Tag: Tips
The Top 20 Simple Weight Loss Tips
toIf you want to lose weight, you need to eat less and exercise more. This creates a calorie deficit that forces your body to burn fat for fuel. There are no ways around this – you must reduce your calorie intake and increase your calorie expenditure. Period! But, as simple as this process looks on…
Feeling Dizzy After Working Out? Here Are 5 Tips
If you’re feeling dizzy or light-headed after a workout, you could be over-exerting yourself.
It’s in the nature of a bodybuilder to push himself past his limits. But we should never get too comfortable in the gym, no matter how much time we spend there. The truth is working out can be extremely dangerous if we don’t make sure to take the proper safety measures.
Feeling dizzy or light-headed after a workout can be caused by a number of factors. Usually the culprit is dehydration, but sometimes it can be something more serious, such as a heart condition. Here are our top 5 tips for working out smarter, not harder, and taking care of your body even as you push yourself for maximum results:
5. Stay Hydrated
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how easy it is to forget to hydrate, especially if you’re someone who spends a long time in the gym every day and start to move out of habit and repetition more than actual thought. You should always hydrate before and after a workout. Depending on the exercise, drinking small amounts of water throughout can also be beneficial, and keeps your muscles from dehydrating.
4. Warm Up Before You Work Out
It can be jarring to the body to suddenly leap into motion after a long time being still. This tip goes out especially to those of you who work out first thing in the morning, right after your body was essentially motionless for 8 hours! Think about it. Warming up helps ease the body into movement and it reduces the risk of injury, so, there’s really no reason ever not to do it.
3. Try Yoga, Hiking, or Swimming
Dizziness after a workout is sometimes caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain. This could be because your lungs aren’t working at full capacity and can’t keep up with the stress of an intense workout. Low-intensity activities like yoga or a going for a gentle hike have been shown to help regulate and strengthen breathing over time. If you take up a practice like this alongside doing heavier workouts in the gym, it will make you a much better athlete all around.
2. Don’t Smoke or Drink Too Much
Again, this one seems obvious, but you’d be surprised. Smoking is bad for you and hangovers leave you dehydrated and depleted. Take it easy on both, even on the weekends, if you’re serious about your cardiovascular health and avoiding dizziness in the gym.
1. See a Doctor if Something Seems Serious
You should never experience dizziness after working out consistently, even if you do sometimes over-exert yourself. If you feel dizzy and light-headed every single time you work out, consult with a doctor immediately. Many heart conditions go undiagnosed because the symptoms are hard to tell apart from the regular fatigue that sets in from working out.
Try These Easy Exercises To Test Your Heart Health At Home
Selection of food that is good for the brain.
It can be a scary thought to visit a doctor these days, but there are still ways you can take charge of your fitness from home.
A lot of us suffer from vague anxieties about our health. Who here hasn’t had a headache and turned to WebMD to find out they have brain cancer or terminal encephalitis? Although the internet is riddled with fake news and bizarre fad diets and exercise trends that offer you too good to be true results, don’t panic: there are still ways you can take charge of your health that are based on science and are actually fairly simple.
Here are a few ways you can test your heart health from home without a trip to the doctor’s office.
How fast can you climb four flights of stairs?
A recent study done by the European Society of Cardiology found that being able to climb four flights of stairs in less than a minute is a clear indicator of good heart health.
“The stairs test is an easy way to check your heart health,” said study author Dr. Jesús Peteiro, a cardiologist at University Hospital A Coruña, Spain. “If it takes you more than one-and-a-half minutes to ascend four flights of stairs, your health is sub-optimal, and it would be a good idea to consult a doctor.”
Patients who were asked to climb four flights of stairs in under a minute and were unable to do so were far more likely to have undiagnosed coronary artery disease. If you have stairs in your house, this is a great and easy way to quickly test if your heart is relatively healthy. If you’re not able to complete this exercise, it may be a sign that something is up. However, there are many other ways you can measure your heart health from home.
Invest in an at-home blood pressure cuff or pulse monitor.
These are tools used by doctors to gather valuable metrics on the health of your heart that you can easily have in your own home. Blood pressure cuffs and pulse monitors can be used to check your heart rate and pulse before and after you work out. This can help you figure out if you’re in the optimal range for your age, gender, and weight group or not. This is also even more accurate than the stair test because it provides you with actual diagnostic criteria to understand how your heart is working.
This is obviously most relevant for those of us who work out with heart disease, but everyone can benefit from learning more about how their workouts affect their bodies. You might be surprised that your blood pressure is higher after working out than you realized — 1 in 5 adults who have high blood pressure have no symptoms and would never know without a blood pressure cuff check.
Do you find yourself getting out of breath during aerobic exercises?
This probably comes as a surprise to no one but aerobic exercises are some of the best for improving your heart health. Aerobic exercises improve the circulation of blood through your body and directly reduce your blood pressure and heart rate.
Although not as specific as the stairs test, aerobic exercises can be a great general indicator of your heart health. For example, if you find yourself unexpectedly out of breath during light aerobic exercise, you may have an underlying heart condition. This is also true if you feel extremely tired out by a light amount of aerobic exercise — there may not be enough oxygen in your blood traveling to your muscles. This isn’t an indicator alone that something is wrong, but it is something to keep an eye on.
With these three tricks in your back pocket, it should be easy to keep track of your heart health from home. But they aren’t a substitute for a real doctor if you are showing signs of having heart problems, so do make an appointment to see your doctor if it seems like something is wrong.
10 Workout Excuses: Stupid Reasons Not to Workout Today
Best Workout Excuses to Miss the Gym
You’re always just one excuse away from skipping the gym. Going to the gym and training every day of the week is hard while sitting on the couch and making up an excuse to miss the workout is super easy.
If you’re going to miss the gym, we thought we’ll help you find good excuses to add to your arsenal. Be generous and share these excuses with your friends so you can skip the gym together and leave the gym for the serious ones.
One More Episode
Binge watching is one of the growing reasons why people miss their workouts. While it might be tempting to watch the next episode of 13 Reasons Why and uncover why Hannah killed herself, killing those extra calories is more important.
It’s Raining
Or it’s too cold, hot, foggy. You need to realize there are no recommended weather conditions to train. If you travel in your own vehicle, getting around in any weather shouldn’t be a problem. For people who use public transport, an Uber is always around the corner.
I’m Tired
The good old “I’m tired” excuse is responsible for hundreds of people missing their workout every day throughout the world. Supplements like stimulated pre-workouts invalidate this excuse. Even a cup of coffee can pump you up for your workout.
It’s Late
It is never too late to workout. Most gyms these days are open till late at night and some are even open 24X7. If you feel you’re running late and won’t be able to get in your normal 2-hour workout, cut short your routine by using super and drop-sets.
I Have to Hang Out with Friends/Family
This is a common excuse for people who workout in the evening. If the chillout can’t be moved to a rest day, try hitting the gym a little early than usual or after you hang out with your friends.
Too Much Work
If the presidents and prime-ministers can make the time to train, so can you. A fit lifestyle can help you get more done in your work life. Work and hitting the gym don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Working out will help you do more with better focus and stamina in the office.
A Day Off Can’t Hurt
Some people take the liberty of missing a workout after they’ve trained for 2-3 days in a row. If you’re not an advanced lifter or athlete, skipping a day can take you back in your fitness journey.
My Workout Partner is Busy
Have you ever noticed people miss the gym in groups? If one person in the team skips the workout, the other follows him. This is why you should choose your training partner carefully. Bodybuilding and fitness isn’t a team sport, it’s an individual sport, so always be ready to train alone.
I’m Out of Supplements
Some people miss their workouts because they’re out of their pre-workout or protein supplements. A pre-workout can be replaced with a caffeinated drink and a protein shake with a fast digesting high-protein meal like fish.
It’s Not My Usual Time
Most people go to the gym at a certain time every day. For some reason, if you can’t train at the same time, be open to working out at a different time. Training at a different time will only benefit you as it’ll come as a shock to your muscles. Use this as an opportunity.
What is your favorite excuse to skip a workout? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
Have Non-Existent Triceps? Use These Horseshoe Building Tricks
Have Non-Existent Triceps? Use These Horseshoe Building Tricks
Triceps and biceps are two sides of the same coin, and yet the tris don’t get the same love as the bis. Training the tris effectively can be trickier as you need to hit the three heads of the triceps as compared to the two bicep heads.
Bodybuilding is a game of illusions and having meaty triceps can make your arms look bigger. A pair of shredded triceps should look like a horse has kicked you in the back of your arm.
The Best Horseshoe Triceps Building Tips
Start With Compound Exercises
Most people make the mistake of starting their tricep workouts with isolation lifts. If you perform exercises like the cable tricep press-downs at the starting of your workouts, you’ll be fatigued by the time you get to the compound moves.
While it might be a good idea to perform the isolation exercises to pre-exhaust your muscles when you’re training the bigger muscle groups (like chest or back), it can have the opposite effect for your tris if you’re fatigued by the time you get to the functional lifts.
Know The Muscle
It’s always a good idea to do some research about the muscles before you start training. The triceps is composed of 67% fast-twitch fibers, so train it according to the adage, “go heavy or go home.”
For the uninitiated – fast-twitch fibers means that you’ll get the best results from your exercises if you keep the TuT (time under tension) short and overload the muscles with heavier weights.
Use Advanced Training Principles
In the sport of bodybuilding, people are always chasing the pump, and in doing so they favor performing a higher number of reps to flush their muscles with lactic acid. Using the advanced training principles while training the fast-twitch muscles can get a little tricky.
If you’ll be using advanced training techniques like supersets, drop-sets in your training, you should make sure you’re using heavier weights (with the right form) and are performing 5-8 reps on each set.
Stretch It Out
By not stretching and posing during the workout, many people leave gains on the table. Not only will stretching improve the muscle pumps, but it will also help establish a better mind-muscle connection.
Holding an overhead tricep pull is one of the most effective tricep stretching moves. Using resistance bands, hitting the bodybuilding tricep poses like the side chest are great ways of flushing the muscles with lactic acid.
Increase The Training Frequency
If your arms are nothing more than small tree branches, you’ll have to put in more effort. We recommend training the muscle twice a week if you have lagging tris. Don’t experiment too much with the exercises and follow the same workout on both the tricep training days in the week.
One of the days should be a single muscle day where you only train your triceps. For the second tricep training day, club your tri workout with bigger muscle groups like the chest or back. Make sure you’re maintaining a balance between training all the three (medial, long, short) heads of the triceps.
How often do you train your calves? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
The Calf Training Secret No Pro Wants You To Know
Calf Training of The Pros
Calves are one of the smallest, most stubborn, and desired muscle groups. Since you’re reading this article, we’ll assume you’re lacking in the calf department and are willing to change your current situation.
If you’ve been laboring away on the calf exercises but don’t have any results to show for it, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll share a calf training secret with you which will take your calf gains to a whole new level.
The Mistakes
Before we let you in on the secret, we want to go over the mistakes most people make in their calf training. Once you know what is holding you back from achieving your goals, you can get better results by fixing your shortcomings.
Training At The End of A Leg Workout
Without going too deep into the mistakes, we’ll just touch on them and tell you how to overcome them. If you have lagging calves, you should never train them after a brutal leg workout when you have no gas left in the tank. For best results, work your calves when you aren’t fatigued.
No Volume
Most people make the mistake of following a vanilla calf training program where they perform 3 sets of 10-12 reps on a couple of exercises. If you want to turn your calves into bulls, you need to be training them like you train all your other major muscle groups. Perform at least five exercises and switch up the intensity often to keep your muscles guessing.
Lack of Variations
While people are proactive in their bicep training – they work their inner, outer, and medial bicep heads – they don’t follow the same approach when it comes to calf training. You should be targetting your calves from three angles to train them effectively.
Perform your calf exercises with your feet planted parallel to target the medial calf heads. Placing your toes together and heels apart – forming an “A” – will target the outer calf heads and keeping your heels together and toes apart – forming a “V” – will work the inner heads.
The Secret That Will Change Your Calf Training Forever
Your calves are made up of both slow and fast-twitch muscle fibers. Performing exercises with long TuT (time under tension) works the slow-twitch fibers and lifts with smaller TuT train the fast-twitch muscles.
So, the dilemma with calf training is that no matter which kind of intensity (high or low number of repetitions) you go for, you’re not going to get the best results. There is a way around the problem and it has been a well-kept secret until now.
Forget Reps, Focus on Time – 1 Minute Is The Magic Mark
To make the most of your calf training, you should focus on performing the exercises for one minute. It doesn’t matter how many reps you do in that one minute but you need to make sure you’re not taking a rest-pause during the set.
You also cannot go light with the weight on the bar because if you do, the slow-twitch muscle fibers will be left out of the action. Remember – this is not a drop-set. You have to end with the same weight you’ll be starting with. If done right, calf training isn’t easy, and you’ll experience it first hand with this technique.
How often do you train your calves? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
*Header image courtesy of Envato Elements.
5 Tips For Building Bigger Biceps
Build Bigger Biceps With These Tips
Your pythons can become the biggest, meanest and most venomous with proper training. While most people love training their arms, only a few have guns worth flaunting. Tweaking your arm training a little can result in major gains.
How do you know you need tips for better bicep training, you ask? If you’re someone who flexes his guns in the mirror but sees nothing more than a flat pulse line, this article is for you.
Start With Isolation Exercises
Most people prefer starting their workouts with compound movements like the barbell curls. They usually start their workouts with free weights because they can lift heavier weights as they aren’t fatigued.
Starting with isolation exercises is a great way of pre-exhausting your muscles. Once you’ve exhausted your muscle fibers at the beginning of the workout, you’ll be able to get better muscle pumps without having to lift heavy which can reduce your chances of an injury.
Twists Your Wrists Outwards To Focus On The Peak
As we said at the beginning of the article, making small adjustments can take your guns to the next level. While performing dumbbell lifts, instead of having supinated palms (wrists facing you flatly), rotate your wrists slightly outwards so that your little finger is closer to your shoulder than your index finger.
The rest of the curling movement will remain the same apart from the minor twisting adjustment at the contraction point. The outward turning of the palms will put more tension on the peaks of your biceps.
You Need Volume AND Intensity
Many people get into the hopeless debate of whether they should do isolation or compound movements for building size or conditioning and if they should be performing a higher or lower number of reps?
Building your pythons needs an all-round approach, and it’s not a simple question of either this or that. You need to be constantly shocking your muscles by varying the volume and intensity.
Divide Your Bicep Training Into Parts
Biceps are called that for a reason. The biceps are made up of two major muscles, and yet many people don’t design their training around training each head of the bicep separately. For defined and stiriated guns, change your pattern of movement while performing the dumbbell exercises.
For example, while doing the dumbbell hammer curls, keep your elbows planted to your sides and point your lower hands away from your body to target the inner head of your bicep. To train the outer head, follow a range of motion where the dumbbell will be in front of your torso at the top of the movement.
Do Banded Work
Using resistance bands can be an incredibly effective way of gaining muscle mass and conditioning in your pythons. The bands are effective because they give you a different amount of resistance depending on where you are in the range of motion.
Your guns will be under the least amount of resistance at the resting position as the bands will be retracted. As you perform a curl, the bands will start adding resistance to your arms and the highest resistance will be experienced at the top of the movement.
How often do you train your guns? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
*Header image courtesy of Envato Elements.
10 Tips To Lose Weight In A Jiffy
Lose Weight Quickly With These Techniques
Contrary to popular belief, losing weight isn’t as hard as some people take it to be. Many people make the wrong decisions in their diet, training, and recovery programs which is why they don’t see results.
It might come as a surprise to you, but you can lose a significant amount of weight in a couple of weeks and be on your way to your dream physique. Be it summer or bulking season, you’ll have abs year-round if you follow the tips mentioned in the article.
Count Your Calories
If you want to lose weight, your first goal should be to design a diet for yourself and get comfortable counting your calories and macros. You can’t afford to depend on eyeballing the food and trusting yourself to make the right food choices every time.
Become A Cardio Ninja
If you want to lose weight in a hurry, you need to be doing two cardio sessions in a day. The first session will be a 30-minute fasted low-intensity steady-state (LISS) workout and the second a 10-minute high-intensity interval training session.
Cycle The Carbs
Changing your daily consumption of carbohydrates can have a major impact on your body fat percentage. You should follow a diet plan where you have three low-carb days (100 grams or less), followed by a single high-carb day (2 to 2.5 grams per pound of body weight).
Say No To Dairy
The regular intake of dairy products can hinder the fat loss process. The elimination of dairy products can come as a shock to some people, but if you’re someone who has stubborn body fat, you should consider cutting out dairy products from your diet.
Drink Plenty Of Water
Some people think that their body fat is nothing more than water weight and they try to get rid of it by reducing the amount of water they drink. For a successful weight loss journey, you need to make sure you’re drinking at least a gallon of water every day.
No Cheat Meals
Depending on your fat loss goals and the time duration of your program, you’ll need to stay away from the cheat meals. Eating a single serving of junk food can set you back by weeks if you’re on a schedule.
Have Smaller But Frequent Meals
Since people directly relate food and their body fat percentage, some make the conscious decision of having bigger but less frequent meals. Eating more but less frequently can be counterproductive as it slows down your metabolism which can fasten up the fat storage process in your body.
Use Supplements
With the advancement in sports nutrition, there are many supplements on the market that can aid fat loss. Supplements like fat burning pills, L-carnitine, Citrulline Malate are some of the favorites as they boost thermogenesis.
Say No To High Fat Food
Although food containing high-quality fats is essential for your body’s optimal functioning, you shouldn’t stock up your cupboards with nuts. If you’re looking for something that you can snack on, your options should be made of foods with high carbs and protein, and low-fat content as the latter is much harder for your body to burn.
Rethink Your Beverage Consumption
Whatever your poison of choice might be (beer, whiskey, rum or coffee), if you are a regular consumer, they’re probably hindering your fat loss progress. On the other hand, if you don’t consume caffeine regularly, consuming it before a workout can help in shedding weight.
Header image courtesy of Envato Elements
Are you bulking or shredding? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
5 Training Tips For Steroid-Free Lifters
Best Advice For Natty Lifters
Many people fail to realize there needs to be a difference in the training styles of people on gear and the natties. Steroid-free lifters hold themselves back by following the programs designed for people on juice.
People on steroids can seem to grow in spite of what they do in the weight room but the steroid-free lifters don’t have it so easy. If you’re a natty who is trying to build up muscle mass, following the tips mentioned below will set you on the fast-track to gains.
Recovery Is The Key
Recovery is one of the biggest areas of improvement for people on steroids. They recover faster and efficiently between sets and workouts. If you’re a natty, you need to make sure your recovery game is on point.
After you have your diet figured out, use inter and intra-workout supplements to take your gains to the next level. Always remember that you break muscle while you’re training and build muscle while you’re resting.
Form Over Ego Lifting
While people on juice can seem to gain muscle mass just by sniffing weights, relying solely on the amount of weight you lift isn’t going to do much for you if you’re not taking the drugs.
Bodybuilding is different from powerlifting. In bodybuilding, it doesn’t matter how much weight is on the bar, the quality and the form of the rep is what gets you the results. Establishing a mind-muscle connection during your sets will improve your muscle recruitment and pumps.
Change-Up The Number of Reps
Most natties make the mistake of following a vanilla training program. You need to constantly shock your muscles if you want to stay on the gains-train. The day your muscles get used to your training style, it’s game over for you.
Experiment with the number of repetitions and sets you perform in your workouts and figure out the combination which works the best. Don’t be afraid of going up to 50 reps and 10 sets while performing an exercise.
Don’t Train To Failure
Many people wear the “I train to failure” badge with pride. While training to failure on every set, exercise, and workout can be great for people on gear, this practice can be a roadblock for natties.
You should pick a weight that is challenging for your muscles but avoid going to failure. While performing a set, leave 1-2 reps in the tank on every set, and it can greatly reduce your chances of overtraining.
Think Outside The Big-3
There is no questioning the effectiveness of the three main compound movements i.e. the bench press, deadlift, and squats but you need to add variety to your workouts by performing other compound and isolation exercises.
Sticking to performing the compound exercises while overlooking the isolation exercises can deprive your physique of conditioning. You need to strike a balance between both types of exercises to get the best of both worlds.
Who is your favorite bodybuilder of all time? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Header image courtesy of Envato Elements
Debunked: The Top 5 Myths About Six Pack Abs
BroScience Revealed…
Abs. One of the most common tell tales of a physically fit individual. While we know it comes down to body fat and genetics, we still can’t help but be drawn to a tight set of perfectly ripped abdominals.
Perhaps its nature, perhaps it’s nurture, but even in 2020 people are looking for the perfect formula for the ever elusive 6 pack abs. While there are 8 packs, and sometimes even more, the 6er has always been a standard for a gold standard for a good looking body. Without it you’re like a burger without fries, always missing something. But with lots of buzz comes lots of rumors, and the 6- pack has been a hot topic for a long time.
Some myths start as excuses, some start as perceived truths that have been found out over time, and some are just to save face Either way they’re ruining your gains, and the gains of people around you. Here are some of the 5 top myths about 6-pack abs.
Myth #1 Carbs Are Bad
For the last couple of years carbs have been getting a bad rap. Damn near every fad diet condemns it, and carb loading is all but a thing of the past. What they’re not telling you is complex carbs are good, it’s the simple carbs that give you your spare tire. Things such as bread, processed sugars, sports drinks, and cereals, are all considered simple carbs because they break down easily. Try eating legumes, nuts, and and vegetables instead. All the benefits, none of the drama.
Myth #2 You Can Substitute A Bad Diet For A More Strenuous Workout
There’s an old adage that “abs are made in the kitchen”, and while we’re in the process of throwing out old theories, this one is actually true. Your diet is Quintessential to sculpted abs. The reason we say “sculpted” is because that’s exactly what you’re doing, trying to reveal the art surrounded by subcutaneous fat. So put down the Twinkies, and pack on the extra reps instead.
Myth #3 Eat Right, Work Out, The End…Right?
Wrong. While eating right and working out are definitely essentials, so is rest. By rest we don’t only mean Sleep, which is also a big component, but rest in the sense of being at ease. A state of being without stress. Stress through not sleeping right or a hectic lifestyle can actually build up cortisol levels which make it harder to lose stubborn fat. Take a walk, watch a movie, meditate…just do what you love.
Myth #4 You Can Shape Your Abs
The harsh reality about abs is what you get is what you got. You can’t add an extra pack or change your symmetry. Some abs line up, some don’t, all you can do is do the best with what you were given. However, you can improve muscle thickness and abdominal imbalances with a good workout routine.
Myth #5 The Be All And End All Of All Ab Exercises
While not all ab exercises are created equal, there’s no end all be all of ab exercises. The truth is your abs will get use to even the best exercises over time if you do them consistently. Switch up your exercises and the angles they’re performed to promote new stimulus and muscle confusion.
Are you underwhelmed with you ab development? Let us know by hitting up our comments below or head on over to our official Facebook and Twitter.