Stretching before you begin a strenuous workout is one of the most important facets of staying loose and being flexible. How many times have you been pressed for time, show up at the gym, and just dive into a leg workout? Without fail, you proceed to pull a quad or hamstring?
Being a certified personal trainer hasn’t excluded me from making this mistake. Of course, the older we get, the more important it is to loosen up before every workout. Studies have shown that if you begin any particular weight exercise with a “pre-stretch”, you get a far stronger muscular contraction during the exercise. For example, doing push-ups prior to a chest workout is a great way to loosen up your pectoral muscles. The act of pre-stretching also activates certain anabolic hormones involved in the muscular hypertrophy process, such as localized insulin-like growth factor-1 in the trained muscle.
The question remains, when is stretching more effective? Depending on what time of training is involved, a separate stretching session should be included as part of a complete training ritual to promote maximal flexibility. A more flexible muscle is less likely to be injured. Long distance runners will often stretch and go through some pretty intense pre-race warm-ups to avoid injury. Professional athletes often spend weeks stretching and warming up their muscles due to long periods of inactivity. A good 10 to 15 minute warm-up before any strenuous workout should benefit flexibility and promote muscle hypertrophy.
Do you best to avoid an injury and take the time to stretch your muscles before beginning any workout. Remember, that if you do injure yourself, you will have to stop working out and will delay the process to getting yourself into shape.
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If you’re like me and you’ve been training for years and have tried almost every product and workout imaginable, information overload has hit you square on the head. Sometimes listening to experts about weight loss can be informative, but have you ever noticed how many different programs are available to help you lose that 10-15 pounds you’ve been trying to get rid of? It shouldn’t take a degree in sports medicine to get in shape.
Maybe you feel overwhelmed by all the conflicting advice about what to eat and how often to exercise. Or, maybe you’ve fallen into the trap of training the same way week in and week out without changing your routine and not seeing any results. Being a trainer, I often see people in the gym doing the same workouts and not getting anywhere but frustrated. So many people out there are training hard but just don’t have the right guidance when it comes to nutrition and exercise.
I would love to be able to sit with everyone in the gym for 1 hour, just to get themon track with their diets and workouts. Most people feel lost and confused and hopefully this article will help. You don’t want empty promises about how to get those “summer abs” in 7 days or how to lose 15 lbs. in a week. The key to getting in shape is different for everyone. A lot depends on your age, body type(ectomorphic,endomorphic or mesomorphic) sex, genetics, and the list goes on. You’ll be surprised to find out that having the body you always wanted could happen in as little as three to six months of training three to four days a week, eating foods that taste great and help pack on muscle, and getting the proper sleep to help you recuperate and feel refreshed so you can stay productive and keep training hard.
When you treat your body the right way, it changes. I wasn’t always in great shape. In fact, I suffer from the same issues that most of you reading these articles suffer. So for me, it’s a constant reinventing of workouts and diets to keep things fresh and exciting. Keep reading these articles because I will be sharing with you some great workouts and new foods for you to try that taste great and are, of course, healthy!
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Hopefully, you’ve been keeping up with the articles I have written the last month to contribute to this informative web-site on health and fitness. You have probably have noticed with all your intensive training how your appetite has decreased. I know it sounds crazy, but I always thought it was the other way around, that hard work builds your appetite.
In a study at the University of Campinas, heart-pumping activity was actually found to decrease appetite by upping protein levels in the hypothalamus; tricking your brain into thinking you’re full. It appeared to make brains more sensitive to key chemicals that play a role in appetite communication. Researchers witnessed some key chemical changes in the brains of overweight animals that began getting regular exercise. The levels of two different proteins, interleukin-6 and interleukin-10, increased in the hypothalamus. These proteins served as a type of appetite control within the part of the brain that receives signals from important hunger hormones like leptin and insulin.
As a consequence of these protein increases, researchers found that the animals’ brain cells became more sensitive and receptive to hunger signals. The end result – the animals started to eat less. It’s not the first study to support the theory that turning up your physical activity level can dial down your appetite. This is one of the first studies to highlight a possible underlying mechanism for the effect. More research will need to be done to determine whether exercise has exactly the same effect on humans.
For now, we already know lots of great health benefits to crank up your physical activity levels. I know that immediately after a grueling workout, the last thing on my mind is a big meal. That’s why a meal-replacement drink usually goes down easier than a plate of chicken and broccoli.
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Let’s face it, when you see a guy or gal who has six-pack abs, you know they are in great shape! To be able to see abdominal muscles, you’re body fat needs to be in the single digits. Not an easy task by any means. The men and women that you see on the cover of all those fitness magazines all have single digit body fat percentages. The question is, how did they achieve those wash-board abs?
I would love to say that by doing five-hundred sit-ups a day will get you there. Unless you’re Herschel Walker, who by the way used to do a thousand crunches and a thousand push-ups, doing that many is not necessary. Before we discuss building your mid-section, let’s have a quick anatomy lesson. Your abdominal muscles are made up of four muscles; the rectus abdominis, internal obliques and external obliques, and the transverse abdominis. Your rectus abdominis muscles are where your six-pack is located (trust me it’s there).
Besides looking great, having strong abs also gives you a strong core, which in turn helps strengthen your lower back and hips. Many people who have lower back problems also have weak stomach muscles or too much fat around their mid-section. The best advice I can offer anyone who wants to have a great-looking mid-section is to start a serious diet and exercise regimen that will enable you to lose body fat. Like any muscle group, put the time and effort into working your abdominal muscles. How much time is needed to build great abs? Honestly, while the abs can be worked more than your chest or biceps, you should treat your abs like your other muscles and rest them occasionally. I found that training my abs after each workout is sufficient enough.
You don’t need to do a lot of reps for building abs. Doing 10 to 25 reps per exercise if done correctly should get the job done. The best ab exercises involve any movement which pulls your knees up to your chest. Some examples are any type of crunch, leg lifts, or leg raise that gives you a sufficient burn(or cramp, whichever comes first).
People ask me about using machines and free-weights, and I tell them that whatever you have to use to get a good burn, use it! There are a lot of great crunch machines available at your local gym so go ahead and crunch away. Don’t forget to diet properly and do plenty of cardio. Soon you’ll burn the fat over your mid-section and start seeing some muscle
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If you’re like me, training your back muscles can be frustrating due to the fact that you can’t really see what you’re working on. This fact alone is why you see alot of people at the gym traing their chests and arms more than their back and legs. With that being said, these are the two largest muscle groups of your body (legs being number one). I’ve already written about building strong and powerful legs, now let’s discuss building that “V-shaped” back. This “V-shape” is your latissimus dorsi (or lats). The lats are broad muscles that span the area from just behind each armpit to the center of your lower back. Having large lats help create the illusion of having a smaller waiste. The best exercises for building large lats are pull-ups, wide-grip pulldowns using a cable apparatus, one-arm dumbell rows and bent-over rows. Just above the lats are your traps or trapezius muscles. This muscle group sits behind your shoulders and is often seen on football players and boxers. A great exercise to build traps you can hang from is the up-right row. The rhomboids-major and minor-span the area between your spine and your shoulder blades. Any exercise that brings the shoulder blades together will work these muscles. Next up on the anatomical chart for your back are the erector spinae. This muscle group is located in your lower back on each side of your spine. Strengthening those muscles are key to avoiding your local chiropractor. I’ve found that doing a back extension movement on a bench specific to that exercise really hits this muscle group. Any type of exercise that involves rowing and pulling will help build your back muscles. Remember, out of sight should not mean out of mind. Working your back and biceps on the same day is a great way to blast these important muscle groups. Train your back once a week and you’ll soon start to see that “V-shape” we all want!
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Let’s face it, when someone asks you to make a muscle, you don’t pull up your pant leg and flex your calf. Usually your toteing big guns that invite some sort of bicep flex. Having muscular arms is something everyone at one time in their life dreamed of. I remember when I was a kid and the first time I saw Lou Ferrigno (better known as the Hulk) flexing his biceps, I was motivated to have arms like his. Large biceps, the muscle that bunches up into a ball between your elbow and shoulder, are the classic symbol of masculine strength. The biceps are to the arm what hamstrings are to the legs-they bend your elbow. Building big biceps is one of the easier muscle groups to work on. All you need is a set of dumbbells or a barbell to accomplish this. Doing barbell curls at the end of a back workout is the best time to train arms. Both are pulling movements which means your biceps should be nice and warmed up after you complete doing back exercises. Being that the bicep is generally a small muscle, you don’t need to do a lot of sets. I will start with a dumbbell curl movement, doing three to four sets, then moving on to barbell curl, doing the same three to four sets, then ending with some type of cable movement, either one arm or a straight bar curl. By then, my biceps are usually fried! The back of the arm is where your triceps are located. The triceps push while biceps pull. This lopsided triangle of muscle on the posterior side of your upper arm is most visible when you do a push up. The job of the tricep is to straighten your elbow. The tricep is a larger muscle in your arm compared to the bicep. Since the key to growing big triceps is doing plenty of pushing movements, I like to train them after working my chest. I usually start my tricep workout with a close-grip barbell press, then I move on to a cable push-down movement either with one arm grips or a short bar. After these two exercises, I will do some tricep kickbacks with a dumbbell, supersetted with seated dips. I will do three to four sets, 10 to 15 reps per movement. Now some people out there will train their forearms seperatley, but I find if you train your biceps heavy enough, your forearms will also get a great pump. Having strong arms are important when it comes to being able to bench press more and also doing lots of pull ups, both important movements if you want to gain lots of muscle.
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Ok folks, you knew it was coming! I went to the doctor for some blood work and my glucose level was 156 – say hello to Type Two Diabetes. It figures that with a history of high triglycerides and family members with thesame sugar issues, I would be next. It doesn’t matter if you’re a personal trainer or a truck driver, if it’s hereditary and you don’t watch what you eat and exercise daily, you’ll be getting prescriptions of Metformin like me.
So what can be done about this? First, start reading the labels of all foods you consume on a daily basis and make sure they are low in sugar (5 grams or less) or sugar-free. Like anything in life, you’ll get used to the taste, or lack there of. If you start to recognize food as a fuel source, and an important ingredient to help build muscle, you’ll put the soda and chips down and grab a salad with water instead. I’ll admit I have a bit of a sweet tooth, so I’ve been eating sugar-free cookies and icecream to wean my way off the good stuff. I also cut back on my beer drinking which also contributes to high sugar levels. I’ve substituted beer for red wine, but not the whole bottle in one sitting. The limit should be two glasses at any one time.
Exercise is just as important and is so key to helping with Type Two Diabetes. Walking, jogging, swimming and any type of cardio for at least a half hour a day is recommended. You’ll be surprised how the fat will start to fall off you after cutting down on the sugary foods that only slow down our metabolism and increase chances of becoming diabetic. I also started to stay away from white bread, rice and potatoes. I regularly eat whole grains and I am eating more fruits and vegetables then before. Also, I am drinking less alcohol which, in turn, will help keep my glucose levels down.
You want your glucose to be under 100 so if you are like me and you’ve got some issues with diabetes, do yourself a favor and start eating healthier, exercise more, and take your medication. Have blood work done every 60 to 90 days or buy a blood sugar meter at your local pharmacy and check it once a week.
Stay healthy!
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If any of you reading this article have built your own home, you know a solid foundation makes all the difference in the world. The same holds true when working on your body. Isn’t it funny to see a person at the gym with a great upper body and puny legs. For some reason, men and women alike seem to avoid working on their legs. Believe me when I say this, training legs is a chore! Being a personal trainer, I usually put my clients through a strenuous leg workout first, so they can experience what it feels like to have sore quads, hamstrings and calves. The women I train always want to firm up their butts ( gluteus maximus) so showing them how to do lunges and squats is important. Their primary function is to extend your legs from your hips when your leg is bent. The largest muscles in your legs are called quadriceps, or quads. These are the muscles that form the entire front part of your leg. They are comprised of four muscles that work to straighten your lower leg from a bent position. Leg extensions, squats and presses are the best movements to build powerful quads. Opposite the quadriceps are your hamstrings, which cover the entire posterior aspect of your upper leg. The hamstrings are actually three muscles that work in concert to perform two actions: to extend your leg from the hip when your leg is straight, and to bend your lower leg from the straight position. Lying leg curls and stiff-legged dead lifts are the best exercises to perform when training your hamstrings. Finally, there are your calves. This muscle group is located in the back of your leg, below the knees. One of them is called the gastrocnemius. This diamond shaped muscle works to push you up on your toes. The other muscle, the soleus, is deeper and comes into play when your knees are bent and you need to lift your heel. The third muscle is called the tibialis anterior, which is located on your shin in the front of your leg. Exercises to build great calves include seated calf raises and calf presses on the leg-press machine. Strong leg muscles are the key to injury prevention in sports from cycling to running. Strong legs also protect your hips, knees, and ankle joints from a lifetime of stress from walking, running, jumping and climbing stairs. Squats and lunges are the best exercises to help build and maintain strong, good-looking legs.
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How many times do you hear people blaming their parents for their predispositions or DNA? I can honestly say I have blamed my hypertension and glucose issues on my parents because they suffer these problems also. So naturally, if a parent has some kind of defect, there is a pretty good chance you might suffer the same fate. Although the whole population can benefit from a physically active lifestyle, a new study shows that individuals with a genetic predisposition to obesity can benefit even more. Based on research by Dr. Ruth Loos from the Medical Research Council of Epidemiology in Cambridge (United Kingdom), the genetic predisposition to obesity can be reduced by an average of 40 percent through increased exercise. Genes might make it more difficult for some people than others. However, living in the healthiest environment and eating and exercising in a consistent manner can increase your chances of living longer without relying on tons of medication. In a recent segment on CNN, the United States was ranked the highest amongst industrialized nations when it comes to prescriptions filled. We are a nation that relies too much on medication and not enough on exercise and diet. I myself have to take certain medications to keep my blood-pressure and glucose levels in check. As easy as it is to blame my parents, being a personal trainer affords me the knowledge to know what to eat to help stabilize my numbers and to share my knowledge with others who suffer the same issues. Practically everyone I know who is forty and older takes some sort of medication. The scary thing is, now I am meeting people in their thirties who are taking medication, sometimes for no reason at all! So don’t blame your parents. Get busy in the gym and stay healthy!
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This decision whether to train at home or join a gym is very important to your success in reaching your fitness goals. More often than not, many of us think that by buying a few workout and DVDs from our favorite reality shows will ultimately give us the results we are craving. For those people who are disciplined enough, working out at home could be the right choice. In this article I will explore the pros and cons of either investing in a home gym or joining your local health club to get the best workout money can buy. Let’s start with working out from your home. Coming from someone who has done both, I can honestly say that I’ve had some great experiences training from home with friends when I was younger, and more recently with my wife. The biggest plus about having a home gym is the convenience. Nothing like coming home from a long day and throwing on your favorite workout clothes and hit the corner of your home you’ve designated as your workout area.
Also, setting up your home gym should not break your bank. Plenty of great workout equipment is available on-line for great prices! E-Bay is also a good place to look because lots of people buy treadmills and exercise bikes which later on act as coat racks. Don’t be one of them. If you are thinking of working out from home, make sure you’ll have enough space, privacy and safe equipment. One of the pitfalls involved with home gyms is motivation. I found it very difficult to get myself motivated to work out by myself. Not only that, one time I found myself trying to get that last rep on a flat bench with 325lbs. on the bar and suddenly realizing I can’t get it off my chest. This is where a spotter could have helped. If I were at a health club, I could have yelped for help! The bottom line is, workouts from home could save you time and money if you are a highly motivated person. Now lets discuss the pros and cons of joining a gym. First the pros. Looking for the right
health club may be like looking for a new home, only different. Instead of looking for closet space, you’ll want to focus on the general cleanliness of the gym area and locker rooms as well as the quality of the equipment. Having a pre-determined idea of what type of workout equipment you’ll be focusing on will make your decision easier. If your planning on using free weights, check the quality of the barbells and dumbbells. Are they comfortable in your hands and feel sturdy, not loose? Also, check out the other types of equipment like the machines and aerobic equipment. Is it new and current or does it look like Jack LaLane might have used it! Health clubs offer you the opportunity to use a personal trainer if you can afford one. Personal trainers can not only familiarize you with the equipment, but also set you up with diets and help you reach your goals, again money well spent. I find that working out at a gym enables me to meet new people and also network my
skills as a personal trainer. You might benefit from this experience also. Most health clubs open up early in the morning and stay open late at night to accommodate almost anyone’s schedule. Most gyms also offer daycare, which is very important for moms looking to get back in shape. Some of the downfalls of joining a gym are the expenses involved with membership, working out with people who might be in better shape than you, and just plain getting there. Let’s face it, some of these clubs bind you to long contracts with lots of upfront expenses. Make sure you fully understand what your signing up for. As for as being insecure about sweating with other people, don’t sweat it! Most members are too busy looking at themselves in the mirror, not you. Location is key to your decision also. With gas prices reaching four dollars a gallon in most states, driving the extra distance three to four days a week might get pricey. In my personal opinion, you can’t put a price on
getting in shape and improving your health and your outlook on life! Whatever your choice may be, make sure you have a plan and a set of realistic goals before hitting the weights. Be careful and have fun!
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