Mael

Well, to start, let me just say that some of my disagreements with you may seem more anal than anything, but if you're gonna give info, it should be 100% right or stated that it is only your opinion.

Abs Section:
If what you want is a flat belly and a small waist, you need to get off your fat ass and start biking or running (biking is preferred because it's lower impact and much easier on your body, plus you're using your thighs to pedal
Call me crazy, but you use your thighs to run too. Lower impact doesn't make a difference in weight loss. Walking/running is considered, by most, to be the best cardiovascular exercise around. The fact that it is weight bearing is only an issue if your are very out of shape, have bone problems, etc, that make running painful/harmful.

is the largest set of muscles in your body; therefore, you will build up the most important muscle group since it's other job is to help overall blood circulation).
Cardiovascular work won't increase the size of the muscles used. It may tone them, or improve their conditioning, but not increase their size. You said it yourself to Anon, high weight/low reps to put on the size. Also, muscles in the thighs do not "improve circulation." There is a veinous muscle pump (when the veins are squeezed as the muscle contracts, thus aiding in blood return), but muscular strenght doesn't affect it. Also, the calves are a blood resevoir, and do function as a bit of a boost to the circulatory system. If you ever go on a long plane ride, that is one of the reasons that getting up and walking every once in a while is recommended, so that the blood that pools in the lower leg gets circulated a bit more and clots don't form.

Going beyond this 30° mark brings into play two other muscles, the psoas mangus and psoas parvus (go try to impress the ladies with that).
According to physiology book, there is a major and minor psoas (i assume you refer to them differently due to old naming conventions, my book supposidly is using the more up to date international names). But, only the psoas major is involved in hip flexion. It, along with the iliocus (often reffered to together as the iliopsoas) work together to flex the hip. The minor psoas flexes the vertebral column.

they pull on your spine and cause those vertebrae to rub together, causing permanent damage to them. The movement may also end up causing severe damage to your nerves in that area
I've heard about situps being bad for your back, but never this. Mind giving us a source? Seems to me that if letting the psoas get used would give you this problem, we'd all have it from raising our knees up (flexing the hip).

divide your abs into 2 sections: upper and lower
Your abs, aka the rectus femoris, is one muscle.

Now, using only your abs, bring your knees up towards your chest.
After using your abs to raise your hips off the bench, when you have the person then move their knees up, it's gonna be the iliopsoas bringning the up, because the rectus femoris flexs the trunk at the pelvis, and is not connected to the legs, so once you've flexed at your pelvis, your iliopsoas is taking over for bending your legs at the hip.


Just be sure to keep your back rounded the entire time. If your abs are so weak that you can't keep from arching your back then stop doing them for awhile until those muscles are stronger
How do you keep your back rounded without it being arched? An arch is by definition round... please elaborate.


Quick word about obliques: these muscles are very easy to over work. They are the muscles right under your love handles
Don't forget that the obliques go all the way up to the pecs. And they aren't that big of a muscle (thicknesswise) that they're gonna make someone look fat (in my opinion).

but always be sure to keep your back rounded
Everything I read says that you should keep your back in a neutral position.

Now on to the Upper Legs
the name lateral, or sideways
actually, in anatomical terms, lateral describes a positioning away from the midline in comparison to something else, and medial is more toward the midline than what it's being related to.

The muscle in the back of your legs that function to bend your knee are the hamstrings (no fancy names)
The hamstrings have 2 functions: bend the knee and extend the leg at the hip. There are three things that make a muscle part of the hamstring group. They all have an origin at the ischial tuberosity deep to the gluteus max., they all span 2 joints (the hip and the knee) and they all are innervated by the tibial division of the sciatic nerve. Now that that lesson is over, there are three fancy names to the hamstrings, since there are three muscles that make them up. They are the Semitendinosus, Semimembranosus, and Bicep Femoris (the long head).

gluteus maximus, which extends your hip forward (strangely enough)
I'm not sure what you mean by this. When your thigh is flexed, the glut. max. extends it back. So like from a sitting to standing position.

and stablilizes your knee
don't you mean stabilizes your thigh?

gluteus medius, which abducts your hip (moves it to the side) and rotates your hip inward and outward; gluteus mimimus, which abducts your hips and rotates your thigh outward
Actually, the glut. medius and minimus medially rotate the thigh, so inwards, not outwards.

Squats and leg presses must be done with absolute care because they are open-joint movements
I've heard of open-chain and closed-chain movements, but the definition i have for htem doesn't match what you seem to be talking about. A closed chain movement is one where the end of the movement chain is fixed against an object such as the floor and supports the weight of the body, and open chain movement remains open, or free at the end. So a squat would be closed-chain, while a bicep curl would be open.

the bones in your thighs and calves begin to separate
Again, I'm not really sure what you mean here. If you mean that the the femur seperates from the tibia and fibula, i have to disagree because the joint capsule is rather strong and keeps it together nicely. if you mean the tibia and fibula seperate from each other, that would make no difference because the tibia is the weight bearing bone in the lower leg, and the fibula is mainly there for muscle attachment. and again, due to the joint capsule, you'd pretty much have to tear your knee up with some major unusual forces to damage it.

it's because you aren't using any of the leverage from your bones as you begin to stand
did the bones disappear?

Because of the fact that you're putting a lot of stress on those tendons
I assume you mean this in accordance with the bones seperating. Unfortunatly, ligaments attach bone to bone, while tendons attach muscle to bone.

Personally, I never do squats simply because balancing takes away from my concentration of lifting the weights
Taht's just dumb. By learning how to do them, and balancing yourself while doing it, your including all the nice little stablizing muscles and will end up with better balance. Oh shit, that sounds like a bad idea. :-(

Slowly(!!!) lower the weight until your knees are bent 90°, then quickly, and with a lot of power, push the weight back up
According to the ACE Manual, gains in strength will best be accomplished by moving the weight slowly (about four to five seconds per repetition) through the full range of motion.

When you walk, you naturally keep your knees slightly bent to keep all that weight off your joints because you'd otherwise do major damage to your knees.
I don't know how you walk, but me and everyone else have our leg fully extended during the toe-off phase of walking. Do a search of walking/gait cycle and it'll explain what i'm talking about.

I have no clue where you got the whole backrest thing with the leg extensions, although I do agree with the toe part.

I'm tired and nothing else in the upper leg stands out as being too bad, so i'm gonna do a quick go through of the biceps now...

They're called that because they are made of two muscles
It's one muscle, with two heads. Bi means two, cep means head. Hence, Bi-Ceps, or Biceps. :-) What we commonly refer to as the biceps are the biceps brachii and the brachialis, which is directly lateral to the brachii. The brachialis is the main flexor of the forearm, while the biceps brachii flexes the forearm when it is extended, and while flexed, is a supinator of it. The short head of the brachii has its origin on the tip of the coracoid process of the scapula, while the long head originates from the supragleniod tubercle of the scapula. They form one muscle though, and it attaches to the tuberosity of the radius.

as you bring the weight up, allow your wrists to go back
That's just dumb. I've got a feeling that's not good for your wrists. And if your not gonna have your wrists in a neutral position, most people will tell you to keep your wrists curled in towards your forearm, because it will work the muscles of the forearm at the same time.

I think your method for the two handed dumbbell curl is a pointless modification that could lead to injury.

Your final exercise is interesting. On the downside though, it would not surprise me if it could cause elbow and wrist problems, because it doesn't seem to me to be put forces on your joints in a way they were necessarily designed to do. But that's just a thought, I have no way of knowing if it would or not. I personally would stick to wrist/reverse wrist curls for my forearm workout.



Well? Prove me wrong, put me in my place.

The gauntlet is thrown...