Saturday, October 18, 2008

Weekly Get in Shape Tips


Hey Team,

Are you ready for another week of grueling workouts and punishing exercises, I know you don't want to do it, but we all know that you have to! Now wake your ass up and get running, that is right folks it is time to start running.

Get in Shape Tip #1:
I recommend running at least 1 mile every weekend, to start off. To maintain and increase that distance is the goal, so every other day walk 1/2 a mile or a full mile, few times around the block should suffice, after dinner, or in the morning are the best times.

Get in Shape Tip #2:
Do not eat junk food!! Especially after you have already had your dinner. One way to loose a few lbs to is make sure that you make dinner your LAST meal of the day. Or just do not eat 2 hours before you are planning on going to sleep. Your body needs at least 2 hours to break down all of the foods properly, before going to sleep, or else you could have night mares. Haha just kidding, but your food won't be getting broken down properly, and will all get stored as fat. This is a very easy way to gain weight, eat a lot right when you are going to bed.

Get in Shape Tip #3:
Exercise at least 3 times a week folks! I can not STRESS this enough, this is essential to achieving your work out goals! You have to make sure you are working out your body every other day of the week, do not double up, or work out the same body part two days in a row, you are more than likely to strain the muscle, and could further injure your self if you do not allow at least 1 if not 2 days of rest, depending on the severity of the work out performed. Obviously if you do a hard work out give your body 2 days of rest, if an easier one give it 1 day of rest.

Good luck team! Now get out there and kick some ass!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Beginner Workout Plan for October


Hey All,

I have just started a new work out plan that is for people that are very out of shape, but I think that it is the best plan I have come up with yet. It involves working out EVERY Morning, Monday through Friday, and a light walk or jog on Saturday, Sunday is rest.

Here is the breakdown:

Monday
- 2 sets of 200 jump ropes or jumping jacks and 2 sets of abs work out, and do a full set of scissor kicks (all explained below):

This is how I like to do it:

1. Do 200 jump ropes even if you don't have a jump rope you can still do the same motion, or if you feel too silly, do juming jacks, you don't have to go outside, and can easily do this from the comfort of your bedroom.

2. After the 1 set of 200 jump ropes, then lay down on your back and do 20 regular crunches, not sit ups (they are bad for your back) just do easy crunches and really tighten your abs, that is where you should feel it. I pull my knees in holding them over my body and make both my elbows touch my knees, so it is a relatively light and simple crunch movement.

3. After the 20 regular crunches, do another 20 right side crunches, this will focus on your left and right side obleques and give you the V abs shape every girl and guy loves, and they say the V side shape is the most sexy thing on some ones body. To do the side crunch simply cross your right leg over your left leg, and then touch your left elbow to your right leg's knee cap. Do 20 of those.

4. After the 20 right side crunches, then switch it up and do 20 left side crunches. This is done the exact opposite of the right side crunch. Simply put your left leg over your right leg, and then touch your right elbow to the left leg's knee cap. Do 20 of these.

5. After the 20 left side crucnhes, do 20 scissor kick exercies. Each 1 scissor kick is actually 3 movements of your legs going up and down. To do this simply lay on your back and hold your legs straight out in front of you, with our hands underneath your lower back for support. Then move your legs in a swimming, back stroke motion, "kicking" them. Each time your legs cross each other count 1, 2, 3, for each movement of your legs. Every 1, 2, 3 counts as 1 scissor kick, so do 20 scissor kicks, which comes out to 60 actual times our legs cross. While doing this make sure to keep your lower abs tight, you should feel it there when you are doing this.

6. Do another 200 jump ropes or jumping jax exercise.

7. Do another round of the Ab Work out described above.

If the abs work outs are too easy, do them as slow as possible, until you start sweating a lot, then do them at your own comfortable pace. The slower you do them, the more you are working your abs.

Tuesday - Chest Workout: 3 short and simple push up exercises.

1. First exercise, get in to a push up position, but for beginners, like me, I do an easy push up by putting my knees on the ground, instead of my feet, so it is less weight to hold. So push up position, hands have to be exactly shoulder length apart and do 5 solid perfect push ups, rest for 10 seconds. Then do 4 solid perfect push ups, then rest of another 10 second. Then do 3 perfect pushups, then rest.

2. Second push up position is to put your hand a little wider, than shoulder length apart. This will strength the side of your chest muscles, since each different hand position works a different part of the chest, much like what we did with the ab work out. Do the same set of 5 push ups with hands further than shoulder length apart, then rest for 10 seconds. Do 4 push ups, and rest, and then do 3 push ups, and rest.

3. Third push up position is put your hands closer than shoulder length apart, and again work out the same way, do 5 push ups, rest, 4 push ups, rest, and 3 push ups, and then rest.

Do these slow and easy, if you feel you can not do this many push ups, lighten the load to just doing 3 push ups, then 2 push ups, then 1, and week to week, gradually build up your strength.

Wednesday - Jump Rope and Ab Work out

Do the same exact work out described for Monday. Be consistent and try to do exactly the same amount of abs and jump ropes / jumping jax you performed on Monday. Do not increase, if you feel this is too easy, you can increase the next week, try to do 3 sets of this, instead of just 2 sets.

Also if this is too easy, do it very slowly and you will feel the burn. When doing the jump ropes or the jumping jacks, instead of rushing them, try and do them slowly too, and really bend your legs, and allow your heals to touch the ground, so that every second is 1 jump, so you should be doing it for longer than 1 minute of constant movement.

Thursday - Arm Work out

For men get a 20 lb dumbbell, or a 10 lb dumbbell if you have never really done arm work outs before.

For women I would recommend a 2-5 lb dumbbell, or heavier if you want to get bigger arms.

1. Start with the dumbbell in your right hand, with the palm of your hand facing your leg, not facing forward. (this is a great trick to see quick results) Start with your palm facing your leg with the dumbbell in it, and do a simple curl, spinning your hand, while clenching your arm until the palm of your hand and dumbbell are facing your shoulder, do not let the dumbbell or your hand touch your shoulder, that is too far. Just let it get almost there and stop, count for 1 second, and slowly, with a 3 second count, bring it back down to your side slowly and controlled. The entire time you should flex your bicep, so you feel it working.

Depending on your level of arm work out experience, you should start with 10 reps of these and next week do 15, then the week after do 20 reps. Whatever you are most comfortable with, you DO NOT want to over exert your self, because you can get hurt. I would recommend trying to do at least 10 of these in a row.

2. After you do that with your right arm, then switch and do it with your left arm, same work out, and do the same number of curls for each arm. So if you did 10 for your right arm, then you should do 10 for your left arm, un-less one arm is injured, or stronger than the other.

3. I would recommend doing 2 sets of these for each arm. If you do this slowly you definetly will feel the burn!

4. If this is too hard you can do many different transitions of arm work outs:

Example:
- doing this sitting down will probably be harder, since you are not using any weight.
- doing this standing up will probably be easier, since you can tighten your other muscles to help lift the dumbbell.
- do not rock your back when doing this, since you can throw out your back if lifting too much!
- also if in starting position the palm facing your leg is too hard, you can do a regular curl keep your palm facing forward at the start and facing backwards once curled, this is easier.

So you have a lot of options for the arm work out, it is just important to do atleast 2 sets of 10 with each arm for whatever work out you feel most comfortable with.

Friday - Jump Rope and Ab Work out

I would recommend doing this work out again, but if you are soar from the week, or is your first week, you do not need to do this, I do not recommend working out any part of the body when it is soar. When the body is soar, then you have worked it out enough, and you need to eat protein and carbs to help build the muscles up again, so they heal properly.

If you can do it though, go ahead, and enjoy your self!

Saturday - Light Jog or Fast Walk atleast 1 mile

For Saturday I recommend doing a light jog, or a fast walk for atleast one mile. For many people jogging seems to be out of the questions, so I recommend a fast walk, and that nearly as many calories as a jog does, so you ARE working out VERY HARD when doing a FAST WALK.

Sunday - REST!

You need to have a day off to let the body recover from the week's work out, and then on Monday start the cycle all over again.

I have done this for 1 week so far and have seen some results. I like this because it is a quick easy work out that I can get done early in the morning, and gets my day started in a light and easy way. No driving, no running in the rain, just find a place you can have 10-15 minutes to work out every morning, and perform these exercies.

Diet for this work out:

Breakfast - Oatmeal with fruits (bananas or blue berries) or a healthy Cereal (recommend Honey Nut Cherrios)

Lunch - A light lunch, eat about 500 calories, and make sure to eat some protien with your lunch too! (chicken, turkey, peanut butter sandwiches, etc)

Dinner - Eat a light dinner of about 500 calories, and try to make it as much protien as possible, try to NOT eat allot of carbs for dinner! Try to avoid carbs altogether for dinner.

Lastly - DO NOT EAT AFTER 8PM! If you want a light snack after dinner that is ok, grapes, fruits, apples, banans, peanuts, celery, all good. NO CARBS!!

When you eat carbs after 8pm it turns into FAT over night!
BUT
If you DO NOT eat carbs after 8pm, you actually LOOSE WEIGHT, while SLEEPING!

I assure you if you follow this diet, you will loose weight!