The three rules of ab work: intensity, intensity, intensity! The best way to work your abs is to contract them as hard as you can during the entire set of exercises you happen to be doing for them. The trick is to be able to breathe from your diaphram while squeezing your abs. Also, don’t get hung up on just doing ab crunches until your bored to death. Ab crunches are only one way to work the abs and their … Read More
Why do some people lose weight on a high fat/protein, low carbohydrate diet while others actually gain?
Because we are all metabolically unique. Not everyone processes foods the same way. Some of us metabololize carbohydrates slowly and some quickly. Either of these tendencies, along with countless others, can result in weight gain. The key to weight management is to achieve metabolic balance and which combination of nutrients (i.e., fat, protein and carbs) needed to achieve this state is different for everyone. The key is to determine which foods and combinations of foods are ideal for your body … Read More
Which cardiovascular exercise burns the most calories?
The real issue here is how hard are you working? The method of cardiovascular exercise is not nearly as important as the intensity and duration of the exercise. Sure, the elliptical machine may feel more strenuous then the treadmill. But this is because you have not done the elliptical trainer often enough for your body to adapt to it. Once your body adapts to the motion and intensity of the elliptical trainer, it will feel no more strenuous the treadmill. … Read More
How many days a week should I be weight training?
This depends on your goal. If your goal is to decrease body fat, you should do resistance training as often as possible, with a caveat: do not train the same muscle groups on consecutive days. The muscles need at least 48 hours to recover and rebuild between workouts. However, you can work one or more groups of muscles one day and different groups of muscles on the following day. For example, one could work the muscles of the upper body … Read More
Should I be taking nutritional supplements? I hear so much mixed information about them.
Everyone should be taking a basic multi-vitamin, daily antioxidants, and extra vitamin C. Yes, there is plenty of information out there about why supplements are good for you and why they are bad for you. The most recent wave of media is definitely anti-supplement. The argument here is that you can get all the nutrients you need from whole, natural foods. Ideally, yes, it would be easier and more economical if we could get all we needed by eating the … Read More
