Exercise tips

The Zottman Curl: One Curl to Rule Them All

The Zottman Curl: One Curl to Rule Them All

It’s been a long week.  Between training clients, helping some readers with calorie tracking after reading last week's post (click here), and writing an article submission for another site, I haven’t had much time for timmyhendren.com content.  So, I did what every self-respecting d-bag does when time is limited in the gym, bicep curls.  While you’ll frequently hear experts downplay direct arm work in favor of hitting the major muscle groups with compound movements, I’ve yet to meet anyone who wouldn’t be happy with a chiseled set of biceps and triceps during tank top season.

The Mind Muscle Connection: It's For More Than Just Yogis

The Mind Muscle Connection: It's For More Than Just Yogis

It’s funny, when I think of some of the concepts I use in my training and spend long portions of the day teaching to clients, it makes me laugh.  My 21-year old self would mock the hell out of my present-day self instructing a client to “feel the lats squeeze when you drive your elbows back!” or “squeeze your butt as hard as you can at the top of the movement!”

Build the Shoulders Without Sacrificing Joint Health Using This Superset

 Build the Shoulders Without Sacrificing Joint Health Using This Superset

If you are following any competent strength training program, you should be performing a variety of heavy compound movements such as bench press, overhead press, rows and pulldowns/pull-ups for the upper body.  If you aren’t, it’s time to bail on your current program and start from scratch.  Those are the basic movements of which there are a million different variations but including them is required for gains in size or strength.  My holiday analogy would be to think of these movements as the turkey and mashed potatoes of your training program, everything else is a side dish. 

Working Out at Home: Creating Tension

Working Out at Home: Creating Tension

Recently, I have been getting a fair amount of questions about in-home workouts.  I have been reluctant to answer because my honest response is usually “join a gym”.  Depending on where you live, there is a gym in what seems like every square mile or so.  Gyms are good, even crappy ones are still pretty good because they have weights.  The science says weights make you sexy and strong.  My advice is usually go to where they keep weights and work-out there.

Alcohol's Effects on Body Composition and 5 Ways to Minimize the Damage

Alcohol's Effects on Body Composition and 5 Ways to Minimize the Damage

Outside of the small window of prohibition, alcohol has been a legal, socially acceptable form of altering your state of consciousness that everyone over the legal age could enjoy.  Booze is everywhere, it’s been handed out at church for centuries, you can get it on a plane ride, even some grocery store chains are encouraging getting a drink during your weekly food shopping run. 

5 Movements "All Day Sitters" Need to Include Every Day

5 Movements "All Day Sitters" Need to Include Every Day

I get it, you are stuck in a cubicle and have no choice but to sit down, bang on the phone, and send emails for 8 hours a day. However, you do have the choice to do something about it.  Here are 5 movements that can be done at home (or office) with minimal equipment that you need to be doing as often as possible to negate some of the disastrous effects all day sitting can create! 

Attention Ladies! Solve Your Upper Arm Issue With These 3 Tricep Movements.

Attention Ladies! Solve Your Upper Arm Issue With These 3 Tricep Movements.

It's no secret that the weight room section of the gym is made up primarily of men.  If I had to estimate, half of those men are pumping away at their arms in hopes of getting those sleeves to fit a little tighter.  While this article will certainly work for them, I wanted to call on the ladies here to get them over to the iron and reap some of the awesome benefits.

How to Avoid Getting Hurt and Wasting Effort on the Lat Pulldown

How to Avoid Getting Hurt and Wasting Effort on the Lat Pulldown

When it comes to building the upper body, nothing beats a good set of lats.  They help stabilize other movements like deadlifts and bench press, they aid in proper posture, and generally make you look more bad ass overall.  In my opinion, when it comes to the pecking order of lat exercises, only pull-ups rank higher than lat pulldowns in terms of building size and strength.