Fast and Furious Fitness

Well, I know I’ve been pretty lax on updating the blog the last couple of weeks or so - and I apologize for this. I’ve been dealing with a myriad variety of personal issues as of late that have left me with little or no time to even check my emails, let alone update the blog. . .and on top of that, I’m coming off a nasty stomach bug that I picked up due to a combination of heat, over exercising (hint, hint!), too much running around, and other things. Eventful week, maybe not pleasant all the time, but things seem to be working out as they should. . .

Anyway, as you might imagine, it’s become a bit tough to mix in working out (at my regular pace) with all this going on. I’m still getting my workouts in - but I’m back to 10 - 20 minutes of intense exercise, as compared to 40-45 earlier. Works just as well, and plus all the running around means a ton of walking in the heat, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but adds up over time. Especially when it’s humid - the humidity takes a toll on one’s body faster than you would think.

And this brings me to an oft overlooked exercises - WALKING!!

Walking can be a great exercise, if done correctly, and with the proper breathing. It works the entire body as a unit, only without the added stress on the joints that running brings. Here are just some of the benefits I’ve noticed while walking: -

- Solid workout for the calves; especially when power walking.
- Aids in chest expansion; especially when done “army style” i.e. chest out, back straight, and regular deep inhales with each stride.
- Provides an excellent warm up for the ENTIRE body - no real need for warm ups after a brisk walk.
- Improves digestion, as well as overall stamina.

Morning walks are excellent, as the weather’s cooler in the mornings (at least in the summers), but if you can’t manage a walk in the mornings, work it into your routine at night. Walk briskly, power walk if you would - but make sure you BREATHE correctly (inhale through the nose with every stride, exhale out through the mouth afterwards). And, you’ll soon feel the benefits through your entire body. I’ve often even felt my forearms tingling after a good solid walk through the park - the exercise can be that effective.

It’s even better if you can walk uphill - but if you don’t have any hills around you, you can substitute stairs. Either which way, work it in your schedule - you’ll be glad you did.

Walking is generally done for a longer period, due to the “relatively” easy nature of the exercise (i.e. it’s easier to walk briskly for an hour than do Sumo squats for 15 minutes straight) - but, combine your regular exercises with walking (preferably after your walk) and you’ll feel it for sure. Don’t be fooled into thinking the exercise is “easy” - in fact, I’ve noticed my numbers going down on some of the exercises after a walk - and I don’t need any further proof on that one.

And that’s just another example of a seemingly simple exercise, which can be used to great effect.

All for today. As always - get fit - FAST!

Rahul

Ok, the last post made reference to the facts that a) I was suffering from a slight injury and b) I haven’t been training legs full bore this week. Add on point c) which is that I’ve been suffering from a combination of the flu, mild fever (gone now) and a nasty cold/sore throat, and you can say the week’s been less than ideal for me in many regards. . .some not mentioned here as well.

Be that as it may, I woke up this morning without feeling much of the “slight twinge” that I referred to in my last post. Did some hamstring stretches, touched my toes about 15 times in perfect form, stayed in the “downward dog” position a while, all good thus far. Then attempted a squat or two, and then five - and when I didn’t feel too much in the area mentioned in my last post (except some slight residual twinges), I knew it was time to get back to my leg work. And truth be told, I was damn happy about it - training without training legs just don’t “cut the mustard” for me if you get my drift.

Anyhow, so now came the question - do I go full bore, start off with the toughies, etc etc? I decided not - too much too soon, and I’d be back saddled with the same injury issue as before. I figured I’d do about 10 minutes of leg work, 10 minutes of pushups, and throw in some stretches, the back/front bridge, and pull ups for good measure.

So, a total of 40 minutes today - and I feel GREAT now! The cold/sore throat is still there, but the deep breathing which naturally accompanies leg work has cleared my sinuses up a lot it seems - and my entire body feels hammered in a good way. It’s that feeling you just can’t get without training legs - the way leg training hits the entire body is unlike any other. You can do pushups all day long, or weighted pull ups, but nothing really cuts it like training legs HARD and intense.

I did ONE set each of Hindu squats, sumo squats, jumpers, and some miscallaneous leg work, and boy was it worth it. Normally do about two sets of each, but like I said, one needs to ease back into the groove rather than push back into it.

So - moral of the post? If your coming off an injury, illness, whatever - start off with training that involves some deep breathing, and overall body work - and “ease back” into your tougher exercises/higher reps. Before you know it, you’ll be back in the swing of things in no time!

And of course - don’t skip the leg work - make it the #1 priority in your routine, if it isn’t already.

All for now - be back again soon.

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul

All,

I spoke yesterday about the benefits of deep breathing, and why you should be incorporating it into your workouts as well (or make it a gentle workout in itself). Today I’ll give you a quick example from my own workout which illustrates just how useful deep breathing can be (in addition to what I’ve already said before).

What I did today was do a deep breathing exercise after each leg exercise today. So I did my Hindu squats, then a set of deep breathing exercises. Then jumpers, then deep breathing, and so forth. And I achieved personal bests in the following exercises: jumper squats, and jumping lunges - while doing all my other exercises in a more “rythmic” pattern, if that makes sense. Well, there’s obviously something to it then!

My own theory is that mixing in deep breathing with the regular workout has two advantages : a) giving your “regular” muscles a bit of a break and thus allowing them to come back stronger for the next exercise and b) “active recovery” i.e. the deep breathing flushes out the toxins which build up in the muscles during a workout.

It also has the effect of leaving me less drained after my workout - which is a good thing. You should feel “buzzed” and ready to go after a tough workout - rather than ready to flop down on the couch and snooze. And, I’ve found deep breathing aids a LOT to this end. Not to mention that it keeps the blood flowing effectively throughout the entire workout, and thats always a good thing.

So - try and devote a bit more time to deep breathing exercises, or just deep breathing alone in the right fashion - and let me know your findings!

And, I know I haven’t covered what exact breathing exercises I use, amongst a host of other stuff I want to cover. So much to cover, so little time. . .

All for now though -back tomorrow hopefully.

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul

All,

So there I was, huffing and puffing away during my Sumo squats. Up, to the side, down, and back again on the other leg, and so forth. And while doing this, I realized two things: - a) I’ve not been paying enough attention to deep breathing - and breathing CORRECTLY during my workouts myself, and b) I haven’t been writing about this most important topic for a while now (I did write about it earlier, but not as of late).

a) happens. I’m human, and like the rest of you, I need a reminder from time to time as well. No biggie. . .

And I’ll address b) here - without further ado then, let’s delve into the topic!

First, it’s important to know HOW to breathe. Breathing is not akin to panting (hufffing and puffing, being out of breath, however you put it). You breathe in deeply through your nose, in CONTROL, and the breath should be deep and “fill your entire body”. Breathe from the pit of your stomach (bottom up), and “feel” the air filling your whole body, and saturating it with energy. And keep this up even when your out of breath - you’ll find it helps you get your strength/energy back a lot faster than puffing like a locomotive.

And deep breathing has many benefits, which I’ll attempt to cover here. First off, deep breathing when done right contributes to expansion of the chest from the “inside out”. You strengthen the diaphgram, and internal muscles surrounding it when you breathe deeply in a regular, rythmic pattern, and this naturally increases the overall size of your chest. In turn allowing for better development throughout the upper body.

Second, and most importantly perhaps, deep breathing revs the internal engine up, and KEEPS IT GOING. Think of it as a race car between races, or a fire througout the cold night. Would you want that engine “idling” and “purring”, or completely dead between races? Would you rather the fire be “stoked” regularly rather than not at all? I’d imagine yes in both cases - and this applies to your body as well. Deep breathing keeps things going, the blood pumping, and gives you a better workout overall.

Any time you slow down during your exercises, breathe in deeply, and do a tough exercise - and then see how you feel. You’ll know what I’m referring to!!

And last, there are breathing exercises in particular which can be used to give you a super “boost” during your workout - and can be used as a pretty good warmup by themselves. I’m going to cover these, and some other important exercises which I haven’t covered as of yet in a later post.

Out of time for now - so thats it for today! Do write in and let me know your thoughts.

Rahul

Dear Reader,

You’ve often heard me speak about the benefits of deep breathing, both while working out and otherwise during your normal, daily activites. I’ve posted before about the benefits of the same, and I’m positive that those of you who have implemented what I say have experienced first hand the benefits. If not, well, all I can do is ask you to take ACTION. . .

Anyway, that aside, today I’m going to cover the benefits of doing SPECIALIZED deep breathing exercises during your routine. There’s deep breathing during the exercises, but there are exercise that focus on deep breathing and your core ALONE. I did these today in between sets during my regular leg workout, and let me tell you - I was breathing so hard at the end of it that I almost never made it to the rest of my workout!

The exercise I used today was the stomach vacum. I’ll cover it in detail some other time, but for now, let’s get into a couple (there are many!) of benefits of mixing such exercises up along with the regular ones:

1. Doing these specialized deep breathing exercises along with your regular exercises (without taking lengthy breaks) increases manifold the blood flow to your lungs and muscles. This gives your lungs a better workout, but also make sure that the muscles being worked prior to the exercise are getting “flushed” out pretty well. Thus leading to the second benefit:

2. Better, and FASTER execution of your “primary” exercises (I mixed these up today along with the leg exercises, but you can mix them along with pull ups, pushups, anything - and even though I did them along with my leg exercises, I finished my pushup workout in about 7 minutes - 100 pushups in about 7 minutes, in good form - not bad!).

There are many benefits, and these are just two. If you think this is too simple of a tip - well, TRY it, and you’ll see for yourself.

And last, make sure you focus HARD on the breathing exercises - do not simply treat it as a “break” of sorts. That’s the key to really getting these to work for you.

A bit pressed for time - so signing off for now. In the meantime - get FIT - FAST!

Rahul

Dear Reader,

Today I’m going to cover a very important topic, and that is when (and why) one should change one’s workout up.

Changing your routine every once in a while is very important to do, no matter what level of fitness you are currently at. There are some important reasons behind this, but, before I get into those, let me give you an example from my own training.

Most of you would have noticed by now that I’m a strong believer in high repetition squats when it comes to my leg workouts. A 100 Hindu squats, 25-50 Hindu jumper squats, perhaps holding the “chair” position against the wall for X amount of time, etc etc - it goes on. Those are great, but as of late, I’ve begun to notice that the high rep movements are getting “tougher” to complete in a way. Now, the strange thing is my lungs/legs don’t “give up” before the movement. However, I am noticing myself doing them in improper form when I get above a 50 or so - and, I’m starting to get a bit bored while doing these in higher reps.

Initially, I figured this was just a bad phase, so I stuck through it (there’s another lesson: keep at it, even through your bad phases); but, things didn’t improve. So what I did was change my routine up such that I did more exercises, but lower repetitions of the same exercise. In my case, one variation I used was breaking up the 100 squats into 150 (I know, not exactly breaking them up), but doing it thus: 50 Hindus, 25 jumpers, 20 Hindus, 20 jumpers, 20 Hindus, and 25 jumpers. Took me about 5 minutes in total, and then I went on with the rest of my stuff. And, my legs were hammered at the end of it, as were my buttocks!

Now, on to the reasons: -

- Your body gets “tired” of doing the same thing over and over again, be it a set number of pushups daily, or a set number of squats daily, or, for those of you who do other things, swimming X number of laps daily, etc etc. Now, I am NOT saying don’t exercise daily - far from it! But, sometimes, just sometimes, you need to “break out of the rut” by doing something different. In my case, it was doing more reps, but on different exercises. In your case, it could be replacing an intense bodyweight only leg workout with hill sprints, or perhaps swimming. Anything - just change things up, and your body will thank you for it!

- Changing things up forces your body to “adapt”. For instance, I used to concentrate on the thighs and back mostly while doing my neck bridge, but, as of late, I have started to focus more on the buttocks and back. The result? Solid growth in the glutes, and my thighs are better of for it as well, and the workout is far more intense than before.

- Last, but not least, it gives your mind a new challenge to focus upon. Makes things less “boring” (that term is relative, of course), and thats always a good thing.

So, keep these tips in mind the next time you are “stuck in a rut”. Try implementing them into your routine -and let me know how it works!

All for now - work out hard, and remember to change it up every once in a while!

Rahul

PS: Want to simaltaneously blast your back, legs, and core with ONE exercise? Well, you don’t have to look far - the humble pushup will do it! Or more specifically, the “extended arms” pushup will. I’ll cover benefits for these soon in another post - stay tuned!

All,

The muscles at the back of the body are some of the most forgotten, and “undertrained” muscles for most people.

Most trainees go berserk training the muscles at the front i.e. the muscles that “can be seen in the mirror”, but how many people do you hear about that proudly train their lower back? Their hamstrings? Or their glutes? I bet not too many.

Now, don’t get me wrong - it is important to train the front of the body - but what happens is most folks spend too much time/energy training the front of the body, while the back of the body is neglected. The result? Muscle imbalances occur, said muscles get overtrained, and in some cases, injury occurs (how many times have you heard of people perenially sore front deltoids?). . .

So, without further ado, let me explain why the muscles at the back are important to train: -

1. The largest muscle groups in the body (excepting the quads) are all located at the back of the body. Your lats, glutes, hamstrings - all these are large muscles. Training these intensely makes you BREATHE deeply as they involve a lot of focussed effort, and more importantly, they promote growth throughout the entire body.

2. Training these intensely prevent overtraining in the other “opposing” muscles. It also improves performance in those muscles. For instance, I’ve been a bit burnt out on high repetition Hindy squats for the past couple of days, and therefore have been concentrating more on jumping lunges and Sumo squats, both of which target the groin, glutes, and hamstrings. The result? I tried doing a maximum rep of Hindu squats today, and banged out a 100 of them in good time. That sort of speaks for itself!

I’ve had similar results with pushups - to increase my pushup numbers, I’ll often concentrate on pull ups for a few days. . .

3. Last, but certainly not least, the muscles at the back of the body are very important when it comes to providing a “support structure” for the rest of the body. For instance, a person might be able to bench a tremendous amount of weight, but he will never be “truly” strong unless he develops his back (upper and lower) to the same degree. Similarly, overdeveloped quads and underdeveloped hamstrings are a disaster waiting to happen.

For those who claim they train purely for the “look”, well, think about this: - How ridiculous does a guy with an large chest, but narrow back look? Or, let’s say you have huge thighs, but underdeveloped glutes/hamstrings; your legs will look big from the front, but you will never be able to fill those jeans out completely. Train EVERYTHING though, and you will get that “solid” look to your body that speaks of strength in no uncertain terms!

Long story made short - train the muscles at the back of your body as hard, or harder than you train the muscles at the front. Your body will thank you for it - as will your workout results!

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul

All,

An exercise combination which I love to do is mixing in squats (various variations) along with pull ups (in it’s various forms).

I’ve already spoken at length about squats, so I’ll speak a bit about the pull-ups today.

Pull ups are an excellent strength exercise, bar none. Done correctly, these work the entire upper body - especially the back and forearms which get “direct” work by virtue of pulling/gripping; but also the shoulders and core, and chest to a lesser degree. Done correctly, there isn’t a fiber in the upper body this exercise doesn’t hit.

And they go especially well with squats. Squats, and other leg exercises I’ve mentioned hit the back as well, thereby “warming” it up for the intense pull ups to come. And the pull ups stretch the spine/back out, thereby reducing the “tight” feeling which sometimes occurs while doing leg exercises. The two complement each other perfectly well, and a complete body workout can be achieved in 10-12 minutes. Of course you can go longer than that; I do a lot of times, but if done correctly, 10-12 is more than plenty for the average person!

Here is a short, but intense workout that’ll really get the blood pumping: -

- 50 - 100 Hindu squats
- Pull ups (10, break up into sets if required).
- Jumping Lunges (10 on each leg)
- Sumo squats
- Pull ups (10, break up into sets if required).
- Jumper squats (25 - 50, break up into sets if required)
- Pull ups (10, break up into sets if required)
- Back bridge (front and back) to finish things off.

That routine should take roughly 25 minutes to complete, depending upon how many reps you do for the pull ups. After these, find the nearest chair - you’ll need it! I’m used to working out in this style, but even so, this routine really gets things going; and I do need a break after it.

As with any other exercise, correct form is paramount as with the breathing. It is better to execute 5 perfect pull ups rather than 20 sloppily performed pull ups.

Pull ups are incredibly demanding, so you might not want to do them daily. Or, you might want to vary the numbers you do daily (i.e. do 10 one day, go for a “25″ max the other, etc etc). However you choose to do them though, they are something you definitely want to include in your training regimen.

So - squat, pull, squat, and pull some more. End things off with a stretch or two - and there you have it - an entire body workout that’ll hammer you into tomorrow.

Try it, and let me know how it works for you.

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul

All,

A very good morning, afternoon, or evening (as the case might be) to all of you. I’m writing this shortly after waking up, it’s winter here - cold, and that brings me to one of the things I’d like to share with you.

This morning, I woke up feeling a bit groggy, not really ready to “jump-start” the day, so to speak. I got my morning tea, sat down to respond to my emails, and all that, but, the feeling persisted. So what I did was close the laptop, and walk outside for some deep breathing routines, and boy did they work!

What I did was walk outside, and simply BREATHE deeply. That’s right, thats all I did - take deep, huge inhales. That cold air hitting the lungs felt good, and within a couple of minutes, it was like someone had “switched on a button”, and I was all wired, and ready to plunge into the day.

And that was without doing any exercises which require deep breathing such as the ones here. Imagine the hit if I had actually worked out in the cold for a while - bong! OK, the “bong” part was a joke, but you get my drift.

Point of this post? In these modern times, we sometimes get “out of tune” with nature. Sometimes, it’s best go back to basics. Cold and snowy where your at? No problem - bundle up, BREATHE in deeply, and get a quick and dirty workout in outside instead of indoors; and, then, see how you feel for the rest of the day! I’ll bet you feel turbo-charged, and ready to roar, as it were.

Even if it isn’t cold where your at, the effects of deep breathing are manifold, and apply regardless of what type of weather it is. When you breathe deeply, you draw in energy into every cell of your body, and feel like a zillion bucks. I’ll get into how the correct breathing techniques can really help you at a later date, but for now - step outside, and take a deep breath, or five. Notice how you feel, and get back to me then.

And of course, the icing on the cake would be to get a great workout in while your at it. Click here for some routines that get you in shape - FAST!

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul