Find the Right Muscle Building Workout For You

January 17, 2019/in Blog, Personal Training, Workout Advice

So you’ve decided you want to bulk up and gain some serious muscle mass but are unsure what exactly you need to be doing on a daily basis to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, finding the best workout for muscle mass is often the hardest part, and the place where most folks tend to slip up.

You see, everybody is different, and if you don’t find the right workout for you and your own situation, then you will struggle to reach your muscle building potential, and thereby make life more difficult and frustrating for yourself… and that just plain sucks, right?

In this article I’d like to give some tips on the kind of questions you should be asking yourself when looking for the best workout for muscle mass. Use them as kind of a checklist and they’ll help you to find the right muscle building workout.

What Is Your Body Type?

This is one of the most important aspects and often overlooked by many folks searching for the best workout for muscle mass. Broadly speaking, there are 3 major body types – ectomorphs (naturally skinny, struggle to gain weight and muscle), mesomorphs (easily gain weight and muscle, naturally muscular), and endomorphs (gains weight easily, usually higher body fat levels).

The training routines for each of these body types will be notably different both in terms of exercises and nutrition. Find out what your body type and you’ll understand a lot more about what is the best workout for muscle mass.

What Level Are You At?

Are you a beginner who has never set foot in a gym, or are you a fitness fanatic that is looking to gain weight and pack on some muscle? Understanding your current fitness and muscular development level will help you find the workout and avoid pushing your body too much too quickly, or holding you back and preventing you from reaching your potential.

What Are Your Goals?

Are you a skinny guy or girl looking to add some serious slabs of muscle and gain weight, or are you somebody who is looking to gain some muscle while losing a lot of body fat in the process

Understanding what you want to achieve from your workouts is critical in finding the best workout for muscle mass, since you will need to adapt your training and nutrition requirements depending on your situation.

Does Your Muscle Mass Workout Combine Good Nutrition and Exercise Routines?

When you see a workout for muscle mass that you like, take a look to see if there is sufficient emphasis and guidance on the right approach to nutrition…if there isn’t, keep searching. Your diet and what you eat is absolutely critical if you want to see serious muscle mass gains. Any workout that doesn’t provide you with solid advice on what to eat and when to eat it, is not worth the time in my opinion.

How Flexible Is The Routine?

Does the workout allow you the ability to substitute certain exercises for others, as you may need to if working out at home or using an ill-equipped gym? Does the workout rotate training cycles which keep you changing your workout every few weeks? This is important as your body needs the constant stimulation and adaptation in order to continue building muscle.

How Often Are You Going To Be Working Out?

Does the workout allow you any off days or is it 6 days a week? In my experience, it is best to workout 3 – 4 times per week with rest days in between. This allows the optimum rest for your body to recover and develop muscle. Any more than this and you can stunt your muscular development by preventing your body’s natural recovery process. The best workout for muscle mass is one that will allow you to fit it into your current schedule and have the flexibility to move workout days around to suit.

Finding the Right Fat Loss Workout For You

January 16, 2019/in Blog, Personal Training, Workout Advice

Do you sometimes wonder how people can be so lucky as to be able to eat all they want and yet not gain a pound, as compared with you who have to sometimes starve yourself and labor for hours in the gym just to lose every extra pound?

We’ve heard it before that a fat loss workout is all you need to get into a good shape. However, for some people, finding the right workout that fits their routine can be a real challenge.

There are so many fat loss workout guides available that you would think it’s easy for just about anybody to get into a routine that guarantees weight loss. Yet since we all have different body requirements and metabolism rates, one fat loss workout program may work for one person, and may not for another.

Generally speaking, exercise for fat loss is the key to dropping those unwanted pounds and keeping them off for good. Choose a program that suits your daily routine and is easy to follow. Most of the time, it’s the consistency of the workout that produces the results that we aim for. It may take some time to try various fat loss workout plans, but once you find one that works for you, do your best to stick to it before even considering another one.

What If Nothing Works?

If after trying several diet and exercise programs and you still don’t see those pounds disappearing, it may be because you have not consistently followed the program you chose. It takes time before any diet or workout plan can produce results, but sometimes people can get impatient and can get frustrated easily. When this happens, it’s easy enough to blame the fat loss workout plan, rather than checking one’s attitude towards diet and exercise.

However, there are instances when losing weight still becomes a struggle despite consistently following a fat loss workout plan. In such cases, it is best to consult your doctor and run tests to find out if there are some factors, such as hormone deficiency or a thyroid problem that may be causing you not to lose those stubborn pounds.

Your doctor may recommend a diet and exercise plan that suit your body type and medical condition, if any. Still, the key there is being committed to the plan to achieve your weight loss goals.

5 Tips for Finding the Right Fitness and Weight Loss Program

January 15, 2019/in Blog, Personal Training, Workout Advice

Finding the right workout program for you is tough. You see ads on TV, on the internet, hear about them on the radio and see them in magazines. You see articles all over the place telling you their weight loss program is the best program to use.

Or maybe you go to the gym and play around on the exercise machines coming up with your own workout program only to find you’re not losing weight like you want, hitting a plateau, get frustrated with lack of progress or just get fed up with the gym routine all together because you don’t have time.

So what do you do? How do you choose?

Make a Commitment to Yourself

First you have to make a commitment to lose the weight and fat you want to lose. You have to set a goal and you have to commit to that goal. It’s all about the mindset that you take on. Make the goal realistic. If you set the goal too high you’ll get frustrated with the lack of progress. In a very short time you’ll be coming up with excuses as to why you can’t go to the gym or workout at home. So be realistic.

Find The Right Program

This is probably the hardest thing you’ll have to do. Finding the program that fits your needs, your abilities and your goals can be tough. There are a lot of weight loss and exercise programs out there for you to choose from. Of all the programs I’ve looked at and things

Nutritional Changes

The biggest part of losing weight is the nutritional aspect. You have to change your mindset about food and portion sizes. Cut out or cut down on the carbohydrates, increase the amount of protein you take in and reduce the amount of fat you take it. Sounds daunting doesn’t it? Makes you think you need to hire a nutritionist? Not really.

What Can You Expect

Losing weight is not easy. It goes on much easier than it comes off. From experience of going through the P90X program it’s well worth the work that you have to put into it. The first few weeks of any exercise program is the toughest. You’re going to be sore and tired. Your body isn’t used to that kind of workout. But trust me it’s worth it. You’ll feel more alive and full of energy and you’ll be seeing less of you.

Make a Choice

So make a choice for yourself. Do you want to live a happier and healthier life or do you just want to be a couch potato? Being healthy is a choice. Losing weight is a choice. Finding a program is a choice you have to make.

Finding The Right Workout Routines To Build Muscle

January 14, 2019/in Blog, Personal Training, Workout Advice

There are 3 golden rules to building muscle. Eat right, sleep right and exercise right. And most focus in the body building world is on the exercise rule. Finding the right workout routines to build muscle consumes so much time of amateur muscle builders’.

The truth is that equal focus must be put on your diet and rest, but that discussion can be left for a different article. This article will stay true to its title and help you find the right workout routines to build muscle.

If you’re eating right and sleeping right, almost any exercise routine should show results and help you put on considerable amounts of muscle. However, there are certain prerequisites that all work out routines must satisfy before you can put on muscle and get the maximum out of your gym time. Most important is the intensity with which you train which is affected by your rep and set number, your work out speed, your break length, and the weights you lift. For workout routines to build muscle, ensure that these following criteria are satisfied.

There are all sorts of myths out there like, high reps and low weight is for burning while high weight and low reps is for gaining, and work out longer and you will gain more muscle and so many more. One article isn’t enough for me to give you all the information you need to know about these myths and why they are nonsense, however, I will tell you how to go about doing things.

First of all make sure that the routine you’re doing isn’t overworking your muscles. Your muscles need a lot of time and energy to heal and grow, and working out for too long will drain them and cause muscle fatigue which is not what you want. So keep your work outs short and frequent with sufficient breaks in between.

To get the most out of these short gym sessions, keep your rest periods at a minimum and push beyond your limits. You can vary your rep and set range but for maximum muscle gains it has been found that a rep range of 8-12 is best.

When it comes to the weight go as heavy as you can, and try to find yourself a gym partner to help you with this. Also work out routines to build muscle come in all forms. Some maybe full body work outs while other’s are split body. Don’t focus on just one of these. Keep switching every few weeks so that your body doesn’t reach a plateau.

Keep your work outs intense, push heavy weight, take fewer breaks and switch your routines to keep your body guessing. Do all this along with the right type of diet and rest and your workout routines to build muscle will work better than they ever have before.

Reasons Why New Year’s Fitness and Weight Loss Resolutions Fail

January 11, 2019/in Blog, New Year's Workout Goals, Personal Training

Every year millions, if not billions of people make New Year’s Resolutions to eat right, get fit & lose weight – and most have abandoned them by March 31st at the latest.

Here are the top reasons for their failure and how YOU can avoid making these same mistakes year after year.

1) Fitness, Health & Nutritional Habits

Before you even set your fitness goals or weight loss goals for the new year, you first need to understand how you got into the shape you’re currently in. Unless you have a chronic condition or have suffered a major accident, you’re not a victim of anything – and no one else caused you to be out of shape or overweight.

It’s imperative that you understand it’s your personal habits that led you to your current state. You made choices all along the way, and the choices you made over and over became your default – your habits. Your habits led to your current lifestyle – what you eat, how much and how often you exercise, and what body-weight and fat percentage you’re willing to carry around with you every day.

That’s the bad news, so now here’s the good news: YOU created those habits, and YOU can change them starting right now, today! Changing your exercise habits or nutritional habits starts with small choices – and over time those choices add up. Plus, when repeated over and over they become your new habits. Yes, this means you need to put a little more thought into routine daily tasks. But you’re not satisfied with your current state of health, your fitness or your current body fat levels or you wouldn’t be making these New Year’s Resolutions. So put in that extra thought and make the choices that help you keep these promises to yourself!

2) Not MAKING Time To Exercise

When it comes to working out you don’t take the time – you MAKE the time. One of the few universal values we all share is that we all have the same 168 hours per week, and we all get to choose what we do with those 168 hours. Think of people Like Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Louise L. Hay or Les Brown and all they accomplish in any given week – yet they only have the same number of hours that week as you do. The busiest and laziest people you know have 168 hours a week too.

The only difference between them and you is priorities – you use your time in proportion to the importance you give each activity. So if getting in shape, being healthy and weight loss are sufficiently important to you you WILL make the time for sufficient exercise to accomplish your goal of getting back in shape and staying in shape.

Don’t try to tell me you don’t have enough time – we all have the same amount of time, and you already know people in your situation who have time to hit the gym, go for a run or take exercise classes, don’t you? What you really mean is your current activities already fill your schedule, right?

And that’s the biggest reason exercise resolutions get broken year after year – trying to fit 3 – 5 workouts a week into an already over-crowded schedule. It’s like trying to pour another cup of water into a full glass – it won’t go in, but instead will make a mess, right? And that’s what happens when people try to add in exercise time to a full schedule – it makes a mess of their week.

So how do you solve this one? Simple. Decide what to take out of your schedule to make time to exercise. Look for the obvious time-hogs first: watching television, spending too much time on the Internet, playing computer games, hitting the bars and clubs, etc. Everyone I know spends time at at least one of those four, and I assume the same can be said about you, right? So now you have to decide where you’ll trim the time for 3 or more exercise sessions per week.

Remember, the decisions need to be made based on your priorities – is your health more important to you than those reality shows, time on Facebook and Google+, beating the next level of WOW or knocking back a few drinks at the bar quite so often? For best results, don’t eliminate anything you truly love to do, or you’ll harbor resentment towards your workouts and your own subconscious will sabotage your workouts.

Instead, cut out what you really don’t care about and if you need to make more time still then trim back the activities you enjoy just enough to free up the time you need. Taking just 20 minutes a day from each of 3 leisure pastimes gives you that hour a day, as does skipping a single TV show a day. You already have the time… Now just free up enough of it for your exercising – and decide in advance where the time’s coming from so there’s no conflict each week.

3) Not Setting A Realistic Pace

Let’s look at a common pair of weight loss and fitness goals: losing 20 pounds of body fat next year and adding 20 pounds of muscle next year. Either one can make a major change in your health and body image while boosting your self-confidence and energy levels. The biggest problem is far too many people suddenly jump into the gym and start lifting weights life a fiend to build muscle fast, or drastically cut their calorie intake thinking they need to drop all 20 pounds in the first month or two. If you did either of these last year, how did you measure up at the start of this year? If you’re like most people, you were even further from your goals this year than last.

The issue here isn’t your goals – both are reasonably achievable. The issue is a sudden change in your diet and/or exercise routine. Why the rush? In most cases it took years to get to the shape you’re currently in, so don’t try to change it overnight! To lose 20 pounds next year, start with a single small change to a healthier diet each week. To add 20 pounds of muscle, start light with the 7 compound exercises and add 1 more rep to each set each week and add 1 new exercise a month.

Even if you didn’t start to see any weight loss or muscle gain in the first 7 months, you’d still only need to drop 1 pound of fat or gain 1 pound of muscle per week from August on to still meet your goals for the year. Put another way, gaining or losing just 1/2 a pound a week throughout the year would be 26 pounds for the year – you’d have surpassed your goal by 30%. Getting and keeping a healthy lifestyle is a life-long pursuit, so remember that health, fitness and weight maintenance are marathons, not sprints.

4) Not Setting Reasonable Goals

Sure, every woman at some point wants to be a size 0 and every guy wants to become a Herculean champion. But for most people that’s just not going to happen no matter what they do. We’re all born with pre-set genetics that, to one extent or another, predetermine what our ultimate limits are. But the good news is everyone can still do an awful lot to improve themselves before hitting those top limits – in fact, very few people, including pro athletes, never reach the point where they find out what their limits are.

So set reasonable goals, based on where you’re at now. If you’re planning to lose weight, find out what your body fat levels are and plan to lose 10% or 25% of that over the year. Notice I didn’t say a percentage of your weight, but a percentage of your body fat. This is important because your body has a lot of weight it needs – muscles, organs, skeletal bones, blood, brain and the like.

So for example if you have 30% body fat and you weigh 250 pounds, your fat weighs 75 pounds and your goal would be to lose 7.5 to 19 pounds over the year. If you weigh 120 pounds with 30% body fat, your fat weighs 36 pounds and your goal would be to burn off 3.6 to 9 pounds.

If you’re lifting weights to build muscle or build strength, the idea is even simpler. Don’t say ‘I want to gain X pounds of lean muscle’ or ‘I want to squat/dead-lift/bench X pounds’. Instead, aim for the best gains you can safely and reasonably achieve. The best you can do with no drugs, proper form, strict lifting without using momentum, etc.

To build the muscle, try to add 1 rep to each set each week while increasing the weight you’re using once a month. To build strength, add a bit more weight to each of your work sets any time you can while still maintaining proper form. Either way, don’t get hung up on the weight being used or drawn into comparisons with others – focus just on your personal progress as the year progresses.

5) Not Enough Self-Confidence

When one sets realistic goals to build muscles or lose weight and truly believes they can achieve and over-reach those goals it’s easier for them to stay on track. For others, though, it’s common for them to seek refuge in the ‘knowledge’ that they couldn’t reach their goals no matter what they did. How often have you heard someone say “I’ve tried everything and nothing works!”? The truth is NO ONE has tried EVERYTHING.

Overcoming this one is tougher since your self-talk programs your subconscious, which in turn controls your urges and confidence. If you’re one of these people, find an accountability coach such as a weight loss coach or a personal trainer. Knowing they’ll give you a hard time if you miss a session, that they’ll be expecting you to show up and that you’ll be paying for their time whether you show up or not will greatly increase the chances you’ll stay on track.

Another option is to find someone with similar goals to lose weight or build muscle and keep each other on track. You’ll still need some self-discipline to show up when they don’t – don’t use their actions as permission to slack off yourself! And be prepared to replace your partner, or add in another person, if you find they’re not as committed as you are – no one but YOU should be setting your pace or be in charge of your results.

5 Tips to Stay Motivated and Keep It

January 10, 2019/in Blog, Motivation, Personal Training

Losing weight and becoming more fit is a couple of the most common New Year’s resolutions. New Years resolutions are talked about a lot. They are a great if you can stick to them. The key is sticking to them. Most people make them but don’t stick to them.

On average about 80% of New Years resolutions are not met. Why? For a couple of reasons. Being overambitious, not making a plan and going on willpower alone. The old statement is true, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Plan to succeed with these 5 tips to help you stay motivated and meet your New Years resolution goals.

1) Show yourself some mercy

When attempting to make positive changes in your life you will at some point have a setback. When you have setbacks don’t get down on yourself. Don’t let a setback cause you to stop you from meeting your goals. Use the setback as motivation to push even harder than before.

2) Stop Making Excuses

Humans can be very resilient creatures. Look at the great shape professional athletes are in when they push themselves. The more you push yourself, the better results you will get. But a lot of people love to make excuses for why they can’t workout.

The most common excuse is “I don’t have time” or “I’m too busy”. Really? You don’t have 10 minutes? You can construct a quality workout that lasts 10 to 20 minutes around your schedule. The key is to get your heart rate up to burn calories and get your metabolism going.

3) Find Inspiration

Visit and talk to individuals that have already achieved success. You can learn a lot from people that have done what you are trying to do.

4) Keep an Eye on your Progress

Checking your progress is very important. You need to check your progress to see where you are doing good and also more importantly see what you need to improve on. You will only get better if you do this.

5) Keep Yourself Accountable

This is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your success when working on a New Years resolution. When you have an accountability partner to keep you accountable, you have someone to call you on your excuses and challenge you to do better.

An accountability partner will push you on days when you don’t want to work out. They will help you become a better person. A good kick in the rear from your accountability partner will definitely help you stay motivated. Having an accountability partner will help you get over the temptation to try to go on willpower. Doing that will get you in trouble, ten times out of ten.

If you are wanting to start the New Year healthier make a realistic New Years resolution. Use the tips mentioned to help keep your New Year’s resolutions and stay motivated. Get out and do what is necessary to meet your goals.

Five Steps To Achieve Your New Year’s Resolutions

January 9, 2019/in Blog, New Year's Workout Goals, Personal Training

What are your New Year’s Resolutions this year? To lose weight, buy a new house or car, further your education, or maybe meet that special someone? Whatever your New Years Resolutions are, you will be much more likely to achieve them if you set a system in place that you can follow on a daily basis.

Big dreams don’t manifest into reality overnight, but by taking small steps toward these dreams every day, little by little parts of the dream become reality.

Set Reasonable Goals

Every year you should begin by setting reasonable and specific goals. For example, if weight loss is a goal for you, you should start off by assessing how much weight you need to lose, and then setting a reasonable goal for the year, one that can actually be achieved. For example, given that it is healthy to lose a maximum of ten pounds per a month, no yearly goal should be set to lose more than one hundred and twenty pounds in any given year

. You should also set a specific amount of weight to be lost, although one hundred and twenty pounds is the maximum amount that can be loss, perhaps you want to lose only fifty, or twenty. A specific amount should be specified, don’t just have a vague, unspecified goal to lose weight vague.

The same is true for any other goal that you might set; you have to take into account, the time that you have to achieve your goal and the resources available to you in the pursuit of your goal. When you truly consider the time and resources at your disposal, you should be able to set a reasonable and specific goal in any area.

Break the Larger Goal into Smaller Ones

OK so, you’ve established your reasonable and specific goals for the year. Where do you go from there? Once the annual goals are set, next comes the process of breaking those larger goals down into smaller more manageable ones. Suppose a goal is to return back to school to further your education. A smaller goal, to be set for the first quarter of the year (January through March), could be collecting information on schools in your area that interest you and researching the various program offered at these schools.

It is very important to break the larger goal down into a series of smaller ones so that will progressively further the larger goal. If you set out a series of steps that need to be taken to reach the larger goal, the goal will seem less overwhelming, and much more manageable. Since this is a resolution for the year, it may be appropriate to break down the larger goal into twelve smaller goals for each month of the year. This is just a guideline; your goal may require more or fewer steps depending upon what the goal is.

Set Milestones

While you are setting goals it can’t hurt to also set milestones. Milestones are in between the larger goal that you’ve set for the year, and the smaller goals you have set for a shorter period of time. A milestone is an event that marks significant progress toward the goal. For example, if your goal is to lose fifty pounds, a significant milestone toward that goal could be twenty-five pounds. (Because you are half way there.) If you’re goal is to go back to school, as significant milestone might be completing all of your research and finally deciding upon a school and completing the admissions application. A milestone is a significant accomplishment that occurs on the way to your goal. You can revise your milestones (and for that matter your smaller goals) along the way. But what is important is always having some kind of plan in place. A plan that moves you along toward the goal.

Do at least Five to Ten Small Things Each Day to Achieve the Goal

This is probably the most important advice of all. Take small steps every day toward your goal. This is where goals are made or broken- in your daily routine! It is so easy to begin the New Year in full force, rushing toward your goals with such ambition and zeal! But then life happens. Other responsibilities get in the way-. Before you know it, you missed five gym workouts in a row and you are gaining weight because of it, or working late has prevented you from researching schools.

A slump in the housing market is hampering your house hunting or a glitch in your car loan approval process has gotten you frustrated! Once several days or weeks are missed, it is normal to become frustrated, and to want to abandon the goal all together! THIS YOU MUST NOT DO! It is human to fall off the wagon, but is even more important to get back on! Don’t waste time and energy putting your self down for opportunities missed. Just know that this is all apart of the process. Things do occur that get in the way of steady progress toward our goals. But these things can be easily overcome, if we get back on track as soon as possible and return to the daily habit of taking at least five small steps toward the goal every day.

Reflect Upon Progress

This is easy to do if you write down the small steps you take toward your goal every day. At the end of the week, or month, or whatever time period you are comfortable with, take a look at all of the work you have done toward the achievement of your goal. Evaluate the good decisions as well as the missteps. Perhaps you found the perfect house, made a bid on it, but lost it in a bidding war. Don’t be discouraged. Often times we can turn life’s disappointments into opportunities so long as we are willing to keep a positive attitude and learn from them. Stay focused and keep directing your positive energy to the achievement of your goals. Before you know it you will be reaching those significant milestones that you set earlier.

Reward Yourself for Reaching Milestones

This is very important! Celebrate each significant milestone you reach, don’t wait until you achieve the larger goal, milestones along the way are very important! Sometimes what ends up being even more important than the goal we set, is the journey that takes us there, the friends we meet along the way, and the growth we experience as a result of our efforts. Be sure to celebrate all of this! Following the five simple steps above, you just might even achieve your New Years Resolution before the years end. Wouldn’t that be cause for celebration? Even if you don’t, you will have learned so much just from the effort; enough to take you well into the next year’s resolutions successfully!

The New You in the New Year

January 8, 2019/in Blog, New Year's Workout Goals, Personal Training

How many times have you told yourself that this year you’re going to finally lose that weight or quit smoking or look for a better job? How often do you carry over your New Year’s resolutions from one year to the next? If you’re like most people, you come up with a long wish list of things you want to improve and try your best to make them happen during the year.

The problem is that not even a month goes by before you’ve already forgotten about most of your goals and are back to your old habits again. There are a few simple things you can do though, to help you stick to your plan.

Be Realistic

One of the biggest reasons we fail to accomplish our New Year’s resolutions is that we tend to set unrealistic goals. Wanting to lose 100 pounds and make more money and get organized and quit smoking all at the same time probably isn’t going to be very effective. To help you stick to your goals, you should pick one or two really important things you want to work on and focus exclusively on those, instead of trying to completely reinvent yourself in one year.

Also, be sure that your goal is actually attainable. If you have a heart condition and are in terrible physical shape and your goal is to climb Mount Everest before the end of the year, you may be in for some serious disappointment. This is not to say that you can’t set goals that really challenge you physically and mentally. It is simply important to be honest with yourself in regards to what you can and can’t accomplish. The last thing you want to do is set yourself up for failure.

Be Specific

The next big problem is that most of our goals aren’t specific enough. While it may be okay to write “lose weight” on your New Year’s resolution list, this doesn’t tell you anything about how much weight or how you’re going to lose this weight. In order to make your resolution more effective, you need to be specific about what you want to accomplish. A better resolution may be “to lose 1 pound a month throughout the year,” or “to go to the gym at least twice a week before work.” The more specific you are about your goal, the more solidified it will be in your mind.

Be Task Oriented

It’s great to want to lose weight, but how are you going to accomplish it? I can almost guarantee you that the weight’s not just going to melt off of you on its own. So, what do you need to do to make this goal a reality? For each resolution you have on your list, write at least ten action items that you must do to accomplish your goal. Here is a sample list to help you get started.

Resolution: “Lose 1 pound a month throughout the year”

Be Strong

One of the reasons people fail with their resolutions is that they don’t adequately foresee the obstacles they may face along the way.

Be Forgiving

You won’t always hit your mark on the first try. As soon as you realize that you’ll most likely have some good days along with some bad days, you can stop beating yourself up when you’re in a slump. Forgive yourself when you stray off the path and find ways to encourage yourself to get right back on. Blaming or feeling negatively towards yourself will only make matters worse and make it harder to finish what you so boldly started. Instead, figure out what got in your way and come up with a revised plan of action to achieve your goal.

Be Happy!

This is the most important thing to remember. All that we do in life is in vain if we’re not happy. If you’re absolutely miserable doing your resolution, you’ll not only find it more difficult to stick to, you’ll also build up more resentment towards it. This in turn, will make you even less likely to ever finish the goal. Of course, some times we have to do something for health reasons that may seem terrible in the short term, but that will bring happiness at a later time. I believe strongly that to accomplish anything in this world, you have to have the right attitude. Life is short and you should choose resolutions that will enhance your life by making you healthier and happier.

As the Vulcan saying goes, “Live long and prosper.”

Run In A New Year

January 7, 2019/in Blog, New Year's Workout Goals, Personal Training

As we enter a New Year, weight loss will be at the forefront of many people’s resolutions. And why not? It is very healthy to help keep away heart diseases and diabetes for many. It raises people’s confidence and thus increases self-esteem. Participating in a cardiovascular activity will also increase the shape in which one is, as well as lower blood pressure. The feeling of running is great!

After I have gone on a run, I have a tremendous feeling of confidence. Confidence I can carry onto my other activities I in which I want to participate. The juices are flowing, my energy is up: I can take on the world.

For the non-runner who is thinking of taking on running, that sounds very counter-intuitive, but running increases energy. You are not exhausted throughout the day. Healthy body, healthy mind. Why not go for a quick run in the morning to get your day off right?

Running is one of the most intense aerobic workouts in existence. Other than cross-country skiing, running does the most to improve one’s cardiovascular system through exercise. However, unlike cross-country skiing, one does not have to wait for a certain time of the year, at certain locations, and spend a certain amount of money to partake in running.

All one needs is drive, determination, and a pair of shoes (and even then, running barefoot is becoming more popular!). Depending upon a few variables, we burn around 130 calories per mile ran. That is an insanely high amount of calories burned! Now think: you run 3 miles in about half of an hour. You have burnt about 400 calories! Now that of how easy it could be to start running to lose weight!

The most important part of starting to run is to stay focused and believe you can. At first, it will not be tremendously easy, but soon you will learn to enjoy and look forward to your next run. Running requires mental toughness, and with the right plan and mentality everyone can succeed as a runner.

Will Your New Year’s Fitness Resolution Fail this Year?

January 4, 2019/in Blog, New Year's Workout Goals, Personal Training

Many people make their New Year’s resolution to become super fit but fail to achieve their fitness goal because of the obstacles they encounter.

When people think seriously about getting fit one of the first things they think of is attending a gym. Now this is fine, but just getting yourself to a gym involves time and trouble. Typically you need to get your training clothes ready, travel to the gym, park, wait to use the equipment, shower, change and then travel back home.

After a while many people reach the conclusion that all this just takes up too much time and their fitness dreams are dashed. If you could have a training facility in your home, however, all of the time that you waste going to and from a gym would be saved and you could spend more time in pursuance of your goal i.e getting fit.

An exercise treadmill provides the perfect facility for exercising at home. Running and walking are the most pleasurable and natural forms of exercising and build up stamina, help reduce weight and promote overall good health. The fact that you can indulge in this exercise in the peace, comfort and security of your own home by exercising on a treadmill is a huge bonus.

A key point to remember with regard to achieving your fitness goals with treadmill training is that the probability of you continuing with your fitness regime will be high. You are not subject to the vagaries of the weather and you can even watch the TV or listen to your favorite music at the same time.

When looking for a suitable home treadmill it is a good idea to steer clear of some of the cheaper products that you often see in the fitness sections of many department stores. Many of these budget models are lacking in quality and may see you looking at a repair bill in a short space of time.

Setting a goal to become fit is a major personal commitment and buying a treadmill for most of us is a major financial commitment, so buy wisely. When looking for a suitable treadmill try looking at some of the treadmill reviews which provide independent reviews, ratings, and pricing information for most models.

The first thing to consider when buying a treadmill is how it will be used. Will just one person be using the treadmill or many? Will these users be using the treadmill for walking, jogging, running or incline training?

Do not make the mistake of buying a cheap department store bargain and hope that it will meet the needs of your wife who just needs it for some gentle walking and your daughter who belongs to an athletics club and needs it for running. One size does not fit all here.

The next thing to decide upon is your budget. As stated earlier, for most people a treadmill is going to be a major investment so you need to spend wisely. A good quality treadmill should provide you with many years of use and will pay you back many times over in terms of overall fitness, healthy weight control and just sheer pleasure! As with most things in life you get what you pay for, so set your budget accordingly.

Another factor to consider is the weight of the heaviest person who will use the treadmill. Most treadmill review sites will include this in their product write ups and is usually shown as the maximum “user weight” for the treadmill. It is important to pay attention to this as the “maximum user weight” is stated for a good reason. If you weigh 300 lbs do not buy a treadmill that has a maximum user weight of 250 lbs and expect it to perform as it should for very long!

Give some consideration as to where you will locate your treadmill in your home. If you are fortunate to have a room where the treadmill can enjoy exclusive use then this will not be a problem but, if you intend to place it in a lounge then you may be interested in a “space saver” or folding treadmill.

These can be folded up into an upright position when not in use and so occupy a much smaller floor space. There are now available “ultra compact” treadmills that are highly portable and can be stowed under a bed or inside a closet when not in use.

Walking and running although excellent ways of exercising can produce stress on the feet and joints. For this reason you should look at treadmills with a good quality shock absorption system. Some treadmills now have quite sophisticated shock absorption systems.

Many treadmills have a bewildering array of electronic features to attract buyers. These include displays that measure calories used to the amount of energy expended in a fitness workout. Look for features that can stimulate and motivate.

Of course selecting then buying your treadmill is only the start. The key to keeping fit is implementing a workout routine, get started and keep going. You’ll find that after a month, your treadmill fitness session will become part of your normal routine and you will be well on your way to achieving your New Year’s fitness goals!