Better Bodies In Training

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One of the most overlooked methods of training for individuals seeking to get back into shape or just beginning a fitness program is Circuit Training.  In it simplest understanding, circuit training is a combination of resistance training and aerobic exercises designed to be easy to follow and target fat loss, muscle building and heart-lung fitness. Typically it may include 3-4 resistance exercises and 1 aerobic exercise conducted in a sequential fashion; that is, one after the other, with little to no rest in between each exercise. Typically the duration of each exercise ranges from 30-60 minutes.

A good circuit will train the entire body; for example:

1. Push ups (chest and shoulder);
2. Front lunges (legs);
3. Bent over rows (lats);
4. Sit ups ( frontal core);
5. Good mornings (lower back);
6. Jumping jack (cardio).

A special note, for those looking for maximum strength or maximum muscle size, circuit training is not the best work-out methodology. Other methods that emphasize load and intensity variations with maximum effort and more rest between sets should be explored.

The above video, sourced from YouTube, gives some good examples of circuit training sets. As with any exercise, be sure that you train at a level that is appropriate for your current fitness level and be sure that you modify any exercise to accommodate any limitation you might have.

If you would like more information about specific circuit training sets, or if you would like to participate in either our bootcamps or 1-on-1 personal training sessions, feel free to contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Source: http://www.teachnet.ie

What is metabolism?

According to Wikipedia, metabolism "is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms to maintain life.… Metabolism is usually divided into two categories. Catabolism breaks down organic matter; anabolism, uses energy to construct components of cells such as proteins and nucleic acids”.

The process of metabolism determines the rate at which your body burns calories while at rest (Resting Metabolic Rate or Basal Metabolic Rate), in motion or during exercise (PAEE). Whether you are sleeping, sitting, reading, eating, working, exercising, the body and its bodily functions are constantly moving; these movements require fuel; some moments require more fuel than others. Nonetheless, these body and bodily functions use  of energy is called caloric burn.

What is my metabolism affected by?

It is generally accepted that metabolism is affected by both controllable and uncontrollable factors. The uncontrollable factors include:

1. Sex (men tend to burn calories at a higher rate than women);
2. Age: (metabolism naturally slows 5% per decade after age 40);
3. Hereditary.

The controllable factors include:

1. Amount of lean body mass;
2. Whether you exercise;
3. What you eat;
4. How often you eat;
5. Stress levels;

How to Increase my metabolism?

In weight management (weight loss or weight maintenace,) our concern with metabolsim is how to increase metabolic rate so that you burn not just calories while exercise but also the calories while resting (resting metabolic rate). There are many theories about just how to do this. Very few, it seems have been proven to effectively work for the long term. What has been shown to work for both the short and long run is the following 7 Steps.

1. Don’t skip meals; slows your metabolism causing your body to slow down and burn less fat (fat is the primary fuel source for metabolic activities and other bodily functions, when the body is not exercising).
2. Eat smaller meals; the body makes better use of the nutrients in smaller quantities than in large quanties, after all, anything in excess is either stored, primarily as fat, or excreted like water soluble vitamins.
3. Include a snack between each meal; this reduces the chances you will overeat at your next meal.
4. Eat often: if you eat more often, but in smaller quantities, you will be priming your metabolism to work at an optimum level; also, when there is too many hours between meals, your metabolism actualy slows down to compensate.
5. Increase your physical activity level; the total amount of calories you burn includes your resting metabolic rate and the calories expended in exercise. The more active you are, the more calorics you burn.
6. Include cardio in your exercise program; the fast pace and constant motion of cardio tends to burn more calories than weight training or any other anaerobic exercise.
7. Include Weight training; even though it does not burn as much calories as cardio while working out, you are building muscles which burn more calories throughtout the entire day.

Final Thoughts?

If you follow these 7 steps, I can guarantee that you will see amazing results in the total amount of calorics burn; which will result in losing that unwanted weight. So what are your thoughts? Do you now have a better understanding of nutrition and the two major components: diet and metabolism? What has been your experience with dieting? Do you find that you have a slow metabolism? What, if anything, have you done to increase its efficiency? Your thoughts, suggestions and questions are welcomed.

Source: http://inteyesummer.files.wordpress.com

What is exercise?

According to http://www.diabetes.org/weightloss-and-exercise/exercise/what-is-exercise.jsp “ exercise [also known as physical activity] includes anything that gets you moving, such as walking, dancing, or working in the yard” Or as stated by http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/153390.php “exercise is the physical exertion of the body - making the body do a physical activity which results in a healthy or healthier level of physical fitness and both physical and mental health.” Whatever definition we use, the central understanding is that exercise is activities that go beyond the daily activities of our day. It involves some form of physical exertion that increases heart and respiratory rates.

What are the benefits of exercise?

Pick up any health and fitness magazine or book, look at any exercise program online or offline, you will find that these sources tend to list many benefits to exercising. These sources state that exercise:

1. Makes you fitter
2. Makes you healthier
3. Makes you feel good
4. Reduces stress
5. Slows down the aging process
6. Reduces cholesterol levels
7. Reduces blood pressures
8. Alleviates depression
9. Reduces Obesity
10. Improves glucose tolerance

Why do you exercise?

If you have yet to begin any exercise program, if you are just starting, or even it you are re-evaluating your current exercise program, it is good to know why you want or need to exercise. Your particular reasons will vary from:

1. seeking to get fitter and in shape (general fitness);
2. seeking to lose weight;
3. wanting to reduce inches so that you can fit into your favorite goals;
4. seeking to increase muscular strength, muscular size, muscular tone, or muscular endurance;
5. wanting to improve your cardiovascular endurance, maybe for blood pressure reasons or maybe to run a marathon;
6. wanting to increase your flexibility or range of motion because you have lost flexibility over the years;

No matter what your current level of fitness is, beginner, intermediate or advance, having a goal or set of goals will help guide your exercise program and help you assess whether or not your exercise program is effective. Moreover, it will help keep you motivated especially during those times when you feel like quitting.

What should you do?

Depending on your goals or reasons for wanting to begin an exercise program, the particular exercises you do will vary. If your goal is simply to increase cardiovascular endurance, then walking, jogging, running or using any cardio machine will make up a large portion of your program. If your goal is to increase muscular strength, tone and/ or size, then resistance training either with bodyweight or external weight like free weight or weight machines will make up a large portion of your regime. Also, if you want to increase your range of motion, be more relaxed, reduce stress, then stretching exercise like yoga will need to be incorporated into your regime. There are agility exercise, balance exercise, coordination exercise, speed and power exercise, etc… The point is that having an exercise goal or goals will determine what training modality you will incorporate into your exercise program.

Having a balance exercise program is extremely important for best results. Thus, any exercise program should have elements of flexibility training, cardio training and resistance training. This does not have to make up the entire exercise program, particularly if you are performing any technical skills training, like boxing, martial arts, gymnastics, etc… For most people however, flexibility, resistance, cardio, agility, balance and coordination exercises will be sufficient components of their exercise program. This latter description is exactly what constitutes our fitness and weight loss bootcamps at Better Bodies in Training.

Is this your experience? Are you participating in any exercise programs? If so, what are the benefits that you have experienced? Moreover, why are the goals that you have set for yourself? We welcome any contributions that you might have as a reader. After all, it is through dynamic interaction with other that we grow our understanding of how training theories and methodologies affect real people.

Featured Guest Blogger: Adrian of 36pounds.com

Bodybuilding vs. Strength training

If you train to look good and be comfortable in your own skin, which training type is better? Bodybuilding or Strength training? Which one is more effective? Which one is “the magic pill”? In this post I will answer these questions and, hopefully, help you get the best training available.

Two sides of Training

There are two approaches to training and fans of both have “my method is the best” attitude. On one side there is bodybuilding training, which is most popular today and is widespread due to bodybuilding magazines and gyms (a.k.a, Spa). On the other side there is power lifting (strength or functional) training. The latter training method is not as popular as the former; it is mostly done in basement-type gyms or actual basements. The average trainee is a bit afraid of this training because he/she doesn’t want to look big and fat; he just wants to be “ripped”.

Bodybuilding Training

Bodybuilding is training done of the purpose of looking as good as possible (having a lot of well defined muscles) and being as big as possible while maintaining low body fat percentage. The main goal for pro bodybuilders is to have the best physique on the contest day where judges decide the winner based on symmetrical and aesthetics’ grounds rather than on how strong the contestant is. Bodybuilding training therefore, is not aimed at increasing strength, flexibility or speed. Bodybuilders train more with machines to isolate the muscles in order to “polish” how the muscle looks; this type of training is conventional now and uses mostly 3 sets of 8-10 reps of isolation exercises.

Source: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/

Strength (Functional) Training

Here is a good quote from Tom Venuto, famous author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle ebook, which was very popular (and probably still is):

Functional training would help the average person develop strength that carries over into daily activities such as pulling open a heavy door, hiking up a rocky, uneven trail, starting a lawnmower, carrying a child, unloading heavy packages from the trunk of a car, or reaching up and pulling down a bulky box from an overhead shelf.

Strength training, unlike the training with isolation machine like bodybuilding, is more about free weight exercises, core training, stability balls, dumbbells (often larger ranges of motion as compared to barbells; this type of training means more muscle fibers working, which means better stimulation for muscles to grow. Strength trainers using compound movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows. Powerlifters and Strongmen, most common types of strength trainers, use this type of training. While they don’t look as good as average trainee wants to look, they are incredibly strong. They just have a lot of mass and therefore are big. One very popular way of training is 5x5 training written about in books by Mark Rippetoe, Stuart McRobert and other “old-school authors”.

Source: http://www.criticalbench.com

Look great and Be strong as an ox!

So for an average trainee, I think finding the middle road is the best option. Getting that great looking body and gaining a lot of strength is a huge thing! To accomplish this task, we first need to focus on using compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows; we should also stay away from machines and only do a few isolation exercises once in a while to keep your body from imbalance. I prefer isolation exercises not to make up more than 20 percent of total exercises (1 in 5 exercises only). While we still need to do some, trainees need to build a solid base of muscles first and only then finish off their physique with some isolation exercise work. Work your face off with Strength training and total body training three times a week with 20% of your exercises being isolation. Do this training for half a year or a year, then go on an upper/lower split bodybuilding type training to finish off your masterpiece.

Cheers, Adrian

Adrian is a blogger who writes about his personal experiences with exercises. You may read more of his posting by visiting his personal blog http://www.36pounds.com/