Are you neglecting your core?

Jay, what’s the best exercise for your abs? I’ve done so many situps and crunches, but I can’t get my abs to look like yours! What am I doing wrong?

Ever since I started telling people that I’m a personal trainer, the first thing they ask me is if I can help them get rid of their tummy fat. Guaranteed.

Situps and crunches will only do so much for your core. True, they’re good at building strength and muscle, but they will not, I repeat, will not give you the 6-pack abs you covet. Why? Because these exercises don’t burn fat!

I am a great advocate for building strong abs, and you do that with targeted exercises such as bicycles, toe touches, and even crunches, for example. But to build truly strong and functional ab and back muscles, you must do exercises that engage the core as stabilizers.

What does that mean?

It means that you should have a steady routine that include planks, push ups, and pull ups! You must engage your core in everything that you do, from squats and lunges, to curls and presses.

To make your muscles “pop” (show off the 6-pack), you also need to have an effective cardio routine. Check out my posts on interval training here and here to get an idea of what kind of cardio I use with my clients.

We all know it’s bikini season, so get to the gym or wherever you work out and start paying proper attention to your core!

Tax Recreational Exercise to Fight Global Warming

So I’m sure all of you have heard of the report that came out about obesity being a cause of global warming. I read a parody of that report on the Freakonomics blog here suggesting that because people who exercise actually burn more calories (energy), they should be taxed for their contributions to global warming.

I thought it was funny, especially because of the comments! Check it out and give me your two cents.

Have any of you read Good Calories, Bad Calories? What did you think of Taubes’ argument that exercise doesn’t help with weight loss?

Cheap, effective way to burn fat and improve cardio

Thinking about my mother this morning fostered me to think about how she stays in shape. She is a very busy CFO, yet manages to stay in very good health without working out at the gym very often. Besides eating well (no fried foods, no sweets, etc.) and drinking a great amount of water and juice daily (I personally think she has an addiction to water, but that’s another story), she takes the stairs to her 6th floor office every day, every time she leaves the office. She has gotten a few of her co-workers to follow suit, and I hope that more will join the healthy lifestyle crew.

Anyway, my mom does something every Friday that most people would overlook as a way to stay in shape. She is a member of a double-dutch team, and she manages to stay fit by reliving a childhood favorite of hers. Here’s a video of her that was shown last September on the local news in DC. She’s the one with the Nike shoes that looks kind of purple/blue with white stripes going across the shoe. She’s also the one who says something about friends coming together to do what friends do best.

I’m not suggesting that you go out and join a double-dutch team, but I want you to know that jumping rope is a cheap and very effective way to reach your fat loss goals and to improve your cardio. All you need is a jump rope, which you can get for as little as $4-$5 at Walmart, or about $10 at sports stores. There are leather ropes, weighted ropes, and speed ropes. I am a fan of the speed rope because I can jump faster, and I like to focus on anaerobic fitness due to my sports.

To get started, start out slow. Like any other exercise, you want to get the form correct before you perform at speed. The most simple movement is turning the rope and jumping with both feet. Once you get that right, you can add many other variations, like alternating feet, jumping in a triangle figure, double jumping, jumping from side-to-side etc.

Trust me, jumping rope burns fat at an amazing speed. It’s hard, but it doesn’t cost much, you can do it just about anywhere and anytime, and it works. Adding jump ropes to your circuit routine is also a guaranteed way to blast through any fitness plateaus you have encountered. Your body will thank you for it later! I will post video demonstrations on variations of jump rope exercises later.

As usual, leave your questions and comments for me! Give me something to do while I rest my leg.

Here’s one to add to your ab routine

I’m always looking for the next grueling, painful, soul-testing exercise to add to my routine. Variety, even the most challenging change, is good, right? Just nod your head and keep reading.

So I have recently become a fan of using the decline bench for ab exercises, such as for Roman Twists and Medicine Ball Toss. Well, why not mix those two together and see what you get?

The Decline Medicine-Ball Twist and Toss is something new that I’ve added to my routine. If you want to bust your gut, follow my example and add it!

Get on a decline bench that is set between 45-60 degrees and hold the medicine ball in your hands as you secure your feet under the pads. Lean back as far as you can hold it, and hold the medicine ball extended from your chest. Twist to one side as you keep your core tight and your arms in front of you.  Then slam the ball against the floor and then catch the ball. This may take some practice for those less athletically-inclined.

After you catch the ball, twist your body back to the starting position, holding the ball in front of you and pause for a second. Then do the same thing to the other side.

DO NOT rush through this exercise. The important thing to remember for this exercise is to have control of your motion and to keep your abs tight! I see too many people in the gym rush through their exercises, especially those for their abs. If you go slowly, you will challenge the muscle and keep your form correct!

Surprisingly, there’s no videos demonstrating this exercise on YouTube; maybe I’ll borrow my mom’s camcorder to show those of you who are visual learners this exercise. Give this one a try and let me know what you think!

What certification should I get?

If you’ve read my blog and my about me page, you know that I want to be a CSCS. But in the meantime, I want to be a certified personal trainer as well. But which certification should I get? Does it really matter? I’ve read about ACE, NASM, and NSCA certifications, but I have no idea which one should be my first one. I want to get it during the summer so I need to decide soon! I’ve already begun studying the basics of anatomy and I know a lot about form and program design due to my exposure from being an athlete all these years, so study time is not much of an issue for me.

What do you think? Which direction is the best for someone who wants to get started with helping people achieve their fitness goals?

No Gym, No Problem

So you don’t belong to a gym or a health club, and you don’t have a home gym. That doesn’t give you an excuse to not strength train! Every time I hear “But I don’t have access to a gym, so I can’t work out” I want to flip out. But somehow I manage to keep my composure.

Seriously though, you don’t need fancy equipment and machines to improve your strength. Your own bodyweight is often enough resistance for you to make drastic improvements and helps with fat loss. If you are able to control your own bodyweight when doing movements, you are, in fact, a strong person!

If you have access to a playground, you can do pull ups on the monkey bars, and swing through the monkey bars as well. Remember playing as a kid, how much fun the playground was, how much strength it took for you to swing from bar to bar? If you start doing pull ups and variations of pull ups in a playground, you will notice your strength improving within a couple of weeks.

Speaking of playgrounds, you can create an entire circuit using things you find at a playground. For example, you can run hard for 3 minutes, stop and do 3 sets of 15 dips on a bench, run again for another 3 minutes, do 3 sets of pull ups to failure on the monkey bars, run again for another 3 minutes, do 3 sets of push ups to failure, run again for another 3 minutes, do 3 sets of planks for 1 minute each, run again for another 3 minutes, do 3 sets of 15 burpees, run again for another 3 minutes, do 3 sets of 30 mountain climbers, run again for another 3 minutes, do 50 bodyweight squats, and finally run again for another 3 minutes. That’s 24 minutes of intense running, plus the cardio you get from moving from one exercise to the next.

To make that easier for you to read:

3 mins run

3 sets of 15 dips

3 mins run

3 sets of pull ups

3 mins run

3 sets of push ups

3 mins run

3 sets of planks, 1 min each

3 mins run

3 sets of 15 burpees

3 mins run

3 sets of 30 mountain climbers

3 mins run

50 bodyweight squats

3 mins run

As soon as my hamstring heals, I’m gonna give it a shot. If you try it, let me know how long it takes you to complete and how you feel about it! Leave comments!

Check out my article

Check out my article and other fitness and health posts featured in this week’s Mind and Body Fitness Blog Carnival!

More articles to come later on this week after I finish exams, speeches, papers, and so on… Leave comments and let me know if you have any questions!

More on Interval Training

So you all know that I love interval training. I have written about its superiority over long cardio programs when trying to achieve fat loss, but I have yet to really get into interval training.

What is interval training?

• This type of training uses a work to rest ratio over a certain period of time (example, a 1:1 ratio would be 1 minute of work to 1 minute of rest, 2 minutes of work to 2 minutes of rest, etc.) rather than continuous work. Rest is active rest, meaning that you are either walking briskly or jogging at a low intensity.

What equipment can you use?

• Interval training can be done on any type of cardio machine, including treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, and can be done on a track, while running outside, jumping rope and in the pool.

Who can benefit from interval training?

• Anyone! Interval training is not limited to athletes and weekend warriors; people who want to lose a few (or more) pounds will highly benefit from this style of training.

How does interval training work?

• Interval training is effective because it enables your body to work both the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. Working at high intensities will condition you anaerobically, and the recovery periods help improve your aerobic abilities. However, the intensity level during the recovery periods shouldn’t be so low that your heart rate drops significantly; otherwise, you will compromise your aerobic gains.

How long does a session last?

• Depending upon the intensity of work intervals, interval training sessions usually last between 20-30 minutes. As an athlete, my sessions have rarely gone over 30 minutes. However, if I were working on aerobic endurance, my interval training sessions would be between 30-40 minutes. For those with the goal of fat loss, 30 minute sessions will be good.

How often should one do an interval training session?

• Interval training should be done 2 or 3 times a week, never back-to-back due to the intense nature of the exercise. Rest is important when you are conditioning your body!

What are the benefits?

• Interval training saves TIME.
• Interval training is a CHALLENGE, which will push you through a plateau.
• Interval training is FUN; this training will beat the monotony of regular gym routines.
• Interval training is EFFECTIVE; you will see results in terms of fat loss quicker than doing traditional cardio routines.

Any more questions about interval training? Please leave a comment (even if you don’t have a question)!

Morning Motivation

I often am asked the question “how do you keep yourself motivated to work out?” I hear various reasons from my friends as to why they don’t work out: lack of motivation, no time, it’s too hard, etc, etc. If you really want to live the healthy lifestyle, you have to exercise. No exceptions.

So how can you keep yourself motivated to go to the gym, to take a walk, to ride a bike, or do some other physical activity?

Remember, you ALWAYS FEEL BETTER after a workout than you did before. I remember days where there wasn’t organized soccer practice, and I had to drag myself out of the comfort of my bed to go work out. There are days when even elite athletes don’t feel well, or just don’t feel like working out. But, to keep myself on track, I remember how I feel after I finish my work out, how good my muscles feel, how proud of myself I am because I completed a killer workout. Don’t forget to tell yourself how great you will feel after!

Another good motivator is to write down your goals, and to tell people about them. If you write them down, you make your goals concrete, not just a thought in your head. Post your goals around areas that you see daily. Write down the steps needed in order to reach your goal; if you don’t know those steps, seek out someone who does. Tell people about your goals, because telling others makes you accountable to follow through, and it helps when friends can follow-up and track how you are doing.

If you can, find a workout partner, because they will also help you remain accountable not only to your goals, but to the workout. You will be less likely to skip out on a workout if you have someone waiting for you. If you were my workout partner and you stood me up, I would not hesitate to call you out on it!

Find out what motivates you. I have two motivational quotes that keep me on track:

“Champions aren´t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision.” Muhammad Ali

“A workout is 25% perspiration and 75% determination. Stated another way, it is one part physical exertion and three parts self discipline. Doing it is easy once you get started. A workout makes you better today than you were yesterday. A workout strengthens the body, relaxes the mind and toughens the spirit. When you work out regularly, your problems diminish and your confidence grows. A workout is a personal triumph over laziness and procrastination. It is the badge of a winner — the mark of an organized, goal-oriented person who has taken charge of his or her destiny. A workout is a wise use of time and an investment in excellence. It prepares you for life’s challenges and affirms your ability to do what is necessary. A workout is a key that helps unlock the doors to opportunity and success. Hidden within each of us is an extraordinary force.” Bruce Lee

What motivates you?

Looking for a collection of fitness articles?

Every Monday, FitBuff hosts a blog carnival featuring articles on a wide range of fitness and health subjects. My last post about the fat-burning zone is featured in this week’s collection. Check it out and leave comments!

http://www.fitbuff.com/total-mind-and-body-fitness-blog-carnival-44/

Coming up this week:

Need motivation to start a healthy lifestyle?

Instilling healthy habits at a young age

More on interval training!