How to Get a Bigger Chest : 10 Tips

Here are 10 tips for getting a bigger chest.

1.  Bench press. Tried and true, there is no better exercise for building up your chest than the bench press. You can do bench press exercises with either dumbbells or a barbell – and each have their own advantage. With dumbbells, you’re able to work through a great range of motion. But with a barbell, you’re able to press heavier amounts of weight. Since heavier loads will result in bigger gains, I recommend using the barbell – though it’s fine to use either or both.

2.  Low reps, heavy weight. Doing a lower number of repetitions at a heavy weight is best suited for increases in size. I usually target 8 repetitions. On the last repetition, your muscles should feel fatigued. If you can do more than 12 repetitions without feeling fatigued, then the weight is definitely too light.


3 . Do at least four sets. It’s true that you get a ton of benefits from performing only one set, but if you’re looking for maximized results, the additional sets are important. I do four sets on the bench press, then four sets each on the incline and decline bench press.


4 . Only train your chest once or twice per week. Since I train different muscle groups each day, I usually only work my chest once per week. Sometimes twice. I don’t train my chest often, but when I do, it’s a quality workout and that’s what matters.

5 . Increase the amount of resistance or number of repetitions. If you did 6 repetitions at 180 pounds last week, try for 7 repetitions at the same weight this week. Or if you did 8 repetitions of 150 pounds last week, go for 7 or 8 repetitions at 160 pounds this week. you need to overloard your muscles to increase their size..


6 . Keep a log. Because the exact number of repetitions and amount of resistance can be difficult to remember, bring a notebook and log your progress. When you go in for your next workout, you’ll know exactly where you were last week – and exactly where you want to be this week.


7 . Try drop sets. Once a month, really mix things up by doing a drop set or two. To perform a drop set, select an amount of resistance that will result in muscle failure after 8 – 12 reps. While you’ve reached relative failure, you haven’t reached absolute failure; quickly decrease the amount of weight by about 15% and continue. After 8 or so reps, you’ll hit failure again. Reduce the resistance by another 15% and continue. Keep going. It’s a great way to build size.


8 . Don’t overtrain. More isn’t better and your muscles need time to rebuild and recover. Don’t train your chest more than twice a week

9 . Eat right. Ensure that you’re eating enough calories and getting the required amount of protein to support muscle growth.


10 . Keep good form. While the occasional cheat is acceptable, the majority of your bench presses should demonstrate proper technique. Most people cheat by not lowering the bar fully to their chest before pressing it back up. Ensure that you’re getting a full range of motion.

Exercise in Order for Better Results

Having enthusiasm for exercise is a fantastic thing. After all, diving in and getting the job done is great for the body, it can reduce stress, promote weight loss and a whole lot more.

Too much enthusiasm, however, can cause injuries and may quickly lead to burn out. That’s why it’s important to learn the ropes the right way. This means not only working with a 24/7 Health Club trainer to ensure that a routine selected is appropriate, but also ensuring that exercise order is properly followed.

When strength training is the routine in question, there is a very specific order to follow. Doing so can prevent injuries and keep motivation levels higher. Let’s find out why.

What is Exercise Order?

A sound exercise order simply involves applying good common sense to which exercises are done first during a workout, which ones come in the middle of a session and which ones complete the routine. Following a smart order can increase the chances that an entire workout will be completed. It can also ensure that burnout and frustration don’t occur.

What’s a Good Order to Follow?

For those who are working to increase muscle strength and tone, there is a very smart and simple order to follow when exercising. After taking the time to properly hydrate, stretch and prepare for a good workout, use equipment in this order:

• Dumbbells
• Barbells
• Machines

This order is the best to use for a number of reasons. Starting off with the dumbbells makes sense because the small, stabilizer muscles that are worked out with dumbbells are more likely to fatigue faster than the larger muscle groups that are targeted by machines. The machines target groups, which require a lot less help from smaller muscles. This makes it smarter to hold off on the machines until later in the routine.

Other Tips for Success

Strength training is an important part of any exercise routine. It’s important though to make sure proper form is used and the right weights are selected. With this in mind, it’s a good idea to consult a trainer before developing any type of strength training routine. Remember, too, that it’s important to only strength train a few times a week. Alternate with cardio exercise if daily exercise is desired.

Following proper workout order promotes success. Be sure to start out with any new exercise routine – strength training or cardio – by consulting a physician. After that, consider working with one of our awesome trainers to get personalized advice for the best routine to follow for personal success.

How to Improve Health and Fitness

                                                                                                                                                           

How to improve Health and Fitness is a topic we thought we would kick off the new year 2012 with, as it’s really a nice easy topic to start with.

Before we proceed, the main reason for not putting up regular content is not because we don’t care about you, our readers, but it’s more to do with our own inefficiency and disorganisation at having too many commitments back in 2011.

Forgive us for not being with you for the last many months and for being causal about our work here. We hope to continue growing this blog, in order to keep you guys and gals happy and well informed.  Fitness is our passion and we also do get a kick out of writing these articles for you. We also have our own program and we hope to share more of our findings as we go.

Let’s get moving with some ideas on How to Improve Health and Fitness. Consider the following points for they are not really that difficult to grasp and understand.

1) Start with An End In Mind.

Decide honestly about what you want to see after one or two months and note that down. For example, in one 1 month from today, I will be able to run for 30+ minutes at a nice comfortable pace. In 2 months, I will be able to run at the same pace for 60minutes and all physical appearance will be more toned. In 3 months, I would have lost 20pounds and so forth. Visualise how you want to look several months from now and commit that picture into your mind and brain.

2) Decide What You are Going to Sacrifice in order to Achieve Your Goals.

You have probably heard this before – nothing comes FREE without you having to sacrifice something for it. It’s a golden rule that applies in every life situation, if you really think about it. We are not looking at major sacrifices like spending a huge amount of money, or even dropping your friends and so forth. You could decide to cut back on your TV, time with friends, time going out to nightclubs, eliminating certain unhealthy foods and so forth. Those are all little sacrifices you could make.

3) List All the Obstacles that will Keep You Away from your Fitness Goals.

Decide once and for all to stop doing everything that does not contribute to your fitness including drinking too much alcohol, smoking, going out every weekend, not getting enough sleep and so forth. Make a list of all the obstacles that will get in the way and work out a plan on how best to counter those.

3) Create a Blueprint or Plan for your Fitness Programme.

It doesn’t matter what you use – your diary or smartphone, notebook as long as you write it down. You have probably heard about this before, and it’s true what most successful people are saying – you commit it better in your mind if you write it down. Make it a serious plan and don’t make it too easy nor too hard that you will find it boring to stick to, or find it too discouraging if you set the program too hard.

4) Commit to Your Programme and Just Do it.

How to improve health and fitness will never work if you are not totally committed to your program so make sure that you do. The previous 3 sections, will not even matter if you don’t go out there and do your fitness program. There is no point in fluffing around, if you think that you are not going to commit – walk away and come back when you are clear that you want to be fit and healthy and is willing to make that firm commitment. That is all there is to it really.

How to Get Six Pack

( 1 )

Do crunches. Lie on the floor (with or without a mat) with your arms in front of your chest or with your hands lightly touching your temples (never behind your head). Bend your knees. Raise your shoulders (upper torso) towards your knees, using strictly your abdominal muscles. It is very important to not lift your entire back off the floor, as this can cause back strain, and the extended movement does not help you develop six pack abs any faster. The most important part of the crunch is the initial flexing of your abs as you lift your shoulders off the floor. As soon as you begin lifting off the floor exhale through your mouth, ending with a gasp once your shoulders are off the floor. Then pause for a second once you are at the top of the crunch and exhale the last bit of air from your diaphragm while flexing your abs. Now lower back down slowly and controlled while inhaling through your nose, just until your shoulder blades touch the ground. Do not let your head touch the ground.


( 2 )

Do sit ups. Lie on the floor, feet on the floor, knees up and hands crossed on your chest. Have someone hold your feet down, or wedge them underneath something heavy. Sit all the way up, lifting your lower back off the floor along with your shoulder blades. Keep your back straight (no hunching). Lower yourself down. Repeat. Once this becomes relatively easy for you (i.e. you can do a quite a bit with ease) start adding more challenges. Find an incline bench. Do weighted sit ups. Hold a weight on your chest while you do these. As these become easier, hold heavier and heavier weights.

( 3 )


Train your entire core. To build really great abs it's important to first understand what abs do. Their full name is 'rectus abdominis'. The 'rectus' bit, is Latin for 'straight, proper, upright'. Contrary to popular opinion, the abs' primary job is not to curl you up into a ball, but they work together with the back muscles to maintain correct posture and stabilize the spine. These muscles are not just for show! So the best exercises for abs are ones that force your entire core to go into overdrive to support your spine. Some exercises that do this are squats and deadlifts. These exercises will train your entire core to work together to do what it is designed to do. At the same time they will also train a lot of other muscles (e.g. glutes and quads).


( 4 )

Do leg lifts. Lie on the floor, legs straight out, hands at your sides. Lift your legs straight up (not bending your knees at all) until they're at a 90 degree angle (or close). Lower your legs and repeat without letting your legs touch the floor. For more challenge there is equipment at most gyms that will allow you to raise yourself up using your arms as support and dangle your legs. If you're using this piece of equipment, you can make it easier by just raising your knees to your chest. It's more difficult to raise your legs to a horizontal position with your legs straight. This helps firm up the lower abdomen. If you're truly a monster, try doing leg lifts with a medicine ball hanging from your feet. Or, hang from a pull up bar and raise your legs in front of you all the way up to the bar.

( 5 )

Do jackknife sit ups. Lie down flat on the floor. Place your hands on the ground to your sides for balance; you can pick them up as you get used to the movement. Simultaneously raise your knees and torso so that your knees and face meet on an imaginary line extending from your pelvis to the ceiling. You should be able to kiss your knees at the top of the motion. Your legs will naturally fold bringing your feet towards your hips, much like a jackknife. Lie back down (i.e. "spread out") and repeat. Don't let momentum bring you down, slowly put your hands and feet back on the ground. Place a weight between your feet when you think you can handle it.

( 6 )

Do static holds. Put your body into the push-up position but with your elbows on the floor, and your whole body flat. This position is known as the static hold position, or the plank, and it trains your core (including your abs) to hold the body in place which is the real purpose of your abs. Hold this position for as long as possible. Beginners should be aiming to start off with at least 45 seconds, while seasoned ab workers are known to achieve over 5 minute static holds. To perform the side static hold, roll onto one side of your body and lift into the same position as before, but this time only one arm will be on the ground with the other arm pointed straight up the air and your non weight bearing leg resting on your bottom leg. Once again, hold this for as long as possible.

( 7 )

Train your oblique muscles. It's not as important to work on your oblique muscles at first, but eventually you'll want to start working these too. These are the muscles to either side of your stomach. There are multiple ways to do this and anything that includes twisting your torso against a resistance counts. There are twisting machines at gyms, you can twist while you do sit-ups, you can do side bends, you can twist side to side with a medicine ball in hand, etc. Be aware though, that many beginners tend to have weak obliques compared to their abs (it simply isn't used as much in daily life) so go easy on the sides at first.

• Do bicycle crunches. Lift your feet off the ground while doing the crunches by alternating each leg in the air. Bring your left knee up toward your right shoulder and then your right knee toward your left shoulder.

( 8 )

Do pull-ups hanging from a horizontal bar. You will be amazed at the number of muscles around your stomach working with pull-ups. Do 5 pull-ups with your palms facing away from you and 5 pull-ups with your palms facing towards you. This will also build your pectorals and biceps at the same time.

( 9 )

Find new ways to crunch, bend and twist in your daily life. Some possibilities include:

• Use a stability ball. Do your crunches on the ball to introduce instability to your workout, which will improve your balance too. There are also lots of core exercises that cathe way. Do this as often as you are comfortable or at times when it won't look weird. You can bend forward from the hips or, if you're really into it, bend at the knees too and really "sink" out of the way.

• Add complex core-movements to your workout. That will boost your overall body constitution tremendously. For example, combine push-ups with rows. Go into a push-up position on two dumbbells. Now don't do a push-up, but instead start to row alternating dumbbells. See how much power you need only to hold balance? Combine exercises! Be creative. Tension is your friend.

Shooting bow posture

Steps :

1. Sit firmly on the floor and place your legs together releasing them straight out in front of you. While doing thins make sure that your back, shoulders and head is straight.
2. Once you are comfortably seated in this position, place your palms on your thighs and breathe in deeply.
3. As you exhale slowly slide your right hand down to the big toe of your right foot and pull the foot towards your face.
4. At the same time allow the left hand to reach the big toe of the left foot and hold it there.
5. Inhale deeply and let your right foot reach the right ear.
6. Stay in this pose for some time.
7. As you exhale get to your normal position of sitting comfortably.
8. Repeat this pose again with the other leg.

This pose should be repeated at least twice for both legs in order to receive maximum benefit.

Precautions:

• Firstly, if you are a beginner do not try the pose when you are alone.
• This pose belongs to the intermediate level of yoga poses and therefore if you are novice, you should not try this pose at the very outset.
• You should not perform this asana in case you are pregnant.
• People with spinal injuries should also avoid this pose.

Beginner’s Tip :

One of the best beginners tips that can be offered when it comes to the shooting bow pose is that if you are having a hard time lifting the thighs away from the floor, you can give yourself a little upward boost by lying down with the thighs being supported by a rolled up blanket.

Benefit to Body Part :

The anatomical focus of the shooting bow pose includes the groins, thighs, chest, belly, spine, shoulders and neck. Some of the benefits of performing this pose include:

• working and strengthening the legs
• core muscles build-up
• the improvement of grace and concentration

Therapeutic Applications :

• It helps and betters the process of digestion, clears constipation and treats indigestion.
• It also helps in healing pain in the lower areas of the abdomen and also relieves pain in the larger intestines
• The pose also helps in regularizing the menstrual cycle in most women.
• Breathing is greatly enhanced with this pose as it increases the capacity of the lungs to retain oxygen.

Variations :

One of the variations you could switch to when performing the pose is that you use your left hand to pull the right leg to the right ear and vice versa. This could get a little complicated and therefore should be attempted only after you have mastered the actual pose. Your trainer will be able to guide you with different variations.

Yoga Relaxation Techniques

In yoga, relaxation refers to the loosening of bodily and mental tension. Keeping muscles in a constant alert state expends a great amount of your energy, which then is unavailable when your muscles are called upon to really function.

Conscious relaxation trains your muscles to release their grip when you don’t use them. This relaxation keeps the muscles responsive to the signals from your brain telling them to contract so that you can perform all the countless tasks of a busy day.

Tips for a successful yoga relaxation practice

Relaxation is a conscious endeavor that lies somewhere between effort and noneffort. To truly relax, you have to understand and practice the skill. Try the following:

• Practice in a quiet environment where you are unlikely to be disturbed by others or the telephone.
• Try placing a small pillow under your head and a large one under your knees for support and comfort in the supine, or lying, positions.
• Ensure that your body stays warm. If necessary, heat the room first or cover yourself with a blanket. Particularly avoid lying on a cold floor, which isn’t good for your kidneys.
• Don’t practice relaxation techniques on a full stomach.
  
  

  Deep relaxation in yoga: The corpse posture

  The simplest and yet the most difficult of all yoga postures is the corpse posture, also widely known as the dead pose. The corpse posture is an exercise in mind over matter. The only props you need are your body and mind.
  Here is how you do the corpse pose:
  1. Lie flat on your back, with your arms stretched out and relaxed by your sides, palms up (or whatever feels most comfortable).
     Place a small pillow under your head if you need one and another large pillow under your knees for added comfort.
  2. Close your eyes.
  3. Form a clear intention to relax.
     Some people find it helpful to picture themselves lying in white sand on a sunny beach.
  4. Take a couple of deep breaths, lengthening exhalation.
  5. Contract the muscles in your feet for a couple of seconds and then consciously relax them.
     Do the same with the muscles in your calves, upper legs, buttocks, abdomen, chest, back, hands, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, neck, and face.
  6. Periodically scan all your muscles from your feet to your face to check that they are relaxed.
     You can often detect subtle tension around the eyes and the scalp muscles. Also relax your mouth and tongue.
  7. Focus on the growing bodily sensation of no tension and let your breath be free.
  8. At the end of the session, before opening your eyes, form the intention to keep the relaxed feeling for as long as possible.
  9. Open your eyes, stretch lazily, and get up slowly.
     
     
     Practice 10 to 30 minutes; the longer the duration the better.
     
     
     

     Use yoga for relaxation before sleep

     If you want to enjoy deep sleep or are experiencing insomnia (but don’t want to count sheep), the following exercise can help you. Many people don’t make it to the end of this relaxation technique without falling asleep.
     For this exercise, you need the following props: a bed or other comfortable place to sleep, two pillows, and one or two blankets. Allow five to ten minutes. Follow these steps:
     1. Prepare yourself for sleep and get into bed, lying on your back under the blankets.
        Your legs can be straight or bent at the knees with your feet flat on the mattress.
     2. Place one pillow under your head and have the other one close by.
     3. With your eyes closed, begin to breathe through the nose, making your exhalation twice as long as your inhalation.
        Keep your breathing smooth and effortless. Also, don’t try to direct your breath to any part of your body. Let the 1:2 breathing ratio be effortless, something you can keep up.
     4. Remain on your back for eight breaths, then roll over onto your right side and place the second pillow between your knees.
        Now use the same 1:2 ratio for 16 breaths.
     5. Finally, roll over on to your left side, with the second pillow still between your knees, and use the 1:2 ratio for 32 breaths.
     
     
           
     
     
     
     

Eggs

Egg yolks contain tonnes of essential but hard-to-get nutrients. These include choline, which is linked with lower rates of breast cancer, and antioxidants that may help prevent cataracts and macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. Although many of us have shunned whole eggs because of their perceived association with heart disease, the Heart Foundation of Australia rates eggs as an essential part of a healthy eating plan.

People with heart disease should eat no more than two egg yolks per week, but the rest of us can have up to six whole eggs a week; research shows this won’t raise your risk of heart attack or stroke. Make omelettes with one whole egg and two egg whites and watch your cholesterol intake at other meals.