Laurens Fitness » Strength Training

Stiff Leg Deadlifts

Lauren — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:55:52 +0000

The hamstrings may be the forgotten muscle in the body, but not only do they help you run faster and jump higher, popping hamstrings leading up to a good bum simply look pretty good. So whatever your motive, you should be working them out, and the stiff leg deadliest is a great exercise for it.

Here you can see a video showing correct technique.

The deadlift is a great exercise that hammers the hamstrings, and why it works so well is fact that it challenges the hamstrings eccentrically as well as concentrically. Eccentrically which is essentially lengthening the muscle under load, is the opposite to concentric, and we are stronger eccentrically. During the lengthening phase of a lift, less fibres are recruited, which means there is more strain on each individual fibre. Damage occurs, repair occurs, adaptation occurs and you get more muscle. Voila.

This is a variation, the single leg stiff leg deadliest. Add some weight to it and you will have a very sore hamstring the next day.

Volleyball Warm Up Stretches

Lauren — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:34:56 +0000

Reading Laurens Fitness and many other conditioning blogs you have probably come across a couple of articles that pretty much tell you not to do static stretching pre event or training. I like to incorporate some static stretching into my dynamic movement warm up, but I tend to get it done early, to make sure my last stimulus is a more explosive one.

Volleyball is a sport of power. If you are not an explosive machine, you are limiting yourself in your ability to succeed at a high level in this sport. There are a lot of studies, and a lot of trainers will suggest that static stretching will just about ruin your career. When you hit the court in volleyball, you want to be able to jump… as high as possible. The vertical jump is without a doubt the most important component of physical conditioning, and your warm up should be tailored to get off the ground.

One stretch that can help you significantly is a static hip flexor stretch. As I said above, although static stretching in many cases is thought to be counteractive to explosively, this stretch will help you get another couple of centimetres off the ground, especially if your hip flexors are tight.

A lot of people have really tight hip flexors, and as we have spoken about before, tight hip flexors basically work to switch off the butt muscle. It’s called reciprocal inhibition, and it is a real phenomenon. Activate the glutes, loosen the hip flexors, and vice versa. Not only will stretching your hips flexors help to activate your glutes (which are the most important muscle when talking about a vertical jump)…but it will reduce the friction caused at the hip when jumping, and will help to basically relax them and get them out the way.

Be aware that this is really probably the only static stretch you should do prior to jumping, and you really need to stretch it out like your life depended on it. hold it for 30 seconds plus and rip it, do it twice over and really ensure that you get a good stretch on the fascia as well. The picture below shows you how to stretch your hip flexors.

If you don’t believe me, try it out. All you volleyballers out there trying to get your jump on will find this little tip get you up just that little bit higher. Good luck.

A big shout out to my sponsor workout tips for this post!

TRX Suspension Training Exercises: Row

Lauren — Fri, 13 May 2011 02:16:18 +0000

TRX suspension training is a pretty cool way to get strong, and one I am using very often in my training. We will slowly delve more into this apparatus, because there are so many things you can do on it, but it basically gives you the opportunity to do a body weight workout. If you do it correctly, it’s bloody tough. I’m also undergoing a shoulder rehabilitation at the moment, and the exercises on the TRX are helping me a lot. The basic exercise to start with especially for upper body is the row. We’ve always discussed the importance of rowing in your exercise program, to balance out and make sure that you are as strong pulling as you are pushing. Check out this video…

Push Ups Benefits

Lauren — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:33:06 +0000

The old push up is much more effective than you probably give it credit for. Let’s face it, we head to the gym, think about working out our chest, and the first place we walk to is the bench press. Maybe we will do some dumbbell flies directly after for a bit of extra work. The fact is that push ups benefits are huge, and much more important than you may have been expecting. Besides it being super impressive when you are able to do 100 push ups in a row, there are two major benefits you get from push ups, and one of them you may not have even known existed.

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.

Arm Exercises Without Weights

Lauren — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:55:08 +0000

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.

Upper Back Stretches: Is It What You Need?

Lauren — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:21:17 +0000

I see people complaining of upper back pain and stretching and massaging this area. Although you may actually have tight muscles in this area the cause is often something completely different. In fact, stretching this area might actually cause you more discomfort in the long run. Let me explain…

Majority, and let me stress, not all of us, just most of us will have tight pec muscles. We sit at a desk most of the day, we hunch our shoulders, and we have our pecs in a constantly shortened position. This is bad on so many different accounts. Then we head to the gym and want to improve our bench press. Great intentions, but you might be doing your body more harm that good. Take a look at the average person now standing, their shoulders will be hunched forward, due to tight pectoral muscles. Do a pec stretch and it feels like you might be ripping your pecs apart. So, what in the world do tight pecs have to do with not doing upper back stretches? Well, imagine again this hunched forward posture. Not only will it cause you shoulder problems in the long run, because your are making the space in your shoulder much shorter, but you are also rounding out your upper back. This means your upper back muscles, rhomboids, traps etc, are all in a lengthened position. The dull ache that you feel in your upper back, which is a common complaint, is because you constantly have these muscles on stretch. They become weak and tight, the worst possible combination. You get trigger points in the area, but nothing will change, because your posture is horrific and you will constantly have them on stretch. If you stretch the area, it will only make the symptoms worse. Let me make this more visual.

a viscious cycle...

So What Do I Need To Do?

Simple, you need to loosen the front of your body, i.e your pecs, and you need to strengthen the back. Stretching the upper back area is only exacerbating the pain further and making the problem worse. It is highly likely that you need to do a standing pec stretch

You will also benefit from some trigger point work in your pec area, try this with a tennis ball, for more trigger point info check out this book.

pec trigger points...

and a lot of upper back strength work.

Seated Row
One Arm Row
Lat Pull down

…are just some examples.

Before you go to stretch away your upper back pain….do a pec stretch, and look at yourself in the mirror. If you have rounded shoulders, your pecs are tight, and you don’t do twice as much upper back work as chest work in the gym, then you probably suffer from this condition, and need to get stronger at the back, and looser at the front.

Some Upper Back Stretches!

If you are in absolutely perfect condition and you do in fact have a tight back, here are a couple of good upper back stretches that you can do to help your pain and discomfort. Just be aware that you might need to combine them with some strength training work and pectoral stretches.

Best Way To Build Muscle

Lauren — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:35:50 +0000

There is no secret when looking for the best way to build muscle. Train hard, eat well and you will succeed. Getting these two factors right will ensure that you succeed in your goals to build muscle. Many people lack in one area, and it will mean they are minimizing their potential. For me, the training part of the deal is more important, without it, you simply won’t build muscle. However, you can compromise your efforts greatly if you mess around with your diet too much. By the way, these rules work for women too…

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.

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.

The Best Strength Training Site

Lauren — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:01:23 +0000

If you want to learn about Strength Training, building muscle, and getting strong…then Strong Lifts is the place for you. I don’t link out to too many places, the fact is that there is a lot of crap out there.

Medhi has a step by step program for you to follow, as well as a diet. All geared towards getting strong, building muscle and losing fat. This is a great program that everyone can do, man or woman, and I can assure you, that you will get results. Head on over to Strong Lifts, browse through the blog, download his free ebook, and join the forums. You won’t regret it.

Resistance Tubes: 7 Great Reasons Why You Should Use Them

Lauren — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 11:32:49 +0000

People are always looking for an alternative to going to the gym, and while I do not advocate using resistance tubes a a complete substitute for any gym workout, you still can get a lot of benefits from having one lying around, and using it appropriately. You simply wont get the adaptations from using it like you would lifting heavy weights, because in most cases you can’t mimic the exact movements you need, with an appropriate resistance level (although you can still have yourself a pretty tough workout!!). However, you certainly can get benefits, and you can use them to help enhance your training considerably. I prefer to look at them as a complement to your exercise program, rather than a complete supplement.

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.

7 Best Hamstring Exercises

Lauren — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:40:16 +0000

Hamstrings are the forgotten muscle. When we think of legs, most of us will head straight to quad work. This is great and totally necessary, but without balance in your training, you are not going to go very far. It is extremely important to include a range of hamstring exercises into your training, and you often need to isolate them relatively. There are very few people out there that actually have adequate hamstring development, and there is usually a lot of work needed.

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.