Mr Arec Bawdwin!

Here's a bit of a celebrity fitness motivation from the suave Mr Alec Baldwin.

After being informed by his doc that he was Pre Diabetic he decided to take action.

Sticking to a healthy routine of Spin (RPM for some gyms, where you do a class of ball busting bike) Pilates and yoga he has managed to lose 30 pounds or 13.6kgs in 4 weeks!

He also has cut sugar out of the diet, nice and simple. If he can't do a full workout on a particular day, he eats less.

It is fantastic to hear a celebrity losing the weight properly and not with some funky hip, bad for your health, fad diets.

Kudos to you Mr B!

Don't wait till you get a wake up call from the doc! Get fit now by choosing the long term health choice.

Images below, young Mr B, 2012 at Awards night and some time in 2011.

MMSOTW!

Here it is for this week. A real ear popper to work out to. You should all know the song it's remixed from, but this mix is the tits!

EOTW!

Come fly with me, come fly, let's fly away!

Ohhhh, yeah the dumbbell fly, cable fly, machine fly and the cable guy... well ok not the cable guy that's a job or movie.

I'm talking the Pec shaping, boob lifting Pectoral Fly. This one can be done many ways including machine, different inclines and declines and also with splits and cables and a whole mixed bag of nuts.so here are the basics.

1. Lay on bench with weights in hands, arms extended above head in front of you.

2. Allow your arms to slightly bend to form a sort of hug shape and begin to lower the weights down beside you, keeping the slight bent arm shape locked in.

3. Keep dropping the weights till they make it to about head level, now push the weights back up in the same arc as how they came down.

Tip - Try to focus on using your Pecs to squeeze and push the weights back up (as this is what you want)
Also don't start too heavy, this one can hurt if over done!

This exercise can be performed on a machine, which helps with form, but lacks the ability to make sure both sides of your pecs are working as hard as each other.
As always free weights are supreme here.So get flexing and pec-ing and popping.Pop Pop Pop. BAM!

Not me in the pic by the way.

Its turbo time!

4 weeks into the new year!
We are a 3rd of the way into the 12 week cycle for those who took the New year’s Revolution. It is almost half way if you started on the 17th of December like me…So what does this mean?
It’s time to take it up a notch.
Find a new bench mark.
Take a look at the plan and see what needs changing, increasing or removing!

For me it is time to kick the 2nd phase of the German Volume training into gear. Heavier weights, a couple of less reps and a few new workouts.I have gained about 3kgs at the moment and the body fat level has remained almost the same. Ergo muscle mass is up. And I must say I feel certain areas definitely getting thicker.

What about those who are not looking for gains, but instead are looking for losses?

Increase your cardiovascular exercise by another 50% in time. So if your currently jogging for 20 minutes increase it to 30 minutes. Bike for an hour, make it an hour and a half.
Ad in an extra cardio exercise, skipping, boxing bag… if you need an idea let me know, I will be more than happy to help. Now is the time to really crank it up and see your goal achieved!

Co-fee! C-O-F…

Coffee coffee coffee!!!!
Most of us can't start the morning without one, but what if that coffee is doing you more harm than good? Well this is always a well debated issue on Today Tonight… but with a little bit of insight the powerful morning coffee can still be had and help give you more than just a wake up!

Firstly, learn to love Black! Once you go black it's hard to go back. A nice hot cup of black coffee will help kick your metabolism in to gear. You won't be able to chug it down, but that is what you want. Sip it and allow your body to absorb the caffeine at a steady rate.

Don't have sugar! It is hard at first so you might want to ween yourself off slowly. The sugar will only give you a short term energy boost and on top of that it is more excess energy to burn before you start burning your body fat up.

And one last piece of coffee advice. Coffee has the ability to strip your body of essential vitamins. So if you have changed your diet and started working out more and find that your becoming lack luster for energy by the end of the day, rethink your morning, lunch and tea coffee break, it might be doing you more harm than good…

Haters gonna hate!

So you’ve taken the big step to start getting fit. Well watch out!
You are going to get haters and detractors.

What you need to do is make sure you don’t let this get to you.
You are in this for you primarily and maybe for a loved one secondly.

You will get friends and family who will be absolutely the most positive influence on your fitness. They will notice how much better you are looking and tell you, they will support you in your diet decisions and won’t make you feel bad for having the slim slice instead of the thick bit, they may even be the ones to come to gym with you or jog along beside you.

Then you will get the ones who will try and bring you down. They will see your changes and secretly hate you a little bit inside. They will snidely tell you you’re too skinny, or your wasting time. They will even tell you that unlike you they are enjoying life by drinking heaps, and feasting on all the yummy junk foods.

So what are you gonna do about them haters.

Nothing.

Brush it off, keep the positive support your getting and keep on striving to reach your goal.

If you let the haters get you down you will not achieve!

Stay focused and keep motivated…

Eventually you will win and the haters will be the ones left out in the cold, fat and unsatisfied with life.
(And if you’re a hater get up and get active. Challenge my ideas and concepts if you like!)

MMSOTW

This one is off D – Guetta’s new album. No lyrics, very pumpy and great for a good long jog session or as a bike track. Every time there is a Drop in the track. Boom up ya get and climb that imaginary hill(or a real hill, or crank the gear ratio up and stand up to ride!) The song is pretty reminiscent of Daft punk's work. Clearly DG knows he can't sing but boy can he DJ! Bring on the motivation!

500 page views!

Thanks to everyone so far who has contributed and read the blog. I shall continue posting, just keep on reading, oh and keep on getting fitter too!

EOTW!

It's that time of the week again! And even though I gave 3 away yesterday there is still more up my sleeve.
I am adamant that the ads are wrong, you can't get bored at the gym doing the same old exercises. Because there are so many adaptations styles and different things you can do!

Dumbbell snatch! Oh yeah! When I finish a set of these I'm close to spewing. The explosive motion makes it one to really test yourself on and push to the limits.
1. Grab a dumbbell or kettlebell (or weight) and take a squat position with the dumbbell placed in the middle in front of you.
2. With a burst of energy push up with your legs and continue the upward motion through your arm and power the dumbbell into the airspace above your head.
3. Allow your arm to slowly lower the weight through an arm first to a right angle. The slowly allow the weight to come back down through the middle again as you reload your squat position.
4. Once the weight hits the floor, immediately re explode from step 1 onwards for the desired reps.
5. Repeat for the other side of your body.

Bam o! Shoulder, leg, back and core work out in one.

Image courtesy of Full Fitness iPod app (which I use)

Dont have a Gym?

Alternatives and random exercise opportunities area handy tool to know, because sometimes you can’t always find a gym, want to go to a gym or even at home you done have the equipment.

So here are three you can add to your rep and I shall try and add more as we go along

1. Sounds a bit creepy, but a child’s playground is ideal for finding a chin up area and as well as benches for performing triceps dips and stretches. You could plan your jogging route to take you past a playground. Try not to look creepy when your there, you might give other parents the wrong idea.
2. Bathrooms! What, what? Yes a bathroom or a tiled area is a great place to carry out a towel fly. Take a towel or two face washers (dry) and assume a push up beginning position. Then allow your hands to slip outward till your almost kissing the ground. Push up through your chest, just like a dumbbell fly or machine fly movement and push yourself back up again.
3. Beach Jog! This is one of the best treadmills you can find. You can increase your resistance level by moving further up into the soft sand, or make pace down at the harder waters edge. On top of that you can run barefoot and the impact is lessened by the soft cush of the sand.

No excuses! No complaining! Getting fit no worries
(picture courtesy of. http://icons-ak.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/w/walcek/22.jpg)

Reboot!

Hump day Wednesday, middle of the week.
Time to take a look into the weekend and plan some killer workouts.
After sleep in power jog perhaps?
Massive sat morning gym session?
Possibly a ride to the beach and a swim?
Whatever you choose pump it up a little harder this weekend try and go that bit further than you have before.

Get ready… for the weekend!

No rest will be wicked!

Here is FF2F's first Blast from Mr PT.
---- We all see and hear the sayings about pushing yourself to the limit, but how far is too far? When does regular training and exercise become overtraining?
Overtraining is a detrimental and potentially dangerous situation where your body cannot recover to the point at which they can continue to make gains, instead the body can even decline and suddenly you lose weeks of hard work.
Physical exercise and shaping your body can be addicting but it's vital to understand that doing weights every day of the week will not give you instant results, only with the correct diet and recovery can you begin to see the body change.

So along with a decline in performance. Overtraining can also lead to:
- Fatigue/Muscle soreness
- Mood swings and/or Depression
- Loss of motivation to workout or do anything
- Loss of appitite
- Vulnerable to illness
- Increased injury potential

So having gone through the dangers, what you can do to help rid yourself of overtraining is to simply either stop working out until you feel normal or ready enough to train at same intensity or dropping intensity down to maintain form but still get enough recovery to begin training at full intensity. So go hard and get results, but manage yourself in a safe way.
Mr PT ----
I couldn't agree more, you can push yourself too far if you try, and this has a burning the candle at both ends effect. So heed the warning and make sure you give your body good rest time.

MMSW!

Thought I might change it up a little here, to prove that it doesn’t have to be just doof doof music that makes it to the motivational music list. This one is an oldie and a goodie, nice deep rifts and the song goes for 8 odd minutes, so if you perform parts of your routine to a song this one is sure to push you further than a single track.

Become the master of your own body while listening to Metallica and Master of Puppets, get yourself psyched up and let the music push you…

EOTW!

If there is 1 group of muscles more synonymous with muscles and fitness it's the biceps!
Show us your guns!
Look at the pythons!
But it is also one of the easiest to underwork as well as one of the easiest to push further then the other muscles.
Because you have been using this muscle more dominantly one side for your whole life you may notice one arm bigger or more defined than the other. This exercise will help correct that, incline dumbbell curls.

1. Set an incline bench to 45 degrees and lie on the bench face up with weights in hands.
2. Drop arms to sides beside the bench letting the weights hang your arms straight.
3. Keeping your upper arm relatively still use bicep strength to pull the weights up to chest level, rotate the weights slightly as you come up.
4. Lower the weights and start again.

As the work out progresses you should find your non dominant arm become harder to use in this motion. Persist and don't increase the weights in this exercise till your non dominant arm catches up.

Try and perform each raise simultaneously left and right.
Don't swing your arms and concentrate on the use of the bi's the get the movement happening.
Don't feel bad if you have to drop the weight a bit from what your used to for a barbell or machine bicep work out, the nature of free weights stops one arm from compensating for the other.
So go on and make it an even playing field for your body!
Your not working out till your BLEEDING! sweat Sunday carnage…

I like scotch, down it goes, down in my belly! Mmmmn Mmmn Mnnn

To Drink, or not to drink? That IS the question.
Most people already know the answer to this. Ultimately NO… sad but true. However, I’m a keen supporter of a little once in a while aint gonna hurt.
For those who want the big low down on the disadvantages follow this link http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson194.htm

It is interesting to note that in this age of knowing what is in your foods and drinks, some alcohol beverage companies are actually printing the nutrition facts like most other products, on the label. I had the opportunity to compare 2 low carb labels the other day and was surprised to see how 2 similarly branded drinks contained different carb levels and sugar levels. According to the info around, this meant that 1 drink was better for you having less empty carbs compared to the other, even though they were supposed to be both LOW CARB beers.

What does this all mean for those wanting to know what to drink and what not to drink? Well here is my tip, if you’re looking to shed a lot of weight for whatever reason, don’t drink. Increase your exercise levels and get your metabolism cranking first, then once you have reached your goal you will find that your body will be more adept to processing the drinks, effecting your weight gain by bugger all. If you have to drink, try to minimise the amount and don’t overdo the snacks, your best to have food in your belly when drinking but if all that food is greasy and fattening, you’re as good as taking 1 step forward and 3 back.

Besides all of that, if you have a bender and wake up hung over as hell, you’re going to struggle to get active for the day, no gym, no workout, no running and now, you will have taken 4 steps back. So consider your goals, don’t convince yourself that your trying to carb up on beer, and consider your exercise plan, will you need to work out tomorrow? And don’t be excessive, it’s not good for your waist line or your body in general.

If you want to drown your sorrows and feel better, go for a run, listen to some pumping music http://ff2f-kdawg.blogspot.com/2012/01/mmsw.html, http://ff2f-kdawg.blogspot.com/2012/01/motivational-music-selection-of-week.html GET FIT, GET ACTIVE, GET MOTIVATED!

större hårdare starkare. erövra!

Beaten but not beat…

Osgood–Schlatter disease…http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osgood–Schlatter_disease
a very common syndrome for teens, and something that I suffered during high school. Thought I'd gotten rid of it, but turns out I hadn't shook it completely.

During my last couple of weeks doing my squats I have now aggravated my left knee. Bit of a set back but it won't stop the gym visits.

Just have to modify the routine a little to compensate.

This is where it pays to know when your having a good pain and when your having a bad pain. I think as a general rule, if the pain is sharp and occurs during as well as after a movement, that's bad. If the pain is dull and achey instead and almost stops after the movement (but returns to haunt you 2 mornings after) that's a good pain.

But you know your body and limits better than anyone else so don't be a hero and push yourself beyond what your body can handle (just push yourself to close to that limit, ha ha)

And if you happen to fall upon injury in or out of fitness time, don't stop completely. Modify and stay active, even if it is less intense, blood flow throughout the body is better for recovery. Unless your doctor says so…¿

Exercise of the week!

The humble chin up. I remember this being used as part of a fitness test in high school, back then I could barely do 1, now I'm performing 10 lots of 10 in one workout session!
It comes in 3 basic flavors and can be performed many different ways. Ultimately you have a chin ups, palms facing you. Pull ups, palms facing away but in the same position as a chin up. Or a neutral grip pull up, arms spread like a lat pull down, palms facing away.
You can vary this exercise so much much it's not funny. Weights between legs, slow it down, speed it up, add longer "hold times" at the top, the list goes on, just search the humble chin up on the web and you will no doubt stumble across another way to do it that you didn't know before.
The steps are easy!
1.grip your chin up bar in the desired fashion.
2. Pull yourself up from an arm extended position to a position with your chin (hence the name) up above the bar.
3. Hold and then lower yourself back down.
4. Repeat.

So go ahead and keep your chin up your back will love you for it, and you'll give your arms considerable strength which translates across to multiple other excercises.

MOTORV8 yourself!

OK! No excuses! We are a week into the New Year, so you really have no excuses now NOT to kick start your New Years Revolution (http://ff2f-kdawg.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-years-revolution.html).
 So what's it going to be?
 I'm going to give you my advice and tips on 3 different types of goals;
1 - Shed weight
2 - Build mass
3 - Get lean

1. What worked well for me was the right mix of cardio and the correct eating. The best way to shed the pounds is to make sure that energy in is less than energy out. So on the diet side, make sure you are consuming the good foods, cut out the fatty snack and sub in fruits instead IF you feel hungry. Drink plenty of water, don't avoid it! And make a good portion of your weekly exercise CARDIO. Treadmill, jogging, bike riding, group fitness classes, Zumba, light weights HEAPS of reps, boxing! Whatever it takes to make you sweat like a fountain!

2. I have really started to embrace this side of body modification as part of my New Years Revolution! Already I am seeing results. Increase your protein intake as much as you can, and make sure you increase your healthy carbohydrate levels as well. There are some products on the market that provide both the carb’s and the protein. You can also find some that promote even more muscle growth that include BCAA’s. My current work out for muscle growth is www.bodybuilding.com/fun/luis13.htm and this is really starting to show some results. But if you don’t want to go to that extreme or are not quite physically there yet, change your weights routine from medium weight at 15 reps to bigger weights at reps between 6 and 8.

3. This one is great for those who have already done the big thing, but maybe packed on too many fatty kg’s. Or it is great for someone wanting to get into shape to start playing a sport again or just to get lean muscle definition instead of packing on size. Have a 50/50 workout routine of cardio and weights. And when doing weights keep the weights medium stacked, enough to get a burn at 15 or 20 reps but not enough to make you strain on the last set. Also make sure it’s a fully rounded routine incorporating a lot of different exercises each workout. Diet wise, find a ripped protein or a shred protein, these will normally have carb blockers or hunger stoppers in them too. You will want to eat similar to if you were trying to lose kg’s but make sure that the protein stays up there to feed the lean muscles.

If you are struggling to make it to one of these goals and want more tips or advice, feel free to contact me through this blog. Remember I have the advice of 2 personal trainers at my finger tips, ladies and gents.

So what are you waiting for, it won’t be easy, but hey, that’s what this blog…is all about!

 

Yummo Protein/carb morning pancake stack with golden syrup!