7 seconds to a Flat Stomach - The truth behind toning your abs

By Paul J.O'Brien

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I., M.C.Th.A.

www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

“Crunches. He’s going to tell me to do lots of stomach crunches isn’t he? Man if I hurt my neck doing another pointless crunch I swear I’m gonna….” That is what many people think when they first hear someone telling them the secret to flat toned abs. And I’m right there with you. Crunches are boring, unproductive and shockingly ineffective compared to the two techniques I’ll reveal later in this article.

The truth is the most effective abs exercises are performed Standing Up. But no gym instructor or personal trainer will tell you that and the reason is, most don’t know. Pilates and stability ball instructors are perhaps closer to the secret of the six pack than anyone else. In both, you are taught basic pelvis and abdominal tension, but they never get further than that. They never get to the good stuff.

The secret to a well toned waist, a firm trim tummy, and strong sexy six pack – is all contained in 1 word - Isometrics. Isometrics, defined as the contraction of a muscle without moving the joint, is the scientifically proven fastest way to build strength and muscle. I explain all the science and the proven techniques to carve a sexy six pack in seconds in my step by step 7 week course, 7 Seconds to Build A Perfect Body, the Scientifically Proven Method for Transforming Your Body in Just Seconds! Over 250 pages and filled with more than 100 photos it will transform your body from your face down to your toes, sculpting your physique and letting you develop astonishing strength with just seconds of exercise.

But in this article I am going to give away two of my key techniques to carving inches out of your waist!

Before I explain step by step how to perform an isometric contraction for the waist I wasn’t to explain a little bit about the actual muscles you will be working. One you will be familiar with, and it’s the less important of the two. The other, well it’s crucial for developing a flat stomach.

In the following exercises we will be working the Rectus abdominus and the Transverse abdominus. The Rectus is commonly called the six pack. It’s a sheet of muscle running from the base of the rib cage (sternum) the pelvis. It gets the six pack look from the tendons running across it. Here’s the thing though – the rectus naturally curves outwards when developed – meaning you get a muscle belly!

So how do you keep it in tight and flat and develop the coveted washboard look? That is where my friend the transverse abdominus comes in. He connects the rectus to the lower back and effectively pulls the abs inwards, towards the spine. The problem is very few people even realise they have one, and those that do don’t know how to train it.

Well here’s how….

The 7 Second Stomach Flattener

1. Stand or sit tall and straight.

2. Breathe in and as you do so pull in your stomach.

3. Keep this tense and held in place

4. Contact the abs as hard as you can, you rib cage will dip down slightly and your pelvis may rotate upwards

5. Breathe out making an “sssss” – this will cause inter-abdominal contraction

6. Continue this for 7 seconds.

7. Once finished keep the stomach in tight and repeat ten times.

8. Do NOT relax the stomach until completely finished all 10 reps.

The All Natural Tummy Tucker *Do this ONLY on an Empty Stomach*

1. Stand up straight with your feet wider then shoulder width.

2. Exhale all the air form your lungs

3. As you do so bend over as though trying to touch your toes

4. Once you are as low as you can bend and have breathed out all the air you can, pull in your stomach as much as you can

5. Hold this tension and slowly stand up

6. You want to keep you stomach in as tight as you can

7. Tense your stomach keeping it in tight.

8. Hold for ten seconds.

9. Slowly relax and capture your breathe

10. Repeat 10 times.

That’s it. You just need those two exercises and they can be performed virtually anywhere. You can practice in the shower, in the car, in the office, anywhere.

Now I will mention one thing – you won’t see visible results if you have a high body fat %. You will of course feel the results and quickly too. Your stomach will naturally begin to pull inwards, and become firmer. But guys you need your body fat % close to 8% and gals you need it about 12% to really see chiseled definition.

The best way to do this is enjoy a nice walk, first thing the morning before breakfast. Refreshing, invigorating and slimming, and combined with these two exercises which will improve digestion and fat burning you’ll be trim and slim in no time.

If you'd really like to improve your health you can get in the best shape of your life using these same principals and enjoy the most effective and intense workout of your life when you follow my step by step 7 week course, 7 Seconds to Build A Perfect Body, the Scientifically Proven Method for Transforming Your Body in Just Seconds! Over 250 pages and filled with more than 100 photos it will transform your body from your face down to your toes, sculpting your physique and letting you develop astonishing strength with just seconds of exercise.

All the best,

Paul J.O'Brien 

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I., M.C.Th.A.

www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

www.Isometric-Training.Com

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About the Author: Paul J.O'Brien is an international recognized expert in Isometric Training and physical performance, a certified personal trainer, licensed acupuncturist and western clinical medic and writer. Paul is the author of "7 Seconds to A Perfect Body,” which teaches you how to develop a lean muscular physique without drugs, supplements or equipment using secrets of the forgotten founders of fitness. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat, increase your lean muscle tissue, sculpt your physique and skyrocket your strength by visiting: www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

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The One Minute Pushup

Okay, I know you've heard of the one minute push up challenge, but that's not what this is. With the one minute push-up challenge, you set a stopwatch and go for as many pushups as you can in one minute. It's pretty straight forward, and it's an awesome test of endurance and basic strength.

The one minute push up, however, is a completely different beast. The one minute push up is what you do to train for an arm wrestling contest with the Incredible Hulk. This is what Arnold Schwarzenegger did when he wasn't being born fast enough to make it to his first Mr. Olympia competition.

The one minute pushup takes elements of isometrics and combines them with heightened muscle tension to trigger rapid hormone release and flood red blood cells into your biceps and shoulders. It's almost isometrics, but not quite. It's the ultimate slow release, high intensity bodyweight workout that improves muscle endurance and fiber tension.

Equipment

To do the one minute pushup, you need:

1- A stopwatch

2- Your body

Begin by getting into the pushup position.

Place the stop watch on the floor right below your head so that you'll be able to see it for the whole pushup.

Start the stopwatch and do one pushup. Here's the trick though: the pushup has to take the FULL minute. That's 30 seconds down, 30 seconds up.

Make sure you don't rush the part where you're at the bottom of the pushup; make it one full, fluid motion with the same speed the whole way through.

Try to do one. If you can do one, go for two. If you can do two, go for three, etc, etc. Make sure each pushup lasts for the full minute, and keep the proper form the entire time.

How many can you do?

The one minute pushup stems from isometric exercises, which is when you contract the muscle but keep your joint in the same position. Instead of keeping the joint stationary though, we're slowly changing the angle of the joint while keeping the same level of tension in the muscles. It's what I like to call “delaymetrics.”

There are a lot of exercises for athletes that you can use to keep in shape (plyometrics being my favorite) but this gives you a different level of intensity to change the pace a little bit. Try it; you'll be surprised at how challenging it is.

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Three Wrist Exercises for Wrist Tendonitis

Wrist tendonitis is often caused by repetitive actions or a single case of trauma. It's a painful condition that can put an end to an athlete's career in a heartbeat. A lot of exercises for athletes fail to address this issue, so here are three quick exercises that you can do on a daily basis to keep your pain levels down and get your wrists back in action.

The Flexion Stretch for Wrist Tendonitis

The flexion stretch will help you improve your range of motion and strengthen your grip in addition to promoting general flexibility. To do the flexion stretch, stand in front of a table and place both hands on the surface of the table, palms up and fingers pointed towards your body.

Keep your elbows straight and slowly lean away from the table. When you begin to feel pressure on your wrists, hold that position for 10 seconds and then lean forward to release. There shouldn't be any pain in this wrist stretch for tendonitis, but if there is stop doing the exercise immediately. If the pain persists, call your doctor.

The Wall Stretch for Wrist Tendonitis

This is one of those exercises for athletes that can be performed in any setting at any time of day. Stand arms length away from a wall and place your palms flat against the wall. The fingers should be pointing outwards. In other words, the fingers on your right hand should be pointing right (parallel to the floor) and the fingers on your left hand should be pointing left.

Now, keep your elbows locked but try to twist your arms inwards, as if you were trying to turn the wall with your hands. You'll feel pressure on the outer wrist, and when you do hold the position for ten seconds.

Now reverse the “twisting” motion and twist in the opposite direction. You should feel the inner wrists stretching. Hold it again for ten seconds, then release.

The Rotation Stretch for Wrist Tendonitis

This is one of the best exercises for athletes with tendonitis because it promotes circulation to the wrists and loosens up the muscles surrounding your carpal bones.

Ball your hands up into fists and stretch your arms out in front of you. Rotate your fists in a circular motion. The arms should remain completely stationary, the wrists the only joints moving.

Do 15 rotations going one direction, then 15 rotations going the other direction.

These wrist exercises aren't only for wrist tendonitis; you can also use them daily to warm up before a workout to promote general wrist flexibility.

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Can You Really Add an Inch to Your Biceps in 3 Minutes?

By Paul J.O'Brien

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I., M.C.Th.A.

www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

Yes, Yes you can. In this article I am going to teach you the secrets to building the big guns - Bulging Biceps. What is more I shall also simultaneously increase your lifts by an average of 100 % (all though in some cases as much as 250%) on the major lift for this muscle group.

So how am I going to support my fantastic claims? I'm going to give you a incredibly intense three minute arm routine unlike ANYTHING you've ever experienced. You will feel every muscle fibre contract and fatigue. You will felt the rush of power and strength as you break every physical barrier you thought you had. You are going to experience Isometrics!

Isometrics is not a cutting edge new discovery for gaining mass. It's not a supplement. It is in fact one of the oldest methods of strength training devised, forgotten until now. It is the contraction of a muscle without the shortening of a joint - In other words, tensing the muscle as hard as possible without moving. I'm going to show you how to apply it to three major lifts, 1 for the biceps, triceps and forearms.

Of course if you want in depth detail, step by step photos and video instruction, just check out my 7 week course, 7 Seconds to Build A Perfect Body, the Scientifically Proven Method for Transforming Your Body in Just Seconds! Over 250 pages and filled with more than 100 photos it will transform your body from your face down to your toes, sculpting your physique and letting you develop astonishing strength with just seconds of exercise.

Enough of that though, let's get to building some guns! You'll need a smith machine to perform these exercises safely.

Bulging Biceps

Warm up your biceps with a few light dumbbell or barbell curls. Nothing too taxing just enough to get them nice and warm, the blood flowing. You're going to need it.

1. Stand in the Smith Machine.

2. Place an empty Bar at about shoulder height (you may have to vary this to ensure the maximum effect).

3. Bring your hands up to the bar as though you have just reached the top of a barbell curl. Set it an inch below.

4. Keep you back straight, your abs tense.

5. Your biceps should be close to fully flexed at this stage. Relax, we haven't put any weight on the bar yet.

6. Load the bar with a LOT of weight. Don't underestimate your self. To give an example, a friend who routinely curls 60kg on a barbell recently did this for the first time, he lifted 260kg his first attempt.

7. The object of the exercise is to raise the bar a little more than an inch. That's it. Just an inch and then hold it there for 7 seconds.

8. If you can hold it longer than 7 add more weight. Anything less, take some weight off.

9. All you are doing to raise the bar is contract your biceps as hard as you can. At no time should your elbows be directly beneath the bar.

10. Really tense your biceps and forearms for all they are worth.

11. You will feel the blood rush, the muscles scream and an intensity few will ever experience.

12. Then rest. Take a week off training the biceps.

13. Buy some new shirts.

Have fun showing them off ;-)

If you'd really like to build boulder sized biceps and get in the best shape of your life using these same principals and enjoy the most effective and intense workout of your life when you follow my step by step 7 week course, 7 Seconds to Build A Perfect Body, the Scientifically Proven Method for Transforming Your Body in Just Seconds! Over 250 pages and filled with more than 100 photos it will transform your body from your face down to your toes, sculpting your physique and letting you develop astonishing strength with just seconds of exercise.

All the best, 

Paul J.O'Brien 

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I., M.C.Th.A.

www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

www.Isometric-Training.Com

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About the Author: Paul J.O'Brien is an international recognized expert in Isometric Training and physical performance, a certified personal trainer, licensed acupuncturist and western clinical medic and writer. Paul is the author of "7 Seconds to A Perfect Body,” which teaches you how to develop a lean muscular physique without drugs, supplements or equipment using secrets of the forgotten founders of fitness. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat, increase your lean muscle tissue, sculpt your physique and skyrocket your strength by visiting: www.Strong-in-7-Seconds.Com

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The Physics of Weight Training Part 2

By Paul Becker

Part 2, Friction.

In part 2 of this series we'll look at friction and how it can affect our training. Friction is defined as - (1) A rubbing of one object or substance against another. (2) The resistance to motion of moving surfaces that touch.

When working with machines friction can become a problem, you have the situation of weight on the machine plus friction making it feel much heavier than the weight stack says it is. This can wreck your progression, let's say you're going along on lat pulldowns, last workout you made over 10 reps, you add 5 lbs and start to pull and nothing happens, a big yank gets the weight moving and you have to use excessive momentum to keep it moving, all this cheating still only gets you 4 reps. You wonder "what's wrong?", friction that's what.

Each time you use a machine, you should inspect in for any loose nuts and bolts, frayed cables, stuck pulleys or any broken plates on the weight stack. Any of these can cause you problems with friction. Also you should regularly keep machines oiled and otherwise well maintained.

There is another kind of friction I'd like to talk about, and that is the friction within your own body, yes, of course your body has it's own friction, and this gives us 3 levels of strength:

1) Positive strength - contracting your muscles to lift or pull a weight, during this phase you are working against your own bodies friction.

2) Holding strength - contracting your muscles to Keep a weight in one position, you are aided by your bodies friction here and can thus hold 20% more then you can lift.

3) Negative strength - lengthening your muscles to lower a weight, you are also aided in phase by friction and it has been found that most trainees can lower 40% more then they can lift.

This would mean that if your max on the bench press was 200lbs, that you could hold 240lbs and lower 280 lbs. Research done by Nautilus in the 1970's showed that any increase in positive or negative strength would result in an increase in the other, of course, skill is also a factor.

Now all this is very interesting. But, can it help us to build larger and stronger muscles? Yes, it can, let's take a look at some of the techniques that can come from this.

If your lowering strength is 40% more then your lifting strength, but you use the same weight for both then you will not be really be taxing your negative strength. We must find a way to make the negative harder, there are many ways to do this. One way is to do some of your exercises on Life Circuit machines they automatically make the negative 40% heavier then the positive, while these machines are good I feel they can be improved on due to a perceived lack of resistance during the change from positive to negative and then back again.

Another way would be for your training partner to grab the bar and push down what he approximates to be 40% of what your lifting, have him do this on each negative of the set. And for safety have him have a good hold on the bar while doing this and make sure he's ready to stop pushing and Start pulling, in case you for some reason lose control of the weight. You can also try it this way, (use only a universal type machine for this, because you couldn't balance a barbell for this technique.) take a weight that's about 50% of what you usually use lift it with both arms and then lower it with your right arm only, lift it again with both arms and now lower it with your left arm only, continue to alternate the lowering arm till you make you target reps or until you can no longer lift the weight with both arms.

Other techniques would involve training the holding and lowering phases totally separate from the lifting phase. When doing this you would need at least two very strong training partners to lift the weight for you while you try to hold it in place as long as you can (a good position would be the sticking point for that particular lift), or you have them lift in up and then you lower it slowly and under control and they lift it again and then you lower it again, repeat for you target reps or till you can keep the bar moving slowly and controlled. Again for safety your training partners should keep their hands on the bar and be ready to take the weight if you should lose control. You would also want to work gradually up to the really heavy poundages.

These techniques will raise the intensity of you workouts and can lead to overtraining if used too often, but if used properly can help you reach new levels of size and strength.

Check out The Physics of Weight Training Part 1

About The Author: Paul Becker is a natural (steroid free for life) bodybuilder and fitness consultant. He is the author of many ebooks and courses on training and diet. For more information visit his website at http://trulyhuge.com

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