Posts Tagged ‘Exercise’

One of the best ways to work your upper body is by doing pull-ups. You can give your biceps, triceps, shoulders, chest, back, and even abs, a fast, complete workout in a short amount of time with a good pull-up bar. Even if you can’t do a single pull-up yet, doing hangs and negatives (slowly lowering yourself) is a great workout.

When it comes to at home pull-up bars, they all seem to fall into two categories. The first, require you to drill into your door frame. Personally I hate the idea of doing that, so I opted for the second, which actually wraps around the door frame, and can be put up, taken down, and hidden away within seconds.

There are several of these types on the market, and I wanted a good one that wouldn’t break the bank. Here’s the one I ended up buying.

There are several others like this one out there, but at almost 50% more than this one, I decided to pass. It shipped pretty quickly, and was at my door in less than a week. Assembly was a snap, despite the fact that the box contained next to no directions. I suggest spreading all the parts out and spend a moment thinking about how to put it together and it turns into a pretty simple process. No tools are required, and it had all the nuts and bolts I needed plus a few extras. Assembly took me about 10 minutes, but I also had a curious cat distracting me!

The really great thing about this pull-up bar is the variety of hand positions. While I haven’t tried it, I’ve been told that this bar is ideal for the P-90X program. (I’ll update if/when I start that program)

My one concern is the black foam that presses against the door. Others have had a problem with it leaving black marks on their door frame, but it hasn’t been an issue for me yet. A few quick pieces of duct tape around the foam will take care of that though.

If your nervous about it holding your weight, check the online reviews and you’ll see guys as big as 250+ pounds hanging reliably from this thing! It claims it can also be used for dips and pushups, but I prefer a good set of phone books for that. Also included is a free set of arm slings for doing abdominal work, however you need to pay shipping on them, it’s still a good deal, but to me it makes sense to save the money and just wedge my feet under the couch and do sit-ups.

The absolute fastest way to start a war of words on a weight lifting message board is to ask what are better, high reps of low weight or low reps with high weight. It seems that either people have an unmovable opinion on one side or the other, or they have no clue, asked the question which stated the argument, and walk away even more confused. Let’s see if I can’t shed some light on the topic without loads of hate mail and/or someone trying to crash my site.

First, we need to define what we mean by “better”. Do we mean gives results faster? Or do we want a specific result and want to know if one method provides that result and the other doesn’t? Are we looking for a magic method that is easier than other ways?

Next let’s define what we mean by “high” and “low”. We will consider low to mean 3 -8 reps. High is defined as 12+ reps. Any ludicrously high numbers like 200, and the weight corresponding to do that many reps, can really be considered cardio exercise and doesn’t have a place in this article. The weight for high or low reps should be one that causes you to fail on the final rep. This way the low reps will have higher weight than the high reps. Doing low reps and low weight will give you no result, and high weights will not allow you to get to high rep numbers.

Perhaps the best way is answer the question for several common scenarios and tailor the answer to the situation:

I want to lose weight

Since any exercise you do will result in a calorie burn that can help you lose weight, let’s assume you want the way that will do it the fastest. The mechanism that forces the body to lose the most weight when lifting is muscle repair. This is when the body rebuilds the muscle after a workout, fixing the micro-tears caused by the weight lifting. The greater the stress on the muscle, the greater the amount of repair, the greater the calorie burn.

I want to look toned

What most people mean when they think of “toned” is that they want some muscle definition, without looking bulky. Naturally in order to see the muscle, you need to lose the weight first, so refer to the first scenario if you need to. Both methods will build muscle, by low reps, high weight, will do so faster. Luckily most people don’t need to worry about looking bulky. Unless you are a professional lifter, have good genetics, and a diet geared specifically towards bulky, you are in no danger of gaining the physique of a pro wrestler.

I want to be better at a sport

When training for a sport, the first best thing you can do is work on your fast twitch muscles, this is done through sprinting and other speed drills. The second thing you can do is increase your endurance. Higher rep exercises, force your body to work for longer periods of time. This forces your body to adapt by increasing blood vessel size and count. This allows more oxygen and nutrients to be delivered to your muscles.

Ok, the last workout I put up focused on the upper body so I figured I would even things out and create a workout for the lower body as well.

Its easy to want to skip lower body work, its hard, it hurts, and everyone hates rubbery legs for a few days after a good session of squats. But heres the truth:

You have more muscle in your legs than anywhere else! If you want to lose weight, hit the lower body hard. Lower body exercises will help you build muscle faster and burn weight faster than anything else.

Lower Body Focus

62% of America is obese. If the person to the left, or if the person to the right of you aren’t a little chubby, then chances are you are obese. So if everyone is obese, why should you care? More to love right? Sure except that obesity can cause:

• Cancer
• Heart disease
• Strokes
• Diabetes
• Depression
• And more!

The more studies we do, the more we see that obesity is an extremely dangerous thing, so why are we all still so big?

Because exercise and diet is a change in our lifestyle, and change is hard. On top of that exercise by its very nature is exerting energy, which is hard. But making excuses is easy. Sitting on the couch, or in front of the computer is easy too. Fast food is easy. Dieting takes self control. All of this is excuses, plain and simple.

Let me try and help by debunking some of the more common excuses I come across:

I don’t have time

We make time for what’s important. When NBC adds a new comedy we make time for it. When the newest blockbuster hits theaters, we make time for it too. I’ve gone into detail on a lot of ways to save time and finding time to work out, try looking at that article for a few tips to fit a few extra minutes for exercise into your day.

I don’t like weight lifting or running

Exercising doesn’t need to be limited to a pair of running shoes or a gym. It can be as simple as going for a bike ride with your kids, or joining the company softball team. The key is to get out and get your heart rate up. Start taking the stairs and skip the elevator is a great place to start. Don’t limit yourself on what you can do, find something you enjoy and go do it!

I’m too tired

When you exercise, you actually force your body to start tapping into its energy reserves (fat). What this means to you is that exercising will actually increase your energy! In the same way that getting up and walking around a bit will keep you from falling asleep at your desk, exercising will keep you energized throughout the entire day.

I don’t lose weight from diet and exercise

This is a topic which touches close to home for me. Doctors have become better at determining uniqueness in patient conditions which lead patients to believe that they are a special/unique case and that special treatment is needed. Drug companies have made fortunes many times over on those people in order to sell a niche drug. Simply put, if you eat fewer calories than you burn in a day you will lose weight. It’s cold hard physics that even a your overactive/underactive/genetic/whatever condition can’t overcome.

Gyms are too expensive

With the economy barely limping along its very true that people need to cut back on expenditures. Honestly, their gym membership can be one of those. As I said earlier, exercise doesn’t need to be limited to a gym. Go for a hike, play with your kids outside, ride a bike, do pushups and sit-ups and all sort of other at home exercises. Basically there is no reason you need to spend money to get into the shape you want.

If this article has come of a little harsher than usual, I apologize. There are millions out there struggling with their weight and I deeply empathize with them all. With so much out there like fast foods and TV which are holding us down the last thing we need is to hold ourselves down as well. Hopefully this article was a little boot in the butt to help you up of the couch and into a healthier life.