Part of the reason that it is so difficult to build muscle is that there is so much misinformation circulating around the fitness world. When you look through the muscle magazines or browse the internet, all you see are these mammoth dudes whose mother’s probably put steroids in their bottles from the time they were newborns. All of the advice in these magazines is for these huge guys and has little relevance to you.

What you need is advice from a formerly skinny guy who has unlocked the secrets to packing on solid muscle mass. The expert in this field is Vince DelMonte. He is a former stick-thin distance runner who couldn’t gain muscle to save his life. He finally met a guy whom he calls the “Skinny Guy Savior” who taught him the right way to build muscle. Since then, Vince has transformed his body and now shares his knowledge with other skinny guys who are struggling to build muscle. It is a pretty interesting story and you can watch a video about it here.

Vince has a system that teaches skinny guys how to pack on muscle mass. The system is called No-Nonsense Muscle Building. If you’ve never checked it out before, now is a great time to grab a copy. Vince just started offering a $1 trial of his system. For just one dollar you can check it out and see what you think. You get to try it out for 21 days which should give you plenty of time to decide if you like it.

Click here to get the $1 dollar offer

With the $1 offer, Vince is also giving away a ton of bonuses. He calls it the Hardgainers Success Kit. I won’t list the bonuses here because you can read all about them when you click on the link above. There are 12 bonuses in all and you get some pretty cool and useful stuff. The only catch is that I don’t know how long Vince is going to leave this offer up so you should check it out now.

Click Here For The No-Nonsense Muscle Building (+ 12 Free Bonuses) $1 Trial Offer

The Different Abdominal Muscles And Their Functions

There are four main muscles that make up your abdominal muscles.

• Rectus Abdominis
• Transversus Abdominis
• Internal Obliques
• External Obliques

The rectus abdominis is the muscle that runs down the middle of the abdomen. It is the muscle that gives you the six pack abs look. Even though it looks like eight individual muscles, it is actually one muscle. The rectus abdominis is responsible for drawing the ribs and the pelvis closer together.

The transversus abdominis runs across your middle section much like a weight belt. This muscle holds your abdomen in. If you want a flat stomach, this is the muscle that will do the trick.

The internal and external obliques work together. Their main function is to rotate the torso and stabilize the abdomen.

Getting To Know Your Abdominal Muscles

Talking about these muscles is helpful, but seeing them really brings it home. Check out the video below to see exactly where these muscles are and what they look like. The video is a little dry with some big anatomical words in it, but I think it is worth watching so you can better understand your abdominal muscles. If you want to build great six pack abs, you need to know which muscles to work on. Just ignore all the big words and focus on learning the location and function of the rectus abdominis, transversus abdominis, internal obliques, and external obliques.

How To Strengthen Your Abdominal Muscles

Knowing where your abdominal muscles are located and what they do will only get you so far. To get a flat stomach and a perfect six pack, you must learn the right way to build and expose these muscles. To date, one of the best programs I have found for teaching these principles is The Truth About Six Pack Abs. It is a must read for anybody who is serious about getting a flat stomach and amazing six pack abs.

There is nothing fancy about this workout. There are no complicated moves and you will only be using your own body weight. If you are a beginner and still unable to do body weight exercises, don’t worry because I will tell you how you can modify these exercises to make them easier (by the way, I learned these modifications from P90X).

In addition to your body weight, there are a few things you will need. Actually, only one of them is required and the rest are completely optional. Here is the list along with my recommendations.

1. A Pull-Up Bar (required): I own the Iron Gym and it has always worked great for me. It is also one of the least expensive ones out there. If you want something a little more fancy and expensive, check out this one from Maximum Fitness Gear.
2. Push-Up Bars/Grips (optional): If you’ve never used these before, they make push-ups less stressful on your wrists. The most popular ones out there are probably the Perfect Pushups. I have a few other’s in the Home Exercise Equipment section of my Amazon.com store. You can also use dumbbells as push-up bars (another P90X trick) if you have some laying around.
3. A Timer (optional): There are a couple of variations of this workout and one of them is timed. If you need a good exercise timer, check out this one.

At Home Workout

Now that you have all of your equipment, let’s get to it. As I mentioned before, you will be doing three exercises: pull-ups, push-ups, and squats. There are two variations of the routine.

Variation 1

Do the routine as many times as you can in 20 minutes (or until you die, whichever comes first).

Variation 2

Do the routine once per minute for 20 minutes. You start at the beginning of the minute and after you finish the exercises you get to rest until the beginning of the next minute. For example, if it takes you 30 seconds to do the routine, you get 30 seconds to rest. If it takes you 40 seconds, you get 20 seconds of rest.

I know taking a rest sounds appealing, but I recommend you go with variation 1 the first time you do this. After the first round or two, I think you will find that it takes you longer than a minute to get through the routine anyway.

The Routine

Okay, enough delay. It’s time to talk about the actual routine.

5 Pull-Ups
10 Push-Ups
15 Squats

That’s all there is to it. Do all three exercises, for a total of 30 reps combined, and that counts as one time through the routine. If you are doing variation 1, once you finish the routine you just do it all again and keep going until time runs out or you can’t go anymore. For variation 2, remember you have to go once per minute so you’re going to have to be pretty good at it to pull that off.

Modifications

I promised you I would give you some tips on how to modify the exercises, so here they are. We are using body weight here, so the idea behind each modification is to decrease the amount of your body involved in the exercise.

• Pull-ups:  Put a chair under your pull-up bar. Depending on how much assistance you need, put either one or two feet on the chair as you perform your pull-ups. Use your legs to assist you in doing the pull-ups. Two feet will make it easier than one foot and the closer the chair is to being directly under the pull-up bar, the easier the pull-ups will be. Please be very careful with this modification because chairs can tip over and you could fall.
• Push-ups: The easiest modification for push-ups is to put your knees down. In a normal push-up, you hands and toes are the only things touching the floor. With the modification, your hands, knees, and feet will all be touching the floor. Another modification is to decrease your range of motion. This means that you don’t lower your chest as far down as you would in a normal push-up.
• Squats: As with push-ups, decreasing your range of motion is an easy way to modify a squat. However, if you can avoid it, I would recommend that you do not use this method. The reason I say this is because decreasing the range of motion also decreases the benefit of the exercise because you are not engaging all of the same muscles as you would otherwise. A better modification is to place your hand on a steady object (one that is about waist high) while you perform the squats. You can use your arms to take some of the burden off of your legs.

I’d love to hear what what you think of this at home workout. Leave a comment and let everyone know about your experience. See how many rounds your can do in 20 minutes and post your record here. A little friendly competition always helps when it comes to exercising.

If you’ve never heard of The Truth About Six Pack Abs program, you should read my Review Of The Truth About Six Pack Abs and The Truth About Six Pack Abs Package posts.

This ab routine has three exercises: Renegade Dumbbell Rows, Front Squats with Barbell, and Mountain Climbers. Do eight reps of each exercise (do the mountain climbers for 30 seconds instead of eight reps) and do 3 – 4 sets. You can also do 5 sets of 5 reps per exercise. Rest 30 seconds between each exercise and rest one minute between sets. You can see a demonstration of each exercise in the videos below.

Renegade Dumbbell Rows

Front Squats with Barbell

Mountain Climbers

The first time I did this ab workout, I really felt it in my lower abs. Honestly, I was surprised at how well it worked. Give it a try and you will see what I mean. Mike Geary’s approach to building great abs is really effective and it’s different from what you hear everywhere else. If you like this ab routine and want to give Mike’s approach a try, make sure you pick up a copy of his program, The Truth About Six Pack Abs.

You can do this ab workout just about anywhere. All you need is a few feet of available floor space and two free minutes. I happen to be wearing slacks and a dress shirt right now and I just laid down on the floor of my office and did this workout. It was intense enough that I felt the burn, but it didn’t make me sweat so it’s the perfect ab workout to do pretty much anytime and anywhere. Close the door to your office and knock it out or do it just before getting into bed at night. With a little bit of effort and creativity, anyone can find time to exercise.

Stephen does a great job of explaining how to properly perform these ab exercises. Make sure you pay attention to his explanations because the little tweaks he suggests make all the difference. If you don’t have a lot of experience working out, you may be surprised to learn how a very small change in body positioning can have a dramatic impact on the effectiveness of an exercise.

At the very end of this exercise video, Stephen makes a statement that is the most important point in the entire video. He says,

Nutrition, and your other compound exercises, are going to work to get rid of that body fat on top. Once you get rid of the body fat on top, you’re going to use these exercises to really sculpt and define the abs.

I point this statement out because it is a key point that so many people miss. If you want to have great abs, you have to get rid of your stomach fat. The best way to do it is to focus on your nutrition and strength training with an emphasis on compound exercises. To learn more about this approach, check out The Truth About Six Pack Abs and No-Nonsense 6 Pack.

By the way, there is a lot of unrelated commentary at the ends of these videos. It has nothing to do with getting a six pack or anything fitness related. You can watch that part if you find it interesting, but feel free to stop the video after the initial exercise demonstration because the rest of it is unimportant.

Fitness – Sexy Abs Workout

Do 8 sets of the following exercises:

1. Prisoner Squat with Knee Up – 20 reps
2. Santana Push Ups – 10 reps
3. Jump Rope – 100 skips as fast as you can
4. Plank Knee Tucks – 20 reps

Fitness – Kiss My Abs Workout

Do 4 sets of the following exercises:

1. James Bond Lunges – 30 reps
2. Spider Man Push Ups – 10 reps
3. Laying Knee Tucks to Back Extensions – 10 reps (knee tuck and back extension counts as 1 rep)
4. High Knees with Jump Rope 30 reps as fast as you can x 5 ( just a short break in between each set)

Fitness – Rock Hard Abs Workout

Do 7 sets of the following exercises:

1. High Knees to Mountain Climbers – (10 reps + 10 reps) x 5 rounds
2. Hanging Knee Raises – 5 reps
3. Ninja Jump to Half Burpee – 5 reps

All of these workouts can be done right in the comfort of your own home. The only equipment used in the videos (some of which is optional) is an exercise mat, a jump rope, EXF Rings (a pull-up bar would work too), a Gymboss interval timer (available in Pink or Gray) and of course some exercise clothes (Under Armour is a good brand).

Remember, the secret to a flat stomach and great abs is to lose your stomach fat. Give these exercises a try and let me know which one you gives you the best abdominal workout.

the force exerted on the mass of a body by a gravitational field

Do you really care about the amount of force exerted on the mass of your body by the earth’s gravitational field? I’m going to guess you don’t. What you are really concerned with is the percentage of your body that is composed of fat verses the percentage of your body that is composed of muscle. Having a body weight goal is okay as long as you pair it with a body fat percentage goal. Without both sides of the goal, you may find that you have successfully arrived at your body weight goal only to find out that you are now simply a smaller version of your old fat self. That’s not what you want. Instead, make sure all your hard work pays off with a new you that looks, feels, and is healthier than when you set your weight loss and six pack abs goals.

I read a perfect example of this in an article in The Wall Street Journal called The Scales Can Lie: Hidden Fat. It is about a Mayo Clinic study which found that many people with a “normal” or “healthy” Body Mass Index (BMI) and weight are suffering from a condition that they termed “normal weight obesity.” This term refers to people who look skinny, and have a BMI and weight that are within normal parameters, but have too much body fat. If you are at a reasonable body weight, but your belly and arms feel squishy when you poke them, you may be one of these people.

So, what should you do about it? As I said earlier, stop worrying about your body weight and start paying attention to your body fat and muscle mass. You need to engage in diet and exercise that will help you build muscle and get rid of your unwanted body fat. If after reading that last sentence your first thoughts were of crash diets and treadmills, I want you to slap yourself. No, harder than that. We have to get those thoughts out of your head to make room for the things that will actually help you. If those methods worked, we wouldn’t have such a huge obesity problem on our hands. You need to start thinking in terms of full-body strength training exercises and well balanced meals consisting mostly of natural unprocessed foods.

Whenever I recommend strength training and building muscle to loss body fat, I feel like I am going to scare off all the women. I find that many women tend to be afraid of building muscle because they think it will make them bulky or it will make them gain weight. Gaining weight is the last thing they want to do so why would they want to build muscle? Well, like I said, weight is a meaningless number by itself. If your body fat percentage is way down and you look great, why should you care what you weigh? We don’t wear our weights on our chests like a scarlet letter. If you look and feel good, nobody is going to know or care how much you weigh.

Let me give you an example from The Wall Street Journal article. They interviewed a 34-year-old woman who weighed 170 pounds at just over 30% body fat when she started dieting and doing some aerobic exercises. She was able to lose 45 pounds which brought her down to a weight of 125 pounds. This is a great improvement, but she was still at 25% body fat. She wanted to look even better, so she added strength training to her routine. Over the next 18 months she gained 20 pounds taking her back to 145 pounds. Oh no! What happened? Strength training made her fatter! No, it made her weigh more. There is a big difference. In gaining that extra 20 pounds, she was able to get her body fat percentage down to 14! Now imagine what you would look like at 14% body fat. As women are recommended to have higher body fat percentages than men, 14% is phenomenal for a woman. Do you think she got upset at gaining 20 pounds when it allowed her to drop 11 percentage points in body fat? Not a chance and neither should you.

I hope you can see the merits of focusing on body fat instead of body weight. It’s time to start educating yourself about how to eat properly and exercise correctly. I recommend two programs that will teach you these principles and will help you meet your body fat goals. They are The Truth About Abs and No-Nonsense 6 Pack. They are both great programs so pick the one that looks the most interesting to you, order it today, and get started cutting down your body fat.

For more information about eating properly to lose fat, I also recommend The Fat Burning Kitchen. To monitor your progress, you should also consider getting a body fat scale.

I don’t know why, but I love this woman and the idea. You will doubtless feel goofy doing some of the things she teaches, but at least she is entertaining to watch. I’m big on multitasking and I hate wasting time. I think that is why this appeals to me so much. It’s also a very practical way to get some good exercise.

If this exercise program sounds like it’s right up your ally, check out the Clean Momma website for details on how to order the program. It’s pretty inexpensive compared to most workout programs.

If this program is a little too off the wall for your taste, you may feel comfortable with a more traditional in-home exercise program. Pick one that fits your weight loss and exercise goals and order it today. There’s no time like the present to get started on your new body.

In evaluating an exercise program, whether it be one you’ve purchased or one of your own creation, there are 8 key training principles that you should consider. These principles will help you determine if you are following a program that is going to maximize your efforts and give you the weight loss results that you are looking for.

How To Exercise Properly: 8 Key Principles

1. Specificity – Your exercise and diet program should be specific to your goals. For example, if your goal is to lose weight and get great abs, your program should be focused on that goal.
    
2. Overload – As you persist with your workouts, your body’s ability to perform them will increase. As this happens, the effectiveness of your workouts will decrease. In order to continue to see improvements over time, you must continue to overload your muscles by increasing the loads you place on them.
    
3. Recovery – It is while you are resting that your body grows. It is essential that you give your body an adequate amount of rest between workouts (~48 hrs) to allow it to recover. If you do not, you may go into a state of overtraining and fail to get the results that you have been working toward.
    
4. Reversibility – When you stop following your program, your body will revert back to the way it was before you began your program. This happens over time and can be controlled by going into a maintenance phase after you have reached your goals.
    
5. Variation – Your body is very good at learning to adjust to the stresses you place on it. After you have been doing a particular exercise or program for a while, your body will get used to it and you will stop getting results. To counteract this effect, your exercise program should change things up from time to time. It doesn’t have to be something new every time. A good rotation of exercises will do the trick.
    
6. Transfer – Certain exercises will improve your abilities in other areas such as sports and work. If you have goals to improve in such an area, your program should include exercises that produce results that directly transfer to a particular skill that you are wanting to improve (i.e. – running, jumping, lifting, etc).
    
7. Individualization – Everyone is unique in some degree or another from everyone else. Your exercise program needs to cater to your unique qualities and attributes. Things to consider are your age, body type, past injuries, disabilities, etc. Follow a program that will allow you to adapt it to your circumstances if necessary.
    
8. Balance – There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Likewise, there is also such a thing as too little of a good thing. Make sure your exercise and diet programs are well balanced. Realize that it takes time to accomplish your goals. Set reasonable goals and don’t go overboard to accomplish them. Your body will reward you for taking the slow and steady approach.

If your current exercise and diet programs don’t fair well when held to these 8 principles, it is time for a change. See if you can tweak your program to get it inline with these principles. If not, find a new fitness program to follow.