Build Big Shoulders: 6 Press Exercises For Hardcore Delts

Click this link to read my latest article in Tiger Fitness on using the shoulder press exercise for shoulder development.

https://content.tigerfitness.com/big-shoulders-6-exercises/

I outline the advantages of using different pieces of equipment for the press. At the end of the article I give you a number of different training routines to use.

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Ask Well: 20 Seconds to Better Fitness?

Is there a specific amount of time at which to keep your heart rate up during interval training to get the most benefit?

A

The answer probably depends on your capacity for suffering, according to scientists who study high-intensity interval training, which is designed to briefly strain your body to its limits. Studies show that these short bursts of very intense exercise lead to beneficial physiological changes similar to those achieved after much longer moderate workouts. But precisely how much or little intense exercise is best remains in question.

When Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada and an expert on intervals first began studying their effects, he asked young male volunteers to grunt through all-out 30-second intervals performed at 100 percent of the men’s aerobic capacity. The volunteers became much more fit after a few minutes a week of such strenuous interval training, but they also generally hated the process, Dr. Gibala said.

So he and his colleagues developed a less taxing 60-second interval program that requires the hard exercise be performed at only about 90 percent of a volunteer’s maximum aerobic capacity. The drawback was that the men had to do more of these one-minute intervals to gain the same fitness benefits as from the 30-second variety.

Recently, Dr. Gibala and other researchers have been experimenting with intervals as short as 20 seconds performed all-out, as hard as someone possibly can stand, followed by a recovery period of two minutes between each interval. The thinking, Dr. Gibala said, is that these 20-second intervals, although grueling, are more tolerable than 30 seconds of the same exercise and more potent than gentler 60-second intervals. The results so far are encouraging, he said, with volunteers gaining fitness and improving their health after only a few of the 20-second intervals per week.

Or for those, like me, who find even 20 seconds of absolutely all-out physical effort daunting, researchers in Denmark have concocted a high-intensity interval training workout that requires only 10-second bursts of burning, painful effort, preceded by 30 seconds of gentle exercise and 20 seconds of moderate effort. I like this workout.

courtesy NY Times

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12,000 Visits!

My goodness! This blog became more popular than I could've hoped for! I'm sure the two recent, full posts (Mothers of Diabolik Lovers & When Destiny Takes Over IV) had a big part to play. Therefore, here's a image to convey my thanks:

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A Workout in Four Minutes-Andrew Weil MD

If your typical excuse for not exercising is a lack of time, you may need a new one. Research has shown that even a four-minute workout - or one that requires as little as seven minutes of your time three times a week - does the same job as 30 minutes of exercise three or more days per week. They key is giving the short workout maximal effort and repeating it several times, which is why it is called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT.

The first study showing that HIIT can make you fit quickly came from Canada's McMaster University. Physiologist Martin Gibala Ph.D. and his team found that three-minute intervals on a stationary bike - 30 seconds of intense pedaling followed by a brief rest, repeated five or six times - led to the same muscle-cell adaptations as a bike ride lasting much longer, an hour and a half to two hours.

The next year, Dr. Gibala's group reported that HIIT worked better for fat-burning than did conventional aerobics. Participants in this study were divided into two teams. One did 20 weeks of conventional aerobics while the other did 15 weeks of HIIT. The first group burned 48 percent more calories per session than the HIIT group, but those in the HIIT group burned 900 percent more fat over the 15 weeks than the first group burned in 20 weeks.

Since then, more and more studies have shown that HIIT can match the effects of longer, more leisurely workouts if you're willing to push yourself really, really hard for a few minutes a few times a week.

In an article in the American College of Sports' Medicine Journal's May 2013 issue, performance coach Brett Klika and exercise physiologist Chris Jordan described how you can cram a combination of aerobic exercise and resistance training into seven minutes using your body weight instead of machines or free weights. The only piece of equipment you need for this High Intensity Circuit Training (HICT) is a chair (to step up on).

Seven minutes may seem like an impossibly short time to commit to a useful workout, but HIIT and HICT aren't easy. You would have to be pretty fit to get through the tough seven minutes, let alone repeat the exercise sequence two or three times as the article suggests. Mr. Jordan told The New York Times that even the bare minimum of seven minutes of HICT are not pleasant - on a one to 10 discomfort scale, he figures you're likely to be at an eight for most of the time (the rests between exercises with this plan last for only 10 seconds).

As for that four-minute workout, the idea comes from Norway where researchers tackled the question of how little time you need to devote to working out for fitness and health. First, they developed a four-minute workout to be performed at 90 percent of study participants' maximum heart rate. Initially, this had to be repeated four times with a three-minute rest in between each interval. But since the researchers knew that time-consuming workouts aren't very popular, they recruited 26 overweight and sedentary but otherwise healthy mid-life men and divided them into two groups. One group did the 16-minute workout (four repetitions of the research team's original four-minute workout) at 90 percent of maximal heart rate three times a week for 10 weeks. The other men did only a single four-minute run (at 90 percent of maximal heart rate) three times a week. The men in both groups made the same fitness gains including lower blood pressure and better blood sugar levels and a 10 percent improvement in endurance capacity.

The latest study on this subject is aimed at regular people (as opposed to those who relish punishing interval training) who want to prevent weight gain. Researchers at the University of Utah determined that each minute of high intensity activity lowers the risk of obesity by five percent for women and two percent for men. That intense activity should equal 2,020 counts per minute of exercise as measured by a gadget called an accelerometer or the equivalent of walking at three miles per hour.

Is it right for you? While HIIT and its variants may deliver the same health and fitness benefits as longer workouts, a 30-minute daily bike ride or walk is far more attractive to some people. Less-intense exercise may also be the only option for those with health issues such as joint pain or impaired heart or lung function.

The bottom line is that HIIT is a faster, but not necessarily better way to get and stay in shape. If it appeals and you have no health issues preventing it, give it a try - but if you have any doubts at all about your ability to safely perform high-intensity workouts, be sure to consult your physician first.   

Sources:

Martin J. Gibala et al, "Effect of short-term sprint interval training on human skeletal muscle carbohydrate metabolism during exercise and time-trial performance," Journal of Applied Physiology, June 2006.

Martin J. Gibala, "High-intensity Interval Training: A Time-efficient Strategy for Health Promotion" Canada Current Sports Medicine Reports 2007, 6:211-213

Brett Klika and Chris Jordan, "HIGH-INTENSITY CIRCUIT TRAINING USING BODY WEIGHT: Maximum Results with Minimal Investment," American College of Sports Medicine's Health & Fitness Journal: May/June 2013 - Volume 17 - Issue 3 - p 8-13 doi: 10.1249/FIT.0b013e31828cb1e8

Gretchen Reynolds, "The Scientific Seven-Minute Workout," The New York Times, accessed September 9, 2013, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout/

Gretchen Reynolds, "The Four Minute Workout," The New York Times, accessed September 9, 2013, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/the-4-minute-workout/

A.E. Tijønna et al, "Aerobic high-intensity intervals improve VO2max more than moderate training".. PLoS One. 2013 May 29;8(5):e65382. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065382.

Jessie X. Fan et al, "Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity and Weight Outcomes: Does Every Minute Count?". American Journal of Health Promotion: September/October 2013, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 41-49. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4278/ajhp.120606-QUAL-286

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Metabolic Testing for Weight Loss

By Riana Rohmann

Understanding metabolism is difficult because it is highly personal. There are formulas and ways to guess what your metabolic rate may be, but unless you actually get a metabolic test done, the estimations may be inaccurate. Too many calories results in weight gain, but too few can slow metabolism and hinder weight loss as well. Knowing your metabolic rate will aid in weight loss, as it will help you figure out how many calories you need to consume to maintain daily energy needs without going overboard.

Definition

According to Medline Plus, metabolism refers to all the physical and chemical processes in the body that convert or use energy. Food is so much more than the delicious things you eat; it is the fuel that keeps the body working. All body processes require energy, from digestion, to pumping the heart, to breathing. If too much food is consumed and your metabolism cannot convert it all to energy, then it gets stored as fat. If you consume less than your body needs, it relies on fat stores to make up the rest of the energy requirements.

Norms

Basal metabolic rate, or BMR, is the minimum number of calories your body needs to function in a completely rested state. That is a baseline measurement, because when you add walking, moving and activities of daily living, that caloric requirement increases. To calculate a simple estimate of what your BMR is, multiply your weight in pounds by 10 if you are female and by 11 if you are male.

• Testing

The basic metabolic test will estimate your BMR and even add in estimations for working out and activities of daily living. According to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the test usually involves breathing into a tube for about 10 minutes. The test calculates the amount of oxygen inhaled to the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled. The more oxygen your body uses, the higher your BMR. It will generally tell you if you fall within BMR norms for your age and gender. If your metabolism falls below average, there are ways to increase it to facilitate weight loss.

Factors

There are many factors that influence how fast your metabolism is. It is a misconception that the more fat you have, the slower your metabolism is. In reality, the more mass you have, the more energy is required to maintain it, so generally heavier people have slightly higher BMR than thinner people. However, muscle burns far more calories at rest than fat, so athletes will generally have higher metabolisms than others. Age and gender also influence metabolism. Generally, as you age, metabolism decreases.

Increasing Metabolism

A common belief is that by cutting calories drastically, you will lose weight. However, your body needs food to convert to energy. Without adequate food, energy levels go down, so metabolism decreases. You may lose weight at first, but it is prone to coming right back when a normal amount of food is consumed, because your metabolism sank so low. A better option is to eat small meals throughout the day so your body is constantly fueled and metabolism is constantly working to create energy. Have a metabolic test to determine your BMR and try to consume at least that amount of calories daily; that way you will still be in a deficit when you factor in daily lifestyle activities.

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