BottomLineFitness.com

Posted on 04.25.07 by Anthony Stalter @ 8:37 pm

As a beginner – or even if you’re experienced – nothing can be more embarrassing than jumping up on a bar and only banging out one pull-up. In fact, the average person approaches the pull-up bar like he or she is about to steal something, looking around to see if anyone else is watching before hammering out a sloppy, uncontrolled couple of sets.

Well, stop it, because you’re only hurting yourself by not maximizing the value the pull-up can bring. Your latissimus dorsi (back) is the biggest muscle in your body and if you want a V-shape torso, the pull-up can’t be viewed as the red headed stepchild of your workout any longer.

Here is an article from Men’s Health magazine dedicated to mastering the pull-up. It has a step-by-step guide on helping you improve add reps to your pull-up routine. It doesn’t matter if you can do 0 to 1 reps or 8 to 12, this article should help you maximize the benefits of the pull-up.

Here’s a taste of what the article offers. For the entire column, click here.

Your Best Effort: 0 TO 1
The problem: You’re not strong enough to lift your body weight.
The fix: Turn your weakness into an advantage with heavy “negatives.” Doing only the lowering portion of an exercise with a heavier weight than you can lift is a fast way to build strength.
How to do it: First, a couple of definitions.
- Chinup: This is the same movement as a pullup, but you’ll use a shoulder-width, underhand grip. Because your biceps are more involved, it’s a little easier than the pullup.
- Neutral-grip pullup: Again, it’s the same basic movement, but you’ll grip the parallel bars of the pullup station so your palms are facing each other. This is harder than a chinup, but not as hard as a pullup.
Now follow the workout schedule below, using this method of performing negatives: Place a bench under a pullup bar and use it to boost your body so your chin is above the bar. Then take the prescribed amount of time — either 5 to 6 seconds or 8 to 10 seconds — to lower your body. Once your arms are straight, jump back up to the top position and repeat. Rest for 60 seconds after each set.
Week 1: Chinup : 3 sets : 5–6 reps : 5–6 seconds
Week 2: Neutral- grip pullup : 3 sets : 5–6 reps : 5–6 seconds
Week 3: Neutral- grip pullup : 2 sets : 5–6 reps : 8–10 seconds
Week 4: Pullup : 2 sets : 5–6 reps : 8–10 seconds

Posted on 12.15.06 by Mike Furci @ 4:04 pm

Like the squat, the deadlift involves the largest muscle groups in the body: the gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps and erector spinea. And like the squat, it is a very hard, taxing exercise to perform. Consequently, for this reason alone many people don’t use the deadlift in their routines.

The gluteus maximus is utilized most in the beginning of the movement when there is a large degree of hip flexion. The glutes work in unison with the hamstring to extend the hips. The hamstrings, located on the back of the upper thigh, become more involved as you begin to decrease the degree of hip flexion as you raise the weight. The erector spinea, which run the length of your spine on both sides, are statically contracted throughout most of the movement keeping the normal curvature of the spine. A static contraction of the rhomboids and the trapezius muscles help maintain the shoulders. The quadriceps muscles are involved with knee extension.

Extension of the body occurs when the upper body, torso and pelvis rotate up and back. In a properly performed deadlift, this will happen simultaneously with the hips moving forward and the knees extending. Two of the biggest mistakes I see when this movement is performed are locking the knees out before the upper body is extended or allowing the back to “round” and magnifying the kyphotic (upper back) curvature while de-emphasizing the lordotic (lower back) curvature. I need to add that a slight curve of the upper back will present no danger and will happen to most while using heavy weight, but if you look like the hunch back of Notre Dame while performing the exercise that’s a different story.

The main reason your lower back would round, which could cause devastating trauma to the lumbar area, is weak erector muscles. There are various exercises you can use to strengthen your lower back like good mornings, arched back good mornings, arched back stiff legged deadlifts, and reverse hyperextensions, but good mornings and its variation in my opinion are probably the best exercise for this purpose.

The Dead lift

Filed under: Weight training and Bodybuilding and Power lifting and Back and Legs
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Test

Posted on 08.30.06 by cmyers @ 2:29 am

Testing by Casey.

This can be edited/deleted anytime, by whoever is working on this. Category pages were not showing up until I associated a post with the category.

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