So you think you’re pretty fit, huh? These suggestions should reveal if you’re right, or if you’ve neglected one of the three core areas of fitness: strength, flexibility, and cardio. Maybe you’ve trained independently for years without a basis for comparison, or you could be a hobbyist lifter, dancer, or runner wondering how your fitness compares outside your comfort zone. … Read More
The Fitness Triangle
Trying to shed a few pounds before beach season? Read on to ensure you aren’t ignoring any of the three building blocks of fitness. The best way to attain optimal fitness is to divide the task into its three basic components: proper nutrition, cardiovascular training, and muscle strengthening. But remember, simple is not the same as easy! 1) Nutrition: avoid simple carbs; … Read More
Don’t Sweat Skipping Some Summer Workouts
Every summer, regimented exercise programs take a backseat to lawn maintenance, daylong barbecuing, and outdoor fun. But here’s the good news: the heat of summer naturally boots the metabolism and the longer days enable you to fit in more activity. So there’s a chance you’ll burn even more calories simply having fun than you would in the gym! Consider that … Read More
The Many Benefits of Weekly Meal Prepping
Eating five times daily, as most know we should, is difficult if you also want to eat cleanly by limiting artificial and processed ingredients. That’s partly why so many have recently turned to weekly meal prepping. Getting Started… The ultimate goal should be eating well-balanced daily meals we can call breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and supper. But considering … Read More
TRX: An Introduction and Exercise Guide
If you’ve seen a lot more people just “hanging around” at the gym lately, they might actually have been using one of the latest, greatest fitness tools: TRX cables! Original TRX was a military tool: Also called suspension training, TRX cables were first introduced to the general public in 2005 by ex-Navy Seal and Stanford MBA graduate, Randy Hetrick. As … Read More
Technique Essential For Great Results
Before heading to a gym, be sure you’re packing more than just a towel! You’ll need an understanding of proper exercise technique to optimize benefit and avoid injury. Here are some tips to get you started: Warming-up and Stretching: No matter your fitness level, warming-up and stretching are required prior to any workout. Your warm-up should consist of about 10 … Read More
Body Fat Tests Offer Hefty Insight
The dreaded bathroom scale is still used most often to monitor fitness levels. But while body weight does provide handy, frequent feedback, it can also be misleading. Traditional scales cannot separate weight from fat and muscle, which is problematic since muscle, being denser and more fibrous, weighs more than fat. As a result, you could maintain or even gain weight … Read More
Fresh Fitness Ideas
Variety is the spice of life, they say, and this is certainly true when it comes to daily fitness routines. Here are some fresh ideas to keep you active and engaged. With spring around the corner, chances are you’re losing interest in the workouts you designed in January to begin meeting your 2013 resolutions. Or maybe you’ve been performing the … Read More
Record Workouts For Better Results
If you exercise regularly, it is a good idea to monitor your progress by tracking the resistance, sets, and repetitions of every exercise performed. Once you are comfortable keeping these simple notes, begin recording as much relevant information as possible. Consider including notes about warm-ups and pre-routine stretches performed, your heart rate following certain sets, the length of breaks between … Read More
5 Tips To Make New Year’s Fitness Resolutions Stick
We all know “keeping it” is really the most important part of a New Year’s fitness resolution. Anybody can just make them. But still, our best intentions too often lead nowhere fast. Don’t let this happen to you! Here are five tips to keep you on track in 2013: 1) Phone A Friend: Fitness resolutions are not like birthday wishes … Read More
Beware Holiday Weight Gain
The holidays are a wonderful time, except when it comes to dreaded winter weight gain. Parties and gatherings with mountains of rich food are nearly impossible to avoid, but what about exercise? The prevalence of winter weight gain is no surprise, given how many usually health conscious people suddenly stop exercising and start filling up on goodies throughout December. As … Read More
Pool Programs Pack Fitness Punch
Whether you’re new to working out or just searching for a full-body alternative to traditional cardio routines, a pool program can provide massive benefits. The tried-and-true method of swimming lengths provides excellent aerobic exercise for all fitness level. In fact, swimming just three times per week for as little as 20 minutes will significantly improve cardiovascular endurance. If coupled with … Read More
A Workout Change Will Do You Good
Just as always scaling the exact same cliff will eventually hardly improve your climbing skills, regularly changing your workout routine is a must if you hope to continue increasing your fitness level. A properly structured fitness program should constantly evolve to account for your progress and setbacks, a never-ending process that will also keep you intellectually engaged. There are many … Read More
Don’t Fear Fall Fitness
Autumn weather is clearly upon us, which means many will be returning to a structured exercise regimen at a gym or fitness centre. But too many will fail to follow this fall due to trepidation of actually entering a gym. The most important thing to know is that you do not need to be fit to join a fitness club! … Read More
Mental Benefits of Exercise
The physical benefits of regular exercise, including increased strength and a lower susceptibility to disease, are well known. But most are still not aware of the proven neurological, psychological, and emotional benefits of an old-fashioned sweat session. For starters, here are four marvelous mental benefits of exercise: Workouts Can Be Relaxing When you reserve time to work out, your mind … Read More