Training Tips

CARDIOVASCULAR TRAINING
Cardiovascular training is essential for weight loss and overall health. The term means aerobic endurance. This translates to your body’s ability to perform activities that require oxygen in the process. Think of it as any exercise that gets you "winded" for an extended period of time. Running, biking, swimming, and aerobics classes are a few obvious forms.

However, you can walk, dance, hike, ski, rollerblade, or play tennis, basketball or soccer. The list is endless. Commit to doing cardio training at least three times per week. If weight loss is your goal, you should gradually increase your duration in the beginning and then increase your intensity. For example, if you are just starting a workout program, begin with a walking program that consists of 20-30 minute sessions, 3-4 times per week. Gradually increase your sessions to 45-60 minutes, performed 5-6 times per week. As your body adjusts and the sessions become easy to complete, you should increase your intensity (speed and/or method) or add intervals (short bursts of higher intensity, mixed with lower intensity)

FLEXIBILITY TRAINING
Flexibility training is important to help prevent injury. Tight or stiff muscles decrease your coordination, and make exercise more difficult and less enjoyable. In addition, your flexibility naturally decreases as you age. If you make the effort to stretch and keep your muscles pliable, you can maintain your flexibility longer. Ideally, stretching and flexibility training should be done daily and can take as little as five minutes. As with cardiovascular exercise, start your flexibility program at a moderate level and gradually increase your effort level.

RESISTANCE TRAINING
Like cardio, resistance (strength) training is an essential element of weight loss, long-term weight management, and overall well-being.
• You lose muscle as you age. In turn, this leads to slow, subtle weight gain over time. Muscle requires more energy than fat. As you lose muscle, your metabolism slows down. Increasing and/or maintaining your muscle keeps your metabolism charged and helps prevent weight gain.
• You burn calories when you strength train, which leads to weight loss.
• Resistance training keeps you strong. Daily tasks are easier to perform, your workouts are better, and your energy levels are higher.
• Resistance training increases your bone density, which reduces the risk of osteoporosis. When you begin a strength training program, it is best to perform exercises at least 2-3 times a week. Begin at a moderate level and increase gradually. Doing too much too soon can result in muscle soreness and discourage you from consistent activity. It is important to do a mild warm-up to increase your body temperature and get your muscles warmed. Try 5 to 10 minutes of cardio which is walking, stationary bike, jump roping, any sort of continuous exercise that increases your heart rate.

Ten Tips to Building Muscle
1. Be strict. Avoid the wrong fats, excessive salt and simple sugars. This obviously means most fast foods and soft drinks. Choose one day each week to cheat on these junk foods.
2. Never miss breakfast. Make sure your breakfast contains enough complex carbohydrates, protein and fats to ignite your metabolism and provide you with fuel and muscle sustaining ingredients. Remember, protein builds muscle while carbohydrates and fats supply fuel for energy. Also, make sure you have a good vitamin and mineral formula that you take daily!
3. Eat six meals a day. This means to feed yourself every three to four hours. Again, consume a meal consisting of protein, fats and carbohydrates.
4. Eat enough protein. Eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. If you are familiar with ounce units, the conversion of grams to ounces is roughly 28:1. So an individual who weighs 175 pounds should be consuming at least 6 ounces of protein.
5. Avoid simple carbohydrates (sugars, sweets, etc). Excessive sugar plays havoc on our insulin metabolism and leads to fatigue, poor performanc and fat storage.
6. Eat before and after you workout. Eat a small, easily digested meal about an hour before you train. This will give you the fuel you need to train harder. Ideally, eat again within one hour of finishing your workout. Your body needs to repair and rebuild your tissue to build muscle. Consider a complex carbohydrate like Carb-Xcel or your favorite protein shake to meet these needs.
7. Drink alot of water. Carry around a gallon jug of water and drink at least one per day. The Complete Nutrition 8 glass per day is perfect!
8. Work out each body part no more than 2 times per week. Muscle builds when you are at rest. Hitting one muscle group hard once per week is ideal. When the muscle is overworked, you have constant "tear down" and the tissue has no time to repair/rebuild.
9. Follow a supplement regimen. Be consistent. Repetition and dedication are the keys to succes.
10. Get adequate sleep. Sleep is important for muscle recovery. It is recommended that you get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep every night.