• Remember RICE – Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. For the compression part, it doesn’t hurt to purchase a shoulder stability bandage while you’re rehabilitating.
• Rubber Band Work – Most of the shoulder injuries occur to the rotator cuff. Using light resistance such as is offered by a rubber band, and then doing high volume repetitions, will flush the area with blood and help it to heal. Heavy training should be avoided for a while…which leads to the next point.
• Massage! A good shoulder massage will stimulate the area and assist in the healing process. In an ideal world, you would submerge your shoulder in a hot whirlpool, get a massage, and ice it prior to going to bed in the evening.
• Back to Basics – You should use this as an opportunity to get back to basics and go with stability training for a week or more. Instead of pressing heavy dumbbells for 6-10 reps, lighten the load and do 15 reps with a lighter weight while standing on one leg. This will assist with core re-training as well. Performed in circuit fashion with light bent over raises can give you a great pump and feel even though the weight load is lighter.
• Avoid the Bar – You’ve pressed with the bar for so long on flat, incline and military bench, that you’ve been damaging your shoulders for years. It may be time to eliminate that from your regiment or use infrequently, and move to more dumbbell work where your range of motion is not limited. In talking to friends and colleagues, the most common thing I hear is that barbell benching screws up their shoulders. “Buff” may not have anything to do with whether you use a bar to get there. There are many alternate movements!

Finally, it’s exhilarating to pump some heavy weights, especially with a friend or spotter. Unfortunately, you can’t lift like that every work out. You will need to train light days and heavy days. Listen to your body and joints!

First, let’s review two important concepts:

• High insulin levels brought on by sugar/white flour consumption will cause your body to store fat.
• Growth hormone levels reduce (necessary for muscle repair and growth) when you have high insulin levels.

Now that we’ve reviewed why we want to eliminate most of the refined sugars and white flour products from our bodies, let’s review how! Here are some key tips:

1. Read the ingredients! Before you buy, look at what’s in it. For example, of the thousands of brands of so-called whole wheat or whole grain breads on the market, you will only find a few without corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup, sugar, or other added sweeteners. Molasses and honey are OK if one of the last ingredients! But a bread without them is better still!
2. Eat a serving of veggies and/or fruits instead of pastas, rices, potatoes, and breads with your meals. There are soooo many veggie choices in the world that you’re bound to find many you like in addition to the many you most likely don’t.
3. Have a protein serving with each meal, either from lean meats like chicken or fish, egg whites, or protein powders without added sugar.
4. Good fats, such as peanut butter without the dextrose and other added garbage (hydrogenated vegetable oils) are a good mini meal with a small apple or a half banana.

Over time, you will learn to stop craving the bad carbs in favor of those which nourish your body. Soon, your body will begin to re-composition itself (notice I said recomposition, not recompose) and you will like the way you look and feel!

Refined sugars and white flour products (and yes, this includes “white” pasta) breaks down too quickly in your body and triggers quick insulin release, and with no corresponding nutrients or fiber to boot! So how are you gonna live your life? Will you be putting sugar in your NASCAR, or high performance fuel?

More tomorrow about buying foods with the right ingredients! For more info about eating right and feeling great, click here: www.fittransition.com

1. For breakfast (meal 1) mix your favorite protein powder with ice, water, and a few frozen banana chunks or berries. A protein shake for breakfast and your daily multivitamins is a tremendous way to start your day.
2. In two-three hours, but at least an hour and a half before lunch, have a 1/2 cup of oatmeal with cinnamon and perhaps a few raisins (but no sugar), mixed with water and a little soy or skim milk.
3. For lunch, try tuna or salmon mixed with a little olive oil mayonnaise (1 Tbs) and some balsamic vinegar

Of course, ensure that before you go home from work, that you have a handful of almonds, walnuts or pecans; or an apple with a little real peanut butter. Then have a healthy dinner!

If you eat that way for three weeks, and fore go the snacks and left over Holiday treats, you will see immediate results and be back on track in no time!

For more nutritional information, download the full PDF file at www.fittransition.com.

A ripped body is largely a function of body fat after the foundational fitness and musculature is achieved. At this point it becomes all about carbs. Here is your plan from 4 weeks out:

4 Weeks Out

• Cut your carbs in half
• Add an extra cardio session per day
• Make sure you are still ingesting adequate protein
• Do continue to drink lots of water.
• Use a bodybuilding regimen which employs higher reps. Do not worry about strength – go for pump and look.

2 Weeks Out

• Reduce Carbs again. At this point you may be having 1 banana and 1 apple. Everything else is meat and lean veggies.
• Continue drinking lots of water.
• Increase cardio sessions to min. 45 mins., once or twice a day if you have not achieved your target goal.
• It is important at this point to not change your workout. Continue pumping iron using 10-15 reps.

1 Week Out

• Cut your carbs to almost nothing – half a banana, twice a day.
• Continue eating lean meat – lots of salmon, tuna, chicken.
• Salad with no carrots and little tomatoes to avoid carbs.
• Day before – increase sodium and drink water but less of it.

Cutting your carbs is hard. You’ll be grumpy, tired, and irritable, but the prize will be worth it so press on!

So you want strength and mass? Try negatives! For those who are unfamiliar with the term negative repetitions, this is where a spotter helps you extend or lift a heavy weight and you slowly lower it. Again, negatives, especially with lifts such as squats and bench etc., will require a spotter to lift the weight up so you can lower it slowly under 4-8 second control.

You can do negatives without a spotter, cheating it up and letting it down slowly, but on lifts such as bench, take care not to use more weight than you can lift up several times or to do more reps than you can. Remember, it should be difficult to lower and almost impossible to lift in ideal circumstances.

If lifting alone, focus on the lowering part and spread it over at least 4-8 seconds, cheating it up and lowering slowly again. One final word of caution, if you’re not used to training this way, you will be very sore the next day!

Research has shown that negatives can really wreak havoc on your muscle fibers, which in turn will cause them to reconstruct themselves in stronger fashion. Just be prepared for DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness!

For example, if you read the ingredients on something as simple as spaghetti sauce, you will see sugar in 20 + brands except for about three. One must choose wisely! Having made that point, here is a sample menu to try for one week. This is divided into six meals. Use proper portion sizing, meaning palm of hand or size of fist for protein and carb servings.

1. Breakfast: Protein Shake – Muscle Milk powder with 1/2 – 3/4 cup of your favorite frozen fruit made with water and ice or soy milk in your blender. Make sure the soy milk is the unsweetened kind, such as Silk Unsweetened.
2. Snack: Small apple or half apple with Adam’s peanut butter
3. Lunch: Chicken salad with Romaine or spinach lettuce, tomatoes, light on dressing.
4. Snack: Handful of almonds with 1/2 cup to 1 cup of cottage cheese.
5. Dinner: Whole Wheat Pasta with Salmon with a bit of butter and parmesan. (Water with every meal and snack – 8 ounces minimum)
6. Snack: Slice of cheese or protein shake but made with water and ice – no added fruit.

Try that diet for a week and watch what happens to your body! Once you learn the principles behind this menu, you can begin to substitute and change the cuisine every day. Protein bars are also great when you’re on the go.

I welcome your success stories!

That’s it! It’s just that simple. As long as you don’t increase your calorie intake by eating that extra slice of cheese when you get back, you will notice a fat reduction. Remember, the Law of Thermodynamics demands that unless you’re burning more than consuming, you will not lose weight. Burning an extra 100-300 calories every day just may be what your body needs to shed those extra pounds.

Athletes and recreational weightlifters alike commonly utilize variable- range of motion (VROM) techniques in an effort to increase power and maximal force output in core lifts such as the barbell bench press and barbell back squat. The supposed premise behind utilizing this technique is to enhance peak force capability during ‘sticking points’ of a given lift. Therefore, VROM has been used to further enhance performance capabilities in a specific movement or lift when the individual seems to have reached a plateau. Current research published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning (June, 2010) investigated this subject by examining the influence of VROM utilization on neuromuscular performance and the ability to control external loads through the full range of motion (ROM) during isokinetic bench press, isometric bench press, and ballistic bench throws.

Twenty-two athletes (age 22.7 +/- 2.4 years) with extensive resistance training experience, performed either a VROM or full ROM control (CON) training program for 5 weeks. The training programs included identical concentric workload volumes. Participants were assigned to a group based on stratified randomization and individual strength levels. Force-ROM relationships were assessed during the aforementioned exercises while normalized electromyography amplitude was examined during isometric measures. At the completion of the performance analysis (by group) data revealed that the VROM intervention significantly increased both full ROM bench throw displacement (+15.5%) and half ROM bench throw peak force (+15.7%), as well as isokinetic peak force at the terminal end ROM (+13.5%). No considerable changes were observed in the CON group or for any other measure in the VROM group. Analysis of the force-ROM relationship showed that VROM integration enhanced performance outcomes to the greatest extent at shorter muscle lengths.

These findings suggest that VROM training produces greater end-range and mid-range performance gains as the musculature used is not being stretched to the greatest degree during eccentric deceleration (shorter muscle lengths). VROM protocols take advantage of the stretch-shortening cycle (contraction overlap). Since it occurs at different aspects of the full ROM it improves power output across each aspect and consequently increases the performance of the whole movement. From a performance perspective, VROM training demonstrates adaptation transfer as the ability to control external loading and dynamic force improves. Furthermore, relatively greater loads may be overcome when using VROM interventions (e.g. mid-range) due to the lesser relative contractile/energy demands, as a portion of the concentric contraction is not incorporated. (Journal of Strength and Conditioning, 2010)

Cross Fit Training is a rage which has taken the nation by storm. Many in the armed forces use it almost exclusively to get and stay in shape. Others find that it develops a good combination of strength and power. I personally find it is a great way to get ripped, but I like to alternate between several weeks of bodybuilding and one week of Cross Fit Training.

Cross Fit Training is really all about major muscle group exercises in which you move the most amount of weight through the least amount of time. For example, one sample routine might be to do 25 double-unders (jump rope where the rope passes under you twice per jump), 12 pullups, 10 snatches and 30 medicine ball pushups. This is done in succession, as fast as possible with good form, then after a 30-90 second rest is performed again as another set.

Every day the cross fit athlete will do a different routine, and some days are simple rest days or cardio days. I personally find that cross fit training skies my heart rate in no time. On the down side, if an individual has not progressed through the core stability and endurance phases of the OPT Model as designed by NASM, it is not wise to move into cross fit for a number of reasons. However, once a general level of fitness, balance and strength has been achieved, a modified cross fit routine can be embarked upon, moving to more challenging weights and movements.

The prime organization promoting cross fit is CrossFit.com, and one can even view the workout of the day and follow the plan by looking at the site any time after 5 p.m. to see what the new workout for tomorrow will be. I love it, and so does my son in the Air Force.

When you get a chance, take a look at CrossFit.com and try one of the daily workouts. If you have never done a cross fit circuit routine before, you’re in for a surprise. Enjoy!