There has been a trend in the recent years towards the so-called functional training. It emphasizes training the body so that it performs better in sport activities and life in general. As with many trends sometimes the pendulum swings too far in one direction. What I mean is that after fitness training for decades meant working purely for size and aesthetics with a split training routine, now the completely opposite thing is in style.
Never hurts to have a pretty girl demonstrate exercises for you. The glutes are the primary movers of the hip joint. First – lets define “glutes.” These are the muscles in your butt. Glutes comes from the Latin name gluteus maximus. To me it sounds like the name of Russel Crowe’s character in the movie Gladiator.
Anyway, the primary role of the glutes is to make your upper leg go in alignment with the spine. In other words if the spine and trunk are vertical – the leg must too. So the thigh is pulled down and back. This extension at the hip is primarily propelled by the muscles you are currently sitting on.
The thing about most rappers’ physiques is that they have a natural advantage. They are genetically more suited for athletics. That’s why they have the muscles of the back of the body – the ones responsible for athleticism (calves, hamstrings, glutes, lower and upper back and traps) easily developed.
Ja Rule is not a big guy. He looks good because he has a decent amount of muscle and is naturally very lean. It doesn’t hurt that they have naturally lower levels of body fat. All that is left is to develop the muscles of the front of the body – biceps and chest and you’ve got yourself a beach physique.
Have you ever had lower back problems? Like some sort of pain or pinching sensation? I know I have. In fact one of the first injuries I had was back in 8th grade when I started getting serious in my basketball training.
So back to my story. I was running and all of a sudden changed directions and felt something weird in my lower back.
The barbell squat is the first exercise in the Beginner Strength Training Full body Workout. In order to progress and avoid injuries, it is imperative that you perform the exercise with correct technique. What the exercise will give you is not big legs, but overall strength throughout the body. To get big legs from squats you have to squat very heavy.
[In the video I did not take the bar from a squat rack, but you should not do it like me. Instead, start the exercise properly from a squat rack.]
I will be real here. The beginner strength training workout is not the only routine I’ve trained with. And, this is not the workout I have started training with. Having said that however, this is the workout I currently do and I would recommend to anybody that is a beginner or intermediate, because it produces the fastest progress thus the fastest results. I will write more about what physical goals you need to surpass in order to advance past intermediate status.