Flexibility

Flexibility is an important part of overall fitness. The yoga world is a great source of ideas for stretches and other flexibility training. You don't have to buy into yoga completely as a spiritual way of life to use their exercises! This video walks you through two basic yoga stretches that you can use anytime anyplace. A handy addition to your fitness training toolkit!

Belly Dancing

Belly dancing can be a fun way to keep fit. For a lot of people training just for fitness can be too boring or otherwise hard to do. These people often find that another activity they enjoy which has fitness as a side effect is much more effective. Belly dancing is one of these strategies. Dancing can be fun in and of itself but it acts like an invisible training routine.

To begin learning belly dancing you don't need much. Some space to dance in, maybe a square a couple of meters on a side. You'll need a full body length mirror so you can see what you are up to. Find a private place. It is hard not to be self conscious if you are learning to belly dance in public view. Self consciousness is not a good state for learning or training. It is also not very fun. Find some clothes that expose your hips and belly. It is called belly dancing after all. Although not strictly necessary, some scarves and silky ribbons will help you get into the mood. Very important : find yourself some Arabian belly dancing music! You can't dance without music!

With those things at the ready, all you need is to know how. That is where this video comes in! Watch it and start dancing! Not only will you have fun but you will start to tone up your muscles and enjoy all the many benefits of physical fitness.

Importance of Ideal Form

Is picture perfect form necessary for building muscle? You will always hear about how you shouldn't "cheat" when performing an exercise. However absolutely perfect form can actually interfere with muscle size growth and raw strength increase. This is because perfect form is designed to isolate and target specific insertions or specific sections of picked muscles. It is aimed at controlling the shape and definition of that muscle. It is not aimed at pure strength and size.

A little bit of cheating lets you put on the extra stress needed to provoke muscle growth. The leverage limits of perfect form make it impossible to go into that overload zone needed to really promote growth. That is not to say that anything goes. You should not cheat to the extent of using completely different muscle groups. Especially do not cheat just to squeeze off an extra rep. If you are doing that it is going to be counterproductive. The point is to blast your muscle by putting it into a stress zone outside of its limits.

So don't think you have to have perfect form at all costs. A little bit of cheating can help build size and strength. But don't overdo it or the only person you will be cheating is yourself.

How Much Weight

How much weight should you use if the goal is to increase muscle size? The best strategy is called the Principle of Progressive Resistance. The idea is to link the weight with the number of repetitions you can do in a set. First pick a target number of reps. It should be in the range of 10 to 12. Then start with a light weight and do a set. You will easily be able to do 12 reps with something left over. Now gradually increase the weight. Day by day, set by set, add more weight. Stop adding weight when you can just barely complete your target number of reps. Each set should leave you absolutely unable to do even one more rep past that target. Then take a minute or minute and a half between set rest and do the next set, also up to the target.

Over time your muscles will quickly gain mass as you blast them. When you get stronger, you will find that making it up to your target number of reps becomes too easy. Once you have something left and can go beyond the target, add more weight until you can't any more. That is how you use the principle of progressive resistance to pick the best amount of weight to use.

Tone and Lean Your Body

Most of us women would like to have an toner and leaner body. Not necessarily one covered with iron straps of blasted muscles. It can be challenging to find enough time to achieve this. The key is to select a training routine that delivers results without sucking up too many hours in the gym. Believe it or not 3 hours a week is all it takes!

First off, we have to cover cardio. What particular cardio exercise you do doesn't really matter. The important thing is you have to do at least 3 days a week of high intensity cardio. To be definite, I always say do 30 minutes of cardio. Follow a Day ON Day OFF pattern with 3 on days each week. Running is a good choice for cardio. It especially helps with some of the common female problem areas like the butt, lower stomach and thighs. If you are just starting your training, work up to 30 minutes gradually. Start with 15 minutes (or even 10 minutes) and then then next week add a couple minutes until you get up to 30.

In addition to cardio you will have to do some light weight training for that feminine toned, lean muscle look. You can do 3 sessions of 30 minutes a week and it will be enough. Begin with lots of repetitions and low weights. Every couple of weeks as the exercise gets less difficult add a little more weight. For your legs and butt you can do 2 sets of 10 or 12 repetitions of squats, hamstring curls and quad raises. For your arms, shoulders, back and chest do 2 sets of 10 or 12 repetitions of these : arm curls, tricep dips, side arm raises, front arm raises, bent arm raises and pec decks.

Now let's talk about the abs. A tight, lean stomach can be a girl's best asset. Twice a week do a non-stop high intensity ab training. It is super important that you go continuously without resting. The exact exercises you use are not nearly as important as the intensity and continuous nature of the workout. Here is a list of ab training exercises you could choose from. Do each exercise for no more than 25 repetitions and then switch to another. Keep doing this without resting for a 4 to 5 minute period. If you are just starting your training, you can go for less than 4 minutes and gradually build up the time. Here are some exercises you could use in your abs training: crunches, bicycles, v sit-ups, normal sit-ups, inclined bench sit-ups, back extensions or suspended leg lifts where you hang from a bar and lift your legs parallel to the ground.

Follow a routine like this and you will soon find yourself in possession of a head turning lean, toned body!

Ways to Up the Intensity of Your Training

The basic theory of bodybuilding is to build muscle by presenting them with ever increasing resistance while eating lots of proteins (so there will be raw material present in your body to build more muscle). Although this seems simple, when you get into it you quickly find that it is not so simple. The number of variables you are faced with actually makes training most effectively a complicated affair. On top of that, each person's body will respond slightly differently to the same training regime. And different bodybuilders have different goals.

So it is not always crystal clear what the best type and combination of training is to blast your muscles with. So what we are going to do here is talk about some of the basic ways you can add to the intensity of your workouts. Obviously factors like the number of reps and sets you do, the weights you use, the rest time between sets, rate at which you increase weight and so on are the fundamental controls we have to manipulate. But it might not be clear what to manipulate and why. Let's look at some of these "controls" to see how and why you would set them at certain values.

Ramp Up Weight
It is super important to keep increasing the weights you lift (or the resistance the muscles have to work against). The only way to build muscle is to damage and break them down so they grow back even bigger. To achieve this you have to constantly up the weight. If the weight does not progressively increase the muscles will get used to a certain level and stop being broken down, thus stop growing.

The best way to set your weight and make sure it keeps going up is to follow the progressive loading principle. It works like this. First you start with a light weight and do as many reps as you can. If you can do more than 12, the weight is too light. Keep increasing the weight until you can just barely do 12 reps. The last couple should really be blasting your muscles. Then over time as the 12 become easier, add more weight. Keep on adding weight so you are always just able to do 12 reps. Twelve is a good number, but it is not a rule. Most people using progressive loading use from 8 to 12 reps as the goal.

Number of Sets
You can up the intensity of your training by adding a couple more sets. The best number of sets is about 3 for more isolated muscles, like biceps for example and 5 for muscle groups, like thighs for example. You can bump sets up to 6 or 7 for an intensity boost. But such boosts should be for short time periods, say a month maximum. Also when adding more sets to your training, you should also add extra rest days for the muscle group you are giving the extra sets to.

Repetitions
You usually should do 8 to 12 reps for a set, according to the progressive loading principle we talked about above. But to increase the intensity of your training, you could drop the weight and add more reps. You can try a "two four" set : that is what I call it when you do 24 reps on a muscle. First you do 8 half motion reps working the muscle in one direction, then 8 half motions in the other direction and then 8 full reps to finish.

Speed
Normally the speed of a rep helps complete it. You can up the intensity by slowing the motion down. Move the weight as though you are doing a Matrix slow motion fight scene. You will find that this is really hard to do. It will certainly blast your muscles in a different way than before.

No Rest For the Wicked
Normally you should be taking about one to one and a half minutes of rest between sets. If your muscles are too tired you will not get maximum benefit out of a set. But to add to the intensity, you can lower this rest time. Be careful not to overdo it and keep an eye on the actual results you are getting. No point hurrying from set to set with little rest and not get any muscle growth due to excessive muscle tiredness. Try taking 25% off your normal rest time. For example, if you usually rest about a minute and a half between sets, that is 90 seconds. 25% of that is about 22 seconds. So cut your rest to 70 seconds or a minute and 10 seconds.

Negative Reps
It will often happen that on the return motion you still have something left after you have hit your maximum 12th rep on the forward motion. For example, if you are doing a bench press the 12th rep is your last lift. You just can't get the weight up for the thirteenth time. But you might still be able to manage the *downward* part of a 13th rep. What you can do is have a partner assist you to allow you to complete extra forward reps, then have the partner let you complete the reverse motion by yourself. This is a way of adding extra intensity where you might need it.

So here are a few things you can do to up the intensity of your training. But keep in mind that extra intensity should be used infrequently. Overdoing high intensity will just put you into overtraining and you will exhaust yourself and get little muscle growth. By all means throw on some extra intensity if you are feeling stale or if a while has gone by without seeing much progress in your muscle size.

Endurance Like the Rock of Ages

Would you like to have endurance like a rock? Endurance is the ability to just keep on going after everybody else has fallen away. It requires blasting your muscles in a different way from building strength. You have to go more gradually, like endurance itself. I would like to show you my "Rock of Ages" program. It is an 18 week system designed to ramp up your endurance to diamond tough levels. After these 18 weeks you will be a machine. But it is a hard program. It will require mental strength and iron discipline to make it through without it breaking you. This system uses only basic moves and does not require and fancy equipment. Like endurance itself, it is simple but very powerful.

So without further ado, here is my 18 week "Rock of Ages" endurance program.

Week 1

• Run 2 miles each of 3 days
• 4 sets of 12 pushups on 3 days
• 4 sets of 25 situps on 3 days
• 3 sets of 3 chin ups on 3 days
• 15 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 2

• Run 2 miles each of 3 days
• 5 sets of 15 pushups on 3 days
• 5 sets of 25 situps on 3 days
• 3 sets of 3 chin ups on 3 days
• 15 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 3

• 5 sets of 20 pushups on 3 days
• 5 sets of 30 situps on 3 days
• 3 sets of 4 chin ups on 3 days
• 20 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 4

• run 3 miles on 3 days
• 5 sets of 25 pushups on 3 days
• 5 sets of 30 situps on 3 days
• 3 sets of 4 chin ups on 3 days
• 20 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 5 & 6

• run 2 miles, then 3 miles then 4 miles, day off, then run 2 miles
• 6 sets of 25 pushups on 3 days
• 6 sets of 30 situps on 3 days
• 2 sets of 8 chin ups on 3 days
• 25 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 7 & 8

• run 4 miles, then 4 miles then 5 miles, day off, then run 3 miles
• 6 sets of 30 pushups on 3 days
• 6 sets of 35 situps on 3 days
• 2 sets of 10 chin ups on 3 days
• 30 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 9

• run 4 miles, then 4 miles then 5 miles, day off, then run 3 miles
• 6 sets of 30 pushups on 3 days
• 6 sets of 35 situps on 3 days
• 3 sets of 10 chin ups on 3 days
• 35 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 10 & 11

• run 3 miles, then 5 miles then 4 miles, day off, then run 5 miles then 2 miles
• 6 sets of 30 pushups on 3 days
• 6 sets of 35 situps on 3 days
• 3 sets of 10 chin ups on 3 days
• 3 sets of 20 chest dips on 3 days
• 35 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 12 & 13

• run 4 miles, then 5 miles then 6 miles, day off, then run 4 miles then 3 miles
• 10 sets of 20 pushups on 3 days
• 10 sets of 25 situps on 3 days
• 4 sets of 10 chin ups on 3 days
• 10 sets of 15 chest dips on 3 days
• 45 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 14

• run 5 miles, then 5 miles then 6 miles, day off, then run 4 miles then 4 miles
• 15 sets of 20 pushups on 3 days
• 15 sets of 25 situps on 3 days
• 4 sets of 12 chin ups on 3 days
• 15 sets of 15 chest dips on 3 days
• 60 minutes swimming 5 days

Week 15, 16, 17 & 18

• run 5 miles, then 6 miles then 6 miles, day off, then run 6 miles then 4 miles
• 20 sets of 20 pushups on 3 days
• 20 sets of 25 situps on 3 days
• 5 sets of 12 chin ups on 3 days
• 20 sets of 15 chest dips on 3 days
• 75 minutes swimming 5 days

Make it through those 18 weeks and you will have the endurance of the Rock of Ages.