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Delayed benefit unfair

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Nov 21, 2009

Do people realize what the government is trying to do with health care? Most lawmakers won’t read the 2,000-plus-page bill before they vote on it. What is most outrageous to me is the four years of taxes and six years of service. If people were told they had to pay for their cars or houses for four years before getting benefit from them, there would be revolt in the streets. If we all could start a business and charge people for four years before we had to provide service, we would all be a success.

What is it going to take before we realize what the government is doing to this great country?

Adrian Jenkins

Lehi

Push on through: take a break from your mudane chest routine with this originaland highly effectivepec-punishing workout

Muscle & Fitness, Jan, 2010 by Joe Wuebben

WELCOME TO YOUR REGULAR CHEST WORKOUT–the gym-goer’s version of the movie Groundhog Day. It probably looks a lot like this: flat-bench presses followed by incline presses, declines and dumbbell or cable flyes. Another chest workout in the books until later that week, or maybe the following week, when you’ll do more or less the same thing. (All that’s missing are Bill Murray and Punxsutawney Phil.) And who can blame you? It’s a solid routine that has produced respectable results for many guys. * But Gunnar Peterson, CSCS, can–and will–blame you. After all, a workout that produces results today is a workout that produces a training plateau just a few months from now* “The common mistake people make when training chest is they get into a rut,” says Peterson, who trains a slew of professional athletes. “They fall into workout ruts that, not coincidentally, they end up sleepwalking through. I see this with the guys who do four sets each of flat bench, incline and decline presses, and cable flyes. There’s no question that program can work, but like any other routine, your body will adapt to it at some point and you’ll stop seeing results. There are so many ways to deviate within your training that’ll help you avoid a plateau.”

What Peterson is getting at here is the principle of muscle confusion: never letting your muscles get used to a particular stimulus, whether by changing up your exercises or altering your rep ranges and resistance.

“The pecs are kind of the upper-body equivalent of the glutes in terms of how the muscles come into play,” he explains. “It’s complex, with the fibers coming from different angles: low to high, high to low, inside out and vice versa. There are so many ways to beat up the pecs that you’d be remiss to just train flat, incline and decline.”

Peterson’s scheme includes unique variations of basic pressing and flye movements that not only blast the pecs but also engage the core, and enhance functional strength and balance. He keeps the rep ranges wide open, too, not to be elusive and vague but rather to encourage you to vary your weights from light to heavy to everything in between–all for the sake of confusing the pectoral region.

“I think you have to undulate your weights and reps in the macrocycle of your training, but I also think it’s okay to fluctuate within a workout,” he remarks. “That can be with different exercises [high reps for one move and low reps for the next] or within the same exercise. You could do a set of 15 reps, then a set of 12, then two sets of four, and then do a burnout set of 20.”

For the above series of chest moves, Peterson recommends doing anywhere from six to 20 reps per set. Looking for a hard and fast rule? “Go with 8-12 reps on flyes and 6-10 on presses,” he advises. “But I’m not really into hard and fast rules. If you want to get out of Triple-A and go up to The Show, you have to figure out how your body responds to high, low and moderate reps, and go from there. It’s like raising kids: You can teach them self-confidence or you can teach them self-reliance. I like to teach self-reliance.”

THE WORK OUT

* Choose 3-4 of the following exercises and perform 3-5 sets of 6-20 reps each.

* Select your exercises and the order in which you’ll do them based on whether you want a flye-dominant or press-dominant chest workout. For a flye-dominant routine, start with one or both of the flye/press combination moves below; for a press-dominant workout, do 2-3 of the pressing moves below before moving on to flyes.

* If you prefer not to overhaul your entire chest regimen, Peterson suggests adding any two of the exercises below to your current chest workout to spice things up.

PRESSES:

Incline Barbell Press (half rep/full rep)

Medicine-Ball Crossing-Over Push-Up

Plyometric Box Push-Up (narrow/wide)

Push-Up With Weighted T-Raise

FLYE/PRESS COMBINATIONS:

Bandit’s Loop Flye to Press (1)

Cable Flye to Dynamite Press (1)

(1) Do all reps for your flyes, then rep to failure on your presses.

For a quick demo of some of these moves, check out muscleandfitness.com

INCLINE BARBELL PRESS (half rep/full rep)

OLD STANDBY

Traditional Incline Barbell Press

GUNNAR’S TAKE: “Doing both half and full reps is a great way to amp up the intensity. It feels like you’re going heavy even though the poundage on the bar says you’re not.”

START: Lie faceup on an incline bench with a rack and grasp a barbell just outside shoulder width. Unrack the bar, and begin with it over your face, arms extended.

EXECUTION: Slowly lower the bar straight down until it touches your upper chest, then press the weight halfway up to the point where your elbows are just past 90 degrees
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