Two girls at the beach were admiring the passing scene, which included a bodybuilder who was strutting his best.  “That’s my type,” said the first girl. “Well, I don’t know,” the other replied.  ”I have a friend who married a man that owns a two-car garage, but he just keeps a bicycle in it!“

There’s a postulate in quantum physics that states, “We don’t know how much we don’t know.”  This statement rings out such resounding truth when it comes to weight training… and, yes, sex… but for now we’ll stick to the topic of weight training. 

Every gym across the country has them… you know the people… the ones who make you put on that set of headphones (no stereo mind you, just the headphones) just so you can be left to yourself…. the woman who sees no wrong in setting the treadmill to the very lowest setting, and staying on it for an hour and a half while others are in line… the wannabe Hulk who loads 280 lbs. on a barbell and starts pounding away bicep curls by throwing his upper body back and forth – without ever bending the elbows… the men and women who filter in and out of the gym every day thinking that they are accomplishing something with their aimless antics and lack of planning. Every one of them thinks that they are doing it right!

The reality is that most people in the gym have lousy form, and pathetic knowledge of weight training. There’s little wonder why they look exactly the same, week after week, month after month, year after year. In fact, over 90% of the people who frequent gyms fall squarely into this category.

Let’s take a look at some of the characters that are commonly found in any gym across the nation:

“No Pain, No Gain.” There are actually people who believe this! I sincerely doubt that Ronnie Coleman or Arnold have ever consciously tried to hurt themselves. Yet there are morons out there that actually train with that mentality. Exercise should never be painful. If it is, you’ll run the risk of injury as a result of overtraining. Once you enter the “overtraining zone,” you’re guaranteed to experience physiological and mental stress which can eventually lead to a number of health problems.

The Flirt. All you guys know who she is. She is the one that thinks she’s the hottest girl in the gym, but in reality she is simply the most annoying. She is the one that comes up to you immediately after you have just pounded out a set of squats from hell, bats her eyes at you then proceeds to ask you “Can you please come take these plates off the leg press. They are just too heavy for me.” To which I would say “Hell no, what do I look like, your personal trainer?” (You know how moody one can be after doing a set of brutal squats.)

The Screamer. Every gym has to have at least one of them. I know you will easily create an image in your mind of the person that I’m talking about. He’s the guy that, for some reason, feels it’s his obligation to shriek at the top of his lungs before performing any set. What makes it even more astonishing is that this person will be lifting such a small amount of weight. I find these people more humorous than annoying. I’ve had the “privilege” to experience quite a few occasions where the “Screamer” has made his presence known. Although it may seem to provide a psychological edge, it has been proven through research, that yelling before or during an exercise provides absolutely no benefit whatsoever. It can, however, be very distracting. My first reaction when I hear someone scream is, “OH GOD! Someone’s stuck beneath a barbell,” or “OH NO! Someone just tore a muscle!” Whenever I am in the presence of a Screamer in the gym, I always remember something I was told when I first started training. I was having a conversation with a young lady that was training next to me when a Screamer yelled at the top of his lungs. As I was trying to suppress my laughter, she turns to me and says, “You know, I’ve always heard that the noises a person makes while training are the same ones they make while in bed.” After hearing that, I nearly had to use the restroom to wipe my backside clean. As funny as it was at the time, I think she may just be right! What to do think?

The Spandex Lady. This one is not a pretty sight to see. This is the lady who really needs to lose about 75 more pounds before she tries to squeeze that lard into those tight-fitting spandex shorts. Lady, let me clue you in on something, NOBODY WANTS TO SEE YOU IN THAT! To makes matters worse, she’s the one I described above… the woman who sees no wrong in setting the treadmill to the very lowest, slowest setting, and stays on it forever while others are waiting in line to use it. She goes so slow that she burns maybe 20 calories the entire time she lumbers along. This lady needs to make it worth all of our time by picking up the pace, or getting the hell out of the way. More importantly, she needs to do us all a favor and just wear some big, baggy sweats.

“My Ego Is Bigger Than My Bench.” Inevitably, you will always have at least one guy who feels the need to place more weight on the bar than even Ronnie Coleman himself will lift on a regular basis. What sucks about this guy is that since you look like you work out, you are a prime candidate to spot this person. Being the nice person you are, you happily agree to spot them. Then just before they begin, they look up and ask you, “Give me a lift-off on 3 and make me work!” You respond by saying, “Okay, on 3″. One, two, three, lift.” The person holds the weight for an instant and then, in the blink of an eye, the weight accelerates straight down like, well…dead weight! You fear the worst, thinking that the person over-estimated their abilities and could be seriously injured. So, with all of your strength, you apply as much possible resistance to slow the downward plunge of the weight. The thud it makes at the bottom makes you cringe! You breathe a sigh of relief when you notice that the person is not hurt and you immediately begin to pull the weight up and towards the rack. As you do, the most mind-boggling thing happens. The idiot murmurs in a low, strained voice “Help me get one more…” Your mouth nearly hits the floor in amazement as you think to yourself, “What? You didn’t even get the first one.” You repeat the process. After it’s over and your traps are recovering, you swiftly move to the other side of the gym in hope that the person won’t ask you to help him again. As you move away, this clown asks the question heard around the world, “How much did you help me”? “Well, Bullet Head… A WHOLE DAMN LOT!” From that day forward, you avoid that person like cardio during the off-season.

There is a common theme that must be adapted by any successful bodybuilder. It’s called “Let Go of My Ego.” This is where you must convince yourself that your body will grow with proper technique, correct form, and most of all… nutrition. It is not always necessary to lift massive amounts of weight all the time, and sacrifice good form and technique to do so. The moral of the story? Big weights only look cool if… and ONLY if… you can lift them without subjecting the person spotting you to an unexpected set of shrugs.

The Rat Pack. Similar to the previous category, except this is usually a group of three or four guys that work out together. They are usually using way more weight than most pro bodybuilders fathom using. There are two distinctive characteristics of this group of pinheads. First, they all think they are getting bigger and stronger. I mean… they truly believe it! Picture these guys. They load up a barbell with way more weight than any of them can dream to lift with proper form, and then proceed to take turns spotting each other through set after set of gyrations and movements that defy nature. The second distinctive trait is that the person spotting is actually getting a better workout than the one doing the exercise!

Marathon Man. He always seems to be the first to arrive, and the last to leave. He believes that the longer he trains in the gym, the more weight he will lose (or gain). His workouts are of epic durations. He’s the guy that performs every conceivable exercise designed for the particular body part he is training that day. He just doesn’t get it. The longer you’re in the gym, the more muscle fibers you’ll tear down. This is an unhealthy way to lose (or gain) weight. Once your body hits a catabolic state, you begin to lose energy… and that eventually leads to over-training… which leads to a plateau. A plateau is an inability to make progress in training. It can last for months. To be safe, consider working out for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, increase the intensity and continue to progress.

The Serious Person. When this person gets ready to train the first thing he will do is get into his own little world. Then he gets the “if you talk to me I will kick your butt” look on his face. He grabs his belt, straps and whatever else he may need on that day of training. When he gets in this zone he doesn’t like to be bothered. You know him… he’s the guy that after doing a heavy set of dumbbell curls will walk around and brood even though he has just pushed himself through a pain barrier that nobody else in that gym is willing to do and doesn’t even have the guts to do. He never looks at anyone in the eye. Everyone avoids him until it is finished. Then as quickly as the all-out assault started, it is over. Then he comes back to the real world and once again he is a really nice guy… until the next time he trains. I guess this is why people think bodybuilders are crazed idiots. He can be intimidating to most people, but at least he has a purpose for his training.

I am sure you can relate to most, if not all, of the people I have written about. If you are one of these people… let me ask you this? Do you want to be stuck in the stagnant pond of mediocrity all of your life? No? Then get over yourself and change your views towards training. Be like the Serious Person… determine the PURPOSE of your training… determine the PURPOSE of your workout… determine the PURPOSE of the exercise. And then train WITH A PURPOSE. Only then will you begin to train RIGHT! Only then will you begin to feel the pleasure of accomplishment after each repetition of every set. And only then will you truly ENJOY your workouts… sounds a lot like sex, doesn’t it? Whatever your training goals, whether it’s the size of the muscles, or the use of them, don’t miss the adventure along the way… again, it sounds like sex. Vince Gironda once said, “There’s joy on the gym floor.” Only those with a heart for training can understand what he meant.

I believe that about wraps up Dr. Diet’s Personal Rant Session. I feel much better now. And if anyone reading this knows me, yes I am talking about you!

Have thoughts about this post? Let us hear your comments…

But did you know that the average person gains almost a pound a day while on vacation?

That’s right! Lazy vacation days usually lead to one dreaded thing: extra pounds. From missed workouts to large restaurant meals, travel days often become high calorie days.

As you embark on your next vacation adventure keep the following tips in mind, and come home fitter than when you left!

TIP #1: Be Active
If your travels keep you too busy for a workout, or if your hotel does not have an exercise room, make a conscious effort to be active everyday. Go on a brisk walk after your day’s activities. This is a great way to see a new city, and also a great way to burn off that rich dinner you just ate! Take the stairs instead of elevator in your hotel and any other buildings you visit. Go on a short jog in the mornings or evenings of your stay. If your hotel has a pool, swim a few laps each morning or evening.

TIP#2: Indulge with Control
Eating out is a must while on vacation. Whether you’re visiting 5 star restaurants or fast food diners, you are faced with the same problem: large portions. While the easiest thing to do with a large portioned meal is to simply eat it all – you are on vacation after all…right? That isn’t the best for your waist!

When you order your meal ask the waiter or waitress to bring you a to-go box. Take half of your meal and place it safely into the box before you even begin to eat. This gives you no choice but to eat a healthy portion. If you would rather not carry around a to-go box then ask that your entree be made into a smaller portion. If it is dinner time ask for the lunch-sized entree.

TIP#3: Snack Healthy
Have you ever noticed how travel days create the perfect opportunity for snacking? A coffee and muffin before your flight, a snack on the plane and then before you know it…it’s lunch time! Taking a road trip? This opens up even more opportunities for regrettable snacking…rest stop vending machines, gas station quickie marts and of course the never ending string of fast food restaurants along the highway.

This summer cut unhealthy snacking off at the pass by brining along your own healthy options. Dried or fresh fruit, unsalted nuts, health bars, cut veggies and low fat crackers are a good start. By filling up on these healthy snacks between meals you will end up eating less when presented with a less-than-healthy meal.

TIP #4: Avoid Fried Foods
While fast food restaurants are definitely convenient, with their low prices and quick service, this convenience is not worth the additional pounds brought on by chips and fries. As you enjoy your vacation keep this in mind: avoid fried foods. While this is always good advice to follow, it is even more important to abide by while traveling.

While vacationing you will likely burn fewer calories each day than you would burn at home, and you are consuming more calories due to your schedule of eating out. You are walking a fine line, and eating fried foods would throw you right over the edge. A gram of fat contains 9 calories as compared to the 4 calories that proteins and carbohydrates carry – so you can see that consuming fried foods will drastically increase your caloric intake.

If I still haven’t convinced you to pass on the curly fries, keep in mind that heartburn and indigestion are never fun…especially while on vacation!

TIP#5: Team up with a Pro – Yours Truly!
Well, fitness is my specialty…and since you are serious about creating a healthy and fit physique – guarantee your results by teaming up with me.

Together we will come up with a fitness plan that is uniquely yours, one that fits your lifestyle and brings you promptly to your goals – something that you will appreciate while on vacation and at home.

Sure, you may lose 5, 10 or even 20 pounds on a fad diet…but you’ll gain it all back and then some. How can I be so confident that your results will be short lived?

It’s actually a simple concept, and once you understand it you will be forever saved from the tortures of yo-yo dieting.

Fad diets saddle you with unreasonable calorie restrictions and some even cut out entire food groups just to produce that short-lived drop in weight – a process that is actually harmful to your health. The fad diets also ignore one major component to shaping up: exercise.

You see, most fad diets operate on one age old premise: cut calories, cut calories, cut calories. By restricting the type and amount of food consumed the fad dieter usually sees an immediate drop in weight. If only it stopped there…

But it doesn’t stop there. Life continues, and the fad dieter returns to their pre-diet eating habits – with one major difference in their body due to the sudden drop in pounds. Their calorie requirements have gotten smaller.

In practical terms this means that the dieter will begin gaining weight even though they are eating their normal pre-diet portions. And since exercise hasn’t become a part of their routine, the unneeded calories will result in pounds gained. So what’s a dieter to do? Find a brand new diet to follow – right? Wrong.

There is a way to drop pounds and firm your body, but you won’t read about it in the next diet book or hear it on the news. The solution to your fad dieting nightmare is a lifestyle change.

What is a lifestyle change? To change your lifestyle means to replace unhealthy habits with healthy ones, and to do so consistently. It isn’t something you do for a week or two, only to revert back your old ways – a lifestyle change redefines who you are.

I know this is starting to sound like some heavy stuff, but hear me out. Changing your lifestyle from one that is unhealthy to one that is healthy will be the best thing that you ever do for yourself. Trust me; I help people like you make this change every day with amazing results.

Fact: The shape of your body is the direct result of your current lifestyle.

So how do I change my lifestyle? That is a great question, and the answer is actually easier than you might think.

Most people who are unhappy with their bodies are really only holding on to a few bad habits. Once these destructive habits are identified and then replaced with healthy habits their body naturally transforms from one that they loathe to one that they are proud of.

In other words, to get the body that you want simply determine your unhealthy habits and replace them with healthy ones. Here are the most prevalent unhealthy habits:

The habit of inactivity. Failing to exercise on a consistent basis is one of the most destructive obstacles for your health and figure. (The key word here is consistent. If you aren’t exercising at least 3-4 times each week then you own this habit.)

The habit of overeating. Consuming calories in excess of your daily caloric needs is one of the main reasons that more adults are overweight today than ever before.

The habit of empty calories. Filling your diet with foods that hold little to no nutritional value is a great way to expand your waist. (Hint: if a food item is made up of mainly sugar and/or fat consider it ‘empty’ calories.)

You can lose weight and improve both your appearance and your health.
You can look and feel great.
You can transform yourself into the person that you’ve always wanted to be.

Don’t let another day go by that leaves you a slave to unhealthy habits. Take action now. Call or e-mail me today and together we will recreate your lifestyle and redefine your body.

By the way, I should mention another deadly habit that destroys too many people’s dreams. The habit of procrastination.

How many times have you told yourself that you will start eating healthy tomorrow? How many times have you told yourself you will start exercising next week? How many times have you promised that you would call me to start your personal training program? Each day that you succumb to the habit of procrastination is a day that pulls you farther and farther from your goals… and makes you more and more of a failure!

Break that nasty habit of procrastination – Check out my Lake Ozark Personal Trainer program Get started today.

It’s simple, really. We used to think that cardiovascular training was the quickest and most effective way to shed unwanted pounds. Aerobics, jogging, swimming and biking were the activities to turn to when we wanted to slim down.

Boy, were we misled...

The idea was that when you perform low level aerobic exercise your body relied on calories from fat. Sounds good, right? Well, there were a couple of major limitations with this method…

First of all you only burn fat calories while the aerobics are performed. If you do twenty minutes, then you only burn for twenty minutes; if you do two hours, then you only burn for two hours.

Secondly, if you are overzealous with aerobics your body actually eats away at lean tissue, leaving you with lowered calorie requirements. Ever wonder why you eat the same amount but still put on pounds? A loss in lean tissue will do that to you every time.

So where does this leave you?

Lucky for us, we live in a time of great scientific discovery with tools and statistics that give us the cutting edge in our quest for a slimmer, sexier body. And science has given us the solution for optimal F.A.T. B.U.R.N.

The Solution: Resistance Training

You have probably heard about the many benefits of resistance training. Here are just a few:

1. Increase in muscle strength
2. Injury prevention
3. Improved bone density

But what about F.A.T. B.U.R.N.? Here are the two reasons that resistance training is the most effective way to B.U.R.N. F.A.T.

Oxygen Debt
Now I know debt isn’t usually a word that we enjoy…but in this case I’m sure you will agree that it’s a great thing. Resistance training puts your body into oxygen debt which means you will B.U.R.N. F.A.T. as you recover from your workout. And this effect can last quite awhile – studies have shown an increase in calorie burning for up to three days following a resistance training workout.

Lean Tissue Burns More
The other way that F.A.T. B.U.R.N. is accomplished with resistance training is through an increase in your resting metabolism. You see, lean tissue (muscle) requires many more calories each day than fatty tissue. In fact, one pound of muscle burns 30-50 calories each day at rest – compared to a measly 9 calories per pound of fat.

When you perform resistance training exercises your body composition will change to contain more lean tissue, thus resulting in extra calories burned while you sleep. What could be better than that?

Resistance training is truly worth your time – talk about an exercise that keeps on giving.

Wouldn’t you love to reap the rewards of a solid resistance training program by waking up slimmer every morning? I love nothing more than to see my clients achieve awesome results – clients just like you, who decided to change their shape forever by giving me a call.

Do something nice for yourself – contact me today – together we will turn you into a F.A.T. B.U.R.N.I.N.G. machine.

CLICK HERE and I’ll show you how my Lake Ozark Personal Trainer program can help you get the results!

Have you ever quit your exercise routine because you became bored with it? And going to the gym seemed like a chore?

Have you ever struggled to lose just a few pounds, even though you were going to the gym and eating a bunch of boring healthy foods?

The sad fact is that most people who try to do it on their own fail. Very rarely does their body seem to change much, even when they try their hardest.

By far, the absolute best solution to this problem is to get a personal trainer. They can guide, direct and motivate you to a better body. Personal fitness trainers can help to change someone’s physique like nothing else on the planet

But, many times this isn’t the case and the trainer ends up being more problems than they’re worth…You see, often times when someone hires a personal trainer the only place they end up trimming any extra fat away is in their bank account.

Have you ever known anyone who hired a trainer and got NO results at all?

Have you ever been working out in a gym and actually observed the trainers?

If you have, I bet you probably could tell right away that the trainer is just doing a job, and has no emotional investment in seeing the client get results.

If you’ve ever hired a personal trainer yourself you know what a crap shoot it can be to try and find the right one.

If you’ve had friends who’ve hired personal trainers it’s no doubt you’ve heard the horror stories… The flakey trainers who are always late and missing their appointments, the trainers who promise everything yet produce nothing in the way of tangible results and the trainers who go on and on about insignificant matters the entire workout all on the client’s dime!

If you’ve ever done a trial workout with a trainer you know that many of them can give great sales pitches, but how do you know if they’re really the best trainer for you?

Keep reading and you’ll find out…

The Problems with Many Personal Trainers…

One of the problems with many of the personal training programs in Camden County is that the trainer and client spend a lot of time talking about their personal lives, and frankly, the trainer wastes a lot of time just standing around counting reps.

Why pay good money for someone just to count your reps? You could easily hire someone for minimum wage to count your reps if that’s what you’re looking for.

And if you’re looking for someone to talk about your personal life with for an hour then a therapist might be more what you’re looking for…not a trainer.

Here are a few of the types of problem personal trainers that are giving the rest of us a bad name:

The Selfish Trainer… who’s motto is if it works for me it will work for you – This is the trainer who doesn’t take their client’s goals into consideration when designing a routine.

This is why it’s common for a female to hire a personal trainer and then 3 months later she looks all buffed out like she’s been taking steroids.

Or why you’ll see people in the gym working out with a trainer doing some really ineffective and funky exercises.

You see, while the client’s goal might be to lose fat and tone up, the trainer will put the client on one of “his” favorite exercises, which won’t do anything but add a couple of yards to your golf swing… but if you want to lose fat, who cares about improving your golf swing! Just because the trainer’s a golfer and finds that doing a lot of functional sport training routines helps him improve his swing and impress his buddies on Saturday morning doesn’t mean that’s the same workout his client’s need to reach their own fitness goals.

But the Selfish trainer doesn’t see this. Because he’s completely self-absorbed and self-obsessed and what his clients want really doesn’t matter to him.

So it’s very important when hiring a trainer that you let them know EXACTLY what your goals are.

Make sure the trainer knows that you have no interest in improving your golf swing, unless that’s your goal.

If you’re a female and don’t want to get big and bulky, make sure you tell this to the trainer before you sign ANYTHING, and ask the trainer to see before and after pictures of his clients, so you can make sure he’s not turning women into bodybuilders.

Watch out for the Selfish Trainer who just puts his clients on “his’ favorite exercises, with no consideration for the client’s goals.

The Amateur Psychologist Trainer… One of the biggest problems in the industry is personal trainers trying to be amateur psychologists.

They’ll happily give out financial advice even though they’re broke.

They’ll happily dish out marital advice, many times as a way to get into their clients pants! (I’ve seen this one more times then I can count).

They’ll talk to you about your inner child; right after they just snorted a few lines of coke in the gym bathroom (cocaine and steroid addiction is a giant problem in the personal training industry).

The truth is many of these “pop-psychologist” personal trainers live lives that are an absolute mess. And it’s easier for them to dish out information about how their clients should live their lives than it is to fix their own.

Watch out for the personal trainer who wants to play “psychologist.”

The Know-It-All Trainer… It’s impossible to know EVERYTHING about exercise. There’s just so much to learn. Science is rapidly finding the best ways to go about losing fat and toning muscles that to know it all would require a hundred lifetimes and a university-sized library of knowledge.

Any personal trainer who claims to know it all is dangerous! If a client comes to this kind of personal trainer with an important question regarding their body or health, if the trainer doesn’t know the answer many times the “know-it-all trainer” will just dish out any old line instead of admitting they don’t know the answer and going and finding the best answer or solution for that individual client with the client’s best interest in mind.

A true fitness professional will keep their client’s best interest at the absolute forefront of their mind at all times, and won’t be scared to say “I don’t know”
An amateur will THINK that by admitting that they don’t have the answers to everything that it’s a weakness, so they’ll tell a boldfaced lie to the client and dish out possibly harmful information just to protect their own ego.

Beware of the know-it-all personal trainer.

The Rep-Counter… The Rep-Counter is the most harmless of trainers yet also has the worst track record for getting results.

You see, a lot of personal trainers just train for the money and look at it as job.

In fact, gyms are filled with unqualified personal trainers who could give a damn about their client’s goals and only care about bringing in a paycheck.

Here’s a typical situation of how this kind of personal trainer gets hired:

In this case we’ll call our trainer Johnny.

A local gym puts and ad in the newspaper or online saying they are hiring for Personal Trainers, Sales People, Front Desk Staff and Custodians.

Johnny is fresh out of high school (maybe college) and needs a job so he can afford his weekly sack of weed, gas money and the $25 a week he pays his parents for rent to live in their house.

While looking through the classifieds, at the strong urging of his mother, he sees a job listing for “Personal Trainers”.

This catches Johnny’s eye because he’s heard trainers get a lot of “chicks” and Johnny kind of looks like a trainer. Not because he works out, but because he’s young, has good genetics and took P.E. in high school for the past four years… he looks like he’s in good shape.

So Johnny applies. And since many gyms will hire just about ANYBODY to be trainer, he gets the job. They make him go to a two-day certification program that the gym offers which amounts to one day on how to train people, and then another day split in half between how to sell personal training to people who don’t want to buy it and how to up-sell their clients on the line of crappy supplements that the gym offers, allowing the trainer to make a 5% commission.

Johnny loves his job because he quickly realizes that all he has to do is sell packages of personal training and count reps and his boss is happy.

And the fringe benefits are, while Johnny’s on the job, he can check out “chicks”, go on and on about his personal life, and even possibly sleep with a few of his unhappily married Osage Beach housewife clients.

A common disguise for this kind of trainer is the stop watch and clipboard, which will many times only serve as “costume” for making them look like they know what they’re doing.

Shocking yes, but common…

When searching for a trainer, be sure and avoid “Johnny the Rep-Counter.”

Two-Routine Trainer… Another common situation that gives personal trainers a bad name are the trainers who put clients on one of two workout routines.

Routine #1 is where the trainer will stick the client on a treadmill for half the workout while the trainer either blabs about his personal life to the captive-audience client on the treadmill or while the trainer hangs out and chats with his trainer buddies at the “trainer desk”. All while the client is forking over good money for the hour.

Routine #2 is where the trainer knows how to do one workout (usually the one he learned in that two-day certification program) and he puts his clients on this routine, EVERY TIME THEY COME IN THE GYM.

What the trainer didn’t learn in his two-day certification program is that this not only will get clients very little in the way of results due to the “Law of Physical Adaptation,” but this will cause pattern overload syndrome, which will ruin the client’s joints and cause them to have that horrible-rounded-shoulder- head-poking-forward-posture that will make them look like a caveman.

Do NOT hire the “Two-Routine Trainer” unless you want to end up paying high dollar to walk on a treadmill while you turn into a hunchback.

The Genetically-Gifted, Steroid-Freak Trainer… The last kind of trainers I’m going to warn you about is the “genetically gifted” and the “steroid freak.”

Often times this trainer comes in a combination of both and is actually a hybrid, which I call “The Genetically-Gifted, Steroid-Freak Trainer.”

Due to either steroid usage or genetics or a combination of both, these trainers can do just about anything and be in perfect shape. Any kind of exercise they do will make them look like Greek Gods, even if they live on cheeseburgers and onion rings.

Now that’s great for them, but the problem is these trainers think that since whatever they do in a gym works for them, then it must work for everyone else.

And their clients believe it too because any trainer in that kind of shape MUST know what he’s doing. Right? WRONG!

Unfortunately, most of us weren’t blessed with perfect genetics, nor are we willing to order black market pharmaceuticals from third-world countries online and then inject them into our tush just to get six-pack abs.

There is so much science behind what it truly takes for the average person to get into incredible shape, and what works for “Genetically-Gifted, Steroid-Freak Trainer” will not work for the vast majority of the population.

But “Genetically-Gifted, Steroid-Freak Trainer” doesn’t need to keep up on this science because hell, anything works for him!

The truth is that this is an extremely dangerous breed of trainer because often times they are so amped up on the ‘roids that they can perform near superhuman feats in the gym. And the harder the feat, the better the results.

Yet the real problems start when they give these kinds of routines to their clients.

Not only will these routines put the average client into an over-trained state which will actually cause their bodies to lose muscle and hold onto fat, but they risk seriously injuring the client as well.

Avoid “Genetically-Gifted, Steroid-Freak Trainer” like the plague, they are the most dangerous of all trainers!

And to make matters worse…

Did you know that many trainers make the majority of their income by keeping their clients out of shape and dependant on them?

They know that once they get you into great shape you probably won’t need them anymore.

They also know that if they give you just enough results to where you see a small change in your physique, you’ll probably keep coming back in hopes of really getting into shape.

And they know if they keep you uneducated that you will most likely completely rely on them to get into and stay in shape. This means big bucks for the trainer yet a feeling of dependency for you.

Bottom Line…

It’s extremely important when looking for a personal trainer that you are (or stay) on the lookout for these kinds of trainers and avoid them at all costs.

There are a lot of great trainers out there but there are also a lot of scam artists who will take your hard earned money and then throw you on a treadmill for the entire workout.

Or they’ll make you do the same unproductive routine every time you come in for a workout.

Their sales pitch might be great, but the only place you’ll lose any fat is in your wallet.

Make sure you state your goals and what you’d like to achieve before you make a commitment to any trainer.

There’s nothing worse than seeing a female get all buffed out because of her personal trainer, or watching a guy get a nicely developed upper body from workouts but get stick-figure-twig legs that all his friends tease him about.

The sad fact is that 93% of personal trainers just look at training as a job.

So make sure you find one of the 7% who love to help people get into shape, find a trainer who trains people because that’s his or her passion in life.

When you first meet the trainer, ask him or her why they decided to become a trainer in the first place.

Asking this question could save you thousands of dollars and countless hours working out with the wrong trainer.

Make sure you can try at least one workout before making any financial commitment to a trainer. Many will just want to do a quick consultation and then sign you up. So remember to make sure and really taste the goods before you buy… Insist on a trial workout.

During this trial workout your job is to see how well the trainer motivates you.

Do they push you to do your best while still showing you respect?

If not, I would run away, not walk, RUN from that trainer as fast as you can.

Immediately after choosing your trainer, make sure and go home and clear out your fridge and cupboards of any junk (it’s been my experience if there’s junk in the house, it will eventually get eaten).

Then go buy the foods your trainer tells you to buy. This will ensure you will lose fat as quickly and safely as possible. Eating the right foods is extremely important.

And another tip is to find a trainer who works with multiple people at one time. You’ll be amazed at how much more enjoyable the workouts are when there’s someone else beside you giving the workout their all as well.

The energy of a semi-private workout is much higher than with traditional one-on-one training and the results the clients get are much greater and come much faster.

One last tip… Find out how busy they are. Usually the best personal trainers are busy. With the rare exceptions of the dedicated trainer just starting out, the trainer who just moved to the area or the instructor who chooses not be busy because of personal value preferences, the best personal trainers in Camden County are busy training clients… especially because there is such a demand for good trainers in this area.

So What Do You Do Now That You Have This Information?

Armed with this information you’re now one of the most savvy and educated consumers in the entire world. You now know instantly how to differentiate a good trainer from a bad one.

Go to Fit Physique Custom Fitness and opt in to my Get Fit Newsletter. It will keep you on the forefront of the fat loss frontier with cutting edge information on how to lose fat FAST, and keep it off for good.

Also, I want to let you know that I’ve hand-picked a team of what I believe to be the best 1% of personal trainers in Camden County.

Not only do these trainers bring a tremendous amount of passion and experience to their training, but they are all down to earth, good human beings with a proven track record for getting people into incredible shape.

I urge you to learn more about this unparalleled team of personal trainers here…

Click here to learn about the Fit Physique Custom Fitness Training Team

Yours in Never Ending Health and Fitness,

Rick Streb

Physique Transformation Expert
http://www.fitphysiqueonline.com

P.S. By the way, I’m not sure how well you know me yet, but as a new subscriber to my Get Fit Newsletter you can learn a little bit about me here:

Click here to learn about who I am and why you should listen to me

And in case you haven’t checked out my Fit Physique Online Training Program, be sure and check it out:

Click here to learn about the Fit Physique Online Training Program

5 Things You Should Know to learn more about finding the right personal fitness trainer for you.

You can visit our Osage Beach personal trainer page to learn more about finding the right personal fitness trainer for you.

And, because the back comprises the second largest group of muscles in the body, it contributes to metabolism.  Remember, that the amount of muscle you carry is directly proportional to your metabolic rate.  People that carry more muscle typically have higher metabolic rates meaning they can burn more calories; which, in turn, means they can stay in shape more easily than others who don’t carry as much muscle.

Have you ever heard the term, “back-breaking work”?  Putting this powerful set of muscles (back) to work taxes your body and can create a great deal of muscular stimulation, hence the term.  But remember that putting this hard work into your back training will pay in rich dividends in terms of strength, energy and a leaner, healthier you.

If you’re like me, you’re on a tight schedule and you don’t have a lot of time to train. So, I’m going to show you how you can invest just 20 minutes into your back training to get a fantastic payoff.

If you have access to a high lat pulley machine, then let’s begin with pull-downs. Perform a light set of pull-downs to warm up the back muscles.  Take a grip where the palms of your hands are facing you and your hands are approximately 12-18″ apart. There’s a reason that we’re going to use this narrower grip.  Placing your hands in this manner will align your arms and your back in such a way that you can maximally stretch and contract the muscles of the latissimus dorsi (the large muscles that create the V taper in the back) and other muscles at the upper back.  If you don’t have access to a lat machine, try pull-ups from a chinning bar.

At the beginning of the lat pull-down movement, allow your shoulder blades to rotate outwards, so that you can feel a stretch in your lats.  Then, contract your lats, pulling your elbows down and back towards your waist.  Keep your back arched and keep your chest high to get the best contraction possible.  It is important to keep your back arched.  Otherwise, the stress is thrown mainly onto the arms.  Be sure to pull the bar down and let it back up in a smooth, controlled manner, keeping the back muscles under tension throughout the entire range of motion.  It should take you approximately one second to bring the bar down to your chest and at least  two seconds to let the bar back up slowly under tension.

Remember that it is during the eccentric portion of the exercise (the portion of the exercise during which the muscle is lengthening under tension, which in this case means the portion of the exercise during which your are returning the bar to the starting position) that the muscle derives the greatest benefit.

Perform three sets of 8-10 repetitions per set.  If you can do more than 10 repetitions with the weight, then add more weight in order to bring the number of repetitions back down.

Once you have finished your pull-downs, immediately go to the bent-over rows.  Bent-over rows tax the muscles in the upper back and are excellent for developing thickness.

To begin, load a barbell with a moderate amount of weight (moderate, of course, will depend on your strength).  Approaching the bar, bend your knees slightly and then bend down at the waist, taking a shoulder-width grip on the barbell.

With your body at approximately a 45 degree angle, pull the barbell to the base of your chest by contracting your back muscles and bringing your elbows up and back towards the ceiling.  Keep your head up, and back arched throughout the movement, to get a maximum contraction in the upper back muscles.

Avoid “heaving” the bar up.  Lower the weight under full control to avoid injuring your lower back.  Perform three sets of at 8-10 repetitions, going to positive failure.

Next, we’ll proceed to dead-lifts.  This is an exercise that will strengthen not only the muscles of the lower back, but just about all of the muscles in the back.  It is one of the very best back exercises around for this very reason.

Starting with the barbell on the floor, place your feet about 18″ apart, bend down and take an overhand grip, just wider than your thighs.  At the bottom of the movement, drop your rear-end down by bending your knees, keeping your back straight.

Pull the bar up from the floor to bring your torso erect.  As you come up, keep your torso straight and thrust your hips forward to lock out into the final position.  This is great for building the erector muscles in the back.  Perform three sets of 10 repetitions using a moderate weight.

Keep in mind, that as you perform these back exercises, it is important to take each set to positive failure.  Unlike other kinds of failures in life, positive failure during exercise is actually a good thing.  It means you have pushed the exercise to the point where you cannot perform another unassisted repetition.  Creating this amount of fatigue in the target muscle as you exercise is important in sending your body the signal that is necessary to grow and adapt.

Rest just long enough between sets to catch your breath.  This should take approximately one to two minutes, but maybe more, depending on your physical condition.  Go for it on the last set of each exercise!  Do as many repetitions as you possibly can and do not stop before you reach positive failure.

And, there you have it! 

My 20 Minute Back Workout. 

This is a workout that you can easily perform before you go to work in the morning, at lunch, or in the evening after work.  There’s no excuse for skipping your back workout.  So, do it today!

One final thought.  As you may already know, I place a lot of emphasis on the importance of proper nutrition.  You can workout all you want, but if your nutrition doesn’t adequately support the exercise you do, and if you do not provide enough protein, calories, carbohydrates (that’s right, carbs), and other nutrients to your body, you cannot make progress.

Osage Beach Personal Trainer – Rick Streb

I am often asked about steroids via e-mail, and the questions are usually related to specific drugs and dosages. “How many mg. of Sustanon should I do per week in an 8-week cycle,” or “is it better to mix Winstrol and Primo for a 12 week cycle, or should I start with Anadrol to get some size first?”

It alarms me that teenagers, non-competitive athletes, and those who are new to weight training get caught up in the language of drugs, believing they’re about to make positive changes when they’re teetering on the brink of randomly altering the hormonal system that regulates body composition, sex drive, and a sense of well being.

Because of the number of steroid questions I started receiving, and because each question answered seemed to lead to a follow-up question, I decided as of 2004 that I would no longer answer steroid questions. Despite my decision, they keep coming in. Today I received one that prompted me to write this article.

“I’m only 22 and I want to get my pro card next year. I don’t really know who to ask, but I’m having a hard time. I was hoping you could help. My training is great; my diet is clean all year. I am 100% dedicated to bodybuilding and know I’d make a great pro! I started out cycling Cypionate, 400 mg per week, and Decca 400 mg per week for 8 weeks and then switching to oral Winstrol and Primobolan depot for cutting. It worked great. For contest prep I use some thyroid hormones and it’s pretty easy for me to get stripped. Here’s my problem. I know you’re supposed to stay clean for a few months before doing another cycle, but I know guys who are “on” all year and they keep making gains. I decided I’d go back to the Cypionate right after my last show, staggering 400 mg with 600 mg. on alternate weeks.

“During my first cycle my sex drive went through the roof, but since my last contest it dropped to nothing. I keep telling my girlfriend it’s the diet, but she’s smarter than that and it’s affecting our relationship. While I’m still making gains, my testicles are tiny, which seemed to happen suddenly, which even more makes me avoid sex. I don’t know if I should stop now, go through a few months of recovery, and let things get back to normal, or if I’ll lose too much muscle. Or is it better to use some Clomid or HCG on top of the Cypionate? I get very confused by everyone’s advice. I know everyone says there are long-term risks of staying on the stuff, but right now I really don’t care what happens to me after 30. I just have to be at the top of my game right now, and I want to keep my relationship with my girlfriend. I’ll admit I haven’t been the easiest guy to live with, but she’s been solid and I don’t want to lose her. Every time I inject my test, I get this feeling I’m making a mistake, but I’m afraid it’s a bigger mistake if I stop. Any advice you can share would be appreciated.”

This is the type of email that throws me.

My first instinct is to ignore it, but I can’t. It’s someone reaching out for help.

My second instinct is to try to get this kid to get himself clean and start to readjust his priorities.

The catch there is, there’s so much psychology involved, and he’s so caught up in the importance of winning at all costs, if I urge him to abandon the anabolics, he’s likely to disregard everything I have to say.

I decided I’d write an article that I can now direct people to that will share some of my take on anabolic steroids. If readers of this article do opt to use steroids, they can at the very least be educated to make responsible decisions.

I remember the first time I eyeballed steroids. A new gym opened in Florissant, Missouri, just a few miles from the weight training dungeon at the YMCA where I was first bitten by the bodybuilding bug. Some local muscle heads were sticking flyers on cars in and around the “Y.”

Now Open! Champions Gym!

My buddy Larry and I went to check it out. It was in the basement of an apartment building. There were a couple of squat racks, some benches, and a rack of dumbbells going up to 120 pounds. There was a lat machine, a few scattered Olympic bars, and a few thousand pounds of weights. There were pictures of Sergio Oliva, Frank Zane, Arnold, Franco Columbu, and the AAU Mr. America Ron Teufel. I remember paying particular attention to Ron. He was around 180 pounds, looked incredibly muscular, and was only three years older than I was at the time. If three years of intense training could bring me to that level of physique, I’d be a happy camper.

Larry and I decided we’d pay the $15 a month and work out there for 30 days. We met a few of the locals and a few days after we’d enrolled, the guy who had the best abs in the gym asked us if we wanted some “stuff.” We knew what he meant, but we hadn’t ever used, touched, or seen steroids. A bit scared, but more curious, we asked, “whaddya got?” “D-Bol.” He took out what looked like a prescription vial and showed us our first glimpse of Dianabol. “All the guys here are on it.”

It wasn’t the glance at the vial of pills that struck me, it was the comment. I started to see things differently. Larry had the best dead-lift in the gym, and although he’d mix up some pretty bizarre things in his blender, he had never used anything that was even near the fringe of legality. I was squatting a respectable 365 for 8 reps and I could hold my own on any beach. When we heard “all the guys are on it,” rather than finding temptation, we found satisfaction in being “natural.” At the time I was naive enough to believe that if we kept training and kept eating right (which we barely understood at the time), we could develop physiques that rivaled Arnold, Franco, and the other greats of the period. We turned down the D-Bol offer.

Later that month we went to watch a friend compete in the teenage Mr. Metropolitan contest and decided right then and there we could do better . . . drug free. We started learning about competition and I was amazed how back then, in the late 1970’s, even among teenagers and twenty year olds, there was this language of “cycles,” and “needle gauges” and “milligrams” and “cc’s.” I’ll admit the curiosity resurfaced and the lure to cross that line of temptation returned with it, but within the next few months a few experiences caused me to shut out the possibility of crossing that line.

Turner’s Gym opened, and this was a real gym, owned and operated by bodybuilding legend George Turner. It had the heart and essence of the bodybuilding persona. It made Champions Gym all but obsolete. There was an entire room of leg equipment! There were two dozen benches, eight squat racks, power racks, and every type of machine I’d seen in the Muscle magazines.

My first day at Turner’s I ran into a guy I had known from the neighborhood for years. He was a skinny kid who suddenly grew traps, pecs, and quads. He told me had just gone in for surgery to have breast tissue removed.

“Breast tissue?”

“Yeah. I didn’t wanna take the stuff that’s floating around here so I went to a doctor who gives prescriptions for testosterone. I’d been going for shots and I started growing tits!”

That was the first time I’d heard of gynocomastia.

To me, at the time, it was the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard.

My buddy grew traps, quads, and tits?

There were some serious power-lifters who trained at Turner’s. Massive, solid, strong. My 365 squats were laughable compared to what these guys were doing in the power cage. The strongest of the power-lifting squad was the nicest guy in the world, but watching him dead-lift and squat was the equivalent of watching pure rage in motion. Veins popping out of his neck and forehead, his skin turning purple, teeth clenched, chalk flying from his body. It was a sight. He was in his 20’s when he died. The rumor was liver failure.

A few days after the power-lifter stopped coming to the gym, Larry and I went to another contest as spectators to cheer on a couple of the locals. One “regular” from Turner’s, whose name escapes me (it was 25 years ago), was being “counseled” by a local steroid guru for his contest prep. He showed up at the prejudging looking drawn and lifeless. His face was gaunt; his skin had a yellow pallor. The whites of his eyes were yellow. He quivered as he tried to hold the mandatory poses. We spoke to him backstage as he sucked on an ice cube and it was as if we were speaking to the walking dead. He never made it to the evening show nor did we ever see him again.

I never gave steroids another thought until I visited Southern California for the first time years later. The “health food stores” were selling “anything you wanted.” Clenbuterol was the “hot drug” that “everyone was on,” and within minutes you could find someone ready to sell you something in any local gym in Venice. That helped me recognize how prevalent steroid use was, not only among the pros, but among even the casual lifters in search of muscle.

Over the years that followed, I came to know quite a few professional athletes, and I came to realize that the drug “program” was often more of a priority and concern than the training. They sounded like scientists, yet they were toying with science they didn’t fully comprehend, thus they were human guinea pigs. I set out to learn as much as I could about the endocrine system, the drugs being used, the potential benefits, and the potential risks, thus my steroid education began. Thankfully I’ve been sensible enough to stay away from the idea of becoming my own guinea pig. I just interviewed people. Over a thousand people. I asked questions. I learned from biochemists, physicians, bodybuilders, and the underground “gurus.” I would not by any means categorize myself as a steroid expert, but I know enough to help people make educated decisions.

The common line of thought among amateur bodybuilders breaks it down to an oversimplification.

Want size? Anadrol and/or Sustanon
Want minimal side effects? Primobolan
Want hardness? Winstrol and Clenbuterol
Want to avoid side effects? Clomid or Nolvadex

There are two primary parts of the endocrine equation that are being ignored in this oversimplified line of thought.

We are all biologically unique and the drugs and dosages that act to “compensate” for low testosterone levels in one individual might “super compensate” in another and the side effects cannot be predicted with any level of accuracy. Worse yet, many of the side effects, such as gradual stress placed upon the liver, may not make themselves known for years. Decreases in HDL production, increases in blood pressure, and alterations to the myocardium cannot be detected in the mirror.

When you mess around with a link in the hormonal chain, you are altering the activity of the glandular system as a whole, and short term increases in testosterone can lead to long-term decreases in endogenous hormonal production.

If you’ve been sent a link to this article it might be because you’ve asked me a steroid question, my first question to you is, “have you carefully examined the specifics of your training?” Most people I meet who are looking for their first cycle are simply missing some part of the formula for ongoing growth. They’re failing to cycle their training regimens, they’re sticking with the same old workout they’ve been doing for months, they’re failing to provide a greater challenge to muscle, or they’re overtraining and failing to adequately recuperate.

Even if their training regimens are well strategized, if they aren’t taking in enough protein-sparing nutrients, they’re limiting their muscular growth potential, and if they’re failing to take in sufficient calories and amino acids for growth, all the training in the world will leave them frustrated. Whenever someone comes to me for a consultation before using steroids, we’ve been able to facilitate new gains . . . naturally.

I will NEVER recommend that anyone use steroids. Will I understand if someone opts to use them? In some cases, yes. Are they as “bad” as the media reports would lead us to believe? I’d have to say many of the “shocking reports” are overblown in their severity, but that doesn’t mean “steroids are safe.” An interview conducted with former Mr. Olympia competitor Mike Christian several years ago shared some of the realities behind uncontrolled drug abuse . . . that abuse including ergogenic and anabolic training aids. When we’re dealing with professional athletes, or aspiring pros, which are thrown into arenas where superhuman drug-enhanced strength is the norm, anabolic steroids become almost an absolute, but even the pros need clear direction and education.

I’ve used the headline “People Are Dying To Get Fit” in descriptive articles and releases related to weight loss surgeries and weight loss drugs, but we’re at a point in time that the same headline might be used to describe bodybuilding.

In 1999 Sonny Schmidt, at 46 years old, placed 3rd in the Masters Olympia. On January 25, 2004, Sonny Schmidt died.

In 2003, 285-pound 30-year-old bodybuilder Scott Klein died of heart failure.

Remember that picture of Ron Teufel I told you about at Champions Gym? He died in 2002 at the age of 45.

These are just a few of the premature deaths related to users of anabolic steroids at relatively high dosages. There are also the stories of pros at the highest levels suddenly dropping out of competition . . . permanently . . . due to liver failure.

I’ll never forget retired pro bodybuilder, Steve Brisbois, telling first hand about the death of Mohammed Benaziza seven hours after winning the Dutch Grand Prix. Bill Pearl, who has been retired from competition for decades but is without question a bodybuilding legend made the following comment that probably best describes the competitive sport of bodybuilding, “The guy left standing on the stage today at the end of a bodybuilding show is probably the guy in the arena who is closest to death.”

The bodybuilding realities, or at least the dark side, have been well protected, but it’s important that those who are lured by “easy muscles, lots of chicks” understand the whole picture.

Going back to the email I wrote this article to answer, the line, “I really don’t care what happens to me after 30,” makes, at least in his eyes, most of the premature deaths I’ve mentioned meaningless, but I’d guess that any competent psychologist would identify the “win at all costs death wish” as a twisted perspective on achievement.

Because I know that many regular “juicers” who come to read this article will turn their noses at the deaths I’ve mentioned, if you’re asking me a steroid related question, I’m not going to give you the “steroids kill you” speech, nor am I going to deny that they can help to pack on lots and lots of muscle. Testosterone and hormonal products do have their place.

In aging individuals where endogenous production of testosterone has declined, hormone “replacement” can certainly add to the quality of life. I’d even suggest that those who are paid to perform at superhuman levels can find a benefit that outweighs any downside if their “prescription” is supervised and their body chemistry is monitored by the watchful eye of someone with a recognized credential and proven expertise in the workings of the endocrine system. Still, I am going to suggest that in an individual with a functional glandular network, more rewarding gains can be achieved naturally.

If you cannot find comfort with avoiding drugs just because Rick told you to, at the very least learn as much as you possibly can, be extremely careful in obtaining what are, in essence, uncontrolled controlled substances, and err on the side of caution rather than random experimentation.

If I’ve dissuaded you from the idea of using steroids, great! If you’re still hovering around the line of temptation, at the very least consider investing in credible information related to the endocrine system. Set up a consultation with a qualified medical professional who can request and assess a hormonal screening before you spend money on substances you don’t fully understand. Once the first “cycle” begins, it’s difficult to turn back.

Training and eating . . . that’s the magic . . . and if you’re willing to take the high road, the magic can lead to immense long term reward.

Rick Streb is the #1 Osage Beach Personal Trainer and Lake Ozark Personal Trainer

REMEMBER: I call anyone who walks through the door of a gym a bodybuilder… that includes you, ladies.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the muscles involved in shoulder pressing are so similar to those used in chest pressing that they play second fiddle. I’ve seen many bodybuilders and serious weight trainees devote an excessive amount of time and energy on their pecs, but only rush through a few quick sets for delts.

Nothing looks sillier than a guy with a big chest, decent arms and little width and thickness to his shoulders.

It’s a narrow, girlish look.

That’s right – GIRLISH!

Without wide, round shoulders it’s IMPOSSIBLE to have an exceptional physique.

The ideal basic shape of any individual is the V-taper. And the top of that V must be a set of wide, rugged shoulders along with wide lats.

So, unless you’re going to wear shoulder pads for the rest of your life, Sport, you need to pack some meat on top of those clavicles if you want to be considered a real muscle man.

It’s not tough to do. Just follow these rules.

Become Strong at Free-Weight Overhead Presses.

For big legs you must squat. A big chest comes from pressing and a huge back comes from pulling a ton of weight. And the shoulders have ONE simple movement that is the key to overall mass – the overhead press.

Trying to add size to your shoulders without doing presses is like trying to drive cross-country with you’re emergency brake on.

It will take you forever, and you’ll end up kicking yourself in the ass for being so stupid.

There are many useful machines for pressing, but I recommend that you use them only occasionally for variation. Free weights are the hardest tool to use, which translates into greater effectiveness and faster results. Machines also give you a false sense of strength. Pushing up a weight stack of 300 pounds may make you feel powerful, but it pales in comparison to the true power of pressing a 300-pound Olympic bar or a pair of 150-pound dumbbells. The former puts you in the category of pretty strong for the average gym rat; the latter sets you in a group of truly elite strong men.

My preferences are dumbbells or Smith Machine military press, but especially dumbbells… and for several reasons.

One, they are the absolute toughest to handle, requiring every last ounce of balance and coordination.

Two, I believe they do the best job of distributing the weight evenly amongst all three heads of the shoulder complex. Pressing the bar to the front tends to recruit more front delts activation. So does pressing behind the neck, but it carries a greater risk of rotator cuff damage over time. You can’t go wrong with heavy dumbbell presses in good form.

Don’t Turn Overhead Presses Into Incline Presses.

One very common error in form that you see all the time with overhead presses is an excessive backward lean. A SLIGHT lean is permissible, but if you take it too far, you effectively turn your shoulder press into an incline bench press for the upper chest. Supposedly, you’re already doing that when you are training your chest. You want the weight to be traveling in a straight vertical line up from your shoulder joint so that the delts are doing the work. Leaning back puts the resistance over your upper chest instead. The reason for this blatant flaw in form in nearly every case is that the lifter is using way more weight than he or she can actually handle. The shoulders aren’t strong enough to move the weight with their own power, so lifters unconsciously recruit the strength of the chest to assist. Make a mental note to be aware of where your butt is. It should be touching, or almost touching, the seat back behind you. Hopefully you’re lucky enough to have a good training partner that will stay on top of you about your form. If not…reduce the amount of weight, concentrate on what you’re doing, and feel the difference.

Learn How to Perform Lateral Raises Properly

The lateral, or side, raise is an incredible movement for developing round caps on your medial deltoids, but only if you do it right. Most people don’t. Usually you see guys heaving and throwing the weights up like they’re trying to flap their wings and fly. Most times it’s because they are using dumbbells that are far too heavy for them. I have watched thousands of people train over the past 10 years, and I can count on one hand the number I’ve seen who could use perfect form with 50 pounds of weight. Yet I see men all the time trying to use that much weight with horrible form, and they’re crazy enough to think that they’re actually working their side delts hard.

The quick-fix solution is to reduce the weight. I know that bruises a lot of egos, but you should be able to raise the weight under control and pause for a second to contract the side delt before lowering slowly – slower than the speed with which you raised the dumbbells. If you’re doing a little jump or thrusting your hips to help raise the weight, your form SUCKS, and you need to correct it.

This is actually one exercise in which I prefer using a cable apparatus over free weights. When using cables instead of free weights, you can lower the weight under control instead of letting the dumbbell drop down as so many trainees do. Cables seem to provide more continuous tension on the side deltoid as opposed to dumbbells. An important trick is to stop at the bottom of the movement right before the cable gets to your leg in order to keep continuous tension on the muscle. Do not allow the cable apparatus to cross over in front of your body, thus relieving the stress placed on the side deltoid.

Perform Upright Rows

Everyone wants wide shoulders.

If you try to say differently you’re a damn liar.

The only way to get there is to effectively work the side delts. Everyone knows about side laterals, but most people do not realize the value of upright rows for adding width to your shoulder complex. Upright rows performed with dumbbells are extremely effective. So are upright rows done with a barbell and slightly wider-than-shoulders-width grip. Do them in addition to lateral raises – or in place of them – every third or fourth workout. If you haven’t been doing upright rows, you don’t know how much round, full, side-delt mass you’ve been missing out on.

Develop Your Rear Delts

The posterior, or rear, delts are without a doubt the red-headed stepchild of the shoulder complex. Many people don’t train them at all, or if they do, it’s usually a few half-hearted sets before heading out the door at the end of their workout. It’s no surprise that very few men have good development in their rear delts. The solution is simply to train them, and train them hard. Either include three or four good sets of rear, or bent-over, laterals performed with dumbbells, cables or a machine on shoulder day or at the end of back day. They will grow if you just train them regularly and properly. Another suggestion is to train your side delts first on your shoulder day and work your way around to the front delts lastly.

Allow Your Shoulders to Recover

The shoulders are involved in practically every exercise you do for your upper body, and they are VERY easy to over-train.

Think about it: the rear delts get hammered indirectly on back day, the front delts take a beating on chest day, and even biceps and triceps work needs the support of the deltoids. That’s why it’s important that you try to take 48 hours between your shoulder and chest workouts in particular and also between shoulder and back workouts (the traps are involved in most back exercises and shoulder movements too).

Training shoulders the day before or after chest is especially counterproductive to making gains. Also, be conscious of overall volume; keep your overall workout sets to no more than 12 to 16. If you can’t get the job done with that, you need to train heavier and harder.

Find out how you can have great shoulders at my Osage Beach Personal Trainer site. CLICK HERE.

Have thoughts about this post? Let us hear your comments…

1.) Pull with Your Back, Not Your Arms

When performing pulling exercises such as those for upper/middle back like rows and lat pull-downs, initiate the movement with your scapula instead of your biceps.

It’s a natural tendency to initiate these pulling movements with your arms (i.e. biceps), but this is improper form if your intention is to train your back. Start the movement by grasping the bar with your arms straight, torso vertical and upright, and your shoulder girdle (shoulder blades and shoulders) slightly rolled forward for rows or upward for lat pull-down/ pull-ups.

I prefer a thumb-over grip, which treats your hands like the hooks they are meant to be in these exercises and therefore places less effort on the forearms. In other words, your forearms won’t tire before your back does.

Now for rows, initiate the movement by retracting your scapula (shoulder blades) backward toward your spinal column as if pinching your shoulder blades together. I teach my clients to try touching their elbows together behind their back. Of course this will never happen, but if you try to do so you will ensure that you are contracting the muscles to the fullest potential.

For lat pull-downs or pull-ups it’s the same concept except the angle of pull is different so your scapula will be pulled down and backward. Once your shoulder blades have exclusively initiated the movement, begin following through with your arms until the finish where you will squeeze your back for a moment or two. Your chest should remain high throughout the movement as well as maintaining the natural arch in your lower back.

Once you master this movement it will be less awkward and will become one fluid, natural movement. You may have to drop the weight a bit at first but you will rewarded with a fantastic fatigue and pump in your back that will let you know you were not previously training effectively and the soreness in your back the following day should be unparalleled.

Using this proper lifting technique should also reduce the amount of biceps fatigue you are normally accustomed to.

2.) Use Mass Building Exercises For Mass

If you’re goal is simply to put on muscle mass then you shouldn’t be messing around with isolation exercises or exercises that are better suited for adding definition.

You’re program should revolve around exercises that work multiple muscle groups and allow for heavy weights and maximum overload.

Example: Instead of performing isolation or concentration exercises for the triceps like one-arm cable push-downs or cable rope push-downs, which are best suited for definition of a particular head of the triceps (depending upon how it’s performed), you should be performing known mass-builders for the triceps like the close-grip bench press, dips, standard push-downs, skull-crushers, etc.

Mass-building exercises stress multiple muscles, which allows for heavy weights and successfully overloads the involved muscles. Stick with the tried-and-true mass-building exercises that are proven to add mass to the particular muscle group you are training.

Spend your time and energy on the basics if mass-building is your goal.

3.) Get a Grip for a Big Chest & A Big Bench

If you’re performing the barbell bench press for a big, strong chest make sure to use the optimal grip width.

Most people grasp the bar too narrowly and force their elbows inward by their sides, or too wide and force their elbows outward. Too narrow of a grip puts too much emphasis on the triceps. Too wide of a grip shifts most of the emphasis on the shoulders, which usually results in injury. Either way you are not providing sufficient stress to your chest… and that is the muscle you are trying to work!

To correct your form, simply lie on the bench and set an empty barbell on your chest at about your nipples or a little lower (or have someone help you). With the bar on your chest, grab the bar so that your elbows are in-line with your shoulders and your forearms are perpendicular to the floor.

Make a mental note of where your hands and fingers are positioned on the bar, which is usually in relation to the rings on the barbell.

When you’re ready to perform your set, place your hands in the appropriate place and go for it! If you’ve been using the same narrow grip for years, chances are you will not be able to lift as much weight at first. If you’ve been using a wider grip, you will probably notice an increase in your poundages right away. It is not uncommon to feel the difference in your chest that this position change has after just one set.

Keep in mind that flaring your elbows out so that they are in line with your shoulders may cause discomfort in some people with shoulder problems especially if you are bringing the bar down above your nipple line. Comfort and preventing injury to your joints should be priority number one, so simply move your elbows inward into a comfortable range in order to avoid the stress on your shoulder complex.

4.) Don’t Fatigue before You Get Started

It’s a given that you should be properly warmed up before you begin working out, but some people make the mistake of warming up with too heavy of weights, or with too many sets before they even get to their “working sets”.

When done this way, warm-up sets essentially become working sets as well. The point of warm-up sets is to prepare the muscles, body, and mind for the work-load you are about to place on it and to prevent injury. The problem of doing too much before you get to your working sets is that by the time you do get to them you are beyond warmed up and your muscles have actually become fatigued, even if slightly so.

Hence, if your muscles are fatigued, you will not be able to lift as much resistance as you could if they were completely fresh and you will not be producing optimal progressive overload on the muscles. Your results will therefore not be as good as they potentially could be.

Instead, I recommend warming-up with very light weights, high reps (12-15), and using a slow and controlled pace in a comfortable, full range of motion for no more than 2 sets. Never go to failure or even close to failure on your warm-up sets – you just want to pump some blood into the involved muscles and get those ligaments and tendons ready.

However, if you’re using lower reps and real heavy weight (typical of power-lifting or mass-building) on your working sets, you may need one more warm-up set called an “acclimation set”. The acclimation set involves using relatively heavy weight and higher reps than you would for your working sets (8-10), which will force you to use some effort but will not bring you to fatigue.

The purpose the acclimation set serves is bridge to gap between the very light resistance of your warm-up sets and the very heavy and strenuous resistance used in your working sets. This will prevent total shock or injury to your body when you do perform your first heavy working set.

If you didn’t use an acclimation set before an exercise such as a heavy barbell bench press, chances are that you might drop the weight on your chest as soon as you or your spotter un-rack it. Or worse, you could injure yourself.

There is also no need to perform warm-up sets for anything other than your first exercise for a specific muscle or muscle group. The muscles are already thoroughly warmed up from the preceding exercise and any wasteful sets would only serve to fatigue your muscles rather than produce the progressive overload needed for strength and muscle gain.

You should instead go straight into your working sets. Think of this new way of warming up as energy conservation so that you can lift bigger weights and produce better results.

5.) Perform Less Crunches for Better Results

Quality training is more important than quantity training for an impressive midsection.

I frankly don’t care how many hundreds or thousands of crunches a day somebody says they do. If done correctly one wouldn’t need to, and more importantly, couldn’t be doing so many, so often – unless wasting time and energy or “trying” to impress someone is the goal.

As with anything worth doing, you should be using the quality over quantity philosophy. Because the abdominals generally have more endurance-type fibers, they tend to respond better to higher repetitions.

If you can do more than 15 to 20 repetitions of whatever movement you are performing, then in my opinion, you are either performing the movement incorrectly or the resistance used is not sufficient. Additionally, the abdominals are best trained and fatigued by keeping constant tension on them. This means that even when you return to the beginning position, your abdominals are still tensed and contracting isometrically (contraction without movement).

The third major key to abdominal training is contracting your abdominals at the top of the movement as hard as you can for a moment or two (also an isometric contraction or what some people call a peak contraction).

This is how to effectively and efficiently train the abdominal muscles.

Once you have trained them correctly, now you need to let them rest and recuperate just as you do for other muscle groups. When the abdominals are trained and fatigued correctly, you should not need to train them more than 2-3 times a week. You should experience muscular soreness the following day just as you would for any other productive weight training session. And with this next-day soreness you wouldn’t be able to train your abdominals even if you wanted to.

Furthermore, it would be defeating the purpose because you would not be able to create progressive overload.

6.) Don’t Pace Yourself

Once you are warmed up and ready to perform your “working sets” treat each set like it’s your last.

This is something that I need to constantly remind my clients of. Don’t think about how many more sets you need to perform or how many other exercises you need to do. Pacing yourself through your workout will not produce optimal results. Intensity is the most important factor in producing results.

Example: If a program calls for 3 sets of 8 repetitions (after one or two warm-up sets, of course), individuals tend to stop themselves at 8 on the first or second set even if they can perform more than 8 because they are thinking that if they do 9 or 10 on this set they might only get 6 or 7 on the next set. Do not stop at some pre-determined number. Let your body tell you when to stop… not your mind!

Your first “working sets” are when you are fresh and strong and that is especially when you need to push yourself and leave it all on the line in order to lift the most weight you can and produce the greatest overload possible. As far as I’m concerned, everything after that is just icing on the cake.

If you need to incorporate techniques such as drop sets, rest/pause or simply drop the weight on the following set(s) in order to reach your target repetition range, then so be it.

7.) Want Bigger, Stronger Muscles? – Then Let Them Grow

It’s great to have goals and priorities in the gym, but being overzealous will get you no results.

Don’t expect to destroy your muscles in the gym and return the next day or two and train the same muscles and be able to lift more – especially if you are a drug-free lifter or your diet and sleep patterns are not up to par.

The general point of resistance training is to cause microscopic tearing of your muscle fibers, which causes your body to repair the tissue by making it stronger than before so that it can handle the increased demands being placed on the muscles. But if you are not allowing sufficient rest and repair time then you are interrupting this process and will NEVER grow or become stronger.

It is crucial to listen to your body, know how it responds to different training, and schedule your workouts accordingly in order to make continued progress on a regular basis.

Recovery time is going to differ for everyone, but generally you should wait at least 48-72 hours before training the same muscles again – you may even need as much as a week if you are using very high intensity or volume.

The more experienced you become at weight training and the more you become aware of your body, the easier it will be to know the perfect timing to train those muscles hard again in order to achieve the best results. A general personal philosophy that I have is to avoid training any muscle, or muscle group, if it is still sore from a previous workout. Once in a while won’t kill you though.

8.) Chest & Biceps Are Not Your Only Muscle Groups

Don’t be one of those guys who stick out like a sore thumb in the gym because they follow what I like call “the classic freshman workout program” where chest and biceps are trained almost exclusively.

This workout is typically composed of bench presses and flyes from every imaginable angle, as well as a multitude of biceps curls including hammer curls and is usually performed every time they come to the gym. Don’t forget that the legs and back are the largest muscle groups in the body and that they need to be trained as well.

A stronger back may even help with movements like the bench press because the back muscles work as antagonists during the movement. A wide back will help give you that coveted v-taper, making your midsection appear smaller and your appearance more aesthetically pleasing.

Training the trapezius (middle and lower fibers) and rhomboids of the back as well as the posterior deltoid will aid in improving any appearance of a forward slouch of the shoulders, thus bringing your chest up and giving you a more confident stronger appearance.

Not only will strong legs improve your power in sports (or God forbid, physical altercations) but a big, strong lower body will give you an overall strong, muscular looking physical appearance even while fully clothed.

There is nothing worse than seeing someone whose biceps are bigger than their thighs, or someone who can bench press more than they can squat. Incorporating days with other muscle groups into your weight training program will also serve to give you recovery time in between chest and biceps workouts.

So make sure you are spending as much, if not more, effort on these neglected muscle groups especially if you’ve been following the freshman workout for a while. If these muscles have been neglected, chances are that you may experience an immediate increase in strength, size, and bodyweight (muscle mass weight) once you begin training them.

9.) Use a Smaller Range Of Motion for Leg Raises

If you’re performing leg raises with your body in a vertical position and your intention is to concentrate on the lower portion of your abdominals, then your range of motion needs to be smaller than what is typically seen in a gym.

Moving your thighs from a vertical position to a horizontal one (90 degrees to your body) mainly solicits your hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris, tensor fascia lata). It is not until your thighs are at least horizontal that your rectus abdominis becomes intensely solicited and the primary mover.

So, in order to concentrate on your rectus abdominis (mainly the portion below the navel) you should start the movement with your thighs horizontal and perform small oscillations with your legs, keeping a rounded back and never lowering the knees below horizontal. The movement can be made even more difficult and effective through an isometric contraction (contraction with no movement) by keeping the knees tucked toward the chest for a moment or two.

This movement can be performed with the legs extended rather than with the knees bent in order to increase the resistance and its difficulty.

You can further increase the resistance by adding ankle weights or by having someone resist against your thighs on the concentric contraction (the way up).

Performing this movement with the legs extended requires good hamstrings flexibility so you may need to stretch your hamstrings first.

The movement can be made even more difficult and effective through an isometric contraction (contraction with no movement) by keeping the knees tucked toward the chest for a moment or two. Beginners, heavy individuals, or those that are not feeling the lower part of the abdominals working during this movement may want to try this exercise on an incline sit-up board or even a flat bench.

This will lessen the resistance of your bodyweight lifted, thereby making it easier. The lower the incline is set to, the easier it will be to perform. Make sure you are rounding your lower back in order to achieve the spinal flexion needed to target the lower abdominals.

10.) Mix It Up For Continued Progress

Sticking with the same exercises, in the same order, with the same sets and repetitions on the same days is a surefire way to achieve no results.

By the time you start to feel that your program is stale, chances are it’s been stale for longer than you think. There are many different methods for keeping your workouts fresh that involve such things as changing repetition ranges, exercise order, exercises, frequency, the pairing of various muscle groups, etc.

What I like to do sometimes when beginning with a new client who has been doing the same type of program for a while, is ask him or her what they are presently doing or what they have done recently. And then I’ll design a program that is the exact opposite, which completely shocks the body and spurs rapid results.

Complete overhaul of your exercise program sometimes means getting out of your comfort zone, but the results are worth it and you can always go back to your old routine at some point. And who knows, maybe you’ll find new exercises that you enjoy even more than the old ones.

Keep in mind that not everyone’s program needs a total makeover.

Personally, I find that changing the pairing of muscle groups for a given exercise session, changing from barbells to dumbbells and vice versa, as well as changing the repetition ranges used can have a large impact on avoiding or jumping over plateaus.

Everyone is different as far as how long it takes to hit a wall.

Generally you’ll want to change your program maybe every 4 weeks or so. But I always tell people if you are still genuinely moving up in repetitions and/or resistance for every exercise at every exercise session, don’t change a darn thing! If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Continue until you are unable to increase the resistance or repetitions for two consecutive exercise sessions. Just make sure you are not pacing yourself which will be a false indicator of if you are truly able to move up in weight or not.

There is also the school of thought that trains like myself by training instinctively instead of sticking with a set-in-stone program for a certain period of time. Instinctive weight lifters listen to their body and their intuition and may not even know what exercises or in what order they are going to do them in until they walk in the gym. They will have a general guideline in their head though.

If their body’s telling them it’s not ready to train that muscle again, they may take an extra day off, or if they feel extra good they may move their session up a day. If I don’t feel the muscles working the way I want them to on the first couple of reps, I’ll stop immediately or finish the set and then move on to something else.

If my energy level happens to be low on a particular day, I’ll use a higher rep range and really concentrate on slow and controlled form and feeling the muscle under continuous tension instead of using real heavy weight.

Spontaneity, keeping your body guessing, and going with what feels right in the moment is the name of the game. Weight training, in my opinion, shouldn’t make you feel like an accountant crunching numbers in between sets. Above all else, you should enjoy what you are doing which will keep you interested and motivated and moving towards progress.

As always, you need to decide what works best for you – scheduled set-in-stone workouts, instinctive training or a little of both. No one method is necessarily better than the other is.

The key is to keep the intensity high and keep plugging away.

Rick Streb – Osage Beach Personal Trainer

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Osage Beach Personal Trainer

The buns are getting loads of press lately. It seems a perky posterior is as high a priority for many women as a pair of equally perky breasts. Some women are going to great lengths to achieve a more voluminous back-side, including undergoing buttock implants, augmentation and fat injections – extreme procedures when trying to eradicate a saggy, unimpressive derriere.

Haven’t these people heard of weight training?

With fitness and muscle development trends today, women can readily, and easily, achieve a tightly tones rear-end without having to consider surgical alternatives. When you think about it, who would want to get cut with a scalpel when you can get the results you want with weight training? Most of you are already incorporating weight training into your fitness and body-shaping regimens, so it’s just a matter of focusing more on what’s behind you.

You really have to make an extra effort to train the glute muscles. They do come into play when doing other muscle-building exercises, but to truly shape your posterior you must add a few specific butt-shaping exercises. The good news is the three muscles making up the glute region – the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius and the gluteus minimus – respond very well to direct training. Like the abdominals, the glutes can withstand a lot of punishment, so think of it in terms of incorporating a dedicated glute-training program twice a week to lift and tone.

Choose two glute exercises per workout session, 4 or 5 sets of each exercise, 12 to 15 repetitions per set to totally work the muscles. Not sure if you are doing the exercise correctly? Reach around behind and touch your muscles during the exercise. You should be able to feel them contracting.

The Exercises

Prone Hip Raises – A good exercise to lead off with, prone hip raises can be done with or without weights. Lie on the floor on your back with knees drawn up, feet planted shoulder-width apart. Raise your hips off the floor so that your bodyweight is supported by your shoulders and feet. Squeeze the glutes as you raise your hips so that you feel a good contraction. DO NOT let the buttocks rest on the floor between repetitions. Try to complete 4-5 sets of 12-15 reps.

If you want to increase the degree of difficulty, incorporate “burns” into your hip raises: Raise your hips, contract the glutes and do pulses or mini hip raises, at the top of the movement. Do 12-15 burns after doing the full-ranges hip raise. You will soon discover why I call the “burns.”

Putting a weight on your abdomen creates an even greater challenge. Hold the plate securely on your midsection so that it won’t slip down and hit you in the face. Really feel those glutes working. Squeeze the muscles. You will eventually be able to use two 45-pound plates.

Lunges – As far as I’m concerned this is the grand-mommy of all glute exercises. When performed properly NOTHING adds shape to the tush faster than the lunge. The problem is that most people do not do lunges correctly and never receive the benefits from such a tremendous movement. Lunges can be performed with or without weights, walking, with one leg up on a bench, reverse lunges on a Smith Machine, etc., etc. The variations are limitless.

Most often when you see someone attempting to do lunges they kneel down and touch their knee to the floor, come back up and repeat the same motion with the other leg. The exercise is called lunges, not “kneel downs!” If you were supposed to simply kneel down the exercise would be named accordingly.

Proper execution of the exercise requires you to lunge out (hence, the name) as far as possible, keeping your upper body perpendicular to the floor (erect). As you move forward from this position you must squeeze the glutes tightly to completely activate all the fibers of the glute region. This squeeze, or contracting of the muscles, is what makes the exercise so effective. This contraction cannot be achieved by simply kneeling down.

Squats – That’s right… Squats. “But Rick, squats are hard.” That’s right, they are. And your butt will be hard too… if you do them. Plain and simple.

I prefer for women to perform squats on a Smith Machine. Position yourself under the bar and place you feet out in front of you (anywhere from 1-2 feet). The reason for this is simple. If your feet are directly beneath you and you perform the exercise, your knees will pass forward of the position of your feet. This places a lot of undue stress on the knee joint, and is a recipe for disaster. The knee is not made to handle the amount of weight that your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings and hips can handle combined. But when you attempt to squat with your feet directly under you in the Smith Machine this is exactly what you are asking your knees to do. This is a recipe for injury. So, with your feet out in front of you to avoid injury, begin your descent to the floor slowly and deliberately. Descend all the way to the floor. That’s right… take your bootie all the way down to the floor. The glute muscles are activated during the lower part of the exercise. As you begin your rise back to the top, push with the heels of your feet and squeeze your rear-end tightly. This little tip will create more activation of the glute muscles than you can imagine. As you reach the finish point of the repetition, do not lock out at the top. Instead, stop just short of locking your knees out, pause for a moment and begin the next repetition. Four to five sets of 10-12 repetitions will be plenty of this exercise.

REMEMBER: Take your butt all the way to the floor, push with the heels of your feet, and squeeze the hell out of your butt to get the most out of this exercise.

Kneeling Cable Kickbacks – Want to hit all three glute muscles with a bang? Nothing does it better than the kneeling cable kickback. A variation of the standing cable kickback, kneeling demands more effort from the glutes because the range of motion is greater. It also works against gravity.

Place a flat bench in front of a weight stack. Attach a cuff to one of your ankles and attach that to the weight stack. Kneel on the bench with the free leg. Bring the cuffed leg far forward, then slowly back and as high as possible. Like with the squats, try to push backwards with your heel to generate more contraction to the glute region. Contract the glutes tightly as you work. Place a hand on the working glute periodically to feel the muscles working. This helps to keep your effort honest. Perform 4-5 sets of 12 repetitions for each leg. Begin with a moderate weight like 30 to 40 pounds to perfect your technique and build a strength base. Progress to more weight in two to three weeks once you feel you can handle it.

A machine that is found in many gyms these days is called the “Butt Blaster.” This machine simulates the motion of the Kneeling Cable Kickbacks since it is designed to place you in the proper position for the exercise.

Other effective glute-training exercises to consider adding for variety are stiff-legged dead-lifts and good mornings.

Cardio – If you want a rear-end that stops people dead in their tracks you must do your share of cardio training. Let’s face it… you can have the greatest ass in the world, but if it’s covered by layers of fat nobody will ever be able to admire it, much less want to admire it. Stair-climbing and elliptical trainers are both effective modes of cardio exercise that target the glutes, but as far as yielding the highest results, nothing works better than walking on a treadmill at a high-grade incline. The higher the incline, the more the glutes are activated. Forty to sixty minutes per session, 4-5 times per week.

Nutrition – This one is pretty obvious, isn’t it? If you don’t want junk in the trunk, then you can’t eat junk. This should be a no-brainer. If you’re not sure what to eat CLICK HERE.

Eat properly most of the time, perform direct butt-shaping exercises and put in your time on the treadmill, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how quickly your butt becomes an object of affection. Trust me… in today’s society, with breast implants being as commonplace as make-up, any woman can have a pleasing upper body. But, a tight, toned, jaw-dropping backside is truly something to behold… a REAL show-stopper. So, what are you waiting for… get your ass in gear!

Rick Streb – Osage Beach Personal Trainer

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