If you’re committed to your health and fitness, then you’ve probably got a regular routine worked out already. But you may have found that over time, your targeted regimen begins to deliver fewer returns in the way of results.
This is not such a terrible thing when you’re merely maintaining your level of fitness. But when you have to look your best for an event like a wedding, a body-builder competition, or even a stroll down the red carpet, you may be keen to up your game where your workouts are concerned.
The process starts with assessing your current state, determining your goals, and then figuring out the steps needed to get you where you want to be within a set time limit. So whether you have several months to prepare or just a couple of weeks, here are some tips that will help to get you in peak physical condition before the big event.
The most common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, but you might have noticed in years past that declaring a commitment to this end rarely results in a comprehensive plan that will actually help you to reach your goal. Perhaps you sign up for a diet program and even attend a few meetings before getting too busy to go. Or maybe you take advantage of Obama care and see a doctor. Or maybe you join a gym and shell out major money for access to equipment that you never end up using.
Whatever you have done in the past, you can make 2013 the year you turn it all around.
The trick, in many cases, is not to put such an emphasis on the number you see on the scale, but rather to address your health and fitness in a way that provides you with other forms of success. So here are just a few things to consider when setting your goals for the coming year.
First and foremost, forget about weight!
Okay, so there is a lot of hubbub circulating about the obesity rate amongst adults and the concurrent rise in heart disease, diabetes, and more. But these aren’t necessarily a byproduct of your weight so much as your lifestyle.
What you really need to address is not the readout on the scale, but rather the bad habits that brought you to this pass.
While classical music may help you to focus during work or study (or put you to sleep at night) and metal or alternative might get you through your daily commute, these genres don’t necessarily lend themselves to improving your exercise routine. This begs the question: are certain types of music better suited to working out than others?
For most people, the answer is an emphatic yes. But which types of music will best suit your particular needs when it comes to pumping up your exercise routine? There are a few things you’ll need to consider before you settle on a genre, an artist, or even a specific song title to add to your playlist.
Match the Music to the Movements
The first thing you’ll like want to address is the type of exercise you’re doing since various musical styles will apply to different forms of activity. For example, a person who takes the dog for a long walk around the park every evening after work may choose to listen to oldies that they can sing along to, while those who go jogging might prefer club music or techno because the tempo helps them to keep up a certain pace.
They may even plan an entire playlist to help them speed up and slow down periodically. But it could be that neither of these types of music lends themselves particularly well to a relaxing yoga session, which could require a soundtrack of new age, atmospheric tunes, sans lyrics. As you can see, the type of workout you choose to do could dictate suitable genres of music.
I’m sorry to post so many videos, but this World’s Strongest Man 30 Years of Pain is a must-watch for any fan of strongman or powerlifting. I did not know Jón Páll Sigmarsson died at age 33. What a bum deal.
In the meantime you’ve got Magnus Ver Magnusson, Magnus Samuels-son, Svend Carlson, Phil Phister, Marisuz Pudianowski, and many others. Granted, maybe 1 in 100 of these guys were not on the juice, but every single competition is inspirational.
Anyway, Kaz is nuts and so are the rest of the old school strongmen. If you only care about losing fat, don’t bother with this video, but if you’ve ever watched the WSM finals during Christmas vacation, and you actually knew the finalists and had a favorite, you have to watch this.
Going to the gym and doing the same workout over and over again is a sure way to prevent progress when it comes on to muscle growth. Repetition is a surefire way to make progress… in moderation. Too much repetition will leave you tired, bored, sore, lazy, and overtrained. Enough emphasis cannot be placed on the necessity of having a properly designed fitness program.
Motivation. It’s the silent workout partner that every successful diet or muscle building program must have to succeed.
When you build a workout plan you probably spend a lot of time deciding what supplements to take and what routines will do you the most good. It is just as important to build a motivation plan to help you power through the plateaus and lulls that are part of reaching fitness goals.
I still have 8 of these babies to give away to YOU for free!
1 winner will be chosen every Friday from 9/23/11 – 11/11/11!
Update!
That’s right, I gave away a dozen or so of these DVDs back before it ever came out. Now, 6 months later, everyone loves the DVD and I seem to have uncovered another 8 copies! They don’t do anyone any good sitting around my computer, so instead of selling them, I’m going to give them away.
All you have to do is follow the simple qualifying instructions, and you could win a copy too. All previous entries are null and void, so lets restart this campaign and give some DVDs away for free.
I’m sure plenty of you will enjoy working out at home in your living room instead of dragging your butt to the gym. Actually the Jillian workout would be great for anyone looking to take a day off from weight training, and it would be perfect for anyone who regularly works out at home, especially those who use DVD workouts.
There are many reasons to build a stronger body that most people wouldn’t think of when they picture bodybuilding. Bodybuilding can be a very healthy hobby for both your mind and your body.
Despite the misconceptions of the general public, bodybuilding is not necessarily all about eating whey protein, lifting heavy weights, and oiled-up posing in a thong on a stage. There are a ton of great health benefits as well.
These are just some of the many unexpected benefits of bodybuilding:
It’s not this easy, but these 10 basic tips will get you started in your quest to accomplish your strength and bodybuilding goals.
The basics have always and will always work best. You can build a core workout routine with just squats, deads, bench, overhead press, pull ups / chin ups, dips, and situps. Rows and curls can be added as needed.
Find what works best for you and keep doing it until it no longer works. Start with the basics, optimize for your personal needs, repeat until you plateau.
As long as you are making progress, stick with your routine. No need to change workout routines every month just because you don’t want to plateau. If your routine is working, stick with it UNTIL you plateau.
Strength is greater than bulk. If you are strong you have nothing to prove and it is easy to get bigger. If you are big it’s tough to get stronger and strong guys will tell you “well, at least you LOOK strong.”
Three months is the minimum trial length before you can pass judgement. Six months is even better. What I’m saying is, you need to stick with a plan for 3-6 months before you can say it does or doesn’t work.
Free weights rule.
Excuses will hold you back for your entire life if you let them. Stop making excuses, stop reading and researching, stop thinking. Just do it!
You will become your environment. If you want to be weak and small, surround yourself with weak and small. If you want to be big and strong, hang with those guys, ask questions, and take advice from those who have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
You have to really want what you think you want. If you REALLY wanted to be strong, you’d be strong by now. So change your mindset today. If you really want to be something, you have to want it more than anything else.
Eat to grow. You have to eat if you want to get stronger. You have to eat if you want to get bigger. If you’re not getting bigger or stronger, eat more food. Especially protein.
With so many at-home cookie-cutter workout routines out there, I figured it would be a great idea to discuss one of the best: P90X. After all, P90X is pretty cheap compared to paying a gym membership and hiring a personal trainer.
Will P90X turn you into a bodybuilder, a powerlifter, an Olympic gymnast, a marathon runner, or a sport-specific athlete? Oh, hell no!
Could P90X possibly get you in the best shape of your life with a minimal initial investment? Could P90X strengthen your body, improve your cardiovascular fitness, help heal nagging injuries, and dial in your 6-pack abs for summer? Oh, hell yes!
PX90 suggests that a ninety-day weight loss regime jumped into with both feet will start you on your weight loss journey. The program implies that shocking yourself with the first 30 days of their system will get your metabolism going, and because of the results you see, you will be gung-ho for the rest of their ninety-day program.
The sixth copy of the new Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVD that I had planned on giving away to a lucky Project Swole reader had gone missing. It was recently found to have been destroyed by a dog. It is not salvageable and will never be given away.
Now the good news
The publishing company has sent me 10… count them TEN… more Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVDs to give away for FREE.
Therefore, for the next 10 weeks I am going to give away one copy of the DVD every Monday night, starting on 3/14/11.
You can find the original post with all the qualifying instructions here:
It is very easy to qualify… over 30 people have qualified to date. Just check out that post at the link above and follow the instructions.
I’m closing the comments on this post because I don’t want any activity here. Whatever you have to say or ask about the FREE DVD, please submit a comment at the original post.
The technique of using visualization in sports training has become increasingly popular in recent years. While some people may question its effectiveness, research has found visualization can be quite successful.
A study conducted by Guang Yue, a psychologist from Cleveland Clinic Foundation, found that non-professional people gained 13.5 percent muscle strength just by carrying out mental exercises. Luckily, you don’t have to earn a psychology degree to understand or practice visualization; read on to learn how you can use this technique to psych yourself up to hit the gym and set a new personal record.
How to Use Imagery and Visualization
Over the years, many professional sportsmen have made use of visualization to achieve great success. For example, world champion golfer Jack Nicklaus, states that he never fires a shot, even while in practice, until he visualizes it clearly in his head. Muhammad Ali is also known to have used varying mental exercises to help improve his performance.
OK, so you’re a fat guy (or girl) and you sit in front of a computer all day. In case you didn’t realize it, you are a fat geek. Or perhaps a fat nerd? Either way, those two terms can be used interchangeably for the purpose of this article. I have been one or the other, and perhaps both, at various points in my lifetime. Looking back, it was never any fun.
If you keep up your current lifestyle, only one result could be possible: you will get fatter and then you will die. This solution is neither fun nor ideal. To combat this, you should start an 8 week fitness boot camp.
Start slowly, learn some initial lessons over the course of the 8 weeks, and be prepared to embark on a lifetime fitness plan after the boot camp is over. You will need to learn something about these important health topics:
Lifestyle – sleeping, social interaction, work hours
Diet – what to eat, when to eat, why to eat
Exercise – which exercises to use, how to exercise, when to exercise
Motivational Wisdom
Let me tell you what you will not have if you are a fat geek:
Sexy girls trying to date you
Sexy girls even looking at you (unless they are pointing and laughing)
The strength to pick up anything over 20 pounds without straining your back
Visible abs
Comfortable seating in pretty much any public place except those airplanes that offer double wides for fat folks
Low cholesterol
The speed to out run bullies, criminals, or anything that might be trying to mug you or eat you. If a rabid skunk comes at you, you’re toast buddy.
A life expectancy higher than mid-50s, but then if I were you I probably wouldn’t be looking forward to that whole ‘staying alive’ thing anyway.
Yes indeed, being a fat geek is probably the worst thing you can do for your social life and for your general health.
Josie Maurer of YumYucky.com writes today’s guest post. Josie is a woman who eats and then talks about it. She and her “Greedy Taste Testers” tell us all about the different kinds of foods they eat in an attempt to find a way of life that balances fitness and a taste for great cuisine.
Josie wants you to ditch the weight loss gimmicks, deprivation of so-called “forbidden foods”, and severe calorie deprivation, in favor of Moderation, Discipline, Portion Control, and Commitment to exercising and eating healthy.
So you’ve been cruising along smooth with your food-eating under control. You’re losing weight and building muscle, and when you glance in the mirror you can’t help but to notice your sexy swagger. But then it happens. A sugary avalanche starts rolling your way and it’s camouflaged real pretty as holiday eating.
How do you escape that office party complete with cookies, cakes and dainty candies? What happens when your neighbor shoves a 5-pound gift can of chocolates into your claws? All this holiday fanfare can obviously threaten to undo your good fitness deeds, so check out these warning signs:
Your heart rate begins to escalate. Sweat droplets of temptation bead across the forehead as your top lip begins to quiver. Your breathing becomes labored and your taste buds salivate with sugary desire…
How are you going to weasel your way out of this one? Do you just cave and eat the damn food, or do you squirm under pressure and tell yourself “no way!” before you eat the damn food anyway? (more…)
Attention men! This just in: you don’t need to gain 30 pounds of muscle in order for women to find you attractive.
I found this post from back in the year 2000 about a Harvard study in which college-aged men were asked to pick their ideal body from a group of images. Most men chose the body with 30 pounds more muscle mass than what they currently had.
A group of college females were then asked to choose which of the body images they were most attracted to. The majority of the women picked a body with 15-30 pounds less muscle than the men picked.
Today’s new Swole Content is a guest post by Josh Hanagarne, the World’s Strongest Librarian. Please visit him on his blog where he talks about books, strength training, his fight with Tourette’s Syndrome, and much more.
How to Train for YOUR Future
We hear about weight training goals all the time.
I want more muscle.
I want less fat.
I want to look good naked.
I want to deadlift more.
I want to bench press 500 pounds.
What about training goals that will actually matter when you spot your first gray hair or when you buy your first pair of bifocals? Granted fat loss is always a concern as you age, but what can we, as dedicated strength athletes, focus on NOW that will help us stay healthy as the years tick by?
Today’s post can be filed away in the there-is-hope-for-humanity category.
A 17 year old high school student named Ike Ditzenberger has down syndrome. He also plays on the varsity football team.
In late September, the Lake Stevens Vikings were crushing the Snohomish Panthers 35-0 with 10 seconds left in the game. That’s when the Panthers ran their top secret play, The Ike Special.
Ike took the hand off from the Panthers quarterback and proceeded to run 51 yards for a touchdown as the clock expired. Vikings players definitely took the end of that play off, but in this case it mattered way more to everyone on that field for little Ike to score 6 points, than to tackle the poor guy to salvage a shutout.
The Vikings ended up winning 35-6 and now have a 4-0 record in 2010, but Ike Ditzenberger and his family have a memory they will treasure for the rest of their lives.
And in Pro Football News…
If Ike’s story doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy, then I’ll leave you with this:
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