Archive | Workouts & Routines

Simple Workout Tips

Staying fit is so important if you are trying to be healthy. But since there is so much to learn about fitness, it can be hard to determine where to begin. You could do a lot worse than to take a look at the simple fitness tips presented below.

Doing some simple push-ups can help you get your triceps in shape. To target the tricep muscles touch your fingertips and form a diamond, you will be able to focus on the triceps this way.

Be creative in your thinking when designing your new fitness program. Visiting the gym is far from the only way to get exercise. The best way to stay motivated to get fit is to find a plan that you enjoy, so make sure to do that.

To strengthen your thighs and prevent from Torn ligaments. Make your hamstrings and quads stronger by doing leg curls and leg extensions. Doing wall sits can really help strengthen the muscles in your legs. You’ll need a space against the wall which is wide enough for your back. Stand with your back to the wall, approximately 1 1/2 feet away from it. Bend the knees and lean on the wall with your back against it. Bend your knees until the floor and your thighs are parallel. You should appear to be sitting, but without a chair. Remain in this position for as long as you can.

Flex your glutes with each rep as you lift weights above your head. You get a better workout this way and your muscles build properly. The more your spine is stable your risk for injury diminishes.

Test out a bench prior to working out on it. Use your thumb to test by pressing on the top of the padding. If the metal of the bench is all you feel, I would recommend to find a different one.

Never attempt to workout when you are feeling under the weather. When you are sick, your body is weak because it’s working hard to heal. Take it easy on the exercise until you feel better. While you’re healing, make sure you eat well and get plenty of sleep!

As you have learned from this article, there is a lot you can do to get into shape. This knowledge provides a sound basis for continued learning and expansion of your fitness education and abilities. It takes time to achieve your fitness goals, but over time and by using these tips, you will be on the right path.

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Exercises & Workouts

I’ve found that when combining these poses with other body-weight exercises like Hindu Squats and Push-ups, regular push-ups, reverse push-ups, pull ups and aerobic exercises, you really may not (re-phrase will not) need a gym or cumbersome equipment to get a total body workout. Future articles will outline specific exercises one can implement within this workout split. In order to get a really great workout without weights, consider combining both body weight exercises with resistance band exercises.

Performing a bodyweight workout comprised of bodyweight exercises and calisthenics exercises can produce an environment for your body that makes it want to get rid of unwanted fat. Most people spend their workout time only performing continuous training exercises. Easy, medium and an advanced workout will let you slowly graduate in your extension exercises, but if you’re a little more fit and need more, just adjust it.

If this is the reason that you are researching abs exercises, then there are a few things that you

should know before you go off looking for a new abs workout routine. Below is a list of recommended exercises you can choose from for each body part:

Leg muscle workout – squats, lunges, leg extensions, leg curl, calf raise, stiff legged dead lifts

Chest/Pecs/Pectoral muscle workout — bench press, incline press, dumbbell fly, push-ups, Back muscle workout — dead-lifts, chin ups, pull-ups, seated row, barbell rows, pullovers

Shoulders/Deltoids/Delts muscle workout — military press, lateral raise, front raise, shrugs Biceps muscle workout — hammer curl, dumbbell curl, barbell curl, concentration curl Triceps muscle workout — triceps kickbacks, diamond pushups, press-downs, dips, triceps extensions

Abs/Abdominal muscle workout — bicycle crunch, basic crunch, reverse crunch, knee-ups, the plank, hanging leg raise CARDIOVASCULAR EXERCISE – Commonly called cardio workout .

The upper body portion of this complete body sculpting routine should include the following exercises: Pushups, Bench presses, Bicep curls, Tricep dips or lifts, Shoulder presses (military style), Shoulder lifts, Crunches – traditional, lower, and side. There are other exercises that you can include as well, but to start, this upper body workout is hitting all the major muscles groups.

This weight lifting routine is usually called the 3 x 3 workout and the simple reasoning for that is that you perform three exercises in a row, three times without stopping.

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10-Minute Fat Loss Workouts

Last week I helped Men’s Health magazine on a piece about getting workouts done fast. Personally, I think you can get a great body-changing workout done in minutes.

How fast?

I’m talking 10-minutes.

By now, I’m sure you’re asking…

How do you lose fat in only ten minutes?

or

What about the rule that it takes 20 minutes of cardio before you start burning fat?

Well, first of all, as I have said before, the whole idea of a fat-burning zone or a magical fat-burning time period just doesn’t fit with the common sense approach to fat loss.

People can lose fat without doing any cardio at all – so its clear that you don’t have to workout for at least 20-minutes with your heart rate at 60% of your maximum heart rate. Fat loss is far simpler than that – and I’ll show you some basic workouts below that crank your metabolism and help you burn calories when you are not exercising.

Second, the results of your training occur outside of the gym rather than during the workout. That’s why the before-mentioned “increased metabolism” is so important. If you put the right “turbulence” on your muscles in 10-minutes, you can change your body – without even thinking about doing cardio.

So let’s look at the first fat loss in a hurry workout – a 10-minute bodysculpting workout. Let’s say you only have 10 minutes to do your workout today – what should you do?

In this case, you need to combine a warm-up, strength training, and interval training all into one. So our efforts are best put forward on bodyweight training.

And you don’t have time for isolation work. Instead, you need to hit three “hot zones” on the body for maximum metabolism boosting: push muscles, pull muscles, and legs.

By doing so, you’ll hit all the other muscle groups at the same time. So you’ll do a circuit of soemthing like:

1A) Prisoner Squats (advanced option: 1-Leg Squats)

1B) Pushups (advanced option: Spiderman Pushups)

1C) Inverted Rows (advanced option: Pull-ups; easy option:

Stick-ups)

In the first round of this circuit, you’ll go through it easy.

Perform 25% of the maximum number of reps you can do for each exercise. So if you can do 20 pushups, do only 5 in the first warm-up circuit. That’s a warm-up circuit.

Then you’ll do as many circuits as you can in the remainder of the 10 minutes. Just go back-to-back-to-back on these 3 exercises. You can rest after the rows/pull-ups for 30 seconds if necessary, but that’s it.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised with how you feel at the end of the 10-minutes. And your metabolism will be elevated for a much longer period than if you trained in the fat-burn zone for 10-minutes.

Okay, now here’s another option, moving into some dumbbell work. The following superset trains the entire body, and focuses on the 3 hot zones.

1A) DB Squat (8 reps per set)

1B) DB Chest Press (8 reps per set)

Use light weights for one warm-up set, and then do as many sets as possible in 10 minutes for the rest of the workout.

In any case, if you find yourself with another 10 minutes, you can up the fat-burning ante by doing 10 minutes of intervals. This too is far more effective for fat loss and fitness than 10 more minutes in the “so-called” fat-burning zone.

Do 3-5 minutes of exercise-specific warm-up.

Then do your intervals for 30 seconds followed by 30-60 seconds of rest. Repeat 3-6 times. Then cooldown.

Okay, now let’s get greedy and assume we have 30 minutes for our workout. We’ll be close to getting maximum results with this “marathon” duration workout.

First, hit up the bodyweight circuit mentioned above. Do this twice, nice and easy. That will take 5 minutes off the clock.

Then move into your strength supersets. Following the lead above, you’ll look to train the entire body with only 2 moves. It’s not always easy, but fortunately you can do 2 supersets in this workout. The strength training will take about 15 minutes as you’ll do 3 sets of 8 per exercise with no extra rest between sets – just long enough to switch exercises.

1A) DB Split Squat (If you have a barbell, use it instead of DB’s)

1B) DB Row

2A) DB Romanian Deadlift

2B) DB Incline Press

Then finish with intervals. For this workout, try another program. Start with a warm-up, then do each “work” interval for 45 seconds, and rest 60 seconds between each interval. Do 4-6 rounds and finish with a cool-down, of course.

I could go on and on with these fast fat loss workouts…and of course I do, in the Turbulence Training e-book.

I’ll follow up on this article in the future, passing along some of the exact Turbulence Training workouts that I use with my clients to get the most results in the least amount of time.

Until then, train hard, train safe, and train better than everyone else in the gym.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Author, Turbulence Training

P.S. Is a lack of time stressing you out?

“No time to exercise” is the #1 reason most people don’t exercise consistently. In fact, a lack of time stresses most people out for many reasons – whether it’s a lack of time to prepare good food, exercise, or be with your family.

That’s why I created Turbulence Training to be the most efficient and effective fat loss program out there.

The warm-up is applicable to your workout, not some 5-minute waste of time on the treadmill.

The strength training supersets shave minutes off your wait time.

And the intervals cut your cardio in half, or more.

“I think TT is awesome. I have seen a serious change in my overall body composition. In 12 weeks I’ve gained a lot of muscle and have lost about 10 lbs, but inches are flying off.”

Gordon M.

“The TT workouts are excellent! You have literally changed my life! I got completely burned out on single body part training and long periods of cardio. It just isn’t conducive to my life given that I work full time and have a spouse. I’m already lean but I want to maintain a high level of health and have a fit, athletic look. I have to admit that I was skeptical because the workouts were so short, but even after the first workout my skepticism disappeared in a hurry. The time flies by at the gym and the workouts have eliminated a lot of stress because if I got stuck at work and couldn’t get to the gym for “leg day” it would mess up my training schedule for the rest of the week. I also like having the option to do some body weight circuits plus I have a full range of dumbells and a ball at home so I can get my workouts in at home.”

Janet M

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Workout Routines – Expert Routines For Fitness And Health

Once you are done with workout routines as a beginner, you get the hang of working out to stay fit. Its time to move onto more effective expert workout routines to make you feel proud of your muscular and well-toned body. Apart from the basic weight exercises as well as stretching and cardio exercises, it is a good idea to start more intense core training, power lifting and leg muscle exercises. There is no point in showing off great biceps with chicken legs.

Expert workout routines mainly comprise of alternating cardio exercises with gym training. Gym training deals with intense weight training covering six areas of the body – shoulders, chest, lateral section, biceps and triceps, core area or the midsection, and the legs. The general workout regime consists of a day’s cardio exercises followed by gym workout the next day, concentrating on any two areas of the body, and again cardio exercises the following day. Therefore, three days of gym workouts using weights cover all six areas of the body.

The following workout routines need to be concentrated upon at the expert level:
Cardio exercises: Cardio exercises are mainly aimed at reducing body fat to give a leaner and fitter you. This workout involves increasing the heart beat rate through exercises like running, jogging, cycling, steps aerobics, cross-country skiing, swimming, etc.

Core training: Core training is one of the much demanding expert workout routines that involves tightening of the core muscles that run the length of the trunk and torso, mainly the mid-section or the abs as well as the muscles controlling the spine and pelvic movements. By strengthening the core muscles, you are not only able to reduce abdominal fat, but also decrease strain in lower back thereby preventing back pain in that region.

Leg muscle building: The weight of the body falls on the legs and hence workout routines involving the legs are very essential for a perfectly balanced body. Squats, curls and leg press exercises to strengthen thigh, calf and hamstring muscles are a must for expert workouts.

Power lifting: This is a workout mainly meant for strength gain. It is a combination of bench press for chest and back, squats and curls for legs, military press and dumbbells for shoulders and triceps every alternate day with rest days in between. Power lifting workout routines helps muscle-building to a certain extent though strength building is the core issue in this case.

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Best Workout Routines for Women

Be it a man or a woman; appearance matters a lot. Today, the trend of muscle building can be apparently seen all across the globe. The gyms in the cities or towns stand as a proof of how the people and especially the youngsters are crazy after muscle building. Though the muscle building is the ultimate end, the definition slightly differs for males and females. Most men may desire to have the muscular body, whereas that may not be the objective of the females. For females, it is the toned body that makes them look appealing and sexy. Where most men strive to gain masculine figure, the women prefer to have a toned body. Moreover, the females have naturally less hormones required to get the muscles like men do. However, there is nothing to worry as the adequate nutritious diet and planned workout will render a strong and toned body.

Another salient difference between the male and female muscle building is the workout plan. For women, it may be a bit tough to make a 5 day workout plan in the initial state. So, it is not bad to start with a 3 day workout plan. After a few days, the 5 day workout plan can be adopted. Some exercises such as the lifting of weight may seem to be somewhat awkward for the women initially, but they will be certainly comfortable with it in a few days. Likewise, all the other exercises will also appear to be normal after a few days of workout.

One of the significant aspects of all workout plans is that the person gets the full body exercise. However, it may not be possible doing the exercise for all the parts of the body in the same session. And, it is for this reason that the workout routine should be planned in a meticulous manner. In a 5 day workout plan, the first day can be dedicated to the legs and butt; the 2nd day to the back & biceps; the 3rd day to abs & cardio; the 4th day to chest, shoulders & triceps; and the 5th day to the butt, calves & cardio. Thus, from Monday to Friday, the workout routine can be planned and the workout can be done in an orderly and holistic manner equally justifying all the parts of the body.

Again, the number of sets in the exercises also needs to be planned. In the initial stages, the number of sets can be small. This can be then gradually increased. For the women desiring to get faster muscles and toned body, it is advisable to take the workout training under an expert. The incorrect way of workout may adversely affect the body and thus prove to be detrimental. Moreover, the women seeking to lose weight need to be very much careful towards their dietary intake. The women desiring to gain weight can choose the best supplements available in the market and catalyze the muscle growth. However, it is not wise to be fully dependent on the muscle building supplements.

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Fitness – How to Workout at Work – 10 Tips

How do you find time for fitness during the work hours? Look for opportunities to workout at work by periodically exercising throughout your work day. Following are 10 tips for fitting in physical activity while on the job:

1. Walk or bike to work.

If possible, make the most of your commute by walking or biking to work. If you ride the bus, get off a few blocks early and walk the rest of the way. If you must drive, park far away to get in a quick walk.

2. Take the stairs.

If you have a meeting on another floor, get off the elevator a few floors early and use the stairs, or skip the elevator entirely. Use the restroom on another floor and take the stairs.

3. Schedule fitness breaks.

Take a short walk instead of hanging out in the lounge with coffee or a snack.

4. Start a lunchtime walking group.

Find some co-workers to walk with during lunch breaks. A regular exercise routine and the support of your co-workers may help you stick with the program.

5. Block off time on your calendar.

Schedule physical activity as you would any other appointment during the day. Don’t change your exercise plans for every interruption that comes along. Remind yourself that physical activity is important, too.

6. Plan ahead for work travel.

Bring your jump rope or choose a hotel that has a fitness facility. While waiting for a plane, grab your bags and take a walk.

7. Sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair.

This will strengthen your abs and back. You’ll work on your posture without even trying.

8. Set goals.

Use a pedometer to track the number of steps you take every day. Set new goals every week or so such as 5,000 steps then 6,000 steps, etc.

9. Use your headset.

Instead of sitting idle at a desk talking on the phone, walk and talk with a headset on.

10. Head to the mall for lunch.

Park far away and eat something healthy. After lunch, go for a quick walk around the mall.

Any movement is better than none, so be creative. By adding short bouts of exercise to your daily routine, you’ll burn more calories and will reduce stress.

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The Best Bodybuilding Workouts

Bodybuilding nowadays has been attracting more and more youths towards itself as it helps the person to look great with those huge and bulky muscles. It has been nowadays considered as a popular sport which is carried out by many youths and they also enjoy this by showing off their physique and bulky muscles. In their case, the person has to remain committed to bodybuilding and should hope for the best until he attains the final goal of bodybuilding. For this he has to undergo rigorous training and perform various bodybuilding exercises to achieve his goal. Remaining focused and never losing hope solves 50% of the problems and fastens the process of bodybuilding. Every task depends upon the will power of the person. If the will power of the person is strong then no external force can stop him in attaining his goals.

The effective bodybuilding can be done by regular bodybuilding exercise. This means that the person would have to go to the gym regularly. Some do those exercises at home only but most of the people perform these exercises in the gyms where the instructor gives them proper instructions about how to the exercises properly. While performing these exercises there are also some rules that are to be kept in mind. If a person is performing those exercises which do not utilizes a proper technique and are done randomly does not actually help the person in achieving his ultimate goal of bodybuilding. It only hinders his path towards bodybuilding. Moreover these exercises which do not use any technique can be proved to be dangerous at times and can injure a person which would in turn take more time in the process of bodybuilding.

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Burpees For Fat Loss – Fat Loss Workouts

Using burpees for fat loss is a great challenge and one that will deliver a very quick result.

In short a burpee is where you start standing, squat down, go into a pushup position, come back into the squat position and then back to standing. Sounds easy enough right?

Simple exercises lead themselves to challenging workouts however! Because the exercise is simple in nature, it is very safe to use for high repetitions, high intensity and high fatigue. That doesn’t mean you can completely disregard your technique though, don’t let your hips sag in the push up position and if your back, shoulders or knees start hurting drop it back a little.

Burpees For Fat Loss: Sample Workouts

Tabatas: Using this format is a fast and challenging way to workout. The ‘tabata protocol’ has you perform eight rounds of twenty seconds of maximum intensity with 10 seconds rest. So it will look like this; burpees for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, repeat another seven times. Sounds easy enough right, give it a go and let me know what you think!

The key with using this format of training is that the 20 seconds of work has to be everything you’ve got. You won’t get the same fat burning results if you cruise through the work period. By the end of this four minutes you should be spent!

100 Rep Challenge: Once again, simple in design but you need to be careful of any workout that involves the word ‘challenge’!! As you might have guessed you will be doing 100 repetitions of burpees for time. 100 burpees in 10 minutes is OK, 5 minutes is good and anything less is fantastic. If you are knocking these out in quick time, try some of the harder burpee variations.

Ladders: As with a regular ladder, you can either climb up or climb down. This works well pairing the burpee with another exercise such as shadow boxing for time, or just with a rest in between ‘sets’. Going up the ladder will look like this: 1 burpee followed by 10 seconds rest or shadow boxing, 2 burpees rest or shadow box, 3 burpees etc. Coming down the ladder you will start at 10, 15 or 20 burpees and work your way back down to 1. One up to 10 (or 10 down to one) will give you 55 repetitions in total and is a great number to start with.

The best way to add burpees for fat loss into your workout routine is to do them as a finisher after your regular weight session, or you can do them on a separate day for extra conditioning. Pick one of the methods above and use it for a couple of weeks and try to add repetitions (tabatas or ladders), decrease your times (100 rep challenge, ladder) or increase the difficulty of the burpee variation! All in all they will be a great addition to your fat loss workouts and also boost your fitness quicker than most traditional methods.

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Cardio Workouts to Lose Belly Fat

Everyone knows that cardio workouts are great to lose belly fat and body fat in general. But why do so many people who do a lot of cardio show almost no results? Why do some people do hours of cardio week after week and still walk around with stubborn body fat in all sorts of places, mainly the abs?

The answer is twofold:

1. They do the wrong type of cardio

2. They do it in the wrong way.

Now, any form of workout is better than none, so don’t feel bad if you find out when reading this article that you could’ve worked out more effectively. You still did a lot more than the majority of people. Now is the time to hone your workout skills so you can get the best results you can possible have.

Step 1 – The right workouts

Workouts are not made equal. Some burn a lot more fat than others. The key is to spend your time on doing the more intensive sort of workouts, those that burn more fat per minute. Some of those workouts include: running, rowing, kick-boxing, hiking, and outdoor biking.

By doing these workouts you burn more fat, get lean faster, and develop a killer fitness level.

Step 2 – Do the workouts the right way

In the past, the most important factor which people judged their workouts on was the length of time and nothing more. If you ever wondered why some people do cardio for hours and still can’t shed the fat, this is why. If you want to do cardio workouts to lose belly fat, you need to focus on how intensive they are and not on how long they take. After all, you can walk for 60 minutes or run for 20. Which do you think will be more effective? Which will burn more fat?

The key is to push your body while doing cardio not just to pass time about. A great way to do that is to do interval training in which you change the pace of your workout every few minutes. For instance, you can sprint for a minute and then walk at a rapid pace for 3 to cool off. You not only burn off more fat this way but train your body at a variety of paces which is much better for it.

In conclusion

Do the right kind of cardio in the right way and you will shed body fat and belly flab fast. 

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Top 5 Essential Supplements For Fitness Workouts

There is always the age old argument of whether supplements are truly necessary as part of any fitness routines. It is important to get your basic nutrition as close to perfect as you can before considering any supplements. very few people have a diet that is varied and consistent enough to give you all the vitamins and minerals you need. In this fast paced world, it is hard to be “nutritionally correct” every day. So I conclude that some supplemental help is needed, especially for beginners.

The next question could be “are supplements safe’? The short answer is yes as long as they are “dietary” supplements which are basically food. I would never propose or condone anybody taking illegal or dangerous supplements such as steroids or banned and diet pills.

Also, to clarify, whole foods are better for getting your vitamin and mineral needs than a pill, but it isn’t always possible to do that. Again,I am a proponent of food supplements. Getting the right vitamins and minerals is critical to your fitness workouts. Without them, you are, basically, almost wasting your time and energy. Here we go with the critical supplements:

1. Multi Vitamins: Duh These will specifically cover any lack in your diet. Get a very good name brand such as One-A-Day or whatever. The best part of a multi vitamin is it will fill any hole in your diet.

2. Glutamine which is an amino acid. Foods that Glutamine are found in are beans, cabbage, spinach(yuk), milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, beef, and more. Glutamine is obviously easy to get from foods but are you getting enough? Glutamine is chiefly responsible for strength and stamina in your body and gets depleted quite a bit during a workout. You NEED to get the levels back up.

3. Protein – Specifically whey protein. Whey protein is the best protein because it absorbs the fastest in the body. It can be found in chicken breast, egg whites,milk, some breads, ice cream, etc. You would have to eat an awful lot of these foods to keep your protein up for workouts. This is probably the one supplement that makes the MOST sense to take.

4. Fish oil – This is a major source of fatty acids. Fatty acids are essential in any fitness program. I take fish oil because I can’t stand to eat fish. I have no choice but to take fish oil capsules.

5. Creatine – Creatine is a big help in your bodies recovery from a workout. It is also very beneficial for endurance. This can help you do longer and stronger workouts. Note: Creatine is not steroids like some people commonly believe. Creatine is found mostly in red meats, some fish like tuna or sushi(double yuk), and in lesser amounts, milk and some berries.

That is it for today. Look for more articles on nutrition and fitness workouts in the future.

Thanks For Reading,

Scott

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