Bodyweight Workout for Busy People

If you have a crazy busy day but still want an effective, intense bodyweight workout, all it takes is 20 minutes of your time.  You don't need to go to a gym and you will never be bored....you will burn major calories and fat.

Bodyweight cardio is a great way to change up your routine. Also, you will tone your body faster because of the strength component in the workout.

Because machines stabilize your body for you, bodyweight exercises help you develop strength that allows your body to stabilize itself.

Some of you don't get significant results with fat loss because you do the same thing for cardio exercise most of the time and you're not doing enough strength training.  Get the best of both with bodyweight workouts.

Do the workout this way (do circuit 3 times with 30 seconds rest between exercises):

--Step ups, knee high platform, 10 repetitions each leg
--Pushups, 10 repetitions, fast
--Cross-Body mountain climbers, fast, 30 seconds
--Inverted rows, 10 repetitions, moderate pace
--Clock (3-D) lunges, 5 each leg, moderate pace
--Rest two minutes and repeat circuit

Have a great workout today!

If you need bodyweight workouts that you can start at your own level, check out the Free download below (it has beginner, intermediate and advanced levels):

Free Bodyweight 500 Metabolic Fat Burner Workouts. Start shaping your body faster!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
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Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

How to Build a Hard, Lean Body with Six Pack Abs

Let's face it, if you had a choice, you would want a hard, lean body with six pack abs. You do have a choice. Its up to you to make it happen.

Here are some of my best articles, all in one place, for you to start building your best body:

10 Habits of Lean Bodied People

Shape your lean body and keep it that way with consistent daily habits. The main flaw with quick weight loss programs is that you can't continue those programs for very long. So, you will likely gain the weight back. 

10 Strength Training Habits to Make You Lean

To get the lean body you want and need, you must do regular full body strength training and burn fat on your total body. Just spot training your abs or upper body will not get the job done.

10 Habits of People Who Burn Belly Fat

Burn belly fat for your health. Burn belly fat to sculpt your six pack abs and look better naked or in your clothes.  You won't burn belly fat by chance even though you can surely gain it without trying.

Interview:  5 Fat Loss Secrets for Six Pack Abs and a Flat Stomach

An interview with Mike Geary of "The Truth about Six Pack Abs."  He was interviewed by a fitness professional from NYC, Certified Personal Trainer, Geovanni Derice. 

3 Tips to Stabilize Deep Core Muscles for a Flat Stomach

If you want a flatter stomach, strengthen and stabilize your deep core muscles. It is also critical to stabilize deep core muscles to protect yourself against injuries.  It is a mistake to focus on over-training the superficial abdominal muscles like the rectus abdominis (six pack abs). It would be like a thin crust of ice on top of liquid.

Get Six Pack Abs Sooner with Athletic Bodyweight Workouts

Use athletic workouts to help build your six pack abs and even more. Athletic bodyweight workouts will blast fat from your body like never before...just try a workout and see for yourself!

Get Six Pack Abs Sooner with Ab Ball Rollouts

Get your six pack abs on with the ab ball rollout. This exercise might be new to you or you may be afraid to try it....improve your six-pack abs, core strength and balance with the ab ball rollout.

Get Six Pack Abs Sooner with Ab Ball Jackknifes

Sculpt those six pack abs sooner by doing the ab ball jackknife exercise. Superset the ab ball jackknife with the ab ball rollout to build your six pack even faster! 

Work Abs Hard with Cross Body Mountain Climbers

You need to add cross body mountain climbers to your ab exercise routine. This exercise will build strength and help tone your "six pack" and obliques. Cross body mountain climbers also work the calves, quadriceps, glutes, back, chest, triceps and shoulders. You will need high levels of core strength to do this exercise the right way for each set. 

Get Six Pack Abs Sooner with Isometric Exercises

You need to do isometric core exercises to get your six pack abs. This is a surprise to many people. Isometric core exercises build up the deep stabilizing muscles and give tone to your entire core area. Isometric exercises help you build strength and burn fat without moving much.

Burn fat, lose weight and stay healthy!

If you need Motivation and Accurate Information to make your best body.......

Be sure and download your FREE 7-Day Body Makeover Jumpstart e-Course, which shows you how to totally remake your body a healthy and lean fat-burning machine!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

8 Health Benefits of Juicing

Your juice will only be as good as the fruits and vegetables you put in it. I recommend fresh, organic produce to get maximum health benefits.

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

Do Cholesterol Medications Make You Fat?

by Kevin DiDonato, MS, CSCS, CES

Are you over the age of 45?

Do you exercise regularly?

Are you one of the 25 percent of adults that needs statins - the cholesterol-lowering medication?

If so, you may be impairing your body’s ability to adapt to exercise.

And this may not be good news for people who are not just older, but older AND overweight.

Before we get into the surprising findings, there is some background information you should know about…

Statins and Exercise
Statins are normally prescribed by doctors, cardiologists, and other healthcare practitioners as a way to lower your total cholesterol numbers, lower your LDL cholesterol, and in some cases, increase your HDL cholesterol.

This type of medication is used to control at least one factor associated with heart disease, and is also commonly prescribed after a heart attack or stroke has happened.

Statins are one of the FIVE core medications routinely prescribed to heart attack survivors and other people who are at an increased risk for heart disease or having a heart attack.

Now, however, current research suggests that statins may be linked to skeletal muscle myopathy (muscle disease often associated with weakness), and impaired mitochondrial function.

But, the use of statins and inhibiting exercise adaptions has not been fully investigated, or it’s unclear if statin use is a culprit.

Until now!

A new study released by Duke University shows that statin use may be linked to impaired adaptions to exercise.

Here’s what they found:

The study included 37 participants who were divided into an exercise-only group or an exercise and statin group.

They found that exercise alone increased cardiorespiratory fitness by 10 percent.

However, the participants exercising with statins showed a 1.5 percent increase in cardiorespiratory fitness levels.

Similarly, in the exercise-only group, muscle citrate synthase activity (measure of mitochondrial function) increased by 13 percent, but in the exercise and statin group, it decreased by 4.5 percent.

What did they conclude?

“Simvastatin attenuates increases in cardiorespiratory fitness and skeletal muscle mitochondrial content when combined with exercise training in overweight or obese patients at risk of the metabolic syndrome.”

Exercise and Statin Use
Exercise is an important – often vital – component to a healthy life.

For those who are at risk for cardiovascular disease, including walking, jogging, biking, or swimming may lead to improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol, and other factors related to heart health.

And for those who are 45 years and older, exercise may be one of the BIGGEST factors for improvements in health and longevity.

But, there is sad news.  Roughly 25 percent of people, who are 45 years and older, may currently be taking a statin in order to control cholesterol.

And this may pose problems for exercise and the adaptations related to exercise.

According to the study above, statin use may decrease the adaptions associated with exercise, therefore possibly reducing the positive effects that may be seen with exercise.

Although statins may be important for better heart health, they may disrupt how your body adapts to your current exercise program.

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES

Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
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Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

4 Weight Loss Strategies with Lean Body Results

You want fat loss with lasting weight loss? You need a program that works over the long term to give you a lean, healthy body. Tired of hearing about the weekly new weight loss programs on infomercials? Want some fat loss and weight loss strategies that will work today, tomorrow and 10 years from now? Read on.......

4 Fat Loss and Weight Loss Strategies to Build Your Lean Body:

1. Shorten your strength training workouts to 40 minutes or less and ramp up the intensity. In other words, work harder for a shorter period of time and you'll get more fat burn and calorie burn during and after your workout.

Do as many compound strength exercises (with weights or bodyweight) standing up as possible. These types of exercises work major muscle groups and many times are full-body strength exercises.

Squats, deadlift, lunges, standing bentover rows, squat-to curl-to press and bench press are great examples. Full-body core exercises like planks and side planks work well also. Spend less time posing on "mirror exercises" like bicep curls, calf raises and tricep extensions.

Here is a good fat-burning workout:

Do each exercise one after the other with 30 seconds rest between exercises. Rest 2-3 minutes between circuits. Do the circuit 4 times.

--Bulgarian Split Squats, 10 repetitions each leg
--Plank, 12 repetitions, 10 second hold
--Pushups on Medicine Ball, 12 repetitions
--Step Ups with Knee Lift (knee high platform), 10 repetitions each leg
--Bentover dumbbell rows, 10 repetitions
--Clock Lunges, 5 repetitions each leg
--Standing dumbbell shoulder press, 10 repetitions
--Repeat circuit 2 more times.

This type of workout will torch body fat.

2. Shorten and intensify your cardio workout! Too many long, slow cardio sessions wastes time and eats away at your muscle mass. Short, intense cardio sessions also burn more fat and calories during and after your workout.

I'm talking about interval cardio sessions that are 20 minutes or less.

Here is an interval cardio session that I often do (or something similar):

--Jump rope, fast, 1 minute
--Walk 1 minute
--Mountain climbers, fast, 30 seconds
--Walk 30 seconds
--Jumping Jacks, fast, 1 minute
--Walk 1 minute
--Run-In-Place, fast, 30 seconds
--Walk 30 seconds
--Bodyweight Jump Squats, fast, 15 seconds
--Walk 1 minute

Repeat this circuit 2 more times.

If you don't like these types of exercises, then pick exercises that you like. I know that jump squats won't work for those with knee or back problems. As long as you change it up and keep it interesting, you will will make progress.

3. Make needed changes to your eating habits and reach your fat loss and weight loss goals faster.

Don't ruin great workouts by eating bad food with a million calories. Its possible to hide those hard-earned muscles with a thick layer(s) of fat. Don't fight against yourself!

We eat "too large" servings of food and that's without even "super-sizing" anything. Keep your daily food journal to track what, how much and why you are eating. This will help you with portion control.

It will be easier to keep your commitment if you plan your meals for the week. And, instead of eating out during the day, pack your food. This will protect you from binge eating and haphazard eating (i.e. grazing).

Here are some common sense do's and don'ts when it comes to eating:

Cut out these type foods: sodas, sugary fruit juice drinks, candy, cookies, donuts, fried meats and fried foods, fast foods, ketchup, mayonnaise

Add these type foods: oatmeal, nuts, low-fat dairy products, low-fat Greek yogurt, fruits, veggies, unsweetened tea, water, lean meats (baked, broiled or grilled), olive oil, cinnamon, mustard.

4. Shorten and intensify your workouts with jump training (plyometrics).

If you're having trouble sculpting your butt, hips and thighs then you need to do more plyometric training.

Plyometric workouts are advanced workouts. You need to perfect jumping and landing techniques or you will injure yourself. And, if you have knee and low back problems, high-speed plyometric training is not for you.

Try this jump training workout (take 30 seconds rest between exercises):

--jump rope, two feet, full speed, 1 minute
--squat jumps, 10, full speed
--lunge jumps, 10, full speed
--depth jumps (off knee-high platform), 10
--tuck jumps, 10, full speed
--jumping jacks, 30 seconds, full speed

Rest 2 minutes between circuits. Repeat the circuit 2 more times--20 minutes total workout time. Take more rest between exercises or circuits if needed.

Burn fat, lose weight and stay healthy!

If you need Motivation and Accurate Information to make your best body.......

Be sure and download your FREE 7-Day Body Makeover Jumpstart e-Course, which shows you how to totally remake your body a healthy and lean fat-burning machine!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

7 Tips to Eat Cleaner

To eat cleaner, you may have to clean out your food pantry. You will eat the food in your house, whether its healthy or not. If you want your eating habits to improve, don't skip this step.

If you are having trouble with problem foods, try this trick:

Give up one bad eating habit a week. You could start with cutting excess sugar from your diet. For example, replace sodas and sugary fruit drinks with water and unsweetened tea. This one change will cut huge amounts of calories and body fat. The replacement method will make your diet changes more practical and less overwhelming.
But, you will still need to try and comply with your total meal plan at least 90% of the time.

Eating healthier is a challenge for many of us due to bad habits developed over a long time.

This is a comment posted by "Any Wife:"

"Great idea, except my problem would be that I could make it one week omitting or decreasing the intack of say sugar, but the next week when say I decided to increase my fiber intack I would start with the sugar again."

Here are 7 tips to try:

Note: Eating cleaner starts with eating whole, natural foods with one ingredient most of the time. Examples would be fruits, veggies, fish, eggs, oats and nuts. These types of foods also keep you fuller for longer on less calories.

1. Get an accountability partner (such as a friend, workout partner or personal trainer) to hold you accountable to your exercise and nutrition goals.

2. Keep a daily food journal to track your intended goals and actual eating patterns. Review and recommit to every nutrition goal every week. Once you get good at knowing what, how much and when to eat, you can stop keeping the journal.

3. Replace your "bad food" item that you like with a "good food" item that you also like. Unsugared fruit juice is a better choice than sugary juice drinks. Likewise, replace something like ice cream with low-calorie, natural smoothies. I think you get the idea. When you eat something you like, you are more likely to continue eating the healthier, low-calorie food choice.

4. Reward yourself every few days or once a week when you "stick to your nutrition plan." Having a small, sugary treat (or fill in the blank) will not hurt your nutrition plan.

5. You may need to start throwing away all the bad foods in your pantry and replacing them with healthy replacements.

6. Set your daily calorie intake based on your basal metabolic rate, activity level and goals. This way, you won't eat too much or too little.

Maintaining the right amount of calorie deficit (burning more calories than you consume) on most days is the key to burning fat and losing weight. For instance, if you eat 1,200 calories a day for too long, your body will store fat as a survival mechanism. It thinks you are starving.

7. Above all else, recommit yourself every day to your exercise and nutrition goals because its what you really want to do. Some call it willpower. You'll be healthier and happier.

Start taking these steps today to help you change your eating habits and burn more fat.

-Catherine Ebeling and Mike Geary are co-authors of the popular ebook, Fat-Burning Kitchen, which shows you how to totally revamp your kitchen to make your body a fat-burning machine!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

Stand Up Desk, Stand Up Exercises Burns Calories and Fat

Use a stand up desk to burn more calories and fat. And, it will keep you more alert, especially early morning and after lunch. Some stand up desks also have treadmills attached to them (go right ahead if you want).

One more thing about a desk job: Long hours sitting at a desk (or any prolonged, daily sitting) puts you at risk for some fitness and health problems such as:

1. tight hip flexors, hamstrings and calves,
2. postural problems such as hunched, rounded shoulders and forward head position,
3. limited lumbar spine extension and a stiff thoracic spine,
4. tight external hip rotators with limits hip joint range of motion,
5. shoulder blade alignment problems and
6. miscellaneous muscle strains and muscle imbalances.

Postural problems can be corrected. See my posts on posture. Flexibility problems can also be corrected. See my posts on flexibility.

Some other things you can do:

a. Walk during work breaks. Just doing this will give you 30-40 minutes of moderate exercise during the day. This technique is an underestimated calorie burner.

b. Do flexibility stretches every two hours or so at your desk. Kneeling hip flexors, calf, hamstring, quad, neck, spine and other stretches will help keep you flexible and relaxed. Standing trunk rotations, arm circles, leg swings and pectoral exercises are also good.

c. Brace (like getting ready to take a punch to the gut) your torso as you stand to strengthen your core.

Benefits of Stand Up Exercises

Exercising on your feet works and activates more muscles and that's what you want. You will build more muscle mass faster and burn more calories and fat.

For instance, the standing shoulder press will not only work your shoulders and arms but will also activate your core muscles.

And, since you are standing, your lower body also has to do some work. Your legs will also help you lift more repetitions during a set.

The seated shoulder press won't allow you to build the type of strength you will need in every day movements. You will never try to lift a heavy load while sitting. The seated shoulder press is useful for beginners or those recovering from injuries.

Other standing exercises are squats, deadlift, bentover rows, lunges and medicine ball exercises.

So, if you want maximum fat-burn and calorie-burn, plan your exercise routine with more standing exercises. You can sit down after your workout!

Follow a regular strength (3 days a week) and interval cardio exercise (2-3 days a week) program. All it takes is 30 minutes a day. Among other benefits, this will give you needed muscle (and related fat burn), good heart health and strong bones.

Free Bodyweight 500 Metabolic Fat Burner Workouts. Start shaping your body faster!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs