Lower Body Nobodies

I talked earlier about the guys that do nothing but arm lifts. These are the ones with hulking arms, and stick skinny legs that you see exclusively near the bench press. I was walking on the treadmill at the gym and I noticed a few of these, lower body nobodies.

I am not sure why I find these guys to be of such interest or concern to me, but they are. I think it is because I like to be balanced and well rounded. I see these guys every day I am at the gym, and I wonder if they know that they could get bigger upper bodies by getting bigger legs.

While doing my cardio I saw two guys that I usually see at the gym. They definitely qualify as the lower body nobodies. A thought came to mind on what type of information do they read. Obviously they care about their fitness, or otherwise they wouldn't be at the gym so much. I just wonder what is telling them to lift the way that they lift.

I do not want you to think that I know everything, or that my approach is the best way. Far from it. I just hope that in whatever you do, you try to do it in the best most efficient way possible. I love to read information about fitness, and I hope I can share as much of it with you as I can.

365 Fit for life.

She Likes It Big

Now that I have your attention, we can pull your head out of the gutter, and get to the real topic. She likes big shoulders, big chest, and big arms.

When I was in high school and would go to the gym with my friends, I saw them do two maybe three lifts the entire time they were there. They would do bench press and bicep curls. They would do this every day they were in the gym. I never followed them because I didn't know exactly the reasons at the time, I just knew that wasn't the way to go.

It is true that some women like bigger things. I still see guys doing only upper body lifts. They will be these huge guys on top, and have scrawny legs on the bottom. I have done a little research over the years and this is what I have found.

If you want bigger arms, you need to have bigger legs. The more weight your body can move, the more testosterone your body will produce. The more testosterone you produce the more your muscles will grow. I know this isn't an exact science, but it shows my point.

With that said, you need to do leg lifts. Squats are the best thing in the world for you. Dead lift is awesome. Get your legs going and you will see better results in your chest and arms.

Lifting has come a long way from the bench press and bicep curl days. I hope that you progress along with it.

Lifting Through Cardio

In my last post I talked about getting more cardio from your lifting. This time around I will talk a little bit about getting more of a lifting workout through your cardio. The way to accomplish this is through resistance.

Most people usually do cardio on a treadmill, bike, or eliptical machine. All of which provide a good cardio workout. An often overlooked piece of equipment, or at least, I tend to overlook it, is the stair climber. I usually avoid this bad boy because, well, it's hard. It forces you to do more work and keep your heart rate pumped up through the duration. I guess in essence it is probably one of the better machines to use, but with all things, it depends on what you hope to achieve.

Stair climbers allow an increase level of resistance to add to your cardio. You get the benefit of constantly moving which is what cardio is meant to do, but it also works your legs, namely your quads, more so than a standard treadmill would. People usually try to seperate their lifting from their cardio, and I think that is why the stair climber is usually avoided.

If the stair climber isn't your machine of choice, any of the above machinery listed above will work, you just gotta know the adjustments. For the bike you need to increase the resistance. This will force you to pedal harder giving your legs a better workout. On the treadmill you need to raise the incline of the machine making it seem like you are running up a hill. The eliptical you can do both, increase the resistance and the incline. There is a little debate on whether or not the eliptical machine is worth the time, but I will cover that later.

There you go, lifting from cardio, hope it keeps you going, 365 Fit for life.

Cardio Through Lifting

Cardio through lifting is not a new concept by any means. It is just picking up the tempo of your lifts. You do that by decreasing your rest period and increasing your reps. I am sure you have heard that they say to build lean muscle you need to lift less weight and do more reps. I am not overly sure how accurate that is, I will have to do some research and post something about it later, but for now, we'll call it plausible that the statement is true.

Decreasing your rest period is probably the easiest way to burn more calories while you are lifting. If you usually rest, the time inbetween your sets, for a standard 60 seconds, then decrease it to more in the 30 to 45 second range. It allows you to spend less time lifting, increase heart rate, and increase muscle fatigue.

If you want to go the increase your reps route, then it's as simple as that, increase your reps. If you do a standard 8-10 reps then do more like 10-15 reps or more. In some or all cases you will probably have to lower your weights. In most cases you wouldn't want to decrease weight, but if you are in a leaning phase, then dropping your weight shouldn't be an issue. Lower weight will allow you to get in those extra reps you need to keep your heart rate elevated and burn those extra calories.

For the best results you should probably combine the two. Less weight with higher reps per set combined with a decreased rest period. One more thing to note, doing some circuit training is also a great way to get more of a cardio workout from lifting. The short of circuits is to do a little lighter weight but rotate through multiple lifts doing maybe a 30 second lift period for all lifts in succession. I will explain more about circuits in a later post.

I hope this little information helps and allows you to get 365 Fit. Keep it going.

Tuesday May 13th Quick Tip

How often do we find ourselves standing around. We might be doing something, we might not be, but I know that we are standing a lot. I remember standing in line at the pharmacy the other day and there was a long line ahead of me and the liklihood that the line was going to move forward in a quick type fashion was slim. Instead of standing there idle I chose to do something about it. I thought what would 365 Fit do? This is what they'd do.

Calf raises and reverse calf raises ( I do not remember what you exactly call them but I'll explain ). Just stand on your toes and then rock back on your heels over and over and over again. Stand up on your toes trying to make yourself as tall as possible. Hold the position for a few seconds before reversing the motion. Rock back on your heels trying to get your toes as high in the air as you can.

I am not sure how much muscle this could possibly build as your calves are pretty strong to begin with so it would need a lot of reps or a lot of weight to encourage muscle growth. At the very least you will be expending energy and therefore burning off a few calories even if it's just a couple.

You might look a little funny doing it and people might stare, but that's ok. If they want to stare then let them stare, in fact invite them to join in on it. Better you look silly for a few minutes knowing that you are doing something good, then to be ashamed and not take every oportunity you have to do something to be fit.

Keep it going, 365 Fit for life.

Pain And The Fine Line It Creates

I have been asked this question before, and I have also asked this of other people. Are you hurt, or are you injured? To most sports people they will know what that is, but for those who do not, I will try to explain. Most people will think of being hurt and injured are the same thing, and to some extent they are the same. The difference lies in the severity. If you are hurt you can probably work through it and continue whatever it was you were doing to hurt yourself in the first place. If you are injured you most likely will need to seek medical attention, and not continue with your activity.

I want to give credit to 24 Fit Club for indirectly giving me inspiration to write about this topic. You should go check it out as there are some good things there to read.

Pushing through the pain is a common thing for me. I have been told that you can do it and even though it hurts you can still do it. This philosophy will not work for everyone as every person's idea of pain and pushing are different. I like to watch a show called Made on MTV. The short of it is this, a person who isn't good at something wants to be good at something. They get a coach and usually five or six weeks to get good at what they want and at the end they enter some sort of contest to show that they are now good at whatever it was they were trying for. The majority of the people on that show that want to do something athletic, snowboard, play basketball, or any other sport, are not usually that in shape or athletic. I most recently watched a girl who wanted to be a ballerina. She was put on a training schedule and to her it was pretty intense. There was one scene where she was using a step machine and basically had a panic attack because it got to hard and she quit. This is where pushing through the pain needs to take place. That girl on Made was not injured, she was just hurt, and by the standards that I set earlier means she could have continued with her workout. That episode got me to thinking how do you push pass the pain.

I was always under the assumption that to push past the pain you just have to tough it out and do it. Like all advice, it is one thing to say it, and another thing to know how to do it. The first time that you get hurt you are more likely to quit than you are to keep going. I know that when I was swimming I would get a sort of leg cramp or in basketball I would say my toe hurt or some other excuse because I didn't want to continue. Looking back on that it seems odd that I would rather lie to not do something than to simply say I do not want to. I digress... Toughing it out seems to be a learned response. You get injured and you either move past it or you let it stop you. You might not always push past it, but the more times that you do, the easier it gets for you to do it. Yelling and berating someone for not being able to push past the pain, especially when it's their first opportunity to try to, is probably not the best solution to get them to try harder. There is a difference between taking a little time to be able to push past the pain, and just giving up. Most people never give the chance to allow the time it takes each individual to push past the pain and therefore they quit either by their own accord or by the actions of others.

My take on this is simply to do what your mind and body are telling it to do. Your mind and body are both amazing resilient things and when pushed, it will deliver the results that you want to see.

Keep on pushing and don't let a little pain slow you down. 365 Fit,fit for life.









It's sort of ironic that when the girl from made quit cause she was hurt actually continued after she was injured. Just goes to show you can do anything if you want to.

Intensity, Never Just Go Through The Motions

Intensity has always been a pretty major buzz word in fitness. The only problem is it is hard to define making it hard for people to know what it means to be intense. To some it means grunting loudly, nostrils flaring, veins popping. To others it means going as hard and as long as you can possibly go. I hope to cover something in the middle of those two examples.

For this purpose, intensity refers more to how hard you are pushing yourself, whether it be cardio or strength training. As the title states, more often it seems that people simply go through the motions. Oh, I was at the gym for 45 minutes I must have done something good. I just did 20 reps that must mean that I did it right. People simply go through the motions of working out. They hop in their car, drive to the gym, and spend their allotted time. Few people in the casual group of fitness really focus on what it is they are doing.

To get the most benefit out of your cardio workout, it isn't about going longer it is about going harder, or more intense. You will burn more calories running/biking going nine mph for 10 minutes as opposed to doing the same motion but only getting up to five mph. The point is to push yourself just hard enough to make sure you are focused on what you are doing. This means, put down your magazine, stop the chatter with your friends, and for 15 minutes focus on what you came to do in the first place.

I like the idea of interval training and there are many different types to do. The basic premise to all of them is, go hard and then ease up and repeat. I typically like to do a minute of as hard as I can go, followed by two minutes at about 70%. Other way's to do it are short 30 second sprint bursts followed by 10 seconds of a slower speed. Whatever you choose to do, just make sure you are present in your workout meaning your thoughts are on is this too easy or should I speed my pace up.

Lifting weights follows the same concept of cardio intensity. Looking back on how I started my lifting I can remember trying to lift too heavy of a weight and only getting in half repetitions. I thought I was doing something good since I was there and I was lifting a decent amount of weight. Now after all I have read on lifting I know that I was doing myself a disservice. I wasn't getting a full range of motion nor was I using good form in my lifts, I was just going through the motion. This is where intensity fits into the equation.

First for most guys, check your ego at the door, it doesn't belong in a gym. After that, for your lifts, find a weight that you can actually lift, all the way through your repetitions, and with good form. This is where being present will benefit you as well. Lift with intensity meaning thinking about good form, powering through your entire range of motion getting the most benefit from each movement that you do. Like with cardio, doing 10 solid reps with the proper weight and good from will be much more beneficial than doing 10 half reps with a weight you can not lift.

Intensity is what will get you through your plateaus. If you aren't happy with your weight loss then run harder, faster, you will see improvements. If you aren't getting stronger, lift with a purpose and you will see improvements.

Keep on going no matter what, good things are just a day away, 365 Fit will always be along for the ride. Good things.

Strength, Flexibility, Balance

Strength, flexibility, and balance are all parts of your one whole. Without one the other three are ultimately doomed to fail. If we are not strong then we can not possibly balance ourselves when we are lifting for strength. If we are not flexible then we can not possibly move within our full range of motion getting the optimal benefit from whatever fitness move we are trying to do. If we are not balanced, then we will fall when we lift and when we stretch.

It seems like we fall into one category or another, but mostly into the strength or flexible category. Often we will see mostly men lifting to get strong, often neglecting certain areas that should be worked more than others. With women we see the opposite and they usually go the flexibility or balance route more so than the strength route in fear of becoming bulky.

In all fitness we need to have all three. I have been working on a plan to incorporate all three of them. I have taken ideas from articles I have read and past experiences and this is what I have come up with.

In the mornings three days out of the week comes my strength. I am trying to build up to more complex movements, but mostly focus on my main areas of my body. My chest, back, shoulders, quadriceps/hamstrings/glutes. I do dumb bell bench press to isolate each arm separately to work my chest and upper arms. I do leg press to focus on my quads/hams/glutes. I also know that squats may or may not be better for me, but this is what I choose to do for now. I do bent over dumb bell rows again to isolate my arms and to provide a wider range of motion for my lats. I finish with pull ups/chin ups to work basically everything, my shoulders, biceps, triceps, lats, traps, delts, and even a little of my abs for good measure.

In the evenings I take a chapter from yoga/pilates and work on conditioning my core and lengthening and stretching my muscles as well as adding flexibility. I like to do this in the evenings as it tends to relax me a little more and it's not as intensive. I try to do this every day, especially on my strength days to help get the tension out.

Balance is going to be coming by way of Ray Allen and men's fitness. I read an article about him and it shows him doing different things for balance. I found it interesting looking at him standing on one foot usually with a band around his quads, knees, or ankles and then throwing him things, medicine balls and the like. I think doing some off balance things such as using a wobble board, or a bosu ball, or just standing on a pillow once or twice a week and just moving will help to incorporate some of the smaller stabilizer muscles. I know that you shouldn't be doing everything with an aid ( bosu ball ) since you won't be getting the strength bang for your buck as you can not lift as much weight, but once or twice in a week should help out your balance.

I know this one is lengthy and technical or at least more technical than previous posts, but I wanted to share a little insight on where I was in my 365 Fit goals and plan so that you can see that I am a real person, doing real things, just like you. In the following days/weeks I will be going a little more in depth on each of the three areas, strength, flexibility, and balance and will hopefully clear up things, or add too things as we go along.

Here is to all of you doing your thing and getting 365 Fit, even if the rest of the world isn't. Good things.

Tuesday April 22nd Quick Tip

If you are going to pick up your kids from school, or are just waiting in the car for someone or something, here is a quick tip to help you get in a little mini workout while you wait.

Make sure the car is in park before you start this. Recline your seat all the way back, and do some situps. It doesn't really matter how many you do, just get started and see how many you can do. To add this into your routine, see how many you can do and then try to beat it the next time you are waiting.

Hope that you find this quick tip helpful.