Ups

4 Ways to Increase Your Energy Levels

Have you ever felt that your ‘To-Do’ list is constantly growing instead of steadily shrinking – just like your waistline? You keep doing things that you think you need to get done, but somehow you still have more to do. The thought of doing leaves you both mentally and physically drained – searching for energy SOMEWHERE.

First of all — you’re not alone. Most women are constantly on the move and are at times doing five things at once. Finding the energy to do this balancing act can sometimes be the key to getting things done and feeling successful.

Getting in Shape for Burlesque Movie: Christina Aguilera’s Workout Routine

Christina Aguilera’s workout routine was just one of many things she did for her role in the Burlesque Movie. Imagine rehearsing 14 hours each day and still finding the time for 2-5 weight training sessions each week. This is not an easy task, but she is motivated: “I’m bringing my A-game and taking it very seriously.”

Here’s what you can learn from Christina Aguilera’s workout routine:

#1: Start your training with a 10 minute treadmill warm up.

This will prepare your body and your mind from the workout. It will take your mind off your daily routines. It’s also a great way to pump some blood before your strength training.

#2: Work your upper body with biceps curls.

Her trainer Tee Sorge tells us: “Christina does three sets of each exercise and uses weights ranging from five to 15 pounds.” He thinks that these exercises are a good way to tone the upper body.

#3: Do lots of sit-ups.

Christina does 300-500 sit-ups per training session. Abs are a symbol of your fitness and beauty. If your abs are in great shape, it’s very likely that your whole body is in great shape as well.

#4: Tricep dips keep your upper body strong.

Christina Aguilera does strength training 2 to 5 times a week. She adds tricep dips into each of her sessions. Making sure you have toned arms ensures that she doesn’t have flabby arms while singing on stage.

#5: Eat healthy each day.

For the Burlesque movie, Christina replaced her diet of white bread, sugar, rice with lean proteins and whole grains. Getting rid of sugar filled white carbs and adding in more lean protein created greater results faster.

Christina Aguilera’s workout and diet provide great advice for anyone willing to improve their own workout and diet. Take your pick and include what you like. If she works out for a movie, you could do the same for a date or a social event.

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – Incline Dumbbell Chest Press

Changing up your workout every few weeks is important not only for your sanity but for your muscles. This week’s flat stomach exercise of the week adds a bit of a twist to a familiar exercise and while helping you see continued results.

This week’s flat stomach exercise of the week is the Incline Dumbbell Chest Press.

The chest press is one of my favorite exercises – it makes me feel strong – especially when I can lift more than the guys next to me in the gym – hehe.  The chest press is one exercise most women stay away from as they fear that it will only bring them big muscles and small boobs. However, its quite the contrary.

First – every woman should be lifting weights.

Secondly – the incline chest press is a great exercise to help you get tight and toned arms. And really – who wants flabby arms?

Add this in place of your push-ups or flat bench chest press and you’ll notice some greater definition in your arms as well as some greater strength – which I always think is exciting!

How many reps? How many sets? Try 3 sets of 10-12 reps to start with.

Need More Exercise Ideas? Try one of these:

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – Stability Ball Dumbbell Chest Press

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – EZ Bar Skull Crusher

For Tight and Toned Arms – Training Tip #3

When I was trying to get tight and toned arms I came across many workout programs and methods that failed. Instead of leaving me with sleek, sexy arms, they left me with batwings that couldn’t take me anywhere but a world of frustration.

I found various training methods that worked - following a tempo and lowering the reps on each exercise – making these two small changes to my workouts helped me see progress that I was desperate to see.

Flat Stomach Workout – Saturday Morning Sweat Session

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Twitter you know that Saturday mornings are one of my favorite workouts of the week. I’m not 100% sure why especially considering my gym has been getting busier and busier these last few Saturday mornings, but there is just something about training on Saturdays that gets me excited.

Well, there are a few reasons that I love my Saturday morning workouts:

• I’m up early but not TOO early
• I have more time to be in the gym than any other day of the week (even though my workout will probably be the same time frame)
• I don’t have to ‘do’ anything (like go to work) right after so I push myself EVEN harder
• There is just a great energy

Saturday morning workouts get me PUMPED for the rest of my day and the rest of my weekend. I want to start your weekend off the same way – so I thought I’d share one of my favorite Saturday sweat sessions with you. So that you too can start your weekend off the right way!

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week: Dumbbell Step Ups

Its a New Year and its time to give you a new exercise to step up your workout and help you make this year YOUR year.  Its another weight exercise for women who lift weights, to help you tighten and tone your body. This week’s exercise targets your lower body – ensuring that your legs will look great by the time you have to show them off!

This week’s flat stomach exercise for your flat stomach workout is one of my favorite for getting your heart rate pumping and the fat burning – the dumbbell step up.

The Step Up is a GREAT exercise to help you get tight, toned and sexy legs by working all of the major muscles in your lower body: quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes.

No matter your workout experience the step up is an exercise for all levels. If you are a beginner, start with a smaller step and no weight. As you become stronger, you can increase the weight or the height of the step to make the exercise more difficult. Another variation for this exercise, to increase its fat burning abilities is to time yourself.  Instead of doing 10-12 reps, try taking a lower weight and doing the step-ups for a minute. See how many you can do in the minute, take a minute rest and repeat. This will have your heart rate pumping and the fat burning.

More Flat Stomach Exercises:
Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – Stability Ball Dumbbell Chest Press

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – EZ Bar Skull Crusher
Four Types of Pushups to Strengthen and Tone Your Arms and Abs

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Four Types of Push-Ups to Strengthen and Tone Your Arms and Abs

Need a new exercise for your upper body to keep your workout exciting? Or are you trying to sculpt lean, sexy arms? Whatever the reason for your need of a new exercise you need to make sure that you add push-ups to your workout today.

Now it might seem weird that I’m telling you to add push-ups to your workout – right? They seem like such a simple exercise that there couldn’t possibly be so many benefits – I agree. However, push-ups are a great exercise to help you further your progress towards a flat stomach and build strength in your upper body.

Doing push-ups is going to help you build muscle (which we all know helps us burn more fat), and also helps our upper body become stronger. Unfortunately, many women lack necessary upper body strength, and push-ups are a great simple exercise to help you increase that strength.

Not only do push-ups benefit your upper body (chest, triceps, shoulders) but doing push-ups correctly will help to strengthen your core muscles.  Having a strong core will prevent back injuries and get you to that flat stomach faster.

I think my favorite thing about push-ups – they’re portable! Haha – yes – no equipment required! Plus, you can use your stairs, books, coffee table or even the couch to help you make them more difficult.  Personally, I also like to challenge myself and like to see how I get stronger – tracking how many push-ups you can do is a great way to do that. For example – lets say you can barely do one push-up (without going on your knees) – no problem. If you keep trying everyday (doing 10 push-ups on your knees and trying one push-up without being on your knees) – you’re going to see your strength increase and pretty soon you’ll be doing 5 push-ups without going on your knees. Seeing the increase in number of push-ups is an instant picture to show that your hard work is paying off and you are getting stronger.

So – what types of push-ups are there? There are 100s of different variations of push-ups, but I’m not going to show or tell you about all of them. This short video shows four of my favorite types of push-ups that are going to help you get stronger, sculpt lean, sexy arms, and get a strong, tight core.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3f3duOkpvk[/youtube]

**Side Note – If you don’t do push-ups with the right form or sag your lower back -they are going to prove to be no benefit to you – you will instead only hurt yourself. Make sure you start off slow and gradually and daily build your strength.**

Saturday A.M. Upper Body Workout

It was another busy day in the gym. Today was all Upper Body and my arms are already shaking from my workout.

What did I do?

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After that I did some core exercises for my back and to work on my abs and flat stomach. Then some stretching and it was home to eat!

The most exciting part of this workout for me is seeing myself getting stronger. I did 7 pull-ups when I first got into the gym, I remember the days when I could barely do 1! Its those type of results that keep me going back day after day.  What results have you seen in yourself that motivate you?

St. Patricks Day Workout

While most people were celebrating the Irish or lack of Irish in them, I was at the  gym celebrating….um….well, not really celebrating, just enjoying another workout!

Today was an Upper Body day.  The last few weeks I’ve changed up my workout a bit – so I can do weights a few more times per week – by splitting upper and lower body I’m able to work my legs a little harder than I would if I was doing a full body workout – same concept goes for the upper body as well. I’m going to stick with this routine for a few more weeks and then change it up again – there are SO many

exercises to try in the gym – I can’t stick with the same ones for TOO long!!

(FYI – In case you don’t know – cuz I didn’t – the letters denote which exercises are superset – with minimal rest inbetween each set of exercises.  Its easier to write out the workout with the letters so you know which exercises go together.)

3 sets/10-12 reps

A1 Incline DB Chest Press

A2 Supine Lat Pull Down

4 sets/10 reps

B1 Barbell Skull Crushers

B2 Barbell Close Grip Chest Press

3 sets/Decline Weight 15 reps

C1 Hammer Curls w/Rope  (15/50, 15/45, 15/40)

4 Sets/10-12 reps

D1 SIngle Arm Standing Row

D2 Push-ups with Medicine Ball Roll

After this I couldn’t move my arms and my legs were still dead from last night’s lower body workout, but it was time to hit the treadmill.

I tried something new today to keep myself on the treadmill longer:

I started with 20 mins of high intensity intervals – I did 1 min walking/3 mins fast run – to challenge myself I’d play with the speed I was running (i.e. Run 1 min @ 7.0/1 min @ 7.5/1 min 8.0) or go back up and down  this kept the running interesting and kept me moving. I also did this workout while listening to some fast techno/rap/rock mix of music.

After 20 mins I changed it up – increased the incline on my treadmill to something pretty high – 7.0 to 9.0 – and lowered the speed so I was walking at a moderate pace, focusing on walking heels first (it works more of your hamstring). While doing this I listened to some podcasts I’ve downloaded the last few weeks but haven’t had time to sit and listen to them, and now I’ve found the time.

Next thing you know – its been 40 mins of cardio and I could’ve gone for more! This helped to keep it interesting and kept me buring fat longer!  So, if you need a quick change in the gym – try changing up your routine or even changing pieces of equipment!

How was your St. Patrick’s day? Hope it was a good one!!!

Make Each Workout Count

Sometimes people bug me.

Today’s particular ‘bugging’ came this afternoon while I was at the gym.  I was doing my Supine Lat Pull-downs (FYI – My new FAVORITE exercise because it’s helping me do more pull-ups than I ever imagined possible – article coming soon I promise), and I look over at the guy next to me.

My attention was first drawn in his direction because of a slight odor that was not pleasant to my nose and of course I had to find the culprit.  He was sitting on some machine, in between sets, looking at his cellphone. [singlepic=11,275,200,,center]  Now, it bugs me when people are on their cell phone while they are walking around the floor of the gym (Come on! You can be unreachable for a 1/2 hour – you did it at some point in your life – make the commitment to your workout!)

No, this guy wasn’t talking on his phone, instead he found it of UTTER importance to look through all the pictures on his phone. Yes, he has probably never seen these pictures before, but it was at that moment, while in between sets, at the gym on a Monday afternoon, that he decided he MUST look at the pictures on his cell phone.

Okay, so I’m definitely overreacting as to how much this bugged me, but what does bother me are the people who don’t make the commitment to themselves while they are at the gym. You came to the gym to change something in yourself. To change your look, to lose weight, to build muscle, to get stronger – there was some reason WHY you decided to step foot in the gym. Whether you are walking on the treadmill for a 1/2 hour or lifting weights – there is a purpose for your trip to the gym.

If you want your goals to be successful, if you want to see weight loss results, then make sure you don’t lose your focus when you get into the gym. Don’t get distracted by your cell phone, don’t spend so much time trying to find the ‘perfect’ song on your iPod for your next set (do this before you get to the gym), don’t let everyone you know get you into a 15 minute conversation about who knows what.

Make your workouts successful and productive and you will see your weight loss goals achieved sooner than you think.