Tag Archives: Workout

The Best Things To Do Before You Exercise

If you have a trainer that you meet with regularly or not so regularly you know it is important to get the most out of your time and money that you have invested. All too often clients come in unprepared to get the most of our their session. It essentially turns into wasted time for the client and the trainer.

It can be a myriad of factors some out of your control and some within your control that lead to not being 100% for the session. Today we are going to look at a few things that are crucial to getting the most our of your training. These will be tips to best prepare your body and also how to get the most out of your trainer when you are training.

These tips also apply to your workouts with friends or your own personal workout. It is important to be properly fueled and prepared every time you exercise.

Come to your session prepared, mentally and physically.

Sleep – It is always important to get a good nights sleep. I know it can be tough with things out of your control. However, if you shoot for six to eight hours your body will be rested and ready to take on the challenge of your workout.

Ideally the following hydration and food recommendations would occur up to two hours before your planned exercise session.

Hydrate – Drink water before your session and take sips about every 15 minutes while you are exercising. This is easier if you workout in the afternoon or evening. If you workout really early in the morning (Good for you!) try drinking a full glass of water once you wake up.

Drink the water...drink the water
Drink the water…drink the water

Proper Food – You can eat some healthy carbohydrates here. The following are some good options that are on the lighter side, low-fat or fat free greek or regular yogurt, oats, banana (add a little peanut or almond butter to it), a piece of whole grain bread with lunch meat.

If you only have a 5 – 10 minutes to eat something go with an apple or banana. Those fast digestions carbohydrates will help fuel your workout.

Foods to Avoid – You want to avoid foods with fats and also foods with too much protein. These foods take longer to digest and may make your stomach uncomfortable during intense exercise. Once you start exercising with a high intensity your blood flow goes to your muscles that are working. Thus, leaving the high fat food just sitting in your stomach like a rock. There is reduced blood flow to the stomach to break down this food while you workout.

Warmup – Get a warmup in before your session starts. They are important to making sure your body is ready to handle the demands you are about to place on it. If your trainer has you do specific movements to get ready, do those before you meet. This will save 5 minutes at the beginning of the session and you can be ready to jump right into the workout for the day! The warmup should get your heart rate up and maybe even have you sweating a little bit. It can be anything from walking up an incline, riding a stationary bike or running at a moderate pace.

Take advantage of every second with your trainer by getting this out of the way before your designated time slot!

Things to do during your workout.

Hydrate – As mentioned earlier it is important to stay hydrated! I recommend my clients take a small sip of water every 15 minutes.  With this time table they stay hydrated but don’t drink so much water at once that they feel like there is an ocean in their stomach. We have all been there and that is not good when you are on your last ab set!

Ask Questions! – I encourage all my clients to ask questions about certain movements or as to why we are doing things in a certain order. If you have a trainer and you ask questions and they don’t know the answer……change trainers! You are paying for the session so use us as a knowledge base. Did your friend show you a great ab exercise and you want to know if it is effective? Ask! We are in this business to help educate you and help you along your fitness journey. Bring questions of all types and pepper some into your workout.

Stay Focused – It can be very easy to get sidetracked and begin talking about your weekend plans for 5 minutes. We have all done it and sometimes it just happens. However, try to keep that conversation as succinct as possible during your breaks. We program a lot of your workouts based on rest intervals so it is crucial you stay as close to those as possible to achieve your results.

HAVE FUN!!!

Sparkle Shirt Optional
Sparkle Shirt Optional

Exercise is about feeling good and having fun. So meet up with your trainer or your friend or get in by yourself. Whichever method you choose, enjoy it! It is the hour of the day you get to focus all on yourself! Take advantage of the time to yourself and get healthy at the same time!

Fuel up and take on your workout!

Find Your Routine

Sustainable food, why not sustainable exercise?

How regular is your fitness routine? Do you find yourself going 1, 2 or 3 months to the gym then falling off? Things get too busy, weather changes, travel is too much, kids? The list is endless. 

There has to be a way to have an exercise program that you can fit in when you are on the go or you just don’t have access to equipment. Good news, there is and it is not as difficult as you may think!

The key to staying active and healthy when life gets hectic is to find small pockets of the day where you can fit movement in. The key word here is movement. It doesn’t have to be exercise in the way that everyone thinks. If you can get your body moving for as little as 30 minutes a day you will see feel the changes.

How do I fit in 30 minutes is a question I get a lot during the day. If you are really strapped for time you can break it up into 10 minute segments that will total your 30 minutes.  For the best results you need the three 10 minute segments to be at an equally high intensity. You have to get your heart rate elevated enough to give you benefit (over 65% of your heart rate max).

The following are some simple ideas to get in more movement without going outside of your daily routine too much. These are lower intensity movements that can be applied in addition to the 30 minutes of higher intensity movement.

If you drive to work, park farther away in the lot. I know people say this a lot but trust me it makes a difference!

Walk to lunch if it is under a mile away and there is a sidewalk or nice walking path available. Not only will it get the blood flowing before lunch. It will aid in digestion after you eat. I don’t think anything is more pleasant than a nice post lunch walk! 

If you have a choice between and escalator and stairs and you’re only going up a couple flights, take the stairs. This is another example of the little changes in your routine make a big impact.

Oh those stairs look good.
Oh those stairs look good.

MAKE TIME!!

Your health is one of the most important things that you are in DIRECT control of. Use that to your advantage. Be selfish here, think of yourself first. Schedule time before work, at lunch or after work. If it is only 30 minutes it will still have a positive impact. During these 30 minutes is when you want to crank up that intensity. You’re going to sweat here so get a towel!

– Interval Sprints (Look at our Dynamic Duo post and you can do that by yourself)

– A six exercise circuit. Pick six full body exercises and do them without a break for 15 repetitions and repeat 3 times.  After you complete the circuit rest for two minutes.

For example here is quick routine.

1. Pushups

2. Bent Over Row

3. Squat to Overhead press

4. Walking lunges

5. Jumping Jacks (30 seconds)

6. Step up with Bicep curls

Use tools to help you achieve your goals.

There are a bunch of great apps out there (Map My Run, Strava, My Fitness Pal) and also fitness tracking gadgets (Fitbit, Jawbone, Old Fashioned Pedometer).  The more accountability you have the more likely you are to see achieve your daily goal. You can set a step goal for the day and try to reach it by the evening. In my experience if you are 700 steps short and it is a nice summer night, you will go for a walk to get those last 700 steps. Instead of sitting on the couch because the work day has wiped you out. It is that feeling of accomplishment that will keep you on track everyday.

All of these apps have the ability for you to connect with friends.  Even if you do not have a trainer to see everyday you have a friend or family member to keep up with. If you are having trouble sticking to your routine challenge a friend! It will keep you both going strong and give you both something fun do during the week.

Accountability can go a long way in creating habit.

Now that you have been armed with easy to use information, get up and use it! Walk to the water cooler, do a few laps up the stairs, or just go walk to lunch!

 

Pump Up Your Playlist

We can almost all agree, the music we choose sets the tone for our workout. A recent study showed that participants who got to listen to music of their choice performed better in their workouts. Over the group who either listened to no music or the group who listened to music they didn’t like.

In essence we need our music or genre to drive our success in the gym on most days!

So below is a list of songs you may or may not have heard of. I have sorted them by genre to make it a little easier to choose what you might like. That way you don’t have to plug and play all of them to find out what kind of jam it is!

I hope you enjoy these songs and perhaps you will find two, three, or ten songs to add to your playlist! I have tried to pick songs you might not already be rocking out to.

Rock:

Adelitas Way – Invincible

Anberlin – Self-Starter

Anberlin – Someone Anyone

Arctic Monkeys – R U Mine?

Beware Of Darkness – Howl

Greek Fire – Down in Mexico

The Raconteurs – Salute Your Solution

West Water Outlaws – Caught in the Headlights

Wolfmother – Woman

Wolfmother – Joker and the Theif

Hip Hop:

Eminem – The Monster

Fort Minor – Remember The Name

Kanye West – POWER

Lupe Fiasco – Around My Way [Freedom Ain’t Free]

Travis Barker ft. Pharrell and Lupe Fiasco – If You Want To

X-Ambassadors – Jungle  – (Personal favorite, 2014 World Cup Song)

Dance/Electronic:

Kaskade ft Neon Trees – Lessons in Love

Pendulum – Crush

Pretty Lights – I Know The Truth

Ratatat- Loud Pipes

Sleigh Bells – Comeback Kid

Swedish House Mafia – One

Best Song to Run to:

Woodkid – Run Boy Run (Instrumental)

Those are some of the tracks that I have been recently turning up to 11. Whatever song gets you going is the best one for the day. So hit the play button and turn it up.

What songs get you motivated? What genre drives your workouts?

 

 

 

Dynamic Duo Workout

We all know how hard it can be to get up and get moving on your own. We also know how much easier it is once we have someone to motivate and encourage us. That can be a coach, trainer, friend, anyone really!

The point is having someone to hold you accountable and help you succeed is huge, whether you are starting or maintaining your fitness program.

Today we are going to focus on fun games and things that you can do with a partner if you have little or no access to equipment. These are workouts you can do in the park, by the beach or anywhere with a little open space. The key to all of this is to remember, it should be fun! Your imagination is the only thing that will limit the games you can come up with. The only goal should be to stay active for 30 minutes ( that includes your rest periods!)

Workout 1 – Catch me if you can

– Find an area such as a park or beach where you can easily mark out either two lanes or a small oval.

– Then proceed to do the following with the distance of your choice

– Time down and back or around for person A, then they rest and time person B

– See who has the best time, then repeat this with the following intervals

– 2 times around or down and back, 3 times, 4 times, 5 times.

– After the 5th round descend back down to 1 going 4,3,2,1.

– Your rest times should increase as your intensity increases.

To make it really fun, race with the person on the descending rounds!

Bragging rights and high fives to the victor!

Workout 2 – Partner jog with Sprints

– Head out like your normally would for a jog with your partner or dog (they love these!)

– As you jog each person will designate a time to sprint, as you go. Switch back and forth until each person has a had 5 turns. So you will have done 10 total sprints. If doing this with your dog you will have to call their sprints out.

– It is as simple as yelling “GO!” The sprints should be short enough to give 80-90% effort for the entire length.

– Try to pick even terrain, but bonus points if you choose a hill to climb on the sprint.

These are just two different ways to add some variety and fun to your outdoor workouts. You have the freedom to create any workout from a simple start point. The more creative you can be the more fun you will have. Bring more people in the mix and make it a workout for 3, 4 or even five of your friends!