13 Legit Reasons to Start Bodyweight Training Today

"Getting fit doesn't have to be complicated"

Simple bodyweight exercises can be a great choice for achieving gains in strength, flexibility, and overall health. Best of all, they don't cost a thing and you can usually do them just about anywhere. Still not convinced? 

We've got 13 reasons why bodyweight exercises should be a key component to your workout regime.

Why Bodyweight Training Is the Best

1. It's a super-efficient workout 

Research suggests high-output, bodyweight-based exercises like plyometrics yield awesome fitness gains in short durations.   Since there's no equipment involved, bodyweight workouts make it easy to transition from one move to the next with little rest. And you've probably already heard that those short-but-intense HIIT workouts can yield major results.  

2. It can combine cardio and strength training 

Performing quick cardio sessions (such as 60 seconds of burpees or high-knees) between strength movements (such as a set of push-ups or lunges) will keep the heart pumping while still encouraging muscle and strength development.  

3. You can burn fat—fast

Just a few minutes of a bodyweight circuit training can have a major impact on the body's metabolism. If you've ever heard of the afterburn effect, you know that even when your workout is over, your body can still be revved for hours to come.  

4. At any fitness level, it's challenging

Bodyweight exercises are great because they're easily modified to challenge anyone. Adding extra reps, performing the exercises faster or super slowly, taking shorter breaks, or adding a ballistic movement (like a clap at the top of each push-up) are just a few ways to make the simplest workout tougher. And with each added modification, your progress is obvious. 

5. You'll gain core strength

Your core is more than just six-pack abs. In fact, at least twenty-nine muscles make up the trunk of the body, and many simple bodyweight movements can be used to engage all of them. Such exercises won't just give you tighter abs, you'll also gain better posture, relieve lower back stress, and improve overall performance.

6. It can increase your flexibility

Not everyone who does regular resistance training has to end up with tight muscles and inflexible joints. Bodyweight training can go hand-in-hand with building strength and flexibility. Completing bodyweight exercises through a full range of motion ensures your joints are moving freely. Plus, it can lead to improved posture and might reduce the chance of exercise-related injury.  Yoga, the fave no-equipment workout for many, is another great way to to improve flexibility while also significantly improving strength.  

7. There's never an excuse to not workout

 

Ask someone why they don't exercise, and chances are they have "no time" or it's "inconvenient." Luckily bodyweight exercises eliminate those common obstacles. When you only need a little space, it's easy to squeeze in workouts wherever you are. Exercising without equipment can also be used as a stress reliever whether you're working at home or on the road.

8. You'll achieve better balance

When it comes to this type of training, sometimes increasing resistance means increasing balance, too. For example, a normal squat can be ramped up by swapping in a single-leg squat (a.k.a. a pistol squat). Functional movements like that one can improve balance through increased body awareness and control.

9. You'll never get bored

It can be easy to get stuck in a workout rut of treadmills, bicep curls, lat pull-downs, and bench presses. That's why bodyweight training can be so refreshing: There are countless exercise variations that can spice up any workout routine. Working with a variety of exercises not only relieves boredom, it can also help break plateaus and spark further progress.

10. Mixing up your workout is easy

Indoor excercise isn't for everyone. Luckily you can do these moves inside or outdoors, alone or with a group of friends. Think about adding some strength moves to your next park run, or finishing a swim session with a quick bodyweight circuit to keep things interesting.

11. It's free

Gym memberships and boutique classes can quickly add up—but bodyweight training is free. Experts cite the low cost of bodyweight training as key to its rise in popularity.

12. It can help with injury prevention

Injury is one of the main reasons people stop working out, so preventing those aches and pains should be a big priority. Bodyweight exercises are generally safe for any exerciser regardless of experience, age, or fitness level. Many simple bodyweight movements can actually be an effective option for rehabilitation, even for those with significant impairments.  

13. You'll see results

Bodyweight exercises get results partly because they involve compound movements—meaning numerous joints and muscles are engaged in each move. Compound exercises such as push-ups and lunges have been shown to be extremely effective for strength gains and performance improvements and research shows improved core strength (see No. 5 above) translates to improved strength gains throughout the entire body.  

BY DAVE SMITH

http://greatist.com/fitness/start-bodyweight-training

#1 Fat Burning Tip: Burn Body Fat and Lose Weight Fast (2 Week Challenge)!

Like it or not, this guy Alpha. M has got some great advice. Let me know what you think below.


The number one way to reduce your body fat the fastest, easiest, and safest is doing cardio 1st thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Doing it for 30-minutes first thing in the morning is the same as an hour-and-half later in the day. 


The body dips into your fat stores as the energy to keep going. You have to do the cardio in your target zone: 


220 - your age = number That number is multiplied by .6 as well as by .75

****Cold Weather Can Actually Help You Burn Calories****

It's one benefit of winter

This time of year is filled with opportunities to pack on extra pounds. Think Christmas cookies, eggnog, lazy days when your only exercise is shuffling from the couch to the fridge … you get the idea. But if you live in a cold-weather climate, you have at least one calorie-burning weapon in your holiday arsenal: that arctic blast that hits you when you step outside.

Yup, cold temperatures can boost calorie burn. We already knew this, thanks to recent studies on brown fat and the hormone irisin, both of which are involved in energy expenditure and are activated by involuntary muscle contractions—like shivering when the temperature drops.

But we love how the American Chemical Society spells out the science for us in this new video, and shows us exactly how the process goes down. It’s a great reminder of how hard our bodies are working beneath the surface, even when we’re barely moving a muscle.

To be clear, shivering on a ski lift or waiting on line outside a movie theater could never provide all the benefits of an actual heart-pounding, muscle-building workout—which can also, by the way, trigger brown fat to burn more calories. But at least we can take heart in knowing that it may help—even in the tiniest way—keep off some of that dreaded winter weight.

• By Amanda MacMillan / Health.com
  
  http://time.com/4617607/cold-weather-calorie-burn/

3 Fat Burning Foods to Eat at Your Desk

No one can afford not to know this information! 3 essential ways of staying full, beating this bad snack cravings at work and also burning body fat all at the same time. That is what I call winning.

Cranky Fitness: Will Restricting Carbs Make You a "Fat-Burning Beast?"

So for years I've been intrigued by notion of "Fat Adaptation," a concept advanced by Mark's Daily Apple and others. The idea is that by strategically restricting carbohydrates, you can reprogram your body to use fat as fuel instead of glycogen.

According to Mark:

If you’re fat adapted, the genes associated with lipid metabolism will be upregulated in your skeletal muscles. You will essentially reprogram your body. 

With that comes great benefits!  Like more energy available during exercise and throughout the day, and an easier time burning fat and losing weight than if you are a "sugar burner."

However, most mainstream nutritional advice says almost the opposite: Watch the fat, eat more carbs. These experts claim you need a crapload of carbs for optimal nutrition, especially if you are doing something athletic.  

And yeah, everyone agrees you need protein and that you should avoid refined and processed foods as much as possible and you should be eating plenty of produce.  But as to what else you should be fueling with, the "Are Carbs Good or Are They Bad" debate rages on.

I got so tired of hearing the contradictions that I asked Tiffany Reiss what she thought.  As regulars may recall, Tiffany is a smarty-pants professor type who knows a lot about exercise physiology. (Her bio is below).

So, is her answer simple and straightforward?

Hell no! Because it turns out it's a complicated question!

So those of you who like to geek out, here's Tiffany take on the whole "Should I restrict Carbs" question.

--Crabby

To Carb or Not to Carb

It’s such a simple question: Are carbs good or are they bad? Should we eat them or shouldn’t we?

The answer is: Yes….and No. It depends. So what does it depend on? Genetics, muscle fiber type, activity level, activity type, gut microbes and age to name a few. For now I will just focus on the genetics of it all.

Genetics/Epigenetics

You are your genes, and your environment impacts your genes. We all have a genetic construct and everyone’s is slightly different.

But we now know that our environment influences our genes by turning some genes on and some genes off. It turns out both nature and nurture play roles in who we are and what we ultimately become.

What’s important is which genes are turned on and active, and that can be influenced by our environment. What constitutes our environment? Diet, activity, stress, smoking, exposure to chemicals, toxins, etc… Pretty much how and where you live your life. These are actually new fields of study called: Epigenetics and Nutragenomics. How our environment influences our genes (Epigenetics) and how what we consume influences our genes (Nutragenomics).

Now why is this important? Our bodies adapt. They are amazing machines that adapt pretty well to the myriad of environmental stimuli to which we expose them, if we have the genes that can adapt or turn on/off based on the environmental stimuli. Below is a good example of an adaptation:

Muscle Fiber Type/Activity Level/Activity Type

Your muscle fiber type is genetic. There are 2 basic types of muscle fiber tissue:

• Type I: endurance oriented and aerobic (long distance running, swimming, biking, yoga, etc….)
• Type II: strength/power oriented and anaerobic (resistance training, football, sprints, baseball, etc….)

You get the picture. Type 1 tissue dominates during long duration, lower intensity activity; Type II during short duration, high intensity activities.

Most people are a good combination of Type I and Type II and there are varying levels of isoforms that actually give us a broad spectrum or range of that muscle tissue based on the way we train or exercise. They may vary a bit one way or the other, say 55% Type I and 45% Type II, but the average individual is a good mixture.

Then there are individuals who are less balanced. One individual may be 75% Type I and 25% Type II or vice versa. They are predisposed to excel in a particular type of activity, whereas the more evenly balanced individuals will be good at both kinds of activities (and some sports like say soccer). More Type I than Type II will naturally excel at endurance oriented events. Switch it and you have a great linebacker, 100 m sprinter or running back in football. Of course, the percentages vary, but they influence our ability to gain muscle mass, efficiency in oxygen utilization at the cellular level, excel in different types of sports or activities.

But, coming back to the original question: muscle tissue composition will also dictate which substrate (carbs or fat) we like to use both at rest and during exercise.

In general, Type I muscle fiber tissue likes to burn fat as a fuel source when it is activated, and Type II likes to burn carbohydrate as a fuel source when it is activated.

So how can we tell the difference between Type I and Type II muscle fiber tissue, and what happens when we exercise?

Enzyme concentration and number of mitochondria are a piece of that puzzle. Type I has a lot more mitochondria…and you know what mitochondria do? Mitochondria help the cell utilize oxygen efficiently and the energy system that primarily can burn fat as a substrate is located within the mitochondria.

Type II muscle fiber on the other hand has way fewer mitochondria, doesn’t require oxygen to provide energy (hence their anaerobic nature) and have lots of enzymes to breakdown, you guessed it: glucose (or carbohydrate).

But what happens when say someone who happens to have more Type II muscle fiber tissue trains to run a marathon? This is where epigenetics comes into play. By training more aerobically, some of the Type II muscle tissue will start to become more like Type I muscle fiber tissue. Not all of it will convert and it won’t convert all the way but it will start adding mitochondria and fat burning enzymes while decreasing some of the factors associated with it being anaerobic. It will become more like Type I but to date there is no evidence it will become 100% Type I.

Now of course, muscle cells don’t just start adding more and larger mitochondria and fat burning enzymes, this has to initially happen at the genetic level. Once this individual stops training for the marathon, or completes it ideally and stops training for endurance, those genes will turn back off and back to the Type II muscle fiber tissue that is more, let’s say natural for that individual. This person, although well trained, will never be as efficient at endurance activities as the more Type I individual and there is some evidence, some people (up to 20% of the population) just don’t have the genes to convert at all. So regardless of all of the endurance training, they never increase the number or size of the mitochondria and can’t produce more enzymes for burning fat. 

Why is this important? Well, when engaging in lower intensity, longer duration activities (even sitting at your desk) our bodies prefer to burn fat, how much fat will depend on genetics and muscle fiber type. Burn more fat at rest and during exercise = ability to consume more fat throughout the day.

It makes sense that someone with more Type I muscle fiber tissue will likely burn fat more readily than someone with more Type II, even if they train for endurance oriented activities both at rest and during activity. Ironically, our brains (which actually suck up a lot of daily energy needs) prefer carbohydrates (glucose) as does Type II muscle fiber tissue. So individuals with more Type II, even at rest are likely not very efficient at burning fat and prefer glucose. Which means those individuals likely would do better consuming less fat and more carbohydrates (the good kind of course). 

Consumption of Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein

We adapt to our environment.  Some better than others.  We can up-regulate and down-regulate hormones and enzymes, change cellular structure (which changes efficiency of substrate utilization), all by changing our activity patterns (Epigenetics) and something else: what we consume (Nutragenomics).

So a logical question is “If I consume less carbohydrate and more fat (and protein) will my body adapt by becoming more efficient at utilizing that fat; will I then burn more fat?  Again, if the genetics allow for it, yes!  If not, not so much.

It’s important to remember here that both your brain and your muscle tissue use about 20% of your total daily energy needs respectively and for the muscle tissue that only increases when you are active. So ultimately what kind of muscle tissue you have, or can shift via training will play a role in your ability to burn fats and/or carbohydrates efficiently both at rest and during activity.

The real problem with carbohydrates seems to be the kinds of carbs we are consuming in the standard American diet.  Way too much sugar and processed carbohydrates and way too few vegetables, fruits and whole grains.   That however, is an entirely different post.

Dr. Tiffany Reiss is an an exercise physiologist and adjunct faculty member at Seattle University, Lake Washington Institute of Technology, American Public University and Walden University. She is also a contributor for the Sports and Fitness Network and the co-founder of TheHubEdu: A Learning Library.

What do you guys think about carbs?

By Tiffany Reiss; With a Long-Winded Intro by Crabby McSlacker

http://www.crankyfitness.com/2014/07/will-restricting-carbs-make-you-fat.html

Tim Ferriss on "The 4-Hour Body" at NEXT Conference