Leg Muscle Madness

Leg Muscle Madness
To anyone who has ever picked up a weight - or even thought
about it - this four-letter word can take on a variety of
different meanings.

For many, legs are the indomitable foundation for which a
healthy physique is formed. To a large number of others,
the leg day is the one square on the calendar that you
painfully dread, the one that you know will require both
vigorous effort and agonizing labor.

And yet to many others, legs mean absolutely nothing.
Hence, they are woefully neglected.

But nothing looks sillier on a fitness fanatic than a beefy
upper torso cemented atop a pair of chicken legs.

So, don't be that chicken. Take on these painful, gainful
exercises that are sure to turn your legs into logs in due
time.

Hack Squats: After setting the desired weight, station
yourself inside the machine, so your shoulders are flush
underneath the pads and your feet are in the middle of the
platform. You feet should be at a shoulder length width.
Releasing the safety bar, slowly bend your knees, allowing
the weight to push your buttocks toward the platform. When
your quadriceps are parallel to the floor - or perhaps dip
a little lower - immediately reverse the movement,
exploding the through an upward motion. Stop just before
your knees are locked as you squeeze your legs during the
contraction. Try 3-4 sets of 10-12 repetitions.

Leg Presses: Lie down on the machine so that your feet are
on the platform. Make sure that your feet are parallel to
each other and not pointed inward or outward. Allow the
weight to push your knees toward your torso. Stop when your
knees form a 90-degree angle. Reverse the movement as you
push with your legs, pushing your torso away from the
platform. As your legs begin to straighten out, stop just
short of your knees being locked. Slowly let the weight
bring your buttocks down into the starting position. Try
3-4 sets of 10-12 reps.

Leg Extensions: Sitting on the bench, clasp your ankles
underneath the pads, gripping the side handles for balance.
Slowly raise the pads, squeezing your quads, and stop the
motion when your knees are locked in front of you. Squeeze
your quads for a two-count before releasing the tension,
allowing your legs to drop to the starting position. Repeat
the motion for 3 sets of 12-15 for an incredible burn.

Hamstring Curls: Set yourself face down on the hamstring
machine, sliding your heels underneath the pads. Grip on to
the handles for balance. Setting a manageable weight,
slowly curl your legs upward, so your heels push toward
your buttocks. Your feet should be flexed during the
movement. Curling upward, the motion should stop when your
legs and torso form an angle of roughly 45 degrees. Squeeze
your hamstrings during the motion. Slowly release the
weight and return to the starting position, as your legs
should straighten out. Repeat this movement for 10-12 reps
for 3-4 sets.

A leg workout requires optimum intensity, if your
intentions are to increase size and strength. Nothing in
weight training will wear you out the way a rigorous leg
workout will so be sure to provide yourself with ample rest
before leg days. Also, legs should be done only once a week
to insure time for the torn muscle tissue to recuperate.

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How to Eat for Health: Fats and Oils

How to Eat for Health: Fats and Oils
Fats are an extremely important part of a healthy diet, and
the essential fatty acids are named essential for a reason.
They aid in just about every bodily function as they play
a crucial role in cell wall function. Working as a
transporter, they pass oxygen and nutrients through the
cell wall and help to keep invaders and other foreign
bodies out of the cell. Other functions performed include
brain cell function, immune system, nervous system and
hormone function.

So what is hydrogenation and what are the results of
ingesting partially hydrogenated fats into your body?
Well, hydrogenation is simply the process of heating an oil
to the point where hydrogen bubbles enter, becomes attached
to the fatty acids and form a solid in fully hydrogenated
and more of a thick cream, or butter texture when partially
hydrogenated. Hydrogenated oil has a high level of trans
fats and these trans fats act within a cell in a confused
manor and will keep nutrients out and let the foreign
bodies in. Not only do these trans fats lead to obesity,
but also are linked to disease such as diabetes and
coronary disease (the leading killer in America).

Trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils can be found in
a number of foods, and are used because they are a less
expensive alternative to other cooking substitutes such as
butter. Baked goods, potato chips, cookies, crackers, are
just a few of the food categories that contain partially
hydrogenated oils, the worst of which is partially
hydrogenated soybean oil. This soybean oil is noted to
negatively affect the thyroid function resulting in feeling
sluggish, a decrease in energy and reluctance to want to
exercise.

How much trans fat is bad? When you find out something can
lead to heart disease and obesity, I wouldn’t take
any chances and I would avoid any of it at all costs. Some
reports have shown that .5g of trans fat is equal to
approximately 1.5g of unsaturated fat in terms of how it
affects your health. You won’t see this in the label
of many products as .5 g can still be labeled as 0% trans
fat due to federal law. But when you scroll down the
ingredients, you might come across partially hydrogenated
oil present in the first few lines.

The best way to avoid trans fat is to read your labels
thoroughly. Avoid grocery shopping in the middle aisles
for food and stay on the outskirts of the store where the
fresh produce, dairy and meat are located. When cooking,
choose to cook with virgin coconut oil, although high in
saturated fat, and low on many health food lists, it is
unaffected by heat, and it is metabolized differently than
other oils as it will be burned as fuel and not stored into
the fat cells. Fats are extremely important to our diet,
but you can make healthy choices about fats by reading
labels and learning about the different types of fats and
how they affect the body.

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9 ADHD Parenting Tips

9 ADHD Parenting Tips
Parenting ADHD children can be stressful, frustrating and
overwhelming. ADHD children have a shorter attention span
than other kids and they often anger easily when they
don’t get their way.

Parenting through these difficulties will help raise a
happy, healthy child. Here are 9 ADHD parenting tips to
help you cope with and support your ADHD child.

1. Be consistent and set down specific rules. Changing the
rules mid-stream can be confusing to the ADHD child. Be
sure that both parents are on-board with the same rules.

2. Establish routines. All children thrive when they
follow a routine but this is especially true of ADHD
children. Be strict about the times that things take place
but be aware of the fact that your child may have a short
attention span. Limit the time children can watch
television, play video games or listen to music. Sticking
to these rules allows time for the children to think on
their own and to use their creativity.

3. Assign weekly or daily chores. Use a chart to keep
track of progress. Children love to get a gold star when
they complete a task. For ADHD children, this can be a
great ego boost. Be sure to explain exactly how to
complete the task and even demonstrate it to them yourself.

4. Choose your battles wisely. Decide early on what things
are most important and make sure that these things are the
ones that get done. If the child wavers on an unimportant
item let it go. What strikes the child one way one day may
change the next. Be sure that your core values and beliefs
are being honored.

5. Teach time management skills. ADHD children can benefit
tremendously from learning the art of prioritization and
time management. Often the child does not yet understand
how to make these types of decisions. For older children
utilize a planner or electronic organizers.

6. Break tasks down. Children with ADHD may not be able to
stay focused on one task, especially if it is a large one.
Break down each task into smaller, more manageable pieces.
This will reduce the frustration level of you and your
child.

7. Have patience. Parents already know that it takes lots
of patience to raise their children with ADHD. To keep
your own patience level up try giving tasks when there is
plenty of time to complete them and enough time for you to
follow up. Try to allow some room for error and always
accentuate the positive things your child does.

8. Communicate with your child. One of the best ways to
help ADHD children is to spend time with them. Set aside
some time each day to talk to your child and get to know
him. Help him to learn to communicate well with others and
to know that he can come to you with any problems.

9. Be a good role model to your child. This is one of the
biggest factors that will determine the outcome of your
child as an adult. Although it may not seem like it, your
child watches you and strives to be like you.

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Old Habits Die Hard (hard enough to feel the pain)…

Old Habits Die Hard (hard enough to feel the pain)…
Why is it so tough to quit something that is bad, usually
it is something that is soooo good too?

You know what I mean; chocolate, alcohol, laziness, even
what you eat for breakfast. We all have habitual actions
that we often feel a little embarrassed by, such as buying
a chocolate bar and a can of coke every time you go to the
petrol station to fill the car up… that one used to
be one of my worse habits, I just knew it was not good for
me, but I just couldn’t quit it. It was like I was on
auto pilot.

Do you get home from work, immediately turn on the TV
instead of doing your workout?

Do you go out on a Friday and Saturday night, just because
it is the weekend, and then spend the rest of the weekend
in bed regretting your excesses?

One of the biggest challenges as a fitness professional is
to get my clients to change their eating habits so that it
compliments their training efforts. One common hang up
relates to breakfast, getting them to stop eating cereal
based breakfasts is like putting a heroine addict through
cold turkey!

The problem is our bad habits can cause us a myriad of
health problems, such as weight gain, obesity, type 2
diabetes, a weak immune system, and poor structural health.
All of which cause a great deal of misery.

Brain researchers at MIT in the US have discovered that
once a poor habit is established, certain neural patterns
are created in the brain which ingrain the habit to
becoming almost completely automatic. We just don’t
even think about the action, we just do it. These patterns
can be erased just as readily as they are created in the
first place, BUT the patterns can be rekindled much quicker
the next time round.

Obvious stuff really, when you think about how many people
relapse back into a smoking habit, or poor nutritional
habits.

Breaking habits can be tough though. The fear of social
alienation if you stop smoking (where will you get the
office gossip from, if you are not smoking with your
co-workers!). Not going out on a Friday night can cause a
similar fear. Not having that glass of wine with your
evening meal each night, it has become so ingrained that
you would feel uncomfortable if only water was available.

Thankfully there are solutions to these problems, and it is
not just down to will power. Pattern breaking is simply a
matter of becoming more conscious of each action that you
take. A simple example:

Do you drive the same route to work each and every day? I
bet on many days the journey to work does not even
register, it is just like you are on auto pilot. You have
no idea of how many cars cut you up, or even if you
indicated at the right moments, or even indicated at all!

Breaking this habit is a simple act of deciding to take a
different route to work. I have about 5 different routes to
the gym and have actually gone further out of my way, just
to get in a new route, it keeps me focused.

For the more serious issue of eating and drinking habits,
simply get into the habit of stopping just before you
consume something and make a judgment on the quality of the
item you are about to eat or drink. I use a 3 point grade
A, B or C type foods.

A’s are your good clean foods like fresh fruit and
veg, meat, fish and water plus some diary items like eggs
too. B’s are not so good, slightly processed products
including breads, pasta, cereal based products C’s
are the junk food, including sodas, highly processed items
like cakes, chips, burgers, pizzas etc.

This simple process makes me more conscious of my food
choices, allowing me to make better choices and ones that
compliment my exercise habits.

One other common poor habit is laziness or procrastination
from exercise, this is because you may associate exercise
with hard work, pain, or you have low self efficacy. To
break this habit you may find it useful to find a purpose
for actually doing your workouts…

Getting involved in a sport may just give the reason you
need to start doing your workouts. Rather than simply
working out to lose weight, why not make your workouts more
focused towards a sport, so that you improve your speed,
agility, flexibility, balance and strength. You may just
find that the side benefit is that you’ll lose that
weight after all.

One of my current clients came to me a few months ago with
really poor motivation, the habit to workout just
wasn’t working. It was becoming a real struggle to
get to the gym to do the workouts. I simply asked her one
question – has there ever been a sport that you
thought would be just so cool to do? Immediately I saw a
spark of excitement in her face, she told me she always
wanted to do rock climbing, but never had the belief that
she could do it. Fantastic we had just found her motivation.

Two weeks later after the change of focus and some
adjustment to her routines, she joined a local club and got
right back into the workout habit. 30 days later she had
dropped a dress size and was really enjoying her time in
the gym, plus doing great with the climbing too!

So you see habits can be broken down, simply by recognizing
the patterns, then making a conscious decision to do or try
something else. Yes it is NOT easy, but don’t you
think your life would be fuller, richer, more interesting
if you didn’t spend so much time on autopilot?

So start right now, decide what different route you are
going to take to work tomorrow, stop yourself before
consuming anything and really SEE what you are eating, and
start making better exercise habits by changing the focus
to an outcome that really excites you!

The best of luck

Tim

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Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional specializing in help
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Achieve a Movie Star Body

Achieve a Movie Star Body
We watch TV and we see these amazing movie or music star
bodies, and we are like how do I get a bod like that. Most
people dismiss that they could never look like a movie
star. Though very few people are blessed with the looks
and body of Halle Berry, learning what it takes to have a
movie star body will give you a hot body as well. Live
Lean Today looks at the fitness and diet plans that create
sexy bodies.

No matter whom you are if you want to look like a movie
star than you have to exercise and eat healthy. If you
want the magic pill; exercise and diet are it. Exercise
builds the sexy tone lean muscles we like and your diet
trains your body to burn fat and lose those love handles.

The movie star plan combines cardio and strength training
with a balanced 5 small meals a day diet. What works for
movie stars is exactly how Live Lean Today set up their
fitness and diet plans. You don’t need expensive
equipment or a lot of time. A few hours a day and some
dumbbells and a stability ball will have you on your way to
the new hot sexy movie star you.

Cardio Training has two major goals. The first goal is to
train your body to use fat effectively as a fuel source.
This allows your body to adequately burn fat on a daily
basis. The second goal is to increase your metabolism so
you burn more energy on a daily basis. Studies have
demonstrated that people who do interval cardio training
burn more fat while not exercising that doing other forms
of cardio. Live Lean Today customizes your personal cardio
program to optimize these results.

The best bodies have slender tone lean muscles and this is
what strength training provides. The key to movie star
looks from your strength training is to incorporate core
training. Core training engages your abdominal muscles
throughout the movements which burns more energy and
develops nice looking abs.

lea newmanFive small meals may seem like a lot though it
doesn’t have to be. Most people when switching from
their current diet to 5 small meals eat fewer calories.
When you eat throughout the day your cravings go away and
your body starts to burn more fat that ever before. You
know this is working because you will have more energy than
ever before.

The last step to creating a movie star body is a personal
trainer. Always on the news we here what the next
celebrity trainer is talking about. You probably
can’t afford your own celebrity trainer though with
Live Lean Today you get all the benefits of a personal
trainer and dietician for less than a gym membership. Live
Lean Today is the only personal training website that
allows you talk in real time to your own online personal
trainer and dietician. Professional support is the key to
overcome the weight loss and fitness challenges and
personal trainers are the difference for movie stars to
create their amazing bodies.

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