Pulling Exercise #2 – The Reverse Row Sit Back

I developed this exercise as a way to work on the neglected angles of motion in between a row and a pull-up.  It’s a deceptively hard exercise that’ll get your back muscles working in a way you’ve probably never experienced before!

This is best done using a set of rings.

1. Start with your arms straight and in line with the rings, with your knees bent, and your back parallel to the ground.
2. Pull yourself up as far as you can while keeping your back horizontal, then keep pulling as you sit your butt back and lift up, ending in the chin-up position.
   
   http://gmb.io/pull-up-rings/

Pulling Exercise #1 – The Pulling Prep (Lat Activation Exercise)

The best way to counteract the imbalances you likely have in your pulling/pushing muscles is to incorporate some pulling exercises into your training!

Below, I’ll show you three pulling exercises I recommend using to strengthen the weaknesses you may have in your back, shoulders, and arms.

I demonstrate these exercises on the gymnastic rings, because the instability of the rings strengthens those muscles even more than performing these exercises on a stable apparatus, like a bar. However, if you don’t have a pair of rings, you can certainly perform these exercises on a bar (though it is recommended to perform the second exercise with rings, as you’ll see).

Pulling Exercise #1 – The Pulling Prep (Lat Activation Exercise)

This fundamental movement is the key to proper performance in all pulling exercises.

The pulling prep teaches you to start all of your pulls the right way, and once mastered becomes automatic and ingrained into your pulling.

http://gmb.io/pull-up-rings/

Pull Up Progression for Greater Strength

How many times did you pull yourself up off the ground today?

It might sound like a funny question, but unless you have a monster truck, ride a horse, or are a professional rock climber, you probably don’t do very many pulling movements each day.

Compare this with how many times you use your “pushing” muscles each day. It’s a fairly common daily movement.

Consider how many “pushing” movements you’ve done today:

• Pushed yourself up out of a chair
• Pushed “something,” i.e. shopping carts, strollers, lawnmowers, etc.
• While sitting on the ground, supported yourself with your arms on the ground or leaning on your elbows

If that rings true, you’re like most people who just don’t do a lot of pulling motions throughout the day. What happens is the “pushing” muscles get overworked, while the “pulling” muscles are underworked.

No worries. The 3 video tutorials (ed - next 3 posts) will help you balance that out with some good ol’ fashioned tuggin‘.

Why You Should Stop Neglecting Your Precious Pulling Muscles

I haven’t read any statistics on this, but it’s a safe bet that the average 30-year-old in America today can’t do a single pull-up.

That may be a sad (and scary!) thought, but our modern-day lifestyle just doesn’t require many pulling movements. It goes the same way with exercising (with the exception of the people that like to hop on the rowing machine) –  pushing-dominant activities abound. There’s usually a dozen bench presses for every pull-up bar at your local gym.

We no longer have to worry too much about pulling ourselves up into a tree for safety (and escaping attacks from wild animals). But this outright neglect of some of the largest muscles in our body is likely a reason for many physical problems people are experiencing today.

Poor posture, nagging shoulder pain, aching backs… a lot of these can be traced to strength imbalances between our pushing and pulling muscles.

Your body can handle only so much before unbalanced forces start to break down vulnerable areas.

Maybe we SHOULD have a hungry bear chase us around every once in awhile, if that’ll get us thinking about the importance of a strong back!

http://gmb.io/pull-up-rings/

Study Reveals the 3 Things You Need to Lose Weight

JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images

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• Dieters often spend hours online trying to find the best eating plan or the newest workout trend or the most effective supplements for weight loss.  Many times, the pills are too expensive, the diets are too complicated and the workouts are too exhausting. But a new study finds that all of that work may not be necessary. Researchers found that there are essentially three things you need if you want to lose weight.

3 Things You Need for Weight Loss

So what does it take to lose weight? According to a major review of weight loss studies, dieters who combined these three things were most successful at weight loss.

• How Does This Help Me Lose Weight?A diet that reduced food intake by about 500 calories per day
• More physical activity like walking for 20-25 minutes each day
• Support from a trained professional such as a doctor, registered nurse, or registered dietitian

The study revealed that when dieters did one of the things on the list but not the others they were less successful.  And even dieters who did only two things lost less weight. The biggest losers were those who combined all three: diet, exercise and support.

Maybe the results of the study are not surprising to you. After all, the fact that we need to eat less and move more isn't exactly groundbreaking news.  But there are a few takeaways that may be helpful if you are trying to slim down.

First, don't underestimate the role that your physician can play in your weight loss journey.  Your doctor can help you to understand how weight loss can improve your health.  He or she can also provide support and referrals to other professionals like a registered dietitian who can help make weight loss easier for you.

And lastly, you can't expect big results if you only make small changes. If you really want to lose weight, you need to tackle each of the three tasks if you want to see real results. And you need to be precise in your efforts. Record your daily calorie intake, measure your weekly workouts and stay accountable to a health coach or other professional to reach your weight loss goal and keep the weight off for good. Next, remember that weight loss is about changing your lifestyle, not just your diet.  If you change your eating habits to slim down, that's great.  But you also need to change your daily routine to include enough activity for weight loss and you need to connect with others to address emotional and behavioral changes as well.

 

By Malia Frey

Weight Loss Expert

http://weightloss.about.com/od/Weight-Loss-Basics/fl/Study-Reveals-the-3-Things-You-Need-to-Lose-Weight.htm

New Gym routine

With resolutions made, my new gym routine has now been unleashed!



My focus is on compression of schedule by super-setting as much as possible. This increases the intensity of the work-out. Already noticed how grueling it is but getting through the session with  more intensity and in less time than ever.

The regime at present is focused on currently 3 super-sets of:

Day 1

Push ups / chin ups
Wide push ups / inverted rows on TRX
Dips / Hanging Leg Raises
V-Sits / Planks
Pike Presses / Bridges

I'm using the rowing machine for a warm up if I'm in the gym and a rebounder if at home.

Day 2

Goblet squats with kettle bell + Bar bell deadlifts
Gym ring / TRX assisted pistol squats + kettle bell walking lunges
Box jumps + weighted calf raises

Day 3

Giant sets of

Jump rope (if at home - not good enough to display in gym yet!)
Burpees
Box jumps
Sprinting (either 'real' or rebounder or on Curve machine if in gym)

Finish if at home with some bag work (boxing)

Happy gyming!

Andy

PS - going to do a HIIT master-class on posts soon - keep your eyes peeled

PPS will then follow with a Master Class on Kettlebells which I shall then incorporate into my regime

New Year, New Beginning!

Hi All


Happy New Year (belatedly)



Hope you have enjoyed the blog I kept in 2014 and have gained some great ideas on how to get fitter, stronger and slimmer!

Apologies for some radio silence over the Christmas week(s) but I have basically chilled - probably a bit too much. The pounds have crept back at an alarming rate  - a lot to do with the the number of functions I had to attend during late November / December which are real weight gainers.

These drinks and eating sessions are a real issue which I must resolve in 2015. Certainly I'm going to ensure they are better spaced apart and hopefully fewer. This is one of my resolutions for the year.

Binge sessions are such an issue for many people - a massive calorie injection at the time, a loss of desire to workout the next day (and possible loss of gym time that same day) and the desire to eat more that next day to overcome the hangover.

Another of my resolutions is to make myself do an exercise session the 'day after' irrespective of how I feel. This is intended to reactivate my body.

I hope you haven't broken any of your resolutions yet?

A New Year and a New Beginning!! Here's to 2015!

Best Wishes to you all

Andy

New year, new you... new fitness band

I'm determined that 2015 is going to be my year to finally get fit.

Continue reading the main story

But I am not the sort of person who can easily resist eating chocolate and/or sitting on the sofa, so I've invested in something to help me keep my eye on the ball.

I'm going back to basics and writing this on the eve of day three of having a fitness band attached to my right wrist.

It informs me that today, among other things, I have walked 9,080 paces and burned 709 calories.

It even gave me a little technicolour fanfare in honour of my athletic achievement - I'm assuming it isn't capable of sarcasm.

I'm a little dubious as it seemed to record 600 steps between my bedroom and the shower this morning, and frankly the entire house and garden isn't that big - but if it's a glitch, it's a glitch in my favour so I'm happy not to dwell on it.

It may be the middle of winter in the UK but this is how I hoped my fitness band would make me feel
Losing Luke

On Day One my main task was recalibrating the device - it's a premium-priced product so I got mine second-hand from an auction site.

This involved creating yet another online profile in order to convince my new accessory that I am no longer a 90kg (198.4lb) man called Luke.

Mission accomplished - or so I thought. I decided to take a long walk to really put it through its paces, dragging the family out with me.

A few hours later, following both the walk and an exhausting session running around after a pair of excited toddlers in a not-so-local park, I was horrified to discover that I hadn't even burned off the Brussels sprouts I had had with my Christmas lunch.

Pushing a buggy with both hands, it turns out, even for more than three miles, does not register movement on the pedometer because you're not swinging your arms. That was lesson number one.

This probably wouldn't count either

Poor effort

On Day Two I clocked up a respectable activity profile but disaster struck when I attempted to sync the device. The ghost of Luke was still in the machine, it seemed. A repeated "communications failure" left me with no choice but to do a factory reset.

I lost my entire score.

After the reset I walked a few paces before attempting to sync it again, as a test. Of course this time it worked perfectly, giving me a daily score of four steps. I'm supposed to hit 10,000.

The app helpfully gave me a graph to indicate just how poor my effort was.

"How other women your age got on today," was on the right-hand side, a big, solid chunk of activity and well-being. "How you got on," was on its left, a tiny little flat pancake of shameful slothery.

"Why not share this with your friends?" the app asked, helpfully providing a myriad of buttons linking me to all the big social media platforms.

I can't repeat my exact response. Needless to say swearing at a fitness band does not improve your score.

Is this exercise?

New tricks

This brings me to Day Three. While I'm tentatively enjoying the process of monitoring my progress and my ego has been thoroughly stroked with the appreciative light show I received after 9,000 paces, I'm also starting to get a bit obsessed with it.

I want to check it all the time. I'm trying to catch it out - does it count when I lift my hand to drink tea, or chop vegetables?

My partner keeps asking me why I'm looking at the time so often. I'm starting to question whether I'm monitoring it more than it is monitoring me.

I'm also now wondering about my heart rate and blood pressure. Would it be sensible to track that too? My heart hasn't let me down yet. But now I'm wondering how I can possibly know that for certain.

It's not exactly a reassuring thought.

Baby steps

Shortly after the birth of my first child I visited a friend who had invested in a monitoring device for her baby's cot. She invited my son to take his nap on it.

It was the longest sleep of my life, if not his. Every time he paused for breath, or twitched a limb, something beeped on the monitor, sending me running up the stairs.

My fitness band would have had a field day, but by the time the baby woke up I was a nervous wreck.

The baby didn't seem that bothered about his health being monitored

One of the big themes of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year - which begins in Las Vegas next week - and indeed the tech scene in general, is health monitoring. Everything from your hosiery to your headphones seems set to want to make sure you're in good shape.

It sounds like fun, but is the infrastructure reliable enough? It was irritating to reset my fitness band because of a glitch but would I feel so blasé about a heart monitor - or the call from my GP if the data was eventually synced with health professionals, as some tech firms propose?

Time will tell whether we are ready to have our every neural impulse recorded and tracked. It could of course save countless lives. But on the other hand, perhaps life is truly too short.

There's a famous quote, attributed to various sources, often somebody called Shing Xiong although nobody seems certain.

"In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took," it goes.

"But how many moments took your breath away."

By Zoe KleinmanTechnology reporter, BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30623610