Learning curves: educating yourself about fitness and health never ends. Be a student of the lifestyle to keep making improvements

Muscle & Fitness/Hers, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Bill Geiger

PRODUCING AN INNOVATIVE nuts-and-bolts fitness magazine is a challenge because, quite frankly, most of us have seen it many times before. How to do a biceps curl? Yawn. Triceps pressdown? Been there, done that.

Yeah, it would be easy to publish a mag that simply regurgitates the same information month after month, but that would get old for both you, our readers, and us. Instead, MUSCLE & FITNESS HERS focuses more on ways to take your training and nutrition plan to the next level so you can make faster gains toward reaching your goals.

Because we know our readers are seriously committed to the fitness lifestyle, we want to continually offer you the latest information on improving your physique, providing new methodologies to accomplish those challenging goals. We're out there looking for better training protocols and ideas regarding performance nutrition, then we show you how to use them. You get intelligent, sound advice and we get ... well, we don't fall asleep in front of our computers.

With that in mind, here are five ideas you'll find useful in this issue: 1) How do "real" women who work and have families fit in fitness? We asked four of them how they balance their busy lives with a healthy lifestyle, and they showed us how it's done. See page 72. And our three-time cover model, Samantha Harris, reveals that she's a lot more "real" than you might think. She talks about how she maintains her awe-inspiring physique despite a hectic schedule. See page 18.

2) Tighten up your leg training with three lower-body routines designed by professional fitness and figure competitors, each of which focuses on a different area--hamstrings, glutes and quads. You can rotate these into your workouts to add extra emphasis to problem areas, which also helps prevent training plateaus. See page 52.

3) If you compete in physique contests, you count every last noodle and gram of salt. But what if you want to tighten up your physique and still have some culinary freedom? Our seven-day meal plan is designed to boost your energy and long-term chances of success, making it a year-round program you can live with. See page 76.

4) Cardio is boring, and the results come slowly, right? Wrong. M & F HERS asked four top fitness and figure models to give us their most intense cardio programs, the ones they use to dial in for competition shape. If you can complete these hardcore routines, go straight to the head of the class. See page 82.

5) If you're looking for a single workout that increases strength, builds muscle and improves muscle endurance, you'll find the 5-10-20 program to be the single most amazing routine you've ever tried. Combining the right exercises with the right weights in the right order allows you to make gains much faster. This unique training protocol is one you don't want to miss. See page 68.

There's plenty more here to jump-start your training and fuel your performance, but by now you realize that we're committed to delivering sound, performance-based information you can use now. Once you can say you know everything, well, maybe you can fill in for me. I've got to hit the gym.

Yours in fitness,

Bill Geiger, Editor in Chief