Category: Exercise and fitness

The human body has the amazing ability to adapt when facing a challenge. Strength training explores this property by placing the skeletal muscles[1] under controlled stress (resistance) in order to improve muscular strength and/or endurance.  When a muscle or muscle group is overloaded, each muscle fiber sends a message to our central manager, the brain, asking for help. The brain acts by recruiting more muscle fibers, contributing to most of the strength gains during the first weeks of training. But with continued practice, the muscle fibers also increase in size, which will enable you to gradually lift heavier loads. That’s the so-called muscle hypertrophy so praised by bodybuilders.

Hey, calm down! You are not going to get bulky. Even though some women are able to increase muscle mass significantly (as you can see on bodybuilding contests), that is not the rule for most of us, so there is no need to be afraid of the weight room. The magnitude of changes is closely related to the type and intensity of training, testosterone levels and genetic factors.

New whole body circuit using only one piece of equipment: dumbbells.

• Perform as many reps as possible in 30 seconds of each exercise.
• Rest no more than 30 seconds between exercises.
• Repeat circuit three times

Most people limit their leg workout to squats and lunges and while those are quite effective exercises, they only target the muscles in a single plane of action (sagittal). However, in order to get a fuller development of the muscle fibres, it is fundamental to work all muscle groups in different angles.

The following workout focus mostly on hip dominant exercises, putting more challenge at the posterior chain (gluteal group and hamstrings). The goal is to engage these muscle groups in different planes of action, recruiting more muscle fibres throughout the workout. The challenge comes from pairing moderate to heavy loaded exercises with more cardiovascular demanding ones. The result is a kick-ass workout which will get you the best of both worlds. Enjoy!

I created this simple upper-body routine for a very dear friend who asked me some tips for exercising from home. As many of you, she is time-poor and needed a quick and easy routine to keep her active when she couldn’t make it to the gym. I used resistance bands because they are fairly cheap and easy to store. Also resistance bands are great because they make you work on both phases of the movement (concentric and eccentric). Keep in mind that you must control the band on the way back (which requires a good core engagement) otherwise it will pull you out of balance.

Preparation:

1. Tie a resistance band to a poll/handrail (anywhere higher than your height) to perform the first four exercises. Move away from the anchor point to increase the challenge.
2. For the last two exercises, all you need to do is to step on the bottom part of the band to create the necessary resistance.

The workout:

I know you might be thinking this is just another leg workout but it is not. Yes, this is a leg routine. However, the main goal of this training session is to target the muscles of the back part of the leg. Hence the posterior chain. You see, most leg workout over work the quads (front part of the leg) and overlook the glutes and hamstrings. The problem is that most people are already quad dominant meaning that they probably don’t need more quadriceps exercises. When glutes and hamstrings are neglected, they become weaker than the quads and hip flexors which creates a muscle imbalance. This imbalance pulls the pelvic bone out of alignment and may lead to back pain.