Benefits:

If you are looking to target your entire abs than body folds are right for you. By lifting your shoulders and feet off the ground you are able to feel it all the way from your lower to upper abs. Body folds are also great because you are in constant tension by never letting your feet touch the ground and also working through a full range of motion. This exercise will also help to strengthen your lower back since your entire body is off the ground except for you butt. Hit about 20-25 of these and you will be burning up!

How To:

1) Begin sitting up with your knees pulled towards your chest

2) Simultaneously lower your upper body towards the ground while pressing your legs straight forward until they are extended

**TRAINERS TIPS** At the end of the movement you should have your upper body a few inches off the ground and your legs just a few inches off the ground

Benefits:

For everyone who spends the majority of their day seated (pretty much every American), the mini band is one of the best workout tools you can use. When you sit for long periods of time, the muscles in the front side of your hips (TFL) get short and tight. The TFL will eventually take over the majority of the work in walking and lead to your hips tilting forward. Your glutes (butt) are taken out of the equation, when in reality they should be one of the prime muscles used during walking.

The great benefit of mini bands is that they can easily target your glute medius, which is basically the top outside corner of your butt. Strengthening the glute medius will counter the negative effects caused by sitting for long periods of time.

How To:

1) Stand tall, wrap band around ankles, bend at hips and knees

2) Take a step forward with one leg as far as possible, bring back leg forward until legs together

3) Use opposing leg to take next step

**TRAINERS TIPS** Limit upper body movement, keep feet at shoulder width apart. For added resistance place another band right above your knees

Benefits: The barbell one arm row is a great way to challenge your back and core stability at the same time. The weight in this exercise comes at a different angles than when using a dumbbell, so you muscles will be challenged differently. By performing the single arm movement, the muscles in your core will be forced to work in order to stabilize.

How To:

1) Stand at the end of a barbell, with it flat on the ground by your side

2) Squat down by bending at the knees and hips, while keeping the back flat

3) Grab the barbell with one arm and elevate your upper body so it is at a 45-degree angle

4) Stabilize your core and row the head of the barbell towards the side of your ribs

**TRAINERS TIPS** Attempt to pinch shoulder blades together during the row. During the row, limit any elevation in the shoulder that is performing the work.

Benefits:

The crossover split squat is another variation to a typical split squat that allows you to work other muscles and take the exercise to the next level. By getting into the crossover position you are placing the focus on the outside of your front leg and glutes, while also challenging the core to balance.

How To:

1) Get into a split squat stance with one leg in front of the other
2) With the back leg, move it over so that your legs are crossed
3) Perform a split squat lowering the back knee right behind your front heel
4) Complete all your reps before switching to the other leg

**TRAINERS TIPS** Keep your front knee facing forward and in line with your foot. Keep the shoulders and hips square, facing the front.

Great questions, I think a lot of people operate under that same assumption. The answer is yes and no depending on what you consider a fat belly. If you just want to be skinny than just don’t eat a ton and you really don’t have to workout. On the other hand if you want to actually have abs than you will need to incorporate some exercise. Either way exercise will make getting and keeping a flat belly easier because you will be burning more calories than if you don’t exercise.

Another issue here is what you consider to be the right foods. Everyone has a different idea of what foods are healthy and what foods aren’t. If you are not doing any exercise at all than you will need to make sure the foods you eat are actually the healthy type.

Sorry to not give you a definitive answer but the body is a crazy machine and a lot of questions about it can not be answered definitively. If you have any more questions on the subject please comment below and I’ll be glad to answer them.

Benefits: The medicine ball chop is a great way to strengthen your pillar (core, shoulders, hips) while also allowing for a cardiovascular challenge. The chop will work your arms, hips and especially your core. With it being a total body movement you are working many muscle groups, which allows it to get your heart rate up easily. Performing the chop at an aggressive speed will turn this exercise into a total body cardio challenge. It is a great exercise to throw into a metabolic circuit at the start or finish of a workout.

How To:

1) Stand feet shoulder width apart, hands on medicine ball, arms fully extended up and at an angle

2) Squat keeping arms straight while crossing the body with the ball

3) Twist your upper body as you lower the ball across the opposite knee

4) Return back to the start by following the same movement pattern as on the way down

*Trainers Tip* During the squat pay attention to your knees and make sure they stay inline with your feet and down cave in or out. Twist only the upper body as you lower and raise the ball, the hips should be facing forward at all times.

Benefits:

The single leg hamstring curl on a stability ball is a brutal move that will strengthen your hamstrings, glutes and core. The most important thing here is to press your hips high to start so that there is a straight line from your heel to your back before beginning. This is the next progression to a two leg hamstring curl on a stability ball and should be done only after you can complete the two leg curl for ten reps with ease.

How To:

1) Lie flat on back with legs extended and heels on the stability ball

2) Bridge up by pressing heels into the ball, squeezing the glutes and elevating the hips off the ground

3) Lift one leg off the stability ball

4) Keep hips up and begin to draw your heels in rolling the stability ball towards your body

Article By: John Fontana

Tricksters

For the most part, diet and exercise companies that pump out countless DVD’s and diet books set you up for failure. I’m under the belief that they really have no idea what they are doing or that they know exactly what they are doing. In some cases, these companies really have no clue about diet or exercise and are just following or attempting to create a fad that will make them some money. On the other hand some companies are very intelligent and they chose to give you a non-sustainable product, forcing you to come back for more and more. Either way, I hate to admit but your getting screwed. The whole problem is lack of progression.

What’s Progress?

A movement or development toward a destination or a more advanced state, esp. gradually or in stages. This is the definition that I got from the dictionary when I typed in the word “progression”. Any true fitness expert will preach progression when looking to accomplish fitness goals. Our bodies are fantastically smart and actually learn to adapt to the demands and stresses we place on them. When you perform a movement a certain amount of times your body starts to remember, making the task simpler. In sports we like to call it muscle memory and it is generally regarded as a good thing. In fitness it can be both good and bad, I am here today address the bad and tell you how to avoid it.

To the human body, progression is absolutely key because of the fact that it is always attempting to maintain homeostasis. If you forgot what went down in your 5th grade Bio class, homeostasis is the bodies attempt to maintain status quo.  Whatever you do to disrupt status quo (exercise or irregular diet) will put the body in a place it doesn’t necessarily like and it will try it’s hardest to resume normal function. If you want to lose weight, put on muscle, take off some body fat or get as strong as you possibly can, the key is staying a step ahead of the body and status quo.

Progress Or Die

This is the reason I attacked the workout DVD companies a bit earlier they don’t progress. Find me someone who has followed the same few DVD’s for a year straight and continues to see results. You wont. Find me someone who has walked 5 times per week for 30 minutes at a 3.5 speed and 2.0 incline and continues to see results. You wont. Find me someone who has done 3 sets of 10 twice a week on bench press and still sees an increase in strength after a few months. You wont. The commonality here is that there is no progression. In fact, talk to these people and they will not only tell you that they are no longer making gains, but they are likely regressing. This is because they body has adapted, reached status quo and now everything bad (i.e. not eating the right foods) is catching up to you again.

What Do I Do?

To break this viscous cycle you must progress with your workouts. This doesn’t mean that you have to go at every single workout with a new plan. It does mean that every few weeks, right when things seem to be getting easy, it is time to mix it up. When a workout that was really difficult begins to get easy it is a signal that the body is catching up to your brain and about to reach homeostasis yet again.

My Advice

Do not go more than 4-6 weeks doing the same workout. Those DVD’s or workouts you ripped out of a magazine will do you no good after that amount of time. This is where they get you. You saw great results in the first few weeks, so you swore by it and stuck to it. Now its 2 months later and your not only bored but not seeing result either. What’s left to do? Go buy more product.

Another Big Problem

The problem many face when they reach this plateau is that they think they have to go in the exact opposite direction and start doing a completely different workout than before. (Insert any game show buzzer noise here) That is not the route that will lead you in a good direction. It’s like starting a project, getting it close to completion, running into a problem, scratching it and starting something completely different. You will have a bunch of lose ends lying around that can’t get tied together.

Building Blocks

At work, if you never develop any new skills, it is not likely you will ever get promoted. But at the same time if you decide you are going to develop skills that are irrelevant to your job, it is likely you will be starting all over again somewhere else. Progress is all about advancement and building on what you already have in place. Don’t get nutty, go AWOL and start doing something completely different. Figure out what works and take it to the next level. If you have been losing weight by doing a steady walk on the treadmill the last few weeks, stick with that but progress to the next level. Instead of doing a steady walk, get into some intervals.  That bench plan stopped working? Instead of a 3×10 style workout get into something like a 4×8 or 5×5.

Effective Progressions

For those of you who are looking to lose weight or body fat, there are a few progressions that will work well for you. One of them is to increase the intensity. With cardio in mind this will be either extending the time or making things harder with speed or incline. If you are weight training based this will be lifting faster and/or heavier. Another key progression here is to keep reducing the amount of time you rest in between sets.

For those of you who want more muscle strength or size the progressions will be more sets, reps, resistance or tempo. For example if you are doing 3 sets of five at a certain weight on week one, jump to 3 sets of 8 week two, 4 sets of 8 week three and then look to increase the weight or slow down the tempo on week four. By week five you will get a new group of exercises that are similar but a little more challenging that previous weeks and get rocking again.

Forget Status Quo

The progressions are endless, but you should always try to build on what you have going for you. You should be building up into exercises or workouts that take your current one to the next level. Get a hold of this concept and you will constantly be seeing results in one way or another. Status quo is nonsense, break the mold, continue to reinvent yourself!

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I encourage any questions or comments, please:

Leave a response at the bottom of the article,

E-mail me personally at jfontana@shadowfit.com

or Tweet me @johnnyfontana on Twitter

The plank with a leg raise is a great move to increase pillar strength. A normal plank works the shoulders, abs, low back and glutes when performed correctly. The plank with a leg raise increases the challenged place on your core and also gets your glutes involved a bit more. This move is a step up from a normal plank and should only be performed after you can hold a normal plank for at least a minute.

How To

1) Get down into a pillar position by lying face down with body elevated and only your elbows and toes touching the ground
2) Squeeze the glutes and carefully lift one leg off the ground and as high as you can straight up

**TRAINERS TIPS** Widen base of feet if necessary for more stability, limit movement made in your body

The stability ball cable crunch is an amazing exercise for targeting the abdominals. The stability ball allows for a different angle than when performing a typical crunch on the floor and actually activates more muscles. The constant cable resistance coming from the back forces your abs to be working correctly so that you can actually move up and down and not fall off of the ball.

Suggestions:

Use a 55-65 cm ball when performing this exercise. Perform 15-25 reps per set.

How To:

1. Sit on stability ball with a cable attachment behind you and close to the floor

2. Roll forward so that only your low back is on the ball and your body is near a 45 degree angle with the ground

3. Grab a hold of the cable attachment and hold the attachment either behind your head or on each shoulder

4. Start leaning back and wrapping your back around the ball so that you feel a stretch in your abs.

5. Press your tailbone into the ball and stabilize yours hips

6. Sit up by bringing your shoulders towards your knees curling your back one vertebrae at a time.

7. After reaching the top of the sit up lower back down by uncoiling on vertebrae at a time, starting at your low back.

*TRAINERS TIPS* Move your body, limit movement of the ball.