Sunday, August 31, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
What you do first thing in the morning counts for a lot!
What
you do first thing in the morning usually sets the tone for the rest of your
day. If you start the morning flustered and in a big rush, feeling anxious or
quietly worrying, chances are, your day will imitate a similar pattern, or create
scenarios that are more of the same.
However,
if you start your morning with a calm mind, chances are, as your life events
unfold through the day, you'll be more effective in dealing with it. You'll be
more equipped to make better decisions. With this, your day can be a more
productive one, one where you can sit back at the end of the day feeling some
form of contentment.
For
me, I like to start my day with at the very least 5 minutes to myself to quiet
my mind, focusing on my breath to "still" my thoughts. I sit silently
enjoying a hot bowl of Matcha green tea. Some might call this meditation,
others might call it being present to the moment without judgment. Doesn't
matter what you call it, the end result is the same.
And I've come to learn that it isn't so much what happens during this 10 minutes of "quiet time," but more so, the beneficial "side effects" that occur as a result of having made the time to have this small moment in the day.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Need a short, total body-burn gym-workout?
Here is a short, intense workout
involving compound and dynamic movements. Also having multiple joints and
muscle groups working at once, with many different exercises involved at the
same time.
These kinds of exercises demand
so much more from your body's energy systems that it burns major calories in a short period of time while also continuing with its "after-burn"
effect long after the workout is over. This is also described as maximizing
your calorie expenditure, or boosting your metabolism. This means you can enjoy
more foods and not worry so much!
This method of working out is fun,
but challenging and intense. This is why it is highly effective remaining as a
short workout (20-30 minutes max). This kind of short, intense workout can
supersede the benefits of a full hour of mediocre workout.
If you have a good fitness base,
you can start training your body to become more conditioned to do advanced
moves and not have to spend hours at the gym when you can spend less time to do
more. Learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable because change only happens through challenge. So just know that if you're not challenging
yourself, you're not changing.
This workout here can be done with
or without a BOSU ball. The use of the ball is simply to create more challenge
as it creates an unstable surface. You can perform this exercise using timed
interval, or sets and reps, or both. You can even change the weight volume and
the number of reps as you perform each round. Here's an example:
- 10 cable close-grip pulldown
- 20 lateral jumpsquats
- 20 wide squat jump reach
- 10 push-up wide-leg burpee
Repeat as time permits. Maybe even
time yourself and see if you can beat your own time! ;)
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