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You put a lot of effort into your workouts, always looking to perform better and reach your goals. Chances are you’ve given more thought to your pre-workout meal than your post-workout meal.   But consuming the right nutrients after you exercise is just as important as what you eat before. Here is a detailed guide to optimal nutrition after workouts. Water This may seem obvious, but poor hydration is one of the most common workout mistakes. To stay energized and feel great, you should drink 2 to 3 glasses of water for every pound lost while exercising. Protein, Carbs and Fat This section discusses how each macronutrient — protein, carbs and fat — is involved in your body’s post-workout recovery process. The following lists contain examples of simple and easily digested foods: Carbs Sweet potatoes Chocolate milk Quinoa Fruits (pineapple, berries, banana, kiwi) Rice cakes Rice Oatmeal Potatoes Pasta Dark, leafy green vegetables Protein Animal- or plant-based protein powder Eggs Greek...

There’s hundreds of different styles of workout regimes in existence, it comes to me as no surprise that the majority of newcomers give up before they even do their first workout – with magazines, websites, books and trainers all preaching and recommending completely different workout styles for the same end goal. To build muscle mass. The 3 day split is one workout style among the hundreds out there, however unlike many the 3 day split workout regime is ideal for beginners – having started with a 3 day split regime myself I can honestly say it’s the best starting point for a newcomer to the gym. The best 3 day workout split beginners could do would be comprised of an upper body day, a lower body day, and a full body day. Think something like this: Mon – upper body Tue – lower body Wed – off Thu – off Fri – full body Sat – off Sun – off The reason why this layout is preferable is because your upper and lower body days each give you some extra room in your program to add in a few...

Starting an exercise routine provides many benefits including weight loss, increased muscle mass, lower blood pressure and an improved self image. Unfortunately, starting a good exercise routine isn't as easy as jumping on the treadmill and pushing start. Here are a few common mistakes made by new exercisers that are easy to avoid. Having a lot of confidence in supplements Supplements help you to boost your workout by giving nutrients and help you perform better. Be that as it may, don’t put an excess of weight in supplements. You will in any case go similarly as your exertion take you, and also great dietary patterns. Also, when you pick supplements check the list of ingredients on the package. You can even go similarly as checking the nature of the item with a mentor or doctor to ensure it suits you. Too Much Too Soon  A lot of beginners are very motivated and start by working out way too much. Exercising is good and some think that more of a good thing is even better. For mos...

To get results and prevent over training, focus on hitting your core two to three times a week post-workout. During those workouts, aim to include a variety of core exercises – not just crunches. Planks, cable woodchops, and abdominal rollouts are all good variations to include. Also, aim for the bulk of your program to consist of total body exercises that are going to involve your core like front squats, deadlifts, and standing shoulder presses. When choosing sets and reps, also be sure to mimic your current training program. If the rest of your training is geared towards increasing maximal strength and power, then your core moves should focus on that as well (shifting to medicine ball throws versus woodchops for instance). As with other muscle groups, vary the exercises and intensity to constantly see results and avoid overtraining. Low Intensity / High Repetition Abdominal Routines For those who mainly focus on a toning style of exercise consisting of lower intensity exercises (usin...

This 30 minute series I’ve written has picked up a lot of steam and is great for those who want to make progress but not spend hours in the gym. This 30 minute back routine is going to build strength and get toned by using effective exercises with a strong progression scheme. If you’re tired of going to the gym and not seeing any progress, using this routine will get you out of that rut and back on the path to reaching your goals. EXERCISE 1: Pull Up Reps: As many as possible Sets: 4 Rest: 60 seconds EXERCISE 2: Dumbbell Bent Over Row Reps: 10 Sets: 4 Rest: 60 seconds EXERCISE 3 & 4: Straight Bar Lat Pull Down superset with TRX Back Row Reps: 10 Sets: 3 (supersets) Rest: 30 seconds EXERCISE 5: Seated Cable Row * Complete as a dropset. Perform 10 reps, drop the weight by 10-20%, perform another 10 reps, drop the weight by 25%, perform another 10 reps. * Complete 2 dropsets Rest: 90 seconds Workout Tips Strive for progression – Every time you step into the gym, strive to lift ...

What are carbohydrates? Carbohydrates, together with lipids, proteins and nucleic acids, are one of the four major classes of biologically essential organic molecules found in all living organisms. Carbohydrates, all coming from the process of photosynthesis, represent the major part of organic substance on Earth, are the most abundant organic components in the major part of fruits, vegetables, legumes and cereal grains, carry out many functions in all living organisms and are the major energy source in a Mediterranean-type diet. Finally, they provide flavor and texture in many processed foods. Carbohydrates can be divided into three groups: Simole Starchy Carbohydrates (e.g. sugar, honey, fruit, fruit juice) Simple carbohydrates have a ‘simple’ molecular structure and are made up of 1-2 sugar molecules. The simplest form of carbohydrate is glucose. Simple sugars that are found in foods include sucrose (table sugar), fructose (found in fruit), and lactose (found in milk). Not all simpl...

People don’t understand that triceps take up 2/3 of your arm and the biceps only take up 1/3. On your route to getting those 22″ arms, you need to fill out the back 2/3 of your arm and the whole process will become much easier. Dips Weighted and non-weighted dips are great for hitting all 3 tricep heads. They are as old as time but still take the cake for the best tricep workouts for mass. There are multiple variations on how to do dips whether they be on benches or between to bars. A lot of people choose doing them between two bars because it takes some pressure off of your wrists. Going a little passed 90-degrees uses your tricep muscles to their fullest potential for optimal mass gainz. Skull Crushers This may be the best exercise for the triceps because it allows free joint movement and hits all three tricep heads but with more focus on the medial head. I would also recommend dumbbells instead of the barbell for full range of the muscle movement. Try to reach back as far as ...

Boiled egg whites may be a plain food, but they offer many benefits to your diet. While egg yolks contain lutein, vitamin A and vitamin B-12, they also contain fat, cholesterol and calories. Boiled egg whites are a convenient and low-calorie way to add egg protein to your diet, without overloading your calorie or fat consumption. 1. No fat and low calories If you’re cutting during summer or can’t fit a lot of fat into your macros, one egg white contains 52 calories per 100 grams, whereas the yolk adds 322 calories. All the fat of an egg is in the yolk too, some of which is good fat, but it also contains 2g of saturated fat per yolk, about eight per cent of the daily recommended intake. 2. High Protein Egg whites are one of the top sources of protein, ranking up there with lean meat, poultry and fish. More than half of a full egg’s 6 g of protein, in fact, comes from the white. A single egg white offers 4 g of protein without the yolk’s fat and other detriments. You’ll get no fat, in...

I was offered a Director of Operations position at the oldest operating gym in America (Union), and when I stopped by, I fell in love immediately. It’s a no-nonsense type of place that reeks of sweat and partially rusted steel. What was most encouraging though was the type of lifting taking place. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of members were playing with weights like a fish out of water, but a good portion were performing rack deadlifts, board pressing, and functional training. I figure, with a little TLC and that already-existent training approach, I can turn this place into something special. Body weight workouts are one of the hottest fitness trends! Ditch the complicated exercises and get back to basics! Think old school fitness, like you did back in the day. The beauty of a body weight only workout is that you can do these exercises anywhere and they hit all of the major muscle groups. They can be performed faster, increasing your strength and endurance. Warmup: Jump Rope – 3 x ...

Building a big & powerful chest can be a challenge if you are focusing on the wrong exercises and reps. In this article, we are going to cover the best chest workout that will help you build a thick, strong set of pecs while also increasing your strength & power. The first and most basic chest muscle exercise is the push up. In this exercise, you can not only improve your chest muscles, but you can also improve your triceps. To make a push up, lie on the ground with you to the ground. Your hands and palms should be under each side of the body. Then push up while making sure your legs and torso is in a straight line. This is the initial position. Now beautifully lower until your chest is an inch off the ground. After a second push back to the starting position. Repeat. This exercise is good as warm up for the chest before doing chest exercises with weights. It can also be made to cool.The next chest muscle exercise is the bench press. To make the bench press, there is a bar in t...

High volume works best for calves. They are probably the hardest muscle to build, and if you chose the wrong parents getting them to grow is gonna be a bitch. Like my dad, I have always had calves like string beans. Just doing a few sets for them never did anything for me. Since I had no desire to train them and preferred to focus on strength, athleticism and bigger compound lifts they stayed that way for years. Calves are one of the toughest areas of the body to target when it comes to growing bigger muscles. Calves are composed of two muscles: the gastrocnemius and the soleus. These muscles work together to carry us everywhere we go, so it takes time, effort and some pain to shock them into getting bigger. You'll get satisfying results if you use the right workout strategy combined with a high-calorie diet. The goal here is to continuously progress and raise the bar. I definitely recommend you to try out this plan, and see how quickly you will add an additional cms in your cal...

Refueling after exercise is key for rebuilding muscle tissue and glycogen stores.  Exercise can break down muscle fibers which hinders building muscle and strength.  However, getting adequate nutrition through the day, and after exercise, can offset muscle break down and contribute to muscle growth. Athletes need about 1.2-1.7 gm/kg of body weight.  Most athletes get their recommended amount of protein throughout the day if they eat a balanced diet.  You don’t necessarily need to drink o eat a protein supplement after working out. Supplements can be convenient and portable, but real food can work well for restoring muscles after exercise. Here are some considerations to keep in mind when planning your post exercise nutrition and protein intake. 1. Bigger athletes don’t necessary need more protein. The researchers suggested that the amount of muscle worked in a specific training session has a bigger impact on the amount of protein needed afterwards, than the entire...

Discover the best chest exercises for building a chest worthy of Greek god status. On this page, I’ll give you my take on top 5 exercises for chest training. Exercise 1 Incline Barbell Press 5 x 4 + 4 + 4 30X1 Tempo 2 min rest Exercise 2 Flat Neutral Grip Chest Press 5 x 45sec constant tension timed sets 1min rest Exercise 3 Omni Push-Ups 3 x failure 1min rest Exercise 4 cable flyes 5 x 4 + 4 + 4 30 sec rest

Curls, curls curls. When I first started working out at home my elaborate scheme to build the body of my dreams was based solely around the principle of training biceps every evening, without fail. I soon realized that sheer volume on one exercise wasn’t getting me far. Looking back now I realize that everyone that has built an impressive set of arms knows how to train them correctly – thousands upon thousands of light weight, slow bicep curls won’t get you arms . Arm Training Mistake #1 Neglecting Triceps This is without a doubt the biggest arm training mistake I see. Period. When it comes to building big arms the triceps are often neglected, with arm day consisting of a variety of different bicep curls and only one or two tricep exercises. The triceps makes up 2/3 of your arm and has a far bigger overall impact on the size of your arm (especially when viewed side on). Although the triceps are the secondary muscle group on exercises such as the barbell bench press when training che...

hard gainers out there, but most people who consider themselves hard gainers are simply training wrong and not eating properly to gain the muscle mass gains they seek. Maybe you are someone who wants to pack on a few pounds of quality muscle while staying lean. You’re someone who doesn’t want to follow the typically excepted bulking and cutting cycles, where you bulk first and then cut up. Maybe, just maybe, you want to look good all year round and not for just a couple of weeks. I’m with you here on this one. I want to add more muscle myself, but not at the expense of looking like crap for most of the year. The good news is you don’t have to follow the typical bulk and cut approach to gain muscle. If you know what to do and how to approach muscle gain you can add quality muscle while maintaining, and sometimes even lowering, your body fat levels. The key is to add quality lean muscle without getting fat in the process. Whatever your muscle building related goals are, these  simple...

Only a handful of gym-goers get excited about leg day. And then, on leg days, only a few of them will train their hamstrings. Admittedly, quads don’t get the same love that chest muscles get, but for unknown reasons, the hamstrings get even less – it’s like they always receive the short end of the stick in terms of building leg strength and size. And that’s really a shame, because the hamstrings are kind of like the triceps of the legs in the way their development holds the key to building truly big, powerful and sculpted legs. The most important function of the hams is hip extension, which as you can guess, is vital for explosiveness, sprinting, jumping and overall pelvic mobility, but they also play an important role in stabilizing the knee joint, so it’s easy to understand how a pair weak, underdeveloped hams will diminish the effectiveness of your leg training, make you look like a novice and leave you at risk for imbalance and injury. If you’ve been slacking on you...

The lower body contains some of your biggest muscles which are capable of bearing significant weights. The temptation for beginners to go for broke by performing heavy squats should be resisted. To begin with you should concentrate on building the muscles safely by using machines that isolate muscle groups. The squat is an excellent compound exercise that trains numerous lower body muscles but it is one you should learn properly after spending three months strengthening the individual muscles that will be utilized later. The muscles of the lower body can be divided into five groups: 1. Quads - this is the big muscle group consisting of four muscles at the front of the thigh. These are the primary muscles used when performing exercises such as squats, leg press, lunge and leg extension. 2. Hamstrings - these are the main muscles at the back of the thigh. These are the primary muscles used when performing leg curls. 3. Gluteals - these are the muscles that make up the buttocks. 4. Hi...

Have you ever felt that you do everything to lose belly fat, but the results come too slowly? You do tiring abs workout and follow a healthy diet, but you can see only small changes on your stomach. Sometimes you feel you are close to giving up the training and your diet. You are not alone! I felt the same. I did my best to have a flat belly, but results came slowly. - Secret to flatten Stomach Fat Do you believe it or not, the truth is that there is 1 trick to lose belly fat. You are what you eat. If you change the food you eat certain foods common today, you will be able to Flatten your stomach naturally and safely. It's a mystery to flatten belly fat. Some of us are perfect, when it comes to how we look, but we believe that nothing of what we put into our month. What we put into our mouths, may gradually lead to visceral fat, which is hidden deep in our stomach and the excess fat that can lead to a lot of health problems - high blood pressure, high insulin resistance, high bl...

While you can carve a tantalizingly toned body in less than a half hour, we’re here to tell you what you already know: To reap the rewards—increased calorie burn, strength, power, blissful endorphin high—truncated workouts must be insanely intense. So we asked a team of Equinox trainers and group fitness instructors what they would do if they were given just 20 minutes to have at it. The Workout: This 20-minute barre series will tone your arms  without lifting a single weight. The key: Working big then small. “These exercises first heat up the larger muscles of your core—the abdominals, shoulders, back and supporting pelvic muscles—to warm up the body and prepare for the more acute toning of your biceps, triceps,” says Ilisije. Optimal alignment is essential to the effectiveness of these exercises, so pay close attention to those cues as you flow from one exercise to the next. How it works Do this arms-building workout twice a week for a month, for a total of eight times over th...

Start building a solid training base and take the first steps towards achieving goals. The beginners weight training workout program is designed to work your upper body and thigh muscle groups. If your aim is to begin weight training to assist with weight loss, then also perform a suitable lower body workout, as your larger leg muscles will use more calories, and thus give you greater results. (Suitable workouts can be found within our members area). As a beginner, I would certainly look at reading the notes on strength training to help you choose the correct weight for you and avoid the risk of any muscle injury by simply trying to work the muscles beyond their capabilities. Your aim should be to establish correct technique whilst lifting a suitable weight. The weight you need to lift, will be as much as is comfortable for the reps outlined, with the last 2 - 3 reps becoming hard but not impossible to lift with good technique. If your lifting the weights with bad technique, then you...

With so much talk these days about "functional training," it seems arm training has taken a dive in popularity. While this may be the case in some circles, for those of us who got into lifting weights in hopes of attaining muscular arms that resemble those of a superhero, doing direct bicep and tricep work will never go out of style. Having big, muscular arms that stretch your shirtsleeves will never go out of style either, so let's take a look at a few strategies that you can use to jumpstart your tricep growth. The 6 Best Triceps Exercises Dumbbell Triceps Extension Weighted dips Skull crushers Close Grip Bench Press Triceps Dips Barbell Lying Triceps Extension Triceps Training Tips Here’s where I’ll share all the tips, tid-bits, pointers, hints and tricks that are particular to triceps training… …This includes everything from general suggestions to very specific and seemingly trivial details – Anything that can give you a leg up. Tip #1: Grip Width for Barbell Tri...

Squats are lifting royalty for curing chicken leg syndrome’ and building high-performance muscle mass. Squats develop total-body strength, stimulate tons of total body muscle growth, and improve athleticism. Yep, the squat reigns king among bang-for-your buck exercises. Problem is, most lifters have the mobility of a cast-iron skillet and lack the ability to squat safely and effectively. To maximize the squat you need the mobility to reach proper position and the stability to control movement through the intended range of motion. It’s time to maximize your squat potential through improving technique, mobility, and execution. With these 8 tips you’ll take your squat performance to new levels. 1. WORK ON YOUR FORM, PERFECT IT Just like any compound movement, proper form is critical in order to get results and avoid injury. You have two options when setting up for the squat: You can choose the high-bar or low-bar position. High Bar Placed on the upper traps Torso remains upright Low B...