24-Hour Fitness: Oakland Active

Climbing Heel Hook Exercises

Heel hooking involves placing your heel on a climbing hold for balance or leverage. Rock climbers and boulderers employ heel hooks to improve their efficiency of movement in two main situations. A passive heel hook takes weight off of your hands and arms, giving them a rest before you attempt to advance your position up the rock face. A more difficult use of the heel hook requires you to set your heel precisely on a foothold, and then to pull actively with your heel and leg to advance your climbing position.

Resting on Your Heels
Start integrating heel hooks into your climbing technique by consciously finding and using heel hooks to rest on your practice climbs in the gym. Try to effectively employ two to five heel hook rests per route, climbing a total of two to five easy routes. Look for a larger hold out to the side at about waist height. Lift your foot up and place your heel on the hold. Sag your body weight down so your arms are straight, allowing your heel and leg to hold as much weight as possible. Shake out each hand at least three times before you continue climbing to the next heel hook position.

Learning Active Heel Hooks
Ask a trusted partner to spot you. Grasp two comfortable handholds in the bouldering area of the gym that you can reach easily with both feet on the ground. Lift your right foot up and place your heel on a large hold out to the side at about waist height. Bending your right knee and pulling with your heel, transition as much of your body weight as possible onto your right heel. Slowly and deliberately lift your weight off of your left foot until it is off the ground. Using your arms and right leg together, pull your body up and over the foothold that your right heel is resting on. Let go with your right hand when you feel the balance point. Reach up and grab another handhold. Drop off the wall in control, landing on both feet. Repeat on the other side. Perform two to five reps per side.

Integrating a Powerful Pulling Tool
After developing comfort with heel hooks as resting positions, and as isolated active moves, start deliberately integrating active heel hooks into your climbing. Experimenting with heel hooks in various situations will help you to identify when they are the most efficient and effective solution. Until this technique becomes intuitive, deliberately and consciously make yourself attempt heel hooks, particularly in places where you see other climbers use them effectively on climbs. Practice and repetition are the keys to assimilating heel hooks seamlessly into your climbing technique.

Making Heel Hooks More Effective
Increase the efficacy of your heel hooks by strengthening your hamstrings and improving your active flexibility. Strengthen your hamstrings by including stability-ball hamstrings curls in your regular resistance-training program. As noted by the American Council on Exercise, using a stability ball for this exercise trains your core as well. Perform two to four sets of eight to 12 reps to build strength, as recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine. Increase your heel-hooking flexibility by regularly performing active stretches or yoga poses, such as Utthita Hasta Padangustasana, that mimic the movement required to place your foot at heel height or higher.

Bodybuilding Workout Plans to Gain 20 Pounds of Muscle

When you have your sights set on competing as a bodybuilder and are just starting out, your body probably needs an overhaul. Whether you're overweight and need to cut down or are a 90-pound weakling, converting either body type into a sculpted mass involves building muscle. At first it might be possible for you to gain about 4 pounds of muscle in a month, but optimal muscle growth requires the right kind of training.

Training Duration
Whether you choose super sets, muscle confusion, mini sprinting sessions or a combination of them all, you probably wonder how long it will be before you've gained 20 pounds of muscle. Idaho personal trainer and former bodybuilder Matt Siaperas says that it's different for everyone. Some people might be able to put on 20 pounds of muscle in as little as six months while others won't see that kind of gain for a year or more. It has as much to do with your genetics as it does with how you train and what your diet consists of. It can be discouraging to see other bodybuilders making progress if your gains slow down, but Siaperas encourages bodybuilding clients to remain dedicated, stick with their diet and to make changes to their workouts when they start to plateau.

Acitvating GH Response
Your body has always produced a hormone that builds muscle and burns fat. Growth hormone production kicked into high gear when you hit puberty and then immediately began declining. But by working out in the right way you can ramp up growth hormone production to start putting on pounds of lean muscle. In his article for Military.com, defense author and military instructor Jeff Anderson recommends lifting as heavy as you can with eight to 12 reps and super-setting your workouts. That means working between two exercises, doing one set of one exercise and going to the next without resting in between. You can take about a 60 second break after the second exercise, but then jump right back into your next super-set with the first exercise again. Because they're structured similarly to super-sets, circuit training workouts are also ideal for activating your body's GH response.

Mix It Up
Muscle confusion is the bodybuilder's secret weapon when it comes to packing on muscular pounds. It keeps your muscles in a state of growth-inducing confusion by changing the amount of weight and reps you lift each time you work out. For example, you could lift lighter on your first workout day, doing 12 to 15 reps, then increase the weight and decrease your reps to eight to 10 for your second day, lifting even heavier with only five to seven reps on the third day. Go back to lifting light again on the fourth day of your workout. Use a chart to keep track of how much you lift each time and how many reps you do.

Add a Sprint
You won't want to do much cardio when you're trying to gain weight for a competition, but you do need to include some, not only for cardiovascular health but also to help increase your body's production of growth hormone. In his 2010 book "Eat Right for Life," Dr. Raymond A Schep advised that you could stimulate production of growth hormone for muscle-building effects by spending at least 10 minutes on high intensity exercise. Tack on 10 minutes at the end of your weight lifting session to wrap up your workout and program your body for maximum GH production. In his article "Master Hormones to Build Muscle" for Military.com, Jeff Anderson recommends doing 30-second sprints alternating with 60 second intervals at a slower pace to complete your end of workout sprints.

The Stiff Legged Dumbbell Targets What Muscles?

While simple exercises such as pushups and body-weight squats can be effective for basic conditioning and fitness, moving to more advanced, weight-lifting exercises can help you progress. If you want to improve leg and back strength, consider adding stiff-legged dumbbell deadlifts to your routine. Stiff-legged dumbbell deadlifts help work a large number of muscles simultaneously, so they can contribute to highly efficient workouts.

Hamstrings
The primary targets of the stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift are your hamstrings. The hamstrings comprise a group of muscles that run along the back of your thigh. The muscles that make up the hamstrings are the biceps femoris, semitendinosus and semimembranosus. These muscles help flex your knee and extend your leg from the hip, so the hamstrings contribute to literally every step that you take.

Back Muscles
If you want to strengthen your back muscles -- whether to help you perform more pullups or to improve your rowing efforts -- the stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift is a good choice. This exercise targets numerous back muscles, including your erector spinae, rhomboids, trapezius, latissimus dorsi and levator scapulae. In other words, the stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift helps strengthen both your upper and lower back so you can excel at sports and maintain excellent posture.

Gluteus Maximus
Another important muscle worked by the stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift is the gluteus maximus. This muscle is located in your buttocks and helps extend your thighs, making it important for running and other athletic activities. Additionally, keeping your gluteus maximus strong through exercises such as the stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift will help provide stability throughout your body, reducing your likelihood of experiencing lower back and hip pain.

Abdominal Muscles
The stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift can also help you create a strong core by promoting abdominal muscle strength. The stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift challenges both your obliques and re**us abdominus, key muscles of your core. A strong core helps promote improved balance and agility, allowing you to maintain stability as you change directions and speeds. Working these muscles can also help you carve out an enviable six-pack.

What Is the Major Muscle That a Body Lunge Works?

The lunge is an advanced variation of the squat. Both lower body exercises involve the same joint movements, knee and hip extension, and they work the same muscle groups, the legs and buttocks. However, the lunge targets each leg individually and it emphasizes the muscle groups differently than the squat does. So even if you already include the squat in your exercise routine, you may want to incorporate the lunge also, as it provides some benefits that the squat doesn't.

The Front Four
The quadriceps is a group of four muscle heads -- the re**us femoris, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis and vastus intermedius -- on the front of your thigh. The re**us femoris is biarticulate; it crosses both the hip and knee joints. The other three muscle heads originate near the top of the femur and only cross the knee joint. All four quadriceps muscle heads are involved in extending the knee and the quadriceps is one of the main movers during the lunge exercise.

The Back Four
The hamstrings, the opposing muscles to the quadriceps, extend down the back of your thigh. The four muscle heads -- the biceps femoris short head, biceps femoris long head, semitendinosus and semimembranosus -- are mainly involved in bending the knee and extending the hip. A study from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, found the biceps femoris to be the most active of the lower body muscles during the body weight lunge exercise. This hamstring muscle is considerably more active during the lunge exercise than it is during the 90-degree squat. The semitendinosus and semimembranosus were slightly less active during the lunge than they were during the 90-degree squat, but researchers found the difference to be insignificant.

The Bottom Line
The gluteus maximus, the large buttock muscle that extends from your hip to your thigh bone, and the gluteus medius, a smaller buttock muscle that sits above the gluteus maximus, are both involved to a large extent in the lunge exercise. They are significantly more involved in the lunge than they are in the squat exercise.

Tip the Balance
Besides emphasizing the muscles on the back of your legs and hips more than the squat, the lunge also offers a higher degree of functionality and sports specificity. The lunge requires more balance, agility and explosive power than the squat and it is more transferable to sports activities. This is not to suggest you should completely replace the squat with the lunge, but rather you should design your workout routine to include both lower body movements.

How to Train for Boxing With 100 Push-Ups

Boxers spend their training time doing exercises that improve their strength, flexibility, agility, endurance and cardiovascular conditioning. A typical workout includes speed drills and long-distance cardio to improve speed and endurance, power training to build muscle and, of course, a focus on boxing technique. While a boxer's strength-training workout shouldn't be limited only to push-ups, the exercise definitely has its place in helping you strengthen your pectorals, triceps and shoulders. Use a progressive training model to help you get stronger and stronger over time.

Step 1
Learn proper technique for the standard push-up. Keep your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, tuck in your elbows, keep your feet together and maintain a long, straight line from your feet to your shoulders. When you can no longer maintain good form during a set, it's time to end the set. If you're not sure whether your form is good, ask a friend to watch you and provide feedback.

Step 2
Do a push-up workout three or four days a week on non-consecutive days of the week, allowing your muscles at least 24 hours of rest in between sessions. The rest periods will allow your muscles time to generate new muscle tissue and will help you avoid overtraining injuries.

Step 3
Perform four sets of 25 push-ups at a time to start, with a 30-second rest in between. Try to move into the up position fast and then lower into the down position relatively slow. Start out with just one round of these four sets for several weeks. After two to three weeks, add in a second set at another time of the day and then add a third set another time of day after several more weeks.

Step 4
Progress to a more challenging routine after you've been doing three sets of four rounds of 25 for several weeks. Instead of doing 25 repetitions at a time, do two sets of 50 with 30 to 60 seconds of rest in between. Start with one set, then add a second set after several weeks. At this intermediate level, speed up the pace at which you lower yourself down, so that you're going both up and down fairly quickly. Moving quickly will help you develop the explosive power you need for boxing, reminds trainer Johnny Nguyen on ExpertBoxing.com. After you can do two sets of 50 in a single session, add another session throughout the day and then yet another after several more weeks.

Step 5
Move onto an even more challenging form of push-up training after you're doing two sets of 50 for several weeks. This time, do one set of 100 push-ups at a time. Start with a single set and then add a second set of 100 at another time of the day after several weeks. Then add a third set some other time during the day. To progress even further, do two sets of 100 in a single session, with one to two minutes of rest in between. By then, you'll be up to 400 push-ups in a single day and you should have gained significant strength in your upper body.

Defensive Line Techniques for Football

On the surface, the defensive lineman spot seems like a simple position to play in football. But much more is involved in being a successful defensive lineman than is immediately apparent. To be the best defensive lineman you can be, start each play in the position to win.

Getting Into a Stance
Start off by positioning your feet correctly. A defensive lineman’s pre-snap stance can be the difference between winning and losing on every play. A poor stance, one where you are off balance or too comfortable, will allow an offensive lineman to beat you every time. Your feet should be no more than shoulder-width apart. The foot you will be stepping with first should be lined up with the instep of your other foot, giving you a staggered stance. Shift your weight to the balls of your feet and rotate your heels slightly out, ensuring that your first step will be forward and not at an angle.

Placing Your Hands
Once you place your feet, you need to place your hands properly. Start by placing your hands straight down in front of your feet, just as a sprinter does in the blocks before a race. Reach out another arm’s length and shift your weight forward onto your fingertips. If you can’t support your weight on your fingertips, work on strengthening your hands by doing fingertip pushups until you can support the weight. Raise your butt in the air and keep your back straight, creating the feeling that you are falling forward.

Getting Out of the Stance
Your stance should feel uncomfortable. You should want nothing more than to get out of this stance, which will make you ready to explode across the line of scrimmage with violent intent. At the snap of the ball, your body should be a spring ready to be sprung, unleashing an aggressive strike against the blocker in front of you.
When you come out of your stance to engage the offensive lineman, come out low, aiming for the offensive lineman's thigh pads. That low target point will help you gain leverage on him by getting under his pads, allowing you to control the offensive lineman and put him on his heels. In these battles between offensive and defensive linemen, the low man wins nine times out of 10.

Finishing the Play
Once you are pushing the offensive lineman backward, keep your base by maintaining the distance between your feet. If your feet come together, you lose that solid base and can be pushed over easily by the offensive lineman. Never stop your feet. Defensive linemen must always be driving their feet to press the advantage. Even if you get caught in a stalemate with the man blocking you and aren't moving forward, continue to chop your feet, taking every centimeter that you can.
With your legs ceaselessly pumping, make the play. Find the football with your eyes and diagnose what the offense is doing, specifically whether the other team has called a run or pass play. Once you find the ball, go and get it by shedding your blocker and closing in on the ballcarrier for the tackle.

Tennis Serving Exercises

As the old saying goes, your tennis serve can translate to a lot of free points -- but they might just be for your opponent. A strong serve is the centerpiece of a good tennis game, and there are a few exercises and drills you can do both on and off the court to ensure a winning start to each point.

Start With a Solid Base
The forward momentum needed in the lower body during your serve requires strength in your legs and hips. Good balance doesn't hurt either. Single-leg squats using a bench are an effective all-in-one move to work your quads, hips and glutes, while working on balance at the same time, according to Core Performance. With a bench or chair behind you, raise one foot slightly, then lower yourself down to almost seated in a squat position, then rise back up to standing. To help with balance, as you lower down raise your arms out in front of you -- you can use light dumbbells for extra resistance.

Strengthen Your Shoulders and Rotator Cuffs
Strong shoulders and rotator cuffs not only help you have a powerful serve, if they are conditioned properly, they will also help you avoid injury from the repetitive motion of your serve. The USTA recommends two moves using elastic exercise bands or tubing. The first is a standing external rotation where you begin with your arm bent, upper arm parallel to the floor, then pull the band so that your forearm is perpendicular to the floor while you squeeze your shoulder blades together. The second exercise is a standing row where you grasp a band in each hand, then pull down in a row motion till your hands are at your hips; hold for two counts, then release back to start position. Do two to three sets of 15 to 20 reps.

Swing for the Fences
Often players will focus on just hitting the ball into the service box, and in doing so, they become too cautious and controlled in their swing. According to feeltennis.com, you need to think of a serve as more of a javelin throw, using your whole body, than a dart board, using just your arm. The trick is to learn to let go a little. Do drills where you serve into the back fence; just let your serve fly. Once you start hitting the back fence, you will see that the less controlled effort you exert on your serve, the faster and stronger it becomes.

Throw Caution to the Wind
The speed of your serve relates directly to the power of your serve. Again, if you strictly focus on trying to control your serve to get into the service box, chances are your swing is too cautious. Feeltennis.com recommends a speed drill where you serve from the service line. From this position, the opposite service box is closer to you so it's easier to let go. Allow yourself to relax, really lean into the ball and hit it hard. Once you do this drill for a while you will learn to walk that line between control and letting go.

The Disadvantages of Aerobic Exercise

The American Heart Association recommends adults participate in at least 30 minutes of moderately vigorous aerobic activity five days a week. However, various challenges from health to time often prevent people from actually getting the recommended amount. Others do not even know where to begin when it comes to exercising. While aerobic exercise has positive benefits, it is worth taking time to look at some of the disadvantages as well.

Getting Physical
Whether you have time limits or physical limits, 30 minutes of exercising at one time could be quite daunting if not impossible. If this is the case, five- or 10-minute mini-workouts could work just as well, as long as you ensure to elevate your heart rate and keep moving. Healthy aerobic activity is not "all-or-nothing." Do not let a lack of time or inability to complete 30 minutes in a row rob you of the heart-healthy benefits of aerobic activity.

Fear Itself
Aerobic activity often requires coordination, such as aerobic dance, or motions which are jarring to the joints like jogging. For those who are dancing-impaired or have delicate joints, aerobic activity is intimidating and possibly dangerous. Luckily a variety of exercise options are available for low-impact activities such as swimming and elliptical orbiter machines. A spinning class is a suitable alternative for people who fear a traditional dance-style aerobic class. Spinning is done on a stationary bike and is also a low-impact aerobic exercise.

Doctor's Note
If you have a cardiac or pulmonary condition, your aerobic routine should be discussed with your physician and monitored by a personal trainer. Your heart rate accelerates considerably during aerobic exercise, as does your body's need for oxygen. Ironically, the best path back to health is often exercise. If you have medical challenges, do not begin an aerobic regime alone. Include all of those who have cared for you and are invested in your improving health.

Incomplete
For healthy individuals, aerobics alone are insufficient to define muscles and tone the body. Aerobics helps reduce the amount of fat on the body, but weight-bearing exercise is required to actually shape the muscles. To compensate for this, and to maximize results, circuit training was developed. It incorporates weight-bearing exercise into the aerobic routine, allowing you to simultaneously reap the cardiovascular benefits of exercise while you burn fat and tone muscles.

How to Increase Punching Power With Medicine Balls

A solid kinetic contribution from your legs and core is just as important for generating punching power as a smooth shoulder rotation and a whipping arm snap. Medicine balls provide boxers with a flexible workout that strengthens the torso muscles and improves range of motion when rotating into a punch. Toss a medicine ball with a partner to improve core strength and increase your maximum potential punching force, and use the ball to stretch your hips and groin for more efficient transfer of power through the body as you punch.

Core Flexibility
Step 1
Stand up and hold the medicine ball on top of your head.

Step 2
Step forward with your right leg.

Step 3
Bend your right knee as you step forward, and bend your left knee forward and down to the ground.

Step 4
Land on your heels and transfer the weight onto your toes. Both of your knees should be bent at a 90-degree angle to the floor.

Step 5
Push down on your right foot to straighten your legs and return your body back to the standing position.

Step 6
Repeat the lunge with your left leg.

Step 7
Perform 20 repetitions with each leg several times per week to improve your core strength and range of motion.

Throws
Step 1
Stand face to face with your partner, about 5 feet from him.

Step 2
Hold the medicine ball against your chest with both hands.

Step 3
Extend your arms and shoulders, forcefully thrusting the ball toward your partner.

Step 4
Bend your knees and prepare to catch the ball when your partner throws it.

Step 5
Perform 20 throws and catches each.

Step 6
Rotate so that you're facing 90 degrees away from your partner.

Step 7
Hold the ball with an underhanded grip.

Step 8
Swing your arms up and to the side, releasing the ball at the top of the swing to send it to your partner.

Step 9
Turn to catch the ball as your partner throws it back to you. Perform this exercise 10 times on each side.

Does Pedaling Backward on an Elliptical Machine Hurt Your Knees?

The elliptical machine provides an ellipse movement that is similar to a combination between running and a stationary bike or a skiing machine. Many elliptical machines allow you to move in a forward motion or a backward motion. While you might think that going backward on an elliptical machine could be a risk for your knees, the motion can actually provide benefits to the knees, even if you have a knee injury.

Research Supports Backward Movements
A study by the American College of Sports Medicine suggests that pedaling backward on the elliptical machine is actually beneficial for your knees. The study looked at 39 people with knee injuries. The ones who pedaled backward gained more strength in the quadriceps and hamstrings, which support the knee.

Strengthen the Surrounding Muscles
One of the ways to prevent or treat a knee injury is to gain strength in the muscles around the knee, including the quadriceps, the calves and the hamstrings. The American Council on Exercise explains that when these muscles are stronger, it reduces the amount of stress the knee encounters because they support the knee, and when they are weak, the knee takes on more pressure. Going backward on the elliptical works out your calf muscles, quadriceps and hamstring muscles to help you build that strength.

Low-Impact Movements
Whether you go forward or backward on an elliptical machine, this machine provides a low-impact workout to your joints, which include your knees. On the elliptical machine, you never remove your feet from the pedals, so you don’t get the impact of your feet going up and down. You also bear less weight on your joints and bones than with higher-impact exercises like running.

Ease Into It
The American Council on Exercise recommends getting your body used to the forward motion of the elliptical machine before you try going backward since it is considered an advanced technique. You can work up to it by performing the forward ellipse movement a few times a week for a few weeks, gradually increasing your duration and resistance. Work with a personal trainer if you need extra assistance with the elliptical machine.

Exercises That Make the Right Thigh Muscles Strong

If you have lopsided or asymmetrical strength in your thighs, don't worry -- it's not uncommon to have mismatched muscles. Your posture, repetitive movements, walking style and even conditions like scoliosis can all impact the way you use your thigh muscles. To counterbalance gross muscle imbalances, try performing thigh-strengthening exercises using only your right leg.

Fly Like an Eagle
Eagle pose is a yoga balancing exercise that strengthens your standing leg. If you want to strengthen your right thigh muscles, do not switch sides and only perform this pose while standing on your right leg. To perform a modified version of eagle pose, stand up tall with a straight spine. Cross your left leg over your right leg and hook your left foot behind your right calf, if possible. Bend your knees and sit back as if you were about to sit on a chair, balancing on your right leg. Hold this position for 30 seconds to one minute.

Side Plank Pose
Side plank is an asymmetrical exercise that strengthens the entire right side of the body, including the right thigh. To perform side plank, lie on your right side with your left leg and hip stacked directly on top of the right. Prop yourself up on your right elbow, positioning your elbow directly underneath your right shoulder. Press your right forearm and the outer edge of your right foot into the floor and lift your hips and legs off the floor. Your entire body should be balanced on your forearm and outside of your foot. Hold side plank pose for 30 seconds to one minute.

Single-Leg Bunny Hop
The single-leg hop strengthens your thighs and challenges your balance at the same time. To use this exercise to strengthen your right thigh, only balance on your right leg. Come to a standing position and shift your weight over to your right leg. Bend your left knee and press your heel as close to your buttocks as you can get it. Bend your right knee and hop forward with your right leg. Keep your left leg off the floor the whole time, hopping forward continuously for 10 to 15 hops.

Single-Leg Squat
To really feel the burn in your right thigh, try a single-leg squat exercise. Stand up tall, placing your right foot slightly in front of your left foot. Line the back of your right heel with the front of your left toes. Keep your arms loose by your sides throughout the entire exercise. Shift your weight over to your right leg as you bend both knees, dropping your hips back as if you were about to sit on a chair. Press your right foot strongly into the floor and straighten both legs to come back to a standing position. Perform 10 to 15 repetitions only on your right leg.