Feb.9.2012
Exercise, Health and Fitness Blog
Examples of Killer Circuit Training Routines
Circuit training can be very effective. It shouldn’t be the only type of workout that you can do, but a couple of times a week can be excellent for fat and calorie burning, strength building, and improving your cardiovascular system. There are many types of circuits you can do. Here are 3 types of circuit workouts.
Set Time Density- Perform the exercises you pick as many times as you can in a given amount of time. Here’s an example of this circuit: Do 30 push-ups, 15 jump lunges, and 5 pull-ups. Then start over. You go through this as many times as you can in 10 minutes. You’ll know your fitness level has increased as your density increases. (This means you are able to do more sets of this in 10 minutes.) You can rest as long as needed, just make sure you go the full time you set originally.
Variable Time Density- The difference between the Variable Time Density workout and the Set Time Density workout is that here you do 4 sets of the example I gave previously and see what time it is at the end. You know you improve when your time goes down. Remember on both of these that you can rest as long as needed. This one you just don’t end until you complete the number of sets you set for yourself.
Set Rest Circuit- In this type of circuit you don’t rest more than the allotted time you set in the beginning. Here’s an example. Perform Burpees for 30 seconds, rest 30 seconds, jumping jacks for 30 seconds, rest 30 seconds, repeat from the beginning. You would also set how many times through you will do this routine before you start. In this example you can perform the exercises for a set number of seconds or reps like the first two examples. (The first two examples have to be done with reps because the variable is time and if you say you’ll do an exercise for 30 seconds in that one then you can’t improve.) A major difference between this one and the previous two types of circuit workouts is that here you rest no more than the time allotted.
Another way to modify the previous three circuits is to use heavy weight instead of body weight. Perform heavy squats or heavy shoulder press or heavy bench press for a set number of reps (5) or set number of seconds (10). Also, remember the key on these is speed. Slow reps will not get you the results you are looking for. This means you need to choose exercises you are good at keeping good form. That being said, form is important, but can be sacrificed a little for speed. It can’t be sacrificed a lot, but a little is fine.
These circuit routines would go perfectly along with my book The 6 Week Workout Program. If you are interested in that please click here.
Nov.16.2011
Nutrition and Wellness
Speed Up Your Metabolism
I don’t know why I haven’t written an article about this sooner. You can speed up your metabolism! I’ve discussed many exercise and nutrition topics with my friend Mike T. Nelson. He is the creator of, “Metabolic Flexibility and the Truth About Proteins, Fats, and Carbs”. The goal is simple: your body will be able to burn WHATEVER you put into it for fuel. This will increase your energy and allow you to burn more fat! (Click the link to find out HOW!)
I listened to Mike’s audio recording about metabolic flexibility (you can read it, but I chose to listen to it) and loved it. It is easily the most practical, research based, usable, and results producing program I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen many, many, many of them).
“Metabolic Flexibility and the Truth About Proteins, Fats, and Carbs“ uses intermittent fasting, correct fat choices, and minimizes unnecessary carbs among other things to help you have a faster metabolism. It’s unbelievable. (Click the link to find out MORE!)
Below you will learn of how learning to be metabolically flexible will do EVERYTHING I say it does.
Practical
You don’t have to eat something strange that you can only find at a weird health food store at certain points in the day to see results. It’s actually quite the opposite. The goal is to be able to eat whenever is convenient for you and be able to burn it. Mike’s program (I call it a program, but that’s just for a lack of a better term, it’s not really a program) makes this possible for you.
Research Based
Mike does an excellent job of understanding which scientific research is important and which scientific research isn’t. He references studies constantly and tells you exactly what it means for you. It is NOT a boring lecture.
Usable
Metabolic flexibility is a concept that is to be used immediately. It’s not just theories of how weight loss occurs. He makes losing weight and being healthy easier than any other diet I’ve ever seen.
Produces Results
“Metabolic Flexibility and the Truth About Proteins, Fats, and Carbs” gets results. Mike gets better results with clients than anyone I’ve ever known. You are bound to get the same results! If it doesn’t work for you, he promises to refund your money so you can’t lose.
Please feel free to email me via my contact form with any questions you have. I have personally used many of the concepts and methods that Mike details in “Metabolic Flexibility and the Truth About Proteins, Fats, and Carbs“. Click the link to speed up your metabolism! This is the easiest program ever to follow and it gets the best results. You may wonder if I have any incentive of this selling. Yes, I do. I do get a portion when you click on the previous links, but if you have a problem with that then click this link. I really do believe in this and I want you to get results.
Sep.16.2011
Nutrition and Wellness
I know the title seems extreme… it is. It’s catchy. Seriously though, in this article at ironwarriortraining.com I outline 3 reasons that you are fat.
1) You pass your health off to someone else.
2) You eat mindlessly.
3) You eat processed pastries.
Reading this article may help you in your own life or how to help someone you know that is overweight. I hope you enjoy! “Top 3 Reasons You Are Fat!”
Sep.14.2011
Nutrition and Wellness
Overcoming Food Addiction for Effective Weight Loss
You may think that food addiction is an overrated term for those who love to eat. We have to admit, eating is a necessity to live a healthy and robust life. Some people consider it a pleasure, especially when tickling their taste buds for trying something new. However, there are individuals that crave for more than what they can chew, even when their body tells them that they had more than enough. It may happen to you or to anyone else. This needs to be avoided to become free from obesity, depression, and low self-esteem.
Food Addiction is Psychological
Being addicted to food has nothing to do with your tummy grumbling and succumbing to its demands. Your brain has the power to control it, and that is where everything starts. If you are eating at times, where you are not supposed to eat, like experiencing depression, sorrow, anger, guilt, and stress, that is where the bad habit forms. Your mind is giving you the impression that eating will make you feel better. However, you will notice that you are more inclined to take it repeatedly because your body is getting used to the joys of eating; just like taking prohibited drugs.
Symptoms of Food Addiction
Yes, there are signs that tell if you are already suffering food addiction or not. Take not that these symptoms are as less obvious as you think, so weigh it critically. Here are most of them:
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You are already thinking of what you will eat for dinner while you are eating lunch
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Your mind buys the food that you will eat, even though you have never actually taken a thought of buying something in a particular store
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The shop owner or vendor already knows your favorite or usual order
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When you plan on eating a light snack and already including your heavy meal after enjoying the small treat
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When you cannot wait to eat the food you bought from the store, either munching it in the car or eating it in the street
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When you keep going back to the kitchen or the fridge and emptying everything little by little
Breaking Food Addiction
Once you have noticed the signs, which can make you laugh and think it’s time for you to take some action and break it. Do not haste yourself in breaking the habit. Resolve it nice and slow. You can start at home by eating slower and munching your food well. Make sure that you swallow your food before taking in another bite. This advice may seem instructions for a five year old; you will be surprised at how it affects your mind towards food.
Brenda Lyttle is a health expert who began writing for publications in her community in 2005 and now commands an authority in writing on healthy living, fitness, HGH reviews, and anti-aging related topics. She is also a strong believer of the goodness of GenF20 Plus , a popular HGH supplement, but insists that exercising can never be replaced by any supplement whatsoever.
Sep.6.2011
Health and Fitness Blog
Plyometrics are popular for two very different groups. They’ve been popular for a long time for athletes that have a goal to be quicker and more powerful. More recently they’ve become popular for non-athletes who are looking to be trim. These can burn a lot of calories! My article at Ironwarriortraining.com is titled “Plyometrics: What are the 2 main reasons to do plyometrics?” Read it now for more information on plyometrics.
Sep.1.2011
Exercise
To circuit train or not to circuit train is a question many consciously or unconsciously ask themselves. Circuit training is part of many popular workout programs (i.e. P90X). Circuit training can be great for burning calories and creating definition. However, circuit training is not good for everyone everyday. Read my article at IronWarriorTraining.com titled “Circuit Training- Why you would or wouldn’t use circuit training“.
Mar.15.2011
Health and Fitness Blog, Nutrition and Wellness
Weight loss is on many people’s minds. Many try to lose weight and don’t. Many lose weight, say “Hooray” and then gain it back again. There are lots of tactics, techniques, theories, diets, workout programs, pills, and supplements geared toward weight loss. I love “2 Things Necessary for Weight Loss… What are they?” because it has true facts about what is necessary for weight loss. It discusses the problems with studies about what is necessary for weight loss. This gives way to the fact that a caloric deficit and a need for weight loss are key to losing weight and maintaining that weight.
Get these fabulous gym workout routines for women today! You deserve it!
Jan.3.2011
Exercise, Nutrition and Wellness
SPECIAL OFFER
- WHEN: January 3, 2010 – February 1st, 2010; email me by the last day of this offer and you will receive free fitness coaching
- WHAT: New Year Resolution Fitness Coaching- Many are setting fitness and health goals for 2011; many people make mistakes when setting goals. I am offering a totally free service with no strings attached (no future advertisement emails, no selling your email, etc.). If you email me requesting my coaching service I will send you a list of questions for you to answer regarding what you think your goals should be, what you like to do for physical activity, your diet preferences, etc. I will then be able to counsel you and help you set goals that are achievable and healthy through exercise, activity, nutrition, and lifestyle. We will exchange as many emails as needed to accomplish this.
- HOW: Email me at nick@sixweekworkoutprogram.com or contact me by clicking the following link: Contact Nick Rainey!
- WHY SHOULD YOU? Many people set goals or resolutions to improve their fitness, health, or body composition each year. Many also end up frustrated or not achieving their goals. If you have or have not set goals email me so I can help. If you would just like me to review your goals I can do that. If you don’t know where to start I can do that as well. Their is no way for you to lose.
- WHY AM I DOING THIS? I am doing this for a few reasons. 1: I really want to help people improve their health, fitness, and self-image. 2: It won’t take a lot of my time to email you and even if it does that means I was able to help a lot of people. 3: Hopefully you will come back to my site and refer other people to come to my site. 4: If The 6 Week Workout Program is appropriate for you I will recommend it. If it’s not, I won’t recommend it. It’s worse for me if someone invests in my book and doesn’t like it or doesn’t benefit from it because then you’ll tell others.
TALK TO YOU SOON!
Nov.23.2010
Nutrition and Wellness
America is being consumed with an obesity epidemic! This is, at least, what the media and some researchers would have citizens believe. Newsweek published an article called “Culture of Corpulence” and calls childhood obesity an “epidemic and America “the world’s preeminent fat-making machine” (6). Words such as this would strike fear in anyone and make it seem a foregone conclusion that America is fat and dying because of it. The fact that the number of obese persons has gone up is not debatable. No one disputes that obesity has risen in the United States (2). How significant is the rise in obesity and its consequences is debatable.
Four questions need to be addressed. What are the different interpretations of the obesity data? Is obesity really causing increased mortality? Does the weight need to be changed or the lifestyle? Can long term weight loss be safely achieved and should it be achieved? These questions and their answers determine the severity of the problem in America and what can and needs to be done about it.
The Data
Populations’ weight is classified according to Body Mass Index (BMI) data. BMI is determined by dividing a person’s mass in kilograms and dividing it by their height in meters squared. Overweight is defined as 25.0-29.9 BMI and obese is classified as greater than 30.0 BMI (1). It is a fact that the number of obese persons has increased. However, contrary to popular belief obesity is not rising frantically and out of control. What has happened is a simple, small shift over arbitrarily set thresholds of overweight and obesity classifications. Campos et al. made an analogy of obesity with IQs. If IQs were an average of 100 and then rose by 7 because of improved education, the correct analysis would be that IQs had risen slightly. A shift of 7 points in IQ level could put 10% of the population at genius level whereas previously only 5% of the population was in the genius category. The analysis could now say that the number of geniuses had doubled. This is similar to what has happened with obesity. A slight increase of weight of people near those thresholds has caused the percentage of people in the overweight and obese categories to rise astronomically (1).
Obesity Causing Mortality?
No matter how the data is interpreted and no matter if the actual numbers are relatively low if the weight gain is causing mortality then it is a concern. Studies are not conclusive on the answer of this question (8). Manson et al. did research with the Nurses’ Health Study data and determined that all-cause mortality is directly correlated with BMI. The lowest mortality rates were associated with BMI’s below 19.0. The risk rose steadily until 27.0 when the risk was 60% greater than the referent group that had BMI’s below 19.0 and was considered statistically significant. When the researchers controlled for the variables hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia they found that the relation between all-cause mortality and BMI was attenuated, but not completely erased. They chose not to control for these variables because the researchers believe that these variables are effects of obesity (8). This belief, however, is not universally held either. It is possible that these conditions cause obesity (1). It has also been found obese people can be fit and void of these conditions (2). It should be noted that the study by Manson et al. had a longer a lot of data over 16 years to draw conclusions from. This time frame can be very beneficial. A flaw may be that 98% of their women were white and all were nurses- not exactly a random sample.
Other research has shown a U- or J-shaped association between BMI and all-cause mortality. In one study, according to Campos et al., persons between 25.0 and 29.9 BMI had 86,000 fewer excess deaths than the referent group of 18.5-24.9 BMI. Another study showed that the lowest mortality rates occurred between BMIs of 23 and 29. While persons with a low BMI of 19.0-21.0 had the same risk for mortality as 29.0-31.0 BMI. It was also noted that a significant increase in mortality did not occur until BMI’s reached upper 30s or higher (1). Gasser showed a similar finding that low BMI’s had were associated with mortality rates greater than average or even above average BMIs (4).
A study conducted by Landi of hospitalized patients also found U-shaped association between BMI and mortality. The lowest rate of mortality occurred in patients with BMI’s between 25.0 and 27.4. Older patients, contrarily, showed highest mortality rates at the lowest BMI’s and only a slight elevation at the highest BMI’s (7). This study illustrates that BMI can be an important predictor of mortality among young and old patients.
Often people believe that BMI is just a quick and easy way to determine what body fat percentage likely is and that it is actually the body fat that determines health and mortality rate. However, research consistently shows BMI to be a more effective indicator for determining health and mortality rate than body fat percentage. This shows that build, not body fat percentage is the more important statistic to find out. Nonetheless, it has been proven that body fat around the hips and thighs is likely protective. The amount of fat in these areas has a negative correlation with cardiovascular disease (1). This finding concurs with the research done by Manson et al. where they found that waist-to-hip ratio was a better indicator for cardiovascular disease (8).
Weight or Lifestyle?
Some persons are in “dangerous weight” categories. These would be BMI’s at high 30s and beyond levels. These people will be healthier if they lose weight. Some people in the overweight and obese categories may not necessarily benefit from losing weight. Independent of weight loss, increasing aerobic fitness and increasing physical activity, has been shown by researchers to reduce mortality rates. The reduction of mortality rates from making this lifestyle change is greater than the reduction of mortality from intentional weight loss (4). In other data, as stated by Campos et al., low cardiovascular fitness was the reason for all of the “excess all-cause mortality among men.” Similar results of fitness and mortality were shown for women (1).
Weight Loss: Can and Should It Be Done?
Yes weight can be lost and kept off. McGuire et al. conducted a random phone survey. They found that 47-49% of people who had lost at least 10% of their maximal weight had been able to keep it off for a year and half of those people were able to maintain that for at least 5 years (9). This is encouraging for those who need and desire to lose weight. However, note that the data was self-reported and it makes no mention as to whether the weight the subjects maintained was a healthy weight. Jakicic et al. also found that weight can be lost and kept off. They found that subjects needed to exercise 275 minutes each week and reduce energy intake to 1200-1550 kilocalories per day (5). They did say that intervention was needed to sustain that type of energy output and intake. This would be very difficult for most people to do on their own. Finally, Franz et al. also found that weight loss and the maintenance of that is possible. They studied eight different interventions and found that an average of 3-6% was lost from baseline data 48 months later (3). This is encouraging, but again, it makes no mention of whether the subjects’ new weight was at a healthier level.
It is obvious that weight loss is possible, but no dose-response effect is shown in weight loss intervention studies (1). This means that the more weight a person loses the reduction in mortality risk does not continue to decrease. In studies where intervention was done there was decreased mortality in groups that lost a little weight, a lot of weight, and even gained a little weight (1). This shows that weight loss may not be necessary.
Discussion
Obesity is a topic of great interest; thus, the reason for so many studies done on the subject. It is possible to lose weight (albeit, not easy), but it seems to be the lifestyle- not weight- that is the most important aspect of mortality rates. It was not shown that the people that were able to lose weight were healthier, just that they were able to lose weight. In all studies reviewed, it seemed that BMI did correlate with mortality rates, but they did not all agree. Only one showed a positive correlation between mortality rates and BMI. The others showed a hyperbolic relation. Age likely plays a role in how important BMI is. Older adults do not seem to be affected by a high BMI, but high BMI’s in younger populations likely indicates an unhealthy lifestyle. Nevertheless, not every American is gaining weight and the ones that do gain weight are generally not rising dramatically. They have just crossed arbitrary thresholds and the percentage of people in overweight and obese categories has risen by large percentages.
Obesity issues will continue to be researched, discussed, and written about. The four questions concerning data, mortality causation, weight versus lifestyle, and plausibility/necessity should be the basis of the literature. The fact that obesity is rising is not questioned, but an “epidemic” is extreme and obesity should not be looked at in such terms.
References
1. Campos P, Saguy A, Ernsberge P, Oliver E, Gasesser G. The epidemiology of overweight and obesity: public health crisis or moral panic? International Journal of Epidemiology. 2006; 35: 55-60.
2. Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Kuczmarski RJ, Johnson CL. Overweight and obesity in the United States: prevalence and trends, 1960-1994. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBESITY. 1998; 22: 39-47.
3. Franz MJ, VanWormer JJ, Crain AL, Boucher JL, Histon T, Caplan W, Bowman JD, Pronk NP. Weight-Loss Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Weight-Loss Clinical Trials with a Minimum 1-Year Follow-Up. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2007; 107: 1755-1767.
4. Gaesser GA. Thinness and Weight Loss: Beneficial or Detrimental to Longevity? Official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. 1998; 1118-28.
5. Jakicic JM, Marcus BH, Lang W, Janney C. Effect of Exercise on 24-Month Weight Loss Maintenance in Overweight Women. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2008;168:1550-1559.
6. Kalb C. Culture of Corpulence. Newsweek. 2010. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/03/13/culture-of-corpulence.html
7. Landi F, Onder G, Gambassi G, Pedone C, Carbonin P, Bernabei R. Body Mass Index and Mortality Among Hospitalized Patients. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2005; 160: 2641-44.
8. Manson JE, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA, Hunter DJ, Hankinson SE, Hennekens CH, Speizer FE. Body weight and mortality among women. N Engl J Med. 1995; 333: 677-685.
9. McGuire MT, Wing RR, Hill JO. The prevalence of weight loss maintenance among American adults. International journal of obesity and metabolic disorders: journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity. 1999; 12:1314-9.
Nov.3.2010
Nutrition and Wellness
While weight loss is an important goal for many, but it should not be THE GOAL! Going on a diet and having a healthy diet are two separate things. You cannot lose weight on one diet and then return to your previous diet and stick at the weight that you ended up on when on your diet. It is fine to change the things you eat and experiment with different diets, but all diets should be geared to find healthy eating patterns that you can have for your entire life. I watch what I eat pretty carefully, but I do not stress about eating something “bad” every once in a while and I decide where I am willing to sacrifice and where I am not willing to sacrifice. This is a paradigm that everyone should have. Different opinions on food and diet is a must if people are going to be secure with their food and send the obesity trend in the opposite direction than it is currently going!
For more on healthy weight: “Finding Your Ideal or Magic Weight”
