Develop Your Abs With The Best Ab Workouts

Despite what some people believe, abs do not consist only of those prominent six muscles in the front that are referred to as the six pack. The abs also consist of less obvious and yet just as important muscles, such as the core muscles, internal obliques, transversus abdominis, and the lower back too. Therefore, in order to get optimum results, one needs to exercise all these muscles, which means that the best ab workouts include a wide variety of exercises.

Nevertheless, it is true that great results can also be obtained by only working on the major muscle groups, by doing squats, lunges, deadlifts, and so on. Training heavily on these exercises will involve your abs, which will grow strong very quickly. But just like any other muscle group, the abs also require you to maintain the workout regimen for a certain time. And if you are willing to commit to doing that, it makes sense to also include all the variety of exercises that are needed to your routine.

Start with the exercise called jacknives. While lying on your back on the floor with your arms outstretched behind you and the hands facing the floor, lift your arms, legs and body simultaneously from the floor. Try to touch your feet to your hands, but do not fail to keep the legs straight. Once you have attained your highest position, stay like that for a moment and then lower yourself back down. Another great exercise is the traditional knees-to-chest, with the only modification that you need to roll backwards. This will enable you to bring the knees in for touching the chin.

The scissors also work the abs very effectively, as do the seated twists. If you do not know what these are, they require you to sit on the floor with the legs spread, hands behind head, and then twist from side to side while breathing deeply. Try to combine these great drills with your favorite exercises and you will have the best ab workouts specially designed for yourself.

About the Author:

Sandy Rutherforde

How To Get Nice Muscle Tone And Build An Attractive Muscular Body

Most people know that they need to lift weight build muscles. However many just want to have nice muscle tone and an attractive but not too muscular body as they do not want big muscles. So they just lift light weights with high repetitions. Well, it is not going to work. To have nice muscle tone, you will have to build some muscles right? So you will have to lift heavy to force your muscles to grow. Once you are satisfied with the size of your muscles, you will then need to cut your body fats for your muscles to show up well and that means nice muscle tone.

You need to have a solid commitment and knowledge to get nice muscle tone and build an attractive muscular body. Here are some muscle building tips. Before you commence weight training, remember to warm up and as well as doing some stretching exercises.

•Train Muscle With Free Weights

Machines will have its uses, but for a start, concentrate on free weights. That means work almost exclusively with barbells and dumb bells. Free weights recruit many stabilizing muscles for balance and control. That means you will work a lot more muscle parts other than the intended ones. That will give rise to little bumps, striations and definitions all over your body instead of one huge lump of muscle on your intended muscle. Because of the extra stimulant created, your muscles grow faster too. Why else do you think all professional body builders almost exclusively use free weights?

•Train With Compound Exercises

Incorporate as many compound exercises as possible to your routines. Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements. Because they utilize more joints, which means greater muscle mass are involved. Greater muscle mass means heavier weights. Heavier weights mean encouragement of greater muscle growth. More muscle growth means more tone to your muscles.

Some excellent compound exercises are the Squat, Deadlift, Chin ups, Dips, Bench press, Barbell Press, Lunges, Bent-Over Barbell Row…etc.

•Train Intensively But Do Not Over train

You must train intensively for your muscle to grow. Try to do more reps or add more weight than the previous session or else your muscles will think (actually muscles don\’t think, they adapt), ‘Ah… we\’ve done that. Nothing new, so no need to grow bigger and stronger.’ That being the case, you will wreck your chances of attaining an attractive muscular body.

Because of this, it is important that every time you train hard, you give your body time to recover as it has suffered strains and actually sustained many small scarring. Contrary to popular belief, your muscles grow when you rest, especially when you sleep and not in the gym. So sleep at least 8 hours a day. Also, do not train everyday or work the same muscle group more than once or twice a week. If your training was vigorous enough, do no more than an hour per session.

Try not to do cardio work on the same day as your weight lifting work. In fact, during the muscle building phase, you should do less cardio work as aerobic exercises burn muscles. You can increase your cardio work at cutting body fat phase, so as to lose body fat in order for your muscle tone to show up nicely.

•Technique And Form

This is the most neglected fundamental of bodybuilding. Everywhere, everyday, you will see people using wrong forms and techniques. This not only compromises your growth, it will also make you susceptible to injuries… sometimes even permanently putting you out of the gym.

Wrong form occurs usually when people try to lift weights that are too heavy, whether out of vanity or ignorance. As a guide, always lift with strict focus on the muscle you intend to build for that exercise. Feel it contract and extend. Lift the weights deliberately and slowly. Never ever swing your weights up especially when doing bicep curls or the military press.

•To Build Muscles Fast You Must Perform Lower Body Exercises!

This is what most people don\’t realize. Your lower body makes up 60-70of your musculature. If you don\’t train them, not only will you look spider-legged, your entire body will not grow as quickly and as large. Don\’t think that you can hide those skinny limbs in pants! Most people do not train their legs because squats, dead lifts and lunges can be very grueling exercises. But it is precisely because of such intensity that you will produce more growth hormones when you sleep and overall muscular development is stimulated. Your body shape will also be more balanced and therefore more attractive.

Do read up more to understand how your muscles work and then work on it so that in no time you will be a proud owner of a well tone attractive muscular body.

Author:
Chris Chew is a fitness personal trainer of fashion models, actors and male pageant winners.

Time To Lose Weight for Real!

The physical fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar business but that can be a bit of a liability to the gym and the paying customers. Often the gym’s management doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that overcrowding is not in their best interest or their customers. The problems can be clients wanting to work out on a certain machine but finding that other people are always on them.

Nobody wants challenges at the gym–it’s hard enough to talk yourself into going in the first place. Then once you get there you end up waiting to use the machines you paid a membership fee to use, but can’t! Why put yourself through all that insanity and frustration when there is a better, healthier way to burn fat and lose that belly fat without suffering needlessly. There are many programs available that will make your home a gym without all the expensive equipment. But exercise is not the sole answer to getting a healthy looking body; diet also plays a big factor.

First of all, you do not have to starve yourself (diet) to burn fat, and in fact if you do diet/starve yourself- the problem will become compounded. Fasting diets cause your body to save itself from danger. Without nutrients available your immune system (your body’s military) will weaken making it less able to defend your body. Starving yourself is like taking the body’s military offline. When that happens the indigenous cancer cells in your body (we all have them but our immune system keeps them from breeding out of control.) Keeping your immune system perfect is vital for your health as well as losing weight. Starving yourself makes your body think it’s in trouble compelling it to only burn the fat needed to get by while storing the rest of the fat. This mode kicks in by instinct thinking your food supply is diminishing, time to save the fat and any other food source for later.

On the other hand, if your body has too much to eat and doesn’t get enough exercise to burn off everything you’ve consumed, the body will store the excess as fat. The trick is to eat 6-8 times a day, which is great news for some people. But keep those meals you eat should be small portions; a portion is the size of the inside of our hand or palm. Certain foods can help drastically in the fat burning process based on how they affect and improve the body’s synergy–including the functioning of immune system, speeding up the metabolism (by eating 6-8 times a day instead of 3 big, often overpowering meals), more vegetables and fruits with lean meats and fish. Eating preservative rich, highly processed foods, often evident by the packaging or the drive thru window. Too much fast food is counterproductive to your goals of losing weight.

As far as exercise goes, you don’t have to spend hours and hours at the gym to get ample exercise to burn fat. In fact if you simply eat smaller, healthier meals, reduce or remove all processed/preservative rich foods, drink plenty of water and get enough fiber in your diet–you will lose weight.

You can spend forty-five minutes three times a week exercising with weights and doing aerobics twice a week, running or even a brisk walk, depending on your physical condition. If you can’t run, then walk, just make sure you’re power walking–science has discovered that walking without effort doesn’t burn many calories. Adding some brisk arm swinging will help get the fat burning. The main thing is to move that body, just put your body in motion and as the law states “a body in motion tends to stay in motion.”

Get that heart to pumping and the muscles moving. You should feel some burn and that’s good, but don’t overdo it when you first start out and be careful with form. No need to strain your tendons or your joints. Also be sure to pay attention to the exercise illustrations on an exercise video or in a book if you’re using one. Good exercise books are great for tips and efficient exercises that target areas for fat burning. Make sure you follow their form rules as this will protect you from injury and assure optimal results.

You should create a log, whether in a ledger book, notebook, or even on your computer using a text editor or spread sheet program to track your results. This will point out where your weaknesses are and show you what to improve. You can see just how much you’ve done and how much more you need to do to reach your goals.

For example, when you lift weights, write down how many reps you’ve done and how many sets. A rep is how many times you lift the weights and a set is how many of each exercise you’ve done. So if I lift the weights twelve times in a bicep curl, and then I stop and rest for two minutes and lift the weights ten more times, then I’ve done two sets of 12 reps and 10 reps. By lifting weights and doing aerobics, you in the process of fat burning that will continue for hours afterwards.

You also need to keep a food log. Every time you eat something, even if it was just a protein bar or a glass of water, write it down in your log. Be totally honest with your log, so you’ll be sure to see how you can improve your food intake. The idea of the food log is to make you aware of exactly what, when, how much, and even where you eat so you consciously realize how much you’re taking in each day. It is a lot like when you do your budget and write down all the little things you buy on a daily basis. Later you can look at this to figure out where all the money went.

Often we do things on auto-pilot and don’t see what we’re doing. By not monitoring your food intake, it’s easy to think you’ve just eaten a few meals when in reality you ate twice as much as needed. This causes half of the food to be in the fat burning mode as we exercise while the other half is stored as fat. By realizing what’s actually going on, you can stop over eating and thus stop adding too much fat to your body. Get into the habit of writing it down and you’ll be accountable to yourself for every bite you take.

It’s actually just common sense rules that you follow for losing weight. Eat five to six small healthy meals and exercise wisely three times a week. And most of all, keep you accountable by writing everything down. If all else fails, there are many reasonably priced resources available to point you in the right direction to regaining that healthy look. Many cost less than a month’s membership at an overcrowded gym, but provide a lifetime of simple exercises and healthy eating advice to help you reach your goals.

So get off the couch, primetime TV is done for the season! Let’s change up your life and use a half hour or more of that time to productive activities. Trust me, you will feel much better about yourself, especially when enjoying the upcoming summer season showing off the new look to your family and friends!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/springs-over-time-to-lose-weight-for-real-4843864.html

Does Aerobics Make You Lose Muscle?

Yes, it’s true. It’s a scientifically proven fact that muscle proteins are broken down and used for energy during aerobic exercise. However, you are constantly breaking down and re-building muscle tissue anyway. This process is called “protein turnover.” Your body is constantly alternating back and forth between anabolic (building) and catabolic (breaking down) cycles. That’s just a normal part of life. Your goal is simply to tip the scales slightly in favor of increasing the anabolic side and reducing the catabolic side just enough so you stay anabolic and you gain muscle (or at least maintain it).

This fact of human physiology has often been taken out of context and used to scare people into not doing cardiovascular exercise for fear of losing muscle. When you fast overnight as you sleep, you lose muscle too, but that doesn’t mean you should stop sleeping!

Sure, it’s possible for you to lose muscle from doing too much cardio, but it’s highly unlikely. Shying away from cardio completely because you think you’ll lose muscle is a huge mistake. Only excessive amounts of cardio would cause you to lose muscle. Extreme amounts of aerobic work, such as the type of training done by competitive endurance athletes, could be considered over-training. Over-training tips the scale towards the catabolic side. Just look at the slight, wiry physiques of any distance runner or triathlete if you need proof of that. It’s difficult to generalize and pinpoint one specific amount as too much, but a safe maximum guideline would be 45 -60 minutes of cardio a day, 6 to 7 days a week. Within these limits, you shouldn’t worry about losing any muscle – as long as the proper nutritional support is provided. Beyond 60 minutes a day, you hit a point of diminishing returns and you may increase the chance of injury, over-training and muscle loss.

Trainer John Parillo has always been an advocate of lots of aerobics, even for his bodybuilder clients who are trying to gain muscle mass.

“Aerobics can enhance your recovery from weight training by promoting blood flow and oxygen transport to your muscles,” says Parillo. “Aerobics forces oxygen through your body, increasing the number and size of your blood vessels. Blood vessels are the ‘supply routes’ that transport oxygen and nutrients to body tissues, including muscles, and carry waste products away for muscular growth, repair and recovery. The expansion of this circulatory network is called ‘cardiovascular density.'”

So, according to Parillo, aerobics can actually enhance recovery from weight training and increase muscular growth by developing the circulatory pathways that provide nourishment to the muscles. Cardiovascular training is important for good health, for fat burning, and for muscle-building.

Losing muscle has more to do with inadequate diet than with excessive aerobics. If you suspect you are losing muscle there are four likely causes:

You are not eating enough protein. Protein is the only nutrient that can be used to build muscle. To stay on the anabolic side you must eat five to six protein containing meals every day. Each meal should be spaced out approximately three hours apart. Research has proven that if you are physically active, you need a minimum of .8 grams to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Bodybuilders may need even more. Your carbohydrates are too low. Low carb diets are often used for fat loss, but it is a mistake to cut your carbs too drastically. Carbohydrates are protein-sparing, so even if you are eating large amounts of protein, you can still lose muscle if your carbs are too low. You are not eating enough calories to support muscle growth. This is actually the most probable cause of muscle loss. When your calories are too low, your body goes into “starvation mode.” Your metabolism slows down and your body actually burns muscle tissue to conserve energy. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, requiring a great deal of caloric energy just to maintain it. That’s why your body will shed muscle if it thinks you are starving. You are not training with weights. It is a common misconception that if you want to lose weight, you should start with cardio only and add the weighs later – another big mistake! The weight training helps keep you from losing muscle while you are dieting.

You are much more likely to lose muscle from not eating enough than you are from doing too much cardio. All too often, people are afraid to eat a lot and do a lot of cardio at the same time. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Logically, it appears that the two would cancel each other out, but the opposite is true. Many people believe they must “starve” the fat by drastically lowering calories. Unfortunately, this approach can cause you to lose muscle along with the fat. The only way to maintain your lean mass while losing fat is to feed the muscles with plenty of protein and nutritious calories while at the same time, burning the fat off with lots of cardio.

Whether your goal is muscle development, fat loss or both, you should always include some form of cardiovascular activity as part of your training program. Unless you’re talking about some kind of ultra-endurance regimen, AEROBICS WILL NOT CAUSE MUSCLE LOSS. In fact, aerobics supports the pathways that help you build muscle!

Lori Victoria Braun

5-tips on how to improve your fitness and lose weight

Today, most of the population in developed countries is living sedentary way of life during occupational or even leisure activities. This has resulted in constantly increasing percentage of over-weight and obese people which in turn has negative effects on overall fitness and health.

Losing weight and improving overall fitness should be the number one priority if you want to live a long and healthy life.

The main reason for getting over-weight is the amount of calorie intake. If you consume more calories than you spend you are slowly gaining weight and start to accumulate fat.

The solution for the problem seems relatively simple and that is to consume fewer calories than you spend. One pound of fat equals 3500 calories. If you consume that much less you will lose one pound of fat. Take good care when lowering your daily calorie intake. Consuming too little calories can have negative effects on your body and overall health. You should start with the amount of 500 calories. Consume 500 fewer calories daily then you spend, and you will lose 1 pound of fat every week.

Here are some tips that will help you to overturn your daily calorie intake.

1. Build muscle – The more muscles your body has the faster your metabolism is which in turn burns more fat. Having more muscles burns more calories even when you are at rest because it needs more calories to maintain muscle tissue. You can indulge yourself in many exercises to build muscles and weight lifting or high intensity cardio training (HIIT) is one of them.
2. Eat less, but frequently – Eating 4-6 times per day revs up the metabolism. Each time you eat your body burns more calories just to digest the food. Don’t skip your meals and don’t merge the meals.
3. Cardio workout – Cardio exercises that range from simple ones as walking to a more intense like running, swimming or cycling are perfect for burning calories. Thirty minutes per day is a minimum to experience health benefits in as little as 4-6 weeks.
4. No need for dieting – Avoid low calorie diets and supplements because they are of no use when you are trying to burn calories. This technique only makes you lose water weight or even worse, muscle weight, and soon as you stop your diet you gain weight faster than you lost it.
5. Consume foods that help you burn fat – Eating healthy food like whole-grain food, green vegetables, fruits and food rich in protein (important for building muscles) are very helpful in reducing the amount of fat contained in your body. Try to avoid processed food like white bread, pastas, cookies, biscuits, etc.

These are five important tips that will help you to return your body to a mint condition. After only a couple of weeks you will start to see real improvements to your body shape, weight, muscle strength, you will have more energy and be in a better mood. Don’t starve yourself out, but rather be responsible to your body.

Dinko Fabricni

Cycling Workouts

Getting yourself fit with cycling workouts is one of the quickest ways to lose weight and feel better about yourself – and it’s fun too. Whether you’re looking to improve your fitness or just looking to get a little bit of exercise back into your life, a cycling workout can be just the ticket for you, particularly if you’ve got a distance to travel to work or school in the mornings. In this article we’ll look at some easy ways you can build up your fitness or lose weight on a cycling for exercise programme, with a view to improving physical fitness or your speed when cycling.

Before trying any exercise for cycling or a weight loss programme, it is important to firstly consult with your general practitioner or physician with a view to establishing your current fitness levels and whether or not you are at risk of medical problems arising from beginning a course of exercise. Remember that whilst you might feel fine, underneath it is always possible that there could be a number of problems that have lay undetected until now and could be subsequently triggered by picking up the pace with your exercise programme.

Firstly, you fitness for cycling programme should begin with a few light stretches and maybe even a jog, to make sure your muscles are warmed up for physical activity. After that, climb on board your bike and get cycling. It’s important to remember that cycling might not be something you are terribly used to, with most people avoiding pedal bikes as soon as they leave their childhood years or get a car. As a result it might be a good idea to take it slowly to start with – whilst you might never forget how to ride a bike, you will certainly need a little bit of a refresher before going out on the open road for your own safety and that of other road users.

On your first day, cycle a block or cycle to work at a medium pace. Don’t try to race there – you will tire yourself out and you’ll be in no state to hit the office. Likewise its important to ease yourself in to an exercise programme, particularly if you haven’t been overly active for a few years or you’re looking to shift excess weight. With the coming days boost your intensity and your distance on your cycling regime, to start building up your fitness levels and to get you moving and burning calories and fat. Ultimately keep going up in intensity as your body can handle in order to leave you with the perfect introduction to a fitness for cycling programme.

Cycling for fitness reasons can be both fun and practical, and it can also help shift excess weight in no time at all. Try it today, after visiting your GP for a health check, and see what wonders can lie in store for you after beginning a more active, healthier lifestyle with a view to losing weight and feeling great.

Source: Free Articles

HOW TO DEVELOP A FITNESS PLAN

Developing a fitness that works for your own individual needs can sometimes be an overwhelming task. However, when you break down the components of a fitness plan you’ll be able to start slowly and come up with a fitness plan that works for you.

One of the first things that you need to do is determine where you are with your fitness level. If you’ve been inactive for a long period of time you’re not going to be able to jump into a fitness plan that is too strenuous and tiring. You’ll need to start off slowly, perhaps by doing some walking for 30 minutes each day.

You should take some time to book an appointment with your doctor so that you have a complete checkup before you start on a fitness plan. If you’ve been moderately active you can incorporate other fitness activities into your daily routine. Try biking, swimming, hiking, lifting weights, or yoga. The list is endless when it comes to increasing your physical activity.

Another part of your fitness plan is paying attention to what you eat. Make changes to your diet so that you’re consuming the amount of calories that your body needs while at the same time getting the vitamins and nutrition that is recommended. Reduce the amount of sugars and refined flours that you eat. Trim the fat from the meats that you eat and choose leaner cuts.

You can substitute chicken or fish for meat at least a couple of times a week. If you smoke you should take the necessary steps to quitting. Talk to your doctor so that you get the help that you need to succeed. Don’t try to do everything overnight since studies show that permanent lifestyle changes take time. Make small changes in your physical activity and your diet, and you’ll soon be on your way to a fitness plan that meets your lifestyle.

Source: Free Articles

About the Author
James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest.

ALLTOP FITNESS AND DATING NEWS

We have added Alltop Fitness News and Alltop Dating News to our blog. From the About page on Alltop:

You can think of Alltop as the “online magazine rack” of the web. We’ve subscribed to thousands of sources to provide “aggregation without aggravation.” To be clear, Alltop pages are starting points—they are not destinations per se. Ultimately, our goal is to enhance your online reading by displaying stories from sources that you’re already visiting plus helping you discover sources that you didn’t know existed. (Alltop.com/about/)

Please mention your favorite magazines on fitness, health, sports, etc.

FITNESS PROGRAM

PRESS RELEASE ON MYNEWSDESK

You could now find a press release on MyNewsDesk.com. We have added the text to the press page on this site. Here is an excerpt from the press release:

Fitness Date Club

FitnessDateClub.com is an increasingly popular dating community that specializes in health minded singles throughout the world. Currently most members are living in the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and South Africa. It is created by former full time musician Martin Dagger following his own experiences on the dating scene in USA and Sweden.

”Energy for Your Body & Soul(mate)”

A newly opened blog on Fitness Date Club will have articles about training tips, fitness activities, nutrition, wellness, and more. So whether your fitness passion is yoga, running, bodybuilding, cycling or some other exercise activity, you are more likely to find a workout partner or a life partner on this online dating site than just about anywhere else. If you are focused on living an active, healthy life, what better way is there than to have a significant other who feels the same way. (MyNewsDesk.com, September 27, 2010.)

Thanks to Kalle Blomqvist of Digimedia for writing the press release and to Martin Lindeskog of Ego Sole Trader for activating social media tools to the press-room page on MyNewsDesk.

Terese Alvén of “Spark i Baken“: Thank you very much for your post and the link to our site!

Please feel free to give me feedback, write a comment or question.

Martin Dagger

Fitness Date Club

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