SANDBAG Power Cleans!

SANDBAG Power Cleans!
By Zak Evan-esh

My favorite sandbag exercise is bar none, the Sandbag Power Clean. {This is my favorite also!!}

Nothing like gripping and ripping into a sandbag to develop nasty hand and grip strength and full body power.

Squat over your sandbag and assume the bottom position of the squat:

flat back
chest high

Grab the sandbag and rip it straight up. You want to try to get the bag air born. Catch with your arms under the bag and make sure you stand straight up.

Squat the bag down rather than dropping it.
This saves wear and tear on the bag and gives extra work to your lower body.

Try hitting the sandbag power clean for 5 x 5 reps first in your workouts.

Don’t fear the heavy bags. It’s the wrestling of the bag that really tests your physical and mental drive.

See the video below…




You don’t have to dip under the bag as David Ellis does in this video. You can try to pull the bag faster to get it higher.

Kill it!

--Zach—



For the ultimate collection of Underground Sandbag Training Click here {then on "Workouts}!!!

In Ten Cities…

Intensity - 1 : the quality or state of being intense; especially : extreme degree of strength, force, energy, or feeling
2 : the magnitude of a quantity (as force or energy) per unit (as of area, charge, mass, or time)

Yes I stole the idea for the title from a Ted Nugent album.
.
The definition is from Webster’s dictionary.

The first one describes your feelings or state while working out. There are ways of getting to that state, everyone has there own methods. Some people can just turn it on as soon as they walk into the gym, for others it is a process. It may take a few moments of meditation, thinking about what they will be doing, going over their workout in their mind before actually working out. There are the screamers, the ones who psych [spelling???] themselves up before they attempt a lift. These are just a few methods everyone has their own, or at least should. What is yours? I walk through my workout in my mind, not so much meditating, just visualizing it.

The second one is the one I really want to get into. I realize there are many views out there on how to use intensity when talking workouts, so I want to add mine.
I use the variables weight, reps, and time, to measure intensity. If you look at the above definition using force, and force being mass x acceleration, and for arguments sake acceleration is a constant [gravity] we will just use mass. Mass will be the weight we are working with, for simplicity 100lbs. Performing 25 reps of 100lbs in 5 minutes time will give us our starting point [2500lbs/5 or 500lbs/1 minute]. Increasing the intensity of the next workout can be accomplished several ways, increasing the weight, increasing the reps, or decreasing the time. Time can be increased, but if you do that, you want to finish with a higher ratio of 500lbs/1. Just increasing the time and sets, while not improving on the ratio is increasing the work but not intensity, not a bad thing, just not increasing intensity.

To work on our example of 2500lbs/5 lets increase the weight by 10lbs now that give us 2750/5 or 550/1
Or
If we decrease time to 4 minutes – 2500lbs/4 or 625/1
Or
We could increase the reps to 30 giving us 3000lbs/5 or 600/1


That is my take on intensity, which also show the importance of keeping a training journal, hopefully this clears things up or creates a discussion as always feel free to comment/ask questions!

Looking to loose fat, gain muscle, and increase conditioning?

Looking to loose fat, gain muscle, and increase conditioning?

Elliot Hulse released his latest training program,"Lean Hybrid Muscle", this week to a lot of fanfare and excitement. Was it all hype?

I bought into the hype, and purchased the program. Am I happy or disappointed???

The program revolves around a new discovery made by Elliot and Mike Westerdal [Critical Bench]. The discovery is a “type III” muscle which helps you build muscle and burn fat at the same time. The book goes into great detail about this new discovery and what lead to it, and both guys give their individual takes on several subjects regarding training. There is also some interesting nutrition information.
The reason I purchased it was for the training, it revolves around “resistance hybrid cardio” as being the best way to develop a lean muscular physique in less time. This training develops the “type III” muscle fibers. It can be incorporated into any type of training you are doing right now and the bonuses show you how.
There is also great demonstrations on the exercises and how to cheaply acquire some of the equipment [no real special equipment is really needed] that can be used, like a beer keg.

The only problem I had was with the way the term “intensity” was used in the book. Elliot’s take on intensity, from this book, heavier the weight = higher the intensity. My take on intensity was always multi-faceted, could almost be a physics formula. By this I mean weight is involved as well as time and work done, one simple example would be if you squatted 400 lbs and did 50 reps in say, 15 minutes and the next workout you did it in 13 minutes you have just increased the intensity of your workout. I could go about this in great detail, and might just do that in my next post, but the point being once I got past his usage of the term everything became clearer and I am very glad I made the purchase. I highly recommend "Lean Hybrid Muscle" for everyone from athletes to trainers to gym rats, a great program!

Click Here for LEAN HYBRID MUSCLE!

Best Abs Exercises Technique For 3-D Abs!

Best Abs Exercises Technique For 3-D Abs!

By Jeff Anderson

Check out any local gym and you'll see inexperienced members training their abs with endless sets of situps and crunches, right?

While the abs are predominantly made of Type 1 (endurance) muscle fibers and respond to slightly higher repetition ranges,your abs are made up of muscle just like any other part of your body.

Therefore the best abs exercises to get that "cut" look are those that are resistance-based and treat them like any other muscle.

But there's a special little trick you must know in order to maximize your abs training on your way to having a stacked 6-pack.

In fact, ignoring this principle, could force you to develop "lopsided" abs that are so common among beginner bodybuilders.

Let me share this secret with you now...

The main abdominal muscle you want to be working when training your abs is your "rectus abdominis", that sheet of rippled muscle that goes from your rib cage all the way down the front of your body to your pelvis.

What's unique about this abdominal muscle group is that the upper abs can work separately from the lower abs (to some extent)...BUT when you work your lower abs exercises, your upper abs are ALWAYS working as well.

This is why most people (including myself from years of military training focusing on upper abs) had overdeveloped upper abs but underdeveloped lower abs.

Here's how to correct this...

Make sure you train your LOWER ABS first in your abs workout (ALWAYS!) which brings both upper and lower abs into the workload!

If you don't work your lower abs first, you exhaust your upper abs too soon and when you DO target your lower abs, your upper abs will fatigue too fast and you'll end up with under-targeted lower abs.

So the best exercises for lower abs are:

* Incline Leg Raises
* Incline Knee Ups
* Hanging Leg Raises
* Flat Bench Leg Raises

And then follow up with the best upper abs exercises:

* Crunches
* Weighted Crunches
* Situps
* Hanging Knee Raises

For more info click here!!!!