Mark Wilson

It’s that time again! FIIIIITNESSS FRIIIDAYY!!!! -crickets-
Well at least I’m excited to share some more news!

In an effort to keep this short and sweet, we’ll move on to the 2nd half of last week’s discussion right away “The Exercise“.

Usually people take quite some time to get into a new lifestyle (I don’t like the word routine, that implies mundane and repetitively boring). I wouldn’t say exercise or nutrition is more difficult than the other, because both require dedication of different styles. For example, in your diet, you need to concentrate on the various aspects we discussed last week such as protein, carbs, and fat. Whereas with exercise you have your program to follow and the overall motivation to even get going!

Let’s concentrate on the first part, getting you into the gym or outdoors being active!

1. Goal setting – we need to get you some goals to follow and make this more interactive. You should make use of multiple goal styles. One could be to lose weight to reduce your risk of diabetes or heart attack. This type of goal isn’t result specific, so it’s a constant motivator. Whereas it’s equally important to have physical goals such as ‘fit into those size 6 jeans again’. These are measurable and help you gauge success. An important measure here though, is to have short-term AND long-term goals. If you’re currently a size 16, saying fit into size 6 isn’t that feasible in the short run while losing healthy amounts of weight.

So an example of a solid goal structure you could use would be ‘lose weight to help lower my cholesterol’ with ‘build some muscle to be able to move the boxes with the boys at work’ and ‘drop 50lbs over the next year!’

2. Picking an activity – Some people love to be in the gym, some people hate it. Some people love to run, some people hate it. Some people love to play sports, and guess what? you got it. some people hate it. The key here is to find something YOU like to do. You have countless options , I will name a few to get your mind going.

1. 30 minute brisk walks every morning and night
2. Playing basketball with the guys/gals for an hour or two
3. Lifting weights and running at the gym
4. Going for a bike ride

Regardless of your activity, you would probably want it to last a good 15-20 minutes 2x a day, or if you have time restrictions, 30-60 minutes in one session. Try to pick something around your level of fitness. If you’ve never exercised before, I wouldn’t jump into a 10k run, start small, like briskly walking 15-20 minutes a couple times a day. If you’re a crazy fitness enthusiast, maybe you go for that morning jog AND hit the weights later that night.

3. Weight training – Weight training has SO many benefits, like the fact that an extra 5lbs of muscle burns around 200-250 extra calories a day even when you’re doing nothing! Your body becomes an internal fat burning machine… this is good. If you feel intimidated by the gym, there are many ways to do weight exercises on your own. For example, pushups, bodyweight squats, lunges, tricep dips, crunches, leg lifts, and the list goes on, so that is NO excuse for avoiding the weights!

4. What you’re shooting for – We’re building up here to try and eventually have you doing some form of daily cardio, with weight training 2-5 days a week. Now don’t get intimidated, because what I said before was that this times TIME. You just need to progress into an activity you enjoy and as you start to lose weight, it will help motivate you to work harder.

Your weight routine options vary immensely, but I would recommend doing a fullbody workout 2-3 days a week to start. Once this becomes easy, you can begin training with different splits.
An example of a typical week once you’re up and running would look like this.

Monday – Weights w/light cardio
Tuesday – Activity or cardio
Wednesday – Weights w/light cardio
Thursday – Activity or cardio
Friday – Weights w/light cardio
Saturday – Activity or cardio (or OFF)
Sunday – off

This is what we strive for… maybe it can be one of your new goals…. to follow the above plan! 🙂

So to sum this up…

The motivations are the goals you have set and the enjoyment of the activity you’re performing.
The exercise is the activity and the weight training.

Find your motivators and pick an activity you enjoy to get your fitness started!

Our exercise for this week is the CRUNCH. Perform this alongside your squats and pushups to continue building your strength and physical fitness!

 
*photos courtesy of bodybuilding.com

1. Lay on your back with your feet flat on the floor, your knees bent at a 90 degree angle
2. Put your hands on the side of your head, or in front of you depending on the difficulty you desire (easier with hands in front, harder with hands on head)
3. Press your lower back into the floor and contract your abs
4. Lift your upper body up towards the ceiling by contracting your abs and keeping your lower back on the floor (this should not be a jerky motion, rather, a smooth controlled lift)
5. At the top (about 4 inches up) contract your abs hard, then lower yourself back to the floor in a controlled manner
6. Repeat until you cannot perform another rep with perfect form

What activity do you love to perform? Do you follow any routines for weight training?

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mark.james.wilson@hotmail.com or my twitter http://twitter.com/#!/AdvEdgeTraining

Signing off,

Marky Mark