-type lifting straps or lifting hook straps since they’re extra strong.

How To Ease Your Muscles So Your Backbone Decompresses

Your muscles need to be calm in order for your spinal column to decompress (staying tight won’t help). Here’s what to do whether you’re making use of the gravity boots method or the hanging from your hands method:

* Hang off the pull-up bar

* Take a deep breath and sustain it

* Tighten up your whole body (focus on abs, glutes and make fists)

* Hold your whole body tense for 5 seconds

* Let it all out, your breath and all the tension. Relax

When you do this you’ll feel your whole body relaxing and you’ll probably “drop” down a little bit. You’ll probably feel your back decompressing, especially the first few times.

How Frequent You Must Decompress

Every day is great. Though I have to admit that I don’t do it day by day always. But you certainly should aim to do it as much as possible. If you get tired hanging upside down you can read a book or something. It’s great to do these right after your strength training sessions, right after your settle down-think of it as a part of your cooldown.