Category Archives: Exercise and Fitness

bouncing back after baby

5 Moves to Help You Bounce Back after a Baby

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Guest Blogger: Brionna Kennedy bouncing back after baby

Having a baby is surely a blessing. However, one thing you may not feel so blessed about is the additional weight you put on while pregnant. It is perfectly normal and acceptable to gain weight during a pregnancy. At the same time, after the baby is born, you are left trying to adjust to your new size and working on getting that fit pre-baby body back. Even though it may seem a bit challenging, there are several moves that can get you shedding those excess pounds in no time at all.

Assorted Stretches before Exercising

It is most important to stretch before performing any exercise. You can sit down with your legs pointed straight ahead. While you are doing this, have your toes pointed toward the front of you, and stretch your body down to get your legs prepared for the workout. Some people also enjoy doing gentle yoga stances and positions to prepare them for the more strenuous workout routine that they will perform. While stretching, you may also want to wear kinesiology tape by StrengthTape. This tape is specifically designed for athletes and people who are planning to exercise because it helps to protect the joints and the muscles.

Cardiovascular Exercises for Calorie Burning

If you want to burn those calories at a faster pace, you have to incorporate some sort of cardiovascular exercise into your routine. The good news is that there are plenty of exercises to choose from. You can choose from jogging, brisk walking, cycling, aerobics, and even swimming. There are also plenty of workout programs that will show you routines for moving your body and burning off calories fast.

Lifting Weights for Strength

After a cardio workout, you should also be lifting weights. While lifting does not necessarily cause you to shed calories at a fast pace, it does help you build muscle, which is something you need if you want to have a toned body. Lifting weights will also help you to prepare for lifting your baby, especially as he or she gets heavier.

Use a Fitness Ball

Want to strengthen your abdominal core? After all, your abdominal muscles surely went through a lot during those nine months of carrying around your precious baby. If you want your stomach to be flat and toned after giving birth, you have to perform abdominal exercise. Crunches are one of the most popular abdominal exercises. If you want to achieve faster results, use a fitness ball when you do your crunches or any other exercises.

Carry Your Baby

Believe it or not, the little one that you carried around for so long can help you to lose weight in more than just one way. Aside from breastfeeding, you can also lose weight faster by carrying your baby around in a sling. Who knew that carrying your baby could be such a workout?

With these five great moves in mind, you can successfully bounce back after having a baby. You certainly can get back into shape after having a child. You simply need to be determined as well as ready and willing to work out. Parenting.com offers a lot of articles and reference for how to lose that baby weight as well.

About the Author

Brionna Kennedy is native to the Pacific Northwest, growing up in Washington, then moving down to Oregon for college. She enjoys writing on fashion and business, but any subject will do, she loves to learn about new topics. When she isn’t writing, she lives for the outdoors. Oregon has been the perfect setting to indulge her love of kayaking, rock climbing, and hiking.

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Easy and Simple Workout Routine for Better Living

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Guest Blogger: Milton Perret ??????????????????????????????????????

A healthy lifestyle is hard to follow, but if you are determined to achieve your fitness goals, you need to set your priorities straight. Proper diet and exercise are the keys to a healthy body. Even if you are not an expert, it is possible to incorporate changes in your life through easy and simple workout routine.

Choosing a workout routine is not that hard. In fact, with a little bit knowledge is all you need to getting started and of course, you also need to have the right attitude. With these things, you can overcome any obstacle that might come your way.

For beginners, it is always ideal to start with a workout routine that is simple and easy. This would mean exercising 3 to 5 times a week for at least twenty to thirty minutes. Experts claim that this is enough to maintain a healthy body. However, if you are trying to lose weight, you have to work harder.

The workout routine you choose should depend on your fitness goals. If you are trying to lose some pounds, you should be willing to put more effort and time into your routine. This means that instead of working out for twenty to thirty minutes a day, you need to do double the figures. Another thing is that you must watch your calorie intake. Follow this general rule – burn more calories than what you are eating.

Your regular workout routine should focus more on cardio exercises. Les Mills Pump is a great cardio program to start with for any fitness level. This simple and easy routine is ideal for maintaining a healthy weight. However, you should never overdo it. There should always be rest days.  Once you’ve achieved your desired weight, you can exercise three times a week to get those muscles moving.

The intensity of the workout routine must be maintained at 60% – 70% of your heart rate. Determine your maximum rate and perform low intensity exercises to burn calories and avoid the risks of common illnesses.

What are these easy and simple exercises? You can do walking, jogging, swimming, dancing, biking, rollerblading, hiking, and many others. Make sure that you perform a different exercise every one or two weeks. This is necessary to prevent the body from adapting to the workout routine, which is something that you must observe because once your body adapts to the same routine over time, you will not be able to burn calories or achieve your fitness goals.

It is always a good idea to consult your doctor before engaging in any workout routine. Aside from determining the heart rate, you also need to consider your weight, height, gender, age, genetics, activity level, metabolic rate, and many others. Only your healthcare provider can help you with these things. This is vital, especially if you are trying to lose weight.

On the first week, you can try walking exercises around your neighborhood early in the morning or at your most convenient time. On the next week, you can try another exercise like jogging or swimming. Commitment is significant if you want to work your way toward better living. Try these ideas today!

About the Author

Milton Perret is a health and fitness enthusiast as well as an author for All Workout Routines. His research and writing focus mainly on fitness DVDs like this Insanity workout review.

Volkin workouts

2013 – The Year of Fitness on the Go

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Guest Blogger: The VolkinatorVolkin workouts

Everyone’s busy nowadays; we’re lucky if we can find time to cook a healthy dinner for ourselves. Having an alternate plan for getting a great workout is vitally important to staying in great shape. Our busy lives sometimes pull us away from the important things in life like healthy food and time in the gym.

I have assembled the top 5 portable fitness equipment to keep you healthy in 2013 (and beyond):

1. Strength Stack 52 ($16.97) - My top choice for portable fitness equipment is a brand new product called Strength Stack 52. Strength Stack 52 is a deck of body weight fitness cards where you can play fun games with your friends or even yourself. Each card has (among other features) a bodyweight exercise, a rep count, a number, and a color. With those features, users can make up their own games or go to the website and learn games that others users play. With tons of different workout combinations and games, working out can be fun and competitive. This product is completely portable (weighs only 8 ounces) and can fit anyone’s budget. Designed by military fitness expert Michael Volkin, these cards are definitely one of those “why didn’t I think of that” inventions.

2. Resistance Bands ($10-$50) – Lightweight and portable, resistance bands are an old favorite that continues to be popular year after year. With resistance bands you can target specific muscles or stabilize your core. Bands offer more variety than weights because you can create resistance in all directions. Whether you are a beginner or advanced fitness enthusiast, resistance bands should be incorporated in your workout.

3. Nike Fuel Band ($149) – While not a piece of exercise equipment, the Nike Fuel Band is definitely a motivator. Simply place the Fuel Band on your wrist and become instantly aware of how active you are (or aren’t). The Fuel Band tracks your steps and your calories, but not your heart rate. You can even compare data with your friends online and establish a friendly rivalry. This band both helps and encourages you to reach your goals. You can even set goals with the software and track them along the way.

4. Weighted jump rope ($25) – The weighted jump rope fits in any suitcase and is ideal for toning your whole body. If you want to strengthen your leg muscles and lose weight, this will be essential equipment for your workout program. Jumping rope can be a great workout or simply just a fun way to warm up. Be careful of using a jump rope if you have a history of shin splints.

5. TRX Home Suspension ($200) – TRX is a portable suspension trainer that claims to improve functional strength, balance, and flexibility. The product consists of two adjustable straps, a pulley system and stirrups/handles for the feet and hands. Along with the TRX system, the combination of your body weight and gravity can provide a host of different exercises designed to strengthen your core.

About the Author

This article was written by Sergeant Michael Volkin, best-selling author of military basic training books and inventor of Strength Stack 52, a unique way to transform bodyweight exercises into a fun and competitive workout.

Volkin workouts

3 Odd Bodyweight Exercises You Need in Your Workout Routine NOW

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Guest Blogger: The Volkinator

Whether you’re a fitness enthusiast or just acquired your gym membership, you have most likely scoured the internet for effective exercises to get you in shape. As a fitness enthusiast for over 20 years, there isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t try and incorporate something new in my workout routine. Your body has an amazing ability to adapt. If you aren’t constantly challenging yourself with new techniques and exercises, you are not maximizing your workout time. So I challenge you to incorporate all three of these below exercises in your next workout.

1)      Body Rocks: Lay on your back with your legs in a vertical position and your arms over your head. Use your abs to rock your body up to almost a seated position. Rock back down. Do these for 30 seconds and your abs will feel like they’ve got the workout of a lifetime. Video link: bit.ly/body-rocks

2)      Shoulder Annihilators: Assume the push-up position with your forearms on the ground. Rotate up and out off one arm ending with your chest perpendicular to the ground. Your shoulder muscle should be bearing the weight of the body rotation. Do 10 of these for each arm and your shoulders will definitely feel the burn. Video link: bit.ly/shou-ann

3)      Scorpions: Assume the push-up position. Move your left leg as far as possible past your right leg and rotate your head and body to the left. Repeat with other side. Do 10 of these on each side and your mid-section will wish you didn’t read this article. Video link: bit.ly/scorp-ss52

All of the above exercises can be found in my new bodyweight fitness cards called Strength Stack 52. Whether you choose to do the exercises above or find some different ones of your own, keep in mind that varying your workout is of utmost importance. I see too many people in the gym, like zombies, doing the same exercises week after week. To maximize your exercise time, spend 15 minutes a week searching the internet for new exercises to do the following week. This is the single easiest thing you can do to increase your workout effectiveness.

About the Author

This article was written by Sergeant Michael Volkin, best-selling author of military basic training books and inventor of Strength Stack 52, a unique way to transform bodyweight exercises into a fun and competitive workout.

Volkin workouts

The Plateau Busting Mini Workout Theory Put to the Test

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Guest Blogger: The Volkinator

A typical workout for an average person consists of about 30 minutes to 1 hour of lifting weights. If exercises are performed incorrectly, the load on the muscles and stress on the joints of these repeated movements causes both short and long term damage to your body. Most people continue to work out despite a known injury, aching back, or sore muscles because of the improved appearance of their physique as a result of the working out. However, over time, the improved appearance becomes harder to maintain and a “plateau” eventually occurs. A workout plateau is when someone continues to exercise and sees diminishing returns on the improvement of their physique.

Recently, several scientific studies have been conducted which analyze the optimal duration and intensity for a proper workout. Some experts claim high intensity and fast workouts are the most beneficial; others claim slow, meticulous movements with heavy loads is the easiest way to maintain a great physique and optimal health.

Mini workouts have proven to be extremely effective to both the health of the individual and improvement of the physique, yet often if the most underutilized form of working out. Three to five workouts a day varying in duration from 10-15 minutes provides a boost in the metabolic rate of an individual throughout the entire day. Therefore, mini workouts are more effective at burning calories throughout the day rather than working out all in one block. For proper nutrition, an individual will eat 3 meals a day; the same theory should be applied to working out.

A majority of fitness products largely overlook the scientific studies showing the effectiveness of a mini workout because people usually workout in one block hour. This principle has been adopted not because of optimal health of the individual, but rather convenience. Only a small percentage of people for very specific reasons (i.e. competitive bodybuilders) will show consistent gains working out in 1 hour blocks.

The Test

Typically, I work out at the gym during my lunch hour with three other coworkers.  The three of us decided to give the concept of mini-workouts a try for 2 full months. Before we started, we recorded our weight, body fat percentage, and body measurements. We used a fitness product I invented, called Strength Stack 52, which concept centers around bodyweight mini-workouts. Instead of doing one 45-minute workout during our lunch hour, we met 15 minutes before and after work and 15 minutes during our lunch hour to complete mini workouts. The three of us were still exercising 45 minutes per day and to keep the results as pure as possible, we did not change our eating habits or lift any weights.

The Result

Each of us saw positive results at the end of the two months, performing strictly bodyweight exercises in intervals of 15 minutes 3 times per day. The three of us averaged 11 lbs. of weight loss with the highest of us losing 18 lbs. Keep in mind that weight loss occurred with no change in our diet from already active people. Each of us also experienced muscle gain, reducing our body fat percentage by an average of 2.2%. We all agree, the biggest benefit was our mental stamina and attitude. We all feel better throughout the day and our 2 o’clock “is the workday over yet?” feeling has gone away.

Whether our success is a result of breaking a plateau or the result of the effectiveness of mini-workouts can’t be determined in just 2 months. However, the reason doesn’t matter. The results speak for themselves and the mini workouts were fun. Instead of looking forward to one large workout in a day, we looked forward to 3 intense and fun workouts in a day.

Other benefits we experienced as a result of the mini-workouts included:

  • Less muscle soreness
  • Less joint pain
  • Increased cardiovascular stamina
  • More mental stamina and intensity per workout
  • More calories burned per day

Conclusion

Although we experienced positive results testing the mini-workouts, we all miss throwing a few dumbbells around. We have developed a hybrid program where we now do a mini-workout in the morning and start our lunch hour workout with a mini-workout. After our second mini-workout (during the lunch hour), we perform a weight training program.

Experiencing the mini-workouts was an eye-opening experience for us. We all subscribed to the “no pain, no gain” philosophy and we now know that no part of that old adage is true. You can in fact gain muscle and lose weight performing small, fun and challenging workouts three times a day.

About the Author

Sergeant Michael Volkin, aka The Volkinator, is the best-selling author of military books and inventor of Strength Stack 52 fitness cards.