Getting strong with a bodyweight program can be very simple. You just need to follow some very basic principles:

• Your body does not know how much weight is being lifted. You and your mind quantify the amount of weight by pounds or kilos. It’s a human-made system. Your muscles only understand one thing: stress.
• Hence, the more stress you place upon a muscle, the more that muscle will react. Whether or not the muscle grows stronger will depend on what you do after the workout.
• The only way you can get weaker is if you do not do anything to place greater stress on the muscle. This is why many endurance-type workouts often cause a decrease in strength.
• In order to increase strength through bodyweight training, a base level of fitness must be established. My opinion is that one should be able to perform 5pullups, 10 pushups, and 20 bodyweight squats before attempting any other strength goals.
• There are numerous training methods for improving strength through bodyweight training. However, the most important thing you must learn is how to make an exercise more difficult.
• Simple changes such as hand position, leverage, and sophistication can make a movement more difficult. These methods can also make a movement easier. For example, if you are unable to perform a fullpullup (palms facing away grip), you may find a chinup (palms facing you grip) much easier.
• Strength is an important component to all aspects of fitness. In order to increase lean muscle mass, you need strength. In order to lose fat, you must perform certain exercises. These exercise will also require a base level of strength.

Follow these tips and you will find yourself much bigger and stronger through bodyweight training. For more information on bodyweight training, check out Bodyweight Exercise Revolution.

Click here for more information.

By Paul J.O’Brien

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I., M.C.Th.A.

www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

Yes, Yes you can. In this article I am going to teach you the secrets to building the big guns – Bulging Biceps. What is more I shall also simultaneously increase your lifts by an average of 100 % (all though in some cases as much as 250%) on the major lift for this muscle group.

So how am I going to support my fantastic claims? I’m going to give you a incredibly intense three minute arm routine unlike ANYTHING you’ve ever experienced. You will feel every muscle fibre contract and fatigue. You will felt the rush of power and strength as you break every physical barrier you thought you had. You are going to experience Isometrics!

Isometrics is not a cutting edge new discovery for gaining mass. It’s not a supplement. It is in fact one of the oldest methods of strength training devised, forgotten until now. It is the contraction of a muscle without the shortening of a joint – In other words, tensing the muscle as hard as possible without moving. I’m going to show you how to apply it to three major lifts, 1 for the biceps, triceps and forearms.

Of course if you want in depth detail, step by step photos and video instruction, just check out my 7 week course, 7 Seconds to Build A Perfect Body, the Scientifically Proven Method for Transforming Your Body in Just Seconds! Over 250 pages and filled with more than 100 photos it will transform your body from your face down to your toes, sculpting your physique and letting you develop astonishing strength with just seconds of exercise.

Enough of that though, let’s get to building some guns! You’ll need a smith machine to perform these exercises safely.

Bulging Biceps

Warm up your biceps with a few light dumbbell or barbell curls. Nothing too taxing just enough to get them nice and warm, the blood flowing. You’re going to need it.

1. Stand in the Smyth Machine.

2. Place an empty Bar at about shoulder height (you may have to vary this to ensure the maximum effect).

3. Bring your hands up to the bar as though you have just reached the top of a barbell curl. Set it an inch below.

4. Keep you back straight, your abs tense.

5. Your biceps should be close to fully flexed at this stage. Relax, we haven’t put any weight on the bar yet.

6. Load the bar with a LOT of weight. Don’t underestimate your self. To give an example, a friend who routinely curls 6okg on a barbell recently did this for the first time, he lifted 260kg his first attempt.

7. The object of the exercise is to raise the bar a little more than an inch. That’s it. Just an inch and then hold it there for 7 seconds.

8. If you can hold it longer than 7 add more weight. Anything less, take some weight off.

9. All you are doing to raise the bar is contract your biceps as hard as you can. At no time should your elbows be directly beneath the bar.

10. Really tense your biceps and forearms for all they are worth.

11. You will feel the blood rush, the muscles scream and an intensity few will ever experience.

12. Then rest. Take a week off training the biceps.

13. Buy some new shirts.

Have fun showing them off

If you’d really like tobuild boulder sized bicpes and get in the best shape of your life uasing these same principals and enjoy the most effective and intense workout of your life when you follow my step by step 7 week course, 7 Seconds to Build A Perfect Body, the Scientifically Proven Method for Transforming Your Body in Just Seconds! Over 250 pages and filled with more than 100 photos it will transform your body from your face down to your toes, sculpting your physique and letting you develop astonishing strength with just seconds of exercise.

All the best,

Paul J.O’Brien

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I., M.C.Th.A.

www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

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About the Author: Paul J.O’Brien is an international recognized expert in Isometric Training and physcial performance, a certified personal trainer, licenced acupuncturist and western clinical medic and writer. Paul is the author of “7 Seconds to A Perfect Body,” which teaches you how to develop a lean muscular physique without drugs, supplements or equipment using secrets of the forgotten founders of fitness. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat, increase your lean muscle tissue, sculpt your phsyique and skyrocket your strength by visiting: www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

I’ve been making a HUGE mistake. I’ve been tracking my workouts, but not measuring them. Before I go any further, I should probably clarify two words: tracking and measuring. There is a difference.

Tracking is the recording of an event, in our case a workout.

Measuring is estimating by evaluation or comparison.

Image by jeysun35 When you combine tracking and measuring, you get progress. I have been tracking, but I have not been measuring.

Here is the major flaw: Each of my workouts is random, from week to week I perform a completely different workout than the week before, and my workouts rarely ever repeat.I had adopted this training style simply because I realized that I adapted extremely quickly with my workouts and could not stand the thought of performing the same workout week in and week out. However, this was before I had discovered fast, intense workouts. This was when I was doing some hybrid form of martial arts and bodybuilding. I didn’t know anything about metabolic conditioning or how to train with your bodyweight. All I knew was that you were supposed to stay in a gym for 2 hours and do “stuff” until the clock told you to leave (or someone from the staff).

To say that I have not been making progress is a false statement. I have. I see it in my movements. I see it on video. And I see it in the mirror. But all this “seeing” is dangerous. There is something about writing down your time and then comparing it to last weeks time with the same workout: it never lies. When you “see” things you rationalize your way into thinking that you are making progress. Or for some people, you rationalize your way out of making progress.

How do you know you are making progress?

This question was actually posed to me by my bodybuilding friend: “How do you know you are making any progress if you keep doing random workouts?” Good question, and one that I really couldn’t answer. I went to the Crossfit forum to pose the same exact question, and they referred me to their benchmark workouts. Benchmark workouts are simply workouts that are used to measure progress and appear in the Crossfit programming once or twice a week. For example, one of their workouts is Fran. This particular workout may be performed on, say, December 8th, 2006, and will not appear again until February 16, 2007. I’m just throwing out random dates here. But the point is that Fran will appear a few weeks apart, but they will have other Benchmarks within the weeks such as Barbara and Nate.

I have attempted to create benchmark workouts in the past. But honestly, at that moment I was not as familiar with Crossfit’s programming as I am now. I respect Crossfit, but I’m not sure if all their methods are a right fit for me.

I have two options in terms of measuring progress:

1. Create a training program based on five to six workouts per week, and repeat them for six weeks straight, attempting to make as much progress on them as possible. This progress can be measured by being able to complete the workout at a faster time, the amount of weight used in the workout, increasing reps, or increasing rounds.
2. Develop a series of benchmark workouts that appear in your programming each week along with a few other random workouts. Use these benchmarks as measures of progress.

Ok, so the second method is Crossfit. The first method I’ve actually seen on a few bodybuilding forums. People will choose one workout and then perform it along with their bodybuilding workouts as a form of cardio or conditioning. They’ll choose a goal, say drop total time by 3 minutes, and keep working on it until they reach their goal.

Hmmm…I think this time around I’m going to side with the bodybuilders.

I’ve decided to create 5 workouts, some of which I’ve done before, and work on them Monday through Friday. Each workout will have a set of measurement, a different one for each workout. For example, the Monday workout may be focused around time. The Tuesday workout may be focused on increasing weight. Etc. you get the point. I will try this for 6 weeks as an experiment, and then show you guys the progress I’ve made on this very website. Stay tuned!

Here are just 10 reasons why it is dangerous to be obese:

1. For every 11 to 18 pounds of fat gain, a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes is twice as high of individuals who are of normal weight and have not gained any weight.
2. Obesity during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of death in both the baby and the mother.
3. Individuals who are obese (BMI greater than 30) have a 50 to 100 percent increased risk of premature death from all causes, compared to individuals with a healthy weight. Read More.

So, as you know, I’ve been struggling to reduce the fat on my lower back. I’ve been steadily losing noticeable weight of my stomach, and am starting to see some vascularity on my arms. However, the back fat is still there. So the question is, what is the best way of losing all that back fat? What is the best way of losing fat on any problem spot?

My goal for the next 6 weeks is to lower my bodyfat percentage. I’ve taken this task before, however I failed due to crash dieting methods. My diet has been the main problem for me as I am 1) limited to what I can eat and 2) live in a culture centered around food. Hence, for me to break out of those habits has been very difficult. I’ve made some great progress and have done things that I thought I could never do. I’ve given up taco bell, soda, and starbucks.

I’ve also cut back on eating restaurant Indian food. Each week, I go to my dad’s store. At around 5 pm, I get really hungy and order some creamy Palak Paneer Saag and 2 to 3 parota. There is obviously nothing in the meal that contributes to my recovery or muscle gain. For those that don’t know, Palak Paneer is Spinach and cheese cooked with spices, lots of salt, oil, and some other things that aren’t good for you. Parota’s are a type of bread, flattened and covered with butter.

The following is a diet I’ve constructed to follow for the next few weeks:

5 AM: Protiein Bar, Oatmeal & Fruit
8 AM: Almonds
11 AM: 2 Veggie Burgers
2 PM: Cottage Cheese
5 PM: Almonds
Dinner – Eat Veggies only

This diet has approximately 150 grams of carbs, and 100 grams of protien. My previous diet consisted of about 220 grams of carbs and 70 grams of protein. I never had a problem with recovery, however I have noticed my weight go from 157 to 155 to 153 then back up to 157. Not sure about this, but I think it has to do with the amount of carbs I eat. Days I eat very little carbs I weigh less. When i eat normally , anything I want, i weight 157. So I know that my metabolism is high because I can eat anything i want and get away with it, however I won’t see any improvement in my body composition.

So the focus of my new diet is the following:

• Increase or maintain protien to help me maintain muscle mass and strength
• Lower carbs to burn fat, but don’t drop it too low so that it hinders recovery
• Both carbs and protein help with recovery, so the idea is to gradually lower carbs to a point where I’m eating low carbs but not hindering recovery. The same thing is true with protein. I want to gradually increase protein intake but not so much that I sacrifice my caloric deficit and store the protien as fat. In other words, everything I eat MUST be burnt up.
• Carbs should be gradually replaced by healthy fats. Fats also help with recovery and fat burning.
• I may be extremely carb sensitive, so I may need to lower carbs more than I think I do.

Training wise, I’ll be lifting first thing in the morning. This has to do with scheduling as I would rather do my school work and marketing during the day then have my day interrupted by a workout. It takes me 20 minutes to workout, but about an hour to rest, eat, and mentally recover.

Today’s workout wasn’t as intense as I thought it would be. I’m going to measure my workouts using an intensity scale from 1 to 10 (10 being extremely intense). So I don’t have a set program. I never follow set programs, so I’m better off gradually keeping track of my workouts and making little changes as I go on.

To improve today’s workout, I’m going to be doing the descending sets routine, but instead of just one exercise and resting a minute after each set, I’ll be alternating back and forth between two workouts. I don’t like jsut doing one exercise straight through. Alternating between the two exercises works better because then i don’t have to rest a minute after each set. I’ll just go through all the sets in circuit fashion.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Feel free to comment.

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