Fitness Exposé

Bodybuilding Secrets Exposed

You are here: Home / Archives for Featured

Dumbbell Bench Press for Explosive Chest Growth

By Leave a Comment

The dumbbell bench press can bring about explosive chest growth when added to your chest workout routine. I personally use this movement as substitute to the flat barbell bench press.

Dumbbell Bench Press is a Compound Movement

The dumbbell bench press is a compound movement like the barbell bench press is. You work the same muscles as well. It is a tremendous mass builder for both the chest and shoulders. The triceps also benefit tremendously from this compound movement.

Getting Into Position for the Dumbbell Bench Press

You will sit at the end of a flat bench and grab two dumbbells with an overhand grip. With the dumbbells resting on your knees you will carefully lie back. You will raise the dumbbells simultaneously. Be sure your arms are at right angles before you press the dumbbells up towards the locked out position. When you reach the locked out position the dumbbells should be close together (almost touching each other).

Executing the Dumbbell Bench Press

From the locked out position, slowly lower the dumbbells under control. They should wind up at the sides of your chest. Now slowly raise the dumbbells back to the locked out position, keeping your arms close to your body. Be sure to do this movement under control.

Benefits of the Dumbbell Bench Press

The main benefit of this exercise over the flat barbell bench press is that there is a greater stretch of your chest muscles at the bottom position. In addition, there is a much better peak contraction at the top of the movement. I find that my stabilizer muscles always need some work and the dumbbell bench press does the trick for me.

Explosive Chest Development

The exercise is very good at developing mass in the middle and outer pectoral regions. This is why alot of bodybuilders opt for including this exercise in their programs. I would say that if you are interested in explosive chest growth, this exercise needs to be in your program.

Related Posts:

Low Carb Protein Shake

By Leave a Comment

Low carb protein shakes are a Godsend for the low carb dieter. Most of us doing carb cycling have our protein requirements set pretty high and in order to hit our caloric requirements on low carb days we need to supplement with protein shakes. While I recorded a video for this, it did not come out well, so I am going to do my best to describe the shake and the preparation of it.

Mike's Low Carb Cherry Bomb

You need to collect up the following ingredients:

100% Whey (Cytosport) – 2 scoops

8 oz. of cold water

1/2 cup of frozen cherries

2 tbsp. of ground flax seeds

1 tbsp. of UDO's 3-6-9 Blend

In a blender, combine all ingredients. I use a VitaMix blender, so when I blend it I use the variable speed, starting it at the lowest speed. I gradually up the speed until I can switch it over to high speed. I let it blend until everything is liquified. I love the flavor of this shake. The combination of the chocolate whey and the frozen cherries is just really tasty.

Nutritional Information:

545 calories per shake
57.5 grams of protein
22.5 grams of carbs
24 grams of fat

It should be noted that 24 grams of fat may seem really high, but 20 grams of fat comes from the Udo's Oil Blend and the ground flax seeds, so the fat is from a good source. When going low carb the danger for men is that the testosterone levels will drop. Keeping the daily fat intake at about 100 grams will help keep the testosterone levels up.

Related Posts:

Book Review: The New High Intensity Training

By 1 Comment

When reviewing The New High Intensity Training by Ellington Darden, I took into consideration alot of factors. My focus in today's review will be effective background material, effective support of the subject matter and effective training programs.

The New High Intensity Training – Background Given

Dr. Ellington Darden, the author of this book, is one of many people who support the findings of Arthur Jones which ultimately became termed High Intensity Training. Dr. Darden has studied the principles of High Intensity Training and presents them very clearly in this book. His explanations make sense and are easy to understand. The reader will come away with a strong understanding of High Intensity Training.

Dr. Darden explains how Arthur Jones discovered the principles behind High Intensity Training. He examines the efforts of several young bodybuilders as they implemented the principles given by Jones. These real world examples help the reader understand the validity behind the principles Arthur Jones laid out.

The New High Intensity Training – Support of the Principles

To show us that High Intensity Training works, Dr. Darden begins with a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Apparently, Arnold was not too impressed with High Intensity Training until he gave it a shot and was humbled by it. This is a great story because Arnold is such a well-known figure in the body building world. He is someone who should be able to handle just about any training method thrown at him, yet High Intensity Training hit him pretty hard.

Dr. Darden goes on to tell the stories of several more body builders, including Mike and Ray Mentzer. The Mentzers became huge proponents of the High Intensity Training principles.

The New High Intensity Training – Training Programs

The training programs presented by Dr. Darden have been seen before in other books he has written. However, the programs still have relevance if this is your initial exposure to High Intensity Training. I personally find it very educational when someone with alot of knowledge lays out a training plan. I like to study their approach to the programming and utilize it in my own programming. I find this to be invaluable.

The New High Intensity Training – The Verdict

If you've read other books by Ellington Darden I would skip this one. If you want to know everything you can about High Intensity Training then this is a must-read book. The content is easy to read and understand. I definitely recommend reading it for students of High Intensity Training.

Related Posts:

Regain Physique Transformation Momentum

By 2 Comments

physique transformationWhen executing a physique transformation there are alot of things that can get in your way. While there are strategies to overcome potential derailment, there are also strategies to overcome short forays off the chosen path. I believe the later to be the most important.

Regaining Physique Transformation Momentum

The list of things that can derail you from your physique transformation is long and involved. Among the top items on the list would be holidays, visits from family or friends you have not seen in some time and spur of the moment food decisions. Each of these can be dealt with by the same method. If you make the choice (and it is a choice) to go off your plan, you need to find a way to regain the momentum you previously had. This is important to do as quickly as possible so that you do not continue to stay off your plan.

Short Fast for Physique Transformation Focus Shift

If you go away for a holiday weekend like I just did for the 4th of July and you stray from your plan a bit, a brief fast (1 day) is a great way to let your body recalibrate and get back on your plan. You can stop eating for 24 hours and then resume with your scheduled plan. This enables your body to purge the excess food you took in while keeping you focused on your body and what it needs.

While I am not a big fan of fasting as a regular part of your nutritional plan, I think that short, well-timed fasts can play a role in reestablishing focus on your ultimate physique transformation goal. Your brief one day fast will get your focus back and enable you to continue the path you had previously established.

Meal Replacement Shakes for Physique Transformation Reenergization

If fasting just gets to you and you can't do it, try using protein shakes for a full day just to reconnect with your body and the plan you had for transforming your physique. You will drastically drop calories and especially carbs with this approach. If you are like me and you have overdone the carbs during your holiday, this will get you back on track and fast! At the same time, you will be providing your body with the nourishment it needs. I also add ground flax seeds to the shakes to give myself some fiber and fat content.

React Quickly for Physique Transformation Success

Regardless of what you do, you need to react quickly or run the risk of permanently being derailed. Our minds are interesting things. When we make choices that go against what we planned to do our mind tends to make us feel very badly about those choices. This can tend to make us give up on our plan entirely. This is why a quick reaction to the issue is essential to future success.By jumping on it right away and correcting the problem, you override your mind's tricks. Thus, remember to get back on the plan as soon as you can.

Related Posts:

High Intensity Training for Massive Gains

By 1 Comment

When it comes to training there are many different philosophies, but most fall into two categories: high volume or low volume. High volume training would be the typical body part split where you do 4 sets of multiple exercises to blast one part of your body daily. Low volume training would include my personal favorite, High Intensity Training.

High Intensity Training Explained

High Intensity Training's fundamentals involve the concept that exercise should be brief, infrequent and intense. By performing training that uses a high level of effort you stimulate your body to increase in both size and strength. With High Intensity Training, as your strength increases the weight you push will progressively get bigger. Because the intensity is so high in these training sessions, they are kept very short (generally under 45 minutes in total length).

Training in this manner is done full body. There are generally no body part splits utilized (although Mike Mentzer did have some body part split routines that used the HIT principles). When training in this manner you will use one set per exercise and take that set to complete failure. It is thought that by training briefly and infrequently your body will recover better.

Recovery with High Intensity Training

When utilizing the HIT principles of training you are never training on consecutive days. There is always at least 48 hours between training sessions. This gives your body an optimum amount of time to recover. To understand the reasoning behind this you have to understand what happens when you train your muscles.

A typical high volume method will have you blasting away at your muscles with a large number of sets. Each set creates micro tears in your muscles. These must be repaired in order for muscle growth to happen. Now think about creating these tears as being equivalent to digging holes in the ground and then having to fill them. The act of filling the holes back up takes energy. Your body is in the same position with high volume training. There is a huge ditch that must be filled. That is why high volume programs only have you train a particular body part once per week. However, with HIT you are not digging as large a hole, so your body takes less time to fill the hole, giving you the opportunity to hit muscle groups more than once a week.

Progression with High Intensity Training

When doing HIT your goal is to either increase the weight from your previous session or increase the repetitions performed. It is a constant competition wtih the previous training session. This forces progressive overload to happen. The strength gains most people see on HIT are tremendous. This is because the load is increased slowly, but steadily. You force your body to push the weight you are using as hard as possible. If you are aiming for 10 repetitions and are able to complete them, you just keep going to failure. This would then be an indication that it is time to increase the load. You continually do this at each training session.

Famous Advocates of High Intensity Training

There were many famous body builders who utilized the HIT principles. Among the biggest names are Dorian Yates, Mike Mentzer, Ray Mentzer, Lee Labrada, Casey Vitor and Sergio Oliva. These men had tremendous physiques.

If you are tired of pushing out set after set of bicep curls I suggest you give HIT a try. I have yet to meet someone who did not benefit from the principles described in HIT.

Related Posts:

New eBook!