10 Tips To Help You Get More Fit

Here are 10 simple tips that can help you to improve your fitness starting today

1. Know yourself – Want to stick to your exercise program? Choose a schedule that works for you. If you’re a morning person, heard for the gym first thing. All of your good intentions could be gone by the end of the day. If your not a morning person, don’t force yourself to the gym at dawn.

2. Have a ball – Exercise balls are one of the best trends for a good reason. They are versatile, can be used at home or the fitness center. They help to improve balance, stability and coordination. Plus they can be fun and relaxing. They are accessible and not threatening.

3. Hit the weights – There’s no substitute for strength training to improve your body’s ability and appearance. You may not see the scale move right away, but as you gain muscle mass and lose fat, you’ll notice that you look slimmer and leaner.

4. Cut yourself some slack – If you get discouraged about your fitness progress, think back to your first week. Give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished already and for overcoming the biggest obstacle; getting started.

5. Beat the six-month barrier – Half of all people who join an exercise program drop out in the first 6 months. And half of those drop out before they even attempt a single workout. If you break the 6 month barrier, you’re likely to make exercise a lifelong habit.

6. Get it on Disc – Can’t make it to the gym? Have a stash of workout videos at home. You can work out at home any hour that you choose.

7. Do something different – Try an exercise activity that is very different form what you do at work. If your job is demanding and time-pressured, get outside and hike. If your job is task-oriented and full of details, you might like a cardio machine. Which allows you to zone out and concentrate on anything.

8. Split it up – Aim for 60 minutes of exercise a day, and break it up into 20-minute chucks to make it more doable.

9. Engage your brain – Lots of people give up exercise because it involves your body and leaves out the mind. Look for way to get fit that also ask you to learn something. Like belly dancing, ballet, hatha yoga or Tai Chi.

10. Believe in yourself – Numerous studies show that exercisers who believe in their abilities perform at a higher level, and are more likely to stick with a regular routine.

Bonus Tip! Top Ten Summary!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my “31 Tips To A Much Improved You”. You received the last Tip about a week ago and I’m sure you’re applying all the information to your daily routine and you’re feeling awesome. Anyway I wanted to follow up with a review of the most important changes that you can make so that you continue to live a much healthier life. Here are the Top Ten Things you should be doing everyday…enjoy!

1. Drink a gallon of water every day

Staying hydrated is essential if you want to lose weight, or maintain a healthy body weight. It also helps to reduce your hunger, aid in digestion, increase your metabolism, reduce pain and headaches, and reduces the risk of digestive system cancers.

2. Engage in Cardio 3-6 days each week

Cardio increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Helps to control risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol. It also burns calories and increases yourmetabolism; which helps to maintain a healthy body weight.

3. Eat your fruits and veggies

Fruits Provide: Fiber, Antioxidants, Vitamins and Minerals
Vegetable Provide: Fiber, Antioxidants, Vitamins and Minerals

Here’s the thing Fiber, Antioxidant, and Vitamins and Minerals, all fight off diseases, especially many cancers
 
4. Resistance Training 3-6 Day a week

Resistance Training increases your strength, bone density, and your metabolism. It’s the only way to ramp up your metabolism 24 hours a day. And it helps to make everything you do in life a lot easier.

5. Eat 5-7 small meals each day

Eating 5-7 small meals a day will regulate blood sugar and hormone levels, and increase your metabolism. This will make it super easy to either lose excess body weight, or maintain a healthy body weight.

6. Stretch Every Day

Stretching every day will help to reduce aches and pains. Plus it will make all of your daily activities easier

7. Eat lean sources of Protein

Protein is essential to your health. Focusing on lean proteins will help to ensure you keep your calories under control and maintain a healthy body weight.

8. Do your Core and Ab exercises

Having strong and healthy core and abdominal muscles is the foundation for being fit. A strong core will minimize back pain and optimize your ability to perform physical activities

9. Eat. Oatmeal, Yams, and Brown rice

You’ve got to have Carbs, they are your body’s (and your brain’s fuel of choice). Plus you can’t utilize fat without having carbs in your system. Eating Oats, Yams, and Brown Rice will ensure that the carbs you are eating are healthy and gluten free.

10. Eat your healthy fats, get your omegas.

Eating Fat is essential to your health. To be healthy make sure to eat mono- and polyunsaturated fats (and avoid saturated and trans fats). Also get plenty of Omega-3 andOmega-9. Dietary fat has a ton of health benefits, but the most important might be maintaining healthy cholesterol levels.

 If you’ve found this information to be interesting, helpful, and useful, please share it with your friends.

And remember to visit www.fitnessknowhowhq.com regularly. I’ll be updating the site with new health, fitness and exercise information frequently.
Thanks for trusting me with your health

In Good Health,

John Preston.

31 Days To A Much Improved You – Tip #17 Add 4 More Exercises To Your Resistance Training

Lunge - Start Position

Lunge - Start Position

Lunge - Finish Position

Lunge

The Lunge is a great lower body exercise. Start with your feet about shoulder width apart, step back with one foot maintaining that width between your feet. Your feet will remain in place during a stationary lunge. You should have more weight on your front foot. You should be on the ball of your back foot with your heel pointing toward the ceiling. With your upper body tall and sternum lifted you are going to lower your hips and upper body straight down toward the ground. You do this by allowing both knees to bend. Stop before your back knee hits the ground. Return to the start position by pushing through the heel of the front foot. It’s important to move up and down and avoid the natural tendency to drift forward as you descend. Repeat with the opposite leg forward.

 

 

Lat Pulldown Start Position

Lat Pulldown - Finish Position

Lat Pulldown

The Lat Pulldown is a good upper body exercise that will help to strengthen your back. Grab the bar with an overhand grip with your hands slightly wider than your shoulders. Lean back slightly to avoid hitting your nose with the bar. Pull the bar straight down to your collar bone and squeeze your back. Return the bar to the start position. Avoid allowing your shoulders to elevate as you pull the bar down. Don’t pull the bar lower than collar bone level and avoid rocking back and forth as you perform the exercise.

 

 

 

Step Up - Start Position

Step Up - Finish Position

Step Up

The Step Up is great because it mimics an important daily activity, walking up stairs. It also helps with balance. Start with one foot on the floor and one foot on the step. Press through the heel of the foot that is on the step and stand all the way up before placing your other foot on the step. Perform all of the Repetitions on one leg then the other. In other words, leave the foot of what ever leg you are exercise on the step until the set (for that leg) is done. Then switch legs. Hold Dumbbell in your hand or use a higher step to increase the intensity of the exercise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arnold Press - Start Position

Arnold Press - Finish Position

Arnold Press

OK, this is called an Arnold Press because Arnold Schwarzenegger supposedly invented it. It’s basically a Dumbbell  Military Press, but with some shoulder rotation. This exercise will help to increase your shoulder strength. Hold the dumbbells at collar bone level with your palms facing your body.  Press the dumbbells to the ceiling while simultaneously rotating your palms 180 degrees, so they are pointing forward at the finish position. Return your hands to the start position

 

 

 

 

 

Add these for resistance training exercises to the four that I introduced in Tip #12. Do all eight exercises 3 times each week, always resting a day in between workouts. Check out the video below to learn more about how to perform these exercises correctly. I’ll be back tomorrow with Tip #18

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwKIVSoCzw[/youtube]

Resistance Training

Resistance Training

Learn the facts about the benefits of Resistance Training

If you really want to look and feel your best, you will need to incorporate resistance training into your routine. Resistance training will help to increase muscle, improve posture, tone your body, increase your metabolism and allow you to focus on changing the shape of specific areas of your body.

Anytime you pick anything up and set it down or simply move, you are in essence, doing resistance training.  Whether you are moving your body against the force of gravity or moving an object, it requires muscle contractions to complete the task.

Resistance training  is a structured and planned workout routine designed to fatigue your muscles.

 Fatigued muscles adapt to the workouts by becoming stronger. So that the next time certain demands are placed on the muscles they are capable of completing the task without experiencing fatigue. In other words, you’ll be able to complete all of your daily activities with less effort.

The goal of weight training is to improve muscle endurance, muscle strength, muscle growth (hypertrophy), or some combination of those three.

Muscle endurance is your muscles’ ability to perform an activity or movement many times without experiencing fatigue or exhaustion. Think of hiking out of Grand Canyon with a 30lbs. back pack. Not only will you have to take thousands of steps uphill to move the weight of your body but you also have to carry additional resistance (the back pack). If your muscles don’t have adequate muscular endurance to complete the hike, you end up stuck in Grand Canyon (and that’s not good).

Muscle Strength is your muscles’ ability to move a maximum amount of weight a single time.  Rarely do we pick up or move the maximum amount of weight that we’re capable of. If fact when it happens, injuries usually occur. An example of this is when a parent picks up something really heavy (a car) to save their child. The good news is you’ll never have to do anything like that during a workout. That’s because there is a correlation between muscular endurance and muscular strength.

Here’s an example of how that works. Let’s say that you begin a new workout routine and at the beginning you perform an exercise 10 times with 100lbs., but the most you are able to lift for a single repetition is 175lbs. Six weeks later you are able to lift 150lbs 10 times, and 150lbs. was the heaviest weight that you worked out with during the six week period. Now when you re-test your single repetition maximum you can  lift 225lbs. So in this example you increased your strength by 50lbs. by increasing your muscle endurance. Even though you never actually attempted to lift anything over 150 pounds (during your training), your strength gains resulted from your improvements in muscle endurance.

NOTE: There is scientific research on how to gain muscular strength and/or endurance by working out with very specific weight relative to your maximum strength. I didn’t follow that information in my example. I simply chose random whole numbers to keep it simple for you to understand.
 
Muscle Growth or hypertrophy is an increase in the size of your muscle cells. When you begin a resistance training program you will experience an increase in the size of muscle cells. At first you won’t notice an actual change in the shape or size of your muscles (i.e. the way your body looks). Instead you’ll notice that your muscles are more firm or toned. I like to call this an increase in muscle density, meaning that your muscles are more firm even though they are taking up the same amount of space that they did prior to starting your new resistance training program.
Muscle growth is the primary objective of bodybuilders. When they are on stage being judged for their physiques neither they nor the judges care how much they can lift or how many times they can perform an exercise before failure. It’s all about how they look at that moment. But there is also a correlation between muscular strength, muscular endurance and hypertrophy. So bodybuilders do pay very close attention to weight and repetitions during their training.

Most people do not have the goal of being a competitive body builder. In fact, more often than not, people fear becoming too bulky. What people typically want is to shape their bodies or become toned, firm, and sculpted (ok some guys do want to get jacked). The good news is that muscle development is a slow process. You aren’t going to wake up huge one morning because you accidentally worked out too hard. In most cases people are too bulky because of excess body fat, not excess muscle.

It’s time for a reality check!

If you want to be toned, firm, sculpted, or to reshape your body, you have to first increase your muscle density. And then you have to increase the size of your muscles. Remember the section above on Muscular Growth? Muscular growth is initially an increase in density, then an increase in size of your muscles. So if you have any goals to improve your appearance, you are going to have to adapt some of the training principles that bodybuilders follow. In other words, don’t fear weight training.

Click Here for more information about Resistance Training.

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