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Posts Tagged ‘fitness’

Perhaps you have been through this type of thing before where by you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the beginning you felt really motivated. Maybe you sat and watched an inspiring film that prompted you to do something, perhaps a friend of yours you hadn’t seen for a while turned up having lost a lot of weight or having gained a good deal of muscle mass or perhaps you were simply fed up of feeling unhealthy. Whatever the reason you started exercising and continued to do so for a few weeks.

However after a while your motivation decreased, you got busy at work, you got tired of making the effort or the results weren’t as good as you’d hoped for and you unconsciously quit your healthy exercise lifestyle. If that all sounds familiar then here are a few easy ways to help regain and sustain your motivation for a healthier lifestyle: 

Try setting an enjoyable goal. For example how about planning a walking holiday to the canadian Rockies, the himalayas or a mountain biking or kayaking trip to some other similar exotic adventurous destination. You really do have an exciting motivating thing to aim for now with this trip. You should try to be in the best physical shape possible so that you may enjoy your trip as much as possible. If you plan your trip for say 5 months in advance then straight away you have a sensible goal to hang your fitness plans around.

Enter a local event. I bet there are plenty of local events that you can get involved with simply have a look on line. Choose one of these events as a target to shoot for. Tell a close friend about your plans so they can encourage you in your training and come to watch you on the day. 

Take up a sport or hobby, this doesn’t have to be an ultra serious thing just a light hearted game of soccer or hockey at the weekends but it gives you an easy and enjoyable way to monitor your fitness levels. Of course the initial couple of sessions may be very taxing but you will soon notice an improvement and start to look and feel better.

Visualise. Although this may sound a little strange at first, find a piece of time every day to see in your imagination precisely what you want to do, be and look like. Performing this projects strong messages to your sub conscious mind as regards what decisions you ought to be making throughout your day. Continue to do this and your behaviour will begin to modify itself naturally to lead you towards your goals. This technique is proven to work and used by many top athletes.

Involve family, friends and even your pet dog. The more that you get involved the less likely you are to throw the towel in and quit. You are far less likely to be lazy and stay at home if your friends are calling and texting you to get you to join them.

Learn more. Be curious find out about building lean muscle mass, find out how to get a 6 pack, find out how to shed pounds, find out what muscle building nutrition you need for lean muscle building and so on. By growing your knowledge you are quite probably going to improve the speed of your fitness improvement which in turn will serve to enhance your motivation.

Don’t compare yourself to others. No matter who you are there is always going to be someone bigger stronger fitter, leaner sexier or whatever. Accept this fact and realise that you all go through this process of life from your own differing perspectives. Pay more attention to how you feel than to anything else, if you feel good then you are likely getting healthier.

So, with those tips in mind go hit the gym and do whatever it is that you enjoy doing to keep fit, build lean muscle mass or whatever else you want to do, you can do it, just keep it fun.

It can be confusing to decide which is the best intensity of cardio for you and your body.  Both forms of cardio intensity have their benefits so why not implement both into your workout.  The question here is which way is the best way to burn off the most body fat. 

Scientists discovered some time ago that during intensive exercising, your body burns glycogen, which is a form of carbohydrate that is stored in your liver and muscles for quick energy.  Glycogen can be stored in the body as fat if it isn’t used or spent in some form of exercise.

If your questioning whether or not low intensity cardio will have the desired effect on its own, the answer is almost certainly no.  I am sure you have all seen those gym goers who never seem to shift their body fat levels.  A year later these people are still going through the motions without any noticeable difference. There may be many reasons for this, for example their diet may be awful so they are taking one step forward and two steps back.

Scientific research has stated that the body taps into the body fat quicker when using low intensity cardio but the rate of usage is low.  But when you train with high intensity by using a treadmill or rowing machine then a lot of glycogen and calories will be burnt off.  But it not only burns the glycogen from your muscles but a lot of body fat will be used up too.

To make it even better, the store of glycogen is depleted and then the food you consume later will replace the glycogen stores in your muscles rather than being stored as body fat like it usually would.

Really high intensity cardio will boost your bodies ability to burn fat even after your workout is finished.  What this means, is that your body will continue to burn body fat for hours after you have left the gym.  You will not experience this during low level cardio workouts.

As you get fitter with a high level of intensity you will be able to burn far more calories later on as you up the intensity even more. This allows for progressive loss of body fat as you become stronger.

The best of both worlds is known as interval training which combines high and low intensity training to really ramp up your metabolism for great fat burning. You can walk for 5 minutes or so, then jump on a rowing machine for another 5 minutes or so for example.  After that, start walking quickly again to catch your breath before sprinting again or hitting the rowing machine.  Then, simply rotate the low intensity and high intensity parts of your workout for 15 to 20 minutes.

A great benefit about cardio that is often overlooked is the great increase in energy each day.  You will burn a lot of body fat using cardio but that is only one of the great benefits from working out.

Don’t hesitate in giving your body a regular cardio workout. It promotes fitness, health and beauty.  If you like to keep fit then cardio exercise will give you the greatest increase in overall health and energy.  If you are just starting out, you’ll want to go slow and keep your cardio exercise on track - as it is very easy to over exert yourself.

HGH hormone has been the talk of bodybuilding and muscle building circles for a number of years now. Research has shown that having high levels of human growth hormone can be beneficial if you are trying to build muscle especially as you get older. However, the use of human growth hormone via injections is a contentious issue as there are a number of side effects associated with injecting human growth hormones.

HGH is found in all of us. It is most prevalent when we are children as it is required for the rapid tissue growth that occurs at this stage in life. HGH also plays a role in regulating our metabolism. Growth hormone release starts to drop and continues to decline as we become adults. This is why athletes use growth hormone injections as a way to build greater muscle mass because their own natural levels has fallen. Natural means of stimulating human growth hormone can be just as beneficial and are safer.
 
The most effective is to get an early night and get into a strict sleep routine. The human growth hormone is released naturally in your body in the first part of your sleep. Making sure you get a good night’s sleep will optimize hormone production and facilitate growth and repair of tissue. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, you’re actually inhibiting the release of HGH and thus the growth of your muscles.

HGH is a natural hormone that your body releases to burn body fat.You have most likely noticed numerous ads for hgh supplements that supposedly help increase your own levels of growth hormone. High levels in your body are a quickest route to burning body fat! Low intensity cardio activities won’t do much if anything to stimulate hgh production. The best way to increase HGH is performing high intensity cardio for 30-60 seconds or so, followed by a minute or two of walking or low intensity cardio. This is referred to as Maximum Metabolic Training.

This kind of intense metabolic workout will increase the release of this master hormone while rapidly burning calories.Wind sprints are a fabulous way of doing this. Try alternating days with stair climbing or jumping rope for extra diversity. Use a top quality rebounder to jump rope if you want to be real hard core.

An excellent alternative are squats performed at low repetitions, high weight. The best release come when lifting at 80% of your maximum capacity or better. Five reps done ten times is better than 10 reps done 5 times. Take at least 30 seconds but no more than 45 seconds between sets.If you want to burn more fat, rest for just thirty seconds.

Proper diet contributes much to natural hormone release. Increase the protein content of your diet. Purchase one of the better reviewed growth hormone supplements available online.

Naturally increasing your hormone levels is usually a healthier option. An additional advantage is avoiding all the potential hgh side effects that have been documented with injections.

You probably know how elliptical machine looks like and what it is used for, but what are the actual benefits of this equipment? It’s best if we go over some key benefits of the many benefits that a elliptical trainer provides which will show you why they are becoming more popular then ever.

Most important benefit you get with using an elliptical trainer is that you will save on time. I suppose you know how many people have very busy schedules and simply can’t find the time to take care of their body and exercise. What elliptical machine is doing for you is really extraordinary, it removes the need for a gym, it saves you a lot of time and you don’t need to spend money as much as you would on a gym. It’s great to know that you will need only thirty minutes of exercising on this machine to get a full body workout. This is very good news to hear for someone that has a very limited amount of time to schedule into their busy day for working out.

Another key benefit of an elliptical trainer is that they have very low impact and do not require any specific muscular skill. Low impact is something that is a good guarantee against the injuries you can earn on other types of exercising machines. It is really beneficial, especially when you comare that to exercising with some other types of fitness equipment. A elliptical trainer also does not require you to perform strenuous positions or have strength requirement to use the machine. You will always have benefits when you use this machine, no matter what is your muscular level.

Exactly this is why this machine is so versatile piece of exercising equipment for all users. You can have one elliptical trainer in your home and it can be used by your entire household to maintain a strong fitness level for everyone in your home.

In order to achieve big things, we often need some form of competition. Competition with more skilled athletes is what makes good athletes great. Businesses get better (or go out of business) by competing with better businesses. Competition drives towards excellence. Coach Sonnon of the Circular Strength Training® system likes to point out the etymology of the word. It derives from the latin con and petire which in essence is to seek together. By entering into competition we seek excellence through our interaction with others. We push each other forward.

When faced with discomfort (physical, mental, emotional or spiritual) we tend to back off, unless we are driven by something bigger. When I just don’t want to keep going because of that blister that just ripped off, or because my lungs are searing I can focus on my goal of competing at my utmost.  Consider the Will Smith secret to success.  If you get on the treadmill with him, you’ll get off first or he’ll die trying to stay on longer.  That’s the power of competition.

Modern society treats competition with a certain element of taboo. We teach kids that as long as they are having fun, nothing else matters. It seems that everyone gets to be right. Everyone has the right to win. All the time! Now, I am not saying that we should not encourage our kids to have fun. The learning process is facilitated by having fun. But we should also be teaching them that there is a value in seeking to improve every time out. They should want to win, or at least do better than they did the last time. And losing should come with some sort of bad feeling and self-reflection! And want to figure out how to improve. Those are valuable lessons that our politically correct dogma is trying to whitewash. I agree that competition is not about winning and losing. But it is about using winning and losing as a tool to grow and improve!!!

If you want to inch ever closer to your potential, you need to constantly slip past your comfort zone. That is a very hard thing to do on your own. Competition is a powerful motivator. But you don’t need to enter a race or be part of a team to get your competition in. Sometimes something as simple as having a training partner who pushes you is, in itself, a form of competition. But something needs to be driving you forward and making you examine yourself when you don’t make the grade.  If you are in the fitness dip, and need some extra motivation, start looking for a challenge to break through the barrier and achieve excellence.