Friday, June 17, 2016

Burn Fat With These Powerful Cardio Programs

Burn Fat With These Powerful Cardio Programs

Looking to ditch a few pounds? Use these powerful cardio programs to strip body fat in eight weeks with specific plans for 5- or 10-pound losses.

Carey Rossi is a fitness journalist who shares her enthusiasm for good physical health and compiles a list of powerful cardio programs to suit your weight loss and heart health needs.

5 TO 10

“On this site you’ll find plenty of weight training, diet and supplement tips to help you build a better physique in 2016. But we understand that this may seem a lofty and perhaps ambiguous goal and that some of you just want to begin the new year by shedding a few pounds and inches … minus the iron. Or maybe you want to acclimate (or reacclimate) to some kind — any kind — of activity in hopes of reducing the risk of injury later. For either objective, your path starts here.

Here you’ll find the tools you need to lose 5 or 10 pounds of fat with a dedicated eight-week cardio program for each. Muscle & Performance enlisted personal trainer and former fitness competitor Laura Mak to design cardio routines that will help you meet either goal, provided your diet and supplement regimens are on point.

PROGRAM NO. 1: YOU WANT TO LOSE 5 POUNDS

Five pounds doesn’t necessarily seem like a lot of weight, but sometimes those first (or last) 5 pounds are the hardest to lose. For the next eight weeks, do cardio four days per week with a rest day between most workouts. Read full article

There’s a lot of debate going on whether cardio exercises have impacts on your gains. Studies show some headway into the research, but with expert advice and good training guidance, you don’t have to take the wrong route and end up disappointed.

Natural pro bodybuilder Layne Norton a holder of a PhD in Nutritional Sciences explains the recommended way to pattern your workouts.

Don’t Let Cardio Kill Your Gains

The practice of combining resistance training with cardio is scientifically termed as “concurrent training.” While concurrent training has been shown to be superior to endurance training alone for enhancing muscle mass and strength (duh), it has been shown to significantly hamper optimal strength and hypertrophy when compared with resistance training alone.

Several studies have demonstrated that optimal gains in muscle mass and strength are obtained by strength training alone, compared with combining strength training and endurance training.1 However, a review of the scientific literature on concurrent training – conducted by Dr. Jacob Wilson of the University of Tampa and several of his colleagues – identified some interesting variables that can affect the way cardio training affects your strength, hypertrophy and body composition responses to resistance training. Read full article

Leveraging on your muscle gains is an important factor in supporting your physical workouts and gives you better advantage as you conduct your total body workouts.

Fitness scientist and author Michael Rudolf, PhD shares scientific details on how you can optimize your results my maximizing your gains and taking advantage of it.

Maximize Your Gains By Doing Cardio First

The sequential implementation of strength training immediately followed by cardiovascular exercise has become standard practice to maximize muscle mass and reduce body fat. Despite the popular use of this approach, it has become evident that the body responds very differently to both modes of training, especially at the molecular and cellular levels. In fact, not only are the molecular and cellular reactions different in response to strength and cardiovascular training, they can also be antagonistic to each other— potently diminishing the positive influence that each can have on the body. Read full article

One of the most popular myth that hounds the fitness industry is whether doing cardio exercises makes one lose muscle gains that were invested throughout the years of hard work and determination.

Facts have been sometimes contested with ridiculous claims that some people believe, however, the need to know the truth must be pushed.

Health buffs and MedicalDaily.com writers Justin Caba and Samantha Olson shares the results of their experiments to disprove one of the most-debated issue in the fitness world.

Debunking The Greatest Gender Fitness Myths; Cardio Kills Men’s Gains, Weightlifting Makes Women Bulk

My coworker Justin and I had set out on a two-month experiment to disprove one of the greatest myths in the fitness world — where men and women belong in the gym. Justin lifted weights and I ran, making our workout routines the typical male and female counterparts of athleticism. While men tend to shy away from the treadmill in fear they’ll develop the lean build of a cross country runner, women, on the other hand, are reluctant to lift a weight to avoid building bulky muscles.

But in truth, these are one of the greatest misconceptions in fitness. Women have less testosterone than men, which is why their musculature doesn’t respond as quickly to weight training as men do. Testosterone is a male hormone found naturally in both men and women; however, men produce approximately 7 milligrams a day — 15 times more than women produce. Read full article

Of course if you want to protect your muscle gains, it would surely need some sort of protection, as well as enhance muscle growth and recovery pre and post workouts.

Glutamine by MusclePharm is a full-spectrum formula of highly effective glutamine blends that minimizes muscle breakdown, increases protein synthesis and boosts the body’s immune system.

The post Burn Fat With These Powerful Cardio Programs appeared first on Muscle Pharm Reviews.



from Muscle Pharm Reviews http://medicalprogress.org/burn-fat/powerful-cardio-programs/amp/

Monday, June 6, 2016

How To Deal With Challenging Strongman Exercises

challenging strongman exercises

Truth be told, yes it is. Challenging strongman exercises do pack a punch and provide you with great results when done properly and correctly.

The yoke carry is one of the most popular and grueling workout that provides challenging strongman exercises with its intense approach towards lifting and power bursts to maximize muscle activity and strength.

In order to do this the proper way, let fitness expert and strength trainer Logan Gelbrich, share some valuable insights.

The Yoke Carry

The yoke carry is one of the most challenging of the strongman exercises. Here’s how to effectively perform this move.

Popular in strongman circles, the yoke carry traditionally involves carrying a weighted metal frame on your back. Though there are other variations, our focus will be on the traditional carry. There may not be a more effective way of moving the largest loads quickly than with the yoke.

Set up the yoke so that there are 4 to 6 inches of clearance when you stand with the implement. Any less and slight deviations in balance during the carry can make the implement touch the ground, and any more clearance may eventually impede the loads that you can stand up to carry.

There are two common hand placements when carrying the yoke. The most common in the strongman community is to have your hand pressing out into the uprights below shoulder level. This method makes for the fastest transitions and allows for the greatest limitations in flexibility. Many CrossFitters place their hands on the crossbar outside shoulder width, not too dissimilar to a back squat. Use whichever is most effective to bear the load. Read full article…

Once you have started, you often feel motivated to see it through the end, especially when you feel that you are exerting a lot of effort into your workouts and this is what challenging strongman exercises can do for you.

But truth be told that as you go along, there comes a point when you feel that you’ve had enough and start to wane on your strongman routines leading to fatigue and eventually, burnout.

You start to develop a mental barrier as strength training may take its toll on your daily routines due to its intense need for physical effort and strength

Sometimes it takes more than will power to break through these mental barriers to actually divert your attention to help motivate you through your training workout and exercise programs.

In his article, strength coach Charles “Tank” Tankersley of Primal Strength Gym helps you get through that hurdle and re-direct your focus to your strength workouts.

4 Ways To Bust Through Strength Plateaus

“If you’ve been lifting long enough, then you’ve probably hit strength plateaus before.  It’s inevitable.

While it’s an awesome feeling to be breaking personal records (PR’s) day in and day out, the reality is that it’s just not sustainable.  Enjoy it while it lasts because as soon as you hit a sticking point, the process of getting past it can be damn frustrating.

But it’s okay.  I’m here to help.  Here are 4 surefire ways to help you eclipse those strength plateaus and get back on the fast track of smashing PR’s.

I came across this technique in one of the bibles of strength training called “Supertraining” by Yuri Verkhoshansky.

The technique is fairly simple and the logic is sound.  The idea is that you get your body familiar with training loads that are much greater than your current 1 rep max just by supporting the weight or training with the weight in a limited range of motion.

If you have ever done drop sets, the logic is similar.  In a drop set, you take a load and do it for a specified number of reps, and then reduce the weight and do another set.  On the lighter set, the weight feels much lighter than it actually is because your body just trained with a heavier load and your body is able to pump out more reps (usually).  Drop sets are normally used in high-volume training and focused on hypertrophy, not 1 rep maxes.

Supramaximal adaptation training is built around a similar premise, but is treated in a much different way than you would a drop set since we are going for pure strength gains.

For one, the loads that you use will be considerably higher than your 1 rep max.  I used this type of training to get over a sticking point in my squat, and the loads I used to do it were over 100 pounds more than my 1 rep max.

Secondly, you will probably use this type of training for several weeks before you attempt a new 1 rep max.  For my squat, I trained with “supramaximal” loads for 2 weeks before going for a new PR.  Unlike a drop set, you don’t simply train one set with a higher load, and then immediately go for a new record.  Patience is key, and take the time to let your body adapt.

Third, this type of training is not meant to be done with a full range of motion.  For some, just supporting the weight may get you to where you need to be.  When I used this to train for a new squat PR, I regressed to box squats with the higher loads to get my body adapted to the much heavier weight.  Then when it came time for my new PR, I ditched the box and went for it.  I set a new PR by 10 pounds. Read full article…

Sometimes all it takes is some good motivation to start breaking through the mental barrier which causes you to lose focus on your workouts.

In the next article, Invictus fitness author Josh Bridges shares some practical thoughts on how to overcome that mental barrier and start working your way to better fitness.

Breaking The Mental Barrier

The mind is a powerful thing, it can help you get through tough times, or it can cause you to crumble like Greg Norman in the ‘96 Masters. The strong learn how to handle and control their mind when it starts to rant, rave and tell them to stop what they’re doing. The weak let it take over and OWN them.

Is it possible to develop strategies to break your mental barrier?  Absolutely. I prevent this little boss in my head from taking over in a couple of ways.

When that voice inside your head is screaming at you to “put down the barbell” or “get off the bar,” you fight back with one more rep. Completing just one more rep when everything inside of you is telling you to stop is a sure way to grow your mental muscles, and the next time you might do two more reps. Over time, this builds and you begin to control that voice. Read full article…

So stop pressuring yourself and start motivating your body to break that mental barrier by adding a bit of psychology to put your body to work and push further, especially when dealing with challenging strongman exercises.

Pairing your workouts with the right training program, diet and supplementation will greatly help in enhancing the desired results of your regular workout. MusclePharm BCAA provides the full-spectrum formulation of branched chain amino acid complex that fuels muscle development, aids in fat loss, reduces muscle breakdown and increase lean body mass.  This lethal mix of training and nutrition guarantees the best results.

The post How To Deal With Challenging Strongman Exercises appeared first on Muscle Pharm Reviews.



from Muscle Pharm Reviews http://medicalprogress.org/build-muscle/challenging-strongman-exercises/amp/