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NOTE: All articles in BetterU News are written by Nick Nilsson -
http://www.fitstep.com/ unless otherwise credited.

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The Upsidedown Training Program - Learn How To Train Completely "Wrong" To Get Fantastic Results in Strength and Muscle Mass This 5 week training program will literally turn your training Upsidedown. Learn how working your small bodyparts FIRST can help you make BIG gains in EVERY single muscle group...even the major ones that you're going to work LAST!

If you've been training awhile, you've no doubt experienced the dreaded "plateau." It's a terrible place where, no matter how hard you try and no matter what you do, nothing seems to happen. Well, you're in luck...busting plateaus is my speciality!

The Upsidedown Training Program is one of my favorite "shake-up" programs and it's a pretty simple one. It's most useful when you find your smaller muscle groups are slowing down in development because, like a good trainer should, you're always doing the "big" exercises (like squats, deadlifts, barbell rows and bench press) first.

It's also VERY useful when you find you're not making progress in your big exercises too! I'll tell you more about THAT as you keep reading... One of the best ways to smash through a plateau is to go completely OPPOSITE to what all the "rules" of training say. But then again, I'm not really one to follow the "rules" to begin with! So today, I'm going to tell you basically (from a training standpoint) when and how to eat your dessert first and why it can work wonders for you in the short term and long term.

Here's the deal...conventional wisdom (a.k.a. the "rules") says "train your largest muscle groups first using the heavier exercises." This is how to you maximize the overall load on your entire body and prioritize your workload. Totally true - nothing wrong with that. Working the big muscles first generally gives you the most bang for your buck.

But what I've found is that eventually, if you keep training the big muscles first, you don't leave a lot of energy for the smaller muscles. Not a big deal for the most part...the simple truth is that the big exercises also tend to work the smaller muscles pretty hard, too.

For instance, if you're doing barbell rows, you can be quite sure your biceps are getting great stimulation as well. The same goes for bench pressing and your triceps.

When it comes to what order to work bodyparts, a standard program might look like this: chest, then shoulders then triceps...or back then biceps...or thighs then calves.

But now we're going to turn conventional wisdom COMPLETELY UPSIDEDOWN and, for a short time, work the SMALL muscles first and follow that with working the BIG muscles after. Of course, this totally goes against conventional wisdom, but who cares! The workout police aren't going to drag you out of the gym if you hit your biceps before you work your back.

So what are the reasons working the small muscles first can be so effective? Glad you asked!

1. It Gives Your Body a Break

If you've been doing the big exercises and training the big muscles for a long time, your body is going to get beaten down. Squats and deadlifts are demanding and pushing yourself hard on those takes its toll. By working the small muscles first, you're going to have less energy to destroy yourself on the big exercises, basically forcing your body to take a break from the constant pounding. This forced back-off results in a rebound effect and can actually increase your strength when you come back to hitting the big exercises first!

2. It Gives Your MIND a Break

Ever have that feeling of dread when you walk up to a fully-loaded bar to do some heavy squats? If so, that's a good sign you need to back off. Working the smaller muscles first changes your whole mindset when it comes to training. Doing a set of heavy pushdowns isn't nearly as daunting as pushing heavy squats. The reduced overall workload on the body also helps your neurological system recover from previous heavy training.

3. Focusing on The Small Muscles Gives THEM a Chance To Grow

With Upsidedown Training, you're going to hit the smaller muscles with greater volume, intensity and weight than you normally do, spurring growth and development in those small muscles beyond what they were capable of before. This leads to more rapid results in the smaller parts!

4. Strengthens Your Weak Links

Shoring up and strengthening the smaller muscles (which are usually the weakest links in the big exercises) can have a HUGE impact on your strength on those big exercises. Think of it this way...you'll suddenly have much stronger triceps. How will that affect your bench press, especially if triceps were a weak point of your benching? Your numbers will automatically go up. If your biceps always failed first with heavy rows? Now they can keep up with your back and you get more reps. Your back will grow when you go back to regular training.

Taking these 4 reasons into account, you've got yourself one powerful training program! So when you do Upsidedown Training, you're going to work the small parts FIRST with more sets than the big parts. It's going to feel VERY strange the first time you do it (trust me) and you'll feel like you're doing something wrong. But perform this Upsidedown program for 3 weeks and you'll see a difference not only in your smaller parts but (after you're done with the program) how you perform in your BIG exercises as well. Plus, it's fun to have the energy to really hit those smaller parts hard!

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 How To Do It
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While there are many ways you can structure this type of program, what I've found to provide the best results is a schedule that increases your training volume (number of sets) week by week while at the same time decreasing your rest periods in between sets. This essentially FORCES adaptation in the muscles by gradually making them do more work in a specific timeframe.

If you've ever used the "Big Beyond Belief" training system that came out a number of years ago, the framework of this program will look familiar to you. The overtraining concept (increase training volume while decreasing rest periods) they make use of in that program is VERY effective! Forcing overtraining through manipulation of these variables is a tried and true method that's been around a long time.

At the end of the 3 weeks, we will switch back to a "bigger-parts-first" type of training style, backing off on the number of sets and increasing the rest periods between sets. Your body will play "catch-up" and you should see some impressive results! You can continue on this back-off program for more than 2 weeks if you find you're still getting good results.

When it comes to exercise selection, try to stick with the "big" type of exercises even for the small bodyparts. For example, for biceps, use barbell curls, incline dumbell curls, Preacher curls, etc. For triceps, use dips, close grip bench press, lying tricep extensions, etc. For calves, use seated, standing and donkey calf raises. For shoulders, use dumbell and barbell shoulder presss.

When you work with chest, do bench pressing...for back, use barbell rows, chins and deadlifts...and for thighs, squats, stiff-legged deadlifts and leg curls.

In the program outline, I've included suggested rep ranges that I recommend for this program as well. The rep ranges are there to help you select an appropriate weight to use for your sets. Work a weight with which you will reach muscular failure (the point at which you can't do another rep in good form) in and around that rep range. Be sure to push yourself!

When it comes to splitting up the available sets, when the program calls for 4 sets, you can choose to do all 4 sets of the same exercise or mix things up (e.g. doing 2 sets of 1 exercise and 2 sets of another exercise or 3 sets of 1 and 1 set of another). Don't do more than 2 different exercises, though, because then you're spending too much time setting up and taking down exercises.

When you're working the BIG muscles, stick with just ONE exercise to keep things simple, e.g. do all your sets for chest using the bench press.

4 Training Days Per Week - 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off
I'll tell you how to modify it for a 3 training day schedule at the bottom.

Training Days - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday

Rest Days - Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday

WEEK 1

Rest period - 90 seconds between sets

Rest period - 60 seconds between sets

Rest period - 45 seconds between sets

 

WEEKS 4 and 5 (and beyond, if you like)

Rest period - 120 seconds between sets

Note the decrease in rep range, the decrease in the number of sets you are doing, and the increase in rest time. This is the easy phase where your body plays catch-up with recovery. Don't back off on intensity, however. Keep pushing all your exercises to muscular failure!

In these 2 weeks, you're going to be going back to the bigger-parts-first type of thing. You should notice increased strength in your bigger exercises as your smaller part training shored up the weak points of some of your exercises.

As I mentioned above, you can keep going with this program for longer than 2 weeks, as long as you're still seeing results.

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As for modifying the 4 day schedule to a 3 day schedule, that's easily done. Basically, do the first two days as-is but just have a day of rest in between. Then for the third session, combine Day 3 and 4 into a single total-body workout.

Here's what that day might look like:

First Week	Second Week	Third Week
3 biceps 3 triceps 3 calves 3 shoulders 2 hamstrings 1 chest 1 back 1 thighs	4 biceps 4 triceps 4 calves 4 shoulders 2 hamstrings 1 chest 1 back 1 thighs	5 biceps 5 triceps 5 calves 5 shoulders 2 hamstrings 2 chest 2 back 2 thighs

On the "regular" program that you move to after doing 3 weeks on this, just do one of the total-body workouts for that training day.

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Conclusion:

If you're ready for a change of pace, take the Upsidedown Training Program for a test drive. I think you'll not only have fun with it but also get great results in both strength and muscle growth ! It'll help you blast through your plateaus with ease.

*** NOTE: This program was taken directly from my site "Powerful Training Secrets."

On this site, you'll find TONS of unique training information, including totally new exercises, programs, fat-loss info, muscle and strength building techniques and MUCH more.

If you're interested in getting the most out of your training or if you're in a rut and want to shake things up and get your zest back for training, check it now! I've got a pile of great samples that you can for a test drive right now!

http://www.powerfultrainingsecrets.com

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Secret Training Tip #671 - How To Do The BEST PULL-UP EVER. I've done a LOT of pull-ups in my time but THIS variation beats them ALL. It's a wide-grip pull-up done with a very specific grip that will INFLATE your lats like crazy! If you want wider lats, USE THIS EXERCISE.

If you want wider lats, have I got an exercise for you! This one will blow up your lats like no other type of pull-up I've found. The secret to this one lies in WHERE you do the pull-up... But I'm not very good at keeping secrets so here it is... You do the pull-ups in the CORNER of the power rack! I know it's hard to contain yourself at this point, but try to keep it together! Once I explain HOW to do pull-ups in the corner of the rack and WHY this corner pull-up works so good, you'll be itching to get to the gym and try it. To really properly explain why it works so good, you first need to know how to do it so you can visualize how it works.

Now, to do this exercise, you're going to need a power rack. And that's pretty much it. Technically, you should also be able to do at least 6 to 8 reps of regular pull-ups in order to perform this exercise. But even if you CAN'T do that, I'm also going to show you a way to spot yourself so you CAN perform this exercise and get just as much out of it as anybody else.

So even if you can't do full pull-ups, keep reading!

First, stand facing the corner of the rack. Now reach up with your left hand and grip the top cross-bar with a PALM-FACING-AWAY grip (a.k.a. reverse grip) about 18 inches from the corner. Now reach up with your right hand and grip the side top beam with the same grip at the same relative distance from the corner as your left hand. You want to be sure to keep your grip even on the beams. Definitely experiment with grip width to best match your armspan when performing this exercise.

Now you're ready to pull!

Bend your knees and get your feet off the ground. You'll immediately notice the tension in your lats in that bottom position. Perform a regular pull-up movement, bringing your body up as high as possible.

Here's the BIG trick...as you pull yourself up, try to consciously PUSH OUTWARDS against the cross-beams of the rack. This outwards pushing combined with the pulling up puts HUGE tension on the extreme outer fibers of the lats.

So pull yourself up as high as possible then lower yourself SLOWLY and under complete control. The negative on this exercise is VERY intense and the stretch it puts on your lats is phenomenal!

As you get towards the bottom, let your arms go completely straight to maximize the stretch on the lats. Be sure to keep tension in the shoulders, though. Even though your arms are straight, you want your body to still be supported by muscle tension in the lats and not the tendons and ligaments of your shoulder joints.

Now pull back up again, remembering to push outwards against the cross-beams as you pull up.

Keep going until you can't do any more reps. It's a tough exercise and an eye-opener even for people who generally can do a lot of pull-ups!

So how do you do this exercise if you can't do a lot of (or any!) pull-ups? Self-spotting with your feet.

When you're in the rack, you can either set the safety rail or the racking pin (the hook that you rack the weight on) to about 2 feet or so off the ground. The exact height will depend on how tall your rack is and how tall YOU are. Basically, you're going to be using it as a step. As you do the pull-up, you're going to set your foot on that pin/rail and use your legs to help you get the reps.

It's important here to give yourself only as much help as you need to complete the rep you're doing, NOT so much that you're just standing up and down and going through the motions. You want to keep strong tension on the lats to get the most out of this exercise.

This technique is good not only for those who need help right off the bat but for doing forced reps when you CAN do full reps on your own. When you can't perform another full rep on your own, set your foot on the pin/rail and keep going!

You can also perform this exercise using a palms-facing-in grip, but I've found it to be less effective in terms of hitting the outer lats than the palms-facing-out version.

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If wider lats are what you're looking for, this exercise will do the trick. It's a powerful variation of an old standard and will really fire your lats up fast! Test it out in your next back workout and be sure to let me know how SORE your lats are the next day...

To check out the pictures and video of this exercise in action, click on the following link:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue55-pullups.htm

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The Four Absolutely CRITICAL Pieces Of Training Equipment You NEED To Start Your Home Gym With When you're putting together your first home gym, it's easy to get caught up in the promises of fancy multi-station machines and infomercial products. But before you do, save your money and have a close look at these four critical items that you SHOULD start your home gym with!

So you've got some space set aside in your home for a gym. You're ready to take the plunge and get some equipment so you can train without having to wait for equipment, listen to music you can't stand or wipe other people's sweat off machines.

But where do you start? What equipment should you get in order to maximize what you can do in the space you have available? Should you get a multi-station machine? Maybe a Bowflex? What's all this talk about being able to do more than 50 "club quality exercises?"

Right now, put that all out of your head. The equipment you need in order to maximize your space is simple and VERY basic and it will allow you to do literally HUNDREDS of exercises!

And the best part is, you can get it CHEAP if you know the right sources...

Essential Home Gym Equipment #1 - Adjustable Dumbells

If I could only have one single type of equipment in my home gym, it would be a good set of adjustable-weight dumbells. You can do a HUGE variety of exercises for every single bodypart with just a simple pair of dumbells. Getting adjustable dumbells means you can very easily change the weight you're working with while still not using up a whole lot of space in your home gym. If you have pre-made dumbells, you have to set aside space (or get a good dumbell rack) for rows of individual dumbells. If you've GOT the space (and the money!), pre-made dumbells are certainly more convenient to use. But if you're tight on room, lining up your dumbells may not be an option. And, of course, the pre-made dumbells are going to be a lot more expensive to get a decent range of weight for. When it comes to adjustable dumbells, you've got several options. By far, the most convenient are the Powerblock style of dumbells (Bowflex and Nautilus also have products like this). With this style, all you have to do is basically flip a switch to set your weight on the dumbell. The whole thing is interlocking - they fit into the space of just two dumbells and give you a good range of weights to work with. The other main options are the "make it yourself" free weight dumbells. With these, you've basically got weight plates and posts. With a good selection of weight plates, you can make a great range of weights. This style of dumbell will be a good deal cheaper than the Powerblock style but, on the downside, it does take more time to put the dumbells together and the weight posts sticking out can be a bit awkward. But overall, for the money, this style is still a very good investment, especially if you're looking to make some heavy dumbells. Heavy Powerblock dumbells can be quite expensive (they have expansion sets that go up to 130 lbs) but even then, are still a substantial savings over the equivalent amount of pre-made dumbells.

Essential Home Gym Equipment #2 - Adjustable Incline/Flat/Decline Bench

Once you've got the dumbells, the next thing to get for your home gym is a solid bench. Ideally, you want a bench that is easily adjustable to incline, flat and decline settings. The more versatile it is, the more use you'll get out of it and the more exercises you'll be able to do with it. And when I say solid, I mean SOLID. Don't skimp on this piece of equipment. You don't want a bench folding up under you when you're in the middle of a hard set (or EVER for that matter!). The adjustable bench will open up a wide range of exercises for you to do with your dumbells. On a side note, you might wonder why I place a bench in front of a barbell set in order of "must-have." To be honest, it's a toss-up. Ideally, it would be best to get all four of these pieces of equipment that I'm going to talk about in this article at the same time! You would do just fine getting the barbell set before the bench as well.

Essential Home Gym Equipment #3 - 300 lb Olympic Barbell Set

So you've got your dumbells and a bench. Now it's time to get your barbell set. The nice thing with barbell sets is that at most sporting goods stores you can get a decent set for a good price brand new. When you're getting a barbell set, I HIGHLY recommend going for the Olympic bar set (the 7 foot long bar). The thinner bar (known as a Standard bar) has a much smaller capacity and will start to bend if you load it with more than 200 pounds or so. The thicker bar will be easier to grip as well. Once you've got the basic barbell set, you can very easily get more weight plates as you need them. *** One VERY IMPORTANT thing to note about free weight...if you can, ALWAYS get it at a local place. If you buy it online, shipping charges will just about DOUBLE the price of your order (they charge for shipping by the pound).

Essential Home Gym Equipment #4 - The Power Rack

You've got resistance (the dumbells and barbell)...you've got apparatus (the adjustable bench)...now you need a "framework" to REALLY maximize the number of exercises you can do. When you have a rack, it opens up not only a much wider range of exercises, it also dramatically increases the safety and potential productiveness of your training. Because here's the bottom line with training at home by yourself...if you don't have a power rack/safety cage, it is NOT in your best interests to do barbell bench press or heavy barbell squatting. If you get stuck under a bench press bar with no help around, you're in big trouble! If you have to bail out on a heavy squat with no power rack to catch the bar, you have to release the bar, let it roll down your back and try and get out of the way as it crashes to the floor. And as fun as THAT sounds, it's no picnic (especially if your home gym isn't on a concrete floor)! To be honest, I even recommend people who train at commercial gyms to do their barbell bench pressing in the power rack. It's an exercise that has the potential to injure you pretty seriously if you get stuck under it with no help around! Training it in the rack is much safer AND allows you to really push yourself without fear of getting stuck under the bar, which is INVALUABLE when you really want maximum results. Even a VERY small home gym has space for a rack. My first home gym was in a 10 x 10 room and it worked like a charm! The barbell can be stored on the rack itself, the bench fits right inside the rack when not in use. Many racks also come with weight posts to hold your plates right on the sides of the rack itself, which saves even more space. Here's another great feature about some racks...the possibility of adding a weight-stack pulley to it. I got this with my rack and it was a GREAT investment. It opens up not only all the potential exercises you can do with pulleys but also exercises you can do that combine pulleys with the rack!

Honorable Mention of Essential Home Gym Equipment - The Swiss Ball

While the Swiss Ball (also known as an "exercise ball") isn't listed as an essential here, I also highly recommend grabbing one of these. They're inexpensive and they allow for a great variety of exercises to be performed, especially in combination with dumbells. Be sure to look for a ball that is good quality - burst resistant is a feature you definitely want. If a ball gets punctured (especially while you're on it!), you don't want it exploding underneath you and you falling to the ground. This is not good when it's just you on the ball...MUCH more so if you're using weight while you're on the ball! If the ball gets punctured, it should just slowly let out the air, giving you time to get off the ball.

WHERE TO GET THIS TRAINING EQUIPMENT:

When it comes to free weight, such as barbells and dumbells, your best is to stay local. As I mentioned above, shipping prices will KILL you if you order free weight online or by mail order. You can scout out garage sales for people getting rid of their stuff, or head directly to the sporting goods store.

Sports Authority (if you're in the U.S.) generally has good prices on barbells, weight plates and dumbells.

If you're interested in getting a set of PowerBlock dumbells, you can read more about them here:

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/powerblock.htm

When it comes to the bench and power racks, there are a lot of different options in terms of brands. Personally, my bench and rack are Body Solid, which I'm quite happy with. They're good quality and were very reasonably priced. Other good brands include Yukon, Nautilus, BodyCraft, and Ivanko.

As far as where to get racks and benches, online is generally your best bet, whether it be retail or getting them used through fitness classified ads. EBay is another excellent option.

Some online retailers that I've had good success with in terms of overall price and shipping are:

Fitness Blowout
http://www.fitnessblowout.com

MuscleMag NE Pennsylvania
http://www.musclemagnepa.com

Bottom line...search around and compare prices. Feel free to find a good price and shop it around to other places to see if they'll beat it!

CONCLUSION:

If you have the space for it, setting up a home gym is TOTALLY worth doing IF you're the type of person who can self-motivate. Some people don't have the space or simply need the atmosphere of a gym to really make progress - nothing wrong with that!

Your home gym doesn't need to be (and shouldn't be!) complicated. Just a few basic pieces of equipment are all you need to do a tremendous variety of exercises and get great results.

The best bodies aren't built with fancy machines or with "club quality exercises." The best bodies are built with hard work and gold-standard exercises like squats, bench press, deadlifts, barbell rows, etc., all of which can be done with the four pieces of "must-have" equipment that I've mentioned here: dumbells, barbells, benches and racks!

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