Honda CRV Test Drive in Thailand

!±8± Honda CRV Test Drive in Thailand

The New High-Tech Honda Accord with Euro Looks

Is it a BMW? Maybe the Audi A-4? Or the VW Passat? Le Peugeut? No! It's the new Honda Accord! Acc-ord! The name reminds me of French d'Accord! (Agree, OK in English).

And I agree. The new 8th generation Honda Accord looks sleek, dynamic, sporty and has a lower and a wider track for that solid, planted feel. Look at the new low slung, chromed angular grill, the new cool, clear projector type headlights and the muscular pronounced wheels arches housing the 17 inch alloy wheels.

The side view also reveals new higher waistline matching the perfectly raked roof line. The rear break light cluster is very BMW'ish. The new Honda Accord takes on asharp European design. Perhaps, the best looking Honda ever.

Furthermore the new Honda Accord has been upsized. The floor space is now lower and the wheel base is longer to provide more space, especially for the back seat riders. There's enough room back there to be comfortable, even when front seats are far back. The luxurious leather upholstered cabin environment is quietandvibration free thanks to the ANC (Active Noise Control) system and is a very comfortable place to be.

Our demo, the Honda 2.4 EL (NAVI) the top of 2.4 litre models fully loaded with all the goodies: dual-zone air-conditioning, front power seats with memory, (and lumbar massage for the driver) electric rear sunshade, cruise control and a sporty Formula One inspired paddle shifter on the steering wheel.

But it was the communication in-car infotainment centre that caught my attention. A real-time IT package: hands-free Bluetooth, CD/MP3/WMA (auxiliary input jack for connecting portable music players), and a premium sound system with a subwoofer. Only the high speed internet "Google" connection was missing!

And the "navigator" the Honda Accord GPS connected to a 40 gigabyte hard disc. For the music fans that's 3.000 songs. Enough music for Phuket to Bangkok back and fourth! The Accord 2.4 EL "NAVI" is probably is the best Navigator in the market.

The navigation screen is large and easy to read with a user friendly joystick and command wheel. No more maps everything is click-on: the highways, (byways) expressways, the u-turns and the bypasses, the attractions, the "aroy-aroy" restaurants, the hospitals and the police stations. When the car is stationary you can watch DVD movies or your digital "home movies" and when reversing it switches automatically to R mode: parking camera. A real time parking movie.

Everything connected to the on-board info-centre including your pertinent driving information: fuel consumption, average speed, distance to destination etc.

For the driver there is lot's of buttons to push on center console and the steering wheels. Every car should have multifunction steering wheel. Always two hands on the wheel.

Under the bonnet (the hood), the main focus is the new, second-generation Honda i-VTEC in-line four cylinder 2.4 litre 5-speed motor packing 180 horsepower. More powerful than the previous and more frugal. During our test-drive we managed 13 kilometer per litre on the highway and about 9 liter per kilometer in the city. And the good news. The new Accord is E 20 compatible (alcohol & gasoline). That's 20 percent Johnny Walker Red or Stolichnaya and 80 percent unleaded petrol (gasoline) 91or 95.

Honda Accord's four-wheel independent suspension features a double-wishbone design in front and a new multilink setup in back. On the road, the Accord is taut without being punishing, and the sedan recovers quickly without any extra bobbing after hitting a bump or dip in the road.

The safety package is comprehensive with dual i-SRS front driver and side airbags including side curtain airbags with OPD (occupant position detect ant) system. Plus VSA vehicle stability assist combined with ABS and EDB making those slippery curves less challenging.

In conclusion the new Accord feels refined and solid and is perfectly suited for Thailand highway cruising or urban driving. Just perfect for a Bangkok-Phuket, Bangkok-Samiu 8-9 hour long haul, if only the fuel, E20 gasohol had been cheaper!

Latest version of the Accord is ready to take on the prestige imported rivals from Germany. And really good news for potential buyers is that all the improve­ments and additional IT features haven't pushed up the cost.

The sticker price for the new Honda Accord 2.4 EL (NAVI) is 1.6 million THB. The two litre base Accord model is priced 1.2 million THB and the flagship Honda Accord 3.5 G (NAVI) V6 sets you back a cool 2.8 million THB.

Honda CRV Test Drive in Thailand

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The Bicep-Blasting In-Set Superset - Great Arms Can Be Yours!

!±8± The Bicep-Blasting In-Set Superset - Great Arms Can Be Yours!

The biceps can be, at the very same time, one of the most rewarding and most frustrating muscle groups in the body...rewarding because who doesn't want to have great biceps! Frustrating because it can be extremely difficult to make them great!

That's about to change! I'm going to share with you a technique that I came up with very recently that hits the biceps so effectively, you'll have trouble reaching up to scratch your nose without shaking.

The technique is called an In-Set Superset.

Supersets are, in a nutshell, when you do two exercises in a row without taking any rest inbetween, e.g. bench press then immediately to flyes. The purpose of this is to increase the stress to the target muscle.

The In-Set Superset is slightly different than a regular Superset in that you alternate single reps of two different exercises WITHIN a set.

The example I use for triceps is combining Lying Triceps Extensions with Close Grip Bench Press. Basically, you would do one rep of the extension then immediately do one rep of the press, then extension, then press, etc., until you couldn't do any more extensions with the weight. You would then finish by burning out on the presses until you couldn't do any more reps. This blows the triceps up like crazy!

Now, those exercises are very easy to transition between. You don't have to move anything or do anything to go from one to the other. And, they're different enough to stress the triceps from different angles.

For biceps, it's a bit trickier as there are not many exercises that are practical to switch between AND which are different enough to stress the bicep muscle fibers differently than just two types of curls.

The solution: Barbell Curls and Close Grip Chin-Ups.

What we're going to do is alternate between doing a Barbell Curl (with an Olympic bar) then using that same barbell as a Chin-Up bar to do the chins on. The best place to perform this technique is in the power rack (a dip station can work if you don't have a rack available).

In the rack, set the racking hooks (the small hooks that you set the bar on for the start of an exercise) at about shoulder height. Set a bar on those hooks and load it with a weight you could curl for about 10 to 12 reps.

If you're using the dip station, set the bar on top of the dipping bars (everything else about the execution is exactly the same - you're just using the dip bars instead of the racking hooks to support the barbell).

Now stand directly in front of the bar (you should be inside the rack), step underneath it and turn around. You should be standing outside the rack facing in. The direction you face here is critical for the most natural execution of the two exercises.

Grip the bar with about a shoulder-width grip (we don't want a wide grip for the chins - also, the closer grip is better for biceps activation on barbell curls).

Lift the bar off the hooks and do a single barbell curl rep. Without removing your grip from the bar, set it back down in the hooks, lift your feet off the ground and pull them up into a cross-legged position in front of you. This position is necessary to keep your feet and knees from touching the ground during the chin.

Lower yourself down until your arms are straight then pull yourself back up. Keep your torso vertical to maximize the tension on the biceps (this is one of the other benefits of the cross-legged position - holding your legs up in front of you keeps your torso vertical without even trying).

If you are unable to do chin-ups on your own, here's another great benefit of this exercise - you can keep your feet on the floor and use your legs to spot yourself as you come up! Just make sure that you're using as much bicep tension as possible and only using your legs just enough to keep the movement going.

Setting your feet down and helping with your legs is also VERY valuable for stronger trainers as the biceps start to give out. You can really push your biceps hard by helping out with your legs as much as you need to.

At the top of the chin, set your feet back down on the floor, and without releasing your grip on the bar, immediately go into the next rep of the barbell curl.

Repeat this process until you can't do any more barbell curls in good form (it is permissible to use a bit of swinging to get a few "cheat" reps of the barbell curl to really push your biceps to the limit). When you're finished on barbell curls, you can either stop with your final chin-up rep or burn out with as many chin-ups as you can do.

At this point, I can promise that your biceps will be screaming! The emergency response from your body will send a rush of blood to your arms, resulting in one of the strongest pumps you'll ever experience. You will probably also find that your grip is being VERY strongly worked as well.

In addition, if you want to try this exercise from another angle and target brachialis development, do reverse-grip barbell curls alternated with reverse-grip chin-ups. You will need to lighten the weight to perform the reverse curls but the execution is exactly the same.

You can even alternate between sets of regular grip In-Set Supersets with sets of reverse-grip In-Set Supersets (resting in between Supersets, of course). When you're done and you can't touch your nose because your biceps are so pumped up, you'll only have me to blame.

One of the main reasons this technique works so well is that you are going from a strong isolation exercise for the biceps (the Barbell Curl) immediately into a compound exercise for the biceps (when doing the chins, the back works with the biceps to complete the movement). Your back will help push your biceps to a whole new level!

Give this technique a try in your next biceps workout. As a person who has had to overcome poor genetics for biceps, I can tell you from experience, this exercise combination will make a HUGE difference in how your biceps respond to training.

The Bicep-Blasting In-Set Superset - Great Arms Can Be Yours!

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