“Sorry man, I can’t hit happy hour with you. It’s Thursday which means I need to work my supraspinatus at the gym tonight.”

I am a firm believer that results can be very simple to achieve and the biggest thing that does not produce results is the lack of action. There are many trainers out there that are focused on trying to show you they know the human anatomy rather than showing you how to get results. I am sorry, but those exercises to work your rotators cuffs really are not going to get the results you need, unless you are an athlete or a bodybuilder. In the same manner, trying to work the 3 heads of the tri, or the 4 muscles of the quad, or the inner muscles of the abs, won’t really get you the results you need. Yeah, they will produce some results, but how many hours do you want to spend in the gym? Are you really going to dedicate a whole gym session to the quad? Unless you are body builder, the answer is no.

Most people don’t want to spend hours in the gym to get results. Let’s face it, if someone created a workout plan that got you in the best shape of your life in 5 minutes, you would buy that right now. Sadly, there are no plans that I know of that will do that (that work).

So what is the next best thing? Focus your weights on large muscles. These include calf, quad, hamstring, back, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps. That is really all you need to get a good workout.

And when you work out big muscles, just workout the big muscles! You don’t need to do an Arnold Press, lateral raises, front raises and bent over lateral raises to feel the burn in your shoulder. That is honestly just overkill. Grab a weight, and lift it 12-15 times over your head, rest, do it two more times. Move on to the next muscles. Like I have said before, it isn’t rocket science.

Get in. Blow up. Get out. Stop focusing on the little details and you will produce bigger results.

One of the easiest, fastest, best workout you can get is at your home using your own body. Body weight workouts are a great way to get in shape. They are quick and easy and need no equipment. Here is a quick workout you can go that will give you great results.

WIth this workout, do about 10 reps of each exercise, moving right on into the next exercise as a super set. Once you finish all 5 exercises, rest for about 2 minutes then do it again. Depending on your fitness level, try to get 3-5 rounds of the super sets done for a workout.

Exercise 1: Tuck Jumps

To do this exercise, Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and  your knees slightly bent. Jump straight up in the air as high as high as you can and bring your knees toward your chest. Land on the balls of your feet with your knees slightly bent and quickly go into your next jump. Again, do about 10 of these then jump to the next exercise.

Exercise 2: Squat Jump

Stand with your feet slightly more than shoulder width apart and your finger laced behind your head. Bend at the knees to lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor, ten jump up as high as you can. Sink directly into the next squat without stopping. Do 10 reps.

Exercise 3: Power Skip

This is similar to your traditional skip, but you are generating more power and you are not moving. Propel yourself up as high as you can  with each skip by driving your knee up into the air. As you punch each knee up, swing your opposite hand upward t get as much vertical lift as possible.

Exercise 4: ZigZag Bound

Think about lengthening your stride as much as possible. Drive one leg into the ground to push of forcefully and lift your opposite knee high in the air as you surge forward. Propel youself upward, forward and slightly laterally o that you bound forward and to the outside.

Exercise 5: Stick Landing

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, hands beside your thighs. Jump and land with your knees bent and your butt and hips back. Try to land on the front two thirds of your feet, with your heels just off the ground. Hold for 2 seconds before standing to perform your next lunge.

Again, perform all the sets a few times and you have a great workout.

When most people hear functional training, they almost always think of people with disabilities, or older adults, or something to that nature. People who have needs and need to perform basic functions.

While that is true, functional training is important for everyone, from average joes to high level athletes. Figuring out what you want to do, then training for that specific goal is functional training.

Example: Mary is an elderly individual who shuffles her feet when she walks. This is dangerous because she already doesn’t have good balance, so if she shuffles her feet and trips, it could be very dangerous. Her goal is to have better balance and be able to lift her feet higher. She should train to lift her feet higher and have better balance.

Example: Derek Jeter. He is a professional baseball player. When he trainers, he trains for baseball. You can bet he probably does run massive distance (only needs 90 ft) or lifts heavy weights (bat only was a few pounds). He has a goal to be the best baseball player in the league and needs to train that way. That is functional training.

Everyone should use functional training. Think of your end result of what you want. Train to get there. If you want to run fast, train fast. If you want to lift heavy weights, train with heavy weights. If you want to be able to walk up stairs better, train to walk up stairs better.

It isn’t rocket science. It is simple thinking of what you want, then training in that specific way.

So you know you are suppose to do something active everyday, whether it is hitting the gym, or going for a walk. Doing something consistent everyday creates a healthy lifestyle. But what about for those time you just can’t get out to door to a gym? You need to stay home with the kids, or it’s raining, or you frankly just don’t want to leave the house. Here is a quick workout you can do in your home using no weights-just your body! This workout is taken from Men’s Health magazine.

This workout contains doing certain exercises in intervals. Below are the exercises that you will do, one after another, during the workout:

• Prisoner Squats-Stand with your hands behind your head,. Sit back at the hips and bend your knees to squat down. Squeeze the glutes and push back up. Do 10 reps per set.
• Jumpies: Crouch down as if playing the catcher position in baseball. Then in one quick motion, explode up and jump up with your arms extended. Land softly back down in the crouch position. Repeat 6 times.
• Single Leg Romanian Deadlift-stand on one foot. Keeping the arch in your spine, push your hips back and lower your hands. Press your heels into the floor to return to standing. Do 6 reps with one leg then 6 with your other leg.
• Lunge: Take a large step forward with one leg. When your front thigh is parallel to the floor, hold for 2 seconds and return to an upright position. Repeat with the other leg. Alternate 6 reps for each leg.

Do each exercise (with the specific reps mentioned) one time straight through, then rest for 60 seconds and repeat. Do a total of 2 sets and stretch your legs.

It is important to remember that this workout is very leg intensive. Make sure you are not planning any big cardio days 1-2 days after this, and plan on doing this workout twice a week. If done right, it will produce great strength, power and tone in your legs.

There is so much conflicting information out there when it comes to the topic of building muscle, and sometimes it can be very difficult to know where to start. If you’re beginner looking for some basic guidelines to follow in the gym, the following 8 points will start you off on the right track.

1) Train With Weights and Focus On Compound, Free Weight Movements.

If you want to make solid, noteworthy gains in muscle size and strength, you should train with free weights and focus on basic, compound exercises. A compound exercise is any lift that stimulates more than one muscle group at a time. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip and lunges. Compound movements allow you to handle the most weight and will stimulate the greatest amount of total muscle fibers. Plus, these exercise focus on big muscle groups, which helps you build a significant base.

2) Be Prepared To Train Hard.

One of the biggest factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make serious gains is their level of training intensity. In order to stimulate your muscle fibers to their utmost potential, you must be willing to take every set you perform in the gym to the point of muscular failure.

Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form.

Sub-maximal training intensity will leave you with sub-maximal results, plain and simple. If you want look hard, you need to train hard.

3) Track Your Progress In The Gym From Week To Week.

Our bodies build muscle because of an adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you break down your muscle fibers by training with weights. Your body senses this as a potential threat to its survival and will react accordingly by rebuilding the damaged fibers larger and stronger in order to protect against any possible future threat. Therefore, in order to make continual gains in muscle size and strength, you must always focus on progressing in the gym from week to week. This could mean performing 1 or 2 more reps for each exercise or adding more weight to the bar. Keep a detailed training log to track your progress as your strength increases over time.

4) Avoid Over training.

Over training is your number one enemy when it comes to building muscle size and strength. When most people begin a workout program, they are stuck with the misguided notion that more is better. They naturally assume that the more time they spend in the gym, the better results they will achieve. When it comes to building muscle, nothing could be farther from the truth! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will actually take yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them. Remember, your muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym, while you are resting and eating. Recovery is absolutely vital to the muscle growth process. If you don’t provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts, your muscles will never have a chance to grow.

5) Eat More Frequently.

The main area where most people fail miserably on their muscle-building mission is on the all-too important task of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! You break down your muscle fibers in the gym, but if you don’t provide your body with the proper nutrients at the proper times, the muscle growth process will be next to impossible. You should be eating anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours in order to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. Each meal should consist of high quality protein and complex carbohydrates.

6) Increase Your Protein Intake.

Of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) protein is without a doubt the most important for those who are looking to gain muscle size and strength. Protein is found in literally every single one of the 30 trillion cells that your body is made up of and its main role is to build and repair body tissues. Without sufficient protein intake, it will be physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass. If your body were a house, think of protein as the bricks. A general guideline is to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from high quality sources such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter and cottage cheese.

7) Increase Your Water Intake.

If you want a simple, easy and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains, drinking more water is it. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and its importance cannot be overstated. In fact, your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Not only will drinking more water cause your muscles to appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also increase your strength as well. Research has shown that merely a 3-4% drop in your body’s water levels can impact muscle contractions by 10-20%! Aim to consume 0.6 ounces for every pound of body weight each day for optimal gains.

Be Consistent!

Consistency is everything. Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to implement the proper techniques on a highly consistent basis. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply!

Building muscle is a result of the cumulative effect of small steps. Sure, performing 1 extra rep on your bench press will not make a huge difference to your overall results, and neither will consuming a single meal. However, over the long haul, all of those extra reps you perform and all of those small meals you consume will decide your overall success. If you work hard and complete all of your muscle-building tasks in a consistent fashion, all of those individual steps will equate to massive gains in overall size and strength.

There are ways to get big without testosterone. Testosterone is created naturally by the body and you can manipulate your own endocrine system naturally with resistance training.

Yes, you heard me right. Using your own physiology and resistance training, you can great your own HGH, Testosterone and optimize your adrenal hormones. An here is how to do it!

First, a few general concepts:

• Them more muscle fibers you recruit for an exercise, the greater the extent of the potential remodeling process of the whole muscle. Basically, the harder your lift, the bigger you will get.
• Only muscle fibers activated by the resistance training are subject to adaptations, including hormonal adaptations to stress. Meaning, only muscles that you work out get big. If you work your chest only, your legs will not grow.

For Strength

High loads, few repetitions, full recovery periods.

Whether you are a beginner weight lifter, or an experiences, I am sure you have wondered the best way to lift. What machines, how many reps, how many sets, how long of rest period, the questions are endless.

Based on my education experiences, do get a precise program takes a personal interview, looking at YOUR goals and YOUR body type in order to get the best workout plan for YOU.

But, if you are looking for a basic chart to reference, there are a few basic ways to set your own routine. Depending on what you want to accomplish, follow these as a guideline:

For Strength-High loads, few repetitions, full recovery periods.

For Muscle Size- Moderate loads, high volume, short to moderate rest periods.

For Muscular Endurance-Low intensity, high volume, little recovery allowed.

Again, these are only a guideline. Your personal trainer or coach should be able to customize a plan fit for you. If you do not have a personal trainer or a coach, email us at info@nintemanfitness.com and we can either find you a personal trainer in your area, or we will set you up with your own custom workout plan based on you.

low intensity, high volume, little recovery allowed.

One of the biggest questions I get as a personal trainer is when is the best time to work out. Should I go in the morning, and start my day off in the right foot, sneak away at lunch for a little pick me up, or end the day with a bang, and workout at night?

A BIG part of when to work out falls mainly on YOU. Life is busy, regardless of who you are. Finding the time to work out is the most important things. It is better to work out when you can, rather than not work out at all. So if morning fits you, workout in the morning. If your time opens up at night, workout at night. If you can only hit the gym on your lunch break, hit the gym. Whatever is convenient for you.

If you have the ability to workout whenever, I highly suggest starting your day off right with working out in the morning. Working out jacks your metabolism and gets your body crankin’.

So workout when you can. But if you can, work out in the morning.