Bodybuilding Ammunition For ‘UBER’ Productive Workouts (Part 2)

Welcome to part 2 buggers!

As you know from yesterdays post, it really is about being productive in your workouts, otherwise everything from working out consistently and intensely to sticking to the right meal plan will just go to waste. So again, the devil is in the detail.

One question that I always seem to silently ask myself, which is constantly on my mind is,

‘ Am I actually getting fit. Am I actually improving my health’

In the early days it was all about ‘not trying to grow to much muscle mass, otherwise it may turn into fat’. A statement which in itself makes absoultely no sense at all, as both muscle and fat are both completly different. But hey, I was younger and dumber. With time, I realised that what I really wanted to avoid was growing to a size which would place me in the unfit club.

The only way to avoid this is by doing more cardio based exercises in your workouts. But as this article explains, it’s all about finding a balance. And the balance that you (the stayfitbug reader) will want is to do the right amount of cardio without jeopardizing your muscle gaining efforts. One way that you can gauge this is by using a…

Heart Rate Monitor

This is the perfect tool for this scenario for quite a few reasons

1. It will allow you to monitor the level of intensity you are putting out
2. It will show you how ‘fit’ or ‘unfit’ you really are
3. It will allow you to pace yourself towards your set goal and within the time frame that you have set. This prevents you from doing too much, or from doing too little.
4. In terms of actual health and your heart (which I have always been concerned with), it will let you know how hard you are pushing and will tell you when to increase, stay put or decrease your level of output. So not only will you be maintaining a healthy heart, you will be doing just the right amount of cardio for your weightlifting workout.

Write Down What You Do In Your Workout

Again? Didn’t you tell us to do that in this post?

Yes I did. But now you are going to take it one step further. Now that you have got into the habit of writing things down, you will now use this data to workout what it is that you have to do next to progress effectively. Kind of like a prequel to being a visualizing bodybuilder. You will use this to construct your game plan. ‘This’ is the game plan that you will visualize!

But to do this effectively you will do two things.

1. Have your game plan written down, visualize doing it and then perform it.

2. Write down what you did that day and compare the two.

You will need to do this because you won’t perform your game plan to perfection every single time. Perfection simply does not exist. But there is no harm in aiming for ‘near’ perfection… it will just take time. And this is one effective way of doing that. You will be able to see in plain site where you are going wrong and how you can go about correcting it. But best of all, you will be able to workout how you can be more productive.

The key things to monitor will be your rest periods between sets. I can bet that if your workouts are currently an hour long on average, you probably aren’t working out with the level of intensity that you have seen me describe here.

Workout Like A Barbarian

And if that is the case, then you aren’t being productive in your workouts. If you do manage to trim that time down to 30 minutes, then I know you will be doing something right… becasue you won’t have the energy to leave a comment at the end of this post. But if you are a real barbarian, then I’ll see you in the comments!

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5 Things To Request From Your Gym For Inspiration

Today I am continuing with the bodybuilding environment theme, in which we find ways to keep your workouts inspiring and engaging. All in aid of making your bodybuilding life a lot more ‘Fun’. Especially for those days where you feel like sh*t!

If you want to have a fun and memorable time working out, then you might as well fix the place where you will be spending most of your time…

At the gym that you attend!

You probably won’t stand a chance in requesting big changes if you attend a top class and flashy gym (Unless you have a large following behind you). But if you attend a smaller and more local type of gym, you can get the word out to the owner to make changes around the gym. Changes that will be beneficial to all that attend.

If you do manage to persuade the head honcho, then these are some of the things that you should request.

Why?

Because the local gym that I have been attending for the past 4 years has implemented these things. And they work like a charm!

#1 Posters

Not just any old posters. Posters of successful bodybuilders! (Men AND Women!)

And here’s a preview…

There really is something special about working out and having these posters to look at. They really do work on the inspiration side of things. I tend to just stare at them in-between sets and let my mind just wonder off.

The next time you go to the gym, show these posters to the gyms head honcho. He won’t turn you away!

I’ll probably send out an email to all subscribers soon, with a stack load of posters which you can use as desktop wallpapers or print off as A3 sized sheets as a poster. So be sure to sign up if you haven’t done so already, by clicking on that orange and white ebook… THERE >>>

#2 Bodybuilding Mantras

These aren’t really bodybuilding mantras per se. But some of the classic mantras from past successors work well for a bodybuilder. These are very similar to the effects that posters give in the gym. However, reading some of these mantras while you workout really does give you that ‘eye of the tiger’ drive, especially when you begin to fatigue. Fatigue can sometimes be laziness in disguise. Reading the same ‘good’ mantras over and over again will reveal which one you are suffering from… fatigue… or laziness.

Check out the bodybuilding mantras post HERE for those that missed it.

#3 Music

Yesterday I talked about surveys. Today I’m going to share some survey results.

What music do you prefer to listen to when you workout answered question?

Response Percentage

• Rock 56.3%
• Hip hop 31.3%
• Pop 25.0%
• Dance 50.0%
• House 12.5%
• Electronic 0.0%
• Techno 0.0%

These are the results of the stayfitbuggers that took the survey upon visiting this site. These results show that you are all very similar to myself, in terms of what I like my eardrums to feel when I workout. Rock or Hip Hop. Either Will do!

Most gyms will usually stick the radio on. Nothing wrong with that. But the radio does play some trash music at times, and you’ll probably hear the same songs over and over, especially if you attend the gym 3-4 times a week.

Get at the head honcho again. You probably won’t need a DJ on this occasion, but a decent custom made playlist can do wonders for a bodybuilding gym community.

That could actually be a good though Shaun… DJ’s in a gym? Hmmmm…..

#4 Before and After Photos of Successful Gym Goers

This is what I call ‘making those earlier bodybuilding posters personal!’

Why?

Well… most of the guys and girls in those posters are usually bodybuilding pros. They’ve probably made a career out of bodybuilding and worked 24/7 to get their bodies to look the way they do.

GREAT!

But not great for your average joe.

Starring at those posters are great, and present a fine display of what can be achieved with the human body. But you’ll be mostly rubbing those folks ego, because you’ll never build a body like theirs.

Problem!

Solution…

Put up posters of those who came before you, in that same gym, who worked their asses off and built supreme bodies. That will be solid proof of what can really be achieved by the everyday working man or woman. You can develop a true solid connection as many of those folks will still visit on occasion. At that point you can get talking to them and find out some of the things that worked for them. They could probably work for you too, but just remember that you’ll need to find your own bodybuilding map.

#5 Find Hot Female Gym Members (Or males -- For you lady readers )

Meeting highly attractive members of the opposite sex at the gym can be a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’, depending on who you are. I personally like to just stay focused on my workout. Having an attractive lady around will just knock my focus. But that’s just me.

For the rest of you, working out in the presence of a ‘hotty’ might be the ONLY thing that keeps you coming back week after week. Nothing wrong with that! After all, it’s about making this bodybuilding game as fun as we can. ‘Fun’ is the only thing that will keep us engaged for the long term.

Since that is the case, get that head honcho to start advertising his gym services to the sexy elite beings of this human race. Tell him to get more females first.

Why?

Because the guys will go where the girls are at. Simple.

You can tell him that it will be good for business. Because it will be.

There probably are other things that may aspire you in your prime bodybuilding location, but these are the things that have worked well in the gyms that I have attended. Some of the gyms you attend might already be doing some f the above, if so, good! But if not, you better get knocking on the head honchos door, because inspiration is a must in this game.

See you in the comments.

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Build Equal Size Biceps And Triceps… PLEASE!!!

Today I’m going to have an official ‘RANT’ ( A big complaint about something)

Today I am blasting all of one dimensional armed freaks out there who have decided to go to the gym to get ripped (good) but have failed to build equal sized, well rounded arms (bad). Meaning,

A) Has biceps/ No triceps

B) Has triceps/ No biceps

How does this happen?

1. Obsessive use of the tricep extension machine

2. Obsessive amount of bicep curls

In a nutshell…

Too much focus on isolation exercises!

Unless you have arms that are bigger than 15 inches, your entire focus should be on compound exercises ( exercises that work more than one muscle group at a time). That is when you will get the best results. When you hit a plateau, you just switch things up a little (Something which I constantly throw in your face). After a little time your arms will grow… equal in size!

NOW…

When you focus on isolation exercises, you may think that doing endless bicep curls and tricep extensions will make them grow.

WRONG!

What’s actually happening is that you are damaging and shrinking them. So if you do end up with,

A) Big biceps/ No triceps

B) Big triceps/ No biceps

It’s because you are doing something right with your compound exercises, but something wrong with your forced efforts with isolation exercises. Which in turn hampers your growth. The only time you should be focusing on isolation exercises is when you are a seasoned bodybuilder and you know exactly what your muscles need at that current point in time (You find this out after you have your bodybuilding map and route in gear -- Grab the 6 pac ebook to see how you can do this ).

Now that we have that cleared up, FIX IT!

Being a fitness freak, it’s hard not to notice these imbalances when you are out and about, as people start to strip off in the sun. But not having equal sized arms just isn’t sexy. In some ways it makes you look like a freak.

Just do yourself a favour and build some proper looking arms dammit. You’re hurting my eyes out here.

You have the correction and instructions now, so like Nike,

JUST DO IT!

See you in the comments.

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Increase Endurance In A Kids Ball Pit

I know I mentioned that I was going to post part 2 to yesterdays post, but your just going to have to wait. I want to make it sexy

Any how, I want to share something that’s even more fun than that.

Playing in a kids ball pit!

I have been fascinated with these ever since I stepped foot in one as a kid (The ball pit maze to be specific). I don’t quite know why exactly. Maybe it’s just a part of a fantasy world that I wish to be in.

But after playing in these a few times (Yes, I have dived into one since my migration to adulthood) I realized how great playing in a ball pit can be as part of an endurance workout.

The obvious thing to notice here, is all of the swimming around, with the balls fighting against your ability to swim forward (Resistance). It might not seem like a lot in the first few moments of doing this (as a workout) But the balls really do hold you back and test your strength endurance to carry on.

If you really do want to give this a try then add it to a circuit (Krypton factor style) and then swim several laps inside of the ball pit. This is great for some variation and a unique way to test and increase your endurance. All while having fun

Talk you thoughts in the comments.

… See you in the comments.

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I Succeeded In Just ‘X’ Months! The Before And After Scam | BodyBuilding

‘I built monster sized muscle in just 3 months!’

‘I lost ‘X’ number of pounds in just 4 weeks!’

These are phrases that you hear often, in almost every industry. Especially in the fitness and bodybuilding industry. You’ll often hear some state quotes such as,

I succeeded in ‘this’ many months, ‘that’ many months.. blah, blah, blah…

Yea, it would be cool to get great results quickly, and sometimes that can happen. But the real success lies in how to keep building on that success. The phrase ‘I Succeeded In Just ‘X’ Months!’ is usually just a show off or marketing phrase to lure people in. Heck, I may even use it in certain situations. But if I ever do, you can be damn sure that I’ll be providing long term value at the end of the tunnel.

So in reality, those statements that you hear people quote are often false positives. Don’t fall for them. Always make sure you are that devil that is looking ever so closely at the detail. And just know that there is NO magical way to get real, meaningful fitness or bodybuilding results without some hard work and gut wreching graft.

Let me show you what I mean. Here is an example of EXACTLY the thing I am talking about.

Natalie Cassidy

This is Natralie Cassidy, an actor in the UK who shot to fame on the popular TV soap Eastenders, and the picture above is how she used to look. Then, she left the show, disappeared for a while, and re-appeared on the scene, slimmer, sexier and magically even prettier than before. All by using her secret formula of a weight loss program.

And within no time at all, her program sold like hot cakes

$$$ Chi-Chingggggg $$$

GREAT!

But Then…

She gained it all back! (Ohh Nooo)

I was actually disappointed when I saw that she had let her self go and put all that weight back on again. Maybe I should have created Stay-Fit Bug a few years earlier. That would have helped her ‘KEEP’ the body that she built. Either way, her fans must have been disappointed some what. Their new weight loss idol had fallen from the helm. Who are they to look up to now?

This scenario right here is why I have banished Natalie Cassidy into the,

‘I Succeeded In Just ‘X’ Months! The Before And After Scam’

There are other examples out there. This is just one of them.

Shaun’s Point Is?

My point is this…

If you are going to brag, boast and market yourself using the phrase ‘ I succeeded In Just ‘X’ Months’, then make sure you provide some long term value to the audience that you have converted. These are the people that were most likely in the exact same situation as you were, yet you managed to achieve where they continued to fail. Because of that they will always look up to you, and anything that comes out of your mouth will be taken at face value and executed without question.  If you are going to be a role model, then be one. The moment your audience see you slip up, you automatically incorparate the ‘He/She’s fake’ tag, and they might just move on.

Or

They might understand that you are human, and that very same audience could possibly be the cause of raising you up from the pits of demise to a once again glorious rise… to the top!

Success and Money can be a great thing. But as always, it comes with increased responsibility for your actions.

The Bodybuilding Culprits

This is one of the most prolific scam products that circulates the internet using a similar mantra from ‘I Succeeded in just ‘X’ Months’ in the Bodybuilding world.

The Acai Berry Supplement

Not the acai berry itself. That is a very nutritional fruit full of antioxidants. What I’m talking about here is the actual supplements some of these companies are putting on on the market.

The Oprah Winfrey Endorsed Acai Berry Supplement

We all know that when Oprah speaks and endorses something, it becomes an instant impulse purchase for those who listen to what she has to say. There are companies all around the internet that claim Oprah has endorsed their product, when in fact, all she done was give the actual acai berry the thumbs up after a recommendation from Dr. Oz !

These guys are all fakes and there are just too many to name. But the fact is, none of their supplements work. They are all ineffective.

Shame on them!

I will probably do what they do at times and post quotes like ‘I Succeeded In Just ‘X’ Months!’ But I will always follow it up by providing long term value and raising my game when my decline starts to kick in. Because everything that goes up has only one way to go after that point… Back down!

See you in the comments.

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Why You Need To Workout Like A Gymnast

If I ever want to aspire to be like any Olympian, then it would have to be a gymnast. Both male and female (Both are a delight to watch). Not only do these gals and guys look great, they also wield superior strength.

But guess what?

What Shaun?

These guys and gals only use bodyweight exercises to build strength… and mass!

Nah… I don’t believe you, why don’t I look like they do then?

Well, let me explain

They Add Resistance

Adding resistance is the only way that you can increase your strength when you workout. Your muscles will naturally contract against resistance, but with time they will get used to it and become stronger. At this point, you will need to increase the level of resistance. That is one reason why most people who train for muscle mass give bodyweight exercises the cold shoulder, because we are not robots, or super human and there is no way to increase resistance with our own body weight.

However, gymnasts use creativity to increase resistance when performing bodyweight exercises and being creative with bodyweight exercises is something that I have been doing for years.

One example of a creative resistance would be when they perform the leg lift exercise.

Instead of performing the exercise with your legs tucked in, perform the exercise with your legs ‘dead straight’. This will double the difficulty of performing a leg lift with just your bodyweight. All you had to do was use some leverage.

However, an optimum workout routine will utilize weightlifting exercises and creative bodyweight exercises. (Sometimes with assisted weights)

One key point about performing advanced bodyweight exercises is that performing these harder exercises will give you better results. This is because you will be aiming for maximum contraction rather than exercising until failure, and for most of the advanced exercises, it will be all the muscles of your whole body that will contract. As long as you keep maxing out the contractions, you will build superior strength, and size too.

You still haven’t told me why I don’t look like a gymnast?

Well… have you looked at a gymnast recently? Of course you have. They look great and possess raw strength. They have learned how to perfect ways to keep on increasing their strength using advanced exercises. And on Friday, you’ll get a full taster of some these in the ebook. These unique exercises are designed to challenge you beyond the conventional pull up or dip exercise, which will allow you to push your strength to the max.

Some Advanced Exercises To Look Forward To

1. Mixed Grip Chin Up
2. Straddle Planche

It’s not very likely that you will build a body like a gymnast just using creative bodyweight exercises with assisted weights (although possible). As gymnasts dedicate their whole time to their career, using many other techniques then just bodyweight exercises to build their bodies and are required to tick all of these boxes as a requirement.

• Passive flexibility
• Active flexibility
• Joint preparation
• Static strength
• Dynamic strength

And others.

This is why you will probably never look like a gymnast!

But the aim of this post is to show you that by incorporated the mindset and strength training progression of a gymnast, you too can take your strength training to the next level and show all of the overly bulky muscle heads in the gym what true strength is all about.

Remember, this is all about higher-level strength progression and building defined muscle mass.

In addition to all of this you will also improve your level of balance, coordination and agility and you may even turn into a mini version of these guys.

Tony Jaa

Jackie chan (Maybe older now, but I bet he still out performs those who are the same age as he was when he was in his prime)

If you really want to show off and look good while performing some of these exercises then take up some dance classes (read this post for some ideas).

Getting good at these dances will provide you with grace and flair, which will make you, stand out from the crowd when you move.

Grow Like A Plant

In order to even get to a level where you can perform the above exercises effectively, you will need to grow like a plant.

You will need to allow your body to go through the phase of steady growth, and once matured, go for the advanced bodyweight exercises. Once you do finally adopt superior strength and athletic ability, start to practice your one rep max on certain exercises. You will find that the level in which you have now increased your strength may have far surpassed the level of strength gains you was achieving in your weightlifting workouts. If that is the case, then lifting weights will now become a novelty for you. But both are just as important as the other, because you still probably won’t achieve the strength gains and mass of a gymnast, because you aren’t a gymnast. Incorporate both weightlifting and body-weight exercises into your routine, adopt the patience of a tortoise, the speed of a hare and like the plant in the video…. GROW!

For more detail on how to build up to the level to which you can perform these exercises, make sure you grab the e-book on Friday 12th March 2010

Here >>>

Or simply sign up now to automatically receive it via email.

See you in the comments.

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Shock Body Exercise Variations (Part 2)

What! Shaun has even more shock body tips to get ripped?

Correct. The more varied exercises that you have at your disposal, the less likey you and your muscles will become victims of boredom.

But just a quick reminder to why you would be performing these type of exercises.

• To build muscle (real muscle)
• To maintain your ‘real muscles’
• To take your ‘real muscles’ to the next level
• To ease back into training after injury

All in combination to your current weightlifting routine.

And we continue…

100 Rep Sets

This involves performing 100 reps straight with a very light weight.

Light weights don’t give bulk. What’s the catch?

Well, you’ve probably been lifting heavy weights and increasing the weight even furthur while performing less reps per set. Which is great and is what I preach to many that want to bulk up effectively. But what the 100 rep set does is give your muscles a change of pace and help build up your endurance.

You perform 100 reps for each exercise that you do!

When you go back to performing heavy weights, you will now find that your muscles are a lot more responsive. You will be able to lift more and in turn, will give you faster gains.

MAGIC! You are now a certified magician.

Flex Hard, Hold Hard

Building the true ripped look

After you perform a set of whatever exercise you do, immediatly flex those same muscles, hold that position and count to 10. You basically treat this as ‘posing’ as an exercise.

By doing this, you will be making more muscular contractions, reach the areas that normal training may have missed and give your body the ‘icing on the cake’ rips.

Alternative

Do the reverse

• Flex your muscles first before doing the exercise.
• Tire them out (Pre-fatigue).
• Example: Flex your chest and triceps, then perform the push ups exercise.

This makes for a more challenging exercise. But if you manage to pull it off while performing the same amount of push ups that you would usually do, you will produce much better muscle building results.

Reduce Rest Time Between Sets

This is a pretty common thing to do, yet not many people have the balls to action this during their workouts. You basically cut down your rest periods over time, like so…

60, 45, 30, 15 to 0 seconds

At this point you will be performing your workouts at the level of the workout routine that has it all.

NOW THAT’S INTENSE!

But here are 2 styles of ‘resting between sets’ that you can do, which will without a doubt give you some real gains.

Style no.1

Exercise for examples sake -- chin ups

• Perform one set of chin ups to failure
• Wait a few seconds and perform another set

The first time you do this you will probably pull off 4-5 reps for your second set. But get real good at this and the gains will come.

Style no.2

Increase the number of reps on the first set and decrease the rest time for the second set. This is for all of you ‘hard nuts’ reading this. But if you feel you are man enough, then please.. go ahead. I’d love to hear about your run in with deaths door.

That’s enough of shock body for today, but stay tuned for tomorrows post. I might even give you a special part 3.

See you in the comments.

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How To Spark Growth In Your Chest Muscles

A few months back, I was over in a forum discussing what everyone’s pain points were. I have my own pain points too (Building leg muscles, Maintaining muscle mass in my arms), but there were a few people that I got talking too that just couldn’t manage to increase the size of there chest muscles. Every solution i threw at them they seemed to have tried, and i couldn’t figure out what to recommend without getting to know there past a little better (Or meeting them in person).

I always have been known for one to try and find new ways of doing things, and that’s probably one reason I’m always enthusiastic to share the new things I learn with YOU. The Stayfitbuggers -- Innovative and new ways to build muscle.

Anyhow, since then I have played around with a few chest exercises which I know everyone who builds muscles with weights will be performing.  All this testing, playing around and analyzing has lead me to find ways that can help you spark muscle growth in your chest muscles.

How do I know these work?

Because they have been working for me!

But Shaun, you said to never follow the leader…

Correct! What you need to do is try these small tweaks to these already popular exercises and if what i have instructed doesn’t work for you, just give them a further tweak.

It could be anything from,

• The number of reps you perform
• Adding more resistance to a dipping belt
• More explosive exercise technique

Or other things.

All of us have to find our own ‘map’ and way of doing things when it comes to building muscle, busting through plateaus and living a happy bodybuilding life. But hopefully guidance from individuals like myself will help give you a good kick start and great get-up-and-go motivation in those times of need.

Enough of my blabber. Check the tweaks.

The Dumbbell Bench Press

The Tweak

Start with your palms facing each other in the bottom position and your elbows tucked to your sides.
As you push the weights up, rotate your wrists so that your palms face forward in the top position.

The Result

The twisting motion activates the fibers in all of the areas of your chest.

Dip’s

The Tweak

Move your hands out wider so you get a deeper stretch in your pecs when you lower your body.
Look for V shaped Dip bars rather than parallel ones. Doing so will give you much better results

The Result

A wider grip position makes for a more challenging exercise and helps you recruit even more muscle fibers in your chest.

The Dumbbell Fly

The Tweak

1. Try doing these by placing a towel on the floor.
2. Fold the towel in half and place one palm on each end of it and get into pushup position with your knees on the floor.
3. Move your arms apart as in a normal fly and lower your chest toward the floor.

The Result

A much more challenging exercise that will  work your pecs, back, and core.

Give these a try. If you see no substantial changes to your chest after a few weeks then take out your own map and start tweaking. If that is what you end up doing and manage to find success further to what I’ve instructed here, then feel free to post in the comments below.

See you there.

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The Olympian Workout to Build Strength

Gymnasts to be specific.

Every time I watch the Olympic games every four years, I am always truly inspired by the level of strength that the gymnast men (and women) have once they mount the Olympic rings and do the business. Perhaps that could be a reason why I have become such a fan of body weight exercises, as I know that is what those gymnasts concentrate on more than anything else. For some gymnasts, they don’t include resistance training at all when developing there muscles.

Although we may be  inspired by them, we must not forget that what we see them do at the Olympic games is the end result of blood sweat and tears (and years) of training specific muscle groups to get into the position they are in.

Now none of us are going to become gymnasts anytime soon, but the workout routine than I’m going to share with you will allow you to train like one and yield results just like they do.

- A Combination of body-weight exercises (with some resistance)

- This workout is sweet on the time factor to, running at 40-45 minutes max.

The Plan

• 4 weeks
• 3 workout routines
• Alternated each session
• A day rest between each session

Note: That when the reps decrease, increase the weight.

Workout  no.1

Step 1

• Chinups
• Dips

Week     Sets     Reps     Rest
1            4          8           120 Seconds
2            4          6           120 Seconds
3            4          4           120 Seconds
4            4          8           120 Seconds

Step 2

• T Pushup and Inverted Rows

Sets     Reps             Rest
4          Till failure    120 seconds

Workout no.2

Rest 60 seconds after each set
3 sets of 10 reps for each

Step 1

• Bulgarian Split Squat
• Step-ups

Step 2

• Hanging Leg Raise or Incline Reverse Crunch

Step 3

• Swiss-ball plank

Workout no.3

Alternate the exercises
But this time you can keep the rest periods as long as you wish

• Weeks 1 and 3: Do as many sets of 5 repetitions of each exercise as you can in 20 minutes.
• Week 2: Do 30 reps of each exercise in as few sets as possible.
• Week 4: Do 45 reps of each exercise in as few sets as possible.

Step 1

• Chin-ups
• Dips

Step 2

• Push-ups
• Inverted Rows

And that’s your Olympian/ Gymnast workout

And just to remind you all. The Unique Body-weight Exercises ebook that I said I would share with you is soon on it’s way to completion. In the mean time give this workout routine a try.

See you in the comments.

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6 Non-crunch Bodybuilding Six Pack Exercises

Guess what everyone? I’ve got a 6 Pac and I love it.

But you already knew that from Effective 6pac building techniques. You would also know that since building a 6 Pac, I have not had to perform any sit-ups, crunches or leg lifts to maintain it. So what am I doing to keep my stomach in shape? After all, it has been 10-12 years since I originally carved my stomach into 6 firm defined parts.

Well I didn’t tell you then, but I will tell you now.

The Myth

‘You have to perform an endless amount crunches and sit ups to build a 6 Pac’

Reality

The above statement is completely untrue!

Yes, you will have work hard and pull out all stops to build your 6 Pac. But you don’t necessarily need to keep that up in order to maintain your newly chiseled torso.

The Solution

The reason why I have been able to maintain my 6 Pac without even doing a single sit up again, is because I have incorporated exercises into my workout routine, which recruit all of the muscle fibers of the body that hit deep within the muscle tissue.

Here are the exercises.

The Renegade Row

Just a few posts ago in 5 Essential Bodybuilding Tips You’ve Missed, the last tip I gave you was to contract your stomach muscles as if you were about to be sucker punched in the gut. That is exactly what you will have to do when performing this exercise. If you don’t do that, you will probably end up falling over.

How to do it

• Position yourself so your legs are straight out behind you while balancing your upper body with your hands (Push up position)
• Place a dumbbell by each hand, shoulder-width apart on the floor under the shoulders.
• Once in this position, transfer your weight to one side and proceed to lift the arm up to perform a one-arm row.
• Then you can either perform the second rep on the same side or switch over to the other side and alternate between reps.

I understand that not all of you reading this will have great stability skills, so to make things a little easier for yourself, buy yourself a pair of Power-blocks (Which are being used in the video). I wrote a post about these a couple of months back and they are currently in my top 3 pieces of gym equipment that I own. Remember, that if you do decide to use power blocks, you must treat them as part of the furniture as they are durable, space efficient, a best friend for home winter workouts and lifesavers for working out on the move.

Side Leg Raises

I don’t perform this exercise to often, as I prefer to stick to more challenging exercises. But it is effective nonetheless.

How to do it

• Position your body on the floor so that you are in a side-ways position (Crap at balancing? Well you’re just going to have to get good at it)
• Once you’ve found your balance, lift the leg that is closest to the ceiling up and down.
• Those are side leg lifts.
• To increase the challenge, bring the leg forward and back as well. If you do this, just be sure to keep your back straight otherwise you could injure yourself.

The One Legged Squat

This proved to be a favorite amongst many of you when I covered this back in unique body-weight exercises. But what I didn’t mention at the time is that this is also a great exercise for building your abs

• Stand so that you’re balancing on one leg with the other leg raised out directly in front of you.
• Next, begin to squat down on the standing leg, maintaining balance the entire time.
• Go down as low as you can possibly go, and then rise back up to the starting position.

Cable woodchoppers

These are great for your abs and shoulders. This exercise is also great for building functional strength.

How to do it

• Stand sideways next to a cable machine with a low-cable pulley attachment by your feet.
• Bend over using a slight bend in the knees and reach for the handle.
• Then straighten your body back up while twisting in the opposite direction until you are holding the handle across your body and above your head in the opposite direction.
• Pause for a few seconds and then lower back down to the starting position to complete the rep.
• 1 set of 10 reps for each side.

If things start to become easy, just add resistance.

Stability ball jack-knife

We all know how much I love to share high intensity training and workouts/exercises and this is another to add to that list. If you don’t include some high intensity, how else are you going to push yourself to the max?

How to do it

• Place your elbows on a bench while your legs are behind you on top of an exercise ball, with your stomach facing the floor.
• From there, lift one leg off the exercise ball and raise it out to the side of your body
• Then curl the ball into your chest with the leg still on top of it. Once the ball is as far as it can go, extend it straight out behind you again.
• That’s one rep. Perform 3 sets of 10. increase with strength.

Lunge with ball pass-off

For this exercise you will need to find yourself a gym partner and grab yourself a medicine ball.

How to do it

• Perform a standard lunge while holding a medicine ball.
• As you lower down to the ground, twist to the side so you are able to hand the ball off to your gym partner (who will be behind you)
• From there, twist back to the front and continue with the lunging motion until you get to the bottom portion of the second lunge. Have your partner pass you the ball on your other side.
• 10 reps on each side.
• 30 to 60 second rest in-between.

I don’t perform all of these exercises all of the time. But I do have my favorites such as the cable woodchopper and one legged squat. Both of those exercises I perform on a regular basis. Either way, all of the exercises above will work the core part of your body that each is designed to do, while at the same time working your abs. If your goal is to maintain your abs or to improve different sections of them, then be sure to slip these exercises into your weightlifting routine and you will achieve just that.

See you in the comments.

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