6 days of the week - I eat healthy. What does that mean? Well, right now for me it means no carbs, no sweets etc. Some of those days, I work in an office. What do people in offices like to do? Well, when they’re not on facebook, they’re eating a cake for any number of reasons: birthday, new baby, new kidney stone etc. If its not cake, its pizza. Why? because its Friday, or because certain company goals were reached or because there is a pepperoni surplus and we’re doing our job to help the economy. The bottom line is, in many offices, your peers will find any excuse they can to shove crap down their gullets.

The first thing this directly relates to is will power. If you don’t have the will power to avoid these foods in your place of work - you probably shouldn’t be on the diet to begin with, as everytime you “cheat” its like taking a step backwards.

I understand that will power isn’t easy, so let me try to make an analogy that you can think about to make things easier for yourself next time:

When you’re driving a car, everytime you step on the gas - you make a purchasing decision. Equally so, everytime you step on the brake you’re also making a purchasing decision. With both motions you’re essentially spending money. Just like with your diet, when you eat healthy food you’re consciously making an exercise & body image decision - which says the same for eating unhealthy food. So its something to consider everytime you’re going have that cookie, slice of cake, etc.

I know what you’re probably thinking now. “Its just not that easy, if I don’t eat the cake or pizza like everyone else - they give me shit. Why aren’t you eating this cake? What you don’t eat cake? Who doesn’t eat cake? What are you a health nut? etc. etc.” Its really easy to fall into these traps and just give in to the shit food. The bottom line is this - nobody feels good about eating the cake if they’re concerned about their health or how its going to help them - but they certainly don’t want to be the only ones doing it. Could you imagine being the only one to eat cake if you were surrounded by health nuts? Of course not! If you and one other person decided to eat the cake, it would seem much more acceptable however.

From my experience, the best thing to do in these situations is just say you don’t like cake, or you’re allergic to something in it, or you can see you’re working towards a fitness goal. You might get some pokes here or there, but if you can’t stomach that level of commitment, maybe you shouldn’t be working out anyway.

One of my common theories about working out & diet is, if you’re going to do it - do it all the way. Half-assing anything doesn’t have the same effect. Do an exercise till failure, don’t cheat more than one day on your diet, and most importantly - don’t be a damn baby.

-Nash

Walking to quiznos ain’t no thing but a chicken wing, running to the gas station to get a snickers isn’t sprinting, and shuffling around behind your desired guy/girl at da club isn’t resistance training. Get pumped, now that your diet should be a bit improved from part 1 of the series(if not remember, abs are made in the kitchen not the weight room), now comes the next part: working out. “I’m on a diet” doesn’t cut it as your plan for looking good for the summer. Your plan of attack should consist of exercising three-six days a week. “Oh noez! I don’t have time for that between video games, reading cosmo, and taking out the trash!” well suck it up, you gotta put the work in. Sucka.

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Granted some people are consistent, motivated fitness oriented individuals(like Maverick and Iceman), the rest of the universe may not be ready to look their best for the coming summer season. Well fret not; this guide will whip you into shape in 4-6 weeks. This is part 1 of 3 part series to get you looking your finest for the summer ladies and gents. That strapping young gent in the photo is a 1980’s Val Kilmer in a little known cinema-gem known as Top Gun.

Let’s start simple; you need to modify your diet. I’m not talking about eating celery sticks and drinking crystal light and nothing else for 8 weeks.
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Are you getting huge?

Anybody can be a jackass who does a lot of weight for one rep or who does 200 reps with the pink weights. Those that have lost their gym training wheels, discontinued bragging about their 145 lb bench, and decided to stop wearing wife-beaters/sleeve-less tee’s until there is something to show off are decidedly more interested in some more substantial gains. The question beckons, how many reps should I be doing?

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As the weather gets nicer in this neck of the woods, golf can become a predominant activity around here, so I figured I’d write a little piece on what exercises one can do to help improve their game.

Because golfing involves a twisting motion, using the hips, abs, lower back etc, you should really focus on exercising, and strengthening your core. A strong core will help keep your swing steady, consistent, and stronger.

Some other great core workouts are: The Ab Boot Camp, The Champion Workout, and the Plank Workout.

Its also very important to be flexible, as a golf swing can really utilize your entire body. Below is a video of a good golf swing that can help anyone looking for a few pointers.

I always find it interesting the different ways people will accomplish an exercise if the equipment they generally prefer to use is occupied.

To explain exactly what I mean, I’ll provide a quick example. Jimbo and I were trying to get in one of our last workouts of our college careers. We were exercising chest & back, using the “push & pull” concept. For some reason, unbeknown to me, the gym was packed during finals week (I’ll assume everyone had finished studying…). The four bench presses were filled. It seemed as though everyone in the gym wanted to exercise their chests at the same time.

Rather than just wait around forever, we decided to take a weight rack generally used for squatting (a quick googling indicated its called a “power rack”?), and threw a bench under in the middle. We then lowered the bar, and essentially crafted an impromptu bench press.

As long as you understand the motion and muscle which each exercise you perform is working, creativity can be a very important tool, especially for those traveling. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve exercised different muscles with equipment not originally designed for that purpose (intentionally).

If you have any exercises you’ve had to “re-create” post them in the comments, we’d love to hear them!

If you’ve ever heard the term “overtraining” before, you probably have some idea of how bad it can be for you. The type of overtraining which I’m going to discuss today, is know as localized overtraining. This occurs when a muscle group is overworked, or it doesn’t receive the proper amount of rest. There are many effects of overtraining, but what it boils down to, is that your muscles will not be able to gain size or strength due to not being able to repair themselves.

How can I avoid overtraining?

There are many things you can do to avoid overtraining.

First, ensure the split to your workout has no muscle group being worked out more than once every 48 hours (or more).

To accomplish this, instead of doing the same workout every time you hit the gym, you can do chest one day, back another, then legs, then cardio etc.

If you exercise your muscles hard enough, they’ll need the extra time to repair. Its also important that you are on a proper diet and consuming enough protein and other nutritional requirements to properly repair your muscles.

Its also important that during each workout you don’t do too much. Listen to your body, if your arms feel like jello, and it doesn’t feel good to continue, you’ve probably reached your limit.

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When I lift weights, 99% of the time I start in a hooded sweatshirt. Even in the summer. That’s right, I’m that guy. That schmuck you walk in and see who’s sweating his ass off, for “no reason” at all.

There is a reason for it, surprisingly enough.

A long time ago, I was told that to get your best lift, you should try to lift when you are most awake. For most people, this is sometime in the afternoon, probably around 2 or 3 PM. The reason for this, is each day at the same time, when you are most awake, your heart is beating faster. When your heart beats faster, it pumps more blood, and you can lift more weight.

If you lift every day at the same time, your heart rate will naturally begin to increase at that time each day.

Keeping all of this in mind, I wear a sweatshirt when I start lifting weigh to intentionally make me really hot so I can get my heart rate up. When I feel like its high enough, I take my sweatshirt off and continue on with my workout like normal.

Click here to go to a web site to see your target heart rate. Read the rest of this entry »

When most people hear “core training” the first thing they think about are your abs. While the abdominals are definitely a part of your core muscles, there’s much more to it than that. The list of muscles that actually make up your “core” is open to interpretation, but generally they’re the muscles that run the length of your spine/torso. I don’t really consider chest and upper back core muscles, but that’s just me. These muscles are responsible for stabilizing everything from your hips to your spine to your shoulders and they give you a strong base so you can better control your body. Read the rest of this entry »

Obliques are like side abs. They’re on the side of your torso, and can be worked exercises like side bends.

They look great when toned, but if they gain mass, they’ll make any “love handles” you have look even bigger if you gain any fat.

The trick to obliques is to exercise them with strictly toning exercises, i.e. don’t use any weight on an exercise that works your obliques.

Continue reading for a list of exercises which can really tone up your obliques!

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