This action is the major component of sitting up. Because of this, when you are doing sit ups your psoas muscles are the primary muscles being engaged and not your abdominal exercises.

So, sit-ups are a pretty useless exercise if you want to get your abs in shape. Instead, use crunches, because they directly work your abs.

The Right Way

Lie flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet together flat on the floor and about 10-15 inches from your buttocks. Your hands should either be crossed on your chest, by your side, or cupped behind your ears.

Without moving your lower body, curl your upper torso up and in toward your knees, until your shoulder blades are as high off the ground as you can get them. Only your shoulder blades should lift – not your back. As you come to the highest point tighten and flex your abdominals for a brief second. Slowly lower yourself back to the starting position. Repeat for reps.

Diet

Remember cruches only tone the ab muscles, you need a lowered calorie intake to burn off the fat, so the muscles then show through clearly.

About The Author: Paul Becker is a natural (steroid free for life) bodybuilder and fitness consultant. For more information on Bodybuilding and Bodybuilding Supplements visit his website at http://www.trulyhuge.com

*Alessandro Savi – pro bodybuilder and the cover subject of our next online issue

*Rosetta Mortati - NPC Fitness/Figure model, personal trainer and MSM staff member

*Dimitri

*Justin Michaels & Fresh

*Fakhri Mubarak – IFBB pro and co-owner at Natural Body Sports Supplements and Vitamins in Astoria, NY – free samples

*Dave Pomponio – owner of Platinum Fitness in Ronkonkoma, NY – free passes

*Goliath Labs – free samples

Open bar from 9PM to 10PM, half-priced sushi and appetizers from 9Pm to 10PM.

The event will be broadcast live on Party 105 (105.3 and 105.1 FM in New York).

Blue Restaurant and Nightclub is located at 7 Montauk Highway, Blue Point, NY, 11715 (631) 363-6666.

Photo by Carlo Puzzilli

Dayana Cadeau may be making the switch at the right time and announced it last month on her Facebook page:

“I would like to thank all my fans for their support for all these years of my bodybuilding career. This weekend was my last Olympia show as a bodybuilder. I’m gonna do Women’s Physique as an IFBB pro. Much better for me.”

Throughout her 16-year bodybuilding career, Cadeau has competed in numerous shows each year and was a regular at the Arnold Classic and Ms. Olympia. As recently as the last Arnold, she finished in the top 10, and was in the top six at the 2010 Olympia.

But now she is delving into a new class that people are still curious about. Physique is said to be in between bodybuilding and figure, so someone with as much muscle mass as Cadeau will have to a lot of modifications to her routine and diet in order to bring it down.

It remains to be seen the effect that WPD will have on the industry and if other female bodybuilders will follow Cadeau. And then there is the question of how many amateur competitors will go into physique instead of bodybuilding. These are all things that will play themselves out.

But for now, it will be very interesting to see the transformation of Dayana Cadeau.

Our friends over at Sequoia Fitness have made that easy for you with this easy-to-use product that should be in the home of every bodybuilder (pro, amateur and hopeful), as well as anyone else who cares what they really look like. (And if you don’t fall into any of those categories, you’re probably not visiting this website and reading this anyway. Have fun at the McDonald’s drive-thru, tubby.)

The Warrior calculates for up to four different users and measures not only body fat percentage, but also lean body mass. It displays your current and last results so you know what direction you’ve been taking. It does upper, middle and lower measurements, so you can get accurate readings on your chest/triceps, abdominals and quads.

When you hear that unique beep, you know that the reading was taken correctly and the large digital display screen tells the tale. You know that you used the correct amount of pressure because the machine informs you.

Lean body mass is the mantra for the perfect formula – a fat loss and muscle building program. Betcha didn’t know that Warrior is the ONLY body fat caliper on the market to measure this important number.

As if you needed any more convincing, every Sequoia Fitness product carries the stamp of the Military Standard for Physical Readiness. What the hell does that mean, you may ask? Their stuff meets a standard of excellence required by the armed forces when measuring body fat.

You get all this for the low cost of $23.95. And if you get stuck on anything using this or any of Sequoia Fitness products, give Matt a call at (877) 987-3737. The guy designed Warrior and has been in the game for 15 years. He’ll even forward you a PDF version of the instructions in case you lose them.

Be sure to visit their website for Warrior and other great fitness products that you will use every day.

SEQUOIA WARRIOR INFOMERCIAL ON MUSCLE SPORT TV

 Promoter and Master of Ceremonies will be Legendary Bodybuilder Bill Grant, Mr. America and Mr. World. Bill Grant appeared in the new release of “Pumping Iron” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and has also been featured in numerous movies, television shows and commercials.

The 6^th Annual NPC Bill Grant Bodybuilding, Figure & Bikini Classic will be held at Cedar Beach Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 1:00 PM.  It is part of the Lehigh Valley Sports Fest, a 4-day festival of sports that includes 50 athletic events and draws over 10,000 athletes and 150,000 spectators from around the globe. Admission is FREE for all spectators.

The Bill Grant Classic show is a great tradition of old Muscle Beach contests full of muscle and physical beauty. BE A PART OF!

Long-time friend Legendary Bodybuilder Leon Brown, whose famous back shot is seen in the middle pages of Pumping Iron, will return to the Classic once again. Come out to meet and greet Bill Grant and Leon Brown.  Fans will not want to miss out on getting their picture taken with the Bodybuilding Legends.

This event will be held at Cedar Beach Park, S. Ott Street at Hamilton Street in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  Registration will begin at 10:00 am, with prejudging starting at 1:00pm and Finals will begin one hour after prejudging. For more information about this event please visit http://www.billgrant.net and www.sportsfest.org.  For additional information about this event please contact Eva Sot 973-420-5695 or ems@billgrant.net.

Bodybuilding supplements, like protein powder, can help you to achieve the look you crave as they can boost your immune system, make you put on more muscle and help with muscle definition.

It is protein and protein powder that are so important in enhancing your performance. Even if you eat a lot of red meat and other protein-rich food, you will notice that you cannot get the right amount of protein without taking bodybuilding supplements. Whey protein helps boost your immune system as well as aiding your muscles to strengthen and grow. It also replaces all that is lost while you are working out, as muscles can be damaged as well as built up during bodybuilding.

If you suffer from sore muscles when you first start out bodybuilding, persevere and your muscles will adjust. This is because whey protein contains essential amino acids that act in the same way as painkillers.

Also, because it is a natural product, the body absorbs it more easily.

No bodybuilder can guarantee that what they eat and drink will contain the right amount of protein, nutrients, fat and calcium to lead a healthy lifestyle as well as pack on more muscle. This is where bodybuilding supplements come in because they can help in this pursuit. They can give you an increase in your levels of energy, more muscle mass and it will take you less time to recover after doing a work out at the gym.

Taking protein powder is one such way of helping you develop your body as to how you want it. It is made of a substance that occurs naturally in the body anyway, as do amino acids. Serious bodybuilders who take supplements are the ones who pack on the muscle quicker, gain weight faster in the right places and have more get-up-and-go to carry on training.

But you do still have to work out. The supplements will aid you in your training but are not the be-all and end-all. To get the best out of supplements, you must keep up those strenuous and well-timed workouts and you will find that you can train more frequently and harder because the supplements allow you to do this.

Photo Courtesy of Andrew Parker

As a teenager, Alexandre M. Carneiro could not feed his athletic needs by playing high school volleyball. Although it is an interesting sport that takes a good amount of stamina to excel in, the rotating and spikes just didn’t cut the mustard for him. No, the young man needed something a bit more hardcore.

“I always watched action movies starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold, Jean Claude Van Damme and always admired those bodies,” remembered Carneiro. “But living in Santiago de Chile was a struggle as the culture there is very narrow minded and bodybuilding was the last thing people socially accepted.”

Originally born in Brasilia, Brazil, Carneiro was raised in Rome, Italy and moved to Chile for nine years of his life. Not willing to accept the hand that he was dealt, the fledging bodybuilder moved to the United States to attend college. “It was only then that I was truly able to express my potential for the sport of bodybuilding and build my name up in the industry.”

Four years of continuos hard work and struggle paid off for Carneiro when he placed first in both the Open and Novice categories in the 2010 NPC Axis Labs Northern Colorado Bodybuilding Championships.

In addition to being a competitive bodybuilder, Carneiro is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer and an international model and fitness professional.

“I have big plans for my future and one day hope to make it big,” he concluded.

Judging by what he has accomplished in such a short period of time, only a fool would doubt him.

For more information, please visit his personal website at www.alexcarneiro.com.

‘This is Your Magazine’ is merely one of the reasons why MuscleSport Mag is far and wide better than any other publication out there. What other media outlet features the up and coming athlete, the same as if he or she was a professional in their industry? This is the place to get your face and story out there, and who knows what opportunities may arise from that type of exposure?

It was last March in Columbus, Ohio that Heath finished as the runner-up to ‘The Predator’ in a contest that Heath deserved to win. And then he took second in the Mr. Olympia show to his good friend Jay Cutler. If someone was ever poised to win their first major show, it is Heath.

Not that it will be an easy task. Greene will be looking to make up for his weak showing at the O and hold onto his title and Dennis Wolf, who finished fifth in Las Vegas, is on a comeback trail that may be hard to stop. Factor in Branch Warren and Dexter Jackson and the line-up will be a tough one as usual.

Heath looked superb at both shows in 2010 and may be the next great bodybuilder. He is on the cusp of it right now and winning an Arnold will be the first step towards making that a reality. The chances are better than good that he will do it in March.

PHIL HEATH CONTEST HISTORY

2006 Shawn Ray Colorado Pro                       1st

2006 New York Pro                                            1st

2007 Arnold Classic                                          5th

2008 Iron Man Pro                                           1st

2008 Arnold Classic                                         2nd

2008 Mr. Olympia                                            3rd

2009 Mr. Olympia                                             5th

2010 Arnold Classic                                          2nd

2010 Mr. Olympia                                              2nd

Yamagishi is scheduled to undergo an MRI exam on Monday to ascertain the extent of the injury. As it is, he had to pull out of two shows because of it, in Tampa and Connecticut. He is said to also look to take this time off with getting hernia surgery that he was putting off until the offseason.

Considering that the Olympia is coming up in September, that would mean that Yamagishi is done for the year. A big blow, for sure, but not one that he cannot recover from. He has many good years left on the big stage and this may turn out to be the best thing that happened to Yamagishi. His body needs the rest and he can use the time off for that and to put on some size.

Hurting your quad while doing a seated upper body movement is a message that your body is telling you to slow down. Yamagishi has already competed in four shows this year and planned on doing seven. That is too much for anyone, especially a bodybuilder with a smaller frame like his. In 2009, Yamagishi competed five times.

With a full year between contests, Wolf showed up at the ’09 Olympia extremely off and did not even place. That was a total shock to not only his minions but Wolf himself. But did the big German shoot up the list too fast, only to come back to relaity?

Looking over his professional career, Wolf seemed to have peaked between 2007 and 2008. He finished fifth and fourth, respectively, in those two years at the O. At the 2006 Olympia, he did not place and has won only one show overall (2007 IFBB Keystone Pro Classic). Wolf has taken third at his two New York Pro appearances (2007, 2010) and seventh at the ’06 Europa Super Show.

When you take a look at his placings from afar, they really are not that impressive. That is not a knock against Wolf, but rather just an opinion based on fact. Not taking anything away from him for those two impressive top six Olympia placings, but a legitimate contender needs to have a few wins under his belt in the secondary shows and at least one top three at the Arnold or Olympia before he can be considered a great bodybuilder. Wolf is not even close to that.

He has announced that he will in fact compete at this year’s Olympia and that may not be the wisest decision for him. At 31, Wolf is still young enough to bounce back but another bad placing at the top show may put him on the back burner. He is still a big fan favorite but after a while, that will run out.

There is an argument that Wolf would be better off getting ready for the 2011 Arnold instead of cutting up again in September. He did look fairly decent in Manhattan, but there will be plenty of questions on just what type of improvements he will be able to make in just four months. If he finished behind Roelly Winklaar (a rookie) and Hidetada Yamagishi (a much smaller competitor), then there is no way Wolf will be able to compete against the likes of Cutler, Branch Warren or Kai Greene.

Wolf will need to put on more size and then have enough time to cut up and dry out, and timing has been a major knock against him in the past. The odds of that happening are small, and the fallout will be great if Wolf falters again in Las Vegas.

DENNIS WOLF CONTEST HISTORY

2006 Europa Super Show – 7th

2006 Mr. Olympia – 16th

2007 Keystone Pro Classic – 1st

2007 Mr. Olympia – 5th

2008 Mr. Olympia – 4th

2009 Mr. Olympia – 16th

2010 NY Pro – 3rd