Improve Your Fitness Level Through Calisthenics

Calisthenics and stretching are just some of the many forms of exercises fashioned by some of the known fitness gurus of today. These two were known to be partners in the fitness world. Besides, you cannot do any exercise without doing initial stretching.

Stretching prepares your muscles for more serious muscular movements. It helps elongate, build up and lubricate muscles by the steady application of force. It is regularly done before any other exercise to intensify the series of activities in the joints. It also helps prevent muscle cramps. It can be done before and after an exercise.

Calisthenics on the other hand, is a kind of fitness training or exercise used to boost the body’s strength, stamina and flexibility. Normally, you don’t need to have weights or any other equipment to perform this kind of exercise.

I Can, I Can’t

One common question I receive is, “What do you do for maintenance?” It always takes me by surprise because the concept is alien to me. Maintenance? Granted, when I started this lifestyle, I would have loved to have some “vacation” waiting for me at the end, and I was certainly thinking about how I would “relax things” when I achieved my peak physique. Along the journey, however, I learned a true lesson in life: there is never any “maintenance.”

Consider this: the average adult loses several pounds of muscle as they age. This has been studied in thousands of individuals over decades. As a person reaches their golden years, they begin to lose muscle mass. So what is maintenance? Is it losing muscle mass? I don’t think so. Even gaining enough muscle mass to counteract the natural loss is “progress” in my book – you must train hard, intensely, and consume the right foods in order to just “maintain” your lean mass. The net result is maintenance of your physique, but the training style is far from “maintenance.”

The same thing applies to training in general, even for younger individuals. It is well known that the body is quick to adapt to training. This is why the periodization model of training (which essentially involves changing the way you train over time) is so effective: it constantly manipulates parameters of training to prevent the body from adapting. Because the body is so good at becoming efficient, the longer someone trains, the fewer gains they are likely to make and the more intense their training must become. The converse to this is that because of the high intensity of training, most must rest more to recover as their training advances. Lee Haney once mentioned that he would be happy to put on one pound of muscle in a year. Once again, there is no such thing as maintenance – even doing the same workout will eventually produce fewer results, and send you backwards instead of keeping you at the same place!

A 30 Minute Lean Body Exercise Program

So you can make it to the gym almost every day…but you just don’t have the time when you’re there. To really get optimum fat-burning and lean-muscle-building results, you have to devote at least an hour every time you show up, right? Not necessarily – with the following program, you can achieve great results with just a half-hour workout. This program is perfectly designed for the individual who can easily devote 30 minutes a day to exercise – no more, no less. The goal of this workout program is a lean body with impressive muscular tone.

The workout is based on a recovery concept. Your body actually responds to a workout during the rest and recovery period following exercise. It is during this time that the muscle rebuilding and repairing response takes place, as well as the cardiovascular adaptations that boost the metabolism and allow your body to more efficiently use oxygen and maintain fitness. By using a push-pull cycle combined with a light-heavy pattern, this workout allows for optimal recovery and maximum results.

What Body Type are You?

To be the best bodybuilder that you can be, it is vital that you understand the different body types to determine which workout and dieting routine you want to follow. Every body is classified as one body type or a combination of two different types, each having a unique classification in of itself. You are going to learn all about endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph body types which will give you an idea of what type you are, and the proper plan that you should follow in obtaining the body of your dreams.

The typical body of an endomorph is soft and round. This physique presents the illusion that much of your muscle mass has been absorbed in the abdominal area. The arms and legs of the endomorph are very short in length, which is the main cause of a stalky appearance. Endomorphs usually have a high waist, and hands and feet that are small compared to the thighs and upper arms. Other features of the endomorph include a large head, broad face, fine hair, and smooth skin.

Eating For Success: Fast Lunch Ideas for Busy People

Remember the days when you actually had time to take a lunch break? When you used to leave the office for an hour, have something to eat, meet up with friends, walk in the park, play sport or wonder around the shops…? These days people eat lunch at their desks more often than not, if they eat at all. For many people, the demands of the day just don’t let up long enough to afford them a break. Lunchtime rolls around, your stomach is rumbling and you know you should eat, but you’ve just got one more thing to finish. An hour goes by, your stomach is still gurgling, but you’ve just got one more deadline, phone call, impromptu meeting, email to reply to….and before you know it, you’re reaching for a coffee or chocolate bar to get you through, and that’ll have to do for lunch.

The reality is that your brain needs food to fuel it. It is not possible for anyone to be on top of their game when they’re skipping meals, eating them way after the hunger pangs have kicked in, or cramming in non-nutritious foods on the run to keep the hunger at bay.

Guide to Home Fitness Equipments

Are you bugged of waking up early in chilly mornings? Have you been tired of roaming around in the very monotonous park? Are brisk walks and jogging entailing no reduction in your weight? Are you finding it hard to burn the desired amount of calories? If yes, then its time to think about a prudent substitute that can complement all your desires. An ideal alternate is to bring home exercise equipments. Besides numerous other benefits, the most conspicuous lure of the fitness equipments is freedom from getting up early morning. These exercise machines that come in varying shapes and sizes are devised in a fashion to provide all round physical well-being to your body. For instance once you have a treadmill at your place, firstly you and your family can experience the pleasure of walk at any hour of the day even while watching your favorite TV show! Secondly, the time you desire to lose more calories due to intake of a heavy diet, you have the option to increase the speed of your treadmill to enjoy a rapid walk. Finally, purchasing these devices for your own self saves you from the hefty gym payments that you make every month. Also now you don’t have to confine your work out on a machine for 20 minutes or half an hour because of other people waiting. It is at your discretion to exercise for any number of hours on your own fitness equipment.

In fact studies have revealed that due to the aforementioned merits, millions of Americans who had abandoned their fitness and were petrified of exercises throughout their lives, are finding immense pleasure in working out on their own fitness devices. This surging health consciousness amongst people has thus resulted in a boom in the price and variety of exercise machines. More and more companies are investing in this business due to which the market for these equipments is becoming competitive day by day. One amongst several largely acclaimed names is of Hire Fitness Equipments.

Vitamin B12 Sources

A unique feature of vitamin B12 is that unlike other vitamins, animal sources are the only reliable sources for its intake. Vitamin B12 is primarily found in meat, eggs, dairy products and fish.

A valuable source of vitamin B12 is calves’ liver (one pound per day), which contains such a high quantity of vitamin B12 that even people who lack the intrinsic factor can absorb this in sufficient amounts to prevent pernicious anemia (a disease caused by deficiency of this vitamin).

There is much controversy vis-à-vis the proposed plant sources of vitamin B12. Some findings suggest that fermented soya products, seaweeds (named nori), and algae such as spirulina all contain significant amounts of vitamin B12. However, analysis reveals that due to the presence of compounds structurally similar to vitamin B12, termed as B12 analogues, there is difficulty in distinguishing between the two forms and these cannot be utilized to satisfy dietary needs. The most prevalent view today is that plant sources of vitamin B12 are not likely to be available to humans and hence cannot be tagged as safe sources of the vitamin.

Add Intensity to Your Muscle Building Workout

One of the biggest difficulties facing bodybuilders is how can they be sure that all muscle fibers have been recruited and exhausted during a given exercise and it is only by achieving this that muscle gains can be maximized.

The simple answer is, you have work beyond failure and experience a higher level of training intensity than before. This also ensures that workouts remain challenging and continue to engender progress over time thus reducing the likelihood of regression.

But how do you go about intensifying your training? Fortunately there is a tried and tested path to follow as outlined below:

1. Increase resistance – increasing the weight lifted in meaningful increments ensures the muscle is pushed beyond its previous point of failure thus maintaining the muscle building process. Aim to increase the weight when you reach six to eight reps and failure does not occur.