You wake-up early. Wash your face.
Put some workout clothes on and tie your shoes sitting at the edge
of your bed. Make some coffee to go. Drive to the gym drinking your
coffee from a stainless steel mug you got at a car dealership. Once
at the gym you park and wipe the morning out of your eyes. You walk
in through the front doors and check-in at the front desk. After
you check in you begin the same old boring workout you learned from
a friend six months ago. Two hours later you feel like you did not
even get a great workout. You start to think back and realize you
have wasted three months doing the same workout routine week after
week. You have stopped getting a response from your body because
it is bored. You still have not lost the thirty-five pounds you
wanted to in the first place. You get back in the car frustrated.
Drive back to your apartment. Take a hot shower. Put on your khaki’s,
white button-up, green tie, brown belt, and brown shoes. Head to
work with a feeling of defeat. Next thing you know, you blitzkrieg
a plate of doughnuts the staff secretary brought in. STOP HAVING
BORING WORKOUTS!! Implement variety in your workouts and start getting
results.
Suck-up your pride and ask for help. All fitness facilities and
gyms have people on hand to help you learn how to workout. There
are floor trainers, which are usually free with your membership.
They help you set-up a simple workout routine and teach you the
basics about nutrition. There are also personal trainers, which
usually cost a pretty penny ($30-$150/hour). The personal trainer
is usually more in-depth and more intense. He/she will guide you
through each of your workouts and tailor a nutritional program to
your needs.
If you want to learn on your own, then by all means do so. There
are a variety of ways to learn about fitness. You can go to fitness
workshops, seminars, home-study/Internet courses, or just get some
good books and magazines. If you do not have a lot of time to study,
then read the rest of this article to get yourself on the right
track. Know the following four basics: 1) resistance training, 2)
cardiovascular training, 3) nutrition/supplements, 4) rest/recuperation.
Resistance Training Exercises - These are anaerobic (without oxygen)
exercises that help build muscle. Resistance training can be performed
with free-weights, rubber bands, plate-loaded machines, weight stack
machines, or by using your own body for resistance such as a push-up
or walking lunge. The muscle your body builds will aid in continuous
fat burning twenty-four hours per day. You can work multiple muscles
at once by doing exercises such as bench presses (works pecs, front
shoulders, forearms, and some triceps), squats (works quadriceps,
hamstrings, buns, and inner/outer thighs), and dead lifts (works
traps, rhomboids, forearms, low back, buns, inner/outer thighs,
quads, hams, and some calves). By doing compound movements such
as these your body will work more muscles at once which will really
stoke the fat-burning furnace. Keep variety in your resistance training
always! Never keep doing the same exercises week after week. You
will only bore your body and progress will be stagnant. Resistance
training not only helps burn fat, it helps keep your blood pressure
and cholesterol at normal levels, helps strengthen bones, and also
helps relieve stress. Always study and learn different exercises,
which use different equipment. Most importantly learn proper form
to prevent injuring yourself when performing an exercise. To be
on the safe side always look like a chicken when performing an exercise.
Keep your chest forward, butt back, and lower back in. Always stretch
each muscle after you work it. This will increase your flexibility
and decrease post workout muscle soreness.
Cardiovascular Training Exercises - These are aerobic (with oxygen)
exercises. These train the most important muscle in the body, the
HEART. Aerobic or cardiovascular training, helps burn fat, keep
blood pressure and cholesterol in normal ranges, relieve stress,
strengthen heart, lungs, and the rest of the cardiovascular system,
and also promotes perspiration to help your body sweat out any excess
water it does not need. Examples of aerobic activities are: walking,
biking, roller blading, rowing, using elliptical machines, stair
stepping, Ultimate Frisbee, soccer, basketball, jogging, hiking,
and aerobics classes at fitness facilities. Always remember to do
a light warm-up for five to ten minutes before really getting into
the exercise, and remember to do a five to ten minute cool-down
after you do the exercise. Do not forget to stretch the muscles
you worked after exercising.
Nutrition and Supplementation - When you workout you expend energy,
which eats up your body’s nutrients. You need to replenish
those nutrients as soon as you workout. Within forty-five minutes
after a workout consisting of weight training and cardiovascular
training you need to eat a meal. This meal should be a small serving
(one handful) of simple sugars (banana, grapes, 12-16 oz. sports
drink, or post workout carb drink), a medium serving (two handfuls)
of complex carbs (brown or wild rice, sweet or red potatoes, veggie
pasta, whole grain bread, or oatmeal), and a large serving (three
handfuls) of proteins (lean red meat, deer meat, chicken breasts,
turkey breasts, buffalo, egg whites, whey protein powder, soy protein
powder, cottage cheese, or tuna) and of two tablespoons of a monounsaturated
fat (extra virgin olive oil or canola oil). That meal was just post
workout, which should make you a little full. Your whole day should
consist of five to six small meals that should never make you full,
but keep your metabolism in high gear. Each small meal, except post
workout, should contain a small serving (one handful) complex carbs
(brown or wild rice, sweet or red potatoes, veggie pasta, whole
grain bread, or oatmeal), a medium serving (two handfuls) of proteins
(lean red meat, deer meat, chicken breasts, turkey breasts, buffalo,
egg whites, whey protein powder, soy protein powder, cottage cheese,
or tuna), and a medium serving (two handfuls) of green vegetables.
With every meal and throughout the day always drink water. Even
with all this healthy food your body will not get certain nutrients
or enough of them. This is where supplements come in. Taking a daily
multi-vitamin/mineral supplement will help give your body important
vitamins and minerals it may be missing. Sometimes you may not be
able to cook or prepare all of your food on time. This is where
meal replacement bars and powders can come into your daily diet
routine.
Rest and Recuperation - You can workout hard and eat right for
ten years, but never see lean muscle appear or see your body take
shape if you do not get enough rest and recuperation. By rest I
mean you need to get at least nine hours of sleep at night or eight
at night and an hour nap after your workout. Sleep is important
because this is when your body is producing its greatest amount
of growth hormone which aids in repair and growth of your body.
You can have the best workout of your life and get no growth from
it if you go out and party all night and get no sleep. By recuperation
I mean not over-training. Do not as a beginner do a total body workout
everyday with the weights. If you do you will not ever progress.
Your muscles will constantly get beaten up every day and never have
time to recuperate and repair themselves. As a beginner give yourself
at least a day to two days rest between resistance training exercises.
If you are still sore two days later, then do not work that area
until the soreness has passed.
Sample Workout:
*Total body resistance/cardio workout 3 times per week with at least
a day rest in between for one month.
Resistance Training
Week 1 - 1 set of 1 exercise per body part for 15 reps
(chest press machine, lat pull-down machine, shoulder press machine,
alternate dumbbell curls, rope press downs, crunches, squats with
no weight)
Week 2 - 2 sets of 1 exercise per body part for 15 reps (different
exercises from Week 1)
(dumbbell chest presses, one arm dumbbell rows, dumbbell shoulder
presses, curl machine, triceps press machine, ab machine, leg extensions,
leg curls)
Week 3 - 3 sets of 1 exercise per body part for 15 reps (different
exercises from Week 2)
(bench presses, barbell rows, military presses, barbell curls, skull
crushers, hanging knee raises, lunges with light dumbbells)
Week 4 - 4 sets of 1 exercise per body part for 15 reps (different
exercises from Week 3)
(incline dumbbell presses, pull-ups, dumbbell lateral raises, dumbbell
hammer curls, dumbbell kickbacks, decline crunches, dumbbell squats)
Cardiovascular Training
Week 1 - 20 minutes on treadmill
Week 2 - 40 minutes on treadmill
Week 3 - 30 minutes on stationary bike
Week 4 - 40 minutes on stationary bike
Sample Daily Meal Plan:
Meal 1 - meal replacement shake, multi-vitamin/mineral, and coffee
Meal 2 - half cup of oatmeal w/ little honey and protein bar
Meal 3 - two chicken breasts, salad w/ oil and vinegar, half sweet
potato, and one big orange
Meal 4 - a pear and protein bar
Meal 5 - one medium size tuna steak, green veggies, and sliced apples
Meal 6 - protein shake
Conclusion
You have just learned the basics about resistance training, cardiovascular
training, nutrition and supplementation, and rest and recuperation.
You have also been given a one month resistance and cardiovascular
training plan. After you try this for a month, do it again. The
second month should be the same except do each exercise for six
to eight repetitions instead of fifteen, and do each cardiovascular
routine for forty five minutes. This will push your muscles even
harder and keep them guessing. Keep variety in your food choices
for your daily meals. Keep your weight loss/tone-up goal in mind
and never lose sight of it. Never, ever, give up!
About the author:
David Gluhareff, CFT, lost over one hundred pounds from 1995-96
and became a Certified Fitness Trainer with the International Sports
Sciences Association. David then built a fifty thousand dollar a
year business, in a small town in Virginia, by the time he was twenty-five
years old. To contact David Gluhareff, CFT (ISSA), go to www.trainwithdave.com.
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