Your body A complete guide to fitness, health and beauty By Alex Moisescu About the author Q&A with Alex About this book Do you exercise regularly? What do you want to achieve? Fitness is important Do not look for excuses Do not procrastinate About laziness Delaying of gratification What do you live for? Basic anatomy and physiology The locomotor system The skeletal system The muscular system Energy delivery systems The anaerobic energy system The aerobic energy system The oxygen delivery system Benefits of physical exercise Long-Term Benefits Short-Term Benefits Benefits of Aerobic Exercise Benefits of Anaerobic Exercises First do no harm The basics of physical training Training terminology The principles of athletic training The overload principle The progressivity principle The specificity principle The recovery and super compensation principle The detraining principle The periodicity principle The individual differences principle The active participation principle Training for fitness and health Physical fitness components The warming up The cooling down Aerobic training Why practice aerobic training? Guidelines for aerobic training Frequency Duration How to measure your heart rate? Intensity Methods of aerobic training The method of continuous constant effort The interval training method The Fartlek method The circuit training The cross training Aerobic group exercise Designing an aerobic training program Exercising for better health and disease prevention Exercising for fat loss Exercising for cardiovascular improvements Exercise for improving your athletic performance FAQ Aerobic training made simple Strength training Why should I regularly do strength training? Guidelines for strength training Frequency Volume of training Exercises Choosing the right exercises Basic exercises Auxiliary exercises The order of exercises Number of sets Rest period between sets Number of repetitions Training Load How to adjust the load over a cycle of training? Methods for training Methods of training for beginners Methods of training for trainees on intermediate level Other methods of training Bodyweight training Pushups Pull - ups Squats Dips Strength training for beginners Strength training breathing techniques About joint locking Strength training for fitness Strength training for bodybuilding Training for maximal strength Unleash the power – training for explosive strength The anatomy of a rep Strength training exercises Top ten exercises The squat The bench press The deadlift The pull up The dip The back row The upright row The shoulder press The biceps curl The Gorilla crunch Free weights versus machines Example of strength training programs Kettlebell training Kettlebell introduction Kettlebell swing Kettlebell standing press Kettlebell windmill Kettlebell snatch Kettlebell clean and jerk Kettlebell Turkish get up Kettlebell side press Kettlebell two hands anyhow Kettlebell squat Kettlebell floor press Kettlebell bent over row Kettlebell gladiator row Kettlebell passes between the legs Kettlebell side bridge side press Kettlebell single leg deadlift Kettlebell crunch Kettlebell training safety rules What size kettlebell should I start with? Kettlebell training programs Kettlebell FAQ Gym rings training Strength training made simple Other effective ways of training for superior physical conditioning Track and field training Stair training Strongman training Forearms and hands training How to get a six packs abdominals? Abdominal belt stability Why should women never be afraid of strength training? Strength training myths and legends I do not want to get too big Strength training will make you slow Muscle toning If you strength train you will lose flexibility You will never get very good results if you do not take drugs Bodybuilders are poor in bed I want to train long and sleek muscles; I do not want big, bulky muscles Gym ethics Flexibility training Exercising for flexibility Static stretching Ballistic stretching PNF (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) Training diary Goal setting What can you objectively expect from training? Clothing, shoes and other accessories Nutrition What is healthy nutrition? Calories How to measure your daily caloric expenditure? Proteins Fats Carbohydrates Vegetal Fibers Water Vitamins and minerals Fat soluble vitamins Water soluble vitamins Major Minerals Trace minerals Basic groups of foods When to eat? Training and eating Dietary guidelines How to make your own diet plan How to calculate your body fat percentage? Ideal weight Waist/hip ratio Lose fat Fat loss fallacies After how long time after I begin to exercise, I will start to see the results? How should you train if you are really time crunched? Whom should I trust? The best home gym Alcohol abuse Smoking is bad About the author My complete name is Alexandru Mihnea Moisescu. I was born in Romania in 1976. Compared with many “fitness gurus” who wrote books or started programs, fitness did not came to me through a revelation. I was never fat or out of shape, nor had a life changing experience when I discovered fitness. I started to be involved in sports since I was 5 years old and by 12, I was exercising and training on a regular basis at least 4 times a week. Until today I have never skipped training more than a week and this on seldom occasions. So fitness is a part of my living. I graduated Physical University Faculty in Iasi, Romania and in 2000 I also attended 2 years post graduate studies in Health Preservation and Rehabilitation at Beijing Physical and Sports University. For more than 8 years I started and managed fitness clubs. During this period I have trained from scratch more than 100 personal trainers, provided various training to more than 1000 personal trainers and I offered training advice and instructions to more than 10000 clients. Along the road I also got involved and trained professional athletes: first league football players, MMA fighters and national teams (tennis, tae kwon do, boxing). At present I live in Shanghai and I run a Physical Education, Fitness and Sports program for children between 3 and 12 years of age and I also take care of the physical conditioning programs for MMA fighters. Myself I train every week strength and conditioning about 3 times, I do 2 MMA training sessions and play rugby almost every Saturday. I am 188 cm tall, weighing 93 kg at 10 % body fat. I can deadlift 240 kg, squat 200 kg, bench press 160 kg, snatch a 28 kg kettlebell 100 times in 5 minutes, run 3 km in little over 12 minutes, sprint 50 m in 6 seconds and jump 290 cm for standing long jump. Q&A with Alex Moisescu Q: What do you think is the most important ingredient when it comes to maintaining and improving health, fitness and beauty? A: The most important thing should be your discipline. Discipline means to work out 2-3 times a week all your life starting when you are 3 years old and until the last days of your life even when you are busy, even when you are exhausted even when you think you have reasons to skip training. Discipline means to have a correct nutrition at least 90% of all your meals in virtually every week and to make it up after and overfeeding like during a holiday week. Discipline means to absolutely refrain from smoking and drink with responsibility in spite of your entourage and social connections. Q: Could you think of why these days especially in developed countries there are so many people who are unfit in spite of all the informations and in spite of all health and fitness facilities we see everywhere? A: The main reason for why so many people ( I can easily say the majority of people ) are so unfit is that they accept the situation. They think is no big deal, that they are fit and healthy “enough”, they look at the people around them and came to accept living without fitness. As I said before, they lack the most important ingredient, the discipline needed to achieve health, fitness and beauty. Q: Talking about fitness knowledge which kind of knowledge do you see as most important? A: I consider that the essence of fitness knowledge is the Principles of Physical Training. Q: Why and how you decided to write and publish this book? A: I have started to write for this book when I was 22 years of age, 13 years ago ( as today is February 2011 ). I wrote a little on a frequent basis and than I put everything together and this book came out. I think that compared with every other book I red on this topic, that I have some words to say. Q: What is different about your book, compared with all those hundreds, maybe thousands of books on this topic out there? A: Well, frankly saying most of the books I saw are of very little substance, quite superficial. Of course that are also a lot of good books out there. I will make a list with what I see as special about my book: . It explains in detail the science of fitness, but is written for the normal folks who do not like to read scientific text books. Combines equally theory with practice. Most of the other books lack one of these two features. It is very complete. By reading and learning it the reader will have more useful knowledge than at least 50% of all personal trainers who work in commercial gyms. It is basic and plain common sense knowledge. Most of the books out there want to be seen as revolutionary, cutting edge systems or “hocus-pocus-abracadabra” magic programs who work with little effort and give you “the results you want” in very short time Q: What kind of books have been taught you the most knowledge? A: For me the most important knowledge comes from “Exercise physiology” which is and should be behind every principle and theory on fitness and conditioning training.