Everyone has a different body type, but very few people have well-developed biceps, chiseled thighs, tight glutes, and rock-hard abs without putting in at least a bit of work. Having great genetics helps if you want to define muscle or become more muscular, but it truly doesn’t matter what body type you have if you are determined enough. Be realistic about just how ‘swole’ you want to become, but more importantly, be patient with yourself. Gaining muscle is much like losing fat – major changes are not noticeable overnight.
Let’s take things day by day, step by step, and discover these realistic ways to gain and define muscle mass.
As someone who’s spent years helping families design outstanding home gyms, I’ve seen firsthand the positive transformations these spaces can bring, especially for teenagers. Let’s face it: inspiring teens to prioritize fitness is tough. Between homework, social media, and endless screen time, staying active often falls to the bottom of their list. A gym membership might seem like the obvious solution, but creating a home gym tailored specifically to your teen’s needs is an absolute game-changer.
Staying healthy and fit is about convenience, comfort, discipline, and building lasting healthy habits no matter your age. Let’s examine a few reasons why exercise is so good for teens along with a few great ways to try to get your teen to workout in a home gym.
CrossFit is a famous (infamous?) exercise program that people around the world have been using for years. Some people think both the pros and cons of CrossFit are all about working out until you can’t move. However, it’s actually about creating healthy exercise routines, picking up new dietary habits, and working with others to motivate each other to continue your progress.
To find out if CrossFit is right for you, check out the CrossFit pros and cons below.
“Your toe bone connected to your foot bone, Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone…”
This is an old spiritual song whose chorus teaches children about the human skeleton. It can also remind us workout fiends that everything in the body is connected. If just one of those bones, organs, or systems gets sick, it can affect the whole body. This is why you should constantly strive to improve your training and lifestyle, and the new year is the perfect time to do it.
These sneaky lifestyle tips will help you keep 6 important body factors in check and improve your fitness in the new year.
Generally speaking, while working out the primary concern of bodybuilding is to develop a toned upper body, to the extent that aspiring bodybuilders sometimes forget to pay much attention to their legs. And if they do train legs, it is pretty much the bare minimum and a half-willed effort – leg press and leg curls, for example. Sometimes we need to consider home leg exercises to get some extra reps outside of a gym.
Many beginners focus so much on a toned set of abs or bowling ball shoulders, that they skip out on leg day and forget to include their squats and deads throughout the week. This greatly affects the symmetry of the body. So to obtain that perfect physique you dream about, you will need to include leg workouts too.
For today we will focus mainly on home leg exercises and primarily use only body weight.
Should Athletes Train Individual Muscles or Only Sports Movements?
Personal trainers have to know how to train people from all walks of life. I’ve seen bodybuilders, strength athletes, middle-aged men, obese housewives, trained athletes, newbies, weekend warriors, and about 100 other types of people and athletes. No one routine can be designed for everyone. Sport-specific movements might be prescribed for some athletes, while others might need a beginner’s routine, while others might only want to focus on powerlifting movements like bench, squats, and deads. We need to always be aware of the athlete’s goals when designing a workout routine.
Even in sport-specific niches like football, baseball, basketball, and soccer, or with other athletes such as powerlifters, bodybuilders, strongmen, and Olympic lifters, there is no one-size-fits-all training routine. You can’t take a baseball pitcher and train the pitching motion for 5 hours a day, 7 days a week. It just won’t work. So how do you train athletes who only need a small variety of movements to be successful at their sport?
A few years ago, Josh Hanagarne, aka The World’s Strongest Librarian, sent me this great piece of work on grip training. Enjoy. (BTW, the quote in the title is from Abraham Lincoln).
I got into grip training for two reasons:
Number one, it looked fun and people I liked were doing it. Monkey see monkey do.
Second, I was getting strong enough that my hands were starting to become my limiting factor. This was a sobering realization which took place at the intersection of Lame and Weak.
Like most things I like right off, once I jumped in, I jumped in all the way. Grip training was addictive for me. Better yet, it gave me one more way to make progress, which is usually the major ingredient in how happy I am. I could either set aside dedicated days for grip work or, the more I learned, I could squeeze it into my normal workouts without much of a headache.
Before I tell you how I add grip training to your workout, I just want to give you a quick look at four different types of hand strength so that you don’t overemphasize anything or neglect anything that could be useful to you.
Most vacations mean people take a break from their everyday life. Vacations can be great for health as well, by eliminating the daily stress from working 8-10 hrs, commuting, and having stressful responsibilities. They leave their routines at home and go away to have some fun. It’s great to get away and not think about work, but it may not be so great if you’re trying to stick with some daily habits. You’ll want to attempt to workout on vacation to keep your muscles limber and your blood flowing.
One of the most popular routines is a full-body workout. It can be difficult to keep up with this routine while you’re away for various reasons such as lack of equipment and training facilities. No matter the reason why you think you can’t get it done, here are a few tips to help see that you do.
Engaging in regular exercise with an intense workout is not only beneficial for your physical well-being but also for your mental health.
It has been proven to alleviate stress, enhance concentration, and promote better sleep. Nonetheless, it’s common to prioritize other tasks over fitness. It’s understandable to experience reduced motivation during colder weather or when preoccupied with various thoughts. However, there will always be excuses to postpone exercise.
The key lies in discovering enjoyable workout routines that will keep you coming back for more.
To assist you with this, I share some insightful ideas on how to make your workouts more effective and enjoyable, ensuring your long-term commitment.
Cholesterol and its role in our body is not something most people think about regularly, but it should be. High cholesterol can lead to cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States today. Project Swole readers like to exercise, so let’s ask the question, ‘does exercise lower cholesterol?‘
If you want to know how to lower your cholesterol with exercise, here are some great workouts that can help you start dropping those dangerous fats today! Let us know what you think about these suggestions in the comments.
Which is the best practice, to exercise before, or after, a bath or shower? Should I do both, others may need to shower or bathe before or after, but ideally, showering/bathing before and after a workout is the best choice.
Nevertheless, if you can only fit in one of the two, I recommend showering/bathing afterward because that keeps you smelling and feeling fresh for the rest of the day.
There are several considerations when deciding whether to take a bath or shower before or after your workout. Today, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each so you can figure out what works best for you. Let’s start with the exercise before a bath! Read along!
What exactly are online fitness classes, and how do they operate? These live and on-demand exercise classes also allow you to watch workout videos whenever it is convenient for you, rather than having to plan your day around a specific fitness class.
Since the pandemic, online live and on-demand exercise classes have grown in popularity. With all of the lockdowns that occur from time to time, this is by far the safest way to stay fit while still reaping the health benefits of exercising in the comfort of your own home.
High-Intensity Interval Training, often represented by the acronym HIIT, is really a big deal. HIIT training is the ideal and most effective replacement for underachieving endurance cardio. High-intensity interval training has been regarded for years now as one of the best ways to burn calories and maintain muscle mass while encouraging a long-lasting metabolic effect post-workout.
As a matter of fact, in studies, HIIT is 9x more effective at burning fat than endurance cardio.
More often than not, I have talked about HIIT workouts made up only of interval sprints. Today I would like to discuss HIIT training with resistance machines, but not to be confused with High-Intensity Resistance Training, or HIRT, which I will write about shortly.
HIIT Provides the Following Benefits
Burn more calories than endurance cardio
Burn more fat than endurance cardio
Increase power
Increase speed
Increase muscle density
Improve anaerobic endurance
Improve aerobic endurance
Speed up metabolism for more than a day and a half
When you seriously set out to lose belly fat it’s a lot of hard work and requires optimizations to your lifestyle habits. Although regular exercise can trim and tone other parts of the body, for many individuals, an excess stomach can be very stubborn. Fortunately, one of the best types of exercise for losing belly fat is running. There are also some small tweaks that can be made to your regular running regimen to provide a sustained boost of fat burning.
There are a bunch of fun exercises to do with your dog if you’re wondering how to get into shape with your pet. Just like humans, obese dogs are at risk of suffering from heart problems, arthritis, and diabetes. Exercise with your dog to help you both stick to a fitness routine and follow healthier lifestyles.
If you’re thinking, “How can I exercise my dog at home?”, we’ve got you both covered in the sections below.
Now that we are coming out of pandemic lockdown, people are starting to return to the gym. Keeping a gym bag packed and ready with oft-used fitness accessories makes it easy to get in a quick workout. Clean clothes, snacks and hydration, and personal hygiene products are vital tools when you’re running to the gym on the quick to squirrel in a workout.
Here are ten things that should always be in your gym bag before you head out the door.
When you can’t go to the gym, you can watch videos on Youtube. Every year, the Youtube community grows, with creators sharing their fitness experiences, ideas, and tactics with their fans in order to inspire them to live better and happier lives. Viewers from all around the world are flocking to Youtube to work out their favorite YouTube Female Fitness Influencers. Fitness superstars with millions of followers are reaching out to audiences all over social media with customized experiences and diet plans.
Check out the top 10 Youtube Female Fitness Influencers that might serve as your personal trainers, online or offline.
If you are looking for a workout that is challenging and intense, boot camp workouts may just fit the bill. All forms of high-intensity workouts have seen a surge in popularity over the past few years, but boot camp-style programs offer some unique benefits. With many gyms now opening up post-quarantine, group classes are starting to regain their popularity. Boot camp workouts are all the rage right now with group classes since they allow for both strength training and conditioning in a short 40-minute intense workout.
Here are 4 awesome benefits of boot camp workouts over regular commercial gym memberships.
You’ve got certain goals for your body. Whether you are bulking up or getting leaner, you are determined to hit the gym with consistency. However, it is important to understand that the process to boost workout recovery is just as important as the workout itself. If you overdo it, your body starts to deplete its stores of nutrients. This can then lead to decreasing performance and a deteriorating body.
Let’s check out some recovery tips to help boost your recovery.
It can be difficult to garner the motivation to work out. Between finding the time and overcoming the fatigue of day-to-day life, it isn’t hard to understand why committing to a regular exercise routine is so challenging. That said, no challenge is without a solution. Introducing some fun and excitement to the mix could be all you need to help make your routine effective and fruitful. Adding music to your routine is a proven way to elevate your experience and get you on the right track. Given the intense tempo of your typical workout and the righteous beats of disco, we can’t help but think the sounds of disco and workout tempo go together perfectly.
While music is highly subjective and a matter of taste, you may be surprised to learn that certain styles have characteristics that lend themselves to ensuring a fiery workout time and time again. Universally loved for its driving tempos, motivational lyrics, and energetic nature, Disco seems to be tailor-made for cardio, weight training, and more!
