Thursday, September 24, 2015

Fitness Exercises For Men At Home with Busy Schedules

Fitness Exercises For Men At Home with Busy Schedules

We all know that health and fitness should be a top priority in your life no matter what. After all, you only have one body and the better care you take of it now, the better off you‘ll be later in life. When it comes to working out, that’s often easier said than done. That is why, if you’re a guy, it’s important to find Fitness Exercises for Men at Home with Busy Schedules. Then there is no wasting time going to the gym and you can use the excuse “There are no good Fitness Exercises for Men that can be done at home”. Despite your best intentions to keep a consistent workout schedule, we all know there are many excuses such as, I am too busy, I am on vacation, and I am too sore, too tired, and unmotivated.
Enough with the excuses because there is a way to incorporate Fitness Exercises for Men At Home with Busy Schedules.
  1. Embrace shorter workouts:
You don’t need to spend hours working out to stay healthy and fit. If you use programs that incorporate high intensity interval training (HIIT), you can get stronger, more fit, and in the best shape ever in as little as 30 minutes. Checkout P90X3, Insanity Max30, 21 Day Fix or 21 Day Fix Extreme and you will see how that can happen. These At-Home workouts are short and sweet.
  1. Create a ritual:
To create a habit you must create a ritual around the new habit. Staying with an exercise routine is no different.
Here is an example of Fitness Exercises for Men At Home with Busy Schedules Routine: Workout first thing in the morning before you go to work. Create a ritual where every morning you get up, eat a small breakfast while listening to your favorite music to get you pumped up, take the dog for a quick stroll around the block, then work out, make a nutrition shake or recovery shake, shower, and drive to work.
If you consistently make this a part of your morning routine, eventually you will not think twice about it. It will just come naturally to you.

FITNESS EXERCISES FOR MEN AT HOME WITH BUSY SCHEDULES

  1. Schedule it in your calendar:
Make your workout as important as you would any other appointment. If you use Beachbody Fitness Programs they all come with a Calendar so you know exactly what workout and what exercises you will be doing. You can simply transfer this schedule into your calendar each week.
  1. Commit for 30 days:
Many people have a hard time with long term commitments when it comes to exercise. This is where you look at committing to 21 or 30 day programs. The best Fitness Exercises for Men At Home with Busy Schedules that fit into these time frames are 21 Day Fix or 21 Day Fix Extreme. If you want more than 21 days then you can commit other at home programs, but just focus on each 30 days as its own regimen.
The key is to commit to the habit and doing that habit consistently.
  1. Choose a Program that has Progressive Fitness Exercises
When you first start working out consistently, it is important that you have a high quality program that provides fitness exercises that are designed with the proper progression. This will keep you on track, improve your fitness levels, and help keep you from injury. The highest quality and proven programs are by Beachbody.

FITNESS EXERCISES FOR MEN AT HOME WITH BUSY SCHEDULES

Start with the steps above and you will be more likely to succeed in the long run. Get rid of your excuses! There are many Fitness Exercises for Men at Home with Busy Schedules that will create great results. You just need to pick one and start.

Monday, September 21, 2015

Signs Your Workout Program is Working - Wally Recommends

The signs you don't want, are the signs you need, to know your workout is actually working.

Signs Your Workout Program is Working

We know that when we exercise we perform everyday tasks better, our health is improved, and we feel better. So the question is, how do you know if your workout program is working for you? What are the Signs Your Workout Program is Working?
That is actually a funny subject. The Signs Your Workout Program is Working are actually opposite of our intended goals. The signs are soreness, feeling slow or even sluggish, and feeling hungry.  While these signs may seem like negatives, we actually want these signs. These are clear Signs Your Workout Program is Working.
So the key is to embrace programs that are designed to push you just enough to make you sore, sluggish,  sluggish, and hungry. Programs lacking this threesome don’t provide you an incentive to get in top shape. When you push your body above its normal output, even it is it barely there, and you keep it there over time, you will yield improvements.

SORENESS

Soreness is the first Sign Your Workout Program is Working. Soreness is the easiest symptom to understand. Most of us have been sore one time or another. Soreness happens when we do something physically that our bodies are not accustomed to doing. It can happen from doing yard work, to a pickup game of basketball, or spending hours at a theme park walking around. When you push your body beyond what you do in normal day-to-day activity, you can get sore.

SIGNS YOUR WORKOUT PROGRAM IS WORKING

Muscle soreness comes from the breakdown of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Our bodies have both slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers. Slow-twitch fibers have a low recruitment factor. This means they get fired up during low outputs. Fast-twitch fibers have a high recruitment factor. This meaning it takes something more intense to get them going. An example would be when you pick up your water bottle to take a drink, this requires the use of the slow-twitch fibers. When you jump up out of your chair and run to the front door you involve fast-twitch fibers.
Fast-twitch fibers are repaired more slowly than slow-twitch fibers (i.e you don’t get tired from lifting your bottle of water, but you would get tired if you had to sprint to the door all the time).
Hypertrophy means muscle growth. Muscle growth is part of a well rounded and varied training program. The greatest change in the body involves body fat loss and muscular gains. The quickest way to lose body fat is to gain more muscle. To create hypertrophy, you need to overload your muscle fibers progressively to keep breaking them down. As you become healthier this threshold will change. When you utilize progressive weight or resistance programs, you will get sore. Programs that switch between muscle groups cause muscle confusion and avoid plateaus, so you keep making progress. The most comprehensive and well-designed programs that supply no shortage of muscle confusion and progressions are Beachbody Programs.

SLOW AND SLUGGISH

The second Sign Your Workout Program is Working is when you feel slow and sluggish. This is the hardest condition to conceptualize but the easiest to explain. Remember that hypertrophy means your muscles are growing. When your body is growing it has to adapt to the growth.
Just because a muscle is large does not mean it is strong. It takes training to create those gains in size and in strength. The best gains are realized from a combination of low repetitions, high repetitions, eccentric and isometric movements, as well as agility, cardio and plyometric movements. These all teach the muscles to operate at a higher efficiency.
When you use programs that mix the various exercise types, your muscles are learning and growing, which means you will experience times when you feel slow or sluggish. Typically you will experience slowness and sluggishness most in the first four weeks of the program,  the training phase. If you don’t feel these symptoms during this time, you are not pushing yourself hard enough and need to ramp up your training. This should be the same when you start a new program, or repeat a program. On the other hand, if the feelings of slowness or sluggishness persist beyond four weeks, you may be overdoing it and risk overtraining.  You must work to find a balance.

HUNGRY

Hunger is final Sign that Your Workout is Working. Do you typically feel hungrier when starting a new program? Well, in some cases the reason can be somewhat obvious. If you are trying to lose weight and start a nutrition plan that is portion controlled and contains foods your body isn’t necessarily use to, it takes time to adapt, especially if you leaned toward a lot of high fat and sugary foods. The body will make you feel hungry as you are weaning yourself off these foods because it is craving them. No different than a drug addict wanting more drugs, the body for a time will crave the types of food you used to feed it.
You may also feel hungry even when your body has passed the cravings stage. This happens because the body needs nutrients to properly repair and grow. It is very difficult to provide through normal nutrition everything your body needs when you are under the type of duress a good progressive workout program creates. You can try, but you are not going to be able to feed your body what it needs through food without overeating. With overeating, you wouldn’t be able to put those calories to use, and some may get stored as fat.
The answer to the greater nutritional needs when you are working your body hard is supplements. When your body needs to be fed the appropriate nutrients, supplements should be your best friend. High quality supplements have very few calories and a lot of very well balanced nutrients, plus some supplements have targeted nutrients, which means they’re designed for nutrient efficiency.  The best solution is to utilize a nutrient dense total nutrition shake like Shakeology, and high quality performance nutritionals like the Beachbody Performance Nutrition Line. When you want above average results, you need above average supplements.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Music May Help Your Exercise Results - Wally Recoommends

I seldom listen to music while running. But I do listen to music during my other workouts, depending on what kind of workout I'm going. What kind of music do you listen to when working out?

Music May Help Your Exercise Results

Music May Help Your Exercise Results because it has a very powerful effect on the brain. Studies have found that certain songs can stimulate memory and emotions. The studies have also found that both  reactions may also be directly linked to the lyrics.
If music can make you feel certain emotions, is it possible that Music May Help Your Exercise Results? Absolutely! A study done at Fairleigh Dickinson University followed a group of moderately obese women for six months. Half could choose their music when working out, and half could not listen to music. The women that listened to music lost an average of 16 pounds, and were much more likely to adhere to their workouts. The women who could not listen to music lost an average of 8 pounds, and were only 68% (as compared to 98%) adherent to their exercise routine. Though the numbers aren’t dramatic, the results are still significant.
From this study you can say Music May Help Your Exercise Results. We also may say that music is effective at distracting the participants from the negative elements of exercise, such as muscle fatigue, heavy breathing, and sweating. Music also helps the time go by. Since music is typically associated as pleasurable, listening to music when you exercise may stimulate the brain onto pleasurable thoughts.

MUSIC MAY HELP YOUR EXERCISE RESULTS

Another study, published in the Scandinavian journal of medicine and science in sports, studied a small group of male cyclists and found that the degree of effort they exerted correlated with the speed of the music to which they listened. You may have noticed this when you are taking a spin class, or biking and running outside.
The correct Music May Help Your Exercise Results by setting the pace, and making you push yourself a little harder without even noticing.
Since Music May Help Your Exercise Results, here are some music suggestions when doing cardio, lifting weights, or practicing yoga.

CARDIO EXERCISE

Brunel University professor Dr. Coastas Karageoghis discovered that when runners listened to music they liked, their performance increased up to 15%.
What type of Music May Help Your Exercise Results when doing cardio? Cyclers could start with songs with 100–120 beats per minute (bpm). Runners could start with songs 150–170 bpm depending on your pace. Dial the tempo up or down to find what works best for you. That is why CIZE It Up is such a great program. You are exercising and don’t even really think about it because of the music and the moves. Your brain is engaged and you are moving and grooving.

WEIGHT LIFTING

When weight lifting you want music that’s more intense and invigorating. Another key factor in your choice is to choose music with lyrics that get you and keep you pumped up. A study from York St. John University found that when listening to music with uplifting lyrics, participants were able to hold a 2.4-lb. weight out in front of them for 10% longer. P90X and other weight training programs often have music that is set to 128 bpm. This type of music will keep you in a rhythm for lifting.  You also don’t want music that is too fast either. This could cause you to move too quickly, and the distraction could cause injury.

STRETCHING, BALANCE WORK, AND YOGA

Cool downs or programs like yoga call for slower music. This more moderate rate allows the heart rate to sync with the body for proper stretching. When you are trying to relax, you want to decrease the amount of beats in the music below 120 bpm. When doing meditative type yoga or stretching, you want to bring it down even more and use songs that are between 60–90 bpm.
No matter what songs, genres, decade, or source of music you select, just remember Music May Help Your Exercise Results if you choose well. So find your favorite songs that fit each style of exercise and bring on better results.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

FOOD SAFETY TIPS YOU WANT TO KNOW! - Wally Recommends

You know I'm all about education when it comes to your health and fitness, right? This one is worth sharing with your friends and family. All others, well, that's up to you. ;)

Food Safety Tips You Want to Know

Buying good-for-you eats is important, but if you are not aware of Food Safety Tips You Want to Know, you could be impacting your health in a negative way. Lots of fruits and veggies, lean meats, dairy, and whole grains are important but understanding food safety is just as important to your health as the good food choices.

KEEP PRODUCE SUPER FRESH

When you come home from the grocery store or farmer’s market, you want to make your tasty loot last more than a day or two. Produce like berries, grapes, asparagus, leafy greens, mushrooms, and summer squash, as well as pre-cut or peeled fruits and vegetables should be stored in the refrigerator. Your refrigerator temperature should be 40 degrees F or below. Produce like bananas, citrus, melons, and tomatoes can be safely stored at room temperature, and items like potatoes and onions should be stored in a pantry.

FOOD SAFETY TIPS YOU WANT TO KNOW!

Another produce tip is to clean your produce drawers weekly as they can become germ-ridden from dirt and bacteria that clings to fruits and vegetables. This will keep them from being cross contaminated or contaminated from other bacterial growth.

STORE DAIRY SAFELY

Milk, cheese, and yogurt provide an ideal environment for the make-you-sick microbes to grow if not stored properly. It is also recommend that you shop the dairy aisle last to keep the amount of time kept at room temp to a minimum. Containers of yogurt stay good for 7 to 10 days after the expiration date if you keep the covers closed. So enjoy! Cheese is best kept at 35 to 45 degrees F in a crisper bin that has humidity/temperature controls.
Milk should be stored on fridge shelves instead the door, because temperatures vary when being opened and closed. Plus Milk is another item you can drink up to one week past the sell-by date, as long as you store it on a shelf versus the door.
Butter should never be stored on the counter. Yes I know you like it when its soft, but you won’t like it when I tell you that this increases bacterial contamination. If you need make it spreadable, only take off what you need and let it sit out just prior to use.

EGGS IN THE UNITED STATES BELONG IN THE FRIDGE

Yes, Europeans don’t refrigerate their eggs. This is due to the differences in the practices used to safeguard eggs from salmonella between Europe and the US. We treat eggs to destroy salmonella via pasteurization and in Europe, they vaccinate poultry, among other hygiene measures. So, our eggs have to be store in the fridge. Eggs should also be kept on the shelves, not in the door. Eggs should be used within three to five weeks.

PREPARE EVERYTHING WELL

Rinse all fruits and vegetables, even organic. While rinsing them scrub them with a brush to get all the nooks and crannies. This goes for all fruits and veggies, even the ones where you don’t eat the skin or rind. Cleaning them will keep contamination of your fridge and fruit bowl to a minimum. Plus it keeps the transfer bacteria from the skin into the flesh via your knife.

PREPARE AND COOK MEAT RIGHT

Always pay attention to the date on your meat. Know it even at the butcher counter or shop. Ground meat and poultry is good 1 to 2 days, while steaks/chops/roasts last 3 to 5 days. Refrigerators have meat bins for a reason. Only store meat in those bins. This keeps contamination to a minimum. Never wash or rinse poultry, as it leaves your sink teeming with possible salmonella and other nasty microbes.
Always cook all meat thoroughly. Safely cooked meat can range in color. Therefore, you want to use a thermometer to take the protein’s internal temp: Ground meat (160 degrees F), steak/roast (145 degrees F), chicken and turkey (165 degrees F), and pork (145 degrees F). Lastly never put cooked meat back on the same plate that housed the raw meat prior to cooking.
Finally, remember that research shows that most of us make the critical misstep of washing our hands all wrong. To truly clean your hands and other surfaces you need to wash with soap and water for a minimum of 20 seconds. This is a super-important step in preventing cross-contamination.
Now that you are armed with these Food Safety Tips You Want to Know… Go on, Get Cooking and get eating those healthy foods!

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Carbs Before a Workout: Can It Help? - Wally Recommends

I have said this so many times, calories and carbs are not the issue. The source, amount and timing is what matters. This is a great article to share those who struggle with performance, weight gain and weight loss.

Carbs Before a Workout: Can It Help?

While a popular belief is that carbs are the enemy, it’s just not the case, especially when it comes to working out. Carbs Before a Workout: Can it Help? In fact pre-workout carbs can help, and if you’re looking to improve your athletic performance, they’re a potent ally.
Fat is not the only macronutrient used for fuel, carbs are a primary source as well. Providing your body with proper carbohydrates will fuel your body through exercise, as well as aid in recovery and muscle gains. The body stores both fat and glycogen for fuel sources. Glycogen is stored in lower quantities. Low-to-moderate levels of exercise will utilize fat as fuel, but exercising at higher levels of intensity causes the body to shift its energy source from fat to glycogen. That’s one reason regularly including proper carbohydrates in your diet is an essential part of athletic training.

CARBS BEFORE A WORKOUT: CAN IT HELP?

“Carbohydrates are…the main fuel source to ingest for optimal recovery allowing for high volumes and intensity of training in subsequent bouts,” writes Dr. Jon Bartlett, Ph.D. College of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Victoria University in Melbourne.
Carbs Before a Workout: Can It Help? Yes it can if it is a carb source that will provide proper energy levels versus a spike and later drop in energy. The three main sources of carbohydrates are starches, sugars, and fiber. If you eat a lot of starches and sugars, you get the spike and drop in energy. If you eat more complex carbs mixed with some more starches or grains you will get a more even energy expenditure. When you eat carbs your body stores glycogen for energy use.
When you exercise, your body uses these energy stores and the glycogen is pulled into the muscle to be used as fuel. If you are not getting high quality carbohydrates for fuel your levels will be low. If your levels are low, this will create low energy. For an example, if you’ve gone on a long bike ride or a long run or pushed through a long exercise class and suddenly lost your energy or felt like you hit a wall, you’ve experienced what it feels like to have depleted your available glycogen stores.
In research, Van Loon found that simply eating carbs during exercise can help delay when you might hit that wall. A review by the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine showed that consuming carbohydrates prior to and during exercise “has been shown unequivocally to extend endurance performance.”

HOW MANY CARBS DO YOU NEED?

The body cannot store glycogen in large quantities. If you are consuming the proper calories within your daily nutrition you could do about 90 minutes of hard effort on your glycogen stores. The nice thing is your body can replenish this store fairly quickly and easily. Plus, as you get fit, your body becomes more efficient at storing and utilizing glycogen.
So the real answer to Carbs Before a Workout: Can It Help, is yes if in the right amount. It varies based on the exercise that is being done. The recommendation is typically 30-60 grams per hour of exercise (up to two hours). Go beyond two hours, and you might need to up it 60-90 grams.  It really comes down to the need for balance to provide the most efficient energy

SO HOW DO YOU CREATE THAT BALANCE?

Carbs Before a Workout: Can It Help? This may become a balancing act. It is about choosing high quality foods and/or supplements that provide real food carbohydrate sources in the proper ratios to keep the energy levels and recovery optimal for performance. For some this can be hard if there is not a great understanding in how to balance food to make this happen. So the suggestion is to eat balanced meals but also supplement with high quality supplements that already have the balance created for you. One of the best nutritional supplement lines on the market is the Beachbody Performance Line. This line provides high quality pre-workout, during workout, post workout, and night recovery that will truly give you that edge to take your workouts to the next level.
Here is the thing, if you are working out regularly, ignore the headlines suggesting you need to go low-carb. Carbs Before a Workout: Can it Help Your Workout? YES IT CAN! If you give your body the fuel it needs, keep a clean portioned nutrition plan, use high quality supplements you’ll feel better during your workouts and be more likely to see results if you do.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

How Much Weight Should I Lift? - Wally Recommends

My thought process has always been, "If you're not trembling when you're done with your workout, you did not push yourself enough and basically wasted your time." But, it appears there's more to it than that.

How Much Weight Should I Lift?

How Much Weight Should I Lift? It’s a perfectly good question, but the answer is going to vary. In fact, there are a number of variables that should be taken into account. When you take these variables into account it will allow you to customize your training program to ensure you’re using the right weight every time. For those of you not interested in details of How Much Weight Should I lift... here’s the short answer: You should always lift as much weight as you can for the number of repetitions targeted by an exercise without compromising form but that creates a burn for the last 4-5 reps or 10-15 seconds if timed. If you aren’t doing this, you’re only getting a fraction of your workout’s potential.
So let’s get into the answer of How Much Weight Should I Lift? Ultimately the independent variable isn’t the weight you are lifting, it is about the reps or time you are doing the exercise. So how do you figure out how much weight to lift, for the time or reps to get the best results? In exercise we know that failure is not an option, but with figuring out How Much Weight Should I Lift, failure can actually be good. This means if you never fail during a set, you never know how much weight you should lift when doing an exercise. So when you first start out and at least every 30 days it is good to create failure on an exercise. This lets you know what weights to use, and that you’re pushing to your limits. This is important to achieve your results whether your goal is to lose or gain weight.

HOW MUCH WEIGHT SHOULD I LIFT?

Now let’s take a look at how the failure set is the answer to How Much Weight Should I Lift. This should be done with a few rules in mind so you don’t injure yourself. To begin you want to start with enough weight to barely reach the targeted repetitions or time. If you can just finish with maintaining form, then you found your weight. If you cannot, then you need to adjust it back just a bit. Repeat this process through every exercise in your workout.
Whether your goal is to gain mass, lose weight, or just get strong or ripped, taking a deeper look at How Much Weight I Should Lift will allow you to have the knowledge for the greatest results.
Most weight training exercises target a certain number of repetitions for each set or a certain amount of time. If you are using reps, the number might stay constant over the course of a workout or change depending on the exercise. If you are using time, the reps will vary based on the exercise. Either way, having an understanding of why this is being asked of you will help you get the most out of your workout program and determine the weight you should be lifting.
Here is a brief physiology lesson. This will help you understand how doing a failure test every 4-6 weeks will help as you train your body differently. It will help you understand why you will constantly need to change the amount of weight you’re using to get the most out of each workout.
A quick rundown of Weight Training Physiology to understand the question ofHow Much Weight Should I Lift:
  • Hypertrophy Workouts: These workouts rev up the metabolism and are the quickest means to change your ratio of muscle and fat. Whether your goal is to lose or gain weight, beginning with a workout program that focuses on hypertrophy will change your metabolism, which in turn is body transformation. This will create a fat burn and added lean muscle with strength, which accelerates fat loss.
  • Muscle Mass Workouts: This style of workout is going to combine low reps (or little time) with very high weights. This will produce larger muscles, which in turn increases the capacity for strength. The catch is, the strength does not come with size. To create the strength the larger muscles have to be trained to be efficient. This is done with programs that provide eccentric (negative) forces, and plyometric (explosive) forces.
  • Muscular Endurance Workouts: This is exercise that lasts longer than a minute or over 15 repetitions. Endurance workouts target the glycolytic energy system, where both glycogen and oxygen are used when doing the exercise. This creates muscular endurance, which means you are increasing the muscle’s ability to perform for a longer duration. This style of training is best done when it is in conjunction with hypertrophy training.
So the questions about How Much Weight Should I Lift will have a different answers depending on what style of workouts you are doing. With that said, keep in mind that the best exercise programs for overall health, weight loss or maintenance, and muscular gains utilize all styles of exercise within one program. This will create the greatest results and benefits from your exercise.
When you start a new program be sure to go through the entire exercise program and do a failure test on each exercise to know where you need to start. This will help you get the greatest benefits from the weight you are lifting and the workouts you are doing.
No matter which of the above styles you’re targeting during your workout, it’s only effective if you have run the failure tests and are pushing your body to those limits. If the last few reps or seconds  are difficult while still maintaining proper form, you are good. If not, simply adjust. Of course you will have days that failure happens when you are working out. That is okay, you are still on track. When this happens you may need to evaluate whether you adjusted your weights too high, or perhaps you need to add some supplements to help your body perform and recover better.
Knowing the answer to the question of How Much Weight Should I Lift, ultimately will bring you greater results.