Abs Hunk Alex Kovas

Help Me To Love Swimming

What activity does every personal trainer tell you to do if you are injured/cross training/looking for a change up? Swimming. What activity does every pregnancy expert tell you is the best exercise for gestating moms? Swimming. What activity does my dear friend Dr. Jon - who is 70+ but looks like he's 40 and acts like he's 20 - swear by? Swimming (and some kind of crazy form of karate that I'm dying to try and yet also terrified of). And what have at least a dozen of you asked me at one point or another to do a Great Fitness Experiment on? Swimming.

I hate swimming.

Let's get one thing straight: being raised by parents who consider swimming a life skill and not optional, swim lessons were mandatory all the way up to high school. I can swim. I can freestyle, back stroke, breast stroke and - the one I hate the least - side stroke just fine. I just don't like to.

I know what you're thinking - Charlotte's body image issues rear their ugly head again! But, weirdly, that's not my problem. First of all pregnancy gives me a pass on having a flat stomach and secondly the only people who swim at my Y during the time I'm there are the elderly and tiny tots. I'm fine with the whole swimsuit-in-public thing. So what's my deal, then? Why aren't I hopping gleefully into the water and letting the buoyancy cradle my baby and my soul?

1. I hate being cold. I'm so intolerant of cold that it's become a running joke in our household. And to me anything short of a hot tub is considered cold. You know that feeling of first diving into a cold (okay, probably lukewarm) pool and slicing into the water? Some people love it. They think it's refreshing or something. I hate it. I'm immediately freezing and then I'm so grouchy about being cold that the first twenty minutes of my workout are ruined by my crabbiness. And then? Once I'm done I have to reverse the process by leaving the now-warm pool (no, I didn't pee in it) and facing the cold of the pool deck followed by the even colder locker room.

2. I hate being wet. I have really dry skin and the chlorine is like a chemical peel, especially on my face. I also just don't enjoy the sensation of water on my skin. It irritates me. I haven't taken a bath since I was 10 because I can't stand sitting in water.

3. I feel like I can't breathe. All pools have that layer of chlorinated warm moist air right above the water that unless you lift your head completely out of the water - like you are not supposed to unless you are a granny in a shower cap - you must inhale and exhale. I feel like I'm breathing through a damp rag.

4. I don't like wet hair. Confession time: I only wash my hair twice a week. Oh, I shower every day (except when I don't) but having very dry, very thin hair it actually works out better to not wash it every day. Honestly it styles better when it has 2-3 days of gym sweat build-up in it. When I do wash it, it's a pain to do. I do not have wash-n-wear hair. It doesn't dry straight or curly but must be coerced - with great heat - to do one or the other. However, if frizzy ever comes back in style I'm all set.

5. It's such a production. You have to remember your suit and your goggles and a towel and extra clothes and a blow dryer and lotion and shampoo and flip flops and your arm wings (kidding!). It takes forever to get in the pool and twice as long to get out. Not to mention that you have to shave places that in a month or two I won't even be able to see thanks to the belly. Why go through all that when you can just arrive and be sweating it out in a class (that doesn't require a bikini wax) within 5 minutes?

6. You can't talk. You guys know that my gym time is my social time. My head is a noisy place and scary things happen when I am left alone with it for too long. While you can swim with a friend, that's really in name only as you won't hear, see, or talk to them for the duration of your workout. I'm chatty; I'd miss my friends. Even if they were just in the next lane over.

7. I wear contacts. Without them I'm blind. (True story: when I was 16 I jumped on the back of a boy in the pool whom I thought was my brother - thanks to my seriously limited vision - only to realize my horrible mistake when he turned around with an indignant "Can I help you?") Swimming + contacts = all kinds of problems.

Now that I've thoroughly depressed you, you may be wondering why I unleashed this torrent of whine on you. Here's the thing: I want to want to swim. If that makes any sense. I want to like it! It's such a great workout and I need a change right now and, well, I'm pregnant! So I'm turning to you guys - I know tons of you love to swim. Tell me about it! Help me turn my frown upside down and belly flop gloriously into the pool!

What's great about swimming? Why do you like it? How have you overcome your challenges with swimming?

Healthy Diet, Fit Body, for fighters and the average Joe!

Strength is the foundation of nearly all physique and performance goals. When you're strong, you more easily gain muscle size, lose fat, run faster, hit harder, play longer, and move more living room furniture for your wife. I have rounded up 10 no-nonsense questions asked most often by AbFitt readers.

1.) Own the "big four."
The squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press are the best strength-building exercises, period. The chinup and row are great moves too, but don't make them the focus of your workout — they can be assistance lifts to complement the bench and shoulder press, keeping your pulling muscles in balance with the pressing ones.

2.) Use barbells first.
Forget all the fad equipment. The barbell is king, the dumbbell is queen, and everything else is a court jester — it may have its place, but it's not essential. Start your workouts with barbell exercises, such as the "big four," as described above. Barbells let you load a lot of weight, and lifting heavy is the first step toward getting stronger. Once your heaviest strength exercises are out of the way, you can move on to dumbbell and body-weight training.

3.) Keep it simple.
Some trainers make their clients lift with a certain rep speed, like three seconds up, one second down. But know this: There's no need to count anything but reps during a set. Simply focus on raising and lowering your weights in a controlled manner, pausing for a one-second count at the top of the lift. Using an arbitrary tempo can lessen tension on your muscles or force you to use varying amounts of weight, slowing your progress. The only way to be sure you're getting stronger is if your loads consistently increase.

4.) Maintain a log.
Write down your exercises, sets, reps, and the fate of each workout. Keep track of your best lifts and the most reps you've done with a certain weight on an exercise. Constantly strive to improve those numbers.

5.) Don't overdo it.
Try to stick to three or four lifts per workout. Keeping your workouts short helps you take advantage of hormonal surges. When you do too many exercises in a session, at least some of them get done half-assed. All you need is one main lift per workout (one of the big four), one or two assistance lifts (for keeping the body in balance and further strengthening the muscles that perform the main lift), and then core or specialty work at the end (ab exercises or some forearm or calf moves, depending on your goals). Doing any more lessens your results.

6.) Think five.
You should rotate many different rep ranges in your workouts, but sets of five seem to offer the best blend of muscle size and strength gains. If you're pushing through one of the big four moves, you'll find that your form often breaks down after five anyway.

7.) Add weights slowly.
The main reason people plateau and stop gaining strength is that they go too heavy for too long. Abandon your ego and do your main lifts using 10% less than the most weight you can lift for the given rep range. Increase the weight each session — but by no more than 10 pounds — and stick with the same lifts. You'll rarely plateau again.

8.) Take to the hills.
Cardio is a must if you want to be lean and healthy, but long-distance running or cycling increases levels of hormones that break down muscle tissue. To get stronger while getting leaner, do cardio in short, intense bursts. Go to a moderately steep hill and sprint to the top, then walk back down. When you're ready, sprint again. In your first workout, do only half as many sprints as you think you could. In your next workout, do two more sprints than you did the first time. Continue adding two sprints to your workouts until you can't improve anymore. Then do sets of sprints.

9.) Balance your training.
Whatever you do for one side of the body, you must do for the other side. Follow that rule in your workouts and you should be able to avoid injury and muscle imbalances. If you're doing squats (mainly a quad exercise), also do Romanian deadlifts (which hit the hamstrings hard). Your chest exercises should be balanced with back-training lifts. You don't necessarily have to do your balance work in the same session, but it should be done in the same week. In general, follow a ratio of two-to-one between your pulling-and-pushing movements. So if you bench-press on Monday (and most of the world seems to), you can do chinups on Tuesday and bent-over lateral raises on Thursday, for example. Every other pressing exercise you do should follow this formula.

10.) Do it right. Form is key.
You may think you know how to perform the big four, but you could probably get more out of them. Here are some quick pointers for each one.

Squat: Begin the squat by pushing your hips back as far as you can. Keep your lower back arched and you should feel a stretch in your hamstrings. When your hips are bent, begin bending your knees and squatting low. This is what you need to squat maximal weight.

Deadlift: Use the same stance you would to perform a jump — your legs should be narrowly placed. When you bend down to grab the bar, keep your hips down and your back straight, with your shoulders directly over your knees.

Bench Press: Start with your head off the bench. Keeping your feet steady, grab the bar and pull your body up off the bench and forward, so that when your butt comes down on the bench your lower back is very arched. Squeeze your shoulder blades together. Your range of motion should be significantly shorter for stronger pressing.

Shoulder press: Flare your lats when the bar is at shoulder level. It will allow you to use more weight.

There's a secret every trainer in Hollywood knows, and it's one you should know, too.

Here is the stone-cold fact: One pound of muscle increases your metabolic rate by only 6 calories per day! Now the real kicker is that realistically, per month you can only expect to gain as much as 1 to 2 pounds of muscle if you're male; females can add up to half a pound of muscle per month. That's assuming you're training consistently and eating adequate amounts of protein. This just lets you know that gaining muscle takes just as long as weight loss, and doesn't boost metabolism much at all, so it's not the quick answer to losing more weight!

Does this mean you should give up weight training all together and not worry about muscle mass at all when losing weight? Absolutely not! I recommend doing cardio at least five times a week and resistance training two to three times per week for the most success when actively trying to lose weight. When you lose weight and create a caloric deficit, your body does not discriminate between fat (your fat stores) and muscle (your lean body mass), so it just takes where it can.

Resistance training helps to preserve your lean body mass when you create a caloric deficit, leaving you strong and not emaciated. Do you have your weight training schedule ready for your weight loss program? Talk to a personal trainer or take a circuit training class at your local gym. This will ultimately help you stay lean and lose weight at the same time.

Sexy Hunk Jakub Stefano

Seven tips lose weight to change your life

You might end up thinking, "That could not probably make enough of a difference.And I'd feel silly doing it." First, the longest journey starts with a single step. And second, would you rather feel stupid being fat and unfit or doing something about it? I thought so. Here are 7 tips to change your life.



Diet Tip 1 : Move. Twiddle your thumbs. Squeeze one of those little exercise balls while you watch television to burn energy and tone your arms at the same time. Take that more distant parking spot. Even if you have physical restrictions, you can tailor a program to your requirements. Move whatever you can, whenever and wherever you can. And just think - laughing is good exercise. It’s like jogging on the inside.

Diet Tip 2 : Portions and Proportions. Concentrate on portion sizes according to the eating plan you select. Use a smaller size plate – don’t supersize it! Use some of the simple guidelines like “3 oz. of protein is about the size of your palm or a deck of playing cards” or “one serving of rice is the size of a tennis ball”.

Diet Tip 3 : Substitute low calorie Density Foods for High. Select foods with low cal density foods that have less calories relative to their weight. If you decrease the energy density of your diet, caloric intake will decline, says Barbara Rolls, professor of nutritive sciences at Pennsylvania State School and co-writer together with Robert Barnett of The Volumetrics Eating Plan. Foods like fruit and vegetables and salad greens and broth. The magic ingredient these foods possess is water! Water has zero calories, so the more volume represented by water, the less room there is for calories. Water also creates a feeling of fullness, helping one to eat less.

Diet Tip 4 : Be conscious of What You Eat. Keep a food diary and be honest, because no one but you is going to see it. Don't forget the spoon that you licked while putting away the left-overs or the sampling ( s ) you had while changing the seasoning. It will help you determine your eating habits. Keep it long enough and patterns begin to appear.

Diet Tip 5 : Eat More Slowly. This allows your body the several minutes it takes to signal your brain that it is full.

Diet Tip six : Try New herbs and spices in the place of Butter and Salt. When food tastes different or more flavorsome, we have a tendency to savor it more and eat slower.

Diet Tip 7: Add Variety. Along the same lines, The American Dietetic Association recommends increasing variety. Often adding a single new food to your diet can end boredom and increase nutrition.

Do you have any tips you feel should be added to the above that you have successfully applied to change your health?

What To Do With a Sports Injury

Scene: the sweat-soaked, MRSA-ridden, gritty, black stretching mats at the Y. My face is planted in a pool of someone else's grime while I try and stretch my quads. I am trying not to inhale. Grossed out? It gets better. I look up to see my friend Bobby (Hi, Bobby!!) taking off his running shoe and gasp as his sock is covered in oozy bright red blood, nearly to his ankle. Bobby seems unperturbed. "That's funny," he says. "I didn't even feel anything!"

"Blister?" I ask. I shouldn't be grossed out - a mother who is a community health ed nurse breeds that out of you right quick - but I suppress a shudder. A better friend would run to get him paper towels and a band-aid. In this instance I don't even qualify as a decent friend as all I can do is stare.

"Nope," he answers as he peels off the sock.

Fresh blood can look like a lot more than it is. Now I consider running to get band-aids - to put over my eyes. I blame childbirth. Ever since my little monkeys started spewing bodily fluids I've gotten a lot wussier. My mother is not proud.

"Sharp toenail," he finally declares. I faint.


Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?
My shin splints. Gym Buddy Allison's rolled ankle. Gym Buddy Candice's poltergeist rib. Injuries and exercise, sadly, go hand in hand.

Ace bandages and knee braces are the fashion statement du jour on the treadmill. Bruises, wrist straps and weight belts abound on the weight floor (but no, all the shaved heads are not indicative of a mental injury or a Britney fetish - although I'd love to see you ask one of those meatheads about it!)

In fact, if you pick any random person at the gym I bet you a thirty-pound dumbbell dropped on your chest that they have an injury story to tell. If they're really, um, lucky they even have their very own pet injury - one they can feed & clothe and love just like a Webkin but without the yearly subscription fee!


Do You Really Want to Make Me Cry?
I won't tell you about the worst exercise injury I've ever seen (In high school a soccer player caught his foot in a hole in the grass and went down, breaking his FEMUR. It sounded like a RIFLE going off. The bone came through his SKIN. His coach THREW UP. Sorry, that just popped out. I think I still have PTSD from it.) but I can tell you some things to help avoid exercise injuries.

1. Don't exercise. Oh, wait. Not an option? Fine. You can do Sit and Be Fit. Mmm... except I bet somebody somewhere has fallen off their chair.

All right - if you exercise you're going to get hurt. To be fair, if you do anything other than breathe you are going to get injured eventually. Which is why you need to be as smart as you can (wear appropriate clothing, ask for a spot when you need it, stretch properly etc.) but don't despair when the inevitable occurs. (Knock, knock, knock on wood. Well, at least I think this is wood. If it's not and I get injured today I'm so suing IKEA.)


Working Around An Injury
1. Rest. I am the worst possible person to talk to about this because as long as I can still get my shoes on, I'm in the gym that day. Hopefully you are not as compulsive as I am. But in case you are, at least try and rest the affected part. If your shins hurt (aHEM), try swimming or bike riding. If your wrists are sore avoid pull-ups and push-ups. The key here is to keep resting your Achilles heel even after it starts to feel better. Depending on the severity of your injury it could take weeks or even months. When I stress-fractured my leg last year I was off all high-impact activity for 6 weeks. If I can do it, anyone can.

Ice, heat, massage and those crazy-fun foam rollers can also do wonders for mild injuries.

2. Get the proper equipment. Don't let your pride or impeccable fashion sense prevent you from getting those butt-ugly orthopedic shoes or knee brace or basketball goggles (hee!) if you need them. Wear them with pride, bro, wear them with pride!

3. Don't repeat. This sounds like a total duh but since I am so guilty of this one, I'm going to say it: don't make the same mistake over again. Even if this means you can't exercise at the level you used to. If you hurt your knee because you upped your mileage too fast then don't do it again! Up your mileage slowly next time. Train for the surface you run on. Don't walk and chew gum at the same time.

4. Strengthen the supporting muscles. I can't say enough good things about this one. If you have knee pain, do more quad, ham & calf exercises. Stronger legs will help stabilize your knee and help it from going out again. Back pain? Make sure you are doing lots of core exercises. Ask a doc or physical therapist for exercises you can safely do to help with your injured area.

5. Whine a lot. Well, actually, have a good support group. Complaining loudly to a friend makes it feel so much better. Misery loves sympathy:)

AIEEEEE!
I probably shouldn't ask this but I can't help myself: what's the worst exercise injury you've ever seen? Have you ever had to work around an injury? Anyone else have a pet injury?