Your Gym Advice

Are you looking for a cardio workout that you can enjoy? Finding a workout that will keep you entertained is just a matter of knowing yourself. What do you like to do? Dance, swim or kick boxing? If you want a challenging workout that will get your heart pumping here are a few activities to get you started in the right direction:

Swimming: Swimming is just about the best all-around exercise that you can do. Swim about 45 minutes, three times a week and you will see your body becoming toned and fit – and after only a few weeks. Swimming at a fast pace will work your muscles twice as much as running. As with any new exercise, start slow and for shorter periods of time. Then, work your way up to swimming faster and for longer periods.

You might also try water aerobics. Do the same exercises that you do in the gym: leg lifts, squats, lunges. When these exercises are done under water, the water provides a resistance so that your muscles are required to work harder than if you were doing them out of the water. Exercising in water is also better for your joints, especially if you are older. People with arthritis or other joint disorders seem to tolerate water exercises better than gym exercises.

Belly Dancing: Belly dancing is especially good for the waistline, hips and thighs. Once you get going, the cardio benefits are enormous. Belly dancing has become so popular in the United States that most gyms have at least one class.

Yoga: Ashtanga yoga is a form of yoga that takes the most effort. It uses the regular yoga poses but it is also good for aerobic workouts. You should use a certified yoga instructor since he or she is trained to show you the correct poses that will boost your heart rate and burn calories. You can also buy videos online that will show you the poses and how to do them.

Walking. Not just walking, but “power” walking. Power walking requires more effort than plain walking. You swing your arms while walking very quickly. You can power walk outside around your neighborhood or go to the gym and walk on a treadmill. If you are just starting and you are out of shape, start with a plain walking routine until your body adjusts to the exercise. Then, start swinging your arms while walking slowly. When that feels comfortable, go on to a fast walk and match your arm swings to your walking stride.

If you power walk at the gym, have a trained instructor give you the best workout for your strength and stamina. When you are power walking at a fast pace easily on a flat treadmill, start increasing the incline level. That will really give you a workout!

Doing an exercise activity that you enjoy will encourage you to keep with it. And that is what you need to get yourself fit and to lose weight.

Do you know what the most important feature is when it comes to a home gym? Your mind may be going over a complete list of answers, from ease of use to flexibility in weight stacks, to a dozen or so other features they can offer. All of these are very good answers and of course the answer will be different for everyone – one person may need a smaller unit while another needs a wide range of features, and so on. But in truth, the most important feature of any home gym is safety for the user. All other features are important but safety needs to come first before all others.

And what does this have to do with hydraulic home gyms? When considering all the important features of these machines, you can probably get all those you need with a hydraulic system.

The Flexibility of a Hydraulic Home Gym

Most hydraulic home gym systems have several features in one. You can easily adjust the bench to go from presses to leg curls; the overhead bar can work for squats for the legs or curls for the triceps and biceps. This means that you don’t need an entire system of weights and bars to get a complete workout. Not only are you given a lot of features but you can save a lot of space as well.

The Safety of a Hydraulic Home Gym

However, safety is one of the most important features of any home gym and this is where hydraulics come into play. Many of those who are new with working out make the mistake of overdoing things and adding far too many weights to their stack. They often injure their back and joints. With hydraulics it becomes much harder to add too much weight, and you have the option of adding only a pound at a time, as opposed to weights with pins that are usually in five or ten pound increments. For women, this is an especially helpful and safe feature as it’s often better to increase your weights in smaller increments; for most women just two or three extra pounds is enough. On the other hand, those who are more experienced appreciate that a hydraulic home gym also allows them to increase their weight increments by as much as they want.

The movement needed for a hydraulic home gym is often much smoother as well. When your movements are smoother you are less likely to hurt your back or joints; many newcomers have a tendency to jerk the weights or try to force them and this is very dangerous. With a hydraulic home gym system you’re more likely to use the weight correctly and protect yourself while still getting an effective workout.

I bet you didn’t realize that you could build muscle with bodyweight workouts. After all, I’ve included The Garage Gladiator bodyweight workouts in the Physique Formula for a reason. I’m emailed countless times a day by men and women who really want to build muscle and lose fat bur for one reason or another can’t get to the gym. That’s ok, you don’t need to be a gym rat with the Physique Formula. All you have to do is train hard for 3-4 days a week and 45 minutes at a time and you’ll be all set.

Now the whole point of a muscle building bodyweight workout routine is to overload your body and cause growth in a different way than anyone who is swinging weights up and down in the gym. See my bodyweight workout routines are set so that you have to progress and you have to move up a level. The problem with most workouts is that they tell you to train for 12-16 weeks at a time and that’s all. Anyone can write a muscle building bodyweight workout routine that gets your tired and raises your metabolism but what about building muscle?

By forcing you to raise your reps as you progress you also force your body to adapt to this new training stress. Just like you would in a gym, more reps and more sets means that you are building muscle and growing. Do you want to know the real secret to the Garage Gladiator muscle building bodyweight workout routines? It’s getting a certain number of reps and sets done in a certain amount of time. If you give yourself 35 minutes to workout at night but are forced to do the same workout you did last week but in 10 less minutes then your body will have no choice but to grow.

Typically,I recommend a 5-minute warm up of all of the basic movements like squats and push-ups, glute bridges and some simple stretching. Once the body is warm it will allow the joints to move through their proper ranges, which is another mistake that most people make. It doesn’t matter how many reps you’re using, some exercises force you to use 10 or 15 reps while others force you to do as many as you can in 30 seconds, what matters is the quality of the movement.

Muscle building bodyweight workout routines are also healthier than the usual, boring gym workout because bodyweight movements are better on your joints. Who really wants a nagging shoulder injury anyway? Bodyweight workout routines that involve push-ups and the many variations of it are great for shoulder and shoulder blade health.

Yes, it is possible to get great muscle building bodyweight workout routines in your garage or basement or to use them to change things up in the gym.