FITNESS REVIEWS AND IMAGES: Secrets

Showing posts with label Secrets. Show all posts

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Zuzka Light's Six-Pack Ab Secrets, Part 2

New Exercise and Fitness Review

Travel can mess up anyone’s ability to stay focused and on the right track to fitness. Sure, it’s fun to think you’ve got it under control. You may even think you’ll eat healthier and work out more while you’re on vacation or a business trip. Heck, you might tell your friends, “I’ll be ripped by the time I get back!”

Despite leaving with good intentions, reality will soon set in. Maybe your hotel doesn’t have a fitness center, maybe there’s no gym nearby, or maybe you’re too busy to even find one. It could be that your hotel doesn’t offer healthy meal choices and you have no idea where to eat or shop for healthy food. Nowhere to exercise and nothing healthy to eat? Game over.

If you’ve ever been in this pickle, it’s likely you gave up. You just grabbed that package of M&Ms from the minibar and flopped onto your bed. But that was before, and this is now!

I have a great workout that will save you from throwing in the towel. My hotel-room workout and supplement secrets will help you stay fit—and maybe even get fitter—while you’re on vacation or a business trip. Check it out!

Zuzka Light’s Six-Pack Secrets
Watch The Video – 7:23

This workout is only 15 minutes long and requires nothing other than your body. You can do it in a small space like a hotel room, or even an office.

Watch the video, make notes, and challenge yourself. How long did it take you to complete the four rounds? Write it down, because your goal is to be even faster next time. And yes, you can do this workout every day while on vacation or a business trip.

In this workout, it’s the intensity that matters. Try to get through each exercise as quickly as possible while doing them correctly. Put a towel down before you do this workout. It’ll keep you from sweating all over the floor and getting a rug burn!

Mountain Climber
4 sets of 20 reps

Ab Splitter
4 sets of 10 reps

Push-Up Jack Burpee
4 sets of 20 reps

Side Plank Lift and Knee Tuck
4 sets of 10 reps per side

Mountain Climber

Begin in a plank position. Your hands, elbows, and shoulders should be in a straight line.

Bring your right foot up toward your hands.

Alternate pumping your right and left foot up toward your hands as quickly as you can.

Ab Splitter

This exercise will give you that great abdominal burn you’ve been looking for. Make sure you keep your feet off the ground until you complete the last rep.

Start on your back with your feet and shoulders off the ground. Keep your legs and arms straight. Bring your legs and arms up and forward. They should meet above the center of your body.

Lay back down without resting your shoulders or feet on the ground. Once your back hits the ground, raise your upper body. As you raise your torso, split your legs. Reach your hands between your legs until they touch the ground.

When your hands touch the ground, recline until your back touches the ground. From there, immediately incline your torso and bring your knees to your chest.

All three movements count as one rep.

Push-Up Jack Burpee

Begin on your feet. Jump down into a plank position by putting your hands on the floor and jumping your feet back. Your hands, elbows, and shoulders should be in a straight line. Your spine should also be straight.

Jump your feet apart. As you jump your feet apart, do a push-up.

After you do a push-up, jump your feet together again, and then jump them up toward your arms.

From the crouched position, jump up into the air. That’s one rep.

Side Plank Lift and Knee Tuck

Lay on your right side and then prop yourself up on one arm and lift your hips.

Your shoulder and back should be flexed and packed back. Your bottom foot should be slightly behind your top foot.

Put your free hand behind your head so your elbow is pointed toward the ceiling. Lift your top knee up toward your elbow.

Lower your leg and then lower your hips back to the ground. That’s one rep.

Travel With Supps

Eating healthy when you’re traveling can be really difficult. If you don’t have a kitchen, or you’re in an unfamiliar city, finding and preparing food is next to impossible.

It’s important you continue your healthy meal plan when you’re on the road. Finding a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner is possible with a little creativity. Most hotels offer scrambled eggs or omelets for breakfast. Almost every restaurant will have grilled fish or chicken breast with veggies.

The hardest (but most essential) meal to prepare is your post-workout meal. You may not be hungry, but your body still needs to be nourished after high-intensity training. You can’t just cook yourself some egg whites, so you’ll have to rely on supplements.

To ensure I’m giving my body what it needs to recover after a tough hotel-room workout, I travel with these three supps:

1 Glutamine

L-glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in skeletal muscle. Supplementing with it will help muscle recovery. Most glutamine powders dissolve in water, have no taste, and are nearly calorie-free!

2 Greens

Believe it or not, veggies come in pills and powder. When traveling, I prefer greens pills, because they don’t make a mess and all you need to take them is a glass of water. I usually eat a lot of veggies, but if I can’t have the real deal, I like to get the vitamins and nutrients from this supplement.

3 Fish Oil

Fish oil provides essential omega-3 fatty acids. It’s a great supplement that’s not only amazing for fat loss, it also benefits your body and your brain!

Keep checking back for more of my six-pack secrets! Next time, I’ll give you more nutrition advice and another bodyweight workout you can take with you anywhere. In the meantime, visit my website for more of my workouts, recipes, and blog posts!

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About The Author

Zuzka Light is a leading fitness personality on YouTube, fostering an audience of hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide.

Bodybuilding.com Articles

Zuzka Light"s Six-Pack Ab Secrets, Part 2

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Fitness Success Secrets: Secret Techniques From Elite Athletes

New Exercise and Fitness Review

Everybody, including celebrity athletes, has secrets. No, I’m not referring to scandalous dirt or shocking rumors about people in the fitness industry! (Let’s leave that to reality TV, shall we?) I’m talking about a hidden cache of secrets which athletes keep hush-hush about how they look the way they do, where their strength comes from, or the secret sauce to their training.

Ever wonder about the close-kept training or eating methods of your favorite athletes and fitness models? Top athletes may hold these tips—which take years of crafting and honing—near and dear to their hearts, but Cellucor’s ripped warriors peel back the curtain a little to let you peek into their methods for top physical and mental performance. (Just promise that you won’t share a single word or a piano may mysteriously fall out of the sky.)

Heed the words of elite athletes Karina Baymiller, Colton Leonard, Jen Jewell, and Craig Capurso. Their secrets can make you stronger.

Karina Baymiller
Her Secret

I secretly enjoy conditioning! If you know anything about me, you know that I love lifting heavy more than anything, but what you don’t know is that I love conditioning work just as much.

I talk a lot of crap about cardio, and it’s true, you wouldn’t catch me dead on an elliptical or doing low-intensity, steady-state. But when it comes to cardio work that gets my heart pumping like crazy, I’m obsessed. Maybe it’s the adrenaline junkie in me, but I can’t get enough of sprints, barbell complexes, jump rope, plyometrics, kettlebell work, and even some short distance (2-3 mile) running.

I do conditioning work 2-3 times per week and give it major credit for helping me stay in shape all year long … Just don’t tell anyone! Winky face.

I secretly enjoy conditioning! I talk a lot of crap about cardio, but when it comes to cardio work that gets my heart pumping like crazy, I’m obsessed.

Colton Leonard
His Secret

My secret? Use heavy weight and high reps to challenge your mental and physical strength, and take your training to the next level. One thing I have always incorporated as part of my strength program is repetition workouts. In strongman, not only do you need to possess the power to perform a lift at maximum intensity, but you often find that you need to do so repeatedly.

7 Strongman Lifts For The Non-strongman

You don’t need to be a strongman competitor to use the lifts! These strongman moves and their variations can help you achieve your goals!

For instance, we don’t just load an Atlas stone; we have to load them either for maximum reps under time, or, at minimum, a five-stone series. You often find deadlift events in strongman, which also require you to perform a maximum number of reps under time. These events led me to start incorporating this type of lifting into my training.

Several times each month, I pick a lift or movement commonly found in competition. After warming up, I complete one all-out set with as many reps as possible. This type of training not only contributes to overall strength, size, and conditioning, but will test your mental fortitude as you approach failure and your body starts to scream for you to stop.

Here’s the real trick: 2-3 times each month, pick a major movement, set the weight at approximately 70-75 percent of your max and, after properly warming up, perform one set of as many repetitions as you safely can in 60-90 seconds. Choose from these exercises to test your guts: deadlift, squat, clean and press, or T-bar row.

Write down your max reps and test yourself again down the road to track your progress. If this set does not leave you crawling away in pain and agony, you weren’t trying hard enough!

Jen Jewell
Her Secret

Of all the fitness tips, diet tricks, and booty-sculpting workouts out there, my ultimate fitness secret is simple: Stop comparing yourself to others! Instead, constantly work on becoming your fittest and healthiest self. I always say that I’m a work in progress, en route to becoming my best self. Having adopted that mindset has been incredibly beneficial to my health, outlook, and self-confidence over the past couple of years.

Sure, at first glance, it’s easier said than done. With the onslaught of bikini-clad or underwear “selfies” that have seemingly taken over fitness social media, the physiques of others are right in your face when you log on to Facebook, Instagram, and so on. (It’s a bikini booty free-for-all on my Facebook newsfeed!) While some of these posts from fit individuals can be inspiring and motivating, these types of updates are not always that simple.

Seeing others’ progress, cellulite-free legs and buns, and solid six-pack abs can begin to take a toll on your own self-esteem. Inevitably, they compel you to constantly compare yourself to others and how your progress or fitness stacks up against theirs.

The moment I stopped comparing myself to others and focused on my own journey was pretty darn liberating. Charting your own progress from day one—whatever level of fitness your day one may be—and using that as your measuring stick can be extremely motivating. We are all in the gym working hard to set new personal records. Why not maintain that mindset when it comes to progress in your physique, as well?

Admire the physiques and hard work of your favorite “fitspos,” but always keep in mind that the reflection in the mirror is your real competition. Be in competition with yourself, striving to become better each and every day. That is the true secret!

Craig Capurso
His Secret

When I’m trying to manipulate water for shoots, I take full advantage of infrared saunas. An infrared sauna is an effective tool for detoxifying the body and an aid for shedding excess subcutaneous water, yet few people utilize it. While traditional saunas help with water loss, the added benefit of infrared light penetrates the body tissue to help excrete toxins and bring out your musculature.

This has been a trick that I’ve used to come dialed into photo shoots and contests for years. It really makes a difference!

Infrared light penetrates the body tissue to help excrete toxins and bring out
your musculature.

The Secret Is Out

Embrace the valuable information that contributes to these athletes’ success and see how it could fit into your own life and goals. Have you got a secret method few people know about? Tell us in the comments below … unless you’d rather keep it secret.