Strength And Muscle Gains

One of the most obvious push ups benefits is the strength gains that you will get. Perhaps not being able to lift big weights turns people off doing this challenging body weight exercise, but the fact is that you can get huge gains from it. Take a test yourself and see how many push ups you can actually do, you may be surprised how quickly you fatigue. You can build up both strength and muscle endurance, depending on how you work out. If you need to make the push ups harder, there are a few ways you can easily do this. To simply add weight to the push up, you can put a theraband around your back, as shown in the picture.

theraband push ups

You can also simply place a plate on your back, or more specifically get a friend to do it. Push ups are not easy, and it is likely that you can’t do enough anyway. Add them to your program if you want to see some chest and shoulder development quickly. They are a great exercise to put extra stress on your chest after you do bench press.

Want to do 100 push ups? Click through the picture to head to amazon, where you can read more great reviews about this popular book, and buy it for as little as $10.17.

Shoulder Health

Something that many people may not be aware of is the role of push ups to shoulder health. Shoulder problems are very common, especially for people going to the gym. Often imbalances in the muscles become present because of an imbalance in training. One of the biggest problems regarding shoulder health is scapula control. Lets take a look at what you might think is a rounded program for the upper body.

Bench Press + Seated Row

A push and a pull exercise, to ensure that you are working both aspects of your upper body and staying injury free. Not so fast. Although this is tru in most respects, if you are having shoulder problems and suffer from a winged scapula, then have a think about this. Both the bench press and the seated row use downward rotation of the scapula. So although you are both pushing and pulling, the scapula movement is the same. A large imbalance can start to become present if you are not careful. The cure? Push ups! There is a muscle called your serratus anterior muscle, that is very important to scapula control. Get it strong and activated, and you will get rid of a lot of shoulder problems associated with scapula control. The push up is one of the best exercises to work this. Check out serratus anterior exercises for a few more examples. Add push ups into your routine to ensure that you keep your shoulder nice and healthy.

As you can see push ups benefits are more than just the obvious, try them in your program and you will notice the difference.

]]> http://laurensfitness.com/2010/10/27/push-ups-benefits/feed/ 2 http://laurensfitness.com/2010/10/24/arm-exercises-without-weights/ http://laurensfitness.com/2010/10/24/arm-exercises-without-weights/#comments Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:55:08 +0000 Lauren http://laurensfitness.com/?p=664 If you can’t get to a gym for whatever reason, there is no excuse not to do strength training. There are a lot of things that you can do at home, to simulate what you would do in the gym. Not only are the just as effective, you will find that you might get some [...]]]> If you can’t get to a gym for whatever reason, there is no excuse not to do strength training. There are a lot of things that you can do at home, to simulate what you would do in the gym. Not only are the just as effective, you will find that you might get some extra benefits you didn’t even know about. The reality is that without weights, there are less exercises to do. If you have resistance bands, then there are a lot of exercises you will be able to complete. However, in this article we will talk about three of the best arm exercises without weights you can do. No equipment is necessary, and you can do them in the safety of your own home.

Push Ups

Why?

This common and popular exercise has a lot more variations than you can imagine. The great thing is that no matter what your level is, you are able to do this exercise. Pushups will work you chest, shoulders and triceps, it is a really good compound exercise. You will not only get strength benefits, but you will also get a lot of benefits for your shoulder health. Push ups, unlike many other chest and back exercises will also work the serratus anterior muscle. This muscle is extremely important to having a healthy shoulder.

These versions are all great chest exercises without weights.

Need To Make It Easier?

If you want to make this exercise easier you have a few options. You can do the push ups on your knees, which will take a lot of the weight off, and will mean you will be able to do push ups, no matter what your level. Another option you have to start, is to put your hands up onto a bench. This is another way to take the weight off. If you start doing these variations, you will find you build your strength quickly and will be able to move onto normal and harder versions quickly.

Need To Make It Harder?

If you have already mastered the normal push up then there are a lot of other versions you can do to make it harder and challenge yourself more.

Feet Up: One of the first options you have is to put your feet up onto a bench, which will make it a lot harder to perform. It also changes the angle a little.

Theraband: You can use a theraband or a resistance bands to add extra weight to the push up. Here is an example picture.

theraband push ups

Lying Pull Ups

Why?

If you have just one other person, or you can find a fence at an appropriate height, you can do this great exercise for your upper back. It works similar muscles as a seated row, and you will find that you get a good upper back workout, as well as hitting your biceps.If you are looking for biceps exercises without weights, then this is another great option for you.

Need To Make It Easier?

To make it easier, keep your feet on the ground during the exercise. You can also raise the bar, or make the person that is holding you hold you up a little higher.

Need To Make It Harder?

If you need to make it harder, you should put your feet up onto a bench. This will make your weight a lot heavier and make the exercise much harder.

lying pull ups

Chin Ups

Why?

This is a great exercise you can do without equipment. You can easily find something to do chin ups from, whether it be the monkey bars in the playground, or a strong tree outside! It works your upper back and your biceps, and you will find you get a lot of benefits from doing this exercise.

Need To Make It Easier?

If you need to make it easier, get someone underneath you to help hold you up, and assist you through the exercise. They can take some of the weight off.

Need To Make It Harder?

If you need to make it harder, then you can tie some weight around your body. Commonly chains are used around the feet, or tie a weight to a rope and put it around your feet.

If you can’t get to a gym and are looking for some great arm exercises without weights, then you really don’t need anything more than these three. They will hit all of your upper body, and ensure not only will you get strong, you will also have a healthy body.

Follow these 6 tips and get bigger and stronger today.

Do A Full Body Program With Compound Exercises

I have always said that you should be doing compound exercises in your program. I also advocate doing a full body program. Compound exercises are when you do an exercise that includes more than one joint. Why? You can lift more weight when you use more muscles, which means a greater stimulus on your muscles, which ultimately means bigger muscle and strength results, especially for those beginning. Doing a full body program will ensure that you get your whole body done in one day, you have a greater stimulus on your body in one hit, and you don’t waste your life in the gym. You can do a good full body program in under an hour, three times a week, and you will see massive results.

Lift Heavy Weights

There is nothing worse than going to the gym and watching the women with the 3 kg dumbbells doing bicep curls, I cringe. I think I have said this one hundred times before. You have to lift heavier. You lift heavier, you work your muscles harder, you work your muscles harder you burn more calories and get a greater stimulus on your body, which ultimately means more adaptations. Trust me, that 90% of you don’t know how much you can actually lift. There is a perception, especially amongst women that you can’t lift big. People don’t know there own limits. I will use the example from my mum, sorry mum! Mum had been doing reasonable amounts of strength training before, but asked me to help her. So I took her to the gym, sat her down on the leg press, and told her to show me. It was a pin loaded one in the women’s area, not ideal, but definitely usable. She put 40 kgs on and started going for it. I told her to stop, put 100kgs on and told her to go. After looking at me like I was crazy she started, and surprise surprise, could do 8 reps quite easily. She is now getting much better gains in a much shorter time. The moral of the story is that you can probably do more than you know, and sometimes it takes a kick in the bum to realize it. Just try… men and women out their are all not realizing their potential, the gains you will see will be enormous.

Err no need to lift this heavy

Train Your Legs

Train you legs, train your legs, train your legs. I have nothing else to say, but train your legs. This is the biggest muscle group in your body, and most BIG exercise that you do, like the squat and dead-lift will end up working your full body anyway. it takes a lot of power to dead-lift 200kgs. Just…train your legs. Check out more here.

• Leg Workout
• Hamstring Exercises

Eat More Food

You probably need to eat more. If you want to build muscle, you need to be in a positive calorie balance. There is nothing complicated about it. Will you put on some fat too? Depends. If you are starting out strength training, it is unlikely. You will burn so much of what you eat just from training, and build a lot of muscle quickly. For those that are already training, up your calories, suffer from a small gain in weight to start, and watch your body grow and get stronger. I promise once you built the muscle you want, the tiny bit of excess fat that you may have put on will fall off once you concentrate on that a little. You need to eat more to build muscle, simple.

Eat A Lot Of Protein

Protein is not just for body builders, and it is likely that you are not getting enough. I’m not a fan of counting calories, or macro nutrients, or whatever. Protein is the building block of muscle, and you probably need more. The best guide I use, every time you sit down for a meal, make sure there is a big portion of protein in it. You can find a lot of natural sources of protein. You will be surprised how little you actually eat, and how quickly you build muscle, and probably accelerate your fat loss as well. If you want some breakfast ideas check out what to eat for breakfast.

Eat Clean 90% Of The Time

There is no need to be completely obsessive about your diet, in fact it will work against you. Just try 90% of the time to eat good, whole healthy foods. A lot of vegetables, a lot of protein and some brown carbs after training only. Eating whole healthy foods will ensure success. Check out these posts for a little more nutrition information.

Healthy Fat Loss
Is Pasta Healthy (Carbohydrate Guide)

The best way to build muscle is simple, train hard and eat well. You will shock yourself with the results.

Here are a few ways that I like to use resistance tubes in my training, and what I think they are most useful for.

Rehab Exercises

Without a doubt there are a lot of positives for using resistance tubes in your rehabilitation. You can adjust the resistance to what you need and you are able to isolate specific necessary muscles. Resistance bands allow you to produce concentric and eccentric contraction in any range of motion. They are ideal to start a rehabilitation program with, great for ailments like a pinched nerve in shoulder. Most commonly you will see them being used in shoulder rehabilitation. They are ideal to do internal and external rotation exercises, scapular retractions and can help to teach stability. Here is an example of an external rotation exercise using resistance tubes.

physioadvisor.com.au

Another great place you can work with the resistance band and is common in the rehab setting is the ankle. Sprained ankles need a lot of strengthening to get back to full capacity, and the resistance band is a way to provide external pressure that not many other means provide in the initial stages. You can produce dorsi flexion, plantar flexion, and both eversion and inversion. These are very necessary for ankle rehabilitation. Here is an example of eversion:

physioadvisor.com.au

Warm Up

Some people like to vary their warmups, and resistance bands can provide a really good means at getting warmed up quickly and effectively. You can do all kind of exercises on them with a low resistance, to make sure that you muscles are ready and warm. Check out this video on a very interesting and I am sure quite tough lower body warm up that will get you ready for almost any lower body session, it’s quick and effective, what else do you want?

Contrast Exercises

You can use resistance tubes as a means to overload and get extra benefits from your training. people often use contrast exercises performed directly after the set of whichever exercise they will do. For example if you want to overload and get some power gains for your shoulder (like we use in vball), after you do a tricep pullover, stand up, grab a resistance tube, and do some fast overhead swings. The resistance helps to get some gains, but you are working fast. You can also use it to fatigue even more after a set if you want. Whatever your goals are, you can use the resistance bands as a contract method to increase your adaptations.

No Time For The Gym/ Alternative Workout

Like I said earlier, I don’t like the idea of using resistance bands as a whole workout, however, as a way to ensure you get a workout when you don’t have access to a gym, or if you are feeling bored and needing an alternative, you will certainly still get a lot of benefits from using resistance tubes. Check out this video, 50 great exercises.

Make Stuff Harder/ Lift More Weight

You can overload the exercise with resistance tubes. Look how I use it here with push ups.

overload your push ups

Also check out how this guy uses it to get a bit of help out of the bottom of the bench press, I would like to think a spotter will do this job (and would prefer you used a person), but thought I would put it up for interests sake!

Recovery Days

Our bodies often need a recovery day, check out sports recovery for a bit more information on this. Resistance tubes provide you with the ability to ensure you get a workout done, but with a slightly different stimulus. Do a different session on days you need a rest, but you still need to work out. The difference in stimulus will really help the body recover, but you will keep doing the movements you need.

Stretching Help

Not the first thing you will use it for, but you can get a lot of stretching self help with a resistance tube lying around. Check out this article to find more stretches with resistance tubes. This is an example of a hamstring stretch.

Why You Need To Work Your Hamstrings

• Balance Training: Most guys and gals will head into the gym and start squatting and leg pressing. This is great, and is probably a whole lot more than most people do, but at the end of the day we need balance in our training. Do unto your hammies that you do unto your quads.
• Prevent Knee Injuries: Having huge quads in itself can sometimes cause problems. But without some big hamstrings behind them, you are looking at even more danger. Balance is the key, and none of us want to get injured.
• Improve Performance: You hamstrings are without a doubt the key to performance. Without strong hammies, you can’t run fast, you can’t jump high and you will not be explosive. You want to improve all these thins, which any athlete does, then you need to do some serious work on your hamstrings.

7 Great Hamstring Exercises

Here are 7 of my favourite hamstring exercises, and some vids and pics on how to perform them.

Swiss Ball Hamstring Curls

This is a great exercise for general hamstring conditioning, it is tougher than it looks. Try it with one leg if two legs is too easy.

Leg Curl

The standard exercise, I like to do them with two legs up and one leg down, to get an extra eccentric element. Works them harder and gets faster results.

Stiff Leg Deadlift

Tough exercise but great for building your hamstrings.

Single Leg Stiff Leg Deadlift

Same thing as above but single leg, has a balance element to it. You can do it holding a medicine ball like the vid, or dumbbells at your side.

Good Mornings

Quite tough, I would recommend getting a handle on the other exercises before moving to this one. But it does work your hamstrings well.

Nordic Lowers

Super tough, try it once and you will be sore for days!

Catches

For those sprinters out there, this is a great eccentric way to work your hamstrings, not for bulk.

Things To Consider

There are two major things that I want you to consider when you are doing step ups. The height of the bench, and the speed of the exercise. Bench height is one thing that people often ask about. Basically, the higher the bench, the more hamstring and posterior chain involvement you will get, the lower you go, the more quad dominant the exercise becomes. A neutral bench is a great way to start, where your hamstrings are parallel to the ground. I generally use a neutral or higher than bench because I struggle through the hamstring area.

The other important thing to consider is the speed of the step up. Totally dependent on your goals. I like having the weight on my back, purely because I can lift more. If I am doing a strength phase I will do reps on about 80kgs, you go slow because it’s heavy, explosive I will do fast step ups with about 60kgs (see video below), and step ups with nothing. If you are starting, and wanting to build strength, do them slowly.

Benefits Of Step Ups

I rave about step ups, because I think they are fantastic.

• Low stress on the body (especially the knees)
• Simple exercise without a high technical difficulty (progress faster)
• Adaptable speed for any goal
• Great quad exercise
• Posterior chain exercise (Butt and Hamstrings..check out glute activation and hamstring exercises)
• Build strength quickly
• Extra stabilization necessary
• Unilateral exercise for strength

How To Perform Step Ups

Here are two videos that I made showing two variations of the step up. Just taken during my normal weights session. I am in a bit more of an explosive phase, so this video shows me doing explosive step ups. I’m using 60 kgs, and my aim is to jump. The aim is the key here, how fast I can move the weight. 60kgs is still a bit for one leg, so as you can see, I don’t jump so high, but you will notice the speed of the movements. For those starting out, take it through the same motion but slowly.

Explosive Step Ups from LaurensFitness on Vimeo.

This second video shows step up jumps. I use them right after my step ups for some contrast training. This is a really good leg workout and cardio hit too. I do low reps for plyo purposes.

If you want some more stuff check out leg workouts to jump higher and depth jumps.

Step Up Jumps from LaurensFitness on Vimeo.

As you can see the step up is a great all round exercise that will really get you firing and strong. You don’t have to worry about getting injuries, and you will rarely feel pain. You can increase your strength and get to great heights quickly, as it is a very simple movement without much skill to learn the technique. You will notice all your other lifts start to improve after adding this to your program. Enjoy!

Get Strong First

Firstly you have to understand this formula to understand how to increase your vertical jump.

POWER= STRENGTH * SPEED

What does this tell you? You gotta be strong, and you gotta be fast. Without one of them, your power is going to diminish. The biggest problem people face is trying to get their vertical jump up without being strong. Not only is it not going to be effective, you are putting yourself at a high risk of injury. Get strong before you take the next step, you will keep your body healthy, and ensure results. There are many leg workouts to jump higher, but it is important that you take a step by step approach to ensure the best results.

Important Note

It is very important to understand that we are all different athletes. When we learn to jump higher, we all have very different needs. There is no single best exercise to jump higher, it is a very individual thing. Some athletes are naturally stronger, but lack reactive speed and “spring”. Some athletes naturally have that reactive speed, and will do best to increase their strength if they want to get a better vertical.

Step By Step Approach With Basic Plyometrics

Basic Strength

First we need to get strong in our legs. Don’t worry about speed, just get strong. The quadriceps, glutes hamstrings, lower back and calves are the important muscles. Understand that we use our hip extensors to jump primarily. The problem is that these are muscles that a lot of people are really weak in. They need to be given extra attention to make sure they are up to scratch. You need to develop strength in them, regardless of speed. Without the basic strength foundation, you are going no where. Concentrate on your glutes with some bum exercises, hamstrings and lower back if they are problem areas.

Remember you are focusing on getting strong, so build up and start to lift some heavy weights. Some great exercises for this phase are:

• Squats
• Lunges
• Swissball Hamstring Curls
• Deadlifts
• Good Mornings
• Single Leg Squats
• Leg Press
• Step Ups
  

Get Explosive

After you have the strength down pat, you need to start working more explosively. This simply means faster movements. Power is the ability to produce a maximum amount of force in a minimum amount of time. Learn to move a heavy weight quickly, and you are going to increase your power immensely. Be aware, you really do need to have enough raw strength in order to develop any explosive strength at all.

There are so many exercises for explosive strength, and most exercises just take a bit of adaptation to get the effect, but here are some great and simple explosive exercises:

• Explosive Box Squats- Squat back onto a box to ensure glute activation, and explode out of it, use about 50-60% of your max.
• Jump Squats- Use around 30% of your max, and explode out of the squat and into a jump.
• Step Up Jumps- Put a weight on your back, step up and attempt to jump. Doesn’t matter how high you get, the attempt at explosion is the important part.
• Power Cleans/ Snatches/ Variations- Tougher exercises with more technique, but very effective when mastered. There are simpler variations like a clean pull where you don’t get up with the weight over your head but still get the explosive benefits.
• Split Leg Lunge Jumps- Get into a lunge, jump up, switch legs, land, rinse and repeat. Tough exercise that gets your explosive, great for beginners.

Reactivity Is The Key

So you are strong, you are explosive, now you need to get springy. Reactive strength is basically what we actually call plyometrics. It is what most people are lacking, myself included. I said look at what kind of athlete you are, and adapt your training to that. Well I am built like a brick shit house, excuse the language, and am naturally strong, but lack the reactivity, so I work more on this side of things. For those starting out, get strong first, or you will get injured. This stuff tends to put more stress and strain on the joints, and is not something to ‘jump’ into without pre conditioning.

The fact is that there is an ENDLESS supply of plyometrics exercises you can do, and I am simply not going to give you all of them. You can even make them up, the trick is to be on the ground for the shortest time possible. I will just list a few simple ones, and if you want a longer and more complicated list, you can pick up jumping into plyometrics really cheap at amazon…great book with a lot of great exercises for those needing to increase reactive strength. A lot of great leg workout to jump higher.

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Here are some of the simpler and most used plyometrics exercises:

• Depth Jumps- The best way to do these is with two boxes. You jump off one box, hit the ground, as soon as you hit the ground try to get off it as quickly as possible, and then jump up to the next one. This video is an example. You can vary the box heights. Depth jumps are a sure fire way to increase your vertical jump.

• Hurdle Jumps- Again the key is to make sure that you touch the ground for as little time as possible. Start as low as you need.

• Reactive Vertical Jumps- Simple, stand next to a wall, do repeat jumps. Focus on touching the ground for a short time, land in a cushioned position.

• Speed Ladder Exercises- There are quite a few speed ladder exercises that are great lower level plyos. Try hop scotch, double leg jumps, single leg hops etc etc…here are some examples, the ones with jumping apply more, but they are all good for foot speed, a great range here.

• Single Leg Hops- Single leg stuff is pretty intense, much higher level plyos and something you need to progress too. However, for those ready, is a huge stimulus and will surely increase your vertical. This guy is jumping super high hurdles, and you don’t even need to have hurdles there, just gives you something to get over. Start low, without hurdles is best.

I think I have made it pretty clear how to get your vertical up, and provided you with some leg workouts to jump higher.

• Get Strong.
• Get Explosive.
• Get Reactive.

Good luck.