How to do Barbell Romanian Deadlifts

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You've been reading my dumbbell deadlift series. You've experienced incredible strength gains by practicing heavy lifting with dumbbells. You've come a long way. Congratulations. But now you know that you've progressed as far as you can with those exercises. You need to ratchet things up in order to continue gaining strength. Now it's time to do barbell romanian deadlifts, this is the big brother of the dumbbell Romanian deadlift. There are a lot of benefits to doing the Romanian deadlift with barbells because it:

• strengthens your back muscles
• strengthens your hamstrings
• strengthens your core
• strengthens your glutes
• strengthens your wrists
• strengthens your grip
• promotes muscle growth
   

How To Do Barbell Romanian Deadlifts

You'll need an Olympic bar and weight plates for this exercise. Do a warm up set first. Foot placement is essential when doing Romanian deadlifts. Place your feet under the bar, the distance between them must be shoulder width apart. Make sure that your toes are pointing forward. The next thing you will do is bend down to grip the bar. Keep your back straight when you do this, any arching could do serious damage to your spinal cord and the muscles in your back. Grip is also important. You can use either the pronated, supinated or alternate grip. Pronated (palms away) is by far the most difficult and awkward of the grip styles and it puts unnecessary strain on your wrists, so I advise against it. Supinated (palms facing you) is much better and is used by many experienced lifters. The alternate grip is useful when grip strength isn't equal i.e. one hand has greater strength than the other. In the demo I use alternate grip to demonstrate how it is used. Grasp the bar in the ridges not the smooth part.

After you've taken hold of the bar, it's time to execute the lift. Take a deep breath. Now use your glutes to push yourself to a fully upright position. Stand up straight, and draw your shoulders back. You'll be calling on muscles in your back, legs and and glutes to help you lift the weight off the floor. Pulling your shoulders back is good for developing upper body strength. Hold for a three second count. Now lower the weight to the floor. That's one rep. Repeat this for ten reps. After your barbell romanian deadlifts warm up set, choose heavier weight plates. If strength is your goal you must lift heavy. That means going for three to six reps per set for a total of five sets. If you can't do that many, then you need to get lighter weight plates. If you only want to tone or build muscle size, you can go for ten or twelve reps per set, but use lighter weights when doing the exercise.

Strength trainers must add more weight every week. Increase the amount by twenty-five to fifty pounds, you want to maintain consistency with the number of reps and sets that you complete. Romanian dead lifts are a compound exercise that produces functional strength. It's an excellent whole body workout that produces strength for benching, pull ups, squats, dips, etc.

Dead lifting is also a great exercise for burning extra fat. Heavy lifting stimulates production of testosterone and other growth hormones which lead to increased size. It also speeds up your metabolism and helps you to burn fat. So if you want to lose the fat pounds in time for summer, you should do deadlifting.

Summer is just a little more than a month away. Do you want to spend it as a flabby out of shape guy who tires easily? or do you want to be strong and active with lots of energy? Since you're reading Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts, you want to become stronger. So get off the computer and start exercising.

(second photo depicts dead lift at 315 pounds which is 74 percent of my 1 RM)

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: How To Do Barbell Romanian Deadlifts" copyright 2011 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

How To Do Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlifts

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I've been bringing you a lot of deadlift articles because deadlifting is one of the most important muscle building/strength training exercises that you will ever do. All you have to do is look at powerlifters to see how useful they are in generating strength, power and and mass. But strength trainers and body builders can get just as much benefit from deadlifting. This time I'm going to show you how to do the stiff leg deadlift with dumbbells. Dumbbell stiff leg deadlifts are an excellent compound exercise because they:

• strengthen the lower back muscles
• strengthen abdominal muscles
• stimulate growth hormone production and release 

So I'm not going to waste time showing you how they're done.

How To Do Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlifts

You'll need a pair of dumbbells for this exercise. First do a warm up set. Grab a pair of light weight dumbbells and place them in front of you on the floor. While keeping your legs straight, lean over and take a dumbbell in each hand. Keep your back straight - arching your back can lead to serious injury. Use your core muscles to pull yourself upright. Keep your shoulders back. Hold for a moment then lower the weights down again. Do this for ten reps then choose heavier weights. In the demo I used 50 pound dumbbells because that amount is good for a warm up set. Do not lift heavy during the warm up, save that for the rest of the workout.

Choose dumbbells that are heavy enough to perform four to six reps of the stiff leg deadlift. If you can do more than six reps the weights are too light, if you can only do a couple of reps the weights are too heavy. Do five sets of the exercise. Your goal is to lift for strength but not taking it to fatigue. After finishing up your sets, do some other back exercise e.g. pull ups, rows, etc.

Each week increase the amount that you lift, as you become stronger the exercises will become easier. That's what you want, steady progression. Once you've gotten as far as you can with the dumbbell stiff leg deadlift you'll be ready for the barbell version of the exercise.

You'll notice increased strength and power that will translate to other exercises. Just see how much your benching, dips, push ups, pull ups, leg press, etc. improve with deadlifting. That's how important this exercise is.

Summer is only weeks away. Do you want to spend those months weak and flabby or do you want to have a strong, sexy body? Exercise is the way to get it. So get off the computer and workout. Now would be the time.

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: How To Do Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlifts" copyright 2011 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

How To Do Hand Clap Push Ups

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Do you like push ups? Sure you do. They're a fantastic compound exercise, push ups strengthen the biceps, chest and abs. You can do push ups just about anywhere, and they're a good substitute for the bench press. But doing standard push ups can get boring after a while. And we all know how dangerous boredom is. Boredom leads to slacking and slacking leads to stagnation and stagnation leads to giving up. Continuously challenging yourself is the best weapon against boredom. So I'm going to show you how to do hand clap push ups which are a fun and challenging variation on your basic push up. Pay close attention to the video in the how to section of this article to see how they're done.

How To Hand Clap Push Ups

You have to master the basic push up before you can do the hand claps. You need a flat horizontal surface. Put both palms on the floor, make sure that they're shoulder width apart. Extend both legs, you'll be supporting your body weight on the balls of your feet and palms. Keep your back straight and lower your chest to within an inch of the floor. Now push yourself back up again in an explosive movement. This is critical to the next part of the exercise. At the top of the movement, clap your hands together, then quickly place your palms down on the floor again. If you don't push yourself up with enough force you won't be able to clap your hands. If you're too slow placing your palms back on the floor, then you'll fall flat on it. A successful hand clap push up is: lower + PUSH UP + CLAP.

Hand clap push ups hone your reflexes, build up your endurance and help you develop a stronger body. Go for at least ten reps rest then go again. Don't be surprised if you don't finish more than a few reps when you first start out. It takes practice to become good at hand clap push ups. But if you'll get better if you stick with them.

Summer is getting closer day by day. Are you going to have the same body that you had last year or are you going to become stronger, leaner and more powerful? Get to the gym and start working out. Today.

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: How To Do Hand Clap Push Ups" copyright 2011 Great Chest Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

How To Do The Dumbbell Calf Raise

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Do you want strong calves? Of course you do. Without strong calves you wouldn't be able to jump, walk, run or even stand properly. So I'm going to show you how to do a simple calf strengthening exercise. It's called the dumbbell calf raise and it comes in handy for developing powerful calf muscles.

How To Do Dumbbell Calf Raise

You'll need a pair of dumbbells for this exercise. Take one dumbbell in each hand (start with at least 40 pounds). Hold the dumbbells at your sides. Use your calf muscles to push your heels off the floor. Stand on the balls of your feet. Hold this position for two seconds then lower yourself to starting position. Now raise yourself onto the balls of your feet again. Stop after ten reps. Take a five second break then do it again. Do ten sets of this exercise. Your muscles may feel like they're on fire but if you do this exercise on a regular basis, you'll have muscular, powerful calves.

Summer is just under two months away. Don't sit around dreaming about having a better body, do something about it. Get up and start exercising. Now.

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: How To Do Dumbbell Calf Raise" copyright 2011 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

How To Do The Captain's Chair Leg Raise

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The captain's chair leg raise is an ab exercise for beginners and others who aren't able to do the more more difficult exercises e.g. hanging obliques. The captain's chair workout is good for exercising the lower abdominals and hips. Because of the relative ease of the captain's chair leg raise, I'll get to how they're done.

How To Do The Captain's Chair Leg Raise

To do this exercise, you'll need a captain's chair. This is an apparatus with a back support, arm rests and hand grips. They often double as a triceps dip station in most gyms. Climb onto the captain's chair. Place your back on the support, rest your forearms on the pads and take hold of the grips. Now use your ab muscles to raise your legs upward until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Your feet should be perpendicular to the floor, your toes pointing toward the ceiling. Hold this position for three seconds, keep your muscles tight. Then lower your legs to the starting position. Perform ten reps of this exercise, that's your first set. Take a moment to rest then repeat for four more sets for a total of fifty reps.

An easier way to do leg raises on this apparatus is to bend your knees. Next, use your abs to raise your knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor. (Unlike in the first exercise, your feet will also be parallel to the floor.) Hold the position for three seconds. Now lower your legs to starting position. Repeat for the same number of sets and reps as in the above exercise.

Once you've mastered the captain's chair leg raise, you should be strong enough to do the hanging obliques. In the meantime, in addition to the captain's chair, train your abs with lying leg raises and crunches. Your abs will be on fire but these exercises make for a stronger core and improved posture.

Don't sit around dreaming about a better body. Get off the computer and start training. Summer is only two months away.

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: How To Do The Captain's Chair Leg Raise" copyright 2011 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

How To Do Barbell Shoulder Shrugs

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In a previous post I showed you how to do dumbbell shrugs. Once you've mastered the dumbbell shrug, it's time to ratchet things up. And that's exactly what you're going to do because now you're going to learn about the barbell variation of this exercise. Shrugs provide a lot of strength training benefits to the upper body. Using barbells provides more advantages because you can lift heavier weights than with dumbbells which could speed up your progress.  

How To Do Barbell Shrugs

You'll need a barbell for this exercise (choose fixed barbells or the Olympic bar). To get a feel for the shrugs, you need to do a warm up set. Stand up straight. Hold the bar in front of you with your palms facing toward you. Your hands should be shoulder width apart. Now use your shoulder muscles to pull the bar upward. In other words shrug. Hold position for a one count then lower it to starting position. Do ten reps of the exercise then stop. It's now time to add weight. If you've been training with dumbbells you should be used to heavy weights by now. The only to increase strength and size of the shoulders is to workout with heavy weights. Grip the bar exactly as you did during the warm up set. Go for seven to ten reps of the exercise then stop. Then do four more sets of barbell shrugs.

You'll find it more difficult to keep up the same number of reps with each subsequent set and that's okay. Just decrease the number of reps. You're going for size and strength, high reps make your muscles grow. As you progress with barbell shrugs you must increase the amount of weight you lift. To build strength you will do less reps per set, in this case your muscles are working harder to perform the movement. By that time you should be lifting four to six times in a set. Your shoulders will become more defined and powerful if you perform the shrugs on a regular basis. This strength will carry over to other exercises including the bench and overhead press. So make barbell shrugs part of your regular workout routine. You'll be glad you did.

"How To Do Barbell Shoulder Shrugs" copyright 2011 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

How To Do The Lying Leg Raise Exercise

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If your goal is strength and power, you need to keep your body in top shape. That means performing exercises that train the entire body. You need a strong lower body to support upper body lifts. I recently wrote about dragon flag crunches which are great for exercising the abdominal muscles. This week I'm going to talk about the lying leg raise, which also works the lower abs but is easier to master than the dragon flag.

How To Do Lying Leg Raise Exercise

Lie flat on the floor. Place your hands at your sides. Now use your ab muscles to lift your legs six inches off the floor. Hold this position for a five count (working against gravity will increase the effectiveness of the exercise) then lower it again. Repeat this exercise for ten reps then stop. Do a total of fifty repetitions, ten reps per set. For added resistance strap on some ankle weights. Remember to keep your abs tight throughout the lying leg raise exercise. This type of exercise is very beneficial because it

• strengthens abs
• strengthens the lower back
• strengthens the hips
• can be done at home or the gym
  

Stronger core muscles help prevent back pain and will also help your deadlift exercises which in turn helps your bench. Make it a point of training your abs at least once a week.

Summer is almost here. Don't dream about getting a better body, make it happen.

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: How To Do The Lying Leg Raise Exercise" copyright 2011 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts. All Rights Reserved.

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