Article By: Johnny Fontana

In just about any gym throughout the country you constantly see both guys and girls working the same muscle groups. Of course these muscles are usually upper body muscles and are most noticeable while wearing a bathing suit. The unfortunate thing is that most of these muscles are also the least functional to the human body. Sure calves, biceps and abs look great, but how much do we actually need them?

The muscles that are most ignored are usually the ones that the body demands use from every single day. By over-developing the beach muscle and ignoring the functional ones we begin to develop an asymmetrical body. Certain muscles get too tight and others get too weak, which will eventually lead to a body that is out of whack. An out-of-whack body leads to injuries, pains and aesthetic issues.

Having worked with hundreds of people to develop functional and aesthetically pleasing bodies, I have seen first-hand the types of muscles that consistently get ignored. Even worse, I have watched thousands of meathead guys and girls do millions of curls and calf raises, but have probably seen less than a hundred ever perform a glute bridge. It’s frustrating whenever all the 20-pound dumbells are taken because some guy is doing a few hundred curls.  But because I’m a nice guy, instead of getting angry, I’m going to inform you of the top 5 most ignored muscle groups.

5. Glutes (butt)- Sure I see plenty of people doing some variation of a squat, leg press or lunge, but that does not mean they are properly working your glutes. Even worse is when I see people on all fours kicking their legs up in the air. Really! The majority of people are quad- (thigh)- dominant and rarely use their glutes the way they should.

Tips For Fix- Think about squeezing your glutes in just about every single exercise. If you are squatting, you should lead the motion with your hips and keep sitting back in your butt and heels. If it is a lunge, you should be squeezing the glute of the back leg throughout the entire rep.

Exercises For Fix- Glute bridges are fantastic here as well as some type of back extension.

4. Hamstrings- Our hamstring are usually far underdeveloped compared to the quad. A good way to see this is by watching people who have great hamstring flexibility, but will shriek with pain during a quad stretch. Most people do at least a 2:1 quad-to-hamstring ratio when exercising the legs. Part of the problem is people only do hamstring curl machines and do not know of other exercise options.

Tips For Fix- Work the hamstrings through a full range of motion when exercising and start to spend more or equal time on hamstrings when compared to quads.

Exercises For Fix- Stay away from the leg curl machines if you can. Start to perform Romanian Deal Lifts (RDL’s) with both legs and single legs. Glute bridges are also great for this muscle group.

3. Transverse Abdominus TVA- These are some of the the deepest and most important muscles when you are talking about the core. As awkward as it may sound, if you want to locate your TVA’s think of the muscles you squeeze when you are holding in pee. They protect the spine and pelvis and all movement should begin from them. The problem is that we are such an ab-focused culture that people only think about squeezing their abs. This is why you can see people with six-pack abs but terrible stability and balance. They don’t necessarily have control over their spine and hips, but just know how to look good with a shirt off.

Tips For Fix- The hardest thing to do is learn how to feel your TVA being activated. Like I stated earlier, feeling the muscles being used while holding your pee is a start. After that, it is important to learn to activate the TVA when you want/need to.

Exercises For Fix- Believe it or not, kegels can help you to strengthen your TVA. Aside from that, planks, glute bridges and any type of core exercises that involve more movement than a crunch can be effective at developing your TVA. Again, it is important to know how to activate them, otherwise these exercises won’t help much.

2. Scapula- Technically this is not a muscle, but it controls muscles that are extremely important. Many muscles that are in your back, shoulders, neck and even chest attach to or originate in the scapula. I have worked with and seen so many people that have shoulder injuries or pain. The natural reaction is to look straight to the shoulder as the cause of the pain. In many cases the shoulder falls victim to the scapula. Having hyper-mobile or weak scapula will leave you subject to shoulder pain. The majority of people do not look to activate and utilize the muscles in charge of their scapula when working out.

Tips For Fix- Always endeavor to have good posture when you are performing exercises. Lock the scapula back and down when performing any type of upper body exercise. This will teach the scapula to lock in to place and protect the shoulders.

Exercises For Fix- I love simple movements such as Y’s and T’s because you can learn to activate your scapula correctly. You should feel the pinching in middle of your back at the bottom of your scapula when performing these exercises. If your traps and shoulders are tense and up in your ears, chances are that you aren’t utilizing your scapula correctly. The scapula are similar to the TVA in that you have to learn the feel for them.

1. Glute Medius- While this is a tiny muscle that pretty much has no direct aesthetic appeal, it is extremely important. At the top outside edge of your butt is where you can locate these little guys. We as humans have evolved to operate against the way we were created to operate. Do you think that sitting for the majority of our day was ever in the plans for humans? Our hips are probably the most important part of the body, yet one of the most ignored. So many back, shoulder and knee issues originate because there is a problem with the hips. One big issue is that our glute mediuses are very weak. This causes your pelvis (hips) to tilt forward and put strain on some muscles, while making others weak from being underutilized. This causes us to become very tight in the hip flexors and very weak in the hip extenders (glute medius).

Tips For Fix- Start doing exercises at the start of your workout to activate the glute medius. Once you begin to feel your glute medius working, you will be able to use them during the workout. Plus, the body does a much better job of using muscles that are already “turned on” as opposed to waking up others.

Exercises For Fix- My favorite exercises for the glute medius are different variations of mini band walks. You will feel these in the glute medius right away and I can promise they will burn.

I know that these are not your “sexy” muscles, which is why they most frequently get ignored. But if I told you that they can help your sexy muscles look even more sexy, how would you feel about that? It is extremely important to get these muscles working if you hope to stay healthy and moving correctly. The good thing is that most of them can be worked on in a few minutes at the start of your workout or utilized while doing your typical exercises.

Most of the exercises above are considered “prehab” exercises in a Shadow Fit workout. They are designed to keep you from getting injured and also get the smaller muscle groups ready to support the bigger muscle groups during exercise. To get some more help, click on this link and sign up for a free Shadow Fit workout after filling out the questionnaire.

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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

Article By: John Fontana

If I were to take a poll on how many people go into the gym with absolutely no plan for their workout, I am confident the results would be well over 50%.  For years, I have watched people in gyms and noticed the overwhelmed and confused looks on people’s faces. I think people typically know a handful of exercises or machines they like, and just cycle through those based on their mood that day. I get a kick out of that sad look a person makes when their machine gets taken right as they are walking over to it. Panic kicks in and it takes a few minutes to regroup and think of another exercise.

Another astonishing thing to me is watching people’s process of a workout from the time they walk in until the time they leave. Guys will typically start off with some curls or bench press and girls will typically do a bunch of crunches or hop on an elliptical for 30 minutes.

Setting up a workout is pretty simple once you get some structure and guidelines set. A yoga class will flow one movement to the next, from hard to easy.  Your workout should as well. There is a beauty and bit of grace to a well structured workout, which in turn will lead to quick results with a lot less effort. Every movement should lead into the next winding the body up and then settling the body down.

Proper Warm-Up

Each workout should start off with some type of warm-up to get the muscles going a bit so they can function maximally during the workout. Your muscles work as a whole unit but individual muscle fibers are required in order for that unit to work. If you do not properly warm up, this may affect which muscle fibers are utilized and which aren’t. If the correct muscles are utilized through the warm-up, then you can assume your workout will use them as well. If you warm-up is sloppy (or non-existent), you may run into some trouble. Because of this, many people won’t get the most out of their workout or even worse, get injured.

A warm-up can be anything, from stretching to jogging on a treadmill. Test a bunch of different things out to see which works best for you. I prefer an “active” warm-up that is directly correlated to the movement that you will be performing during the actual workout. If I am squatting and benching, then I will move through similar movement patterns to get a stretch. If done correctly, it will actually get your heart rate up a bit and even get you sweating.

Prehab & Core

As previously stated, getting the right muscles to turn on is imperative if you expect to get the most out of your workout. This is especially true with your pillar and core. If you are curious about what your pillar is, check out this article check out this article. Prehab consists of different exercises that focus on activating the stabilizer muscles in your joints (shoulders and hips). You can knock both prehab and core out at the same time by doing exercises such as planks and glute bridges.

Plank

Glute Bridge

If you are working out correctly, it will require your core to be activated throughout almost the entire workout. By getting your core muscles warmed up and ready early in the workout, you can ensure that they will be ready to go during the more challenging parts of it

Power or Anaerobic Movements

It seems like there is a whole lot of warm-up-type movements to do in the beginning and performing power exercises or anaerobic movements are another stage. This will actually be a cross between a warm-up and the actual “work” part of your workout.

Depending on your goals, you will want to do either power exercises, anaerobic exercises or both. In this case, power exercises are things such as heavy olympic lifts (snatch, power cleans or high pulls) or ballistic medicine ball drills (chest pass or side tosses).

Those exercises will be reserved more for those of you who are looking to add muscle or strength. Those of you looking to lose weight or lean out a bit, would want to do more anaerobic exercises in order to get your heart rate up and your muscles excited.  This will help you burn more calories overall. You can do a few quick intervals, or perform some plyometric exercises (sprinting, bounding or jumping). Medicine ball exercises such as slams or tosses are good for you here as well.

Strength

Now that you have properly gone through the whole warm-up process (which should take no more than 15-20 minutes), you are ready to get into the real “work” part of your workout. This is the part of the workout where I actually see most people begin, bypassing the earlier stages. Since most people do that, they are not allowing the right muscles to be used during the workout. Sure they may be doing a chest exercise and working out their pecs, but as I stated earlier, they may not be getting the right muscle fibers to work during the exercise. On bigger and more complex exercises such as a squat or a lunge, where more muscle groups are required, they may be utilizing the wrong muscle group all together.

In the part of the workout where resistance training is more common, I like to group exercises together for complete super-sets or circuits. A super set is when you combine two exercises and perform them back-to-back with little or no rest. A circuit is the same idea as a super-set, just with 3 or more exercises in a row. I typically never throw more than four exercises in a circuit unless there are special circumstances. You should aim to perform around 3 super-sets or 2 circuits per each workout.

Stretch or Cool Down

When it comes to stretching, you should think of your muscles as a rubber band.  If you tug on a rubber band many times in a row, stretching it to its putter limits, it will start to loosen up. The same goes with your muscles. After the workout they will be warm and ready to be stretched further than if they were still cold. During this time, your stretches will have a more powerful impact on the muscles, which will lead to you becoming more flexible overall. Also, stretching allows more oxygen and blood flow to get into the muscles, which is what is needed to help you begin the recovery process right after a workout.

Another cool down technique I like to use is a foam roller or trigger point tool. Your body will naturally develop scar tissue and your muscle fascia (essentially the glue that connects bones and muscles) will begin to tighten up in ways that are not meant to happen. Using a foam roller on your muscles is like using a rolling pin on dough.  It flattens everything out so that there is no inconsistency in your muscles. By using these tools you will be limiting the amount of knots in your muscles, and in turn, reducing sensitivity and tightness.

Thats It

While there are millions of different dynamics and variables that can go into a workout, following this structure will ensure that you reach optimal results. Sticking with this workout system allows you to plug in certain exercises and change up the amount of sets or reps without having to lose that structure. Once you get a hold of how this workout system operates, you will be able to walk into the gym with no plan and still be able to get a good workout. The flow of the workout progresses the body at a good rate, which allows you to get the most out of each different section. Sometimes the different sections can overlap a bit depending on which exercises you perform, but you should always keep the structure there. If you have some confusion on exactly how to put this into play, check out this link to get a free custom workout. Shadow Fit’s workout system follows these guidelines and has been proven time and time again. Just fill out the questionnaire and you will immediately get a workout to follow.

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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

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

Article By: John Fontana

Last week I discussed some possible causes of a slump or plateau in the gym.  Before I began to truly study exercise I constantly went in and out of mini plateaus.  It seemed that every few months I would hit a wall and actually get a little weaker than I was before.   Back then my answer was always to train harder than I had before using the “no pain, no gain” mentality.

The thought, “If I’m not getting stronger, I must not be lifting hard enough” that most people get is a natural reaction to the situation.  The problem is that most of the time that thought process is not a good one and will actually make things worse.  There are hundreds of variables that go into strength training, and slumps are not always caused by lack of effort.

The purpose of the “Not Getting Any Stronger?” posts is to help you get outside of the hardheaded mentality that most people bring to the gym.  The majority of the time, your plateau is likely caused from some type of programming error.  Somewhere along the line you made the wrong call in what you are doing for workouts.  Last week I talked about the amount of time you spend doing a particular workout.  This week I will dive a little further into the actual workouts.

As a review, the main issues covered last week involved the amount of time you spent in a certain exercise program or what’s called a micro cycle.  A micro-cycle refers to an amount of time (in weeks) you’ve spent performing a particular style of workout. The main mistake that people make is that they have either spent too much time or too little time during a micro-cycle.

Although spending too much or too little time in a micro-cycle are common causes of a plateau, they are not the only culprits.  You may be right with the amount of time you spend doing a particular workout, but have the exercise selection or other variables incorrect.

I hate to break the news to you, but it is rare you will find an effective workout that you can rip out of a magazine.  If you are getting your workouts from one of the magazines with a bodybuilder on the cover, you may be in trouble.  Guys who have been working out for at least ten years create most of the workouts in those magazines.  Not only that but they are examples of what the bodybuilder has been doing while nearing a competition.  Unless you are in a similar situation, those workouts won’t be suitable for you.

Too often, I see people in the gym doing either a terrible selection of exercises or a terrible order of exercises.  Doing a ton of isolation (bicep curls, chest fly’s, leg extensions…) exercises won’t ever allow you to reach you full potential.  Those are called auxiliary exercises and should be done as a compliment to your prime mover exercises.

Exercises such as squats, dead lifts, pull-ups, rows and bench press should be done during each workout.  If you are not doing at least one or two of the primary or “big lifts” during each exercise, your strength will not continue to rise.  You have to perform those big lifts because they will shock your nervous systems and muscle fibers in a way that isolation or auxiliary exercises won’t.  Not only do you need to do the big lifts, but also you really need to load up with them.  This is where you work on true strength and should never be doing more than 8 reps or less than 4 sets.  Throw that 3×10 mentality out the window and start getting into 4, 5 and even 6 sets.  Always look to increase your total volume each week without lowering weight. For example, if you benched 4 sets of 6 reps last week with 80 pound dumbbells, this week you should be able to do 5 sets of 5 with at least 80 pounds.  You will have increased your total volume by one repetition, look to do that each week.  This will gradually build you up into a “stronger than he looks” person.

Auxiliary exercises should be done for one of two reasons, or both.  One reason is to strengthen your synergist muscles such as the biceps, triceps and forearms so that they can assist your big muscles.  If you are performing a bench or row, those synergists will be taking part in helping you complete each rep.  If you neglect the synergists too much they will lag behind your bigger muscles and fatigue before your sets are done. There is nothing worse than not being able to do more pull ups because your forearms too tired or not being able to do more rows because your biceps are on fire.  The other reason for auxiliary exercises is strictly for vanity purposes.  It’s no shocker that you want bigger arms or bigger calves, but if strength is your main goal than those shouldn’t be.  You should never be performing more auxiliary work than primary work if your main goal is strength.

Make sure that you are doing at least one or two primary exercises per workout.  Depending on your current workout program and the way you are splitting each week up, you should probably be doing at least two primary exercises per workout.  Also, when you are doing those primary lifts, keep the weight high, sets high and reps low.  Your body will only call upon the strongest muscle fibers it needs to do each rep.  If you don’t move heavy weight, you won’t ever activate your strongest muscle fibers.  If you want to truly get strong you will need to work on strengthening your strongest muscle fibers.

Next week I will explore program design a little deeper and talk about order selection of exercises.  Until then you can go to http://shadowfit.com/signup_1.cfm?secret_code=dh374hfj3s and register for a free personalized workout.  Just fill out the questionnaire appropriately and we will build you a workout that will get you as strong as you’ve ever been.

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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

Article By: John Fontana

Next time you go to the gym, pay attention to the people around you while they workout.  I’d bet that 9 out of 10 people that do weight and cardio training in the same day would begin with cardio.  They will float around on the elliptical or jog on the treadmill for 30 minutes to an hour and then lift some weight.  Have you ever thought this reasoning through and wondered why it’s pretty much a universal occurrence? The average gym goer looking to shed a few pounds will usually decide to complete their cardio before getting into some weight lifting.  Is this the most efficient and effective way?

The first issue I have with the cardio first mentality is the muscle fatigue that will ensue. Depending on how intense your cardio session is you likely won’t be so exhausted that you can’t get decent weight training. You also won’t be in an optimal position to where you have a great weight training session.

Spending that much time performing cardio will deplete the glycogen from your muscles. Glycogen serves as energy for the muscles; if you don’t have the glycogen you likely won’t have the energy to perform the exercises at your best. The argument can be made that the same thing will happen if you perform weight training before cardio.  However, weight training is a more neurological and muscularly demanding type of exercise and places more of a demand on your body.  You see people running marathons for well over two hours, but I doubt many people can consistently perform weight training equally as long.

If fat burn and weight loss is your main goal, you have to realize that muscles burn more calories than fat.  The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you will burn per day. The same thing goes in the gym; weight training (anaerobic) requires more muscle fibers than aerobics.  If you have exhausted your muscles from the amount of time you spent on cardio equipment, you just depleted glycogen stores and muscle fibers. Again, your weight training won’t be as good and you won’t be able to burn as many calories as you would have if you started as session with weight training.

The last point I want to make is about the heart rate during these two types of exercise.  Performing weight training first will exhaust your muscles, but not to the point where you can’t complete cardio training afterwards.  The good thing is that you will have fatigued your muscles to the point where it is more of a cardiovascular demand on your body.  Since the muscles have to work harder to complete the cardio exercise, your heart rate will spike up faster and easier. Heart rate is the main concern when looking to burn maximum calories, so being able to get the heart rate up quicker and easier is a bonus.  Instead of having to run at an eight mile per hour pace to get your heart rate to 170bpm, you can now run at a 7-mile per hour pace and achieve the same results.  If you were to take that carry over into weight training, being able to do less weight or repetitions would be a negative.

I recommend giving it a switch if you have previously been performing cardio first and weight training second.  A 5-10 minute cardio warm up to get the blood flowing and loosen the muscles is beneficial, but that should be it until after weight training is performed. You will be performing the same amount of work as before but likely receive quicker and better results.  Give it a shot.

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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

You can’t walk into a gym, watch a workout DVD or read an exercise article without hearing about “core” or “core strength.”  The fact that the core has gotten a lot of hype is a good thing, the bad thing is the misunderstanding.  Walk into any health club and ask a few of the personal trainers what the word “core” means to them and you will get multiple responses.  Ask them to show you their favorite core exercise and some will show you a sit up variation, while another may show you total body exercise that you didn’t realize involved the core at all.  With all this confusion on what the core actually is, we are missing out on the bigger picture.

The pillar is where your focus needs to start to shift to, as opposed to the core. The pillar can be thought of as a rectangular box that incorporates everything from your shoulders to your hips. Since the shoulders and hips need to be strong for you to truly have core strength, developing pillar strength is essential.  All of your daily movement should begin from your center (core) and stem outward to your limbs.  The bridge connects that gap from core to limbs is your hip and shoulder joints.  If you do not have strength in your shoulders and hips, there will be an energy leak.  This leak will result in instability because you will not be able to harness that strength all of the way from your core to your extremities (feet and hands).  The great thing about developing pillar strength is the fact that you will be developing your core strength at the same time.

The best pillar strength exercises require for your core to be firing on all cylinders in order for you to complete them.  A typical crunch requires really no other strength besides in the abdominals and is actually very limited in providing true core strength.  You may be hardening your abdominal muscles but you won’t necessarily be a stable person.  Exercises such as a plank are amazing for not only developing your abdominals from an aesthetic standpoint, but also making you a more stable and solid person all around.

As you begin to develop better pillar strength, the doors will open allowing you to pick from a wider exercise selection.  No matter what your fitness goals are, better pillar strength will play a major roll in helping you accomplish them. If you are looking to get stronger, you will be able to bench and squat more weight because of the stability within the joints.  If you are looking to lose weight or lean out, more difficult exercises that weren’t an option before will come available.  More difficult exercises place a larger demand on the body, which equates to you burning more calories.   Developing pillar strength should be at the top of your list of goals in the gym. Once you have a strong pillar, it will be easy to manipulate your body to accomplish the other goals that you have.

Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying when I am talking about incorporating the shoulder and hips.  Doing lateral or front raises won’t necessarily strengthen your joints, which is what we rely for stability.  A lateral or front raise will develop the deltoids but won’t do a great job at developing the stabilizer muscles in your rotator cuff.  Just as doing a bunch of squats wont necessarily develop the stabilizer muscles around your hip socket.  Exercises such as a glute bridge, or side plank are small movements that do wonders for developing the muscles that surround a joint.

The fitness industry needs to make the shift from talking about core strength to talking about pillar strength.  Core is a hot buzzword that is gaining a lot of attention right now, but as I said it is widely misunderstood.  Incorporate the shoulders and hips with your core and you are now developing pillar strength, this is true core strength. Check out the video below for some great exercises that will help you develop pillar strength. Your Shadow Fit personalized workout will be based around developing that strength. Fill out the questionnaire and give it a try. http://shadowfit.com/signup_1.cfm?secret_code=dh374hfj3s

Article By: John Fontana

Recently, there seems to be a lot of buzz going on about interval training being very beneficial to weight loss and body composition. Most people have a general idea of what interval training is but do not know the correct way to perform intervals.  Many people believe that if they just go all out for a minute then rest for a minute they are performing an interval.  Although this can be considered interval training, it won’t allow you to reach maximum results.  A true interval should be done based on an individual’s heart rate.  Based on your goals an interval should be done by getting your heart rate up to 80-95% of your max and then lowering it to around 65% of your max. You can get a general idea of what your max heart rate is by taking 220- Your Age.

So What’s the Point?

There is a lot of talk about exercising in the, “fat burning zone” when in fact there really is no fat burning zone.  The only time your body is totally burning fat for energy is when you’re are asleep.  As soon as we get up and move around we start burning carbohydrates as well.  The fat burning zone charts that you will see on cardio machines are not by any means just burning fat.  If you follow the fat burning chart that is listed, you will be burning more fat calories than carbohydrate calories.  The problem with that is you will be burning less calories overall by consistently staying in the fat burning zone. On the other hand, if you have your heart rate way up for the duration of the workout, you will mostly be burning carbohydrates.  Working solely in the fat burning zone means not burning enough calories, while the intense carbohydrate zone will be burning more calories but less fat.

For example, if you do an hour of “fat burning” you may burn 200 calories with 120 of those calories coming from fat.  If you do an hour of all out training you may burn 400 calories but a very small percentage of those will be from fat.

If you can find a good medium where you burn a lot of calories and many of those calories are from fat then you are killing two birds with one stone.  This is where interval training comes in.  By jumping the heart rate up to 80-95% of your max you will be burning a very high amount of calories.  Then you will allow your heart rate to lower to around 65% by reducing the intensity.  When your heart rate is lowered, you will essentially be hitting the “fat burning zone”. This cycle will be repeated a number of times, by the end you will have burned as many calories and as much fat from those calories as possible.  The thing many forget to do is lower that heart rate back down before beginning again.

Treadmill

A few systems I use for interval training are on a treadmill, with a medicine ball or on my favorite, the Versa Climber.  If on a treadmill, bump up the incline (anywhere from 5-7%) then increase the speed a half mile an hour every thirty seconds (start at a jogging pace) until you hit that 90% range.  Once there, attempt to stay at that heart rate for 30 seconds to a minute until lowering the speed or incline.  After that you can lower the speed or incline to get down to that 65% mark and keep it there for about a minute.   Repeat that interval three times and then take a two-minute rest.  Try and do at least three cycles of this on your first day.  As you get better at the intervals perform more of them by doing more overall sets or more repetitions within those sets.  The workout will look something like this:

Run @80-95% max heart rate            Duration: 30-60 seconds

Jog   @65% max heart rate                        Duration: 60 seconds

Run @80-95% max heart rate            Duration: 30-60 seconds

Jog   @65% max heart rate                        Duration: 60 seconds

Run @80-95% max heart rate            Duration: 30-60 seconds

Jog   @65% max heart rate                        Duration: 60 seconds

Rest @lowest heart rate                         Duration: 2 minutes

Repeat multiple times, attempting to add a set each week.

Med Ball

I love the medicine ball because of its simplicity and the amount of great exercises you can do with it.  My favorite is throwing it against a concrete wall because it is fantastic in developing pillar strength (hips, core & shoulders) and gets that heart rate up.  If you don’t have medicine balls at your disposal then just get a few exercises that are high intensity and easy to transition from one to the next.  Do the same thing, as you would with the treadmill in working until you get to that 80-95% heart rate, maintain it for a minute then lower it to 65% and maintain that for a minute.  You can get a group of exercises and cycle through them doing 10-15 reps of each.  The medicine ball is so great because you will be getting a total body workout and using your muscles a little more than on cardio machines.

The Versa!

The Versa Climber is a hard to find piece of equipment but if you see one, this should now be your first choice for cardio.  The great thing is that people rarely use them so it is always open.  As opposed to the treadmill or medicine ball the sprints will be much shorter, lasting anywhere from 5-30 seconds.  Do a sprint and rest for the equal amount of time (work for 15, rest for 15) until your heart rate hits 80-95%.  When you hit that heart rate, rest until you reach 65% of your max and then slowly move on the Versa for a minute attempting to maintain that position.

Anywhere

Although I used pieces of cardio equipment as examples on how to do intervals, don’t limit yourself to just those.  You can run on a track or field, up stairs or even on the beach.  As long as you are manipulating the heart rate in a similar way you will be accomplishing the same thing.

The Result

These workouts are really exhausting and you will finish feeling really good about yourself.  Another bonus is that they will be shorter in duration than the typical 60-minute cardio cruise that most take.   You will be burning overall calories and fat calories in high amounts.  An added bonus is that you will be working multiple energy systems, increasing your endurance and strengthening your heart.

Tips

I recommend getting a heart rate monitor strap and watch (my favorite is Polar) to keep track of heart rates. From there do a testing day where you start jogging on a treadmill and gradually get your heart rate up by increasing speed then incline.  You should raise the speed or incline every minute until you feel like you cannot go anymore.  When you reach your peak and stop, count that number as your max heart rate.  From there you can figure out how high your intense zone (80-95% max) should be and where your recovery zone (65% max) should be.  Intervals are one of the most effective ways to exercise and provide tons of health benefits. Shadow Fit designs it’s weight loss programs to take advantage of interval training through weight training.  If you are interested in finding out about those, sign up as a weight loss member.

Shhhhh, this is a secret free link don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.

FREE SIGNUP LINK

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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

Article By: John Fontana

Everyone has seen someone in the gym doing an exercise that you know must be bad for him or her. You may not be an exercise expert, but you know that the person’s form is terrible and needs to be fixed before they really hurt themselves.

Form is a frequently discussed topic by those who exercise and is generally accepted as being important.  But most people don’t realize why form is important, or how important form really is.  Correct form through a movement can make an exercise highly effective while incorrect form can turn a great exercise useless and will likely put you at risk of injury.  Here are the top 5 exercises that people consistently do with bad form.

Top 5 “Bad Form” Exercises

5. Pillar or Plank- This is the exercise where you lie face down, and elevate yourself so your body weight is on your elbows and toes.  The pillar is one of the best exercises for developing overall core strength, especially for beginners. The major issue here is when people either allow their hips to raise too high, or allow their hips to sink toward the floor.  These mistakes defeat the purpose of the exercise by either taking tension off your abdominals or placing stress on your low back. Another common mistake is that people do not activate the right muscles.  A plank is most effective while keeping tension in your legs, glutes, abs and shoulders.  The Fix- Watch yourself in a mirror and make sure there is a nice, straight line from your head to your heels. Try and contract your abs, quads, glutes and chest all at the same time.

4.  Dead Lift- This is an exercise that has been around for a long time.  It is performed by millions of people in their everyday life, but for some reason, rarely in the gym.  If you bend down to pick up a box or any heavy/large items you are performing a dead lift.  The common error here is that people do not pull their shoulder blades back, while allowing their backs to round and sticking their butts up too high.  The Fix- While you lower down, do not allow your chest to extend in front of the knees, this will make you keep a tall upper body and prevent your back from rounding.  Also, rather than thinking about lowering down using your knees, think about lowering with your butt instead.  Push those hips back and lower towards the floor.  Do not allow your knees to go in front of your toes and you will be on track to using your hips to lower you, rather than your knees.

3.  Pull Up- The simplicity of the pull up is the reason this one makes the list of bad form exercises.  Although this is potentially one of the least dangerous exercises due to bad form, it is almost always done wrong.  The good part is that the fixes are simple and just take a little more awareness.  The majority of people don’t lower themselves until their arms are long with their elbows locked out and extended.  By stopping before you are fully extended you are working only part of your muscles and shortening them at the same time.  The second thing is the kipping, kicking or swinging that is done in order to squeeze out some reps. Rather than moving straight up and down, people like to use the momentum of their bodies to help out.  The Fix- Very simple, lower yourself down until your arms are locked out. Think how your body would be if you were just hanging there with no intention of pulling up. That should be your starting position.  Rather than kipping or swinging to get up, either hop on one of those assisted pull up machines or have someone spot you from behind. That way, you can ensure that you have correct form and still complete the pull ups.

2.  Squat- The squat one of the most complex movements that a person does in the gym. As such, there is plenty of room for mistakes while doing it.  A common issue is that people allow their knees to go in front of their toes, which will lead to knee pain.  Also, many people squat too deep for their bodies and their tailbone will “curl under.”  This can separate the vertebrae in the lumbar spine and lead to low back pain.  The Fix- Think of sitting back on your heels as you perform the squat and press into your heels on the way up.  Watch yourself from the side in a mirror.  If you see your tail (upper butt and low back) start to roung, stop there and head back up.  Keep tight abs, a tight back and think about filling out your shirt with your chest (proud chest).

1.  The Romanian Dead Lift (RDL)- This is the exercise in which you keep your legs mostly straight and lower your upper body down toward your feet (almost like a toe touch).  This is the most common of the incorrectly performed exercises and may be the most dangerous if done wrong.  Many people keep that toe touch mentality and pay no attention to their backs while performing this exercise. The back rounds and takes the stress from the glutes and hamstrings and puts it right on the spine.   The Fix- Over all else, make sure your back stays flat on the way down. Think like someone placed a million dollar bill in between your shoulder blades and you can’t let go.  Allow for a little bend in the knees and sit the hips back as you lower.  Don’t worry about depth in the beginning (most people’s hands will only be able to go to the knees) as you progress you will be able to go lower.

Think about these tips next time you are about to perform these exercises and make a checklist of things to look at.  If these exercises are foreign to you (like a Russian), start to do them — they are all great.  Take your time in making sure the form is on point before you worry about doing a ton of reps or using heavy weight.

If you were that person mentioned earlier who has terrible form, please pay special attention to this article.  Not only are you at risk for injury, but you are wasting time by not activating the right muscle groups.  And you’re scaring people.

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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

Looking around the gym, you’ve likely noticed people with all different body types — some you might want to emulate, others you might want to avoid. You’ve seen the big-boned guy who likes to bench 400, but doesn’t want to take his shirt off. Or the girl who can eat anything without gaining a pound. And then there are the people who are just naturally muscular without having to lift much more than their water bottles. But it would be foolish to see someone with the body type you want and immediately start copying their workout plan, because everyone is born naturally with a specific body type. These body types are the direct results of genetics from our parents and grandparents, and while we cannot reverse the way we were born, there are certain, targeted steps we can take to change. But first, you have to figure out where you’re starting from.

Who Am I

If you find yourself stuffing your face constantly and lamenting, “I just can’t gain any weight,” you are most likely an ectomorph. An ectomorph is usually on the tall side and is skinny as a rail. Because ectomorphs boast fast metabolisms, it’s very hard for them to put on weight, no matter what they eat. Consequently, these people are commonly referred to as “hardgainers.” I myself am naturally an ectomorph who has spent the better part of my adolescent and adult life trying to change that.

If you’re the type of person who complains, “I can’t even look at a chicken breast without gaining five pounds,” you are most likely an endomorph. Commonly described as “big-boned,” endomorphs have a hard time leaning themselves out. The good news for you is, it’s easy for you to put on muscle — it’s just an issue of cutting off the fat to expose that six-pack hiding underneath.

If you’ve ever been told that “You can do absolutely nothing and still look jacked,” then congratulations, you’re a mesomorph. Like a good majority of pro-athletes (and all those guys you saw fighting in “300″), you’ve been blessed with the physique (or at least can easily attain the physique) that everyone else covets — muscular and ripped without really having to work hard at all. Next time you see your parents or grandparents, give them a hug, a kiss and say thanks for making you the best morph possible.

How To Change It

Guess what, ectomorphs?  That growth spurt you’ve been waiting for to turn you into a hulking freak of nature? It ain’t coming. If you really want to put on some solid size you’re going to have to lift harder than anyone else and eat until you feel like you’re going to throw up.  Yeah, at some point in your life, gaining weight may get easier, but then you have to worry about it turning into fat weight.  If your goals are to put on mass and look like a mesomorph here’s what you do: 1) Lift way harder than you thought you were lifting. Whatever you are doing is not enough, unless you are enlisting the help of a substance. (Do I have to even name it?)  2) With your big movements (bench, squat, etc.) stick with lower reps (8 at the most), higher sets (4+) and get ample rest in between exercise sets. 3) Eat, eat and eat some more.  Don’t stuff your face with three double-cheeseburgers after a workout, but crush some food.  I gained 25 pounds in three months by drinking two 1,200-calorie shakes a day, on top of what I was normally eating — one after each of my workouts in that day. (Yeah, I was doing two-a-days.)  And here’s a warning: if you thought putting the weight on was hard, it’s was even harder to keep it on. If you’re an ectomorph, there’s truly no rest for the weary. Look up these workouts: German Volume Training, Escalating Density Training, Insider Contrast Method.

Here’s the game plan endomorphs: don’t eat anything and consistently tour the cardio section of the gym.  Okay, that was sarcasm, so don’t worry, you don’t need to invest in your own personal elliptical machine. You guys do have to chill out a bit on the eating.  I know you think that you can just spend an hour lifting and an hour doing cardio, and it will all be good.  But has your body composition ever really changed when you did that?  First, you need to cut out carbs that aren’t fruits or vegetables and reserve the fruits for the morning rather than at night. If you have to eat starchy carbs, go for quinoa or brown rice.  Do not starve yourself, but split up your meals into a bunch of small snacks.  The same goes for your workouts. It would be better to do 4 sessions at 15 intense minutes-a-piece each day, as opposed to two hour sessions. The important thing for you guys is heart rate.  This means that you need to get that heart rate up very high (85-90% of your max) each workout.  Really intense (heavy) lifting will get your heart rate up, or doing ballistic or plyometric movements (jumping or throwing med balls). I don’t care what gets your heart rate up, the key is getting it there and keeping it there for a few minutes. Recover only back to about 65% of your max heart rate, then get back to work. Since you want to still look muscular when the body fat comes off, I suggest getting your “cardio” sessions in your weight lifting by moving some heavy stuff really fast. On the days you do “cardio” cardio, don’t always stick with an hour on an elliptical.  Do some interval springs by going out on a track and sprint 100 meters then walking 100 meters a few times.  If that is too intense, then go for a 100 meter sprint and 200 meter walk or whatever works for you. Look up HIIT, or Escalating Density Training.

Considering the title of this little section is “How Do You Change It,” it’s almost pointless for me to write anything for the mesomorphs  The way you “change it” is by eating like a dummy and not lifting at all.  Since you are already an optimum body type you have to work to lose it.  If you are blessed with the mesomorph body type, then it is easy for you.  Just try to be kind to all the endo- and ectomorphs in the gym, and please make use of the body you were given. Put in some hard work every once in a while, even though it doesn’t have to be as intense or as long for you as it is for us.

Now that you know your body actually has a scientific type, realize you are not alone.  I hope you have been doing the stuff that I recommended for a while, but if not, start tomorrow.  Until next time… Let’s Morph!

This week I would like to address everyone who participates in a sport that requires some type of rotation. A few examples would be golf, tennis, and baseball. All these sports require aggressive rotation of the spine and hips. The two unique factors all these sports have is that you have to be mobile and stable in order to have an efficient swing. For years now it has been hammered into our heads that if you are a golfer and do core work you increase your rotation and stabilize your swing. Which is somewhat true, however when you have limitations (tightness) in your thoracic spine (mid back) or your hip it won’t matter how many crunches you do, your swing results will be the same.

At some point you have to address the mobility factor—Lack of mobility can be caused by inflexibility, scar tissue, or possible compensation factors.  One of the best ways we can address this is by utilizing a foam roller. This can be used like a self massage you can run it up your back and down your legs. While it can be uncomfortable at times, the rule of thumb is the more it hurts the more you need it. Fibrotic tissue (hard tissue) is what you want to concentrate on, your goal is to make your muscles as elastic as possible. Elastic muscles are athletic muscles and they will respond and fire on command. Follow the foam roller up with a consistent stretching routine and you are well on your way to mobile more stable body.

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Rick Lademann

Sports Performance Coach

http://www.go2beyondmotion.com