Pre-Workout Meals - Keep it Light, but Full of Energy
Sunday, May 25, 2014
What's your pre-work diet?
The Best Chest Workout: 5 Moves for Better Boobs
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Women often shy away from chest exercises, thinking they will cause unwanted bulk. However there are many benefits to working your chest, and you can maintain lean muscle while doing so. Whether you're prepping for a long-awaited date or just gearing up for the season of strapless, don't wait to score a perkier chest.
This workout will create greater muscle recruitment, which results in a greater caloric expenditure post-workout, plus each move will help keep you strong for everyday activities, like putting a box of winter clothes up on a high shelf for storage. Pull out the camis and strut your stuff with confidence.
How It Works
For each exercise, complete as many repetitions as possible in 60 seconds. Do not rest between moves.
You'll Need
A small towel and a wooden or slick floor.
Coach's tip: To ensure proper form throughout this move, engage your core while focusing on keeping your body in a straight line, not on how far you can push the towel.
RELATED: Get into bikini-ready shape in nearly no time at all! Click here for a shape-up guide that burns 500 calories in 30 minutes.
2. 2-Piece Slide-Outs (Right Side): Begin on all fours, arms straight and shoulder-width apart, right hand resting firmly on a towel. Slowly lower your body while simultaneously pressing your right hand out to the side, being sure to keep your body in a straight line from head to knees. Retract and repeat.
Coach's tip: Slide the towel out slightly in the beginning and concentrate on form, as this exercise works the body at different angles.
3. 2-Piece Slide-Outs (Left Side): Repeat exercise using left hand.
Coach's Tip: Pretend that someone has snuck up behind you and scared you. This will help to keep your stomach solid and back flat.
4. Wax On, Wax Off (Right Side): Begin in a traditional pushup position with legs fully extended and arms placed directly under shoulders. Place the towel under right hand. In one explosive motion, begin circling right hand counter-clockwise for 30 seconds. Then switch to clockwise for the remaining 30 seconds.
Coach's tip: Concentrate on contracting and squeezing your pectoral muscle as hard as possible to ensure the maximum number of muscle fibers is recruited—thus burning more calories even after you've finished the move.
5. Wax On, Wax Off (Left Side): Repeat exercise using left hand.
Coach's tip: Even though this move focuses on your chest, it is a total-body exercise. So don't forget to engage your legs, shoulders, and arms. Squeeze, squeeze, and say good-bye to the cheese!
Source: shape.com
Your 21-Day Transformation Plan
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Mind: "Dedicate five minutes a day to keeping an exercise journal, noting how you feel after each workout or how you stay active," Borges says. Seeing yourself achieve daily goals builds momentum.
Body: Do two sets of 8 to 12 reps per move twice a week on nonconsecutive days and 25 to 35 minutes of cardio five days a week.
WEEK 2
Mind: Plan ahead. Rather than wait for a break in your day to exercise, schedule it the night before.Body: Do three sets of 8 to 12 reps per move three times a week and 35 to 45 minutes of cardio five days a week, performing cardio first on weight-lifting days.
WEEK 3
Mind: Find solutions, not excuses. If you don't have time for a full session, break it into 10-minute bits. "Once you've started, it's easier to keep going than it is to quit," Borges says.
Body: Do three sets of 15 to 20 reps per move three times a week and 45 to 55 minutes of cardio five days a week, performing cardio first on weight-lifting days.
The Scientific 7-Minute Workout
Monday, January 6, 2014
This column appears in the May 12 issue of The New York Times Magazine.
Exercise science is a fine and intellectually fascinating thing. But sometimes you just want someone to lay out guidelines for how to put the newest fitness research into practice.
“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.
Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.
Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.
The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.
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