Obsessed with your daily indoor cycling class? Or exercising to the same DVD over and over again? Working out every day is great, but if you're repeating the same workout, you may not be getting all of the benefits - or results - you could be!
The Truth: To continue to challenge your body and improve your strength and conditioning, you need to switch up your day-to-day workouts — and try something new each month.
The holidays definitely have all the elements necessary to throw you off the healthy track, but they don't have to. Breaking your diet and fitness routine will only make it that much harder to reboot come January 1!
The Truth: As crazy as it sounds, you don’t have to gain five pounds this holiday season! Being mindful of what you’re eating while continuing to exercise will keep you from ruining your weight-loss efforts.
So you think you need a machine to work your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back, huh? Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't think so. He relied on stiff-legged dead lifts, which produce killer glutes if done properly. Dead lifts were cool in the seventies and eighties, but modern machines made them seem a little too low-tech to be effective. But this classic exercise of the bodybuilding era is worth a second look.
Talk about cellulite - the appearance of dimpled skin on thighs, hips, or butts - and most women will cringe. But can those cellulite-reducing creams, treatments, and procedures advertised actually work? Let's find out.
The Truth: Put down the cream and cancel your next laser appointment. There is nothing you can do to get rid of cellulite.
The gluteals — your butt muscles — are the largest and strongest muscles in the body. Their function is hip extension, or driving the upper legs backward. I cannot overstate how important it is to make sure these muscles are getting their workout. Activities that engage this muscle group include walking, running, jumping, and climbing. Lunges, leg lifts, and squats are all great for exercising the glutes. Here's the lowdown on some of my favorite squats.
MYTH: Exercising at Night Keeps You Awake
If you want to make sleep a priority in your life, does that mean you shouldn't work out at night? Not necessarily! Finally find out the truth behind this fitness myth.
The Truth: Exercising at night won’t keep you awake for hours afterward. You should work out at the time that is most convenient for you, whatever time that is.
Celebrities spend countless hours a day getting in amazing shape for a role, and it's hard not to compare your workout regimen with theirs. But is a three-hour-plus workout session any better than a killer, hour-long one? It's time to find out.
The Truth: Exercising at a high intensity for 30 minutes is a perfectly effective way to work out.
Looking at Hollywood's red carpet, you can tell the stars are all about developing and toning their upper arms. Even first lady Michelle Obama proudly shows her fantastic biceps regularly. Buff arms can be yours too! What you need is a move that will make what I call the "belly" of the biceps really pop! Ready? Get in the right mind-set — it's time to concentrate!
Shoulder exercises are a popular part of resistance workouts. Working out while facing a mirror, many people train what they can see — the front and middle heads of the deltoid muscle. But the rear head of the deltoid needs attention, too. Otherwise, you'll have unbalanced strength in your shoulders, which can set you up for a rotator cuff injury.
Let's take some time to target the back of your shoulders with bent-over shoulder raises. Here's how:
All of us want to "tone" our muscles to achieve a cut, fit look. But what exactly is "toning"? Let me clarify a little: The word "toning" has nothing to do with the size of a particular muscle; it refers rather to making a muscle lean by burning intramuscular fat, and conditioning the muscle for better performance.