photo © Daryl Furuyama

“Aren’t there days you just don’t feel like working out or eating clean?”

“How do you find the motivation to workout?”

I get asked questions like these all the time. Here are my answers:

Yes, of course I have days where I don’t feel like working out or eating a clean meal every 2-3 hours. I am human! But, on those days, I dig deep and remind myself of my goals and where I want to be at. Once the day is over, I feel a sense of accomplishment that I sucked it up and still gave 110% toward my workout and diet even though I didn’t feel like doing it. It will only reflect in my results, and put me that much closer to my goal anyway. (This is also why I make sure I have a cheat meal on Saturdays.)

I find the motivation to workout through magazines, photos, Facebook pages, websites, knowing my goals and what I want, and quotes. I also find the majority of my motivation through people who have been following my journey. I can’t explain the feeling I get whenever I receive a message from someone wanting to learn more about my journey, how I did it, how they can do it, congratulating me, and the most heart-warming messages of them all – the ones where they are telling me that I inspire and motivate them!

I am always doing research on training, eating clean, and fitness shows. My Facebook and Twitter newsfeed is full of fitness models’ and fitness magazines’ updates. They are constantly posting motivational quotes and photos. I especially love Pinterest for this. I have a couple of boards on there named Fabulous Fitness and Eat Clean Get Lean. They are filled with photos and quotes pertaining to fitness and staying motivated to workout.

I want to share with you my personal top 10 favorite quotes that help me get and stay motivated.

Motivational Quotes

1. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryuh
2. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.” – Fred Devito

3. “Fear is what stops you. Courage is what keeps you going.” – Unknown

4. “Clear your mind of can’t.” – Samuel Johnson

5. “Just do it.™” – Nike

6. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

7. “The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.”- Arnold

8. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” – Taras Brown.

9. “To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” – Buddha

10. “There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.” – Paul Bear Bryant

Do you have favorite quotes you like that help you stay focused and motivated? If so, share them with me!

Happy training!

www.localfitness.com.au

I’m just going to put it out there – I detest cardio. But, on the other hand, I love what it does for my body!

I am putting in a lot of cardio workouts these days as I prepare for my upcoming fitness competitions. I want to share with you my top three cardio workouts that work for me.

Workouts

1. Step Mill

This is by far my favorite cardio machine! It works my legs and glutes, and I’m able to skip steps, run them, perform glute kickbacks, and even do calf raises. My time on the Step Mill flies by because I’m constantly able to change up my routine.

Word of warning: if you’re a beginner on this machine, make sure you hold on until you get comfortable enough to do it without holding on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tripped. It’s funny and I just laugh, but if you’re the shy type, you might find yourself embarrassed should this happen to you.

2. Treadmill

I actually can’t believe I’m listing the treadmill as one of my top three cardio workouts, but I have developed a liking for it.

The maximum time I spend on the treadmill is 20-25 minutes, unless all I’m doing is walking, then I’ll go for 30 minutes. I’ll walk at the highest incline for 30 minutes and lean forward the whole time so I’m really targeting my legs and glutes. I make sure to switch up my strides every few minutes from long, slow strides to short, quick ones (sometimes I even throw some lunges in there just to mix it up). My speed varies from 3.0 to 4.0.

My other option is setting the incline at whichever height I want – depending on how intense I want my workout to be – and I’ll sprint for 30 seconds and either jog or walk for 1 minute. I repeat this for a total of 10 sprints.

3. Arc Trainer

The arc trainer is fun for me when I want something else besides the Step Mill and treadmill.

I’ll switch the resistance anywhere from 30 to 100 and do sprint intervals. The incline is always at 10 (the highest it can go) so it really targets my glutes and hamstrings. Again, I’ll sprint for 30 seconds and slow it down for 1 minute. Sometimes I’ll push myself to sprint longer depending on how I feel (I always listen to my body – this is a very important habit to get into!).

So, the next time you’re in the gym, try one of these workouts! Happy training!

Photo © Thomas Rosenau

Photo © Magen Petit

Confused as to what to eat after your workout? Simply put: carbs and protein.

You should try your best to make sure you’re getting this meal in immediately after your workout. The maximum length of time I’d go is an hour, but ideally within 30 minutes of completing a workout. Personally, I eat this meal as I’m leaving the gym, but then again, I always have food with me. Can’t go around starving! That would do nothing for my muscles or my metabolism!

What Kind of Protein?

The best source of protein for your body after a grueling working is a whey protein powder. I mix Gaspari Nutrition’s Probiotic Myofusion with water in my BlenderBottle®.

Liquid meals digest quicker than a solid food like chicken or tuna, and the whey protein powder is the fastest digesting form of protein out there. In the end, your muscles will be happier and thank you.

What Kind of Carbs?

First, you should know that not all carbs are bad, especially after working out. After your workout, carbs will help your body restore your glycogen levels that were depleted. Eating carbs will help build any muscle tissue that has been broken down.

Another thing to note: “good carbs” aka complex carbs (oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potatoes) contain fiber and other nutrients that slow down digestion. After working out, you want something that will digest quickly. Simple carbs do this, which means foods like white potatoes, white rice, or white bread are great choices for a carb source after your workout.

Of course, it’s even better if you can get it in a liquid form! The abovementioned will definitely do the trick, but if you want something that’s fast-acting, then I’d suggest dextrose. Dextrose is a type of sugar that is usually found in sports drinks.

Yes, you can actually have sugar, but in your post workout meal, which is when your body can handle this! My choice of dextrose, however, is not a sports drink. Instead, if you ever see me leaving the gym, you’ll notice I’m snacking on gummy bears. That’s where I get my dextrose. (The red ones are my favorite!)

About an hour-and-a-half after having my post workout meal, I’ll eat my next meal, which – for me – is usually my second-to-last or last meal before I head to bed.

Happy eating!

7. Sports Tape

I use sports tape is a safety measure for when my calluses decide to rip up on me or if the bar decides to scrape my knee on the way up during a deadlift. Sports tape works much better than bandaids at taking bar punishment which allows you to finish your workout without spreading your germs all over the bar.

Sports tape also comes in handy as thumb wraps if you do a lot of hook gripping with your lifts.

6. Chalk bag & chalk

Chalk will give you a better grip on the barbell. When I’m in the 90%-100% 1-rep-max range, I make sure I chalk up my hands so I don’t have to worry about any bar slippage (so that I can focus more on performing the lift).

Aside from giving you better grip, chalk also helps prevent calluses from forming and ripping up.

5. Hand lotion

Now don’t laugh at me here, but hand care is absolutely essential to every weightlifter. The last thing you want is to be limited by your hands while the rest of your body is completely able to perform. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, after a lifting session, always wash your hands thoroughly with soap, towel dry, then lotion up to prevent callus formation.

4. Small notebook & pen

I use a small spiral notebook and a pen to keep track of my lifts. I like to record my lifts on a small notebook because it’s faster than any electronic devices, it won’t fail on me, and I can always go back to see how I did in my previous workouts.

Once I go home, I copy what I wrote into Fitocracy (<– invites here!) so I can see pretty graphs.

3. Shaker bottles

I keep a couple shaker bottles handy with different supplements in them. I usually have one shaker filled with pre workout supplements and the other filled with peri-workout supplements or post workout supplements. They are almost a requirement if you want to train hard.

2. Weightlifting straps

Sometimes gyms won’t let you use chalk so the next best alternative is to use weightlifting straps to move all that weight while not tearing up your hands. In my opinion, the muscle driver USA straps are the best straps for the money (and they are the same ones that olympians use).

1. Proper weightlifting shoes

If you intend to do any snatches, cleans, jerks, or ATG (ass-to-grass) squats, weightlifting shoes are absolutely essential. Due to the slight lift in their heels, weightlifting shoes will allow you to be more comfortable at the receiving position. They also help you to be more stable when you explode into position.

If you are more of a powerlifter (bench, squat, deadlift), you might want to look into getting some Converse Chuck Taylors, Vibram Five Fingers, or any other form of flat shoes.

My Gym Bag

By the way, I recently upgraded from my dinky old gym bag to a OGIO Big Dome Duffel bag and couldn’t have been happier. The bag has a separate shoe compartment, is durable, and is large enough to fit a lot of goodies. I highly recommend getting one bag per physical activity you do so you can just grab the right bag and go with no time to waste!

There was a point in my life when I was overweight. At that weight, I was still able to play basketball and run many miles without any issues. I knew I was strong and athletic, but I was still fat nonetheless. So one day I decided to lose fat by going on a cut. It shouldn’t be too hard right? All I have to do is do cardio, eat less, and I should be there in no time. Boy, was I WRONG. I ended up being flabby skinny and ended up losing a bunch of my hard earned muscles.

I then decided that I wanted to gain muscle, so I started amping up the lifting and started eating more. Guess what happened. I was fat and athletic again. At which point I thought, “WTF? There must be something I didn’t know.”

Of course there were many things I didn’t know at the time about fitness but one important one was:

Nutrition Partitioning

Favorable nutrition partitioning is the idea that you want the nutrients you eat to go fuel your muscles instead of being stored in your adipose tissues as fat cells. So it sounds like the key to nutrition partition is to control where the nutrients go, right? Yup! That’s correct!

So how do I control where the nutrients go? By controlling your Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL) activities in certain areas of your body.

Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL)

Lipoprotein lipase is an enzyme responsible for hydrolyzing triglycerides in lipoproteins into two free fatty acids and one monoacylglycerol molecule. [1]

There is a lot of biochemistry involved here, but I’m going to keep it short by going over just the part that matters to us fitness enthusiasts.

LPL is widely distributed in the adipose tissues (this is the stuff you want to shrink), heart, skeletal tissues (this is the stuff you want to retain or grow), and lactic mammary glands.

Wherever there is high LPL activity, that’s where triglycerides will get broken down into fatty acids and:

• If the fatty acids are floating around in the adipose tissues, there is a chance that they will get stored. (DO NOT WANT)
• If the fatty acids are floating around in the skeletal muscle tissues, there is a greater chance that the fatty acids will get used up for energy. [2]

How to Control LPL to Get Me Ripped?

So you’ll want your LPL activity to be high in your skeletal muscle tissues and low in your adipose tissues to make body recomposition easier. Here’s how you can manipulate your LPL activity levels in these areas.

Photo © First week of January 2012 (l.) and Feb. 29, 2012 (r.)

Ripped abs, toned abs, flat abs… one of the most sought after body parts people would like to have.

I believe we all have ab muscles, but most of us have a layer of body fat that hides them. Take me for example: the photo accompanying this article is of me. The photo on the left is from the first week of January. The photo on the right is from February 29.

With a change in my diet and dedication to the gym five to six times a week, I was able to see my abs again in about two months. It IS possible and CAN be done!

Diet is the most important factor for getting your abs right – ever hear of the expression “Abs are made in the kitchen”? Exercising and weight lifting will help define your abs. Don’t forget, we all have uniquely shaped abs (aka genetics)! After all, every body is different!

Diet

Maintain a diet that’s fairly high in protein (chicken, fish, bison), moderate to low in fats (peanut butter, nuts, oil), and moderate to low in carbs (sweet potato, brown rice, fruits). Be mindful of the size of your portions with each meal, and be sure you’re eating every two to three hours to help speed up your metabolism. Are you drinking enough water? I’m at a gallon or more a day – and believe me, it helps a lot! Just be sure you have access to a bathroom… or that could be a problem!

Exercise

Any core work you do with a stability ball or Bosu ball will absolutely help strengthen your midsection and help make your abs pop. You can perform regular crunches, planks, ab roll, ball rotation, knee tucks, etc. on these types of balls.

If you want to make your muscles bigger, what do you do? You lift heavier. So you can add some weighted exercises to the mix to increase the size of your ab muscles. You can perform weighted crunches, weighted twists, weighted toe touches, etc.

Finally, exercises like the plank and others that you can hold for a few seconds at a time will help show the muscularity of your muscles.

To Add to That…

To help burn more fat, consider doing high intensity interval training (HIIT) for your cardio. An example is hopping on a treadmill and sprinting for 30 seconds and either walking or jogging for one minute. Repeat this anywhere from six to 10 times and you’ll not only cut your workout in half, but you’ll still burn the same amount of calories, if not, more!

The biggest thing I cannot stress enough is your diet. Eat to fuel your body!

Happy eating!

Gamma Labs took my feedback quite seriously and now they have just released a new revamped packaging to include 33% more PTF per bottle for the same price.

Priced competitively, now the price works out to about $0.90 – $1.80 per workout session depending on how sensitive you are to stimulants. Woot!

Gamma Labs Pre-Training Formula Contest

How to Win

For a chance to win, all you’ll have to do to is:

• “Like” the Gamma Labs Facebook page
• Write ”TweakFit sent me!” on their wall.

The contest ends Wednesday 3/14/12 9pm PST. Winners will be announced and contacted directly after contest ends. Good luck!

New to TweakFit?

Why it May Work

Honey is composed entirely of sugar, a simple carbohydrate that quickly dissolves into the bloodstream and provides a quick source of energy. This is why carbohydrate-based beverages and bars are highly effective for providing instant energy during exercise. Honey, however, is composed of about equal parts glucose and fructose. Nearly all carbohydrates are ultimately converted to glucose after consumption, at which point they provide fuel for our body’s cells. Any unused glucose is stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver. Fructose dissolves much more slowly than glucose, providing more sustained cellular fuel (energy). Honey is unique in that it provides both quick and prolonged energy. For this same reason, honey helps restore the glycogen the muscles use to perform activity during exercise.

Honey is also believed to have wound-healing and immune-building properties that may promote injury recovery.

What the Research Says

The research exploring the relationship between honey and exercise performance is still somewhat sparse.

In one study, subjects who underwent an intensive weight-lifting workout and subsequently consumed a protein solution mixed with either honey, sugar, or maltodextrin. The honey group maintained blood sugar levels longer during exercise and more favorable glycogen restoration two hours following exercise than the other two groups.

A 2001 study, summarized by Scientific American, tested the effects of honey on a group of cyclists. Researchers had nine competitive cyclists pedal 64 kilometers per week for three consecutive weeks. One group was given honey, another a dextrose gel, and a final group a flavored placebo. The honey and dextrose groups both outperformed the placebo group, although the dextrose group slightly outperformed the honey group as well.

A 2009 study, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, investigated the effects of a honey-sweetened beverage, compared to a traditional carbohydrate beverage and a placebo, on a 90-minute soccer simulation. Following the study, results demonstrated that neither the honey nor traditional carbohydrate group outperform the placebo group.

Additional studies have produced fairly similar equivocal results.

Conclusions

Honey certainly has numerous health benefits, such as carbohydrates, antioxidants, anti-bacterial enzymes that promote immune system function, and an array of vitamins and minerals. However, the paucity of research investigating its role in exercise performance are insufficient to support claims that honey provides an extra edge in the gym. Honey is likely equal to similar carbohydrate-based beverages and bars in its ability to provide energy and restore muscle glycogen following exercise. Future research may shed light on honey’s additional ability to improve performance in any way.

Hypertension, a very specific cardiovascular condition linked to stress, is a major health problem in the United States — affecting more than 65 million individuals each year. Hypertension is correlated to cardiovascular disease risk and increased mortality in more severe cases.

Medications for hypertension can be costly, and, while treating for hypertension, can have potentially harmful side effects on the body themselves. For example, many patients with hypertension are given beta blockers, which allow the heart to beat slower and reduce blood pressure. However, this reduced heart beat and cardiac output can hurt your exercise performance (Sorace, Mahady, & Brignola, 2009).

Luckily, according to a report from the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s “Strength and Conditioning Journal” (Sorace, Mahady, & Brignola, 2009), there is a natural way to alleviate hypertension: resistance training.

As you may know, resistance training consists of any form of exercise that uses resistance to force the muscles to contract. In general, any form of weight training is resistance training. Here’s why resistance training is believed to help:

Benefits of Resistance Training on Hypertension

One of the key contributors to hypertension is increased blood pressure. An ample body of research suggests that a prolonged resistance training program can help lower blood pressure by improving cardiac output, vascular remodeling (e.g., left ventricular hypertrophy; thicker myocardial wall), and reducing sympathetic nervous system activity.

The benefits of resistance training in hypertension can be seen in both short- and long-term cases, as well as in resting, low-intensity, and high-intensity exercise intervals.

Recommendations

A consistent resistance training program may be just the ticket you need to prevent hypertension or help alleviate this physical stress marker. The American College of Sports Medicine (2009) provides some key recommendations for an introductory resistance training program for general cardiovascular health and weight control:

• Perform 8 to 10 exercises per session, focusing on larger muscle groups
• Perform 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise, and  just one set of each (to the point of slight fatigue)
• Perform 2 to 3 nonconsecutive sessions per week
• Use a full range of motion for each exercise, never to the point of joint pain
• Perform movements at a moderate speed (about 6 seconds per full repetition)

In addition, The ACSM also recommends getting 30 minutes of  moderately intense cardiovascular exercise, 5 days a week, to help promote cardiovascular health.

Cautions

Never begin an exercise program without consulting your doctor if you suffer from any form of cardiovascular or stress-related physical condition. More research is needed to investigate the effects of various medications on exercise, so be sure to consult with your doctor regarding any medications you are taking. Resistance training is not a substitute for medical treatment for hypertension. While its preventative effects are well-documented, research has not yet determined if resistance training can reduce hypertension on its own.

Photo © Flickr by philroeder

Looking for a kick-ass workout in a short period of time? Find a track (or a non-busy road)!

Luckily, I live a half mile from a university and they have a nice outdoor track. Since the temperatures have finally started to climb and it’s (sort of) beginning to feel like spring in New England, I plan to do a workout outside of the gym this weekend!

The Workout

I’ll jog the half mile to the track as a warm up, then I’ll just sprint right into it – pun intended!

I’ll perform a short distance sprint of 100 meters and I’ll do high knees on the way back. After a 25-second rest, I’ll repeat this at least another four times, or whenever I’ve maxed myself out. If you want to make it more challenging for yourself, try making each sprint faster than your last one!

After the sprints and high knees, I’ll move on to burpees. A burpee is performed in the following way:

• Begin in a squat position with hands on the ground in front of you.
• Kick your feet back into a push-up position.
• Immediately return your feet to the squat position.
• Jump up as high as you can from the squat position.

This is one full rep. Instead of counting these, I’ll do as many as I can for 30 seconds and rest for 30 seconds. I’ll repeat this for a total of 2-3 minutes.

Lastly, I’ll do squats with side shuffles. Since it’s bodyweight, I’ll likely perform outside of my normal 12-15 rep range and shoot for 20-25 reps, followed immediately by side shuffles. I’ll aim to complete five sets of these – or, again, until I max myself out.

As a cool down, I’ll either jog or walk back to my house! The workout should only take me 20-30 minutes to complete.

Do you have a track workout you do? Share it with me and other readers in the comment engine below!