Got Skills?

For whatever you are trying to accomplish in the near future, you need to develop the right skills to be successful. Skills are needed in competitive sports and to reach your physical fitness goals. Learning new skills or enhancing your skills takes continuous repetition within proper guidelines and bio-mechanics. The quote, “practice makes perfect”, identifies how skills can be learned and applied almost subconsciously. To have skills to be the best at whatever physical task you do, you must focus on the technique and coordination to perform the task. Whether you want to dunk a basketball, run a marathon, or increase the maximum amount of weight you lift; you must begin with practicing fundamentals. This practice will lead to enhancements in simple components of the overall task. Practice must be consistent and repetitive. Practicing to obtain skills should be to the point that it is not fun. This type of practice will lead to you training your nerves, muscles,and joints to inter-coordinate and perform the task more efficiently.

With practice there needs to be progression. In progressing through a program to learn or improve skills, more components to the skill can be added. Progression is determined on an individual basis. There is no need to speed up the progress until your body learns and registers all skill levels of the task more instinctively. A program should be structured specifically for improving the task you will perform. The program should also, at times, consist of greater challenges than the actual task within the same specificity. This allows for more external focus rather than internal focus when your skills are tested. When using learned skills to perform physical tasks you want to have less internal awareness and more external awareness. Controlling what is going on internally should not be a challenge when performing a physical task at a high level. If this is the case, you are not prepared and more skills must be practiced to perform that task.

The more you practice on all skill levels, the more skills will become normal movement patterns. A competition involving an obstacle course will require you to focus less on falling and you will be able to focus more on gaining the lead. With this external focus, in competition or performing a physical task, you are more likely to be successful. The one who practices will be the closest to perfection because they will have trained their bodies to perform movements without thought. This is how skills are obtained.

Your Nutritional Plan Must Compliment Your Activity

When your goal is to lose body fat, tone existing lean mass, or increase lean mass; commitment and dedication in the gym will determine how fast you reach your goals.  For some people, working out becomes simply a new hobby.  While enjoying the commitment to a workout regiment you begin to realize you are not getting the results you want.  Working harder is not the answer.  You must also remember not to over train by extending your training duration. 

So what will get you results?  Consider how many calories you are consuming a day compared to the calories you are burning.  The fact that your body needs energy to support your activity is very important in increasing the rate at which your body burns calories. Without the proper levels of macro- and micro nutrients your body cannot assist you in reaching your goals.  Working out too long or on no energy will only work against you.  You must remember that your body has daily requirements for energy during moderate and even no activity levels.  On days that you workout, you must consume ample amounts of energy to support whatever goals you want to achieve. 

No one wants to hear someone tell them that they are not eating enough, but in most cases this is true.  The idea that your fitness plan must also entail a restriction of your total calorie intake will only mislead you.  More activity and calories burned means more calories needed.  Your body needs you to replace energy lost.  The fact that consistent activity over time will increase the rate at which your body processes energy mean that you need more frequent meals.  If you do not support your lean mass needs then your body will go into survival mode.  Your body will begin to burn away muscle for energy and also store more fat tissue to support a lack of energy supply.  To avoid this, you must enjoy eating as much as you enjoy working out.  They compliment each other! 

You should focus on the quality of food you are eating rather than the quantity.  Minimizing saturated fat in your diet and eating more natural foods would be a great compliment to making progress towards your fitness goals.  Protein is important in rebuilding lean mass and building more muscle.  No matter what type of body you want, your nutritional plan must compliment your activity level.  Once your fuel intake begins to support your exertion levels, your body will have what it needs to maintain a high metabolism and support your lean mass.  A nutritional plan based on your performance, with respect of the goals you are trying to maintain, will only lead to increased fat burning and muscle maintenance.

Endure!

Right before you begin your work out the word “endure” must be on your mind.  To endure means to suffer or tolerate something difficult or painful, patiently.  Think, the endurance that will go on for the next hour or so must make you feel good inside.  You have to see this endurance as a medicine that is needed once a day.  To endure pain and to cause stress to your muscles through fitness training, will benefit you in the long run.  Working out is painful but when endured overtime, consistently it can yield a remedy that no medicine or elixir can compare to. 

The time you spend exercising should be efficient.  Every minute is valuable and must be put towards making gains.  To get what you want out of this workout regimen you have to do more than you did the last time.  You cannot always endure the same pains.  You must change exercises to tolerate new pains to your body.  This is the road less traveled and must be taken if you want anything positive to come out of working out.   This endurance will become pleasing once you build consistency.  You want to build immunity to the pain.  By increasing the frequency and duration you will gain strength.  As long as you are working out correctly this endurance cannot lead to injury.  A gradual progression of endurance will present to you that your potential is limitless and anything is possible.

To endure is to take control.  To move forward no matter what weight or distance is in front of you.  Sometimes climbing one more step or lifting one more repetition can show you that persistence and hard work does pay off.  The effort given to endure more each day is what keeps you growing and getting results.  Those of us who have endured have become attached and made fitness a part of our lives.  We need it to get by each day.  It is what keeps us alive.  To endure for 30 minutes each day can add another day to your life.  The next time you are prepared to workout, get in the zone and focus on enduring as much as you can.  To endure is to make everything in your life better one day.

One Foot May Be Better Than Two!

If your goal is to improve overall physical fitness, athletic performance, or to simply improve the way you perform normal activities outside of the gym, focus on your functional strength. 

Functional strength is determined by the level at which your nerves, muscles, and skeletal system are able to work together to perform dynamic movement and total body stabilization.  A training program that allows you to move in all planes of motion while performing movements utilizing multiple muscle groups on stable and unstable surfaces will improve your functional strength.  A functional strength training program, unlike a traditional more linear strength training program, is more useful because it focuses on natural body movements and limits the isolation of muscles. 



Most traditional strength training programs do a lot to increase strength in the targeted muscle.  For example, strengthening your chest by performing a flat bench barbell press.  The traditional style of lifting limits the use of core muscles which can minimize your level of performance in an activity and lead to injury.  It would be wrong to advise you not to perform an isolated lift ever again but to focus more on an integrated training program that challenges all levels of force production by your neuromuscular system.  Only focusing on traditional strength training exercises can cause weakness in unused core muscles and stabilizer muscles.  This could lead to injury during dynamic movements required in activities.  Increase resistance due to the demands of traditional strength training can cause joint discomfort and injury.  Functional strength training does not require heavy weights and minimizes the amount of resistance caused to your joints.  Traditional strength training is great for the appearance of a bodybuilder and certain isolated power lifting exercises.

Functional strength training targets all muscles and allows them to adapt while moving naturally.  In order to increase the level of intensity of functional strength training you must create a more unstable surface while using more muscles to perform a movement with added resistance.  An unstable surface forces your nervous system and muscle system to engage in response to the instability.  Your body will get used to the challenges you cause it through instability and greater neuromuscular engagements.  This adaptation will result in you gaining more functional strength and overall physical fitness.    An unstable surface can be created by simply standing on one foot rather than two.  If available you can use core boards, bosu balls, resistance balls, and medicine balls for creating instability. 

Here are the advantages of a functional strength training programs:

• Increased total body strength
• Injury preventative
• More athletically inclined
• Better balance and stability
• Improved proportion and posture
• Higher calories burned
• Injury rehabilitation
• Longer life of resistance training
• Improves motor skills and overall ability to do normal activities.

Where Is The Fountain Of Youth?

We get older and older every day and with aging comes a commitment to maintaining youth.  Many Americans look to doctors for answers, willing to pay thousands of dollars for anti-aging treatments or therapy that will keep them looking 10 – 20 years younger.  Doctors make billions worldwide prescribing hormones like HGH (Human Growth Hormones), Estrogen, Progestin, and other concoctions that are not even proven remedies to the aging process.  Before you fall into this trend, which contributes a billion dollar income for doctors worldwide, understand the facts.  No matter what, we will age naturally due to genetics, heredity, and how well we take care of our mind and bodies.  Hormone therapy is not safe and has only been proven to increase your risks of heart disease and cancer.  If there were a safe anti-aging treatment that actually worked, it would be well known.  Since this is not the case, doctors all over the world have been testing different methods and using people as lab rats to see what works and what doesn’t.  Even more, they charge you thousands of dollars to try out their methods.  HGH therapy is banned and should only be used to cure rare cases of people with adult growth hormone deficiencies.  All other hormone treatments have other purposes.  Supplements created for anti-aging have not been approved by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) meaning you never know what you are taking and the side effects can have a lasting, negative impact. 

There is no magic potion that will keep you looking young as you grow old.  The fountain of youth in a bottle is only a dream.  The most effective way to decrease the aging process is to exercise regularly, eat healthy, maintain a normal body fat percentage, and avoid the intake of all other substances that are foreign to your body, such as smoking.  Healthy living is the only solution that has been proven to show results.  Once you are consistently living a healthy and fit lifestyle, you will be guaranteed to age slower.  You will feel better and be at a lower risk of health issues.  You will also spend less money on medical treatments and procedures as you age.  If you are looking for the fountain of youth, stop wasting your time and plan for more exercise and healthy eating regularly.  Take care of your body regularly and you will discover that the fountain of youth is merely a habit.

AFTER A WORKOUT YOUR BODY HAS NEEDS, SO GIVE IT WHAT IT NEEDS!

After a workout your body is like a sponge.  The receptors on your muscles become sensitive and absorb glucose at a higher rate.  With the help of insulin and it's response to the food you eat your body will absorb whatever you give it.  Whether it is energy lost through resistance training or aerobic exercise, you must replace energy with mostly natural sources of energy your body needs.  This is based on your fitness goals.

Your post weight lifting workout meal should include at least 30 grams of a whey protein supplement followed by a healthy low sat fat portion of meat with a serving of preferably green vegetable.  Remember that your workouts must be intense and every workout, you have to make progress.  BREAK YOUR MUSCLES DOWN!

Your post cardio workout meal does not have to consist of a whey protein supplement, but you must supply your body with a balanced meal like a low fat portion of meat and a slower digesting carbohydrate like sweet potato, pasta, brown rice, or green vegetables.  Aerobic exercise must be intense also and should last 20 - 30 minutes at a heart rate of 80% of your maximum heart rate.

To keep your body from storing fat and allowing it to respond better to your diet, watch the amount of saturated fat you are eating each meal.  Avoid processed foods, dairy products like milk and cheese, and fatty meats.  Combining saturated fat with carbohydrates will decrease your bodies insulin sensitivity.  Insulin is made to respond to glucose and fuel your lean mass.  Combining saturated fat with carbohydrates forces your body to store most of this energy as body fat.  Remember, your goal is to fuel your lean mass.  Saturated fat in your diet makes it hard for your muscles to absorb energy needed.  Post workout you have to eat healthy so that your body will respond better and your muscles get the right kind and amount of energy to reach your goals.

HEALTH TIPS:

1.  Avoid eating cheese or mayonnaise on sandwiches (usually the meat has sat fat in it)
2.  Avoid fatty meats like pork, lamb, chicken thighs and legs, fatty steaks
3.  Have Low Fat or Skim milk in your cereal
4.  Use Olive oil or canola oil when cooking
5.  Whole foods are healthy but eliminate the sat fat in whole foods like milk, eggs, cheese, pasta, breads!

How To Avoid A Weight Loss Plateau

 

 No matter how hard you try to get to where you want to be, you always end up plateauing. A plateau is a point reached in your fitness regiment where there is a lack of results. This causes you to become less motivated and committed to your routine. For the first month you lose a lot of weight and eventually around the third month you hit a plateau. A plateau can turn the possibility of you reaching your fitness goals into a dream. If everyone continued to get results from their routine, fitness would not be a trend and more people would commit to following a plan consistently. This would also reduce the risk of a lot of health problems that result from obesity. A commitment with satisfactory progression is what everyone wants but is not easily attained. A plateau does not have to be inevitable and you can continue to get results.

Here are some tips that will help you avoid a plateau:

· Variation! Change up your routine constantly so that your body will never adapt to normal activity. A change in frequency, intensity, and duration all contribute to keeping your body guessing. Your body can adapt very fast to something you do all the time at the same pace. You doing the same activities can effect your joints negatively also, which can lead to you taking time off due to discomfort or injury.

· Rest and recovery! Very important but widely ignored. Do just enough but never overextend yourself. Doing too much can cause fatigue and a lack of time to recovery fully before the next workout. Short and intense is always better than long and exhausting. Sleep is important! Doing different exercises can aid in recovery.

· Eat Right! Following a nutritional plan that compliments your daily activity level is important. Too much or too little food can lead to a lack of results. It is important to give your body energy when it needs energy. Your body functions better on all natural sources of energy.

· Lift weights! Resistance training helps you to maintain your lean mass which is in control of your metabolism. More lean mass results in a higher metabolism. The biggest mistake is to depend only on aerobic exercise. As we age our metabolism slows down gradually as well as the deterioration of our lean mass. There is a direct correlation between the two. Your lean mass controls your metabolism.

· Professional Guidance! A personal trainer can introduce new exercises to your routine and also give you that extra motivation to increase your intensity. What works for everyone else might not work for you. From one-on-one professional guidance you can get a personalized aerobic/ anaerobic plan as well as nutritional guidance.