There is Always Time to Exercise

Below is a ‘scenario’ that happens to many of us! It happens to me with my busy life style. Find a way my friends!

So, I woke up yesterday morning and the bed felt too comfortable and warm – I didn’t want to get up and exercise. I was also feeling a little sore from my past Insanity workout I did the day before, my whole body was fatigued and my core was sore. So I grabbed an extra 30 minutes sleep until the kids woke up and the morning chaos gong show began.

That was my exercise opportunity gone – I’d planned to do Les Mills Pump and Shred.

But another opportunity did arise – approx 10 minutes between putting the kids to bed, tidying the house up, and my wife waiting to watch a movie. What could I get done in 15-20 minutes?

Well, my favorite exercise – the humble push up/cardio exercise is always good for a quick upper-body & cardio workout.

Down to it: 3 sets of push ups to failure, 2 minutes rest between sets. I managed 60 reps, 32 reps & 15 reps. (total burn out). That’s 107 press-ups in approx 8 minutes, and I felt it.  Then I jumped on the spin bike for 10 minutes of 30 second sprint then 30 slow peddle! Nothing wastes the legs quicker and burns the lungs!  Not a bad workout for the tiny amount of time I had.

No matter what type of shape we are in, the energy we have or the exercises involved, you can do it! Find a way!

So, remember, there is always time to exercise – to say there is not is just an excuse!

Dry run on P90X

I am doing some dry runs on P90X. I have the Under 16 Challenge Cup to coach in next week. So starting in November I will start P90X have the pics taken and the fitness test down.

Today I am going to do a dry run with Chest and Back. I have the pullup bar installed, taken my protein drink and I am ready to GO! Let the Pain begin – Bring IT Tony Horton!

Okay so I did Chest and Back about 30 minutes ago. Yes its tough, thank God I did P90 before!
Review:
Push Ups – Did average of 15 for each exercise – dive bombers max at about 9 – loved the push ups.
Pull Ups – Only could do 1 to 3 on my own then used the chair. I did a total of 10 reps for all pullups. I will increase this number next time thru.
Ab Ripper X – What a mess. I can not do many of the exercises. Climbing my leg I cant even do. I have so much work to do here. It was frustrating. Considering I can get thru the P90 level 3-4 with out breaks. I cant see how a person who is completely out of shape can work thru this work. For the ones that do – my hat is off to you!!!!!

When Tony says take your supplements – I always think “stop selling your products”. I agree!, get a recovery drink, protein powder and vitamins. This is much more then just visiting your local gym or doing a simple yoga class. Eat right and do what you can. Tomorrow Plyo. I cant wait!

5 Secrets to Doing More Pushups

When I started training Paul, he was struggling with 5 pushups. He wasn’t overweight, but he just didn’t have the upper body strength and endurance to crank out more pushups. But in weeks, following these five simple steps, he was able to pound out almost two dozen pushups in a row.

Step 1: The Harsh Truth

While Paul wasn’t overweight, he still needed to lose body fat, and when we helped him drop 7 pounds in 3 weeks, his pushup performance skyrocketed. The harsh truth about pushups is the more body fat you have, the more deadweight that you are trying to push around. So, make sure you are doing your interval training, doing your supersets, and incorporating a healthy diet to bring your body fat down and get rid of the deadweight.(1) If you do these things, then you’ll find that you are able to do more pushups.

Step 2: Control Your Muscles

Most men and women aren’t able to control the muscles that need to do the work in the pushup. Pushups require your chest, shoulders, and triceps (muscles at the back of your upper arms) to contract and provide force to raise your body to the top position. However, most people don’t realize that those same muscles must control the lowering phase of the pushup.

So every pushup you do, focus on thinking about your chest, triceps and shoulders controlling your descent and then contracting to produce the force as you rise up. Plus, in every pushup, you must brace your abs (as if someone was about to punch you in the stomach). This will give your torso stability and create a powerful straight line from ankles to shoulders. This will work your abs and protect your back.

Step 3: Practice on the Bunny Slope

When you are doing pushups, there are a couple ways that you can add strength and endurance. First, you can do an incline pushup. This exercise will allow you to take some of the weight off when doing the pushup, which will in turn add more endurance. So to perform and incline pushup, rest your hands on a bench, and then mimic a pushup. With this exercise, you are not going all the way down to the ground and so it will be a little bit easier in helping you build endurance.

If you lack the set-up to do incline pushups, the next best thing is to do kneeling pushups. Just make sure you keep your body in a straight line and brace your abs at all times.

Step 4: Build Strength By Lowering Your Body

The next step is build “eccentric” strength. That refers to the strength in the lowering phase of the pushup. Think back to the muscle control we talked about earlier. What I want you to do is take 5 seconds to lower yourself to the bottom position in each repetition of the pushup. This will build strength and muscle control faster than if you just let your body flop to the ground.

You won’t be able to do as many, but you’ll get more muscle control and build more strength. I recommend that you do these exercises earlier in the week because this might cause muscle soreness. The first time you do these, do only one set of as many slow lowering pushups as possible on a Monday, then incorporate Step 5 later in the week in a second pushup workout.

This slow lowering phase also teaches you perfect form and reminds you to brace your abs and work your stomach muscles in each repetition. Soon you’ll be able to do as many 5-second pushups as you could do normal pushups, and that will double the amount of pushups you can do at regular speed.

Step 5: Hold It!

If you are still struggling with doing less than 5 pushups in a row, your next steps are to do 3-5 second holds at both the middle and bottom range of the push-up. This will build strength in your weakest points along the pushup path.

In this workout, do one set of pushups where you lower yourself to bottom of the pushup position and hold for 3 seconds and then push back up, doing as many repetitions as you can. Follow that with a lower body exercise and 1 minute of rest and then do a second set where you lower your body to the middle of the pushup position and hold it for 5 seconds, and then push back up to the top position. Repeat for 5 repetitions.

For more information about weight loss exercises visit Turbulencetraining.com

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David Done works with DONE! SEO as a copy writer, specializes in promoting websites for highly competitive keywords like Fat Loss.

Article Source: http://physicalfitnessarticles.net

Information on the use of a Fitness Ball

The Fitness Ball

Why Use It?
Using a fitness ball can improve your overall strength and endurance, as well as core stability, posture and body awareness. You may feel unstable at first, but as your core stabilization muscles, such as your abdominals and back muscles get stronger, you will feel more stable. (See Core Training: The Basics).

Using the ball can improve your overall strength and endurance, flexibility, as well as core stability, posture and body awareness.

How to Buy Your Fitness Ball
The fitness ball comes in 4 sizes. To make sure you have the correct ball size, sit comfortably on the ball and ensure your can move your knees easily between 45 to 90 degrees to the ball by moving back and forth — and feel in control. Don’t feel silly testing it! This is important.

Fitness Ball Workout Tips
Do

Focus on a fixed point to help maintain your balance.
Make sure you have lots of space around you.
Take normal, controlled breaths.
Exhale on the most difficult phase and inhale during the easiest.
Control your movements.
Warm up the muscle groups before you begin exercising.
Stretch when you are finished your workout routine.

Don’t

Combine bouncing with bending, twisting or rotating the spine, while on the ball.
Continue if you start to lose your posture. If you do, stop and reposition yourself.
Continue performing the exercise if anything hurts while you are training.
Hold your breath.
Fitness Ball Exercises
Using your fitness ball to increase balance

Sit on the ball and move your hips in clockwise circles.
Reverse this – and move your hips in counterclockwise circles.
Maintain good posture, with your shoulders square and chin in.
Using your fitness ball to increase flexibility
From a near-sitting position, with your ball behind you, curl backwards and move your feet outward until you are lying comfortably over the exercise ball with your head, neck, back and shoulders supported and arched over the ball.
Extend your arms out at your sides so they are parallel with the floor.
Hold for 20 -30 seconds.
Don’t hold your breath – breathe normally.
Lower your arms to sides and roll back to the starting position.
Repeat steps 1-5.
Focus on a fixed point to help maintain your balance.
Using your fitness ball to increase strength (push-ups)
Positioning

Lie across the top of the ball, face down, with your abdomen on the ball.
Place your hands palm down on the floor, directly underneath your shoulders.
Your legs are straight out behind you.
Your chin is down, so the back of your head is parallel with your spine.
Exercise
Slowly lower your chin to the floor, bending your arms at the elbows.
Slowly raise yourself back to the starting position.
Make sure your chin is down, and the back of your head is parallel with your spine.
Repeat steps 1-3
Increasing the intensity:

Walk forward on your hands, so that only your shins are in contact with the ball.
Repeat steps 1 to 3 above.

Sculpting and Pushups and Bands

My wife and I done 11 workouts so far and not missed a day! Very happy to see us extending our commitment.

We did our sculpting 1-2 again last night, second time doing it. The Bands that came with the P90 are MUCH more HARDER then I thought they would be. I would say it was more difficult then the weights. I did use the 10 lbs weights for the all back and tricep exercises. The weights allow for better form. My upper body muscles are fatigued, and are not sore. Which means I can push myself a bit harder during the next workouts!

The pushups ……… Not bad for the first set of 15 in the normal stance. Second set of wide pushups I hit the wall about the 13 rep but the killer is the 7-7-7.  I am done about rep 12 with the narrow pushup! I am on my knees for rest of them! So lots of improvement!

As you can see my diet is going well. I will most my meal plan again. I was hungry last night, really hungry. So I had a cup of pea pods 30 minutes before my workout. Didnt effect my effort! I had a 1 cup of Chocolate milk for my recovery drink after the work out.  Talk later!

Sculpting 1-2 Beach Body

Well ……………… in knew it would be a challenge but the workout last night just showed how out of shape I really am. IT is always nice to get a good dose of reality! The stacking of exercises and constant movement looks easy but doing it is other story, even with Tony stretch breaks. 

The push ups really killed me in the end. The 7-7-7 was tough and barely completed them (form was terrible). The other issue was doing my reps to fast. They do the reps way slower. So I was finding my self doing 20 reps to their 15. I have a lot of work to do. I am slightly sore but more fatiqued in arms and chest. I also now this is just day 2 of 90 days, so I can only go UP!

My son again did the work out with me. He has sore arms today. I let him use the 2 pound weights. He is trooper, did the compete 30 minutes. Back to cardio 1-2 tonight and Ab Ripper. My abs are still sore from Monday – in fact they are worse not better LOL. Talk to you later!