There are many aspects to health and fitness, including diet, exercise, lifestyle and attitude of mind. In this article I cover one of the most important facets – the cardio-vascular workout. I include tips and advice on safely building up a useful regime of the most popular exercises.

To accomplish a good cardio-vascular workout all you really need is a good pair of running shoes. Most cardio-vascular exercise needs little or no third party apparatus to help you accomplish your routine. Running, dancing, walking can all be done with no equipment (well, if dancing, then maybe some music would help). Other forms of cardio are step, circuit training, bike riding, swimming, aerobics and more…

With most exercise you should always remember to warm up first and cool down afterwards. This means gently stretching and moving your muscles to start off with. Suddenly moving into full exercise without building up first will cause problems such as stiffness and cramps. Ease yourself into it. Then after exercise, the cool down is basically gently moving the muscles and joints to stretch and relax, as your body returns to its normal pace.

Running:
Make sure you have a good pair of running shoes. The technology put into these shoes nowadays is highly researched and designed to reduce shock to the feet, ankles, legs and back. So don’t skimp on these – you get what you pay for.

Before you start your run, be sure to warm up first. Start with a brisk walk ensuring you move your arms vigorously gradually breaking into a slow jog. It is better to run at a speed to which you can still converse. If you find yourself losing breath, slow your pace down until you’ve recovered. If you are a novice runner try running and walking, until you can hold your run for 15 minutes.

Now increase the length and time of your run by a couple of minutes every other time you hit the road or treadmill, until you can run for 30 minutes without stopping. Try to increase your run time by 10% each week, remember not to over do it and don’t forget to warm down at the end of each by slowing down gradually. When your run is complete stretch your legs for 30 seconds per muscle, hamstring, calf and thigh.

Cycling:
Cycling is one of the best ways to get a good cardio-vascular workout.

First of all, if you are riding on the roads safety is paramount, always use the appropriate safety equipment when road riding. You can stay fit by riding a bike to work, most people work within a five mile radius of there place of work, which is a perfect distance for a bike ride.

Exercise bikes can be used in a variety of ways, general riding for specified length of time, this is like going for a bike ride with out the dangers of road riding and the weather. Warm up riding you can use an exercise bike for warming up the legs before a leg workout. Also exercise bike classes, these classes are taken by an instructor, who will put you through various levels of pace, quite like a circuit training exercise with a bike.

You may find it surprising to find that riding a bike five miles 3 times per week will improve your heart rate, your posture, skin and weight control. Some even say that riding and running are great ways of relieving stress.

Swimming:
One of the best ways to firm up and trim your body down. Due to the resistance the water has on the body swimming involves all the major muscle groups this allows the body to burn up to 20% more calories than swimming through air. Swimming a few lengths per day will keep you fit and give you an excellent workout. Swimming also has less impact on the joints than say, running.

If you wish to take your swim a little further try picking up the pace of your swim, you can work up to a great aerobic exercise and give your body an excellent workout.

Start off by swimming 1-2 lengths at a time resting between sets if necessary, after you have swam ten lengths call it a day. The next day repeat the process until you can swim five lengths without a break. Progress to ten lengths in by adding an extra length each time you return.

You can put together your own cardio raining routing in the gym, if you have a problem with this then the staff on hand will write one for you and show you how to achieve your goal. Try to make your cardio last between an hour and an hour and a half. A good start point for cardio is always a run.

This cardio workout will work for a person of medium fitness, however adjust the times and pace according to your fitness levels.

1. Run at a light pace for 20 minutes, start off at a walking pace and gradually move to a run, this helps you get warmed up and the blood pumping.

2. Rowing machine- set the rowing machine for a countdown time of 15 minutes or keep a check on your watch or the clock. Start off with a slow rowing motion to get the pace up, maintain this steady pace throughout the full 13 minutes and use the 2 minutes to slow the pace down.

3. Move immediately on to exercise bike take a stead paced ride for 12 minutes with a sprint finish for the remaining 3 minutes.

4. After the exercise bike move directly on to the step climber for a period of 15 minutes climbing on a light level to get the legs going. Try to move at a swift pace for the full 15 minutes as this is the last of the leg work you will be doing.

5. When you have completed the step climber, move onto the abs bench for some crunches. 4 sets of crunches to failure is your target for this exercise. Try twisting your body and touching your left knee with your right elbow and vice versa.

6. The last exercise in this quick cardio workout is the leg raise apparatus. Bring your knees up to your chest for 3-4 sets for as many reps as possible (failure)

After the completion of this cardio workout, remember to do a full warm down by stretching the muscles. The full workout should take you around 1 hour 20 minutes.

First off, I want to mention that, for most people, getting six pack abs is not an easy task. I should know man I can do 1000 consecutive crunches and I’m still battling my flab. It requires dedication, but it is possible! Below is a general 2-step guide that, if followed religiously for 3 months, will produce results.

Step 1: Nutrition

This is the single most important part of the puzzle, hands down. You can have the most impressive set of abs, but if they’re covered with a layer of fat, you won’t see them! Break up your day with 5 or 6 mini-meals because this jump starts your metabolism. And stop eating the food that is preventing results: white bread, loads of pasta, soda, candy, fast food, hydrogenated oils, sugars and fructose corn syrup.

Instead, replace them with foods that will help you reach your goal: oatmeal, olive oil, whole grain breads, fruits, vegetables, nuts, eggs, natural peanut butter, chicken, fish, protein and water. Be realistic- you’ll slip here and there, but make a conscious effort to radically improve your eating habits because getting a six pack will be impossible if you don’t.

You really want to start counting calories and have a higher protein diet while burning fat.

Step 2: Exercise

You need to concern yourself with 3 different exercises: cardio, weightlifting and ab exercises. And aim to workout 3- 4 times a week.

The cardio you do can be anything: walking, running, biking, swimming….whichever cardio you don’t mind doing so that you’ll stick with it. Aim for 30-45 minutes, a minimum of 2 times a week.
Personally I recommend HIIT training as this is scientifically proven to be more effective at fat burning.

Weightlifting is important because 3 pounds of added muscle burns as many calories as a 1 mile jog…and this is while you’re just sitting around! Aim for 30-45 minutes, a minimum of 2 times a week.

The last exercise you need to incorporate into your workout is ab exercises. Aim to work your abs a minimum of 3 times a week. There are a ton of different ab exercises you can do.

Tip: mix up your workout routine every 2 weeks to keep your body guessing and changing. Add or take away different weight or ab exercises, or at the very least, vary the weight, reps or form of cardio you do.

Well, there you have it, of course this is not a detailed manual here just a breif blog post. But follow the above for 3 months religiously, and while results will vary from person to person, you will experience improvement.

It will take dedication on your part, but imagine the feeling you’ll get when you look in the mirror and like what you see.

Also imagine what that horrible fat is doing for your poor old cardio-vascular system.

I was doing some research the other day and I came across some secret military research on the DARPA site (thats where the pentagon leaks stuff on their reseach).
They have been looking into this compound quercitin which is a natural extract as a counter to free radical builup in soldiers under combat stress.

Quercitin is a bioflavonid (a type of nutrient that is found in some fruits and green, leafy vegetables, amongst other things such as teas and beans).

Quote:
“After testing at the Mayo clinic, quercitin was also shown to be useful in helping to treat or prevent prostate cancer. In the findings of the Mayo Clinic study about quercitin, Mayo Clinic researcher Nianzeng Xing, Ph.D stated that “Our laboratory results showed quercitin blocks the androgen activity in androgen-responsive human prostate cancer cell lines.” He then followed this statement by asserting that “By blocking the androgen activity, the growth of prostate cancer cells can be prevented or stopped.” While this research doesnt prove quercitin will actually truly benefit men with prostate cancer or those at risk, it definitely shows promise as a preliminary study.”

Quercitin has been found to be the most active bioflavonid. Quercitin is a naturally occurring flavonoid that can be found in food sources such as fruits and vegetables. It is most commonly found in apples, onions, cherries, certain citrus fruits, leafy vegetables, broccoli, raspberries, black tea, green tea, red wine and red grapes.

You can buy it as a supplement too of course.

Many people these days take antioxidants to counter the detrimental effect of free radicals. Antioxidants mopped up free radicals and convert them into harmless substances. Free radicals are known to cause body cell decomposition and therefore are the main culprit in our aging process. Free radicals are linked to aging diseases such as cancer and heart problems besides making us age more quickly. Since free radicals cause our cells to decompose, then free radicals will also degenerate our muscle cells.

Staying clear of situations that cause a surge of free radicals to surge is one way of prevention and taking antioxidants as a supplementation is another. There are many situations that will increase free radical activities such as sun burn, stress, smoking, alcohol consumption, pollution, exercise workout amongst others. Yes, we get a surge of free radicals when we exercise especially intensive exercises because we are putting our bodies under tremendous stress when we exercise. These muscle destroying activities will continue for hours and even days depending how intensive your exercises are.

This is where antioxidants supplementing comes in. Since antioxidants neutralize free radicals, it helps your muscles to recover faster and stop the ravaging effects of free radicals on your muscle and thus allowing better muscle growth.

So if you want your muscles to recover faster and want to grow bigger muscles after your workouts, supplementation with antioxidants may help. There are many antioxidants supplements in the market. Vitamin A, C and E are perhaps the better known free radical fighters out there. Some other excellent free radical scavengers are Green Tea extract, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Beta Carotene etc

So our mums although may not have known about antioxidants and its effect of free radicals on our body was right when they insisted that we take our vitamins. Do protect your muscles and general health with antioxidants.

Not in the gym though – I’ve been down with the flu all week and i went and did some hard physical work for a couple of days while ill. Digging dirt while having the flu is not a good idea.

Heh he but I hacked it – Being a university student I dont have any choice but to work some times. I have four papers left and I get an Electronics Engineering degree.

Yeah so no more workouts for a couple of days until I recover then its back to the gym.

Scott Mendelson 1015lb Bench Press

Is that Freaking or what !!!

The dude is 314 lbs and has abs. Not bad since most powerlifters tend to have a belly.

His are Tips as follows:

1) Put your back into it:

Big chests do not make big bench presses. Proper technique makes the primary movers the back (latissimus dorsi), triceps, and rear deltoids. On a standard 15-17″ bench, pull your shoulder blades together so the shoulders rest on, and not off, the bench’s surface. This shortens the distance from the chest to full extension and eliminates your arms’ weakest range

2) Lift with your legs:

Put your body into a near-full arch when performing a maximal-lift bench press: support your body on the toes or balls of your feet by putting your feet underneath your body and arching your back. Squeeze the bench between your thighs to stabilize your body and use leg drive to initiate the lift from the bottom.

3) Train for triples:

Dedicate one work-out per week to the bench press, performing 5-8 sets of 3 reps with 5-7 minutes between sets. Use 60% of your 1-repetition maximum (1RM), adding 5-10% per workout.

4) Emphasize tricep, rear deltoid, and brachialis development:

Following the above 5-8 sets of bench press, perform one exercise for rear deltoids, one exercise for triceps, and one exercise for the brachialis. Perform 3 sets of 10 repetitions with 2-4 minutes between sets.

Rear deltoids-
Using a seated pec deck machine (used for crossing the arms in front of the body), reverse the motion by facing the opposite direction and moving your arms backwards.

Triceps-
Choose either A) tricep extensions or B) board presses (place a 4×4 board on the chest and perform bench presses within this partial range of movement).

Brachialis-
The brachialis is a muscle on the outside of the bicep that supports arm movement at the elbow. Perform hammer curls (bicep curls where the thumb is kept pointing to the ceiling and the palm is not turned upward) to address this bodypart.

5) For safety, do not use a “false-grip”, where the thumb is placed under, rather than around, the bar:

“Once I was bench pressing with a false-grip and I got 584 lbs. to lock-out. The spotters thought I had it, so they took their hands away. The bar slipped, and 584 lbs. bounced off of my chest twice. I couldn’t breathe properly for 2 months, but I had no broken bones-not even a bruise.” Moral of the story: Hold the bar at shoulder-width with your thumb wrapped around the bar-safety is a precursor to efficacy?and results.

Train systematically, train intelligently, and follow the guidelines of the world’s #1 bench presser to actualize your true genetic strength potential.

Yeah I hit my thighs today. Started off with a 15 minute HIIT session on the rowing machine.

It was good and as I have posted HIIT does the trick for cardio and fat loss. Normally after this I would do a bunch of stomach crunches but my guts was full from a gigantic feast.

Next I just went straight on to the leg press and did 6 heavy sets. Then I did a bunch of seated calf raises with all the weight on the machine.

Like I said I had a giant meal about 90 minutes prior to this workout so I was too stuffed to max it out.

Right now I feel like taking a sauna. Cheers.

The High Intensity Interval training definitely works. I have found that its not too difficult to break into. If you are a newbie you may find it a bit too much.

I definitely see some improvements in my physique and feel a whole lot fitter from a cardio vascular perspective. I will continue to train in this manner from now on. Its great !!!

Im having a day off today though – dont want to burn out. Cheers.

I am still planning on my marathon run. But over the last few weeks I have been doing HIIT training. This involves 30 seconds of super intense activity followed by 30 seconds of moderate activity – you continue this without rest for 15 minutes.

The beauty is you can do it with any form of exercise. My first HIIT workout I used the rowing machine for 15 minutes then the grinder for another 15. So it was 30 minutes in total then I did some abdominal work and some stretches.

Because HIIT workouts are so short you can still do your regular weights too – which I am.

High Intensity Interval Training has beed proven in scientific studies to be highly effective in combating stubborn abdominal fat. It is also more effective than traditional long slow aerobics at burning fat and speeding up the metabolism.

Thats 40 Km or 26 miles. My normal run is 8 Kms that I do regularly. Thats no problem for me to run that at any time. Sometimes I double it up and do 16 Km. Thats a bit painfull the next day.

If I run 40 Kms it will be killer – plus it will help burn my gut fat. So with that goal in mind I have some motivation. I will just bash at this untill it is done. It may take a few runs to get up to it. I may have a few little rests during the run too. But I will do it.