Strickland Fitness

Weight Loss Resolution?

Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to lose weight? The best way to conquer this goal is to slowly change your lifestyle. What most people do is immediately go on a diet. Let’s just say the diet works and you reach your ideal weight. What do you do then? Most will fall back to old habits and gain all the weight back. That is why they don’t work in the long run. Diets are just a short term solution. If your resolution is to lose weight, try changing it to lose weight and keep it off.

Losing weight and keeping it off comes from changing your lifestyle. Healthy eating habits, getting plenty of rest, having a consistent cardio and resistance program, and keeping stresses down are all the components of a healthy lifestyle. These are the things that will help you lose weight, keep it off, and live a healthy life for good. You will feel great and you will look great.

How do you successfully change your lifestyle? The answer is to set yourself up for success. Most people use the New Year to try and change everything all at once. This is a very difficult thing to do. The best way is to make small changes over time to give you and your body the time to adapt and implement them into daily life. Make a list of all the things you need to do or change in order to meet your goal. Then start with one. Once this change has become part of your new lifestyle, move to the next one. Move through each change as the previous one becomes normal to you. Over time, all the changes you have made will not feel like changes anymore because they will be part of your lifestyle. Have you ever noticed how gyms get really crowded at the beginning of the year and then taper off to normal crowds by March? This is a perfect example of people trying too much all at once. They give up because they say it’s too hard to do all the things needed to reach their goal. This may not be the fastest way to lose weight, but it will have the longest success.

The Challenge starts Thursday!!!!

Last Prep tool you will need….and it’s a simple one. You should have figured out your BMR and how many calories you are actually taking in (from your food journal); If you haven’t yet, be sure to do so before Thursday. This Challenge is not for crash dieters or for losing weight in an unhealthy way. This is a challenge to educate about nutrition and exercise. The safest way to lose weight or to gain weight is to make healthy decisions. With that in mind, the rule of thumb is you should not decrease or increase calorie intake by more than 15% either way. So, if your goal is to lose weight (fat), you should decrease your calorie intake by no more than 15% of your BMR. If your goal is to gain weight (muscle), you should increase your calorie intake by 15% of your BMR. Figure out what the number is and that should be your daily goal for the month. Weight loss or weight gain will come from being slightly below or above your BMR and exercise, both cardio and resistance. We will not be starving or gorging ourselves to meet our goals. Besides reaching the goal for the month, the long term goal should be to learn and make these changes become part of your life.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comment section and I will answer for everyone. I will also be posting some specifics about good nutrition. Right now, the idea is to eat only what your goal allows, eat low fat foods, and stay away from high sugar and sodium foods. Don’t drink soda, drink lots of water. And as far as alcohol goes, this might be a good month to see if you can refrain

I look forward to hearing about your success!!!!

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 The next thing you will need to do for the October challenge is know how to monitor your heart rate during exercise, both resistance and cardio. If you have a heart rate monitor in the closet, dig it up. If you don’t have one, don’t despair. Most cardio machines at the gym have sensors on them for you to check your heart rate. Make sure you know how to use it. The third way is to take your pulse manually. Place the tips of your first two fingers lightly over one of the blood vessels on your neck, just to the left or right of your Adam’s apple. Or try the pulse spot inside your wrist just below the base of your thumb. Count the pulse for 10 seconds and then multiply by 6. So you should at all times be able to, using one of these methods, check your heart rate. Next time you are working out, try stopping and seeing if you can get it. Once you have this down, put a big check mark in the box for Sept. 17^th. Great Job!!!

Use of any knowledge from this website is voluntary. By reading this post, you agree to the terms and conditions outlined in the disclaimer in the about section of this website. Thanks for participating!

Circuit Training

If you don’t have a lot of time and you are looking to get in a good workout, try circuit training. This type of workout will raise your heart rate, build lean muscle, and burn calories, all while maximizing your time.

Circuit training is basically moving through a series of exercises with little to no rest. This will keep your heart rate high ensuring extra fat burning. The actual resistance exercises in the circuit will help to build lean muscle which will speed up your metabolism and continue to burn calories even at rest. The great thing about circuit training is you can do it almost anywhere and with little weight. You can also create a circuit using only your body weight.

There are a few different ways to do your circuit. You can do a certain number of reps per exercise or do each exercise for a certain amount of time. The idea is to do the exercises a little faster than you would normally do to raise your heart rate while concentrating on muscle isolation. The other thing to think about is what exercises to do and what order to do them in.

In order to minimize fatiguing a muscle to fast, I like to do a lower body exercise, followed by an upper body exercise, followed by an ab exercise. So for example, if you are at a beginner fitness level, you could do 30 seconds of knee push-ups, then 30 seconds of body squats, and finish with 30 seconds of crunches. After doing this series, you would rest and then do it again. Depending on your fitness level, you can start doing 3 exercises in a row and then rest. You can work up to doing 12-15 exercises before resting. As your fitness level increases, you can add exercises to each circuit and add a little extra time to each exercise. For my advanced clients, I set up 15 different exercises (alternating the upper body, lower body and abs) and have them do each exercise for 45 seconds. After doing the circuit once, they rest until their heart rate goes down to normal and then they do it again. After doing this circuit 4-5 times, they are exhausted and feeling great.

I like doing the exercises in the circuit for time. It gives you the opportunity to go at your own pace that matches your fitness level. The goal is to work continuously through the time of each exercise. The more advanced your fitness level, the faster you will go. Just don’t start off so fast that you can’t go for the entire pre-set time. Find the pace that challenges you but you can complete each exercise.

Even though you are working faster than normal, form is still essential. Concentrate on doing each exercise right and controlled. Working out this way combines cardio and resistance training all in one. You will have maximum calorie burning in the least amount of time.

Everyone wants a nice firm butt. It’s not only about doing the right exercises to tone the gluts, it’s about doing the right exercises right.  For most, the quads and hamstrings do most of the work in these exercises. The key is getting the gluts to fire. I will go over a few butt burning exercises and the important aspects of each one.

1Leg Squat

This exercise is great for targeting the gluts and quads while working on strength and balance. Stand directly in front of a workout bench or chair (for at home workouts) with the back of your legs nearly touching it. Raise your left leg out in front of you so your left hip and knee are bent at 90 degrees. Standing only on the right leg, slowly lower yourself bringing your hips behind you until your butt just touches the bench. Press through your heel to raise yourself to the starting position. Concentrate on not letting your right knee collapse in towards your left leg. Your knee should stay directly in line with your foot. Do 10-12 reps and then switch legs. Do 3 sets.

Walking Lunges

This exercise works the gluts, quads, and hamstrings while helping to stretch the hip flexors. You should have about 20-30 feet of space to do this. Take a big step forward, stop, and then drop your butt straight down. Your front leg and back leg should both be bent 90 degrees at the knee. Keep your back straight and stop lowering yourself when the back knee is a few inches off the ground. Rise up and bring the back leg even with the front and step that leg forward and repeat the lowering and raising. This sequence should be even paced and controlled. Go 20-30 feet and then return the same way. Do this 3 times. You can also hold dumbbells in your hands if you need more resistance.

1 Leg Pelvic Lifts

This exercise works the gluts, hamstrings, and the lower back. Lying on your back with 1 leg extended straight (about 2 feet off the ground) and the other leg bent (knee at about 45 degrees and foot flat on the floor), press through your foot on the floor raising your pelvis off the ground. You should raise it until you have a straight line from your head to the tip of your bent knee. Lower your pelvis to the ground and then raise again. Concentrate on activating the gluts while going through the motion. Do 12 reps and then switch legs. Do 3 sets.

The gluts can be hard muscles to train when you don’t activate them. Concentrate on making them work and they will work for you.