This movement is great for the lat muscles of the back as well as puts a tremendous amount of tension on the core muscles.  The bent press can be a great exercise to supplement to a bench press routine since it teaches one how to flex the lats.  Flexing the lats is one of the best things you can learn when trying to improve your bench press numbers.  If you want a  bigger bench than add this movement into your training routine for a 6-8 week period.

I highly recommend seeking the guidance of a professional coach to teach you the proper mechanics of the bent press.

If you have any questions or would like to see any other kettlebell exercise comment below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Perform a KB clean & press followed by a chin up and see how many sets you can get in 15 minutes.
Rest for 3 minutes and then perform a 1 arm snatch with a descending ladder of 10 reps each arm followed by 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, and finally 2 reps.

This will give you a great workout in minimal time, which is what most people lack. Enjoy!

POST YOUR FAVORITE QUICKIE WORKOUT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

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Leave a comment below and tell me what you want to see

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Today I did my intervals on the beach.  It felt great.  It was a beautiful day and it felt great to get some exercise in outside.  What better place to run than alongside the ocean.  This is just one of many ways to get your workout outside during the nicer whether.

Below is a video clip of a conditioning workout I did the other day in my backyard.  It was beautiful out and I had limited time to get a workout in so I hit a 25 minute metabolic session in at home.  Not much equipment needed and it was a GREAT workout.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Monday 4/12/10
1a. Incline DB Bench: 65x10x2, 75x10x2
1b. Bulgarian Split Squat: BWx15ea, 15x15ea, 15x12eax2

2a. CG Pulldowns: 105×15, 120x15x2, 120×10
2b. DB Forward Reaching Lunge w/ Side Lateral Raise: 15x12eax2, 20x12eax2

3a. Seated DB Alternating Shoulder Press: 25x12ea,30x12eax2,35x12ea
3b. Spidermans: BWx10 eax4

4a. Standing Barbell Curls: 55x15x4
4b. Elevated Push-ups b/t 2 Med Balls: BWx20,20,15,15

5a. Triceps Pressdown: 95x15x4
5b. MB Vertical Chop: 7kgx15x4

6a. Reverse Hyperextensions: 120x12x4
6b. Standing Chest Press w/ Bands: Yellow x 20×4

Tuesday 4/13/10
1a. DB Squat w/Shrug: 40x15x4
1b. 1 Arm Push-up w/ Arm Roll-out: BWx8eax4

2a. Bent Over BB Row: 140x12x4
2b. Seated Alternating DB Side Laterals: 25x12eax4

3a. DB Standing 1 Arm Overhead Press: 40x10eax4
3b. High2Lo Cable Chops: 50x12eax4

4a. Chest Supported Seated Rows (Elbows Out): 30x15x4
4b. Alternating Forward DB Lunge: 20×15,15,12,12ea

5a. Seated DB Alternating Curls: 35x10x4
5b. CG Push-ups off MB: BWx15x4

6a. Alternating Hand to Toe Touch from Plank: BWx12eax4
6b. DB Alternating Upright Rows: 35x12eax4

Surprisingly not that sore from mondays workout with the new plan.  I actually feel refreshed and am working up really good sweat so I feel good about that.

Wednesday 4/14/10
1a. One Arm DB Snatch: 40x8x2, 50x8x2
1b. DB Concentration Curls: 2x10eax2, 30x10eax2

2a. Flat DB Bench Press: 65×8,75×8,90x6x2
2b. DB Lateral Reaching Lunge w/ Fwd Push: 25x10eax4

3a. Seated DB Shoulder Press: 25×12,35×12, 45x12x2
3b. Reverse Lunge from a 4″box: BWx15eax4

4a. Conventional Deadlifts: 135×10, 185x10x3
4b. Triceps Pushdown w/band: Purplex20,15,15,15

5a. Alternating DB Clean & Press: 25x10eax4
5b. Push-ups off 2 Swiss Balls: BWx10x4

6a. Low2High Chops w/band: Double Yellowx12eax4
6b. Skater Lunges: BWx10eax4

Thursday 4/15/10

Off Day…….Just a long walk with Harley and Jules near the ocean today is about all I have planned.

Friday 4/16/10
1a.Barbell Hack Squat: 135x15x4
1b.Elevated Push-Ups on Swiss Ball: BWx20x4

2a.CG Chins:BWx10,8,8,8
2b.Elevated Push-Ups on 2 Swiss Balls: Bwx10x4

3a. Dips: BWx12,12,15,15
3b. Horizontal Chops w/ Band: Dbl Yellowx12eax4

4a. Cable Preacher Curls over Swiss Ball: 75x10x4
4b. KB Skulls: 12kgx12,16kgx12x3

5a. Cable Crossovers: 45x15x4
5b. TRX Inverted Row: BWx15x4

6a. Db Posterior Reaching Lunge w/ Press:20x8eax4
6b. Bicycle Abs: BWx15eax4

I am finishing my workouts within a 60 minute time period which is good for this week.  I would like to push that for the following week to 50 minutes to push my heart-rate up a bit higher.  So far I feel real good with my workouts and depending how I feel I am thinking of sprinting the prowler later tonight since I will be unable to train tomorrow.  Two of our girls are competing in a figure competition so it will be a long day and I will not be able to get a workout in.

Feel free to post any question you may have about the workouts below

This week I start a new phase of training which is much more metabolic as opposed to more strength based.  I have switched from a 2 day upper body and 2 day lower body split to a full body routine.  I have been feeling the need for a change in my workouts for a few reasons.  First reason is to create more oxygen debt in my workout.  I want to add more conditioning into my training and performing full body workouts will do the trick. Second is that I have been feeling beat up from the long term powerlifting program and  I feel the need to add more unilateral work into my routine.  Unilateral work will do two things for me.  It will help me correct any imbalances I have going on in my hips, core, and shoulders and it will also will increase the amount of time under tension my body will get.  Instead of doing 10 reps of squats which will take anywhere from 20-60 seconds,  I will do lunges which will double that amount of time since I have to do both sides.  This requires more work from the body metabolically and will cause a better environment to burn fat during my workouts.

I will be performing a rotation with my full body workouts which will look something like this:

Week 1: 5 Full Body Workouts in 7 Days
Week 2: 4 Full Body Workouts in 7 Days
Week 3: 3 Full Body Workouts in 7 Days
Repeat 3 times

This will give me a 9 week plan which will bring me about 3 weeks from my wedding.  I will add sprint training into this phase as the weeks go on.

My Sprint Training will consist of a few different variations.  They will be performed on the beach, up hills, and with the prowler as my body gets capable of handling more work.  I will also do sprints in the form of yards.  The 2 sprint workouts I like are 6x40yd sprints followed by 4x20yd on one day and the other day will consist of 4-8x100yd sprints.  I will vary the rest interval but for the first day it will be kept to 2-4 minutes between each sprint and around 8 minutes between the 100yd sprints.

My calories are pretty steady at 2250 with a 40-30-30 split.  This has been working well for me since I have been back from my vacation.  So I will keep my calories the same as I increase my workouts during the next few weeks.  I will adjust according to my results.

Stay Tuned for Updated Photos as well as my Training Log!

Mike

I love to use this exercise as one of my assistance exercises in an upper body day. I also use it on a recovery day to increase blood flow to the chest and shoulder region. I will perform blast strap push ups after my bench workout or after a military press workout to add much needed volume to my workout. What I like to do is combine it with a pulling movement and perform each back to back for 3 to 4 sets.

This exercise puts a great amount of added stress to your stabilizers in your shoulder since the straps are not stationary and they move freely causing your shoulders to create the stability in order to perform the exercise. By doing so the body also recruits the abdominal region to help the shoulder stabilizers to hold still. This puts much needed added stress to the core muscles which in turn will create a healthier mid-section. This is a great variation to the push up and should be included in any advanced training program.

Tip of the Day: Instead of doing the normal dumbbell bench press or incline bench press after your bench press training, try throwing the blast strap push up into the routine for a few weeks. It will get you off your back and in a position that stresses your abs as well as pumps some volume into your chest region.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not too much changes in my training program, I always train first and foremost for strength and then add my volume and conditioning in as I go. Obviously if your goal is to get into low single digit bodyfat levels than your strength may suffer slightly torwards the very end however if you plan it right you can hold on to most of your strength. Really depends how lean you are trying to get. The is an inverse relationship with the amount of work/volume you can do when training for pure strength and vice versa.

What’s interesting is a program designed training for maximum strength gains can accompanied by a lower carbohydrate diet since your are really using your central nervous system when training for low reps and the glycolytic systems are not needed as much therefore the carbohydrate intake is not as important.

When training for muscle size you need to add volume to your training program in the terms of more sets, higher rep schemes, going ot failure, etc. This involves more glycogen therefore your tap into the system that requires carbohydrates to perform at its best. This does not mean you should scrap the heavy lifts but what it means is you need to add some extra sets/volume to your main lift. If you max lifts start to suffer than you have too much volume and intensity and you need to find a balance between them.

Since we are adding volume which in turn taps into our glycolytic system than your carbohydrate intake must be increased in order to make the muscle size gains that you are looking for in a higher volume training program. This is one of the mistakes that most guys make when planning out their training and nutrition program.

To put it very simply, if your main objective is to get bigger sized muscles than your caloric intake must be in a surplus from what your body needs to take in. So if your body requires 2000kcal. and you want to put on muscle size than you are going to need to take in more than 2000kcal in order for that to take place. If you are looking to get lean and lose some bodyfat than you need a deficit in your caloric intake and therefore it would be less than 2000 kcal per day. Usually a good way to determine how many less calories to take in would be a 10-15% decrease in calories. This will give your body the amount of calories it needs to run efficiently yet put you in a deficit to use fat stores as energy.

If you do not know how to find out your caloric intake or your BMR than find a coach to do this for you and go from there.

Mike’s Plan for the Week:

What I plan on doing for this week is to keep my calories right where they are which is 2400 calories per day with a breakdown of 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat. The change that I will make this week is to increase my volume in my workouts. So I will add another round of my barbell comlex in on one day, increase the run that I am performing on another day, add a 20 minute airdyne bike session at the end of one of my workouts. The slight changes that I make will cause just enough change in my body to cause some more fat loss.

Keeping my calories the same and adding more exercise which requires me to burn more calories will have my body doing more work with the same amount of food therefore use fat stores to burn for fuel. This will cause fat loss. Each week from here on I will slightly change my calorie intake and my exercise program to cause my body to utilize my fat stores to burn as fuel. It’s that simple. It just has to be planned and followed.

Stay focused on your goals and if you don’t have goals than focus on getting some!

Mike

Interval training can cut exercise hours sharply

Intense, brief workouts twice as effective as other regimens, experts say The Associated Press updated 12:25 p.m. ET, Thurs., Feb. 25, 2010

LONDON – People who complain they have no time to exercise may soon need another excuse.

Some experts say intense exercise sessions could help people squeeze an entire week’s workout into less than an hour. Intense exercise regimens, or interval training, was originally developed for Olympic athletes and thought to be too strenuous for normal people.

But in recent years, studies in older people and those with health problems suggest many more people might be able to handle it. If true, that could revolutionize how officials advise people to exercise — and save millions of people hours in the gym every week. It is also a smarter way to exercise, experts say.

“High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise,” said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “This is like finding a new pill that works twice as well … we should immediately throw out the old way of exercising.”

Intense interval training means working very hard for a few minutes, with rest periods in between sets. Experts have mostly tested people running or biking, but other sports like rowing or swimming should also work.

Helgerud recommends people try four sessions lasting four minutes each, with three minutes of recovery time in between. Unless you’re an elite athlete, it shouldn’t be an all-out effort.

“You should be a little out of breath, but you shouldn’t have the obvious feeling of exhaustion,” Helgerud said.

In Britain and the U.S., officials recommend that people get about two and a half hours each week of moderate exercise.

When compared to people on a normal exercise routine, like jogging, research has shown those doing interval training can double their endurance, improve their oxygen use and strength by more than 10 percent, and their speed by at least 5 percent. Even studies in the elderly and in heart patients found they had better oxygen use and fitness after doing interval training.

Still, most studies have been done in young, healthy adults, and experts advise people to consult a doctor before starting any fitness program.

For Adamson Nicholls, a 36-year-old Londoner and martial arts enthusiast, interval training is a way to boost his endurance so he can outlast sparring opponents. “It’s a shortcut to explosive fitness,” he said, adding the training results in snappier and heavier punches.

Using interval training, Nicholls got into top shape last year in about six weeks, using weekly 45-minute sessions. He estimates the same level would have taken about three months via regular training.

Experts say that’s because intense bursts of activity are precisely what the body needs to build stronger muscles. Traditional workouts lasting an hour or more simply don’t push the body enough.

“A lot of the (benefits) from exercise are due to a stress response,” said Stephen Bailey, a sports sciences expert at the University of Exeter. “If you disturb your muscles, there’s an imbalance created and your body will start signaling pathways that result in adjustments.”

Bailey said intense bursts of exercise help the body to convert one type of muscle fiber into another type that uses oxygen more efficiently and is capable of exercising a lot longer. Even though interval training only takes a few minutes, its effects last for hours.

“You’ve exercised at such a high intensity that you’re going to create a massive disturbance in your muscles,” Bailey said. That creates a higher metabolism for several hours afterward, which the body will bring down by burning fat and carbohydrates.

Helgerud and others predicted that as further studies confirm interval training is safe for wider populations, authorities will include it in their exercise guidelines.

“This is definitely the way forward to save time on your exercise,” Nicholls said. “The results are worth it.”

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35581793/ns/health-fitness/

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