Modding the Crazy Plate Bench Press for Low Budget Lifting

Below is a Youtube video showing a guy doing a crazy plate bench press. Now I'm sure that guy or whoever owns the gym he's at paid a nice hefty price for that bamboo lifting bar, but I think this concept can be used to get a great low-budget-warrior type of workout as well. First, watch the video:






Notice that the free-hanging barbell plates make the lift more difficult, that's the only reason for doing this lift in a gym with nice equipment and lots of barbell plates. Your muscles will be screaming when you're done.



Now, how does this translate to low-budget lifting? As I've noted before, when I started lifting I was supporting a family of four on a budget of less than $16,000 a year. I had NO money to buy equipment with. Anyone that doesn't have $150 to buy a set of weights can easily lift heavy by modifying the crazy plate concept. For the bar, use an old metal fence post or a long section of pipe (at least 1" in diameter) or anything similar. For weights, hang a 5-gallon bucket or half of a 50-gallon drum from each end (make sure you use rope to tie them in place, the bucket's handles may not be strong enough). Fill the bucket/barrell with anything heavy, from sand and brick to old car parts and farm equipment, getting the weight as balanced as you can. Find the balanced center of the bar and start lifting. You could also use a rope or chain to tie on concrete blocks or homemade concrete plates like I used to use.



Here's an article from http://www.low-budget-warrior.com/ that talks more about homemade weights:

http://www.low-budget-warrior.com/Articles/StoneAgeWeights.doc



By the way, big thanks to www.straighttothebar.com/ for pointing out the crazy plate video.



God bless, stay strong, stay fit



--John

Are Strong Chicks Sexy?

You don't have to be around the fitness industry long before you start hearing ladies complaining that they don't want to lift heavy weights because they don't want to get huge, bulging muscles that will make them unattractive. Personally, I just about burst out in laughter whenever I hear something like that, because such a statement contains several misconceptions. Here are my arguments to those misconceptions:

1. Muscle is sexy--Ever see a guy turn his nose up in disgust at a pair of firm, muscular thighs? Not talkin' about the babes on steroids with no trace of body fat. Talkin' about athletes, dancers, fitness models and the like. Nope, muscle makes a body curvacious and attractive.
2. Bulky muscles don't happen by accident--Those gals in muscle mags that women think of so often when they think about weightlifting don't get that way just because they lift heavy. Most of them are also on juice, train excessively and maintain an unhealthy bodyfat level. Few gals (maybe 1% of the population) will gain lots of muscle mass just by lifting heavy weights a couple days each week. If muscle mass were easy to get, every guy in America would look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And even if you fall into the 1% of women who do gain muscle easily, review point No. 1 above and be happy!
3. Strength is health--So many health problems from bad posture and back pain to heart disease and high cholesterol can be solved with strength training. Strong muscles prevent injury, correct posture, and make your body more capable. Training for strength increases heart and lung health (provided your training reaches intensities that raise your heart rate significantly) and increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, which is the "good" cholesterol. Sickliness, including muscles wasted away by excessive aerobic conditioning, and weakness are never sexy.

My wife used to tell me that she didn't want to do heavy weightlifting because she didn't want to get all bulky with muscles. She's been doing kettlebells for a year or two now, but that's not really heavy lifting--great exercise, but not heavy. But this summer she started lifting with me--working at her 5-rep-max and such. We just tested her 1 RM on Friday and she pulled 215 on deadlift and pressed 100 pounds off the bench! She wont' win any contests at that level, but she's stronger than most American women. She feels great about what her new strength allows her to do. And to look at her, you'd never suspect that she likes to lift heavy. She's curvacious and firm, but not bounding with mutant-looking muscles. And in the bedroom . . .well, that's between me and her (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

So, what do you think? Are strong chicks sexy? Let me know by leaving comments on my blog.

For a list of resources that the gals can use to start gaining the benfits of heavy strength training, check out the ladies' page on my Low Budget Warrior web site: http://www.low-budget-warrior.com/ladies.html.

Also, here's a gal that's got a great attitude about heavy lifting: http://www.stumptuous.com/

God bless, stay strong, stay fit

JOhn

Warrior Style Weight Loss

In my own training right now I'm backing off the strength training just a bit and putting some effort toward deflating my spare tire.

Now, I'm not normally real concerned with keeping my midsection real trim, when I realized that I was beginning to outgrow the pants that I bought because I had outgrown the previous set of pants, I decided it was time to do a little maintenance.

I'm really big into the warrior mentality and I hate aerobics, stair-steppers, treadmills and Fit-TV (though I do watch a program from time to time for a good laugh.). Tae-bo might be alright if it wasn't set to sissy pop music. That said, I thought my fellow warriors out there might like to know some of my tactics for eliminating the enemy at my waistline.

Here are the main components:
1. Get disciplined about food--Discipline is essential to the warrior's success. Starve your enemy out by controlling the supply line--don't take in more food and calories than you need each day.

2. Morning walk every day--I stumbled on this pretty much by accident, though it fit some theories I've known about. I started walking as a means of spiritual discipline. AFter dropping off the kids at school, I go for a walk to pray and think before starting my day. I only go a mile or two, which only burns about 100 to 200 calories, but it boosts my metabolism for most of the day until I can get to my main workout.

3. Kettlebells --Three days a week, baby! Right now I'm diong the “> Enter the Kettlebell program, which includes clean & press ladders, snatches and swings. Kettlebells burn lots of calories while conditioning the body for combat situations.


4. Minimize strength training--With the high calorie burn going on, it's difficult to add much muscle, so I do just enough strength training that I don't lose what I've gained over the last year. That amounts to barbell training one day a week and odd-object lifting (stones, barrells, pipes, sand bags) once a week.


5. Heavy bag work--After training with barbells, I do 30 to 45 minutes of punching and kicking on my heavy bag. I work various drills and combinations and try to keep my heart rate up around 150-160 and push it to 180-185 two or three times during the workout. If the weather is good, I use my homemade 150-pound bag outside. (Detailed instructions for making your own will get posted later this week).


6. Jumproping & sprinting--After my mid-week kettlebell workout, I do 20-30 minutes of alternating jumproping with spriting (100 rope jumps, two sprints up and down the alley, couple minutes of rest; repeat 4 to 6 times).


Schedule works like this:

Monday-light kettlebells: 5 clean & press ladders up to 3 reps per side, 10 minutes of snatches at a comfortable pace

Tuesday-Barbells (Deadlifts, bench press, squats) and heavy bag work

Wednesday- moderate kettlebells: 5 clean & press ladders up to 4 reps per side, 10 minutes of snatches and swings at a challenging pace

Thursday-odd-object lifting

Friday- off

Saturday- Heavy kettlebells: 5 clean & press ladders up to 5 reps per side, 10 minutes of swings doing as many as I possibly can in that time (175 this weekend).

Sunday-off

Of course, 5 kids and a business to run get me off schedule from time to time, but I pretty much stick to this.


Stay strong, stay fit

John Fike

Low Budget Warrior Tip No. 103: No Bench Required (Part 2)

Last week I went over several exercises based on the basic pushup. This week I want to cover some barbell, kettlebell and dumbbell exercise that train the chest without using a bench. The first three of these I have to thank Pavel Tsatsouline for bringing to my attention several years ago through his books “Power to the People!” and “The Russian Kettlebell Challenge”. Since then I’ve found several other references to these exercises, which have been around since the old-time strong men like Arthur Saxon and Eugene Sandow.

Without further ado, here are six exercises for strengthening the chest without a bench:

1. Side Press—Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Grab your dumbbell, kettlebell or barbell in one hand and clean it to your shoulder. If you’re using a barbell, make sure you grab the bar at the center of balance before attempting to lift it off the ground. Now, shift your center of gravity over the leg opposite of your lifting arm and lean to the side away from the bell. As you shift your weight, rotate your hand so that the back of your hand is facing behind you and your thumb and fingers are facing forward. Ideally, your elbow should be a little bit behind you so that your triceps will be resting on your lats—not directly on your ribs. Turn your head so that you are facing the bell and tense up the entire body, especially the core muscles. Keeping eye contact with the bell, engage the lat and press the bell upward until you can lock your arm out. Maintain tension as you return the bell to the lowered position.
   
2. Bent Press—This is similar to the side press, but I like it better because I think it works the pecs even more than the side press. Start in the same stance as for the side press and hold the bell in the same position. But, instead of pressing the bell up, bend at the waist to lower your torso to the side and slightly to the front and press with your pecs and lats so that the bell rises almost naturally as you press your body away from it. Once your arm is locked out, keep it straight overhead as you raise your torso back to a standing position. At the end of the motion, you are standing straight up with your arm locked straight up, supporting the bell. Slowly lower your arm back to the starting position for the next rep.
3. Floor Press—This is essentially a bench press, but you are lying on the floor instead of a bench. Because your elbows cannot drop lower than your back, you won’t get the bar or bells to your chest, but you will get sufficient range of motion. There are two ways to get into position. You can either lie down and have someone hand you the weights, or you can maneuver the weights into position as you lie down. Some of the old-time strongmen would roll a barbell up their body as they laid back, but this takes a lot of muscling around. For floor press, I prefer to use dumbbells or kettlebells, because you can hold them to your chest while sitting up, then lay back and they almost automatically fall into position.



4. Neck Bridge Press—This is a floor press except that before pressing the weights up, you arch your belly toward the ceiling so that only your head and heels are on the floor. This lets you get a more complete range of motion, but you have to start with very light weights until your neck and spine become accustomed to the exercise. Be EXTREMELY careful performing this exercise and don’t use any more weight than you are confident with. Only do this with a spotter around who can take the weights if anything goes wrong. This is a very effective exercise, but stupidity will get you injured quickly.



5. Floor Fly—Lay on your back with a dumbbell/kettlebell in each hand. Stretch your arms straight out to the sides. Keep your arms straight as you use your pecs to pull them up and inward. At the top of the fly, your arms are locked straight toward the ceiling. Slowly lower your arms back to the floor. If this exercise is new to you, start with very light weights.
   



6. Isometric Press/Punch—From a standing or lying position with clenched fists held to the sides of your chest, slowly punch or press one fist out. Resist the punching motion with your biceps and back muscles. It should look and feel like you are moving your arm through wet concrete and you should feel the burn of effort in your chest, back, triceps and biceps.
   
   Well, that should keep you busy for a week.
   
   Stay strong, live well.
   
   John Fike

Engage the Lats for a Better Bench Press

Use back muscles to exercise the chest?

Yes.

By tensing up the lats, along with the pectoral and arm muscles, you bring into effect the phenomenon known as hyperirradiation. In hyperirradiation, muscles other than the targeted muscles are tensed and hardened to give support to the targeted muscles and stabilize the joints. In this case, the tense lats (Latissimus dorsi) stabilize the shoulder and support the action of the pectoralis major. The end result is a stronger lift and, perhaps more importantly, a safer lift that is less prone to injury.

Think of it this way: Imagine a ladder lying on the ground and you have to lift it to a vertical position by pulling on one of the rungs. If you just heave on the rung without bracing it, the ladder will be very difficult to control and you will use most of your strength to keep the ladder from swinging out of control. But if you brace the ends of the ladder with your feet or have an assistant steady the ladder, you can focus your strength on raising the ladder into place. Hyperirradiation works the same way, the assisting muscles stabilize the joint and supply a firm foundation for the movement so that the pectoralis major can focus its strength on pressing, rather than stabilizing.

In addition to stabilizing the joints, the additional muscular activity of hyperirradiation also stimulates more neural activity in the targeted muscle, i.e. pecs.

In Power to the People, Pavel Tsatsouline says this about the effects of hyperirradiation:
“Powerlifters (to) whom I taught this deceptively simple move report a typical increase of ten pounds on their bench press the first time they try it!”

To engage the lats from the bottom position of the bench press, prior to pressing tense up the lats by making an inward twisting motion with the arms as if you were attempting to bend the barbell. Maintain tension on the lats throughout the press. You can do the same thing starting from the top position and maintaining the tension through the eccentric (lowering) motion.

Another way to employ hyperirradiation to improve your bench press is to crush the bar with your grip. The forearm muscles activated by the grip will stabilize the elbow and wrist and lend strength to the triceps. With solid, tense muscles all the way up the arm, the force generated by the pecs and lats goes right to the bar instead of being absorbed by the shoulder, elbow and wrist.

Stay strong, live well.

John Fike