Pull-ups - a good MRT?

Pull ups - is where you hang yourself with your palm facing away from you. You pull yourself up until your chin pass the bar.


I like this article by Jason - Top 10 ways to improve your pull-ups. 

He goes by saying ....."The pull up is quite possibly the ultimate measure of strength. It’s also one of the greatest muscle building exercises in existence, which is precisely why it’s been called the upper body squat....... .... People all too often ask, “How much can ya bench?” A more appropriate question would be “How many pull ups can you do?” The pull up measures your strength to weight ratio better than almost any other exercise known to man"....


These days, I tend to do this almost every other day.. up to 10 reps (fresh), the most I can do it is 15 (not an easy feat for me though). Normally, I would be doing it in the morning just before my shower, and another in the evening, just before the shower. I'm targeting to achieve 15 in a single set within the next 3 months.
My fav routine is to do 3 sets of 5 reps each (with the 3rd set to failure). And I hate the 3rd set!!! but i know it's working, because my heart rate goes way high and my upper body muscles are trembling..... that's MRT (metabolic resistance training) by itself! (go and read why MRT is THE way to do your workouts.. interval training is considered old-school already..)

Got to have targets. So I know what I'm working towards, and put my plans to work... as they say.. failure to plan, is planning to fail.

live strong!
Sher Khan

Prepare early for nutritious food..

I make sure I prepare some food/snacks upfront so that I don't have to resort to a 'convenience food' (a term I use to eat whatever we take whenever we're hungry - things like un-healthy snacks/meal whenever we feel hungry). Having our food ready upfront is important to maintain ones diet. Serious to lose weight and be healthy? then no excuse for eating junk.

Sharing with you some of my typical weekend ritual of preparing my food up-front for the week.

1. I make sure I stock-up on the groceries stuff (chicken, fish, lots of vegetables and fruits) - i like to buy off the local market (or night-market) - not the hypermarkets. It's fresher and better quality (from experience).

2. preparing some tidbits or snacks for the week (dry roasted nuts/sunflower seeds/pumpkin seeds, etc)
3. prepare my breakfast ingredients (flaxseed, sesame seeds, peanut butter, etc)


below are some pic

Grinding the flaxseed to take the most benefits of it - easily digested/absorbed by our body. What is flaxseed? see old post.

Baking my own 100% whole wheat bread. I like the heavy, dense, high-fiber, all natural home bake bread. My recipe can be found here.

I've also grinded sesame seeds to a more finer paste-like. It's best to dry roasted the sesame seeds first, then grinded it. Again, for easy absorbing into my body. BTW, do you know that sesame seeds has the highest plant sterol? the natural science-proven cholesterol lowering substance. See previous post on seeds.

My typical breakfast in the mornings (takes about <8mins to prepare) --- I take 5 spoonful of rolled-oat, mixed with 2 spoonful of powdered skimmed-milk, with hot water in the bowl. Then after 5 mins, I put few dashed of cinnamon-powder, and mixed the sesame seed paste, about 2 tb grinded flaxseed, one handful of goji-berry, pinch of raisins/pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds/wheat germ, handful of nuts (peanuts/almond/cashews). YUUMMMYY... . more breakfast ideas from my previous post.

There you go. have fun exploring.

Sher Khan.

Pushup ideas..

I like this simple guide to add variety to your push-up exercise.

As they said, if you can't do a good posture push-up, you've no business to do bench-press.

Add-on to the article, my favorite push-up routines are:
1. diamond push-up - where to put your hands together with your index-finger and your thumb joined - makes a diamond shape.
2. Spiderman push-up - do a regular push-up and start to bring your either leg towards your armpit.
3. Bomber/Hindu push-up  - regular push-up position but you slide-it through.. difficult to explain... try google
4. Armpit push-up - also difficult to explain, but assume a regular push-up, then you move downwards keeping your head at your armpit.

simple exercise, great for your pecs and core strength..

Sher Khan.