10 Ways to Get the Best Fitness Workout Routine

When it comes to a holistically hale and hearty life, fitness is definitely one of the watchwords! If you do not feel fit and healthy, you simply can't feel happy from within! I'm sure none would disagree. Each one of us must make sure that we take out some time from our hectic schedules to pursue a fitness workout routine. Let's take a look at some of the ways we could aim for a fitter self!

1. The best exercise for abs: side plank.

You should lie down on your left side with your elbow below your shoulder and your legs stacked. Then the right hand should be placed on your left shoulder or on your right hip. Once you have braced your abs and lifted your hips off the floor, hold on for as long as you can. Switch sides and repeat.


2. Standing dumbbell fly: For broader shoulders

A dumbbell should be held in each hand by your sides. Without shrugging, the upper body should be used to swing the weights up by a few inches. The arms and torso should form an upside down V shape. It will contribute hugely to your fitness healthy lifestyle!

3. Towel Cable Row: For great arms!
A towel is to be hooked to a cable pulley, following which you should stand in front of it, set up to do a row, while holding an end of the towel in each hand. Then the shoulder blades should be squeezed together and the towel rowed to your rib cage.

4. Pec Minor Dip: One of the best workout routines for chest
Once you've suspended your body over parallel bars, let your shoulder blades come together as you lower your body towards the floor. Make sure your elbows are locked while doing this. Thereafter, your shoulders should be spread and your body pushed upward again. There, can you feel your pecs working? Even with slight movement, it can do a lot to improve the overall size and shape of your chest.

5. Deadlifts for back muscles.

Begin with a low squat position and grab the bar with an overhand grip. Then your torso should be raised once you've sat back on your hips, pushed through your heels, and ascended upward. Throughout the motion, a tight core and straight back should be maintained.

6. The kettlebell complex: Most effective functional fitness workout
This will work wonders for you if you are short of time, or looking for a quick workout involving minimal stuff. All you need for this is a kettlebell and 20 minutes!

7. Bulgarian split squat: one of the best leg workouts

Hold a dumbbell in each hand once you stand lunge-length in front of a bench. Then the top of your left foot should be rested on the bench behind you. Your body should be lowered until your rear knee nearly touches the floor and your front thigh is parallel to the floor.

8. TRX Atomic Pushup: An excellent time-crunch move
Begin with your feet in a TRX suspension trainer or on a sliding surface. Follow this up with a pushup and then your knees should be pulled to your chest and then pushed back.

9. Squat with Ball: The best workout routine for toned thighs

Once you place an exercise ball between the wall and the curve of your lower back, stand with your feet apart by shoulder-width. Follow this up with bending your knees and lowering 5 to 10 inches. Make sure your shoulders are level and your hips square. This position should be retained for 3 seconds and then repeated.

10. K-Tread: Workout even while you're swimming, for a fitness healthy lifestyle!
In the deep end of the water, tread on it, making small circles with cupped hands and the right leg should be lifted straight in front of you, bringing it at hip level. Reach for the toes of left leg towards bottom of pool. Following this, the legs should be switched quickly, bringing right leg down as the left leg is raised, and hold on to this position for 5 seconds. This should be continued for 30 seconds, altering sides.

Happy workout, folks!

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Crossfit Workouts For Beginners

Here I'm gonna talk about some Crossfit workouts for beginners. Beginners at Crossfit may find all this talk about the "Workout Of The Day", sumo deadlifts and kettlebell swings a little confusing if they haven't heard of them before.
The Crossfit workouts are basically like this: Each day, a workout is prescribed by the trainer, called "Workout of the day", or WOD. Every person at the Crossfit gym performs this same workout, the goal is usually to finish the workout in as short a time as possible or do as many reps or rounds as possible.
You don't need to worry if you're a beginner and think you can't handle a Crossfit workout, because the workout is scalable to pretty much any fitness level. The trainer can help you find an easier variation of every exercise that is performed.
Most of the exercises are easy to perform, it's the speed and lack of rest in between sets that is most challenging. If you've been in the gym a lot and are able to put up respective numbers, you may still find yourself drained in a matter of minutes of doing a Crossfit workout, that's how I felt in the beginning.
If you're still afraid of dipping right into a Crossfit workout, then here are some Crossfit workouts for beginners that you can practice with:

1. Squats. Any variation of squats will do. Doing them with no weight in the living room of your house will give you plenty of practice. Just make sure to watch your form. There are also plenty of variations that you will learn at Crossfit.

2. Shoulder Presses. If you have a barbell, or dumbbells, then you can practice doing shoulder presses in order to gain a bit of strength before trying Crossfit.

3. Crunches. Any form of crunches will do, since they all do pretty much the same thing. Planks are also excellent to strengthen your core.

4. Push ups. Regular push ups will do just fine, but if you want to get a bit of preparation for the speed of Crossfit workouts then you may want to try the clapping push ups. They are pretty much the same, except that you push much faster and then clap your hands once in between reps. Warning: you might fall on your face, that's what happened to me once when I tried clapping my hands two times.

And finally, I would recommend trying to get into good cardiovascular shape, preferably doing high-intensity, anaerobic cardio exercises since these are a major part of Crossfit.
So these are a few Crossfit workouts for beginners that you can practice with, but like I said before I don't think you need to worry about anything since the exercises are scalable so you can just show up at a Crossfit workout and start.

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6 Benefits of Using Weightlifting Machines

Thanks to the popularity of high-intensity exercise programs, many fitness centers are changing their equipment offerings and creating space for high-intensity conditioning programs. Likewise many personal trainers now make exercises like barbell deadlifts, sled pushes, Turkish get-ups, overhead presses and kettlebell swings standard components of clients’ workout programs. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that the sight of a huge tire, the shape of a kettlebell, the sound of a barbell dropping on a platform or the noise of a heavy rope slamming against the ground could be intimidating to the novice exerciser.
It’s also important to consider whether high-intensity workouts are appropriate for someone who is just starting to exercise. While there is a ton of evidence supporting the benefits of high-intensity exercise for clients of all skill levels, that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for every single person walking into a gym. Now, you might argue that using full body exercises is more functional and helps clients prepare for challenges they may face in their daily lives. Your primary role as a trainer, however, is to not only give clients a workout for the day, but to help them learn how to make physical activity a regular part of their daily lives.
I used to define myself as a “functional trainer” and took pride in creating a variety of movement-based exercise programs. A number of years ago I attended a lecture given by strength coach Mike Boyle, author of the book Functional Training for Sports. He described functional training as training with a purpose, and asserted that challenging exercises may provide a variety of benefits, but if the exercises don’t address a client’s specific interests, or if the client is uncomfortable doing the exercises separate from the trainer, are they truly functional?
In other words, you need to consider the needs of your clients and eliminate the tendency to use the types of workouts you enjoy. Even though I like using barbells and kettlebells for my personal workouts, when it comes to exercising on their own many of my clients are more comfortable using weightlifting machines. More importantly, machines can help clients become stronger while establishing the healthy behaviors necessary to make exercise a consistent part of their daily routines.
Strength training provides a number of benefits and the primary feature of machines is that they use cams and pulleys to place the greatest amount of resistance at the point where a particular muscle is in its strongest position, thus helping that muscle to develop to its fullest potential. If the goal of an exercise program is to create large, well-defined muscles, machine training can be an extremely functional way to achieve that outcome.
Here are six benefits of machine-based training that can help you reconsider whether it’s worthwhile adding them to your clients’ programs.

1. Controlling mechanical overload and path of motion  

Mechanical overload is the amount of physical force placed on a muscle and is essential for stimulating muscle growth. Compound barbell lifts require optimal range-of-motion from a number of joints. If one of those joints does not function properly, it could cause an injury. Because exercise machines control the path of motion and place the greatest amount of force where a muscle is the strongest, it can be a safe way to apply the overload necessary to stimulate muscle growth.

2. Placing resistance specifically on the contractile element of muscle 

There are two components of muscle: the elastic component of fascia and the connective tissue responsible for providing shape and transmitting forces from one section of muscle to another, and the contractile element of the actin and myosin protein filaments responsible for controlling muscle contractions. Improving muscle size and strength requires using external resistance to stimulate the contractile element to become capable of generating higher levels of force. Machine training can be extremely effective for achieving this outcome.

3. Creating metabolic overload

Metabolic overload occurs when a muscle is required to work to a point of momentary fatigue and does not have the energy to generate another contraction. Muscle growth occurs either as a result of mechanical or metabolic overload. A long-time bodybuilding secret for achieving rapid muscle growth is the use of drop sets, which involves doing an exercise to the point of momentary fatigue, immediately lowering (dropping) the weight, and then continuing to the next point of exhaustion. Machines provide the safest and most time-efficient means of being able to perform drop sets to the point of complete fatigue, which ensures that all fibers in a particular muscle have been engaged.

4. Time-efficient solution for circuit training

Circuit training requires transitioning from one exercise to another with a minimal amount of rest and can be effective for creating both a mechanical and metabolic overload for your clients. You might design circuits featuring barbells, kettlebells and weight sleds and encourage your clients to work to the point of fatigue. However, it can be intimidating for clients to use this equipment on their own. The solution is to design a machine-based circuit for your clients to follow when you’re not working directly with you, which allows them to experience the benefits of circuit training without the need to know how to properly use advanced equipment.

5. Focus on developing definition in specific muscles

In addition to the many health benefits of strength training, including improved metabolic efficiency, enhanced neuromuscular coordination or stronger muscles, many clients simply want to look better. Muscle definition is the result of a muscle remaining in a state of semi-contraction. Machines are designed to create mechanical overload in a specific muscle, which means they can help improve definition in that muscle. One unique programming strategy is to do a compound, multijoint exercise (e.g., a barbell squat) followed immediately by a muscle-isolation exercise (e.g., a machine-based hamstring curl) to continue using a specific muscle to the point of fatigue, which results in greater definition.

6. Safety

When used properly, free-weight equipment like barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells and medicine balls can be extremely effective. However, if an individual lacks a base level of strength or basic movement skills, using this equipment could increase the risk of injury. Even if an individual is strong, the ego is sometimes stronger, causing him to lift a weight that is heavier than his existing level of strength. While overloading a barbell for a squat or bench press could cause serious injury, machines allow a user to lift with maximal loads with a minimal risk of injury from falling weights.
The role of a personal trainer is to help clients live healthier lives. If we design exercise programs that are so challenging that our clients don’t feel comfortable working out on their own then we our failing in our mission. While I still design challenging barbell and kettlebell workouts for when I am working directly with a client, I now take the time to also develop a machine-based exercise program that the client can use on those days when we don’t meet or when he or she may be traveling out of town.
Don’t get stuck in the trap of training your clients like you train yourself. You can design the best program in the world, but if the client doesn’t feel comfortable doing it when you’re not there, you’re doing them a major disservice. Opening up my way of thinking to appreciate the benefits of old-school exercise machines has helped me deliver solutions that meet my clients needs and that is the true definition functional training.

 

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Functional Fitness Training

WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL FITNESS TRAINING?

Functional fitness training can be described as any program that includes exercises designed to mimic and/or help you to perform daily tasks or activities safely and efficiently. Examples of these types of tasks or activities include loading and unloading furniture from a truck, or picking your kid up and carrying them up the stairs.

Functional exercises are generally multi-joint movements that involve using both upper and lower body muscle groups simultaneously while engaging the core.

 For example, while an exercise like a dumbbell curl ONLY works the bicep and is performed in most cases for aesthetic purposes, an exercise like a dumbbell farmer's walk trains the body to lift heavy objects properly off the ground, engaging the core, driving through the heels, then moving those heavy objects from point A to point B. Muscles worked: glutes, quads, hamstrings, upper traps, forearms, and core. In addition, it's not a bad high intensity cardio workout either. In a real world scenario, an exercise such as this is much more likely to transfer over to a common task such as carrying two heavy grocery bags from the store to your car.

SHOULD YOU BE INCORPORATING FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENTS IN YOUR EXERCISE PROGRAM? 

Everyone can benefit from performing functional movements. Don't wait until you slip a disc in your back trying to pick up that 50 pound bag of dog food before you decide it's time to learn how to deadlift properly. Lower back injuries are the most common, nagging, reoccurring injuries in our society today. In fact, 31 million Americans experience low-back pain at any given time.Experts estimate that as many as 80% of the American population will experience a back injury at some point in their lives. Knowing the reasons why people experience these injuries and training your body in ways that will help you to avoid them is something everyone can and should do.

If you're a bodybuilder, does it make sense to perform only functional movements in your routine? No. You'll most likely be going with a split routine of some sort. However, for most everyone else, whether you're a stay at home Mom with two kids, or the owner of a refurbished vintage furniture store (had to throw some of my real life client examples in here), you need to know how to properly squat down and pick up your kids or your furniture, then properly lift them up and carry or load them off somewhere.

The answer for 99% of us is yes, at the very least, the two foundational functional movements, the squat and the deadlift, should be incorporated in your program somewhere.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF FUNCTIONAL FITNESS TRAINING?

• Reduced risk of injury.
• Improved ease of daily tasks.
• Safe, efficient and effective performance of common activities.
• Improved balance, agility, and strength.
• Improved quality of life.

EXAMPLES OF FUNCTIONAL EXERCISES

• Squat, deadlift, lunge (all variations)
• Push-up, pull-up, dip
• Kettlebell swing
• Dumbbell carry
• Medicine ball slam
• Box jumps
• Sled push
• Battle rope
• Core rotation exercises
• Cable machine
• Medicine ball
• Resistance bands
• Body weight
• TRX Rip Trainer

Source : Coach Brian Donovan