Saturday 26 July 2008

The Importance Of CV Workouts

Many people may not realise the importance of building a CV workout in to your routine but to understand its importance you only have to look at a bodybuilder to see how much muscle they have while still retaining a low body fat percentage.

CV is important to keep your body fat percentage down and keep a strong healthy heart and circulatory system.

There is many ways to get a CV workout in to your routine, some people go to the gym twice in a day carrying out a CV routine in the morning and lifting weights in the evening while others keep them in two seperate training days....one thing you will notice is that no one carries out a CV workout in the same training session as lifting weights.

Its important to keep your CV workout seperate as you will expend alot of your energy while doing CV and not be able to carry out a strong weight workout.

A very common CV workout many weight lifters and bodybuilders enjoy is running or cycling, even Arnie used to build running sessions in to his workout.

I dont actually have a structured CV workout as I use walking as my CV training, by this I mean that I walk everywhere including the 2.5 miles (3.75 kilometres) home after my weight workout at the gym.

One important note to make is that your CV workout needs to be no more than say 30 minutes in length as sustained CV work means your body could start utilising muscle as an energy source when it is running low on energy.

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Optimum 100% Whey Protein

As we know protein is the staple of all bodybuilders/powerlifters diet, without protein all our efforts would be in vein and this is where protein products come in to their own.

While you can go out and fork out loads of money on high end protein products I have found it is not always the expensive products that work the best. Optimum offer a great low cost whey protein powder that comes in a huge array of different flavours from Banana cream to Rocky road.

The most amazing thing about Optimum 100% whey protein is that it is made up of twenty four grams of protein for every thirty two gram scoop while only having 1.5 grams of fat and 4 grams of carbohydrates.

Optimum 100% whey protein is only 130 calories per serving so is great to add to any meal to ensure you are hitting your daily protein intake which, as mentioned previously, supports your muscle growth!

Sunday 20 July 2008

The Deltoid Muscles

The Deltoid muscles, otherwise known as the deltoids, make up the muscles of the shoulder. The three deltoid muscles are the lateral (side), posterior (rear) and Anterior (front).

Overall the primary function of the deltoid muscles is to move the arm away from the body, the Anterior deltoid help raise your arm in front of you, the Lateral deltoid moves your arm up from your side and the Posterior deltoid moves the arm backwards towards your back.

When carrying out many different exercises in your workout from chest exercises to back exercises you can be working different deltoid muscles as a secondary muscle due to the movements the deltoid muscles support.


A good shoulder workout is important to not only increase your strength in the shoulders but also support your bench press and back exercises such as the barbell row or seated row.

Even though the deltoid muscles give alot of support to other muscles when carrying out exercises they are not actually a very strong muscle group due to the size of each muscle. When carrying out isolated weight exercises on the deltoids you will find that lower weights with good form is the best way to increase size and strength.

Saturday 19 July 2008

Shoulder Press Exercise

The shoulder press, also known as the overhead press is an exercise that works the deltoid muscles of the shoulder.

The shoulder press can be performed standing or sitting, if performed while standing the exercise also helps develop the core muscles (abdominal and obliques) and also the costal muscles as these are used to help stabilise the weight.

If you are really wanting to build your shoulder muscles then this is a great exercise to incooporate in to your workout.

Shoulder Press

Equipment - Barbell or Dumbbells of desired weight (Use Smithy if desired)

Preparation - Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, or seat straight and with an overhand grip lift the weights above your head so your arms are nearly straight (slightly bent at the elbow).

Movement - Bring the barbell/dumbbells down in front of your face to your shoulders and push the bar back above your head keeping your body rigid so it is your shoulder muscles doing the work, then repeat.

Reps/Sets 8 to 12 reps for 4 sets

Standing Shoulder Press



Seated Shoulder Press

Saturday 12 July 2008

Intermediate Chest Workout

Its time to show you the intermediate chest workout (thats unless you have downloaded my free weight training plan). This intermediate chest workout also has the addition of triceps exercises as these are the secondary muscle group when training the chest. This means training the chest and triceps together is the best way to get the most out of both muscle groups.

After completing the beginners workout and wanting to push yourself that bit further this intermediate chest workout will certainly do this. By mixing up your chest exercises your sure to hit the pectoral muscles from every angle ensuring a great workout.

Incline Bench Press - 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps
Dumbbell Press - 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps
Decline Bench Press - 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps
Dumbbell fly - 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps
Skull Crushers - 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps
Cable Pushdowns - 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps

If you complete this intermediate chest workout while eating correctly you can see strength gains weekly!

Disclaimer - With any workout please only lift what you physically can, its more important to lift lighter and correctly than lift heavy and damage yourself.

Sunday 6 July 2008

Bodybuilding Body Composition Calculator

When bodybuilding body composition is very important. Bodybuilding is all about sculpting the body to be as asthetically pleasing as possible and to achieve this you need your body to be as totally in proportion like an Adonis.

What becomes an issue with bodybuilding is that some areas of the body develop quicker than others due to a persons genetic makeup, this makes it difficult for a bodybuilder to really manage the way they train to achieve the ultimate dream of true size that is proportionate.

To help all the bodybuilders out there I have developed a body composition calculator in Excel that works out the development of a bodybuilders individual body parts in relation to their height and weight. the calculator advises whether each body part is under developed, developed or over developed in relation to all other body parts.

To get your free body composition calculator click here

Please feel free to come back and comment on this body composition calculator.

Saturday 5 July 2008

Wrist Holding Me Back

I have been working hard the last few months on increasing my strength and have really pushed forward achieving what I wanted.

My only concern for the last few months is my biceps. Now I dont actually have any problem with my biceps, the problem is that when carrying out training on my biceps using a supinated (underhand) grip like that used in the barbell biceps curl I get a pain in my left wrist that is very uncomfortable.

I am unsure what is causing this pain but it is enough to stop me from lifting any weights for my biceps in a supinated grip so I have had to adapt my training by carrying out hammer curls and other exercises.

On Saturday next week I am visiting a professional sports therapist to review my wrist and see how I can get back to carrying out my biceps training without pain or issue.

I believe this shows that little injuries or pre-existing issues can be picked up as you train, whats important is to get them checked out as soon as possible and not leave them like I have.