Prevent old deformities from getting worse,
And maintain esthetic physique till old age
By Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Rev 2-2-2011
Copyright Mohamed F. El-Hewie 2003-2011
1.1. The short cut to build muscles and deform your bone frame
1.2. the key to bone integrity and functional balance
1.3. The Skeleton
1.3.1. From translation to rotation
1.3.2. Origins and Insertions of skeletal muscles on bones
1.3.3. The law of muscle action
1.4. Major skeletal muscles
1.4.1. The Spinal and torso erectors
1.4.2. The Quadriceps and Hamstrings
1.4.3. The Scapular hammock
1.5. ANTHROPOMETRY AND BIOMECHANICS
1.6. Muscular Torque during lifting
1.6.1. Spinal vertebral leverage
1.6.2. Relationship between forces applied to the hand and low back
1.6.3. Muscle to Bone leverage in Biceps Curls
1.6.4. Muscle to Bone leverage in Wrist Curls
1.6.5. Muscle to Bone leverage in Overhead Elbow Extension
1.6.6. Muscle to Bone leverage in freestyle lifting
1.7. Knee extensors
1.8. Hip flexion
1. 9. The hip abductors
1.10. The hip adductors
1.11. The feet balancers
1.12. TORSO extensors
1.12. TORSO extensors
1.13. The shooters
1.14. The arm pullers
1.15. The Pressors
1.16. The hook muscle
1.17. The arm raisers and depressors
1.18. MUSCULAR IMBALANCE
1.19. power boosting modalities
1.19.1. Supersets
1.19.2. High intensity training
1.19.3. Slow motion training
1.19.4. Plyometrics
1.19.5. Calisthenics
Chapter 2: Warm-up & Stretching
2.1. Introduction
2.1.1. definition
3.1. ESSENCE OF BODYBUILDING
3.1.1. NEW SPORT
3.1.2. NEW TOOLS OF FITNESS
3.1.3. NEW TRENDS
3.2. JUDGING CRITERIA
3.2.1. MUSCLE MASS
3.2.2. MUSCULAR DEFINITION
3.2.3. MUSCULAR PROPORTION
3.2.4. BODY SHAPE
3.2.5. POSING PERFORMANCE
3.3. BODYBUILDING DIET
3.3.1. BODY FAT CONTENT
3.3.2. DIETARY HABITS
3.3.3. SHEDDING CALORIES BY PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES
3.3.4. ASSISTING MEDICATION
3.3.5. BODYBUILDING MODEL
3.4. ANABOLIC STEROIDS
3.4.1. COMMON DRUGS
3.4.2. PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
3.4.3. PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS
3.4.4. PROBLEMS WITH ILLICIT DRUG USE
3.5. Muscular actions
3.6. Strengthening Elbow flexors
3.7. STRENGTHENING ELBOW EXTENSORS
3.8. STRENGTHENING THE SHOULDERS
3.9. SHOULDER ADDUCTION AND EXTENSION
3.10. STRENGTHENING THE HIPS
3.11. HIP EXTENSION
3.12. STRENGTHENING THE KNEES
3.13. HIGHLIGHTS OF CHAPTER THREE
4.1. Goodmorning Back Extension
4.2. Stiff-legged Deadlift
4.3. classical Deadlift
4.3.1. Description of the Deadlift
4.3.2. Variants of the Powerlifting Deadlift
4.4.1. Back Squat
4.4.1.1. Description Of Back Squat
4.4.1.2. Variants Of Feet Stance During Back Squat
4.4.1.3. Tweaking Of Squat Technique
4.4.2.1. Unique features of Front Squat
4.4.2.2. Description of Front Squat
4.4.3. Overhead Squat
4.4.3.1. Description of Overhead Squat
4.5. Military Clean
4.5.1. Real living emulation
4.5.2. Lifting styles
4.5.3. Description of Military Clean
4.10. Bent-over Rows
4.11. Lever Bent-over row
4.12. Abdominal exercises
4.12.1. CRUNCHES
4.12.2 LEG RAISES
4.12.3.1. THE PROPER UPRIGHT POSTURE AND ABDOMINAL MUSCLES
5.1. shoulder press
5.1.1. Standing Barbell Shoulder Press
5.1.2. Seated Shoulder Press
5.1.3. One-Hand Shoulder Dumbbell Press
5.2. Shoulder elevation
5.2.1. Shoulder Shrugging
5.2.2. One-Hand Dumbbell Side Bends
5.3. SHOULDER EXTERNAL ROTATION
5.3.1. L-flyes, lying or standing.
5.4. Front Raises
5.4.1. Dumbbell Front Raises
5.4.2. Cable Front Raises
5.5. SHOULDER ABDUCTION
5.5.1. Lateral Arm Raises
5.5.2. Lateral Deck Raises
5.5.3. Upright Barbell Arm Rows
5.6. Bench Press
5.6.1. Bench Press
5.6.2. Inclined Bench Press
5.6.3. Pushups
5.7. Parallel Bar Dips
5.8. shoulder front adduction
5.8.1. Flat Dumbbell Flyes
5.8.2. Incline Dumbbell Flyes
5.8.3. Inclined Dumbbell Press
5.8.4. Cable Flyes
5.8.5. Deck Flyes
5.9. Pullover
5.10. Latissimus dorsii exercises
5.10.1. Chin-Ups or Pull-Ups
5.10.2. Lateral Cable Pulldowns
5-10.3. Horizontal cable rows
5.10.4. Dumbbell Rowing
5.10.5. Lever Rows
5.11. Bent-Over rows
5.11.1. Bent-Over Lateral Arm Raises
5.12. Hip Extension
5.12.1. One-Legged Hip Extension
5.12.2. Dumbbell Squat
5.12.3. Inclined Leg Press
5.13. HIP FLEXION
5.13.1. Horizontal Leg Raises
5.13.2. Ladder Vertical Leg Raises
5.13.3. Parallel Bar Vertical Leg Raises
5.13.4. Inclined Sit-ups
5.13.5. Vertical Sit-ups
5.33. HIP ADDUCTION
5.14. Cable and Machine Hip Adduction
5.15. HIP ABDUCTION
5.15.1. Floor And Machine Hip Abduction
5.16. Knee Extension
5.16.1. Seated Knee Extension
5.16.2. Hack Squat
5.17. KNEE FLEXION
5.17.1. Seated leg curls
5.17.2. Lying leg curls
5.18. torso and low back
5.18.1. Trunk Twists
5.18.2. Lateral Trunk Bends
5.18.3. Horizontal Back Extension or Hip Extension
6.1. BRACHIALIS MUSCLE
6.1.1. Barbell Curls
6.1.2. One-hand cable curls
6.1.3. Dumbbell Concentration Curls
6.1.4. Cable Curls
6.3. BICEPS BRACHII MUSCLE
6.3. 1. Reverse Barbell Curls
6.3.2. One-Hand Dumbbell Curls
6.3.3. Hammer Dumbbell Curls
6.4. BRACHIORADIALIS MUSCLE
6.5. WRIST AND FINGER EXTENSORS
6.5.1. Reverse Wrist Curls
6.6. WRIST AND FINGER FLEXORS
6.6.1. Wrist Curls
6.7. ELBOW EXTENSION EXERCISES
6.7.1. Upright Elbow Extension
6.7.2. One-Hand Dumbbell Elbow Extension
6.7.3. Cable Pushdown
6.7.4. Forearm Kickback
6.7.5. Triceps Dips
6.8. ANKLE FLEXION (DORSAL FLEXION)
6.9. ANKLE EXTENSION (PLANTAR FLEXION)
6.9.1. Calf Raises
1.1. The short cut to build muscles and deform your bone frame
Your good will, of getting to the gym or lifting weight at home, may take you into the land of unprecedented ignorance on your part. You might start lifting weight on the belief that “lifting is good for your health and fitness”. Lifting will make your muscles stronger and bigger. Strength and bigness should make you healthier than emaciated skinny folks. That is all but backward logic.
If you were born in a country where you have to build your own future house, by your own hands and with the help of your own immediate friends and family members, like I was, the above reasoning is nothing by awkward. Before building your own future body, or house as in the aforementioned parable, you must first plan. Your planning must start with laying the foundation and designing the frame. The last concern in your planning should be the muscles, or the soft fillings and dividers of the house. One cannot live in a house built on loose foundation.
What is truly awkward about the aforementioned reasoning is that: starting weight lifting on mere belief by indulging into the most traumatic activity is like jumping into a body of water about which you have no experience, then attempting to learn how to extricate yourself from its perils.
You must never lose sight that muscles must attach to bones in order to gain support. Bones must be strengthened and stabilized first before you should worry about the soft tissue. The entire book comprises this simple philosophy of enhancing bone integrity that is followed by promoting muscular esthetics. Bigness will be avoided and discouraged due to its health hazard and as long as your physiological performance is advanced to its maximum. That still will not undermine your ego of looking sharp, fit, and strong. To the contrary, your healthy bone frame will lend you support and longevity long and beyond those who have surpassed you by building massive muscles by all surreptitious means.
You also must never lose sight that bones are slow gainers. Your teeth will require two good years to move if kept in dental braces, if and only if, you applied the braces as your dentist has prescribed. But long and strong bones do not comply with physical manipulation as teeth do. In other words, once you mess up your bone frame, you stuck with your deformity for life. The knife and chisel of a surgeon would not restore the bone you have already messed up, because surgery does more damage than the deformity itself, unless it was life and death emergency.
During your early life, when your bones still have their growth centers active, your bones could have been manipulated by braces, casts, and forced activity that reshape the bones. The arches of the feet are the best examples of such bone manipulative procedures. But, once the growth centers of the bones ossify, the bone takes the terminal form. You could have new teeth till the age of seven when the teeth growth centers were active. Most bone growth centers close by the age of twenty three. Some close earlier, some later.
But, bone deformities are not the only evils lurking in the darkness of your ignorance with weight lifting. The most notorious evils are the functional deformities. Those are entitled “muscular imbalance”. Almost all people, without exception, incur muscular imbalance due to the neglect and abuse of muscles in an industrialized society. Muscle not used decline. Muscle sporadically used inflame. Muscles used excessively waste. So, what strengthens muscles? Consistent, incremental, and progressive exercises do.
Abuse, neglect, and overuse of muscles do more harm than good.
So, how would you know if you have not already messed up your bone fame and muscular balance? Most probably, you never will. From my own experience, when I have traumatized my knees to ultimate destruction, I rejoiced the tense, stiff, and swollen knees. The aura of squatting 450 pounds barbell and Deadlifting 550 pounds, far surpassed by judicial insight in the injury I have already inflicted on my own cartilages. Only when the night sleep was taken away by unrelenting pains and when the only way forward was the surgery knife, that when I started reconstructing my ignorant planning. It took a decade later, when I was able to pin point the exact errors in my planning that caused the irreversible injury. You are not in better spot than me. Ego wins over wit.
