Tip of the Week: To maximize muscle building pay attention to the cadence of your reps.

A lot of us take rep speed for granted, but what you should know is that it matters how fast you perform each rep, and even how fast you perform each segment of a rep. For example, speed builds explosive power while slow builds strength. The difference can be seen in the way powerlifters train as opposed to Olympic weightlifters.

Powerlifters perform slow, deliberate reps and build great strength as a result, whereas weightlifters train faster, giving them the explosiveness required to hoist heavy weights overhead.

For the average trainer a combination of the two works best. I recommend going quicker on the positive portion of the movement, without jerking or throwing the weight, and letting it down more slowly. This gives you the best of both worlds — strength and power, and an ideal muscle-building environment to boot.

Q: Is it possible to shape and build my muscles while losing fat at the same time? I'm a 47-year-old male who's probably 30 pounds above my ideal weight. Ideally, what I would like to do is lose the belly and reveal a nicely developed set of abs underneath. Is this double the work? Should I wait to lose the fat first?

Joe: Not only is it possible to simultaneously burn fat and build muscle, it's the system I've advocate for all of my career. So, you've come to the right person with your question.

Muscle building and fat building aren't mutually exclusive acts. In fact, one actually helps with the other. Your body expends a lot of calories as it adds muscle to your frame — calories that would otherwise have gone to creating fat. Couple this with a diet that depletes the body of excess calories, and you have the perfect formula for sculpting your physique.

Here's yet another reason why this combination works: Muscle itself has a higher metabolic need than fat. Muscle requires more calories to exist than does fat, so the more muscle you gain while either maintaining or decreasing your caloric intake, the more fat you burn.

To maximize muscle gain while burning fat, I recommend training at a relatively quick pace, with no more than 90 seconds rest between sets and keeping the rep range 10 to 15, which is enough to build muscle, but also for stimulating the body to draw on fat reserves. This, along with two hours of cardio per week and just a 10 percent reduction in your caloric intake, will result in a new body for you within six months' time.

Q: I'm a 52-year-old woman, and I'm very upset over the back of my arms. Like my mother and grandmother, I'm beginning to get that turkey-wing effect. I'm so self-conscious about it that I don't even want to wear a short-sleeved shirt anymore! Being that I live in Tampa, Fla., this isn't much of an option, though. Joe, what can I do??

Joe: That "turkey wing" you refer to is your triceps, or at least fat that is collecting behind your triceps muscles. You say your mother and grandmother had the same "problem," which makes me think this is a matter of genetics. The back of the arm is a place where women in your family seem to put on adipose tissue.

All is not lost, however. There are two ways we can counter your situation. One is by getting lean — all over. When your body fat is low, it will decrease in even the most stubborn of areas. The other is to tighten the muscles underneath, which will pull everything above them in closer to your humerus, or upper-arm bone.

I don't know whether or not you consider yourself overweight, so I won't recommend a diet. But I am including a simple routine you can do at home each morning upon waking to strengthen and tone your triceps. Give it eight weeks, and you should notice a difference.

Joe's Home Triceps Program

Exercise —— Sets —— Reps

Chair dips * —— 1 —— 10

Knee push-ups ** —— 1 —— 10

Towel pulls *** —— 1 —— 10 each arm

* Sit in an armless chair with your hands holding the front edge of the seat. Walk your feet out in front of you until your butt is in front of the seat. Dip down below the seat, and raise yourself up.

** Perform push-ups with your knees on the floor.

*** Twist a bath towel, and hold it overhead with one hand. Reach behind with the other and resist the upward motion of the top hand with the bottom hand.

Joe Weider is acclaimed as "the father of modern bodybuilding" and the founder of the world's leading fitness magazines, including Shape, Muscle and Fitness, Men's Fitness, Fit Pregnancy, Hers, Golf for Seniors and others published worldwide in over 20 languages.To find out more about Joe Weider, write to him and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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