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Learn "How to Get Bodybuilding Books and Articles Published" Do you have ideas for training articles or books but have no idea how and where to get started? Don't let that stop you! Learn from the master, Dennis Weis, professional bodybuilding writer for more than 30 years. In his eye-opening new e-report, Dennis goes through every single critical step you MUST follow to achieve success in bodybuilding publishing. You will save yourself months and even YEARS of frustration by reading through Dennis' richly-entertaining personal accounts of his experiences in the business. He will teach you everything you need to know about the journey to getting articles and books published. In addition to this never-before-seen insider information on publishing, you'll also get a number of the most powerful bodybuilding training programs Dennis has written about in his entire 30 years in the business! Great information, great advice and a great story about how Dennis first got started into bodybuilding will have you reading this e-report from "cover to cover." To learn more about "How to Get Bodybuilding Books and Articles Published" by Dennis Weis, click this link right now! http://www.fitstep.com/goto/articles.htm

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Secret Training Tip #734 - How One Single Set of One Single Rep of One Single Exercise Can Build Massive, Strong Biceps Learn the secret, extremely-simple bicep exercise that has the potential to put inches on your arms very quickly.

What's the first muscle that you think of when you think of bodybuilding? The biceps! Having big, well-developed biceps marks you as a serious trainer.

But what do you do if your biceps lag behind in development? Or if you simply want to build them as large and strong as possible as quickly as possible?

I'm going to share with you the secret exercise technique that helped me go from 13 1/2-inch arms to 18-inch arms in my first year of training. And all it takes is one single rep!

Let me just start by telling you that, personally, my biceps have always been among my weakest and slowest-to-develop bodyparts. Some people have the genetics to easily build big, strong biceps. Not me! I've had to come up with training techniques to blast past these limitations and have had to fight for every inch on my arms. The point of me telling you this is that I'm not somebody for which just anything will build big biceps. The training techniques have to be really powerful for me to see results.

The technique I'm about to share with you works the biceps so thoroughly and so powerfully, your biceps will have no choice but to get bigger and stronger.

After all this build-up, you're probably wondering just what kind of complicated exercise technique this is!

The fact is, this technique is so simple as to be downright elegant in its simplicity. What is this exercise? It's the Flexed Arm Hang.

The Flexed Arm Hang is not complex, but it provides you with a number of very powerful benefits that make it an ideal exercise for piling muscle mass on the biceps.

To fully understand the benefits of the exercise, you must first learn how to do it to properly focus on the biceps.

How To Do It:

In a nutshell, you will be simply holding the top position of a chin-up for as long as possible! Here's the procedure in detail...

That's the exercise. Not too complicated! If you're familiar with X-Rep or Static Contraction training, this concept is essentially the same...hold the contracted position of an exercise for as long as possible! Here are the benefits:

If you combine all 5 of these powerful benefits, you have an exercise that stimulates the maximum number of muscle fibers, with continuous tension, using a compound exercise that moves your bodyweight, and requires very minimal equipment.

So how do you take FULL advantage of this extremely powerful biceps-building exercise? Finish every workout with one single rep of the Flexed Arm Hang. One rep is all you need as that one rep will work the majority of your bicep muscle fibers.

You can also add resistance by holding a dumbell in between your feet or by using weighted dip belt. The potential gains in size and strength are tremendous!

If you make a habit to do one single intense rep of this technique at the end of each and every workout, I guarantee you will see excellent bicep growth and development.

When you've done one good rep of this exercise, you'll know you've squeezed out every last drop of bicep growth from your body!

To view pictures of this exercise in action, please click on the following link:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue33-biceps.htm

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Training Equipment Review - The Omniglide - Portability and Versatility At Home and On The Road Looking for workout equipment you can take with you wherever you go? The Omniglide may be exactly what you're looking for!

One of the biggest problems a person faces when it comes to exercising at home or while traveling, aside from time, is the availability of equipment to workout with.

While there are options in terms of bodyweight exercises, sometimes having some good equipment can give you that extra variety and motivation you need to do your training. Let's face it...hotel exercise rooms that consist of a couple of pink neoprene 2 lb dumbells and an exercise bike with no seat aren't going to do you a whole lot of good!

But what do you do when space is at a premium, i.e. if you're traveling and can only pack equipment into a suitcase along with everything else you're bringing? Or if you just don't have room at home for normal, bulky exercise machines?

That's where a new product called the Omniglide comes in.

The Omniglide, while being simple in design, allows for good versatility in the exercises you're able to do with it. In fact, there are exercises you can ONLY do with the Omniglide!

What Is It and How Does It Work?

The Omniglide is a very compact product, consisting essentially of two plastic hand-grips. The bottom surface is flat and smooth while the top surface provides a comfortable grip for your hands and fingers. The small size means you can take it with you pretty much anywhere you go.

The Omniglide works by sliding on carpet, using your bodyweight (applied at various angles) for resistance. Your hands grip on the top of the Omniglide sliders as you do the exercises.

Having separate, freely-moving handles for each hand allows for a good range of effective exercises to be performed, even allowing for diagonal movement of the hands for a totally different kind of stress on the body. This ability to perform diagonal movement (similar to how the arms work when cross-country skiing - one goes up while the other moves down) is unique to the Omniglide.

The exercises can very easily be tailored to your ability level. Depending on how you position your body, you can increase or decrease the resistance you apply.

Some of the exercises you can do with the Omniglide include:

Circles - Front
Circles - 45 degrees
Circles - Single Disc
Degree Extensions
Front Extensions
Front Extensions - Single Disc
Swim
V Extensions
V Extensions- Single Disc
Fly Front
Side Swing
Fly Front
X Extensions

You can view these exercises in action on the Omniglide site (the URL is listed below) and the product itself does come with an instructional video so you'll know exactly what you're doing and how to get the most benefit from the product.

After testing these exercises for myself, I found them to be very effective at working the chest, abs, arms and even the back. With a little experimentation, I was even able to come up with a few exercises of my own that weren't on the site (and I'm sure there are plenty more that could be done that I haven't thought of yet). The freedom of movement that the Omniglide gives provides you with a great base from which to work.

Also, being equipment that uses your bodyweight for resistance, the Omniglide is very good for building functional chest and core strength. Exercises that move your body through space will actually activate more muscle fibers as well. The Omniglide is a great example of innovative bodyweight exercise equipment.

There were only a few minor drawbacks that I noticed with the Omniglide. The first is that there really aren't any direct lower body exercises you can do with it. Only the muscles of the upper body can be worked due to the size and shape of the grips. As there are many effective bodyweight exercises you can use for the legs, such as squats, lunges, calf raises, one-legged squats, etc., this is not a big concern. It is good to know going in that this is an upper-body exercise tool.

The other drawback that I could see was that the Omniglide can only be used on carpet or other similar surface. That being said, most homes and every hotel or motel room I've ever been in has some carpet in it, so this is not a very big limiting factor for the Omniglide. It may simply restrict where in your home you can use it.

[NOTE: while it is possible to use the Omniglide on other surfaces, carpet is the manufacturer's recommended surface.]

Conclusion:

All in all, if you're looking for a good piece of versatile and very portable exercise equipment, the Omniglide may be a very good choice for you. It provides a nice variety of very effective exercises for a wide range of ability levels.

The drawbacks of not being able to work your lower body and not being able to use it on every surface are minimal and not hard to overcome.

It's an innovative piece of equipment that can help you get a great workout at home and on the road.

For more information on the Omniglide, including pictures and videos of the exercises you can do with it, please click the following link to go the product's website:

http://www.zionindustries.com

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If you're interested in purchasing the Omniglide, the manufacturer has generously agreed to provide a discount to all BetterU News subscribers who purchase using the following link:

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

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Your Keys To Rock-Solid Ankle Stability, Explosive Sports Performance and Incredible Balance! Learn how building up your ankle strength can have an immediate and extremely powerful impact on your sports and training performance. You can even practically injury-proof your ankles!

If you were to ask me which often-neglected bodypart you could work that would have the greatest immediate impact on your sports performance, my answer would be instantaneous...the ankles.

The ankles are admittedly not glamorous. You're never going to have someone ask you to flex your ankle for them or ask you to roll down your sock for a better look.

But think of it this way...can you think of a single sport that doesn't involve the ankle in some way (poker and billiards don't count as sports, even if they're on ESPN - we'll limit ourselves to sports during which you can't smoke and drink).

If you're playing football and you need to make a sharp lateral cut to avoid getting hit, the majority of that force goes right through the ankle. A weak ankle will turn and possibly sprain. A strong ankle will take that force and allow you to make that sharp, powerful cut and leave tacklers in the dust!

Think of every racket sport you can...how many of these involve planting a foot, lunging for ball then rapidly changing direction?

Even if you're just running or sprinting in a straight line, you can benefit from stronger ankles. When your foot contacts the ground, all the force of your muscles propelling you forward goes directly through the ankles.

And one more HUGE benefit to strong ankles? With proper training, you can make them practically injury-proof! Using myself as an example, after doing ankle stability training (like the kind I'm about to tell you about), I had an instance playing tennis where I was lunging to the side to reach for a ball. My foot stopped but my momentum continued to carry my body laterally. My ankle bent 90 degrees, touching my outside ankle bone to the ground.

Without ankle strengthening, it would have been sprained for sure. As it was, my ankle popped right back up and I kept playing like nothing had even happened! No injury, no swelling, no tenderness, no problem!

Balance is another tremendous benefit. When your ankles are strong, you will be much better able to keep your balance even under awkward conditions. Think about it...the small muscles of the ankle are constantly firing to maintain balance (if you've ever run in the sand, you know how sore your ankle and calf muscles get the next day). These small muscles play an extremely important role in balance. Strengthening them will give you a greater ability to maintain your balance, even if you've already got great balance right now!

So now that you know what ankle strengthening can do for you, let's get into the nuts and bolts of how to do it.

These exercises can be done at the end of your weight or cardio workout or at the end of sports practice sessions. I wouldn't recommend starting a training session (or especially a sports practice session) with them as fatiguing these support muscles and the connective tissue in the area will leave the ankles temporarily weaker and possibly more prone to injury (until they have a chance to recover and strengthen). Doing these exercises at the end of a session avoids this potential issue completely.

You'll note that many of the concepts I will describe here involve balance training but with added twists to target them directly to ankle strengthening.

At the end of the article, you will find a link with pictures of these exercises in action.

Here are the techniques:

1. Standing and balancing

This is a very simple exercise and the one we'll start with. All you need to do is stand on one foot and balance there for as long as you can!

As you work to keep yourself balanced, you will notice that your ankle is constantly shifting around to compensate for slight changes in your body position. This constant shifting is working the supporting muscles of the ankles!

You can do this exercise anywhere at any time. All you need to do is stand on one foot and balance there for a minute or two, then switch to the other foot. It's so easy, you can get it done at the bus stop or while you're making dinner!

It is deceptively simple but very effective. This is because in everyday life, you very rarely stand on one foot for any length of time. Your ankles and calves are not required to balance or support you as much. When you stand on one foot, you force these supporting muscle to work overtime.

For an added twist, try closing your eyes while balancing. Without the visual cues to help keep you balanced, your ankles will have to work much harder.

2. Standing and balancing with weights

The next step up from the previous exercise is holding onto a pair of dumbells (or other form of resistance) while you are balancing on one foot. What this does is simply increase the resistance with which you are working. This increase in resistance will increase the demand on the muscles.

The more weight you use on this exercise, the more strength you'll be able to build up in your ankles. Think of it this way...if you're holding onto 2 50-lb dumbells, that's an extra 100 lbs that your body must work to balance. If you hold 2 100-lb dumbells, you've got 200 extra pounds! This is extreme overload and overload builds strength, espcially when your ankle muscles have never experienced this kind of stress before!

If you get to the point where you're unable to hold onto the heavy dumbells for long enough to be effective, you may wish to try placing a barbell across your shoulders as though you were doing a squat (do this in the squat rack with the safety rails set high). This will also have the effect of increasing the instability of the exercise, making it more challenging for the ankles. Also, you'll be able to use FAR more weight (I've gone as high as 405 lbs for this version).

3. Standing on an unstable surface and balancing

Now that you've learned how to work with the dumbells, it's time to move on to balancing on an unstable surface. This will really challenge the strength of your ankles.

Some good surfaces you can use include foam (like the foam on a flat bench), a pile of towels or clothing, sand, air mattress, etc. There are a great many surfaces that are effective for this. Feel free to use your imagination. I like to use a rolled-up towel set on the floor for this one - no need to buy any expensive equipment!

This balancing can be done either with or without weights. If you are using weights, I would suggest sticking to dumbells - they're easier to control than the barbell.

4. Standing, balancing and catching

You can do this variation in combination with the first or third variation. Have someone throw a ball or other object to you while you are standing on one foot (you can also bounce a ball off a wall if you're training alone). This will force you to shift your balance around dramatically while standing on one foot, further forcing your ankles to work, while also developing your co-ordination while balancing.

5. Swinging dumbell calf raises

This exercise adds the large muscles of the calves to the mix. Basically, you will do as the name implies - you will do a single leg calf raise, holding onto one single dumbell, swinging it around yourself in random directions as you do the calf raise. This forces your calves and ankles to build stabilizing strength VERY quickly. It also helps train your ankles to react quickly to sudden random stresses, much like in a sporting event. This is very practical movement that has great carryover into sports.

Now that you have this knowledge, it's time to put it into practice! Consistent training with these techniques will have a tremendous, immediate impact on your sports performance. You'll be cutting sharper, pivoting stronger and be practically injury-proof in no time!

Here's the link to view pictures of these 5 exercises in action:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue33-ankles.htm

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