MultiSport Training and Racing

Home fitness programs are great, but it can be hard to get started if you are new to serious exercise, or just don’t have the motivation. Read this article and make sure you don’t make these mistakes…

Three Common Mistakes Made When Starting a Home Fitness Program

(Article By Christine Harrell)

Home fitness programs can burns fat and tighten tummies in a fun and exciting way without ever having to leave home. However, the simplicity of a home workout program often leads to simple mistakes that cause the program to be ineffective, or even to stop using the program altogether. Avoiding these mistakes will have you looking better, feeling better, and losing inches off your waste in no time.

Overzealous Starting

Home fitness programs are designed to use a full routine of dance moves to tilt, tuck, and tighten your body into the shape it was meant to be in. Often times, people forget the basic rules of starting a fitness program. To prevent hurting yourself and get your muscles responsive to the exercise, warming up is a necessary step each time you start a routine.

The intensity of the entire program also means that it is critical to start out gradually, one program at a time. You might feel good after completing the first program, but if you overdo it, you will definitely notice it later. This cuts into the enjoyment of the program, reduces its effectiveness and may cause you to throw in the towel before you’ve reached your goal.

Failing To Use The Tools Provided

Many home fitness programs come with several helpful tools to help you use the program properly and see results quickly. The nutrition guide helps to ensure that you are eating the foods you need to keep up with the program.

The variety of different routines included in the fitness program keeps things interesting and works different isolated muscle groups. To help you figure out which program to use each day, some home fitness programs come with a power tracker that when used properly, allow you to get the best results possible with the program. If at any time you begin to lose willpower or have questions, many offer online support groups to help.

Inconsistency

Not using a home fitness program on a regular basis is one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make when using a home fitness program. It takes all of the hard work that you have already put into the program and tosses it right out the window. Muscles need to be used on a regular basis to keep them building, and when workouts are missed these muscles relax and begin to regress to their former shape.

Getting off to a good start with a home fitness program is the best way to ensure you will achieve results. Start with a good warm up, make use of the additional tools, and use the system on a consistent basis to keep you going with the program and get the results you have long been after. When you have reached your goal, set a new one and keep going!

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Hip Hop Abs, visit http://www.extremebodyworkout.com.

Healthy eating should be everybody’s main goal especially in today’s world of instant and pre-processed foods. We are living in the world where the food arrives fast, portion sizes are increasing and the numbers on the bathroom scales are creeping up.

The benefits of healthy eating are insurmountable. Let your food be your medicine. Food is more powerful than any prescription weight loss pills, because the food that you eat can either make you thin or fat. What you will get is a better life, longevity, an ideal weight, and a perfect figure (plus you should cut seconds or even minutes off your times on the race course!)

The choices we make greatly affect our health. Making a few simple healthy and nutritious changes in our dietary choices can have a profound and positive impact on our health, well-being, energy levels and life span.

Usually the whole diet thing is easier said than done. But take a look at this one called Smart for Life, which is a medically supervised life-transforming weight loss program, with the goal to make you disciplined and sensible in your lifestyle. And to look and feel better than ever, but every diet program makes that claim

But good news - you don’t have to starve yourself in pursuit of permanent weight loss. This cookie diet (yes, a cookie diet) based on smart food products is a medically supervised weight-loss offer and weight maintenance plan.

They promote a balanced lifestyle and champion simple healthy habits. With their meal-replacing smart cookie squares you don’t need to always worry about feeding cravings or feeling deprived. They are full of nutrients, amino acids, and fiber which suppress hunger while still supplying the body with the protein it needs. Smart cookies develop smarter eating habits by teaching patients to eat smaller meals more frequently during the day.

Seriously, smart cookies. I’m not one to promote any diet program, but anything with “smart cookies” will at least catch my attention!

I know my butt is a big deal when I’m running or riding my bike. It’s a big powerhouse, so I like to maximize the potential strength in there. This article should help you do the same…

How To Build A Better Butt

An article by: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS (of www.TurbulenceTraining.com)

No matter if you are a guy or gal, you want exercise to help you build a better butt.

I remember when I first realized how much women cared about guy’s butts. I was in University, working as a trainer, and heard through the “grapevine” that one of the trainers thought I had a great butt.

My first reaction was, “Huh? Girls care about guy’s butts? And here I’ve been wasting my time on my arms and pecs”. So after getting over that shock, my next thought was, “Hmm, so what am I doing right? And how can I keep this information all to myself so no other guys knows about it!”

So I went through my workouts, analyzing each leg exercise for maximum “butt boosting”, and came up with a list of 5 exercises that are essential to building a better butt, especially someone who wants a more athletic type of workout and body.

After all, I trained “athletically”, not with bulking bodybuilding type workouts. And as the trainer who designed workouts for the female basketball team, I could “see” that those workouts were building better butts for girls as well!

And no, these workouts don’t involve any stupid machines like the “butt blaster” or the machine that looks like it should only be found in an OB-GY clinic.

The exercises are going to be working the glutes and they will all be done standing up. The first exercise is the squat, using a slightly wider than normal stance - as that allows you to push your hips back more which helps you work the back of your legs more when you squat. Push your hips back, squatting down, squeeze your glutes and come back up.

Next is a split squat, one foot forward one foot back. Drop your hips straight down and then squeeze the glute and quad to come back up.

Next is the reverse lunge, step back, drop hips down and squeeze glutes to come back up to the start position.

Next is the step up, stand far back from the bench, and step onto the bench, drive through your heel to use the back of your leg to raise you up, come down slowly.

Last perform a Bulgarian split squat, perform a regular split squat with your back foot elevated. Drop your hips down and tighten your glutes to bring yourself back up.

Do 2-3 exercises twice per week. Do 1-3 sets of 8-12 reps. Lose fat, build muscle, and you’re set.

About the Author
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

In most health and fitness articles on major news sites, the author usually gives some generic advice, getting it wrong half the time when it comes to practicality.

Along those same lines, most articles bash sports drinks and energy bars for having too many calories or for containing carbs (which happen to be essential energy, for doctors who don’t get it.)

Luckily I was able to read a real article about sports drinks and hydration at MSN.com, which does a decent job getting good content.

Two main points, right on the money:

- Low intensity exercise under 1 hour, just stick with water to stay hydrated. That’s all you need.

- For high intensity exercise like serious running and cycling, get a real sports drink with carbohydrates and electrolytes.

Although he goes a little overboard with this guideline:

“During exercise: Drink 7 to 10 oz of water or sports drink every 15 minutes while engaged in the activity.”

Holy crap, that’s 40 ounces per hour! Two water bottles full!

And then he mentions water intoxication and hyponatremia. Well duh, if you consume 40 oz water every hour, you better believe it! (Not to mention pee breaks!)

I’d say more like 4-8 ounces of sports drink (such as Gatorade Rain) every fifteen minutes, depending on the weather. 4 ounces of sports drink every 15 minutes, or 16 oz per hour, should be plenty in most circumstances.

32oz in one hour on a 120 degree day, perhaps.

What’s the latest book to be featured on all the morning talk shows? From what I’ve seen, it’s Eat This, Not That. What’s the topic of all conversations? Keeping your new year’s resolution to lose weight. What pills are we seeing everywhere now? Diet pills.

Are you seeing the trend? Everything these days is about diets and weight loss. I swear there is a new diet every single day! It works because if one diet doesn’t work, a person just moves on to the next one in the list of revolutionary weight loss diets. And the cycle continues as new diet ideas, books, and pills line store shelves and lure in buyers with claims of quick and easy weight loss.

It’s fine with me though. If everyone went by the standard “burn more calories than you consume,” I wouldn’t have anything good to write about! And there would be no use for a site I found called the Diet Debate website.

If you couldn’t have guessed, the site is about the debates surrounding popular diets. I’m game for a debate or two, though.

Let’s start with the Atkins diet. You know, the low-carb one. (Or the “not a good choice for endurance athletes” one. One Powerbar puts you over the daily limit for carbs!)

Supposedly Atkins “teaches your body to burn calories more efficiently and as a result is said to lessen fatigue, depression, and muscle pains.” Maybe, but if you’re not consuming carbs, will your body process carbs more efficiently?

Some downsides include loss of energy and lack of fiber. I think I’ll stick with my carbs.

This is fun! I’ll debate one more: Weight Watchers. This one is definitely popular - I see their ads all the time! I kind of like it, too, since the dieting part is based on limiting caloric intake. In other words, it does kind of follow the “burn more than you consume” strategy.

But there are certain problems - for instance, you can eat whatever you want. You might lose weight by only eating a slice of pie each day, but that doesn’t make you healthy. You’re much better off with a variety of whole grains, protein, and plenty of veggies (even if it all adds up to a few more calories.)

(If anyone wants me to discuss more diets, leave your comments below!)

Theirs a somewhat informative interview with Danny Dreyer over at this running site. I found out about Danny after seeing this “chi running” program that improves your running (also reviewed at this site.)

As a triathlete i’m always looking for ways to improve my running, because by the time I swim and bike, i am worn out!! So if I can run efficiently, it helps me finish a race.

So this interview was neat. It was mainly about eating right with a few mentions of good running form. About as long as a book, holy cow it took a while to read.

But useful enough I thought I’d pass it along.

What is a good energy drink? The FRS Health Energy drink is pretty good. But do you want an energy drink?

I think the coolest thing is the FRS health chews. Antioxidant health chews according to the review.

However, they could just as easily be called “energy chews” because they do give you energy.

Carry a few on your bike so you can get energy mid-race.

I get shin splints when I run. Running hurts. Do I run for fun? Obviously not, if it hurts. But I want to stay fit and active.

Well possibly I can run easier if I try this running idea called ChiRunning. ChiRunning sounds like a good idea, so I might try it. Coach Levi seems to like the DVD.

I’lll think it over. I mean, avoiding injuries is worth whatever they charge. Heck, it’s gotta be cheaper than doing permanent damage to my knees!

Big problem when summer hits - overtraining. I am but one athlete, but I ride a lot and always come close to overtraining.

But funny thing is, there are other ways to end a season…

I love this - secret to ride strong all season long

click the link to see what it is

Coach Levi has done it again - today he reviewed yet another cool new beverage - Fiva.

Coach Levi’s Fiva review discusses all the good stuff about it, and it sounds pretty good. “Tart berry” is the flavor.

Get Fiva Day!