The Best Exercise Equipment for Abs and the Best Exercises for Abs

“Improving in leg raises will cause the biggest impact on ab development.” –Rusty Moore

I’m tired of seeing ads for ridiculous abs equipment.

Whether it’s those ab rockers that supposedly help you do crunches more effectively or those ludicrous belts that claim to work your core without you doing anything, there are so many scams out there it’s not even funny. I could go on about this, but I’m not even going to bother. Instead, I’ll just point out a couple of things. First, when it comes to getting a defined midsection, the type of abs exercises you do are of secondary importance to your diet and overall fitness regimen… by far. Next, when you do work your abs, you don’t really need any equipment to get an awesome workout, especially not the gimmicky ones you see on late night TV. Having said that, I do have a couple of suggestions for the best exercise equipment for abs and the best exercises for abs which will actually help you get results.

Getting visible abs isn't as out of reach as you might think.

The first piece of equipment isn’t even an abs-specific contraption. Continue reading →

How to Become Lean and Toned

“If you wish to grow thinner, diminish your dinner.” –Henry Sambrooke Leigh

Getting lean and toned isn’t a one-way street.

In my last post, I talked about how to become lean and toned and why it requires a two-pronged attack. As I mentioned, I choose to focus five days a week on fat loss and two days a week on muscle building. I haven’t always followed this approach in the past, but lately I have and I’ve been extremely happy with the results. In this article, I’m going to go into detail on what exactly I do during each of these types of days. What might surprise you is how very different the characteristics of these days are and this is exactly why you can’t do both at the same time.

Becoming lean and toned is a two-way street because you need to focus on burning fat and building muscle which require different tactics.

The fat burning days are all about discipline. Continue reading →

What is Lean Muscle and How Do You Get It?

“I go for two kinds of men. The kind with muscles, and the kind without.” –Mae West

Becoming lean and muscular is the holy grail of fitness.

The Hollywood celebrity look is often placed on a pedestal and for good reason. Look at movie stars like Brad Pitt, Ryan Reynolds, and Taylor Lautner. Then look at the people around you. How many people among your family, friends, and coworkers have achieved this kind of physique? Chances are few to none. The reason for this is simple. Everyday people either don’t know what it takes to get into this type of condition, don’t care enough to do so, or both. Almost everyone I know falls into one of these three categories. When you think about the build of the stars I mentioned, one of the first things that comes to mind is “lean muscle”. But what is lean muscle?

What is lean muscle?

What is lean muscle? Continue reading →

Sports Drink Comparison: Market vs. Homemade

“It’s true that the time immediately after a weight workout is a prime opportunity for protein synthesis.” –Mark Sisson

I used to not buy into the idea of recovery drinks.

Recently, I have changed my stance. I started doing P90X about three weeks ago and one of the “add-ons” they recommend for the program is a post-workout recovery drink. I’ll admit, I used to believe that simply taking in enough protein throughout the day would be sufficient to get the most out of my workouts. Then I watched the intro video for the P90X recovery drink by Mark Sisson. I’m a huge fan of Mark, so I decided to get on board and give the recovery drink a shot. I began having a recovery drink within the recommended one hour window immediately following a workout and I have been pleasantly surprised.

Don't underestimate the power of a quality recovery drink!

I’ve noticed it does actually help quite a bit. Continue reading →

Abs Blueprint 1.0: The Best Workout for Abs

“You could have the deepest most dense abs in the world. If you aren’t lean it won’t matter.” –Rusty Moore

Six pack abs are the pinnacle of fitness.

For guys at least. For women, the equivalent is a sleek, flat midsection with a hint of muscle tone. Rusty Moore just created a course that will show you how to achieve either one. He’s called it Abs Blueprint 1.0 and he’s giving it away for free if you “like” his Fitness Black Book Facebook fan page. This is an amazing give away because the information in this report is certainly worth the price of a normal paid product. It’s only 44 pages long, but it gets right down to business on the best workout for abs without any fluff or gimmicks. I don’t want to give away too much. I just want to provide a sneak peek into what I believe to be the best six pack abs course available.

Click to access a free video on how to create dense and defined abs.

This isn’t a magic bullet recipe for obtaining visible abs. Continue reading →

How to Improve Your Muscle and Strength Workout Routines

“Chronic low grade inflammation is a link between obesity, overeating and disease.” -Brad Pilon

Does your lifestyle impact your ability to build muscle?

Brad Pilon says it does. I am a huge fan of Brad Pilon’s work. He wrote Eat Stop Eat, which is essentially the bible of intermittent fasting for fat loss. His most recent research has focused on the inflammation theory of muscle growth. This theory attempts to explain the connection between the body’s inflammatory response and its ability to build muscle. While this theory is still a work in progress, it does address how your lifestyle impacts the effectiveness of your muscle and strength workout routines. It is also backed up by science. In fact, it may be too scientific for the average person, so I’m going to do my best to summarize it for the layman.

Inflammation... good or bad?

What is inflammation? Continue reading →

The Best Fitness Workouts for Women

“My guess is that most women would MUCH rather have a physique similar to a ‘Bond Girl’, than the typical fitness model.” –Rusty Moore

This post is for all the ladies out there.

What if I told you that the majority of fitness advice targeted towards women is counterproductive to their goals? Unfortunately, this just happens to be the case. The fact of the matter is that men and women have different objectives when it comes to achieving a certain look. As a result, they should train differently. Most women want to achieve a sleek feminine look. So what are the best fitness workouts for women to accomplish this? Surprisingly, there has been a gaping lack of information on this subject… until now.

Which of these female physiques is more appealing?

Visual Impact for Women: the first fitness product of its kind. Continue reading →

How to Get Muscles Fast

“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” –Tim Ferriss

Happy New Year!

I’m sure everyone has started thinking about their New Years resolutions for 2011. Heading up the list of fitness-related resolutions will undoubtedly be the ever popular “lose weight.” In my last post, I discussed how I believe lowering your body fat percentage is a superior fitness goal to losing weight. Also in that post, I showed my results of tracking my body fat percentage for over a year. I went from 155.4 lbs and 16.2% body fat (25.2 lbs of fat, 130.2 lbs of lean mass) in September 2009 to 135.0 lbs at 6.1% body fat (8.2 lbs of fat, 126.8 lbs of lean mass) in December 2010. If you’re wondering how I lost 17 lbs of fat, read some of my posts on strategic eating. I would say diet accounted for at least 90% of this. Now, I’m interested in how to get muscles fast.

Happy 2011 to all!

I have a new fitness goal in 2011. Continue reading →

The Best Way to Get Ripped Before an Event

“This is one of the last times this year you’re gonna see the abs.” –Usher

Got something big coming up?

Many people want to know the best way to get ripped for a big event. Whether it’s a wedding, a beach vacation, or a photo shoot, certain occasions call for you to look your best. So, I’ve been MIA for a while because I had an event to attend: my friend’s wedding. After that, I was out of town visiting my parents and studying for an actuarial exam, not that you all care about any of that. What you may care about is that I had an opportunity to get event-ready and blog about it. Another one of my friends jokingly challenged me to see who could get a better six-pack before the wedding, so I ran with it. I had a couple of months before the wedding, so I decided to take on the challenge whether or not the competition was actually going to take place (which it never did).

A beach vacation is a great time to get event ready.

What exactly did I do? Continue reading →

5 Reasons You Need To Be Doing a Bodyweight Workout

Strength training doesn’t have to be limited to weightlifting. A bodyweight workout is versatile, efficient, and can help develop functional strength.

Here is a guest post on the importance of a bodyweight workout by Rafi Bar-Lev.

Bio: Rafi Bar-Lev is a fitness fanatic and founder of the community fitness site, Passionate Fitness – Fitness Tips. He recently wrote a post about compound exercises. Check it out!

There are too many people who are intimidated about getting into great shape specifically because they think they need to pay for a fancy gym membership or learn complicated exercises with weights. But the truth is you DON’T need weights, or a gym membership, or anything at all in order to get into great shape. All you need is your body!

Pullups are my favorite bodyweight exercise.

With that being said, here are 5 reasons you need to be doing bodyweight exercises: Continue reading →

Perform Superset Workouts for Maximum Efficiency

“In order to maintain continual fat loss and muscle gain, you must continually change your program variables.” –Craig Ballantyne

What are superset workouts?

Basically, supersets are two sets of exercises done back-to-back with no rest in between. The two sets of exercises typically involve different muscle groups (so that you can actually make it through the second set). A common example seen in Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training program is a leg exercise such as squats followed by a chest exercise such as dumbbell bench press or pushups. There are numerous advantages to doing superset workouts, the two biggest being that they are more effective and more efficient than traditional workouts.

I wonder how many supersets he can do.

Supersets are more effective than traditional workouts. Continue reading →

Cardio Exercises at Home: An Intense 15 Minute Workout

“Body weight circuits are kickin’ my butt!” –Rusty Moore

Do you ever have days when you only have 15 minutes to work out?

I know I do. When this happens, most people will usually elect to skip their workout because they don’t think they have enough time to do anything worthwhile. I used to be guilty of this myself. Now, I know better. About a year ago, I came across Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training Crazy 8 workout on Fitness Black Book. The first time I tried it, I was completely gassed after only two circuits. This is when I knew that this workout was the real deal. You can even do these unique bodyweight cardio exercises at home.

I wonder how many Spiderman pushups Spiderman can do...

What is the Crazy 8? Continue reading →

Workout Routines to Build Muscle

“If you’re working out in front of a mirror and watching your muscles grow, your ego has reached a point where it is now eating itself. That’s why I believe there should be a psychiatrist at every health club, so that when they see you doing this, they will take you away for a little chat.” – Lewis Black

Most people don’t understand how to train to achieve visually appealing muscle gains.

I used to be the same way. When I first started working out in college, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just followed the lead of my friends since they were more experienced than me when it came to weightlifting. The type of workouts I performed were similar to what 90% of the guys in the gym were doing, so I assumed that there was nothing wrong with them and that they were the right workout routines to build muscle. In truth, it wasn’t a terrible routine, but there was one big problem. There was no direction. It was like setting out on a road trip by simply driving in the general direction of the intended destination.

Even a monkey can workout without any direction.

I was too focused on increasing my numbers on each exercise without giving any thought to how I was lifting. Continue reading →

The Best Home Gym Equipment

Adjustable dumbbells may be the best fitness investment you will ever make.

The best part about having a home gym is that I don't have to be around people like this.

When I was in college, I had free access to a fantastic gym. Imagine a facility the size of a grocery store with almost every piece of workout equipment you can think of. This place was meathead heaven, which was appropriate since there were a lot of meatheads in college. So if you are a college student with free access to a great facility, then this article probably won’t apply to you. Still, you might want to read it anyway because one day, you will be in the real world where plenty of people are searching for the best home gym equipment.

After I graduated, I was faced with a concept that was foreign to me:

Paying money to workout. Well, that’s not entirely true. My condo complex has a small gym that’s free for residents. At first, I did the majority of my weight training there, but it wasn’t the same. If there were more than three people in the gym at once, it felt crowded. Of course, everyone went to work out at the same time as me (around 5 or 6 o’clock, right after work) which left me constantly waiting “in line” to use equipment. Needless to say, I got frustrated and immediately began searching for an alternative.

Then, I discovered adjustable dumbbells. Continue reading →

Fitness Breakout

Break Free From the Average Body Type

Category Archives: Strength Training