The Infonian

There are plenty of people out there who can tell you how to get 6 pack abs fast, but most of them are people who either have way too much time to workout and prepare their meals, have genes that would rival a pro bodybuilder, or take some kind of steroid. In this article you’re going to learn the truth about building 6 pack abs fast as well as some common myths that you absolutely must know if you ever want to sculpt a great looking set of abs.

The first thing you might find interesting is that girls actually like a guy with flat, defined abs over a guy that’s completely ripped to shreds and has ever muscle in his body showing.

So if you’re going crazy over trying to get 6 pack abs fast, calm down because odds are, the girl(s) you’re trying to impress don’t care as much as you think!

By the way if you’re curious about exactly why girls don’t need a girl with ripped to shreds abs, it’s because they realize that guy will most likely spend most of his time in the gym and worrying too much about how he looks instead of paying attention to her.

Anyway, here are a few great tips if you want 6 pack abs fast or if you simply want to sculpt a nice looking set of defined abs that anybody would appreciate.

1) High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Is King – If you want to get 6 pack abs fast you’re almost definitely going to have to lose weight because you can’t see your abs until your body fat is low enough. And if you’re losing weight, you don’t want to lose muscle do you? By incorporating HIIT into your workout program you’re guaranteed to save more muscle and even release more muscle-building hormones throughout your body.

2) Start Fasting – Fasting has gotten a horrible wrap in the industry but it’s all based on lies. Fasting for 24 hours has been scientifically proven, time and time again, to not only be one of the easiest ways to lose bodyfat but to do so without losing muscle (there’s a scientific reason why you don’t lose muscle) or slowing your metabolism. It’s a little tough the first 2-3 times you try it, but after awhile it gets very easy, trust me!

3) Mix Up Your Workouts – By mixing up both your weightlifting as well as your cardio workouts, you put your body through something called “muscle confusion”. Simply stated, your muscles will never know what’s hitting them and by putting them through a confused workout a few times in a row they’ll start working even harder to keep up – causing your metabolism to rise which ultimately causes fat loss.

If you do these 3 things, you’re guaranteed to start losing weight faster and get 6 pack abs fast and much easier than ever before.

However don’t go crazy over how your abs look because as I mentioned earlier, even if you want 6 pack abs fast doesn’t mean that the people you’re trying to impress want you to have them! Jeremy Reeves is a certified personal trainer who has had enough of you being lied to by other fitness professionals. His controversial FREE report, “The 7 Deadly Fat Loss Sins”, will open your eyes to the TRUTH about losing weight – http://www.7-deadly-fat-loss-sins.com

Author: Jeremy Reeves

In recent years, weight training has gone from the hobby of chisel-jawed Austrian celebrities to the staple form of exercise for people of all cultures and backgrounds. Its popularity is often a source of mystery for non-believers, who often see it as an excuse for vanity and massaging one’s own ego. Whilst this may be true for a certain percentage of the population (admittedly, in my time, I’ve seen my share of bicep flexing and posturing in front of the local gym’s more reflective surfaces) there are many health, fitness, and mental benefits associated with weight training. 1) The first and most obvious benefit is the increase in size and tone of the body’s musculature. By making small tears in the muscle fibers, the resistance-based movements trick the body into over-compensating when making its repairs so that in future it can more easily cope with the weight. This size increase will be accompanied by a strength gain also, which can be useful in day-to-day life (see: moving furniture).

2) Secondly, resistance exercises cause a metabolic “spike” that allows you to continue burning an above-normal amount of calories even after the exercise period has ended. For those who are unhappy with their body composition, this is a great solution to the problem of unsightly body fat.

3) Psychologically, any form of exercise is a good idea but weight training in particular is known to cause better self-confidence and esteem. Whether this is related to the size and strength gains, a release of endorphins while exercising or simply an increased feeling of well-being is undecided, but who cares! We could all use a more positive mental attitude from time to time. If you want to get an added edge in the gym you might also like to read more on training supplements like the Maximuscle Thermobol Review

4) My last argument to extol the virtues of weight training is the benefits it can provide to sports people. It’s often forgotten that full-body fitness is hugely important, even to athletes such as sprinters, who would appear only to need use of their legs to propel them forward at such a rate. This, like many assumptions, is incorrect. The truth is that upper body muscles (especially the biceps and triceps) are instrumental in creating momentum in the running motion and that without them runners would be unable to achieve such phenomenal speeds. So, next time you’re in the gym, step off the treadmill and pick up a dumbbell!

Author: Gary Bunn

Your acknowledgment of the need and desire to lose weight is the first and most difficult step on the path to weight loss. When your weight is of concern to you, the emotional and physical toll it takes on you can be very stressful.

But people can have a difficult time realizing that in order to lose weight they actually should eat more often throughout the day. A common strategy at the beginning of a diet is a drastic reduction in the amount and kinds of food eaten. However, that may in fact ultimately do more damage than produce any benefit.

If you are not eating enough throughout the course of the day, you are setting yourself up for a weight loss disaster. By not eating enough you set your body up to have low energy throughout the day. Your body will also go into starvation mode and try to store as much fat as possible, which will thwart your weight loss attempts. Additionally, if you are depriving yourself, you will start to experience more intense food cravings than you would otherwise.

Your body’s main goal is to keep yourself alive and operating properly and healthfully. Our systems have all sorts of survival mechanisms in place to keep your systems working. These systems will automatically start up when your body gets the signal that it is needed. One of our most highly developed defensive mechanism is our response to famine.

Your internal mechanisms do not really realize that you could sit down and eat whatever you want. If your body is not aware that you are choosing to not eat those calories, instead, your body thinks that you are starving so it will automatically adjust how it is operating to make sure that your body is able to create the necessary energy to operate properly.

Your body’s famine response will kick in automatically by keeping yourself from eating for long between meals or by not eating enough throughout the day. When this happens, it automatically slows your metabolism, making it more difficult to burn fat quickly and effectively. Having an efficient metabolism is an essential key to your success,when your goal is weight loss.

As a result of your eating habits you will start to lose the toned muscle instead of the fat. The muscles in your body will suffer and have problems with typical daily activities if you have a diet that is low in protein. The loss of lean muscle also causes your metabolic rate to diminish even further. Again reducing the amount of fat that your body is able to burn.

When you are looking to lose weight, ensuring that your metabolism is fully functioning is an essential step to ensuring your success. The key to keeping your metabolism up is to make sure that you are eating small meals about three hours apart. If you do that in coordination with a fitness program you are sure to quickly become the new you that you have always dreamed of being.

Author: Robert Bell

This exercise is often used as a max effort exercise training the chest, shoulders and triceps. It has become very popular with equipped powerlifters because the lift mimics to an extent the use of a bench press shirt. The barbell is placed inside of the bands which are attached to the top of a power rack. By using these bands you feel the most weight at the top of the movement. As you lower the weight to your chest the bands stretch and the tension is decreased.

How much weight does the band take off the weight you’re lifting? This depends on what kind of bands you’re using and how high you have them set up on your particular power rack. To figure it out exactly put enough weight inside the bands and let the bar hoover right at chest level.

However much weight you have on the bar is how much weight you can subtract from the total at the bottom when you are performing working sets.

The reverse band bench press is a good variation to throw in once or twice a training cycle so you don’t do straight weight every week.

It’s also a great exercise to do if you have trouble touching in a shirt. You have to practice pulling the weight to your chest and the bands allow you to do this in a more controlled fashion without as much risk of dumping it on your chest. Performing this exercise can also help break in a new shirt, making it easier to touch in when you go back to the regular bench press without bands.

You’ll be able to bench press a lot more than usual, but do not be fooled. People always try to do the math and project their true one rep max. Just because you benched 700 pounds for one rep with the bands off your chest and the bands take off 200 pounds in your case does not mean you can bench 500 of your chest. You can bench 500 off your chest when you bench 500 off your chest. However you do now have a new PR in the reverse band bench press if that means anything.

Most people perform this exercise for 1-3 reps for 5 or 6 sets, but this varies. Use the lift for variation, to strengthen the top end of your bench press, to shock your nervous system and to practice the grove of your bench press shirt.

To see a video demonstrating the exercise visit this page: http://www.criticalbench.com/reverse-band-bench-press.htm

Mike Westerdal is the owner of www.criticalbench.com. Visit his site to receive two free PDF reports entitled, “31 Days To Bigger Arms” and “Boosting Testosterone Levels for Big Muscle Gains.”

Author: Mike Westerdal

This article will assume that you are trying to increase your strength. If you go to the gym to stay in shape, maintain your strength, or even worse, to avoid getting fat, than don’t waste your time reading this. However, if you set your goals for yourself, have an open mind and want to get bigger and stronger than read on.

Negatives can be applied to any exercise to help shock your muscles. They are specifically included in the Critical Bench Program to help you increase your bench press. First lets review what exactly a negative is making sure everybody is on the same page. Using the bench press as an example let’s review a negative set. You will load the bar with a weight that is about 40 lbs heavier than your one rep max. (If you don’t know your one rep max you can look it up on this chart: http://www.criticalbench.com/chart.htm) Three spotters will be needed. The most important spotter is the one that stands behind you because he will keep his hands on the bar throughout the entire lift. The two remaining spotters will stand on opposite ends of the bar. Of course you will need a lift off unless you plan on turning negatives into a positively bad idea. You will now begin to lower the weight as slowly as positive. At first you’ll do fine, but about half way down you’ll feel like you are trying to stop the weight from falling. Once the bar touches your chest all three spotters lift the weight to the lockout position where you start again. When you are lifting poundage this heavy only a few reps will be possible so don’t feel discouraged.

Okay so why in the world would you want to do this? Won’t you look like an idiot in the gym when three people have to pull the weight off your chest? People have even said that the exercise is just an ego booster and doesn’t do much for you. Some clowns might even say that you are cheating! Well don’t believe any of it. Luckily, I’m here to tell you why negatives are so important.

1. Heavy Negatives Overload the Muscles

Most of us will agree that singles help improve strength because you overload your muscles will heavy poundage that your body is not used to. Based on the same principle, if you do negative sets with even more than your max weight you will overload your muscles even further.

2. Conditioning Your Body

Let me give you a few examples of this. A basketball player who is shooting jump shots while he is wearing ankle weights. A swimmer who does laps wearing pants and a t-shirt. A football player preparing for camp by running in the middle of the afternoon during a 90-degree summer day. A sprinter that runs with a parachute tied to his back. How about a powerlifter that does negatives with a weight that is much heavier than his one rep max. Are you beginning to see the correlation? When you run in 90-degree weather, practice in 80-degree heat doesn’t seem so bad. When you shot jump shots with ankle weights, you feel pretty light and explosive when you take them off. When it is time to unload in each situation the body can perform better because it has been strengthened by the overload. You get the point. Let’s say your goal is to bench 400 lbs. If you’ve never tried it, the initial shock might surprise you. If you’ve felt the weight of 450 lbs and done negative sets with it, your mind and your muscles will be preconditioned to handle the 400 you were aiming for. You’ve felt heavier weight, making this weight seem lighter. Your muscles need to feel the shock of heavy weight to prepare for a max. So why not take it to the extreme?

3. The Challenge

If your training lacks intensity I’d like to see you have the courage to take this exercise lightly. Actually I wouldn’t, but don’t worry about it because it’s not possible anyhow. Your heart will begin racing, and you will be pumped with adrenaline. Not to mention the fact that you have three people watching you. You’ll be ready to perform, because there is no other choice. This is more weight than you’ve ever lifted in your life, so you will get psyched up for the big challenge. As mentioned earlier, some people call negatives ego boosters. They are partially correct. It does feel good to load the bar with the heavy poundage. Whipping out a few reps will definitely give you confidence when it’s time to max out for real. The only difference will be you’ve felt heavier.

4. Letting It Down Slow

Still not convinced? Let me pull out the textbook for you. The eccentric phase is the opposite of the contraction. For the bench press it is the lowering of the weight. Many bodybuilders treat this phase as an after thought, which they shouldn’t because it is very important. Research confirms that the eccentric component of a lift may be more important than the concentric phase for promoting muscle growth. One study showed that, when compared to normal weight training, concentric-only training required twice as many repetitions to produce similar results. With normal weight training, during an eccentric contraction (negative) you lower the same weight with fewer muscle fibers, and that means that each fiber involved has to sustain greater force.

5. Get The Last Laugh

We all know variety is important as well. If you haven’t done heavy negatives before than give them a try. It may be just what your muscles are screaming for. If you get funny looks at the gym, don’t worry about it. You’re not there to impress anybody; you’re there to get stronger. The only person you have to look at in the mirror is yourself. The weights will always weigh the same so you can’t compete with them. You may want to practice negatives with lighter weight before you jump right into this. Round up a couple buddies and show them why heavy negatives are positively a good idea.

Mike Westerdal is the owner of www.criticalbench.com . Visit his site to receive two free PDF reports entitled, “31 Days To Bigger Arms” and “Boosting Testosterone Levels for Big Muscle Gains.”

Author: Mike Westerdal