Exercises At-home Workouts to Get Six-pack Abs

If your goal is to get abs fast, then it's important to do a combination of exercises that'll target all these different areas in your abdominal wall like the ones on the list below. In addition to instructions on how to do each move, straight from Anna herself, you'll also find info on what specific areas of your abs they target. Just pick a few ab exercises from the list below and turn them into the ultimate ab workout.

Assisted Reverse Side Situp

How to: Start lying on left side, resting most of weight on left hip, with legs in the air at a 45-degree angle, and place left forearm on the floor for support. Bend knees as you bring them toward chest, and lift chest to meet them. Lower back to start. That’s one rep. Do 15 reps on each side.

Unilateral powerhouse

This one is great for targeting the deep core muscles and emphasizes good posture.

Do three rounds of the following workout:

   - 20 Dumbbell Renegade Rows
   - 20 Single-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Press with a twist (each side)
   - 8 Split Squats (each side)
   - 30 Dumbbell Suitcase Walking Lunges (each side)
   - 8 Single-leg Squats with Dumbbell Lateral Raise (weight in hand of the working leg), each side
   - 15 Single-leg Deadlift with Upright Row (each side)
   - Side plank with 15 dumbbell flyes, each side

No-crunch workout

There’s so much stabilizing going on here, your entire core will be burning way more than your abs do after a hundred crunches.

Do three rounds of the following:

    - 20 Lying Bicycle Crunches with Overhead Dumbbell (hold the weight just off the ground, but don’t let it touch)
    - 10 Pushups
    - 1-minute Side Plank
    - 20 Supermans
    - Side Plank with 15 Dumbbell Flyes (each side)
    - Forearm Plank Series: Hold a plank for 15 seconds in each position:
    – Forearm plank
    – Right leg lifted
    – Left leg lifted
    – Right arm back to hip
    – Left arm back to hip
    – Right arm and left leg lifted
    – Left arm and right leg lifted
    – Forearm plank

Leg Raise and Reach Clap

How to: Start lying on back with legs lifted in air at 45-degree angle and arms by side pressing into mat. Without letting lower back lift off floor, raise legs to hip level while curling upper body off floor and bringing hands to clap behind knees. Return to start. That’s one rep. Do 15 reps.

Plank variations

Because holding still in a simple forearm plank for an eternity is both boring and counterproductive, most people lose form after a minute, causing strain on their back. This routine keeps you moving so you keep seeing results sans the back pain. Bonus: No equipment needed.

Do the following plank series twice, resting between series:

    - 15 Forearm Side Plank with “Thread the Needle” (curl top arm under and back up), each side
    -  10 Pushups to Straight-arm Side Plank
    - 1-minute Side Plank
    - Forearm Planks with 20 Toe Taps (do all 20 with one foot then switch sides)
    - Forearm Plank with 20 Side-to-Side Hip Dips
    - 20 Knee-to-Shoulder Knee-ins
    - 20 Knee-to-Opposite-Shoulder Knee-ins
    - 15 Forearm Side Plank with “Thread the Needle”

Plank With Hip Dip

How to: Start in a forearm plank position. Engage abs, squeeze butt, and slowly dip right hip to right side but stop just before the touch the floor. Reverse the movement and repeat on the left side. That's one rep. Do 15 reps.

Bicycle Crunch

How to: Start lying on back with left knee pulled toward chest, right leg extended in air at 45-degree angle, shoulder blades and head curled off mat, hands behind head with elbows wide, and torso rotated toward left knee. Reverse the position of legs while rotating torso toward right knee. Return to start. That's one rep. Do 15 reps.

Deep V workout

The aim of this one: to create that deep-V definition in your abs. Do three rounds of the following circuit:

    - 12 Lying Alternating Leg Lifts (each side)
    - 20 Supine Reverse Crunches with Overhead Dumbbell (hold the weight right above the ground, and raise your legs up to a reverse crunch)
    - 20 Bicycle Crunches (make sure to fully extend your legs)
    - 10 Inchworms (hold briefly in plank position)
    - 20 Knee-to-Shoulder Knee-ins
    - 20 Knee-to-Opposite-Shoulder Knee-ins

Read More

Everything You Need To Know About Eggs Protein ?

If Egg is Your go-to Protein Source, You Need to Know this!

Ah, the humble egg. Eat it by itself for breakfast, or whip it into a meringue masterpiece. And at 6 grams of protein per egg, it’s a great ingredient to keep in your vegetarian repertoire!

But how much do you really know about eggs? Like, what do the colors mean? And what is free-range, actually? We’re breaking down everything you need to know about eggs before we dive into the egg-cellent recipes this week!

 Eggs have been recognized as one of the best bodybuilding foods. Rich in protein, low in everything else, if you skip the yolks, and healthy when cooked in a variety of delicious recipes. However, what does supplementing with eggs look like?

•     AA Eggs: Have a small air pocket with a white that stands well around the yolk

•     A Eggs: May have a larger air pocket and a thinner egg white

•     B Eggs: The air pocket may be large with possible staining on the shell 

What do egg labels mean?

You may see a variety of different labels slapped onto your carton of eggs. Here’s what they all mean!

    Cage-Free: Hens are not confined to a cage; however, they may not be running happily around a field. Cage-free can constitute a wide array of chicken environments, from cramped in a warehouse to wandering around outside.
    Free-Range: Hens are free to roam outside for at least part of the day.
    Natural: The term “natural” is not regulated so this could mean anything the manufacturer wants it to mean.
    Organic: The term “organic”, unlike “natural”, is mandated. Certified organic hens are fed organic vegetarian diets free from genetically-

modified foods or foods produced with pesticides. The hens do not receive antibiotics or vaccines, and are often also cage-free.
Pasteurized: Pasteurized eggs have been heated in their shells to 140 degrees F for 3.5 minutes. This kills many of the bacteria, namely Salmonella, making this a good option for those with weakened immune systems.

 Why Should I Care About Egg Protein?

University research studies have shown that egg protein stimulates muscle growth in the body and boosts the creation of protein. This is probably because of the large concentrations of leucine, around 9%. Leucine is an essential, branch chain amino acid and it’s the acid that takes care of synthesis stimulation when it comes to muscle mass in the after-meal period. Not a lot of things have more leucine than an egg – pure WHEY protein being one of them.
Eggs have an incredibly high percentage of leucine, anywhere from 10 to 20 percent more than other sources. Also, egg proteins have a much more anabolic effect on the body than soy or wheat protein. It even beat them in the university study, where people who took egg protein increased their body mass much more than the people who took the other two proteins, even when they had the same amount.
When you eat an egg, your body practically absorbs all of the contents and after eating one, your body gets a surge in plasma amino acids, which have an effect on the muscles themselves. Muscles are vulnerable when it comes to blood amino acid levels and so they grow even stronger than before, with amazing speed and consistency.our food intake in the short term.
So, if you want to lose some body fat, you should focus on eggs a little bit more, especially if you want to feel full most of the time. Eating egg protein has a lot more benefits though – it has a lot of macronutrients, as well as vitamins and minerals. All of these components provide a substantial boost to the overall healthiness of the egg.

 So When Should I Eat Egg Protein?

 How much of the stuff you eat will be egg protein is up to you, but there are of course way to calculate the needed amount. Factors in this equation are things like body weight, protein intake, amount of other protein food eaten etc. Because eggs have a lot of leucine, you don’t actually need to satisfy all of your leucine needs through eating tons of eggs – you can always measure and most of the time you will realize you don’t actually need that much.
If you weigh 200 pounds and you’re only eating egg protein, you will need anywhere from thirty to forty grams of it per day to maintain what you have and grow even more muscle mass. If you wanted to do the same but used soy instead of egg protein, you’d probably need about fifty grams of it for the same effect.
You can eat egg protein whenever you want and it will still have very positive effects. However, you will often see people consuming it before or after their exercises. McMaster University studies headed by Dr. Stuart Phillips showed that eating as little as five grams of egg protein after working out would boost your recovery time and protein synthesis speed. Don’t clap yet though – the best results of the study were those people who had twenty to forty grams of egg protein daily.

Eggs go through your system really quickly, so in order to slow down the absorption process, supplement companies have put egg protein and whey in combination with casein and other slowly-absorbing protein. What they’re trying to do is make a powder that will provide a steady protein release into your blood flow. It’s unknown if this actually does any good.

Read More

Skinny People Build Muscle Differently / Tips

If you are on of those lucky people that are blessed with a skinny body that never puts on fat then you also know you carry a curse as well that makes it very difficult to put on muscle mass too. Skinny people build muscle quite differently to other body types you see and if you need to gain weight and pack on muscle you need to know how to gain muscle mass in a different way.

Tired of people telling you how lucky you are because you can't gain weight?  Kick your body into gear with these  tips for packing on the pounds.

if you need to gain weight and pack on muscle you need to know how to gain muscle mass in a different way.

in any activity in life there are three phases: Understanding, planning and action! So before you start building a workout schedule and hitting the weights you need to understand what it is that stops your skinny body from gaining muscle like other people who seem to be able to put on bulk but just looking at some weights and eating a diet of Twinkies and hamburgers. You see the same blessing of being skinny and not putting on FAT is also what limits muscles growth because of your high metabolism.

In case you do not know about metabolism, it is basically the process of your body breaking down food intake and converting it to energy which is used immediately, to keep you warm, stored as fat cells, used to repair and grow muscle or even just wasted. A skinny person will find they chew through energy and nutrients at a very fast rate leaving very little excess to be stored as fat cells and also nothing left to repair and grow muscles which both happen at the end of these phases. This does not mean you can never be fat nor can you never gain muscles it just means your approach to working out, diet and fitness needs to be altered from what the bodybuilding magazines suggest because they are not selling you the things you need to actually work WITH your metabolism.

How to gain weight quickly comes down to a few basic concepts when skinny people build muscle, or try to at least.

    Diet & Meal Planning
    How You Exercise & Lift Weights
    Workout & Resting Regime (this is often neglected by people looking to gain muscle mass fast)

Read More

Best 3 Golden Rules for Muscle Growth !

As it is with everything in life, there are two ways to do things - do it as everyone else is doing it without questioning, or try to get the maximum output for the efforts you put in. When it comes to weight training, sadly most people don't have a clue about how to train.

 #1. The specific order in which you perform your exercises directly affects the order of muscles you fatigue, which greatly influences your gains from the whole ordeal. And if you want your overall size and power to grow, you’ll need to emphasize the big muscle groups. A good rule of thumb is to hit the smaller muscles only after you’ve finished with the heavy lifting and drained all energy from the big ones, so never place isolation movements which tire out the small muscles before compound exercises.

#2. Always place weightlifting before cardio. If not, long cardio sessions will use up most of your strength and fatigue your muscles before you even touch a bar. Keep in mind that this rule also applies for the day before having a heavy lifting session. On the other hand, if you do cardio the next day after a lifting session, the fresh muscle gains can improve your performance.

#3. Finally, try to put free weights before exercise machines. Free weights allow you to train functional movements with full range of natural motion, protect the health of your joints and increase muscle coordination, but most importantly, they work almost all muscles in your body. On the other hand, machines are great for isolating smaller muscle groups and we’ve already discussed their place in an efficient muscle-building routine. In general, free weight exercises are more difficult and place a lot more stress on the body, which is essentially the key to a ripped physique.
Got it? Good, because it’s really as simple as that. Now go and make every one of your iron-pumping sessions count!

Read More