I've launched a new website where I give you a review of various health and fitness products that include exercise and fitness books, equipment, supplements, etc., from other authors and companies (just as an FYI, I'll be launching my own products in the near future so keep an eye out for that).
If you know of any product (or service) that you'd like for me to review, please don't hesitate to e-mail me and let me know and I'll see if it's worthy enough to add to this new website.
Okay, enough babbling. The new website is called www.LBfreview.com. Go check it out and let me know what you think.
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
How Much Food Cost you in Exercise
How often have you been a little hungry and just stopped at a fast food restaurant for a quick little piece of food to hold yourself over?
Take a look at those fries in the picture above. It's a large fry from Wendys. Know how much exercise you'd have to do to burn off the calories that you just consumed from those fries? 77 minutes of biking at 10-12 mph.
Those fries have 540 calories in them.
Take a look here for info on other exercise costs for fast food.
And keep these in mind the next time you pull up to the drive thru.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
Friday, June 5, 2009
Recipe Friday - Vegetarian Lasagna
I found this really delicious looking vegetarian lasagna over at Craig Ballantyne's Fat Loss Blog:
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“Livesagna”
Ingredients:
1) 4 to 6 oz. sun-dried tomatoes
2) 2 to 3 fresh tomatoes
3) Fresh Italian Herbs, such as basil or oregano, to taste
4) 1 tsp Himalayan salt
5) 1 Tbsp. olive oil
6) 1 soft date, pitted
7) 3 to 5 garlic cloves
8) 1 to 2 cups of pine nuts, macadamias, or Brazil nut
9) 2 bunches of spinach leaves
Sauces:
Blend sun-dried tomatoes with fresh tomatoes, herbs, 1/2 tsp salt, olive oil, date, 2 to 3 cloves garlic
Cheese:
Process or blend nuts, 1/2 tsp sea salt and 2 to 3 cloves garlic. Allow to remain slightly chunky.
Directions:
In a glass dish, layer spinach leaves, sauce(can add shredded carrot, zucchini and red bell peppers as layers or in to the sauce), then cheese. Dehydrate for 1 hour until warm.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Follow-up to 20 Minute Vomit Workout
Had some questions on how to do some of the exercises that I posted here in the 20-minute workout so here goes.
This is the start of a bodyweight squat:
And this is the lower position:
Start of the X-Body Mountain Climber:
Movement part of X-Body Mountain Climber:
Tripod Hold (switch hands after 15 seconds):
As for bear crawls, follow this link (and scroll down past the picture of Arnold) to near the bottom of the page and there's a video of how to do these.
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This is the start of a bodyweight squat:
And this is the lower position:
Start of the X-Body Mountain Climber:
Movement part of X-Body Mountain Climber:
Tripod Hold (switch hands after 15 seconds):
As for bear crawls, follow this link (and scroll down past the picture of Arnold) to near the bottom of the page and there's a video of how to do these.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
Your Cell Phone Can Screw Up Your Workout
There's been two times over the past 10 years where I've encountered Tennis Elbow.
It's not fun and it really put a damper on your upper body workouts. Every time that elbow flexes you feel pain, then frustration that you have to back off some until it heals up. The first time I had it, I think it lasted 4 months. The second time wasn't as bad, clearing up in about 2 months.
Now we have something else we have to worry about: Cell Phone Elbow.
Yup, holding that cell phone up to your ear can cause problem that:
There's a few other things besides prolonged periods of holding your cell phone up to your ear:
So if your workouts are important to you for your upper body (and considering your reading this, they must be important to you), you need to keep that elbow healthy, which means, put the phone down and talk less.
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It's not fun and it really put a damper on your upper body workouts. Every time that elbow flexes you feel pain, then frustration that you have to back off some until it heals up. The first time I had it, I think it lasted 4 months. The second time wasn't as bad, clearing up in about 2 months.
Now we have something else we have to worry about: Cell Phone Elbow.
Yup, holding that cell phone up to your ear can cause problem that:
....include numbness, tingling or aching in the forearm and hand, a pain similar to hitting your "funny bone." (The unpleasant sensation of hitting your "funny bone" is actually your ulnar nerve.)
As symptoms progress, they can include a loss of muscle strength, coordination and mobility that can make writing and typing difficult. In chronic, untreated cases, the ring finger and pinky can become clawed, Evans and colleagues note in a report in the May issue of the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.
There's a few other things besides prolonged periods of holding your cell phone up to your ear:
And too much yakking isn't the only cause of cubital tunnel syndrome. Other causes may include sleeping with the elbows bent and tucked up into the chest, sitting at a desk with the elbows flexed at an angle greater than 90 degrees and driving with your elbow propped on the window for extended periods, he said.
So if your workouts are important to you for your upper body (and considering your reading this, they must be important to you), you need to keep that elbow healthy, which means, put the phone down and talk less.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The 20-Minute Vomit Workout
So I was out of town last week at a conference (non-fitness related) and talked some people into having me put them through a quick morning workout one day.
So we all met in the lobby at 7:30 am and headed out. I did the workout the day before as a trial run and the difference was that I did it at 5:00 pm when it was sweltering out and they were doing it when it was less than sweltering out (although it wasn't cool out to say the least).
Here's what we did:
1. Started out with a walk for a hundred yards or so and then we started up a nice jog for another 100 yards or so.
2. Then I had them run in a single file line and then we did Indian Runs. Indian runs are where I'll call out the name of the person last in line and they have to sprint to the head of the line. They run for a little longer and then I call the name of the new person at the end of the line and they sprint to the front.
3. Then when we got to this grassy area, I had them do these exercises for 30 seconds each in a row with no rest between exercises:
A) Bear Crawls
B) Bodyweight Squats
C) X-Body Mountain Climbers
Then they rested for 30 seconds and I then had them do this one more time.
4. I had them rest for 1 minute and then we did these three exercises for 30 seconds each in a row with no rest between exercises:
A) Walking Lunges
B) Pushups
C) Tripod hold (15 seconds with each arm)
They rested another 30 second after the last exercise then we repeated that sequence one more time.
5. Then I had them a Tabata protocol using Burpees. What this means is that they would do 20 seconds of Burpees, and then take 10 seconds of rest. They would continue doing this for 4 minutes.
Then we walked back to the hotel that we were staying in. That's it. A quick 20 minute workout. Seem simple?
You'd think, but, between number 4 and number 5 above, one person had to step aside,,,,to vomit. I felt so proud I almost shed a tear....
And the next day one person came up to me and said "I'm not liking you very much right now..."
I know I keep saying this over and over again but, it's just another example of the importance of making a workout INTENSE and not LONG to get results and an effective workout in.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
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So we all met in the lobby at 7:30 am and headed out. I did the workout the day before as a trial run and the difference was that I did it at 5:00 pm when it was sweltering out and they were doing it when it was less than sweltering out (although it wasn't cool out to say the least).
Here's what we did:
1. Started out with a walk for a hundred yards or so and then we started up a nice jog for another 100 yards or so.
2. Then I had them run in a single file line and then we did Indian Runs. Indian runs are where I'll call out the name of the person last in line and they have to sprint to the head of the line. They run for a little longer and then I call the name of the new person at the end of the line and they sprint to the front.
3. Then when we got to this grassy area, I had them do these exercises for 30 seconds each in a row with no rest between exercises:
A) Bear Crawls
B) Bodyweight Squats
C) X-Body Mountain Climbers
Then they rested for 30 seconds and I then had them do this one more time.
4. I had them rest for 1 minute and then we did these three exercises for 30 seconds each in a row with no rest between exercises:
A) Walking Lunges
B) Pushups
C) Tripod hold (15 seconds with each arm)
They rested another 30 second after the last exercise then we repeated that sequence one more time.
5. Then I had them a Tabata protocol using Burpees. What this means is that they would do 20 seconds of Burpees, and then take 10 seconds of rest. They would continue doing this for 4 minutes.
Then we walked back to the hotel that we were staying in. That's it. A quick 20 minute workout. Seem simple?
You'd think, but, between number 4 and number 5 above, one person had to step aside,,,,to vomit. I felt so proud I almost shed a tear....
And the next day one person came up to me and said "I'm not liking you very much right now..."
I know I keep saying this over and over again but, it's just another example of the importance of making a workout INTENSE and not LONG to get results and an effective workout in.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Increasing Your Pushups
I had a client of mine ask me last week what she can do to increase the amount of pushups she can do. She's at a plateau right now that she can't get past.
First, in order to get better at pushups you have to do....pushups...
Second, progression is the key. The closer that your body gets to the ground, the more difficult the pushup becomes.
So start out conservatively. Do wall pushups to begin. If you can do 50 of them, then you know you're past that level.
Then move on to an incline pushup. Find something like the back of a chair and see if you can do 50 pushups in that position. If you can, then find another incline that makes you go a little closer to the ground, like the seat of a chair and try to pump out 50 (I'm not suggesting that you try to do 50 wall, 50 incline on the back of a chair, and 50 incline on the seat of the chair all within the same session, you might want to space all of those out with some time to give your muscles time to recover).
Continue decreasing the incline until you're on the floor. When you reach the floor, start by doing pushups on your knees. When you're able to do 50 of those, then move on to regular pushups.
To mix it up, try doing pushups where you do holds at intermittent points of the lowering portion of the movement. You can do these at the incline levels, on your knees and in the normal pushup position.
To do this, start at the top of the pushup position and come down one third of the way down and hold it there for a count of 3. Then lower yourself another third of the way down and count to 3 again, then lower yourself to the lowest position (meaning, if you're doing this as a regular pushup, you're at a full range of motion with your nose is only a couple of inches from the ground), and count to three again.
Continue doing this until you have done 10-15 intermittent hold pushups.
As time goes on using both of these styles, you should see an increase in the number of pushups that you are able to do.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
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First, in order to get better at pushups you have to do....pushups...
Second, progression is the key. The closer that your body gets to the ground, the more difficult the pushup becomes.
So start out conservatively. Do wall pushups to begin. If you can do 50 of them, then you know you're past that level.
Then move on to an incline pushup. Find something like the back of a chair and see if you can do 50 pushups in that position. If you can, then find another incline that makes you go a little closer to the ground, like the seat of a chair and try to pump out 50 (I'm not suggesting that you try to do 50 wall, 50 incline on the back of a chair, and 50 incline on the seat of the chair all within the same session, you might want to space all of those out with some time to give your muscles time to recover).
Continue decreasing the incline until you're on the floor. When you reach the floor, start by doing pushups on your knees. When you're able to do 50 of those, then move on to regular pushups.
To mix it up, try doing pushups where you do holds at intermittent points of the lowering portion of the movement. You can do these at the incline levels, on your knees and in the normal pushup position.
To do this, start at the top of the pushup position and come down one third of the way down and hold it there for a count of 3. Then lower yourself another third of the way down and count to 3 again, then lower yourself to the lowest position (meaning, if you're doing this as a regular pushup, you're at a full range of motion with your nose is only a couple of inches from the ground), and count to three again.
Continue doing this until you have done 10-15 intermittent hold pushups.
As time goes on using both of these styles, you should see an increase in the number of pushups that you are able to do.
www.leanbodyfitness.com
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