Wednesday 13 November 2013

Burn Fat With Cardio Exercises

Burn Fat With Cardio Exercises:

The average American over the age of 30 will gains 5 pounds a year. Some estimate that 60 percent of our population is overweight. Of course, the best way to avoid obesity is to fight back temptation and never eat those unwanted calories in the first place. Don't worry there is a way to keep weight gain at bay, and that is through EXERCISE!!!
Whether it's pounding the pavement, peddling miles on the bike, or climbing those stairs that seem to go nowhere, it's all about cardio exercise. But other than a sweaty t-shirt, what do you have to show for your workout? Ripped abs, tone arms, and if your exercising the right amount of time you could reap the full health benefits of cardiovascular fitness.
Cardiovascular exercise is any type of exercise that increases the work of the heart and lungs. From running and walking, to swimming, elliptical cross-training, biking, Stairmaster, and rowing; the physical benefits of cardio exercise include:

• Reduced risk of heart disease
• Improved muscle mass
• Improved heart function
• Reduced risk of osteoporosis
• Improved blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels
The American College of Sports Medicine and the CDC recommend, for health, that adults should accumulate 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days of the week, and to improve cardiovascular endurance, they recommend 20 to 60 minutes on three to five days per week."

Top 5 Best Cardio Excersise:

Running:

Running is one of best activities you can do. It doesn't require special equipment and you can do it anywhere. Best of all, you burn serious calories, especially if you add hills and sprints. A 145-lb person can burn 300 (at 5.2 mph) in 30 minutes. The downside is you need to watch your knees and ankles for any discomfort or pain.

Bicycling:

Outdoors or indoors, cycling gives some great cardio. Using all the power in your legs, you'll increase endurance while burning lots of calories, anywhere from 250-500 in 30 minutes, depending on how fast you go and how high your resistance is.

Elliptical Trainer:

The elliptical trainer is a great way to build endurance while protecting your aching joints from high impact activities. Plus, if you use one with arms, it's just like using a cross-country ski machine. The elliptical trainer is also a good choice for runners looking for a break from pounding the pavement. A 145-lb person burns about 300 calories in 30 minutes.

Cross-Country Skiing:
Whether you're on a gym machine or swooshing over miles of snow, cross-country skiing is an incredible cardio exercise. What makes it so great is that it involves your upper and lower body, which means it doesn't take much to get your heart rate soaring. A 145-lb person burns about 330 calories during 30 minutes of skiing.

Swimming:

Swimming, like cross-country skiing, is a full body exercise. The more body parts you involve in your workout, the more calories you'll burn. Spend 30 minutes doing the breaststroke and you'll burn almost 400 calories. Best of all, your joints are fully supported so you don't have to worry about high-impact injuries.

Turn Your Workouts into Fat-Burning and Fun Activities that Give You Results.


Always give yourself a bit of a head start into any program. This means that if you normally push yourself to just complete 20 min on exercise like stepper or bike and are really tired at the end, it is unlikely that you can progress positively. Try cutting back the time or the intensity of the exercise before trying on a progression program and work up to your previous best. This will give you added recovery and added confidence for your next workouts so that you're able to break through and improve.

In general it is better to progress by increasing the intensity or the time completed very gradually over time. Always keep in mind that health fitness is and should be a long-term goal. There's always time to break your personal best. Better you hold back and enjoy the exercise routine and progress slowly as compared to constantly pushing it to your limits. Not only will you be better recovered but you'll also learn to associate fun and freedom with exercise. This should be your primary concern.

Work out with a friend or group. Burning calories with a friend will help pass the time faster, and you may even both get better results. And if you know that another person is counting on you to show up, you may be less likely to skip a workout. Activities like spinning or jogging with a group are ways to help burn calories while keeping your mind on other things.


Always keep an exercise diary. This will ensure that you're on track and getting results by giving you feedback. But will also give you the satisfaction ok knowing that a year ago you could only run 3 kilometers while now you can easily run 7. Writing it down tells your mind that you're serious.

Burn Optimal Calories, knowing how many calories that specific activities can burn during a session can give you a better idea of which ones you may want to include in your workout. Some activities may actually burn more calories than you thought.

Running 9 mph 501
Running 7.5 mph 418
Ski Machine 317
Bicycling with moderate effort 267
Running 5 mph 267
Circuit Training 267
Stair climber 200
Swimming 200
Grocery Shopping 117
Brisk Walking 150
Weight Training 100

Sleeping 30

Friday 8 November 2013

Eat Big to Get Big:


In ordr to get big you need to eat big and lift big. Eat at least 25 calories and one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight each day. For protein eat foods such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, protein shakes, etc. You should also eat a moderate amount of fats from foods such as peanut butter, cheese, regular milk, butter, salad dressings etc. You also need to consume 3-4 grams of carbs (bread, rice, cereals, potatoes, pasta, fruit, vegetables, etc.) for every pound of bodyweight and drink at least a gallon of water per day. In addition to eating, if you want to add mass quickly, you need to train at least three times a week.

Protein is the single most important nutrient to a bodybuilder. It is extremely important that you take in some complete protein every time you have a meal. You will need to be on a high protein; reasonably high calorie diet and using a combined high quality protein supplement in order to gain muscle mass. Here is an example of a meal high in milk and egg content, and moderately high in complex carbohydrates:
• Egg omelets with cheese, whole grain toast, 1-2 glasses of milk.

Carbs do the actual building while fats make the hormones. Protein has been revealed to have more results when united with carbohydrates. Carbohydrates provide work energy, but depending on your sensitivity to them, too many carbs can lead to fat accumulation. Adjust your carbohydrates for steady gains with acceptable increases in body fat.

Making the most of the muscle gain to fat gain ratio is one of the objectives of eating to get big. Essentially you want to pack on the as much muscle as possible with the least amount of fat gain. Many people who attempt this end up having high blood levels of carbs, fat, and insulin simultaneously. This is a nasty situation since chronic elevation of insulin can amplify the rate of transfer of fats and carbs into fat cells.

Your diet is the one thing that will decide how big you'll get. Odds are you haven't been eating adequately if you haven't been gaining. Consumption of as many quality calories as possible is the goal. Stretch all these calories out over 5-6 meals per day, 3 hours apart. The key here is food, not supplements. Keep in mind that to build muscle you want to take in more calories than you burn off. You have to do this EVERY DAY, because growth processes demand a lot of calories.

Should you leave home without breakfast? The answer is an emphatic no. While you're asleep your metabolism becomes sluggish. Glycogen is the energy you use for your daily tasks and when you exercise, and it's stored in your liver and muscles. Your body feeds on liver glycogen when you're asleep, and by morning your stores are maxed out and your body is in a catabolic state (eating muscle). Breakfast reverses this deficit.

Supplements can give you superb gains, but in most cases they won't. Your normal multi-vitamin/mineral tablets, your average whey protein, creatine and prohormones are sufficient. Take some time before you supplement, sit down and draft a diet plan. If your folks eat three times a day, eat with them, and then try to get in 2-4 more meals on your own. Set timetables for eating cause less omitted meals. If the cost of eating more is an issue, consider being a vegetarian for a while – it's more economical.

Eating with your folks will slow you down and lead to better, well-rounded meals. And talking shop or just about the day's proceedings while sitting at the dinner table gives your body time to kick in the "duodenal reflex" so you know when you're full. In spite of greatly diverse ways of life, objectives and agendas, modern bodybuilders could certainly profit from something this basic.

Don't be strict when deciding on foods. Don't give up on the large pizza or the triple bacon cheeseburger, but save them for after your workout. If you eat them before you'll be tired from consuming such a large meal, and you'll also feel bloated. The extra calories won't hurt.

Never lose sight of your ambition to grow. Your cuts and striations will be deeper as you add more muscle. The single method to guarantee this is to keep protein and calorie consumption high. The only way to grow muscle is with a protein surplus, and an ample calorie supply is necessary for preserving adequate training strength and energy to lift the heavy weights that build muscle. Feed your body muscle-building nutrients constantly.

Besides eating big, you need to lift big in order to get big. The key to heavy lifting is not throwing around heavy weights. It's low reps and intensity. Remember intensity is a mixture of unmatched willpower and proper form. The idea of heavy lifting is to go to absolute failure, until you are physically unable to do any more reps. And, if you keep your form perfect on every rep, even the last one, you'll see much faster results.

You should train three days a week, and give your body plenty of rest time to grow new muscle tissue. Muscles grow while you are resting, not while you are working out. The muscles are stressed and slightly damaged when you work out, and your body reacts by building up the muscles in order to handle the extra work and stress.

The Best Fitness Wind Sprint Routine

The Best Fitness Wind Sprint Routine:

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When you are pressed for time but still want to get a good workout, sprint training might be just the ticket. This type of workout is high intensity and is not only physically demanding, but mentally challenging as well. The more vigorously you exercise, typically the more calories you will burn. The best wind sprint routine comes with several variables.

Dynamic Stretching:


When you do sprints, you activate numerous muscles, joints, ligaments and tendons. Going into your workouts without stretching can increase your odds of getting injured. Prevent this from happening by doing six to eight dynamic stretches before your training sessions. These are performed by moving your body through a full range of motion. Perform stretches like arm crossovers, arm circles, deep knee bends, truck rotations, alternating toe touches, ankle bounces and leg swings.

Warm-Up:


Once you have completed your stretches, the next thing you need to do is a light warm-up. Start off with a fast-paced walk, then jog lightly and continue to increase your speed until you are breaking a slight sweat and your heart rate is elevated. This slowly raises your core body temperature and further loosens up your connective tissue. Spend 5 to 10 minutes on your warm-up.


Features:


The actual sprinting routine is intense, but basic in nature. The main thing is not how fast you move, but how much exertion you feel. After doing your warm-up, run about 85 percent maximum effort for 20 seconds. Use the talk test to gauge this. You should not be able to carry on a conversation at this point. Once you've finished your sprint, reduce your intensity to about 50 percent maximum effort for 40 seconds. Alternate back and forth for the rest of your workout and finish with a light cool-down jog in similar fashion to your warm-up. You do not have to start out doing 20-second sprints either. If it is more comfortable, make your sprints 10 seconds each and gradually increase your times as you fitness levels improve. TMake your low-intensity bouts twice as long as your sprints. You also have the option of resting completely in between your sprints.

Time Frame:


Unlike long, steady state cardio sessions, wind sprints should not be performed on consecutive days due to their intensity. Aim for three, 20-to-30-minute sessions a week on alternating days. This does not include your warm-up and cool-down. On your off-days, stick with steady state cardio or perform weight training.

Considerations:


Although running is commonly associated with sprints, you do not have to use this form of exercise. Any type of cardio is suitable as long as you enjoy it. Low-impact cardio like indoor group cycling, elliptical training and stair stepping is actually more gentle on the back, according to the Spine-Health website. A recumbent bike that has a bucket seat and backrest is also a good option.

Benefits:


Sprint training not only causes you to burn a high amount of calories when you do it, but you also experience a high caloric expenditure when you are done. This is commonly referred to as EPOC — post-exercise oxygen consumption. Simply put, the harder you work out, the more calories your body will burn when you are done. Such factors as your heart rate and breathing rate coming back down to normal contribute to this elevated metabolism. When doing sprints, you also have to forcefully contract your abs. This can help tone your midsection without even doing ab-specific exercises.

Warning:


Wind sprint routines are very intense. If you are new to exercise or have not exercised in a long time, make sure to talk to your doctor before attempting them.




Tuesday 5 November 2013

Deadlift vs. Squat

Deadlift vs. Squat:

I've long been a staunch advocate of the squat, and I'll always remain one. For most people the squat is the single most important exercise for building size and strength. The dead-lift is also one heck of an exercise, however, and shouldn't be sidelined by the squat. For some people the deadlift may be a more productive exercise on which to focus. Note that it is the bent-leg, not the stiff-legged, deadlift that approaches the squat in terms of overall gains.


We cannot fairly compare the squat and deadlift by considering how many people have gained well from the squat compared to those who have gained well from the dead-lift. The squat wins hands down, primarily because more people have used the squat as the linchpin in their gaining routines than have used the deadlift. Just think how much promotion the squat has been given and how little the deadlift has received.

If, for argument's sake, 100,000 people have given the 20-rep squat program a fair trial, while only 1,000 have given the 20-rep deadlift program a fair trial, there will obviously be a lot of successful squat stories but a relatively small number of successful deadlift stories. If the comparison were between similar numbers of equally serious test cases, the numbers of success stories would be closer, although I believe the squat would still come out on top.

Let's not think of this as a squat vs. deadlift situation but rather a dead-lift-squat teamwork situation, with the understanding that for a minority of people the deadlift may be more productive than the squat in a straight comparison. Some people, due to leverage factors, have greater potential as deadlifters than as squatters. No matter how much they work on the squat, they do better on the deadlift, even when they give less effort, the deadlift remains well ahead of the squat. Others have a more natural propensity for the squat, and still others have lousy leverages for both lifts, although these folks will likely have one that is less weaker than the other.

Tall and very thin neophytes in particular may have a far easier time pulling a weight than squatting it. Focusing on the deadlift will enable them to pack on more initial mass and strength than will the squat. With a large accumulation of mass and more attention to form and flexibility, they will become better squatters and be able to prosper on the squat, though they may always be better deadlifters.

Some people will gain fastest when they squat and deadlift, setting the frequency of training each lift according to their individual recovery ability. Others, however (both beginners and advanced lifters) will find this to be too much and will need to back off from one of the lifts to be able to gain well on the other. I know this from personal experience, and I'm sure my findings are shared by many others.

Let's suppose you're a typical hardgainer wanting the best from both the squat and the deadlift. Squat on Tuesday and perhaps moderately on Fridays, and deadlift on Fridays, doing no more than a handful of other exercises at each workout. If both your squat and deadlift move just about equally in terms of poundage gained, keep at it. You may find that one of the two dries up once you're at or beyond your previous best lifts in both exercises. If this happens, the chances are that it's your naturally stronger lift that is gaining, unless of course you were previously slacking on the weaker lift and you're now just getting the balance right. You may, of course, find that both lifts dry up, not just one of them. Assuming that you've been working equally hard on both lifts, what happens at the end of a cycle can tell you a lot.

For example, suppose you're an advanced trainee and you spent a few weeks getting used to the routine. Then during the past nine weeks you slowly built up to 365 x 20 in the rest/pause deadlift and 275 x 20 in the rest/pause squat, up from previous bests of 350 x 20 and 270 x 20, respectively. Rest/pause means that after each rep you pause for a few breaths before continuing, keeping the bar on your back when squatting and not taking your hands from the bar when you're deadlifting. These lifts show a natural bias toward the deadlift.

In the final stage of this cycle-training absolutely full-bore, suppose your poundage gain for the deadlift has been moving at a rate of five pounds per week recently, but the squat has only been moving 2 1/2 pounds per week. An extra 2 1/2 pounds on the squat (up to 277 1/2) makes you fail to get all 20, and you struggle for a few weeks to build up to all 20; however, as brutally hard as the work undoubtedly is, the deadlift keeps moving at five pounds per week.

By the time you've actually worked to getting all 20 squats out, you're deadlifting 380 x 20. The squat is suffering from the effort (both in the gym and in recovery) that you're pouring into the deadlift. In this case, there's no way you're going to gain on the squat while working so hard on the deadlift, so back off on the squat and focus on peaking on the deadlift. Cut back your squat poundage by 20 percent or more for the same reps, and hold it there while going as far as you can in the deadlift, to say, 400 x 20 for this example. Anything from about 350 for 15 rest/pause reps is great deadlifting for a hardgainer.

On the other hand, if despite the fact that you're taking both lifts equally seriously, your deadlift poundage is the same or a little more than you're lifting for the squat (for the same reps), then you're more naturally suited to the squat and the poundages given above would be adjusted accordingly. In this case the chances are that the deadlift would fall behind the squat in terms of poundage gained at the end of the cycle.

In both cases rather than knocking yourself out on both the squat and the deadlift in the same cycle focus on only one of these exercises and work the other moderately to hold style and some conditioning there, but drop it in the very final weeks of the cycle. This will enable you to make good progress on the other lift as you move into new poundages. By reducing the demands on your body, you'll be able to train the priority lift twice a week rather than just once. Make one your full-bore day and the other a light day. This will help reduce the severity of soreness from the heavy day. For your next cycle reverse the focus.

Set a realistic poundage target for a squat-dominated cycle and then realize it. (Advanced lifters should target a smaller percentage increase than less-experienced lifters.) Next set a target for a deadlift-dominated cycle and give your all to realizing it. Then go back to the squat, etc. This is better than training both lifts with equal priority in the same cycle and getting very little on either.

Neglect neither the squat nor the deadlift, regardless of how well or not so well you may be suited to them. Get the best from both.

Tuesday 29 October 2013

6 Tips For Crazy Workout-Intensity!

6 Tips For Crazy Workout-Intensity!



1. Supersets.

Supersets are basicly two exercises that you perform after each other without any rest. Supersets can be done in two ways. The first way to do it is by doing two exercises for the same muscle group. Example: Side Lateral Raises followed by barbell upright rows. The second way is the antagonistic way: By doing two exercises, where the second exercise will be the “opposite” muscle group. Example of this would be doing biceps curls followed by triceps pushdowns.



2. Giant-sets.

Giant-sets are sets where you have 3 exercises or more after each other without any rest. This is something that is really tearing on the muscle, so that you should not do this every workout (maybe once every month).


3. Dropsets.

Dropsets are really effective when it comes to really crank out every bit of energy you still have left in your muscles. Dropsets are where you do a set with a weight, and when you can’t do more reps, you lower the weight and do a set of lighter weight with more reps. This is to be done without any rest aswell.


4. Partals.

Partials aka “X-Reps” are an intensity technique that is being used very often at the end of a set, when you can no longer do full range reps. This means that you will be doing only half the movement for as many reps as you can do. (This is the intensity technique that I’ve gotten the most results out of!)



5. Negative reps.

These are also known as “eccentric” reps.This requires a partner on most exercises. This technique basicly makes you hold a weight that you could not do for a regular reps. You will be having really heavy weight and simply only lowering the weight really slow, while your training-partner will help you get the weight up again.



6. Pre-Exhaustion.

Let’s say you do bench presses. Suddenly you can’t do another rep. Is this because your chest fails? No, it is most likely because your triceps fails first. This means that you will not be able to get the most out of your chest developement on exercises such as the bechpress. We can change this by isolating the chest first, so that the chest get’s a beating before the benchpress. What happens then, is that the chest fails before the triceps.This equals to more chest developement. Example: Doing flyes before benchpress. This can also be done in a superset-way.