15 Minute Hardcore Workout

Just a quick and simple 15 minute workout training your chest/core/cardio.

Going Bananas - 6 reasons to eat more bananas

The health benefits of eating bananas are really astonishing and here are just a few reasons to make sure you feature the mighty banana in your diet. 

1. Potassium - High in potassium and they help your circulatory system route your oxygen to the brain
2. Happy and you know it - Bananas release tryptophan which is converted into serotonin. Serotonin is the happy feel good chemical that elevates our mood to make us feel happy. :)
3. Energy - When eaten after exercise this carbohydrate rich fruit  replaces the muscle glycogen (muscle sugar) which has been used during exercise
4. SMOKE FREE - Bananas are full of Vitamin B and various minerals and eating them has been proven to lower the craving of nicotine both physically and psychologically 
5. Made of Iron - Rich in iron they can be really helpful to people who suffer from anemia as they stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood.
6. Keep it Regular - Bananas are rich in soluble fibre so any problems with constipation and regular bowel movement will be a thing of the past as they help to maintain regular bowel function.

Swimming… the solution to your problem areas.

Got a bad back, bum knee, or tricky hip? These kinds of injuries can prevent you from doing typical cardio exercises like biking and jogging. Sometimes even walking is painful. But an old injury isn't a free pass to skip your cardio routine! There are plenty of other lower-impact cardio exercises to choose from. In fact, choosing swimming is an excellent option — it's kinder to your body than land-based exercise.

February Tip

Not feeling like your sexy self lately? I'm here to help. If you want that toned butt or arms or abs, you'll have to start putting the time in and making a commitment to work on whatever you don't like. Once you start seeing real results you'll begin to feel more confident.

Keep Pushing

If you've mastered one level of exercise don't just kick back, step it up a notch. If you get too comfortable with one set of exercises, you'll stop losing weight. That is why it's important to get in tune with your body and rate your comfort level with each exercise you do. If you're still feeling the burn from fairly simply exercise or weight, stick with them until you don't... then whether you want to or not step it up a notch, No Long Ting.

Lacking Motivation?

If the scale is not budging stop focusing on that number! Decide to drop clothing sizes as your goal instead. When you go down a size, treat yourself to an item of clothing.

Looking to Gain Some Lean Mass

More and more women are realizing the importance of packing on lean muscle to their frame to help them offset the chances of osteoporosis later on in life , help them function more easily in their day to day activities, and help to create a nice tight appearance.

So whether your goal is to one day compete in a bodybuilding, fitness, or figure competition or you are simply looking to increase your strength and generate a better physique, here are some things to keep in mind.

The Workout Routine

The first component of increasing your mass is your workout routine. This is not the time for endurance cardio sessions. Instead you want to focus on putting more of your energy into lifting heavy enough weights that you create small microtears in the muscle tissue so that when given rest they will rebuild themselves back up stronger and bigger (in a process called hypertrophy).

Get Some Rest

This is not to say that you should be spending every waking hour in the gym trying to lift more and more weights each session. Notice in the previous sentence how I explained that muscles grow back bigger and stronger with rest? That is a key point.
If you do not give your muscles enough rest between workouts you will actually only further tear them down with each succeeding workout, thus actually causing a decrease in strength and size.
This is definitely not what you want. So the main thing to remember is that you will need to create a fine balance between spending enough time in the gym to progressively overload your muscles, then back off and allowing them a chance to heal.

A Split Routine

When designing your workout, your best bet will be to incorporate a split routine. I find you'll see the best results lifting on a one-to-two part per day schedule, whereas others do better on an upper/lower or push/pull schedule where each part is worked twice a weak.
The First Component Of Increasing Your Mass Is Your Workout Routine.
So, if you are just starting out and looking to increase your mass, you may want to chose a full body program done 3 days a week or a 2 day split program done twice a week (so 4 total days of strength training).
If you are more advanced, then you can further break your workouts up and concentrate more specifically on certain muscle groups. For example,
• One day for Chest and Triceps
• One day for Legs
• One day for Shoulders and Traps
• One day for Back and Biceps
When using this routine keep in mind that many of the compound lifts you are performing are working other muscle groups at the same time so you will want to ensure you are training both of those groups together on the same day so they will still get sufficient rest between sessions.

Reps & Sets
When looking to put on muscle mass, you will want to be within the 8-12 rep range, performing between 2 and 5 sets per exercise. Once again, the more advanced you are, generally the more sets you will be able to perform.
In order to keep the muscles growing you must change your workout routine periodically. The body has a miraculous way of adapting to the stresses we place on it and without a constant change of stimulation you will find yourself coming to a halt in your progress.
Try and add different exercises to your program, or you could also turn to more advanced principles such as drop sets, compound sets or supersets to shock your body into growth once again.

Rest Breaks
Try not to spend too much time going to get a drink of water and then get caught up chatting to someone you ain't seen for time. You will want to keep your rest periods between 60 and 90 seconds. This will give your muscles enough time to recover so that you can push them hard once again and will enhance the release of testosterone in your body.

Cardio & Nutrition

Performing cardio will slow down your bulking process, although this depends on the intensity/duration of the cardio performed.

If you are choosing to include cardio in your training program, your best bet is to perform one to three HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions.
This type of cardio is not of long duration so it won't give your body mixed messages as to which type of muscle fibers you are hoping to train, as resistance and sprint training calls upon fast twitch fibers whereas endurance training calls upon slow twitch fibers.
When someone performs a great deal of aerobic work, such as hour long runs, the body wants to adapt in order to suit this type of exercise, thus promoting slow twitch fibers (giving you a long stringy type of look) over the fast twitch fibers. Since it is the fast twitch muscle fibers you are after, you will want to avoid endurance cardio sessions and keep them short and sweet.

Also, by performing HIIT sessions, you will not lose your cardiovascular conditioning so you will still be able to walk up the stairs without feeling like you need a ventilator. 

If you are lifting 5 days a week and are doing 3 sessions of HIIT a week, this may be too much for your body to handle and you will begin to feel more worn down than anything.

Calorie Needs

The one downside to performing cardio sessions, is that they burn precious calories that you could have been using for muscle growth.
This means that you are going to need even more calories above what is needed to maintain your daily activities and add muscle.
Luckily, if you perform your cardio in the method I suggested, you will only be going for 15-20 minutes at a time and won't be burning massive amounts of energy. This should easily be able to be replaced in your diet.

Conclusion

That is the training component to gaining lean muscle mass. You have to push plenty hard in order to see results. If you just go into the gym and give half your effort, your body is not going to see a need to adapt, or become stronger and grow; you will remain how you are.

If you train with great intensity every time you are there, followed by giving yourself enough rest to recover, you will unlock the key to a new body that you've been dreaming of.

Building muscle is an energy consuming process and unless you are supplying it with enough and the right kind of building blocks, you won't see many results either.

You'll need to make changes in your diet to ensure all this hard work in the gym doesn't get wasted.