Conditioning

Conditioning

            Everyone knows that cardio is important, but there is a big difference between cardio and conditioning.  Cardio is just slow long movement and exercise to increase heart rate and burn calories through sweat.  Cardio is great for all weightlifters to lose fat and to support overall health.  Conditioning, on the other hand, is consistent cardio with long intense exercise usually with a lot more sweat and work than just regular cardio.  This post will be discussing the comparison of conditioning with cardio and the benefits of conditioning.

            One way to look at it is that cardio is great and can really help you to shed off fat, and conditioning is the intense version of cardio that works twice as good.  Cardio can be anything from jogging on the treadmill for a half an hour, to light weight training with countless reps and fast heart rate.  Conditioning is more hard core than that.  Conditioning is like martial arts, sprints in track, or boxing.  Cardio makes it hard to catch your breath and you need a towel wipe up your sweat, conditioning makes it so you can barely breath and you can’t see from all the sweat pouring over you.

            So the obvious benefit from conditioning is that you can lose weight a lot faster than from just regular cardio because of the intensity of the exercising.  But also because of all the extra sweating that comes from conditioning means that you will become less affected by strenuous exercise.  Another benefit is that from all the sweat, your immune system gets strengthened and all the toxins from the foods you eat are being cleansed.  Also because of the intense workout from conditioning, your general health will increase tremendously and you will feel better, gain confidence and lose cravings for junk food, which by itself is better for you.  You can do your conditioning just once to twice a week which I feel can be perfectly filled up with either a martial art or boxing.  Martial arts works great because not only are you getting that great conditioning you need, but you also learn self defense and it’s also a great way to meet new people you probably wouldn’t have met anywhere else.  Along with that you get taught discipline and most martial arts require exercise and long warm-up times. 

            So if you had the opportunity to condition your body on a regular basis, it would be a great idea to do so.  Increased health, cleansed toxins, and overall rejuvenation are all products of conditioning.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.      

Intimidation

Intimidation

            Now, most people workout, to gain strength and add muscle mass, some people workout to gain tone and definition to their muscles, some workout to gain attractiveness for women, and some even workout to add veins to their muscles.  But there are those few that workout, strictly to try to become more intimidating to people that they meet, or maybe that just want to look like they aren’t small and easy to mess with.  I realize this and have decided to make a post just for you people.

            So some people only want to look more intimidating but they find themselves working muscles that don’t help their intimidation level at all.  So you need to understand the effects of working certain muscle groups and how that could affect your intimidation to others.  So the first big and most well know intimidator on the body is the chest.  The chest is one of the biggest muscles in your body and can grow to become huge if you work it right.  Whenever you think of someone intimidating, you think of that guy whose chest is right in your face and sticks out a foot from his body.  The chest is also the muscle that tightens your t-shirts when you wear them and makes you look buffer than you really are.  The next big intimidator is the shoulders, because it’s a well known fact that the guy that has huge shoulders can punch really hard naturally.  With shoulders you need to do heavy weight and little reps to really add size to your shoulders.  The shoulders will also stretch out your shirt from your arms making your arms look larger than they really are.  Biceps are an obvious intimidator on your body, but one that is overlooked all the time is legs.  Leg day is already one of the most important days of the workout week, but if you want to intimidate, people will look at your legs to see how big they are.  If you have a large upper body, then you need an even larger lower body, otherwise you look ridiculous.

            Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.

Innovative Home Gym

Innovative Home Gym

            Sometimes you have only have a little space for you to work out, too little for you to pay for a big bench press rack or exercise machines.  Maybe you just simply don’t have enough money to afford big equipment for exercising.  That’s ok, because there are many ways to find cheap replacements for equipment that works just as well.  This post will discuss all the different innovative ways you can still workout without all those expensive machines.

            If you have no dumbbells and you don’t want to go buy any you can just take old empty milk jugs and fill them with sand or dirt.  Compare the milk jugs to weigh about the same or weigh them on a scale, if you need a dumbbell take a broom stick and duct tape two weighted milk jugs to the ends of the stick.  Sometimes you don’t have room or money for a weight bench, this is a simple fix.  All you need is a large plastic cooler that can support your weight.  All you really need is to support the back of your shoulders on the cooler and plant your feet on the ground to keep the rest of your body parallel to the ground.  Keeping your body parallel will also help strengthen your core while performing whatever lift you are doing. 

            Sometimes there are certain weightlifting accessories or machines that you want but either can’t afford or can’t find in your local stores.  One of these is a wrist roller, which works the muscles in your forearms by curling a weight up a small pole with a rope connecting the weight and pole.  This is a very simple machine that you can build using just a wooden dowel, a thin rope, and a drill.  All you do is drill a hole through the middle of the wooden dowel and feed the rope through the hole and you can tie a weight to the end of the rope.  Another machine that you can build is a arm blaster, which puts a support in between your body and elbows for when you are doing standing barbell curls.  You can go out and buy one for about thirty to forty bucks or you can make one with a piece of clean scrap metal.  All you need is a little elbow grease, something to bend the metal with, and optional padding for your elbows.  Just bend the piece of metal to the contour of your chest and add little curves on the sides for your elbows and add padding if available.  And there you go a cheap, almost free, arm blaster that you can use.

            Of course depending on the situation and circumstances of your home and workout preferences, there are many more options for you to innovate in your gym.  If you have the will to do it you can easily find a cheaper, easier, way to do it.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep you stick on the ice.
here is some further detail into home gyms http://www.architectureartdesigns.com/58-awesome-ideas-for-your-home-gym-its-time-for-workout/