Target your lower abs

Target your lower abs

The lower abs are often considered to be the hardest area to define and perfect. People often spend endless hours 'crunching' away in the gym and are gutted when the results are poor and all their hard work is for nothing. But have no fear! Here are our top tips for targeting those stubborn lower abs.


Exercise one - Hanging Leg Raise

Looks like this exercise has work for the guy in the video, he's ripped!
This is one of my favorite ab exercises, makes me feel like a bit of an acrobat! It's really effective, especially for your lower abs and you should definitely feel the burn!



Exercise Two - Lying Leg Raises

Very easy exercise to do as there is no equipment needed, doesn't mean it isn't effective though. Go slow and really squeeze in yours abs. You could also try adding some light resistance to make this harder.


Exercise Three - V-Sits

This is a good finishing exercise, it uses all sections of your abs including the lower part and is great for achieving perfect wash abs.


There you have it, these exercises should bring your lower abs right up to par! Remember, if they arn't showing you probably need to reduce your bodyfat %.

Eat 5-6 times a day to lose weight

Eat 5-6 times a day to lose weight
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But this is totally works. You can lose more weight by breaking down your daily intake of food during 3 big meals into 5-6 smaller portions every day. A good schedule is to eat breakfast, then a mid-morning snack, a small early lunch, a second small lunch a couple of hours later, then a small late-afternoon snack, and finally a light dinner.

Make sure that the snacks you eat are healthy ones. Good examples would include fruits, eggs, nuts, milk, low-fat cheese, yogurt and veggies etc. During your meals, try eating just one smallish portion. If you feel like having a second serving, wait quarter of an hour and then see if you’re still full. It happens that your stomach feels full 10-15 minutes after you have had the food, if you take servings very fast then you do not have time to see if you are full.

Eating smaller, frequent meals means that your metabolism works more often on less food. This trains your metabolic rate to increase and digest food more quickly, ultimately leading to a faster overall metabolism. Faster metabolism leads to faster weight loss, thereby making you slim on eating more.

Training your guns

Training your guns

Biceps are one of the most admired parts of the body and a nice pair of sleeve cannons can look very impressive. Here is our guide on effective bicep building.


Nutrition- Eat Big!
If you want big biceps your going to have to eat big. You'll need an excess of calories in order to build the most muscle. Proteins are essential, meat, fish, milk and eggs are excellent sources and contain the amino acids that your muscles need. Carbohydrates are sources of energy that your body will need, try brown bread, brown rice, wholemeal pasta and potatoes. Aim to eat 1-1.5 grams of protein per lb of bodyweight. A protein shake after your workout will be very beneficial as your body is crying out for protein, whey protein is quickly absorbed and will help your gains. Make sure you eat something before you go to bed as this is the time your muscles grow and repair.

Training - Lift Heavy

For maximum gains you've got to lift heavy, just like with every other muscle. Aim for a rep range between 4 and 8 with 6 to 8 sets. Only lift as much as you can using good form, you don't want to risk injury. Make sure your back is straight and your not swinging up the bar or dumbbell.

Training - Variation

Don't let your body get used to your workout or you'll hit a plateau and stop seeing gains. Use different exercises and grips. Switch things up with chip ups, barbell curls, preacher curls, hammer curls, EZ bar curls, bicep curls and concentration curls. Try different rep ranges and more or less sets.

Rest

Remember that your biceps will be involved with your back workout and therefore the two should be spaced by 48 hours. Don't overtrain, once a week is enough and don't lift if they are still sore. Get enough sleep so your body can grow and they'll soon be bulging from your sleeve!

Get HIIT Fit!

Get HIIT Fit!

Let yourself go a little this Christmas and found yourself feeling a little too festively plump? Here's out guide to shed the fat in minimal time. It's all about HIIT, High Intensity Interval Training. This revolutionary new form of training will avoid the tedious hours on the treadmill at the gym with only a 15 minute workout necessary three days a week. In tests by the Laval University it burns up to nine times more fat than conventional low-medium intensity training.

How it works

1. HIIT exercise speeds up your body’s metabolism and stays in this fat burning mode for up to 24 hours. For faster and maximum results do your HIIT in the morning on an empty stomach and then refrain from eating for another hour. This will force your body gobble up your fat reserves for energy!
2. Varying intensity rates prevent your body from going in to 'Steady State Mode' where your body gets used to exercise and tries to preserve calories. This can happen in traditional forms of cardio and affect your results.
3. It's 50% for effective at burning fat than low-intensity exercise.
4. It's an excellent way of improve your VO2 Max, which the maximum amount of oxygen you can absorb. This will have obvious health and fitness benefits.

HIIT Workout

1. Warm up. Jog at a steady pace for 5 minutes.
2. Sprint as fast as you can, using maximal effort for 15-30 seconds
3. Return to your jogging pace for around 2 minutes to recover
4. Repeat this 5 times, even more if you can manage it.
5. Cool down and stretch off.

As you progress make sure increase your sprint times and reduce your recovery times to see best results!

Benefits of Drinking Water

Benefits of Drinking Water

Water is the worlds life source and we couldn't live with out it. People often forget about the importance of water and it's benefits.

• You should drink at least 2 liters (6-8 glasses) a day. More in hot weather or after exercise
• Being dehydrated by even 3-4% can affect your physical and mental performance up to a whopping 30%! ?Your brain is 85% water and dehydration will have really negative effects
  
• Water can boost metabolism
• Water flushes out the bad toxins in our body making us feel better
• Keeps your skin, hair and nails looking good and healthy
• Helps lubricate your joints
• It can help suppress appetite, useful on a diet