So why are you writing about the EC Stack when it is no longer available?

Many people believe you either can’t get ephedrine any more, or you have to pay outrageous amounts to get ephedrine. Which is true in the dietary supplement realm. You could be looking at $60-$70 a bottle for a proprietary EC Stack. But what if you could buy ephedrine and caffeine separately and then just take them together? Well you can! Ephedrine is available in asthma medicine. The most common brand used is Bronkaid, you can buy it from any drug store (CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, etc) for about $10 for 60 tablets. Each pill of Bronkaid provides you with 25mg of ephedrine sulfate which is perfect for 1 dose of the EC Stack. Caffeine, again can be bought from any of these places for about $4 for 30 200mg pills (again perfect dosing). I found caffeine online in bottles of 100 for $5 also 200mg a pill.

Dosing and Cost

Most followers of the EC Stack agree that the proper dosing should be 25mg epherine sulfate (20mg ephedrine hcl) with 200mg caffeine about 3 times a day or every 4 hours. Now lets look at the cost of this supplement:

60 ephedrine pills / 3 times a day = 20 days ~ $10

100 caffeine pills / 3 times a day = 33.333333 days ~ $5

You can see that this stack if fairly cheap, I bet you can’t find an ephedrine free diet supplement for cheaper!

Like I said earlier people have died from taking too much of the stack, so take it at your own risk. One thing that should be monitored is your BP as this can increase while taking these two drugs together.

Generally you want to start dosing gradually until you can achieve the 20/200 dose 3 times a day. Check out the dosing chart on hotnfit.com

Combating Side Effects

One of the most common side effects is an increase in BP, most people will recommend you take omega 3′s to help stabilize this along with EGCG or green tea extract. This will help maintain the proper BP but you still should monitor and stop taking the stack immediately if your BP is getting to high. Another side effect is dehydration, caffeine is a diuretic so it will pull water out of your body, you need to drink a lot of water while taking this stack. I would recommend 6-8 bottles of water a day which is leaning towards a gallon a day. You also want to avoid any extreme cardio that raises your HR, pretty much avoid doing HIIT. You will experience a loss of appetite, which could lead you to feel like vomitting if you eat too much. If you are doing this stack you should be on a solid diet anyway…finally, try to avoid using this stack in the heat, as it is a thermogenic you will need to keep extra hydrated.

Check out the information on hotnfit.com.

Use and Results

This stack has been proven in 24 week long trials to be one of the most effective weight loss supplements when combined with proper exercise and diet. The results vary but you expect some of the best weight loss you have probably ever seen if you have a solid diet and work out routine. Generally people will cycle this stack every 6-8 weeks, by taking 2 weeks off of it. then gradually building back up to the full dosage.

If you are unsure about taking the stack, then don’t. If you body is telling you to stop taking it, then stop! Always listen to your body and follow what is healthiest for you. Dropping some extra pounds is not worth hurting yourself.

When taking this stack it also isn’t really necessary to hit cardio that hard. You can just lift and still see results since you are still increasing your energy usage, your just not shooting your HR through the roof for long periods of time. HIIT and other intense cardio should not be done while on the stack (even sports!) since your HR will be up much higher than normal for extended periods of time which could like to problems like heart palpitations. Be smart and be patient and you will see results.

I hope you enjoyed this article, if you have any questions/comments/concerns feel free to leave a comment!

Three Basic Ab Areas:

There is a lot to your ab muscles, here’s a picture:

Abdominal Muscle Groups

We will be focusing on three major components of your abs:

1. 6-Pack area, lamen terms for the major portion of your abs
2. Obliques, there is interior and exterior but we will be focusing on both as obliques
3. V-Cut muscles below your abs

So we have determined what muscles we want to target, but why (besides aesthetics) do we want a perfect 6-pack? The answer is quite simple, your abs make up your core, the more strength you have in your core, the stronger you will be in other lifts (especially the bench press!!!) A strong core pretty much makes a strong you, so now that we have a reason for building or abs that doesn’t make us conceded, let’s begin!

How to Shape Those Abs

All of the workouts should be used in conjunction with a good diet, and plenty of fat burning cardio (check out this article). Like everything else you need to be motivated, and patient. Let’s begin:

The most common approach to building your abs is crunches or sit-ups, since most people know how to do those, lets look at some more advanced stuff.

6-Pack Area

Weighted Sit-ups

Grab yourself a comfy feeling plate (to begin maybe a 10lb or 25lb plate) and a decline bench, or a sit up bench. With the sit-up bench you will be more easily able to hold your self for the workout. To begin we lock our legs into the leg holders and lay down. Now to perform and ordinary sit up we would just crunch our abs as we bring our upper body up and then go back down parallel to the ground, not back to the resting position. So for this workout we just hold the plate to our chest, where our arms should be anyway, and continue to perform a normal sit up. I have found that doing 25 rep sets works the best, since by the end you can really feel the burn in your abs. Three sets should do you just fine.

Now for the weighted crunches, we lay on the floor and hold the plate to our chest and perform crunches as we normally would, except with a plate.Just like sit ups do 25 reps for 3 sets. You can also use a weight ball instead of a plate, and you could even use a partner with the weight ball to toss between each other.

I generally prefer to do sit-ups to crunches, simply because I can more evenly feel the burn across my abs with sit ups while crunches only really hit the top packs.

Ab Machines

Most gyms have these now. They are the machines that come in a few different varieties but all do essentially the same thing. The machines allow you to increase or decrease the weight while using your abs to compact the machine. The machines help you build abs and you can really feel the burn after a few sets of crunches.

Flat Leg Lifts

This is the same workout as the one in my article about PT, or working out when you can’t make the gym. You lay on the ground, put your hands in a diamond behind your back, and lift your legs off the ground by about 6 inches, while keeping your legs together. You raise your legs another six-twelve inches and then lower them back to the starting position. This work out really helps to form the lower packs as well as a nice v-cut.

Leg Swing Crunches

These are similar to crunches but really help buff up your interior ab muscles. Lay on your back with your legs up at a 90 degree angle, and move your knees forward and back a few inches at a time, after 30-45 seconds you should feel a deep, new muscle burn. Working these muscles should help to push your abs out!

Obliques

Weighted Side Bends

Grab yourself a 45lb plate and hold on to it! For side-bends the main idea is to keep your back and legs perfectly straight, while bending at your side and then coming back up. With the plate in your right hand, bend toward your right side (don’t bend your arms!) and then bring your body back up to a straight position. The target is 3 sets of 10 reps, but if this weight isn’t enough grab a heavier dumbbell. Now switch hands and continue! This will help to create that nice sharp top part of your v-cut and build side-ab strength. Note: if you are having a hard time keeping your body straight, look straight up, generally when you raise your head up your back tends to straighten out.

Sideways Crunches

This workout will require either a nother person or something to hold your legs to the floor. For this workout we are lying on our sides, and crunching sideways. Sounds simple enough right? The hardest part is having something to keep your legs flat on the ground, to give you a firm base to lift from. A partner generally works best. After doing a few sets of these you will really feel the burn, don’t forget to switch sides!

Side Leg Lifts

This is great especially if your gym has a leg lift ‘machine’ you want to look for the thing that has arms reaching out with handles sticking out, a back rest, and elbow rest. This machine allow you to hold yourself in the air with your upper body, and lift your legs in different ways. If you rotate your body sideways (not a fully 90 degree turn) and lift your legs sideways with your obliques you will know you are doing this work out correctly, because it will burn like hell but pay off in the long run. Another 10 reps 3 sets should do fine.

V-Cut

The best way to form the deep v-vut (the area below your abs that leads from your hips to your groin) is to work your lower abs and have a low body fat % (importance of cardio!)

Leg Lifts

Let’s go find that leg lift machine and work our lower ab area. For this work out you want your back flat against the back rest and to lift your legs parallel in front of you, then slowly lower them back down. It is best to keep your legs straight during this entire workout, if it becomes to difficult bend at your knees and continue. 10-15 reps and 3 sets will do good.

Flat Leg Lifts

This is the same workout as the one in my article about PT, or working out when you can’t make the gym. You lay on the ground, put your hands in a diamond behind your back, and lift your legs off the ground by about 6 inches, while keeping your legs together. You raise your legs another six-twelve inches and then lower them back to the starting position. This work out really helps to form the lower packs and will give your v-cut a nice boost.

Importance of Abs

So now we are well on our way to a killer six pack just in time for beach season! Our abs provide critical support and most of the workouts we do in the gym, even in cardio. remember that even though strong abs look good, they also help increase your strength in other areas.

With that being said, I need to go do some leg lifts, feel free to leave comments or ask questions!

The Importance of Physical Training

Whether your PT consists of weights, or just general weight-free workouts (think push-ups, sit-ups) it is still an important aspect of a healthy lifestyle. You will, with time, look and feel better than before and also have increased strength, always a plus. PT also helps increase the strength of your heart and vitals, keep your weight in check, and keep your body functioning as efficiently as possible.

USAF PT Workout

This workout includes a number of exercises and a four count system. The four count system means that with each workout, it takes two full reps to equal one, and each rep is broken down into a two count, so it takes a four count to reach one completed set. I will explain how this works for the various workouts in a moment. The workout is pretty straight forward and is usually done in a count down method, you start with say 20 reps, then 15, then 10, or however many reps you feel comfortable with. Each cycle (all of the exercises done one after the other) is one set, so you would do the whole workout, then move on to set 2 which would me a lower number of reps, and continue until you complete your third set.

First thing is first, you want to warm-up with some stretching, be sure to stretch your legs, calves, arms, shoulders, chest, and back. To stretch your legs you can pull one foot behind your butt while standing on the other foot and stretching your quad. You can stretch your calves with a lunge stance, and you can stretch your whole leg by doing toe touches. To stretch your back you can interlace your hands in front of your and stick your palms out, pulling and stretching your back, to stretch your chest you can interlace your hands behind your back with palms facing behind you and pulling/stretching your chest, the higher your arms go the better the stretch. To stretch your arms and shoulders you can cross one arm at a time in front of your chest, and pull it in towards your body with your other arm making a _|_ with your arms. Finally, to stretch your shoulders you can bend one arm behind your head and pull your elbow down with your other hand.

Now that we are all stretched we can begin:

• Start with windmills, here is how to do them: 
  Begin with your feet a little bit more then shoulder width apart, and extend your arms parallel to the ground but in line with your body. To begin you will take your left hand and touch it to your right toes, this is count 1, next you come back and touch your right hand to your left toes, this is count 2, you repeat this two more times for counts 3 and 4. You have just completed one rep! Only 19 more to go! Remember to not bend your knees when performing windmills!
• Next we do jumping jacks:
  Begin with hands and arms by your side and feet together. You are going to jump in the air and bring your arms up and spread your legs this is count 1, upon landing you jump again and return to the starting position this is count 2. Once again you repeat this to reach count 3 and 4. That is one rep down, 19 to go.
• Next we do push-ups:
  Begin by laying on the ground, hands flat on the ground shoulder width apart. You want to rest your feet on their toes, and keep your back straight. The starting position is with your body up in the air and arms extended out front. Once you lower yourself to the ground you count 1, then lift back into the air for count 2, and repeat for counts 3 and 4.  Once again you repeat this to reach count 3 and 4. That is one rep down, 19 to go. If you find that you can not handle doing full push-ups for this long, since you would actually be doing 40 push-ups with 20 4-count reps, you can do push-ups off of your knees instead of your feet. The Perfect-Push-up works great too!
• Next we do three different crunches:
  The first crunch will be a straight crunch. To begin you flip onto your back and put your knees in the air, locking your feet together in the air. You cross your arms on your chest, making an ‘X’ to complete the crunch you bring your elbows to your knees for count 1, and lower yourself back down for count 2, now you repeat this four count 3 and 4. That is one rep down, 19 to go.
• Next we do side crunches:
  You will need to do this exercise for both sides. To begin we start from the crunch position however, we place one foot on the ground with our knee bent and in the air, then we place our other foot on top of our knee. This will make your legs look like an upside down bottomless 4. Now which ever leg is resting on the other leg, say your left leg is on your right leg, you bring the opposite shoulder to that knee. So left leg on right leg means bring your right elbow to your left knee, you will notice how this helps work your obliques. The count is the same as the straight crunches, up is 1, down is 2, repeat for 3 and 4. That is one rep down, 19 to go. Be sure to switch legs and work your opposite side!
• Next we do scissors:
  To perform scissors lay flat on your back with your legs also flat on the ground. Make a diamond with your hands and place them behind your back right above your butt for stability, now you lift your legs ~6 inches off of the ground. Now for count 1 you spread your legs, for count 2 you bring them back together. Once again you repeat this to reach count 3 and 4. That is one rep down, 19 to go.
• Finally we do leg lifts:
  From the same position as the scissors, hand placement and all, we lift our legs from ~6 inches to ~15-18 inches. When you reach the right height you have done count 1, when you bring your legs back to the starting position we have done count 2. Once again you repeat this to reach count 3 and 4. That is one rep down, 19 to go.

Now that we have completed our first set, we rinse and repeat for set two and three. Each time lowering the number of reps.

Flexibility of this Workout

The nice thing about this workout is that you can easily add or modify the workouts you do for your own personal goals. There are also some more advanced techniques mainly for the crunches and push-ups. The advanced method is called negatives, and involves lowering your self to the ground ~2 inches off the ground in a push-up and holding this position. For push-ups and crunches you can perform the exercises more slowly and pause at the starting, ending, and middle positions. The negatives help to build more strength and stamina.

Motivation

When performing our weekly (or daily for me) PT we would help motivated ourselves by yelling our counts out loud, and going over various ‘songs’ this helps keep your mind off of the pain and allows you to perform more exercises. One important thing I learned from my recruiter is this saying: Pain is just weakness leaving the body. If you repeat this phrase to yourself while working out it will help motivate you and remind you that your becoming stronger!

Enjoy this workout and feel free to modify, and comment on any helpful changes you would make!

In my experience the most under used and under worked muscle group is easily your forearms. How often to you actively think of working just your forearms? My guess is not often. The problem with ignoring your forearm muscles is simple: they play a vital role in your grip strength and how much you can lift with free weights for many different workouts on other body parts. So lets recap quick:

• Forearms are often ignored
• Forearms help increase grip strength
• Forearm strength/size is esthetically pleasing
• More forearm strength = more grip strength = lift heavier free weights with more control

Warming Up Your Forearms

To begin it is generally best to rotate your hands and began contracting your forearm muscles, help get the blood flowing to the forearms so you can began the very enjoyable cramping adventure you are about to embark on.

Another nice warm up technique I like to use is to sit on a bench and turn my hands towards each other while they hold me up from behind. By doing this you can feel your forearms begin to tighten and increase blood flow. Once you feel warmed up enough you can proceed onto the exercises!

Please note: it is also a good idea to begin every workout with some warm up cardio to help increase blood flow throughout your whole body

Forearm Exercises

I am sure you can guess the way must forearm exercises work (you bend the wrist to contract/extend forearm muscles) but I am going to provide some more interesting and common forearm work outs. Let’s begin!

For each forearm exercise (or atleast most of them) there is a reverse workout in which your palms go from facing up or down, to facing down or up.

Palm Up Barbell/Dumbbell Wrist Curl

Essentially this workout can be performed on a bench, or while resting your arms on your legs and with either a barbell or dumbbell. To begin with the bench you rest on your knees on the side of the bench, with either your barbell or dumbbells in your hands while your palms are facing up, somewhat like a preature curl. Let your wrists wrest on the edge of the bench and hold your forearms flat againts the bench, not allowing them to move. You now roll your wrists up, essentially you are curling the weight with just your wrists and forearm muscles. This exercise is virtually the same between dumbbell and barbell except that with dumbbell’s you can do one forearm at a time and use your other hand to support your other arm. This exercise works the meaty underside of the forearm to help create that rock hard bulge.

Palm Down Barbell/Dumbbell Wrist Curl

Basically the same as the first work out however, your forearms are flipping and your palms are facing down. You can lower your wrists and lift them up or  in order to ‘curl’ the weight. This exercise helps to build the top of your forearms and create a more define and vascular forearm.

Reverse Barbell Curls

Most people are familiar with barbell curls, this is essentially a whole new spin on that technique. To begin we start out with our palms facing down and grabbing the bar with an overhand shoulder width grip. Now you perform the curl essentially the same way, you start from the lower postition and raise the bar up until your forearms are vertical, now you lower your arms back down extending your arms and allowing the muscle to relax momentarily.

Reverse Barbell Preacher Curls

This is exercise is very similar to the preacher curl, and the barbell curl. You again start with an overhand grip shoulder width apart, and forearms resting on the pad. You lift your arms until your forearms are vertical once again, the straighter the better, and you let them back down and fully extend your arms again. Also be sure to allow the muscle to relax momentarily.

This list of forearm exercises should keep you busy toning and massing out your forearms for a little while. Remember the importance of forearm development when working them out because the cramping sensation can be quite incredible.

The Sensation

So you did your first forearm workout….how do your arms feel? Tight? Cramped? Ah yes these are all good signs of a good forearm work out. Remember the more you work forearms the more accustomed you will be to this sensation. Also the more defined and vascular you will become. Massive forearms will always be able to draw a certain respect from people, keep at it build them up.

When Should I Workout Forearms?

The answer to this is really dependent on how into the forearm workout you get, and how much you can handle. I generally like to hit forearms hard on a leg/shoulder day. The reason is simple I can do my should workouts and the rest of the time hit legs and forearms where I won’t need much gripping strength since my forearms will be exausted, cramped, you name it. So experiment with what days your forearms are feeling exceptionaly ready for a hard workout and incorporate your workout then. Just remember to do the forearm work outs and you should eventually have a new routine down pat.

Check the blog for more articles every few days!