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Exercise 1 - Chest and Shoulders Lie on your back and grasp your weights with the palms of your hands facing up, and your arms outstretched to the sides. With your elbows slightly bent, lift your arms above your chest until your hands are almost touching. Return to starting position and repeat.

Exercise 2 - Chest and Shoulders Lie on your back and grasp your weights with the palms of your hands facing up, and your arms outstretched above your head. Grip your weights and bring them over your head and down to your hips, by your sides - a semi-circular motion. Lift back to starting position and repeat.

Exercise 3 - Chest and Back Sitting with your back straight (preferably supported) and legs straight out in front of you, hold your weights in at your chest with your elbows out to the side (parallel to the floor). Push your arms out straight in front of you then pull them back in. Repeat.

Muscle definition in the abs comes from a healthy diet and regular abdominal exercises. Your abdominal workouts should target each of the three abdominal muscles: the transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis and obliques. Eat a diet high in protein and low in fat to help build more defined abs.

Start with the upper abs and middle abs, which are considered part of the rectus abdominis, a lengthwise muscle that runs vertically from your sternum to pubic bone. For the lower abs, which tend to carry the most fat cells, perform stability ball knee tucks. The stability ball will strongly engage your lower abs, but also the rest of your core. Kneel with the ball in front of you. Lean over the ball and walk your hands out in front until your legs are straight with your feet on the ball. Engage your abs and pull the ball closer to your chest, lifting your hips and bending your knees. Roll the ball away until you are in a straight line again.

Work the middle abs and obliques. For these, do bicycle crunches. Begin on your back with your feet in the air, shins parallel to the ground and knees bent to 90 degrees. Interlock your hands behind your head, keeping your elbows out wide. Straighten your right leg, right foot in the air, and lift your chest and right shoulder to your left knee. Come back to the center and straighten the left leg, bringing your left shoulder toward your right knee. Keep going from side to side, keeping your chest lifted and elbows wide next to your ears.

If you were to wrap your hand around your upper arm and squeeze, you would feel various types of tissue. The soft, spongy material is fat mass, and everything else is considered lean body mass. This includes skin, bone, muscle, fluids and connective tissue. Out of all these types of tissue, fat and muscle are the only ones you have control over.

Feed your body healthy foods. Avoid foods that are deep fried, cooked in butter, smothered with gravy, doused with creamy sauces and coated with sugar. They are empty-calorie foods that offer you no nutritional value. Eat foods instead that are beneficial to muscle building such as eggs, cottage cheese, lean beef, chicken breasts, fish, beans, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and oils.

Drink water to hydrate your muscles and keep your calories under control. Avoid beverages high in calories and caffeine, such as energy drinks, lattes, soda, sweet teas, slushies and alcohol. The Institute of Medicine recommends that women get approximately 2.7 liters of water a day and men get approximately 3.7 liters a day. This comes out to about 90 oz. and 120 oz., respectively.

tricks

Taking the stairs when you can, parking further away from the door and walking around the office when you can are good places to start.

Sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair.

You will need to be about 16 years old in order to begin gaining muscle. The largest muscle gain in males will generally be between the ages of 18 and 21, if they are working diligently at it. Although this is the normal range, I have seen a 17 year old whose muscle development was very striking. Additionally, before the filming of "New Moon", Taylor Lautner was able to increase his muscle mass substantially.

Each individual has an "upper limit" of muscle that they are able to attain, without the assistance of drugs, and this limit is determined by a genetic predisposition. As you reach this genetic limit, building additional muscle will become more challenging and take longer.

Therefore, you should understand that gaining 15 pounds of additional muscle, when you have already increased your body's muscle by 15 pounds, will be a slower process. These general guidelines will not hold true if steroids are being used, however. Learning how to build muscle will not be an issue if steroids are being used.

While bicycling, jogging and other aerobic workouts are ideal for improving your heart function and lowering your risk for stroke, you'll need to dedicate time each week to resistance exercise --- also called strength training --- in order to build stronger muscles and overall body strength.

Machine weights or free weights like barbells represent the primary tools for resistance workouts, although your strength also increases when you stretch resistance bands or carve out time for pushups and pullups.

Your timeline for improved strength depends on the intensity of your resistance workout, as well as how often you visit the gym, according to Dr. Ed Laskowski, a Mayo Clinic fitness specialist. Lifting weights for 20 minutes on three days each week is sufficient to gain larger muscles and better strength.

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require expensive workout equipment promoted through obnoxious infomercials. You can't flick on the TV anymore without seeing two new abdominal exercise machines being promoted at once. There are so many of them that if you get suckered into these 'ab workout' gimmicks, you will be broke quicker than Ben Johnson sprints the 100 meter dash! And get this: Of the $520 million dollars a year spent on exercise equipment, abdominal machines get a $208 million dollar piece of the pie!

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require thousands or even hundreds of crunches a day. So much for the Brittany Spears ab workout! Crunches are decent but totally overused and associated with more being better.

Learning how to get a six-pack does not involve starvation diets. Starvation diets starve the muscle when you should be feeding the muscle instead. Guess what happens when you starve your body? Your metabolism shuts down out of survival and causes your body to store fat.

There are certain exercises and combinations of exercises that burn calories faster than others. If you only have 30 minutes to work out, walking on a treadmill is probably not the best way to burn off that box of cookies from last nigh

which exercises are the quickest calorie burners and the fastest routes to a healthy and fit body?

1. Running

Who doesn't want firm, flat abs?

begin lying on your back with feet flat on the floor and fingertips supporting your head.

Be careful not to pull your neck forward by sticking the chin out