Stairway to heaven

I went with my boyfriend to a friend’s birthday party. We got so drunk that we decided to go home because it was late noon. On the way home, I needed to pee so we first went to his best friend’s house to use the restroom. His friend was not home, so we had no choice but to pee at the old house beside theirs. After we’d peed, the alcohol kicked in further and we felt hot. The house was abandoned and full of dirt so we decided to make out on the stairs. This was not a good idea. The stairway was filled with pebbles that it was hard to lean on it, but we still continued making love. We moved up the stairs, but in the middle of our orgasm, his best friend came.

 That was when we suddenly remembered we’d left our bags on the chairs outside! He must’ve noticed us because he kept on coming back, and I was moaning loudly all throughout. But lucky us, his good friend walked away. When we got out, after two hours, my boyfriend told his pal that we’d just grabbed something to eat. Later on, I noticed that we had bruises on our elbows and knees. We were really dirty, too. 
Sheila, by email
ILLUSTRATION BY: SONNY RAMIREZ  

Four on the floor

On our second wedding anniversary, my husband and I were enjoying ourselves on the beach when a couple approached us. They introduced themselves as Jenahlyn and Dan. They invited us to play volleyball, after which they invited us to their private cottage for a few drinks. There we settled ourselves and Dan opened a few bottles of beer. Soon the four of us were pretty much drunk. Dan suggested that we try a little game. He suggested that Jenahlyn sit beside Vincent and me, beside him. My husband and I were surprised, but Jenahlyn stood up and sat beside my husband. So as not to embarrass the couple, I stood up and sat beside Dan. He put his arm around me. I was surprised when I saw Jenahlyn kissing my husband. She pulled his cock out. My husband, drunk, did not resist as Jenahlyn lowered herself to give him a blowjob. At that moment I was starting to feel jealous when Dan held me closer. He started kissing me and began to fondle my breasts.
I felt horny, reached for his zippers and pulled out his cock. I lowered myself and sucked it. Minutes later, the four of us were naked. I ended being fucked by Dan while my husband fucked Jenahlyn. Dan shot his sperm inside me as I reached orgasm. I heard Jen scream as Vincent shot his load at her pussy. After the four of us reached orgasm, Jen took my hands, laid me to bed, and began to lick his husband’s sperm into my pussy. She cleaned my pussy while our husbands jacked off while watching us. After that, we bid the couple a good night, thanking them for our first foursome.
Analyn, by email
ILLUSTRATION BY: SONNY RAMIREZ 

Alternative Native

June 1, 2006
On a trip to Baguio, our family stopped at the famous Lion's head at Kennon Road to take pictures. It was typical tourist stuff, so I decided to be different. My idea was, I would look for an Igorot and pose with him. I got my own camera and began scouting for an indigenous model. Soon enough, I found one-complete with weaved bags and long curly hair.

I called my brother so he could take a picture of us. I was explaining my plan to him when he looked at me, as though insulted. "Pare, mukha ba akong indigenous?" Turns out he was an artist on vacation as well-and as most artists go, he looked, uhm, "indigenous." Good thing he didn't have a temper!

- Leandro, by email
ILLUSTRATIONS BY: Mikke Gallardo

Navel Maneuvers

Every 36 minutes, a visitor to the Men's Health US website clicks on "Ask the Muscle Guy" and throws a question to Lou Schuler, Men's Health US's Fitness Director. People ask 14,600 questions a year. The question he's most often asked? "What do I do with my abs?" Since we know for a fact that there are a lot of men here in the Philippines who are also obsessed with their midsection, we picked nine popular ab-related Qs and turned to Mr. Schuler for some answers (thanks Lou!). Here are a few pieces of advice.



Q: I'm very lean-less than 10 percent body fat-but I still have only two visible segments of my six-pack. How do I get the final four?

A: When I first started working out in a commercial gym, circa 1980, there was this guy who'd come in and start his workout with a set of full situps on a slant board, which was the opposite of what everyone else was doing back then. We were doing hundreds of cute little crunches while he was doing dozens of nasty situps. Guess who had the abs?

I like the full-range-of-motion ab exercises, as opposed to the truncated crunch variations, for three reasons: One, full situps are harder, and I think harder is better. Two, they force other muscles in your thighs and trunk to help with the exercise, and I believe the more muscle you use, the more muscle you build. Nature didn't design your muscles to work in isolation; why try to build them that way? Three, their reputation as being hard on a healthy back is exaggerated. (There's some risk, but not more than in exercises such as reverse crunches, which no one regards as dangerous.)

Here's how to do the full situp on a slant board: Hook your feet under the braces, lower yourself until your lower back is flat against the bench, then pull yourself up to a full sitting position.

As you get better at it, you can lower the angle of the slant board and increase your knee angle-that is, put your butt farther from your heels. I like to do this exercise with straight legs. From that elongated position, first push your lower back against the board, flattening your spine, then start curling up.

Body Doubled

Supersets are the extra-value meals of exercise: more of what you want, at a lower cost. They can give you more muscle in less time, with less energy expenditure and even less boredom.









You probably know the basic idea behind supersets: You alternate between sets of different exercises with little rest in between, rather than knock out all your sets of one exercise before moving on to the next.




Here's a quick example of why supersets are, for lack of a better word, super. Say you want to do four sets each of bench presses and seated cable rows, 10 repetitions per set, with two minutes' rest between sets. Let's assume each repetition takes six seconds, so a complete set takes 60 seconds. With straight sets, it takes 24 minutes.

Now, let's superset these two exercises and take 90 seconds' rest after each exercise. So you'll do a set of bench presses, rest 90 seconds, do a set of rows, rest 90 seconds, and repeat.

This time, you complete the same program in 20 minutes, which is nice. But the key difference is that you take a full four minutes to recover between one set of bench presses and the next, and between sets of rows. This means you can use more weight for these exercises and, as a result, get more total work done in less time.

With some creativity, you can use supersets to build more muscle, burn fat, and get stronger. So strap on your cape and get ready to supersize your workouts.

Supersets for bigger muscles

Your muscles have two types of fibers. The smaller, slow-twitch fibers are used primarily for endurance activities, and the bigger, fast-twitch fibers mostly come into play when you need to move a heavy object, or move a light object fast. But all the fibers-big and small, fast and slow-have the potential to get larger. So it makes sense to work them all if you want the biggest muscles possible.

The plan: Do 10 repetitions of one exercise, then 20 repetitions of a different exercise for the same muscle group, without rest. Then rest 60 seconds and repeat. Two or three of the following supersets is plenty.

Example 1: Builds chest, triceps, front shoulders

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
(10 repetitions) Set an incline bench to about 30 degrees. Hold the weights just above the top of your chest, then push them straight up.

Pushup
(20 repetitions) Get on the floor with your back straight, your body weight resting on your palms and toes. Lower yourself to the floor, then push back up.

Example 2: Builds lats, biceps

Close-grip Chinup
(10 repetitions) Grab a chinup bar with an underhand grip, your hands 6-12 inches apart. Hang at arm's length, then pull your chin up over the bar, pause, and lower yourself.

Wide-grip Lat Pulldown
(20 repetitions) Grab the bar with the widest possible overhand grip. Pull the bar down to your chest, pause, then return to the starting position.

Supersets for strength and power

Most of us use the words "strength" and "power" interchangeably, but they're actually two separate qualities. Strength is measured by the amount of weight you can move, at any speed. Power is weight times speed, or the ability to knock an inanimate object into the next ZIP code. Both qualities are important for sports perfor-mance. And the strength/power combo allows you to work with heavier weights in the gym, which means you build muscle faster.

The plan: Do a five-repetition set of a heavy-duty strength exercise, followed by 5-10 repetitions of a power exercise-something that involves moving your body as fast as possible while holding

Example: Builds entire lower body, improves vertical jump

Squat
(five repetitions) Hold a barbell across your upper back and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Squat until your thighs are parallel to the floor, pause, then stand back up.

Dumbbell Squat Jump
(5-10 repetitions) Stand holding a pair of dumbbells at arm's length at your sides. Squat down about halfway, then immediately jump as high as you can. Bend your knees as you land. Regain your balance, then repeat.

Supersets for fat loss

Pure weight loss can be accomplished with something as simple and sedentary as having your lips stapled shut. But along with fat, you'll lose muscle. If that's your goal, be my guest. But if you want to lose only fat, you have to do intensive muscle-building exercises that require so much energy that your body suffers a massive caloric deficit.

The plan: Do 10 repetitions of one exercise for your lower body, then, without resting, do 10 repetitions of an upper-body exercise. Make sure both lifts tap the largest muscle groups possible. Rest 60 seconds and repeat. Do a total of four supersets of each exercise pair.

Example: Works entire lower body (particularly gluteals and back of thighs), trapezius, chest, shoulders, arms

Deadlift
(10 repetitions) Roll a barbell to your shins and squat over it with your feet shoulder-width apart. Grab the bar overhand with your hands just outside your legs. Straighten your back and lift your chest and head, then stand, keeping the weight against your legs at all times. Slowly lower it, sliding it along your legs. Let it touch the floor before you start the next repetition.

Bench Press
(10 repetitions) Lie on a flat bench and grab a barbell with an overhand grip just wider than shoulder width. Lift the barbell off the rack and hold it straight over your chest. Lower it to the middle of your chest, pause, then push it straight up. You can use dumbbells, if you prefer.

Combined Power

Exercise Photographs by Beth Bishoff





Swiss-ball pushup/jackknife



Good morning/behind-the-neck press


Allow US to make an assumption about you: When you hit the weight room, you sometimes have trouble focusing on the simple act of working one muscle group at a time, resting, working it again, resting, and continuing for an hour that often seems like five. Sure, you like the results, but you have to wonder if there isn't a faster track to the same trophy muscles.

There is. "You can perform two or three exercises at the same time, and you can handle some heavy loads while you do it," says Alwyn Cosgrove, CSCS, a strength coach and owner of Cosgrove F.A.S.T. Systems in Newhall, California. The tech-nical name for these multipart exercises is hybrid lifts, and Cosgrove uses them successfully with time-pressed athletes and executives.

You can do the following hybrid lifts two different ways: You can hoist fairly heavy weights, lift slowly, and use the exercises as your main muscle builders. Or you can try lighter weights, work fast, and use them to improve sports performance or shift your fat-burning metabolism into the credit column.

Either way, try them two or three times a week for four weeks. You may get so hooked on multitasking that you never go back to lifting weights the old-fashioned way.

1. WORK YOUR ABS AND CHEST

Swiss-ball pushup/jackknife

Get into pushup position—your hands set slightly wider than and in line with your shoulders—but instead of placing your feet on the floor, rest your shins on a Swiss ball. Startwith your arms straight and your back flat.

Lower your body until your chest nearly touches the floor.

Pause, then push yourself back up to the starting position.

Now, lift your hips up as high as you can and pull your feet toward you by rolling the ball as close to your torso as possible.

Pause, then roll the ball back to the starting position. That’s one repetition.

Do two sets of 10-12 repetitions.

To build more muscle: Try the bench press/reverse crunch. Lie on a bench with your feet in the air, a medicine ball or dumbbell between your knees, and a barbell or dumbbells held up at arm’s length. Lower the weights to your chest, then do a reverse crunch—curl your hips up and in toward your torso. Lower your hips to the bench, then raise the bar to arm’s length and repeat.

2. WORK YOUR LOWER BACK, GLUTEALS, HAMSTRINGS, AND SHOULDERS

Good morning/behind-the-neck press

3. WORK YOUR BACK, BICEPS, AND ENTIRE LOWER BODY

Dumbbell power clean/box jump/squat

Dumbbell power clean/box jump/squat


Grab a pair of light dumbbells and stand about six inches behind a sturdy box or step that’s 12-18 inches high. Hold the dumbbells at your sides and bend your knees slightly.

Jump up on the box by dipping your knees and swinging your arms forward. Allow your momentum to carry your arms up and bend your elbows so that when you land on the box, your upper arms are parallel to the floor and the dumbbells rest above your shoulders.

Keep the dumbbells in the same posi-tion and perform squats by lowering your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Step down off the box.

Do four or five sets of 4-6 repetitions, completing up to four squats after each jump. So a set of four cleans and jumps could include up to 16 squats.

To build more muscle: Try the power clean and squat, without the jump. That way you can use heavier weights for the clean.



4. WORK YOUR LOWER BODY, UPPER BACK, AND BICEPS

Jump squat/sternum chinup

Stand under a chinup bar with your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands at your sides.

Lower your body by bending your knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then jump up to the chinup bar so that your palms are facing you and shoulder-width apart when you grab it.

Using the momentum from your jump, pull yourself up until your chest touches the bar. You’ll have to arch backward to pull this off.

Lower yourself to the starting position, then repeat.

Do one or two sets of 12-15 repetitions. This one is tough on your palms, so consider gloves.

To build more muscle: Lower yourself slowly on the chinup—take up to 10 seconds. Or do three or four chinups after each jump.

ROLL YOUR OWN

Here’s how to create your own hybrid exercises

A good multipart exercise has to be challenging to all the muscles you’re trying to work. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, since most hybrid exercises combine upper- and lower-body movements. And, unless something has gone tragically wrong, your lower-body muscles are a heck of a lot stronger than the stuff you like to flex in your bathroom mirror. So you need to put your bigger muscles at some sort of mechanical disadvantage while giving your smaller muscles a kick-start.

You can make up your own moves or experiment with some of these combinations that the strength coach Alwyn Cosgrove uses with the athletes he trains. Each allows momentum for upper-body muscles and requires balance from the lower body.

1. Lateral stepup/hammer curl Stand with a step or bench beside you and hold dumbbells at your sides, palms facing in. Step side-ways onto the bench with one foot, and as you rise, curl the weights to your shoulders.

2. Front squat/shoulder press With a barbell or dumbbells, squat down with the weight resting on the front of your shoulders. Then, as you stand up, use the momentum to help press the weight overhead.

3. Lunge with overhead press Stand holding dumb-bells at your shoulders. As you lunge forward or backward, press the weights overhead. Return to the starting position, then lower the dumbbells.

How to Become A Greek God

By Joe Kita

The Doryphoros at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, one of only four Roman versions of the lost Greek original.





This is Doryphoros (Dore-IF-er-us), a statue created by the Greeks in the fifth century bc. He later came to be regarded by the Romans as the Canon of Proportion, or the ideal man. In fact, when it was time for Emperor Augustus to be immortalized in marble, he merely had his sculpted head placed on a copy of this body. If only it were that easy for the rest of us. Even though the only throne you sit upon is cast from porcelain, you can still acquire a body worthy of adulation. Doryphoros's physique is a bit extreme (try finding a dress shirt with a 19-inch neck), but it remains a model of proportion. To help you attain similar results, we asked Wayne Westcott, PhD, fitness research director at the South Shore ymca outside of Boston, to recommend the best exercise for building each body part. Do all eight exercises twice a week. Some of these moves can be challenging, so do your upper-body work (neck, biceps, chest, waist) on one day, lower-body work (forearms, but tocks, thighs, calves) the next. Ideally you can complete each session in 20 minutes—and, in time, you too might be up on a pedestal.

NECK = 19 INCHES

At the gym: Nautilus four-way neck machine. Allows you to safely work the neck by raising and lowering your head, and by moving it side to side. Start with 70 pounds in the head-raising exercises, 50 for all the rest. Do one set of 8-12 repetitions in each direction.

At home: Barbell shrug. Pick up a 100-125-pound barbell using an overhand grip. Stand straight and let the bar hang down near your thighs. Without bending your arms, repeatedly shrug your shoulders toward your ears (the same motion you'd use before a tribunal). Do two sets of 8-12 repetitions.

BICEPS = 16½ INCHES

Gym or home: Incline biceps dumbbell curl. Sit on an incline bench and let your arms hang back so they're fully stretched; your palms should face forward. Alternately curl the dumbbells up, turning each palm inward as you do. Two seconds up, pause, four seconds down. Do three sets of 8-12 repetitions; rest 45 seconds between sets.

HEIGHT = 6 feet, 5½ INCHES

That's a big boy, by any empire's standard. If you're significantly shorter and can't realistically hope to attain equivalent measurements, keep these general rules of proportion in mind:

* Your waist should be about 12 inches smaller than your chest.
* Neck, biceps and calf measurements should each be roughly half your waist.
* Your thighs should be about 1½ times the size of your calves.



CHEST = 52 INCHES

Gym or home: Bench press with dumbbells, a barbell, or any available Greek column. Start with a warmup set, using two-thirds the weight you normally bench. Then add the rest of the weight and do three sets of 8-12 repetitions.

FOREARM = 14½ INCHES

The other one once held a spear, but it was broken off centuries ago, perhaps by a premenstrual Aphrodite.

Gym or home: Wrist roll. Tie one end of a 30-inch rope to a broomstick that's been shortened to 18 inches. Tie the other end to a five-to 10-pound weight. Hold the stick horizontally in front of you using an overhand grip, then roll it to raise and lower the weight. Repeat the exercise as many times as you can.

BUTTOCKS = 47½ INCHES

At the gym: Nautilus hip-extension machine. It works the gluteal muscles and hamstrings. Do one set of 10-15 repetitions.

At home: Full squat, with dumbbells or a barbell. With feet flat, slowly lower yourself until your thighs are almost parallel to the floor; keep your weight on your heels and your knees in line with your feet. Slowly come back up. Start with a warmup set, using two-thirds the weight you normally squat. Then add the rest of the weight and do three sets of 10-15 repetitions. (If you have knee, hip or back problems, do a half squat: Lower yourself till your thighs make a 30-degree angle with the floor.)

CALF = 19 INCHES

Gym or home: Standing calf raise, with dumbbells in your hands or a barbell on your shoulders. Stand on the balls of your feet at the edge of a sturdy step. (Be careful not to trip on your toga.) Rise up on your toes, then come back down, letting your heels drop slightly below the step. Do two sets of 15-20 repetitions.

WAIST = 40½ INCHES

This is mainly due to his sizable obliques, the muscles on each side of his torso. In ancient Greece, athletes were thick-waisted; they needed abdominal strength for the discus, the long jump, and wrest­ling. Doryphoros's waist doesn't look big, though, because his chest is proportionately larger. So there's hope for you yet.

Gym or home: Twisting trunk curl. Lie on the floor with your lower legs on a chair seat. Slowly curl your upper torso off the floor; but at the top of the movement, slowly twist to the right, bringing your left elbow toward your right knee. Untwist and lower yourself, then curl up and twist to the left. That's one repetition. Do two to four sets of 20-25 repetitions.

PENIS

You can't see it because it's not there—a sobering lesson to nude spear-bearers everywhere. What's left has a four-inch circumference.

THIGH = 26½ INCHES

At the gym: Leg press. Pick a weight you can press only about a dozen times. After the twelfth repetition, quickly reduce the weight by 20 percent and do 6-8 more. Think you're Atlas? Drop the weight an additional 20 percent and pound out 6-8 more.

At home: Lunge, with dumbbells in hand or a barbell on your shoulders. Step forward with your right leg so that your knee is bent 90 degrees. As you do so, let your left knee drop toward the floor. Then push back to the starting position with your right leg. Now repeat with your left leg. That's one repetition. Do one set of 6-8 repetitions. (If you have knee, hip or back problems, do the half squat under “Buttocks” instead.)