Easy and Effective Home Workouts
August 30, 2010
Many people think that creating a home workout gym is either too intimidating or too costly. So, often they instead invest their money in a health club membership not realizing that for the same amount of money (or even less) they can create a very effective gym right in their own home.
For an effective home gym, all that is required is a little bit of planning. Don’t fall into the trap of purchasing random fitness equipment because of fancy advertising for the latest infomercial fad or the great "sale" at your local fitness store. That type of purchasing leads to a house littered with equipment that’s only use is as a clothes hanger or dust collector. This often happens because the equipment is either useless, poorly constructed or quickly loses its value because it doesn’t progress with your fitness level.
To avoid having a basement filled with expensive dust-collecting equipment, keep these points in mind when making a purchase:
A Great Way To Spice Up Your Workouts — Interval Training
August 12, 2010
There’s been a lot of buzz recently about Interval Training. So, you may be wondering what it really is and, more importantly, why you should incorporate it in your fitness workouts. Well, if you want a workout that can help propel you to the next fitness level, burn more calories, increase your speed, improve your power and more, then it’s time to learn more about this effective technique.
A simple definition of Interval Training is: short, high-intensity exercise periods alternated with periods of rest. These higher and lower intensity periods are repeated several times to form a complete workout . Here’s a basic example: walk for 5 minutes at 3.5 MPH, walk for 1 minute at 4.2 MPH and then repeat this sequence several times.
Most people spend their workout time only performing continuous training exercises. These are exercises where the intensity level is basically constant throughout. An example of this is walking at 3.5 MPH, at 0% incline for 30 minutes.
Continuous training is very effective and should not be eliminated from your weekly workouts. However, it’s recommended that you include both Interval Training and continuous training sessions as part of your fitness regimen.
Want To Get In Shape? Watch Another Infomercial!
July 19, 2010
You know I have always wondered how people of yesteryear, like Eugene sandow, John Grimek, Steve reeves, Jack Lalanne, Joe Louis, Charle Atlas, and many others that i could mention could possibly get into such fantastic shape without all these gadgets, gizmos, and late night exercise machines being touted all over your favorite TV stations.
I mean let’s look at what is happening here! You have got Ab dolly, Ab rocker, Ab lounge, Abwheel, Ab-this-Ab-that, and I am not saying that they may not give some results but let’s face it if any one of these was a “cure all” why do they have to keep coming out with more??????? And why do people keep buying the latest and greatest thing? Well i will tell you?
SALES AND MARKETING! These infomercials have it down to a science. You will notice all the hard bodies that promote all these gadgets and here you are back home watching from your tv saying that if I buy this i can look like him/her and this will solve all my problems right? Wrong!!! First of all how do you know the people that you are looking at on tv actually got all their results from the product that there promoting? You Don’t.
Attention, Ladies!
June 29, 2010
Building those impressively sleek shoulders takes a great deal of raw grind but once you sport a shapely set, you’ll quickly be separated from the rest. If you like to wear bikinis or summer dresses that reveal your upper torso, shoulder training is ideal in sporting a sexy physique.
Here are some toning exercises designed to shape those delts:
ALTERNATING DUMBBELL RAISES: Standing straight with your feet shoulder-width apart, take a pair of dumbbells into your hands and hold them down at your sides. Make sure that the dumbbells are of a manageable weight. Bending your knees slightly, slowly raise one arm, twisting it so that your palm is facing down. Stop when your arm is straight out in front of you (at shoulder level) so that it forms a right angle with your torso. Squeeze your deltoid muscles before slowly bringing the weight back down to your side. Meanwhile, your opposite arm should be rising just as the other one drops. Repeat the alternating motion for 12-15 reps on each arm. Try 3 sets of this.
The Different Types of Treadmills
June 8, 2010
When we usually think of treadmills, we tend to think that there is only one type on the market. However, this is very far from the truth as there are a couple of different types of treadmills.
There is, of course, the home treadmill that most are familiar with. However, the other type of treadmill is the commercial treadmill, which are the ones that are usually seen in the gym.
Most exercise gurus will pursue getting home treadmill. They range from cheap, manual treadmills up to the higher quality ones that are designed for those with extensive running and cross training in their workouts.
Competition in the treadmill industry is extremely high. There are hundreds of brands and types of treadmills that are all competing for your money.
There are folding home treadmill varieties which are great space savers as they can fold up and be put in a closet or under a bed. However this type of treadmill lacks an extremely sold form that most home treadmills possess.
The other variety of treadmill is known as the commercial treadmill. This type of treadmill is used in a gym or other type of commercial setting such as a doctor’s office.
Fitness Focus: Overcoming Obstacles
May 20, 2010
If you’re like me, the quest to be in shape, manage weight and overall well-being, at times, feels overwhelming. And, as if the quest to be fit isn’t hard enough, there’s often other obstacles to overcome: health issues, time management, mustering up courage or energy. Even if you’ve been exercising for a long time, there’s always new barriers to be broken. So, how to put all of this into perspective? According to Tom Turner, executive liaison for the Spina Bifida Association that’s exactly it: Perspective. And also, according to him, there’s no mountain too high to climb. Tom would know. Paralyzed from the waist down since birth he’s now 33 and trains about three times a week. In fact, he tells me, he just couldn’t get along without exercise.
So in my quest for the last word on overcoming barriers in fitness, Tom sat down with me and together we came up with 3 basic principles that will help break-down fears and intimidations in reaching fitness goals.
(After all, if he can exercise on a regular basis, shouldn’t that be encouragement enough for anyone to give it a shot?)
Principle #1 Move into the Fear.
Success Versus Failure in the Exercise Department
April 28, 2010
Success is what you are prepared to make of yourself every single day. That one cold morning when you want to roll over but instead get up and go to workout, is a defining moment. Success boosts self-confidence and is self perpetuating. We all know it, thrive on it and love it.
Failure on the other hand is perceived as a stressful, negative experience. It means challenge, difficulties, not knowing or worst of all defeat. It affects our self-esteem negatively, builds upon itself and could become a pattern. It could mean a threat to our survival. So we have an aversion to it. We dislike failure.
Well, did you know that failure like stress is actually good for you? Out of the trial and error, the grueling and rigorous demands of trying and failing we humans learned what worked to survive.
Failure is something we as humans need to encounter for new growth and creative changes - uprisings. Failure causes us to reassess, reevaluate, and start again. Out of necessity we learn to take risks, and think “outside the box”. Failure is the fertile soil from which seeds burst and blossom. Failure challenges our will to survive.
Exercise Nutrition: How To Keep That Energy Up!
April 8, 2010
How many times has this happened to you?
>> You psych yourself up mentally (you are GOING to do it!)
>> You don the outfit (you can practically feel the energy flowing through your veins!)
>> You lace up the running shoes (Nike: Just Do It - that’s you.)
>> You grab your towel (because ANYONE SERIOUS needs a towel).
Then it’s time.
It’s time to sweat. It’s time to burn the evil fat from your body. You face the treadmill (or stair climber, or rowing machine, or exercise video with the perky aerobics instructor on it).
And you start.
You warm up, and start moving faster and faster. The sweat starts to pour. The blood is pumping. Man, you are burning! That size 2 exercise instructor is going to look like a whale compared to you when you get through!
The adrenaline hits your blood and you feel GREAT! You could exercise forever! In fact maybe you will exercise forever!
Your time winds down. Ok, maybe you’d better slow down, no sense in going TOO crazy here. The cool down sure feels good. You turn off the treadmill, or the exercise video and head to the shower.
Weight Training: The Real Weight Loss Exercise
March 19, 2010
So you want to lose weight? Chances are, you’ll spend the next few days "pigging out" while in the back of your mind you resolve that …Starting Monday, no more fried foods, no more between meal snacking, no more whatever it is you think is causing you to pack on those ugly pounds. So Monday rolls around and sure, you start out strong, eat right all day. Next day same thing, maybe you’ll make it a week. Unfortunately, after a few days, you’ll probably find yourself scoffing down a double whopper somewhere, and that will be it, the diet will be over, and you’ll quickly gain back whatever weight you may have lost ?plus a few extra pounds just for good measure.
Guess what, this is the way our bodies were designed to work. Evolution has taught our bodies that if our eating patterns change drastically, it means we’re having trouble finding food (a million years ago there wasn’t a Burger King every half mile). To keep us from starving, our bodies conserve energy by slowing down. So, we start to feel sluggish on top of feeling deprived and hungry.
Sports Specific Exercise
February 23, 2010
The Greek physician Galen (AD 129 ? 210) is generally accepted to be the originator of formalized exercise, he even pointed the way forward by stating,
"?movements which do not alter respiration are not called exercise".
Whilst he was chief physician to the Gladiators, Galen devised training drills to replicate movements from the arena, as seen in the 1960 film Spartacus. Galen’s gladiator drills are now referred to as ’sports specific’ training or sometimes the misleading term ‘functional’ training, that is, exercises consisting of movements that are specific to a particular sport. With practice we may get better at performing these exercises but to date there is no proof that this makes any difference to sporting performance or normal everyday function of the muscles specifically targeted.
‘State-dependent learning’ is a phenomenon in which the retrieval of newly acquired information is possible only if the subject is in the same environment and physical state as during the learning phase. That is, a skill learnt in one situation does not necessarily translate to another, for example, results gained from exercises designed to strengthen the ‘core’ muscles may not change their performance under competitive or even everyday circumstances that differ from those of the specific exercise. Therefore, if training routines are to be beneficial they must replicate the playing conditions as closely as possible.
