Three Muscle Building Exercises for the Legs

After training clients in my gym for over 15 years I have developed a set of leg exercises that deliver results fast. When I say results I'm talking about gains in size but also similar gains in strength. Having trained semi -professional athletes and also working in the area of injury rehabilitation I've been exposed to a wide variety of different exercise styles and practices.

The one exercise I use all of the time in its many forms is the good old squat. I particularly like the heel raised full squat because of the range of motion it creates but also because it loads the Vastus Medialis Obliqus (VMO) portion of the quadriceps muscle which is vitally important for knee stability and strength and power development.

I set this squat technique up so that the client stands on a 4 inch step block with their heels on the block and their toes on the ground. Their feet are placed at hip width apart and the movement is initiated from the knees. Any load is placed in front of the body, whether it is a medicine ball or barbell. I instruct the client to keep their torso upright as they squat down to the floor and keep going until their hamstrings are in contact with their calves before returning to the start position. Usually 8-12 reps of this movement creates a very good overload and the client performs 3 sets.

I have used standing Good Morning exercises for a number of years and like how it effectively conditions the whole of the posterior chain of muscles including the low back, glutes and hamstrings. Most people are very weak through these muscles as they rarely train them but as I discovered during my time working with athletes, sound conditioning of these muscles is required for effective force generation and speed development. I set this exercise up with the barbell across the shoulder blades. I then instruct the client to bend forward from the hips keeping a flat back and braced abdominals. I get them to bend forward until they feel a good stretch on their hamstrings and then return to the start position by using their hamstring and gluteal muscles to drive the hips forward.

The third exercise I like to use to develop strength and power in the legs is the step up. This functional exercise works the quadriceps at the front of the leg along with the powerful hip extensors at the back of the leg namely the glutes and hamstrings. The key set up point with this exercise is to make sure the step block is high enough. Ideally when you place your foot on the block your thigh should be parallel to the ground. Another great tip is to encourage the client to press through their heel as they step up onto the block. This will encourage good gluteal recruitment during the exercise.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about three of my favourite leg conditioning exercises and I hope you get the chance to go and use them in the gym.

Chris Hines is a strength coach and personal trainer based in London. He works with athletes and private clients at his gym in the City. Visit his website at http://www.citypersonaltrainer.com/
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5 Cardio Workouts to Burn Fat

Everything you know about cardio is about to change. You're about to discover the truth about 5 cardio workouts to burn fat and lose more belly fat in less workout time. Let's start by looking at the old, outdated way of burning fat.

Cardio Workout #1 to burn fat: Slow cardio

The first cardio workout to burn fat is "Old School Cardio". For years, we've been fooled into thinking that we need long, slow, boring cardio workouts to burn fat. However, too many men and women slave away on the cardio machines for 40, 60 and even 90 minutes per workout without burning fat.

How is this possible?

To be honest, I don't know exactly why it doesn't work, but two recent research studies found that women doing 40-60 minutes of low intensity cardio, 3-5 days per week, did not lose belly fat after at least 12 weeks of cardio. Based on those results, slow cardio is not one of the best cardio workouts to burn fat.

In fact, in one of those studies, researchers tested high-intensity cardio, and found that high-intensity cardio was able to burn fat.

Cardio Workout #2 to burn fat: High-intensity cardio

The only problem is that high-intensity cardio requires you to work as hard as you can until you burn at least 400 calories in a workout. That will take you at least 40 minutes - so while this is one of the better cardio workouts to burn fat, it's still not the best.

A better approach is to use interval training. This is the third cardio workout to burn fat.

Cardio Workout #3 to burn fat: Interval training cardio

In a study from Australia that compared 2 cardio workouts to burn fat, subjects doing 3 interval training workouts per week lost a significant amount of belly fat while another group doing 40 minutes of slow cardio per week did not burn belly fat.

So interval training is a much better workout choice for fat loss. To do interval training, you do a normal warm-up, and then you alternate between hard exercise and easy exercise, then you follow with a cool down. This routine only takes twenty minutes.

Here's a sample of the interval cardio workouts to burn fat. Do a 5 minute warm-up, and then exercise for 1 minute at a pace that is 10-20% harder than your normal cardio intensity. After that 1 minute, decrease your exercise pace all the way down to cool-down level. Repeat that hard-easy cycle 5 more times. Finish with 3 minutes of cool-down.

Cardio Workout #4 to burn fat: Tabata Interval cardio

Since interval training became popular, personal trainers have been looking for other short cardio workouts to burn fat. A study from Japan used something that is known as the "Tabata Protocol", and many trainers believe this is even better than cardio and regular intervals. The fourth cardio workout to burn fat is the Tabata Interval program.

I'm not convinced it is better than regular intervals, but it is a heck of a hard way to do a fat burning workout. After a warm-up, you 20 seconds of hard work followed by 10 seconds of recovery. Repeat that 8 times. This fat burning workout takes only 4 minutes!

Cardio Workout #5 to burn fat: Bodyweight circuit cardio

Finally, the fifth cardio workout for fat burning is bodyweight circuit training. Like intervals and the Tabata workouts, bodyweight circuit training is not really "cardio", however, these are the three better cardio workouts to burn fat.

Whatever you want to call bodyweight cardio, here's how it works.

First, you start with a quick, easy bodyweight exercise, such as Jumping Jacks.
After that, alternate between 3 lower-body and 3 upper-body bodyweight exercises, using squats, pushups, lunges, pulling exercises like rows or chinups, split squats, and total body ab exercises like mountain climbers.

Finally, finish off the 8 exercise circuit with a tough total body exercise like jumps, burpees, or running in place. Now that's fat burning cardio!
Those are 5 cardio workouts to burn fat. Only two are "traditional", but those 2 are the longest, and least effective. The shorter fat burning cardio workouts are the best way to burn belly fat fast.

Click here for a sample interval cardio fat burning program that has helped thousands of men and women with weight loss and fat burning.

The Turbulence Training fat burning workouts help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment.

Craig Ballantyne is an expert trainer for Men's Health magazine and Oxygen magazine, and his fat burning bodyweight workouts help you lose fat without any equipment at all.

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