Physiclo Shorts & Pants

Health And Fitness!

2016-04-15T00:46:00.002-07:00

Do Compression Shorts Really Work

As you can see here, I have a detailed video about what I eat and what a normal week to 2 weeks worth of groceries look like for me. I really only cook for myself so if you have more mouths to feed you may need to get more food in terms of quantity. Most of the food information is in the video so I will just give you an example of what a typical day looks like. This is what I eat when I have access to a microwave at lunch and dinner. I am currently in the process of developing a meal plan for when I am on the go. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Breakfast:

4 egg whites
1/4 cup of blue berries

or

Shakeology

or

Raw meal

or

Protein shake with blue berries, baby spinach and rolled oats

Snack 1:

Grapefruit or Protein Scoop

Lunch:

3oz Ground turkey with salad Or an apple and 6-8 Almonds

Snack 2:

Grapefruit or Protein Scoop

Dinner:

4oz of Chicken breast or Fish with any vegetable

Dessert:

Frozen blue berries and mangos.

Others:
Gatorade
Apples for post workout
Trader Joes snacks
Kashi Go lean cereal

And That's it! I will be Back with my On-the-go meal plan.

I will not over complicate this. I will post the detailed video about my weight loss and weight story so you can check that out! I will also Include a few details about what I am currently doing as far as Excercise and what I am eating. You are more than welcome to join me and incorporate some of these things in your daily lives! I will also have Blog posts about different programs I am doing, what they entail and the results I get. Let me know if you have any questions and I will be more than happy to answer them.

Watch the detailed Video on my 40 pound weight loss here

With the help of God, Insanity, My trainer and Nutritionist, Boxing, Strength training, Clean eating, Determination, Will Power, and Self control I was able to lose 40 pounds and gain 10 pounds of muscle in a 4-5 month period of time. I went from a size 10 to a size 4. I am so happy and grateful and I am looking forward to reaching my goal of gaining more muscle, shredding my abs and fitting into size 2 pants!

I hope this serves as good motivation to all of you out there who are in the same boat as I am!! you can achieve these results too!! Stay encouraged and thanks for reading :)

FOOD and NUTRITION

I just decided to repost the info from the november fitness challenge here because nothing has changed in terms of what I do for food and nutrition when I want to lose fat and gain lean muscle. I think everything is clearly written, but if you have any more questions, let me know!!

I know I have not put up any information about my health and fitness story and routine yet but I just wanted to put this challenge up just in case you would like to join me. Health and fitness has become a critical part in my life and I am going to continue to set goals for myself to keep my motivation. I will put all the details of my exercise and food on the bottom. You don't have to use the same exercise program I am using (anything you choose will work.) The most important part is the food. Believe it or not, the quantities and when you eat play a HUGE role.

Exercise : For 30 days ( or however long you want to do this for) I will be using the Insanity DVDs. I will use the Max program (second half which is more intense ) because I want to push my body a little more. Since the program is an hour long, I will be working out 5 days a week in the afternoon after work and Saturday Morning (6x a week in total) with Sunday as my rest day. I am also going to Sprint on my tread mill in the morning when I wake up for 10-15 minutes (in intervals) just to get my blood flowing. (two workouts a day is OPTIONAL. It just depends on how advanced in your fitness you are.)

There is an Abbreviated version of the Insanity workout on this link if you need some help comming up with high intensity exercises and you don't own Insanity:

http://www.self.com/fitness/workouts/2012/02/insanity-workout-slideshow#slide=1

Also I like Body Rock TV. It has simular high intensity workouts you can follow for all body parts!

http://www.bodyrock.tv/category/daily-workouts/all-workouts/

PLEASE NOTE: Consult your healthcare professional before starting any diet/workout regime! This is simply what I did and what worked for ME under professional supervision.

Food: As far as food is concerned, I will be eating ONLY these things that I list in the bottom and I will explain how I eat them.

Note* This meal plan is for losing FAT and gaining Lean muscle as you will notice by the Injection of protein several times through the day. Please Keep your portions to the size of your fist for every meal!! :)

Brown rice, Protein (powder for shakes), Egg whites, Plain Shredded Wheat (cereal), Sweet Potatoes, Organic Chicken (breast only) Turkey (breast or ground), Byson (no hormones), Fish, Soy milk, Raw Almonds, Fruits (more apples, grapefruits and blue berries than the rest) and Vegetables. I will also by cutting off all artificial sugar (INCLUDING Salad DRESSING!!) and Limiting my salt intake.

The format of food intake is Crucial. Having many small meals a day will keep your metabolism up and you will find that your body will stop holding on to the fat. It is very important that you DO NOT SKIP BREAKFAST. It truly is the most important meal. The sooner you eat in the morning, the sooner your metabolism starts working. Also keep in mind that starving yourself is not an option. You have to eat to lose weight OR gain proper tone. If you starve yourself, your body will hold on to all the fat you are trying to lose and eventually will shut down.

One other Key factor is eating either a half apple, 3 tablespoons of brown rice or 2 oz of sweet potato Immediately after your work out. Either one of those is great for your body's recovery
Make sure you drink at least 8 glasses of water through the day (DO NOT SKIP THIS!!) and get enough sleep. Take a multivitamin to ensure you are getting all your nutrients and a probiotic to make sure your digestive system is working properly.

Morning:
1/2 apple after workout. Vitamin and Probiotic

Protein shake with blueberries OR 4 egg WHITES with blueberries OR shredded wheat with soy milk and fruit.

Snack: 1/2 Grapefruit (OR Protein shake with no fruit)

Lunch: Salad or veggie or fruit with a protein- Chicken breast, ground turkey, Fish and 6 amonds

Snack: 1/2 Grapefruit, Protein shake(no fruit,) OR I have 3 tablespoons of brown rice or shredded wheat as a carbohydrate if I am working out after work.

1/2 apple after workout

Dinner: Protein and veggies. No Carbs!! Veggies (spinach, beans, broccli or any other) and a protein like Chicken breast or fish...

Those are the basic guidelines for the meal plan. If you find yourself hugry i would suggest more water and a blueberry or grapefruit snack.

I hope I made everything clear enough and I am excited to get started. I will post weekly updates at the top of this blog post ( so I should have 4) so check back with me and let me know how you are doing!!

More info - http://ananijosie.blogspot.com/p/my-health-and-fitness.html

The Art of Fitness

2016-04-15T00:44:00.000-07:00

A Good Review Of These Shorts

Exercise, and eating right, will boost your creativity

I firmly believe that a sound body begets a sound mind, so I have been a fitness hobbyist for most of my life. Now my beliefs are backed up by a lot of science showing that physical activity helps boost creativity, going for walks is better than “brainstorming”, and tweaking your lifestyle to be more healthy will improve focus and idea generation. A lot of my friends are tuned in to this idea, and some of the best artists out there are keeping healthy for the sake of improved focus on their work.

However, I see lots of “you should work out” and not as much on exactly how. My research takes me all over the internet and I’m excited to share a small portion of it here in a way that you can take home, and take action.

In this post, I address some general rules and for people who are like me and just want the details, I offer the specifics of my own program. Everyone’s goals are different, but I think there’s something here for everyone who shares the busybusybusy lifestyle.

Finally, please ask questions in the comments. There’s way too much out there to cover in just one post, and there are lots of people in the Muddy Colors community who have found great ways to stay fit and healthy.

Keeping fit should be easy, fun, and rewarding

This is the overarching principle I have when I approach fitness strategies. I get bored at the gym (so I quit), and I’m too busy to go to classes or spend hours on strict workout regimens. In my twenties, being a hobbyist was enough, my metabolism took care of the rest. But now that I’m in the back half of my thirties, I have been looking for sustainable food and exercise strategies that leave me feeling and looking good with as little work as possible. Most of my reference photos are of me anyway, so I need to keep trim

First, let me show you my own progress. The first pic is January 7, the second is about 5-6 weeks later. 6. Short. Weeks.

SPOILER: you have to move around a little and eat well.

If you want to feel better, exercise and a good diet are how you do it. Period. If you want a pill to burn your tummy fat, stop reading.

If you think exercise means hours of work every day or a gym membership, you’re wrong. Please keep reading.

If you only read one part of this article, read this.

Here’s the super duper cheat cheat for starting your day right.

Move around for 20 minutes right when you wake up. Walk, run, pushups, sit ups, whatever, just move. If you have it in you to do something harder like intervals, all the better.
When you do this you tell your body to expect that for the day and your metabolism starts moving faster in preparation.
Eat a small meal about 20 minutes after that, such as two eggs and spinach, something with protein and greens. This sates your hunger, tamps down your appetite for your next meal, and help prevent overeating. Tim Ferriss discusses this in his cheat meal interview.
Eat small meals throughout the day. The science is split on this, but if you’re like me and just looking to stay trim, not bulk up, eating small meals is the right way to keep your metabolism going and energy high.

Set a goal aligned with your constraints

The right routine is the one that you won’t flake out on. Depending on your age, fitness level, or schedule, when you decide to get back in shape I recommend starting small. That could look like a 20 minute walk when you wake up, or it could be joining a crossfit program. Whatever you decide to do, take a hard look at yourself and don’t take on too much. When you start small, that tends to lead to more, but starting too big usually leads to “screw it, forget it, it’s donut day every day!”

As for me, I don’t have a lot of spare time, and no room for a huge home gym setup. Combine that with an at-home work life, a child, two dogs, and 15,000 personal projects and counting, my go-to-the-gym routine just fell of the rails. I realized I needed a strategy and designed one to fit my time and space limitations.

NOTE: while I’m getting older, I believe that keeping fit in my twenties helped me achieve the goals I have made recently. So if you’re younger and saying “I don’t need that yet” I encourage you to set your good habits now, so you don’t have a tougher battle when you’re older.

My Constraints, or, Here’s how easy my workout has to be

MOBILE: I have to be able to do this anywhere. I can do my program at home or a hotel room if I’m traveling, all with no equipment. I hate needing a gym, it became more of an excuse than a motivation. The commute there, or prep time was all I needed to not go.
BRIEF: I have to be able to do this in a short amount of time, 20-30 minutes max. I take, and advocate, short breaks for most effective creative flow. I wanted something that I could do on these breaks, and not have to build in a 90+ minute window.
OPTIMIZED: It has to maximize fat loss and toning. I generally bulk up easily so I wanted something that kept me most trim and generally healthy feeling.
FLEXIBLE: Any fitness or food strategy I take on has to be something I can keep up when I travel or eat out. Anything else will be doomed to fail.

So let’s get to specifics. Keep in mind, these worked for me. There are many many options out there, and I’ll try to call out where you can mix and match.

Establish a daily routine for exercise

To get results whether fat loss or beach body, you have to make it a habit. If you just paint when you feel like it, how much painting do you get done? W. Somerset Maugham put it best, “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

I decided to build in my exercise during times when I had natural breaks. I work from home, so I can literally get up from my desk and start my workout in seconds. You might have an office job and a gym, in which case you might see if you can fix your commute home to pass by the gym, or run there before work. Whatever works for you, make it something easy and sustainable. Don’t join a gym in midtown if you live and work in Brooklyn, you won’t go.

You don’t have to “work out”

Some people just hate exercise. But exercise doesn’t have to look like exercise. Lots of creatives advocate a “fake commute.” Get up, walk to a coffee shop a mile away, get your coffee, read your paper, walk back. Bam, you exercised, and if you’re work-at-home like me, you just mentally separated your home-life from your now-I’m-at-the-office life. So it’s wins all around.

But I actually do enjoy exercise.

Here’s my schedule:

20 minute interval workout first thing when I wake up, 5 days a week. Up and at em, in my bedroom on a carpet, yoga mat, or just the floor. No equipment needed. By keeping it to 20 minutes, I can’t make the don’t have time excuse. By activating my body and metabolism first thing, my body basically starts burning fuel and fat for energy because it gets super worried I might work out again.
(optional) 20 minute workout in the afternoon. I’m going to take breaks anyway to clear my head. Now I use that 20 minutes to do a second short workout that is more focused on core strength. I shoot for 4-5 days a week, and I can do it in my not-giant home office. This also revs me up for the afternoon art push.

That’s it. As little as 20 minutes a day. The short workouts combined with a new eating strategy, it has given me the results I was looking for.

Change it up

Any trainer worth their salt will tell you to vary your routine, not your schedule, to keep from hitting a plateau with fitness or fat loss. In the most non-science way possible, if you do the same exercises every day then your body just gets used it it and stops working as hard. You risk hitting a wall with your goals, slowing down metabolic rate, or overbuilding muscles while neglecting others. Sure you could do more reps or more weight, and risk joint failure or injury.

By switching exercises, or even just how you do the same ones, you activate different muscles and keep your body on its metabolic toes.

For those who don’t “work out” work out, try varying your walk to the coffee shop with a speedwalk or jog, or try doing pushups every morning for a week instead to break things up.

(and thanks Ryan Lu for reminding me of this very key point!)

Food Strategy

I keep calling it a food strategy and not a diet, and I do that intentionally. While diet is the correct term for describing “food that goes into your face-hole” it has the negative connotation of limits, restrictions, and sacrifice.

Food strategy, on the contrary, says what I mean: it’s about food, food you want to eat, and it’s about deciding when and how much to eat these foods to meet your goals. I freaking love food, and I knew there had to be a way to eat it and not keep putting on daddy-fat (daddy-fat: noun, the fat you put on when you eat with your three-year-old who loves him some pizza, bagels, ice creams, and fruit smoothies).

The Basic Rules

Michael Pollan, author and food expert, said “Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables.”

My guideline is: Eat whole food, nothing processed, not too much, and fairly often.

From Michael Pollan again:
Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. “When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can’t pronounce, ask yourself, “What are those things doing there?” Pollan says.
Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot. “There are exceptions — honey — but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren’t food,” Pollan says.
It is not just what you eat but how you eat. “Always leave the table a little hungry,” Pollan says. “Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, ‘Tie off the sack before it’s full.’”
Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It’s a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. “Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?” Pollan asks.
Don’t buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

This is my diet:
I eat about 5-7 times a day, and I enjoy small meals that leave me not hungry. “Not hungry” is my measuring stick, not fullnesss. I enjoy the heck out of food, and eat the best I can, I just don’t eat all of it just because it’s there. The first week of doing this, I felt a little hungry most of the time. Just days later I had adjusted, I found I couldn’t and didn’t need to finish the meal portions I was used to. I had more energy to boot.
I eat lots of protein and veggies, very little carbs, dairy, and sugar, and nothing processed. Most meals looks like a protein (chicken, steak, fish, even tofu but NOT the overprocessed fake meats), and a dark leafy green, like spinach or kale cooked with garlic and salt. Yum. This is actually easy to do if you approach from the shoppers perspective. It is just easier to remember fewer things. Like chicken, garlic, spinach, salt. Done. Get bored? Read more and add more good things, soon you’ll have a virtual library in your head of delicious nutritious stuff you can eat.

Eating Out

This is way easier than you think. Even TGI Fridays has a chicken salad, dressing on the side, and you can’t go wrong. Follow the rules above and stick to basic whole foods. Done.

Booze

Booze has lots of sugar, calories, and carbs. Bummer. The more you can cut this out, or stick to lower cal/carb/sugar drinks like Vodka, the better chance you will have at keeping trim and healthy.

This was not my favorite news, I’m a whiskey/bourbon kind of guy. However, when I tried cutting it down to a few on the weekend I had a much much easier time not only with exercise but also focusing on work. I’ve made this moderation an ongoing habit.

“Cheat” meals

I love good food and I love balance. So yes, I’ll have a burger or fish and chips, but I do keep that to once, maybe twice, a week. And I still don’t eat the whole thing if I hit the “not hungry” point.

Two reasons I think this is ok. One, once I had the exercise down as routine, my metabolism shifted up, and I was able to process these foods faster. Two, science backs me up again!

From The Science Behind Cheat Meals

“When dieting continues, the metabolism is still slightly elevated from the cheat meal, thus leading to an even greater energy expenditure and increased fat loss. Because metabolic rate is closely linked to thyroid output this is how the increased thyroid hormone is tied in to the cheat meal. Also, with an increased metabolic rate, thermogenesis increases as a result.”

Now that’s a mouthful, but it basically says by eating a cheat meal you trick your body into thinking you’re about to get a lot more calories and it starts to burn at a higher rate. So when you go back to normal foods, it gets to burning stored fat.

Tim Ferris wrote a whole book about this, and has a few things to say here on cheat meal/day strategies.

Specific Exercise Routines

If you just want to test the waters with exercise, and want to do it at home where nobody can see you, try checking out Mike Chang’s no-equipment exercise youtube channel. There are lots of options mostly in the 5-minute range. You have 5 minutes.

If you want to do what I do, here it is:

Interval training: I have been using Mike Chang’s Insane Home Fat Loss videos. I put them on my iPhone, and it’s ready as soon as I get out of bed. There are also the very popular Insanity Workouts, but at 45 minutes I knew I wouldn’t make it a habit. Even p90 has a 30 minute series called p90x3, but that failed my “no equipment” rule.

Core/Strength: I mix and match Mike Changs Six Pack Shortcuts, and the workouts that come with the Tower 200, a resistance band door-gym that I’ve loved for years. I haven’t tried p90x3, and at 30 minutes it’s a little long for my taste, but it gets great reviews.

Diet: Again, Mike Chang has a great in-depth post about this, and you can google thousands of other related articles, but here’s the cheat-sheet version:
At home: Pre-prep foods or whole meals so you don’t have to think when you’re ready to eat. I keep tupperware with cooked chicken, steak, or fish, and veggies that are easy to cook in just a few minutes, like spinach or kale. Stock up on nuts and easy to eat fruit, so you’re not reaching for cookies and cakes when cruising for a snack.
Eating out: Stick to delicious salads with lots of dark green veggies and protein, or simple meals with whole foods (meat and veggies, for the win). Avoid big pasta or creamy dishes.
Keep dairy, carbs, and sugar to a minimum. I don’t cut them out, I generally think that’s too extreme. I do try to stick to things like rice and quinoa over pasta, just a little cheese, and sugar from whole foods like fruit.
Don’t eat processed foods, especially meat alternatives as they are heavy with gluten/carbs and processed chemicals.
Give yourself a break occasionally. I still eat pizza occasionally, maybe once every two weeks. And I don’t freak out because my new baseline is very very healthy.
Drink in moderation, and stick to non-sweet vodka drinks to avoid the massive calorie/carb/sugar load of things like beer and whiskey.

Equipment

I know I said no equipment, and for most of this you don’t need anything. But for my own constraint #4 (Flexibility) I wanted a few options that take up very little space.

A yoga mat:
Helps save your floor and feet if you’re doing the interval exercises. Lots of jumping around!

If you only get one piece of workout equipment, get the Tower 200 from Body by Jake:
This is a resistance-band gym that fits on your door. The only space you need is in front of the door to pull the bands. You can do some version of almost any resistance exercise on this machine, and it’s only $88 on Amazon.

If you want another thing, get the Bowflex adjustable weight dumb bells:
This is a whole rack of dumb-bells in just two dumb-bells. The dials on the sides lock in to the weights in the middle and only pull up the ones you selected. Great for things like drop-sets, or just switching between exercises quickly.

If you really feel like you need one more thing, get one of those ab roller core workout thingy’s. I have these, and they offer a lot of flexibility for core exercise options.

All of this equipement fits in a very very small space and gives me tons of options for workouts.

Get Started!

That’s a lot of info, but the basics are still the same: do some kind of exercise, and eat smart. Now all you have to do is start. So what are you waiting for?

Don’t believe me?

Then see what these other accomplished ADs and artists have to say about how they incorporate a healthy lifestyle into their process.

I asked each of them the following questions.
Why is physical fitness important to you? What does it do for you to be fit?
What do you do to stay fit? In as much or as little detail as you want!
What obstacles do you face, and how do you get past them?
[optional] Your favorite/funniest fitness “win” story”

Jon Schindehette

1. When I quit smoking almost 6 years ago, and rolled into my 50′s (with having a decreased metabolism and all), I packed on 60 pounds in no time at all. I didn’t like the way I looked, or felt. So I moderated my diet and started exercising.

2. Pretty simple routine. Bike or run for 60 minutes 3x week. Just a nice moderate pace to work endurance and burn fat. Very minimal workout routine 2-3x week (4 full body exercises, very low reps @ 80% of single max)

3. Time, schedule and commitment level. It’s tough to be committed enough to make the time for daily exercise. I just have to keep reminding myself that I am staying “committed to myself”, not to exercising. It’s easier to blow of exercise…it’s tough to blow off myself.

4. Running in my first Jingle Bell 5k Run. I had no idea that most folks ran in “costume”. Nothing is funnier than running in a pack of huffing and puffing santas, a couple of elves, and even a tiny reindeer.
…diet is also a big part of my life. I minimize meat, amp up fruits and veggies, and drink tons of water every day.

Donato Giancola

I never work out to stay fit. Can’t stand running in an artificial environment. But that doesn’t mean I do not care about my health. I find exercise (bike riding, long walks/excursions in New York City, hiking, playing pick-up soccer games) very meditative.

I enjoy the focus upon the immediate surroundings and your body while thinking about not where I was or where I am going, but where I am now and who I am with in that moment. There is a wonderful children’s book illustrated by Jon J. Muth which retells a Leo Tolstoy short called ‘Three Questions’. This captures my feelings wonderfully about both my awareness of staying healthy, but also approach to my art. I love to be in the moment in the studio with no distraction, blissfully painting away. The meditative trace I can shift into when engaged in a relationship with a physical object cannot, for me, be duplicated with a computer, screen and wacom tablet. It just does not feel real/physical enough for me. My art is about being connect to my world not just image making.

Thus this relates to how I take care of my body, I cannot find enjoyment working out in a gym, for the sake of staying healthy. I prefer to keep fit by living a life; walking everywhere I can while in New York; living in a five story home with stairs to scamper up and down every time the front doorbell rings and hauling art up and down from the studio; coaching and refereeing my child’s soccer games; and walking my children to school, one mile away – up hill both ways :)

Lastly I stay fit by very carefully watching what I eat. Treats and the desire to seek pleasure through food is a very slippery slope which I do divulge in on a rare occasion, otherwise I am more Spartan in eating habits, seeking to consume just what I need to get by…I save most of the pleasures in my life for my art and family and friends.

All this may change of course, but for now, it has kept me happy and healthy for decades.

Scott Brundage

Well, now that I’ve been shown shirtless on Muddy Colors, I figured it was just a matter of time before people asked me about this.

1- I’ve been blessed with a handful hereditary heart conditions that, while not life-threatening, have the potential to really screw up my day to day. I figured if I stay on top of all the other variables of fitness and nutrition, the lifestyle of an illustrator can remain. Meaning, in my head, as long as I at least look healthy, I can continue consuming too much caffeine, drinking alcohol, and missing sleep

2- Varying schedules of distance running, sprints, weight training, calisthenics, etc. Everything tends to be dictated by weather, injury, and interest. I’ll go nonstop with a hardcore 5k training program, then hurt myself. Then I’ll stay in a weight room for 4 months until I can’t stand it. The p90x series is great for giving a good variety of exercise and scheduling. Living next to prospect park is pretty great for running. Between the two, I tend to fill up my days. My current apartment has a small gym in the basement, otherwise I’m limited to a pull-up bar and whatever I can do on the floor.

3- I think any runner eventually gets injured. Before I started weight training, I didn’t really know what to do when I couldn’t run. Otherwise, the biggest obstacle is fitting in the time to work out, and balancing how much it might kill my energy for late night work. I love hearing about people who just started exercising exclaiming how much energy they have. Whenever I’m in good shape, I’m toasted after I work out. I only have excess energy when I take a day off.

Lauren Panepinto

When I took over as Creative Director at Orbit, my desk time really skyrocketed. I really found myself stuck sitting at my desk answering emails for hours at a stretch, not getting up except for meetings, and even ordering in lunches. As anyone else who works a 9-to-5 (or, more accurately, a 10-till-as-late-as-it-needs-to-be) I hit the 3pm slump and could only fight thru with caffeine and sugar. Not only did my weight start creeping up, but I just felt dreary and exhausted all the time. I was trying to fit in the gym after work, but the priority of finishing work kept getting in the way. Finally I sat down with my publisher and said I needed to prioritize my health, and we worked out a plan where I was able to be gone for a 60-90min lunch so I could get to the gym, but I always scheduled it in my Outlook calendar so no one was trying to set meetings with me during that time. Of course, he was well aware that I was always staying late, so “making up time” was never an issue.

I started working with a trainer who specialized in weight training (and was a girl so she understood not every lady wants to be on a treadmill for 3hrs a day), because I really wanted to feel stronger. Holly Goodwin at www.bluejayfitness.com has been working with me twice a week for 2 years now, and I have a completely stronger and healthier body because of it. In between I try to do kickboxing, or boxing, or some kind of cardio 3-4 times a week. I am horrible at running, it is boring as $%#& to me and my body isn’t built for it. But I will swim, or box, or do something more fun for hours before I drop. Yoga is a little too tame – it feels great, but it’s not the same stress relief of hitting something (or being hit BY something). Fitness is not about being skinny for me, I wanted strength and energy, and stress relief, and now I feel 500% more productive and awake thru my day.

Visit here - http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-art-of-fitness.html

Sean10mm's Fitness Blog

2016-04-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

Quality Resistance Fitness Clothing

Mark Rippetoe wrote a book called Starting Strength. And it was pretty great. There are lots of versions of the "Starting Strength" workout floating around the internet, with various modifications done by different people. This is my take on the same basic workout. It is a simple strength training workout intended for people new to weight training. All the fundamentals are the same as the original Starting Strength workout, and most of the exercises are the same. The changes I made were pretty minor.

1) A few of the exercises were relatively exotic/non-standard for a beginner-oriented workout. These were replaced with their more conventional counterparts. For example, here you will see bent-over rows instead of Pendlay rows. If a beginner at the gym asks somebody for help with bent-over rows they can probably get it; asking about Pendlay rows is apt to get them a blank stare.

2) This write-up includes links to instructions for doing the exercises. I also provide alternate exercises, such as dumbbell variants of barbell exercises, where the alternate exercise targets the same muscle groups and can be expected to provide a similar training effect.

3) To be blunt, many people doing writeups of Starting Strength workouts on the internet are kind of jerks about it. I tried to make my writeup more accessible and less like the stereotypical "internet meathead" rants that seem to put a lot of people off.

If you want to do the original workout as written - which I think is a great idea, by the way - you can see it here.

The principle is simple – you’ll have 2 different workouts, Workout A and Workout B. You’ll work out on 3 non-consecutive days every week, alternating A and B.

So week 1 might look like:
Monday - Workout A
Wednesday -Workout B
Friday - Workout A

Week 2:
Monday - Workout B
Wednesday - Workout A
Friday - Workout B

And so on.

Here are the workouts (sets x reps, NOT including warmup sets):

Workout A

3x5 Squat (barbell)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...ps/BBSquat.html

3x5 Bench Press (barbell or dumbbell)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...BenchPress.html
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...BenchPress.html

1x5 Deadlift (barbell)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...BBDeadlift.html

2x5-8 dips (only add weight if you are doing >10 bodyweight dips)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...WtChestDip.html

You can also substitute barbell or dumbbell decline bench press for dips.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...BenchPress.html
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...BenchPress.html

Workout B

3x5 Squat (barbell)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...ps/BBSquat.html

3x5 Standing military press (barbell) or dumbbell overhead press
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...itaryPress.html
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...ulderPress.html

3x5 Bent-over rows (barbell or dumbbell)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...entOverRow.html
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...entOverRow.html

2x5-8 pull-ups (only add weight if you are doing >10 bodyweight pull-ups)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...i/WtPullup.html

Accessory work (done every workout, can also do 3x/week on non-lifting days):

-Incline weighted sit-ups 3x5
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...lineSitUpX.html

Do standard weighted sit-ups if you don’t have a decline bench available, or unweighted sit-ups if you can’t do them weighted at first.

-Hyperextensions - 3x8
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...rextension.html

If you don’t have the apparatus to do hyperextensions or otherwise don’t feel you can do them safely, do “Supermans” instead. Even if you have the means to do hyperextensions, you might want to start with Supermans first.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...e/Superman.html

4-8 weeks into the workout, you can add the following supplemental exercises at the END of the last workout of the week:

Lying tricep extensions (barbell or dumbbell) 2x8-12
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...yingTriExt.html
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises...yingTriExt.html

Barbell or dumbbell curls 2x8-12
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Biceps/BBCurl.html
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Biceps/DBCurl.html

NOTE: Use the same weight for each exercise. i.e. 3x5 squats means 3 sets, 5 reps on the squat, using the same weight for all sets. This is known as "sets across", as opposed to "ramping", where you increase the weight on each work set.

Before each exercise you will want to do a ramping warm-up of 2-3 sets of 5 reps to work your way up to your “working” weight that you’ll use for the 3x5. The warm-up is VERY IMPORTANT if you want to avoid injury.

Example: if you’re military pressing 120 pounds for your 3x5, your warm up might look like this:

5 reps @ 60 lbs (warm-up 1)
5 reps @ 80 lbs (warm-up 2)
5 reps @ 100 lbs (warm-up 3)
3 x 5 reps @ 120 lbs (working sets)

If this kind of warmup seems to fatigue you too much by the time you get to the 3x5 sets, you can scale it so you do more reps at lower weights and less reps at higher weights... for instance going 1x5, 1x3, 1x2 then doing the 3x5.

Dips are done "deep", but do NOT drop into the bottom position and bounce/swing your way out. Add weight if you can to keep rep range at 5-8 or so reps for the dips and chin-ups. But it isn’t a big deal if you have to stick to bodyweight and are doing 8-10 reps per set instead.

Always keep in mind the following:

1) You have to increase the load on your muscles to progress. That means adding weight from week to week whenever possible. You have to push yourself to get results. Keep increasing weight AS LONG AS YOU CAN DO THE EXERCISE PROPERLY.

2) You have to be consistent. The difference between doing 3 workouts a week and doing 1 or 2 workouts a week is very significant.

3) BE SAFE. Make sure you understand how to do an exercise properly before attempting it. Don't sacrifice technique to add more weight - this kind of cheating will only lead to injury. Don't twist or jerk the weight around to try to get 1 more rep or lift a few more pounds. Don't blow off doing warm-up sets.

Read more here - http://newbie-fitness.blogspot.com/2007/06/starting-strength-style-workout-take.html