As I have tried to emphasize before, fitness is all encompassing, it must be an ever present part of our lives. If your goal or definition of fitness then is yourself 15lbs lighter and more toned, then you must eat, sleep, and live in a way the progresses you towards that self-made definition.

Eating smarter is step number 1. Sure everyone says, oh but I am eating better and adhering to a more rigorous nutrition schedule but if I asked you to document your every intake, what would be the true story. Weight loss is simply taking in less calories than you expend, and maximizing the quality of those that you decide to ingest. That means low GI foods, with higher ratios of protein and good fats than carbs. Take care of your diet and bust your ass (excuse the vernacular) in the gym, and trust me, you WILL see results. Sure some people have more stubborn fat deposits than others or are prone to retain fat in key areas, but that is something again that can be targeted and eradicated. I just get so fed up with people that complain about not being able to be who they want to be and I know they are the kind of person that barely breaks a sweat or reads a magazine on the treadmill. Put up or shut up.

So to take away from this, remind yourself every day that if you have a weight goal in mind, do not simply rely on your one hour in the gym; accomplish your goal through a combined effort of excellent nutritional techniques, hard work, and a constant reminder that the quality time you put in, will produce results.

It’s what pushing for implosion means: You are who you are, if you want to change, even if only slightly do so by releasing your image of who you are currently and rewrite yourself.

Defy your Limits.

Created in 2008, the adult fitness test is meant to test the aerobic fitness and muscular strength and endurance of the men and women of the United States. It is pretty basic in its testing criteria and easy enough that anyone can do it at home. You could even make it a competition between you and your friends to further motivate yourself to try harder.

The program says it is for people aged 18 and older who are in good health and it also provides a prescreening questionnaire to help you assess whether or not you may be ready to take the test. Unless you have stress induced or other severe health related problems you should be able to complete the test parameters without any problem.

If you have never taken any kind of fitness test and have never really had a fitness regimen then this may be a good starting block for you. It will measure all the basics including:

• Aerobic fitness
• Muscular strength and endurance
• Flexibility
• Body Composition (though we know BMI is nonsense)

Once you complete the statistics you can keep your results and use them as a base from which you can improve. Tracking your progress and actually being able to see the numbers improve is one of the biggest motivating forces out there. It is tangible change and keeps you on track towards attaining your goal.

So, check out the program and let me know it went. If you have any questions just drop me a line in the comment box.

http://www.adultfitnesstest.org/

Dynamic warm ups are not exactly new, but they have yet to go mainstream. What are they? Well its warming up your body by stretching through movement. Examples of this are lunges, side bends, high knees, back pedals, scorpions, side stepping, high knee skipping, Frankenstein walk and MORE! Descriptions will follow.

So what is the deal with old school static stretching. Well get on pubmed @ ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/ and if you do a little research you will find numerous studies, all new that are all showing the same finding. That is, static stretching before an athletic event notably impairs the capability of our muscles to produce peak force output. It has been studied in specific sports, runners cannot sprint as fast, basketball players can’t jump as high, rugby players can’t push as hard, when they do a static stretching routine before these events.

Why? Well static stretching does not raise your core temperature at all, so your body is not becoming any more ready to go into full drive. You are stretching your muscles past their normal flexibility and this decreases the force capability of the contraction thereafter. In some cases, hyper extension injuries were shown to be occur more frequently when an athlete followed a static stretching regimen prior to an event. Now hear me out, I am not saying static stretching is bad! It just should not be done prior to a performance but rather after as a part of a cool down.

Dynamic warm ups get our bodies ready to do what we need them to. They increase our range of motion dramatically, warm up our bodies significantly, stretch all core muscles including the legs, trunk and upper body and can be made to be sport specific.

Another benefit is a dynamic flexibility regimen can be done significantly faster than a traditional 10-15 minute static stretching routine. This is how

Pick 6-8 of any of the following exercises:

• lunge
• side bend
• frankenstein walk
• high knees
• jumping jacks
• back pedaling
• scorpion
• high knee skipping
• side lunges

Then find yourself 15-20 yards of space. One way do one of the previous exercises and on the way back jog, then repeat with the next exercise until you have done all the ones you chose for your routine. Do this three times and that is your warm up. Simple huh? Yeah I thought so to. Take a short 30 second rest between each set of 6-8 exercises. But other than that it is pretty straightforward. Now for a description of the above mentioned exercises.

Lunge - Step forward with one leg keeping your upper body straight and diving your knee into the ground. There should be about 2 and a half feet between your feet and you should feel the burn in your hamstrings and quads.

Side Bend – Bend at the waist from one side to the other keeping your torso straight and using only your obliques to pull you up. Best when done with an exercise ball for added mobility.

Frankenstein Walk - Just as they sound, put your arms straight out and kick your toes up to your hands as far as you can trying not to bend at the knee. This gets your hip more flexible and works your legs at the same time.

High Knees – While trying to run kick your heels up to your butt or around your waistline if you can while pumping the opposite arm. Great mobility enhancer for all the joints in your lower body. These are not about distance so do not try and cover the 15-20 yards quickly.

Jumping Jacks – Ah how we all love this arcane exercise. Try some variation to keep things new by having your arms in front of you instead of above or crossing your legs instead of just spreading them. Anything you can think of.

Back Pedaling – Run backwards making sure you are not dragging your heels or toes on the ground. Great for your calves and the muscle that wraps in front of your shins.

Scorpion – Lie face down on the ground with arms extended to your sides, palms facing down, so your body forms a mock T shape. Keeping this facedown position and keeping your shoulders flat on the ground, bring your left heel and swing it back towards your right hand. Repeat for the other leg.

High Knee Skipping – Just as we did when we were little go and skip! Only difference is with each skip try and bring your knee up as high as you can exploding of your toes with each skip.

Side Lunges - Get in a low athletic position, like a wide squat almost. Step to the side with one leg maintaining the same athletic position and not getting any taller. Much like I envision a ninja looks like. Yes you are the NINJA! Now step together with the other leg. Switch sides and repeat for the distance. These mega burn the glute and quads!

And there you have it, a dynamic flexibility warm up to get you ready for anything you might need to do. Want a sport specific routine? Drop a line in the comments.

If you’re in the middle of a set and talking to the person next to you, you are not working out. If you are looking across the room and checking out some girl stretching, you’re not working out. And if you feel exactly the same at the end of a set as you did at the beginning, you damn sure are not working out.

Working out means training hard all the time. Not slacking off on leg days or walking on the treadmill while reading a book without a bead of sweat on your forehead. It’s pushing yourself like your life depends on it. Imagine if you knew today was the last time you’d ever be able to workout for the rest of your life – would you be taking it easy? Hell no, you’d make sure you felt like you were about to die by the time you were finished. And that’s how you should train every day.

So if you have been taking it easy, now is the time to stop being a baby and start pushing yourself. I am not saying that if you are not working out like a top athlete then you are not working out, I am saying if you are not pushing your own personal limits then you are not working out…

Push yourself towards what I like to call implosion. Ever heard the saying give it your all? Regardless of how long you are planning on being in the gym be it 5, 30 or 60 minutes, give it your all the entire time, please. Then true fitness will come.

For our purposes, fitness is the epitome of health. Now this might seem bizarre or incorrect, but a properly executed fitness regimen will provide excellent health benefits. Merely exercising and dieting by no means produce fitness though. For example, someone who runs everyday but is on a high carbohydrate, low fat and medium protein intake  diet is at risk of developing atherosclerotic disease, among a slew of other things. Fitness then is a compound measurement of many key areas.

Being fit should be understood as a function of the following:

• triglyceride levels
• body fat
• muscle mass
• flexibility, blood pressure
• cholesterol levels
• lung capacity
• bone density
• mental health

Thus, one’s fitness level is a combined measurement that represents total body health, not merely an expression of athletic ability. Physical competence incorporates other skills and areas which may associate more closely with most people’s general understanding of  what fitness is but physical competence does not correlate with being in an overall state of physical fitness.

Closing this out, it is key to realize that if one strives for and achieves increasingly healthy and fit levels of all of the previously mentioned 8 areas of fitness, then one’s body chemistry will indeed change. This change precipitates a healthier, less disease prone life. It is for this reason that we strive to achieve high levels of fitness.

Future posts will focus specifically on each of these 8 areas and how to approach each in a total fitness regimen.

So what exactly do we do at a gym? Well, we either push something, which would be weights, pull something, or breathe hard which would be cardio. Now, unless you live in a box, I think it is impossible for anyone to say that they cannot do those three things in and around their house or place of work.

All you have to do is find 30 to 45 minutes in your day to get a good workout in. First and foremost you want to make sure that the time you do devote to exercising is quality time and so you want to try and keep your heart rate up and beating the entire workout. Ideally you want your heart rate to be  75-85 percent of its max to maximize cardiovascular and fat burning benefits. To find out how to calculate your heart rate go here.

So if you are doing multiple sets of something, instead of waiting in between sets do some jump rope, or sprint up and down your drive way. Anything to keep your heart rate up. Use youtube to find various plyometric workouts that involve nothing but your body so no other equipment is needed. I have provided a good playlist of various plyometric workouts below. Pick a couple to try and string them together, add some cardio and you will never complain about not having a gym again.

For others that just want to do cardio, you do not need a treadmill! Get outside and if you want to run, then run! Can we all just agree that gyms are not necessary they just add to a workout by providing equipment. People are innovative though, you can find alternatives to just about everything that a gym provides. Also, finding new ways to workout so that you do not get bored keeps you interested and more willing to workout, so search around! There are thousands of workouts that you can do all without weights.

The AITank Team