Why is it that the world is focusing more and more on fitness, but at the same time everybody seems to be even more out of shape?
Scores of new diets come in and out of the market place that promise us amazing results in a matter of weeks. There’s always some sort of new magical pill which claims to be able to make you “fit”.
Each year, waves of people make a New Year’s resolution to keep in shape and sign up for a gym membership, only to return to their sedentary lifestyle a month later.
The world is constantly in search of the answer. Unfortunately, so many people go looking for the easy fix, the path of least resistance.
The problem is that there is no easy fix.
There is no easy answer.
The truth is that anything worthwhile in our lives requires our effort and attention. Our physical health should be no different. Who do you want to be – the out-of-shape person you’ve been in the past, or the fit and tone person you know you can be?
We Are All Human
Each person is built slightly different, but we all have the same basic needs. Both men and women alike need to maintain certain levels of muscular strength and endurance. We also need to maintain good cardiovascular health and flexibility. Where we differ is in the level, degree, and type of fitness we are trying to achieve.
Regardless of the type of build you are shooting for, you will need to know how properly build your strength, cardiovascular health, and flexibility. For many people, this will mean learning how to lift weights and exercise effectively.
Weights Matter
You may have friends who claim you can get fit without weights. That may be true, (more…)
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Continue reading about Why Lifting Weights is Key To Your Health- New Year Approaching
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Most people do not realize how powerful water is in the healing process.
No, this is not an article about spa therapy, holistic medicine, or anything like that. This is about using simple methods to build muscle and strength as well as maintaining your overall health.
Your body might be 60% water overall, but your muscles are actually 70-75% water. Each time you work these muscles as you lift weights, small tears and rips form in the fibrous muscle tissues. Your muscles grow when these small tears are repaired. Guess what happens if your muscles aren’t able to heal:
Nothing.
Nothing happens at all. That means no growth, no toning, no strength increases… nothing.
Here’s a quick breakdown of why you need water to heal and how to harness its power to help your muscles after a workout.
Got Water?
Not getting enough water has serious side effects. Even a 1 percent change in your body’s water levels can seriously impair your exercise performance. Even worse, your ability to recover goes down the toilet… and the toilet it goes down is one of those water-saving dry flush things that doesn’t quite get the job done.
Some other reasons you need extra water when you lift weights: (more…)
Continue reading about How to Harness the Healing Power of Water for Muscle Health
Getting a good warm up before you attempt any heavy lifting is an absolute necessity. The purpose of a warm up should be pretty obvious from its name. You need to get your body warm and the blood pumping before you start lifting heavy.
Another fact that should be pretty obvious is that your ability to get your body warm will depend on the temperature the place you’re exercising in. If it’s winter time, a cool evening, or if you life in a cold place, then your body will probably require more warm up than it would on a hot summer afternoon.
Why warm up:
Why you need to warm up is a matter of safety. Just to help you visualize what’s going on, I’d like you to think about a rubber band. This will represent your muscles and other tissues. What happens if you stretch a rubber band that has been sitting in the freezer?
The rubber band probably snaps before you are able to stretch it very far. A warm rubber band, on the other hand, can probably be stretched a long ways before it breaks. This is what rubber bands were designed to do, after all. They are designed to stretch, but they can’t do that job very well cold.
The same is true for your muscles. They can’t do their job nearly as well when they are cold, and starting out with a heavy weight before your muscles are nice and warm can lead to injury and muscle tears. Trust me, you don’t want to be like that rubber band that snaps when it’s cold.
Warm ups are even more important for the bigger exercises such as the squat, deadlift, and the bench press. These will require a more extensive warm up, while other exercises will likely only need a a set or two with a light weight to get warmed up.
How to warm up
1. Clothing: Let’s start off with the right clothing. Wearing a sweater or workout pants is a good idea in cold weather until you’re able to raise you body temperature. Consider wearing several small layers instead of one heavy layer. Smaller layers can be peeled off one at a time until your body temperature is high enough.
2. Do static stretches at the end: In case you don’t know what this means, static stretches are those done without movement. The traditional stretches that you are familiar with are probably (more…)
If you’ve been going to a commercial gym regularly, you might have noticed that some guys will crank out a set of 15 reps for an exercise while another guy just does 3 reps on a different exercise. What’s up with that?
The reason you’ll see people using totally different rep ranges is that some people have different goals. Doing more reps in your weight lifting routine can serve a great purpose, and doing less reps can also be useful.
Which rep range you ultimately decide to use should be based on your goals and what you want to accomplish. Here, we’ll talk about a few points that will help you make the best decision.
Let’s take a look at what each rep range can be useful for:
- 1-3 Reps: Best suited to boosting your overall strength. The focus here is improving the maximum amount of weight possible for a single repetition. You’ll see powerlifters use (more…)
Continue reading about The Best Rep Ranges for Muscle, Strength
Image Credit: itsnickssister
WFN reader Richard asked the following question in the comments to a previous article:
Usually when I do situps/crunches, I would do like 3 sets and with each set I would do a different variation, like either crunches or legs in the air crunches etc etc. But which ab exercises do help burn that unwanted stomach fat?
This is a great question, because men tend to accumulate fat in the stomach area, whereas women get it more in the hips and thighs. Doing situps and crunches to work your abs seems like the logical choice to get rid of that gut.
Trying to take fat off of one part of your body only is called spot reduction of fat, and unfortunately, it doesn’t really work. You can decrease your overall body fat percentage, but there is no exercise that can help you take the fat just off your stomach.
But you know you want it
I understand the desire. The abdomen is the visual center of the body. Since the eye naturally draws first to the middle of the body, a big gut is like a bull’s-eye right on the center of you, while a tight stomach or six pack immediately shows an outstanding physique.
I get the feeling that if all of our fat cells were hanging out around our toes, we wouldn’t be too concerned… or maybe I’m just not realizing how nasty it would look…
But I know what the real question is: how do I really get that six pack?
Here’s the deal:
The rectus abdominus is a layer of muscle that is draped over your mid-section between the pelvis and the rib cage. Getting a six pack requires you to build up those muscles and strengthen them (I know you already know this part, but just in case). Your abs are worked especially in the stomach crunching movements and when they act as stabilizers for exercises like deadlifts.
The next step is to remove the fat that’s covering your six pack. Can you do this with ab-exercises? Well, kinda.
I won’t say that abdominal exercises don’t do anything to lower your body fat percentages. Each crunch you do does (more…)
How will I ever find time to workout with my busy schedule?
It’s a question that anybody who exercises regularly has had to deal with. Finding time to workout is not easy, it’s unlikely, and quite frankly, you shouldn’t even try to find time to workout.
What kind of advice is that for a workout site?
It’s good advice. Because the truth is, if you are looking to “find” time to workout, you’ll probably be looking for a very long time. You have a job, you have to study, maybe you have kids… you’re a busy person, and I seriously doubt that you’re going to “find” the time laying around. No, the only way you will ever have time to workout is if you stop trying to “find” the time and start making the time.
And if you’re not struggling with time for your workouts now, you will some day. Get into the mindset right now that it will be tough to keep the exercise habit at some point in your life (if it isn’t already). Mentally preparing those times of life in advance will help you to deal with them when they finally arrive.
Here’s an incomplete list of ways to make the time:
1. Choose your time wisely: Each time of the day has it’s benefits, but be open to other times, such as the morning. You might not have the same schedule for the rest of your life, and since (more…)
Continue reading about The Only Way You Will Ever Have Time To Workout
If you’ve ever had to work out alone, you’ve been there.
“Can I handle one more set on the bench press? Can I do one more rep, or will I get caught under the bar?”
You might know what your limits are pretty well, but it’s better safe than sorry. Sometimes you muscles just give out a little sooner than you thought they would.
Getting stuck on a heavy set without a spotter can be a disaster. It’s never happened to me because I have a phobia of it, and I will never do a heavy set of bench presses without a spotter.
But I’ve seen it before. I’ve had to run across the gym to save some poor kid who was lifting a weight he wasn’t ready for alone. Having a trainer partner at your side is best, but it isn’t for everybody.
Why you should have a workout partner:
- Spotter: You have a built in spotter every time you come to the gym. No need to worry about getting stuck below (more…)
This article is a special guest post written by RT from Real Muscle Online. When you start to learn about bodybuilding and weight lifting you also start to hear a lot of myths. People will tell you all sorts of thing to either make themselves sound expert or to try to sell you something. So for (more…)
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