Simple Summer Workouts

With the summer here and the weather being 85 degrees +, is there anybody that wants to work out in a gym?  I really don’t….a gym can get hot and really humid in the summer, and barely any of them have air conditioners, except if you’re one of those huge gym-spa-yoga class franchises.  But nobody said that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with training outside.

There are many things you can do outside to keep in shape.  Right now, Men’s Health has a couple workouts you can do outside that don’t require much much equipment, like the sandbag workout, or the Seize Your Saturdays workout.  You can even just go run around at the local high school track, or do windsprints on their football field.

If your high school’s football field is being redone by a Connecticut landscaping company like mine is, by Westport Lawn Care, go ride your bike in the mountains, or take a long hike in the woods.  It all just takes a little creativity to enjoy your summer instead of spending it indoors.  Chances are, you probably already work indoors, so why would you want to work out indoors?  Go outside and enjoy yourself for once!  Working out shouldn’t be considered work, so don’t make yourself feel like you’re doing manual labor.

The Right Nutrition For Strength Training

There are a lot of people out there that train to get bigger when they lift, but just can’t seem to reach their goals.  First, they start spending more hours in the gym, piling on the minutes until their about two hours into their workout and they’re tapped out for the rest of the day, or they just give up completely.  I’ve known a lot of people like this and it’s always the same.

For the most part, though, it all comes back to what you eat.  When you want to bulk up when strength training, about 70% of the process is what you eat.  Well, so I don’t come off as a complete idiot, I did my research first and I found the most simple and effective solution to help you.  They are very simple formulas to balance your carb, protein and fat intake throughout the day.

About.com Sports Nutrition Full Story Here

Carbohydrates

Carbs are important because they give you energy throughout the day…they’re the most efficient source of energy for your body.  Carbs are especially good for energy in short bursts, like lifting.  To measure how much your carb intake should be use this formula:

3.6gr carb x body wt(lbs)= grams carb/day

Protein

Protein contains amino acids, the essential building blocks of muscle.  In order to build more muscle, you need more protein, common sense huh…At the same time, though, you can’t overestimate your intake.  Here’s a formula to follow:

0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight

so if you weigh 165 lbs., you should take in 132 g of protein a day (.8 x 165)

Fat

Not all fat is bad, fat is actually healthy for you, in very small doses, specifically unsaturated fat.  Your fat intake should be no more than 30% of your caloric intake a day…nuff said.

There is also some other very good information on the site about creatine and energy drinks, I would read up on them too.

I hope this helps, and don’t forget to pick up some muscle spasm and muscle cramp lotion!

Japan To Measure Waistlines!

Hey guys and gals,

I found this very amazing.  In order to keep the spread of diabetes and stroke to a minimum, Japan is going to measure the waistlines of 56 million people between the ages of 40 and 74, that’s 44% of the entire population!  The Japanese government is hoping it will also curb the increasingly rising cost of healthcare for the nation.

Click Here For Full Story

Now I’m amazed at this!  Why can’t America do this?  Japan has beaten us in manufacturing, technology, and education…now they’re going to beat us in healthcare.  This country’s healthcare is also astronomical, but people don’t care, they care more about their quarter pounders with cheese, deep-fried hotdogs, and Red Bullshits with 8 spoonfuls of sugar.  America: WAKE UP!! Put the Big Mac down and pick up a carrot and get on a treadmill!  All the politicians and doctors are screaming that this country has a weight problem, only the politicians and doctors are also morbidly obese AND nobody does anything about it except complain….the amount of hypocrisy in this nation is mesmerizing!  America’s gone soft – figuratively and literally.

“To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets.”  (NY Times) This is perfect!  That’s why America isn’t doing it….Do you want to know another reason why America won’t do it?  Because the nation would go bankrupt.  Japan realized that there’s too many McDonald’s franchises in their country and they decided to do something about it.  Why can’t we do the same?

Add These Products To Your Cardio Workout!

Hey people, by now you should be well on your way to getting fit and trim for that vacation of yours.  I, myself, am going to the beach for 9 days and I’ve been working my increasingly thinner ass off lately getting ready for it!  9 days to marinate in the sun, god….I need a vacation…..

Anyway, last year I got bored with my cardio routine a bit…just running was really getting boring.  So this year I decided to do some research, maybe move my workout routine in-house a bit too, so I did a bit of research.  LifeSpan Fitness always has some cool stuff!  After all, I got my treadmill there last year and my girlfriend and I are very happy with it.

So LifeSpan has this new thing called a vibration plate…This actually interested me because the only thing I thought you could do with vibration is physical therapy and naughty things (hehehe).  And it is relatively new:  it was originally designed for Russian cosmonauts to keep their muscles from atrophying in space.  What it can do for you here on Earth, where we have gravity, is improve your muscle strength, your balance and flexability….so you know I’m just being a big pain in the a$$ bugging my gym owner to invest in one of these things to try it out!  They also carry an elliptical trainer and a rowing machine that my girlfriend wants, so I guess I gotta buy them before I buy my vibration plate…hence bugging the gym owner:)   LifeSpan is just a cool company with people’s fitness #1 in their minds, and their products are quality so I go to them first!

Oh yeah, and I know I promoted this product before, but get this if you have a muscle cramp or muscle spasm…This stuff actually works!  Cramp 911 has been my savior for the past two months.  Gotta thank my friend Steve for this one!

That’s all for now!  Happy Workout, People:)

Muscle Pain From Your Gym Workout

Today is May 15th, which means summer is right around the corner.  Now is about the time you starting seeing people dressing in less clothing and trying to look their best and most physically fit.  People have been hitting the gym since March or April to get ready for the summer, and if you haven’t gone yet, I suggest you do….your lazy a$$ is running out of time.

The trouble with heading back to the gym is that you have to start all over, at least for all of you that don’t go all year round like some of those meatheads…but it’s tough starting over.  If you work out too hard you get muscle cramps and spasms that can hurt and put a cramp (no pun intended) in your workout routine.  This happens to me all the time, and I usually just work through the pain, but a friend of mine, who is a “workout enthusiast” to say the very least (total obsessed gym rat), turned me on to this stuff called Cramp 911, it’s for muscle cramps and muscle spasms.  I gotta say, this stuff WORKS.  I had a neck spasm about a month back and he threw this stuff at me.  It was better in three days…..I usually don’t promote stuff like this on my blog, but I needed to because this stuff works wonders, so check it out!

Lose Weight At Work

CNN came out with a list of 10 jobs that keep you in shape. Granted, I would say that 8 out of 10 of these jobs that keep you in shape don’t require any kind of degree, so it’s basically for those who are satisfied living at home with mommy for the rest of their lives.
Read Here

For those of you that have a little more ambition and work at a desk to afford your own place, it’s a little harder to lose weight (remember the Keith post, anyone?). Don’t worry, the Public Gym has your back.

For example, I have to get up two hours earlier than usual just to get a decent workout in before work. For those that don’t have kids, it would probably be more feasible to skip Happy Hour at your local watering hole at least two nights a week and get your workout in then.  Getting up early is well worth it though.  You feel great for the rest of the day if you get an early morning workout in!

There’s also plenty of things you can do at work to keep from growing the Secretary Spread. I, for one, constantly fidget…I’m incapable of sitting still in my chair. There’s plenty of other options, too. Whenever you need a break, you can get up and walk around the office instead of sitting there surfing the Net.

You can also stretch. Stretching burns many calories, look at all of those skinny Yoga people! When you recieve a phone call, if you don’t need to be in front of your screen, take the call while walking around your desk. You can even stand up, walk down the hall and visit that hot new secretary that just got hired last week and see if she needs any assistance as an excuse to see her in her low-cut top (Pervert)! There’s plenty of things you can do and they all burn calories. And, every calorie burned contributes to weight loss and weight maintainence.

Now, on the food front….DO NOT go downstairs to that awsome, yummy Mexican restaurant everyday! Instead, pack a lunch, it’s usually healthier (if you’re one who wants to lose weight) and it’s a lot cheaper. If you really want to go to that fantastic Mexican restaurant, order something light, like a salad or soup. Don’t order the sizzling fajitas with an extra plate of rice everytime. This goes for any restaurant: Order light!

To those of you who are trying to lose weight, good luck and remember these tips!

Investigate Before You Sign

Speaking of New Year’s Resolutions, here’s a good article on how NOT to get screwed contractually by a gym while trying to fill that New Year’s Resolution of yours.

Full Story

Finally, Live Up to Your Resolutions

Do you know that January is the most profitable month for gyms? It’s true! People have resolutions to lose weight and get in shape. The thing is, public gyms know this. They also know that people will throw their resolutions right out the window in three months when it becomes “too hard”. That’s the reason you must sign at least a six month contract at a gym, most of them are a year.

The Public Gym is here to help you with some tips to get your lazy ass into shape for 2008. Even though people say it was too hard, or they didn’t have time, or this or that, beating around the bush making excuses, the bottom line is that the reason why people quit going to a gym after a while and waste their money is because of two reasons: They either don’t know how to work out, or they feel uncomfortable working out with other people. The latter, I can’t help you with. That’s a psychological problem and, even though I’ve taken some psychology courses, I’m not an expert and I’d just tell you that you’re wuss.

For the former, though, I probably can help you…People don’t know how to properly work out at a gym, they get sore almost immediately mainly because they try to push too much weight or run too many miles after a year of their muscles practically at the point of atrophe from sitting around so much.

There are so many books and postings on the Internet that tell you how you should work out, how you should eat, when to go to bed for the best weight loss, what kind of diet pill you should take….You don’t know where to start. Here’s a good place to start: Start with you. You, above everybody else, know your body better than anyone. You should consider which workout would be the best for you and then tailor it even further to suit your needs.

Now, when you first work out, you’re going to be sore, that just comes with the territory. Have no fear, it’ll only hurt for a couple days, you pansy…Don’t try to bench press 200 pounds for the sake of seeing the other guy do it, you’re not gonna be able to lift that….start in the mid two digits. If you’re a cardio person, only run for about 5 to 10 minutes on the treadmill…don’t go for the 5 mile marathon right off the start.

Before you do anything, you have to stretch. This may seem like a waste of time, but in order to get your muscles loose you have to stretch. This will also help with the soreness afterwards. Also, like I said, you’re going to be sore, so if girly-man can’t stand the pain, I suggest an ice wrap to put on your muscles for at least 20 minutes a day, five times a day, for several days. This also works for muscle pulls and muscle spasms. If you have a muscle pull, don’t go all hypocondriac, just treat it with an ice pack, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than physical therapy rehab.

Overall, ice packs will help with anything relating to muscle damage, whether it’s a pulled hamstring or a muscle spasm to general muscle soreness. Just by an ice wrap and some topical aesthetic muscle and joint pain relief cream and you’ll be fine. Gyms are expensive, don’t waste your money by going there for only three weeks and paying for it for the rest of the year.

SqlSpace Banned on Digg? For What?!?!

This post is in no way related to anything gym, fitness, cardio or socially related, although it must be shouted from the rooftops.  I would consider this blog fairly controversial, if not downright evil on some of the problems that we have in the world, and I spew information unto the world via my skewed sense of how things are vs. how things should be.

It seems Microsoft, that greedy corporate wasteland garbage heap in Silicon Valley, is up to its usual unethical corporate manipulation yet again.  Here’s the scoop:  SqlSpace, a non-partisan and viable news source forum dedicated to everything from politics and technology to sci-fi and humor has been banned from Digg for posting a screenshot of Windows Marketplace hosting Ubuntu, an offshoot of Linux/Unix, about half a month ago.  For SqlSpace doing this, they got banned from Digg because Digg chose to cater to Microsoft.

News story here

Now, most of us know what Digg is, it’s a social media news forum.  Anybody can post pretty much anything they want up there, as long as nobody gets mentally and emotionally hurt.  Basically it has everything from politics and technology down to nostalgic lists like “The 10 best Atari games of 1981″, stuff like that.  In any case, Digg is a pretty entertaining read for anybody with a little time on their hands.

Either way, Digg has also been a champion of Linux/Unix platforms for a looooong time, not because Digg chose this, but because since it’s a social media outlet, people chose to post how cool Linux and it’s open-source offshoots really were!  Now, Digg is burying any story that mentions SqlSpace and Linux.

The bottom line is, who knows why Digg chose to ban SqlSpace, other than the fact that Microsoft is Digg’s ad provider, and MS basically pays Digg’s bills.  Now I have absolutely no problem with Microsoft’s products, even that “shitty shitty” shit called Vista that everyone complains about.  I have it at home and I personally have no problem with it.  What I do have a problem with, though, is Microsoft’s shady underhanded unethical business practices to hold on to the technological top spot by a string of spit.

I imagine they’ve heard enough about Linux products and realize that after the public backlash of Vista, they need to resort to some kind marketing ploy to regain some market share…it’s not enough to only have 90% of the market instead of 95%….The only thing is, their marketing budget is geared towards suppressing other platforms’ marketing, thus making every other platform go away….And Microsoft wonders, up their on their throne of lies in Silicon Valley, why nobody adheres to Microsoft’s technological ideals anymore.  Because people can smell BULLSHIT eventually.

Mr. Bill Gates, you are a fraud.  You hide behind your goofy nerdy face and your coke bottle glasses and your righteous charities while, even though you “stepped down” from your position at your own company, you continue to have your hands on the puppet strings.  You’re a billionaire, you made your money all the while consciously running a monopoly on technology.  Yeah, you may have gotten away with it in the government’s eyes, but not the people’s.  You proved that you’re the best, now call it a day and give everyone else a shot.

The Heavy Costs of Health Insurance

Do you know that the average American resident pays about $6700 in health insurance a year? Do you know why this is? It’s because America is the fattest nation in the world!! As a matter of fact, six out of seven most common chronic diseases that are caused or worsened by being GIGANTICALLY HUGE!!! cost employers $1.1 trillion in lost productivity alone. Here’s another little nugget of useful information: Some insurance companies charge a 10% to 30% increase in premiums depending on how gargantuan you are! Here’s one more tidbit of info: You fatasses are the reason why health insurance keeps going up! The cancer rate is going down, as well as people with incurable diseases like HIV and the like. Obesity, on the other hand, is going up, waaaaay up, like the needle on your scale and your cholesterol numbers. With obesity going up, so are insurance premiums. The reason why premiums are going up is because the national weight average is going up!

On the other hand, the price of joining a gym ranges from $250 to $500 a year. That’s about $21 to $40 a month, not including initial costs and fees. Plus, if you spend that money, you’ll be doing something good for yourself! Something else will go up too: You’re heart rate! When your heart rate goes up, your body burns more calories, when calories burn, you lose weight. When you lose weight, your insurance premiums go down. I bet you that if you spend two months at a gym, you’ll save about $21 dollars a month in insurance premiums!

But, like everything else that requires hard work, there’s a whole bunch of excuses to go along with joining a gym. All the time, you hear people bitching and moaning, “It’s too hard, it’s too stressful, it hurts my back, I don’t have time….” To these few, of many many more, excuses, I say this:

“Of course it’s too hard at first, your body hasn’t moved since you were 4 years old…lazy ass.”

“If it’s too stressful on your joints, decrease the weight. you’re not Lou Ferrigno, more like Drew Carey. Does he look like he works out?”

“Of course it hurts your back…You know what else hurts your back? All that weight in the front! Your spine has to support that! If it really hurts your back you HUGE baby, put an ice wrap on it…”

“You don’t have time? Well you certainly had enough time to shovel all that food in your mouth, contributing to you being fat, unhealthy, disgusting to look at, great to make fun of and one of the reasons why health insurance is going up…”

Do you see what I mean, people? Excuses are like assholes…everyone’s got one and they all stink. How about this? If you want to work out but don’t want to go to a gym for fear of people making fun of you, buy some used equipment for your home. It costs an average of $375 for a good, used home gym….and no monthly payments! Your excuses, now, are starting to dwindle.

I’m serious, fat-ass people, you need to get in shape. You could at least lose some of that body fat. If you had half the ambition to join a gym that you have eating yourself to death, insurance would go down considerably in this country! Please, us thin people beg you: Put the double-crust meatlovers pizza with extra cheese down and pick up that celery stick. Stop riding through Wal-Mart on those little f&^king scooters that block the ailes and start walking. And, please, when you start walking, don’t walk side by side until you lose weight. You look like a fleet of interstate tractor-trailers. Walk in back of one another. I feel like running for cover, I think I’m gonna get run over.

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