Five: Tips To Weight Training And Bodybuilding

Weightlifting and Bodybuilding is all about setting goals and exceeding your personal goals and exceeding your boundaries on a weekly basis. Weight training and bodybuilding helps one to become stronger and healthier. Any type of good exercise helps a person to build up their self esteem as well as a person?s physical appearance. The main goal of all is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. A person should care about their appearance but they should also be very concerned about their health. It is advised that a person who is interested in body building or weight training consult a physician first. A doctor will be able to determine which exercise or type of training would be best for a person?s physical health status.

To make clear the simplicity of bodybuilding and weight lifting I've arranged a list of five basic keys to successful training.

• Set a goal - short and long term.
• It is a must to ease into a training program with a wholesome, thoughtful nutritional plan - proper food, order and amount of consumption.
• Be confident from the beginning that these principles will produce results.
• A person should show Enthusiasm for weight training.

Working out doesn't have to take a lot of time. Walking a half hour per day around your neighborhood will give your body stamina and energy. The majority of fitness clubs or health clubs that offer aerobics are 45 minutes to an hour long. Taking care of yourself is one of the best things you can do for yourself as well as your family. One of the great things about exercise, weightlifting or bodybuilding is that it doesn't need to be done alone. Find a friend with a similar fitness program and goals; having a partner helps you both stay motivated and enthusiastic.

Bodybuilding requires that one make achievable goals. You need to clearly define your goals that would help you achieve weight loss. There are times when you may feel a lot of stress at work, so much stress that the work involved actually keeps your mind in good company so that you may to lose track of the amount of reps while lifting weights its import to avoid this type of situation.

You may ask why we have to work out. We work out to look better, to feel better and energetic. These are the steps to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Treadmill Interval Training Benefits

Treadmill interval training benefits anyone who's goal's may include fitness, weight loss or training for any specific sporting event.

Lets break it down to start with.

Treadmill workouts have many advantages over running outdoors a few of these include

• Can be done in the gym or your own home.
• Is not dependent on the weather or time of day.
• Workouts can be very specific, meaning distances, speeds & gradients can be precise.
• Less strain on joints as treadmills have a more shock absorbent surface than a hard pavement or road. Grass, may be more spongy but can be uneven with hidden potholes, and sand running can cause excess strain.
• On a personal level, you can wear whatever you like. You don't have to be self conscious about any wobbly bits you are trying to get rid of and no personal security problems.
• A water bottle is always handy and does not have to be carried. So one is more likely to stay hydrated.

Interval Training also has many benefits including the main one for most people these days

• TIME. In 15-20 minutes of treadmill interval training you can achieve more than in an hour of cardio work.

These days training has become a fine art, more quality less quantity. Top athletes like ironman triathletes for example, these days train on average only 15 hours a week for a race that takes them a little over 8 hours, non stop, to finish.

For the other 99% of athletes, weekend warriors and wanna be's treadmill interval training benefits include

• Quality workouts that can be accomplished in a lunch break.
• running at a higher intensity for longer periods resulting in a cardio fitness effect and a metabolism boost for several hours afterwards meaning more calories are burned up, even at rest aiding weight loss.
• Treadmill interval training workouts break up the boredom of long steady runs
• The body becomes more efficient at dealing with lactic acid build up.
• Hundreds of studies have shown that interval training is by far the most effective training method to improve your endurance, speed, and overall aerobic capacity.

So if you are a serious runner, beginner or any where in-between looking to just get fitter, faster, lose weight, look/feel good then treadmill interval training is the quickest most efficient way to go.

Now you have decided to incorporate treadmill interval training into your workout schedule, find out here what intensity, work vs recovery times & length of sessions are best for you.

Exercises For Home – Discover The Secrets To Punching Your Way To Fitness

A fun way to develop exercises for home is by purchasing a punching bag. Hitting a punching bag has excellent cardio and strength building benefits.

When buying equipment for exercises for home, punching bags cost less and take up less space than most fitness machines. They range in prices usually from $40 to $1,000, so there really are bags to meet the needs of all fitness goals. You can also find punching bags used, so make sure to check your used sports stores for discounts.

When you first start this routine, you may find you can only hit the bag for 5 to 10 minutes. Don?t be intimidated by this. Instead, take it as a challenge to build your endurance and create a goal of working your way to a half hour per punching bag session. For each new session, set a goal for how long you would like to hit the bag and challenge yourself not to give up before reaching your desired time.

When beginning, start with light punches at a moderate speed and hit the bag until your arms feel tired. Increase the intensity with harder punches at a quicker speed as you get used to the routine.

To get the most of your workout, make sure you are alternating fists with each punch.

To reduce the risk of injury while working out with a punching bag, you should purchase a pair of punching gloves. Again, these are something you can find at a used sports store. You will also want to wear comfortable sneakers so you can bounce around while punching the bag. As a rule of thumb, the more your moving, the better cardio workout you?re going to receive.

A punching bag does not only give you a great workout, but it also reduces stress. In addition, with the strength you're adding to your arms, along with the practice of targeted punches, you will improve your self defense skills.

Whether you're a teenager or in your sixties, you'll find hitting a punching bag to be a satisfying way of achieving your fitness goals. As far as exercises for home goes, this seems to be a crowd favorite.

Aerobic Exercises

Using aerobic activity to help you get cut up makes sense. If you me tabilize an extra hundred calories doing cardiovascular exercise, that is another hundred calories contributing toward reducing the body's fat stores, or another hundred calories of, say, valuable protein you can eat while continuing to lose weight on your contest preparation diet.

However, the body's ability to tolerate the stresses of aerobic exercise is not unlimited, too much cardiovascular exercise can end up being detrimental. Excessive aerobics (and there are those who have tried doing endless hours prior to a contest, to their later regret!) can cut into the recuperative ability of the muscles involved and the physical system as a whole, leading to the scavenging of muscle tissue for energy (using the larger white fiber as fuel for the smaller red fiber), and resulting in inducing a state of overtraining.

Overtraining doesn't mean simply being tired from too much training. It is a condition you get into from too much exercise over too much time in which certain mechanisms in the body that supply you with energy and allow your body to recuperate are depressed or shut down. Over training is a chronic state in which you just can't perform no matter how hard you try. If you find yourself overtrained, the only good remedy is rest, sometimes weeks of it. But you can avoid the overtraining syndrome properly scheduling your training, making sure you get enough rest and enough nutrients in your food.

But one good way of preventing overtraining is not to go overboard on the cardiovascular training. Remember, to look like a bodybuilder you, need to train like one. To benefit from the concept of specificity of adaptation, you need to make sure that the main influence shaping and developing your body is progressive resistance weight training pumping that iron, not aerobics.

the Way To Health & Vitality

"the Way To Health & Vitality"
It's time to start a Healthy life:
your 7 days program

How many times have you gone to sleep at night, swearing you'll go to the gym in the morning, and then changing your mind just eight hours later because when you get up, you don't feel like exercising?

While this can happen to the best of us, it doesn't mean you should drop the ball altogether when it comes to staying fit. What people need to realize is that staying active and eating right are critical for long-term health and wellness -- and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The more you know about how your body responds to your lifestyle choices, the better you can customize a nutrition and exercise plan that is right for you. When you eat well, increase your level of physical activity, and
exercise at the proper intensity, you are informing your body that you want to burn a substantial amount of fuel. This translates to burning fat more efficiently for energy.

In other words, proper eating habits plus exercise equals fast metabolism, which, in turn gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a repetitive message to the body asking for improvement in metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by upgrading its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night, Exercise doesn't have to be intense to work for you, but it does need to be consistent.

I recommend engaging in regular cardiovascular exercise four times per week for 20 to 30 minutes per session, and resistance training four times per week for 20 to 25 minutes per session. This balanced approach provides a
one-two punch, incorporating aerobic exercise to burn fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase lean body mass and burn more calories around the block.

Here's a sample exercise program that may work for you:

• Warm Up -- seven to eight minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase blood flow and lubricate and warm-up your tendons and joints.
• Resistance Training -- Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between sets.
• Aerobic Exercise -- Pick two favorite activities, they could be jogging, rowing, biking or cross-country skiing, whatever fits your lifestyle. Perform 12 to 15 minutes of the first activity and continue with 10 minutes of the
  second activity. Cool down during the last five minutes.
• Stretching -- Wrap up your exercise session by stretching, breathing deeply, relaxing and meditating.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to have realistic expectations. Depending on your initial fitness level, you should expect the following changes early on.

• From one to eight weeks -- Feel better and have more energy.
• From two to six months -- Lose size and inches while becoming leaner. Clothes begin to fit more loosely. You are gaining muscle and losing fat.
• After six months -- Start losing weight quite rapidly.

Once you make the commitment to exercise several times a week, don't stop there. You should also change your diet and/or eating habits,' says Zwiefel. Counting calories or calculating grams and percentages for certain nutrients is
impractical. Instead, I suggest these easy-to-follow guidelines:

• Eat several small meals (optimally four) and a couple of small snacks throughout the day
• Make sure every meal is balanced -- incorporate palm-sized proteins like lean meats, fish, egg whites and dairy products, fist-sized portions of complex carbohydrates like whole-wheat bread and pasta, wild rice, multigrain cereal and potatoes, and fist-sized portions of vegetable and
  fruits
• Limit your fat intake to only what's necessary for adequate flavour
• Drink at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water throughout the day
• I also recommend that you take a multi-vitamin each day to ensure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

I suppose that's all I can think of for now. I should extend my thanks to a doctor friend of mine. Without him, I wouldn't be able to write this article, or keep my sanity.

Enjoy life, we all deserve it.

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5 Common Running Injuries – What They Are and How You Can Prevent Them

The risk of you sustaining an injury related to running are higher than what most people think. You can suffer from a little blister to a full blown out knee caps if you're not careful while running.Here are the 5 most common injuries most individuals suffer from when running, and how you can prevent them from happening.1. BlistersBlisters are caused by the constant rubbing of your shoe against your skin. They can be on the toes, side of the feet, or the heel, and anywhere in between. If left untreated, they can become infected and cause some major discomfort as well as pain.How to prevent blisters: Always wear shoes that fit your feet. Wearing shoes that's one-size too big or small will result in you suffering from occasional blisters.Another thing to note here is that, when you run, your feet will sweat. Hence you'll have wear a pair of socks that's long enough to go past the top of your shoes, so as to avoid having blisters at your ankles.If you start to get a blister, use a Band-Aid to cover the area until it recovers. Let the blister heal by itself. Do not pop it, as the fluid underneath serves to keep the blister protected until the skin underneath heals.2. Runner's KneeRunner's knee comes as a result of you overworking your knees (from running long distances consistently) over a period of time, coupled with the fact that you do not allow the surrounding sore muscles enough time to fully recover.How to prevent runner's knee: Stretching is the best way to prevent any physical injuries related to running. Be sure you stretch all the muscles and tendons before you start running. Your muscles should be well warmed up before you do any running.Also, do some squats and lunges to build up your hamstrings, shins, and calves of your legs, because the stronger they are, the less likely you'll suffer from runner's knee.3. Sore MusclesWhen you over-do your running activities, you could end up with sore muscles. Sore muscles are caused as a result of tiny tears in the muscle fibers.How to prevent sore muscles: Make sure you properly warm up your muscles before you take off on a run. Start your run slowly, and gradually increase your pace. Another thing you can do is to have a hot bath or a massage after your run to help relieve your sore muscles for a faster recovery.4. ChafingChafing is caused when your clothes constantly rub against your skin, causing rashes to form around the area. You can also get chafing when you run in the rain.Some of the common places where chafing occurs is under the bra line (for women), in the underarms, as well as around the inner thigh area.How to prevent chafing: Wear sportswear that is specially made for running. They have flat seams, not round seams, which can help prevent chafing. Also, they fit better and don't shift around while you're running.5. Heel FissuresCracks in your feet are called heel fissures. They are caused by dry feet, coupled with constant running, which over time, breaking open the skin, resulting in bleeding and subsequently, an infection around the area (for more severe cases).How to prevent heel fissures: If you find that your feet is dry, apply moisturizer on it. Also, try not to wear sandals or open shoes (even when not running) so as to avoid drying out your feet.

Personal Trainers And Your Fitness Goals

Most people these days, especially those who have little experience in the gym, need to hire a personal trainer to help them get back into shape and become physically fit. These fitness experts are qualified to help a person get in shape and also provide guidance on tips to maintain their body in a healthy manner afterwards. In addition, they provide guidance to their trainees on the food to eat and how to help their bodies by maintaining a proper balanced diet. Everyone has a different reason to start going to the gym, or rather go back to the gym. For instance, if one wants to be an athlete, he or she would prepare for a marathon by training and focusing on cardio, while many of us just want to look good for the summer. Some are also instructed by the doctor to do so, due to health reasons. Whatever reasons you have, a professional health expert like a personal trainer can make your dreams a reality.Personal trainers not only help you to achieve your end result, but they make sure you get there safely. Many of us do not know how to begin exercising or where to start. Furthermore we can all admit, that having somebody coaching and instructing us while providing motivation is a key ingredient to success. The idea is that a personal trainer is somebody who will not soothe you when training but will definitely make one sweat until one begs for mercy!This is not meant to be discouraging, but rather to motivate you and push you to new physical limits. You have to believe that it is better to struggle today to celebrate tomorrow. Getting into an exercise routine can be physically demanding and mentally difficult. Furthermore a personal trainer knows how to make the road to glory as short as possible.The shortest distance between two places is the straightest road. Personal trainers are experts in knowing what exercises can help you reach your goals the fastest. If your goal is to lose weight for example, you may think that going to the gym and hitting a treadmill until you need to pass out is the best way to shed some extra pounds. A personal trainer will set up a personalized workout routine that not only focuses on your goals, but takes your body type into account. We are all individuals and not every diet program provides the same results for everybody that tries it.Essentially your personal trainer is going be there for you helping you achieve your fitness goals. From motivation in the gym to diet plans, they will coach you and monitor your progress every step of the way. They are there to answer your questions about health and show you how to avoid injury. Many of us have bought gym memberships and actually went to the gym a few times before eventually forgetting about our old friend. A personal trainer can help you stay in touch with this long forgotten friend of the past.

Tips For Ripped Muscles

Summer is almost here, and it's time to kick back and relax under the sun. It?s time for the beach, barbecue parties, and for most real lifters these activities also mean one thing: It is time for the clothes to come off and to show off that rock hard body they have been working on all year. Who wants to walk around with a flabby physique, and for the next couple of months, all of those real muscle builders will be moving into ?get ripped? mode.
However, how do they ordinarily try this?

It is really quite simple. They ease up the weights and complete increased repetitions.

This has usually been a largely normal way of ?reducing fat? and if you talk to the majority of trainers in the gym they will advise you that ?heavy weights build up the muscle and reduced weights define the muscle?.

So, what is the reality behind the ?reduced weight and increased reps? way of achieving a sculpted body?

It's absolutely and totally SO WRONG!

It could not be further from the reality. In reality, there is no plausible basis for this method of exercising at all, and whomever thought up this utterly silly method of exercising has made the vast majority of muscle builders to squander their time and impact their results in the gym.

Allow me to straighten this up once and for all: You CANNOT 'spot reduce'. Put another way, it is completely unachievable to focus on weight reduction from a individual part of the body. Carrying out bench presses with reduced weight and increased reps won't cause you to burn fat off of the chest or make it to appear harder and more sculpted.
Each time you hold a barbell, dumbbell or cable, the goal is to create as much muscle increase as possible. There are no particular, secret bodybuilding training routines that will define the muscles or make them become more defined.

Exercising with weights builds muscle mass, period.
Therefore, how in particular do you define a muscle?

The simple method to define a muscle is by reducing your body fat>/a> levels so that you can make your muscles more obvious. Decreasing body fat can be met by two methods:

1) Adapt your diet.

You must lessen your overall calorie consumption to approximately 15 times your bodyweight and concentrate on eating smaller meals more often during the day. This will keep your metabolism easily raised all the time and your body will burn fat constantly. Control your consumption of saturated fats and simple sugars, and concentrate instead on eating good sources of protein and low glycemic carbs. It is also critical to keep your water consumption high at a level of around 0.6 oz for every lb of bodyweight.

2) Execute good cardio exercise routines.
Forget about the usual way of temperate intensity cardio in 30-45 min periods. If you like to make the most of your body?s fat burning capability and also reduce the muscle reduction which certainly goes along with a fat burning cycle, concentrate on shorter cardio exercise routines carried out at a peak level of intensity. These types of exercise routines will boost your resting metabolism through the roof and will let you burn the greatest quantities of fat even as you are resting. I suggest 3-5 high-level intensity cardio sessions every week, spaced at around 8 hrs between your weight exercise routines.

It's as simple as that, people. Forget the idea of ?reduced weight and increased repetitions? and hurl it out. Following this misguided way will only make you to reduce muscle bulk and strength, and won't help you in burning fat or defining your body.

All you are required to do to sculpt those rock hard muscles by the summer time, is the following:

1) Exercise with heavy weights and low reps to increase maximum muscle bulk.

2) Adapt your diet and carry out cardio exercise routines to reduce body fat and develop evidently harder and better sculpted muscles.

Period.

See ya on the beach!