Get Up and Move - 2 Activities For the Beginner to Take in Order to Get in Shape!

If you currently live a rather sedentary lifestyle then you need to immediately take steps to change that. Whether it is your job or your family that keeps you in a relatively inactive state of physical activity you need to take the necessary steps to change your way of life. You don't immediately have to start a full force strength and conditioning program, although this would be most beneficial, but you can make some helpful changes. The easiest way to get started is to simply get up and move around. Take a look at the following activities that would serve as great ideas to get on the right track.

1. Coach an Athletic Team: This is both a constructive and great way for you to start getting active. You can coach a youth baseball, football, or basketball team and use this as an opportunity to be both a good mentor and to get yourself a little exercise without thinking of it as "exercise." Whether you are walking or running at least you are doing a little of both when taking the time to teach the sport during practice. There is no better way to get some physical activity than to do it through some sort of sport.

2. Take up a Sport: This is certainly a bit higher up on the activity scale because it takes some base level of conditioning to get involved in an organized sport. However, you can quickly work to better yourself within the sport and step up your performance by structuring an exercise and training program around the specific sport you are involved in. You can pick from an array of community organized sport activities such as cycling, rowing, running, or team events like football, softball, and hockey. The key is to get out and move. Fitness and cardio can be obtained through any of these events. Get involved.

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!

Fat Burning Furnace - Short and Painful Beats Out Slow and Easy!

So everyone wants to know what really works when trying to lose weight, burn fat, and resemble the model on the cover of those health magazines. The truth hurts, literally. You have to kick your own rear-end into high gear to get off those pounds.

If you are lazy and fat then you are hopeless. However, if you are not afraid to work, and are just uninformed and fat then get ready to tighten up your belt. The most efficient way to get your body to be a fat-burning furnace is to intensify your workouts. Even if you only last half as long, a third as long, or only 5 minutes you will destroy more calories in that shorter time frame going hard, rather than casually lengthening out your time. It is shown that the production of growth hormone is greater when you are sucking wind and sweating.

This is good because GH is the agent that is responsible for eliminating love handles. It has also been shown that when your nervous system is stimulated in combinations of higher intense movements such as plyometrics, olympic-style lifts, and calisthenics you develop lean muscle mass quicker. The more you can do in a shorter amount of time will also speed up your resting metabolism. This is the biggest factor because this is when you sustain burning a ton of calories long after your workouts are over even while you are at rest!

This is the truth about making your workouts more EFFECTIVE! If you don't believe me then go on doing the same old weak workout you have always done that has never worked, or step up your game to see real results in only 8-10 weeks!

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!

Body Transformations - The Truth About the People That Change Their Physique!

I have noticed over years of training that more people fail to reach their goals than people that succeed. This may or may not be a surprise for you to hear, but ask yourself which one of these groups do you fall into? The truth is that the people that do make changes versus the ones that don't have major differences.

So what are the differences in the people that transform their bodys' into a something that resembles being chiseled out of stone? Well, I for one can say that it is an unrelenting day to day discipline in pursuit of their personal goals! Look, I have trained people that couldn't get their heads out of their rear ends long enough to implement what I was trying to teach them. Surprisingly I don't work with those people anymore, imagine that? On the flip-side I have devoted the same 110% effort to people that did succeed and they achieved huge results!

So if I devote the same expertise and energy to everyone then why are there failures? The truth is that the failures lack inner drive or intrinsic motivation. The successful ones realize that mom and dad are not there to tell them to get out of bed an hour early to get that workout in or tell them what they should eat for lunch. Successful people, whether talking about personal fitness or business, understand that they have to not only work harder than the next guy to win, but they have to work smarter! I would like to think that them hiring me would be the reason that they would want to be smarter about their workouts, but I digress.

The point-blank answer is that to truly succeed you have to set goals and actually execute a series of steps in order to achieve those goals. This is the difference in those that are a success, and for my successful clients this article was for you!

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 Tire and Sledgehammer - 2 Ways to Create a Superior Core With a Sledgehammer and a Tire!

I can honestly tell you that one of the best workouts that I have ever had involved a sledgehammer and an old truck tire. I don't know if you are like me or not, but when I am in the training mindset I like to blow off steam and workout with an attitude of fury! I'm the first one to say that there is not quite anything like throwing weight around in the gym or slinging a kettlebell around, but swinging a sledgehammer hard enough to hit a tire the way Tiger Woods would smash a golf ball is pretty close.

The Sledgehammer: The cool thing about fitness is that you can get truly creative about getting a hard-hitting workout when you put your mind to it. If you have the resources and the imagination your own personal "dungeon" of fat destruction can be created in minutes without the waste of money on fuel and monthly dues for a gym membership! To start, you can simply take a stroll into your dad's garage and take a look around. Look for a sledgehammer and if you don't have stakes to drive into the ground then try to get your hands on an old truck or tractor tire with a somewhat smooth outer surface. Now all you have to do is stand to one side of the tire and swing away! The tire should recoil the sledgehammer with every fierce blow. Try to knock the tire to Mars. Change positions an angles to target different areas of your body.

The Tire: When you are done hammering on the tire pick it up and throw it like a discuss across the yard! Alternate sides. Throw from your left and then throw it from your right side. Just make sure there are no wire sticking out from it. Don't be stupid, use common sense. All in all, work hard and have fun.

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!

Exercise - The Importance and Efficiency of Intensity!

Fitness is something that seems to rank right up there with entertainment these days. Everywhere I look I see magazines, books, internet, and TV pitching some gimmicky fitness product with the promise of huge results. People spend the money for every new thing that hits the screen to be "on top" of the latest fitness craze.

The fitness world is a world of image that people usually end up spending more for in plastic surgeries and a so-called "magical pills" rather than in the price of sweat and tears. I usually put my beginning clients through a workout that last only about 15 minutes and they feel more than they ever felt putting in 2 hours at the gym. You see the point that I'm making is that the 15 minutes of misery is much more beneficial than a lackadaisical hour of leisure time on the treadmill. The key to constructing a hard body takes sacrifice and that is accomplished through INTENSITY.

You absolutely must achieve a level of increased physical exertion in order to build lean muscle mass, superior cardiovascular conditioning, and a jet-engine like metabolism. It is just fine if your workouts last only 5 minutes as long as that five minutes is all that you can handle at the time. Keep pushing and you can get up to the full 15 minutes, right? Many studies have shown that the human bodys' level of growth hormone peak around 40 to 45 minutes of intense training anyway. Don't think of this as bad news because that little study just extinguished the excuse of not having enough time to workout.

Intensity is the answer to all of your fitness questions. You get more in less time and you don't have to train as frequently. So go get fired up and drive yourself to get REAL results!

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!

Aerobic Progression - How a Beginner Can Go From Walking to Running!

Everybody talks about starting up a workout and exercise program, but most beginners don't even know where to start? If you absolutely have no clue the easiest thing to remember is that doing something is always better than doing nothing!

In all of my years of training people I have come to discover that many of them kickoff their exercise programs much in the same way. A lot of people that just start out end up taking a nice stroll around the block or at the local park. This is a great way to begin. However, the question of where to go next is always the following concern for many. For the sake of this article I'm not going to discuss the resistance training element, but the same questions arise there also. So if you decide to take a nice evening walk and can only make it halfway around the block today this can be your measuring stick.

In other words, today you made it half the distance so next week shoot for completing the whole distance. Eventually walking 2 or 3 times around the block might get a bit time consuming so the next step to progression is to ease into a light jog. You may not be able to complete the same distance that you walk when progressing into the run because you have intensified your work. Intensifying your workout is always the next step. If you are walking then jogging should be the next logical step. If you are jogging then running should be the next logical step. You understand where I am going.

The point is that you get yourself going doing something. The physical benefits of exercise all seed positive results from using your body. No matter your program always ask yourself how you can intensify it and move on from there.

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!

Interval Training - An Intense Way to Build Serious Fitness and Top-Notch Endurance!

You are probably wondering how in the world you can squeeze a butt-kicking workout in on your lunch hour and still have enough time to inhale that sandwich before returning to the office. Well this article will cover the concept of interval training which will give you a plan that will combine both aspects of cardiovascular conditioning and resistance training in one BIG BODY BLASTING workout!

To start, the concept of interval training is something that is generally used by runners. The definition of interval training is to engage in high intensity exercise immediately followed by a lower-intensity type of activity (or actual interval). Even though this particular model of activity has been generally associated with runners, I'm going to refer to it so you can modify it to fit into your resistance training program. There are many ways that you can structure this model to fit into your personal program. You can alternate your resistance training exercise with each interval that you do. For instance, you can do a set of push-ups and then engage in 2 minutes of jump-rope. You can also alter it again to get all of your sets of push-ups completed and then do your 2 minute intervals of jump-rope. Another way is to super-set a couple of resistance training movements an then do the interval. All of these variations work and produce tremendous results.

Remember that the bottom line is to intensify what you are doing since there is a sacrifice in your time. You want to be able to hit a great workout and shovel down your lunch before running the risk of getting back to work late to find out that the boss has shoveled your job!

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!

Walking - Making Your Walking Program a Fat-Burning Adventure!

Walking is a great way to stay active and to get some physical activity included into your day. Whether or not you just prefer walking to most forms of exercise or you have physical limitations that don't allow you to do a whole lot of anything else, there is always a way to make your walking program more effective.

First of all, any kind of physical activity is better than being a couch potato. I often see people that don't engage in any physical activity whatsoever and it personally aggravates me. However, if you at least have started something as simple as walking its a great way to start to promote some possible weight-loss, cardiovascular health, and overall well-being. If you are starting a walking program or are thinking about it there isn't too much planning that needs to be involved. Just go outside and take a stroll around the block. Once you are in the habit of doing this then you may find that you will naturally kind of start planning your walks. Today you may just go half-way around the neighborhood, but next week you may take the full route around your neighborhood.

So now you are fully involved in walking and have progressed from doing a mile or so into walking for many miles. You now are seeing that time is becoming an issue for you to get all of those miles in. What can you do about this? Well there are some additional advances that you can take. You can intensify your walk by finding a place where there are hills, stairs, and rougher terrain. This will challenge your cardiovascular system quicker and promote further calorie burn, weight-loss, and cardiovascular health. If you really want to challenge yourself go and buy a weighted-vest. Yes, they do sell these and they offer many different options for the desired poundage.

Walking is a great way to get a workout. You can take something this simple and make it a truly challenging conditioning program of your own!

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!

Workout Plateaus - 3 Ingredients to Avoiding Them and Continue Gaining Optimal Fitness

Where do I begin? Well, I have often been asked, "What do you do to stay in shape?" Well, I pretty much reply with "Its my job." People often shrug or laugh, but the fact is our bodies are our responsibility or job. It doesn't matter if you are a world-class athlete or an average housewife. I have worked with both and all of us are only given one body at birth to work with for a lifetime. So this is how the fittest athletes, business executives, neighbor down the street, and myself avoid exercise plateaus and continue to burst through and continue gaining OPTIMAL FITNESS.

To begin, I want to explain the concept of multi-joint or multi-purpose exercise. Yes, it is what it sounds like. Multi-joint or multi-purpose exercise involves doing exercises that involve more than one joint, therefore more than one muscle is working at one time. When creating an effective exercise program this is going to be a huge ingredient in your quest for INSANE BODY CONSTRUCTION! Yes, it will make a huge difference in your exercise program. An example of a multi-joint exercise is a push-up, squat, or dead lift. What sense does it make for me to try to strengthen my quadriceps muscle (thigh) by doing a seated leg extension, or my hamstring muscle by doing a lying leg curl when I can accomplish both by doing a free standing squat. The same goes for every other body part.

Second, I have explained the key ingredient of multi-joint movement, but you are probably wondering well, what is next? To continue, the key is that the human body is basically capable of two basic movements. This involves either a push or a pull. When we look at a push movement a good example would be a push-up, bench press, or squat. Pull movements would involve pull-ups, dead lifts, or rows. Again, notice that I use examples of multi-joint exercises only. Now the key here in starting an effective exercise program is to start out your program by combining the push and pull together in what we know as a superset. This is where you will execute a push movement exercise first and immediately without rest you will execute a pull movement. By doing this while your push-oriented muscles are working, your pull-oriented muscles are at rest and vice versa. The key point that you will discover here is that the one muscle that does not rest here is your heart!

The third and final ingredient in obtaining OPTIMAL FITNESS is to progress your program into eventually doing a form of circuit training. This is where you may involve 3 or more exercises in a row without rest. If you are dealing with 3 exercises you may be dealing with a push-push-pull or push-pull-push complex. It doesn't really matter the order as long as you try to vary your workouts every session so you don't overtrain on a particular movement. At this point of your program you will discover that your overall workout has been intensified drastically.

Finally, by adding these principles and restructuring your daily workouts you will see that you have consolidated your resistance training and cardiovascular training into a single hard hitting workout. Remember, you have to be willing to make the change for success. Your body is your job! Show everyone that you are good at it!

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.htmlI'm Brandon Richey the Strength and Conditioning Pro!

Proper Workout Environment - The Fancy Vs The Dungeon

So here is something that I probably don't address enough when talking about an effective training environment. Choosing a proper environment or atmosphere to train in can be as important as the workout that you are going to engage in. There is a lot of truth in those old Rocky movies when Rocky prepared for the big comeback fight. He would get beat when he got soft and trained in the nice fancy public eye with a lot of distractions, and he won big when he got down and dirty in the old broken down barn in Russia!

The Fancy: I want to address the culture of many clubs across America. You walk into a lot of clubs and they have everything from finely polished machines to jacuzzis and nice neat aerobic classes. Smoothie bars are ready to wait on you hand and foot like a tiki bar on some ocean front getaway vacation spot. Many of the trainers are "not trained" enough to know what truly works to get a person into shape. The ultimate observation is that of 100% of the members only about 35% actually use their membership. Of the 35% only about 2% have an effective strength and conditioning program in place. The rest are overweight, unmotivated, and would rather be part of a social club than getting good hard results!

The Dungeon: Now my definition of the dungeon can be something that is actually dark, dingy, and is only a place you would rather get out of as quickly as you get in. However, it is also a mindset of your training environment. You can easily turn your home, front yard, or garage into a dungeon. You see the more uncomfortable the environment the better the training effect. There is no time for nice fancy machines, a jacuzzi, or social club. All you need is a little square footage some dumbells, kettlebells, and maybe some loud music. You see this is the environment of my most fit athletes and clients. There is no show and all results!

Make your training atmosphere a dungeon. Stop wasting time, money, and worrying about getting a good parking spot. What you spend on a couple of sets of dumbells and kettlebells will far outweigh what you waste on a social club!

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 - The Frankenstein of Fitness, Bringing Your Dead Workouts to Life!

I like to refer to the kettlebell as the "Frankenstein of Fitness" because it will bring your dead workouts to life! You are probably wondering what is a kettlebell? Well, a kettlebell is a strength training device that resembles a cannonball with a handle attached to it. It originated in Russia and has been around for centuries. This is my fitness tool of choice when it comes to down right hard-body results. The good news is that now they are becoming more popular here in the U.S. and I am here to say that it is a tool that will transform your workouts and your body forever.

To begin, the kettlebell is a very dynamic and different way to train your body. There are many different types of lifts that can be executed with the kettlebell to strengthen the body as a whole. When working out with this tool you can pretty much throw the isolated or single-joint movements out the window. For me this is why this gruesome fat destroying weapon is so effective in building total-body strength and fitness. It can be utilized to integrate push and pull type movements which are the basis of human function.

For the sake of time I want to discuss two basic lifts that cover the push and pull dynamic. I'll start with the big pull movement. The first of these is the double-arm swing. This is a movement that basically involves picking the bell up from the floor from between your legs. After you pick up the bell your feet should be about slightly wider than shoulder width with complete extension of your knees and hips. The bell should be hanging in front of you slightly below your hips and in front of your groin area. From this point you want to sit your hips back with about a quarter-squat and have a slight bend of the knees. At this stage you should have a slight bend of both the knees and hips. In a continuous back and forth movement you want to extend the knees and hips allowing the kettlebell to build momentum as it swings back and forth between your legs. Make sure you are continuing to flex and extend the knees and hips to build the swinging momentum of the bell. When finished you want to utilize a proper squat to lower the kettlebell back to the ground between your feet from where you started.

The second lift I want to discuss involves a push exercise of the kettlebell. The lift to which I am going refer is the overhead static press and walk. To begin this exercise you must first execute a proper clean lift to get the bell from the floor to chest level. The "Clean" is a term that weightlifters use that means to lift the weight from the floor to chest level in one single "Clean" movement. This is done by starting with the bell on the floor in the same manner as the swing lift. You must then execute a proper squat and grab the bell using one arm. From the floor then lift the kettlebell simultaneously pulling it up and corkscrewing your arm to allow the bell to come to a rest on the outside of your forearm. From this standing position with your arm and kettlebell resting in front and against your body then press the bell overhead. Once you lock your shoulder and elbow into place with the bell straight overhead then simply walk on a flat surface at a desired distance. When you are done then follow the steps in reverse from lifting the bell to putting it safely back on the floor. From here just switch arms and repeat the lift.

To put it mildly your workouts have been dead until now! Learn how to utilize the power of this tool of muscle construction to kickstart your workouts. Remember that the kettlebell is a different way to train and you shouldn't try anything unless you are confident in your technique. From here watch your results explode from the intense kettlebell!

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!