By Giles Thomas

Well, here we are again! As it has been for the last few months for Tiger, it’s been a VERY busy past few weeks

The BodyPower Expo at the NEC was, as we all very much expected, a huge success with a staggering 15 thousand people through the doors at the exhibition hall over both days. And, this year, all the IFBB pro bodybuilders who said they were going to turn up in fact show for all their fans DID (unlike Victor Martinez and Dennis Wolf the previous year… boooo!). They were: Current Mr Olympia Jay Cutler, Phil Heath, Dennis Wolf, Toney ‘X-Man’ Freeman, Günter Schlierkamp, Flex Lewis, Flex Wheeler, Rich Gaspari, Zack Khan, Dorian Yates and many more besides. I had some very special company that weekend as my fave muscle-journo Ron Harris from America made it over to, well, mainly meet, greet and have his photo taken with pretty much every smokin’ hot chick in the building! I swear Ron has an in-built radar for it; Tiger was not on form that weekend as pesky Ron beat me to ‘em EVERY TIME! (Has Tiger lost his touch? Now that’s just crazy talk!). Still, we had a great time and, if you see elsewhere in this issue, you’ll notice that we got to have an extremely special photo-shoot at Temple Gym with Ron and Dorian training legs proper nasty Blood and Guts style. Check it out and also enjoy my pics of the saucy ‘n’ downright scrumptious Bodypower babes and also most of the top IFBB pro’s in attendance…

Noooo… Zack ‘King’ Khan INJURED!

Yep, that’s right, I’m not fibbing, I swear on my goldfish’s life (true… his name’s Jaws). Not long after Zack had suffered a slight hamstring tear and a few weeks off all leg training, he started back working out legs again. It was on the hack squat that he started off doing 4 plates a side for 30 reps, 5 plates for 30 reps, then 6 plates that he intended to get 20 reps on, when half way through the set… POP, POP! Both knee tendons completely detached leaving him completely unable to walk and on the floor (Ouch!). Luckily, Zack was rushed to a very good local hospital and the surgery to re-attach both tendons was done swiftly and very successfully by all accounts. After nearly three weeks in hospital, Zack is already out and back home.

Foundations of Your Future Physique
The Overhead Press

By Darrell Thomas 

In previous editions this column has been emphasizing the importance of compound exercises for building overall size and strength, and that beginners should focus on learning and mastering the these movements.
Once again, basic compound movements should make up the core of every beginners routine, if not the whole thing. And while they may be tough you really should learn to love them, because it is the very difficulty of these exercises that is the key to becoming a great bodybuilder.
Today we’re going to look at one of the most basic exercise: the overhead press. 

We’ve already analyzed, in past issues, some of the basic compound exercises that are the real foundations of the future physique any beginner can hope to build. Here we’re going to look at an exercise that is one of the most complete for the upper body and which has been immensely popular over the years both in and out of gymnasiums, largely because it fantastic for building muscles, the mark of a powerful man. It’s the overhead press, sometimes also known as the military press.

A Strength Test, By Another Name
As you would be aware, the more muscles involved in a movement the greater capacity it has to enhance development, because the stimulation is spread more widely and that allows the use of heavier weights, and thus produces a greater and more anabolic hormone response.
The ultimate proof of how effective this exercise is that great bodybuilders never drop it from their routines, not even during pre-contest prep. The overhead press guarantees progress, and can be combined with isolation exercises for accentuating muscle detail.
Beginners in their first stages of training, of course, should just focus on compound exercises in order to build a significant level of strength and size as quickly and efficiently as possible. And in this sense the overhead press is truly outstanding and a real test of strength.
There are many ways of showing physical strength but perhaps the oldest and most natural is to lift a heavy load above your head. Long before anyone thought of lying on a bench and lifting a weight above their chest, men were showing off their awesome power by raising heavy objects above their head. Tree trunks, huge rocks or big jars full of water or sand, for thousands of years these were the ways strong men proved their worth and intimidated their opponents.

Probiotics Help Weight Loss

The main probiotic foods on the market are fermented dairy products that contain beneficial bacteria, like yoghurt, for example. Their positive benefits include preventing lactose intolerance, diarrhoea, constipation and food allergies, and according to some recent studies they can also help weight loss.
In effect, a recently published Japanese study of 12 weeks duration showed that people who consumed fermented dairy products enriched with lactobacillus gasseri lost 4.6% body fat and reduced their waistline by 5cm.
Probiotics can also be obtained in tablet and capsule form at health food shops to be taken along with any meal.
While researcher still don’t know exactly how probiotics act to enhance weight loss, they do know that the proteins in dairy products are converted very slowly by the liver into blood sugar, which helps keep energy levels stable and hunger at bay.

Bibliography: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, published online March 10, 2010. 

Eggs Are Back on the Menu

First the industrial revolution and then the computer revolution gave rise to profound changes to human existence, but there are some things that haven’t changed for us since time immemorial, like eggs.
Humans have always eaten eggs, and that goes for all races all over the planet. More than 3000 years ago Egyptians, Romans and Greeks ate the very same thing that is still part of the daily diet for millions of people. And it’s no surprise, because eggs are cost effective and relatively simple to obtain, very nutritious, tasty and appetizing and adaptable to many forms of preparation and consumption.
However, in recent times the cholesterol issue raised its ugly head, and has cast aspersions over eggs for the last 50 years or so.
Well, eggs do contain a significant amount of cholesterol, a sterol (a type of fat) that is essential to the human body but which, in excessive quantities, can be linked to heart disease. Even so, high blood cholesterol, which would be anything more than 240mg/dl, is not a consequence of eating any one food in particular but of the diet as a whole and other factors, such as lifestyle and genetics.