Exercising

Creating your own Home Workout with Bodyweight Exercises

Posted by Rachael Thomas in Exercising | Comments Off

There’s a number of reasons you may want to work out from home. It’s free, convenient and private. There’s no gym fees, waiting for machines or other people to disturb you. Overall the process takes less time out of your day and you can workout at any time you’d like. With all these benefits you’d think that more people would skip out on the gym and go with a home workout.

There are of course some benefits of going to a gym such as space, machines and the motivation to actually exercise rather than watch TV, but if you’re driven to get in shape, doing home exercises can be just as effective if not more.

One of the best ways to exercise at home is to focus on using your body’s own weight. Skip out on the fancy and expensive machines and instead start incorporating your entire body into each move. Large, compound exercises like push ups or squats require not only the use of the primary muscle involved, but also the support of many secondary muscles including all the muscles in one’s core and abdominal region.

So now that we know that choosing bodyweight exercises are the way to go, we need to create an effective plan that hits the entire body. A smart way to do this is to divide your exercises into certain body parts. Choosing to put chest on one day, back on another and arms on a third is a possibility. You can put legs and chest on the same day or create any combination that works for you. If you’re incorporating cardio work, you might need to complete more exercises on one day than another.

An important facet of a home workout is that you always leave some time for rest and recovery, especially if you are relatively new to exercising. Your body needs time to adapt. Even changing your workout might require that you rest a little more than usual as you let your body and mind accumulate to the new movements.

Designing your own bodyweight workouts can be fun. Don’t forget to change up the schedule every now and then and always look for new exercises that can hit your muscles in different ways. One of the biggest risk factors for exercising is that people find themselves getting bored of the same old exercises. Don’t be afraid to change it up and find new ways to exercise your body. Overall, make sure you’re persistent and keep moving in the direction of your goals.

The 100 Day Marathon Plan: Complete Package

Posted by Rachael Thomas in Exercising | Comments Off

Marius Bakker is a Norwegian runner who won many national championships. He also participated in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics. He was one of the best and he trained with the best.

Marius noticed that he was the fastest non-Kenyan runner in the 5000 m event. This made him want to know more about their training methods. That is why he stayed and trained in Kenya for a year. He also noticed that Italian runners have a different method of bringing out the best during competitions. Thus, he trained with the best Italian runners as well.

Buying the book

The 100 Day Marathon Plan is an e-book written by this world-class runner. Anyone who purchases the book gains all the knowledge that Marius gathered from training with the Kenyans and Italians. Through the book, any marathoner can train better. They can train at world-class level.

The book is meant to make runners aware of certain practices that they should be doing in order to be at their best during competitions. It also teaches marathoners specific ways to improve their stamina and endurance for long distance runs.

More than just a book

If the e-book is not enough for some people, twenty five supplemental videos also become available to anyone who gets the book. These videos can help with training as well.

It does not end there. Anyone who buys the book can also ask Marius about anything related to training and running. One gets the benefit of personal training from one of the best runners. Mentoring from a former Olympian can be very helpful especially for those who dream of running in his shoes one day.

The book is not just a book. It includes a personal trainer and a lot of supplemental videos. Anyone who is serious about running will definitely consider getting this book. The training methods that this book contains come from years of training that Marius Bakker actually went through. Learn from him and improve.

Exercising your core: how and why

Posted by Rachael Thomas in Exercising | Comments Off

If you or someone who frequents the gym often, is in decent shape, but is looking to bring your health and fitness to the extreme, performing the best core exercises is a must for you. Core exercises are simply that, exercises that work the core. These exercise promote great overall health, increase balance, and decrease the chance for injury or falls. Core exercises for men and for women are quite similar and are a great way to take your health to the next level.

Why you should exercise the core

Unfortunately, many guys focus their time on chest exercises for men when they should be building up a rock solid foundation. Here are some great benefits of exercising the core:

Increased overall strength

Your body uses core muscles on a daily basis. From something as simple as walking to the store, climbing and balancing on a ladder, or playing in your weekend sports league. Strengthening your core muscles will in turn strengthen your entire body, give you a better overall sense of health and fitness, and make many things in your everyday lives much easier.

Increased flexibility

A great workout to increase your core strengths is you. Fortunately, yoga is also great for flexibility and relaxation. Having a strong core will help you become much more flexible than you ever thought possible.

What are some good core exercises?

Replace the bench with the ball

If you are someone who frequents the gym often, you’ve probably done most of your exercises on a workout bench. By simply replacing this workout bench with the stability exercise ball you will make your body stabilize yourself well you are doing your exercises. This is great for exercises such as bench presses and shoulder presses.

More squats

Squatting is a great exercise to strengthen the core. If squats are in your typical routine consider attempting to do squats on a half stability ball. Similar to the above exercises, this will make your body balance yourself and strengthen your core.