Archive for November, 2009
November 29th, 2009 | 
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Cycling is a great exercise for weight loss. Think about Lance Armstrong and the other cyclists who participate in the Tour de France. These guys are always look lean and mean. While other types of workouts tend to be high intensity and draw on the body’s stores of carbohydrates and glycogen, cycling is more low intensity and makes more use of the body’s fat stores than its carbohydrates.
Your body also becomes more efficient at burning fat as you increase the amount of time and distance you cycle. Cycling helps you become your own lean, mean, fat-burning machine. Cycling is also great for just about anybody because of the low impact nature of the sport.
Running is another great fat-burning exercise, but it’s also an incredibly high impact activity. Think about each stride and how your foot bears your weight on impact. Over the course of time, these continuous impacts can damage both muscles and joints. On a bicycle, of course, there is virtually no impact.
It’s not unusual for older people to find shortcomings in the lifestyles of the younger generations. However, it’s undeniably true that youngsters these days are just not getting the typical activity level that’s commonly been associated with a healthy childhood. Children are playing facsimile video games indoors instead of playing those real games outdoors.
They are spending more hours on the computer, some of those hours for school work but some of it also just websurfing and passing (or wasting) time. Teens also are less likely to go out and find a friend but instead to text message that friend from their sofa at home. Social networking persuades young people that they have a huge amount of friends, when in reality these “friends” are just names on the screen. It’s very difficult to get kids to walk anywhere anymore.
If the school bus doesn’t pick them up in front of their houses, they’re looking for–and often receiving–rides from parents, even when school is a walkable distance. We need to have enough exercise in our lives to burn calories, of course. We want to keep the muscles of our children strong and flexible, too.
But there are other things involved. When little Mary or Jimmy doesn’t do so well in school and doesn’t seem that interested in learning more or doing a better job with homework, we may not realize that their brain cells have been allowed to get lethargic due to lack of physical movement and exertion.
Have you ever wondered if there is a perfect time for having your workouts? This is very difficult to establish, as the available research does not point out clearly. However, the time around the middle of your day can qualify as perfect since your body is in the right circadian rhythms as well as various other reasons.
Although there are studies that show that working out does not affect falling asleep, it may actually affect the quality of sleep. Sleeping is a complex reaction that no one can really explain and therefore winding yourself up so much before sleep may not be advisable.
Cortisol levels are also the highest in the morning all through to midday. In the morning, blood sugar is usually at its lowest and this can hinder your strength and endurance levels. This is the sane reason people vouch for early morning exercising since there is the belief that you will burn more fat than sugar because you have very little sugar.
To be successful at power lifting you must train and practice. Simple isolation exercises often wont cit it, modern programs incorporate cross training. Kettlebells are one of the most popular cross training tools. These Kettlebells first came from Russia, where they are called girya, and are traditionally made from cast iron.
The basic design is a cannonball with a handle, coaches like Pacel TTsatsouline and even World Champion Valery Fedorenko were instrumental in introducing these exercise tools into the weight training field. Developing proper strength and flexibility is very important to modern athletes, and this desire has largely fueled the popularity of power lifting.
A combination of compound and full body movements – including those that use the kettlebells – are recognized for their ability to combine strength and cardiovascular training to work the entire body at once. This dynamic total body exercise challenges the mind as well as the body.
Posted in General Tps, Upper Body | 
Tags: Bodybuilding, Fitness, Kettlebells, Weight training | 
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Many of us admire those with super lean thighs especially when in swimsuits or bikinis. It may seem like a mirage but you too can get similar thighs with the correct set of exercises.
These exercises don’t have to be complicated but very simple ones that you can complete in the comfort and privacy of your own home. They include:
• The seated pillow squeeze
You will require a sturdy chair to sit on. Place your feet flat on the ground and have a pillow in between your thighs. Squeeze the pillow steadily with your thighs while exhaling then hold that position and let your breathing return to normal. Stop after a minute. Start with a single time, then work your way up to five times to give your inner thigh muscles the best exercise.
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The following is an introductory weight training regimen designed for a person looking to get started with this type of exercise.
It involves three workout days: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with four rest days interspersed. Each workout day trains a different muscle group. Monday you will be training the chest, shoulders and triceps, Wednesday the legs, and Friday you will be training the back and biceps.
Rest days are important for muscle recovery, and also to provide flexibility into the program so that is could be fit into a busy schedule. Typically, each workout will involve a warm up phase using light weights, and a work out phase using heavy weights.
Each phase will typically involve two sets of 6-8 repititions (for a total of four sets and 24-32 repetitions). The Monday workout, as mentioned above, will exercise the chest , shoulders, and triceps. To train the chest you will preferably use the bench press first and then the pectoral butterfly (”pec dec”) machine.
It is a common misconception that only professional bodybuilders need to ‘pump iron’ or lift weights. Body building involves increasing the size or mass of the muscle and defining its shape.
Weight lifting is just one part of bodybuilding exercises. Weight lifting is important in power lifting, Olympic lifting, as well as in strength training and conditioning the muscles of the body.
Athletes use strength training and conditioning exercises to increase their physical stamina and improve their performance. These exercises should not be used to merely feel stronger. People often fail to appreciate the difference between body building and strength training.
Though the exercises used for these are the same, they are different in performance. Body building centers only on improving the physical appearance of the body, while strength training and conditioning exercises aim at making the body strong. It is how these exercises are performed that produces the desired result.
There are two types of rowing machines, namely, water and hydraulic. Both have seats that slide on tracks on which you can push or pull. The water model has a flywheel that you use to resist the drag of the water. This gives you the workout that you need. Hydraulic rowing models are more common and are generally used at home.
These versions have a shock absorber attached to the handles which are used just like oars. Both types of rowing machines give you the workout that you require. You may prefer the water type because using it gives you the feeling of actually rowing through water and you may find that this gives you a pleasant feeling.
Advantages: Rowing machines provide a good workout for all the major muscle groups. You use your legs, back, arms, abdominal muscles as well as the buttocks when you row. Further, rowing is an aerobic as well as a strength training exercise.
Many people, when they begin bodybuilding or try to build muscles in the privacy of their own home, do things that hinder the success of building bigger and stronger arms. In this article you will get all the help you need to build up your arms quickly by using the correct exercises and workouts.
Prior to developing your arm muscles; your biceps, triceps and forearms, you need to know some basic information about eating properly in order to gain mass and definition. These are two very important areas in relation to developing your muscles or bodybuilding.
Mass is gained by feeding your muscles food that contains a high percentage of protein. This is a time of gaining muscles and lots of weight. To do this you must get plenty of sleep and eat at least 6 meals a day which feature meat and protein rich food. Definition involves losing weight and shaping your muscles so they look great!
