The 6 worst things to do for fat-burning

            I have been talk to you all on the do’s of exercising but now I am going to focus on some do nots of exercising. More specifically the six things you do not want to do when fat-burning.

1.      Doing isolated Exercise: These one-muscle-at-a-time movements do not stimulate enough of your muscles to build proper muscle or expend enough energy to maximize your calorie burn. You need to stimulate as many muscles as you can to expend as much energy as possible.

2.      Working Out with Machines: Machines, although cool and sleek looking, do not help in muscle development. They alter the body’s natural movement and restricts your range of motion. This limits your ability to fully activate all of your muscles which means less fat burning.

3.      Doing Long Bouts of Cardio: Long runs will help burn some calories but the problems is that it does not jump start your metabolic rate for fat burning. This does not mean you need to stop doing long runs if you really enjoy them but you should focus more on High Intensity Interval Training, HIIT, which is alternating peaks and valleys of cardio.

4.      Doing Only Crunches and Sit Ups to Get Six Packs: Having the ability to do a 100 crunches at a time will not result in getting those abs you desire. The main thing preventing your abs from showing is that stubborn layer of belly fat or the “ab flab”. This can only be removed by proper diet and carb/sugar cutting.

5.      Repeating the Same Workouts over & Over: Our bodies have an amazing capacity to adapt quickly and hit the dreaded plateau. We need to consistently be changing things up, not causing muscle confusion, but doing a set routine for a time then changing the routine to focus on different aspects. For me I started off with isolation exercises and when I stopped seeing results I began to focus on cardio for fat loss. I am now focusing on strength and building up to Olympic lifts.

6.      Doing Long Workouts: Doing long work outs do not make for an effective workout. For fat burning exercises they can be accomplished in an average of 20-30 minutes, strength building should not take more than 45 minutes mostly to do with rest in between sets. 

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10 Loaded Carries to Build Strength

The strength training program I have laid out for you is a good foundation to build upon. If during your time during strength building you notice that you can lift more and more, but you just cant seem to get over a slump. Or you hit a wall. Loaded Carries will be the thing to get you through that slump or over that wall.

            Loaded carries have huge benefits to you. Essentially what you do is you pick up something heavy and instead of setting it right back down, as you normally would at the gym, you go for a walk with it. Carries help you by continuing muscle gains by working them in new ways, targeting fat loss and increasing total body strength. It also helps to develop core and grip strength, that are important for heavy lifts and Olympic lifts.

The Top Ten Loaded Carries

1.      Yoke Carry: Lift to move the most weight. You use a barbell on your back, as during a squat, with weights hanging from it then walk forward.

2.      Farmers walk: Pick up two equal weighted objects and walk forward.

3.      Suitcase Carry: Pick up one weight and walk forward.

4.      Barbell Zercher Carry: Carrying the weight, on a barbell in the crook of your elbow and walking forward.

5.      Barbell Overhead Carry: An overhead press with a barbell at the peak of your lift walking forward.

6.      Barbell Rack Carry: A front squat hold with a barbell walking forward.

7.      Duck walk: Holding an object between your legs and walking with it. Imagine picking up a beer keg and walking with it.

8.      Bear Hug: Involves wrapping your arms around an object and lifting it to chest height and holding it securely by pressing it against your chest. Do not clasp your fingers together in the front.

9.      Fireman’s Carry: Picking a person, or weighted doll, over your shoulders and walking with them. It is very useful for fire-fighters.

10.  Sled pulls: Put some weight on a small flat object with a rope on it and pull it using your lower and upper body.

Loaded Carries can be used in anyone’s fitness plan. If your training is based on endurance, use light loads and longer carries. If your training is based on core stability and strength, use some harder variations of the carries. No matter which way it is you will see remarkable improvements in grip and core strength, along with endurance.  

How too choose a multi-vitamin

            So I know it can be very confusing too choose a multivitamin from the store shelves due to all those brand names out there and varieties they have. What I am going to discuss today is what to look for when picking out your multivitamin pack.

1.      Read the label carefully. Make sure the vitamin pack you are choosing has the proper percentages and serving size.

2.      Get the basics. Most vitamin packs have C, B1, B20, and B6, folic acid, k and potassium. To name a few. There should be a good amount of all of these in each serving.

3.      Look for the Extras. Make sure that the vitamin pack has the additional nutrients like antioxidants or formulation blends for specific conditions or purpose.

4.      Make sure too buy a proven vitamin pack for your specific gender and age group.

5.      Remember to not overdo it. Multivitamins are meant to help fill in the nutritional gaps that food cannot fill in on its own. Too much of concentrated vitamins can led to build up and could potentially become toxic.

Now an interesting note is that most multivitamins do not contain enough vitamin D or calcium in it and should be ingested as an additional supplement, unless your diet is rich with milk, fish and/or calcium fortified foods and beverages.

Also men’s multivitamins traditionally have less iron in them because men need less in their system. While the opposite is true for women who need more levels of iron and folic acid for reproductive health.

The last thing to note is that multivitamins do not last forever. So make sure to check the expiration date and too store in a cool dry space out of the reach of children. 

Choosing the right Protein Powder

            You have or will notice it is difficult to determine what type of protein you should be choosing for your specific goal set, gaining or losing weight. I am personally still trying to find the right amount of protein to sugar intake because the better tasting proteins will have high amounts of protein and sugar with it. While the protein powder that is better for cutting is lacking in taste due to the amount of sugar and other flavors in it.

            Basically what you want too look for in protein powder is four things.

-          Types of Protein used

-          Flavors and sweeteners used

-          Cost per serving or per gram of protein

-          Additional ingredients used to enhance the product’s benefits

1.      The types of protein used can be categorized as animal or vegetable based proteins. The more popular Animal proteins, milk, whey, casein, beef and egg white, are better tasting and more nutritionally superior to vegetable proteins. They consist of soy, rice, pea, hemp and sprouted grains. Most people using vegetable proteins do so as a part of a vegetarian life style. Animal proteins are better suited for gaining weight and muscle.

2.      Flavoring of protein powders falls into three categories. No flavors, artificial/natural flavors or a combination of them both, and only natural flavors. The no additional flavored protein powders are more tailored to cooking or baking. Helps create a somewhat healthy and protein filled baked goodie. The artificial flavors are all approved for use in food products by all relevant regulatory agencies, so they have no effect on the nutritional value of the protein powder. But health conscious people still prefer the naturally sourced forms of sweeteners and flavors.

3.      The cost per serving is a somewhat crucial indicator of quality protein. The problem that arises with this though is that most protein powder manufacturers do mixes of protein called their proprietary mix, this is a problem because different types of protein cost different amounts and the manufacturer will never show the exact mix ratio. Ideally you will want to buy the smallest amount you can of a protein powder the first time you test it out. A two-pound tub of protein powder will only yield 25-30 servings, which can be easily burned though in a little over a month. But once you find a protein you really enjoy you should buy the biggest amount as possible for the price break advantageous.

4.      The addition of ingredients to protein powder is great for boosting the quality of protein powder. Some additional ingredients to be aware of in protein powder is lecithin granules, a healthy fat from soy, amino acids and glutamine. There should be a few grams of each per servings.

This is just a brief explanation of what to look for in protein powder. I believe I will be writing a more indepth article about this topic in the near future.  Here is a more detailed guide http://www.nutritionexpress.com/article+index/authors/mark+g+taylor+ms/showarticle.aspx?articleid=896 

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Weight loss training

   So as most of you have noticed I have been focusing a little too much on weight training and strength building. So for today’s post I am going to discuss some workout tips for fat loss then lay out a workout schedule for you.

            The tips I am going to discuss are…

1.      Lift weight to lose weight

2.      Don’t skip the cardio

3.      Abs work outs are great but efficient

4.      Yoga and Pilates

5.      Consistency

Let’s begin with lift weight to lose weight, simple enough of an idea isn’t it. As I have laid out in the previous post of strength training, lifting weight causing considerable muscle performance, burning calories. As for men strength training, with proper calories in take, will cause muscle’s to grow but with women, who have lower amounts of testosterone and eat a lower calorie diet, wont bulk up on muscles and instead will have more defined toned muscles. When women focus on building muscle it will help maintain a higher resting metabolic rate, which means a more efficient calorie burning body and help maintain muscle mass as women age.

Don’t skip the cardio or aerobic exercises. This usually means running and jogging, while it is a great way to burn calories it also takes a considerable amount of time and effort to burn an effective amount of calories. So for the men and women with busy lives but still need that aerobic exercise try HIIT exercise or High Intensity Interval Training. This is where you run or bike at about 90% of your max speed for short bursts of time, then slow down for a few minutes then ramp it back up for maximum calorie burning efficiency.  

Abs are great to train and will help with stabilizing yourself with compound exercises, but ab exercises focus on building ab muscle and not on burning calories. It’ll be hard to see your ab muscles if they are covered in a layer of fat. So focus more on calorie burning exercises then on ab exercises.

Let’s not forget about the benefits of Yoga and Pilates. These two sets of exercises focus directly on calorie burning and flexibility, along with core development. This combination of calorie burning and flexibility will help with recovery and better at lifting. Ideally you will want to do these types of exercise about twice a week.  

The last and most important tip is to be consistent. It does not help you at all when you work out for a solid week then take a week off, it only causes confusing with in your body. You should never wait more than 3 days between workouts. The National Weight Control Registry, a database of thousands of people who’ve been able to successfully maintain their weight over the years, says that regularity is important. 

Weight Loss Workouts

Monday: Cardio Day

-          HIIT Routine: 15 minutes on treadmill - Light jog for 2 minutes at raised angle to the floor. At 2 minute mark increase speed to 90% of max running speed for 30 seconds, then drop back to resting speed, 30% of max running speed for 1 minute. Then raise again to 90% of max speed for 30 seconds. Continue this until 15 minute mark is reached.

Tuesday: Weight/Yoga

-          Weight training: Squats 3 sets of 8-10 at comfortable weight. Don’t need to push to hard

o   Bench press: 3 sets of 8-10 at comfortable weight

o   Overhead Press: 3 sets of 8-10 at comfortable weight

-          Yoga: most gyms offer hour long classes, if not then look for beginner yoga videos on YouTube.

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: Cardio Day

-          Distance running: Either on treadmill or outside with GPS tracker (Most phones have apps for this)

-          Run at least 2 miles as quickly as you can.

Friday: Weight/Yoga

-          Weight Training: Squats: 3 sets of 8-10 at increased weight from Tuesday’s weight. 5 or 10 pounds

o   Deadlift: 3 sets of 8-10 at comfortable weight

o   Up right row: 3 sets of 8-10

-          Yoga

Saturday: Cardio

-          HIIT Routine: Try and surpass 15 minutes.  

Sunday: Rest Day

Strength Building

            Alright so in previous posts and articles I have discussed strength building. But what is it exactly? Well it is exactly what you think it is when you hear the name, it is a work out procedure to build strength and form. The work out structure is based on the 5x5 scale. Where you do a few set workouts of five sets of five reps every other day. So generally you are in the gym three to four days a week with a rest day in between.

            The workouts are centered around the use of a Olympic barbell and do compound lifts, that is for those who don’t remember is where you use groups of muscles to do lifts. The exercise used are squats, bench press, overhead press, deadlifts and upright rows. Lets outline the work out now.

One rep max= 1RPM

Monday

1.      Squats- 5x5 at 90% of 1RPM- so if your one rep max is 150lbs then you do 5 sets of 5 reps each of 135lbs

2.      Overhead press (Standing)- 5x5 at 90% of 1RPM

3.      Deadlift- 5x5 at 90% of 1RPM

Tuesday- Rest day

Wednesday

1.      Squat- 5x5 at 90% of Monday weight – this allows you to tighten your muscles for Fridays work out

2.      Bench press at 90% of Monday weight

3.      Upright Row at 90% of Monday weight

Thursday- Rest day

Friday

1.      Squat- 5x1 at 1RPM- If you can do more then one rep add weight by increments of 5lbs until you can only do one or none at all. This is now your new 1RPM.

2.      Overhead Press- 5x1 of 1RPM – Same rules apply as squats

3.      Deadlift- 5x1 of 1RPM – Same rules apply as squats

Saturday-Sunday: Rest day

Then on Monday you start the exercise over but switch the beginning exercises. So if you do as I have laid out for Monday with squats, overhead press then deadlift, you switch to squats, bench press and upright rows. This will cause a small amount of muscle confusion.

Also please remember the few rules of strength training.

-          Rest often, don’t do each set of reps one right after another, rest about 3-5 minutes in between and take rest days. You should never exercise every day, it hurts your muscle too much.

-          Don’t exercise until muscle failure. It wont allow you too get the proper power for the next exercise day.

-          Drink a lot of water, a gallon a day and eat more then 3000 calories a day.

-          Protein, protein, protein. Eat your weight in grams of protein. Example I weight 190lbs so I try to eat 200 grams of protein a day.

-          Stretches, do about 5-10 minutes of stretches after your exercise. This will allow your muscle to stretch and expand.