by admin | May 5, 2022 | Fitness
How To Start Training
So, you’ve decided to start training at the gym. Congratulations! There’s no better feeling than being able to push your body to its limits and seeing results. But where do you begin? With so many machines, classes, and supplements available, it can be difficult to know what’s best for you.
Top that off with the sea of often contradicting information on the internet and you got yourself a nice perplexion. Worry not though, we’re here to help you make the beginning of your training quite easy!
Let’s get started.
Start Simple One way that people can start training right away, is by being more active in their daily lives.
This can be done by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking to work or school, or parking far away from the entrance.
Another way to get more active is by doing activities that require movement, such as playing tag, jumping rope, or dancing.
Think of this as just getting your body introduced and used to being more active overall.
Such tiny shifts in your daily life can easily set you up for training success later on, so don’t skip this part!
Progress To Bodyweight Exercises
When you get used to being more active in your daily life, you will more than likely feel the need to do something more.
To give your body a challenge!
When that happens, it is time for you to kick things up a notch. Before you think about going to the gym however, it is a good idea to start with your own bodyweight! Not only will bodyweight exercises help you develop baseline strength and endurance, but they’ll do something even more important – Help you learn the proper form on most basic exercises!
Now, Add Some Extra Resistance
One of the foundational principles of training is to demand more of the body as you train. In simple terms, your muscles have to endure greater and greater resistance, in order to create sufficient stimulus and sculpt a more aesthetic physique.
When you get used to bodyweight training, it’s time to add some extra resistance. This could mean using resistance bands for certain exercises, or even dumbbells and weight plates.
- Think of ways to challenge your muscles!
Sign Up For The Gym!
Finally, it is time to sign up for the gym! Think of the first 3 steps we talked about, as the time when you prime the body for more intense training, by getting it used to being active and using the muscles more, in the first place.
Once that’s done, you are ready to start using some heavier weights and further improve your strength, endurance, and last but not least, looks! In fact, by this point, you should already have some good progress going on and the sudden, prominent stimulus from weight training will only make that progress twice as fast!
However, before you think about really squeezing your muscles’ capacity at the gym, make sure that you’re doing everything right! hire a personal trainer!
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking to start training, or are just getting back into it after a hiatus, we have the perfect solution for you. Our online personal training program offers all of the benefits of one-on-one sessions without any of the hassle.
Plus, our trainers will help keep you accountable and on track to reach your fitness goals!
Ready to get started? Visit our website today!
by admin | May 2, 2022 | Health
Journaling Part 3 – Dream Journaling
As we know, journaling is mostly used to capture and record the time of our lives when we’re awake. We use it to keep track of goals, tasks, thoughts, and anything that we might want to record, keep or think about. Dream journaling, on the other hand, is the act of capturing and recording the ambiguous and strange world of sleep and dreams.
There are different reasons you might want to start dream journaling. Poets, artists, and creators of all kinds use the dream world to find inspiration and explore their own subconscious ideas without the nagging constraints of your waking mind.
What Is Dream Journaling?
The act of dream journaling in its rawest form is the act of documenting the feelings, plotlines, and details of your dreams. This, in return, helps you identify patterns within your dreams and helps you better remember them. Dream journaling is a practice usually employed by people who want to induce lucid dreams.
Others keep dream journals in order to reflect on what their subconscious minds are engaged with. Recording your dreams improves your general dream recall and makes you better and better at remembering your own dreams. Here are a few tips to give you a kick start in case you decide to give dream journaling a go.
Ways To Keep A Dream Journal
The most common and basic way to keep a dream journal is to have a dedicated notebook and pen lying next to your bed in order for you to record your dreams as you wake up. However, you can be creative and find a way that works for you. Some people are too sleepy to start writing directly as they open their eyes.
An alternative to writing might be grabbing your phone and recording your dreams on voice memos, it’s a lot easier and frictionless for beginners compared to writing them out. If you’re looking to get serious, consider buying pre-formatted dream journals that have designated sections for different things allowing you to format your dreams better with categories like mood, place, and so on.
Once you get going, remember to be consistent, and soon you’ll find that you start noticing patterns and recurring themes in your dreams. Now that you have this information about your subconscious mind, it’s time to use it.
Key Benefits of Dream Journaling
Once made a habit, dream journaling can give you an insight into your own mind. If you find yourself suffering from recurrent nightmares, try writing down the patterns of your dream. Afterward, you can use them to recognize you’re dreaming and stop the nightmare, consciously inside the dream itself.
This practice is called lucid dreaming, and it entails knowing you’re dreaming inside your dream so that you can navigate and steer the dream world to some degree. Another compelling benefit of recording your dreams is getting out of a creative rut. We’ve all found ourselves struggling to come up with a good idea or solve a particular problem.
And the thing with brains is, they don’t stop. They work constantly in order to maintain all of the natural processes within our bodies. So, chances are that faced with a difficult issue or problem that you just can’t seem to figure out, your brain will be working on it in the background even while you sleep.
Use this to your advantage.
Closing Thoughts
We spend 33% of our lives asleep. This time is usually written off as time that can’t be used for anything else but rest. The truth is that our minds are constantly working in the background. Sorting and sifting through information gives us these movie-like experiences that most of the time are pretty weird, and we have trouble remembering. Our dreams are maps of our experiences in our day-to-day lives.
Have you ever had a pretty interesting dream you wish you had written down somewhere? Or maybe a pretty good idea that came to you in your dream? If we choose to do so, we can harness the creative power of dreams and use it to better our own waking lives. Remember that if you want to start dream journaling, focus on making it a habit and always do it first thing when you wake up.
by admin | Apr 24, 2022 | Fitness
Misconceptions About Fitness
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about being a fitness enthusiast, it’s that there are a lot of misconceptions about fitness training. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the average person has no idea what it actually takes to be in great shape. Furthermore, more often than not, those same people go about improving their fitness, by doing short-term, random bursts of things that don’t really matter.
And trust me, I used to be one of those people. But boy, was I wrong! Read on for some of the most common misconceptions about fitness – and the truth behind them.
Weight Training Is Only For Men
One of the most common misconceptions we see often is that weight training is only meant for men to do. It is perhaps the idea of high intensity that makes it seem like that, but really, weight training is not only for men. This is because it can also be just as beneficial for women.
In fact, weight training can help to improve a woman’s figure by shaping the muscles, just like it does for men! However, a woman will hardly get buff to the point where it looks masculine. So don’t worry ladies, getting stronger will only mean looking better!
Cardio Is Mandatory For Fat Loss
Many people believe that in order to lose weight, they must perform cardio exercises. This is a common misconception – while cardio is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, it is not mandatory for fat loss. In fact, there are many ways to lose weight without ever stepping foot inside a gym.
One of the best ways to lose weight without doing any cardio is by following a healthy diet that puts you in a caloric deficit. In fact, a caloric deficit is the only mandatory thing when it comes to weight loss. Pair that with strength training and you will chisel a nice Greek sculpture out of yourself.
Only Calories Matter
Now, we just said that it’s only about calories when it comes to weight loss so you may think to yourself “So if I’m in a deficit, I can eat pop-tarts all day long and still lose weight?” And technically, that is correct.
However, you have to provide the body with sufficient nutrients to sustain its proper functioning, especially when in a caloric deficit. So regardless of whether you are trying to lose or gain weight, make sure to derive your daily calories from quality food sources, such as animal products, fruits and vegetables.
Supplements Are Mandatory
It’s a common misconception that supplements are a must when it comes to fitness training. And while supplements can be beneficial for some people, they are not a mandatory part of fitness. In fact, many people who are physically fit don’t use supplements at all. There are a number of supplements on the market that claim to improve fitness or help with weight loss.
However, these claims are often exaggerated or false, because frankly, supplements are the LEAST important thing to a fitness plan. Only when you have your training, eating, sleeping, and hydration down to a solid foundation, only then you can consider adding supplements! And if you decide to do that, don’t get too many of them because only a few are truly effective (protein, creatine, caffeine!)
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. Four fitness myths debunked for your reading pleasure. Now go forth and work on that six-pack with confidence, and focus on what truly matters – Eating, Training, and recovering! What’s another common misconception about fitness you know of? Comment below!
by admin | Apr 22, 2022 | Fitness
Muscle building 101 | Part 4 – Types of muscle growth
If you look at different athletes from different training disciplines, you will notice the diversity of muscular development you can have. For instance, most powerlifters are pretty rugged, while most gymnasts and sprinters look rather athletic. This brings a question to mind – Are there different types of muscle growth and is more always better?
In this article, we’ll go over the two different types of muscle growth and explain which one you should focus on stimulating, depending on your goal.
The Two Types Of Muscle Growth
If you look at a muscle group, you will find that it is made out of separate muscle units, called myofibrils (muscle fibers). These are the active, contractile components of your musculature, that make moving possible. Around the myofibrils, there is a jelly-like fluid that contains non-contractile elements. This is called the “sarcoplasm’ and is used for energy during muscular activity. Now,
there are two types of muscle growth we can look into:
- Myofibrillar hypertrophy
- Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy
Myofibrillar hypertrophy is the growth in the size of the separate muscle units, called myofibrils.
This type of growth is mostly sought after by strength athletes, like powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters. The main adaptations that occur when myofibrillar hypertrophy is stimulated, are increases in relative strength and improved efficiency of the nervous system. For this type of adaptation, bulk muscle growth is a secondary adaptation.
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, on the other hand, is the growth in the size of the jelly-like fluid around the muscle fibers, which we mentioned above.
This can be referred to as “bulk muscle growth” – something that bodybuilders and physique athletes seek. The end results of this type of stimulation, are increases in bulk muscle growth, along with relative strength. In this case, increases in maximum strength are a secondary adaptation.
Training tips
If you’re not a competitive athlete that needs to focus on developing just a bunch of physical properties, your best bet is to mix different types of stimulation. Nevertheless, your training approach should be specific to your goals.
For instance, if your goal is to improve your maximum and relative strength, you should primarily focus on stimulating myofibrillar hypertrophy. This is best done by training in the powerlifting rep range of 1-5 repetitions, but then again, you can do 6-15 rep sets every now and then to stimulate other adaptations.
If however, your goal is more oriented towards sculpting a bodybuilder-like physique, you should focus on the bodybuilding rep range of 6-15 repetitions. Ultimately, you should try to combine low reps, high reps, slow reps, fast reps, etc. To achieve the ultimate, functional, and good-looking physique, you should incorporate all kinds of stimuli into your workouts.
Conclusion
What we see on the outside as muscles that make us look good, is actually a complex, adaptable system (the muscular system). The two main types of growth that can occur in the muscular system, are myofibrillar & sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. The way you set up your training parameters and workout as a whole, will determine which type of growth will occur.
If you are looking for the best overall development, however, you should carefully mix your workouts and utilize different types of stimuli.
by admin | Apr 20, 2022 | Fitness
Bodyweight VS Weight Training – Which One Is Better?
For the longest time, weight training and calisthenics (bodyweight training) have gained a lot of traction and interest, because of their innate ability to change one’s body looks, as well as physical properties like strength and explosiveness.
There are people who believe your bodyweight is all you need and then, there are people who religiously engage in weight training, preaching bench, squats and deadlifts even to their grandma.
But which approach is better and what benefits can you reap from these types of training?
In this article, we’ll answer this, and more, so if you’ve ever wondered which type of training is better, keep reading!
The Differences
Bodyweight Training, otherwise known as “calisthenics” is the activity of using your body weight to perform certain exercises under the force of gravity, without any equipment or added weight.
Some of the most common bodyweight exercises are movements like push-ups, squats, pull-ups, lunges, muscle-ups and dips. On the other hand, weightlifting involves the use of barbells, dumbbells and machines to create resistance.
The squat, deadlift and bench are the three fundamental exercises in weightlifting, which are even a benchmark for strength! Now if you’re already wondering which type of training is superior, let us tell you this – both types of training are effective and can be utilized to leverage strength and muscle gains!
However, which one is superior depends on the context and the goal the individual has, so let us take you through the advantages and disadvantages of both types of training.
The Benefits Of Calisthenics
Bodyweight training is most of all, a good way to establish fundamental strength and muscular development. Because, well, being able to lift your own bodyweight, before moving on to lifting weights, kind of makes sense doesn’t it?
This fundamental relative strength can then give you the opportunity to ease into weight training and maximize your potential for physical development. The bad part of calisthenics is that it gets too easy, too quickly, because you’re working with your bodyweight. In less than one year, pull-ups, push-ups and dips can become quite easy and you then have to add more weights on top, to keep progressing.
Another option is to learn more complex movements like handstands, planchet, front levers and others, but if your PRIMARY goal is to gain strength and grow your muscles, this approach is perhaps suboptimal.
The Benefits Of Weight Training
In the context of maximizing growth and strength potential, weight training appears to be the king here. The principle of both types of training is the same – Creating resistance. However, with weight training, the resistance and muscular tension is generated by an external force, making everything far more intense.
Additionally, weight training can help you seamlessly target muscle groups that you can hardly work on directly, with just calisthenics. This implies that in terms of aesthetic development, weight training is superior.
Weight training at its very essence, allows you to do more intense work, during which you can easily increase the resistance by adding extra weight on the bar or picking heavier dumbbells.
Which One Should YOU Choose?
Here’s a wild idea – You can combine both types of training but focus more on the one that resonates with your goals best. You like explosive bodyweight movements that look cool? Go for the monkey bars and bodyweight training. You are looking to maximize your strength and muscular development? opt for a gym membership.
As simple as that!
Final Thoughts
The human body is capable of a LOT and it has plenty of potential lying within. It’s just a matter of YOU, taking the necessary action to unlock that potential and realize it. Whether you choose to engage in bodyweight training or just go to a gym, you won’t be in the wrong!
Both of these types of training offer amazing benefits and can help you develop a good-looking, strong body. Start somewhere, see what you like better, what gets you closer to your goals and focus on that!
Stay strong.
