I will be back

For long i have been writing a lot about High intensity training and workouts. For the past year and half i am researching on HIT. So i thought i should post videos of my early age. This will be a proof for my growth when i compete again and post my new contest video. I will be competing again after june.

So have fun watching me competing in small but very memorable and valuable contests of my life.

Mr.Jets 2006...... An important person of my life, my lifestyle, my friend, philosopher and my future came to see me perform on stage. We were just good friends at that time. Should i say best friends!!!!!

Mr.Kanchi 2006.... This was one of the toughest i have been in for the level of development i had. But still i enjoyed each and every moment of it

Will upload my new video after i compete.

Till then i will continue writing blogs.

Quality is better than quantity. So try to have quality workouts rather than focusing on quantity of the workouts.

Workout frequency & Volume

One of the most controversial topics in bodybuilding and in fitness is “The workout frequency”. Some say train each muscle group once a week, some say train each muscle group 2 times a week, some say train 6 days a week and some say train 4 days a week and so on…

And the next one is workout volume. The common words that you would hear in the gym are something like this.. Train 25 sets for your big muscles and 20 for your smaller muscles or sometimes you would hear, just train until you absolutely kill the muscle and so on…

For the new bodybuilding aspirants the workout routine of their favorite superstar is just the correct routine for them. They never seem to analyze or understand the volume and the frequency involved in their workout.

Let me be clear on one thing here, “WE NATURAL BODYBUILDERS” cannot follow the pros workout regiment. Let me explain why!!!!

Just pay attention to the following topics, you will know why.

Logic of growth:
Most of you might know but still I will explain the growth process. When we train in the gym, let us assume that I am doing bicep workout today. When I do my barbell curls, indirectly I just break the muscle tissue in the bicep region. After the workout when I eat enough protein with all the other macro-nutrients I send materials to my bicep to recover. When I recover I first repair the damage. And after the recovery I overcompensate the muscle tissue. When I repeat this, my bicep grows. Remember, growth does not take place at gym. It takes place while you rest.

Recovery ability:
The ability of a muscle to recover from a workout is called recovery ability. This is where the genetics plays a vital role. You would have read that Arnold trained each muscle twice a week. It was because his genetics were really good and was able to recover. The same is with most of the pros. If all of us had the same type of genetics then there won’t be any difference among the humans.

When Pros can train each muscle twice a week why not you?

The answer is simple. If you feel that your muscle recovers fully in two days, yes you can. But let us be practical here, We do not use huge amount of steroids to recover fast. These steroids just improve the bodies recovery ability, but with a lot of health hazards. So never try that. Never schedule a workout before you feel fully recovered.

Rational bodybuilding:
Now that you know about logic of growth and recovery ability, my job of explaining workout frequency and volume would be easy.

As you all know, we damage the muscle at gym and the growth occurs while we rest. So let us imagine the damage of muscle tissue as creating a hole on the muscle.

When we do a very intense set for a muscle, here we virtually create a small hole on the muscle (let us imagine damage to hole here for the sake of understanding).When we do another intense set for the same muscle, here we make the hole deeper. Another set and the hole gets still deeper. As I said earlier the growth process starts after the workout when we rest. So if the hole is very deep, all the protein that we take will be used up to fill the hole. But what about the overcompensation? Before the muscle fully recovers it would be more than a week. So our “go to gym” syndrome will kill the growth and we would train the same muscle again. So if you observe here, our progress is zero. This is the reason why most of the bodybuilders lack to make gains.

So what should you do?
Just try to be logical and rational about your workouts and your frequency. Train optimal, train no more than what is required to create a small hole onto the muscle. But remember lazy workouts are not going to help. What I mean here is just choose very minimal amount of exercises per body part and do several warm-ups and do one or may be two all out sets to failure. By reaching temporary failure of the local muscle you can be sure that you created that required damage to the muscle. In other words, the optimal damage. When you reach your failure, you not only damage the muscle but also induce the growth stimulus of your body’s growth mechanism. So when you rest and eat proper nutrition, you have no other option but to grow.

Now you would have understood about the volume of workout. There is one more important topic, the training frequency. Just make a practice of listening to your muscle. Don’t train when you feel that your muscle is not fully recovered. Take a day or two off. Believe me you wont loose your gains. Have you noticed that after a complete week or two of rest you always come back stronger to the gym. You are able to feel your muscle better during the workout!! This is because your muscle is fully recovered. So don’t go by the magic numbers specified in the magazines, listen to your muscle and train accordingly. You will make optimal gains.

The nutshell:
There is no magic number of sets or number of days you must train in a week. All you have to do is train each of your muscle with no more than what is required to induce the body’s growth mechanism and not train the same muscle until that muscle and its supporter muscles are fully recovered.

As of now, according to my recovery ability, I train each of my muscle 2 times a month. And I make it a point that I don’t train two continuous days, because I might not train at my optimum because of the previous days workout. The results are amazing. I gained about 10 pounds in the past 10 weeks. And I have increased my strength by 10% in all my lifts. So remember quality of the workouts gives you results, not the quantity of the workout.

This blog is a tribute to the legend, Late Mike Mentzer. He was the man who really introduced the High intensity training methodology and made the bodybuilding world think logically and rationally towards the workout.

That’s all folks. Train smart, think rational and gain fast.

Stiff legged deadlift – A more effective approach

In my recent blog I just explained about a better way to squat, a overall leg builder. But this time I just thought of revealing a small trick about developing a really overlooked muscle – “The hamstrings”.

It was about 2 years ago, I saw a person. I saw his face for 2 seconds and till the end of our conversation just saw his humongous legs. Especially his hamstrings. So during the end of our conversation, I asked him about his ham workout. He told stiff legged deadlifts in all workouts. I asked,” can u demonstrate it for me? ”. He did not hesitate and showed me how he did that. He kept two small plates on the floor. Placed his toes on it and did the normal dead lift.

The very next day I tried it the same way he told me to do. I felt my hamstring working right from the first rep. But in the traditional stiff legged dead lift I will fell my hamstring during the end of the set. From then on I never did the traditional stuff. And my under developed hamstring came proportionate to my quads in a matter of 3 months. Just thought this might be useful to those who desperately wanted to improve their hamstrings. So here we go….

So now let me explain the exact way to execute it and then explain you why this thing works better than the traditional way of doing it.

How to do?

Place two 25 pound plates touching each other (one for each foot). They should be right beneath the barbell you will be using for the exercise and placed side-by-side so you can set your feet on both of them.

Stand in front of the barbell with your feet half on the plates and half off. The front parts of your feet will be on the plates and your heels will be on the ground.

Now bend over and pick the bar with an overhead grip. Keep your knees in a locked position but with a little bend. Always look forward while coming up and going back down.

Pick up the bar slowly from the ground without any momentum till your upper body goes little bit above parallel to the floor and don’t go any further in the motion. The real stretch of this exercise is between this positions and the starting position. If you go any further up to an upright standing position you loose tension on the hamstrings and the intensity of the workout is reduced.

Come down slowly, being absolutely sure to keep the arch in your lower back. Hold that stretch at the bottom position for a moment or two then reverse the direction without bouncing.

Repeat this for some 8-20 reps. If you do this correctly with control without cheating, I am sure you will not be able to walk without a support after your workout.

Try this and you will be amazed with the results.

Scientific reason for the effectiveness of the position:

To understand the effectiveness of the workout let us see the anatomy and biomechanics of each muscle involved in this movement.

The stiff legged deadlift places maximum stress on the muscle at the maximum stretch position. So in order to intensify the workout and for maximum gains we must maximize the stretch at this position.

The hamstrings are tied up with the hips and gluteus, so bending the hips places a very good stress on the muscle. So that’s how the traditional workout was formed. But if we watch closely the calves are also tied up to hamstring and while stretching the calves we stretch the hamstrings also. So if we place our toes in an elevated position we automatically stretch the lower part of the hamstrings. And if we bend our hips and reach down we stretch the middle and upper parts of the hamstrings. So we stretch all the parts of the hamstrings together and place maximum load on the muscle. When such load is placed on the muscle the hamstring has no other go but to respond to the stress and grow big to withstand the stress on the next workout session.

So try this for yourself and I am sure you will be wonderstruck with the results.

Shut up and squat

This time I just thought of explaining a little trick in doing the king of all exercises…. Ya, the Squats. As every true bodybuilder knows, squat is the exercise which distinguishes the wannabes and the big boys. There is no doubt with the name given to Squats “The king of exercises”, because it is the best. They not only work to increase muscle-mass in the lower body, they also have a beneficial anabolic effect on the entire body. They have actually been known to increase the hormone levels in the body. So why skip your leg workout and complain about your hormone levels. Shut up and squat regularly to sky rocket your hormone levels.

Recently I’ve been writing a lot about the high intensity training. Here is an easy way to increase the intensity of a regular squat. You can combine this technique with the pre-exhaust or the drop sets which I explained in my earlier blogs. Some of you might already do this, but here is a “how to do” just in case if you don’t do this.

Do your regular warm-ups. On your working set, drop your weight by some 10%. Perform your squats as usual, squat as deep as possible but with full control. I always suggest people to squat below or at least up to parallel in full control without momentum. Here is the trick – instead of locking out your knees at the top of the movement, try to maintain continuous tension on your muscle by stopping shot of lock-out position and slowly squat back to as deep as you can. Repeat this for a set of about 8-20 reps without locking your knees. At the end of the set you will feel as if your quads are going to explode. Scientific studies have shown that legs respond better to high reps, so try to do a few more reps to your legs in comparison to your upper body exercises.

Try using this with other HIT methodologies to get maximum results.

Have a blast on your next leg workout.

Drop Sets – For accelerated growth

In this blog I am going to explain a very basic and a maximum result giving technique called the drop sets. As with any technique there exist a number of names for this technique such as breakdowns, descending sets, triple-drops, down the rack or running the rack, strip sets, etc., They've been around for a very long time. They are particularly popular with the high intensity crowd. And they're a true test of your concentration and focus. I'm talking of course about Drop Sets.

I learnt about the drop sets from a local bodybuilding magazine and tried it the very next day. And the results were mind blowing. I trained my biceps (was the weakest muscle on my body) on that day, believe me or not it took me 10 days to recover from that biceps workout. And I trained my biceps only after 2 full weeks. The point I want to stress here is that u need more recovery period when compared to your normal workout regiment.

Now let us go to the real deal… How to execute?

So, for instance, let’s say you are doing barbell curls for your biceps. Finish off your warm up. By warm up I mean really good warm up(I personally do one light warm up say about 12 reps, one moderate warm up say about 8 reps and one heavy warm up say about 6 reps).

• Now take a heavy barbell on which u can do a maximum of 5 or 6 reps(try to load the barbell with many small plates for example, If you are gonna curl 120lbs then load each side with three 20lbs plate)
• Start curling the barbell and do each rep with full concentration (without any cheating or momentum).
• Do the curling until you cannot do one complete positive rep.
• Now remove one 20lb plate from each side and do your biceps curls in a slow manner without any cheating or momentum. Curl till you cannot do one complete positive rep.
• Now again remove one 20lb plate from each side and do your biceps curls till you reach your failure.

That’s it …

The biceps workout is done for the day.

One important point to note in this training principle is that you carry your body beyond your failure. So this induces your body’s growth mechanism better than the traditional volume principle.

Bicep curls are just an example. They can be done for all body parts. I personally feel that drop sets should be followed with compound movements to get maximum results and should be done with a spotter when done with free weights. Again I want to stress that you need more rest between your workouts in order to give time for your muscles to recover and grow(REDUCE YOUR TRAINING FREQUENCY WHEN ON HIT PRINCIPLES LIKE DROP SETS).

That’s all folks.

Try this and you will be really amazed with the results that you get.

Intelligent ways to lose fat

After few blogs on HIT and principles of HIT I thought that I should write a blog on the most important concern of common people as well as a bodybuilders. So I chose the topic of fat loss.
I don’t want to give you an illusion regarding easy ways of fat loss. Had they been really easy we would not have so many heart attacks and obesity problems on the planet.So let us not go behind the misleading easy ways but let us look at fat loss from an intelligent vision. So that we can optimize out fat loss and attain our health goals. This blog is fully about diet and lifestyle.
Don’t starve while you diet
Drastic weight loss can cause issues with your body's metabolism and muscle mass. When you lose a lot of weight quickly, you really need to strictly monitor where the weight is coming from. Is it water weight, body fat or muscle mass? The majority of the time, it unfortunately comes from lean muscle mass and this is exactly what causes serious issues with your metabolism. Muscle is your body's most potent and active tissue for burning calories and body fat. It's basically your body's "furnace" and you always want to keep it burning hot. When someone loses a lot of weight, which usually comes from crash dieting or some other unhealthy way of dropping the weight, the body's lean muscle mass is eaten up and the person loses some of the most powerful tissue for keeping a lean body.
Drink lots of water
Adequate water consumption provides the main foundation for any weight loss program. It is probably the most overlooked and underrated strategy there is… Our bodies are over 70% water and it needs a large amount of this liquid to maintain its daily functions. Water helps to flush our systems and remove harmful toxins.
Water is useful in a variety of bodily functionalities like,
-Regulating body temperature
-Lubricating the joints
-Nutrition transportation
-Removal of waste from body
-Aids proper digestion
-Maintains the texture of the skin
It provides various benefits such as
-Helps in proper kidney function, which increases the ability of liver to burn fat efficiently.
-Acts as a appetite suppressant
-It helps body function at its optimum, which makes fat burning a easy process for the body.
Increase your protein intake
Make sure to include a lean protein source at every meal. Shoot for 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
The benefits of high protein diet is amazing. Here are a few
-By eating enough protein, you will keep your nitrogen levels high which supports muscular repair and growth.
-Protein has a thermogenic effect of 30% which makes it the highest thermogenic food compared to all other nutrients. This means that for every 100 calories of protein you eat, 30 calories are burned by your body to digest the food leaving you with a net 70 calories
Eat thermogenic foods
Thermogenic foods are the ones your body uses maximum energy (calories) in order to properly digest. Some of the greatest thermogenic foods are vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, squash, celery, zucchini, peppers, lettuce and green beans. These foods are very low in calories which allow you to include a large quantity of them in your diet.

Build lean muscle mass
Weight training builds lean muscle mass. By building muscle you will be adding the most potent fat burning tissue to your body. Muscle tissue is the most metabolically active tissue in your body, so make sure to build as much as possible.
Studies on thermogenic effect of muscle:
Studies have estimated that for each pound of muscle you add to your body, you burn an additional 35 to 50 calories per day.
So, an extra 10 pounds of muscle will burn approximately 350 to 500 calories per day, or an extra pound of fat every 7 to 10 days.
Eat frequent small meals
Many people who are trying to lose body fat believe that you must eat less often to get rid of those extra pounds. Sure, you may need to lower your daily caloric intake to burn more calories then you're taking in, but you should actually eat more often per day to help burn fat. Instead of 2 or 3 larger meals per day. you should try to eat 5 or 6 smaller meals every day.
If you eat 3 large meals per day you'll have a long time in between meals. The larger amount of calories and food consumed at each meal combined with longer periods between meals will put the body in a state where it tries to hold on to that extra body fat. It's human nature - if the body is put through a period of time (even 5 or 6 hours) between meals after you consume half or a third of your daily caloric intake in one meal, it will go into a small starvation mode that'll make it keep the fat on your body from being burned. Your metabolism will be slower between meals as well. Waiting too long between meals will also cause you to be hungrier when you eat again, which means that you may may take in more calories than you should at that meal. Eating too much at a meal will likely make you lethargic and unenergetic afterwards - not good if you're trying to keep your metabolism high to burn fat.
Eat fiber
Fiber will give you a feeling of fullness with a limited amount of calories. Fiber also helps to reduce constipation, indigestion, gallstones and cholesterol, and assists in combating heart disease and some cancers. Eat a variety of fibers (soluble and insoluble). A varied, high fiber, healthy diet will provide both. Soluble fiber comes from fruits and insoluble fiber comes from whole grains. Fiber rich foods include oat bran, beans, lentils, fruit, vegetables, whole wheat bread, brown rice and oatmeal.

Decrease your sugar intake
One of the best things you can do to drop excess body fat is to decrease your intake of sugar. Start gradually decreasing high sugar foods. If you want to cure a sweet tooth, try frozen grapes. By decreasing your sugar intake, you will be able to control your insulin levels which will help unlock your body's ability to start burning stored body fat.

Eat good fats
By right fat, I mean non-saturated fat - both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. This type of fat or oil has numerous health benefits.
It transports fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K throughout the body.
It cushions and protects internal organs.
Essential fatty acids (EFAs), benefit your heart, metabolism and immune system.
Some EFAs are used by the body for structural, hormonal and electrical functions rather than for energy. These EFAs increase metabolic rate and increase fat burn off resulting in loss of weight.
Here are some basic guidelines for how to choose the best type of fat.

- For cooking, choose extra virgin olive oil
- For salads, choose from flax oil, canola oil, soy oil, extra virgin olive oil, wheatgerm oil, walnut oil, hemp seed oil.
- Eat regular helpings of oily fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna.

Please don’t skip your breakfast
Always try to eat a very nutritious breakfast Eating a healthy breakfast is crucial for providing the correct fuel to get you going. Your body has been fasting for 6-10 hours from sleeping and is primed for re-fueling.

Researchers have found that people who ate breakfast every day were 1/3 times less likely to be obese compared to those who skipped the meal. In addition, they were half as likely to have blood-sugar problems, which increase the risk of developing diabetes or having high cholesterol, which is a known risk factor for heart disease. The researchers believe that eating first thing in the morning may help to stabilize blood sugar levels, which regulate appetite and energy. They suggest people who eat breakfast are less likely to be hungry during the rest of the day and are, therefore, less likely to overeat.

Pre-Exhaust - For Accelerated Growth

Introduction

The pre-exhaust routine is based on the concept of attacking a muscle area. First, you must exhaust it with an isolation exercise, and then immediately perform a combination movement that utilizes this target muscle. As a result, the muscle which is isolated is forced to work. It has to perform at its maximum limit because it is already pre-exhausted from the previous exercise.

Motivation

You've heard that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link? Oftentimes what prevents you from pushing yourself to total failure during a working set is, in fact, the secondary muscle group, which might give out first.

You can probably relate if you've ever racked the barbell after a set of incline presses: Your front delis are typically burning to a far greater degree than your upper chest. The bottom line is that these weak links may force you to terminate your set before the primary muscle group is fully fatigued, thus limiting the effectiveness of a given set.

Using pre-exhaust training, you're more able to target a particular muscle. The concept allows you to circumvent the weak-link muscle by choosing a single-joint isolation movement first in your routine before proceeding to a compound exercise.

Rest Interval

It is extremely important when performing this shock routine to leave ensure that there is no rest interval between the isolation movement and the combination movement. As an example, even a very minimal rest interval, for example, only 15-20 seconds, will bring about an 80 percent rate of recovery. That is a very big number for a shock routine that relies on what is essentially a 0 rest interval! Too much, to say the least.

Advice for beginners

Those who are just beginning to utilize the pre-exhaust shock training principle should limit their sets to two, using something less than maximum poundage for the earlier workouts.

When you undertake a pre-exhaust routine the first thing you will discover is that you are going to be unable to lift as much weight as you think you can. It will take you several sessions to find the proper poundage’s for the various movements so be sure to keep a good training log to help you with this.

Example Pre-Exhaust Routine

Pre-Exhaust Training
Muscle Group	Exercise	Sets	Reps
Shoulders	Lateral Dumbbell Raise	3	12
	Machine Press	3	8
Chest	Peck Deck Bench Flye	3	10
	Bench Press	3	8
Quads	Leg Extension	3	12
	Squat	3	10
Back	Bent-Arm Pullover	3	15
	Close Grip Lat pull down	3	10
Abs	Rope Crunch	3	15
	Hanging Knee Raises	3	20
Calves	Seated Calf Raise	3	25
	Standing Calf Raise	3	12
Biceps	Preacher Curl	3	12
	Standing Barbell Curl	3	10-12
Triceps	Triceps Pressdown	3	12
	Close Grip Bench Press	3	10
Forearms	Wrist Curl	3	12
	Reverse Curl	3	15

Targets of the Above Routine

As you can see, the pre-exhaust training intensity principle is capable of providing a very balanced workout while shocking your muscles into new growth.

Dorian Yates

Hi all,
Hear is a great collection of Dorian the beast Yates.
Dorian on stage, off season, photo shoots and many more

Hope you enjoyed the photo collection.
Pease leave me your comments so that i can blog better and give you better things in my blog.

What is HIT?

High Intensity Training is any method of resistance training emphasizing a very high level of effort and performing relatively brief and infrequent workouts, as opposed to performing a higher volume and frequency of workouts with a comparatively low to moderate effort. Arthur Jones, who invented the Nautilus equipment and helped define and popularize high intensity training in the 1970's, often summarized the general philosophy of high intensity training as "...train harder, but train briefer" or "...train harder, but train less often".

Train Harder...

The most fundamental principle of exercise is overload. To stimulate the body to produce an increase in muscular strength and size you must impose a workload on the body over the level it is accustomed to. The harder, or more intense an exercise is, the greater the degree of overload and the greater the effectiveness of that exercise.

During a high intensity training workout exercises are typically performed with all-out effort until it is no longer possible to perform another repetition in good form, or what is called momentary muscular failure. An exercise may even be continued past this point with various partner-assisted techniques such as forced reps, negatives, or breakdowns.

While training to momentary muscular failure is not absolutely necessary to stimulate increases in muscular strength and size, it ensures one has done all they can for that purpose. Although some people believe regularly training to momentary muscular failure is too stressful on the body, it is not as long as the volume and frequency of training are not excessive.

High intensity training methods vary with regards to the specific style, speed, and number of repetitions performed, however most recommend the use of a level of resistance which allows an exercise to be performed for between 30 and 90 seconds before momentary muscular failure occurs. The most popular example of this is the traditional Nautilus recommendation to perform 8 to 12 repetitions, lifting the weight in approximately 2 seconds, and lowering in approximately 4 seconds, which results in a set duration of approximately 48 to 72 seconds.

...But Train Briefer

There is an inverse relationship between intensity and the volume of exercise a person can perform. The greater the level of effort put into a workout, the shorter the workout must be to avoid overstressing the body. High intensity training workouts typically last less than 45 minutes, and some "consolidation routines" may take fewer than 10 minutes to complete.

High intensity training methods vary in the number of sets performed per exercise. Most involve only performing one, all-out set per exercise, while some use two or three sets. The majority of research shows no significant difference in effectiveness between single and multiple sets for improving either muscular strength or size.

High intensity training methods also vary in the total number of exercises or sets performed per workout, from as few as two or three to as high as twenty when neck and grip exercises are included. The appropriate volume of exercise varies significantly between individuals based on genetics, age, and lifestyle factors such as quality and amount of nutrition and rest. Athletes or trainees with physically demanding jobs or lifestyles must also balance their workout volume against the amount of other physically demanding activities they perform to avoid overtraining.

Train Less Often

Intense exercise places a significant amount of stress on the body. Exercising too frequently, without allowing the body adequate time between workouts to recover, will eventually lead to overtraining and a lack of progress.

The majority of people on a high intensity training program should train no more than three non-consecutive days per week. More advanced trainees working at a much higher level of intensity or older trainees who's bodies don't recover as quickly may get better results training less frequently. Most high intensity training methods involve a starting frequency of two or three workouts per week, which may be adjusted depending on the trainees workout to workout progress.

General Guidelines for High Intensity Training

1. Training Frequency: Two or three sessions per week on non-consecutive days.

2. Training Volume: Perform between eight and twelve exercises addressing all major muscle groups.

3. Number of Sets: Perform one set per exercise.

4. Number of Repetitions: Use a level of resistance that will allow for the performance of between 8 and 12 slow, controlled repetitions.

5. Progression: Increase the resistance by approximately 5 percent whenever 12 repetitions can be performed in strict form.

7. Repetition Speed: Move slowly enough to maintain strict control over the movement and to be able to reverse directly smoothly. Avoid fast, jerky movements.

8. Range of Motion: Use a full range of joint movement.

References: Wikipedia.org & bodybuilding.com

Beauty of a Woman

Is not in the clothes she wears,Or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a womanis in her eyes,The place where love resides.

The beauty of a womanIs not in a facial mole,But true beauty in a womanIs reflected in her soul.