Top 8 superfoods that can heal your entire body

by Derek Henry 

(NaturalNews) The grocery aisles have displayed foods for decades that are nutritionally deficient. Poor soil conditions combined with seed engineering and processing have left people with poor choices. Consider these eight superfoods to get the required nutrients for optimal body function.

Aloe vera

Aloe vera has 20 minerals, 12 vitamins, 18 amino acids, 200 active plant compounds (phytonutrients), and strong antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties.

Aloe vera benefits include:

• Eases inflammation and arthritic pain
• Heals ulcers and a wide variety of digestive disorders and complications
• Treats candida and parasites
• Reduces heart attacks and strokes
• Helps halt growth of cancer tumors

Bee pollen

Bee pollen is a rich source of carotenoids, 22 amino acids, and enzymes. It is a also good source of B-vitamins, vitamin C and E, and over 68 minerals.

Bee pollen benefits include:

• Combats cancer, diabetes, arthritis and depression
• Promotes increased strength, stamina, endurance and energy levels
• Increases concentration and memory
• Improves fertility and enhances sexual activity
• Increases resistance to infections

Maca

Maca is a very nutrient-dense superfood and a complete source of amino acids. It also is rich in B-vitamins, vitamins C and E, and is a good source of copper, iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc.

Maca benefits include:

• Improves anaemia
• Reduces chronic fatigue
• Relieves stress and depression
• Improves libido and fertility
• Improves adrenal function
• Strengthens memory

Reishi

Reishi is a rich source of antioxidants. It is also a good source of B-vitamins, as well as potassium, niacin, magnesium, selenium, copper and phosphorus.

Reishi benefits include:

• Combats immune-related disorders like allergies, arthritis and cancer
• Reduces physical and mental stress
• Reduces inflammation
• Protects the liver
• Helps correct digestive disorders

Goji berries

Goji berries contain 18 amino acids, 21 trace minerals, vitamin A, B-complex, C and E, and is a superior form of antioxidants.

Goji berries benefits include:

• Significantly improves immune function
• Protects DNA
• Protects the eyes and liver
• Reduces inflammation
• Protects the heart
• Improves mood and libido

Chlorella

Chlorella is a rich source of complete protein, a potent source of chlorophyll, and rich in the entire vitamin complex. It is also an exceptional source of iron and zinc, as well as magnesium, phosphorus, calcium and potassium.

Chlorella benefits include:

• Helps detoxify biotoxins, xenobiotics and heavy metals
• Helps kill candida and yeast overgrowth
• Known cancer fighter
• Prevents and improves diabetes and insulin resistance
• Reduces pain associated with arthritis and fibromyalgia
• Helps heal and repair tissue growth
• Reduces and eliminates digestive issues

Hemp

Hemp contains 20 amino acids and is a complete source of plant protein. It is also nature's most abundant source of essential fatty acids and has a perfect 3 to 1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.

Hemp benefits include:

• Fortifies immune system
• Reduces inflammation
• Improves memory and prevents brain-related diseases
• Clears up skin disorders
• Helps keep digestive tract healthy and clean
• Helps prevent cancer
• Helps reduce risk of diabetes

Coconut

Coconut is an excellent source of fatty acids, including lauric and caprylic acid, which destroy bacteria, viruses and fungi. It's also a good source of B-vitamins and a great source of copper, calcium, iron, manganese, magnesium and zinc.

Coconut benefits include:

• Improves immune system function
• Helps protect against brain-related disorders
• Lowers risk of diabetes
• Reduces joint and muscle inflammation
• Strengthens liver
• Kills bacteria and parasites
• Protects against cancer and other immune-related diseases
• Eases acid reflux and promotes proper digestive function

Sources for this article include:

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.healingthebody.ca

http://www.healingthebody.ca

http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

How to Burn Stubborn Body Fat

by Dr. Jade Teta   

Here's what you need to know...

•  Spot reduction can occur, but on a very small scale. Attacking stubborn fat and spot reduction are two different things.

•  Stubborn fat is physiologically different than other fat. It has a high density of alpha-receptors compared to betas, is more insulin sensitive, and receives less blood flow than less stubborn fat.

•  Dieting by eating less and exercising more is by far one of the major blocks to permanent change.

•  Supplements such as green tea extract, forskolin, and yohimbine HCL can help with stubborn body fat, once you get your diet in order.

The other day I was perusing some popular health and fitness pages on Facebook . One discussion was from a person asking a question about "targeting stubborn fat". The page administrator answered the question this way: "You can't target certain areas of the body. It's simply impossible. The body burns fat from all over. Spot reduction has been proven a myth."

And the truth is? The page administrator is wrong on both accounts. First, you can certainly target stubborn fat, and spot reduction has been proven to occur.

Wait, Spot Reduction Works?

Spot reduction refers to the idea that you can burn fat from a particular area of the body by exercising that area directly. This idea brings back memories of late night infomercials with people bouncing up and down on ab loungers or adducting away with thigh toners. The idea is ridiculous, right? You may be surprised to know that in 2007, a study published in the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism by Dr. Bente Stallnecht confirmed that spot reduction does indeed occur. In the study, intense localized exercise in one leg burned significantly more fat than in the non-exercised leg.

So, this study answered the question once and for all. Yes, spot reduction does occur. Only one problem: it occurs on such an insignificant scale as to be useless. The amount of extra fat burned from the working leg in this study was like taking a few drops of water out of a lake. The take home? Spot reduction technically does occur, but at such a marginal level that it's essentially insignificant. I like to say that trying to spot reduce fat with targeted exercise is like trying to change a tire with a pencil. It's practically impossible.

So What Is Stubborn Fat?

I brought up spot reduction first because it's important to define what we're talking about here. We are not talking about spot reduction. Attacking stubborn fat and spot reduction are two different things. Spot reduction is about exercise. Targeting stubborn fat is about diet, exercise and supplementation. Spot reduction is essentially impossible. Targeting stubborn fat is not only possible but probable, if you understand what you're doing.

The first thing to know about stubborn fat is that it is physiologically different than other fat. Stubborn fat has a high density of alpha-receptors compared to betas, is more insulin sensitive, and receives less blood flow than less stubborn fat. Subcutaneous fat is more stubborn than visceral fat (the fat around your organs) or intramuscular fat (the fat in your muscle). The most stubborn areas of fat are the hips, butt, thighs of women, and the love handles on men.

Biochemistry of Fat Burning

To burn fat you have to release it from a fat cell. That is called lipolysis. That fat then has to be brought to another cell to be burned. This is where blood supply to and from tissues is important. Finally the fat has to get inside a cell and be burned. This last step is called lipid oxidation.

Stubborn fat releases its fat more slowly the non-stubborn fat. This is due to two different types of receptors in fat cells. Your major fat releasing hormones are the catecholamines (norepinephrine and epinephrine to Americans and noradrenaline and adrenaline to most of the rest of the world). These hormones bind receptors in fat tissue that send the signal to speed fat release or slow fat release. These receptors are known as alpha and beta-receptors. The betas speed fat release. Think B for beta and burn. The alphas slow fat release. Think A for alpha and anti-burn.

These receptors have this effect largely because they turn on intracellular signaling that either speeds the activity of hormone sensitive lipase (HSL), the major fat releasing enzyme in the body, or decrease its activity. For the biochemists among you, this is all mediated by cyclic AMP (cAMP). So, to beat stubborn fat you'll need to do things that increase the activity of beta-receptors and decrease the activity of alpha-receptors.

Insulin Sensitivity and Stubborn Fat

The vast majority of fitness and health professionals misunderstand insulin resistance. Most think insulin resistance is all one thing. In reality, insulin sensitivity and resistance is tissue specific. If you're used to thinking about insulin resistance in the typical way you will not understand stubborn fat.

Stubborn fat is more insulin sensitive or less insulin resistant than regular fat. The normal action of insulin on fat cells is to decrease the activity of HSL, the major fat releasing enzyme, and increase the activity LPL, the major fat storing enzyme. A fat cell that's more insulin resistant stores less fat and releases more of it. A fat cell that's more insulin sensitive stores more fat and releases less of it. Stubborn fat is more insulin sensitive than other types of fat. Not only that, but insulin has an effect on the activity of alpha and beta-receptors as well, increasing the relative expression of the alphas compared to the betas. When it comes to stubborn fat, insulin is not your friend for multiple reasons.

Other hormones get in on the action too. Thyroid activity ramps up beta-receptor activity and turns down alpha-receptor activity. Anything that disrupts thyroid function isn't helpful for stubborn fat. Estrogen increases the activity of alpha-receptors. High estrogen states such as the late follicular phase and the early luteal phase of the female cycle are times during the month when female stubborn body fat is more stubborn.

Heat and Blood Flow

Another piece to this story is that stubborn fat gets less blood flow, which means even if the fat is released it doesn't get moved out of the area to be burned elsewhere very easily. First off, alpha-receptors impact blood flow too. More alpha-receptors in an area mean less blood supply to that area. Next, stubborn fat is in areas that are harder for the body to heat up. Saddlebags and love handles are further away from the center of the body and tend to be "colder".

The practicality of this information is limited of course. There are few ways to heat local areas of the body up, but using sauna, hyperthermia baths, massage, high temp workout areas or even those old neoprene ab belts may not have been such a silly idea when looked through this lens. Whether they can make a real difference I'm not sure, but people have done stranger things in pursuit of stubborn fat loss.

How to Beat Stubborn Fat

Now that you understand many of the angles involved with stubborn fat, let's talk about the fix. There are three simple steps that are easier said than done:

1. Stop dieting
2. Cycle the diet
3. Target the area

Stop Dieting

The more I study the metabolism the more convinced I become that dieting by eating less and exercising more is by far one of the major blocks to permanent change. This is especially true of stubborn fat. When you follow this method the body engages in severe metabolic compensation. Adaptive thermogenesis is one aspect of this. You eat less and exercise more and your body will make you more hungry, give you less energy, induce insatiable cravings and decrease your resting metabolic rate around 300 calories per day on average.

In other words, your body has primed itself to resist further losses in body fat as well as made it far more likely you'll soon engage in a three month doughnut binge. And guess where you're more likely to store all the regained fat? You guessed it, the stubborn fat areas you were trying to burn in the first place! So, not only does dieting make you fatter, but it makes your stubborn fat more stubborn. Two of the main ways it does this is through increased insulin sensitivity in stubborn fat tissue and decreased thyroid output which tilts things even more in favor of alpha receptor activity versus beta.

Dieting in the traditional way is a recipe for making stubborn fat more greedy and stingy. Dieting may be making your fat parts fatter. To stop dieting you simply do one of two things. You either eat less and exercise less (ELEL) or you eat more and exercise more (EMEM). What you don't do is continue eating less and exercising more.

ELEL is an approach where low intensity exercise like walking dominates and only a few sessions of weight training are done during the week. This allows a very low calorie or low carb diet without the compensations created by eating less and exercising more. A good way to think of this approach is as a 3:2:1 for diet and exercise. Three meals per day, two of them are protein and veggies based and only one contains starch. This is matched with three rest and recovery activities (i.e. massage, yoga, naps), two traditional weight training workouts and one hour or more of slow walking on all or most days.

The opposite of ELEL is EMEM. In this approach calories and carb intake are high to fuel lots of intense daily activity through the week. This is a 3:2:2 approach. Three meals per day, plus two protein based snacks, and two times the starch intake at the first meal after an intense workout. This is matched by three weight workouts, two metabolic conditioning sessions and two traditional cardio workouts per week.

Both the ELEL and EMEM approach will decrease metabolic compensation, but the EMEM approach is probably the better approach to keep the metabolism humming and stubborn fat burning.

Cycle The Diet

You can't get comfortable with any one system either. The metabolism is highly reactive and adaptive, so while it will compensate much less with an ELEL or EMEM approach, it'll compensate none-the-less. To circumvent this compensation it's a good idea to cycle the diet in a way that keeps the metabolism guessing. This once again keeps the thyroid activity elevated, keeps leptin levels from dropping too low and keeps insulin sensitivity at a manageable level. When it comes to calories, hormones, and stubborn fat, you're looking for the Goldilocks effect. Not too much, not too little, but just right.

One to two weeks in an ELEL approach followed by one to weeks in an EMEM approach works great. Women can also time this with their menstrual cycle. The week before and during menses will be the lowest estrogen times, making those pesky alpha-receptors far easier to circumvent. This would be the time you'd want to alter diet, exercise and lifestyle towards fat loss efforts. This is also a time of increased cravings and hunger for women due to altered brain chemistry that accompanies the hormone changes. One clinical pearl I can give that almost completely negates this effect is the use of unsweetened baking cocoa powder in water. Cocoa raises dopamine and serotonin, the same brain chemicals that drop around menses.

Target the Area

When we talk about targeting the area we're not talking about exercise, we're talking about timing diet, exercise and supplementation correctly. When you burn fat, you burn it from all over your body, including your stubborn fat. It's just that under normal circumstances the stubborn fat burns much more slowly. This is why you can have people getting lean but noticing their lower body fat (women) or love handles (men) seem to not be responding... or even appearing fatter. This is of course not the case as fat loss is likely occurring in the stubborn zones too. But when the rest of the body is reducing so much faster it creates the illusion that the stubborn areas are worse off.

The first step is to remember that fat loss is about reducing calories and balancing hormones. In this way you will need to choose which part of your cycle will put you in the most deficit. You'll use one part of the cycle, I suggest the ELEL, to "starve the fat". Then you'll use the other part of the cycle, I suggest EMEM, to "feed the lean" and protect against metabolic compensation and hormonal changes that make stubborn fat more stubborn.

In addition there are supplements that can help. My two favorites are green tea extract and coleus forskohlii (forskolin). Both of these supplements work on the same cellular messengers that are activated by the catecholamines, only they don't do it by binding alpha and beta-receptors. This goes a long way to taking the brakes off of stubborn body fat. Keep in mind these work best in lower insulin states.

There are also ways to directly block alpha-receptor activation. This can be done by the use of yohimbine HCL, synephrine, and berberine. Yohimbine HCL is probably the best here, but it's best used under fasted exercise conditions and you can develop tolerance to it. It also can be very stimulating.

Berberine is an under appreciated insulin reducer and has some weak alpha-receptor blocking effects. Finally, you certainly can use the ephedrine/caffeine combination with or without aspirin, or clenbuterol if you can find it. As a natural healthcare provider, my bias is against the use of these approaches for safety reasons.

Final Thoughts

With limited space and complicated mechanisms, here are the main points:

• Beating stubborn fat takes diet, exercise and supplementation.

• Exercising an area hoping to burn fat from that area doesn't work very well. The body burns fat from all over. Stubborn fat burns more slowly.

• Stubborn fat is stubborn because of greater insulin sensitivity, more alpha receptors and poor blood flow.

• Dieting makes stubborn fat more stubborn due to insulin and thyroid changes that enhance alpha and reduce beta receptor activity.

• Stop dieting by matching intake of food with output of exercise.

• ELEL (eat less and exercise less) and EMEM (eat more and exercise more) reduce metabolic compensation and counter hormonal changes that make stubborn fat more stubborn.

• Cycling the diet between ELEL and EMEM helps continue to reduce negative hormonal changes and keeps the fat burning process engaged in stubborn fat.

• Targeted supplementation including green tea, coleus, berberine, yohimbine and others can speed fat loss in stubborn areas once the diet is in line.

References

Camps, et al. Weight loss, weight maintenance, and adaptive thermogenesis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2013;97(5):990-994. PUBMED

Ibrahim, et al. Subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue: structural and functional differences. Obesity Reviews. January 2010;11(1):11-18. PUBMED

Silva, et al. Thyroid-adrenergic interactions: physiological and clinical implications. Thyroid. February 2008;18(2):157-165. PUBMED

Reckless, et al. Alpha-adrenergic receptor activity, cyclic AMP and lipolysis in adipose tissue of hypothyroid man and rat. The Journal Of Endocrinology. March 1976;68(3):419-430. PUBMED

Gormsen, et al. Estradiol acutely inhibits whole body lipid oxidation and attenuates lipolysis in subcutaneous adipose tissue: a randomized, placebo-controlled study in postmenopausal women. October 2012;167(4):543-551. PUBMED

Pedersen, et al. Estrogen controls lipolysis by up-regulating alpha2A-adrenergic receptors directly in human adipose tissue through the estrogen receptor alpha. Implications for the female fat distribution. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. April 2004;89(4):1869-1878. PUBMED

Lafontan, et al. Adrenergic regulation of adipocyte metabolism. October 1997;12(s1):6-20. PUBMED

4 Ways to Fire Up Work Capacity

by Dan John   

Here's what you need to know...

•  Tumbling and rolling will improve your work capacity and simultaneously change your body composition.

•  It's nearly impossible to hurt yourself while sprinting uphill. Downhill is another matter.

•  When determining the load for sled or Prowler work, err on the side of lighter. If the action makes you look more like a sprinter and less like a plough horse, you have it right.

•  There are thousands of different complexes, but sadly, the guys with the most variations in their training are usually also the weakest and skinniest.

Work capacity: the ability to perform work, which determines your level of fitness that will, in turn, determine your level of preparedness. It's an issue for people in the military and in collision sports. In fact, lifters, off-season athletes, and pretty much anybody and everybody would benefit from improving their work capacity. Here are four ways to do it, three you've probably heard of and one that may surprise you.

Groundwork

Literally at your feet is one of the best pieces of training equipment I know of for building work capacity – the ground. As a child, I did Judo and it built a lifelong appreciation for falling, breaking the fall, and the art of subtle movement. It also taught me to roll in every direction, cartwheel, leap over people (more fun than you think), and not break anything in the process.

When Ken Shamrock's book, Inside the Lion's Den, came out, I saw a gap in my coaching. He recommended a great deal of basic tumbling and so I was inspired to add the same things I'd learned as a child:

• Forward Roll
• Shoulder Roll
• Various Crawls
• Cartwheels
• Basic Tumbling Combinations

The impact on my athletes was immediate. A shoulder injury plague disappeared, my soccer players learned to pop back up into play like football players, and the general conditioning of everyone involved improved overnight. Basic rolling – and I include the Turkish get-up here – can also be considered dynamic foam rolling. Rolling around correctly opens things up and seems to knit you back into place at the same time.

Aside from teaching you a valuable skill, tumbling and rolling can improve your work capacity and simultaneously change your body composition. You'll be surprised how tired and sweaty you get from simply doing five reps of most tumbling moves.

Hills, Drags, Loaded Sprints

The next great way to build capacity is running, pushing, or dragging with a load. Generally, I put these activities in the same category as loaded carries. Hill sprints have been my basic coaching tool for training explosiveness to throwers since Jimmy Carter was president. For whatever reason, it's nearly impossible to hurt yourself (pull a hammie) while sprinting uphill. It's certainly self-limiting and the tired athlete doesn't have the energy to hurt himself. Running downhill, of course, is another issue and I simply don't trust 250-pound plus throwers sprinting downhill. There's this thing called "physics" and even though I don't understand the math, I can only see bad things happening from small refrigerators hurling themselves down a hill.

Today, you can mimic hill sprints in the gym with Prowlers and sleds. The trouble is, I often see people overloading these implements and it takes the "snap" out of the movement. It's a matter of feel, of course, but both too light and too heavy make these exercises less valuable. There are so many factors involved (asphalt versus grass, the make and model, the number of runners on the bottom) that I can't honestly give load recommendations, but you want to err on the side of lighter. If the action makes you look more like a sprinter and less like a plough horse, you have it right. Don't "wallow" as Coach Maughan used to tell us at Utah State when we did sled pulls.

Complexes Made Simple

For years, I've introduced complexes to my athletes at times when I thought we needed a bit more muscle mass. My definition of a complex is simple. A complex is a series of lifts back to back where you finish the reps of one lift before moving on to the next. The barbell only leaves your hands or touches the floor after all of the lifts are completed. You can do them with barbells, dumbbells or kettlebells.

The key to organizing a complex is to make sure the bar passes over your head in some kind of logical manner. In other words, if you do rows followed by back squats, how did the bar get there? You need at least one intermediate move to get the bar onto your shoulders for the back squats. Now I try to have the bar pass backwards over the head after a few lifts, but I only pass it forward again once. I recommend that when you try these you first use a broomstick. It'll save some wasted effort and awkwardness if you get the hang of the transitions before you add much weight.

When I want to increase work capacity and build mass, I only assign one complex for a six-week assault on bulking. There are several reasons for this. First, it helps to master the combination of movements. Now I can whip up a new complex in a manner of minutes, and that may be great if you're in love with variations, but sadly, the guys with the most variations in their training are usually also the weakest and skinniest.

Second, this complex has a nice mix of pushing, pulling, squatting and bending with just enough rest between to allow some recovery. Finally, complexes are, well, complex. I don't want you putting the bar down and trying to remember how to do this or that. I want you to stress and strain for those last seconds. Now, try to recall my definition – a complex is a series of lifts performed back to back where you finish the reps of one lift before moving on to the next. The barbell only leaves your hands or touches the floor after all of the lifts are completed. With that in mind, here's my favorite complex:

• Row
• Clean
• Front Squat
• Military Press
• Back Squat
• Good Morning

If the workout calls for eight repetitions, you need to do eight rows, followed by eight cleans, eight front squats, eight military presses, eight back squats, and then eight good mornings. Do NOT load up the bar the first few times you attempt these, though. Trust me, it's a bad idea.

So tumbling, loaded sprints, and complexes are amazingly simple ways to increase work capacity. The other method is simple, too, but it may not make sense at first.

The Deprivation Effect

I've heard hundreds of testimonials from people who bravely assert that they're going to start some tough diet next Monday. These seemingly brave individuals have all the energy and drive to win several Super Bowls, Olympic Championships, and World Wars. Of course, come next Tuesday, I often get a long list of excuses as to why "this ONE time" they couldn't adhere to the diet program.

I know why. Deprivation is tough. Humans seem to be hard wired to not being able to do something. Yet amazingly, deprivation often works wonders. If your favorite gym closes down, you might suddenly notice that the park next to your house is actually a perfect training facility. Arnold used a method of this in his youth. He'd gather up his friends, go off into the woods with his equipment, and train. He'd choose a lift and just keep doing it over and over. There's more to this, but the idea of leaving the comfy confines of your normal gym and venturing out is going to change your methods of training.

Many of us didn't allow our sons and daughters to watch TV on school nights and maybe they missed some popular culture, but they became voracious readers and skilled at games and sports. That's the way deprivation works. You give up something and you gain something that might even be better. Probably the only thing you shouldn't deprive yourself of, though, is sleep. That tends to be a dead end for most people.

So, add the floor (tumbling), some hills (sleds and the like, too), and a classic way of barbell training (complexes) to your training to increase your work capacity. In addition, consider increasing your work capacity by depriving yourself of some things – the perfect gym, the best equipment, TV or whatever it is that keeps you from focusing on living a full life. It's hard to manage, but it's completely worth the effort.

More Muscle in 10 Minutes A Day

by Chad Waterbury   

Here's what you need to know...

•  All you need is a heavy kettlebell and a doorway pull-up bar to add some serious muscle.

•  Alternate between the swing/pull-up and goblet squat/one-arm push-up combo 4 times each day. It'll only take 10 minutes each day.

•  With HFT (High Frequency Training), you don't need to train with balls-to-the-wall intensity every workout to stimulate muscle growth. Just add circuits into your current training plan and get ready to add lean body mass across your upper body and legs.

Do you want to add new muscle mass across your entire body? If so, we've got a solution for you. Pick a doorway in your house that you walk through frequently and install one of those home pull-up bars. Then set a heavy kettlebell next to it. Honestly, it's all you need to add a full-body, high-frequency training (HFT) plan into your life.

Doing that will be the best technique you ever used to add muscle. Plus, if you slack off, you'll feel riddled with guilt on a daily basis because you'll constantly be reminded that your ticket to new muscle is right in front of you. I mean, do you really not have the time to knock off 10 swings and 5 pull-ups as you pass through that doorway a few times each day? Or 10 goblet squats and 5 one-arm push-ups?

I think you do. In fact, I know you can do it, and you will gain muscle. Look, if every guy who's short on muscle mass would alternate between the swing/pull-up and goblet squat/one-arm push-up combo four times each day, there'd be a lot more muscle in this world three months from now. And it would take a grand total of about 10 minutes of time per day.

A Quick Note About Fatigue

It's essential to manage fatigue when you add full body workouts to whatever you're already doing. We all know that more workouts can lead to more growth, but we need to respect the delicate balance between fatigue and recovery. Two exercises that can drain your recovery capacity are the deadlift and barbell squat, so that's why they aren't part of this HFT plan. However, at least one of them should be included in your primaryworkouts.

The volume guidelines listed below will be sufficient to stimulate growth without the CNS fatigue that comes from maximal strength loading during the barbell squat and deadlift. Your replacement moves will be the goblet squat and swing since they're two of the best exercises you can do using submaximal loads. With HFT, you don't need to train with balls-to-the-wall intensity every workout to stimulate muscle growth. Just add these circuits into your current training plan and get ready to add lean body mass across your upper body and thighs.

The SOP Circuit (Swing, One-Arm Push-Up, Pull-Up With Fat Grip)

Kettlebell Swing: Most guys will need a kettlebell that weighs 48 kilograms (105 pounds). If you don't have one that heavy, use the swing version where you switch hands with each rep. Swing deep using the hip hinge and squeeze the glutes hard at the top of each rep.

One-Arm Push-Up: A one-arm push-up isn't only excellent for the triceps, chest, and shoulders, but it's also a killer anti-rotation core exercise. This is an exercise that can make even the strongest guys feel weak. You should be able to knock off 5 reps with at least half of the full range of motion. If you can't, do the push-ups off a bench or box that's just high enough off the floor to challenge you for 5 reps.

Pull-Up With Fat Gripz: I do most of my pull-ups from rings, but I also have one of those doorway pull-up bars with a pair of Fat Gripz attached to the neutral (hammer) handle position. Fattening the grip is one of the simplest and most effective ways to stimulate more growth in your forearms and biceps. You won't be able to knock off nearly as many reps when using a fat grip, and that's the point.

1A. Swing for 10 reps
Rest 30 seconds
1B. One-Arm Push-Up for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds
1C. Pull-Up With Fat Gripz for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds, and repeat 1A-1C for 5 total rounds.

The GHO Circuit (Goblet Squat, Handstand or Headstand Push-Up, One-Arm Row)

Goblet Squat: This exercise is one of the best submaximal-load squat variations you'll find. If you don't have a single kettlebell or dumbbell that's heavy enough to challenge you by rep 10, use two kettlebells held in the rack position. Squeeze the glutes hard at the top of each rep.

Handstand or Headstand Push-Up: A headstand push-up is the version when the palms are on the ground and you lower the body until the top of your head touches the floor. A handstand push-up requires parallettes (the gymnastic devices used to simulate parallel bars) or something similar, so you can lower the tops of your shoulders until they touch your thumbs. Both versions work well, so choose whichever version best suits your strength.

One-Arm Row: Use a split stance with your opposite leg forward. Shift the trunk forward as far as possible and keep an arch in your low back. You can mix up the movement variation by pulling with an overhand, neutral, or underhand palm position.

1A. Goblet Squat for 10 reps
Rest 30 seconds
1B. Handstand or Headstand Push-Up for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds
1C. One-Arm Row for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds, and repeat 1A-1C for 5 total rounds.

The RDI Circuit (Reverse Lunge, Dip, Inverted Row)

Reverse Lunge: Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell in the "rack" position (elbow tucked to the side with arm fully flexed) on the same side as the leg that's stepping back. When people do a reverse lunge with a single weight they usually hold the weight on the side of the leg that remains in front, but that version isn't as challenging to the glutes.

Dip: Use rings since they recruit more muscle fibers due to the instability they incur (besides, you can hang them from the pull-up bar). Shift the chest toward the floor as your body lowers, without rounding the spine, to minimize shoulder strain.

Inverted Row: Again, use rings and take advantage of the fact that they'll already be in the proper position from the dips that preceded it. This is why I pair the dip and inverted row in the same workout. Elevate your feet on a box or bench to make your upper back work harder and hold the top position for a count of "one-one-thousand" with each rep. If that's still too easy, increase the peak-contraction hold time to 2 or 3 seconds with each rep.

1A. Reverse Lunge for 5 reps with each leg
Rest 30 seconds
1B. Dip for 10 reps
Rest 30 seconds
1C. Inverted Row for 10 reps
Rest 30 seconds, and repeat 1A-1C for 5 total rounds.

Programming Options

You have three primary programming options for using these circuits to gain muscle. The first two options don't require you to perform all 5 rounds each time you do a HFT circuit.

Option #1. Do what you can, when you can: This is often the most popular option since it's the simplest. Put a pull-up bar and heavy kettlebell in your house and just knock out one round of the Swing/One-arm push-up/Pull-up (SOP) circuit when you have a few minutes. The next time you have a few free minutes at home you'll do the Goblet squat/Headstand push-up/One-arm row (GHO) circuit for one round.

You'll alternate between those two circuits throughout the week whenever you can. Maybe you fit in four rounds on Monday, three rounds on Wednesday, and five rounds on Saturday and Sunday. It doesn't matter as long as you're adding something on top of your current training program.

Option #2. Be meticulous with your training log: Some guys like to keep detailed records of all their training. If you're one of them, you can certainly be meticulous with your HFT workouts and work to add more volume over time. This is the best way to manage fatigue, so it's the ideal choice for people who are already on an intense training program that consists of three or more primary workouts each week.

Now there are countless ways you can systematically increase your training volume by adding HFT circuits, but I'll just touch on the two key points.

Perform the workouts at the right time. Keep in mind that the sole purpose of HFT is to help you train more frequently. If you make any of the above circuits part of your primary workout, it won't lead to noticeable muscle growth. The circuits must stand alone as separate, albeit very brief, workouts. Therefore, perform the circuit of your choice on a day when you're not doing your primary workouts, or 8 hours before or after your primary workout.

Start with less than you think you need. It's easy to go gung-ho on HFT and annihilate your joints and recovery abilities the first week. Don't do that. Start with 2 rounds of any circuit or circuits and do them 4 times per week. Do 3 rounds the following week. Continue progressing until you work up to 5 rounds of the circuits. At that point don't add any more rounds because the purpose of this technique is to help you add brief workouts and not turn your primary workouts into 2-hour monsters.

Take at least one full day off each week, so if your primary workouts are in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you could add HFT circuits in the following manner:

Week 1

Monday: Primary workout in the morning, SOP circuit for 2 rounds in the evening
Tuesday: GHO circuit for 2 rounds at any time
Wednesday: Primary workout in the morning
Thursday: RDI circuit for 2 rounds at any time
Friday: Primary workout in the morning
Saturday: SOP circuit for 2 rounds at any time
Sunday: Off

Week 2

Monday: Primary workout in the morning, GHO circuit for 3 rounds in the evening
Tuesday: RDI circuit for 3 rounds at any time
Wednesday: Primary workout in the morning
Thursday: SOP circuit for 3 rounds at any time
Friday: Primary workout in the morning
Saturday: GHO circuit for 3 rounds at any time
Sunday: Off

Week 3

Monday: Primary workout in the morning, RDI circuit for 4 rounds in the evening
Tuesday: SOP circuit for 4 rounds at any time
Wednesday: Primary workout in the morning
Thursday: GHO circuit for 4 rounds at any time
Friday: Primary workout in the morning
Saturday: RDI circuit for 4 rounds at any time
Sunday: Off

Week 4

Monday: Primary workout in the morning, SOP circuit for 5 rounds in the evening
Tuesday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds at any time
Wednesday: Primary workout in the morning
Thursday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds at any time
Friday: Primary workout in the morning
Saturday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds at any time
Sunday: Off

At this point you can increase the frequency of the HFT workouts to 5 times per week with 5 rounds, or work to finish each circuit in less time.

Option #3. The final option is to use the 3 circuits above as your standalone primary training program. You can definitely add more exercises after the 5 rounds are finished to focus on your calves, abs, or whatever else you're trying to build, but the 3 circuits alone will cover most of your training needs.

If you choose this option, you'll start with 4 workouts, 5 rounds of each, for the first 2 weeks and increase the frequency as shown below.

Week 1

Frequency: 4 workouts per week
Monday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Tuesday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Friday: Off
Saturday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Sunday: Off

Week 2

Frequency: 4 workouts per week
Monday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Tuesday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Friday: Off
Saturday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Sunday: Off

Week 3

Frequency: 5 workouts per week
Monday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Tuesday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Friday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Saturday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Sunday: Off

Week 4

Frequency: 5 workouts per week
Monday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Tuesday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Friday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Saturday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Sunday: Off

Weeks 5-6

Frequency: 6 workouts per week
Monday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Tuesday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Wednesday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Thursday: SOP circuit for 5 rounds
Friday: GHO circuit for 5 rounds
Saturday: RDI circuit for 5 rounds
Sunday: Off

At this point you'll have learned enough about your own training needs and recovery to design a customized full-body HFT program on your own. Finally, HFT requires proper workout nutrition. You'll be pushing your recovery capacity to the limit, so use Biotest's latest high-performance supplements to aid recovery and enhance muscle growth.

4 Squat Challenges You Must Conquer

by Ben Bruno   

Photo Credit: Gavin Simpson

Here's what you need to know...

•  Every now and then it's fun to put on your big-boy panties and test your mettle.

•  Gym challenges need rules because there's a very fine line between pushing yourself hard and being reckless. The former will teach you a lot about yourself and show you what you're truly capable of, while the latter will get you hurt.

•  It's best to choose self-limiting exercises whereby there's far less potential for form breakdown. These challenges will focus on the front squat.

There's nothing like a good challenge to increase your work capacity and let you know what you're made of. Of course, you don't want to crush yourself every time you hit the gym and it's certainly best to spend the majority of your training following a well thought-out, reasonable program. If all you do is random challenges where you're constantly beating the crap out of yourself, your training will quickly deteriorate into the dreaded "C" word, and by that I mean clusterfuck, not necessarily CrossFit.

But every now and again it's fun to ditch the script, put on your big-boy panties, and just unleash hell. After all, how do you know what your limits are if you never push them? That being said, gym challenges need rules because there's a very fine line between pushing yourself hard and being reckless. The former will teach you a lot about yourself; the latter will get you hurt. I'm all for hard training, but you still need to be smart about it.

With that in mind, it's best to choose self-limiting exercises whereby there's far less potential for form breakdown, so instead of testing yourself with things like Olympic lifts, barbell deadlifts, and back squats, think front squats, sleds, farmer's walks, etc.

I'm going to share four front-squat challenges in this article, and they aren't for the faint of heart. Before you begin, you'll want to start the workout off with a squat-specific warm-up to prepare yourself for what's to come. Get in the bottom position of the squat with your hands pressed together like you're praying and your elbows touching the inside of your knees so you can push your knees out and get a good stretch in your groin and hips. Now, while you're down there, cough five times. That should help get all the sand out of your you-know-what. Now you're ready to rock.

1. The Bodyweight Front-Squat Challenge

Dan John recently shared a "fun" challenge where you back squat your bodyweight 50 times in a single set without racking the bar. I used to do something similar back in college where I'd try and see how many times I could squat my bodyweight (at the time I was hell-bent on getting 100 reps but my best was 67 reps with 170 pounds). These days I tend to favor the front squat to the back squat, especially when I'm pushing myself to the brink because holding the bar in front helps keep form in check. Having the bar on your back allows you to grind out ugly rep after ugly rep, but with the front squat, you'll just end up dumping the bar if your form slips and you start to lean forward too much.

It'd be damn near impossible to hold the bar for a 50-rep front squat in one continuous set unless I used paltry weight. So to adapt the challenge to the front squat, I changed the rules and set off to complete 50 front squats in four minutes. You can break it up into as many sets as you want and you can choose your rest intervals. The clock starts when you unrack the bar for the first set and ends when you rack the bar after completing your 50th rep. If you're the type that enjoys watching other suffers, here's a video of me completing the challenge.

Start with a weight you could squat for about 25-30 reps (i.e. very light) with the ultimate goal of completing all 50 reps with your bodyweight on the bar. Once you achieve that, to step it up even further and eliminate the need to fuss around with a lot of small plates, use the following weight guidelines that I borrowed from Dan John's back squat challenge:

Bodyweight 135 pounds and under: Use 135
Bodyweight 136-185 pounds: Use 185
Bodyweight 186-205 pounds: Use 205
Bodyweight over 205: Use 225

The key is to work on your pacing so you don't blow your load too early. I originally set this as a 5-minute challenge and gradually worked down to 4 minutes, so it may be wise for you to do that too.

2. The 10-Minute Challenge

Do one set of squats on the minute for 10 minutes, for a total of 10 sets. Keep the weight constant and do the same amount of reps on each set. Set a timer and start each set promptly on the minute. Your rest after each set is however much time is left in the minute. How many reps you decide to do in each set is up to you. Low reps are easier than high reps in the sense that you get longer rest periods, but they're harder in the sense that you'll be using heavier weight. I personally do 5 reps per set because I find it's a happy medium.

Start by putting your bodyweight on the bar and trying to complete 5 reps in all 10 sets. If you don't get all 5 on every set, keep the weight the same until you can. From there, strive to complete all 50 reps with 1.25 times your bodyweight on the bar.

3. The Front-Squat Iso Hold

This one is simple, but it's anything but easy. You've surely done a wall sit before, right? Take that and multiply it by 1,000 and you've got a front squat iso hold. Get in the bottom position of a front squat just before the point where your hamstrings touch your calves and hold it for as long as possible. Be sure to do these in a power rack so you can dump the bar on the pins when you're done. Start with 95 pounds on the bar until you can hold it for at least 30 seconds, at which point you can move up to 135 pounds on the bar. From there, try to increase the duration of the holds. Anything over 30 seconds with 135 is damn respectable.

I'd recommend doing these at the end of your workout because your legs won't have much left afterwards. Interestingly, after doing these at the end of my lower body workouts twice a week for six weeks last summer, my front squat form felt much better and I felt a lot stronger coming out of the hole, so these have value beyond just as a challenge.

4. Tabata Front Squats

About ten years back Dan John shared the idea of Tabata front squats. I wish I'd never read that article because of course I tried it and I was hooked. The protocol calls for doing 20 seconds of front squats, resting 10 seconds, and repeating it 8 times, with the stipulation being that you can't drop below 8 reps on any of the sets. So in total you end up doing 70+ front squats. The whole thing lasts just 3 minutes and 50 seconds in theory, but it's really about a half-hour workout because you end up spending the other 26 minutes trying to catch your breath!

Dan John originally shared this as fat loss protocol, but I prefer to just use it occasionally as a good gut check with the goal being to see how heavy I can go and still complete the challenge.

Be strict with the rest intervals, which is much easier said than done when you're in the heat of it. Those 10-second rest intervals feel like a blink of the eye and it's almost like the clock is giving you the finger. Some people get all huffy when you refer to something as a Tabata that doesn't exactly replicate the original Tabata protocol. I couldn't care less about what something is called, but if that bothers you, feel free to call them 20:10 front squats, Dan John front squats, or just do what we've done with a bunch of other exercises and name it after some Eastern European country.

How To Build A Tight, Rock-Hard Waist

by Kyle Arsenault   

Here's what you need to know...

•  By activating the core with specific exercises, you not only develop the ability to transfer more force and push more weight, you'll effectively "shrink wrap" your spine and end up with a thinner waist.

•  Doing a plank variation before a bilateral squat or an overhead anti-extension before a deadlift helps engage the core so you can really crush some weight.

•  To challenge core stability, add slabs of rock hard muscle, and enhance work capacity, finish a session off with some energy system work that includes weighted carries, battle rope variations, sled pushes, or bear crawls.

Maybe you've been told you shouldn't train abs or other core musculature before your main lifts because it will fatigue your system and you won't be able to demonstrate your true strength. Or maybe you've heard the opposite, that you should train core before your main lifts to activate the system and encourage more stability.

Or maybe you've heard both, but still don't give a damn about core training and just hit the gym with no plan or goal. If this sounds like you, good luck in achieving a body defined by Herculean strength and a godlike physique. For the rest of us, the conflicting information about where core training should fall within a training session can be confusing. It's time to figure it out.

Below are three different times where core training can and should be incorporated into your program to help you maximize strength, avoid injury, and walk around looking like part of the 300 cast.

Where Core Training Should Be In Your Program

1. As Activation (pre dynamic warm up)

In order to effectively stabilize the trunk, the core musculature has to work in unison with appropriate timing. By activating the core in an efficient pattern with exercises such as supine leg lifts, quadruped reaches (birddogs), and back-to-wall overhead reaches, you're encouraging the core to fire/work in an efficient and proper manner. The goal with each of these exercises is to keep the lower back from moving (no arch or rotation) and the ribcage from flaring from a neutral position as the arms and/or legs move.

Controlling the core in this manner will allow you to transfer more force, push more weight, and avoid injury. Also, by effectively "shrink wrapping" your spine and not merely clamping down with your rectus abdominus, you'll end up with a thinner waist... a nice and easy way to achieve the X shape we all want.

2. As Your 1A Exercises

In my programming I use my 1A exercises – or 2A, 3A, etc. – to get my athletes ready for their 1B exercises, and this usually includes a core component. I don't want these exercises to fatigue the athlete's core to a point that it'll negatively affect the subsequent exercise, but instead I want the core to "activate" in a more specific pattern. For example, if I want my athlete to crush a reverse lunge as their 1B exercise, I'll likely have them complete a 1A exercise from a static lunge (split stance) or half kneeling position where they're focusing on perfect form while trying to prevent motion at the trunk.

A split stance medicine ball chop works well to engage the core and pattern the lunge before trying to crush some weight on a reverse lunge, for example. Other examples would include a plank variation before a bilateral squat or an overhead anti-extension (such as an overhead medicine ball tap, overhead RIP Trainer reach, etc.) before a deadlift.

3. Post Training or Energy System Work

Once the bulk of your program is complete, you can, and in many cases should, challenge your core stability in a fatigued state. When fatigue enters the equation, core stability is compromised and that promotes faulty movement, loss of strength and power, diminishing performance, and higher potential for injury.

Adding higher-level core stability exercises at the end of your training session can help to challenge and strengthen the core when it's most likely to fail (just make sure you're keeping perfect form). Try adding higher-level plank variations such as fallouts, slideboard body saws, or weighted plank rows (renegade rows) at the end of your session. For more of a rotational challenge, try incorporating higher level anti-rotation presses such as the anti-rotation walkout, TRX anti-rotation presses, or split stance lifts or chops.

One of the best ways to challenge core stability, add slabs of rock hard muscle, and enhance work capacity is to finish a session off with some energy system work that includes weighted carries (especially unilateral carries), battle rope variations, sled pushes, or bear crawl variations. The focus is to complete as much work as possible while maintaining a stable trunk. Try putting together a finishing circuit in a density fashion with one or more of these exercises. For example, complete heavy farmer's walks or sled pushes for a pre-determined distance for a pre-determined amount of time.

The goal would be to complete as many trips as possible in the specified amount of time. Not only will your core be fried, but your entire system will be on fire and your body will be forced to adapt by building more lean muscle.

Activate, Understand, Get Better

The goal of core training, no matter where it falls in your session, is to challenge the core to stabilize the trunk, reduce excess motion at the trunk, and transmit force effectively. I encourage you to first activate and understand what it feels like to maintain a stable trunk, then strengthen the core in specific patterns to promote better performance of a subsequent exercise, and lastly challenge your core stability and strength when you're fatigued.

8 Moves For A Crazy-Strong Core

Serious lifters take major action to strengthen the posterior chain. Why should the core receive anything less? Use these innovative exercises to blast your core into oblivion!







Many compound lifters scoff at abdominal exercises and argue that heavy squats and deadlifts work the core sufficiently. I think this is a mistake. Sure, the core gets taxed during heavy compound movements, but it's often the hidden weak link and limiting factor that keeps lifters from reaching new PRs.


In other words, a stronger core inevitably leads to bigger lifts. If it helps, think of it this way: Squats and deadlifts work the glutes and hamstrings a hell of a lot, but most serious lifters still do supplemental posterior chain work. Why should the core be any different?


There's a catch, though. Crunches, basic planks, and side planks aren't going to provide the stimulus necessary for strong lifters to get stronger, because they're simply too easy. You need to challenge yourself with difficult, high-tension core exercises to see improvement across the board.


Here are eight demanding exercises to take both your abdominal strength and your overall strength to the next level!
EXERCISE 1 ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH LEG RAISE


Generally I'm not a big fan of combination exercises, because one exercise is typically a lot harder than the other and you end up not being able to push yourself on the harder exercise. But here, both exercises are equally difficult, thereby allowing you to blast your upper back and core simultaneously.


People often cheat the heck out of hanging leg raises, usually by leaning way back, swinging, and creating momentum. This makes for a less than effective core exercise, and also leads to some significant spinal flexion. Holding the chin-up position helps prohibit backward lean, forcing you to be strict with the leg raises, which makes it safer and more effective.
BEN BRUNO ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH DYNAMIC L-SIT
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:40








Doing these with rings is especially great for stabilizing the body and keeping from swinging, but a bar works fine if you don't have access to rings. Don't lower your legs all the way down; stop 1-2 inches short to keep tension on the core. If it's too hard at first, hold the chin-up at mid-level and/or bend the legs to shorten the lever length.


Counting time can be difficult for this exercise unless you're positioned in front of a clock, so it's best to go for reps.
EXERCISE 2 ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH DYNAMIC L-SIT


I suck at naming exercises, so I normally just call these "spread 'ems" or "open sesames." No matter the title, it's a great exercise to challenge your core and upper back.


Hold the chin-up position, go into an L-sit position, and slowly open and close your legs while keeping the torso steady. Learning to resist swinging is one of the most challenge aspects of the exercise. The slower you go, the harder it is. Try to keep your legs as straight as possible.
BEN BRUNO ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH DYNAMIC L-SIT
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:31








You can also do these from the hang position if the chin-up hold is too tough. Like the chin-up iso-hold/hanging leg raise combo, it's usually best to do these for reps. Just make sure to wear loose shorts to avoid giving your fellow gym-goers a show they don't want.
EXERCISE 3 ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH L-SIT FLUTTER KICKS


This movement starts at the same point as the open sesame, but moves vertically rather than horizontally. Hold the chin-up position, enter an L-sit position, and perform small flutter kicks with your legs straight out. These are harder than the dynamic L-sit combo, so master that exercise first.


The goal is to keep your legs straight, but if you're unable to manage that initially, start with bent legs and progress to straightening them. Because the legs move quickly, it's tough to count reps, so it works better to do these for time. Start at 5-10 seconds and build up from there. That time will go by slower than you think!
BEN BRUNO ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH L-SIT FLUTTER KICKS
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:36






EXERCISE 4 ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH L-SIT LEG EXTENSION


I saved L-sit leg extensions for last because it's the hardest L-sit variation. Start by holding the chin-up position and extend your legs into an L-sit position. Bring your legs in, extend them straight out, and keep your torso steady to avoid swinging.


Put a medicine ball or dumbbell between your feet to increase the challenge. You can do these for reps or time.
BEN BRUNO ISO CHIN-UP HOLD WITH L-SIT LEG EXTENSION
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:28






EXERCISE 5 SINGLE-LEG PLANK WALK


Get in a push-up position with one foot on a Valslide or furniture slider and let the other foot hover just off the floor. From there, walk forward with your hands, keeping your arms as straight as possible, and keep your hips steady.


Walk as far as possible with one leg and switch legs on the way back. If you don't have space to walk, use a slide board to walk forward and backward for a set number of reps, and then switch legs. In either case, this exercise works your core and shoulders and jacks up your heart rate, which makes it a great finisher to an upper-body workout, either on its own or as part of a circuit with movements like battling ropes, sled pushes, or farmer's walks.
BEN BRUNO SINGLE-LEG PLANK WALK
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:29






EXERCISE 6 SHOULDER-FRIENDLY SUSPENSION STRAP FALLOUT


The normal suspension strap fallout progression is to start with the straps around waist height and extend your body until your arms are directly overhead. As you improve, you lengthen the straps and extend out farther, progressing until the straps almost touch the floor, which resembles the starting position of a standing ab wheel rollout.


There's certainly nothing wrong with that progression, but for people with shoulder issues it can be problematic. To make it more shoulder-friendly, set up several feet behind the anchor point of the straps. This also makes the exercise significantly harder, because you don't have to extend your arms out nearly as far to challenge the core. The tension is more or less constant throughout the movement.
BEN BRUNO SHOULDER-FRIENDLY SUSPENSION STRAP FALLOUT
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:36








There isn't much range of motion at the arms, but this exercise lights the core up when done correctly. The farther you walk back, the harder it becomes. On the plus side, the farther you walk back the easier it becomes on the shoulders, but only walk back to a point where you can still control the movement. If you start to feel the exercise in your lower back, you've gone too far.


Perform this exercise for reps, and focus on progressively moving farther backward.
EXERCISE 7 SINGLE-LEG FALLOUT


Single-leg fallouts decrease your support base, which makes the exercise harder and adds a rotary stability component. The normal fallout already does a great job at working the anterior core, so this wrinkle makes it even better at building all-around core strength. Like the shoulder-friendly fall-out, perform this exercise for reps and focus on progressively moving farther backward.
BEN BRUNO SINGLE-LEG FALLOUT
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:35






EXERCISE 8 SINGLE-LEG BODYSAW


Regular bodysaws are great, and many people are surprised by just how difficult such a tiny range of motion can be. Once you've got that down, though, you can take it a step further by doing single-leg bodysaws. From there, if you feel frisky, try the single-arm, single-leg version, which challenges even the most advanced lifters.
BEN BRUNO SINGLE-ARM, SINGLE-LEG BODYSAW
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:29








Trying to count during this exercise is nearly impossible due to the intense strain throughout your body. Go for reps, and enjoy all the benefits your newfound core strength brings!

Improve the health of your liver naturally

by Dr. David Jockers 

(NaturalNews) The liver is one of the most important of all our vital organs. The liver is responsible for filtering and detoxifying environmental toxins and pathogenic organisms. Unlike many organs a failing liver is unable to be surgically fixed or replaced.

The liver is a vital digestive organ that converts nutrients from the food we eat into essential blood components. It helps to store vitamins and minerals and produces key proteins and enzymes that maintain hormonal balance in the body. The liver helps the immune system fight infections and removes microorganisms from the blood stream. It also produces bile which is essential for digesting fats in our diet.

What harms the liver?

The most harmful things for liver health include environmental toxins, infectious organisms, alcohol and poor diet. Exposure to environmental toxins and chemicals can backlog the liver as it tries to neutralize and deactivate these poisonous molecules. These chemicals include xylene, benzene, disinfectant byproducts, heavy metals, pesticides and cigarette smoke.

Infectious organisms are a major cause of liver stress and inflammation. The most well-known organisms are the hepatitis viruses with the hepatitis B and C viruses being the most dangerous. Any sort of chronic infection in the body such as Lyme, influenza, aflatoxin and other mycotoxins, etc., have the ability to inflame and damage the liver as well.

Poor diet damages the liver

Alcohol and poor diet damage the liver as well. Alcohol must go through the liver's detoxification cycle to be metabolized and deactivated in the body. Chronic alcohol consumption depletes the liver of valuable glutathione, sulfur compounds and methylating elements such as zinc, riboflavin, B6, folate and B12.

Poor blood sugar signaling and a diet high in processed foods that contain toxic additives, preservatives, pesticides, GMOs, etc., drain the liver of valuable glutathione, sulfur compounds and methylating elements. Often times, individuals that consume a diet high in alcohol and processed foods are not consuming the key nutrients they need to produce glutathione, sulfotransferases and methylating agents.

The liver health nutrition plan

Foods that are challenging for the liver should be eliminated. This includes processed and refined foods and common food sensitivities such as gluten, soy, peanuts, pasteurized dairy and corn.

Foods that are high in mycotoxins must be minimized as well. This would include most legumes and nuts which should only be consumed in small moderation. Be sure to get your organic, mold-free coffee and raw cacao and refrigerate it to prevent mycotoxin formation.

Anyone with liver challenges should be vigilant about using only certified organic, chemical free products. This includes all food choices, personal hygiene products and household cleaning agents. Reducing toxin exposure from the environment including water and air filtration is very important.

Best foods for liver health

Some of the best liver benefiting foods include those that are rich in B vitamins, vitamin C and trace minerals. This would include lots of raw veggies like celery, spinach, cucumbers and romaine lettuce and steamed veggies such as the cruciferous family. It is also especially advisable to juice your veggies to better absorb the nutrients. Citrus fruit and berries are especially good for the liver.

Using herbs such as ginger, milk thistle, peppermint, parsley, dandelion, garlic and turmeric are especially good for liver health. A great juicing recipe for liver and kidney health is spinach, celery, cucumber, lemon and ginger. Another favorite is kale, cucumber, parsley, celery and lime.

Eating liver from an organic, pasture-raised animal provides powerful nutritional support for liver health. This would include grass-fed beef liver, fish liver, wild-game liver or pasture-raised chicken liver.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/13/foods-for-liver_n_1880715.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/039726_mycotoxins_aflatoxin_foods.html

http://www.drjockers.com

The Best Exercises. Period.

by Christian Thibaudeau   

Here's what you need to know...

•  Nothing will build up the yoke like the snatch-grip high pull.

•  While using a Prowler is great for fat loss and building muscle, the farmer's walk with a trap bar is better.

•  The bench press is not the best exercise to build the pectoral muscles. Rather, it's the dip.

•  The best exercise to use as a test for power, speed, and explosiveness isn't the 40-yard dash or the vertical jump, it's the underhand forward medicine ball throw.

One cautionary note before I jump into my list of favorite exercises. I'm assuming proper form and performance on all of them. A great movement can be turned into something totally worthless if not done properly.

1. Best Exercise to Make You Look "Yoked"

First I want to apologize to Jim Wendler for stealing his "yoke" concept. Honestly though, what he calls the yoke, I normally call the shoulder pad area. I'm specifically referring to the size and thickness of the delts, traps, and mid-back – the muscles that make you look visually intimidating and that scream power!

Nothing will build up those muscles like the snatch-grip high pull from the hang or blocks. I've had people contact me saying that it changed the way their body looked in as little as one or two workouts! For the high pull, focus on exploding upwards with the lower body and hips to create upward momentum. Then pull the barbell violently toward your neck – anywhere between the nipple line and neck constitutes a high pull in my book. Keep the bar close and the elbows high.

To gain massive size:
Do sets of 3 to 5 reps.

2. Best Exercise To Get You Ripped

I want to apologize to Jim Wendler for a second time because, while he (rightfully so) loves the Prowler to keep fat at bay, I personally have a preference for the farmer's walk or Dead-Squat™ Bar carry. I prefer the farmer's walk for two main reasons:

1. You are less likely to be limited by metabolic factors. The Prowler causes the greatest oxygen debt in the least amount of time. This is in part due to the high demands of the exercise but also because it's hard to breathe when pushing the bastard! While the farmer's walk is also metabolically demanding, at least you can breathe properly when you do it. As such, you can carry big weights for longer than you can prowl big weights and you recover faster between sets. That allows for a greater density of work, which is important when trying to get as lean as possible.

2. The farmer's walk involves a greater number of muscles. The Prowler might hit the legs a little harder, but you don't get the same traps, arms, and abs involvement as the farmer's walk. You will also experience growth in those muscles because of the occluded stretch you create, which makes the farmer's walk a bigger bang-for-your-buck movement.

For fat loss: 
Bouts of 2 minutes with 1 minute of rest.

To build muscle and lose fat: 
Go heavier for 1 minute with one minute of rest.

To build size/strength while keeping fat gain at bay: 
Go very heavy for 20-30 seconds with up to 2 minutes of rest between sets.

3. Best Exercise To Be A Solid Power Athlete

A power athlete is someone competing in sports requiring a high level of speed and explosiveness like football, sprinting, throwing, jumping events, etc. If done properly, the best exercise for these athletes (and one of the best tests of athletic capacities) is the power snatch from the hang. Of all the lifting exercises, it's the one with the highest power production level. It also requires good overall coordination and full shoulder mobility.

The power clean from the hang would have been a good choice too, since the power produced is also very high, but you get higher acceleration and rate of force development and peak velocity in the power snatch – all elements that are key to ultimate performance in explosive sports. The power snatch is obviously a somewhat complex lift. Remember my cautionary note at the beginning of the article – if a movement isn't done properly, it loses it status as "best"!

To build maximum power and explosiveness:
Use a load that's 70-80% of 1RM. We want all reps to be violently explosive, so sets of 2-3 reps are best.

4. Best Exercise To Build A Big Chest

I didn't really want to include best exercises for individual body parts because more often than not these can vary from one person to the next because of leverages or muscle dominances. I'll make an exception in the case of the chest, however, because everybody tends to believe that the best way to build the chest is the bench press. Even though I love the bench press, it's not the best exercise to build the pectoral muscles. The dip is. To this day I haven't met one person who was very strong on dips (in perfect form) who didn't have a very good chest, but I have seen my fair share of big bench pressers with very ordinary pecs.

The first sign of a good/bad dip is body swing. Those who aren't doing the dip properly tend to have their torso and legs moving during the exercise, whereas those who are very good at dips seem to have their torso and legs fixed on a sliding rail. Another sign is whether the shoulders stay in the pocket or not. Many bad dippers (and those who get shoulder problems from dips) often have their shoulders move forward and up relative to their torso when they go down. If you took a picture of only their shoulders, it would look like they were doing a shrug.

When you dip down you should flare your lats (think of rubbing the inner part of your upper arm against the lats) and "open up" the chest, not unlike during a bench press.

To build a big chest:
Do full-range dips with an additional load of 50% bodyweight for 6-8 reps.

5. Best Exercise To Get Strong

Talk to every competitive strongman and ask him what his most important barbell lift is and 9 times out of 10 you'll get one answer: the deadlift. No movement transfers better to picking things up from the floor and carrying stuff with your hands, the two most important tasks in strongman competitions. Even back in the 1800s during the golden age of strongmen, the ultimate test of strength was how much weight you could lift off the floor (using two hands, one hand, one finger, etc.). In even older days, the strongest man in the village was the one who could pick up the heaviest stone.

Lifting a big weight off the floor requires greater overall strength than all other simple actions, so it's not surprising that the deadlift is the king of lifts for strongmen. Now, it's true that some small men have deadlifted big weights without being strong in other movements. Guys with formidable leverages like Bob Peoples, who has hands that hang almost down to his knees, have an advantage.

Regardless, becoming strong in the deadlift is the best way for 90% of the population to become strong overall. The reason for this – besides the fact that the deadlift involves so many muscles – is the effect that training the deadlift has on strengthening the nervous system. This, in turn, increases your strength potential everywhere else, too.

To build maximum strength:
I like doing a deadlift workout that I saw Canadian strongest man Jean-Francois Caron do. He would max out on rack deadlifts (bar starting just below the knees) and then do 6 sets of 3 reps of floor deadlifts. Caron has deadlifted over 900 pounds for reps, so it's hard to find fault with this plan!

6. Best Exercise For The Time Constrained

If you only had time to do one session of 10 minutes per week and could only do one lift, what would you do? My answer would be 5 sets of 3-5 reps on the clean and press – specifically a power clean from the hang followed by a push press – with about 60-75 seconds of rest between sets.

The clean & press involves to some degree most, if not all, the muscles in the body. I'm not saying that it will work everything optimally, but you can at least stimulate all of your muscles to some extent. It's also an exercise that can help get you leaner because it has a high-energy demand since it involves so many muscle groups and involves a high velocity of movement.

To build or maintain muscle size and burn fat:
Do 5 sets of 3-5 reps. More than that and it turns into a metabolic conditioning exercise.

7. Best Exercise To Test Athleticism

When you're a strength coach working with groups of athletes you often have to test your athletes to know where they are and who has the most potential. Coaches will use tons of tests and the testing of a team will often take 4 hours or more. From my experience, when testing an athlete in a sport like football, hockey, basketball, or baseball, I find that the test that has the highest correlation with athletic potential isn't the 40-yard dash or vertical jump, but the underhand forward medicine ball throw.

The 40-yard dash is of course a very popular choice, but nowadays it's more about technique and beating the test than pure athletic capacities. The vertical jump is a little bit less technique dependant, but it doesn't involve the upper body that much (about 10-15%) so it's less complete than the underhand throw.

To test an athlete for potential:
Have them swing the ball between their legs and throw it forward as far as they can. The weight of the ball should be 10-12 pounds. A 15-meter throw (16.4 yards) is a decent result, while 19 meters (20.7 yards) would be excellent.