Master your own bodyweight!

It's definitly something we forget today.

Most people getting a membership in a gym want the latest equipment, the full line of machines to work every muscles, plenty of cardio machines with the tee vee in front!

In these gyms you learn how to master the equipment, not your body!

Something is wrong!

To get results and feel your body full of energy, you need to master it. Of course it's better to learn when we are kids but it's still possible to improve with a step by step program: just start with basic exercises as I teach in Part 1 of the "3 minutes Gladiator Fitness ConditioningProgram. Get the free ebook by subscribing.

If you are already an accomplished athlete, look at this video and master your bodyweight, this is your test! Go ahead!

Rotator cuff: do external rotations exercises

Many people having shoulder problems have very weak rotator cuff: they are small muscles in the shoulder joint responsible for joint stability.

It is a common injury with athletes in some sports like tennis, boxing, base ball, golf; all movements with throwing action put at risk the rotator cuff.
Strength trainees doing a lot of bench presses may have major problems in the shoulders.

The reason is the main muscles which act with power (front deltoid, pectoralis) are internal rotators: the imbalance between internal and external rotators leads to problems, pain and injuries.

The solution is to strengthen the external rotators: here are 2 exercices.
1- External rotation on a inclined position; you can do it also flat. Keep the elbow in contact with the body. Use a light weigth.

2- Seated external rotation: use a band for resistance. Keep your elbow very close to the body.

Do 2 to 4 sets of 12-15 reps; switch arm each set.

Do these exercises before you feel disconfort and pain, even if you are not an athlete. If your fitness program does not include these exercises on a regular basis, I'm telling you straigth: something is wrong!

Here an excellent resource: The Ultimate Rotator Cuff Training Guide.

Strengthen your wrists

The wrist is composed of 8 small bones and many small ligaments: these ligaments may be overstretched and the joint become unstable: the bones lose their safe alignment. Movement and pressure on the wrist become painful and the grip is weakened.

It can be a problem in the practice of sports, doing some exercises as well as in the daily life activities.

It means if you have weak wrists it is critical to strengthen the tendons and muscles around the joint to improve stability.

One exercise you can do: hold your hands at shoulder height; then tense your fingers and forearms like you want to grab something. Maintain the tension 5 to 10 seconds and relax; repeat 5 to 10 times.

This exercise strengthens fingers, wrist and forearms. If you do it everyday, your wrist stability and strength will improve, and it takes only a couple of minutes!

Are pushups effective?

I’m going to be straight right away: if done properly, this is one of the best exercises you can do.
The problem is a very few people do it right: we have to understand this is a full body exercise, not only for arms and chest, even if they ate the primary muscles involved.

This is also a core exercise: you have to maintain your alignment by tensing your all body, from the fingers to the toes; the abs and butts have to be under tension all the time to avoid a drop and bad alignment of the spine.

There are many ways to do pushups and it has not to be boring. If you are a beginner, pushups are for you, if you are an athlete, pushups are also for you!
There are pushups for all level of fitness, men or women, kids and seniors: my dad, who is 82, does perfect pushups in his workout routine!

When I see a guy at 30, who is not able to do a correct pushup, I’m sad for him: how a body can be out of control when you are young! Perfect body posture (you need it for pushups) and strength mean more energy in all aspect of your life: relationships, self esteem, business…you name it.
Commit to do some pushups several times a week, tense your entire body, improve your energy, I do it every day, so do you?

Pushups are in action in the "3 minutes Gladiator Fitness Conditioning Program".

3 big mistakes people do when starting an exercise program:

1- You have to do strength exercises: strength is a major key for boosting your energy and feel comfortable in the movements. Start with very basic strength exercises like body weight squats and pushups: you do not need anything and you can do it anywhere.

2- Many people in gyms start with too long workouts: it burns you out and you need time to recover. At the end of a strength workout you need to feel more energy and never exhausted. Always bet on short workouts!

3- For getting quick results, you have to use partial range of motion then progress, step by step, session after session, to greater range of motion. You’ll put less stress on the muscle fibers and they will adapt progressively to the load.

And do not forget, squats and pushups are full body exercises, therefore they are very effective. There are many ways to do these exercises and do not believe they are only for beginners, I often put elite athletes to pain with some variants!
You’ll find some simple but highly effective routines of strength exercises in my
“3 minutes Gladiator Fitness Conditioning Program”: go ahead…

Chinese female boxer: workout video

I want to share with you this nice video: it's about a young chinese boxer. She is the only professional female boxer in China and her last fight (she won) has been watched by 140 millions of spectators!!!
The video shows a conditioning workout, she trains at this time in Valence, France, preparing for her next fight. She is coached by my friend Nicolas Riffard who has trained already World champions! Enjoy!


63542548.avi

Forget your boring workout: shadow box!

Why so many people give up after just a few months of training?

Boring workouts!

A workout has to be exciting, challenging.
It doesn’t have to be very long: a long workout becomes very boring if you do not have a very high motivation. From a few minutes if you have a very busy schedule to 20 minutes, it’s all it takes to get an effective workout.
Changing often your routine and the exercises keep your focus: focus is a key.

Now one more suggestion: if you want to spice up your workout, add some shadow boxing; everybody can do this, it’s simple and fun; for example, between 2 strength exercises, go for 30 seconds of shadow boxing: throw punches and breath, and if you push yourself it’s excellent for cardio conditioning.
Go for it!
It's what I teach in the "3 minutes Gladiator Fitness Conditioning Program", Give it a try!

Breath more to lose weight!

Many people are concerned by losing weight, sometimes for different reasons, but the bottom line is always the same: better health, better energy.

Losing weight mean losing body fat, no muscle mass because you have to maintain (or increase) it to speed up your metabolism: if you have a good lean mass, your body burns more calories at rest. This is important to be aware of this and it’s a good motivator to enter in an exercise program for strength.
So it means that a strength program will speed up your metabolism.

To lose body fat you have also to breath more. According to physicist Richard A. Muller, to lose weight, eat less, or breath more:

“…Let me address this issue by invoking another physics principle: conservation of mass. More specifically, let me talk about the conservation of carbon atoms. When you digest food, its carbon atoms enter your blood. Unless they are expelled from your body, they add to your weight. But here is the salient observation: the only effective way your body has to get rid of digested carbon is to combine it with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, and then expel it through your lungs. Unless you breathe out the carbon, you gain weight….”

The best way to lose weight is to combine both: eat less and engage in an exercise program that is enough intense to breath more.
Intensity is the key, not long duration – low intensity workouts, except maybe if you can afford many and many hours of training… but not everybody have time to train for the Tour de France!

For your spine, do this exercise everyday!

Here is another very easy and simple exercise you can do everyday. Stretching the spine is critical, but what is the last time you did it?

The spine is the core of your body and we have to be aware that the commands of the nervous system which control posture, automatic movements of the daily life come from there.
We have to take care of it! Animals, like cats and dogs do that several time a day, it's instinctive: observe if you get the chance.

The problem is we lost this instinct, we have always more important things to do, we are always in a rush...and we forget to take care of our more important asset: our body.

Do this simple exercise and your spine will be glad:
This is a flexion and extension of the spine. Focus on moving your spine, keep the arms straight. Arch your back and inhale, then flex, push upward and tuck in your chin, exhale in the same time.

The worst and best about abs

There are many abs exercises, some good, some bad, but let’s go to the basics for now: crunch and sit up.
Sit up is a standard but everybody knows the problem it involves: a very important recruitment of the hip flexors. It means 2 things:
- You work more the hip flexors (about 70%) than the abs (about 30%).
- You may get low back problems due to the overload of the hip flexors.

So the fitness professionals popularized over the year the famous crunch: of course it’s safer, but here a little surprise: for people with low back issues, it’s doesn’t solve the problem because the hip flexors are still involved.
Also this exercise become quickly ineffective except if you commit to do hundreds of reps: personally I do not have time for that!

The great alternative is the Janda sit up: this is a variation of the sit up but you put a great tension on your abs while your hip flexors are inhibited, flexing your hamstring. It means you work your abs 100% with only a few reps per set.

This exercise is the safest and the more effective: if you have a very limited time and want to train your abs, this is the perfect choice.

Specific equipment for the Janda sit up: Own the Rolls Royce of Ab Machines

Pull up for upper strength and decompress the spine

To be able to pull up his own weight should be easy for most people, but is it the case?
Probably not. Pull ups are among the best exercises for upper strength, but I will agree with you, it's difficult and very few people use it. If you carry extra body weight, it's really challenging.

Pull up is the king of exercise for developing back and arms strength. I have my pull up bar in my basement and I use it everyday in my workout routines.
Also the suspension phase help to decompress the spine, I insist on it a few seconds at the start and end of each set: it is an excellent way to prevent back problems.

This exercise is one of my favorites: it's not easy but if you are in a decent shape, give it a try!

Are you a fitness warrior?

If you are, you are going to enjoy this video; if you are not, watch and you'll be amazed by what are able to do some guys!
Do not try these exercises if you do not possess a solid athletic background. But kettlebell exercises are not always extreme: kettebells are a great way to build in a record time an athletic body, just learn and use the basics and you'll be on your way for quick results.
Kettlebells are perfect for a total body workout, and if you are (or want to become) a fitness warrior, it's for you!

Kettlebell X - Kettlebell Workouts - Online Training Resource

For a healthier back

If you are a "cough potatoe", watching the Tee Vee several hours a week (I bet a lot of us do that!), you are at risk for poor posture and back problem.
If in addition you work in front of a computer and have no more activity (I mean physical activity) than walking a few minutes to your car, you really need a wake up call!

Your back and your spine are the core of your body, and when something is wrong, you have not this freedom of movement anymore: movement is life, so you have to prevent this kind of problem by moving; make some exercise your habit.

The best way to do that is to start with with very short routines, like 3 minutes, first thing in the morning. Stick with it for 3-4 weeks and exercising will become a new habit by this time.

You can get for free my 50 pages ebook where I describe 3 minutes workouts. Do that and feel your energy flows.

Healthy Back Workouts - Online Training Resource
Part of the WorkoutPass Network - Click Here

Strengthen your vital organs

Most people doing an exercise program focus on how they look; their aim is good appearance and they workout for cosmetic reasons!

Nothing wrong with that but there is maybe something a lot more important: the impact the exercise may have on the organs.

A good exercise program with the right intensity, duration, choice of the exercises, frequency may have a tremendous effect on the inner side of your body. This is a very serious and positive side effect of exercising regularly: you strengthen your vital organs as your lungs, your heart, your cardiovascular system, your digestive system… You speed up your metabolism, you drop your body fat, you increase your lean body mass…

Well, you improve your health, you increase your energy, your well being. Everything works together, and, if you decide to exercise (almost) everyday, even just short workouts, the outside will follow: a lean body, a flat stomach, muscular arms and shoulders, a nice posture…

Exercise your body from the inside out, the results will be terrific; your body is your main asset, you have it for life, do something for it.

Low back: do this exercise everyday (2)

If you are at work in your office, it's probably not easy to lie down on the floor to do the previous exercise. But you can stand up and do this exercise a few times along the day.

Lean back and inhale, then bend your torso forward: exhale and squeeze your abs. Use a moderate range of motion and increase it along the set.
Set of 10 to 30 repetitions.
Your low back is going to love it!

Healthy Back Workouts - Online Training Resource
Part of the WorkoutPass Network - Click Here

Cardio conditioning

Cardio training has been very popular over the years and, with the help of high tech cardio equipment, it’s still booming.
And what’s going on with all these people doing their 45 minutes of cardio, watching in the same time CNN or reading the latest news of the stock market?
After $500 of membership spent (sometimes a lot more) and about 156 hours breathing out on the machines (3 hours a week for 1 year), nothing spectacular; they still look the same and their conditioning is still poor.

What happened?
- Long cardio sessions at a steady state is ineffective: it’s ok for burning some calories but for a real cardio conditioning, forget it. After a few sessions, your body do not react anymore because he knows already, he becomes “lazy” and burns less calories for the same workout.
- Never do something else while exercising: you have to focus on your effort, on your body, on your breathing.

The solution: interval training, you have to push yourself to a state you are breathing more, you heart rate goes higher. Be progressive and do not go in a state you are completely out of breath, be smart.
Alternate with slow pace to recover.
The workout is more intense but can be shorter: you can get a good cardio workout in 15 minutes. And results, I mean real results, will come in a few weeks…More to come…

Low back: do this exercise everyday

You already know that poor posture, sitting for extended time at work and not enough exercise can be a major problem overtime: consistent low back pain drains your energy out!
Once you experience pain, even if it goes away after a while, it's going to be back again if you do nothing.

Here a simple exercise you should do everyday, every morning when you wake up and at night before sleep:

Lie on the floor and raise your feet, legs bent. Spread out your arms. Rotate your legs together on one side and keep the opposite shoulder in contact with the floor. Reverse the movement.
Do 20-30 repetitions.

If you experience stiffness or strain in your low back, you'll feel a relief very quickly. Your back muscles need some stretch and you'll improve the flexibility and mobility of your low back spine.

Healthy Back Workouts - Online Training Resource
Part of the WorkoutPass Network - Click Here

Move your body now

I just spent several hours in front of my computer to put online a new website…and I feel like I miss something: well, I didn’t move for a long time today and it’s not right for me. I need activity, I need to move my body, I need to expand some energy. I didn’t have a lot of time for now but I am going to engage in a short and intense workout: just bodyweight workout. A current routine for me consist often of 3 exercises I do in a circuit:
- 50 Hindu squat
- 25 Push ups
- 8-10 pull ups

Always I mix endurance and strength, lower body and upper body. I do 5 sets, keeping a good pace. It’s a complete workout, simple but total: you need only your body weight.
This workout takes me about 15 minutes and I feel really re-energized.

The body has been designed to move and it’s completely unnatural if you don’t have at least once a day this kind of activity. And if you are a very beginner, start with just 3 minutes, do it every day, even twice a day.

For many short workout routines you can use right away, check my
“3 minutes Gladiator-Fitness Conditioning Program”, do it now!

Workout for more energy

Fatigue and lack of energy is a major problem in our busy life. It means more stress, lack of selfconfidence, poor concentration, decreased productivity, muscular tensions and body aches.

Many people try to erase this lack of energy with coffee; it’s why there are so many Starbucks and coffee shops around there. Everyone knows it’s bad, but keep doing it!

Is there another solution? I bet, yes! When you “feel out of gas”, take a break: drink a glass of fresh water and do a quick workout: a 3 minutes bodyweight workout can be just what you need to erase this feeling of fatigue. A few minutes of exercise can boost your energy level for the next hour, so your productivity! And it’s a lot of better for your health!

It’s what I teach in my “3 minutes Gladiator Fitness Conditioning Program”: you can do a test drive, sign up and get for free the first part of the program; you’ll find short workouts for a total body activation and more energy. Give it a try and see what happens…

Spartan workout

This video shows actors working out for the movie "300": they got an amazing physical condition for this movie: strength and power, endurance, a very lean and athletic body.
The exercises are hardcore, they are tough but highly rewarding for the results.

Click here for the video

If it is too soon for you to take this kind of challenge, you can start with the first part of
"the 3 minutes Gladiator Fitness Conditioning Program". The exercises of this program are the fundation towards the more athletic exercises of this video. Just start, follow the program, be consistent and everything is possible, it's up to you...