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.

---

You can Increase Your Bench Press by 50 Pounds in the Next 10 Weeks. Special Letter From the Editor: When was the last time you made gains like this in your bench press? You owe it to yourself to check out this program. If you've ever had any desire in you to put up big bench press numbers, you NEED this information. Let me put it this way...I've tried this program. IT WORKS! With the Critical Bench program, you will learn: Exactly how to increase your bench press 50 pounds in the next 10 weeks. Then how to do it again after that! How to use proper "assistance exercises" to propel your bench press through the roof. Eliminating the weak links is the key to rapid results in your bench press. Find out what yours are and how to demolish them! How to train your mind as well as your body to maximize benching performance and develop an "Iron Mind." Your mindset can kill you or make you stronger - which will it be for you? How to manipulate your training variables to prevent plateaus and staleness. You'll never get stuck at the same weight again! How simple changes in pressing technique, body position and mechanics can quickly add pounds to your pressing in only a few moments! Much more! I've been weight training for more than 16 years and I've tried a whole lot of approaches for increasing the bench press. This program is head and shoulders above the rest - it's practically foolproof. You get step-by-step instructions on how to make maximum gains in a very short period of time using tried-and-true bench press training techniques. If you follow the program, you WILL get results. Nick Nilsson Editor and Author of BetterU News Click the link below to learn more about this groundbreaking bench program now! http://www.fitstep.com/goto/bench.htm

---

Impact Carbs, Net Carbs and Effective Carbs - Is Marketing Slang Messing With Your Low-Carb Diet? Find out exactly what these terms mean, how they are being used in foods and supplements and if they are actually effective in a low-carb diet. The answers may surprise you!

Low-carb diets are here to stay. There is no question that they can be very effective for fat loss when done properly. But low-carb diets aren't easy for those who are used to eating a lot of carbohydrates. You must strictly limit the amount of carbohydrates that you eat in order to get results. It's not unusual for a low-carb dieter to be found gazing longingly at a piece of bread or cake!

But here comes nutrition and supplement science to the rescue in the form of non-impact carbs, net carbs and effective carbs with the promise of low-carb foods wrapped up in traditionally high-carb packages! It sounds like a dream come true to low-carb dieters who crave the taste of carb-containing foods but still want the results of a low-carb diet.

These terms are the latest buzz words in the weight loss industry but are people getting more than they bargained for with foods and supplements that are based on net, non-impact and effective carbs? Could these designer-foods be slowing or even stopping your progress on a low-carb diet?

Let's start with a little Nutrition 101. A carbohydrate is a nutrient that is used by your body for energy. It contains 4 kilocalories of energy per gram (kilocalorie is the formal name for calorie).

Your body converts the carbs that you eat into glucose/blood sugar for use in a wide variety of metabolic processes. This conversion can happen rapidly or slowly depending on the type of carbohydrate food eaten. This rate is known as the Glycemic Index. A higher number means the food is rapidly converted into glucose - a lower number means the food is more slowly converted into glucose. For example, table sugar has a high glycemic index while beans have a low glycemic index.

Generally speaking, slower conversion of carbs into blood sugar is better. Here's why...

The faster food is converted into blood sugar, the faster your blood sugar levels rise. When blood sugar levels are high, your body secretes insulin, its primary storage hormone. When insulin is present in the bloodstream, energy nutrients such as fat or carbohydrates are far more likely to be stored rather than burned. In terms of fat loss, this means fat is not readily mobilized from fat cells and fat burning slows or even stops.

By controlling insulin secretion, you can effectively improve your body's ability to mobilize fat from fat cells. Once mobilized from the fat cells, they are more readily burned for energy, i.e. you lose fat. This is the basic premise that most low-carb diets are based on (there are exceptions, i.e. ketogenic diets, which I will get into later in the article).

For a more detailed look at the Glycemic Index, check out:

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

Non-Impact Carbs:

Non-Impact carbs, in a nutshell, are carbs that have very little effect on blood sugar levels when they are eaten. Since they don't have an impact on blood sugar levels, they are technically "allowed" on most low-carb diets.

Examples of non-impact carbs that you'll see in low-carb foods and supplements include fiber, sorbitol, maltitol, and glycerol. Fiber is completely indigestible by the body and passes through unused. Sorbitol, maltitol and glycerol are what are known as "sugar alcohols." They are digested by the body but have little to no effect on blood sugar levels.

Effective Carbs:

The Effective Carb is the opposite of the Non-Impact Carb. They are carbs that will have an effect on blood sugar levels. In most low-carb diets, the idea is to place a limit on Effective Carbs to keep blood sugar and, therefore, insulin levels under control. On a strict, low-carb diet, this number can be as low as 20 grams of effective carbs per day.

Effective Carbs can be divided into two basic groups: simple and complex carbs. Simple carbs are rapidly converted into glucose by the body while complex carbs (which, as the name implies, are more complex in structure) generally take longer to convert to glucose.

Net Carbs:

The Net Carb count is basically the same as the Effective Carb count. It's the total number of carbs in the food minus the non-impact carbs. These terms can really be used interchangeably, which can be a source of confusion in consumers.

For example, if a food contains 30 grams of carbs and 10 of those carbs are fiber, the food contains 20 grams of net carbs. It's basically what's left over after you subtract everything else.

The term "Net Carb" was coined by supplement makers after glycerol (the non-impact sugar alcohol discussed above) was reclassified by the FDA as a carbohydrate. Previously, it had not been classified as either a carb or a fat and supplement makers were able to use it as a sweetener without adding to the carbohydrate count of a protein bar. When this reclassification took place, the carb counts of low-carb protein bars increased dramatically! The term "Net Carb" is a result of manufacturers wishing to keep their carb counts down while still using glycerol in the manufacturing process.

The "Up" Side:

1. Non-impact carbs are very effective at reducing the insulin response you get from eating foods made with them. This means insulin levels will stay more even throughout the day, which will definitely improve the body's ability to burn fat.

2. Non-impact carbs help low-carb dieters stick to their diets. There is no denying that sometimes you just want to eat a cookie. By eating a low-carb cookie, you get the enjoyment of the cookie while still keeping your insulin levels under control.

3. Low-carbs foods are actually being used by people who aren't on strict low-carb diets but who just want to lower their carb intake. Non-impact carbs are very effective for this purpose.

The Downside:

1. While non-impact carbs don't affect blood sugar levels, they still contain calories (except fiber, which is not digestible). A person who eats a lot of non-impact, carb-containing foods is still getting all the calories of an equivalent amount of regular carbohydrates! This fact is never highlighted in advertising for non-impact carb foods. Total caloric intake still matters on low-carb diets. If your body is getting too many calories, it won't need to burn bodyfat.

2. If you eat large amounts (or in some people, even small amounts) of sugar alcohols, you could experience what could tactfully be called the "green apple quicksteps," i.e. diarrhea. Sugar alchols are not normally found in large quantities in natural foods and the body can have a hard time digesting them. What the body has trouble digesting, it tends to get rid of as quickly as possible (if you're familiar with the results of eating Olestra, the fake fat, you will understand what I'm talking about).

3. If you're on a low-carb diet that is designed to put the body into ketosis (a state where the body burns ketones for energy instead of blood glucose), you may find eating non-impact carbs puts the body out of ketosis by providing carbohydrate-like calories. In this case, the non-impact carb basically defeats the whole purpose of the low-carb diet. If you're on a ketogenic diet, stay away from from foods that have non-impact carbs as they will have an impact on your diet.

4. The FDA has not formally defined the terms "Low-Carb," "Non-Impact Carbs" and "Net Carbs" as it has done with terms relating to fat content in food. That will surely come, but in the meantime many foods that are not particularly low-carb can get away with labeling themselves low-carb. As always, reading the nutritional information on the package and noting serving sizes is your best protection.

Is the recent flood of low-carb foods to the marketplace here to stay? Big food manufacturers are banking on it as evidenced by a recent Low-Carb Summit in Denver attended by many major companies such as Con-Agra and WalMart.

In my opinion, however, the burning question when it comes to low-carb foods is: are we getting away from the real point of the low-carb diet? Processed foods are what got us into the obesity epidemic that we're in today.

Is substituting one type of processed and manufactured food for another type of processed and manufactured food (albeit a "healthier" one) the way to go or would we be better off focusing on foods that are less processed and naturally low-carb?

The answer lies in how you choose to approach your low-carb dieting. Foods that contain "non-impact carbs" can certainly be useful on an occasional basis but I don't believe it's wise to rely on them for a significant portion of your food intake. If you rely too much non-impact carb foods, you could easily find yourself not losing or even gaining weight on your diet!

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

---

Secret Training Tip #927 - Two Ab Exercises With a Twist For Rock-Hard Obliques and Explosive Core Power These two unique abdominal exercises will have you doubled over in a good way! You'll develop eye-popping obliques that will give your midsection a finished look, and you'll develop tremendous core strength.

The muscles of the abdominals are always on the list of improvements people would like to make to their physique. I've got two exercises that can help you not only develop obliques that jump out of your abs and demand attention but also help you develop rock-solid core power and strength.

As always, there will be a link to view pictures of the exercises in action at the end of this article.

The first abdominal exercise is one that I call the "Stretched Flying Cable Crunch." It is done using the Cable Crossover machine. This exercise allows you to place direct tension on the upper oblique area to sides of the upper abs where the obliques form the "fingers" that truly finish a physique.

Start by attaching two single handles to the high pulleys of the crossover machine. You will be using a moderately heavy weight for the exercise itself but you can start light to get an idea of the movement first.

Grasping the two handles, kneel down then walk a few steps forward on your knees. As you kneel down, you will need to rotate your shoulders so that your arms are being stretched behind your back (your palms will be facing up in this position). The reason you want to step forward a bit is to get a better stretch on the obliques.

From this position, you can perform one of three movements: a cable crunch straight forward, a side crunch to the left or a side crunch to the right. The angle of the cables form a direct line of pull for the obliques on the opposing side of the body, e.g. when you side crunch to the left, the right pulley has a direct line of pull on the left obliques.

I've found that a good way to execute this exercise is to cycle between the three movements during the set - do one crunch to the front, one to the left, one to the front, one to the right, one to the front, one back to the left, etc. This will give you a balanced workload on the abs. You can also choose to just focus on the obliques by going back and forth between the two sides.

The unique angle of tension from this exercise will really place demands on the abs in a way that they're not used to.

The second abdominal exercise is a variation of an exercise you may already be familiar with. The exercise this variation is based on is commonly known as a "Cable Torso Rotation." This variation takes this basic concept and adds a unique twist that literally doubles the effectiveness of the exercise.

This movement is done on a cable machine. If you have access to a machine that has an adjustable height pulley, this is the best option. If not, it will also work on either a high or low pulley. The movement itself is exactly the same regardless of where you pull from.

Set the pulley to about belly-button height (or use either the high or low pulley) and attach a single cable handle to it. Use a fairly light weight to start so you get an idea of how the movement is performed and what resistance you'll need.

Stand perpendicular to the pulley with your left side towards the pulley. Grasp the handle with your right hand and take a step to the right. Plant your feet a little wider than shoulder width apart and get ready to rotate. The movement itself is very similar to a baseball swing, making it a very effective sports-training movement not only for baseball but from any sport that requires a powerful transfer of force from lower body to upper body.

At the start of the movement, your right arm will be held across your chest with your left arm at your side. Initiate the movement by rotating your torso to the right. Be sure to keep your elbow slightly bent and locked into position. If you allow the elbow to bend, you will turn the movement into a side row, lessening the effect on the obliques. Keep that arm stiff and fairly straight!

When you start this rotation, begin bringing the cable around in front of your body by pulling on the cable handle with your right arm. Your right arm will come away from your body as you rotate, placing more torque on the obliques.

Here comes the trick that doubles the workload on the abs...

As you start to approach the midpoint of the rotation, grasp the CABLE about 6 inches from the cable clip with your left hand. Do not grasp the handle itself with the left hand - it's important that you wrap your left hand around the actual cable for this to work. Read on...

In a normal cable rotation exercise, after you go past the halfway point of the rotation, the tension on the abs will start decreasing. The peak tension is at the halfway point. We're going to fix that!

Once you've passed the halfway point of the rotation, continue pulling the handle with your right hand but now start PUSHING forward and away from your body on the cable itself with your left hand. As a visual, think of the string games that kids play such as the Cat's Cradle.

What you're essentially doing is creating a new fulcrum for the tension of the cable to go through. Instead of losing some tension around the arc as you normally would, you now have direct tension on the abs again and in a different way than in the regular rotation exercise. This not only works the obliques on the pulling side with the pulling motion, it also works the obliques on the pushing side with a strong pushing motion.

The effect on the abs with this double movement is tremendous! The next day you should have a very strong feeling of tightness (and possibly soreness) in the upper/side ab area.

For pictures on how to perform both of these oblique-burning exercises, go to:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue25-abs.htm

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

---

The "Super Deadlift Bar" Equipment Review - Is it Effective? Is the "Super Deadlift Bar" weight bar a worthwhile training equipment investment or are you better off with a regular straight bar your deadlifts? Find out here.

The Barbell Deadlift is by far one of the most productive, total-body exercises a person can do. But many people, due to biomechanical, structural or sometimes even motivational reasons, simply find the exercise too awkward or just too hard or painful to perform properly. This takes an extremely valuable exercise out of a person's training repertoire.

The "Super Deadlift Bar" aims to change that. The question we're asking here today is: "does it perform when put to the test?"

The Problem It Claims to Solve:

Let's examine the mechanics of the deadlift and how the "Super Deadlift Bar" works. When you do a regular barbell deadlift, in order to minimize torque on the lower back, you need to keep the bar as close in line to your center of gravity as possible (this is the point in your body where the combined weights of all your parts are balanced). For example, when you're standing, your center of gravity is (depending on how your bodyweight is distributed and what your posture is like) normally just slightly forward of the ankle joint.

When the weight you're deadlifting is outside your center of gravity, it exerts torque on the lower back during the movement. Reducing this torque involves keeping the bar as close to your shins as possible during the first half of the movement until the bar clears your knees.

Unfortunately, keeping the bar close to your shins can also mean having to drag the bar up your shins when using very heavy weight. Speaking from personal experience, I've walked away from numerous deadlift sessions with my shins scraped and bleeding (even under sweat pants).

No matter how close you keep the bar to your shins, however, you'll never get it close enough to fully reduce the torque on the lower back.

How the "Super Deadlift Bar" Works:

The "Super Deadlift Bar" addresses this problem by moving the bar out away from your shins but at the same time moving the center of mass of the bar back in line with your center of gravity. This is accomplished with a bent-bar design that opens up the area right in the center of the bar to allow your knees free movement.

The bend in the bar allows you to basically stand directly inside the bar, placing the center of mass of the bar directly in line with your center of gravity.

This configuration allows you to pull the bar directly up rather than having to work around your knees and shins as you pull the bar up. This purportedly eliminates a significant amount of torque on the lower back during the movement as the bar is able to stay in line with your center of gravity all the way up.

Also, pulling the bar straight up rather than having to go around your knees may eliminate a significant loss of upwards force compared to the conventional deadlift. Practically speaking, it means you should be able to lift more weight.

Does It Actually Work?

In a nutshell, yes. In practical testing, I've found that trainers using the "Super Deadlift Bar" were better able to perform the deadlift exercise and maintain far better lower back position as they performed the movement.

The result: using this bar allowed the tester to use heavier weights with far less lower-back discomfort. The lifter was better able to maintain the lordotic (lower back) curvature of the spine during the lift, increasing the safety of the exercise. It's important to maintain this curve during lifting in order to allow the muscles of the lower back to properly stabilize the spinal column.

A very nice added benefit of the bar is that the neutral positioning of the handles (palms facing in) completely eliminated the tendency of the bar to roll as it's lifted. This problem in the regular barbell deadlift is normally addressed by using a mixed grip (one hand over, one hand under). The technique, however, can lead to uneven torque on the shoulders and the lower back during the movement as well as rotation of the bar as you lift it.

Gripping with a neutral grip (palms facing into your body) eliminates rolling and unbalanced loads on the skeleton and muscles.

One thing of note about the grip on this bar, however, is that you must be careful of where you place your hands on the handles. If you grip the handles dead center, the bar will have a tendency to tip backward (this is due to the anatomy of the human hand). In order to work around this, all you need to do is set your hands back a little on the handles.

Summary:

Thumbs up! The "Super Deadlift Bar" is very effective for the purpose for which it was designed and I highly recommend it if you are interested in increasing your lower back and total body strength through deadlifting. The bar is also very effective for performing shrugs, lunges and bent-over rows as well.

If you have any questions or feedback about the bar, feel free to contact me at betteru@fitstep.com.

If you are interested in purchasing a "Super Deadlift Bar," you can do so directly from the company that manufactures the bar using the link below.

http://www.power-systems.com/nav/closeup.aspx?c=17&sc=79&g=1535&src=Fitstep.com

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

---

Serious lean muscle gains without the bodyfat - scientifcally proven information. Build serious lean muscle in record time with a proven muscle building nutrition plan and discover exactly which bodybuilding supplements work and which are no more than pure marketing hype, by sports nutrition and supplements expert Will Brink. Editors Note: I have been reading Will Brinks' books and articles for many years and he has been right on the money every time. This book is definitely worth getting! http://www.fitstep.com/goto/muscle-building-nutrition.htm

---

RANT - Move over Dennis Miller--I've Got Some Things To Say About Health, Fitness and Nutrition. You might laugh, you might get angry and you may not agree with me at all but I've got some stuff on my mind that I need to get out that I think you'll appreciate.

Rant #1 - Why Does Everything Makes Us Fat Or Causes Cancer?

It seems like we can't eat or drink anything these days without being told it'll make us fat or cause cancer.

We try to eat canned tuna to eat less fat and we get mercury poisoning. We eat fruit and vegetables for the vitamins and fiber and the pesticides give us tumors. We eat chicken and we get mad chicken disease and now farm-raised salmon will give you swine flu. Wine is either good or bad for you depending on whether you eat it with cheese or with crackers!

What ever happened to the good old days when we got fat from eating too much pie and we got sick from eating too much paint off the walls? Now I hear you can get cancer from worrying about getting cancer.

Rant #2 - Low-Carb Beer

Do beer companies seriously believe that they can get people to believe that they're selling diet beer? With all their talk about who has 1 gram less carbs in a tablespoon than the other, they seem to forget that it's actually the ALCOHOL in their product that makes you fat!

Not only does alcohol basically snuff out your fat-burning enzymes, it's also preferentially stored as fat and seriously messes up your body's production of muscle-building hormones such as testosterone.

I guess saying "low-carb" does sound better than saying "watered-down." Next they'll be adding caffeine and Gatorade to it and be calling it "high-performance beer."

Rant #3 - "Nutrient of the Week" Bandwagon Marketing

Did you hear? Froot Loops are now healthy because they contain added calcium! They contain added calcium because someone decided to add a big bag of chalk to the sugary goop they make it out of. You can now feed it to your sugar-crazed A.D.D. kids with a clear conscience because it's now healthy for them because it has CALCIUM.

I'm waiting for the day when a clever marketer takes a piece of plain blackboard chalk and sells it as a "Calcium Stir Stick" for your coffee.

I also just love it when a product that's been around for 30 years suddenly proclaims it's now "fat free" or "low-carb" even though it's always been and everybody knows it. "Fat Free" or "Low-Carb" water is not the revolutionary product it's made out to be.

But what really takes the cake are vitamin companies that proudly jump on the nutrient bandwagon crying "See! We've had it all along!" when their pills are so tightly compressed and unabsorbable you can still read the brand stamp on them when they come out the other end (I have it on good authority from a certain Port-o-Potty specialist I know)!

Rant #5 - Making Low-Carb Foods Out Of Foods That Shouldn't Be Low-Carb

Orange juice just shouldn't be low-carb. I don't care what they say. If I want low-carb orange juice I'll add my own water instead of paying the juice company to add it for me and charge me extra for the privilege. That's all I have to say about that.

Rant #6 - Trying to Pass Unhealthy Foods Off As Healthy

Pork Rinds Lite - now with 25% less fat, sodium, cholesterol, lead and cyanide.

Even if you take some token percentage of the bad stuff out of a bad food, it's still going to be a bad food. It's like buying reduced fat lard - it's still lard. It just has a nicer name now. Anyway, it's so easy to reduce the fat in a serving by making the serving smaller, what's the point? Who's going to sit down and eat just 3 cheese doodles?

When I eat a food I know is bad, I know it's bad but sometimes I'm just going to eat it anyway. I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to sue you for making unhealthy food. Nobody is putting a gun to my head to eat it. I don't believe for a second that slightly reducing the "perceived naughtiness" of a food somehow now makes it "healthy." So please don't try and sugarcoat this delicious garbage unless it's for flavor.

Rant #7 - The Amazing Diet Patch

The only way you'll lose weight with the Diet Patch is if you put it over your mouth. 'Nuff said.

Rant #8 - Expensive Urine and Other Supplement Bashing

There are doctors even to this day who believe that taking vitamins will only result in expensive urine. They believe that you can get all the vitamins and minerals you need in a balanced diet. Unfortunately, the only balanced diet some people get is when they're trying to carry 3 dishes to the table in one hand.

Jumping straight to prescribing costly drugs to mask symptoms to people who are probably just desperately in need of basic nutrition is the epitome of expensive urine, in my opinion.

And then there's creatine. You may remember the buzz a few years ago when some of the "don't-confuse-us-with-the-facts" media jumped on a story about the deaths of some high school wrestlers. They were taking creatine to improve their performance so obviously it must have killed them. It certainly wasn't because they were taking long steam baths in rubber suits and exercising intensely without drinking adequate water in order to desperately make weight for a wrestling meet. It must have been the horrible supplement that did it because nobody has ever died from catastrophic dehydration or heat stroke, right?

Let me clarify - there is nothing dangerous about creatine. It's a natural substance already found in your body in quantity. It's found in every piece of meat that you eat. The only way creatine could hurt you is if someone drops a bucket of it on your foot.

Supplements only seem to make the news when somebody has something bad to say about them, regardless of whether it's true or not.

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

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