Friday, June 29, 2012

What is Cardio?



Cardio

What is "conditioning"?

Conditioning, or Aerobic Conditioning, is training your cardiovascular system pump blood, and thus oxygen, throughout your body better. Conditioning and cardio are generally synonyms, though conditioning is a more accurate term.

If I want to be more conditioned, do I need to run?

Not at all. Running and sprinting are very good ways to condition yourself, but there are many other options. Jump rope (for time) is a classic example. Burpees are also a good choice for conditioning: try doing the maximum number of reps in a given time period, like 10 minutes.

How do I start running?

Try the Couch to 5km (5 km = 3.11 mi) Program (here is the chart), and check out the running subreddit.

Why does running hurt my knees?

You run wrong. Hyper-padded shoes reduce nerve feedback to fool you into heel striking (contacting the ground on the heel with a straight leg). The human leg is amazing. If you jump, you can land nearly soundlessly by bending at 4 different locations: toes, ankle, knee, and hip. All the force is spread out and absorbed by the muscles not the joints. You want this same feeling while running. Run on the balls of your feet, with shorter strides. Yes, it may be slower while your body adjusts, but it will save you all the knee damage. Consider barefoot running, or shoes with less padding.

I want to up my running mileage.

To increase mileage read How to Add Running Mileage Safely to allow your body to get used to the increased load. Never try to lose weight while training for an event, especially half and full marathons.

Why does my skin get itchy when I run?

It's called "exercise-induced urticaria", a milder form of a very serious condition called "exercise induced anaphylaxis". Histamine is a vasodilator, and your vessels dilate to increase blood flow during exercise. If you get too much, too fast, it gets itchy- just like during an allergic reaction. You can take loratidine (Claritin)/cetirizine (Zyrtec) for it before you exercise to decrease the intensity.

Swimming and Cardio

Swimming is highly effective cardio exercise BUT generally only effective for experienced swimmers. For new swimmers, poor technique means uncontrolled breathing and gasping, leading people to believe that they are exercising much harder than they really are, when in fact they are only suffering lack of oxygen. The most important initial step in swimming is to get stroke analysis as a basis for improving the stroke.
A great way to get into swimming for people who are interested is taking adult swimming lessons, then joining a masters (read: 18+ years old) team in your area. Such teams are usually cheap or free and will almost always happily accept swimmers of any skill/experience level. This will allow you to continue to improve your technique, work out with a coach (which is generally more effective than doing it on your own), and give you motivation to get in the water on a regular basis!

What can you tell me about the value of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) or Tabata?

Check out this recent academic article reviewing definitions of HIIT and its benefits. If you are interested in starting a HIIT sprinting program, here is a website which describes a novice program. Some good threads can be found here and here and here.

Call credit goes to Reddit Fitness Thanks Reddit!!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Losing Weight for beginners



WELCOME!




You are here because you want to lose weight. I'm glad you are making the choice to change and live a healthier and longer life.
I'm 24 years old
5' 8''
183lbs
2 Years ago I was over 240lbs.
Now I range around 180-186 and feel great!
I want to share to you REAL experience with the struggle of losing weight and what I have learned.
As you can see the picture of me I'm not super cut or super fit. but i got to where I am. 

Let me first start off to say that losing weight is mostly about mental strength.
Mental strength is how strong your mind is so that you can endure the difficulties in the challenges that are forthcoming your way.  Once you get the mental strength down it will become easy for you to lose those pounds and burn those calories.

Today I will start off with DIETING.

Step 1. DIET
Diet does not basically mean to STOP EATING EVERYTHING THAT IS FATTENING. 
What you eat is your diet. Simple.
If you were to monitor what you eat/drink everyday how would you rate your diet? Healthy? 
For the DIET section of my weight lost, I stopped eating nearly all carbs and took in only complex carbs before NOON.  Lets look at what are GOOD Carbs vs BAD Carbs
Good Carbs - Whole Wheat, Brown Rice, Old Fashion Oat Meal. 
Bad Carbs - White rice, potatoes, french fries, white bread, milk,  etc.... (almost anything that is white)

            Your brain needs carbs to function efficiently therefore We cannot cut out all carbs.
Bad carbs break down too quickly and turn into sugars fast in which is stored into your body and then turns into FAT. Complex Carbs have a longer break down process.  Lets say you were busy with school and work that you couldn't exercise.  Well the complex carbs would still be slowly breaking down that day and would not turn into sugars and fat as fast as the bad carbs.

            I also stopped eating RED MEAT and focused mostly on SKINLESS Chicken, turkey and fish.  I baked all my meats and steamed/boiled all my veggies. Eat small meals and CHEW A LOT. CHEW the food until its like rice porridge in your mouth.  This may sound gross but it helps your body absorb the nutrients better and also tricking your stomach into thinking that you ate a lot of food, in return making you full much quicker.  Stop drinking SODA and JUICES. Soda and juices have TONS OF SUGAR that your body does not need!

A few tips to help improve your diet.


1. Remember how your mind and body feels depends on what you eat.


2. If you eat greasy fatty foods you will become lethargic.


3. DO NOT SATISFY YOUR CRAVINGS. You will crave for them later on and you will likely have more "cheat days."  Stop the craving completely and you will not run into this problem.


4. Drink a lot of water! Not sure how much water to drink?  Take half of how much you weigh and drink that in ounces.  So if you weight 100 lbs, drink 50oz of water daily!      


5. SHOP AND PREP YOUR FOOD.  Most people jump off their diet because they can easily run to down the street and eat fast food.  If you prepare your meal you will eat it.

6. Last but not least.  If it is available you will be more tempted to eat it! Get RID of all the junk food in your house!  Knowing that the big bag of chips is in your pantry does not help you mentally with your diet. GET RID OF IT.











This is all I have for the time being. I will be editing this post for small fixes or to add additional information.
If you find my article helpful please subscribe, share and comment below.
If you have any questions go ahead and comment below

Thanks and STAY tuned for Workout Routines!

P.S Before and After shot.