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Archive for June, 2010
Here is an abdominal exercise you can do practically anywhere and without using any special equipment. The abdominal exercise for today, is called the Seated Leg Pull In or the Seated Leg Tucks.
- Sit on a flat bench or sideways on a chair and grab the sides.
- Lean back to about a 45 degree angle.
- Extend your legs out in front of you, keeping the knees together and slightly bent.
- Pull your belly button to your spine, keep the upper body stable and pull the knees toward your chest.
- Extend the legs out, but don’t touch the floor and repeat keeping legs lifted and pulling knees toward your chest.
- Exhale as you pull the knees in and inhale as you extend.
Personally, I’d do about 20 reps for 3 sets. If you need to gain abdominal strength, start out with 8-10 reps. You must maintain proper form and stabilization to achieve results. So if you are going on vacation and wish to continue doing a mini workout, you can incorporate this abdominal exercise.
Ok you have reached a plateau and you are not seeing the results of lean muscle. In order to build lean muscle, your body has to fully recuperate after an intense weight lifting workout. The body has limited capacity to build lean muscle and it will not happen until the muscle has had time to recover. So allow yourself to take time off for a week or 3 every now and then.
If you are looking to build that lean muscle, don’t sabotage yourself with other heavy workouts. You should have brief high intensity weight training workouts specifically for muscle growth. Then sprinkle in low intensity fat burning sessions. You don’t want the body to have to recover from the cardio, then there’s no time for the muscle growth. So space out your high intensity workouts with lower intensity calorie burning workouts to allow for proper rest and recovery to build lean muscle.
Stretching exercises are extremely important after you have completed your cardiovascular and /or strength training workout. It is also important to stretch before you begin any workout after you did a 5-10 minute warm up.
The warm up does just that, warms up the body temperature, gets the blood circulating and prepping the muscles for action. Begin your stretching with a slow and controlled manner. Static stretching is best for lengthening the larger muscle groups and getting a full range of motion in the stretch. Hold the stretch for 15-30 seconds in a pain free, comfortable position.
Stretching before exercising (after warm up) reduces the risk of injuries. Stretching exercises after
exercising helps the muscles to relax, helps eliminate muscle soreness and stiffness and elongates the muscles worked. Whenever you are doing stretching exercises it is crucial to use the proper technique to get an effective stretch.
Frequent stretching helps eliminate muscle imbalances, and maintains flexibility as we age. So please make time for your stretching exercises in your workout routines.
Kettlebell exercises combined together can produce comprehensive fat burning workouts! Here is a Weekend Workout you can try with 3 kettlebell exercises, that will increase your heart rate, tone your muscles and produce a fat burning workout.
The combination in this fat burning workout includes:
- 10 Snatches on 5 with each arm
- 10 Kettlebell Burpees
- 10 Swings
You would do each of these exercises:
- 30 seconds
- 15 seconds of rest between exercises
- 3-5 rounds of the combo
There are ways to make the Burpees more intense, by using 2 kettlebells and doing a pushup between jumping back and forth. Then, when you jump forward, pick up the kettlebells and jump up holding them.
There also options with the Swing. You can do single hand swings, hand to hand swings, 2 hand
swings, or flips. The intensity gradually increases.
I’ve called this the “Weekend Workout”, but obviously, it can be done during the week, in addition to other fat burning workouts.
Kettlebell workouts can be challenging. If you are looking to continue working with kettlebells and want to kick it up a notch, use 2 kettlebells at the same time. First understand , that you must maintain proper form using 1 kettlebell first before graduating on to more advanced kettlebell workouts.
One of the advanced kettlebell workouts you can try is the snatch:clean combo. Clean one kettlebell while you execute a snatch with the other kettlebell. When you first start practicing this, stay with the one side snatching and the other arm doing a clean, before you move onto alternating arms.
Repeat the same exercise on one side first so you can get the timing down. Then switch, doing the same number of reps of a clean and snatching with the opposite arms. Once your coordination gets better, then try alternating each exercise simultaneously with both arms. Do this and other kettlebell exercises for 30 seconds each as part of your advanced kettlebell workouts!
Abdominal muscle exercises are many and varied. Pendulum Crunches is a mighty little exercise that can pack a punch to your abdominal muscles. Not only do the Pendulum Crunches work the entire core but they can work you hip flexors as well. You can always modify this exercise to make it harder or easier.
- Lay supine on the mat.
- Open your arms out to a T on the sides locking the elbows on the floor.
- Lift your knees to 90 degrees.
- Engage the abdominal muscles.
- Slowly roll your legs to the right.
- Keep your shoulder blades on the mat, so watch how low the legs roll.
- Bring the knees back to center and roll them to the left.
- Alternate sides.
To make this exercise harder, extend the legs up to 90 degrees, and keep them extended as you roll side to side, maintaining the shoulders blades on the mat. You can use a stability ball between your legs to also increase the intensity.
As you know, abdominal muscle exercises strengthens your core. Like any other muscle group you need to keep the variety in the exercises, to achieve maximum results!
As I was contemplating today’s blog, I remembered this great flat stomach exercise; leg extension crunches with a stability ball. As with all abdominal exercises you always want to maintain the lower back into the mat. With this is mind, you will to be mindful about how low to extend the legs for this flat stomach exercise.
- Lay supine.
- Extend your legs placing the stability ball on your shins.
- Place hands behind your head, elbows out to the side.
- Exhale as you bend your knees and bring your legs to table top while simultaneously lifting your upper body into a crunch and keeping the ball on your shins.
- Hold that position for 2 seconds.
- Release, lowering upper body and extending the legs.
- Repeat about 10-12 times.
An easier option could be to place your hands under your body to protect the lower back.
This is pretty much an all inclusive flat stomach exercise working the lower and upper portions of your abdominal area. Remember to pull the belly button to your spine when you EXHALE!
There are a variety of ways to burn fat, and some ways are smarter than others. Experts agree that you should elevate your heart rate for at least 30 minutes to burn fat. There are some concerns I have to mention during these summer months with regard to safety and your workouts. If you are taking your fat burning workouts outdoors, be mindful of the heat and humidity. It will take your body at least 7-14 days to get acclimated to this type of weather. Remember to stay hydrated before, during and after a workout.
Even if you are working indoors to burn fat, be aware that you may achieve a higher heart rate quicker than usual due to the heat and humidity. It may not take as much energy to get the heart rate in your targeted zone, so pay close attention to it. The rules still apply, that is, to not exceed your maximum heart rate! A heart rate monitor is the best way to do this.
You don’t need anything fancy with a GPS, and all crazy bells and whistles. Simply get a device that monitors your heart. The average cost is about $50. It’s probably the best investment you can make for yourself to be safe and burn fat! I have a perfect Polar heart rate monitor for less than $50, just click here!
Kettlebell Burpees, how fun!! Here are some add on kettlebell exercises to add to the basic kettlebell burpee. First of all, the kettlebell burpee is a good warm up exercise, because it gets the blood flowing, the heart pumping and the muscles ready to work.
The basic Burpee:
- Get 2 of the same weight kettlebells and place them on the floor next to your legs.
- Stand up tall then squat down to pick up the kettlebells.
- Stand back up with the kettlebells.
- Squat and place the kettlebells on the floor.
- Still holding on to the kettlebells, jump your feet back.
- Jump the feet forward and stand tall without the kettlebells.
- Start all over again.
You can add-on to this kettlebell exercise, by adding in a push up, when your legs are back. There is another add-on which intensifies this exercise, and that is after your push up, still holding on to the kettlebells jump the feet forward and jump up with the kettlebells!
There, you have 3 different kettlebell exercises to warm up your muscles and burn some fat as an added bonus!
Yesterday when we talked about weight training routines, it was all about working back and biceps. So today, it’s only natural to talk about working chest and triceps, as we continue our overall discussion about toned and shapely arms.
Just like the biceps are a secondary muscle group when working back, triceps are a secondary muscle group when working chest. That means when you are weight training chest, you’ll want to fatigue the triceps muscles as well. Push ups are an excellent choice for chest and triceps. The closer your hands are the more you isolate the triceps. The chest press uses triceps and again, the closer the hands are on the bar, the more triceps work you’ll get.
When you hit the chest hard, only work the triceps with a couple of exercises afterward, like dips, and/or triceps extensions. You don’t want to over train the the triceps. After 4-5 weeks hit your triceps hard, with more triceps exercises and go lighter on your chest. Keep this weight training routine for a couple weeks, building triceps strength, and hopefully you will see increased bench press weight.