1/4 cup frozen pineapple
1 teaspoon chia seeds
1 scoop vanilla whey protein
1 cup fat free milk
Blend until there is a slight texture. No ice needed because the frozen fruit did the work for you.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Bicep curls
A common exercise, bicep curls are performed by most people that step foot inside a gym. This exercise strengthens grip, wrist, forearm, bicep, and shoulder muscles. It is an excellent supplement to any shoulder routine, pullup, and back exercise, as the biceps are prime movers in all of those.
If you are used to using dumbbells, ditch them for a theratube, which offers the added variable of elasticity, forcing you into the negative aspect of the exercise a little more intensely than the dumbbells offer.
While using the theratube, try variations of speed, including as fast as you can for a minute, slow on the way up and fast on the way down, and vice versa.
If you are still using dumbbells, try variations of form and technique. Test out the spider curl, where you alternate curls, curling your right hand up and across your body to your left shoulder and vice versa. There is also the wide arm curl, where the elbows stay tight to your body and you perform the curls as widely as you can.
Don't continue with the standard routine that you do day in and day out. Your muscles are used to this, and likely aren't responding well anymore. Switch up the routine a bit and throw a couple extra variations in, your muscles will thank you for it.
If you are used to using dumbbells, ditch them for a theratube, which offers the added variable of elasticity, forcing you into the negative aspect of the exercise a little more intensely than the dumbbells offer.
While using the theratube, try variations of speed, including as fast as you can for a minute, slow on the way up and fast on the way down, and vice versa.
If you are still using dumbbells, try variations of form and technique. Test out the spider curl, where you alternate curls, curling your right hand up and across your body to your left shoulder and vice versa. There is also the wide arm curl, where the elbows stay tight to your body and you perform the curls as widely as you can.
Don't continue with the standard routine that you do day in and day out. Your muscles are used to this, and likely aren't responding well anymore. Switch up the routine a bit and throw a couple extra variations in, your muscles will thank you for it.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Don't make it a chore, make it a lifestyle!
Healthy eating and exercise don't last too long if just thrown into a typical day. Going to the gym can actually become a dreaded thing lurking at the end of your already long workday, making it easy to blow off on the way home from work. It's easy to continually hit the snooze button instead of getting up for that morning jog. It's just more convenient to skip the hearty breakfast that you were going to prepare and hit up a convenience store on the way for a quicker, less healthy alternative.
These scenarios are common, and portray a lot of people I know. With workdays getting longer, multiple jobs, school, and hectic lifestyles, most people tend to feel that exercise and diet don't fit in and get in the way. Simply put in a phrase I commonly hear: "I just don't have the time to be healthy."
The time isn't there because these things are often placed last on the things "to do." They really should be first priority. Lifestyle is based off of health and wellness. Your health (physical, emotional, and mental) determines your work ethic, your mood, your productivity, your drive, and so on. The healthier you are, the better everything else is. You must brainstorm how you will incorporate health and wellness into your life. This could be sleeping more, giving up a bad habit, buying a bicycle, seeing a dietician, or hiring a personal trainer.
Look at health and wellness as a lifestyle, it is the foundation that everything you do requires. It needs to be strong and complete. Do not look at health and wellness as a chore. If you do so, everything you perform will be done without a strong foundation, with less efficiency and less success. Incorporate healthy practices into your life more and more. Introduce them slowly, don't overwhelm yourself or your family, let yourself adapt to them, don't make them adapt to you.
These scenarios are common, and portray a lot of people I know. With workdays getting longer, multiple jobs, school, and hectic lifestyles, most people tend to feel that exercise and diet don't fit in and get in the way. Simply put in a phrase I commonly hear: "I just don't have the time to be healthy."
The time isn't there because these things are often placed last on the things "to do." They really should be first priority. Lifestyle is based off of health and wellness. Your health (physical, emotional, and mental) determines your work ethic, your mood, your productivity, your drive, and so on. The healthier you are, the better everything else is. You must brainstorm how you will incorporate health and wellness into your life. This could be sleeping more, giving up a bad habit, buying a bicycle, seeing a dietician, or hiring a personal trainer.
Look at health and wellness as a lifestyle, it is the foundation that everything you do requires. It needs to be strong and complete. Do not look at health and wellness as a chore. If you do so, everything you perform will be done without a strong foundation, with less efficiency and less success. Incorporate healthy practices into your life more and more. Introduce them slowly, don't overwhelm yourself or your family, let yourself adapt to them, don't make them adapt to you.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Aim for success
Too many times have I seen clients make goals that are too far out of reach for the timeframe given. This is in relation to performance gains, personal bests, weight loss, dietary changes, body fat percentages, and inches lost.
Small, attainable goals are more realistic. I like to call them benchmarks because you can compare them to the past and make your future benchmark based on your present ones. A few examples would be losing one pound per week, shaving 10 seconds off of your mile run time per week, and eliminating one serving of an unhealthy food out of your diet per day.
Larger goals in unrealistic time frames often are unattainable and often can be recipes for failure. Creating a large goal of "losing 20 pounds by the summer" is not a smart goal because it offers no definitive guidelines, methods of attainment, or smaller benchmark goals en route to the large goal. Make sure those items are always present and break your ultimate goal into many smaller goals to help get you there.
See my previous posts titled "Consistency and Progression" and "Tweak it before you Delete it" where I go in depth on methods to successfully reach your goals.
Small, attainable goals are more realistic. I like to call them benchmarks because you can compare them to the past and make your future benchmark based on your present ones. A few examples would be losing one pound per week, shaving 10 seconds off of your mile run time per week, and eliminating one serving of an unhealthy food out of your diet per day.
Larger goals in unrealistic time frames often are unattainable and often can be recipes for failure. Creating a large goal of "losing 20 pounds by the summer" is not a smart goal because it offers no definitive guidelines, methods of attainment, or smaller benchmark goals en route to the large goal. Make sure those items are always present and break your ultimate goal into many smaller goals to help get you there.
See my previous posts titled "Consistency and Progression" and "Tweak it before you Delete it" where I go in depth on methods to successfully reach your goals.
Friday, April 19, 2013
You are what you eat!
A saying that has been around forever, yet no one seems to take it seriously. You indeed are what you eat.
Countless times have people complained to me about how they are working out but have not lost any weight. These are usually the same people that took no action to change their diet, most likely assuming that working out is ALL that they needed to do in order to drop some pounds.
The truth is, exercise comes second to nutrition. I always say that "junk in equals junk results," meaning that any performance gains, weight loss, or general toning will always be sub par if you are not putting the correct calories and fuel in your body to begin with. I am not saying that exercise alone won't help you, but merely stating that proper diet coupled with exercise will pay you back in dividends. If you want to make the most of a health and fitness regimen or really are just looking to drop a few pounds then work efficiently keep diet AND exercise working hand in hand; the correct calories and micronutrients supplied by fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lowly processed foods will give you the extra jump start needed to achieve your goals.
Juice, juice, juice. I cannot stress it enough. Drink your fruits and vegetables if you cannot stand eating them. Don't waste money on commercial and processed vegetable and fruit juices, make them from scratch with raw produce to be sure you are getting the nutrients, antioxidants, and other benefits. Make smoothies with low fat milk. Add nuts and beans to your snacks and lunches. Ditch the chips and take up a healthier alternative like hummus and edamame. Drink water! Often times, thirst is mistaken as hunger, therefore we eat excess calories to satiate ourselves when all we needed was a glass of water.
Take a good hard look at your daily eating habits and weigh it against your physical activities and health goals. Just remember, you are what you eat!
Countless times have people complained to me about how they are working out but have not lost any weight. These are usually the same people that took no action to change their diet, most likely assuming that working out is ALL that they needed to do in order to drop some pounds.
The truth is, exercise comes second to nutrition. I always say that "junk in equals junk results," meaning that any performance gains, weight loss, or general toning will always be sub par if you are not putting the correct calories and fuel in your body to begin with. I am not saying that exercise alone won't help you, but merely stating that proper diet coupled with exercise will pay you back in dividends. If you want to make the most of a health and fitness regimen or really are just looking to drop a few pounds then work efficiently keep diet AND exercise working hand in hand; the correct calories and micronutrients supplied by fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lowly processed foods will give you the extra jump start needed to achieve your goals.
Juice, juice, juice. I cannot stress it enough. Drink your fruits and vegetables if you cannot stand eating them. Don't waste money on commercial and processed vegetable and fruit juices, make them from scratch with raw produce to be sure you are getting the nutrients, antioxidants, and other benefits. Make smoothies with low fat milk. Add nuts and beans to your snacks and lunches. Ditch the chips and take up a healthier alternative like hummus and edamame. Drink water! Often times, thirst is mistaken as hunger, therefore we eat excess calories to satiate ourselves when all we needed was a glass of water.
Take a good hard look at your daily eating habits and weigh it against your physical activities and health goals. Just remember, you are what you eat!
Monday, April 15, 2013
Juice of the day
Juice of the day:
3 red delicious apples
2 carrots
1 cucumber
1 lime
1 orange
Serve over ice and enjoy!
(Think you could eat this all in one sitting? Probably not, that's why I juice it!)
Think of all the natural vitamins and nutrients, turbocharge your body.
3 red delicious apples
2 carrots
1 cucumber
1 lime
1 orange
Serve over ice and enjoy!
(Think you could eat this all in one sitting? Probably not, that's why I juice it!)
Think of all the natural vitamins and nutrients, turbocharge your body.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
No excuses!
The weather is perfect out there today; sunny and warm. There is no reason to not get outside today and go for a jog, a walk, a bike ride, even an outdoor workout. Even make yardwork interesting by turning it into a workout; perfect your squat form by doing one each time you pick up a stick, do 10 pushups for evey flower you plant, load the wheelbarrow up and walk it around focusing on a tight core, find a low tree branch and work on pullups. The list goes on.
Nature is calling you today, there should be no reason why you can't get outside today and get active!
Nature is calling you today, there should be no reason why you can't get outside today and get active!
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Accountability
Answer the following questions:
How often do you work out?
Do you follow a routine?
Who do you workout with?
Why do you workout?
What are your goals?
What keeps you from exercising?
If you had positive responses to each of the questions then it probably means you do a good job at keeping yourself motivated with health and fitness.
If you didn't feel so positive answering these questions, then you can join the other 95% of us. That's right, the ones that need to be held accountable for their health!
Many people ask my clients at the gym why exactly they pay me to train them, usually also sliding in the common question; "can't you just do it yourself?" My clients always state the bitter truth; "if I don't show, he'll charge me anyway!" The fact is, they know that if they have scheduled their time to be somewhere, and also committed the money, then they will have much better chances of sticking with it.
Health starts with accountability. Decide now which day of the week will be your grocery shopping day, which days will be workout days, what your exact goals are. Write them all on a planner or calendar. Look at those plans everyday to keep them fresh in your mindset. Workout early in the morning to avoid skipping it or becoming tangled up with work or other plans later in the day. The gym is easy to blow off, but not as easy if you do it first thing in the am. Post-it note your goals and hang them in highly trafficed areas in your house, work, even in your car.
If you still can't get it, look into hiring a trainer, train with a friend, take classes at the gym, sign up for a race so you have a longterm goal to work towards. Start watching documentaries and reading fitness articles, continue reading my blog, all of this will slowly creep into your head.
Hold yourself accountable!
How often do you work out?
Do you follow a routine?
Who do you workout with?
Why do you workout?
What are your goals?
What keeps you from exercising?
If you had positive responses to each of the questions then it probably means you do a good job at keeping yourself motivated with health and fitness.
If you didn't feel so positive answering these questions, then you can join the other 95% of us. That's right, the ones that need to be held accountable for their health!
Many people ask my clients at the gym why exactly they pay me to train them, usually also sliding in the common question; "can't you just do it yourself?" My clients always state the bitter truth; "if I don't show, he'll charge me anyway!" The fact is, they know that if they have scheduled their time to be somewhere, and also committed the money, then they will have much better chances of sticking with it.
Health starts with accountability. Decide now which day of the week will be your grocery shopping day, which days will be workout days, what your exact goals are. Write them all on a planner or calendar. Look at those plans everyday to keep them fresh in your mindset. Workout early in the morning to avoid skipping it or becoming tangled up with work or other plans later in the day. The gym is easy to blow off, but not as easy if you do it first thing in the am. Post-it note your goals and hang them in highly trafficed areas in your house, work, even in your car.
If you still can't get it, look into hiring a trainer, train with a friend, take classes at the gym, sign up for a race so you have a longterm goal to work towards. Start watching documentaries and reading fitness articles, continue reading my blog, all of this will slowly creep into your head.
Hold yourself accountable!
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Tendonitis
Everyone has experienced it; the pain around a muscle from overuse. Tender to the touch, maybe just flaring up in certain activities or motions, the annoyance and pain that hinders your body in some way.
This is usually known as a tendonitis, or sometimes now referred to as tendonosis. Either way it is an injury sustained from overuse of a certain muscle group creating microtrauma in the tendons associated.
Common affected areas are the knees, elbows, forearms, and shoulders, usually from running, racquet sports, repetitive lifting and even improper footwear.
The best thing I can recommend for these sore, troublesome areas is ice and rest. Simply put, if a movement bothers you, then you need to not do that movement, let that tendon rest, that is why it is inflamed. Find an alternate activity or movement that accomplishes the same thing. Aggressive icing definitely can provide relief and speed up the recovery process. A hint is to take some dixie cups full to the brim with water and freeze them. When it is time to ice, take a frozen cup and peel away the top inch, exposing the ice, and use this part to rub circles on the affected area. Continue this for five minutes (peeling back more and more cup as the ice melts) for at least 5 minutes. The area will probably numb quickly but the relief will last way longer. This more aggressive way of icing is more effective than laying a frozen bag of peas over your knee at night.
Remember, tendonitis will only go away if you take the proper steps. Rest and ice are your friends.
This is usually known as a tendonitis, or sometimes now referred to as tendonosis. Either way it is an injury sustained from overuse of a certain muscle group creating microtrauma in the tendons associated.
Common affected areas are the knees, elbows, forearms, and shoulders, usually from running, racquet sports, repetitive lifting and even improper footwear.
The best thing I can recommend for these sore, troublesome areas is ice and rest. Simply put, if a movement bothers you, then you need to not do that movement, let that tendon rest, that is why it is inflamed. Find an alternate activity or movement that accomplishes the same thing. Aggressive icing definitely can provide relief and speed up the recovery process. A hint is to take some dixie cups full to the brim with water and freeze them. When it is time to ice, take a frozen cup and peel away the top inch, exposing the ice, and use this part to rub circles on the affected area. Continue this for five minutes (peeling back more and more cup as the ice melts) for at least 5 minutes. The area will probably numb quickly but the relief will last way longer. This more aggressive way of icing is more effective than laying a frozen bag of peas over your knee at night.
Remember, tendonitis will only go away if you take the proper steps. Rest and ice are your friends.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Stretch yourself
One of the most important aspects of health and fitness is flexibility. It is important to keep flexibility in the muscles and tendons so that pliability is there when we need it. This could be in a fall, aging, job specific, or to advance in a particular exercise.
Evaluate your day. If you sit at a desk for a good part of your workday then chances are that you will have tight hip flexors and tight hamstrings based on the seated position. How do you prevent these muscles from getting too tight? Make an honest effort to get up once every hour and reach for your toes, feel the stretch in the hamstrings and how good it feels on your back. Pull a foot up behind you and hold it there while keeping your knees tight together, feel your thigh stretch, but more importantly, your hip flexor.
Do you stand all day? Then make an effort to focus on stretching your back. Get down on your knees, sit your butt back on your heels, then reach your arms out in front of you and lower your entire upper body towards the ground. Feel the stretch in your entire back and hold.
A good rule of thumb for a flexibility routine during your workday is to do 5 minutes of stretching per hour. It really is simple, and the benefits are exponential.
Don't see anything in your workday that poses issues? Look harder, look at yourself in the mirror, note your posture, look at what arm and leg are more dominant, stretch them!
Evaluate your day. If you sit at a desk for a good part of your workday then chances are that you will have tight hip flexors and tight hamstrings based on the seated position. How do you prevent these muscles from getting too tight? Make an honest effort to get up once every hour and reach for your toes, feel the stretch in the hamstrings and how good it feels on your back. Pull a foot up behind you and hold it there while keeping your knees tight together, feel your thigh stretch, but more importantly, your hip flexor.
Do you stand all day? Then make an effort to focus on stretching your back. Get down on your knees, sit your butt back on your heels, then reach your arms out in front of you and lower your entire upper body towards the ground. Feel the stretch in your entire back and hold.
A good rule of thumb for a flexibility routine during your workday is to do 5 minutes of stretching per hour. It really is simple, and the benefits are exponential.
Don't see anything in your workday that poses issues? Look harder, look at yourself in the mirror, note your posture, look at what arm and leg are more dominant, stretch them!
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