The Fountain of Youth! The Benefits of an Effective Strength Program For Older Adults

If you are familiar with my opinion on strength training, fitness training, and exercise then you know I'm going to absolutely push this on you in this article. I never let up and I'm not going to start now. If you are an older adult then you need to read what I have to say here.

To begin, age is really only a number. I understand that there are physiological explanations of "getting older" that are unavoidable. However, many of these ailments, diseases, and disorders that eventually catch up to us later in life can and have been shown to be slowed down with the aid of exercise. Strength training for older adults is way UNDER-RATED! It should be your mission to put doctors out of business due to good health. The upside to strength training in both men and women are almost overwhelming. Increased bone density, lower blood-pressure, lower cholesterol, joint stability, flexibility, and balance are just a few examples of many that you gain from a proper and effective program design! Would you rather be laid up in some bed, in a wheelchair, or feeling pain all the time? I don't know about you, but I would rather live to 75 years of age feeling like I'm 25, rather living to a 100 feeling like I'm 200 years old. As far as I know we only get one body at birth so we should make the most of it.

With all the problems in the healthcare system today and always worrying about the cost of medicine I think the best solution is to eliminate the need for it. Effective strength training and a personal program design to make you sweat is the answer. You are not going to find the "Fountain of Youth" in a medicine bottle.

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

Fitness Beginner's Mistake - The Importance of Taking the Time to Learn and Relearn a Technique!

As a strength and conditioning specialist that has been training people and athletes for the last 7 years I can say that I honestly see a very common mistake in people almost across the board. The biggest problem with beginners is that they want to go go go! Instead of slowing down and taking the proper time to let all the instruction of proper technique settle into their brains they can sometimes be in too much of a chaotic rush!

I have worked with people in the past that respect what I do, but they feel that sometimes they should be moving at a faster rate from one exercise to the next as quickly as possible to benefit from the full workout. Now it wouldn't be my job to tell them differently, right? Well, of course I do. All to often I hear that people are going through some sort of routine at home or at the gym and end up getting hurt or breaking something. This is generally due to having poor technique and an impatience to progress to a level of flawless technique. Time should be taken to learn and relearn proper form in a new lift in order to gain the full benefit from it. Learn how to reign yourself in, especially on lifts that are of high complexity and require total mind and body focus for perfect execution.

Just remember to learn the proper steps that are necessary to have before moving to the next level. When you were a baby you didn't go from crawling straight to running! Be smart.

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

The Kettlebell - Is it the Greatest Strength Training Device Ever?

Now I'm a strength and conditioning specialist and fitness professional that has to eventually express an opinion on different things that are associated with my industry all of the time. Lately the kettlebell has been making a lot of noise and quickly establishing it's reputation in the modern era of Greek gods!

I will give my answer to the question that has been posed on kettlebells and then I will attempt to clarify it so other guys in my industry will write to try to dispute what I have to say. Well, here I go. Is the kettlebell the greatest strength training device ever? My answer to this question is a loud YES! Now before anyone out there wants to start flooding me with emails to argue this let me explain my answer to hopefully reduce a great deal of that email traffic. I am not saying that the kettlebell is the "end all" of everything. Nor am I saying it is the only way to train your body. The question was is it the best, remember?

So having said that, yes I do believe it is the best device ever because the bell is so versatile. You can pretty much mimic any movement with the bell that you can do inside the four walls of any weight-room! The bell can be used as a primary lift as well as a great transitional or smaller auxiliary-type lift for your strength program. My view, as a strength and conditioning specialist, is that it is a tool in the tool box. The difference is that the bell is the most valuable tool in the box!

This was the ultimate strength training device for the past and is certainly going to be on top of the exercise chain for the future!

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

Your Body - The Real Weight Room!

I would say that your own body is the best weight-room or gym around. It amazes me that most people don't get the concept of progression. Time and time again I see people that can bench-press a pretty good amount of weight but lack the ability to execute one correct form push-up. Their logic is backwards.

I would like to start by saying that if you are not capable of performing some basic body-weight exercises such as push-ups, squats, and planks then you have no business adding an additional load to the body like the act of lifting weights! You see these are all forms of resistance. Whether you are lifting your own body-weight or you are throwing weights around in the gym you are simply adding resistance to the muscle causing it to tense up. This tensing up or tension is what builds strength. You have to progress in order to gain optimal function and overall development of strength.

When you engage in such exercise that involve your own body-weight such as push-ups you will find that they can be pretty challenging. You can get a heck of a workout by participating in this age-old movement and others that are like it with just your own resistance. My opinion is that if you cannot execute these movements by using your own resistance effectively then you lack development in your stabilizing muscles and overall core strength.

Make sure that you understand how to progress in a fitness and exercise program before you start. Always have a plan before blindly throwing yourself into something hoping that it will all just automatically happen. Learn and practice these movements flawlessly and then move on to more difficult and challenging workouts.

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

The Kettlebell Swing - Giant Cardio With a Single Exercise!

So do you want to know a simple method to train the body in order to gain serious fitness, conditioning, and huge cardiovascular benefit? Notice that I said that the method is simple, not the training!

The swing is one of the most, if not the most basic lift to execute with the kettlebell. This movement is one that you will figure out in a hurry involves about 75-80% of your body and hundreds of muscles! That is a workout my friends. If you don't believe me then do a couple of hundred continuous swings with the bell and you will find out really fast that there are really no areas of the body left untouched from this hard hitting exercise. As a matter of fact, you can really concentrate on tightening up your body for every repetition and you will notice that getting exhausted comes fast. Focus on every repetition by keeping a firm tight grip, tight abs, shoulders retracted, and constant hip drive throughout every swing. You can complete an entire workout around this single lift. You will no doubt be efficient with the time it takes to do the workout. You will also noticeably feel all the areas of impact from this single movement.

So if the idea is to make a time efficient workout with tremendous cardiovascular results then the swing should be your lift of choice. You will achieve a giant cardiovascular effect while optimizing your skeletal muscles for either rock hard fitness, performance, or to be resilient enough for athletic competition of any kind!

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

Kettlebells - Supreme Cardiovascular Training For the Endurance Athlete

I want to talk about the most gruesome and sadistic strength training device known to man. A device that will make you wish you never competed in a sporting event or started working out because of its extreme ability to tax the body like nothing you've ever experienced. This tool of fat destruction and ultimate body construction that I am talking about is the kettlebell! I have worked in training many different populations of athletes, law enforcement, and average citizens to know that the one tool they all respect is the kettlebell.

To start, if you are any type of athlete this tool should be the staple of your program. However, in this article I am addressing the endurance athlete. Whether you are a marathoner, cyclist, swimmer, or triathlete this is a tool that I guarantee will improve your cardiovascular endurance, staying power, resiliency, and supreme total-body fitness. A learned and properly applied kettlebell program will allow the endurance athlete to compete at the highest level by not having to devote full time to practicing their specific athletic event. One particular basic kettlebell lift is the swing and it just about targets every major muscle that is utilized in every endurance event. The swing targets the shoulder girdle, abs, forearms, deltoids, traps, mid-back, low-back, glutes, hamstrings, hips, and most of all the heart! This is why a great deal of the training done with the bell translates over to athletic competition.

I want to make clear that I would not discourage you from practicing the event in which you are competing. However, with a kettlebell I wouldn't discourage cutting back on a good deal of your time devoted to practicing the event to replace it with a kettlebell program. Just make sure that you take the time to learn the most effective ways to manipulate your kettlebell program for you to achieve optimal fitness in your endurance training!

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com. To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html. I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

Fitness Goals - 2 Quick Lessons on How to Cater Your Workouts to Achieve Your Fitness Goals!

Fitness goals are something that everyone should consider when beginning an exercise program in order to accomplish what they want. To me this is obvious, but for those that need to hear this I'll elaborate further in this article. Here are a couple of quick lessons that will be worth thinking about before you start.

Lesson 1: You have to understand the specificity of training. You are probably wondering what this means. Specificity of training means that your body will respond to training based on how your workout program is structured. For instance, if you are a football player would it make sense for you to condition yourself like a marathon runner? Of course not. This is where a lot of people get off track when starting to design a plan for their workouts.

If you train the body for weight-loss then you'll lose weight, if you train the body for size characteristics then you'll gain size, if you want big bulging muscles then you should train like a bodybuilder. This is something that I have always had to deal with when training people. They either really don't know what they want or are totally ignorant as to what to do in order to get to where they want to go.

Lesson 2: The next big important variable is nutrition. This is 90% of your journey. Again, this has a direct effect on how the body will develop. Think about the obvious. If you sit around all day and eat twinkies your body will have a certain look. If you eat a well-balanced diet with plenty of protein and nutrients then your body will look completely the opposite of the couch potato. Remember that your nutrition plan has to be adjusted along with your exercise plan. When you start exercising your metabolism speeds up and to keep it up you have to "feed the engine." Its just like a car engine. When it speeds up it burns more fuel so to keep it burning fast you have to keep giving it fuel.

Always have a plan before beginning any new venture. Remember that a well accomplished plan will bring the well accomplished result. Know your fitness and exercise goals and design the plan to obtain those goals!

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

Intense Cardio - 2 Exercises to Drastically Improve Your Cardiovascular Conditioning Without Running

The first thing that we are going to look at is achieving tremendous cardiovascular conditioning with only a limited amount of space and time. To do this we are going to look at a couple of different movements. Again we will use the resistance of body weight in order to accomplish our goal. Remember that these steps are not the only answer, but they sure are effective.

I would like to let you know that this little program will cause you to sweat, stay out of breath, and feel overall miserable! Don't worry though because "Pain is temporary and pride is forever!" I would like to introduce the 3 count squat thrust. This is the first step of the two that I want to explain. It is a toned down version of a military conditioning exercise known as a blurpee, which I'll get into in the second step of this dominating little workout. To begin, a squat thrust involves 3 simple movements. The first movement starts with you standing with your feet about shoulder width apart and bending down to place your hands on the ground in front of you. The second step is to then kick your feet back until your body is fully extended so you are positioned in an upright push-up. Finally, you simply kick your feet back up in one single movement to return to the first position and simply stand up. All 3 of these movements count for one repetition. From here if you want tremendous cardio this will be the first half of your workout because you want to try to complete 50 of these in a row! This will be absolutely miserable and you are only halfway there.

The second exercise I want to look at is called a blurpee. It has a funny name, but you won't be laughing when you start doing it. This exercise basically involves the same steps as the squat thrust but it will have a push-up and a jump added into the mix. The first step, like the squat thrust, is to begin standing with your feet shoulder width apart and crouch down placing your hands on the ground in front of you. Next you want to kick your feet back extending your body into the upright push-up position. Third you want to execute a single push-up. Next you want to bring your feet back up until you are in the crouched position. The final movement here is to stand up and jump. This is all one repetition. Go ahead and get mentally geared up because you've got 50 of these in a row too.

This program has a total count of 100 miserable, sweaty, nauseating reps that will get you into optimal shape. This is only a simple ingredient in the whole program. Make the change to gain sick cardiovascular conditioning!

To learn more about Kettlebells, Fitness, and achieving Total Mind-Blowing Strength come and visit me at http://www.efandps.com To be one of my members and to receive more tips on INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION please visit me at:http://www.efandps.com/www.efandps.com/Brandons_Members_Newsletter.html I'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!