Fitness - Back Flexibility and Strength Exercises

If you have ever suffered from severe backache you will know just what a central part the back plays in our lives. Even something as simple as squeezing a tennis ball in your hand can be extremely painful as the action uses not only the muscles of the forearm, but also the biceps, the latissimus dorsi muscles and other back muscles.

The latissimus dorsi muscles, or 'lats', are the large muscles that run down each side of the upper body and are what gives a man his triangular shaped.

Fitness

Just about every sport requires strong back muscles to act as a 'pillar' to support the main limbs in movement and also to provide balance, movement, speed and coordination.

Fitness - Back Flexibility and Strength Exercises

Here are a few easy exercises to help to both stretch and strengthen those important back muscles. The majority are best performed on a firm, but not hard, surface as, while you work the muscles, you don't want to put undue pressure on bony parts of the body.

Knee to Chest

Lie on your back and clasp your hands behind one of your thighs. Pull your thigh slowly up toward your chest, while being careful to keep the other leg flat on the ground. Hold this position for five seconds before lowering the leg and repeating the exercise with the other leg. Start will about 10 repetitions of this exercise and slowly build this up over time.

Rotations

Lie on your back with your knees together and raised so that your feet are flat on the floor. With your arms extended close the body, and your palms flat on the floor, lift your feet a couple of inches off the ground and rotate your trunk by moving your knee, first to the left and then to the right.

At first, don't strain yourself by trying to rotate your knees too far but, as you become more flexible and build strength, you can increase your range of movement. Ultimately, you should be able to touch your knees to the floor.

Pelvic Press

Once again lie on your back with your knees raised and your feet flat on the floor. Push the small of your back into the floor and hold it there for a few seconds while you feel the tension in your lower abdominal muscles. Vary the action by moving your feet together and performing the exercise and then repeating the exercise with your feet slightly apart.

Pelvic Lift

This time lie on your back with your knees raised, your feet flat on the ground and your arms crossed over your chest. Keeping your legs and knees together, raise your buttocks a couple of inches off the floor and hold the position for a few seconds. Then, lower your buttocks slowly back onto the floor, count to two, and repeat the exercise again.

Dog Stretches

Okay last one! Get down on all fours and raise your head so that you're looking straight ahead. Lower your arms and, at the same time, arch your back. Hold this position for a couple of seconds and then resume your starting position.

Next, slowly extend one leg, as near parallel to the floor as you can and hold it up for two or three seconds before returning it to the floor. (If this particular exercise results in pain in the back, hip, or leg you should stop immediately.) Switch legs and repeat this exercise about ten times for each leg at first and gradually increase the number of repetitions over time.

Fitness - Back Flexibility and Strength Exercises

If you are looking for fitness made simple [http://lifetime-fitness-made-simple.com] and information on any aspect of fitness such as health related fitness [http://lifetime-fitness-made-simple.com/health-related-fitness.html] then please visit Lifetime-Fitness-Made-Simple.com today.

Weight Lifting Workout Program - Bulk and Strength 3 Day Split

Here is a basic, effective weight lifting workout program which will get you rolling in the iron game while efficiently gaining muscle and getting stronger. The program is split three ways with a day of rest in between each. After the last workout we allow a full 2 days of rest, both for recuperative purposes as well as convenience and practicality.

Each exercise in the weight lifting workout program will consist of doing 2 warm up sets with light weight, and then 2 working sets with relatively heavy weight, unless otherwise noted. Repetitions will try to be around 6-8.

Workout

Monday- We start out the weight lifting workout program training our Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps. For your chest you will ideally want to perform the bench press. After you perform your 2 warmups and then your 2 working sets, we'll move on to another chest exercise, the pectoral butterfly or "pec dec" machine, for another 2 warmups and 2 working sets. Shoulders are up next and we'll want to start out with seated or standing barbell shoulder presses. Next up comes more of an isolation exercise such as shoulder dumbbell laterals to be performed for slightly higher reps, say 8-10. Triceps are next and we will perform tricep pressdowns on a cable station for 2 warmups and 2 working sets. Since triceps have already been worked through both bench press and shoulder press, we will only do 2 sets of triceps then bring them out of the oven and we are through for day one of this weight lifting workout program.

Wednesday - This days weight lifting workout program will consist of a Leg workout. If you can perform squats safely and properly then that is the recommended exercise. If you are not use to squats you should use the leg press machine. Again, 2 warmups, 2 working. Next up are Leg Extensions performed on the leg exstension machine. After that we will hit the back of the legs - the hamstrings. Hammy's, like triceps, we are only going to work with one exercise and that is reverse leg extensions on a machine. This isolates the hams well and you'll feel the burn in the back of your leg. Repetitions will fall slightly higher in the 10-12 range. Next we will move on to a calf machine and perform 2 sets with higher repetitions of 12-20, and that will complet Wednesdays weight lifting workout program.

Friday- For this weight lifting workout program day we are training back and biceps. For back we will peform either barbell rows, or if your gym has a good hammer machine row that is acceptable as well. Repetitions for our 2 working sets fall within the 6-8 range. Next for back we perform "Lat pulldowns" on the lat pulldown cable machine. Repetitions rise to the 8-10 range for lat pulldowns. Next up is Biceps and these can be trained with standing bicep dumbell curl exercise. Then we can do one set of seated concentration curls. Since the biceps will already have been worked from the back exercises, we need only do one concetration curl set (one set per arm), and we've wrapped up Fridays weight lifting workout program.

Saturday and Sunday we take off, and then Monday we hit it strong again with the chest, shoulder, tricep workout.

This essentially is an exercise outline for a basic and very effective weight lifting workout program. It allows one major lift to be performed, followed by a more minor isolation movement to be performed. The sets are low as to avoid overtraining while allowing the body to recover and hence muscle growth to occur. You can further tweak or tailor this weight lifting workout program to your own liking based on the effectiveness of the given exercises, as well as personal preference towards certain exercise you feel may feel more comfortable performing.

Weight Lifting Workout Program - Bulk and Strength 3 Day Split

For a detailed weight lifting workout program on how to gain weight and muscle , please see http://www.squidoo.com/Gain-Muscle-Mass/ Here you will get info on the exact method which will guarantee weight gain and muscle results in weeks. Check out http://www.squidoo.com/Gain-Muscle-Mass/ and thanks for reading.