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Weight Loss Exercise

Huge Vioxx Settlement

As all Vioxx users have been aware over the last year of so there has been a class action suit against the makers of Vioxx because of the inadequate testing or reporting of risks associated with Vioxx. Well the case has not concluded with almost 5 Billion dollars going to those that have suffered from the arthritis pain killer drug.

Merck Co. said Friday it will pay $4.85 billion to end thousands of lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx in what is believed to be the largest drug settlement ever.

The deal becomes binding only if 85 percent of all plaintiffs in about 26,600 lawsuits agree to drop their cases. It was finalized in the early morning hours after attorneys for Merck and the plaintiffs met with three of the four judges overseeing nearly all Vioxx claims.

According to the review of this on www.injurylawpalmbeach.com, its clear that, Merck faced personal injury lawsuits representing 47,000 plaintiffs, and about 265 potential class action cases, filed by people or family members who claimed the drug proved fatal or injured its users. The agreement covers cases filed in both federal and state courts.

Negotiating teams met more than 50 times in eight states and spoke hundreds of times over the telephone to hammer out the deal, according to attorneys.

‘I’m very happy with it,’ Chris Seeger, one of the six plaintiff lawyers who helped negotiate the settlement, said Friday. ‘It’s a tremendous way to resolve this litigation.’

Merck pulled Vioxx from the market Sept. 30, 2004 after its own research determined the then-blockbuster painkiller doubled risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Seeger said the deal was put in motion last December when three key judges pushed the parties to open out-of-court talks.

‘Every claimant is going to be compensated’ once their claim is validated, he said.

Seeger believes it is the largest settlement ever in the industry and said he will recommend that his 2,000 clients accept the deal.

Merck could put the uncertainty of millions of dollars in possible settlements that have plagued the pharmaceutical company behind it, though it has been fairly successful fighting cases individually, winning 10 of 15 court verdicts to date.

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Weight Loss Exercise

How to do crunches to strengthen your core

One thing that seems to confuse a lot of people is the fact that the media shows us slim people with great six pack abs. This would lead most people to believe that if you want to reduce your stomach then you should just do sit-ups and you will lose the stomach. Sadly this is called spot reduction and it is not really possible to lose a bot belly by just doing sit-ups.

What your really need to know is how to do crunches

So to lose your pot belly you really need to do more to lose your overall fat and this can be done using two changes to your body.

To do that, you need to burn more calories than you eat. Abdominal muscles are not large muscles, so working them isn’t going to burn many calories. Walking and jogging are better calorie-burning activities.

The muscles in your abdomen, pelvis, lower back and hips are part of what is known as the core – The area of the body where your center of gravity is located. Developing a strong solid core gives you increased balance, stability and controlled movement that will help you improve performance. You use core muscles when you reach up to get a glass off the top shelf, bend down to tie your shoes, or swing a golf club. Strong core muscles also improve posture and protect you against back injuries.

What are the best abdominal exercises? For the beginner, nothing seems to beat crunches.

How to do Crunches

1. Lie with your back on a padded floor.
2. Prop your feet against the wall or on a chair at a 90-degree angle to help you keep a neutral spine position in which your back is not too arched or too flat. As your abs get stronger, try putting your feet flat on the floor with your knees bent.
3. Cross your arms over your chest or hold them straight up.
4. Cough to engage your ab muscles.
5. Using these muscles, lift your upper body off the floor, raising yourself about 6 to 12 inches. Exhale as you go up. This will help maintain a space between your chin and chest.
6. Hold this position briefly.
7. Slowly lower yourself while inhaling. But don’t relax all the way down — keep your shoulders slightly off the floor.
8. Repeat until your ab muscles are fatigued. Stop immediately if you experience pain in your lower back.
9. Do this every other day, as you would any strengthening exercise.

As your abs strengthen, add more challenging exercises. You can increase resistance by holding a dumbbell across your chest. And, while most ab machines don’t offer benefits over the crunch, using a fitness ball can increase the challenge by putting you on an unstable surface.

The next step of course will be strengthening the other side. Your lower back

How to do crunches to strengthen your core
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Weight Loss Exercise

Hardgainers guide to lifting weights

As a hardgainer you know how hard it is to put on muscle. The hours in the gym, the eating, the constant ing yourself on the scale, it is all very difficult to take but you keep trying to gain muscle anyway.

There are a few things that you can do to try to gain more muscle and I believe that if you have a plan even the toughest of hardgainers can still gain a few pounds in a couple of months. As you know most bodybuilders not on roids can only gain about two pounds a month but if you make radical changes then you can gain rather quickly for a short amount of time.

So here are some tips to get better gains in the gym:

Weightlifting Tips for Hardgainers

Hardgainers guide to lifting weights

Tips for hardgainers

1.    The key to gaining muscle is to conserve your energy in an almost slothlike style. When as a hardgainer you are doing your workout try to get the most muscle fibers working in the least number of sets and reps.

2.    Skip the cardio. Even though you know that you are trying to get yourself in better shape you still want to keep the cardio out of your workout. As you do cardio workouts your hard earned muscle is going to disappear as you lose your  fat¦but you do not have any fat to speak of do you?

3.    Hardgainers need to mix up the workouts still to confuse your muscles into jumping in strength and mass.

So now I am going to get into some detail. What kind of workouts should you try in order to gain some more muscle? The key I believe in making gains is to break up your workouts and do high low rep workouts that will really shock your muscles.

What you need to do is go to a two day split where you work chest, shoulders and triceps in one workout and legs, back and biceps on another day with two cycles of this a week. A total of four workouts a week is all that you really need.

One of the real problems that Muscle and Fitness as well as other magazines has is the idea that you need to do 20 sets per muscle group. This may be true for a steroid using pro but for normal mortals we can only get away with four to six sets per muscle group. Here is a sample of how you should do a chest workout.

  • 1 set of 12 reps of light flat bench to warm up
  • 2 sets of 6 reps of bench press at as close to max as possible
  • 2 sets of 6 reps of cable crossovers at max
  • 2 sets of 6 reps of incline flyes at max .

A few things to note about this is that after the workout you should feel sick from the amount of that you have lifted but at the same time you should not be exhausted as you did only a few reps. This kind of workout will tax your muscles with the minimum really of number of reps for muscle gain while at the same time you should stay away from overtraining with only a few reps and sets.