Cardio Workouts To Lose Weight

When you suddenly look in the mirror one day and realize you’ve gained a few pounds that you could certainly do without, you have two choices: reduce your caloric intake by eating less calorie, or burn more calories by doing exercises like cardio workouts to lose weight. Those two options really put losing weight into terms that seem too simple, for what can seem like a very complicated problem.

There are plenty of people, whether they would admit it or not; who would rather over-complicate things, rather than go for the simple solution. The truth is you can lose weight quite easily by reducing your daily calories down to less than 1,500 - 2,000 calories per day (for most people). You can also do enough metabolism-boosting weight or cardio workouts to lose weight also (how much depends on how much you consume and how much exercise you do).

You can also seek to reach a happy medium, by combining a reasonable diet plan with weight training, circuit training, or other cardio workouts to lose weight at whichever pace feels comfortable to you. By happy medium we mean you can diet a bit less, and workout a bit less — by combining the two together.

Instead of starving yourself, you can eat a little more than someone who is using only diet changes to lose weight, while perhaps having to put in less time at the aerobics studio than someone who is only using exercise to lose weight.

It takes approximately an hour of walking or running to burn 500-600 calories. Circuit training, aerobics classes and other cardio workouts to lose weight can burn 400-500 calories in a 40 minute session.

Combine that 40 minute session, 3 or 4 times a week, along with cutting back an easy 500 calories from your diet per day and you could easily lose 2 solid pounds of fat a week (fat contains 3,500 calories per pound). This is a relatively conservative estimate, as many of us could eliminate 1,000 calories a day with little effort (E.g., chips, cookies, sodas, juices, etc). Not to mention, as you workout more, your metabolism will increase even while you rest.

Now get started, you could have eliminated 200 calories while you read this article.

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About the Author:
Learn more about cardio workouts to lose weight at our fitness tips website.
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Toning Workouts For Women

Typically women are more interested in toning or weight loss workout routines, while men are looking to increase muscle size and/or definition. The best kind of workouts for women are the kind that focus on increasing metabolic fat burning, while toning the muscle you already have.

Weights are necessary for anyone who’s serious about building muscle, but toning muscle doesn’t really require you to have any special equipment. With that in mind, weights and cable machines are definitely handy for toning routines, just not necessary.

Continuous Motion

Circuit training is one of the ideal types of workouts for women seeking to sculpt and refine your physique. A great circuit you can do at home, or almost anywhere involves no machines whatsoever.

Start out doing 20 - 50 free-standing squats, immediately afterward, move on to 10 - 25 pushups, then finish off with 20 - 50 abdominal crunches. How many repetitions you actually do will depend on your fitness level and what feels comfortable. This routine hits your entire lower body, entire upper body and core (abs). Working your whole body really fires up your metabolism, to burn fat and shape your muscles.

Going to the gym?

If you have access gym equipment, there are three pieces of equipment that work together to make for excellent toning workouts for women: Leg extension/leg curl, adductor/abductor and the Pec Deck.

A circuit is still going to be our preferred method to tone our body, however, you don’t want to do everything all in one day. Combine a circuit of leg extension, adductors, and Pec Deck one day — then on your next workout day do leg curls, abductors and either Peck Deck or any other upper body toning exercise you like such as: military shoulder presses, preacher curl or bent-arm lateral shoulder raises.

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About the Author:
Learn more about workouts for women at our fitness tips website.
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9 Excellent Pectoral Exercises

Just how vital are the pectoral exercises that you select for your upper body workouts?  If your goal is to build a more eye catching chest, then the pec exercises that you choose are important to the process.  If you piece together your pectoral workout with exercises that don’t fit certain criteria, then you’ll ultimately have a hard time building up your pecs. In this article, I’m going to uncover the specific criteria that your chest exercises need to meet in order for you to stimulate some serious pectoral growth, as well as list a few of my favorite chest building exercises.

Lets get on to one of the first things that I like to teach people about building their chest muscles up.  In order to stimulate chest muscle growth, you absolutely need to perform muscle building exercises that meet a few conditions. First, the upper body exercises that you choose, need to allow you to actually target your chest muscles. If you choose chest exercises that place most of the emphasis on your shoulders, then your shoulders will be doing most of the work and in turn achieving the benefits of doing that work (you’ll stimulate muscle growth in your shoulders instead of chest growth). So you want to focus on movements that specifically target your chest muscles.  It’s ok if the upper body exercises also incorporate your shoulders or triceps, but the primary muscle group in the movement should definitely be your chest muscles.

The next piece of criteria that the pectoral exercises that you choose for your pec workouts need to meet is that each of the exercise that you select need to allow you to move a fairly heavy amount of weight.  Lifting incrementally heavier weights over a full range of motion is precisely how you stimulate muscle growth, so it only makes sense that if you’re wanting to add size to your chest muscles, then you need to be training with heavy weights. As heavy as you can!

The third piece of criteria is something that most gym rats completely overlook.  You’ve got to actually enjoy performing the pectoral exercises that you choose!  If you hate the exercises that you put into your chest workouts, you’re not going to be able to hit your chest as hard as you’d be able to if you really enjoyed performing the pectoral exercise in the first place, so make sure to stick with  a few of the chest exercises that you actually like. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to perform a few chest exercises that you’re less than thrilled about, but try not to construct your pec workouts around these pectoral exercises, instead find a few that you really enjoy and slip them into the workout.

Below are a few of my favorite pectoral exercises. After looking over this list of exercises, I can honestly say that over 95% of all of my upper body workouts are composed of these highly effective pectoral exercises. Sometime I’ll experiment with a new chest exercises, but not very often.

A Few of My Favorite Pectoral Exercises

DB Bench Press
Dumbbell Flyes
Decline Bench Press
Bench Press
Incline Press
DB Incline Press
Push Up
Chest Dips
DB Decline Bench Press

If you’re one of the millions of guys out there who wants to build a bigger, more muscular chest, then make sure that your pectoral workouts are composed of the most effective pectoral exercises!  The majority of your chest  workouts should be designed around the short list of pec exercises listed above.  If you follow no other advice than to simply make sure that your pec  workouts are composed of exercises that fit the criteria listed in this article, you will definitely begin to build a bigger chest quickly.

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About the Author:
Nick Andrade is a personal trainer who specializes in teaching people how to gain muscle mass quickly and naturally without resorting to unhealthy fad diets or unsafe tactics. If you enjoyed the pectoral exercises covered in this article, check out the rest of the great body building information at gain-muscle-workout-less.com and learn how to gain muscle mass naturally! information while you learn how to gain muscle mass for free!
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The Benefits of Flexibility Training

Flexibility training encompasses stretching that enhances a joint’s ability to move through an entire range of motion. It can also help balance out muscles that may be overworked during exercise. The benefits of stretching and flexibility training are vast and we are going to discuss them in more detail.

Decreased Risk of Injury:
Your flexibility directly relates to your physical performance – allowing you to have a greater range of motion while using less energy. This also helps decrease your risk of injury by decreasing the resistance in surrounding tissue.  This not only will positively affect your day-to-day life, but can help you push further and harder in your other workouts to help push yourself to the limits.

Reduced DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness):
After working out, taking the time to thoroughly stretch will help elongate all muscles which naturally shorten after exercise. As you continue to become more flexible, you will find that muscle soreness decreases. Be sure to include static stretching, where you hold individual stretches for a period of between 15 – 30 seconds in the full range of motion. For this to happen, attempt to stretch not only after workouts but after brief bursts of cardiovascular activity as well.

Gain Strength and Endurance:
Recent studies have shown that regular stretching can help improve strength and muscular endurance by up to 30%. Those who followed no set exercise routine but performed 40 minutes of static stretching three times per week found they were making remarkable gains.

Improved Posture:
Practicing flexibility training also promotes realignment of soft tissue structures and strengthens muscles lining the spinal column to help improve posture.  This alone can improve your daily activities by keeping tension to a minimum.

Increased Circulation:
Flexibility training helps increase circulation and muscle temperature, allowing more nutrients and blood to pump into the muscles. This will help remove metabolic waste more quickly and promote muscle growth.  This also will promote an increased amount of elasticity of the muscles. Another benefit of stretching is that it increases joint synovial fluid, which helps lubricate the joint and promotes a greater range of motion.

Reduced Risk of Lower Back Pain:
Regular stretching and flexibility training promotes muscle relaxation and can lower your risk of chronic lower back pain.

As is shown with all the above benefits, flexibility training is an often underestimated routine.

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About the Author:
Mark has been writing on various topics over the last couple of years. His latest website is http://powerwheelstoys.org which provides people with information on the latest Power Wheels ATV on the market.
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Building a Six Pack - 5 Easy Steps

I am getting tired of people at the gym doing abdominal crunches and then whining why their stomach did not get smaller. Here is a little factoid that you should know. Spot reduction does not occur. So stop doing crunches because it is going to build your six pack in any way or form. Stop it right this moment. I will give you five easy steps to follow so you can start building a six pack

Nutrition - stop eating low nutrients high calorie food like cake and sodas. Start eating whole and naturally. A whole lot of vegetables and fruits. Complex carbohydrates such as oatmeal, whole wheat bread and pastas. High quality protein such as chicken and tuna. Good fats coming from salmon, avocado and olive oil.
Workout routine - focus on compound movements and core workouts. Some exercises you should include in your routine are squats, dead lifts, presses, plank, hanging leg raise. Do not do isolation because it does not burn as much fat as compound exercises
Consistency - You must be consistent with your nutrition and workout program. This is very important when building a six pack. Do not discourage if you do not see significant result within 1 week. Keep your diet strict and workout routine intense and you will be gratified with phenomenal results.
Body fat percentage - When it comes to your six pack it is all about your body percentage. Make sure you keep track of your body fat percentage every other week. Adjust your workout and your nutrition according to your body fat
Rest - It is imperative that you do not over train. Give your body the rest it needs in order for the muscle to fully heal. It is recommended that you take at least 1 day out of the week for complete rest.

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About the Author:
Get FREE workout routines, fat burning programs, six pack sculpting routine and nutritional guidelines at: Create Your Body

Ronald Galang is a certified personal trainer and the owner of Result Driven Fitness, a top-level boot camp in San Leandro California and he helped countless men and women achieve their fitness goals

Discover everything you need to know from workout programs to nutritional guideline for you to create the body of your dreams!
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Best Stomach Exercises

Best Stomach Exercises

For a very long time I have been searching for a very good product that would help me improve my stomach area. Hence I was actively looking for best stomach exercise products that could help me tone down my beer belly.

Most products I found were way too complex and required me to leave my home and look for a gym or other location in order to carry out the different techniques. This I did not want as I still wanted an environment where I could still do my business from home and exercise.

I would that there are various things which I could do in order to enhance my stomach area, the most popular being sit ups. The problem with sit ups is that if you don’t get the techniques right then you are just laboring in vain. Moreover, I was looking for something that I could do that would actually exercise the whole body while working on the main area I was determined to tone.

I soon discovered that doing a lot of squats and swimming helped me to reduce some inches around my stomach. Also a bit of light jogging did me so much good…

One other thing which you can use to trim your stomach is doing chin ups. I have used this dramatically to reduce my waist size to that of an athlete.

Men as well as women can easily loose weight by performing the best stomach exercises which they don’t have to do everyday.

http://beststomachexercises.blogspot.com/

To Your Trim Stomach,

Mark

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About the Author:
Imris Mark is an Internet Preneurer. With vast experience in Internet Marketing and Business Start-Ups working from Home
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The Best Regimen includes Speed, Distance, and Days Off

No matter what distance you’re training for or how much time you have, each week should include a mix of tempo runs, intervals, cross-training, distance, and rest.

The steady doses of speed improve range of motion, leg strength, and turnover while helping you get more relaxed at a faster pace. Long runs build endurance - for half marathons to marathons (or longer).

Cross-training and rest give the body a break. When you pull all the pieces together, your body and your mind will be race ready.

Here’s what every perfect week of training should include:

Tempo Runs

Running at a ‘comfortably hard’ pace at least once per week trains your body to run at a faster speed before lactic acid builds up. Tempo runs shouldn’t be more than 4km for a 5-K, 13km for a half-marathon, or 24km for a marathon.

Intervals

Intervals help increase speed, strength, and turnover. Runners targeting 5-Ks may do 400m, while marathoners might do 1 600m repeats.

Cross-Training

No impact workouts like cycling and stair climbing help cardiovascular fitness and give your body a break. Yoga and Pilates help strengthen yor core and stabilize your body.

Distance

Long runs build endurance and help you learn to maintain a steady pace without running all out. Cap long runs at 13km if you’re training for a 5-K, 24km for a half-marathon, and 34 to 36km for a marathon.

Rest

It’s critical to let your body recover so that it’s fresh for the next workout. A day off will help you avoid injury.

Cross-Train

Aerobic activities, such as cycling or stair climbing, at easy effort or strength/flexibility work, such as yoga or Pilates.

Strides

Short, fast runs at the pace you could hold for one to two minutes.

Predicted Times

Instead of a mileage goal, practice running for a certain amount of time. If your predicted half-marathon time is two hours, you’d do your distance run that week at 90 minutes to two hours.

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About the Author:
Sandra Prior runs her own bodybuilding website at http://bodybuild.rr.nu.
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How To Do Calisthenics (Part 2)

Folks, we are in part 2 of this article dealing with how to do calisthenics and here are the rest of the more popular ones.

Reverse Push-ups:

Place a bench (chair) behind your back and grip its edges. Make sure your hands are about shoulder width apart. For a more challenging work out, place your heels on another bench at a level higher than the bench you are holding on to. Bending your elbows, lower the body as far as you can toward the floor, then push back, locking out your arms to work the upper triceps. (Aka bench dips, invented in the absence of dip bars mostly found in gymnasiums)

Roman Chair Sit Ups:

Lock your feet under any of the following or whatever can suffice

1. A lowered portable pull-up bar

2. A firm bed or couch or chair.

3. A partner to grip your ankles and hold them in place.

Now fold your arms in front of you. Keeping the stomach tucked in, lower yourself to approximately 70 degrees from an upright position and now raise yourself back up and come forward as far as possible, intentionally flexing and crunching your abdominal muscles to increase the contraction. This is the first variation.

Variation 2:

In the second variations, upon raising yourself up make a swift twist first to the left and then the right and then lower back (this targets the oblique muscles and love handles)

Sprinting Spurt:

Sprinting is basically an anaerobic exercise. While jogging, perform a few sprinting spurts intermittently for 9-12 seconds then resume jogging at a normal pace.

Super Sets:

A set of two or more exercises performed in a row without stopping. The concept is after completion of a specific exercise say the push up, which engages your chest and triceps, to engage in another exercise say the leg raises which work your

Abs and legs while the upper torso is resting. A great way to kill time and push yourself!

Wide Grip chin ups:

Take hold of the chin up bar with an overhand grip. Make your hands as wide as possible. Hang from the bar, then pull yourself up so that:

(a) The back of your neck touches the bar

(b) The front of your chest touches the bar, and then lower yourself slowly to the starting position.

Windmills:

Have your legs extended sideways as far out as 3-4 feet. Bend over and stay as such. Straighten your arms out to each side and twist so that you touch your right hand to your left foot. Your arm should remain straight and point at the sky, at the same time look up behind you. Repeat the same motion on the other side touching the left hand to the right foot.

So there you have it folks, some of the more common Body-Weight Calisthenics you can do in the comfort of your own home, hotel room etc without the need for expensive gym memberships or equipments.

Of course, there’s always yoga y’know….

To Health

Foras Aje

Foras Aje is an independent researcher and author of Fitness: Inside and out, a book on improving physical and mental health naturally. For more information on natural health,news and breakthroughs visit his site at http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com/
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How To Do Calisthenics (Part 1)

Since we have gone over the description of what calisthenics are let’s go over how to do some of the more popular ones to make a routine of our own.

The following are descriptions of exercises performed by boxers, martial artists and other fitness oriented people who prefer the comfort of working in their own homes at their own pace, using there own body weight.

They are highly effective to sculpt, strengthen and tone and are fun as well.

Ab Roll Outs:

Using the traditional ab-wheel (best purchased from an Asian market or sports store) start off in a kneeling position and roll out as far as you can feeling a deep stretch in your abs, triceps and chest, hold for a split second or two, then slowly draw the roller back to the starting position.

This is great for the arms, chest, lats, abdominal and back muscles. (if you have any interest in doing the spiritual abdominal exercises in yoga such as Nauli, you would have to give this up as it makes the abdominal muscles too tight. If uninterested in the spiritual, go right ahead and build you a 6-pack!)

Close Grip Chin Ups:

Using a home chin up bar, a firmly fitted pipe around your house or a specially designed pull up bar, take hold of the apparatus, hands close together in an underhand grip. Pull yourself up, lean your head slightly back so that your chest nearly touches your hands. Lower you body back to the starting position. This exercise is great for the lats, biceps and shoulder muscles.

Jumping Jacks:

Everyone should remember these from Physical Education Class! Just stand straight and then make a quick outward motion of your legs in a spring-like motion, while simultaneously raising the hands above the head to touch! Pretty fun stuff!

Leg Raises:

Using a chair or a bench, sit at the edge so your body is inclined to the axis at the back. Now lift both legs up in an upward motion while exhaling, allowing the body to curl up and then inhale and extend the legs while simultaneously pushing back so you are completely straight.

Push-ups:

A traditional exercise that has stood the test of time! It is designed to strengthen and tone the arms, chest and back. Truthfully, it has its origins in yoga! Start of in a plank position, arms straight, feet together and a straight body from head to toe and lower yourself till you almost touch the floor with the chest (ensure to keep the head tilted backwards slightly) and return to the starting position. It has several variations and they are briefly described below. They can also be executed using push-up bars for a more challenging effect.

Variation 2:

Widen your hands to about 6-8″ outwards and lower yourself, this works the outer chest muscles more. (In the first variation, you hands should be directly under the shoulders.)

Variation 3:

Have your hands directly under your chest forming a diamond shaped gap between them and execute the exercise as in the first 2 variations. This works the inner chest muscles.

Foras Aje

Foras Aje is an independent researcher and author of Fitness: Inside and out, a book on improving physical and mental health naturally. For more information on natural health,news and breakthroughs visit his site at http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com/
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Tabata Training – The 4 Minute Super Workout!

There’s been a real BUZZ in the fitness industry about a revolutionary type of training.

It’s proven to bring dramatic fitness gains, rapid strength gains and BLAST your fat stores like no other workout.

Invented in 1996, it’s popularity has rocketed amongst top athletes and sportspeople worldwide.

Perhaps most impressive of all…

…it only takes 4 minutes!

So what is it?!..

Tabata Training cycles intervals of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise with 10 seconds of rest, repeated without pause 8 times for a total of 4 minutes.

20 seconds work
10 seconds rest
for a total of 4 minutes

On paper it looks pretty easy.  On the gym floor it’s 240 seconds of fitness heaven and hell!  Any workout that crams the workload and fitness gains of a 30 minute workout into the time it takes to boil an egg is going to be challenging.

The Inventor…

Tabata training was invented by Dr. Izumi Tabata and his team at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo.  His research found that exercising at a high level of intensity for a short period of time was more effective than exercising at a low intensity for a long duration.

Since developing his now famous 4 minute Tabata Protocol, research worldwide has confirmed that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) brings faster and greater fitness gains than traditional “long slow burn” workouts.

Some great examples…

The Tabata training method can be applied to pretty much any exercise you like.

For strength and muscle tone try tabata squats, tabata lunges or tabata push ups.  To boost your cardio try tabata sprints, tabata star jumps or tabata burpess.  Nothing will flatten and tone your abs quite like tabata sit ups or tabata leg raises.

The options are endless.

Progress is measured by taking the number of reps performed on your WORST set out of the 8 sets.  It’s great because you can’t cheat the system… I’ve tried and failed!

I personally love tabata training because it fulfils the 5 Rules Of The Perfect Worktout by allowing you to create intense and challenging workouts whilst easily measuring your progress.

Next time you’re in the gym or the park try it. You might just like it!

Liam Taylor from everythingZing.com - gym stevenage
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