Workouts

Stability Ball Push Up: Exercise of the Week

Pushups using the Stability ball make a great exercise even better! By placing the ball underneath your feet adds instability to the pushup, it forces you to engage your core and transfers more weight to your hands increasing the resistance for your chest and shoulders. If you choose to position the ball beneath your hands, this will challenge your shoulder stability. It is important to keep your shoulder blades held down and slightly squeezed together when performing pushups on the ball. Goal: Hold tension through your core and stay in alignment. Muscles involved: Pectorals, Triceps, Anterior Deltoid and Lower Abdominals. Action: Kneel behind the...

Five Reasons You Have a Bad Personal Trainer

If you’ve gone out of your way to hire a personal trainer it means you’re looking to have a professional teach you how to eat, exercise and help get you in great shape. Working one-on-one with a trainer is something I recommend to everyone even if it’s just for one session. You can learn a ton of information on proper movement form, which exercises are the best for your goals and what intensity to train at. Personal training costs more than going to group fitness classes and for the most part you’ll see better results as the training is tailored specifically for...

Beat the Outdoor Heat: How to Exercise Safely in Hot Weather

Now that another Summer is upon us and the days are longer with the temperatures rising, who doesn't want to get outside? There's nothing better than going for a run, a hike or a bike ride on a nice sunny Summer day. But before you head outside into the sun for some exercise, here are a few things to consider. Consult your Doctor You've probably heard it a hundred times before; consult your doctor before doing this or that. And, I'm going to say it one more time: If you're a novice or beginner or have not exercised is a while, be sure...

Ask The Expert: Avoiding Low Back Pain in Golf

Whether it’s the sunny skies we have seen in late March, the recently re-crowned #1 player in the world wearing ‘Sunday-Red’, or the near approaching 1st major of the season on the PGA Tour, you must be getting excited for the beginning of the golf season! Research has shown that golf injuries do occur at high frequencies.  To no surprise, the number 1 injury associated with the game of golf is Low Back Pain.  Statistics show that 1 out of 2 golfers will experience some type of low-back-pain or injury during their playing career. Why is this so prevalent, you might...

Are You Getting the Fat Loss Results You Want from Weight Machines? Free Weights vs. Weight Machines

Since the 1970’s the Nautilus machines have been promising awesome results in little time and one body part at a time. And since the 1970’s gym members wanting fat loss results from performing a circuit workout on weight machines have yet to see real results. This is one reason avid gym goers still look the same as they did last year and not any more defined and not any smaller. Weight machines are attractive to gym members because they are easy to use and require little instruction. All you have to do is look at the picture on the machine...

Gym Etiquette: Don’t Be That Guy in the Gym

It’s that time of the year again when the newbie’s hit the gym with the best of intentions. Unfortunately a lot of freshmen gym goers are not so well versed in some basic “rules” of the weight lifting area. You've definitely seen one, you may know one, or you may even be one. I'm talking about that annoying guy (or girl) in the gym who either doesn’t know what they are doing or just plain ignores some basic rules. This is my list of the top five weight training no-no's. 1. Don’t be that guy doing curls in the squat rack It's called the...

6 Movements You Should Be able to Easily Do: Part 1

These are exercises that should be no problem at all if our body is functioning well. If you have difficulty with any one of them - you simply cannot do them or you have pain, there are body dysfunctions that should be addressed. Our bodies are meant to move, and when movement becomes a problem due to a lack of strength or flexibility, our lives can close down as we find ourselves no longer capable of doing the things we want. Stairs become a problem, getting in and out of cars or chairs difficult, or we have trouble carrying groceries home. Training...

The Exercise Band Workout

During the week I like to train in the gym but on the weekend if it’s nice outside I’d rather not be indoors. Instead I grab some of my favorite exercise equipment and head to the park to workout. Some of my favorite toys to use outside are TRX cables, a Skip-Rope and an Exercise-band. Today’s workout focuses on using an exercise band. Hopefully this post will help you realize that you don’t always need a fancy gym or a ton of equipment to get a great workout in. Get creative and have fun with the environment around you. You might surprise yourself with how great of...

Unconventional Core Training: Effective Exercises for Your Core

Core training is more than thousands of crunches and side bends.  The other role of your stomach muscles is for stabilization of your spine.  Your core muscles will contract to prevent any unwanted bending which will help prevent injury.  Some of these exercises may be outside of the norm of your normal core training. Use some of these exercises to add into your routine.  You also get the added benefit of working multiple muscle groups.  Needless to say, you won’t have to worry about doing any crunches. 1. Single arm dumb bell (DB) bench press How to perform it: Lie down on your...

Interval Training for Fat Loss

Many people mistakenly believe that the best way to lose weight through exercise is to train at a very slow pace for a long time. This notion came from Scandinavian studies conducted in the 1960s that showed that the body used more fat when exercising very slowly than when training more intensely. Some people interpreted these results to mean that low-intensity exercise is better for losing fat. This notion is nonsense! You lose fat by burning more calories than you take in. You will burn many more calories training intensely than exercising slowly. The body does not metabolize fats by themselves....