Top 10 ways to tune up your body

1. [Lift weights to increase your flexibility.]
By performing weight-training exercises through your full range of motion, you can build strength and extensibility in your muscles and connective tissues all at once, says Bill Hartman, P.T., C.S.C.S., an Indianapolis-based strength coach. "Exercises such as lunges, chinups, squats, and Romanian deadlifts improve your performance in the gym and on the sports field better than static stretching," he says. (Note: Hartman does recommend static stretching for injury prevention-see The Rehab Clinic on page 134 for an example.)

2. [Drink milk.]
There's been a backlash against the stuff in recent years due to the fat and high calorie content. But switch to skim and you've got one of the cheapest, simplest, and most effective post-workout shakes available. "Twenty ounces provides an ample serving of carbs and both whey and casein protein, two kinds that are absorbed at different rates," says Hartman. "The combination is ideal for supporting growth right after a workout."

3. [Put more weight on one side.]
"When you lift outside the gym, whether it's grocery bags or boxes," says Joe Stankowski, a trainer in Wilmington, Del., "you're rarely handling the same load on each side of your body." That's why it makes sense to train with asymmetrical loads-particularly, unevenly weighted dumbbells. "Start with 5%-10% more weight on one side than the other," says Stankowski. In your next workout, lift that heavier weight with your other hand. The uneven load will force your muscles to work harder to balance the weight, shocking your body into new growth. But be careful: Always use weights you're sure you can handle safely and with good form.

4. [Don't lower the bar to your chast on a bench press.]
"Pull it there," says Stankowski, who learned the trick from powerlifting legend Ed Coan. "Actively bringing the bar down to your body forces you to engage your lats-muscles that are crucial for supporting your bench press and lifting big weight." But take it easy: Pull the bar down with control for safety.

5. [Don't do cardio in the "fat-burning zone."]
It's one of the oldest myths in fitness: the notion that you need to raise your heart rate to a certain level and maintain it for a certain amount of time in order to burn the most fat. "That's utterly untrue," says Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., a strength coach in Santa Clarita, Calif. "The idea is based on the fact that low-intensity exercise burns a higher percentage of calories from fat than high-intensity exercise," which is fueled more by your carbohydrate stores. "But it's a higher percentage of a smaller number." Think about it: Reclining on a couch is about as low-intensity an activity as there is-which means the calories you burn just lying there are primarily from fat-but because you're burning so few calories overall, it's hardly an effective method for fat loss. "Forget about the diagrams hanging on the cardio equipment," says Cosgrove. "Do high-intensity intervals or lift weights." You may not burn quite as high a ratio of fat to carbs, but you'll burn substantially more calories overall, leading to greater fat loss.

6. [Go below parallel on squats]
Contrary to the advice of many trainers, studies have shown that the lower you squat, the less you risk injury. "Ask any orthopedic surgeon where the knee joint is most unstable," says Cosgrove, "and he'll say 'at 90 degrees'" (when your thighs are about parallel to the floor). That's because the shinbone is able to shift around more in relation to the thighbone at that position. Add to that the fact that, because the range of motion is shorter, you can add more weight to a parallel squat than you can to a full squat, and you've increased the damage risk even more. In addition, when researchers at the University of Connecticut compared the results of two subject groups-one that squatted as deep as possible, and one that squatted only to parallel-they found that the full squatters added significa