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Since at least the 80s people have been listening to music during their workouts while running and in gyms around the country hard rock music is always being played. If you are a runner I have just run across a piece of free software that will help you to choose music better for your workouts. The software is called Beat Scanner.

The idea behind Beat Scanner is that when you are running the music that you listen to may motivate you but also there is a switch in the pace of the songs and the pace of your running. Beat Scanner will analyze the beats per minute of the music that you have in MP3s on your computer so that you can make up a better playlist to listen yo on your ipod when you are out running. As I am not much of a runner i have nottried this software before but i would love to get some input as to how good people find Beat Scanner and whether it works well for them

As you can imagine top athletes are very particular with what they eat and when. I was over at a running blog today when I ran across the following article about Carb cycling.

Crib Sheet on Carbohydrate Cycling at Her Active Life

The basic idea behind carb cycling is that you eat every day based on the next day workouts. Some top athletes will build their eating around bog events as well as seasonal patterns of training and working out output.

Even if you are not really at the level of fitness and athleticism to take advantage of a concept like carb cycling this is a nice peek at what the real elite athletes think about when it comes to diet.

How long should you exercise? Experts say that you should exercise for at least 20 minutes a day. I don’t know about you but 20 minutes is not a long time to exercise. If you get up just 10minutes early and get 20 minutes of exercise the you will have to rush around and still get to work on time.

20 minutes for exercise is easy to find.

If you have dinner a few minutes early and then do the cleaning up and have your workout before starting your evening routine you will never miss the time. If you are really ambitious you can wolf down lunch and go for a walk or some other exercise at lunch.

20 minutes exercise twice a day for the extra ambitious

How about getting some exercise on the way to work. I feel blessed that I can ride my bike to work but soon the weather will turn too cold aqnd I will need to drive. But you can just park a few blocks from work and walk to work. After work you get that time to unwind walking back to the car or the bus or train.

Try to be creative. There are many ways to get exercise every day and if it is important you will find the way.

I have written quite a bit over the last week about what you need as far as home fitness equipment goes but thought I would just round out this week with an overview of what you should have for equipment. So here is what I think that you should try to accumulate over the next while.

Mats - The most basic piece of fitness equipment is an exercise mat. You need an exercise mat for doing stretching as well as for doing abs and an exercise mat is always good for lying on when you are tired from a tough set or some cardio

Dumbells - Dumbells are those short bars with the weights on them. Who cares about them all matching but you want to probably have pairs of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 pounds and sometimes even a pair of 3 pound weights are good to carry while you are running or doing other cardio. These all come in handy for lots of your weight exercises

Barbell - This is just a big long bar. The barbell bar weighs I believe 20 pounds although ones at the gym will weight 45 pounds. Then of course you need weights to put on this bar. Remember that anytime that you are using a barbell you are lifting more weight and in the case of bench presses or even military presses you can get yourself into real trouble if you do not have a spotter. Read the rest of this entry »

I was in the midst of writing an article about losing belly fat and how spot reducing does not work for losing belly fat when this email from the creator of turbulence training came to me. It seems that he has evidence that belly fat can be reduced through weights and circuit training but not strictly fromn cardio and situps

But did you know the best way to burn belly fat is a shock to most men and women?

Even most personal trainers usually guess, “Crunches”, “Situps”, or “aerobic cardio” as the best way to lose stomach fat.  But none of those work best, or even work at all!

In fact, I often get asked, What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly? Do aerobics work better than interval Iraining? Does resistance training help at all? What should I eat to lose stomach fat? All of those are common questions.

But here’s the truth. Cardio is not the best way to burn fat.

In fact, I’ve met very few people who have successfully used cardio to lose stomach fat. And most of those people were young men, and anything works for them when they want to burn fat.

If you want to lose stomach fat fast, you need to increase the intensity of your workout by using both resistance training and interval training to lose stomach fat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stair climbers have long been a mainstay piece of equipment in many home fitness centers. They are considered to be the third most popular choice in home exercise equipment that is available today.

Stair steppers are simple to use since they simulate the beneficial action of climbing up stairs. Of course, with real stairs you are done when you reach the top, but with this fitness equipment you can continue climbing as long as your legs endure.

Why are stair climbers good
One of the reasons that stair climbers are so popular is that they are very effective at strengthening and building the muscles in your legs, thighs and buttocks. These large muscles are responsible for a great deal of overall body strength and are also responsible for a large percentage of the calories that you burn each day. Once you build up this group of large muscles, the effects on your metabolism will be significant because a faster metabolic rate equals more calories burned.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an article on what to look for if you are out in the marketplace for a treadmill. A treadmill is a great piece of equipment to have around the house because it simulates walking or running and can be supplemented with hand weights to try get a bit more of a workout out of the equipment, Be careful of your coordination though.

If you are going to buy a treadmill it is indeed a very good investment as exercising in the open or going to a gym might not be equally possible at all times. The climatic conditions are the main hurdle along with the availability of time for a professional person to go for a fitness program at a certain time daily. Keeping one’s own treadmill at home can solve this problem, making it possible to exercise daily according to one’s own ease.

As there are to be seen various varieties and styles of treadmills available in the market, choosing one to fit you and your home best becomes quite difficult. Making a checklist to narrow down your search would be a good option that will help you in selecting a good equipment for you.

By making a checklist and researching for the different makes, you may be able to buy a good treadmill for you.

Add Various Guarantees Offered To Your Checklist
There are different assurances provided by various treadmill manufacturers, ranging from 2-5 years or may be of 10years. While checking the warranty, you must get it clarified whether it includes the motor only or other parts of the mechanism are also guaranteed .
Read the rest of this entry »

I am trying to get a jump start on the winter for everyone by finding some great articles on how best to look for and buy exercise equipment for your home. Most people will just join a gym to use expensive exercise equipment but really there are many reasons to instead buy fitness equipment. I have a few pros and cons on this.

Buying Exercise Equipment

Buying exercise equipment is not for everyone and can be expensive. First things first, I do own some exercise equipment. I have written about this before but I have a exercise bike and a elliptical trainer and these are trade in used exercise equipment that we got from trading in our older, other equipment that we bought years ago. It seems to be a great way to me to buy high quality equipment and then trade it in for other equipment when you are bored of it.

OK, so how much will it cost? I think that a good piece of exercise equipment costs between 500 and 1,000 dollars so this really is a big expense for most people. I remember getting crappy stair climbers in the 80s and they just ended up being good clothes hangers just as my elliptical trainer is but at least the elliptical trainer gets used for working out as well.

Priority of buying cardio equipment

The key to buying and using cardio exercise equipment is the schedule and commitment to use the equipment. I hate to say it but if you pay a bundle of money for exercise equipment it will be a motivator to use the equipment, not only that but the equipment will be smooth and comfortable to use. Find a daily time that you will use the treadmill or bike. I think that if you do not use the equipment in the morning then try to use it in the evening while you are watching TV. It is good exercise and the scheduling will force you to commit.

One last thing. Using cardio equipment over time can become really boring for most people. The best way to use cardio equipment is to get a distance goal to hit. Pull out a map and look at some distances that would be fun to drive to that you can simulate with your new or old exercise equipment. Maybe a roadtrip of 100 miles this month or a great roadtrip trip over the course of a year.

So for the rest of the week I am going to scour the internet for some great buying guide type articles, stuff that I will learn from as well as you so that the next time that we go out looking for exercise equipment we will be able to make better decisions.

In a paper published in The Journal of Physiology, Helge, Stallknecht, Richter, Galbo, and Keins from Copenhagen shed light on fat oxidation during exercise and physical activity. Their observations suggest that fat oxidation during exercise reflects a fine interplay between the cardiovascular, neurological, endocrine and muscle metabolic systems.

During exercise and physical activity, the primary fuels used by muscles are carbohydrate and fat. When mild exercise is performed there is a tendency to burn relatively more fat and less glucose, but as exercise becomes more intense, a higher fraction of the energy demands of the muscle are supplied by glucose, until at the highest intensities almost only carbohydrates are used. Is this shift in fuel source a property of the muscle itself, or does it represent the interplay between what is happening in the muscle and the exercise-related responses in the rest of the body”

The study, performed at the Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen, examined muscle fuel utilisation in response to graded exercise performed with only one leg. Nine healthy males performed one-leg exercise at 25, 45, and 85% of maximal workload. Their results showed that, when only a small mass of muscle is contracting, and blood flow and oxygen supply are not limited by central circulatory capacity, the shift in fuel source from fat to glucose as exercise intensity increases does not occur.

The Journal of Physiology findings show that the adaptations in the rest of the body are the key to this fuel source shift during whole body exercise. They also help scientists understand why athletes “hit the wall” during events like the marathon, and they have implications for the adaptations made in middle-aged adults who are using exercise to prevent or treat conditions like diabetes and obesity. If the mechanisms can be fully understood, it may be possible to develop agents that allow fat oxidation to be maintained even during intense exercise with a large muscle mass.

Interval training is a way of doing cardio that will give you the ability to make gains in time and distance much more easily than any other method. The principle of interval training is that you push yourself really hard and then you slow down.

This repetitive form of training leads to your body needing to adapt to changes and this is really great for you. The body begins to build new capillaries, and is better able to take in and deliver oxygen to the working muscles. Muscles develop a higher tolerance to the build-up of lactate, and the heart muscle is strengthened. These changes result in improved performance particularly within the cardiovascular system.

When people begin running they automatically do interval training where they will alternate walking and running to get a better workout in. As people get better at running they will start just running and not stopping until the 30 or 60 minute run is over. The upside of this is that you will get a much better workout and feel fantastically exhausted at the end, the downside of interval training is that you are going to be pushing your comfort zone so the workout itself is going to be painful

So how can you implement interval training into your regular workouts? I have a few examples. When you begin running as I said before you are going to have trouble running for any length of time so you decide that you are going for 20 minutes and you will do cycles of jogging for 30 seconds and then walking for 30 seconds. As you get better at running you will be able to jog for one minute and then walk for 30 seconds. You will notice that your rest stays the same but the running time increases until you get to the point that you do not need a rest for your 30 minute run.

As an advanced runner you are not going to slow down for a walk but instead your will run for 5 minutes and then break into a spring for 30 seconds or a minute and then slow back down to your regular pace. As another way to do interval training you can go to another location that is more hilly and use the uphills to change up your pace. The hills are going to force you push harder to keep the same pace and of course the downhills are going to use different muscles but as far as exertion goes you will find the running easier.

Try interval training soon either indoors on a treadmill or outdoors as long as the weather cooperates.