A healthy body is crucial to leading a happy life. Apart from taking care of your own health, you must also think about devising a fitness schedule for every member of your family so as to enable them to achieve fitness and wellness. If you want to devise a fitness plan for the whole family, the following tips can help:

• Enroll all your family members in a gym. This is a good way to stay motivated and continue with your fitness regime. Seeing your other family members, young and old, sweating it out will also encourage you to keep up your enthusiasm.
• Apart from joining a gym, you and your family members can also indulge in playing various outdoor games. This will bring some healthy competition and excitement to your regular fitness routine.
• Having a sibling or a cousin as your training partner at home or in the gym is a good way to keep yourself focused. You will find that doing warm ups and weight training will be more fun than ever.
• The outdoor sports that you can participate in may include soccer, hiking, jogging, squash, and orienteering. The last one involves tracking a particular route with the help of maps or hints that are hidden in puzzles.
• Encourage your son or daughter to participate in various sports activities that the local clubs or their schools organize to help them keep fit. This is also a great way for your child a way to vent his or her pent-up energy.
• Going on a fitness vacation is another great idea. This is a good way of seeing new places and indulging in exciting activities. Fitness vacations may also include putting up at a health spa or resort where you can try out meditation and cardiovascular exercises.
• Though many old family members may find it difficult to play sports like soccer or rugby, they can always try swimming and/or tennis. You can also encourage them to take up yoga or Tai Chi.
• Creating a family fitness plan will also include taking care of each other’s meals. Remember- healthy home made food will ensure a good supply of nutrition to your body.

These are some of the fitness plans that you and your family can try out. However, you can also devise other fitness programs that suit your time and purpose, and are accepted by your family members.

To get rid of the flab around your stomach, you need to follow the right flat stomach workout and stick to a complete fitness plan. The best way to eliminate abdominal fat is to follow a proper exercise regime supplemented with a balanced diet.

Though many wish to acquire a flat tummy and firm abdominal muscles, a significant number of people fail to achieve their goals. This is because regardless of whatever workout regime one follows, he/she has to exercise consistently and correctly to achieve the best results. Also, if you are determined to get back into shape and have a flat stomach, it is always helpful to acquire some fitness knowledge prior to starting your workouts.

In an effort to get rock-hard abs, many people waste time and head to the nearest mall to buy those fancy ab-belts and ab-rockers. Little do they realize that these gadgets serve little or no purpose. In fact, some of them can do more harm than good.

Contrary to popular belief that stomach exercises are laborious processes, any quick workout for a flat stomach often involves very simple, uncomplicated exercises. Try to perform a few minutes of moderate workouts like a brisk walk or a casual jog, and follow it up with thirty seconds of more intensive exercises like running quickly in one place. Try to repeat the process five to ten times, and cool down for at least three minutes. Besides burning calories, you will find that these workouts boost your metabolism as well. If you are exercising for the first time, never overdo any workout- no matter how simple it may appear to be.

Should you intend to achieve a flat stomach faster, add resistance workouts such as crunches or squats to your exercise regime to eradicate stomach fat quickly. Always remember that you must eat a wholesome diet comprising of low fat and protein rich food.

The key to a flat tummy lies in total fitness of the body, and not mere spot toning of one region. Kick off your fitness regime with a pleasant, brisk walk three times a week. It is undoubtedly the perfect workout, and your stomach would thank you for that.

We are all aware that to reduce weight, we must stick to a cardiovascular or cardio workout besides following a nutritious diet plan. Cardio exercises have many benefits, including burning calories, helping the heart grow stronger, and increasing lung capacity. They contribute to overall fitness and weight loss, and also help in relieving stress.

Brisk walking, running, swimming, bicycling and tennis are some of the common cardio exercises. Jogging is often considered to be the perfect cardio workout, as it places less stress on your joints as compared to some other workouts.

The elliptical machine is a popular device for indoor cardio workouts, and helps people shed more calories as compared to other cardio equipments. This machine also places less impact or stress on joints.

The common treadmill is also a good device for walking and running indoors. If cardio machines aren’t your thing, you can use the stair climber in your home. Climbing stairs is a good cardio exercise, and is particularly beneficial for the leg muscles. Make sure you include interval training in your cardio workouts, as this would burn almost three times more calories within a third of the time.

All cardio exercises burn calories and also help in strengthening your stamina. They are especially helpful for the lungs and heart, and prevent the onset of cardiovascular diseases or heart attacks.

As a word of caution, it is always important to perform these workouts at an average level, because doing them rigorously would result in your body burning carbohydrates first. This stems from the fact that your blood needs oxygen, and during rigorous workouts, oxygen in the blood runs low. The goal of cardio exercises should be to keep sufficient oxygen in your blood, so that only fat gets burned. If you are just starting out, perform cardio workouts for thirty minutes, thrice a week. You can increase the exercise duration to an hour once your body gets accustomed to the 30 minute routine. Consult your physician immediately if you think your exercise routine is taking a toll on you in any way.

As you progress with your cardio exercises, you would find yourself a fitter person. Never be complacent with the results and give up on your fitness regime, because when you do, you will regain far more calories than what you initially lost.

One Repetition Maximum

This one is a bit of a nerdy read but just as important for any given training program. For those of you that don’t like math, take your frustrations out at the gym and not on us please!! So lets get to it, shall we?

1RM or one repetition maximum is the term that is used to indicate the maximum weight an individual is capable of lifting in a single repetition of a particular movement or exercise. It is commonly referred to as 1RM.

Maximums are the base value used to build any weight training program. After calculating your maximum weight, you can use this figure and percentages of it to plan your training with set objectives: developing explosive strength, increasing power, increasing speed, toning, increasing muscle mass etc.

There are several ways to calculate maximum weights, using direct and indirect methods and different procedures.  There are various weight training protocols which call for lifting some percentage of the lifter’s 1RM. However, many consider the risk of injury a possibility when attempting a 1RM to be equal to or higher than when performing multiple rep sets. As a result, there have been various proposals for ways to calculate an approximation of the 1RM.

Below are the two most common formulas used to calculate the one rep maximum. If r is the number of repetitions performed and w is the amount of weight used, then use Formula 1 below.

The second formula is a bit more involved. Have a look below.

Formula 2

This version of the one rep maximum calculation is often referred to as the Brzycki Formula after its creator, Matt Brzycki, and can be written either in terms of integers or decimal approximation:

Hey, we warned you about the second formula!!

Both of the formulas have similar results for 10 repetitions. But if the reps are less than 10, formula 1 will have a slightly higher estimated maximum. So if you want to impress the ladies, stick will the first formula! Here is a good example. If a person is able to lift 100 pounds on a given exercise for 10 reps, the estimated one rep max would be 133 pounds for both of the formulas. If the person was only doing 6 reps, then the first formula would estimate a one rep maximum of approximately 120 pounds, while the second formula would return an estimate of approximately 116 pounds.

These types of calculations will not always produce accurate results  but are good to use as starting points. The weight can then be changed as needed to perform the number of reps called for by the training protocol.

Several more complex formulae have been proposed which use different coefficients for different rep numbers and sometimes even for different exercises. But we’ll save that for another time. Just writing this gave me a headache!

This is one of my favorite recipes when I was a walking skeleton and under weight. There is enough protein and calories to feed an African nation in this bad boy.

• One and a half cup whole milk
• Half cup heavy cream
• 2 servings of your favorite whey protein powder (my version uses EAS 100% whey chocolate which can be found at bodybuilding.com)
• 2 original recipe better protein bars (bodybuilding.com)

Add all ingredients in a blender and mix on high for about 30 seconds or until desired consistency of the shake.

Nutritional Information

• 1,405 Calories
• 71.8 grams of Fat
• 97.7 grams of Carbs
• 103.4 grams of Protein

This is great for the skinny dudes who can’t gain weight if their life depended on it. Not only that but it tastes pretty awesome and goes down easy!

In many cases, the body-shaping program works best with a 3-days-a-week workout schedule. If possible, you would want to train every other day to help your muscles and central nervous system 48 hours to recover after each training session.

It is extremely important to listen to your body and to make adjustments to your training schedule to accommodate your body’s performance. If you feel like crap and can’t work out, don’t worry too much and skip a day. Taking a day off will not interfere with your development if you are well disciplined.

When working out, not everyone feels muscular pain. It is quiet common for women to experience less muscular pain. This is due to the face that women have higher estrogen hormone levels than men do. Estrogen helps protect the muscles against muscle trauma caused by weight training and exercise in general.

It appears that there is no direct correlation between the training of a muscle and the resulting muscular pain that follows. As soon as you finish training a muscle; it is tensed, pumped up, and may even “burn” a little. At this precise moment the muscle is less strong, but not yet painful or sensitive. After a couple of hours the swelling will disappear and the strength will return, but there is still no muscular pain in the muscle although they may feel a bit numb. But come the next day, the muscle pain has set in.

As we know by now, muscular pain develops slowly the following day and it’s caused by chemicals preparing the muscle for growth.

Muscular pain, therefore, seems to be a necessary evil for effect muscle growth. You can therefore measure the intensity of your last weight training by the amount of muscular pain you feel. If during the days following your training, you experience little or no muscular pain, be sure to try and use more weight the next time you train that particular muscle-group.

Counterbalance

As you are well aware, rigorous weight training will cause micro-lacerations in your muscles and the connective tissue.

When you are not training (resting), the body is preparing itself for the next training session. To be able to cope with the next session the body will restore balance by repairing and at the same time reinforcing the micro-lacerations caused by the workout.

Vitamin C and the proteins consumed from your diet are the most important stimulants of this process. After the recovery, the repaired and reinforced muscles will be able to cope with a new workout load comparable to the previous session. Fitness, weight training, and body-shaping are in fact based on this counterbalancing process.

Muscular Pain

Feeling sore a few days after that hard work out? Simply put, that pain is caused by a buildup of lactic acid and other free radicals in the body which are being removed from the body in the days following the work out.

The pain felt while the micro-lacerations are healing ensures that you are not able work out and use the muscle as intensively as before. In order for muscles to grow, time is needed for healing and recovery. Muscular pain is generally a good indicator of when the body is ready to have the next training session.

Muscle Fibers:

Muscle fibers react differently to sets of four to six repetitions as compared to sets of 8 to 12 repetitions. Without getting too specific, the following rule of thumb can be applied:

1. Completing sets of 4 to 6 repetitions will help strengthen your muscle fibers and connective tissue. This means that you can increasingly lift more weight.
2. Completing sets of 6 to 8 repetitions generally make your muscle fibers larger. This means that the muscle fibers increase in size. This is how you get the big guns.
3. Working out with sets consisting of more repetitions help provide the muscles with neurological stimulation. In plain English, it means that there is an improved signal transfer from the brain to the muscles. By occasionally exercising with a higher number of repetitions you lay the basis for a more effective training session with fewer repetitions (4 to 6 and 6 to 8 repetitions).

Strength training is an important part of any well-rounded exercise plan. Lifting weights helps to increase endurance and metabolism. When beginning a strength training program it is important to keep a few variables in mind. These include training goals, exercises, frequency, exercise order, weight and repetitions, rest.

1. Training Goals

To make the most of your workout, it is important that you set training goals and know what you want to accomplish. Consider why you are training – sport or fitness – and use these reasons as a guide for how you will train and which activities to include in your program. If you are training for sport, such as running a marathon, you want to design a program that builds endurance, strengthens the core and other muscles associated with running. When strength training for fitness, you may want to focus on defining a particular area of the body or improving your overall physique.

2. Exercise Selection

Again, consider your training goals. Training specific areas is the best way to make sure that your efforts will successfully transfer to your performance. For example, a runner with bothersome knees shouldn’t include many exercises that place strain on the knees, such as deep squats. However, including exercises that will help strengthen this area, such as lunges, will be very beneficial. Acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses will help you to set goals and get the most from your training.

3. Training Frequency

This is how often you train. To avoid fatiguing the muscles, most fitness experts will recommend that you do not train more than 3 times per week, on alternating days. The breaks allow your muscles time to recover, helping you avoid injury during the next session. If you do not have much experience with weights, then you should start with only a few sessions.

4. Exercise Order

This is the sequence in which you perform the exercises that comprise your strength training routine. Generally, exercises that engage large muscles are performed before assistance moves, which engage the small muscles, so that squats would be performed before lunges.

5. Weight and Repetitions

When lifting there should be an inverse relationship between weight lifted and repetition. As a result, if you are lifting a heavy weight, you will perform fewer repetitions and vice versa. How much weight you lift depends on your training goals. For example, if your goal is to increase muscular strength then you will need to lift heavier weights and perform fewer repetitions. On the other hand, if your goal is to increase endurance or tone up, then you should lift lighter weights and perform more repetitions.

6. Rest

Between each circuit of exercises, you should take a break to allow your muscles to recover. This will prevent injury. If you are strength training to build muscle, then you should take a break of about 3 minutes between each circuit. If your training goal is to build muscular endurance, then a short rest interval of about 90 second is adequate.

When it comes to exercising, we all know there aren’t any shortcuts. You either work hard and get results, or you don’t. However, there’s no need to permanently live at the gym just because you want to look good. With a well-defined and targeted workout, you can tone up quickly and safely. These five simple steps will help you to make the most of your workout without becoming a gym junkie.

1. Slow down when lifting weights

There is more to weightlifting than simply raising and lowering dumbbells. To make the most of your workout, you need to pay attention your lifting speed. Most people move to quickly when raising their weights and rely on gravity to lower their weights. This incorrect method allows the muscle to relax and slows your muscle gain. Research has shown that exercisers who take their time have almost double the gain in strength when compared ot exercisers who do not. Try counting to four as you raise and lower the weights.

2. Focus on one area at a time

To make the most of your time and get great results, focus on one muscle group at a time. Pick a group of muscles, arms for example, and do three exercises for that muscle group, one after the other, with no rests in between. For example, do dumbbell rows, then pushups, and pull-ups. Within a few minutes, you’ve trained this area and can focus on the next group of muscles. Using this training strategy will cut your workout time in half without sacrificing results.

3. Train in intervals

Ask any trainer and they will tell you that interval training is the quickest way to tone up. Interval training isn’t complicated, it is simply alternating between light and high intensity activity. It’s a proven calorie burner and will melt the layer of fat that hides your muscles. In addition, the constant rotation between different exercises places enough stress on the body to enact change without causing injury. Intervals can be added to any workout to create a challenge. To do this, begin with your normal warm up, follow with 90 seconds of moderate intensity, and 30 seconds of high intensity.

4. Don’t forget to eat!

What you eat before and after exercising is just as important as the workouts you do. Make sure that you are hydrated and have eaten before working out. Within an hour after your workout, refuel your body with a snack. Eating after a workout helps your body to recover quicker, getting you the best results.

Exercising smarter will help you make the most of your workout time so that all of your efforts pay off.

Weight rooms can seem intimidating when you are not familiar with the equipment. It is easy to injure yourself if you are not careful and attentive. Keep the following tips in mind and you will greatly reduce your chances of injury in the weight room.

Stretch and Warm Up Before You Workout

Warming up elevates your heart, increases blood flow, and prepares your muscles for exercise. Skipping the warm up increases your risk for pulling or tearing a muscle. A good warm up is low impact, involves all of your muscle groups, lasts at least 5 minutes and will make you sweat a little bit. The elliptical machine is great for warming up.

Begin With a Light Weight

If you are new to weight training, or performing a new exercise, you should begin with a light weight that you can raise and lower comfortably. If you find yourself rocking or leaning, when you lift the weight, then it is too heavy. Lifting weights that are too heavy can damage muscles and joints. Find a weight that you are able to lift at least 12 times while maintaining proper form.

Look in the Mirror

Have you ever wondered why weight rooms have mirrors all over the place? It’s not just vanity. They are a great way to help ensure proper form and technique while exercising. When you use free weights (dumbbells), mirrors will help you check your posture. If you are using a machine, mirrors will help you check that the weights do not touch down between reps.

Slow down

When lifting weights, you have to pay attention to the speed at which you raise and lower the weights. Uncontrolled movements are the quickest route to injury. You should lift weights  slowly without rocking or leaning. Many people find using a 2-4 count to be a helpful method to control their movements. Count to 2 when lifting weights and count to 4 while lowering weights. This will ensure your movements are slow and steady, reducing your chances of pulling or straining muscles.

Stop if You’re in Pain

It’s important that you recognize the  difference between fatigue and pain. The gradual burn that you feel while working out is fatigue. Pain is a sudden sharp feeling that you need to stop. In any form of exercise, it is important that you pay attention to your body. If you feel a sudden pain while working out, then it’s best to stop and take care of the problem. However, that burn felt after a few reps is a great thing!

Ask for Help

You shouldn’t feel embarrassed to ask for help when you need it. Gyms don’t expect you to remember everything from your orientation. That’s why they have staff at the ready to answer your questions. So make the most of the time you spend at the gym and ask the professionals.