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Fitness in lockdown

Well lockdown or not we should not excuse or compromise with our health. And in these condition, I think we should focus more on our health via both diet and physical activity. We know diet is an essential ingredient for making a fit and healthy body and we earlier discussed about diet in previous blog, if you have not read that blog go and checkout that, so in this blog I am going to focus on workout .

Since all gyms will stay closed in this lockdown, the only option left with us is home workout and for most of the people out their whose sole goal is to achieve a respectful level of fitness, I don’t think would have home gym stuff`s and so the blog will focus more on equipment free workout and in some case few other things would help like chairs or  school bag etc.

Now before I talk about workout and yoga, I would like to give you some suggestions apart from workout to stay healthy in such pandemic.

  1. Try to avoid going outside and follow the protocol government has asked to.
  2. Don’t take too much stress, well we all are facing this condition, stay calm.
  3. Eat healthy food and try avoiding unhealthy food stuffs. Especially green vegetables and citrus fruits are immunity boosters.
  4. Stay hygienic, keep  hand sanitizer and tissues always with you. Even after the gyms are open try to maintain hygiene their too. Keep your gym towel, sanitizer, tissues in your gym bag.
  5. Have proper sleep and continue to live active life, don’t get lazy.

Workout

We already know doing physical activities increases blood circulation and thereby helping immune cells to move faster throughout the body  and hence it strengthens the defence against the viruses and bacteria. when we talk about home workout, it may be an exercise session or shadow boxing or a session of some form of dance. That is solely your choice , if you enjoy dancing just do it for an hour or so. Well workout is not bound to just different exercises, dumbbells and gyms, it has a wide range of physical activities to offer. But dancing and boxing and other martial arts are better done in some expert guidance so exercise is more feasible to all and a little bit of guidance from my blogs and internet itself will help.

Home workout can also be performed in programs like push-pull or push-pull-leg or the popular 1-2 body parts a day, generally without equipment and pull-up bar pull day generally refers to abs-day, whatever the case, here are some of my favorite home workout, so lets get started.

Push ups

Well, nothing is better then this. You can just blow your chest, shoulders and triceps. Remember to keep your arms shoulder-width apart or a bit wider, keep your core tight while lowering and raising your body, don’t let your elbows flare keep an angle of 45 degree with your body, remember to breathe in as you lower your body and to breathe out while raising. For making it more difficult keep the momentum slow. Different basic variations you can try are

Wide-grip push ups

Keep your arms wider than traditional one. Elbows are more prone to flare out in this variation, going in slow and controlled manner would help. This will focus more on your pecs then shoulders and triceps.

wide-grip push ups

Close-grip push-ups/ diamond push ups

The two are different from each other in position but they target same muscles therefore I had placed them together. If you have been through some wrist injuries in the past, it is better to perform close-grip them diamond push ups. In diamond pushups, keep your arms in such a manner that your left-thumbs touches right-thumb and left-index figure touches the right one. In close grip, just place your arms closer than traditional one.

close-grip push ups

Inclined and declined pushups

Well this variation is as common as the traditional one. Take two chairs, place your left arm on the left chair and right on the right, take your foot back until your body is straight and making an angle of 60 or 45 degree with the floor now start doing pushups like the traditional ones. This will help you improve your lower chest muscles. In the decline push ups just keep the foot on the chair and hands on the floor. This will improve your upper chest.

There are other advanced variations you can perform once mastering the above variations they are 1. Clap push-ups, 2.  Staggered push-ups, 3. Spiderman push-ups, 4. One armed push-ups, 5. Archer push-ups. 6. Triple clap push-ups, 7. Crucifix push-ups

These are more advanced and cool variations, will talk about these variations in the next blog.

Squats

Talking about my favorite exercises, nothing can take place of squats. Even without weights it is the most beneficiary exercise when it comes to mobility and number of muscle engaged. Well the position is pretty simple, keep your legs shoulder-width apart, straighten your back, hold your chest up, keep your hands behind neck or just raise them in front of you, and that’s it start moving up and down while remembering to keep your core tight and to inhale while going down and exhale while coming up. You can try different variations like

Side step squat

It is a simple variation in which you begin with your feet hip-width apart, toes pointing forward. Squat down until your thighs are almost parallel to the ground. Keep your chest up and core engaged. Now take a step with the right foot to the side. Make sure to keep your thighs parallel and don’t break your squat form. Now step with the left leg towards you so that you are back in a squat. You can switch sides or do 3 steps in one direction and then 3 in the other. It will help you tone your glutes and quads.

Jump squats

Squat traditionally and when you start coming up from the bottom position exert enough explosive power to jump and as you land perform squat such that all the shock is absorbed by thighs itself. It is best variation to increase explosive strength.

Sumo squats

As the name itself indicates the starting position is similar to that of  a sumo wrestler.  Keep your legs away from each other, remember not to get in uncomfortable position. Your toe should be 120 to 150 degree outwards. It is good for glutes and hamstrings.

Archer/Cossack squats

Take position a little wider then sumo squats, put all your weight on one leg ang squat while stretching other leg, come up and repeat it on other leg.

There are other  advanced variations such as 1. One legged squats, 2. Sissy squats and other such variations are cool but very difficult at the same time.

Well this was all about my favourite squats and push ups that you should must try, I know I missed your favourite part the ABS! the blog is already too long, talking about abdominal exercise would double the content. So looking forward to meet you in the next blog related to abdominal exercises.

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fitness workout

Bodybuilding vs CrossFit vs powerlifting vs calisthenics

Hey guys I am back with march blog, and this time I am going to clear many doubts regarding the type of fitness training one should took up to achieve best out of his/her  body. Now don’t expect me to tell you that one training method is superior to other, no raining is superior to other when it comes to achieve a respectable level of fitness, I might be helping those who are confused to choose among these training methods based on their body types and other factors.

Bodybuilding

Starting off with bodybuilding and for those who don’t know what it is you can search it on the web and the definition is as follows “ a sport involving strenuous physical exercise in order to strengthen and enlarge the muscles of the body”. Now as written in the definition itself it is a sport where one subjects his/her muscle to intense pain via various lifting methods to force it to grow in size, the only goal of this sport is not just to increase muscle size but to achieve a decent level of fat in body whereby each and every muscles can be seen clearly.

CrossFit

Talking about CrossFit , it is one of the most rigorous training you are ever going to do, after every session you are going to be lying on floor craving for breathe now you can ask its definition on google it show you following results CrossFit a high-intensity fitness programme incorporating elements from several sports and types of exercise. But this always need not be very high in intensity rather it can be done choosing some bodyweight and other exercises you are comfortable doing and doing it in high repetition maintaining high intensity instead of very high intensity.

Powerlifting

Powerlifting is a sport of maximal effort in one rep, the only thing you have got is a rep and you have to put on everything out of your body to lift that heavy ass weight against the gravity. And its definition is a form of competitive weightlifting in which contestants attempt three types of lift in a set sequence. Due to less work and less exercises doesn`t take away its intensity, lifting heavy weight all the time needs more energy and though it seems only three exercises that are to be tested but the training itself includes numerous assistance exercises.

Calisthenics

Now this is a sport for those who can just lift their bodies to like dummies. This sport requires less equipment as less as just a pull up bar. Apart from what you think about abs, for this sport you need to build it, not really the abs but the core strength. The definition would help and it is gymnastic exercises to achieve bodily fitness and grace of movement. This is really very hard, those athletes make it look easy as hell, but the fact is that it doesn`t happen, just believe me guys I have tried it multiples times but failed on many of them and still I am not able to do those movements.

That was all about these training methods now I am going to talk about who should choose which training style and why. And don`t get demotivated if in some way you do not fit into whatever you are doing. Just do whatever you like the most, do whatever you enjoy the most, your body type is not going to determine what you should be doing and what not. Now lets just start the comparison:

1.if your body type is ectomorph, you need to do hell of a hard work don`t lose motivation, the best training style that suits you would preferably calisthenics. Calisthenics is way to go for ectomorphs, the low bodyweight and skinny structure help them lift their bodies in any way they would like to. Building muscles to the frame has been a major issue to ectomorphs but still there are many pro bodybuilders in today`s date who have such body type, some of the greatest legendary bodybuilders like flex wheeler and frank zane were ectomorphs. So calisthenics is going to be easy for you while you will always have an edge over other body types in bodybuilding due to fact that you can eat like hell without getting fat.

2. Talking about mesomorphs, they have kind of body which enables them to take part in any sport. People with body type need not to think much about which sport to choose, you can excel in any sport, they can achieve extreme level of muscularity as compared to ectomorphs while still they can manage a lean body than those of endomorphs. I would prefer you choose any training you like. Being athletically elite among other body types, two sport that I would prefer would be CrossFit and bodybuilding.

3. now endomorphs, this body type is completely opposite of ectomorph. People with such body type don’t find it easy to loose fat, still they can have insane amount of muscles which makes them look quite bulky. This body type can easily excel in sports where winning and loosing completely depends on power such as powerlifting and strongman. So powerlifting is one sport for this body type while people with this body type can still excel in bodybuilding due to their huge structures if they manage to stay lean during their competitions.

So I don’t want any of my reader to leave their on going sport just because their body types did not matched with their sport, these are all theories developed over years after various researches but still no one knows the limit of human body. I still would love to see an ectomorph doing powerlifting and endomorph doing calisthenics, do challenge your body every training try to push yourself beyond your limits every time you enter the gym and that’s the only way.

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diet fitness

How to lose weight?

It’s been a long since my first blog, sorry for the delay but here it is my diet blog for losing fat.                                                                                                                                           

Losing weight might be a nightmare for most of the people starting off being obese or overweight. There are tons of solution to this problem available at different platforms. It’s not a rocket science for sure.  And for a surprise most of them   know what to do but still they act stranger. Everyone knows that if you eat less calories than your overall expenditure   then for sure you will end up losing weight. But this is not the healthiest way to cut down fat instead your calorie deficit body tend to lose metabolism overtime and again even after eating less your body won’t lose weight due to lower metabolism. So, I would recommend you not to cut down your calories instead start avoiding junk and oily food and try to keep your body working and yes don’t forget to rest. Taking plenty of rest, eating healthy and keeping your body working is going to be the best remedy for losing fat, working out or involving  some sort of physical activities is definitely going to give you an edge and can speed up your progress. For people who don’t want to restrict their diet should be looking for healthy food instead of less food, like if you want to eat pizza just make it on yourself use more veggies less cheese and instead of eating 3-4 pizza’s altogether try to limit yourself within  one complete pizza  because even healthy pizza will also contain enough of calories to make you look 200lbs chunk.

eating-healthyNow let’s talk about lot of myths going around about losing fat. One of the popular remedies that I hear often times is “drink honey with hot water in the morning”. Personally, I don’t completely disagree with it, there have been multiple people who have used it and they did find some changes in their bodies, so I will give a thumbs up to this and adding a little sugar to it will also help. Drinking hot water with honey and lemon in morning with empty stomach is a good idea but it will certainly lower your appetite so if you are willing to start working out or you have already started some physical activities in your daily routine then you should not be selecting it not because you are already doing some efforts but because if you do participate in physical activities then your body is craving for energy and you can’t ignore your body requirements when you are putting on so much hard work  for your body. I would also prefer you eating less but eating often, now this seems quite conflicting with the fact that you should be on less calorie while you are trying to lose fat but the thing is when you “eat less but often” your body will be  able to utilize most of the nutrients and there is less chance your body will store fat. eating often does not mean like having food every hour it is just like having five small meals instead 3 big ones.  I don’t want you to do fasted cardio’s, like this going to make you completely weak and you will be ruining up your whole day. For those who don’t know what is fasted cardio, it is method of training where you do your cardio workout with completely empty stomach and your digestive system is no longer processing the food, it is generally done in morning when you wake up. Now if you take some carbs after the cardio session you will end up gaining more fat. So, in my opinion fasted cardio is not a good idea if you just do some small workout session in morning that is enough to give you a fresh and strong kickstart to your day. I think I have covered up most of the important topics that are  being asked up again and again from me. There are plenty of myths going on all around the internet and writing on all of them will make the blog too lengthy and boring, so if you feel I have missed some important topics or you have questions regarding diets do comment in the comment section.

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Categories
workout

Organizing your workout split

              If you are studying this then you might have already started your fitness career or you might be thinking of joining gym for getting into shape getting a beach body. as a beginner a lot of question arises in everyone’s mind- “How to begin?”, “What should I eat? “, “How many days shall I be taking rest?” and they just keep on thinking this even after joining gym spending 2-3 months not even aware of what they are doing. They just do whatsoever told to them by their gym friends, owner of the gym etc. they just put everything they had in the gym everyday working out for about 2-3 hours.  Even after so much of hardworking results doesn’t shows up. After 4-5 months of joining gym they feel like they are having relatively bad genetics or they start believing that medicines are necessary to build body and start losing all energy they had in the first couple of month.

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The first and foremost thing you need to understand is that every individual is different and so their bodies and growth, everyone is special in some or other way. This also indicates that every individual must be trained differently according to their goals and body’s adaptation toward different training methods. Nowadays bro-split workout routine had replaced full body and other popular routines out there in industry. For those who don’t know what bro-split training is, it is the style of training one or two muscles a day and doing one muscle group only once a week. Basically, this style of training is followed by today’s top professional bodybuilding athletes in the industry. Copying that professional style of training in beginners has been the biggest cause that slows down their growth. The diet, rigorous and dedicated training, amount of rest, supplementations, years of hard work and patience is the recipe for making a great Greek god looking body. The professional athletes are called so because it’s their full-time career-long job, bodybuilding is their profession, they do it 24*7, it is not the gym where you build your body, a beautiful body is made in rest of 22-23 hours you spent out of the gym. Every time one goes to gym he/she destroy their muscles, but the work isn’t finished yet, here is the key you need to feed your muscles which are crying for growth you need to give them proper rest and nourishment to let them grow to their full potential. But that is not possible for most of us due to our daily schedules and work load. This indicates that bro=split might not be the optimum training split for everyone, except those who pursue fitness as their full time profession. So what might be the best split for those who want to seek some fitness and achieve relatively leaner muscles. There is another split called full body workout, in this workout split one works all major muscles on same day then have rest on following day and repeating this again. This sounds very simple, but again the role of goal comes, if one’s goal is to increase strength and put on some mass, this split will help achieve that but it somewhere compromises with the conditioning. But that issue can be resolved just by increasing number of days one train, but then rest will be compromised, so there is another split the son of full body workout the push-pull split. As sound from the name itself the workout has two major contents one being pull and other one being push. Now this type of training is very popular among the powerlifters, on the pull day they generally train their pulling muscle namely- back muscles, hamstrings, biceps, traps and glutes. and on push day pushing muscles namely- chest, quads, calves, triceps and shoulders are trained followed by a rest day. For some this workout routine might seem too long to be accomplished. But that’s not true it is quite less time consuming than a full body workout split and even bro-split if one exercise for every muscles is chosen wisely and  moreover a  push-pull split and full body workout split are generally based on compound movements for example one can do deadlifts on pull day hitting their back, hamstrings, traps and glutes all together. but still if one  further want to train legs on other day so to target upper body and lower body differently can opt for an upper-lower body split. This split can help those people who are really in need of beefing their legs up. In this type of split one trains  upper body  on one day focusing on back, chest, shoulder and arms and trains lower body on another day with major work being done on quads, hams, glutes and calves followed by a rest day. Some people still might not happy with this split due its less emphasis on training major upper body muscles differently so there is another split named push-pull-leg now this split is the solution for those not being satisfied with full body, push-pull, upper-lower body splits. This split is a mixture of push-pull and upper-lower body splits.

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This training split includes training upper body pushing muscles on one day that includes chest, shoulder and triceps then training upper body pulling muscles on another day that includes training back, biceps and trapezius muscles and on third day training legs as done in upper-lower body split followed by a rest day and. Now these were some of the splits one can chose instead of bro-split or as a change for their usual bro-split routines. Thes splits provide enough rest days along with increased frequency.

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