By: Jeremy Likness

Bodybuilders train their muscles, but they often neglect the most important muscle of them all - the heart. Your heart is a great indicator of your level of fitness. Training your heart can improve all aspects of your health. Your heart can even be used as a guide to help improve your training and, more importantly, customize training to your body. When you understand how the heart works and how it can be used as an amazing tool for training, you will appreciate exactly how much the heart matters!

About Your Heart...

Your heart is between one to two times the size of your clenched fist. Contrary to popular belief, it is not located to one side of the body - it is located almost in the exact center of your chest. Due to the shape of the heart and chest cavity, the heart pounds against the chest wall on your left side, so the heart rate is stronger when felt there. Your heart is responsible for pumping about six quarts of blood throughout your body, with about the same amount of force that the average person applies when squeezing a tennis ball.

The heart is not under voluntary control. A system known as the autonomic nervous system, which includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, is responsible for regulating your heart rate.

Written by: Allan Donnelly
February 6th, 2008
flexonline.com

It was a good day in court for Hidetada Yamagishi.

Yamagishi was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on December 8 and charged with six felonies and three misdemeanors. Today, Wednesday February 6, at Los Angeles Superior Court all felony charges were dismissed along with two misdemeanor counts, as Yamagishi pled no contest to one misdemeanor count of possession of Viagra without a prescription. Yamagishi was sentenced to 24 months of summary probation with credit for time served, which amounted to 91 days - the 61 days Yamagishi has been incarcerated in the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, California and 30 days credit for good time served. According to Yamagishi's defense attorney Shawn Chapman Holley, the scenario was the best possible outcome for Yamagishi.

"I met with Mr. Lynch who is the Head Deputy of the District Attorney's office yesterday," Chapman Holley said. "I presented him a packet of materials. Not only declarations from people indicating that there was no way in the world that the amount of steroids that he possessed was for distribution but also...a lot of character letters. Also, our concern is what is going to happen in the immigration court. We had an extensive letter from the immigration attorney talking about what is likely to happen in the immigration proceedings. I wanted the DA to consider all of these things because this is a great guy, a great competitor and a great athlete who had no intention of selling or distributing any of these compounds. And he is also going to have to face a number of serious consequences with regard to immigration and with regard to whatever sponsorships he has. So I wanted to take all of that into consideration and assess what made sense."