You may be familiar with calf raises. Usually, these are done on either a seated or standing calf raise machine. Your shoulders or knees sit under levers attached to weights. The balls of your feet sit on the ledge of a small platform, with the heels slightly over the ledge. From here, you move up onto your toes and then lower. That is a single rep. Other variations include simply performing this on a platform while holding onto dumbbells or a barbell, or usingno extra weight at all. It can also be done without a platform, on the floor, by simply raising up on the toes and back down.

Yet another, lesser known, less popular variation, is the donkey calf raise. Perhaps this is because those who actually perform this version do so in the privacy of an empty, or home gym. Instead of using weights or a machine to do the calf raise, the donkey calf raise is done leaning forward, with a partner straddling you back. The name comes from the image of a person riding a donkey. The awkwardness of this seems obvious. Why someone would actually want to put themselves through the humiliation of attempting the calf raise donkey style is not obvious. Apparently it is an extremely good exercise for the calf muscles. I'll never have a first hand account to know if this is true or not.

The following pic is from the Complete Weight Training Book, by Bill Reynolds. Complete with the 1970's gym apparel, the Donkey Calf Raise is done perfectly.

Labels: exercise

Working out can be expensive. A gym membership may cost $50 per month. A treadmill will set you back at least a few hundred dollars. Something like the Bowflex could cost thousands, plus interest on financing. Then there's the countless unopened exercise DVDs and that spontaneous ab roller purchase that never really got used. It's almost ridiculous how much money can be blown on fitness. But it doesn't have to be that way.

A gym membership can be a great investment. They tend to have a lot of equipment, making it easy to get a good workout in. Some gyms even offer free group classes that you can join . It may be a recurring monthly cost, but if used to its fullest, a gym membership can be sublime. However, don't be fooled by that brand new Super Mega Health Club that just opened. It may be big, but it will probably also be costly. Lower priced memberships can be found at other less lavish gyms and while the larger clubs may have the latest and greatest elliptical machines, there are some really great reasons to choose the less ostentatious abode. The smaller places are generally more accessible as their memberships are lower. You may find that you are less intimidated at a smaller gym and even though it has less equipment, the equipment that they do have might be free more often. It's also far easier to get to know the staff at a smaller place and take advantage of some of the programs that they may offer. All of this will actually help keep you motivated and keep coming back.

But if you can't afford a gym membership, there are alternatives. However, don't fall for the infomercials and all the costly gimmicky equipment. You can easily get a good setup at home with low (or no) cost.

• A great way to keep in shape is running or walking. And not on the treadmill. The only cost you will incur for taking this up is the price of a decent set of sneakers. Make your investment count, however, by visiting a shop that specializes in running, such as the Running Room.
• Find some used weights. All you really need is a bench, a barbell and some plates. With just these few items, you can pretty much do any weight training you'd ever need to do. Check you local classifieds. Go garage sale hunting. Check out your local freecycle group - watch for equipment that someone just wants to toss. Scour around your parents place for some old weights that your Dad has long since stopped using.
• Find a good workout video and use it. All sorts of people have gotten amazing results with the likes of Billy Blanks. Tonnes of Tae-Bo videos are available used from online sources like Amazon.com for as low as $5!
• Get a skipping rope. You can find them super cheap, but a good skipping rope workout pays off huge. Jumping rope is a seriously great cardio exercise.
• Work on body-weight exercises. Do circuits of situps, pushups, air squats, calf raises and lunges. If that gets boring, try adding in handstand pushups, dips and clappers.
• Build some homemade equipment. Fill up a sandbag or get a heavy rock or object. Curl it, throw it, press it, put it on a sleigh and pull it.
• Check out your local public swimming pool. It may offer free public swimming at certain times of the week.
• Get a basketball and get your sweat on by shooting some hoops with a few buddies.
  

There are probably a billion other ways to keep fit, with either very little or absolutely no money down. What would you suggest if you were cash strapped and couldn't afford the gym membership?

Labels: equipment, exercise

If there is a form of cardio exercise that just plasters me against the wall, it's the CII rowing machine. Typically, when trying to include cardio after some resistance exercising, I'll hit the CII rower and attempt a 1000m personal record. It takes under 4 minutes, but I'm dead afterwards, with my heart-rate through the roof and breathing a mile a minute.

I've yet to come across a gym that doesn't have a few rowing machines lying around, and I've yet to encounter a gym where they are more than rarely used, which is unfortunate, because rowing is a very effective tool to help burn calories and stress the cardiovascular system.

The rowing machine puts a large demand on a broad range of upper, core and lower body muscles, from your traps to your quads. The high intensity of the exercise burns lots of calories and the strain on the muscles causes additional calories to burn well after finishing exercising. High intensity running is also known to cause continued post-exercise calorie consumption, but unlike running, rowing is an extremely low-impact exercise.

The Concept II website has loads more information on the rowing machine, as well as sample routines that can be done on this wonderful piece of gym equipment.

Labels: exercise

I like to change up the workout all the time.  I rarely do the same routine twice in a month.  However, I've found a particular routine to be a great full-body workout and it takes very little time to complete so I've started doing it more often.  The routine requires two barbells and weight for each.  It's a circuit style workout consisting of squats, pull-ups and inclined presses, so you might need to hog some equipment for a while, but fret not - the routine should take a maximum of 20 minutes to complete.

The routine is a simple 3 piece circuit.  Each exercise is done immediately after the other (or as soon as you feel ready), with a little break inbetween each round.

Start off with the weighted back squats.  If you have a power rack available with a PU bar at the top, use that as you will move on to PU's next.  Do 10 reps of about 60% - 70% max weight.  Try to get down as far as possible in the squating position.  Aim to have your upper legs just below parallel with the ground.  Keep your weight distributed evenly on your toes and heels.

Once done with the squats, rack the bar and move onto pull-ups. Perform 8 to 10 PU's (or as many as you feel you can).  Use full arm extensions at the bottom position of the pull-up.  These are dead-hang PU's too - no kipping allowed here.  Switch up grips as necessary - maybe start palms forward and move to palms up (or chins) later on.

Once done with the PU's, make your way to an inclinded bench.  It's best to prepare the bench before you start the circuit.  Again, use 60% - 70% weight and aim for 8 - 10 quick full reps.

After you've completed a round of the circuit, take a rest for at least a minute before going at it again.  Aim to get in 3 to 4 rounds of the circuit.  If you're not sweating bullets after all is said and done, you're not human.

Labels: exercise

Back in November, this neat toy came out - you may have heard of it - the Nintento Wii. In the Americas it came bundled with a game called Wii Sports. Using the unique Wii controller, the game allowed players to participate in bouts of tennis, bowling, golf and boxing using gestures that mimicked the real life action. Generally, video gaming means sitting on your butt, with the game controller, feet up and a bag of cheesies at the ready. The advent of the Wii has given a breath of fresh air to video game "laziness" as players no longer necessarily sit on their behind and can now get right into the action and actually work up a sweat in the process.

Some bright minded individuals actually put the Wii to the weight loss test and are using it as part of their plan to shed some bulge and attempt to get lean. Take Mickey DeLorenzo, for example, who in December 2006 decided to pick up the Wii controller and see how well it could be used as a fitness tool in his Wii sports experiment. Mickey lost an astounding 2% body fat, getting him to a "fitness" level according to the American Council on Exercise.

Another gamer on the Wii weight loss plan is J.R. Cook, who wants to lose 80 lbs! J.R. is documenting his quest on his blog and has made some amazing progress, losing on average 10 lbs per month over the last 4 months.

Labels: exercise, games

I was practicing overhead squats today. It seems that I'm always practicing them and never really trying max weight. My wife watches sometimes and never fails to find faults in my technique. "You're too far over on your toes!", she'll tell me. Sometimes we argue about it. She usually wins though, as usual. Regardless, she's right. Perhaps I am too far on my toes, but no matter how hard I try, it never feels right. I'm just going to face it - the overhead squat is hard. It's damn hard. There are some great articles and videos available on the net discussing the overhead squat, but today, during my search for another article to maybe help me get my technique right, I found this article. It's by Dan John, the Strength Coach and Head Track and Field Coach at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, Utah. Not the most auspicious title ever, but nothing to be ashamed of either. John can lift a tonne and according to his articles, he seems to have had much success coaching others to lift heavy as well. In his article on overhead squats, John talks about how damn hard they are, but also discusses how overhead squats create, in his words, Dad strength. I guess I'm not the only one who struggles with this.

Labels: exercise, squat

Yesterday I did a whole wack of lunges. Simple exercise - just stand and lunge forward with one leg, bending the back knee until it touches the ground just slightly, keeping a fairly wide stance. Back to standing position, then lunge forward with the other leg. However, its simplicity is deceiving. Do 3 sets of 33 lunges in a row, followed with 25 air squats and see what I mean. A good video of lunges and lunge variations can be found here on youtube, courtesy of crossfit.

Labels: exercise

Over on thatsfit.com, there was an article about a fitness class called, BODYPUMP. Looking at their site, it seems kinda neat. They've combined an aerobic exercise class with some of the best weight training lifts. The BODYPUMP fitness program seems to almost have the same high intensity weight lifting routines that one would find in a crossfit workout of the day. However, these classes are obviously geared to an audience that isn't going to be cleaning 155lbs. Still, sqauts, clean and presses, bench presses - including these fundamental weight lifts in an aerobic class is a brilliant idea - hopefully it catches on a bit. However, I'm sure that the added strength element to an otherwise strictly aerobic class would no doubt intimidate folks or give them the idea that they would be bulking up by adding strength training to their workouts (myth). Interesting, none the less. They just need to get someone like Billy Blanks on the bench and the program would be solid gold ;)
Check out the BODYPUMP program here.

Labels: exercise, link

I saw 300 last night. It's an amazing film. The story might lack a little depth, but between the acting, the cinematography and the special effects, it is still a super good movie. Right from the get go, there's a huge intensity that doesn't end until the movie is over. The camera work and post production was brilliantly done. Apparently much of the film was shot at high speed and a scene hardly passes without some degree of slow motion. The characters were all portrayed perfectly and the voices of both Leonidas and Xerxes were bang-on. This movie takes that Ben-Hur kind of cinematic achievement to the next level - hopefully it will inspire other films to follow it's path.

But one of the many neat aspects of 300's production was the training that the actors underwent before shooting began. These guys were all playing Spartan warriors and if the movie is any indication, Spartan warriors all have to have lots of muscle and extremely chiseled abs - almost ridiculously chiseled. So how does one go about gathering a cast of Schwarzeneggers? Apparently they go through punishing workouts. The training that they have is something seriously ferocious. Here's a clip of Mark Twight, the trainer, talking about how they got smashed.

Mark Twight talks more about the 300 workout here, on the Gym Jones website.

Labels: exercise, video

Back to the subject of HIIT - high intensity interval training. There's a couple great articles on bodybuilding.com discussing the benefits of HIIT with sample routines and body blasting workouts. A nice short and to the point article can be found here. A nice quote from the article when speaking about the usual forms of cardio workouts - "the monotony, non-creativity, invested time, and scramble for equipment takes its toll on most everyone I know. I shudder, mop the gym floor and polish the mirrors furiously, instead. Very practical and also works." So reduce your cardio workout time by performing less medium intensity exercising and focus on high intensity. Spend your time wisely.

Labels: exercise

I belong to a nice gym. It just went through a good renovation and acquired some more equipment (having another couple pullup bars is nice). It's not a huge franchise like Golds but it tries to cater to a similar crowd with the machines and whatnot. Nope, it's nothing special, but I like it and besides, it's down the street. Regardless of the proximity of the gym to my home, however, there are those nights where I just don't get home from work in time to get there for a good workout before they close. Or maybe I'm just short on time one day and can only get a half an hour in. These days, I'm very glad that besides my gym membership, I also have a great home gym. At my home gym, I can do all sorts of exercises - squats, cleans, deadlifts, presses, jerks, snatches, curls, hit the core, the shoulders, the legs, the arms and the back all in the comfort of my own home. And how much did this home gym cost? Nothing. Wha?!?! Yep, that's right. You see, all my gym consists of is a 25lb barbell and about 50 lb's in plates. All it cost me was a trip down to my parents' basement where I knew my Dad had a few weights sitting around gathering dust since his days when he was my age. Sure I'm not going to be pressing my max or deadlifting hundreds of pounds, but even with this measly setup, I can whip off a few sets of high intensity, high rep sets of several full body exercises. There is no need to have the latest bowflex machine for $20 per month for the next 50 years. No real need to get an elyptical or high cost treadmill. All anyone really needs is some inexpensive weights (or possibly free for the lucky ones), a bit of empty space in the house (or the garage, or outside) and maybe a good outdoor route to occasionally run. A good spot to find cheap weights are garage sales. Typically a good hunt early on a Summer Saturday morning will reveal some weightlifting equipment that was laying around in someone's basement. Salvation Army and other second hand stores will also occasionally carry exercise equipment.

Labels: equipment, exercise, weights

Going for a 5 or 10 km run is a fantastic aerobic exercise that will burn lots of calories. However, the normal run is generally a moderate intensity exercise. Long bouts of moderate intensity exercise may actually preferentially burn more muscle tissue than one would like [1]. The goal, after all, is usually to burn calories from carbohydrate storage and maintain muscle. Some studies have found that brief intervals of high intensity training are more effective at maintaining muscle and building their capacity for lactic acid oxidation [2]. Lactic acid builds up as muscles undergo intense strain. You may recognize this as the burning sensation you might sometimes feel as you're trying to lift that last rep or trying to sprint the last 100m of a good jog. During the recovery from bout of the high intensity, lactic acid is broken down. This process uses energy from carbohydrate storage or fat [3]. Translation - interval training may be better than a moderate intensity run for losing fat and getting lean. So next time you're heading out for your weekly (or monthly or whenever you can get yourself off the couch) run, perhaps head down to the track instead and run 5 or 6 400m sprints, each followed by 2 minutes of rest. It may take less time than a 10k jog, but it may be just as effective.

Labels: exercise, running

If you're looking for a good cardio workout, choose running over walking and rowing over either, but if you're looking for a good cardio workout and you're short on time, jumping rope can be a super good alternative. An intense 15 minute rope jumping session will likely do for you what 30 minutes of running can do. Plus, it can be fun and challenging. Try double unders, crossing your arms or some fancy footwork. Here are a couple of videos for some inspiration:

Labels: exercise, rope jumping

I said it in my last post and I'll say it again. The squat is not to be underestimated as an exercise. A good variation of the squat, sometimes called the pistol, involves working one leg at a time - ie, a one legged squat. In their December 2006 issue, Men's Health had this to say about it:

"The single-leg squat touchdown is one of the most natural athletic movments: You bend at the knees while balancing on one leg. So even if you've never done the exercise, you'll find youself in similar positions in sports. As a timed test, the move measures your ability to stay strongw while keeping a stable base, an important factor in almost any activity, and key to building muscle."

"Balance on your right leg with your knees slightly bent. Start your stopwatch. Slowly bend you knee to lower your body toward the floor while reaching toward the outside of your right foot with your left hand. Push through your heel and squeeze your glutes to return to the starting position, then repeat as many times as you can. Stop the clock when you lose balance and have to stand on both feet. Then restart the clock and repeat on your left leg."

Labels: exercise, squat

If there is an exercise that could help with movements the human body goes through day in and day out, it's the squat. Whether lifting something heavy, standing up from a chair, or even simply walking, elements of the squat are apparent.

With the bending of the knees and often heavy lifting involved during a squat, it is thought by many to be an unsafe exercise, specifically for the knees. On the contrary, it has been found that the squat is, in fact, a deterrent for future injuries. Regardless, with the amount of lower body muscles that the squat targets (particularly those problem areas ladies), makes it an ideal exercise that should be included in your exercise repitoire. Most importantly, this exercise can be done without any weights at all and still be incredibly effective. Crossfit includes the air squat in many of its workouts and as part of its official warmup.

In order to perform the air squat, stand with your feet just past shoulder width apart. Keep your head above your knees and bend your knees, moving your butt down and out past your ankles. Your arm position isn't incredibly relevant, but some people find it easier to move the arms up as you squat. However, you may find that holding your arms up, straight over your head, will give you better form when squatting. Once down begin to raise back to the standing position. You should try to get your butt down to just below your knees. If that's too far just go as far down as you can.

The Crossfit website has a great video demonstration of the correct air squat form here.

Here's a sample squat routine that will surely make you feel the burn:

Start off with 10 full deep air squats, then hold in a squatting position with your knees bent and your upper legs perpendicular to your lower legs. Hold this position for a count of 10. Then perform 9 full deep air squats and then again, hold the squatting position for 10 seconds. Repeat for 8 and so on, working your way down to 1, holding for 10 seconds between each set. No weights involved and it shouldn't take much time at all, yet your legs will feel like jelly and you will certainly be completely out of breath. For these reasons, the squat is a great exercise.

Labels: exercise