Training; Quick note; Decline Bench Press;

The angle of your decline bench is most crucial in this exercise. You will get little or nothing from the movement if the bench is set at a decline greater than 30 degrees. The best effect will be felt in your lower pectorals when you do your decline bench presses on a bench set at an angle of 15 to 20 degrees. To achieve a greater degree of stress on the outer sections of your lower pectorals, you can use a wide grip on this movement. As with all pressing movements involving the chest, hand placement will decide which part of the pecs get the most stress, although the whole chest does get stressed on any bench pressing movement, a greater degree of stress can be placed on certain parts when the hands are placed wide, close or medium. The same applies with the bench itself flat, incline,or decline.

Peak Contraction;

Anatomically speaking, muscles are made up of long, thin fibers of muscle. And these fibers are composed of single muscle cells strung together end to end. A huge number of muscle fibers must be bundled together to form any muscle group.
Physiologically, the mind sends nerve impulses to the muscle group that will be contracted to move a weight in an exercise. The contraction of one muscle cell in a fiber causes the entire fiber to shorten in length, and the contraction of two cells in a fiber causes it to shorten even more. Overall, the number of muscle cells in a muscle fiber that actually shorten to contract a muscle group depends on the strength of the nerve impulses sent by the brain to the individual cells. The stronger this nerve impulse, the greater the number of cells caused to shorten. And the more cells you can shorten like this, the stronger and more complete the contraction of a full muscle mass.
In using this principle, you will utilize exercises in which you have a full weight load on the working muscles when they are completely contracted. Ordinarily, most bodybuilding movements done on machines provide a peak contraction effect.
At the top of each peak contraction movement, you should try to hold the weight for several seconds with your fully contracted muscles, building as much tension as possible into the working muscle groups. Holding the weight for a slow count of three at the top of the leg extension movement, for example, allows you to contract your quadriceps much harder, thereby adding mass, quality, and deepcuts to your front thighs.
Those advanced lifters will know what weight to use without injury but if you are not an advanced lifter or have never used this technique before, use caution and a weight a little lighter than you normally use, as it will definitely cause you muscles to be very sore the next day if performed correctly and the proper amount of weight is used. Over time and with experience, you will come to know your body and what weight will cause the desired effect.
This is not an easy way to train and it is not to be used all the time, as with all techniques you can cycle it in when you feel you need a shock or a change is needed to keep your muscles guessing and growing!

Training Principles;

Joe weider has popularized a set of training principles over the past twenty years, probably longer as i've known about them for that long, known as the the weider system of training. I guess he was the first to sit down and make a list and put his name on them for a book and use them on his clients with much success. Is he the first one to discover these principles, i highly doubt it, but he was the one to put them all together in book form and release them to the public. I am sure that many bodybuilders were using some form or another of these techniques for many, many years before joe came along, he was just smart enough to put them together in a system. There are plenty of weightlifters all around the world that never heard of these principles, yet use some form of them in their training everyday. You may even use some or all at some point in your own training. I went into my library the other day and began to reread some old books that i have not touched in years and found them to be just as informative as when i first got them twenty years ago, and no i am not that old, i was younger twenty years ago! Anyway, for those of you like me that need a refresher or those of you that are much younger and have never even heard of joe weider except for the fact that his name is on the Mr. Olympia bb show, I will begin to give a short detailed version of some of his training principles that have been valuable to me over the years. You probably know some or most of them but this will help you see them in a little different light, just like when you workout with your mind connected to the muscle ,you are working that muscle much more thoroughly, explaining these techniques in detail may bring up some points to tweak your already intense workouts. In this case you can teach a new dog new tricks and old ones better tricks!

Carnitine and ALA;

I try to read as many bodybuilding mags as i can to try and stay on top of the latest training and nutrition research, whenever i come across something that i think that may be of some help to your training goals regarding bodybuilding and lifting in general, i feel compelled to pass it on.
Carnitine;
Carnitine was just once a popular fat burner, until researchers at the university of connecticut decided to do a series of studies on this supplement. They found that it not only helps to burn fat, but it enhances muscle recovery,boosts insulinlike growth factor-1, and increases the amount of testerone receptors in muscle cells. Since carnitine, much like creatine, requires insulin to get into muscle cells to be effective, it is recommended that it be taken with meals, espically those containing carbs.
Alpha-lipoic acid;
ALA is known as the "universal antioxidant", because its main job in the body is to take care of the other antioxidants. ALA can also increase insulin sensitivity, which means insulin's actions are magnified. That's why you want to stack it with carnitine. Research shows that ALA boosts creatine uptake by muscle and will do the same for carnitine. This is great news for bodybuilders, since insulin is an anabolic hormone that drives protein synthesis and increases the uptake of glucose and creatine into muscle cells.
Stack it like this;
The best time to stack these two is immediately after workouts, with your postworkout protein and carbs. Take in 1-3 grams of carnitine along with 300-500 milligrams of ALA.
I know not everone has the time to sit and read all the new research and magazines that come out all the time so i will try to narrow it down and give you what i think might be helpful on your quest to the physique you desire.Train hard and smart!

Save our supplements;

Once again the government is at it again, trying to take another vitamin and turn it into a prescription. This time it is the b vitamin known as pyridoxamine. Safety is not the issue. The FDA admits its plan to ban pyridoxamine is in direct response to a petition filed by a pharmaceutical company! It is up to us to act before this takes place! Go to the website www.healthreform.gov/ and e-mail the government your feelings before this health promoting vitamin is taken from us forever. If you are not intrested in e-mailing your feelings for whatever reason you can write to this address;
Nancy-Ann Depaele
Director
Office of Health Reform
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
It's up to us to speak up and save this and all of our supplements! Remember there is strength in numbers!

Garden state classic;

On june 27th,2009 i entered the new jersey NPC garden state classic at the west orange high school. I entered two classes, the masters thirty five and over,176 and up and the novice heavyweight class. I did not place in the masters class and got third in the novice class. I wasn't very pleased with my placing or lack there of but i feel i was in better shape than last year but there were many more very worthy competitors. No matter what i got into the best shape of my life to date and i was very happy with myself in that regard. I just need to put a lot more mass on my frame and come in as tight but much bigger. I was told the masters class may have been judged a bit quickly but the placings are final and now i know what i have to do to do better for next year. Life is about obstacles and setbacks and i overcame my left biceps tendon tear and managed to get into bodybuilding and i plan on powerlifting sometime in the future again. Losing or coming in third only adds fuel to my fire to train harder and smarter this coming year to add as much muscle as i am able and hopefully get into the best shape of my life again next year and do better in another bodybuilding show that i enter. All the goals that i set for myself regarding the show as far as following the strict diet and having every training session count was met, so in the end i am happy with my performance overall. I will keep you all posted on my progress over the coming year. Until then train hard and smart and don't let anything stand in the way of your goals, with the mind, anything is possible!