My Daily Wellness Tip

You don't want to watch this!

I usually keep the funny stuff for "Funny Friday" but I couldn't wait to show you this.

Top 3 Shoulder Exercises

 

Shoulders can do a lot for the appearance of a symmetrical body, it helps make your  waist line look smaller and gives you an athletic look.

Here are the top 3 exercises for each major muscle of the shoulder. By top I mean the exercises that have shown to produce the highest amount of activation according to Bret Contreras EMG experiments. Always evaluate the risk VS reward for any exercise before you decide to perform them. For example; the behind the head press for someone with a bad shoulder can cause severe damage and would not be worth adding in your workout. Here are the exercises:

Traps

1. BB shrugs
2. Cable lateral raises
3. Seated Behind the head press

Front Deltoid

1. Seated Behind the head press
2. Seated barbell shoulder press
3. Incline barbell bench press

Side Deltoid

1. Rubber band face pulls
2. Side dumbell lateral raises
3. Seated Behind the head press

Rear Deltoid

1. Band face pull
2. Db bent over lateral raise
3. Cable scarecrow

Motivation Monday

Sometimes you need to get real about your fat and stop hiding behind
excuses. Just decide for once and for all that you have had enough and you
are going to do something about it. Take responsibility for your own
choices. Look at what has gotten you where you are and how you have let this
happen to yourself. And don't wait, change right now.

Top 5 Physiques In The UFC

I with much help from my friend Chris collected what we believe are the best physiques in the UFC. That means, the right amount of muscle mass, symmetry, look, and leanness. We looked at it like a bodybuilding event and didn't take any of there winnings in the UFC under consideration (that was hard).

Here are the top 5 winners.

5th place - Roger Huerta

Roger has great symmetry, from leg development to a good V tapper back and he's always lean. The reason he's in fifth and not first is because he could use a little more muscle mass everywhere.

4th place - George St-Pierre

George has great symmetry especially with the fact that he has very wide clavicle bones making his shoulders very wide but which also makes it hard to pack muscle on that chest. I give him the most potential award. He would need a little more muscle mass on the chest and that would probably throw him in first. Great development of the legs and is always lean.

3rd place - Sean Sherk

 

Sean is a very lean guy but most of all he gains major points on his muscle mass he's been able to build. Getting lean is not that hard, gaining muscle takes years of hard work. The only reason I place Sean in third is his waist is a little to bulky and takes away from the V tapper someone like George St Pierre would have.

2nd place - Thiago Alves

Thiago has amazing muscle mass, great symmetry and is lean. The reason Thiago is not in first is simply because he has a big boned frame that doesn't look as aesthetic as our first place winner. You can tell that Thiago's frame is very big by looking at his head. Great physique but doesn't have the muscle belly that Phil Baroni is able to show.

1st place - Phil Baroni

Phil Baroni could step on a bodybuilding stage and do very well. He's got complete balance showing great muscle mass for his frame, very lean and great symmetry from head to toe. Though he may not be the best fighter, he win's the best physique award.

Healthiest Restaurant Items Around Ottawa

Do you have a specific menu item that you enjoy in a restaurant in Ottawa? Send me a private message with the name of the restaurant and the menu item (and modifications, if you modify the meal). It doesn't have to be extremely healthy, just a better healthier option for people to try than the regular bad food. The goal is to take all the best responses and feature them on this blog for everyone to share. If you know someone that owns a restaurant in the Ottawa area I would send them this link.

Speed Skater Thigh Workout

Watching the massive thighs of the 500m speed skaters, I couldn't wait to write an article to analyse what they are doing and figure out what we can incorporate into our workout to take advantage of this development.

Short track speed skaters are required to be highly explosive and have great lower body strength and power; however muscle hypertrophy may not always be their major goal even though their quadriceps are freakishly disproportionate to their upper body. Meanwhile what they are doing, surely hypertrophies the quadriceps. So let's get started:

Skating Posture

First off, in the gym if you perform a squat and lean forward you activate more of the glutes and less of the quads. The difference with speed skaters is that when they lean forward to skate, unlike a squat  they round their lower lower back changing the resistance towards the quadriceps. Of coarse you wouldn't want to carry a load on your back with a rounded back so we will talk about exercises later. 

Time of lap

The time it takes to perform a 500m race at the Olympic level seemed to be around 32 seconds. 32 seconds is a great hypertrophy zone. It's the equivalent of performing 8 repetitions at a tempo of 202. But these skaters take an average of 39 strides per leg in the 500m race. (I actually counted)

Type of contraction

The skaters are lined up with no movement whatsoever and at the firing of the gun must push as hard as they can to build up momentum. It's the time when you have to conquer inertia with as much power and speed as possible.The harder and faster they dig in the ice, the better their chances of winning. 

Though they do spend a lot of time bent at the hip in a isometric position the quads are not in isometric. Every time they extend there leg and release they have broken the isometric contraction. Making it more of a constant concentric contraction from around 70 degree knee bend to full extension.

Type of Movement

Every time they push of it's one leg at a time making this a dominant unilateral movement. Also the line of push is performed in an abduction of the thigh and extension of the knee.

Skating sessions per week

As almost every Olympic sport, it's an every day thing or an almost every day thing.There maybe days where they don't skate but will perform cycling or they are in the gym working legs. This requires great recovery methods and different manipulations in intensities. One day it may be only working on technique and other days skating at 90%.  For the most part, there would be no more than 3 - 90% sessions a week.We will focus on 2.

Gym Training

Now skating alone will not produce those massive quads. An example of this was the skater from Finland who said he doesn't perform any strength training had the smallest quads in the group. (though he did win). Most speed skater will workout year round and you can assume that they are doing the same movements that most others athletes are performing like front squats, single leg movements and plyometrics.  

Cross training

Many speed skaters use cycling as a good cross training and recovery method

The result

So now that we dissected the speed skaters quad development what can we pull out of this that we can incorporate with our own leg workouts.

Here's the exercise I chose:

Single leg jump touching the floor. Perform one leg at a time. Unlike conventional lifting, keep your low back round while you jump and stay bent forward at the hip the whole time.

 

Monday - Single leg jump (5x32 seconds, try to get 39 jumps) + regular leg workout

Tuesday - Cycling sprints 30 sec on 30 sec off 10x

Wednesday - Off

Thursday - Single leg jump (5x32 seconds, try to get 39 jumps) + regular leg workout

Friday - Cycling sprints 30 sec on 30 sec off 10x

There you have it, try it for 10 weeks and let me know how it goes on my Facebook page.