I had a subscriber who inquired:

“Is it possible to build strength, put on muscle and burn off fat if I don’t have a power rack and I only have access to a barbell? Not even an Olympic barbell, but one of those old crappy cement filled barbell sets”

I know exactly the weights this guy is talking about. I think most of us grew up with them right? They were basically cement weights covered in plastic, and over time the plastic busted up and the cement started to get busted underneath remember?

I believe I’m showing my age
To cut a long story short…

Of course! Why not?! You can absolutely build strength and power with an outdated equipment!

You just need someone to show you how. Luckily you met me. And luckily I just read most of Dan John’s awesome “From the Ground Up”.

In this brilliant little ebook Dan John defines the “Rapid Ascent Program”, which made up of three exercises:

1. Power Clean

2. Military Press

3. Squat Move

And here’s how you did the program (from his book):

“The program was very simple. First, groups of four boys were given a bar. The bars were weighted from very lightmaybe 25 poundsup to perhaps close to 100 pounds. Each cohort of boys would lift one at a time, put the bar down, then the next boy would lift. The four would constantly move from lifter to watcherthe bar never stopped. The three sets (explained in just a moment) would not take very longin fact, sometimes it was hard to catch your breath in time for your next set.

The repetitions were very easy

* First set: 8 repetitions

* Set #2: 6 reps

* Set #3: 4 reps

The goal was simple: once you got all 18 reps (8+6+4), you added weight. If you started with a bar that was excessively light, the succeeding workout, you would be bumped up to the next weight and a stronger group. (Needless to say, actual variations could include making a whole new group with more weight, tooor whatever necessary to make the group work together).”

Seems easy doesn’t it?

That’s the advantage of this program!

You don’t need lots of equipment to build a hard body with muscles of steel… all while increasing your cardiovascular fitness and knocking out fat.

What you DO need is a little “do or die” point of view. You should make a decision you certainly WANT to attain your fitness goals, then you’ll find a way to make use of whatever equipment you have available to make it happen.

I love program in view of the fact that it follows the DoubleYourGains’ philosophy of training movement patterns rather than a bunch of exercises. The Rapid Ascent program has a press move (military press), a pull move (power clean), a squat move (front squat) and an explosive/hamstring move (power clean).

How to carry out the “Rapid Ascent” program for cardio and fat loss:

Coach Dan highlights that you could also acquire a great cardio workout and nuke some fat:

“To “hurry up” the trainingas if it was required, there were times when Mr. Freeman advised bringing together the Power Clean and Military Pressesone clean and one press, repeated for a total of eight reps. This was completed with a lighter weight. One could also execute the Front Squats after the clean and presses, too. I have only done this onceand it was an incredible cardiovascular exercise.”

So if you think you don’t have enough equipment to get into great shape and achieve your fitness goals you are wrong. You are wrong. You are wrong.

In fact, you don’t even need a barbell. You can get underway with the DoubleYourGains’ bodyweight program. You can do pullups on your door frame (for extra strong fingers) or just grab the top of a door and go to town (or a tree limb, anything you can hang from, etc) Have faith in me, if THAT workout gets easy for you - you will be a certified STUD.

And, the minute you gain access to a good Olympic barbell set you can start the DoubleYourGains’ 3-5 Program.

If you pride yourself on having clean and healthy looking hair, looking after your locks is a top priority. So using good shampoos, conditioners and hair care products on your hair is important. But when it comes to price and the quality of hair care products, how do you know which hair products to use?

High street products seem much more affordable and therefore giving you better value for money because of the low cost of high street hair products. Branded premium salon products can appear pricey with the average 300ml shampoo bottle priced at 5 times the cost ($20/GBP10) of a regular high street shampoo ($4/GBP2).

On just this kind of price comparison alone, it appears that the cheap high street hair products are the winners as you are getting 5 times as much product for the same cost, or the same amount of product for 1/5 the price of the salon professional hair care products.

However… when you carry out a closer inspection of the differences between cheap hair products and professional salon hair products, does cheap hair care products really provide the better value for money, or is buying cheap hair products a false economy? Let’s take a closer look…

To find out whether the premium brand salon hair products provide better value for money in both the short and long term when compared to cheap high street hair care products, we decided to test them to find out the real truth about hair products, and whether the high street products are as good a deal as they initially appear.

For our test we compared a 300ml bottle of professional salon shampoo and compared that with a 300ml bottle of your average cheap high street shampoo. To achieve the our required standard of cleaning, the professional salon shampoo needed just 10ml per application to achieve this standard, whereas the cheap high street shampoo needed 50ml per application to achieve the same standard of cleaning.

Using 50ml per application, the average high street hair shampoo provides approximately 6 applications per 300ml bottle. With just 10ml used per application, the professional salon hair shampoo gives you around 30 applications per 300ml bottle. Doing a little math, the cost per applications are $0.64c/GBP0.32p for the cheap high street shampoo, and $0.66c/GBP0.33p for the salon professional shampoo.

Conclusion: although cheap hair care products initially seem a better deal and provide more value, in reality there is virtually no difference in price when it comes to the economics of professional salon hair care products. And? when you include the much higher quality, the greater effectiveness and visual results, and the deeper and more thorough cleansing and conditioning of salon hair care products, buying cheaper high street hair products in favour of salon hair products is a complete false economy.

If you are wondering why I deal with strength training seriously and think you should too therefore this article will tell you why.

Read this article right away to find a number of good reasons why I think building strength should be your most important goal (although you just want to build mega-muscles and nuke lots of fat)…

1. Strength Training Is More Functional:

Ever needed to lift somewhat heavy? Move fixtures? Lift your girlfriend up and pin her against the wall for a sizzling make out session? All those things required strength, not necessarily muscle size.

Actually, at times having extra muscle is not beneficial - it weighs more as a result if you have to run or walk long distances takes additional calories to sustain, in short you have to eat further…

2. Building Strength Takes a Lesser Amount Of Time:

Majority of expert weightlifters spend up to 6 days in the gym and some even do twice a day workouts. If you’re like me (or most people) therefore lifting weights isn’t your permanent job.

You can turn into super strong training 3-4 days a week, and spend not greater than 20-30 minutes in the gym each time - DoubleYourGains’ 3-5 Program takes 30mins/3x week. That means you could be consuming 2 hours in the gym vs. 12. It doesn’t take long to improve strength.

3. Building Strength Is Inspiring:

Most people don’t have any goals when they go to the gym, they think “I want to look better” but that’s vague and undefined. Knowing you want to add 5lbs to your deadlift every time you go into the gym though is VERY motivating.

What’s more, observing the weights build and seeing how far you’ve developed over the course of time is very motivating and makes you want to keep coming back to the gym.

4. Strength Makes It Easier To Build Size:

Most bodybuilders today don’t understand that guys like Arnold and bodybuilders from his day all did powerlifting routines early in their careers to build high starting levels of strength and power.

They had a exceptional “dense” look to their physiques from all this heavy weight training. And were able to make use of heavier weights when it came to doing outdated bodybuilding style set/rep schemes - so it was much easier for these strong lifters to build muscle.

5. Better For Health:

There’s been many contemporary research that shows strength training helps to avoid age related diseases and deteriorating diseases.

To sum up: Losing muscle mass is an expected upshot of aging, but strength training in particular will tell your body to “hold on” to muscle mass as it needs it to continue lifting weighty stuff.

Besides, your bones will grow stronger too to support your framework of muscle mass.

6. Improves Self-Confidence

There’s nothing better than KNOWING you can lift a heavy weight off the floor or press a heavy weight up on top of your head. Or knowing that you have the strength to pull yourself up and over a wall up and over the edge of a cliff and things like that.

Knowing you are as strong as you look is a major confidence booster.

7. Strength Training Is Better For Sports

Strength is the basis for all other physical qualities. Increasing your strength increases your power, explosiveness, speed, agility, endurance, etc

What’s more, several sports - mainly martial arts - require athletes to have high relative strength. They need to be immensely strong for their size for they have to stay within a specific weight class.

There’s nothing worse than acquiring 20 MORE pounds of muscle you have to carry down the field, or move around the ring to avoid getting knocked out - and that 20 pounds of muscle is not doing you any good.

8. Strength Training Is Great For Women

The majority of women don’t want to seem like the hulk. They don’t want to acquire 20 pounds of muscle. They just want to get “toned”. As I mentioned in the past, strength training is the ultimate way to get the toned look.

So if you’re a girl you can get strong very quickly and improve your health and quality of life without taking away from your femininity in the least.

I can practically assure you’re not front squatting enough or in any way. For some reason, you don’t see a lot of gym goers (particularly bodybuilders) making use of this time-tested workout.

Crossfit has gone miles and miles towards bringing it back, but if you’re not doing crossfit - it’s most likely not even on your radar.

This is a shame because if you want to achieve maximum strength and power build awesome quads sculpt a killer six-pack and save your “tweaked” lower back then you’re going to appreciate the front squat.

Here’s 2 reasons why you should front squat for a better body:

1. Get Better Quads - The front squat is an EXCELLENT movement to get bigger, stronger quads-probably the best exercise there is. Because you’re position is more upright, it emphasizes the quads more.

2. Get Rock-Solid Abs (Core) - Since you’re holding the weight facing your body, and you have to stay upright your whole core gets a great exercise trying to even out the weight and keep you vertical. If you find you’re leaning forward a lot when you back squat, you’ll quickly get stronger and fix this problem if you change over to front squats for a moment.

Front squats aren’t just good for building a better looking body either! They’re also really good at just making you more fit and keeping you more healthy. What good is looking strong if you have to sacrifice your health in the process?

Here’s the five more reasons why you have to Front Squat for better well-being:

1. Makes Your Other Lifts Better - Because the bar is placed in front of you, on your shoulders, the front squat is a lot like other exercises and strengthens the “base” of those lifts/presses. Power Cleans, Overhead Presses, Overhead Squats, etc all share the same “starting” position as the front squat. Getting stronger and more comfortable with Front Squats will help you in those exercises too.

2. Bad Form Gets Self-Corrected - If you’re back squatting with bad form you can complete the exercise at the expense of causing injury to yourself. The good thing about front squats is the form is self correcting: If you’re not straight enough you’ll drop the bar if you’re not holding the bar right you’ll drop it if you don’t keep your elbows up you’ll drop it. It’s an exercise that pretty much forces your form to be good.

3. Less Weight - When all is said and done, if you can defy your body with less weight (because you’re doing a harder training) then it is safer. Because the Front Squat is harder than Back Squats you won’t be able to lift as much weight. Which means a reduced amount of spinal compression.

4. More Natural Spine Position - You’re more upright with the front squat your spine is in a more neutral “straight” position. This combined with the fact you’re lifting less weight is healthier for your spine in the long run.

5. Lower Back Approved - Most people have lower back problems and back squats aggravate these conditions. But because your upper body is mostly upright (instead of leaning forward like in a back squat) there’s less force on your lower back. I started front squatting after I hurt my lower back.

It is important for you to live a healthy lifestyle. Living a healthy lifestyle involves controlling your weight. We all know that it can be difficult to lose weight, but it can be done with a little effort and encouragement. The natural way to lose weight is certainly the best option. Weight loss pills can do more damage than good, so always make sure to buy from trusted and well established brands.

Ditch the soda and drink water instead. A great way to lose weight is to drink plenty of water. For most people, drinking 64 fluid ounces a day is enough. Use a water filter to save money. The only difference between bottled water, and filtered water is that bottled water is more expensive. This is the most natural, and healthiest way to lose the excess weight.

Another great way to lose weight quickly is to go outside for a 30min walk or jog. It is important for you to exercise on a daily basis. This does not mean you have to go to the gym, or go through a 2 hour exercise program. If you can go out for a 30min walk in the morning, or evening it should be enough for you to start seeing some results.

Do you have friends that also want to lose weight? Well, go out and find some. We all know that losing weight might get boring at times, and chances are you will lack a little motivation. By having an additional 2 or 3 friends join you, it makes the whole process more fun for everyone. Support each other, and always encourage everyone around you to keep going.

Try to eat more often. That’s right, by eating more often throughout the day, it will help you lose weight more quickly. Most people eat 3 big meals a day which are breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Instead of eating 3 big meals a day, try to eat 5-7 smaller meals. By eating 5-7 smaller meals a day you will boost your metabolism. The higher your metabolic rate the more calories you burn at rest.

Eat more fruits and vegetables. It is important to follow a well balanced diet. Try to always add a salad, or some sort of fruit with your meals. You should always eat a variety of foods to provide your body with the nutrition it needs. Never eat more than you need to, eat just enough to satisfy you hunger.

Those were just some tips you can follow to lose weight. You don’t have to follow all of the tips above at once. Start slow, make one change at a time until you are happy with your weight. The important thing is to never quit and give up. You have to keep yourself motivated because after you lose the weight, you still have to keep it off. Keeping the weight off is going to be more difficult, but with the right attitude and effort it can be done. Everyone’s body is different, try to experiment with different methods, and once you find the best one, stick with it

Fashion TV FTV…

Fashion TV FTV…

On a hot summer day, I’m sure you would rather do those exercises build muscle in a pool, than in a gym.

Well, truth is, you won’t build much muscle fast, however, you will improve your ability to build muscle by strengthening your joints, a slight body workout, and also great flexibility.

Your joints are crucial for lifting weights, cardio, or any kind of exercise. Swimming will be beneficial in providing your body the chance to build its joint strength for once, instead of only your muscles. This will in turn provide more strength, room for muscle building improvements, and less room for injuries.

Swimming provides you the opportunity to get a small full body workout, with low stress, but this should not be used as your only workout. The cool water will change your body temperature, causing your fat to be distributed to your skin, causing an overall loss in muscle tone. Doing this once or twice a week in your workout is best for results and to prevent loss in muscle tone.

Usually, you cannot directly work on your flexibility unless you are stretching or maybe a little in your workouts. While you are in a pool, your flexibility will be put to the test and it will also grow. Having good flexibility will help you to complete harder and heavier lifts and exercises.

Finally, your inner self will improve. Your lungs and heart will be put to the test under calm, low stress conditions. Holding your breath and swimming helps expand your lungs and pump the heart, giving you a boost in health. It would be normal to get out of the pool breathing easier and feeling better because of this.

Pool exercises build muscle; however, you will see better improvements in your flexibility, joint strength, and your health.

Fashion TV FTV…

Washington has increased its number of wineries by 400 percent in the last decade. Connoisseurs and the average wine consumer have found a new place to get great wines.

Modern technology has made the process of making wine more sophisticated but the talent to produce great wine is all in the hands of the vintner who uses skills developed over generations of great wine makers sharing their knowledge to have some of the best wines now available at the wineries in Washington.

If you were in France and drinking wine in the regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy you would be at the same exact latitude of the wine country in Washington. With all the positive things going for wine in Washington being designated as American Viticulture Area is certainly a plus!

No crowds, no hurry, no pressure. Isn’t that what a vacation should be? You will experience the peace and pleasure of great countryside and great wine on a wine tour in Washington. Find the wine you like by going to the wine tastings offered by the different wineries. Find a great place to stay while in the area and make it the most relaxing and enjoyable vacation you have ever taken.

It may be dinner time at your house and what better way to set a relaxing environment than to have a wonderful glass of wine with dinner. Perhaps you are having something that a dry white will enhance or maybe you want a full bodied red to wake up your taste buds. Either can be obtained from one of the wineries in Washington.

It’s swirling, sniffing and slurping time when you get a good glass of wine. Swirl the beautiful wine in your glass to get the full color beauty and incorporate some air into the wine. Now it’s time to sniff, what a pleasure to smell the wonderful fragrance the wine gives off. With slurping you get the air mixed with the wine to bring out the full flavor of the choice you have made. Just remember to slurp gently and quietly, it still works and doesn’t drive your guests or family mad with the noise.

If just 1% of the wine grapes of Washington are grown on the eastern side of the Cascades then you would think that it was a poor area for wine growers. In fact, it is a great area where the soil is right, the climate perfect and the growing season long to provide fully ripened, fruit flavored grapes with good acid levels and pleasing aromatics. This area will certainly become more of a draw to vintners in the time to come.

The French, Italians and Germans began planting wine grapes in the state as early at 1825 for their own use when they were settling the area. Commercial planting of wine grapes didn’t being in Washington until the 1960’s with rapid expansion of the industry occurring in the mid-70’s. Now there are new wineries opening every couple of weeks for your enjoyment.