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3 Secrets To Pumping Iron

February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Secrets of weight training
I love weight training. I have been doing it for over 12 years, and I am always learning new ways to maximize my workouts and my results. Just walk into a bookstore, or browse online and you’ll find hundreds of books all ready to teach you how to gain the benefits of weight training, but there are a few steps you should adhere to no matter what your goals. These steps will ensure optimal results from you weight training activities.

Step # 1: Make your workouts short. Weight training programs should never last more than one hour. Remember, you’re placing stress on the muscles as you lift weights. An hour is the maximum time to exercise without causing stress and possible injuries.

Step # 2: Make your workout intense. During weight training sessions one of your goals should be to challenge your body, so it adapts by building new muscle cells and burning body fat. If you are going to take the time to lift weights, really make it worth your while. I had a football coach tell me that the last rep should look like the first rep.  This little tip helped me to make sure my intensity was at full throttle throughout the entire set.  The last rep won’t feel like the first one, as there is a pretty good chance it will be painful (in a good way) and exhausting, but if you keep good form and intensity, it will show in your results.

Step #3: Consistently change your weight training routines. Regardless of whether you are trying to burn fat, improve sports performance, boost your metabolism, get more tone, or become a body builder, change is a must. To reach your goals most effectively and work smarter, you must constantly challenge your body. Your body can adapt very quickly to repetitive routines week after week. Adding more weight, changing the routine and changing the number of repetitions are all excellent ways to keep change in your weight training workouts.You should change your workout routine at least every four weeks, but you can mix it up every week if you prefer.

The new fitness buzz is that weight training is the new cardio.  I don’t think it is a replacement for cardio, but the benefits of weight training are endless… for men and women.

Filed Under: body building, body weight exercises, build muscle, exercise, Fit Tips, gym Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Exercise Smart to Avoid Injury

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I thought I had bowlers elbow from playing X-Box with Samantha, but after a few weeks, I thought  it may be a more serious injury. It can be very frustrating to have to halt your progress due to a strain, but you can definitely hurt yourself and cause pain if you aren’t paying attention to your body.

The idea behind smart exercising is to work out with intensity, but equally as important— avoid doing anything that will hinder the process of getting into shape. When you’re exercising, you will reach a point where your muscles begin to tire, and you feel like you should stop. This is where it gets a little tricky, and you really have to pay attention to what you are doing.

My advice to exercising smarter usually refers to intensity, and I recommend pushing yourself beyond that limit where you start to feel tired. However, it must be something you can realistically do by keeping the same form that you started with.

If you keep trying to do more and more repetitions by whatever means possible, like swinging the weights or using other muscles to “cheat”, you are not doing any of your muscles any good.

Building up muscle takes time, and your muscles are only capable of so much. That is why you exercise them, so that they become stronger. But you still must take care by paying attention. If you push farther than your muscles can go, then you will possibly strain, tear, or otherwise injure your muscles and body. If you hurt yourself while exercising, you may be out of commission for a while and not be able to make progress.

On another note, there is something called delayed onset muscle soreness. It is common after exercise to feel a little tenderness in your muscles. This is completely different from an injury. To read about DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) check out this link to an article I wrote all about it. http://fitchicktricks.com/why-do-muscles-get-sore-after-exercise/

Symptoms of DOMS:

1. The pain is generalized and usually a dull pain or tenderness .

2. It tends to arise symmetrically in the body .

3. It lasts a short time (24-48 hours) then goes away.

Symptoms of an injury:

1. The pain is localized in one area of your body. It can be a sharp pain when the muscle is moved in a certain way.

2. The pain lasts for 3 days or more.

So after a month of thinking that I had injured my bicep, I was not doing any upper body exercises involving my right arm. And it was not getting any better, so I finally went to the doctor, and come to find out, I have tennis elbow. Or in my case it is more accurately described as “mouse” elbow, as I am always on the computer writing about health and fitness.  The rest I was giving my arm was completely the wrong type of rest. But now I know how to work to get rid of my mouse elbow. Luckily it doesn’t include giving up the computer.

Filed Under: body building, build muscle, burn calories, exercise form, exercise routines, Fit Tips, fitness Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Free Weights v.s. Machines

September 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A friend of mine recently asked me what type of workout I do. I change my workouts often, but currently I take a spinning class three times a week, I do a leg work out two times a week, and I split my upper body into two days. But one thing remains consistent no matter what kind of mix and match exercise routine I am doing. I try to stay off of the machines, and here is why:

  1. Machines control your range of motion.
    Sounds like a good thing, right? Not really. Machines often eliminate a lot of work on your part. This is great for beginners, but once you’re past the rookie stage, it is much more effective to be in control of your movement and range of motion.
  2. Many machines put you in a seated position.
    Whenever possible, a standing position is better. Standing while working with weights, pulleys, or bands loads your skeleton (good for bone health), requires you to engage your core muscles, and challenges your balance. It’s like a three for one.
  3. Many machines may isolate only one muscle group.
    Our muscles rarely work in isolation. Although there’s nothing wrong with supplementing a good workout with exercises that isolate a muscle group. But exercises likes squats, lunges, and assisted pull-ups involve several joints which develops more muscle mass (muscle burns calories all day long), improves core strength, and shortens workout time.
Of course there will always be circumstances where a machine will come in handy, and some days you may want the assistance of a machine or look forward to sitting down through parts of your workout, but if you have a choice between a machine and free weights or body weight exercises, try to go with the weights.
Filed Under: body building, body weight exercises, build muscle, burn calories, exercise form, exercise routines, Fit Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Resistance Tubing-Weight Training without the Weights

September 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
So many home exercise gadgets, so little time.  Not everyone wants to spend their precious time exercising at a gym, and luckily there are a lot of home options from DVDs to Wii to body weight training to resistance tubing.
These little tubes are simple, small, lightweight, affordable, and you can buy them just about anywhere. So how can such a simple, lightweight object actually help you build muscle?
These tubes are essentially hollow plastic ropes, (or long, flexible plastic tubes). They are made of very durable plastic and rubber that has just enough stretch and bend to serve as a flexible rope, yet they are tough enough that they “resist”  the force exerted when you pull on one or both handle of the tubing.
Resistance tubes are made with varying degrees of strength and tough-ness. The more they resist, the harder they are to pull on, and therefore, the harder your muscles have to work to do so. Because of this, resistance tubing comes in varying levels of resistance, and most are color coded to the  different resistance levels.  They are measured in pounds, as in the weight equivalent of the resistance they provide. (For example, a five pound resistance tube doesn’t weigh five pounds, but it is designed to be as difficult to pull on as would be a tube with a five pound weight attached.)
People use resistance tubes for many different reasons. They can help tone muscle, add muscle bulk, and burn fat. They are also good if you want to mix up your routine and do something a little different, and because they are lightweight and small, they can easily be used at home, or even in the office for a discreet workout during lunch or an afternoon break.
Resistance tubes are generally affordable; I bought a complete set on Amazon.com for around $30. You can buy them individually or as a set, and they will come with an instruction manual and usually a DVD to show you how to use proper form to get results.
Filed Under: body building, build muscle, Fit Tips Tagged With: , , , , , ,

HUGE MUSCLES ARE NOT AN OPTION

August 17, 2010 By 1 Comment

One of my bodybuilder friends found this great article on myths surrounding women and weight training.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #1: Weight Training Makes You Bulky
Due to the fact that women DO NOT and CANNOT naturally produce as much testosterone (one of the main hormones responsible for increasing muscle size) as males do, it is impossible for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass UNLESS anabolic steroids are used in conjunction with an extremely aggressive weight training program and bulking diet.

Women who weight train without the use of steroids get the firm and fit cellulite-free looking body that they’re looking for provided that they follow a good nutrition program and cardiovascular workout as well.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #2: Exercise Increases Your Chest Size.
Sorry girls. Women’s breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue. Therefore, it is impossible to increase breast size through weight training. As a matter of fact, if you go below 12 percent body fat, your breast size will decrease.

Weight training does increase the size of the back, so this misconception probably comes from confusing an increase in back size with an increase in cup size. The only way to increase your breast size is by gaining fat or getting breast implants.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #3: Weight Training Makes You Stiff & Muscle-Bound.
If you perform all exercises through their full range of motion, flexibility will increase. Exercises like flyes, stiff-legged deadlifts, dumbbell presses, and chin-ups stretch the muscle in the bottom range of the movement. Therefore, by performing these exercises correctly, your stretching capabilities will increase.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #4: If You Stop Weight Training Your Muscles Turn Into Fat.
This is like saying that gold can turn into brass. Muscle and fat are two totally different types of tissue. What happens many times is that when people decide to go off their weight training programs they start losing muscle due to inactivity (use it or lose it) and they also usually drop the diet as well.

Therefore bad eating habits combined with the fact that their metabolism is lower due to inactivity, and lower degrees of muscle mass, give the impression that the subject’s muscle is being turned into fat while in reality what is happening is that muscle is being lost and fat is being accumulated.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #5: Weight Training Turns Fat Into Muscle.
More crazy chenistry… This is the equivalent of saying that you can turn any metal into gold. The way a body transformation occurs is by gaining muscle through weight training and losing fat through aerobics and diet simultaneously. Again, muscle and fat are very different types of tissue. We cannot turn one into the other….ever.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #6: As Long As You Exercise You Can Eat Anything.
I wish this were true! However, this could not be further from the truth. Our individual metabolism determines how many calories we burn at rest and while we exercise. If we eat more calories than we burn on a consistent basis, our bodies will accumulate these extra calories as fat regardless of the amount of exercise that we do.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #7: Women Only Need To Do Cardio & If They Decide To Lift Weights, They Should Be Very Light.
First of all, if you only did cardio then muscle and fat would be burned for fuel. A woman needs to do weights in order to get the muscle building machine going which prevents any loss of muscle tissue.

Keep in mind also that the muscle gained through weight training will ultimately be responsible for toning your physique.

Women that only concentrate on cardio will have a very hard time achieving the look that they want. As far as the lifting of very light weights, this is just more nonsense. Muscle responds to resistance and if the resistance is too light, then there will be no reason for the body to change.

Women Should Train Hard (This Is Not A Myth)
I have trained with girls that train as hard as I do and they look nothing but feminine. If you want to look great, don’t be afraid to pick up the weights and lift hard!

Filed Under: body building, build muscle, healthy eathing, healthy weight, myth, woman and weights
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