The first question out of most guy’s mouths when we discuss working out is “how much do you bench?” A kid asked me that question recently so this epidemic is not just limited to adult males. I admit that I am guilty of bench press love at times–pushing heavy weights on the bench makes me feel strong. Because of this fascination with the bench press, a lot of guys have an upper body imbalance. This imbalance manifests itself in the form of “rounded shoulders” or it makes your shoulders more injury prone.

There are levels of severity to the imbalance. I’ve seen guys at the gym who have a very visible imbalance. Their posture looks off and you can tell that is not what fit human body is supposed to look like regardless of how much you can bench. My upper body imbalance was never too severe–being an avid reader of Men’s Health helps a lot. Ever since I discovered this problem, I’ve made sure to work my back harder than my chest. I also recommend putting back exercises before chest exercises in your routine–back muscles are bigger anyway.

There are mathematical ways to measure if you have a back/chest imbalance with rulers and lines and other semi-complicated things. Here is a way to figure out if you have an imbalance by comparing exercises. You should be able to chin as much as you can bench. Unless you want to strap a bunch of weight to yourself and find out your max chin, you can do as many chin ups as you can and then see if you can bench your body weight the same number of times. If all is equal or fairly close, you are probably okay. If your chest is significantly stronger, get cracking on improving your back.

Lucky for your back and shoulders, it is amongst the least favorite places for fat to hang out so getting them defined is a lot easier than getting your abs defined. Every guy wants the coveted V-shaped torso and women love it. The best way to get your body into balance and improve your shoulder strength is to put as many total body compound exercises into your routine as possible. My favorite one of them all is the deadlift. The more muscles you activate during a workout, the more growth hormones your body releases. This will help every muscle in your body grow faster.

Rows are also fantastic for building your back–bent over row, single arm row, etc. I’m not the biggest fan of shrugs but, they’ll work your traps. Shoulder presses with a barbell or individual dumbbells are good. You can end all your workouts with a few sets of chin-ups. Instead of doing them quickly, count and hold for two seconds at the bottom and top of each chin-up. It’ll be a lot harder and you’ll get a much better workout. If you are a bit weak in chin-ups, try the reverse pyramid technique that I mentioned a while ago.

Don’t ignore your back. It’s awesome!

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There is a common myth believed by a lot of people. It is taught by high school gym teachers–at least mine did. It is given as advice and accepted as truth. It is the myth of creating muscle tone by lifting light weights a very high number of repetitions. The reality is that lifting a light weight a ton of times is going to do nothing–at least not what you are looking to do.

I’ve always wondered where this myth came from or why people believe that it makes any sense. I believed it once upon a time until Men’s Health set me straight. It may make sense if you believe you can spot reduce fat–you can’t. Fat is lost proportionally throughout the body. Some places will always have more fat than others. Trying to spot reduce fat through exercise is literally an exercise in futility.

A more fundamental question to ask is why do people want to “tone”? I don’t think anyone is actually trying to improve muscle tone but rather, muscle definition. The toning crowd wants muscle definition but doesn’t want to be huge. They fear looking like a bodybuilder. I find that laughable because they think they can go to the gym and lift hard enough to even remotely achieve those kinds of results. It takes years of dedication to look like the bodybuilders we see on TV. So, you toners, let’s not get ahead of yourselves.

The only way to achieve muscle definition is to reduce body fat so that your muscles show through better. The process of lifting a light weight doesn’t do much for fat loss–you are absolutely better off on the treadmill. To speed up the process of muscle definition you can reduce fat and make your muscles bigger. A bigger muscle will look more defined. Worrying about becoming Arnold is really the least of your worries. Go grab something heavy that you can lift 8 - 12 times; not something you can lift 30 or more times.

Now, if you really are one of those people who believe in this toning myth, I really hope you try what I’m suggesting. Toning really is a gigantic waste of time. Lifting heavier weights will actually be work. It will be a lot harder than lifting bean cans but, you’ll actually be accomplishing something! I have a friend who used to believe this myth. I showed him the light. He is now in the best shape I’ve ever seen him. He doesn’t look like a bodybuilder and he probably never will. However, he is lean and mean–more “toned” than ever before.

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I’ll admit it. I hate stretching. In fact, I don’t even believe the regular run-of-the-mill stretches are beneficial to your workout. They probably increase flexibility and that is important but why not do those stretches after a workout when your muscles are warm? Why do them when your muscles are cold? Seems pretty illogical to me to try and stretch something that isn’t really ready for it.

I’ve read Mark Verstegen’s Core Performance and take a lot of his ideas to heart. His training methodology is about creating useful bodies–I’m all about that. He preaches more active and dynamic stretches. Amongst my favorite of his stretches is the Inchworm–you’ll find it in his book. You’ll feel like you actually did something after doing this stretch.

The goal of this stretch is to start with your hands in front of your toes and then walking them slowly as far forward as you can and then slowly walking your feet to your hands. It pretty much mimics the movement of a cartoon worm. You should repeat for a set of five.  This move stretches your hamstrings, calves, glutes, and lower back. It sure beats any 30 second toe-touch holds–how boring are those?

If you still want to do the stretches they taught you in high school, do them after your workout.

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Lift heavy and fast? Theoretically, it is impossible. Your body takes more time to gather the resources required to move a heavy weight than it does a light weight. However, if you were able to lift a heavy weight fast, you would theoretically get phenomenal results in the shortest amount of time.

Since you can’t really lift heavy and fast, we’ll have to use a trick that is almost the same. The benefits is not something to ignore. This article talks about this particular trick and a handful of others. The idea behind lifting heavy and fast is to lift heavy and then immediately lift fast. This is actually very similar to the concept of drop sets except you aren’t aiming to lift to failure and then going to a lower weight.

To use the heavy and fast trick, you’ll want to use a weight that you can lift about 5 times without going to failure. Immediately after the 5 reps, you will do an explosive exercise targeting the same muscle. If you started with a bench press, you could follow with plyo-pushups or some other weight that will allow you to lift fast.

You can do this with any muscle or muscle group. You just need a heavy regular lift and an explosive move to immediately follow it with.

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I’m not the biggest fan of long distance running unless it is in the name of competition. I can tolerate it a lot more when I am outside where the ground isn’t always the same and other factors can at least surprise you. Hamster running on a treadmill is by far my most hated gym activity. With that being the case, you can probably guess that I don’t do much of it.

Instead of long marathonesque running, I always prefer interval sprints or what is more popularly known as High Intensity Interval Training–HIIT. The idea behind HIIT is that you put light-pace work in between short sprints where you go as hard as you can. My usual HIIT treadmill routine is a light two minute jog followed by loops of a 30 second sprint and a one minute 30 second light jog resting period until I hit 20 minutes. I also raise the incline of the treadmill to better mimic real outdoors running.

I haven’t used my treadmill routine in a while because I’ve been running outdoors–the weather is nice so why not go outside? I happen to live in an somewhat hilly area. My general route leads me going mostly downhill in the beginning and then mostly uphill the rest of the way. I use the same HIIT concept except I do the sprints when I am going uphill. The hills keep the running interesting and challenging.

Now only recently, I’ve started sprinting up this rather steep hill. I don’t know exactly how steep it is but, when I drive my car up it, I can feel the car really trying–I drive a Nissan Altima. From my perspective, sprinting up relatively steep hills is a lot more satisfying than a couple mile run with small hill sprints throughout.

It is known that HIIT is a better way to torch fat because it creates a similar effect as weight lifting: increased caloric usage throughout the day regardless of what you are doing. Taking the concept of HIIT and nature’s landscape will help you lose fat faster and be a lot more fun than time spent on the human hamster wheel.

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I love watching the Summer Olympics every four years. I rarely watch the winter games–I enjoy the X Games year round. The best athletes in the world come together to compete and show the world what they’ve worked so hard to accomplish in the last several years of their lives. Olympic athletes train for hours everyday for years. Their dedication to becoming the best athlete that they can be is astounding.

The rest of us can’t afford to put our focus solely on being an athlete–let alone an Olympic caliber one. While Olympians may be superhuman, we can still take lessons from them and apply it to our lives. Here are seven fitness lessons that we can learn from the Olympics.

The discipline and mental attitude of an Olympian is what gives them their edge. Most of us can’t even stick to a workout plan or goal for more than a few weeks. They work steadily for years constantly believing in what they are doing. Results rarely come overnight. It takes a strong mind to weather the storms without getting discouraged and giving up.

If we only have one take away, it should be the strong mental attitude; to always believe that we can achieve whatever goal we set forth. It might not come instantly but, we will get there if we stay focused and keep working at it. Worthwhile goals don’t come easy or they wouldn’t be worthwhile.

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To follow up my previous post about push-ups and to continue my love for this particular exercise, Men’s Health has a great article about the different variations of the push-up for a more total body exercise. By the time you’re able to do 50 straight push-ups, you should employ some of these variations to your routine to keep things fresh. Muscles respond best when you shock them with new and different exercise routines.

The push-up has the wonderful quality of being able to not only work your chest, shoulders, and triceps like the bench press but, also your back, abs, and glutes. These variations will work even more muscles as they’ll force you to use the often ignored stabilizing muscles.

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Push-ups are considered the best exercise you can do without any equipment. I personally love the push-up and all the variations of it that you can do. I don’t know where the 50 push-up benchmark came from but, being able to do 50 push-ups has always seemed like a feat of fitness. I feel the 100 push-up mark is more impressive than 50 but, I don’t always maintain the endurance necessary for that feat.

Men’s Health has a nice article on just this topic. This particular article uses the bench press to help get you to 50 push-ups in 10 weeks. How long you’ll need to be able to do 50 straight push-ups is largely dependent on where you are now on the fitness scale.

If you don’t want to use bench presses to get to 50 push-ups, I have an alternative. I learned of this technique with pull-ups but, it can applied to anything. It is basically an upside down pyramid. Let’s say you can do 10 push-ups. You can take that down by half to 5. You would say 5 push-ups, rest 10 seconds, do 4, rest 10 seconds, do 3, and so on until 0.

With this technique you’ll have done 5+4+3+2+1, or 15, push-ups. You can reduce the rest period or start with more push-ups. The idea is that this will allow you to do more repetitions with small amounts of rest–almost like doing them straight. You can keep increasing the number of push-ups you start with as it gets easier.

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