I’ve been working on handstands lately. Attempting to get from a squat with my hands on the floor to a full handstand. Needless to say, I’ve yet to do it. However, even with my futile attempts, I definitely feel it in my triceps and shoulders. But this is all childsplay, compared to what these guys can do. This is crazy stuff.
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.
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?
With all of our busy lives these days – the long stressful workdays, families to be with, houses to fix up, appointments to meet, errands to run, and all that good TV, many times we find ourselves going to bed really late and waking up earlier than our body would like. Sometimes it gets so bad that we just try and push through the work week and look forward to sleeping in on the weekend to catch up on the lost Z’s. Thank goodness for coffee – our World would be faced with a zombie crisis if it weren’t for caffeine.
From a fitness perspective, sleep is important for muscle maintenance and growth. When you’re at the gym, lifting weights, muscle fibers are ripped and damaged (hence the pain you might sometimes feel). In order for muscles to repair themselves, sleep is needed. While sleeping (particular while in deep sleep), our bodies go into repair mode and rebuild the muscle. For bodybuilders, sleep is essential for muscle growth. Repair mode also requires substantial energy and depends on energy stores in our bodies. The energy stores include fat storage. In an indirect way, sleeping actually burns off calories.
Of course, there’s also the fact that the earlier and longer you’re in dream land, the less likely you are to spend any more of your day munching on chocolate bars or nachos. Sure, it’s an obvious point, but I’m sure there have been countless times that you found yourself raiding the fridge at midnight.
Besides the physical benefits of sleep, the mental benefits are huge. More sleep leads to higher levels of alertness and cognitive function. Taking a siesta in the afternoon has been shown to cause higher levels of productivity into the later parts of the working day. Memories are are improved and better solidified during sleep. Your brain files daily events and works subconsciously on problems. I can recall numerous times when working on programming bugs when I would be getting absolutely nowhere to the point that I’d actually be moving backwards. I’d decide to call it quits and come back to it in the morning. I’d wake up, logon to the computer and fire up my code and almost instantly figure it out.
And then there are health reasons too. Your immune system and organs function immensely better when you get more sleep. It’s the reason why bed rest is next only to chicken soup when it comes to fighting a flu or a cold.
So the moral of the story is to get your sleep. If you find that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get enough sleep at night, re prioritize. Work at becoming more organized. Downgrade to basic cable. Set solid bedtimes for yourself. If you have to be awake by 7am, try to get to bed by 11pm. Aim for 8 hours a night. Once you get into the swing of a good sleep schedule, it will become a piece of cake (low cal cake, of course). You will feel way better, more productive, more alert, more energized and your body will thank you.
So you’ve committed to losing some weight and have set a goal in mind. Step one complete. Now what? How do I achieve this goal? Fortunately for you, there are literally thousands of resources on the web that can help, including thefitblog.net, of course. Shameless plug aside, it’s true. If there were one resource that can actually get you to your goal weight, it’s the web. A few articles ago, I reviewed a bunch of social networking fitness sites. What I discovered today was a similar kind of site, but less geared towards social networking and more geared to helping you get on the train to successville.
Diet Television could possibly be the diet site to end all diet sites. You sign on and they more or less just tell you what to do. They get your body stats and interests (whether your looking to be lifting weights or going for runs) and from that, determine when you should expect to reach your goal and what can be done to help get you there. They devise a workout plan and include instructions for each of the exercises. They also provide lots of nutrition and diet information. The best part of all of this, of course, is that it’s completely free.
The motto for Diet Television is “Learn it, lose it, link up”, aptly describing its inclination towards goal setting and assistance. Like the social networking sites, you can create a profile and “link up” with others, which can be a source of some inspiration as you watch other individuals get closer to their goals. The site is in Beta and is still under construction, but with its simple, intuitive interface and the obvious large amount of thought put behind it, it definitely looks promising and is worth at least checking out.
Men’s Health has a great fitness challenge in their latest issue. The challenge is also available on their website, here. Measure how many reps you can perform of single leg squats, chinups, pushups, measure your vertical jump height and how fast you can run a mile. Enter your scores in the MH Fit Calculator and get your MH fitness level evaluation. That simple.
However, although the exercises are simple, they are all very demanding. The average guy, for example, is only able to rip out a couple of single leg squats in a row. Pullups are similar, with most guys forgoing this exercise at the gym, in favour of lat pulldowns (which aren’t as effective IMHO). Pushups, on the other hand, aren’t uncommon. But while you might feel fairly comfortable with them, can you squeeze out 30 reps? How about 40 or even 50!? Vertical jump practice is something that I bet you rarely do. And while you might get in a 5k run here and there, the one mile challenge is an all-out run your fastest test of will power to hold out till the end.
It will be interesting to see the results when MH tabulate the average numbers from their readership. My suggestion is to try the challenge now and throughout the next 3 weeks, work up to some higher numbers by practicing the exercises as part of your normal routine. Instead of running the 5k as you normally do on a Saturday, do some sprints or 400m intervals. Work pullups into your warmup and try to get 30 reps, even if broken. Sub inclined bench presses for 3 sets of max reps pushups. Work on your single leg squats instead of some other leg press exercise you have in your normal getup. After 3 weeks is up, go another round with the challenge and see how well you’ve improved because if you keep at it, you will see a huge difference.
The road to a 6 pack of abs is a tough one. It’s a combination of diet, exercise and genetics that make or break one of the most sought after defined muscle groups. In fact, for some people, it’s just impossible. But it’s worth a shot and although the golden rule is to get lean so the abdominals can peek through the stomach, the abdominal muscles have to first get built up a bit. These two exercises are perfect additions to your routines to help get you down the road to success.
Leg Raises are a great exercise that focus primarily on the lower abs. The easiest variation is to perform them lying on the back with legs out in front of you. Left the legs off the floor, hold for a second and slowly lower them down again. Another variation uses the parallel bars, which can often be found at a gym on the vertical knee raise and dip station. Place the arms on the machine with elbows and forearms holding the body up with the legs dangling. Lift the legs straight out and slowly back down. A third variation is hanging leg raises. This one is done hanging from the pull-up bar. Again, lift legs straight up and then slowly back down. All of these can be done in a typical 3 sets of 10 reps fashion.
Knee Grabs are done lying on your back. Start with arms and legs fully extended and touching the ground. Bend the legs at the knees and bring them up to the chest. at the same time, bring the arms forward, lifting the upper back off the ground and “hug” the knees. Again, 3 sets of 10 should do you well.
Good sit-up tip. Fold up your towel to a thickness of about 1.5 to 2 inches. Place it under your lower back so that it fills the gap between your tail bone and upper back when you’re in the lying position of a sit-up. You will find that the towel will enable you to more easily lift yourself with your abdominal muscles, without having to anchor your feet or throw your arms or head forward to create momentum. The towel also helps to fully extend your abs in the lying position and fully contract them in the sitting position. The towel will also help keep your stinking sweat off the mat ;)
The Body Mass Index is a calculated number, based on the ratio of weight and height, that identifies a person’s body type within a range between being underweight and obese. A BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered optimal weight. Persons with a BMI of less than 18.5 are considered underweight and similarly, persons with a BMI greater than 25 are considered overweight. Individuals with a BMI greater than 30 are in the obese category. Since the 1980s, the number of obese individuals, particularly in North America, has been climbing at an alarming rate.
BMI is often criticized because it does not take into account variables such as bone and muscle mass. Individuals with high muscle mass may be perfectly lean but continue to possess high BMI calculations. The accuracy of the BMI is obviously debatable, but the measurement continues to more or less be regarded as the defacto standard for statistical weight to height ratios. A better measurement for determining “fatness” or “thinness” may be to accurately measure body fat percentage for an individual. However, accurately measuring this is, in general, difficult and requires specialized equipment.
Calculate your own BMI using the tool below:
Losing weight is a commitment. Unfortunately it’s the hard truth – you can’t expect much from a one or two week South-Beach diet. Losing weight means having the will to deny yourself many of the things you may like. Chocolate bars, beer, croissants, all the good stuff has to be removed from your diet, and not just for a couple weeks – staying on the course and staying committed is the number one road to success. Mix in some cardio and resistance training and you’ll be seeing the weight drop off in no time.
The guns I’m referring to, of course, don’t need bullets 
Get your “Say No to Gun Control” t-shirt at the Fit Blog CafePress store.
I’m a big fan of Olympic style weightlifting. I like the shear strength that some lifters possess, but what I like most about these lifts is actually incorporating them into my routine as they are extremely great workouts.
Lifts like the clean and jerk incorporate a huge number of muscles. From the lower legs right up through the shoulders, a good clean and jerk hits you pretty much everywhere.
Some good instruction on the clean and jerk can be found on exrx.net, here. It is a very compound movement. Beginning in a squat position, you “clean” the barbell to a racked front-squat position, then the barbell is pushed overhead while the knees bend to bring the lifter under the bar and assist in getting a full arm extension. The lifter then straightens his legs with the barbell pressed fully above him. This is probably the one of the most technical lifts, but with the technical aspects comes the ability for lifters to press amazing amounts of weight above their heads.
But rather than attempting maximum weight, I like to incorporate the clean and jerk into a workout to get more of a full body workout. This exercise is also capable of bringing the heart-rate up significantly.
For a single rep, using fairly light weight, here’s a great way to utilize the clean and jerk:
That’s one rep. Try 5 to 7 reps for a set. Use fairly light weight (or just the bar or broom stick or PVC piping). This exercise can also be performed with dumbbells or kettlebells instead of a barbell.
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.
The first in a series of quick, realistic, usable fitness tips.
Make situations where you don’t have time to cook a good dinner a thing of the past. Preparation is key. Sundays, when things have slowed down a tiny bit, cook up some food for the week. Grill some chicken breasts and pack them in the fridge in some Tupperware. Slice them up for wraps or salads, or enjoy them on their own with a side of microwaved frozen veggies. While you’re at it, prepare other foods like chopped or sliced veggies for salads, pack up some single serving portions of baby carrots in zip-lock bags, cook up a bunch of slices of turkey bacon and refrigerate them. The more food you have ready to go, the less likely it is that you will make that McDonald’s stop on the way home from work.
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.
