by Jen Foley, MVHNews fitness blogger, Healthy Lifestyles Director at Two Rivers YMCA
My office is in a gym. My desk faces a window overlooking the weight machines. I see a wide variety of men every day, and I’m proud they make the effort to come to the Y to better their health and wellbeing. Every day I see all levels of fitness, young and old. Here are five ways every man can improve their workouts or even get started.
1) Don’t avoid the gym because kids half your age are lifting twice as much.
If weights aren’t your thing, the Y has lots of different programs you may enjoy more. Get outside and try our boot camps! A boot camp is an outdoor group exercise class that mixes traditional calisthenic and body weight exercises with interval training and strength training. While there are a variety of styles of fitness boot camps, most are designed in a way that pushes the participants harder than they’d push themselves and, in that way, resemble a military boot camp.
2) “No pain, no gain attitude” can lead to injury or frustration and no results.
Pain is a good thing as long as it’s the right type of pain. Here’s how you tell the difference:
When exercise BURNS YOUR MUSCLES that’s a good pain- this means you are pushing past your comfort zone to inspire change, working with intensity to torch calories and build muscle, and burning sugar so your body can burn fat for hours and hours after your workout.
When exercise HURTS YOUR JOINTS that’s a bad pain- it means you are quickly wearing down the structural integrity of your joints and will soon be unable to do anything without pain or stiffness. This is most often caused by a combination of using too heavy of loads, poor exercise form and technique, strength imbalances, and lack of mobility and/or flexibility
3) Make time for warm-ups.
I see this all the time. Folks come, are limited for time, and jump right in to the workout. You simply can’t afford to NOT warm-up. It’s like pushing the pedal to the medal in the dead of winter in your frozen car- things just don’t work right and you’re not going anywhere. Below is a great 5-minute body weight warm-up: Alternate between 50 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest for each exercise in the following warm-up circuit:
1-Stationary Running
2- Jumping Jacks
3- Lunge, Reach and Twist (left leg)
4- Lunge, Reach and Twist (right leg)
5- Push-up Walkouts
4) Don’t just focus on the upper body; remember to work your legs.
When I was young, my friend Scott would always show me his muscles by holding up his arm and making a fist. But remember, the majority of your body’s muscle mass, and thus metabolism, is contained within your lower body. Not working your legs is like going to a gunfight without a gun, and here’s why:
Training your whole body (legs included) not only helps you burn more calories each workout, it also maximally depletes your body’s glycogen stores (the sugar in your muscles) to allow for more total body fat burning.
The more lean muscle mass you have in your lower body, the more calories your body will be burning 24-7-365 outside of your workouts. So if you want better abs, you better start using those legs! This can be easily accomplished with 3 total body workouts per week that train your upper body, lower body, and core within the same workout.
5) Personal training can be a good thing. Why?
Accountability – Meeting your personal trainer for appointments will ensure you get regular exercise. He or she is also a built-in partner there to motivate you when the going gets tough.
Results – Personal trainers are educated to ensure you get results, so they can make the most of your time in the YMCA or gym.
Variety – They will keep your training interesting with different exercises and techniques to keep you on track work different muscle groups.
Motivation – Progress means results, and results mean motivation to strive for that next level of fitness!
Progression – As your fitness improves, your personal trainer will always modify your exercise to ensure maximum enjoyment and maximum results!
See our list of fun things to do with Dad this Father’s Day weekend (or any weekend for that matter).
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Jen Foley is the Healthy Lifestyles Director at the Two Rivers YMCA, Moline. Jen majored in Therapeutic Recreation at the University of Tennessee and Gerontology at Sonoma State University. She lives in Davenport with her husband, Tim and their two pugs Jack and Lucy. She enjoys having an active lifestyle and helping others achieve their goals.
For a listing of all of Jen’s blog posts, click here. |
