Category Archives: Exercise & Training
Take Your Workout on Vacation
Working out is pretty easy when you have a gym nearby, but exercise takes a little more creativity when you are in the middle of nowhere – and we put this to the test just recently while on vacation.
When Steve and I were in the mountains with our friends, we wanted to burn off some of the extra calories we were consuming. While our friends scouted out the terrain, Steve started looking for heavy objects to use as fitness tools.
They grabbed medium-size rocks for shoulder raises and propane tanks for squat presses. They used heavy lumber to put on their shoulders for walking lunges and used rope for climbing and repelling. Before we knew it, we had a whole outdoor gym ready to make everyone sweat.
This is one advantage to functional training, like our BCx boot camp program. Since we don’t rely on weight machines to sculpt physiques in boot camp, our clients learn plenty of exercises they can do at home – or, like our friends, their home away from home.
The more functional exercises you learn, the more creative you can get with your workouts, no matter where you are. Even the smallest hotel gym can give you the space you need to create an effective workout if you have a good exercise library in your head.
Here are 5 tips to staying fit on your vaca:
1. Get a lay of the land. Look for surrounding paths, streets and trails. If you can drive on them, clock miles and create a route.
2. Make some fitness tools. Turn two one-gallon containers of water into 8lb dumbbells. Rocks, firewood, large containers of laundry detergent and even luggage can be used as used as weights.
3. Invest in small fitness tools. It’s great to have some portable fitness equipment, like jump rope and Bodylastics bands, that travel well and work great too.
4. Pack your tennies. There is one thing you need if you want to work up a sweat no matter what you do – a good pair of tennis shoes. I brought my Spira stability shoes, which are versatile and great for running too.
5. Plan ahead. If you want to have a good workout while on vacation, do some research before you hit the road. Google area gyms and look for cool tourist activities that keep you moving. Pick out a few workouts you can take with you, like the ones we create online for FitStudio.com or DesignerWhey.com.
Even if you go on vacation, that doesn’t mean you have to take a vacation from your workouts too!
Here is the workout Steve, and his friend Brian, did in the mountains.
The Workout:
- Sprint Uphill
- 10 Burpees
- Climb Rope up 20 foot cliff
- Sprint Uphill
- Carry 20-40lb Objects
- Jump the Ranger
- Race Downhill
- Lumber Lunges
- Climb Rope
(repeat)
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3 Ways to Amp Up Your Workout
Steve Pfiester writes for Designer Whey, “What are you Really Doing in the Gym“.
“I’ve been guilty of going into the gym, knocking down a list of exercises, and two hours later packing up to go home. Sounds good, but the problem is I never really worked out at all. Sure I got a little pumped, maybe even made my quads burn a little. And still, except for my armpits, my shirt didn’t have a drop of water on it – except where I drooled starring at Bonnie doing walking lunges. Ok, moving on…
How do we make our time in the gym more useful, more intense, more productive? Most of us don’t have time to devote two hours of pure isometric exercises to give us bigger biceps. Especially when our goals may be to condition our abs and lean out. Even if you’re like me and you want it all, is it still possible to work on building our bodies while we condition and get lean?”
CLICK HERE to read the rest of Steve’s Blog and get the answer!
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No Gym? No Problem!
You don’t have to be a member of a gym to get results. People workout in their backyard, basement, garage, driveway, office and living room. However, people still use the excuse “I can’t afford a gym” or “I don’t have any equipment”. If that’s you, I’m here to change your mind.
The fact of the matter is, you don’t need a gym to be healthy. Can it help? Most definitely. Could it be more fun? Sure! The variety a gym offers is very valuable – BUT if you don’t have access to one, it’s not the end of the world.
Somedays, my gym is my living room floor or the pavement – and it works. Here is a killer workout that uses nothing but your body and the ground. So, NO MORE EXCUSE!
Ten-Four, BCx Workout
This workout consists of 10 reps of 4 exercises for 10 rounds. Put on your tennis shoes and join Steve for this insane workout.
Like this workout? Try one of our BCx Boot Camp programs at FitStudio.com
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Get Fit with 5-Minute Workouts
Got 15 minutes? How about 5?
Sure you do! You waste that amount of time creeping people’s facebooks. Well, I have good news! Steve Pfiester created a 4-week workout program for Designer Whey made up of simple fast and effective 5-minute workout segments.
Although we have a lot of people who jump right into an intense workout program without even blinking an eye, many people would rather ease their way into a program. Basic Training does just that – it builds in intensity and time each week. Plus, Basic Training is truly a basic program, meaning it’s built on simple exercises you can do at home.
Scared to commit?
Just give me 3 days!! This week’s workout is only three 5-minute workouts: Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. Below is the first 5-minute workout, Alpha. Complete the following exercises for 45 seconds on and 15 seconds off, counting each repetition as you go. Write your reps down on this Basic Training Tracking Sheet. Follow the video to get further direction.
- Push Ups
- Sit Ups
- Burpees
- Air Squats
- Jump Rope
ALPHA:
Get More
Learn More about Basic Training
Join Designer Whey’s Newsletter to get more tips and workouts
Get Recipes for Designer Whey Smoothies
Get Nutrition Tips with Dr. Melina
Shop Designer Whey products
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Top 5 Life-Changing Body-Sculpting Exercises
Over the last few year, fitness has been changing directions. It’s heading out of the weight room and into group fitness rooms, garages, living rooms, lawns and business offices.
Even exercises are changing. With boot camp programs, and the help of the internet, people are learning how to get a good workout without one single weight machine – and many of the exercise look a lot less like body sculpting, and a lot more like regular daily activities.
Functional exercises, exercises that replicate daily living, like squatting down, picking things up, and lifting things overhead, are taking America by storm. Not only do they tone your body, but they improve your quality of life – and they may even save it!
Top 5 2012 Exercises:
Although these exercises may be new to you, these exercises, or variations of them, have been around for a long time. Click on the name of each exercise to watch video demonstration and give them a try!
1. Turkish Get Up - 15 reps on one side, then the other
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Everyone has had to get up off the floor, and everyone has had to get up off the floor while holding something. This exercise will make you stronger so you can do it safely, and it could even save your life. Get your heart rate up and tone your core, arms and legs.
2. Flat Belly Burpee - 15 repetitions as fast as you can go!
Kids pop off their belly like they are a grass hopper. However, the older we get, a simple move like this gets us winded. Challenge your cardiovascular system while toning your glutes, legs, chest and core. This exercise is the bomb – the mother of all functional exercises.
3. Plate Weight Thruster - 15 repetitions
Imagine you are picking up child and throwing them up in the air – just to see their eyes light up and hear their cute little laugh. Every parent has done it, and every child has giggled “do it again”. This exercise will give you the strength to toss more kids into laughter heaven – and do much more. You’ll tone your shoulders, glutes, legs and core, while burning fat too! If you can’t be healthy for you, be healthy for your kids.
4. Take It Or Leave It Abdominal Crunch - 15 repetitions
Comedian, Mark Lowry said, “I do a sit up. I do half the sit up when I get out of bed and the other half when I lay back down at night.” Yet, there aren’t alot of people doing exercises to help strengthen these muscles. This advanced version of a modified sit-up adds weight to the mix. Use a medicine ball, plate, sandbag or dumbbell (or small cat, as Steve would say!) for a fantastic ab workout.
5. Alligator Push-up - 15 repetitions
We push up for fun when we push up off a surf board or wake board in water sports. We need those same muscles in emergencies too. If you fall and hurt your legs, you’d be forced to push up off the floor and hand walk to the nearest phone. Would you be able to do it? This exercise will strengthen your chest, arms and core so you can have even more fun, and who knows, it may save your life one day too!
Make it a workout.
Do each exercise 15 times for 3 sets or do the entire circuit of exercises and complete 3 -5 rounds, at a fast pace with little to no rest to really get your sweat on!
Exercise demonstration videos by Sears FitStudio
Photo Credits:
Boot Camp workout: DoBCx.com
Senior: retireathomemississauga.com
Baby: mysterious-kaddu.blogspot.com
Surfer: denmark-getaway.com
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Wide Load Ahead: 2 Exercises You Should Avoid
As long as women continue to breath, retailers will push machines and exercises targeting women’s most popular trouble areas – the waist and thighs. Companies, like the Thigh Master and the Slim Waist Belt, will succeed even if their products fail, because all they need is your purchase. You, on the other hand, want results. So, even if one thing fails you, you’ll keep trying other ways to fix your trouble spots.
While on the quest to slim down, you’ll likely discover exercises that feel like they work. Unfortunately, these exercises may give you more than you bargained for.
If you want to avoid a wide load, then here are a few things you should know.
NO!
Inner and outer thigh machines can add width to your thighs – and width is something most people (women in particular) do not want. In addition, our thighs may not lack tone as much as they simply have an over abundance of fat, causing them to feel mushy.
GO!
To slim down giggly thunder thighs, spend less time on the inner thigh machine and more time on the elliptical or treadmill to melt the fat. Incorporate more exercises like Walking Lunges, Bench Step-up Lunges, Single-leg Leg Press (pictured above) or One-legged Squats. Because these exercises require balance, you will shape your entire thigh in one move, including your inner and outer thighs, without bulking up – and outward.
NO!
Weighted side bends are another exercise that can add width to our physiques. Ironically, people do them in attempt to slim down the waist, not thicken it.
GO!
Trade side bends for streamlining exercises like Oblique Crunches, snowboarder crunch, Medicine Ball Chop, or Bicycle Kick. These exercises tighten all the muscles that act as tie down straps to your waist, much like a corset (like in this photo) – pulling your waist inward.
NOTE: Resistance exercise simply tones muscle under the fat. Remember, no exercise will improve fatty thighs or love handles without a proper diet and necessary cardio to help shed excess body fat.
Photo Credits:
Bikini Photo: bodychronicle.com
One-Legged Leg Press: exercise.com
Celebrity Corset: funny-pics-fun.com
ABC Butt & Abs Treadmill Workout
Millions of people buy treadmills with high hopes of using them to get fit, only to have them collect dust – or in Brittany’s case, hang clothes (as you can see here in her picture from her blog)!
It’s understandable. Walking on a treadmill can get boring. However, there are ways to keep it fresh! It’s time to take the clothes off the treadmill and put it to good use again – and this time, you can do MORE than just walk on it it!
You can burn calories, while firming your glutes and core, on your old treadmill with some fresh new treadmill moves – all with the treadmill running at only .5 – 1.0mph. Take it slow, practice the moves first and then get ready to feel the burn!
GLUTES, CARDIO & CORE!
A - 5-minute warmup:
Light jog or power walk
B - Treadmill Circuit:
1. 1 Minute of Walking Lunges
2. 1 Minute of Skateboard Lunge on the left side
3. 1 Minute of Skateboard Lunge on the right side
4. 1 Minute of Ab Wheel Walk
5. 1 Minute of active rest (moderate walk or jog)
C – 5-Minute Cardio:
Fast Power-walk or Steady Jog
Repeat B & C 2 more times for a 35 minute workout.
More Treadmill News & Tips
Learn How to Buy a Treadmill by Andrea Metcalf
Get more treadmill exercises and fresh new workouts at FitStudio.com!
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More BANG for your PAIN!
This is what I think of when I think of powerlifters. I think of fat guys who like to lift big weights and eat whatever they want. But we can’t let a few fat guys turn us off from powerlifting because powerlifting exercises have some serious perks.
Think about it. Why do 3, 4 or 5 different exercises when you can do ONE exercise that works 3, 4 or 5 muscle groups all at once?
Although exercises that concentrate only on one muscle group has its place, people are missing out if that’s all they’re doing. Not only does it take more time to isolate different muscles out, there are other benefits you miss out on if you’re only working one muscle at a time.
Get More Bang for your Pain
I’d be lying if I said working out doesn’t hurt. I used to always say “It hurts so good” and that really is true. Once you experience the burn, you start to associate that burn to feeling fit. However, if I can combine exercises so I “can kill a few burns with one stone”, then I’m all over that!
Strengthen Your Whole Body
Isolation exercises mean you are basically shutting down all other muscle movement to work that one specific muscle. When you work several muscles, it requires core strength and stabilization. This means each multi-joint exercise not only strengthens each muscle targeted, but it is also working supporting muscles too.
Burn More Calories
In addition, it takes a lot of work to exercise multiple muscle groups so you burn more calories. So, instead of doing 45 minutes of cardio and 45 minutes on weight machines, you can incorporate more multi-joint exercises and boost calorie burn calorie burn while lifting weights.
This is why we do so many mutli-joint exercises in our BCx boot camp programs, like the one Cristina McDaniel is doing here. This type of training has been proven to deliver the best results for fat loss, while also sculpting muscle, in the least amount of time.
Still not convinced?
If that power lifter pic is frightening you remember what Steve says, “You can train like a powerlifter and eat like a ballerina, and you’ll look like a ballerina”. You simply look like you eat more than how you train. So unless you eat copious amounts of food and protein, don’t expect to blow up and develop huge bulky muscles. Eat lean – and look lean.
6 Multi-Joint Exercises to Add to Your Routine:
See how many isolated exercises it would take to work all the muscles in one multi-joint exercise.
1. Push-up - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps & Core
OR do chest press, tricep extension, front shoulder raises and plank.
2. Pull-up - Back, Biceps and Core (Click HERE to learn modifications)
OR do Lat Pull Downs, Bicep Curls and Plank
3. Clean And Press - Shoulders, Traps, Quadricpes, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves & Core
OR do Traps, Shoulder Press, Squats, Straight Leg Deadlifts and Plank
4. Thruster (Squat Press) – Shoulders, Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves & Core
OR do Shoulder Press, Leg Extention, Ham Curls, Glute Machine, Calf Raises and Plank
5. Overhead Walking Lunges - Shoulders, Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes, Core & Calves.
OR do Leg Extensions, Ham Curls, Glute Machine, Shoulder Press, Calf raises and Plank
6. Barbell Deadlift - Hamstrings, Core
OR do Hamstring Curls, Back Extension and Plank
Powerlifting photo from Project Goliath
More Bang for the Pain photo by Misty Lundeen
Photo of Cristina McDaniel by BCx Boot Camp
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Is Your Behind BEHIND?
If you were keeping score on how often you did arms, chest, back, quads, hamstrings and glutes, what would be behind?
Have you ever thought about how we divide our body parts up? Many of us do chest one day, shoulders on another, etc – yet we hit our legs all on one day. That little jewel hit me this year, so I decided to make some changes.
If you’ve seen my legs, you know they don’t look like this girl in the pic. They look more like legs on a giraffe – knobby knees included. I can’t change the way God made me but, by-golly, I can at least make them more fit looking! So, I started incorporating walking lunges in my morning run every other run and started dividing my legs up more.
Butt Why? – Pun Intended
The more I thought of it, the more I realized my glutes and hamstrings didn’t get the intensity the rest of my body did. My behind was behind! What do I mean? After leg press, squats, and leg extensions, I was always worn out by the time I got to the back of my legs on leg day. So, in order to make sure I gave my backside just as much attention as I gave the rest of my body, in addition to my interval lunges & runs, I started adding in a hamstring and butt day once a week.
One day a week, I hit heavy quads and light hamstrings and another day (later in the week) I hit light quads and heavy hamstrings and glutes. Here’s an example of one of my glute & hams workouts with the weights I used on my last workout:
3 -4 Sets of the Following:
18 Seated or Prone Hamstring Curl (80-90lbs)
18 Straight Leg Dead Lifts (30lbs dumbbells)
20 GHD Glute/Ham Developer (25lb plate)
18 Standing Hamstring Curl (40lbs on Hammerstrength)
30 Steps Walking Lunges (15lb dumbbells)
1 Set Each, Repeating Circuit 3 Times with No Rest
20 Stomps Left
20 Curtsies Left
20 Stomps Right
20 Curtsies Right
Don’t let your backside backslide! Give it the attention it deserves!
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Tips to Making Your Cardio Count
Are you choosing the right cardio for your goals? Many times I see people who need to lose weight leisurely peddling along on the recumbent bike, thinking they are doing some really great fat-burning cardio. However, unless they are rehabilitating an injury, they could burn up to 200 calories more per hour if they moved to an elliptical or treadmill.
Look at the following list of most common exercises and see how they compare to each other. Each exercise is listed from lowest calories burned to highest calories burned.
Calories burned per HOUR for a 155lb person
232: Walking, 3.0
281: Water Aerobics
281: Yoga (not cardio, but thought it was cool to compare)
281: Bicycle
352: Walking, 4.0 brisk pace
352: Low Impact Aerobics
422: Dance Aerobics
443: Walking, 4.5 very brisk pace
472: Running 5mph/12-Minute Mile
480: Elliptical (Moderate)
493: High Impact Aerobics
493: Stationary Bike (moderate intensity)
563: Calisthenics (push-ups, sit-ups…)
563: Circuit Training (minimal rest)
568: Elliptical (vigorous)
633: Stair Machine
633: Running 5.2mph/11.5-Minute Mile
704: Running 6mph/10-Minute Mile
704: Kickboxing
744: Running 6.5mph/9-Minute Mile
760: Plyometrics (Burpees, Jumping Jacks, Box Jumps)
Time vs Work
Now, let’s also look at the type of cardio compared to the amount of time you are likely to do that activity. I know in my heart I will not run on the treadmill for an hour, but I’d do kickboxing for an hour. So, in reality, when looking at the numbers above, I can’t compare them as apples to apples.
The reality: Walking for 30 minutes (176 calories) vs an hour of low-impact aerobics (352 calories) is 176 calorie difference. Running 3 miles/30-min (352 calories) vs 1 hour of kickboxing (704 calories) is 352 calories! Now THAT’S even a bigger difference.
Workout with Purpose
In a nutshell, if you have a specific goal you want to achieve from fitness, you may need to do what your body needs – not necessarily what you like the most. Sure, it’s great to choose activity you like, and will stick to, but are you going to be OK with the results you get from that activity? Many times people keep doing what they like without ever achieving their goals – and they quit working out eventually because what they liked didn’t give them the results they wanted.
If you are exercising for your health, and not for calorie burn, that’s one thing – but if you are wanting to do cardio for fat-melting results, then maybe it’s time to choose a workout based on the results you want to get. Once you choose your workout, make those workouts priority and the fun workouts extras – until you reach your goal. Once you reach your goal, you can rearrange your training schedule, reduce intensity and increase your fun activities.
Top 5 Calorie Scorchers
If you are like me, you want the most bang for your buck. Here are my personal favorite workouts that burn a serious amount of calories while sculpting muscle too.
1. Plyometrics
2. Circuit Training
3. Calisthenics
4. Kickboxing Class
5. High Impact Aerobics
Top 5 Exercise Tips:
1. Do weights before cardio
2. If you need to lose weight, make calorie burn your top priority
3. Do moderate cardio on a mostly empty stomach, when possible, when doing cardio alone.
4. Plyometrics, circuit training and calisthenics require food to fuel you through your workout.
5. None of your calorie burning workouts will pay off if you are just replacing the calories burned with calories you eat. Limit calories consumed for maximum weight loss results.
NOTE: Cardio was a term originally was used to describe exercising your heart and lungs. Now people refer to cardio when doing fat-burning workouts, from a power-walk to an aerobics class.
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Source: NutriStrategy
