Are you looking for the best upper chest exercises that will give you more strength and more definition? In today's post, Nick Nilsson from Metabolicsurge.com and myself will go over the top 3 upper chest workouts that will get you results fast!

The upper chest/upper pec area just below the collar bones can be one of the toughest areas of the body to fully develop. The visual, proportional and functional benefits of building up this area are tremendous though!

Typically, when you read about working the upper chest, you will hear a lot about incline exercises such as incline barbell or dumbbell presses and incline flyes. While these exercises can be very effective, they don't work well for everybody.

If that sounds like you, these are the best upper chest exercises that you've been looking for. These exercises are especially powerful when used in conjunction with or even supersetted with incline presses or flyes. They will help hit those hard-to-reach upper-pec muscle fibers that are generally not worked with standard incline movements.


1. Upper Chest Cable Cross-Overs

You will need either a cable-cross over machine or a single high pulley for this exercise.

Get into position standing between the two high cross-over pulleys then take a small step forward. This small step forward puts more tension on the upper pecs at the start of the movement by increasing the stretch.

Bend over at the waist up to about 90 degrees.

The movement itself is very similar to the normal crossover. However, as you bring the cables in, you should push your hands forward of your body in a wide arc rather than bringing them directly down under your torso.

Essentially, you will be trying to bring the cable handles under your face rather than under your chest. This is the key to activating the upper pectoral fibers.

Keep your back arched and your chest puffed out and be sure to come around and forward as though sweeping your fist far out and around.


2. Lying Cable "Y" Flyes

The reason I call these "Y" Flyes is from the position of your body and arms on the bench when you do them.

Set a flat bench in the middle of the cable cross-overs (this exercise can also be done one arm at a time on a single low pulley if you don't have access to a full cross-over machine set-up). The end of the bench where your head will rest should be about 4 to 6 inches forward of an imaginary line between the two pulleys.

Use a moderate weight for this exercise as we'll be focusing on the squeeze of the upper pecs and the feel of the exercise, not the amount of weight we're using.

Grasp the cable handles then sit on the bench. Shift yourself forward on the bench so when you lay back onto the bench, your head is set a few inches forward of the pulleys.

You should notice that, at the bottom of the exercise, your arms are angled up and back, just like the "Y" I mentioned above.

Be sure to keep your elbows slightly bent but stiff during the movement. Also, don't let your upper arms get pulled down past parallel. The real value of this exercise is at the contracted position at the top of the movement.

Do the cable flye movement from there, bringing your hands together directly ABOVE YOUR FOREHEAD. This is critical because the angle of your arms in this track will throw the vast majority of the tension directly onto your upper pec area.

Squeeze the pecs hard at the top, lower down slowly and repeat.


3. Side Lying Incline Dumbbell Flyes

Lie on your side on an incline bench (if you can set the angle, use about 30 degrees). Your shoulder should be set just off the forward edge of the bench so you can move the arm freely up and down. Your feet should be set somewhat apart on the floor to provide greater stability and pushing power.

If you are lying on your right side hold a dumbbell in your right hand and let it hang down. Don't worry about losing tension here - the benefit of this exercise lies at the top of the movement.

Use a fairly light to moderate dumbbell with this exercise. You don't need much weight to get a full contraction and using too much could cause you to lose your balance on the bench.

Keeping your arm slightly bent and stiff, raise the dumbbell in a flye type motion in front of you, around and up until your upper arm is as vertical as you can get it.

Squeeze hard at the top. You should feel a sharp burning sensation in your upper-midle pec area right on the cleavage between the two pecs. To really feel the movement working, place your non-working hand right on the upper, middle area of your chest as you do the exercise. You should be able to feel that area of the muscle contract solidly.

This exercise will really hit the inner pec area, bringing out separation between your two pectoral muscles.

Give these three best upper chest exercises a try in your next chest workout. That sharp squeeze in your upper chest will let you know EXACTLY how effective these exercises are!

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Have you been trying everything under the moon to get rid of stubborn fat but with no luck? Well, in this post here, I would like to help you with 3 important tips I strongly recommend you follow if you want to quickly, safely, and effectively melt away fat and lose a lot of weight fast! Read on to learn more....

#3 - Stay away from fad diets! Fad diets are ineffective, dangerous for your health, and your body does not respond well to them. Why? Because your body only responds to all things natural.

Fad diets can cause yo-yo dieting, serious health issues, a slow metabolism and more. Fad diets are typically those types of diets that encourage you to dramatically restrict your calorie intake and/or restrict important nutrients from your body. Examples? Low carb, low fat, low calorie diet, starvation diet, and on and on!

#2 - Stay away from diet pills! Diet pills are nothing but a shortcut to temporary weight loss that comes with a price... long term and short term health concerns... not to mention, they're quite expensive! Do yourself and your body a favor and avoid diet pills by any means necessary! The biggest issue caused by diet pills is a reduction in your metabolism which will then cause yo-yo weight loss!

#1 - Make nutrition your number one priority! - It all starts and ends with proper nutrition. If you are not eating properly, you will see little to no results with your efforts to get rid of stubborn fat and lose those stubborn pounds.

What does proper nutrition consist of? It consists of eating protein, complex carbs (whole grains), fiber, healthy fats (monounsaturated, Omega), and foods rich in vitamins and minerals.

When you stay away from things that are not natural, your body will respond a whole lot more quicker and efficiently with fat loss and weight loss. Your body is not stupid. If you try to trick it with unnatural things such as diet pills and fad diets, it will retaliate... and your body will win that battle each and every time!

Respect your body and it will thank you with better health and a more leaner sexier body in no time!

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Okay, in today's post, I would like to show you 3 quick and easy methods to get rid of body fat faster, easier, and without having to resort to starvation or some other type of crazy fad! Read on to learn more...

Alright, first things first. Let's talk about the basic core principles to lose weight and fat... since with ALL of these principles, fat loss success will be guaranteed!

The following principles are simple to learn and adapt to... you just have to gather up the willpower to start and STAY CONSISTENT. Always remember... consistency is key!

Those principles are:

• Proper nutrition (complex carbs, fiber, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, protein)
  
• Drink plenty of water daily (I recommend for you to drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces for best results)
  
• Get plenty of sleep every night (7-8 hours is ideal)
  
• Cardio exercise and weight training exercise.
  

Now, here are 3 quick and easy tips that can help you get rid of body fat faster:

1. Get More Green Veggies! - You already know that you should eat your vegetables daily. BUT, did you know that if you increase the amount of GREEN veggies you eat daily, you will send your metabolism into overdrive! How? Due to the fiber content in darker vegetables. The more green vegetables you eat daily, the more your body is going to have to work to digest the complex carbs (fiber) from vegetables.

The types of green vegetables I highly recommend are broccoli and spinach. I also recommend you get frozen vegetables whether it be organic or the normal type.

2. Ice Cold! - Water is absolutely essential if you want to get rid of body fat faster. But, did you know that you can take water to the next level simply by paying attention to the temperature of it? That's right, if you drink ICE COLD water, your body will be sent into thermogenesis (your body will burn calories off to warm the water up to body temperature)!!

3. Empty Stomach Cardio - This is debated to no end, but, you can tap into stored body fat by doing cardio exercises on an empty stomach. If you eat before you exercise, your workout is going to burn off the calories (especially if you ate carbs) from the foods you ate for the day. If you do cardio on an empty stomach (obviously in the morning), you will burn off stored calories and therefore you'll lose fat, lose weight, and lose inches much more faster!

So, if you are tired of dieting being so complicated and it seems that you never can get the results you've wanted, try those 3 tips above to help ignite your internal fat burning engine today!

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Have you been trying to figure out what type of exercise is best for fat loss? Is it cardio or is it weight training? Read on to learn more...

You see, training your body is all about balance. A complete exercise program should address not only resistance training but cardiovascular training as well. Proper balance between these two basic forms of exercise is essential to your training success.

Training balance basically boils down to the amount of cardio training you do compared to the amount of weight training you do. You are going to learn exactly what factors affect this training balance and how you can use them to ensure you reach your goals as quickly as possible!

The major issue you will need to take into consideration when balancing your cardio with your weight training is your primary training goal; if you're training to lose fat, your balance is going to be very different than if you're trying to gain muscle or if you're training for a specific sport.

Your primary goal will give you a general starting point for figuring out exactly how to balance your training, as well as what type of cardio and weight training you should be doing.

In addition to your primary goal, you will also need to take into account two other major factors:

1. Your body type - Are you naturally slim? Do you gain muscle easily? Do you tend to hold onto fat readily?

2. The type of cardio training you're doing - Is it high-intensity or low-intensity? Does it fatigue you for weights? Does your weight training fatigue you for your cardio?

As you read through this article, I want you to write down the points that apply to you. After explaining these factors, I will tell you how to integrate everything you've learned in your personal training program.

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In order to successfully balance your training, you need to first identify what your primary goal is. Are you trying to lose fat? Are you focused on gaining muscle? Are trying to improve sports performance?

It's very important to note, you will be far more successful in achieving your goal if you focus on one specific goal only. The training processes involved in losing fat or gaining muscle are very different and do not mix well with each other. If you try to do both at the same time, your results won't be as good as if you focused on one at a time.

If you're training to lose fat, you're going to need to do more cardio than someone who is training to gain muscle. A good starting point is three times per week, 20 to 30 minutes per session. Depending on the other factors we're going to discuss, you may need more or less than this. Weight training three times per week should be sufficient to maintain and even build muscle mass.

With fat loss, your primary goal should be burning calories while sparing as much muscle as possible. Since you're most likely eating fewer calories, your body is not going to be eager to add muscle, therefore it's best to focus on keeping what you've got. Any muscle you may add is just ice cream on the cake (bad analogy for this topic!).

If you're training to gain muscle, you will need to do less cardio training. Too much cardio can actually hamper your muscle gain by slowing recovery and burning up calories that your body needs for the process of building muscle.

As a general guideline, one or two cardio sessions per week should be enough to maintain your cardiovascular conditioning and keep your bodyfat gains in check while not slowing muscle growth. You should train with weights at least three times per week, up to even six times if you can recover from it and still make progress.

If you are training for a specific sport, how many cardio sessions you need will depend greatly on the cardiovascular and muscle mass and strength requirements of your sport. Naturally, a long-distnace runner is going to have far different requirements than a hockey or football player. The type of cardio training you do will also come into play here (which we will look at below).

As a guideline, the more cardio-oriented your sport is, the more cardio sessions you will need and the greater your focus should be on cardio training. If your sport is more strength-oriented, your focus should be primarily on developing that strength, with fewer cardio sessions. Of course, there are many sports that require both strength and cardiovascular capacity. Training in this case should be more equally balanced.

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Now that you've identified your training focus and the general guidelines for it, we need to take a look at your general body type. There are three main bodytypes: ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph. The catogories operate on a sliding scale - a person may be an ectomorph but have mesomorphic tendencies, for example (we will go more into each type below).

The ectomorph is the naturally-slim person. They have a smaller bone-structure and can seem to "eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce."

The ectomorph has a fairly easy time losing fat so they will will generally not need to do as much cardio for fat loss. Two or three times per week should be plenty. An ectomorph trying to gain muscle may need to lay off cardio training completely in order to have enough recovery energy available for their body to even build muscle. Once or twice a week should be the maximum cardio frequency. Even weight training may need to be less frequent (two or three times per week) in order to see results.

The endomorph type is the heavyset end of the scale. The endomorph typically gains and holds onto fat easily and has a harder time losing it. The endomorph does tend to carry more muscle mass than the ectomorph, however.

Endomorphs will need to do more cardio to see significant fat loss. The minimum would be three times per week but some may require up to five or six sessions per week for best results.

An endomorphic person trying to gain muscle mass should continue to do cardio two or three times per week. Their tendency to accumulate bodyfat when eating excess calories (which is a requirement for muscle gain) can be reduced by keeping a reasonable amount of cardio in their training program. The endomorphic body has plenty of energy in reserve for muscle gain.

The mesomorph has all the luck. This is the naturally-muscular person. They are characterized by having broader shoulders and a narrower waist (known as a "V" taper). They gain muscle easily and lose fat easily.

A mesomorphic person training to lose fat can get away with doing only one or two cardio sessions a week while still seeing fairly good results. They will have an easier time holding onto muscle while losing fat, which gives them a calorie-burning advantage (the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn in a day even while doing nothing). Mesomorphs who do more cardio sessions will see greater fat loss results than either of the other two bodytypes - their greater muscle mass helps them burn more calories.

The mesomorph has a relatively easy time gaining muscle. Their bodies seem to naturally want to add muscle and keep it. The mesomorph training for muscle gain should keep doing enough cardio training to maintain cardiovascular capacity (about once or twice a week). They can, however, still get away with doing more without compromising results.

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The type of cardio training you do will have a tremendous impact on the frequency at which you can do it and still get the results you want.

Low-intensity cardio training, such as walking or slow cycling, can be done practically every single day (even several times a day) for longer periods of time. This type of training is very easy for your body to recover from, regardless of your body type and your goals. It will have very little negative impact on muscle gain and can help you burn calories for fat loss.

Moderate-intensity cardio training, such as jogging or swimming, will need to be done a little less frequently. This type of training requires more energy both to perfom and for your body to recover from. A person trying to lose fat can generally perform four to six moderate-intensity sessions per week at around 20 to 30 minutes each. A person trying to gain muscle should reduce this amount to two to three sessions per week.

High-intensity training is the toughest of the bunch but can actually net you the greatest and fastest results. High-intensity training is exemplified in activities such as sprinting and interval training. If you've ever had a coach make you run up and down hills, you've done high-intensity cardio. Basically, anything that you do as hard as you can for a short period of time could be considered high-intensity training. In fact, intense weight training with short rest periods is very good for cardio capacity.

High-intensity training is extremely effective for fat loss as it not only causes you to burn a lot of calories during the activity, it also raises your metabolism for a long time after the activity is done. This type of hard training should be done less frequently than the more moderate forms of cardio as it is much harder for your body to recover from. If you are training for fat loss, you should do at least two but no more than three high-intensity cardio sessions per week. If you are training for muscle gain, once or, at the most, twice per week should be the limit.

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The three major factors that determine how much cardio you should do in your program (your primary training goal, your bodytype and the type of cardio training you do) must now all be taken into account when determining how much cardio you should be doing compared to weight training.

Every body is different and every person reacts to training in different ways. To determine how much cardio you should do, you will need to look at each factor on it's own then look at all three factors at once. When you write them all down, you will probably see a pattern develop. Here's an example.

Fat Loss - 3 to 6 times per week
Endomorph - 3 to 6 times per week
High-intensity Training - 2 to 3 times per week
Weight Training - 3 times per week

This would mean an endomorphic person training for fat loss with high-intensity training could do cardio three times per week and weights 3 times per week.

Here's another example:

Muscle Gain - 1 to 2 times per week
Ectomorph - 1 to 2 times per week
Low-intensity Training - 2 to 3 times per week minimum but can be done almost every day
Weight Training - 3 to 4 times per week

This would mean an ectomorphic person looking for muscle gain and doing low-intensity cardio training could do cardio two days a week at a minimum to maintain cardio capacity while trying to gain muscle.


Conclusion:

Every person's situation is wide open to interpretation and, when it all comes right down to it, much of your training schedule is determined by the time you have available to you. These guidelines should help give you an idea of what frequency of training is most appropriate for your specific goals and situation. Take these recommendations simply as advice, not as rules written in stone and feel free to experiment. You may find out that what actually works for you is exactly the opposite of what is written here!

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Today's post is co-authored by Nick Nilson of Metabolicsurge.com

Announced today, there is a Slim Fast recall. Apparently there are bacterial concerns with this popular diet product.

So, if you have Slim Fast, I urge that you look further into this situation as soon as possible.

But to be honest, I think it would just make since to eat normal foods, yes? It's okay to have a protein shake, etc., but to have just some diet drink "as a meal" I definitely don't think it's going to do your body any good. I just think that in order to effectively lose weight naturally, you simply just need to eat... well, naturally.

Well, I thought I would just update today with this new Slim Fast recall just in case you happened to be using this product.

Have A Healthy Day!

Have you been wondering does the Atkins Diet work for getting fast fat loss and weight loss? Well, read on to learn the pros and cons of this popular low carb diet and see if it truly does work...

The Atkins Diet has been in existence for over 30 years and has enjoyed a surge in popularity over the last few years.

Pioneered by Dr. Robert Atkins, the theory behind the Atkins Diet is simple. Your body prefers to utilize carbohydrates (such as in grains, cereals, breads, etc.) for energy and will burn them first prior to body fat. By cutting down dramatically on carbohydrates in your diet, you force your body to burn fat for energy.

Reducing the carbohydrates in your diet puts your body into a state called "ketosis." This word is derived from the "ketones" that are used by your body for energy when sugars/carbs aren't available. When you are in this state of ketosis, your body is producing ketones from your fat that is being burned for energy. Ketones are essentially the leftovers from this process and are used in place of sugar in the body.

One of the major misconceptions about the Atkins Diet that has been widely reported is that you can or should eat extremely unhealthy, fatty foods all the time. This is not actually true. Dr. Atkins recommends that you limit your intake of these types of foods (e.g. butter, sausage, bacon, etc.) and instead focus on healthy fats such as olive oil, fish oil, nuts, etc.

The Atkins Diet has many positives and negatives that have been associated with it. Some of the positives include:

• Rapid Weight Loss - though the first couple of days the majority of weight lost is water, your body does become more efficient at fat burning and you do lose fat.

• Reduced Mood or Energy Swings - eating carbohydrates (especially sugary ones) can lead to mood and energy swings. This is often seen as the post-lunchtime or afternoon energy crash. When you eliminate the carbs, you eliminate the source of this problem.

• Reduced Consumption of Refined Foods - highly refined foods are the source of many health problems. The more processed a food is, the less nutrients are generally in it. The Atkins Diet encourages a focus on the consumption of more natural state foods such as vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs and healthy oils.

Some of the negatives that have been associated with the Atkins Diet include:

• Rapid Regaining of Lost Weight - this can happen when a person comes off the Atkins Diet. They regain all the weight they lost. One of the major reasons for this is that when you eliminate the carbs from your diet for a long period of time, your body becomes more sensitive to them. When you go back to your regular eating habits (which may not have been great to begin with), your body reacts more strongly to the sugar and carbs in foods, leading to weight gain. This weight gain can be reduced by easing off the Atkins Diet gradually rather than by feasting on carbohydrates.

• Lack of Food Choices - it can be difficult to find things to eat that are low carb. Most grocery stores are primarily stocked with carbohydrate-laden foods and it can get boring eating the same things over and over again. Luckily, with the popularity of the Atkins diet and other low carb diets, there are many delicious recipes available to help alleviate this boredom.

So, does the Atkins Diet work? Well, the Atkins Diet may not be for you but by incorporating some of the principles in it, such as lowering your carbohydrate intake and eating more natural-state foods, you may find that you can achieve great results without ever having to restrict yourself. It may take a little longer but the results will be more permanent as it is more of a lifestyle change than a diet.



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Today's post is a co-authored post from Avy Barnes and Nick Nilson of MetabolicSurge.com