Want To Become More Fit? Try These Great Fitness Tips

By Jade Oakman

Many of us begin on a fitness regimen but few of us follow through and actually reach our goal. Getting fit can be a challenge, but if you have the right motivation and right advice it can be accomplished. This article will help outline some tips on reaching your fitness goals.

To maximize the benefits of your bench-press routines, try to squeeze the bar inward when you are doing your presses. This will cause more of your chest muscles to work harder. Change to squeezing outward when doing the close-grip version of a bench-press to work your triceps much harder.

A good tip for runners looking to become faster is to decrease the distance they run and increase the speed they run. This allows you to develop good form which will translate over when you run longer distances. Developing good from will also reduce the chances of you getting injured.

Yoga is a great way to stay in shape. Yoga makes you more flexible by stretching your body in various poses. It also works your core muscles as you attempt to stay in the poses for lengths of time. Yoga is also very relaxing and is a great way to cool down after a long week of strenuous exercise.

Make exercise a priority in your life. Write it on your calendar or include it in your scheduling program. If you wait to do it until you have time, or when you think of it, you will not get it done. You have to be consistent in order see significant results.

To reach your fitness goals more quickly, follow this one tip : Move through mud. This means visualize yourself making all of your movements as if you were submerged in mud, try it. You'll see that you put much more effort into each movement and involve more muscles, increasing the burn more quickly, and thus, your improvement.

Exercise your hamstrings with extended ankle leg curls. You can do these while either standing or sitting down, but make sure that you extend your ankle in the entire process. This elongates and stretches the hamstrings, as well as exercises the rest of your legs. This is especially beneficial to a runner.

When doing any type of fitness program, it is important to make sure you are protecting your body. You don't want to work so hard that you injure yourself and can't continue to exercise. Make sure that you have the correct form and that you are not pushing yourself to hard.

In order to maximize your weight fitness routine, try loading up your bench press with 25% more weight than you could max out at. Do not attempt to complete the exercise, just hold the weight above you with a spotter's assistance. Next, take the weight off and show what you've got.

Start walking! A good way to ease into a regular fitness routine is to take daily walks. This doesn't need to be very far to start with, and you shouldn't think of it as exercise. Take the dog for a brisk walk around the block, or walk with a friend. If possible, increase the length of time that you walk for every week, and in no time you will be walking a few miles at a time without even realizing it!

The hardest part usually is getting started. Once you have followed your fitness program for a week or two, it will become second nature. Habit is a wonderful thing. It begins to carry you. The program becomes a part of your daily life, and fitness and good health are the result.

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Find out more about how to tone your belly by checking out Jade's site on getting slim female abs

Proven Barbell Exercises

By Trevor Johnson

If you didn't know, drilling with dumbbells is probably one of the safest and most efficient methods to increase muscle and strength. I'm sure you have seen countless meatheads who spend close to an hour on barbell bench press, and will simply not "waste their time" with stupid dumbbells...

Well these are the same fellows who damage their rotator cuff and lose the facility to train for months at a time. Barbell bench press is DANGEROUS . There is reason explaining why baseball pitchers are not allowed to perform this exercise, and that's thanks to the risks it presents for the rotator cuff. Luckily , dumbbells are a fine solution.

There are limited exercises you can perform with barbells, but dumbbells offer a large range of options. Just to be absolutely sure, barbell exercises such as deadlifts, cleans, army press, and rows are excellent muscle builders. But we are here to chat about the easiest way to train with dumbbells.

Chest

There aren't a lot of options for coaching the chest to begin with, but dumbbells allow you to perform some glorious adaptations. The most obvious exercises include flat dumbbell bench press, incline press, and decline press. Flat bench will target the middle portion of the chest, incline targets the higher, and decline concentrates on the lower. That is actually all you are able to do for the chest right? Nope!

You can also perform flat, incline, and decline dumbbell flies. This exercise allows for a large stretch of the chest muscles, which will give you a brilliant contraction.

As well as these exercises, you can also perform dumbbell pullovers. Pullovers do not immediately target the chest, but instead target the serratus muscles on the side and below the pecs. These muscles help your abdominal muscles stand out rather more.

Back

Coaching the back with dumbbells is highly-effective as it lets you get a massive quantity of range of motion. Some of the finest exercises include single-arm dumbbell rows with your knee on a bench, or standing. Keep your back straight and ensure you pull with your lats and THEN your arms.

With lighter dumbbells, you may also perform rear delt raises. You can perform rear delt raises standing or sitting.

Legs

There is a enormous spread of leg exercises you need to use with dumbbells. If you are looking to hit the hamstrings, you need to use stiff-leg deadlifts. And to increase the difficulty, you can attempt single-leg deadlifts.

To target the glutes, you can use standard lunges, reverse lunges, and even side lunges.

And lastly, to aim at all leg muscles, you need to use Romanian squats. Simply hold a dumbbell with both hands and stand with your legs a little farther than shoulder width. Lower the weight between your legs and squat down.

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Learn ways to increase your muscle gains by following this muscle building nutrition resource. Here you will find tips on muscle confusion.