Tag Archive for: #wonderfullyfit

Total Body Transformation

Gymnastic Rings Are a Fantastic Purchase for Home Gym Owners

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If you work out from home, then one of the most incredibly powerful pieces of kit you can buy is gymnastic rings.

Gymnastic rings are rings attached to straps that can hang from your pull up bar. From there, they then enable you to perform dips, inverted push-ups, bodyweight rows and much more.

rings

They do everything that TRX does in other words – and more seeing as TRX isn’t good for dips – but they cost a fraction of the amount. You can get them on Amazon for $20-40! Plus they’re easy to pack away when not in use and can be taken with you on holiday or anywhere else.

Take a look at some of the things you can do with gymnastic rings for inspiration and to demonstrate just how powerful and versatile they are.

Dips

One of the most obvious things you can do with rings is the dip. A dip simply involves gripping one ring in either hand and then gradually lowering yourself in the middle. This is an excellent way to train the pecs, shoulders, and triceps and it also requires a lot of balance and stability.

What’s interesting about dips is that you actually can’t do them as well on TRX – despite it costing a lot more!

Flyes

You might not have expected this but you can actually perform flyes using gymnastic rings. All you need to do is to lean forward holding one in each hand with your arms apart in a cross position. Now bring them together in the middle to push your body-weight back up. This is an excellent way to train your pecs and your grip at the same time.

Pull Ups

Using rings to perform pull-ups is quite a lot different from not using rings. That’s because this has your hands facing inward which makes it a neutral grip pull up instead of a regular pull up. As a result, you’ll hit the lats at a different angle, while the wobbly nature of the rings will force you to engage your stabilizer muscles to keep the rings steady and prevent your body from rolling.

Inverted Push Ups

Inverted push-ups are surprisingly not a form of push up… but rather another form of pull up! The reason they have this name is that they are effectively push ups turned upside down. Here, you’ll hold onto the rings which are dangling a bit lower and then perform pull-ups for your upper body only, with your heels resting on the floor. This allows you to lift a smaller amount of weight during pull-ups, which thereby trains your lats but also allows you to use this as part of a drop set. In other words, perform as many regular pull-ups as you can, then switch to this to carry on.

Lunge

Performing a lunge with one leg looped into a gymnastic ring is a great way to make it a lot more difficult. This requires more balance again and stimulates the production of more growth hormones as a result.

Clean Eating Plan

The Power of Walking a Little Bit

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Losing weight should never be the sole goal of any diet. Your diet is what sustains you and it is what your body uses to rebuild tissue, flesh and even brain matter. In other words, if you aren’t eating right then you won’t be executing right either. That should be the priority.

Still though, many of us do aim to lose weight with our diets and that’s why it can be very disheartening when it just doesn’t happen for us.

weight

And sometimes it’s genuinely doesn’t. Sometimes, we will work incredibly hard to try and cut calories and eat as sensibly as possible only to end up the same weight that we were to start with.
What’s going on?

Looking Closer

This is something that fitness trainers will see habitually. They write somebody a training program, give them a basic diet plan and then watch as… nothing occurs.

Meanwhile, somebody else might be placing much less effort in and still find that they’re losing a many more weight! So what’s going on? The answer is that exercise and diet is only one component of the equation. And in truth, there’s one more vital element that plays an immense role!

No, I’m not talking about genetics in this instance. Though for sure your natural metabolism and countless other biological reasons will have an enormous impact. If you don’t believe me, then just ask somebody who undergoes with hypothyroidism or who has used steroids. That is the difference that the proper hormones make. (And in truth, if you aren’t seeing any progress in your diet, you would like to consider getting checked for these conditions by seeing your physician.)

What I am talking about is a way of living. It’s all that you do in-between your exercise and your diet that surely matters. Try wearing a fitness tracker for some time and you’ll see the effect this has. If you are walking 15,000 steps daily to get to and from work then you are burning a heck of many more calories than somebody who works from your own home and who rarely commutes.

The difference that aiming to get ten,000 steps a day generates to the way you feel and the weight you lose is immense. Meanwhile, think furthermore about your job – is it active? Think about your jobbies – do you dance or do martial arts?

In the wild, we didn’t exercise for one hour a day and invest the rest of the time sitting down. Rather, we were always exercising, running and challenging ourselves. That’s how you require to be if you need optimal health and weight loss!

Clean Eating Plan

How to Bulk With Your Diet

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When it comes to the diet, everyone has different goals. Just as a few of us concentrate on losing weight and becoming leaner, others are more interested in building mass and growing in size.

This is what we call ‘bulking’.

bulking

Bulking also occurs to be much easier for a few people than it is for others. If you are easily an ectomorph, then that will make it difficult for you to expand your weight and to grow and you will probable find that you’re naturally notably slim and light.

There are alternatives to get around this even if and it all is all about the way you consume. Here are a few points to consider…

You Require Energy

One of the positive sides of being an ectomorph is that it signifies you have a free reign to surely enjoy your carbs! if truth be told, carbs are needed if you’re going to expand your muscle mass as the body actually requires a lot of energy in order to originate and store muscle!

You Require Protein

Of course you also require to consume lots of protein to profit muscle. in the end, this is what muscle is generated out of.

The common advice given when we talk about building muscle is that you should aspiration to eat 1 gram of protein for every 1 pound of body weight. If you do this and train intensively, then you’ll grow in size and strength.

Timing Can Be Important

One circumstance of dieting that often gets overlooked is timing (although this is the entire focus of other diets such as carb backloading or intermittent fasting). Timing is important when we talk about building muscle even if, for the reason that the protein requires to be accesible right when your body is highest in anabolic hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone.

There are two times when you’ll be in this anabolic state: when you go to bed and close to one hour after training. Keep in mind even if that protein takes time to be absorbed by the body!

You Require to Rest

Another thing to keep in mind when aiming to bulk is that your body requires to rest. The more rested you are, the more anabolic you become – whereas when you exert yourself you are breaking down tissue and ‘catabolic’.

To grow, you require to begin training and eating such as a lion. Train just sufficient to cultivate growth and invest the rest of the time relaxing and eating!

Total Body Transformation

The Complete Guide to Building Awesome Abs

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Abs are the one muscle group that almost everyone wishes they had and that almost everyone wants to make more impressive. The abs are often considered between the ‘sexiest’ muscle groups and are a sign that any person is slim, toned and athletic.

At the same time, building superb abs gives you strength and performance pros that can bleed into every other aspect of your physical capacity.

abs

That’s for the reason that the abs provide your core and give you the strength to stabilize yourself throughout other movements.

But the trouble is that numerous people have no idea how to go about building their abs. With that in mind then, read on and we’ll check up on what produces the difference between a 6 pack and a beer abdomen.

Body Fat

The first thing to identify is that you require to lower your body fat percentage if you’re going to have visible abs. You can have the strongest muscles doable here but if you don’t reduce your body fat percentage, then they still won’t be visible.

Note that you can’t target fat loss. This signifies that one of the most crucial keys to building visible muscle here is to keep in mind that you assimilate CV so that burn fat in addition.

Engaging the Abs

Another thing to identify is that you require to actually engage your abs throughout exercise. numerous people will implement ab exercises but won’t actually be training their abs so much as their hips. The hip flexors can implement a notably similar job to the abs by folding the body in half but evidently they don’t have quite the same visual appeal (if you inquire most people).

In short, if you are executing sit ups and leg raises in order to your body folds at the waist, then it’s not training the abs. as a substitute, you require to actually roll the abs and curl your abdomen round by means of the movements.

The Different Ab Muscles

Making life more confusing is the fact that you actually have lots different muscles in the mid section. The ‘abs’ as numerous of us think about them (the 6 pack) are defined by your rectus abdominis – the muscle plate that sits on the front of your abdomen and has the 6 indentations we all want to accomplish.

Meanwhile although, you in addition have the transverse abdominis. The goal of this muscle is to provide support for the reduce spine as well as to ‘hold in’ the abdomen. Training this muscle is not only crucial for performance, it also assists you to create flatter abs. You can hit this muscle by utilizing the myotatic crunch (a crunch performed through a bosu ball in order to your back goes past flat) or by utilizing the ‘cat vomit’ exercise that involves sucking your abs in while on all fours to develop an ‘ab vacuum’.

Finally, you have the obliques. These sit on either side of the rectus abdominis and give you more definition here and also the capacity to torque. Train them using twisting sit ups and similar movements.

Clean Eating Plan

The Secret Power of CBT for Clean Eating

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One of the hardest parts of eating clean is turning down the tasty snacks that you know are bad for you. You don’t have to starve yourself of course or eat all that strictly. There’s nothing wrong with a nice pasta dish packed with vegetables and meats…

But what you should avoid is that massive chocolate cake after dinner that will add 450 calories to your diet and leave you feeling sick. It provides zero nutrition and it sets your diet back in a way that can sometimes be hard to recover from psychologically. But don’t worry – there’s a trick!

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Total Body Transformation

Why Bodyweight Training Outdoors is the Ultimate Workout

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A word that gets thrown around a lot at the moment when it comes to training is ‘functional’. What is ‘functional’? Well essentially, this term refers to the idea that some types of exercises provide real-world and usable strength, whereas others do not.

One of the exercises often called functional is the deadlift because it involves squatting down to pick something heavy up off of the ground using all the muscles in the leg in unison as well as muscles in the back.

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Clean Eating Plan

Why Bread and Milk Are Not the Enemy

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If you’re looking to lose weight and improve your health, then one of the first things you need to do is to choose from the huge amount of different diet plans out there. Essentially, you need to decide who you’re going to listen to and what theory of weight loss you want to subscribe to!

And things get tricky right away. What you’ll find is that everyone has a different opinion and that these opinions vary hugely. Some people to tell you to stay away from fats while others tell you to dunk them in your coffee! Who do you listen to?

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Total Body Transformation

More Ways to Engage Muscle Fiber Without Weights

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When building muscle, there are a few things that make an impact on your progress. One is how much you are able to pump the muscle with blood and metabolites. When you train and your muscle is tense, this forces blood and hormones like testosterone and growth hormone to collect there.

Now the muscle will be ‘occluded’ meaning that blood will pool and all the signals will be sent to encourage more growth.

The other thing that matters is the amount that you recruit and use your muscle fibers. The more you tear your muscles (called ‘microtears’), the more they’ll be forced to work to repair themselves and grow back bigger and stronger. Simultaneously, using your muscle fibers in any capacity can improve your ‘mind muscle connection’ and thereby help you to increase the amount of control you have and your ability to engage muscles as you need them.

This means that the actual amount of weight you’re using doesn’t really matter. As long as you are challenging the muscles, you can use no weight or lots of weight.

This is why body-weight training works but it’s also why there are more options available to you if you want to get more creative with your weight training. Here are some examples:

Self-Resistance

One way to challenge yourself during a workout is to provide the resistance yourself. This allows you to precisely control the amount of resistance you’re up against and thereby to strengthen muscles accordingly.

To do this, you simply need to grab hold of one arm for example with a free hand. You then prevent that free arm from curling with the other arm and thereby provide yourself with the necessary resistance you need to grow.

Self-resistance is a great way to train if you don’t have access to any equipment and you’re travelling but it can be tough on the joints and not particularly enjoyable so it isn’t a good long-term solution!

Dynamic Tension

One way to train your muscles is through something called static contraction. This simply involves tensing and contracting your muscles as much as you can even without any movement just to recruit muscle mass and just to control your mind-muscle connection.

When you use dynamic tension, this takes this one step further by including movement. You simply need to go through movements like curls but while tensing your biceps. There are no weights but the tension combined with the movement provides essentially the same thing.

Speed Training

Finally, another option is something called ‘speed training’. This involves curling weights and using your muscles in other ways but as you do, you will be going through the movement as quickly as possible. This in turn means that you’re using the same amount of power in the muscle fibers in order to accelerate. The weight isn’t there but you’re still required to produce just as much force as though it was – and as a result you can get similar benefits from this kind of training!

Clean Eating Plan

How to Improve Your Energy Levels With the Right Diet

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Wouldn’t life just be a lot better if you had more energy? Serious – low energy is probably responsible for a huge proportion of our problems! It’s low energy that makes it hard to wake up in the morning, it’s low energy that makes us not really want to exercise and it’s low energy that prevents us from performing our best or really enjoying life.

The problem is that it takes energy to start changing your lifestyle and to do things like exercise more or sleep better to improve your energy… so where do you begin? The answer is simple: you begin with your diet!

energy

There are tons of ways that you can improve your energy levels through your diet, here are just a few!

Glucose Hit

One way you can add more energy using your diet is just to consume more glucose. This won’t give you long-term energy but will instead help you to improve your energy in the short term and give you a small kick when you’re struggling.

And interestingly, one of the best ways to get that hit of glucose is to ‘cheat’ and have glucose from man-made, processed sources. A glucose tablet is one option, another is to eat Wine Gums!

MCT Oil

Using glucose on a regular basis is not a recommended way to keep your energy levels up though. Instead, it’s better to use MCT oil, which comes from coconuts and other natural sources. This type of oil doesn’t get absorbed by the body in the same way as other fats and it encourages the body to produce ketons – a type of energy that has a lot of particular uses for the brain.

Chia Seeds

If you want an example of someone with high energy levels, then look no further than the Tarahumara tribe! This group of indigenous people are able to run hundreds of miles in a single go and they accomplish this at least in part thanks to chia seeds – seeds that are capable of absorbing several times their weight in water!

Iron

Iron is used to create the red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body. More iron = more oxygen where you need it – meaning in turn that you’ll have more energy.

Vinpocentine

Another way to get more oxygen around your body when you need it is to cause vasodilation and widen the blood cells. This can be done with any food containing nitrates – including garlic. But vinpocetine is a natural ingredient that goes one step further by ensuing the vasodilation occurs mainly in the most important regions of the brain.

CoQ10

Meanwhile, anything that can increase mitochondrial energy metabolism will greatly enhance energy levels – CoQ10, PQQ and creatine all being very good examples (and all being found in organ meats).

Total Body Transformation

How to Train Your Legs With Body-weight Exercises

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Training the legs is something of a hot topic among bodybuilders and athletes. Gym goers who ‘skip leg day’ are often referred to unfavorably and for good reason; training the legs has knock-on benefits throughout the entire body whereas leaving them out tends to make you look dis-proportioned and odd.

The question then is why so many people leave legs out of their routine in the first place. And the answer is a) legs are boring and b) legs are hard to train.

legs

The simple fact of the matter is that your legs don’t have hands attached to them. And this means it’s harder to pick up a weight, thus meaning you have to load yourself up some other way and involve the whole body. That instantly reduces the number of exercises available to you and means that leg exercises necessarily take up more space and leave you a lot tireder.

And it also makes it much harder to train your legs with body-weight alone. But there are ways. Read on to discover some of the best of them…

Jumping Squats

One of the simplest ways to train your legs with your body-weight alone is to use jumping squats. This simply means that you’re squatting down and then jumping at the apex. This is a simple exercise and you wouldn’t think that it would make a huge difference – but it is great for building up power and can quickly create a burn thanks to the amount of acceleration involved.

Box Jumps

Speaking of which, box jumps require even more power to launch you high enough into the air – especially if you stack them high. This is in some ways just as challenging as a squat and a great way to build hamstrings, quads, calves and hips.

Jumping Lunges

This is simply a lunge where you jump, switch legs in mid-air and then land with your legs in the opposite position. Doing this is a great way to build strength in the hamstrings and again involves jumping to create more acceleration.

Lunge Walking

Simply walking by stepping from one lunge into the next. This is a surprisingly effective workout because you’re plunging so deep in between and spending the majority of your time under tension.

Single Leg Squat

Another way to make the squat more challenging with just body weight is of course to do it on just one leg. This then requires twice the strength and also forces you to balance a lot as well. A more advanced version is the ‘pistol squat’ which requires your foot to be flat on the ground while the other one is pointed straight out in front of you, toes facing up.

Side Squat

This is between a squat and a lunge and involves stepping out to one side, lunging deep and then stepping back to the middle before repeating on the other side.

Sissy Squat

Finally, a sissy squat is a squat you perform by leaning back and going up on your toes. Your knees point forward and you lean back like Neo. This is tough on the joints so more of a party trick to be used springily!