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Tuesday, 2 August 2016

5 Killer Back Exercises You Are NOT Doing!



Back is human’s one of the strongest muscle group in the body. We have to make sure it is strong enough to support us. A weak back will cause hunchback because the muscles does not have the capability to support the heavy torso. However, many people forget to include some exercises that are extremely beneficial to build a strong and muscular back. Especially the newbies, they only think that biceps curls are going to make them huge, which is totally wrong. In addition, back is the opposite muscle of chest. This means your back is vital to support you when you are doing any type of bench press, otherwise you back is going to hurt. Below shows you 5 excellent back exercises many people are not doing today. After reading this article, I believe you would love to include them!

1. Upright rows


This exercise has two variations. One’s emphasis is on shoulders and another’s is on your back and today we will focus on the back. Upright row is a best exercise to bring up your lacking upper to middle back because it just target your  these two parts of the back so much that you will feel the full contraction at your back, as well as your traps when performing upright rows. Importantly, if you have wrist pain or you feel your wrist hurt when rowing, you can grab the bar at a wider grip or/and use a wrist support. Do not overlook the positions where you grab the bar, this makes a huge difference and changes the purpose of the training.

How to upright-row: Firstly, grab a barbell or dumbbell. I suggest you use a barbell instead of a pair of dumbbells to practise your form first. Bad forms injure your body. Secondly, while holding the barbell, you stand straight with your chest out and shoulder back, and you must keep this form strict when performing the upright rows. This is just like the base. You cannot build a house without a good base. Thirdly, you lift it up vertically until it touches your lower chest. At this point, you should totally feel the contraction if you follow second step. Forth, slowly lower down the back down your waist. Then you repeat this steps until you reach the number of repetitions you want to achieve.


2. T-bar rows



This bar row is undeniably a good move to build those lower parts of your back. It targets your latissimus dorsi and erector spinae, which means your whole lower back, as well as your stabilising muscles like legs and core. Do not worry there is a photo above to show you the location of these muscles. Before doing T-bar rows, you grab the bar so the bar is then at an inclined level, which requires more of your stabilising muscles to support this position. Look, before you start rowing, you have to use many muscles to stabilise yourself. Doesn’t this involve more muscles, which means more growth?

How to T-bar row: Firstly, you stand on it. Secondly, you squat down and make your back straight. With this position, you lift up the handle of the bar. Why squat down not bent down? Bending down to lift the bar up is detrimental to your spine, especially you are lifting heavy, which is also the reason why some people have spine pain because they carry up the weight without using a proper way. Thirdly, you row. The handle of the bar should be lifted up to your abdominal muscles or below in order to target your lower back muscles. Forth, slowly lower down the bar. Then you repeat this steps until you reach the number of repetitions you want to achieve.


3. Deadlifts


Deadlift can be said that it is my favourite exercises. I never ever skip deadlift. There are also many variations of deadlifts such as sumo deadlift and stiff legged deadlift but today, we will focus on the regular deadlift which targets our back. The whole back I could say is being hit by this exercise. I feel my upper back, trap, lower back and more when deadlifting. As our back is a considerably big muscle group on our body, more efforts are needed to perform deadlift. Significantly, this exercise also stimulates more muscle growth on your back. With confidence, I would say people who deadlift are generally stronger and more stable.

How to deadlift: First of all, you stand in front of your barbell. Both of your shins should be just slightly touching the bar. Secondly, you stand straight with your shoulders back and chest out. Then you bend down and grab the bar at about shoulder’s width apart. After all this, you look up and be mentally and prepared for some heavy lifts. Lastly, lift the bar up and contract your back by moving your shoulder back as much as possible to the point where you still stand stably. I do not mean falling backwards. Importantly, looking up will help straighten your back to some degree. Never hunch you back or bend your back when lifting up. This is imperatively critical because you can literally hurt your back when you hunch. Unfortunately, if you injure your back, you have to take months to even years to rest. I believe you would not want this to happen too.

In addition, you can also use Beast Strength Belt to stabilise your core if your core is weaker, which might hinder your performance in gym. 

4. Pull-ups


Pull-ups is also one of my favourite exercises. In the past, I could hardly get one repetition for pull-up. Now, I pull up with a weight to train my back and biceps. Pretty badass right? Could you imagine how important pull-ups is in helping me to develop my back?

Pull-ups target almost the same muscles as deadlift, except erector spinae. It does not really work on the erector spinae. This exercise develops your latissimus dorsi a lot, which means honing a wider back. Additionally, it also works your grip strength. You palms and your traps are responsible for hanging you up there but let us place the emphasis on your palms. Today, a lot of people do not actually train their grip strength, wrists and finger strength. These are also especially vital when you do any pulling movements, such as pull-ups itself, deadlifts, rows as well as curls.

How to pull-up: Firstly, you hold on to the bar and hang yourself up there. Take note that you should very slightly bend elbows to prevent excessive pressure acting on your elbows. Secondly, you slowly lift yourself up in a count of 2. Remember, you should put your shoulders back and chest out when you are lifting yourself up, as well as lowering yourself down. This is the form. I emphasize it for these 5 exercises, do you notice it? Hold it at the top that for 1 second, then thirdly, slowly lower yourself down. Do not forget that you should keep your core tight while lowering down. If you do this correctly, you should not be swinging when pulling-up. Repeat the steps again.



5. Weight Shrug



Shrug is an awesome exercise to develop those traps. As you can see in the picture, traps are responsible for bigger inner back. The muscles stretch from your inner back along to the back of your neck. These muscles, if well-developed, provide you an image of a thicker neck and an image of small mountains on your shoulders. Importantly, stronger traps are also very helpful for you when you are holding heavy weights. It is also worth mentioning that 7 out of 10 people do not certainly train their traps, which as a result, becomes weaker. I have seen a huge guy with small traps. You, of course, would not like to be like him.

How to do: Personally, I would prefer shrugging on machine and on smith machine, as well as with dumbbells because they lock the weight in the position. Firstly, you can grab a pair of dumbbells and place your arms of the side of your body. Stand straight and tall with chest out and shoulders back. Keep this form strictly. Secondly, squeeze your traps. Take note that you should not squeeze your back and if you do correctly, you should feel your traps burning. The rest of your back will never feel the burn.


Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy reading this article. Please remember to follow this blog, me on Google Plus as well as on Facebook. I am looking forward to your follow. Have a nice day and train hard!

Wednesday, 20 July 2016

Staying in your comfort zone makes you a LOSER.

Goldfish jumping out of the more occupied bowl and towards a bowl that is much comfortable and less crowded. 

Do not get me wrong. If life can decidable, everyone definitely loves living comfortably. Most people go to work every single day and fight for life just because they want to live comfortably or let their family to live comfortably. However, it is difficult to detect if a person is living in comfort.

Today, typical office workers might have projects that cannot finish in time and they often work overtime till midnight, causing them to feel weary. On the flip side, because of this stress, they may grow to become a better, smarter, intelligent and sophisticated person, especially in their work field. It is worth noting that people only develop under one special state, which you feel considerably uncomfortable.

If life can be determined by ourselves, who wouldn’t want to have a job that is near our homes, less busy but lucrative? However, think deeply profoundly and carefully, is this really good? During your young days, when you are most energetic, most able to overcome failures and most able to withstand pressure, you choose to live comfortably, doesn’t this waste your prime?


Whether we are living in your comfort zone, we will not detect this easily. For example, we may have been living comfortably for a long period of time and we find out that we have actually wasted our competitiveness in the workplace and that we have been overtaken competitors. To prevent this, the best way is to constantly remind ourselves to stay out of our comfort zone. A best way to do this is to list down your goal(s) and paste it at a most conspicuous place where you will pass through every day.

Now, stop whatever you are doing and think thoroughly and warily whether you are living very comfortably recently. If you are still young, you regularly enjoy your life and repeatedly engaging in activities such as travelling, tasting delicious food, watching movie, lazing at home, playing digital games, watching movie at cinema with friends and overly dating. Now, again, ask yourself, is this really good? When you are young and most capable of learning, you choose to spend time on those activities, is this appropriate?

We tend to overlook a trivial point, which is the cost of learning. At your young times, learning cost is the lowest and with increasing age, the cost of learning heightens accordingly. At a young age of about 20, we might learn a skill in just one day. However, after 5 years, we might need 2 days to learn that skill. Due to this, we should grasp our youth firmly and seriously, taking advantage of it to learn more at those times. The sooner we get our professional capacity, the greater our advantage.


Human beings are a kind of animal who always will make themselves cozy. Once being careless, you will think of allowing yourself to be comfortable. Hence, it is undetectable when we are living in our comfort zone. Unknowingly, the gaps between people are stretched wide apart. It is usually too late when we find out that.

What you read here can also be applied to your fitness lifestyle. Do get fit now and your life expectancy will possible lengthen!

Thereby, note down all the things you want to do and your goals and paste it at a highly visible place, same as that I mention above and try to accomplish them now or DREAM ON!



Thank you for reading. I hope you receive something from this article today! Remember to share and follow me on Google+ and Facebook! Lastly, follow this blog to read the latest articles!

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

In Life, you MUST KNOW that There's Nothing to hold on for.


A journey is very different from life. During your journey, you will meet a lot of people but you will always meet these three kinds of persons:

The first kind – He/she makes you feel like you should have known him/her in our early life and you would like to continue being together with him/her after knowing him/her. Also, you would love to continue the trip with him/her to the extent that you wish to keep in touch with him/her after the end of the trip.

The second kind – They are very nasty that you want to move away from them as soon as possible and you even hope that you will never ever meet this kind of people in your next life. Remember that in future, when experiencing such people, you can never be soft-hearted and must make an enormous distance between them. Simply, they don’t deserve your benevolence because they make you feel like being in hell. 

The third kind – They are just ordinary travellers. Conversations with them can carry out smoothly and when leaving, you will not especially miss them. Even someday when you meet them again, you will not feel any excitement as to you, they are just passers-by. Probably after a few days, you will not even think of them and virtually, they just disappear in your memory.

In fact, during my journey, I encounter most third kind of people and the conversation with them usually is like:

“Where are you come from?”
“Oh, how many days do you stay here?”        
“Where have you gone before?”
“Any places that you would recommend going?”


Perhaps some people will talk about more, which would be like :
“Where did you go for the past few days?”
“What places or destinations do you find worth visiting?”
“Where will you be visiting next?”

No matter whether the people you meet are from the first or second kind, eventually they will become the third kind. Overly missing or thinking this kind of people makes you rigid and overly hating them will create resentment.

Nevertheless, why not we just maintain a dull mind and continue the journey? In reality, everyone is just a passer-by and they are only discovered during our journey. Sometimes, feeling that we are deeply in love of whom we cannot afford to lose but that could be just our very shallow thought of feeling of love.

In the past, I questioned myself that, ‘why I love her(him) so much?’ when she(he) just gave me half of my love, which meant I love her more than she did. In life, I believe that everyone had tried hard to keep our love relationship(s) but we would somehow feel dispirited because our partner did not put in more effort than we did in the relationship.

Crying and feeling unfair and angry are the consequences of feeling the unwanted feeling from our partner.


There is an uphill increase of the number of people plunging into my journey, walking past me. During my journey, I begin to face myself and all those ambiguous relationships. While thinking and reflecting my journey, I gradually learnt to let go. I stopped hating those who made me mad and stopped thinking about those eventual third kind of people, and finally I unlocked all the fetters on me.

If the last part of my journey leave me alone, it is only me to accompany myself completing it. In life, people come and go every certain time for example, during our years of studies in a particular college. Therefore, instead of distressing myself with those passers-by, why not we just simply live the life we want?

Being single is not a bad thing. It is worth mentioning that when one dies, he/she goes himself/herself without your companion. Moreover, being lonely is not terrible because in the beginning of our life, we are destined to be alone.

As long as you think carefully and thoroughly, and learn to be flexible, your life will be a peaceful one. Remember, everyone is just passer-by so there is nothing at all to hold on for or let go. Predominantly, the only thing that you should never ever let go and never lose is yourself.

Thank you for reading! I hope you learn something after reading this article. Please feel free to comment below and share!


Sunday, 26 June 2016

Try this Simple Tip for Bigger Chest. Don't miss it!

Arnold Schwarzenegger's chest is undeniably huge. 
Welcome to my blog!


Are you eager to build big chest? Do you feel small among your friends? Is your chest lacking up? No worry. I’m going to show you a quick and simple tip to stimulate maximum available growth in your chest muscles. In my perspective, I find this tip extremely awesome and now I'd like to share it with everyone!

Let’s get started!

Personally, I call this tip “Focus”. You have to focus on your muscles when you are training them. This tip is applicable to every physical training. Simply, you have to tell yourself or make your brain know that you are working on the muscles. Connection between muscles and mind is pivotal too. 


How to apply
For example, when you are training your chest, you keep your back and shoulders back as much as possible (This is of prime importance. You need to push the chest out in order to fully train them.) .


Now, without moving any weight, you can feel the contraction on your chest, especially your lower chest. To make sure you have this initial contraction before hitting the muscles, you just simply touch your chest and it is hard. If you cannot reach this stage, that means you have not fully extended your back and put your shoulders back. 
*Note: You shouldn't feel my back aching painfully when trying to straighten your back.


When to apply
Then, you apply this technique to your almost all chest exercises like bench presses, bench flys or push-ups, and combine it with a slow tempo. Slow tempo can be done in a way where you press the weights up in 1 second, hold it there for 1 second and finally lower it down in 3-5 seconds. This example is called a 1.5.1 tempo. Additionally, muscle fibres break down in a larger amount during eccentric motion of exercises. After a workout like this, your chest is burnt out completely and you can literally get a feeling of ‘pump’ on it. Therefore, even calisthenics can build massive muscles. It is just the way you work the muscles out.

Now, you might regret that during chest press exercises, you had always been dropping the weights down to your chest immediately in each repetition. However, it is not too late. Change today and results will be more explicit to you.

One important note that you will notice is you will not be able to life as much weight as before. This is a very common phenomenon because now you are focusing on each repetition instead of rushing, but this does not mean your strength is lost.


Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy it. If you still do not know how to get the “focus” ready, feel free to comment below and I’ll make it more unambiguous to you. Share this to help others as well! J

Saturday, 18 June 2016

How to build big TRICEPS with Dumbbell and/or Bodyweight


For people, who cannot access to gym or prefer exercising at home or park but still want to get big triceps, please do not feel worry as there are exercises you can do and techniques you can apply to your training to get triceps! I will show you how you can build big triceps with just dumbbells and bodyweight.

When it comes to training for big arms, the triceps are very important as 3/5 of our arms’ size consist of triceps while the remaining size consist of biceps. Thus, you see how important triceps are in getting a big arm.

Triceps structure
Triceps are made of three smaller muscles, long head, lateral head and medial head. The long head is the one that is nearer to our back or our body. The lateral head is located at the side of arm, just behind the biceps long head. The medial head is near the elbow.

Significantly, you need to know that all triceps exercises will hit the three heads of the triceps as you cannot really isolate each head but there are exercises that you can do to put more stress on certain heads of the triceps.

Let’s get started!

Long head
Young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Long head is pivotal in showing arm muscles. This pose above clearly shows the arms muscles, biceps and triceps. Everything below the biceps is the long head of the triceps. If you have a small long head, your triceps will not show well, making you fat. Fortunately, as said, you cannot isolate a specific head of the triceps. Hence, although you do not particularly train this muscle, you will still have a seemingly big triceps. However, I still strongly recommend training all three heads of triceps to achieve the best-looking triceps as possible.

Dumbbell(s) : Any type of overhead presses, such as skull crushers with Dumbbell, overhead triceps extension.


Lateral head

Lateral head is responsible for the separation of biceps and triceps at the side-view. It makes your arm looks considerably big when it is well-built. For people whose lateral head is not showing very clearly, there are two reason. First, your lateral head might really small, which means your overall triceps may be also small. Second, your arm is covered with excess fat so that you have to burn the fat off in order to see this muscle separating with the biceps.

Dumbbell(s) : kickback

Bodyweight : Close grip push-up, diamond push-up, Close grip push-up(knees on floor)


Medial head

For medial head, dips or weighted dips are already good enough to hit this muscle. Also, this muscle is also highly stressed during any triceps exercise due to its position (near the elbow as said), so the elbow movement of the triceps exercises will always hit this muscle. This muscle also needs to be strong than the other two in order to prevent injury of elbow. Therefore, besides doing the long and lateral head exercises, you must also include dips in your workout.

Bodyweight : Bench dips, Dips

1)   For bench dips, get two chairs and place them opposite each other but with some distance apart.
2)   Put your legs on one chair and your arms full extended on the other chair. This is your starting position.
3)  Lower yourself down in 4-5s, pause yourself at there for 1-2s and move back to starting position in immediately. This is one repetition. Do 10-15reps for 3-4sets
4)   The instruction for bench dips is the same for Dips. The difference is only that your legs are not supported, which means you are doing dips with move bodyweight.


How to workout:
1) Choose a few exercises that will target all three heads.
2) Do 10-15 repetitions for each set of each exercise.
3) A total of 10-12 sets of all exercises will be ideal.

Sample workout:

Bodyweight:
·       1-2 warmup set(s) for the triceps. You can do exercises like close grip push-up.
·       3 sets of bodyweight overhead extension
·       3 sets of bodyweight triceps extension
·       3 sets of close grip push-up
·       3 sets dips or weighted dips
*Note: If any of these exercises is too easy for you, try doing them with a slow tempo (etc. 5,1,1) or add weights (etc, a gallon of water container. Put it on your legs when doing bench dips. )

Dumbbells:
·       1-2 warm-up set(s) for the triceps. You can do exercises like triceps pulldown.
·       2 sets of overhead dumbbell extension
·       2 sets of dumbbell skull crusher
·       4 sets of close grip push-up or dumbbell close grip press (If you have heavy dumbbells)
·       4 sets of kickbacks

*Note: If any of these exercises is too easy for you, try doing them with a slow tempo (etc. 5,1,1)

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to comment and I'll reply you as soon as possible :) 

Monday, 13 June 2016

Motivation | How to Find!

Do you feel very unmotivated towards your goal? Actually, motivation comes from yourself. However, you can intensify it whenever you want to give up, ensuring that you are always on the right track.

1. Comparison
Left: Chubby                |                         Right: Muscular
Humans, especially girls, are born to be competitive. They compare themselves with others, usually who are better than themselves in certain aspects, such as body shape, academic results and skills. These little competitions will spur people to become better, and this will slowly become a type of motivation. For example, some people compare their fat body with an aesthetic body, causing them to create a goal to reach that kind of body. In the gym, for guys, when you see some lean big bodybuilders, you feel small and weak. At most of the times, this makes you want to become similar to them. For most girls, the comparison is much stronger. Some will vomit food that they have just eaten and some will stop themselves to eat and keep exercising. However, these two ways of getting slim are detrimental to our health. Do not try these or you will make yourself die! Hence, comparison creates motivation in most people but for some people, instead of comparing, they choose to admire, which also achieves the same effect.

2. Reflection
Give a guess for the implication of the image! Source
                                                                                                                                 
You need to know a very significant fact, which is a big goal comprises of many small goals. You cannot make a big transformation of your body in just one day. You got to set very little goals very day, leading you to your big goal. Your everyday tiny goal can be just completing your diet without any cheating, or finishing your workout without giving up halfway. Moreover, you can everyday look at the mirror and admire yourself. Yourself can be a good motivation and sometimes, it is just that you have not realised that you have made good gain or have gotten leaner. Everyday, look at yourself. When you see you gains, you will be motivated and thus continue training and dieting.

See also: Be HAPPY FOREVER with ONLY 8 tips!!

3. Music


No motivation? Never mind! Just go to the gym, plug in your earphone, play your favourite musics or a Youtube workout music, and you will be ready. Motivation will set in slowly. Music is not just to avoid boredom, but can affect your emotion, feeling, mood and mind. You can choose and play your favourite songs as long as you feel the willpower in yourself. A study showed that after hearing a short piece of music, participants were more likely to interpret a neutral expression as happy or sad, to match the tone of the music they heard. This also happened with other facial expressions, but was most notable for those that were close to neutral.

See also: How to build full biceps and bring up the lagging parts of the biceps!!!

4. Scream
Phil Health
You saw powerlifters shout before lifting, did you? You saw fighters shout while punching, did you? This is not that they are crazy or immersed in the activity, nor they want to attract attention or scare off their enemies. When they shout, they release tension in their body and get an invisible power or strength. Their mind will be fresh, clear, and concentrated. In this way, they perform better. Below is a conversation between my school’s Karate teacher and me.

Karate teacher: Where does power come from?
Me                    : Muscles.
Karate teacher: You’re wrong! Power comes from scream!

Now, I guess you know why screaming can create a type of motivation already.


That's all for the article, Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy it! Please comment below if you have any question! Your question(s) will be answered as soon as possible.



Friday, 10 June 2016

Can’t Afford Protein? No Problem! 6 Cheap Sources of Protein Here!

NO  PROTEIN  NO  PROBLEM  !!!


Life today is not easy. Usually, you work more and are paid less. Then, you think you cannot build muscle without supplements such as protein and that for pre- and post-workout? This is not true. Supplements are just supplements. They supply what you lack in your diet. Many people do not know this fact and make them a replacement in their diet. In this way, you will not get enough nutrients, such as Vitamin A, B and C, and definitely, this put your body at high risk of illnesses.

However, it is undisputable that supplements are helpful. Nowadays, the protein supplements in the market have many benefits, such as fast-absorbing ability, fast- recovering ability and 4-10 hours release of protein. For example, Muscle Pharm Combat Protein Powder has up to 8 hours release of protein.

Personally, I consume 1 scoop of protein powder daily at the time before my workout. After workout, I eat chicken breast, drink milk, and have some carbs, and all these food provide me enough nutrient to recover and grow. I feel great and full after the meal. In fact, more people start to remove supplements from their diets and of course, they show good results too!

Without any saying, let me show you 6 cheap sources of protein.

1. Egg



Egg is high in protein and they contain all of the essential amino acids that help in muscle growth and muscle recovery. One large egg contains 6 protein. About 60% of its protein is found in egg white. Egg yolk is high in cholesterol, thus for average people, 1 yolk per day is optimal. Personally, I consume 1 hard-boiled egg and 5 hard-boiled egg whites in a meal, which give me 24g of protein.

Cost: SGD$4.00-4.50/30 , RM14/30



2. Chicken breast



Chicken breast is very high in protein and is extremely common among bodybuilders. A piece of 100g of skinless boneless chicken breast have 25g of protein and is only 120 calories. As you can see, it is very low in calories. It is also very easy to cook. Personally, I will marinate about 1kg of chicken breast without bone and skin for one day, with melted butter, cooked chopped onions, soya sauce, some seasoning sauce, black and white peppers and salt, then store in the fridge. You can grill or bake it when you want to eat, and it tastes awesome!

Cost: About SGD$1.50-2.50/100g , About RM5-7/400g


3. Milk



Milk is rich in protein and calcium and is very critical as it promote healthy and strong bone, and give you the protein to build muscle. A 200ml of HL milk is only 100 calories and contains 10g of protein and 50% of your daily calcium needs. Personally, I drink it in the morning and after workout of each 200ml.

Cost: About SGD$5.00-5.50


4. Tuna chunks in water


Tuna chunks in water is very cheap and extremely rich in protein. One entire canned tuna contains about 36g of protein. The rest of the types of tuna is not that rich in protein, but their original flavour are nicer than that of tuna chunks in water. Hence, you need to season it yourself. Personally, I will cook them with butter, garlics and onions, and eat it with omelete.

Cost: SGD$1.50/canned


5. Peanut butter


Peanut butter has high protein and high good fat. 2 tbsp. of it (36g) usually contains 8g of protein and 200g of calories. As you know, it contains a lot of healthy fat, that’s why it has more calories. These fat are imperative too in our body too as they promote hormonal activity. Personally, I take it with breads in my breakfast.

Cost: SGD$4-7



6. Oatmeal


Oatmeal is a good source of protein too and are high in fibre. Usually, a good oatmeal contains 7.5g of protein per 100g and 9.7g of fibres! Not only protein and fibres, they are also high in minerals, iron, magnesium and zinc, allowing us to grow healthy and stronger. Personally, I mix them with hot Milo powder and water, and drink it before workout, then I’m physically ready for some heavy liftings.


Cost: SGD$4-6/1kg