Strength training will probably be the hardest thing to get started now that you have cardio under your belt. The tough thing about weight training for everyone is that they do not realize how hard they are pushing themselves in the beginning and end up being sore for four or five days afterwards. For the first few workouts just go through the motions and do not push yourself to hard so that your muscles can recover from these initial workouts.

Weight lifting bodyparts

The body can be split into eight muscle groups: shoulders, chest, back, biceps, triceps, Quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. We are going to start with a two day split right off the bat so that the workouts do not take as long and so that you can recover half of your body each day instead of the whole body. On Mondays and Thursdays you will work shoulders, chest, triceps and calves. On Tuesdays and Fridays you will work back, biceps, quads and hamstrings. Today we will look at the Monday/Thursday weight workout. Read the rest of this entry »

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New medical studies continue to pile on evidence that maintaining a healthy weight is the number one factor in fending off disease and living longer.  There is also a tremendous social pressure to lose weight for one who has extra fat on his/her body.

The most common area where one usually wishes to lose weight is on his/her belly.  While there are no ways to specifically target the fat around the midsection, a few powerful tips for weight loss in general can be applied to lose that spare tire.  Here are four of them:

It is important to incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your weight loss program

Anything that gets your heart rate up and leaves you feeling winded when you’re done is generally good for losing belly fat.  Some exercise ideas include riding your bike, walking, running, swimming, or aerobics.  Do any of these activities for 30 minutes, four to five times a week, and you will generally be getting the proper amount of cardiovascular exercise. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that you have decided that you are going to start doing weights and doing them at home I am sure that you are starting to think of all of your options and when and how and how oftern. Well I can answer those for you.

The best way to get started lifting weights is to setup a schedule. For most people starting to lift weights the best time to start lifting is Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings or mornings. Mornings have to be the best bet because as we all know the day seems to have it’s own way of breaking up our plans for the evening and consistency in lifting weights is the key.

I find in getting started lifting weights you should do a bit of circuit training. The turbulence training program talks about how to do this but in essence this is what you do. Make sure that you stretch and warm-up and get yourself nice and loose and then do 10 reps of each of the following as one long set.

1. Bench press (for chest)

2. One armed rows (back)

3. Military dumbbell presses (shoulders)

4. Lunges (legs)

5. Curls (biceps)

6. Tricep extensions (triceps)

7. Situps or crunches (abs)

That should take you about 5 to 7 minutes and after that you deserve a bit of a rest. After you have done them all like this once you will be winded but after a 2 or 3 or even 4 minute rest you will be able to go again and do the same thing.

Try to do three sets of this routine. It should not take you more than 20 minutes to half an hour. If you do not know how to do each exercise then go to youtube and find the exercises.

After you have done this I hope that you feel a great sense of accomplishment. Doing weights like this is a great way to get yourself into better shape and after doing this three times a week for a couple of months you are going to feel stronger then you have ever felt in your whole life and your metabolism with be moving faster therefore helping you lose more weight. Another thing to remember about lifting weights is that any muscle that you gain will force your body to burn a lot more calories just for maintenance so you will have a bit of a double whammy to aid you in your weight loss.

One last thing. The day after your first few workouts like this your muscles may be sore. If they are very sore then you can take some aspirin to take away the pain but as the day progresses the muscle pain will go away. This is natural but if it is really bad soreness that you are feeling then it is important not to push yourself quite as hard as you did last time.

If this workout causes more then just soreness. There is a chance if you are not warmed up properly that you can pull a muscle. If this is the case I really urge you to go to a doctor and make sure that you are not hurting yourself. Doing weights is about making your self healthier not hurting yourself.

Now that fall is in full swing and the baseball playoffs are winding down most of our exercise is going to need to take place indoors instead of the outdoors that it is so easy to do in the summertime. There are of course two kinds of exercise, weights and cardio.

First I want to apologize in advance to any hardcore weightlifters here. Most of this stuff is a bit of a review for you.

Sometimes I think that everyone of course lifts weights on at least a weekly basis. Of course this is not fair as most people, although well meaning, have never lifted weights in their life and are not about to join a gym to start lifting weights this week.

The simple fact is that the more muscle that you have the more calories that you body will need to burn in order to maintain your weight. This fact alone should make any person looking to lose weight to start looking at the gyms that they drive by.

The simple fact is that if you have never lifted weights just think of this time between now and the beginning of the New Year as the best time to start warming up to the idea of lifting weights. If you start lifting some kinds of weights at home then you can get stronger, build muscle mass and when the new year comes with all of the gyms giving great deals to join you will have a better idea if you want to join a real gym or not.

First of all I think that it is easy enough to get some light weights that you can start lifting with at home. Either look in the classifieds in your local paper or go to the local pawn shop or used sporting goods place and get some 5, 10, and 15 pounds dumbbells, women can probably get away with 2.5, 3, and 5 pound weights to start with.

So what if you have no weights at home? First of all are all of the regular calisthenics that we all know. You can do things like push-ups for your chest, shoulders and triceps, lunges for your legs, and sit-ups for your abs.

If you would like to start doing weights proper then you have many options. Look around the kitchen and you probably have some heavy bottles or cans that you can do bicep curls with, you have kitchen chairs that you can do front laterals with. There are many options and if you look around I am sure that you can improvise with what you already have.

I will write another article this week about what kind of workouts to do exactly but this week why not just try to find a few kinds of exercises that you can do around the house if you have no weights and if you can beg, borrow, or steal some weights it will make things a lot easier