Want to easily lose 20 lbs over the next 3 months? Competitive basketball will do the trick. Basketball along with soccer are the two most cardio intensive sports around. This is why regular players are usually in shape. The key to basketball is you’re body is constantly tapping athleticism to run, jump, slide over, hold off players, and cut. Adding fuel to the fire, most pick-up games offer limited rest during games. This results in a cardio burning inferno in your body and is why you’ll see out of shape players tap out relatively fast. However, this is the same reason you should seek out local games to lose weight and build endurance. There are two caveats to the unbelievable lift basketball gives you. One is you need to... [Read more]

You haven’t been to the gym in 2 months.  You’ve been busy.  Works in the way.  You’ve had family obligations.  No matter how you slice it, your strength has been zapped and your stamina isn’t close to where it was.  Where do you go from here? The best remedy is the most direct one.  Get back in the gym and pick up your workout with the same routine outline you had, but it’s important you acknowledge your regression.  If you try to continue as if you were on the same fitness level, you’re stacking the odds against you reaching your pinnacle. There is a rebuilding process you must go through to get to where you were.  The good news is you have muscle memory and your muscles haven’t forgotten previous... [Read more]

If you have trouble committing yourself to a “regular workout” but still want to get in shape, try something unsual and go for three quick 20 minute workouts a day. By lighting up your body with three intense 20 minute workouts, you’ll become a calorie burning machine and increase your metabolism.  You’ll also be inclined to go for more smaller meals rather than larger meals (which would help a lot). For the three times, try to get a pattern of morning afternoon and night.  During your 20 minutes, focus on working high intensity exercises with speed, high reps, and little rest.  Great exercises for this quick training are push-ups, sit-ups, knee to chest touches, jump rope, sprinting, and punching. Obviously with this... [Read more]

There are certain things you can do or not do that will set you back in your quest to attain or maintain fitness.  Avoid these do nots  at all costs. Taking 3 weeks or more off.  The worst thing you can do is to stop exercising completely for an extended period of time.  You’ll lose momentum and gains and you might actually slap some fat back on your body. Using bad form.  If you’re lucky all bad form will do is waste your time from not training properly.  At its worst, bad form can leave you seriously injured from either an accident, pulled muscle or something else. Not getting the right nutrition.  Working out is not the end of your fit lifestyle.  You need to feed your body the right things so it can repair and/or grow. Not... [Read more]

Workouts are great for fitness, but the rigors that come with working out take a toll on your body.  Wear and tear accumulate in your joints and ligaments from pounding away on the pavement to supporting heavy weights.  When you need to ease things up for the sake of preserving your body, try decelerating with low impact workouts rather than breaking altogether. The rotex machine is fantastic for burning calories and elevating your heart rate without any impact on your knees.  Much the same way, bike riding and the stair stepper give you solid cardio without beating down on your knees and feet.  Losing weight also helps keep body stress low. For strength building, swimming is excellent at developing well rounded muscle.  Also, forgo the... [Read more]