The CDC today released its annual state of the union’s health, and there’s good news and bad. We’re living longer, for example. But we’re also gaining more weight.
The knee is often one of the most problematic areas of the body, whether you're focused on long distance running, sports that require plenty of cutting and sharp lateral movement, heavy lifting
Find yourself bored heading into the gym day and and day out? Ever look for a way to gauge your fitness level besides how much weight you can lift?
To anyone who has listened to talk radio or watched reality television shows, it’s no surprise that people enjoy sharing their most intimate details, even when millions of viewers are listeni
It’s another win for the motorcycle-riding, leather jacket-wearing rebellious guys, the love-them-and-leave-them men who women fight over, while the nice guys sit on the sidelines.
The ab wheel is one of those pieces of equipment that's an old school classic.
Climbing a mountain is no easy feat, but what if that mountain is actually the floor? That’s the concept of this week’s exercise which asks the question: What happens when you get on the floor and run your knees in and out as fast as you can? The obvious follow up to that is to wonder why someone would want to do this and the answer to that is: Because you can (although, if you really can’t, I have some variations below).
Mountain climbers are an excellent move for building cardio endurance while also building core strength and agility. This is also a great move when you don’t have much (or any) equipment and want a challenging way to work your body.
There are a couple of ways to do this move. One, is to run the knees in and out without touching your toes to the floor. Another is to do the opposite and touch your toes to the floor, making it more of a foot-switch than a run. If this move doesn’t agree with you, you can take it slow and simply walk one foot forward into a low lunge, walk it back and switch legs. I also have a gliding disc version that might work for people who need less impact.
Work this into your usual cardio routine or add it to other cardio exercises to make your own high intensity circuit workout.
Do it right: Begin in a pushup position on the hands and toes. Bring the right knee in towards the chest, resting the foot on the floor. Jump up and switch feet in the air, bringing the left foot in and the right foot back. You can also run the knees in and out rather than touching the toes to the floor. Continue alternating the feet as fast as you safely can for 30-60 seconds.
Exercise of the Week: Mountain Climbers originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 at 05:00:36.
Climbing a mountain is no easy feat, but what if that mountain is actually the floor? That’s the concept of this week’s exercise which asks the question: What happens when you get on the floor and run your knees in and out as fast as you can? The obvious follow up to that is to wonder why someone would want to do this and the answer to that is: Because you can (although, if you really can’t, I have some variations below).
Mountain climbers are an excellent move for building cardio endurance while also building core strength and agility. This is also a great move when you don’t have much (or any) equipment and want a challenging way to work your body.
There are a couple of ways to do this move. One, is to run the knees in and out without touching your toes to the floor. Another is to do the opposite and touch your toes to the floor, making it more of a foot-switch than a run. If this move doesn’t agree with you, you can take it slow and simply walk one foot forward into a low lunge, walk it back and switch legs. I also have a gliding disc version that might work for people who need less impact.
Work this into your usual cardio routine or add it to other cardio exercises to make your own high intensity circuit workout.
Do it right: Begin in a pushup position on the hands and toes. Bring the right knee in towards the chest, resting the foot on the floor. Jump up and switch feet in the air, bringing the left foot in and the right foot back. You can also run the knees in and out rather than touching the toes to the floor. Continue alternating the feet as fast as you safely can for 30-60 seconds.
Exercise of the Week: Mountain Climbers originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 at 05:00:36.
For all of our fans who shoot us questions on our Facebook page, this one is for you.
In what was probably the most dramatic day of fighting on the sixth season of the Bellator Fighting Championships, Waachiim Spiritwolf pounded Marius Zaromskis, but couldn't get the win, Marcin
Your chest workout could have been one of your most hardcore yet, but sometimes you've still got some gas left in the tank.
Endomorph /en´do-morf/ n. – A dude who looks at a donut and gains weight. See also: big man on campus.
Whether or not we like to admit it, genetics plays an important role in our ability to lose weight. And endomorphs have it rough. Marked by round physiques, high body fat, and a sluggish metabolism, the slightest divergence from a clean diet packs on pounds for these fellas. This makes getting lean a constant, discouraging struggle. Plus, our modern culture makes weight-gain so easy for all of us, with simple sugars and fried foods on every corner, it's like the world wants us to be overweight. If you’re an endomorph, you need to face facts: you are insulin dominant, your sympathetic nervous system is sluggish, and your carb tolerance is worse than Pavarotti’s.
You simply do not have the same genes as the skinny dude who has trouble gaining weight. But the silver lining of endomorphia is that your body can pack on lean muscle easier than “hard-gainers”. Embrace your genetics by lifting heavy weights and keeping your rest periods to a minimum in the weight room. Then follow a few simple nutrition and supplementation rules to keep your body from storing excess fat and you’ll soon look more like the Jonah Hill from 21 Jump Street instead of the Jonah Hill from Moneyball.
It takes a lot more effort for your body to digest protein than fats or carbs—some evidence suggest that as much as 30% more. This means you can eat 100 calories of protein and your body will only have access to 70. Protein is also essential for building lean muscle which is metabolically active and makes your weight-loss goals more manageable. Use this to your advantage by including lean protein EVERY time you eat. That means eggs for breakfast, turkey for lunch, a post workout protein shake and beef for dinner.
I know this may seem counterintuitive, but eating fat will help make you skinny. Up to 40% of your calories should come from fat. Like all food groups, the type of fat is also important. 1/3 of your fat should come from monounsaturated fats (olive oil, nuts and nut butter, avocado), 1/3 of your fat should come from polyunsaturated fats (some nuts, fish, fish oil, flax seeds), and 1/3 of your fat you come from saturated fats (animal fats—egg, meats, butter—and coconut oil). Don’t get too caught up in the percentages. Instead, focus on including more mono- and polyunsaturated fats, which tend to be lacking in our diets. That means adding olive oils, avocados, and fish oil to a diet high in protein and vegetables.
You should only eat starchy and/or sugary carbs immediately after your workouts. Other than that, avoid starchy/sugary carbs all-together (still eat mounds and mounds of vegetables). Carbs are hard on your body because of your relationship with insulin. Insulin is a hormone that tells your body to absorb glucose (sugar) from the blood and use it as energy. Fat and protein both have very little effect on insulin. Carbohydrates, however, have a profound impact on insulin. The problem is, through a combination of genetics and environmental conditioning, your body isn’t efficient at using insulin to lower blood sugars. Make it easy on your body by not giving yourself sugary or starchy carbohydrates that send your blood sugars and insulin levels bonkers. The only exception to this is post-workout. Because of a physiological cascade of hormones released during exercise, your body is actually in a good place to process carbohydrates after your workout. In fact, an insulin spike post workout helps switch you into recovery mode. This means you can have carbs post workout, but the rest of the day, no dice.
The benefits of fish oil and fiber are numerous and well documented. Fiber adds necessary roughage to your system which helps with hunger levels, digestion, and bowel regulation. Fish oil has a positive effect on most every disease known to man, including the big ones that you may be a more prone to like coronary heart disease, hypertension, chronic fatigue syndrome, and diabetes. Fish oil is also great for cell membrane health, it’s anti-inflammatory, it helps with DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), and it will make you happier by increasing your serotonin levels and reducing stress and adrenal activation, etc, etc, etc. Basically, it’s awesome for you. Most importantly, both fish oil and fiber will make you more insulin responsive, which will make you leaner.
How much to take? With fiber, you must gradually increase your intake to prevent gastrointenstinal discomfort. I like the 5x5x5 rule. Start with 5g of fiber in the morning. After 5 days, add 5g more until you reach 30g. Once your body is cool with 30g, then you can get into the fiber cycling (which is also important, as your body gets used to the types of fiber as well). As for fish oil, take 1g per % of body fat. If you’re at 25% body fat, that means 25g per day. Yes, that’s a boat-load of fish oil, but it will make a world of difference. As you get leaner, gradually reduce your fish oil intake. For higher dosage fish oil, liquid is both easier to take and more affordable.
You need to eat every 3-4 hours. This will continuously give your metabolism a kick-start, plus you'll never get the point where your body is famished. This allows your brain, not you belly, to make sound nutrition decisions.
Yes, vegetables have vitamins and minerals. They’re also packed with phytonutrients which are powerful anti-oxidants and have a strong, beneficial influence upon our hormones. They seem to suppress cancer development, protect our cell’s DNA, and stimulate enzymes that help our body fight disease. Vegetables are also important for balancing out our bodies pH. Veggies provide an alkaline load to the blood which helps neutralize the strong acid created from the breakdown of proteins. Too much acid and not enough base means less bone mass and smaller muscles, no bueno. Bottom line: a strong, lean body needs lots and lots of vegetables.
Since your relationship to insulin is already troubled, avoid starchy and sugary carbs (except post workout), keep your fats healthy and balanced, and eat lots of lean meats and phytonutritent-packed vegetables. Add a fish oil supplement such as this Opti-EFA and a fiber supplement such as Primal Fiber to your routine. And before you know it, the lean, muscly physique underneath your body fat will start to be revealed, you’ll have to get your pants taken in and Grandma “won’t even recognize you”. They say that genetics loads the pistol, but our environment fires the gun. We can’t control our genes, but we can certainly control how they are expressed.
No matter how much women argue that men are difficult, it's usually a lot harder to navigate the crazy twists and turns inside the female mind than the relatively simple eat-sleep-sex thought p
Worldwide, infectious agents like hepatitis B virus caused one in six new cancer cases in 2008, according to new estimates. Thirty percent of those cases occurred in people under the age of 50.
You probably remember the equation from physics class, Power = (Force x Distance)/Time. So what does this have to do with explosive power? It’s the distance.
The battle between cardio and strength training, at least the battle that exists in our minds, has been going on for decades. The two actually get along quite well on their own, but add a human to the mix and that’s where the conflict comes in.
Whether it’s buried somewhere in your genetic code, the type of muscle fibers you have, what you grew up doing, age, gender, experience or all of the above, most of us have one activity we like (or at least tolerate) and one we do because we’re supposed to.
There’s no doubt you need both to lose weight and get fit but many of us, if given a choice, would easily give up our least favorite if we could get away with it.
While cardio and strength training can overlap, thinking of the differences between them, it’s easy to see why some of us would prefer one over the other. With cardio, there’s the endurance factor: Breathing hard, sweating, having to sustain a certain level of discomfort for, sometimes, long periods of time. For some? This can feel like torture. For others, there’s nothing better than a long cardio workout to blow some stink off.
With strength training, you have the burn factor: After a few reps, providing you have enough weight, a burning sensation starts deep in the muscles and, the longer you lift, the worse it gets. For some people, this can feel like torture, while others love focusing on their muscles, feeling them contract, imagining them getting stronger.
Thinking about your workouts, about the differences between cardio and strength training, which one do you prefer? Would you happily give up one over the other? Or perhaps you like them both in certain ways? Vote in this week’s poll and tell us what you think about cardio and strength training.
Vote in This Week's Poll: Do you like cardio or strength training? originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Monday, May 14th, 2012 at 05:00:57.
Josh Beckett's recent golf outing on a day he was supposed to be injured (and if not injured, starting) is troublesome but not unreasonable for major league ballplayers.
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BMI’s days as a top way to measure body fat and associated health risks may be numbered. New research suggests that the better way to know where you stand concerning health risks related to your amount of body fat is your waist-to-height ratio.
Starting your day off with an egg may help curb your appetite better than cereal, new research suggests.
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It’s no surprise that scientific experts love to study chocolate: Not only does the average American eat over 10 pounds of the stuff annually, but we're pretty sure the researchers are sn
