The oblique muscles are the muscles located on the sides of your waist. There are 2 sets of oblique muscles the internal oblique and the external oblique. The external oblique lies on top of the internal and when someone is in really good shape, you can see the fibers of the external oblique.

The external obliques run from the back of the lower ribs down to the pelvis, and the internal obliques run from the pelvis up to the lower ribs. Both muscles will work to pull your spine forwards like in crunches, but if you really want to emphasize the obliques, you must add in rotational movements or side-bending movements. Below are 4 of the best oblique exercises that use the side bending motion.

Because the obliques are located primarily on the sides of your body, they really work hard when you do side-bending movements. Some of the best side-bending movements are standing dumbbell side bends, side bends on a 45 degree back extension machine, side crunches on a stability ball, and moving side planks.

Standing side bends are pretty simple to perform, and you can do them with one dumbbell or 2 dumbbells. If you use 1 dumbbell, place the opposite hand behind your head and lean towards the side with the weight until you feel a good stretch in your obliques. With 2 dumbbells, you will simply alternate sides.

If you belong to a gym or fitness center, you will likely be able to find a 45 degree back extension board. This exercise is usually much harder than dumbbell side bends because your body weight is usually heavier than the dumbbells you might use during standing side bends. In order to do this exercise, you simple secure your feet on the bottom platform and then lean down towards the floor until you feel a good stretch in your obliques. If this exercise becomes easy you can add a weight to your hand to increase the resistance.

Side crunches on a stability ball can be a tricky exercise to master, but your obliques will definitely get a ton of work. The challenge for most people is staying on the ball. Bring a stability ball next to a wall and place your feet at the base of the wall to help secure your body. Then, with your hands behind your head, you should crunch up to the side over the contour of the ball. The contour of the ball will give you more range of motion for your obliques to work, and the instability of the ball will make your core muscles work harder.

Moving side planks are also a great oblique exercise. Simply, balance on your side with your elbow and your feet. Once you feel stable, lower your hip towards the floor until you feel a stretch in your obliques and then use your muscles to lift back up towards the ceiling.

These are some of the best oblique exercises, but there are many great exercises for your obliques. Just remember that the obliques are emphasized with side-bending movements and rotational movements.

When you go into any modern day gym, it is hard to recognize what the true reason for physical training is. Everyone is talking about burning calories, building specific muscle groups, maximizing their workouts with scientific date, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, burning fat and building a functionally muscular body are great goals. I just think we could learn something from Ancient Warriors that would make out training even better.

Modern Training Has Lost Its Roots

The truth is, the history of physical training, or working out, is based in war. Ancient warriors would train so they would be prepared to protect themselves, their families and their property from attack.

Their training was not so much about looking better, but performing better. I think modern day exercisers should take this cue from Ancient Warriors.

Physical Training Is Initially About Survival

Training, and getting the physical improvements from training, was not about looking good in spandex or taking your shirt off at the beach. Their motivation for training was nothing less than SURVIVAL. If you were unfit, you didn’t survive!

Talk about a great motivator to use the best methods and get really great results! If they failed to have the physical abilities necessary to defend themselves… they would pay the ultimate price. Imagine workout out as if your life depended on it. (By the way it does, just most people have lost sight of it or don’t view it with any urgency).

The Reason Combining Bodyweight And Dumbbell Workouts Is Best

When you think about Ancient Warriors, what image comes to mind. For me, I see a strong fit individual with some type of weight objects (weapons) in their hands. So, if you were training to be a better warrior, how would you train? Does combining bodyweight exercise and dumbbell training come to mind?

Forget about what the bodybuilding community tells you about training muscles. Exercise is really about movement. Two types of movement really… The movement of your own body AND the movement of objects.

Bodyweight calisthenics are the best way to train your body to move in the way it most naturally moves. Every movement of the body can be trained and improved with bodyweight exercises.

On the other hand, dumbbells are the best way to train the body to move objects. You can use dumbbells in unison, one limb at a time or in an alternating manner. These movements with weighted resistance are closely related to the way you move in the real world. So, training with dumbbells leads to more improvements you can actually use to meet the challenges of sport, work and life.

Just like an Ancient Warrior, combining bodyweight and dumbbell workouts are the best way to build a strong, attractive and functional body.

If you want to get real fitness, fat loss and physique building results you can use in the real world, combining bodyweight and dumbbells is a great option. Forget about strapping yourself into some machine that has no relation to any movement you’ll do in the real world. Act as if you life depended on getting results (it does), and use the best tools for the job.

If I needed to get results, I’d do what the Ancient warriors instinctively knew. I’d combine bodyweight exercises and hand help weighted resistance to build a strong, body that performs well regardless of what life throws at me.

Knowing your tennis strokes makes all the difference. Learning how to play tennis can be fun and rewarding. Tennis is a great game once you have mastered the basics but in the initial stages developing control and technique takes some practise. This article teaches a few basics.

Chop stroke.

One of the most important teniis strokes to master is the chop stroke. The chop stroke is a shot where the angle towards the player and behind the racquet, made by the line of flight of the ball, and the racquet travelling down across it, is greater than 45 degrees and may be 90 degrees. The racquet face passes slightly outside the ball and down the side, chopping it, as a man chops wood. The spin and curve is from right to left. It is made with a stiff wrist.

Turning the chop into a slice.

The slice is one of the tennis strokes that requires a deft touch. The slice shot merely reduced the angle mentioned from 45 degrees down to a very small one. The face of the racquet passes either inside or outside the ball, according to direction desired, while the stroke is mainly a wrist twist or slap. This slap imparts a decided skidding break to the ball, while a chop “drags” the ball off the ground without break.

Footwork for the chop and slice shots.

The rules of footwork for both these shots should be the same as the drive, but because both are made with a short swing and more wrist play, without the need of weight, the rules of footwork may be more safely discarded and body position not so carefully considered. As with any tennis strokes, proper execution calls for a commitment to practise and training – a one hour coaching lesson can pinpoint your weaknesses and let you know which areas of your game to work on.

Strategic use of the chop and slice shots.

Both these shots are essentially defensive, and are labour-saving devices when your opponent is on the baseline. A chop or slice is very hard to drive, and will break up any driving game.

It is not a shot to use against a volley, as it is too slow to pass and too high to cause any worry. It should be used to drop short, soft shots at the feet of the net man as he comes in. Do not strive to pass someone at the net with a chop or slice, except when there is a large open side.

The drop-shot is a very soft, sharply-angled chop stroke, played almost completely by action of the wrist. Look to drop the ball within 1 to 1.5 metres of the net for your shot to be effective. The racquet face passes around the outside of the ball and under it with a distinct “wrist turn.” A full shoulder swing is not required for this shot. The drop shot should not be confused with a stop-volley. The drop shot is a wrist shot whereas the stop-volley shot is played with the wrist locked.

Use your short game sparingly.

Use all your wrist-action shots such as the chop, drop shot and slice sparingly. These are the tennis strokes to pull out of your hat at opportune times. They are to complement your main game as opposed to your game being built around them. You still need to make your power and strength drives and a strong serving game the mainstays of your tennis. Use your wrist variations only as an auxiliary for the purpose of upsetting your opponent’s rhythm by varying the pace and spin on the ball.

Saving points with the half-volley shot.

The half-volley shot requires precise timing and extreme accuracy. Practising this shot is important if you want to be able to call on it in a pinch. The margin for error is less than with virtually any other tennis shot, and an ill-timed or executed half volley is almost certain to lose you points. However, getting it right will give you a definite edge and can save points just when your opponent is on the attack.

It is a pick-up. The ball meets the ground and racquet face at nearly the same moment, the ball bouncing off the ground, on the strings. This shot is a stiff-wrist, short swing, like a volley with no follow through. Gym training focusing on wieght training with help develop your wrist strength – crucial in these tennis strokes. For the half-volley, the racquet face travels along the ground with a slight tilt over the ball and towards the net, thus holding the ball low; the shot, like all others in tennis, should travel across the racquet face, along the short strings. The racquet face should always be slightly outside the ball.

The half volley is essentially a defensive stroke, since it should only be made as a last resort, when caught out of position by your opponent’s attacking shot. It is a desperate attempt to keep the ball in play when otherwise the point would be lost. If at all possible, try to move in closer for a full volley shot – relying on the half volley when other options are open to you is unwise.

Positioning Yourself on the Court.

Familiarize yourself with the dimensions and geometry of the tennis court and learn where to be to play an effective game. Playing good tennis strokes while out of position is a sure way to open yourself up to attack.

A tennis court is 39 feet long from baseline to net. In general play while waiting for the ball from your opponent, you should be in one of only two places. These are:

Either standing about 1 metre (3 feet) behind the baseline, centred between the sidelines or 2-2.5 meters (about 6 to 8 feet) behind the net and inline with the ball.

The former is the position for all baseline players and the second is the standard net-play position.

Whenever you are forced or drawn to play a ball away from these areas it is important to return to them as soon as possible. Failure to do so will leave you wide open to your opponent’s attack.

Standing in no-man’s-land after your shot (the area between the baseline up to 3 metres back of the net) will leave you vulnerable, and is basically asking your opponent to drive right at you. Making the effort to get back behind the baseline will pay off in saved and won points. It is much easier to come forward again for the next shot if required than to try to play the ball as you are chasing it backward.

If you cannot get back then shift to the net position and prepare for avolley – try to turn defense into offense.

Stay on the move, rather than standing and watching your shot. Every tenth of a second counts, and you need to get back into position as quickly as possible. Strive to attain a position so that you always arrive at the spot the ball is going to before it actually arrives. Do your hard running while the ball is in the air, so you can steady yourself prior to playing your stroke.

It is in learning to do this that natural anticipation plays a big role. Some players instinctively know where the next return is going and take position accordingly, while others will never sense it. It is to the latter class that I urge court position, and recommend always coming in from behind the baseline to meet the ball, since it is much easier to run forward than back.

Should you be caught at the net, with a short shot to your opponent, do not stand still and let your opponent pass you at will, as they can easily do. Pick out the side where you think they will hit, and jump to it suddenly as he swings. If you guess right, you win the point. If you are wrong, you are no worse off, since he would have beaten you anyway with his shot.

Your position should always strive to be such that you can cover the greatest possible area of court without sacrificing safety, since the straight shot is the surest, most dangerous, and must be covered. It is merely a question of how much more court than that immediately in front of the ball may be guarded.

A well-grounded knowledge of court position saves many points, to say nothing of much breath expended in long runs after hopeless shots. Many of the top players have spent many hours doing positional drills – practising the art of moving back into position as soon as they have played their strokes. Sharpening your skills and honing your reflexes will pay out in the long run.

It is a good idea to get some more indepth guides and coaching manuals for insights on the game from professional players. The main thing is to keep practising. Sometimes strains and sore muscles can put you off your training but often working through them is the fastest way to overcome them and increase your strength. Remember that building your aerobic fitness and strength will make it easier to play your tennis strokes with precision and control.

If you want to develop a vibrant personality, is an important aspect of attractiveness and the most important would be quality called inner charisma or charm. Charm is the personality that comes from inside. This is usually known as ‘Personal Attractiveness’ and what the film makers and big companies look for is personal magnetism or internal charm. This is not a defined property, but is much more important than physical attractiveness. But when both personalities combined mixture is irresistible.

Charm can be developed into individual, like how you learn everything. Anyway, it requires a lot of self-discipline and constant study. Some of the features we can take people of great kindness, interest in people, courtesy, kindness towards all, confidence and vitality. There are a few important requirement needed to develop an impressive attitude, such as maintaining good health, kind for all, a good character, honesty in all respects, not selfish, obedient to the principles and ideals that beauty of body and mind, truth, religious, loyal and good habits. Involvement those qualities in yourself will help you develop an impressive personality.

Personality is the psychological behavior that makes the way of life and is operated by the way we interrelate with people around us and the environment relevant to them. We regularly hear people say ‘he has a hot-tempered personality’ or ‘he has a cool personality. Both figures describe a person’s communication with people surrounding and power handling different situations. Personality for any normal person has decided on three major factors, which are the situations, one person handles, inheritance of genes and environment.

So, discuss inheritance of genes is that the genes we inherit from our parents and this play a major part to act personality development. The environment is also key that the personality developed by the society and living styles. The third major issue for its development is the situations we deal with. Regardless of the additional two factors for its development, how we deal with situations in a developed or a well-educated way matters a lot.

Everyone would agree with the point that keeping fit is very most important element of having an impressive personality. Staying fit also has several rewards. There are several ways to keep fit and if you have a gym close by your house, you just plan time. You can also sign up a gym or can also contact the trainer for internal personal lessons. An internal personal training is normally conducted by people who cannot manage his daily schedule for exercise and fitness gym or physical tutoring instructor. The alternative option is that you go to a dance class for staying fit and in shape. Staying in shape will also be a part of personal development.