Positive Fitness

The Nintendo Wii has already revolutionized gaming, but now some people are pushing for the Wii to not only provide entertainment, but to provide people with a new way (and alternative) to work out and stay active.

WiiHealthy, is a site completely dedicated to getting in shape and being active on the Wii. They just posted a Wii Sports workout guide that is 30-45 minutes a day. They do a great job into breaking it down into sport by sport (boxing, tennis, etc) instructions on how to play “actively” as they call say, instead of taking your time watching replays, etc. Also provided is the estimated number of calories you will burn from actively playing these games.

“Boxing is the most active game on the Wii Sports disc. We strongly advise very heavy people not to go too wild in this one since your heart rate will go up a lot. This could be a problem for people who have been advised not to do big efforts. The fact is that this is the perfect game to lose weight. In a couple of minutes you can burn easily 121 calories in 15 minutes time. So this is a rather fast method and you can even speed it up by using a Mii version of a person that you don’t like as an opponent! Keep moving, move from the front to the back, from left to right. Try punching your enemy from different angles, different types of punches and you’ll be sweating that body fat away. Make sure to keep the wrist strap tight!” - WiiHealthy

I really like the concept of WiiHealthy, since I own a Wii, I know how much of a workout it can be if you really get into it. I personally love my Wii, although I am only good at Tennis.

The movie “300″ has made just as many headlines about the workout the actors went through as the movie itself. Although I enjoyed the movie as well, the workout has also fascinated me just as much. I am part of the Gimme20 community and happened upon this in the forums yesterday. I found part of the workout routine on the forums located here:

The Movie “300″ Workout Routine

The above movie is a great visual example of the actual intensity of this workout. It is quite a workout as you can guess, I would love to try and complete it sometime and let everyone know how it goes. If you were wondering what they did for the movie “300″ to get in shape, here it is.

Technorati tags: 300, workout, fitness, routine, health, diet

Dictionary.com defines Plyometrics as:

A type of exercise using explosive movements to develop muscular power, esp. bounding, hopping, and jumping.

Plyos (as they are called for short) are great ways to train your muscles for fast twitch movements and are an awesome way for athletes to develop stronger and faster bursts of speed in their movements. And every athlete knows that being faster and stronger are essential for success in almost any sport.

I really like Reference’s explanation of what muscular power is on the Plyometrics page:

Muscular power is determined by how long it takes for strength to be converted into speed. The ability to convert strength to speed in a very short time allows for athletic movements beyond what raw strength will allow..

This is such a great explanation of what muscular power is and how Plyometrics help in achieving things that your body would not be able to do solely using strength training. So with that we will get onto some basic Plyometrics movements to get you started in your Plyometrics training.

Power Skip For Height

Power skipping is an aerobic exercise that is great for your thighs and calves. It is basically a skip, where you alternate legs trying to achieve maximum height off of ever jump. Using this in combination with power skipping for distance is a great combo of Plyos.

Power Skip For Distance

This is just like power skipping for height except now instead of trying to gain maximum vertical height you will be trying to achieve maximum horizontal distance. So now you are jumping out instead of up (like you would for height).

A Guide to Workouts and Staying Active on the Road.

Photo by: Brent_Nashville.

When you are out on the road traveling for either business or leisure it is not always possible to stay inactive for days or weeks at a time. Your body will start losing muscle over the course of even a week so staying active is essential. Depending on your accommodations when you are on the road (hotel, camping, relatives or friends house) reflect what you will be able to do physically to stay in shape.

General

• Running - Ask someone where a safe route would be to run, as you may not be familiar with the area and the roads. Go out during daylight hours to be safe.
• Pushups - Make a rigorous pushup routine to do in your room, use different hand positions to work out different parts of your upper body. Including shoulders, triceps, and chest.
• Crunches - There are so many ab workouts you can do in your hotel room or lodging that your abs can get just as good of a workout on vacation as they would at home or at the gym. Plus the fact that your eating habits may abnormal (more grease, more fast food), crunches and running are great for burning those excess calories.
• Squats/Lunges - Doing some weightless squats will help your legs stay active and not lose to much of your hard work.
• Swimming - Swimming is a great workout for the entire body. Most hotels have pools (and maybe a hot tub for some relaxing after a hard swim or day) and you can get some laps in. Make sure you bring goggles so you don’t run into the edge of the pool! If you are camping, there is also a possibility of swimming, call ahead and ask.

Hotel

Quite a few hotels have access to weight rooms with a few basic machines, which could include treadmills, bikes, and a few weight machines. Use the machines to your advantage, usually they are not the best quality or most useful but if you can get a few upper body exercises in, it will definitely help keep those muscles active.

Camping

While camping you can do various activities including hiking, mountain biking, canoeing, swimming. Call ahead to where you will be staying and see the activities that they would recommend doing to stay active. Camping is usually a relaxing vacation choice, but that does not mean that you should take the entire trip off, get out and do something, be active, there will be plenty of time to relax at other points of the day.

Relatives or Friends

Ask your family or friends if there is something you can get out and do to stay active during your visit. Maybe they will get out and do something with you. Ask them for good running routes to avoid high traffic areas and other dangerous areas.

Conclusion

 As you can see there are so many options to stay active when you are out on the road and there really is no reason to not even attempt to get 15-30 minutes into a day, even if you are busy most of the day. It will make you feel much better and could help you sleep better on that awful hotel bed you have to stay on for a week.

I am on the road while writing this and I must say I have felt much better on the days that I got up and did some running and pushups compared to the days I did not. Leave your traveling workout tips in the comments.

There are many workouts and exercises you can do for abs but in order to make drastic improvements on your stomach and abs you will need to make a lifestyle change. Healthy eating (a lower fat diet) will help reduce the fat in your body (along with physical activity). Doing crunches is not simple enough to achieve a six pack abs or washboard abs, it will take commitment and dedication but results can be had with hard work and a good diet.

First off I would recommend checking out AskMen.com’s Ab Guide. They have some great information there as well.

Diet

I have already introduced the idea of eating healthy in order to achieve your ab goals. I would work on cutting out the sweets from your diet. This will help drastically on the fat intakes you have. One tip I would like to pass along is to take out all your junk food from your cupboards and give it away, then go to the store and replace that junk food with healthy fruits, vegetables, and alternate snacks. Check out Wikipedia’s Healthy Diet entry for more information.

Cardio

Cardio is important if you need to burn fat, actually it is great for your body either way and will help a lot with achieving your ab goals. A few things you could are running (10-20 minutes, whatever you can do, push yourself), swimming, and biking. The first two would probably be your best bet since biking does not rely as much on your abs as the others do. If you need to burn fat this is where you are going to do it, ab workouts only workout the muscle underneath the fat.

Ab Workouts

Check out these sites for many great ab exercises until our list goes up:

• Ab and Core Exercise Progression
• Real Women’s Fitness Ab Section (men can use them too)
• AskMen.com’s Ab Guide
• How to Structure Your Ab Workout for Better Abs

 There are many other resources online for great ab workouts, I will write a post in the coming weeks with my personal favorite exercises for abs. Comment below if there is anything you would like to add!

Most people want to have big arms. Not all people know how to get them. Today I am going introduce Bicep Curls to beginners.

In general usage, the biceps is the biceps brachii, the prominent muscle on the inside of each upper arm, popularly associated with bodily strength because it can be flexed very visibly.

From Reference.com’s entry for Bicep.

The most common way to exercise your biceps is to do Bicep curls. There are a few different ways you can do Bicep curls, but I prefer standing with a good solid athletic stance (shoulders firm, feet shoulder width apart, and knees slightly bent). Then I will use two dumbbells and alternate the biceps curl movement. If you are unfamiliar with the proper form of Bicep curls I would recommend checking out this guide from BodyBuilding.com. Where they state:

Stand straight up with your shoulders squared and with your feet shoulder-width apart. Let the bar hang down at arm’s length in front of you, with your arms, shoulders and hands in a straight line. WITHOUT leaning back or swinging the weight, curl the bar up toward your chest in an arc. Keep your elbows in the same place and close to your sides. Bring the weight up as high as you can and squeeze the biceps at the top. Lower the weight slowly, resisting all the way down until your arms are nearly straight.

Now that guide is for barbell curls but it is the same concept for dumbbell curls, where you will alternate arms. I normally start the next arm when my other arm is close to being down to resting position (on the way down).

For a decent beginner starting workout I recommend starting out with something like this:

Day 1: 10, 10, 10 (reps, each arm). On your first day I would recommend doing a light weight and getting used to the movements and proper form.

Day 2: 8, 8, 8 (reps, each arm). Up the weight if possible and try to crank out 8 on each arm with proper form.

Day 3: 8, 6, 4 (reps, each arm). On this day push yourself hard to use proper form and raise the weight.

*Note: Those are not consecutive days. The “Day” is representative of your arm workout day. I only work out my arms once a week hard. If you workout while you are still sore you may risk injury and you will not develop how you should.

Now this is just a guide to get you started. I do 4 sets of Bicep curls once a week for my Bicep workout. It depends on your body and what you need to maintain and gain what you want. My arms are the size I want them to be, I do not do low reps on Bicep curls because I am trying to define and tone my arms instead of make them bigger. This is my personal goal, so set your own goals and work to achieve them. Remember before starting any workout routine to consult your doctor and if you are unsure as to what you should do I would recommend hiring a personal trainer.

For many men the chest is a very important part of their workout routine. Well today you’re in luck, I am going to explain some basic beginner chest development strategies and lifts to help you reach your goals.

Bench Press

Probably the most common chest exercise, and for good reason.  Bench press is considered the major chest workout, and if used with a couple other chest exercises you can be looking more ripped than ever after a little work.

If you are unsure of the proper form while bench pressing I recommend taking a look at this guide or this one.

If you are a true beginner for benching you could try the following workout below. Do not be afraid to customize this workout and make it your own, I would love to see your ideas in the comments!

Pushups: 4 sets @ maximum you can achieve (20 is a good starting goal). Once you get to your goal of completing all the sets/reps I would start on a real bench.

Bench Press: I would start off benching by using low weights so you can get used to the bar over top of you and get a feel for the lift. If you are not a complete beginner I would start out with this routine to build chest muscle. Make sure you warm up and stretch properly before you begin the exercises. Remember to have an experienced spotter as well, never bench alone.

Day 1: 10, 8, 6 (reps). Use a weight you are confident you can achieve and adjust accordingly.

Day 2: 6, 4, 4 (reps). Go up in weight for the first set and push yourself to complete the reps while maintaining proper and safe form.

Day 3: 10, 3, 3, 3 (reps). On this day I would recommend a good solid high rep warmup (always warm up properly) and then higher weight at lower reps. What this will do is build muscle. Higher reps tone muscle, lower reps, higher weights build them.

*Note: Those are not consecutive days. The “Day” is representative of your chest workout day. I like to let my chest rest ATLEAST 3 days (or until not sore) to work it out again. If you workout while you are still sore you may risk injury and you will not develop how you should.

This is just an example I would do if I was trying to build a bigger chest using bench press. Remember before starting any workout routine to consult your doctor and if you are unsure as to what you should do I would recommend hiring a personal trainer.

The only way you are going to build a solid chest is to work hard and use proper form, I can not stress that enough. Your chest should be burning after each workout and you should really feel the weight.  Push yourself, if you can do an extra rep try to, but make sure your spotter is aware. Make sure you do not bounce the bar of your chest to try and do more weight or extra reps, this is extremely dangerous and can cause serious problems and injuries.

I hope this is helpful to beginner’s and experienced gym rats alike. More on Chest Development coming in the next few weeks.

Check out Wikipedia’s Bench Press entry as well for more information including health and safety issues.