FREE Fitness Articles For Your Website! Increase your site traffic now! Use the professionally-written fat loss, muscle-building and exercise articles you find in the BetterU News Archive FREE on your website. Click here for details

NOTE: All articles in BetterU News are written by Nick Nilsson -
http://www.fitstep.com/ unless otherwise credited.

---

Outlaw Bodybuilder Thumbs Nose At Weight-Loss "Experts" Who Earn Fortunes On The Sweat And Dreams Of Men & Women, and Finally Reveals The Simple Proven Science of Fat Loss No One Else Will Tell You About... Lifetime-Natural Bodybuilder, Personal Trainer, Nutritionist and Success Coach From New Jersey Teaches You How to Turbo-Charge Your Metabolism, Gain Muscle, Burn Off Body Fat and Develop Unstoppable Motivation ... Guaranteed! Discover How He's Taught Thousands of People to Get Leaner Faster Than They Ever Thought Possible! Even if You Have Less-than Average Genetics... Even If You've Never Succeeded at Losing Weight Before... Even If You Have Stubborn Fat Deposits That Don't Seem To Budge... Right Here on This Web Page You've Found The Fat Loss Success System You've Been Looking For: http://www.fitstep.com/goto/burnfat.htm

---

You Don't Know Squat About Squats The squat is one of the most productive exercises you can do, period. Learn more about proper form and how to analyze your own squatting technique for maximum results.

If I could pick the single most productive exercise in existence, it would be the squat. Squatting is the cornerstone of leg training and should be a staple of most routines.

But many people simply don't squat. Why? There are a number of reasons, but it seems the major one is they simply don't know squat and about squats! Naturally, if you don't know how to do an exercise properly, you're probably not going to want to do it.

Proper form is very important for getting the most out of the squat, not to mention avoiding injury. Once you know proper form, you'll feel much more confident about doing the exercise and you'll be able to harness its power.

---

How To Do It:

In this section, you will learn how to properly set up a squat inside a squat rack, where to place your feet, where to set the bar, and how to do the movement itself. At the end of this section will be a link to a page that includes pictures for the exercise.

1. Setting up the squat rack

2. Setting the bar on your back

3. Foot placement

4. Doing the movement

Common Squatting Errors:

Even though squatting is a very natural movement, it is also very easy to do it incorrectly. Here are some of the more common errors you will come across when squatting and what you can do to fix them.

Error #1 - Your heels rise up off the floor as you squat down.

Keep your eyes up, chest up, and sit back slightly. You most likely also need to work on calf flexibility by stretching regularly. Be sure to stretch out your calves thoroughly before each squatting session.

Error #2 - Rounded back

This can occur if your lower back is the weak link in your squat. You must strengthen your lower back and strive to keep the arch in your lower back during the movement. Other tips you can try include lifting your toes up in your shoes as you squat down and gripping the bar closer in to your shoulders.

Error #3 - Excessive leaning over

If you find you lean forward excessively when you are squatting, you may have a problem with calf flexibility. To remedy this stretch your calves thoroughly.

Some trainers squat with their heels propped up on plates to help with this problem, however, that doesn't address the root of the problem, which is generally calf tightness.

Error #4 - Using too much weight or not enough weight

Using too much weight will limit your range of motion and force you to concentrate on not getting crushed rather than doing the exercise properly. Stay within your limits.

Not using enough weight can also be a problem. If you don't have enough weight on your back, your heels may have a tendency to come up as there is not enough resistance to force them down. You should still stay within your limits, but don't be afraid to push yourself a little.

Error #5 - Bouncing out of the bottom

Don't do it! The change of direction should be deliberate, not bouncy. You can seriously injure your back and/or knees by bouncing.

Error #6 - Knees buckle in or splay out

Wrap a weight belt loosely around your thighs and press out against the belt as you come up. If your knees buckle in then the belt will drop to the floor. If your legs tend to splay out, hold something, e.g. a volleyball, between your legs and keep it pinched there during the set.

Error #7 - Using the Smith Machine for squats

With the Smith Machine version you can place your feet farther forward and squat with your upper body vertical. While this may seem like a good thing (and it does make the exercise easier on your lower back), this version places a great deal of stress on your knees and is not recommended.

Pushing against the bar at an angle is not a natural movement for your knees and results in a great deal of shearing force and torque in the cartilage of the knees. For the health of your knees, stick with the free weight version.

Tricks and Techniques:

Every exercise has tricks that will help you to perform the exercise better and get more out of it. The squat is no exception. Here are a few tricks you can use:

1. Wear boots or solid-soled shoes

Try wearing solid-heeled work boots when squatting. They allow the power from your legs to be transferred better than when wearing soft-heeled running shoes.

The reason is simple: you can lose power at the bottom when wearing shoes with thick, soft soles (such as running shoes) because the soles will squish in when you push yourself up.

If you don't have work boots, try squatting barefoot. You will not lose any power at the bottom that way. Going barefoot will also eliminate any heel elevation you may get from footwear. It will also force you to push with your heels. When you squat barefoot, set the racking collars a little lower to make up for the lack of soles. If neither is an option, use flat or thin-soled shoes. Basically, the less padding between your feet and the ground, the better.

2. Use a Manta Ray

A plastic molded device called the Manta Ray is an excellent tool for squatting. I use one regularly and highly recommend it. There is no pain from the bar when you use this device. A towel wrapped around the bar or a foam pad can also help ease the pain of the bar but be aware that these things can slip or roll. You can get more information on the Manta Ray at the following site:

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/mantaray.htm

3. Keep your elbows pointed down

Hold your hands on the bar fairly close in to your shoulders and keep your elbows pointed down the entire time.

If you hold the bar too wide, this will force your shoulders to rotate internally. Your elbows will start to point towards the back which will then cause the bar to rotate forward as you come down. This, in turn, will cause you to lean over excessively, increasing the pressure on the lower back.

Keeping your elbows pointed down activates your external rotator muscles, which will keep the bar from rolling forward.

4. Bend the knees first

Hold a tight lordotic (lower back) arch on descent. When you start the movement, the knees should bend first, followed closely by the trunk. Most people descend with glutes leading, followed by the knees. This emphasizes the back and glutes rather than the thighs. This is characterized by excessive leaning over.

5. Yanking the bar

If you feel you are about to get stuck at the bottom of a squat, try this trick:

6. Hold your breath at the bottom

Normally, it is taught that you should never hold your breath during an exercise. However, there is a very good reason for doing so in the squat (be aware that I'm not advocating that you hold your breath through the entire exercise, just briefly at a certain point in the exercise).

Here's why: your abdominal core is much more stable when you hold your breath. You need as much stability as you can get at the bottom of a heavy squat. If you are inhaling or exhaling at this point, you compromise your core stability. Much of the stress that was being supported by the intra-abdominal pressure of your contracted core muscles is then transferred to the lower back.

By holding your breath just before you get to the bottom, during the direction change and as you start to come back up, you will have far greater core stability than if you breathe during that phase. This will result in greater power out of the bottom, allowing you to use more weight safely.

Be sure that you do not hold your breath too long!! This period of breath-holding shouldn't last more than a few seconds.

---

So next time you're going to do a leg workout, give squats a try. They really are one of the most productive exercises in existence and should be a part of most routines.

The squat rack isn't just for barbell curls anymore!

For pictures demonstrating the barbell squat, please go to the following URL:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue17-squats.htm

Want more articles like this? Subscribe to BetterU News now!

---

Seven Quick Tips To Speed Up Your Metabolism and Burn Fat Faster The speed of your metabolism is the real key to burning fat quickly and efficiently. Here are seven easy tips for boosting your metabolic rate.

Your metabolism or metabolic rate can determine exactly how quickly you gain or lose fat. Here are some quick tips you can put to use immediately to help crank up your metabolism and increase your fat burning.

1. Eat Breakfast

It's no myth that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you skip breakfast thinking you are saving calories or time, consider this...

Your body has been in a fasting state for 8 hours or more. When you wake up and don't give it any food, its natural reaction is self-defense. It thinks "famine" and automatically slows your metabolism to a crawl to conserve calories. Not only does everything you eat for the rest of the day have a far greater chance of being stored as fat, your chances of burning any fat off that day are low.

And here's the whammy... you're going to get really hungry later and will probably want to eat something that's not so good for you. With your now-slower metabolism (because you skipped breakfast), you're going to store a lot more of that "not-so-great" meal than usual.

2. Eat Frequently

Besides skipping breakfast, the next biggest metabolism-killer is long waits between meals. Every time you eat something, your metabolism ramps up to process the food. The more frequently you eat, the more frequently your metabolism will get a boost.

The real key, however, is to be sure you're eating smaller meals (eating 5 big meals instead of 3 big meals isn't good for losing fat!). Try to eat 5 or more times per day, even if it's just healthy snacks between meals.

3. Exercise With Intensity

Your metabolic rate is directly related to the intensity of the exercise you perform. Walking will burn calories while you're doing it and give your metabolism a small boost for a little while after but it doesn't compare to high-intensity interval training. That type of training can boost your metabolism for a full 24 hours or more after.

Even if you can't handle high-intensity training, you can always find ways to make the easier exercises such as walking more intense, e.g. walk faster, walk up hills, wear a weighted back-pack, etc.

4. Train With Weights

Weight training builds muscle and muscle is a huge factor in determining your metabolic rate. Muscle tissue is very metabolically active. Your body burns a lot of calories just to maintain it.

Weight training gives your metabolism a triple-shot. Not only do you burn calories during the exercise, you also increase your metabolic rate long after the exercise (provided the training you are doing is intense). Add to that the extra muscle you build from the training and you can see how effective weights can be for boosting your metabolism.

5. Eat More Protein

Of the three major macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats), protein requires the most energy to digest. Protein is also less likely to be stored as fat because of this. Protein will also help you to build up your muscle.

I don't recommend that you overload on protein, however, focusing on getting plenty of good-quality protein from a variety of sources (e.g. lean meats, chicken, fish, eggs, soy, etc.) can help keep your metabolic rate high.

6. Take Your Vitamins

Your metabolic rate basically boils down to chemical reactions in your body. Vitamins and minerals (and water) are important parts of these chemical reactions. If you don't have enough of these components available for your body to use when it needs them, your body will have to limit itself to what you've got.

Think of your metabolism as a car assembly line. You can't build a complete car until you have all the parts available. If, for example, you only have enough doors available to build 100 cars but you have 200 doorless cars on the line, you're missing out on a lot of potential production.

By taking a multivitamin on a regular basis, you will not only support your metabolism but your health as well.

7. Reduce Your Fat Intake

Fatty foods take longer for your body to digest and they leave you feeling fuller longer. While not being hungry is certainly fine when trying to lose fat, eating meals that encourage you to wait longer periods between eating can slow your metabolism.

This goes back to the point about eating frequently. If you eat fatty foods for breakfast, you may not want to anything again until lunch, which could be 5 or more hours away. Ideally, you should eat approximately every 3 hours.

If you're looking to give your metabolism a boost, give these tips a try. A faster metabolic rate can help you tremendously with fat loss.

Want more articles like this? Subscribe to BetterU News now!

---

Secret Training Tip #793 - Seated Hanging Leg Raises - A new approach to an old favorite The hanging leg raise is an excellent abdominal exercise. This variation is not only easier on your lower back but helps to remove the hip flexors from the movement, all the while increasing the contraction on the abs.

This exercise targets the abdominal muscles with an extremely intense contraction. The range of motion of the exercise is short but the tension on the abs is excellent.

For this exercise, you will need a bench or chair (a bench will work better) and a bar with adjustable height. This can be a regular Olympic bar on a power rack, a Smith Machine bar, or any other set-up you can think of.

Put a bench inside the rack. Set a bar on the racks at about forehead level when you're sitting on the bench. Sit on the bench and grasp it with an underhand grip. Your legs should be slightly bent with your butt and feet on the bench.

Pull your butt off the bench and raise your knees up into your chest. Hold your breath while doing this short movement to help stabilize the abs and improve the contraction.

The movement itself looks like the top bit of a hanging leg raise. Squeeze hard at the top then lower your legs and set yourself back down on the bench. Release all tension on the abs as you exhale then do another rep.

This exercise results in a very hard contraction in the abs for several reasons:

First, the position of the legs at the start of the rep is already near the maximum contracted position of the abs.

Second, your abs start the movement in a mechanical disadvantage because they are already shortened. This means they must work harder in order to achieve the contraction.

Third, releasing all the tension on the abs between reps means you dissipate all the elastic tension that the muscle normally builds up in a regular movement.

Put these three points together and you can see that the abs have to start from scratch at a mechanical disadvantage near their peak contracted position. The results: major burn!

Another advantage this exercise has over regular hanging leg raises is that it primarily targets the abs. Normally, when you do hanging leg raises, the first part of the movement involves a lot of hip flexor action. This variation starts the movement with the hip flexors already almost fully contracted. The tension in this position goes primarily to the abs.

Even better, this version greatly reduces stress on the lower back by eliminating the first part of the movement. Generally, pain in that area occurs due to the torque on the lower back as you raise your legs from hanging directly down to bringing them up about halfway. Skip that range of motion and you skip the pain.

If you are looking for an exercise to really bring out the washboard in your abs, give this one a try. I would recommend also doing a set or two of Small Ball Crunches (see below for link to instructions) to hit the stretched and middle ranges of motion of the abs. The Seated Hanging Leg Raise is perfect for finishing the abs off.

Go to the following URL for pictures demonstrating how to perform this exercise:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue17-ab-raises.htm

For information on how to do Small Ball Crunches (as mentioned above) go to:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue13-crunch-tip.htm

Want more articles like this? Subscribe to BetterU News now!

---

The Great Big List of Calorie-Free Foods Ever wish there were foods you could eat that didn't contain any calories? Wish no longer. These foods can be eaten guilt-free.

It's a little known fact (or in most cases, wishful thinking) that some foods can, in certain situations, go from being fattening no-no's to being totally calorie-free simply by mangling your perspective. Here's a list of those foods and situations.

1. Anything sampled when preparing food - If you're taste-testing, those tastes are calorie-free. If you're cooking for someone else and aren't going to be having any yourself, those tastes actually have negative calories and can help you lose weight.

2. Anything eaten off someone else's plate doesn't count. If you can get it when they're not looking, that's negative calories again.

3. Food "rescued" from the floor - When the "3 second rule" is in effect (i.e. it's still good if it's only been on the floor 3 seconds or less), that snack has zero calories. Plus, if you have to race your dog to it and you win, you're allowed another bite from the original undropped item for free.

4. Out of necessity, food that is eaten on the day of the expiration date has no calories. After all, we don't want that triple-chocolate fudge cake to go to waist... I mean waste.

5. Anything eaten on your birthday, a friend's birthday or a family member's birthday has no calories. This includes family and friends whom you haven't spoken to or mentioned in years.

6. Foods that you've never tasted before are calorie free. If you don't recognize it, eat it guilt-free. If you can't even pronounce the name, that's negative calories.

7. If you live in an Italian family, your fifth and sixth helpings are calorie-free. Besides, "You're too skinny, you need to eat more."

8. The calories of any leftover foods will be added to the total of the day you originally started eating them on. This means the calories from the leftover pie you eat on Wednesday only count on Tuesday, the day you originally started the pie. And who cares about yesterday?

9. If you can eat it through a straw, it has no calories. For example, if you can get a piece of spaghetti through a straw, you deserve it.

10. Anything that contains the word "free" in it has to be calorie-free because advertisers would never lie or try to sell you a product that would make you fat. This principle also applies to the words "lite" and "reduced."

11. The last item or bite on any plate has no calories. For instance, the last cookie? No calories. The last slice of pizza? No calories. The last box of donuts? No calories.

If you put all of these calorie-free foods into your diet, you will have great success in watching your waistline - it will be way out in front of you where you can see it!

Want more articles like this? Subscribe to BetterU News now!

Want More Powerful Fitness Information? Read another issue of BetterU News now!