Positive Fitness

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 will not be much posting this upcoming week as I have a big week coming up and I will be pretty busy, I may try to get two posts done tomorrow to release over the course of the week, but I am not sure.

If anyone wants to contribute an article or two I would appreciate it, if not, I’ll be back after this week!

My goal when starting Positive Fitness was not just to provide workout information, exercise tips, and diet tips. I wanted it to be a place where you could also look for motivation.

I hope that today’s quotes will provide you with some positive and motivational insights.

Motivational Quotes

“If you can’t rise to the highest level of enthusiasm, passion, and
professionalism, and grasp this task as if it is the most important thing that you have ever taken on in your life, you aren’t worthy of the task. We have been blessed with this opportunity.” - Richard Taylor

My favorite quote as of late, I find it to be a very motivational quote for a big sporting event or a big occasion in someone’s life.

“Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory.” - Norman Vincent Peale, Source: Positive Thinking Every Day.

I love this quote because it can be about pretty much anything, a rough day at work, personal relationship, or weight loss.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. - Helen Keller Source: The Book of Positive Quotations by John Cook

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. - Robert H. Schuller Source: Positive News Network

Motivational Video - Free Hugs Campaign

I really enjoyed this video when I first seen it posted a few months ago. It has received the YouTube Video of the Year Award! It is one of the must see web videos and if you have not seen it yet please take the 4 minutes out of your day to watch it, I hope you really enjoy it.

The Free Hugs Campaign.

Let me know if you enjoyed the video or the quotes in the comments and I will continue this feature as a weekly or a biweekly post on Positive Fitness.

I hope to make this a regular feature on Positive Fitness, what I am going to do is link to the best information and content I find during the week and post it to share with everyone. Everything from fitness, positive lifestyles, and other things.

Positive Living and Productivity

The Happiness Project has a great article on passion titled “Why PASSION is so critically important to happiness.“

A passion gives you a reason to keep learning and to work toward mastery. It can often give you a reason to travel, and therefore to have the new experiences so key to happiness. It gives you something in common with other people, and so fosters social bonds. It gives you purpose. It often has a satisfying physical aspect—rock-climbing, fly-fishing, knitting. It gives meaningful structure to your time. It makes the world a richer place. When you’re in pain, it can be a refuge, a distraction, a solace.

This can be applied to anything in life, becoming passionate about weight loss, fitness, healthy eating, anything and everything. I highly recommend this great article and blog by Gretchen Rubin she is a great author and blogger I have quickly come to respect.

Matthew Cornell has a good article on his blog “Idea Matt” about designer Bruce Mau on personal growth, a small excerpt from the article:

1. Allow events to change you.
2. Ask stupid questions.
3. Study.
4. Think with your mind. Forget technology.

The article is about design but I think a lot of it could pertain to health, fitness, and exercise. Good read and an interesting look at some things in life.

Game Producer has a good article on motivation entitled “14 Ways to Motivate Yourself” check out this article whether you are already motivated or looking to get motivated it is sure to have some thoughts and ideas you may not have thought of yet.

#14 - Remind yourself why you are doing this

The first tip about goal setting is important, but it’s as much important to remind yourself why you are doing games - or whatever it is where you need motivation. When you start reminding yourself about the main reasons what made you start the project in the first place you’ll be more motivated to continue.

The Positivity Blog has a nice list of 17 Inspirational Quotes on People Skills which I found to be a good and entertaining read with some good quotes, my favorite being:

Arguing with a fool proves there are two.
Doris M. Smith

Fitness and Exercise

I just discovered Wildman Training’s blog and found a good post on outdoors training, and being that summer is fast approaching I thought it would be appropriate that I am quite impressed with, the first is based on working out outdoors and in the playground, what could be better?

Real Muscle Online has a great article on “How to structure your ab workout for better abs” that I found very helpful and informational. They also had an informational post on “How to make your daily run more weight loss effective” that I found to be great as well. A lot of positive work going on at Real Muscle Online, keep it up guys!

The main reason regular running is limited in its effectiveness is because you get used to that heart rate range. If you jog at the same pace everyday your body becomes adapted to it and doesn’t get pushed. If you add some sprints in there though, you can increase your heart rate during the run as well as boosting your metabolism for the rest of the day. This means less calories absorbed as fat and more fat burning the next day. All good.

Crunch Notes has an article on “Marathon Training for Nerds” that is worthy to check out for the tech-hearted. They have a lot of great gadgets and technology that pertain to active workouts and running.

Read Part One of Healthy Snack Ideas. There are many snack ideas out there, some of them are not so healthy. Here are four quick and easy snacks that are healthy and good for you. This is the second part of a (yet to be determined length) healthy snack series.

Baby Carrots and Dip

I love this snack personally, it is very healthy and has great flavors. Choose your own favorite (preferably low fat) dip and enjoy. I love ranch with my baby carrots.

Juicy Juice

100% juice, it simply can not be beat for a healthy drink to go along with lunch, snack, or on it’s own.

Fresh Fruit and Granola

Take your favorite fresh fruits, peaches, raspberries, blueberries, and put them together and top with a bit of granola for some flavor. It is a great source of fruit and it tastes good!

Dried Fruit

Great for on the run and an easy snack, dried apples and raisins are my two favorites, but other fruit such as pineapple can be great dried as well.

I hope you found these next four healthy snacks just as good as the first ones.

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.

I’ve always liked going for a simple walk, although in the past few years I’ve been hard-pressed to make myself make the time for it. The past few days have given me more reason to walk than just the simple exercise, it’s a good way to get out and get away from the stress of your life.

Therapy

The past week I’ve been dealing with an abnormal amount of stress in my work, personal life, and just about around every corner of my day. So I’ve been using a 20 minute walk as a way to get away from everything and take some time for myself to sort out what’s going through my head. Of course it’s not a requirement that you think at all when you go for a stroll down the road, it’s nice to just not think of anything but putting one foot in front of the other for a while.

Exercise

There are some obvious benefits to going outside. A walk is far better than sitting in a recliner, no matter who you ask. It can make a difference just by parking your car around the corner from work or in the back of the parking lot at BigDept. Store ©. For me it’s a good starting point, I’ve let myself get far out of shape, and have had issues with my back and shins since I was in Jr. High.

Companionship

It can be great to have someone go along with you, it gives you a chance to bond, to get more information out of each other or just talk about your day. It can be a better (healthier) alternative to sitting around the table and picking at food after a meal that you don’t need just to see eachother. If you don’t have a significant other to get out there with, take your dog! He’ll love the exercise and will never say “not right now,” just don’t take him for a walk while you drive in your car….
Set some simple goals

Goals!

Setting goals isn’t a big deal at all. Start by walking what you know you can do, and walk that distance a couple of times a week. Then, as you get more into it start going to the next mailbox, or the next road, and work your way up every couple of trips. You’ll start to notice quickly that it’s getting easier and easier to get down the sidewalk every day. It’s a great feeling.

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Now get out there and get Rover some exercise.

Women especially like to be ready for summer. The summer means bathing suits and bikini’s and everyone wants to look their best. There are many different areas for women to work on to look their best this summer in their new bikini. A few examples are legs/butt, abs/core, and arms/shoulders.

Today we are going to talk about legs and butt. I will give you a couple exercises to try and get ready for summer. All of these exercises are going to be high reps/low weights. Your goal should be to be very sore after these workouts. Just because you are not doing large amounts of weight does not mean you should not be tired/sore after these exercises, in order to see drastic improvements you have to push yourself in every activity and exercise.

Squats

The ultimate leg exercise, squats work the whole body, squats especially work your thighs, hips, and butt. I prefer normal squats (bar on shoulders) going to close to parallel. Make sure you keep your back tight and have a spotter. Check out About.com’s and WikiHow’s excellent squat guides for more in depth information.

You will not want to do very much weight, find a good weight that you can do 15 reps of. I prefer to do four sets of squats, a warm up set (ex. 15), then 3 more sets, 15, 15, 12 (reps). Take a good 1-2 minute break between sets. If the weight is to easy add a few pounds.

Lunges

Lunges have quickly became one of my favorite leg exercises. Lunges do a great job on many major muscles in your leg. Lunges work your butt (glutes), calves, quads, and hamstrings. Proper form is critical on lunges, I recommend again About.com’s Perfect Butt Guide for more in depth look at lunges if you are not familiar with the proper technique.

I like to do very high reps with weights on lunges. I would recommend starting with 15 each leg to start, using 5lb weights (if you can’t use the weight at the start, just use your body weight). My legs are usually burning after 3-4 sets of squats at high repetitions, it is a great exercise.

Biking/Running

Biking and running are great ways to get in shape and lose weight.  But they are also great for your legs. Biking really works your thighs, hips, and butt, and will help tone up your legs. Being a cyclist myself, I would recommend doing faster paced spinning classes (or ride in a higher gear) so that your legs are moving faster, it should really help tone up your legs. I would recommend the spinning class if possible since I know I look pretty silly riding my bike and my legs just going at a high RPM.  Remember to wear your helmet!

A good site with the benefits of cycling is Bicycling Info. Head over there for some good information.

Conclusion

There are many other great exercises out there that can help you achieve your goals for your legs. Different workouts and exercises work for different people. Remember despite what exercises you choose working hard is the most important thing, your legs should be burning and sore after your workout. Make sure to warm up properly and to stretch afterwards so you don’t become to sore. There really is no substitute for hard work, especially when you are working towards a goal is important.

About.com’s Top Ten Butt Exercises is a great resource for some more information regarding this subject.  Best of luck looking good this summer!

I just found a similar blog to mine called Real Women’s Fitness, although there site is geared specific to women, I found their site to be a good overall resource which I will use in future posts as well.

The post that actually brought me to this blog is a post about “Do You Help Others With Fitness and Weight Loss” and it made me think about going to the gym and people’s attitudes there. She writes:

It seems that when someone gets a good piece of information or advice they hoard it for themselves when they know that a lot of other people could benefit from it.

I do not believe to this to entirely true however, because I have seen many people willing to help out at the gym with each other. I do not however, impose my ways of working out upon others unless I am asked, but if someone where to ask me how to work a machine, or how to do an exercise correctly I would be more than happy to share. The reason I am writing this blog is to share my knowledge with as big of a crowd that will read me.

Part of Positive Fitness’s goals is to provide people with the knowledge so that they can pass it on to others. I hope more people would do the right thing in the situation that Real Women’s Fitness writes about and give the person the correct information.