Two Questions this week from Neil and Jeff:

Neil:
I have plateau with my arm exercise routine and I am not seeing any results. Is there anything I can do to improve my workouts and get bigger arms?

Declan:
Well the first thing that jumps out at my is the word routine. If you are using “a routine” it becomes just that, routine. Your workouts need variety otherwise they become stale very quickly and results become harder and harder to achieve. A very easy way to explain this situation albeit with a slightly strange analogy is if you were to eat the same thing lets say grilled chicken for every meal, every day for a week you would be pretty sick of grilled chicken by the end of the week.

You should be constantly changing your workouts so as not to be performing the same workout more than twice in a row. There are a number of ways to add variety. You can change the actual exercises, the equipment, the reps, sets, weight, rest time, times per week etc.

Jeff:
How much equipment do I really need to in order to get a good workout?

Declan:
Personally I would say you can get great workouts and a lot of variety with no equipment, just using your own bodyweight and the great outdoors. This obviously takes some inventiveness and knowledge of program design but it can easily be done. If I was to recommend only a few pieces of equipment I would say some adjustable dumbbells like the ones Nat uses in his videos, a barbell with some rubber weight plates, kettlebells, heavy medicine ball and a study bench. Also what equipment you need does a lot on your fitness goals.

Two Questions this week from Marc and John :

Marc:
I’ve had knee issues for years, which has made me hesitant to focus on leg exercises. Can you recommend a good exercise I can do at home without putting too much pressure on my knees?

Declan:
Before I can answer this question accurately I would need to know more about the “knee issues” you are having. Have you seen a physical therapist or orthopedic doctor about the issues and if so what was their diagnosis and did they recommend for you to perform or avoid any specific exercises?

John:
I’m new to core exercising… but want to make it a regular part of my routine. at this point, I regularly do planks… but aside form that, i can’t think of any other core exercises I do. can you tell me about some others?

Declan:
The “Core” has become a very popular buzz word lately in fitness yet there are many different and often conflicting ideas or definitions of what it actually means. For me the core encompasses the whole torso basically all the way down the spine and into the hips and therefore would involve training all the muscles in this region not just the Transverse Abdominus as some people prescribe. These muscle groups include the Lats, Pectorals, rectus Abdominus, Obliques, Errrector Spinae, Quadratus Lumborum and many more. There are hundred’s of exercises that you can incorporate into your program to help train your “core”. FitnessBuilder contains many different Core specific workouts.

60 Days:
Here are two examples of core exercises that I have done: FitnessBuilder Russian Twist and FitnessBuilder Torso Twist .

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