Quick Tip! A final protien shake before bed will supply your body with the neccessary amino acids through the night to help you grow while you sleep.
 
While literally millions of people work out, very few realize true workout success. Most dabble in the gym on and off, never getting results. They quit working out, usually under a myriad of excuses along the lines of being too busy or of disappointment that “they’re just not seeing results”. Below are seven common reasons why workouts fail.

1. You Don’t Have Clear Goals

If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it. Too many people head into the gym with either no thought of what they’re trying to accomplish or vague goals of “losing weight” and “toning up”.
How to Solve:
Be specific and write it down. If the goal is weight loss or body fat loss, identify how many pounds or the target weight, the time element, and what you’ll do every day to make it happen. If it’s muscle gain, identify things like desired bicep and chest measurements or one-rep max increases.

2. You Are Missing The Motivation Factor

Motivation has two key elements:

Possessing a goal that is deeply meaningful to you
Feeling mostly in control of the outcome
If motivation is missing from your workouts, examine these two factors and identify what’s missing. Why do you care about your goals? Do you feel you can make them happen or do you need help?
How to Solve:
Take stock of why you started working out and make sure the cause matters to you, and especially that you’re doing it for yourself and not because someone else thinks you should. Also, if you feel frustrated or even helpless about your ability to achieve the desired workout outcome, get help from a personal trainer and/or a nutritionist.

3. You Have A Fear Of Discomfort

Let’s face it, success in transforming your body requires some discomfort. This can be pushing weights until your muscles fail, upping cardio to uncharted heart rate territory, and dieting when the body tells you it must eat. Many people fail in their workouts for the simple reason that they can’t overcome discomfort.
How to Solve:
Discomfort is only a state of mind. Learn to recognize discomfort as only a mental barrier to your goal. Love your goal more than you dislike the discomfort.

4. You Are Uncertain About Your Workout

In sports they say that a cloudy head makes for slow feet. With working out, especially in a gym, uncertainty about what exercise to do and about proper form can result in a tentative approach that lacks the intensity required for improvement and progression toward a goal.



Uncertainty About What Exercise To Do And About Proper Form
Can Result In A Tentative Approach That Lacks The
Intensity Required For Improvement.

How to Solve: Don’t go it alone. Get the help of a professional trainer and then become a student of how to work out. Like anything else, the more you study it, understand it, and practice it, the better you’ll become at it and the faster you’ll improve. This usually results in increased enjoyment too.

5. You Lack The Passion To Get Results

High achievers in the gym get jacked up about results that can be in the form of increased muscle strength, increased muscle size, and increased muscle endurance. Those that fail in the gym usually lack a vision of their future physical states and a burning desire to realize positive change.
How to Solve:
Visual imagery can be a very powerful force. Look at fitness magazines or fitness sites and find examples of what you want to look like. One great site for this is BodySpace on Bodybuilding.com. Learn what it takes to achieve the look you’re after, visualize yourself looking like that and then only do things that will get you there.


Visual Imagery Can Be A Very Powerful Force.

6. You Are Missing The Diet Equation

Whatever your reason for working out, you won’t get there without the proper diet and nutrition. And absolutely don’t make the mistake that “cardio” will effectively substitute for diet discipline because it won’t. Depending on your goal you’ll need a specific calorie target and the correct mix of lean protein, low-glycemic carbohydrates, and healthy fats.
How to Solve:
Study some good books on diet and nutrition, especially related to fitness. Better yet, to get jump started hire a nutritionist or a good personal trainer that can teach you the right ways to eat and strategies for managing your diet under the stress of everyday life.



Depending On Your Goal You’ll Need A Specific Calorie Target And
The Correct Mix Of Lean Protein, Low-Glycemic Carbohydrates,
And Healthy Fats.

7. You Make Workouts A Chore Instead Of Uplifting Fun

If it’s not fun you won’t do it. Too often people see their workouts as a kind of punishment for being out of shape, and that workouts are to be endured rather than celebrated.
How to Solve:
Make workouts your personal time to get away from life’s stresses and to work up a great endorphin release. Workout in a place you like to be in. This could be in the gym or in the garage. If you don’t like your gym, shop around for one that feels like someplace you look forward to being at. View your workouts as a fun investment in yourself where you get to move closer to that future “you”.



 
Seated Barbell Curl:

Let’s face it, the legs have the squat, the shoulders have the overhead press and the biceps, of course, have the barbell curl. No other exercise is better known for adding size and thickness to your upper arms than holding a loaded barbell and busting out grueling hardcore sets. However, even the best exercise can be improved and enhanced and that’s our focus this month; to take an already phenomenal exercise — the standing barbell curl — and show you ways to make it even better. If you’re stuck in a rut, despite the fact that you’ve conquered the curl, the writing on the wall is clear: It’s time to make a change for the better.

It’s that very reason why we’ve assembled four exercises with all of the essential elements of the curl but with striking differences that’ll stress and target your musculature and your form dramatically. After reading about the benefits of each, we’ve designed a four-week training scheme to help you incorporate each into your routine. Your biceps should be a signature bodypart for you. If they’re not, it’s time for a change.

If you haven’t given this off-the-beaten-path exercise a shot, then you’re not giving your biceps a chance at serious growth. You see, typically during a standard barbell curl, you seldom exhaust the upper portion of the curl simply because you usually fail to move the bar past the parallel point. Think about it: When you hit the sticking point on curls, it’s always about 8 inches into the curl when you have to drop the bar. However, the strongest portion of the curl is the top half of the arc. The reason you fail during the lower portion of the curl is because that section of the curl is governed predominantly by the brachioradialis, not the stronger biceps brachii. So why not spend some time up high where the biceps brachii can be fully activated? The seated barbell curl does just that, allowing you to work your biceps to a point of exhaustion they seldom — if ever — experience.

The beauty of doing these on either a standard bench-press station or sitting reverse on a decline bench is that the rack is right there for easy dismount, and it’s also great for when you want to quickly superset exercises, such as the seated curl and lying triceps extension. What you want to do is sit backward on the bench, with your feet facing where a spotter would stand. Sit up straight, chest up and shoulders back, directly in front of the bar. Grasp the bar at shoulder width and unrack it, lowering it to your lap. As you would during the standing version, take a deep breath and curl the weight toward your shoulders, keeping your elbows back by your sides. Squeeze and slowly lower the bar back to your lap and repeat. To extend the set, go ahead and stand up and continue doing curls until you reach failure from a full-range perspective.

Barbell Curl With Chains:

For some of you, the idea of using chains for any bodypart, let alone biceps, is a bit extreme. But frankly, to spark new growth, that’s exactly what you need to start thinking outside the box. For many a bodybuilder with phenomenal bodyparts, chains were a rare find. How could something so basic be so beneficial? Well, the physics of chains brings new meaning to curls. Here’s why: At the start of the standard curl, when your arms are hanging down, the brachialis (deep muscle underneath the biceps) and brachioradialis (large forearm muscle on the thumb side) do most of the work lifting the weight until the elbow angle reaches about 90 degrees. The biceps don’t do much of the lifting until just before this point and throughout the rest of the range of motion. When you load a bar with free weights, you’re limited to what the brachialis and brachioradialis can lift through the first half of the curl, which is often a lot less than what the biceps can lift from the halfway point and higher. (This is why you can curl more on seated barbell curls mentioned in item 1.)

When using chains, however, you start with a lighter weight that gradually gets heavier the higher you curl it (more links are lifted off the floor). This allows for maximal tension on the biceps when it counts for maximal growth. That way, the weight during the peak contraction and at the point when your biceps are the strongest is heavier than ever. As you lower the weight and the chains begin to lie on the floor again, the bar gets lighter as the major biceps muscles begin to disengage their involvement.

Finally, if your gym doesn’t have a set of chains in some dark corner, invest in some and keep them in your truck (also good for bench pressing). Get two 3/8″ chains and two 5/8″ chains. The 3/8″ chain is used to wrap on the end of the bar and hold the 5/8″ chain. Together one 3/8″ chain (5 pounds) plus one 5/8″ chain (20 pounds) weighs about 25 pounds. When you put the chains on the bar, be sure that the 5/8″ chains are completely on the floor in the bottom position of the exercise.

Smith-Machine Drag Curl:

Of the many roadblocks facing your biceps growth, improper form (probably because you’re attempting too much weight) is one of them. What happens when you’re going too heavy is you begin to use too much body english while allowing your elbows to travel away from your sides. It’s so common that maybe 90% of bodybuilders do it regularly in the gym when curling — but that doesn’t make it right! Doing so calls into play the front delts, which automatically removes some of the emphasis from the target biceps. That’s why we’re constantly reminding you to keep your elbows back and at your sides to allow the biceps to do the work and not the shoulders.

With the Smith-machine drag curl, you’re forced to eliminate as much deltoid involvement as possible. More than just keeping your elbows back, you want to actually push your elbows behind your torso as you drag the bar up your abdomen, which is why the range of motion is so limited. If the bar is approaching your shoulders similar to standard curls, you’re not doing it correctly. Frankly, the bar should come only as high as your upper abs or lower chest; any higher than that and it’s impossible that your elbows are where they need to be.

If you’ve never tried the drag curl, let alone in a Smith machine, basically stand inside the Smith holding the bar in front of your upper thighs with your chest up, shoulders back and eyes focused forward. Begin the move by pulling your elbows back as you raise the bar toward your upper abs/lower chest. As the name suggests, you actually want to drag the bar up your torso as high as possible, keeping your elbows pointing behind you. Your descent is identical to the upward motion, dragging the bar down your abs.

Wide-Grip and Close-Grip Curls:

Though this appears to be a standard barbell curl, appearances are indeed deceiving. That’s because the grip is wider (or alternately, closer) on the bar than you’d normally take, which is usually just outside hip width and with your arms at your sides. But when you shift your hands outward or inward, the change in emphasis between the short and long heads is dramatic, as will be your response.

Taking a wide grip on the barbell increases the tension on the short (inner) head of the biceps by reducing the amount of stress on the long (outer) head. That’s important because the short inner head is the muscle most prominent in the mirror during a biceps pose. The inner head helps develop density and adds depth to the biceps and even helps the appearance of the long head. Speaking of the long head, the close-grip curl places greater emphasis on the long (outer) head. The long head is actually the muscle that’s often referred to as the “peak” of the biceps. This muscle is best targeted during moves that draw your arm behind your body as when doing dumbbell curls on an incline bench. A close-grip curl puts added pull and emphasis on that long head to help build up the peak. But regardless of grip width, for either of them to do what they’re intended to, you must keep your elbows as close to your sides as possible. By doing so, the target muscle is optimally stimulated and forced to perform.

4 Weeks to Bigger Arms

Add these four variations into your routine doing one each for a week to complement the traditional barbell curl by adding size and detail to your biceps. The number of minutes that follows each exercise, set and rep range in the chart indicates the recommended amount of rest between sets.

Week 1: Take a Seat

Seated Barbell Curl 4 sets 6–8 reps 2 mins
Incline Dumbbell Curl 4 sets 8–10 reps 1–2 mins
EZ-Bar Preacher Curl 4 sets 10–12 reps 1–2 mins
Reverse Curl 3 sets 15 reps 1–2 mins

Week 2: Chained to Growth

Barbell Curl with Chains 4 sets 10 reps 2–3 mins
Alternating Dumbbell Curl 4 sets 10 reps 1–2 mins
Standing Cable Curl 4 sets 12–15 reps 1–2 mins
Hammer Curl 3 sets 12–15 reps 1–2 mins

Week 3: It’s a Drag

Smith-Machine Drag Curl 4 sets 8–10 reps 2–3 mins
High Cable Curl 4 sets 10–12 reps 1–2 mins
Dumbbell Preacher Curl 4 sets 12–15 reps 1–2 mins
Barbell Wrist Curl 3 sets 12–15 reps 1–2 mins

Week 4: Narrow & Wide

Narrow-/Wide-Grip Curl 4 (2 each) sets 6–8 reps 2–3 mins
Seated Dumbbell Curl 4 sets 8–10 reps 1–2 mins
Lying Cable Curl 4 sets 10–12 reps 1–2 mins
Reverse Cable Preacher Curl 3 sets 12–15 reps 1–2 mins



 
Lacking the motivation to go to the gym every day and work out for hours at a time is not a crime. Most of us lead busy and stressful lives that see us rushing from point to point and barely getting enough time to rest or to interact with friends let alone to workout. At the same time many of us have various aches and pains, wake up tired and without that urge to get up and go, and generally require huge amounts of effort to exert ourselves as is necessary to do a workout.

Such people however do not necessarily want to be stuck with the kinds of bodies that come from lack of exercise however, and just because we can’t make it to the gym shouldn’t mean that we be stuck with spare tires and rolls of fat. The secret is to make working out easier and to find a way to ensure that it is easier to work out than it is not to.

Getting elliptical machines can help us to achieve this. The secret is to read reviews of elliptical machines and to then invest in one for the home. If we can get the best elliptical machines then this will allow us to have everything we need to burn fat, tone muscle and improve our fitness right in our own home.

Elliptical trainers are CV machines that give you the ability to run on the spot while using your arms at the same time and without having any impact. Your hands grab two handles and your feet will sit on pads and they will then all slide through a pre-set motion while providing a minimal amount of resistance. Read reviews of elliptical machines and make sure you get the one that is best suited to your needs, your budget and the space in your room.

The reason this is ideal for someone who struggles with motivation is that it then means you can work out from the comfort of your own home. This then cuts the amount of time it takes to workout in half – you no longer need to drive to the gym and drive home, and you no longer need to worrying about queuing for machines. At the same time it also makes the process much more convenient as it means that you can watch TV at the same time as training and watch the program that you want to watch. It means that you can enjoy training while speaking on the phone using hands free, and it means that you can train at the same time as listening to your choice of music or reading a book.

Thus your normal home ritual need not be interrupted at all. Instead of coming home and slouching in front of the TV, you can simply workout in front of the TV. 20 minutes a day will be more than enough and this is something that anyone can manage. If you don’t have the motivation then, read some reviews of elliptical machines and you might find that you can start to turn your fortunes around.



 
Quick Tip! Heavy barbell curls are the best move for adding size to your Bi's. Be sure to never comprise form for more weight though!!
 
Quick Tip! Pineapple is loaded with manganese, a trace mineral your body needs to build and maintain strong bones and connective tissues.
 
Every rep breaks down muscle tissue.
Every meal feeds the body.
Every nights rest is where you grow.
Every day you must understand consistency.
 
Cutting down on useless calories is easy when you eliminate the consumption of sodas, sports drinks, and milk products. Substitute with water instead.
 
Just Chocolate or Red Velvet Protein cupcakes: You choose!
Posted in My recipes : Dec 17, 2012, 4:01PM
comment
2



I have done it again! Out of frustration from not being able to find a recipe i like, i always end up resorting to making my own. This time however i found plenty recipes that were somewhat ok, but they all had one thing in common. That was that they all claimed to not have added sugars yet i still ended up reading splenda, stevia or another substitute in the recipe.


Long story short, i'm really trying to cut down on sugar that i can deal without. I have nothing against artificial sweeteners but i just feel like i am defeating the purpose of the healthier recipe by adding these. So now after a few little failed attempts, i bring to you a cupcake recipe with no added sugars other that the sugars in the ingredients. However, we all do deserve a little sweetness from time to time so i have added a frosting recipe at the bottom of this page that does have honey as a touch of sweetness.


I have no problem in sharing this recipe with you guys. So get a pen and paper or get your printer ready to get this recipe. Here it goes:


You will need:


3 egg whites


1 1/2 cup apple sauce(unsweetened)


1/2 cup milk


1 cup whole wheat flour


1 1/2 cup protein powder(I use Muscletech's vanilla protein sold at Sam's Club)


1/4 cup cocoa powder(unsweetened)


2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


1/2 teaspoon baking soda


1 scoop rolled oats(i used the protein scoop to measure this one)


1 tablespoon red food coloring(for red velvet cupcakes) *optional*


nonstick cooking spray or cupcake liners


your choice cupcake pan


for frosting, read italicized instuctions below.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ok so you got the ingredients and i really hate making things more complicated than they should be. So here are my instructions:


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. While your oven preheats, mix all your ingredients in a mixing bowl. I always use a fork to mix all these ingredients together but you can use whatever you'd like, just make sure you mix all these ingredients very well.


Lightly spray your cupcake pan with non stick cooking spray or use cupcake liners. Pour your mixture into the cupcake pan so that each of your cupcakes is 3/4 full. Place your cupcakes into your oven to bake for 25-30 mins. Then let them cool once done.


Once cupcakes are cooled you have two options: 1. you can enjoy as they are 2. or if you are craving a little frosting as well you can make your own frosting with one box of Philadelphia cream cheese and honey. Heat the cream cheese in microwave to soften and then mix 1 to 2 teaspoons of honey and use as frosting for your cupcakes.