Cross X Fit

Are you looking for ways on how to Increase Vertical Jump? It is entirely possible to add several inches to your vertical leap, as I have found out myself with a good exercise program I found online. It has enhanced my calves and quads quickness and strength, allowing me to achieve my best results in my jumping ability when I was not able to before.

1. How to Increase Vertical Jump with an Exercise Program?

The 2 important attributes that one needs to build up to improve their own vertical leaping ability are the muscle quickness and power. They can be enhanced by doing a couple of exercises such as jumps, lifts, stretches and others that target and strengthen the legs. It is very important to train both, as focusing only on one for too long can lead to undesirable results. For example, focusing on strength too much can lead to excessive muscle growth that results in heavier weight and thus slower movement. This will have negative effects on the person’s jumping ability.

2. Which Are the Most Important Parts of Your Legs to Focus On to Increase Vertical Jump?

They are the quads and the calf areas of both legs. These 2 muscle groups are very important for providing speed, power and strength. As a result of training these 2 areas, you can expect to strengthen all the other parts of your leg muscles.

3. What Are Some of the Best Exercises That You Can Perform to Increase Vertical Jump Height?

For working out the quadriceps and calves, the best exercises would be lunges and squats. These should be included in your workouts if you want to jump higher vertically. These exercises can be done at the gym and even at home with the proper techniques. You can visit my website link below to download the training program I followed successfully to achieve maximum vertical leap gains.

There is some debate in the fitness industry about how to work the lower abdominal muscles.  The truth is that the 6 pack (rectus abdominus) is one muscle that has distinct sections.  And although you cannot only contract the lower portion of the rectus abdominus, you can emphasize it a little more than the upper abs if you follow the 7 Lower Abdominal Workout tips below.

Now before we get to the 7 tips, I have to tell you that working your lower abs will not magically get rid of stomach fat.  This is referred to as spot reduction and spot reduction is the biggest myth in fitness.  You should work your lower abs to stabilize your pelvis, support good posture, improve function and performance, and exercise your spine in different directions.

Here are 7 lower ab workout tips.

#1 Move you pelvis.  The rectus abdominus attaches to the ribs and also to the pelvis.  When the ribs move like in a crunch the upper abs are emphasized.  However, when the pelvis moves like in a reverse crunch or a posterior pelvic tilt, the lower abs are emphasized.  Reverse crunches are a great place to start when you want to workout the lower abdominal muscles.

#2 Move your legs.  When you move your legs during ab exercises, your lower abdominal muscles must work really hard to stabilize the pelvis.  For example, doing leg raises emphasizes the lower abs a little more than doing crunches.  Leg raises can be done from many different positions, such as lying on the floor, hanging from a bar, or using a captain’s chair.

#3 Add resistance when you get stronger.  If you get so strong that reverse crunches or leg raises become easy, you should add resistance to the exercises to breakthrough your strength plateaus.  Ankle weights are a great way to add resistance to your legs to increase the challenge on your lower abdominal muscles.

#4 Use an incline.  Using an incline is another great way to emphasize and increase the challenge in the lower abdominal area.  If you do reverse crunches or leg raises on an incline board, your lower ab muscles work much harder against gravity.

#5 Use something contoured.  This is a hidden secret to get more muscle work in your lower abs.  Since your lower back has a slight natural curve, using a contoured surface like a Bosu Ball or a Pilates Barrel allows you to get more range of motion and more muscle work.  Since the floor is flat it may decrease your range of motion during certain exercises, but with a contoured surface you get more motion.

#6 Stretch your lower back and hips.  Inflexibility in the hips and back will decrease your range of motion and put additional pressure on your lower back.  Because most people have sedentary jobs, most people have stiff lower back.  If you have a stiff lower back, you will have difficulty emphasize your entire abdominal region, especially the lower abs.  You should warm up and stretch your hips and lower back before doing lower ab exercises.

#7 Workout your abs 2-3 times a week.  No need to workout your lower abdominal muscles every day.  2-3 times a week is all you need.  You do not have to slave away doing a thousand repetitions.  2-6 total sets of 12-20 repetitions are all you really need.

Now, if you want to lose weight, you should take a comprehensive approach to fitness and also perform aerobic exercise, weight training, and eat a healthy diet.

Your goal may be weight loss, weight gain, bodybuilding, toning, endurance, walking or running, interval, circuit training or sports-specific. But first a warm up is always the first phase of an exercise program followed with a pre-exercise stretching before going to main workout. To gain muscle mass, your goal should be body building.

Here is a sample bodybuilding workout that can be used by anyone aspiring to join a Mr. Muscles competition or just simply wanting a body similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger. This routine is in the premise that the person has no serious medical ailments and can do weight lifting.

Warm up. The 10-15 minute warm up could be a jogging or a walking with or without the use of a treadmill. The warm up allows a gradual redistribution of blood flow to the active muscles. Also, It increases the stretchability of the connective tissue in other muscle components.

Do a 10 – 5 minute stretching. Stretch the part of the body to be worked on. A couple of different stretches are available depending on the targeted body part that will be worked on.

Some of the different stretching maneuvers include:

Neck/Cervical Spine Stretch. With left arm at side and shoulder down, slowly bend the chin to the chest and turn toward the right shoulder. Use your hand weight and stretch by the left shoulder. Repeat the step on the other arm.

Triceps Stretch. Bend the right elbow and use the left arm to push the bent elbow up and behind the head until a stretch is felt on the other side of the raised arm. Do again the step with the other arm.

Do a 20-minute cardio proper or weight training. To achieve a total gain on the muscles, the routine should consist of weight exercises with 8 to 12 range of repetitions with weights heavy enough to complete the number of repetitions. Allow to rest between sets to allow the body to recover the normal breathing.

For muscle gain, the recommended rest is 3-5mins per set on a one to two hours every other day while one to two hours working on a different routine. A one day rest is needed for the worked out body part to enable recovery and form of the muscle. So for the gym buffs that are always present in the gym make sure that you are working on a different set of muscle group or body to part to allow healing time of the previously worked out muscle.

Sample bodybuilding workout:

Back/Biceps: Bent-over barbell rows, One-arm dumbbell rows, E-Z bar preacher curls, Hammer curls, Close-grip cable rows, One-arm cable curls, Standing barbell curls, Lat pull downs

Chest/Triceps: One-arm triceps extensions, Skull Crushers (Lying French Press), Incline bench press, Cable crossovers, Pectoral flyes w/dumbbells, Flat bench dumbbell press, Triceps Press downs

Cycle 1: Whole Body, Cardio, Whole Body, Cardio, Whole Body, Cardio, Rest
Cycle 2: Chest, Triceps, Shoulders, Cardio, Back, Biceps, Calves, Cardio, Hams, Glutes, Abs, Cardio, Rest
Cycle 3: Chest, Triceps, Back, Biceps, Cardio, Legs, Abs, Shoulders, Traps, Cardio, Rest
Do these cycles for 4-6 weeks or until you see results.

Cool down. The 10-15 minutes cool down can be a jogging or a walking to slowly bring your body temperature at the normal level.

Post-stretching exercise for about 5-10mins.
The four most effective bodybuilding workouts that should be included in the routine are bench press, squats, military press, and dead lifts.

The shoulders are the key to unlocking upper body size.  They are used in all pressing and pulling exercises, so if you can improve the strength of your shoulders you will also see your numbers go up in exercises like the incline bench and pull-ups.

In addition, the shoulders, along with the upper back, are largely responsible for the appearance of a wide upper body.  If this is combined with a lean stomach it gives the appearance of what is known as the “V-taper”.

There are a ton of exercises you can use build bigger shoulders, but the key with all of them is to follow a progressive program that allows you to constantly improve.  Only by improving will your shoulders grow.  These improvements can come in the way of added weight, more reps, or decreased rest periods.  As long as you are improving (and eating) the mass will come.

So with that, let’s take a look at some of the best exercises for building bigger shoulders!

Bradford Presses

This movement is named after a 1930’s Olympic lifter named Sam Bradford.

Start with a weight that is about 20-25% lighter than what you can military press.  Take a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip on the bar. You will begin in the traditional military press position with the bar in front you.  From this position you will press the bar until it is just above the top of your head.  Once you get to this height you will bring the bar over your head and lower it down behind your head into the behind the neck press position.  From the position you will again press the bar to a height just over your head and then lower it back down in front you back to the position in which you started.

This is one repetition.  Complete 6-8 reps for 3-4 sets.  

One important technique point is to make sure that you keep looking straight ahead throughout the movements.  Resist the temptation to look down, which will not only make the exercise easier, but can also lead to some pretty severe neck and upper back injuries.  Don’t do it!

This movement will really blast your shoulders and will also greatly improve your serratus anterior strength which will help your starting strength in all pressing movements.  If you are someone who struggles to get the bar off your chest during a bench press, this exercise is for you!

Front Plate Raise

This movement is a simple one.  All you need is a weight plate.  The beginning lifter will start with a 25 pound plate, while advanced lifters can use a 45 pound plate, or even a 100 pound plate.

Grab the plate with your hands at the 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock positions, just like you are holding a steering wheel.  With your elbows straight, raise the weight up in front of you and continue until it is all the way over your head.  Many lifters stop the movement once they get to eye level, but you are losing a lot of the benefit by doing so.  From this position simply lower the plate back to the starting position.

This movement is a great finisher for the front deltoids after a pressing movement like Bradford presses.  Because your hands are in a neutral position (thumbs towards the ceiling) it also puts the shoulder joint in a much healthier position than barbell front raises.

Do 2-3 sets of 10-15 reps here.

Lean-away Dumbbell Lateral Raises

Now that your front delts are toasted from the first two exercises, it’s time to move on to finishing off the medial deltoids (outer shoulders).  This is the part of the shoulder muscle that really contributes to your upper body width.

Lateral raises are a great way to target this area.  So, let’s look at how to do this unique lateral raise exercise.

You are going to start with just one dumbbell in your hand.  Your free hand should hold on to something sturdy like a power rack at shoulder height.  You will then shift your feet so that they are directly under your free hand.  At this point you should lean away from your free hand so that you are holding yourself up with the power rack.  From this position you will simply perform a lateral raise.

This variation really targets the top half of the movement, while the bottom half will be very easy.  Make not to use too much momentum in the bottom half of the exercise, or you will short-change the muscle building tension in the top-half.

Complete 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps per arm.

So there you go! A great shoulder workout that shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes to complete.  Remember, the key with any workout is consistent progression.  

Eat big, train hard, rest long.  Repeat this process month after month and you will have a muscular body you will proud of!

There must be some reason why some exercisers reach their fitness, fat loss and physique goals while others fail.  There is, and is really is quite simple once you understand it.  The reason is that successful exercisers use MULTIPLE workouts to meet their goals over an extended period of time.

The fact of the matter is, there is not one workout that can accomplish all the improvements you need to reach your overall goal.  For example, you might choose a workout that focuses on fat loss.  But the fact of the matter is, you need to improve fitness and build lean muscle to reach your true physique goals.  So, a one size fits all workout just won’t do.  To illustrate what I mean, let’s look at three different types of bodyweight workouts.

Workouts Without Weights For General Fitness

Bodyweight calisthenics are an excellent choice for improving fitness.  After all, there are many physical abilities that need to be improved for a high level of fitness like strength, power, endurance, speed, flexibility, agility, balance, coordination, accuracy and mental toughness.  And bodyweight workouts are great for improving all these physical qualities.

And keep this in mind.  Even though your goal might be more for appearance, improving your appearance is a RESULT of a higher level of fitness.  So, you should have do a general fitness workout.  But…

Workouts Without Weights For Fat Loss

You can’t expect your general fitness workout to burn off all the fat you need to reach your body fat goals.  So you should use a fat loss workout that specifically targets burning calories.  (Think of a fast paced bodyweight calisthenics circuit with little rest.)

But here is the trick.  You fat loss workout shouldn’t interfere with your fitness or physique building goals.  As a matter of fact, they should improve both fitness and keep valuable muscle while targeting fat elimination.  But there is more…

Workouts Without Weights For Strength And Size

Of course, to end up with the athletic body (not a bodybuilder body), most exercisers want, you need to pack on some lean muscle.  After all, to look the way you want takes more than just losing pounds of fat.  You also need to build attractive muscle!

Therefore, you should target muscle growth.  But again, you want to do this in a way that does not sabotage your fat loss and fitness improving efforts.

Wouldn’t it be great if changing ONE thing resulted in the body you want?  But the truth is, there are many things you meed to do to build the strong, lean, athletic body you dream of.  You can’t just train for fitness.  You can’t just train for fat loss, or building muscle.  So, you need multiple bodyweight workouts to reach your ultimate goal.

Exercisers who succeed in reaching their fitness, fat loss and physique building goals know they need to use multiple types of workouts to build their best body.  So, focus on different types of workouts at different times while staying on track to meet your overall goals, and you too will succeed.

If you want to look and perform like a Modern Day Gladiator Now is your chance.