Exercise will boost metabolism, shed extra pounds, build lean muscle, provide daily-living energy, give you time for yourself, relieve stress and body tension, and re-educate muscles that have become weak from injuries or just plain lack of use.

Choosing your Workout Schedule
You need a routine schedule that will best fit you and your level of experience as an exerciser. You have to be mentally as well as physically ready to move to the next level. Jumping too quickly ahead could cause you to be discouraged and avoid working out all together.  Choose your Trainer from the "Your Trainer" page to begin your workout.

Overall view on Exercising

MOTIVATION - Your length of your workouts play a big role in your motivation level during, as well as getting you to actually work out. Adjusting the duration time of your workouts to meet your goals, as well as keeping your motivation level high takes... reducing or limiting your long and extended workouts. Single, excessive workouts can reduce desire, enthusiasm and slow progression. Keeping your training sessions short maintains motivation and energy. Individuals who train for long periods of time soon become fatigued, then see their intensity level and results fall off quickly.

INTENSITY - Your intensity level during your workout is a deciding factor to your immediate and long term results. The rate at which you push yourself during your workout (your intensity level) will determine the time it takes to reach your desired goal. Start by... keeping your mind on your workouts and taking shorter rest periods between sets. This will force you to increase your intensity level and soon prefer the faster pace. You can't successfully complete a 30- or 60-minute workout while having a 10-minute, between-sets, water-fountain discussion with a friend.

MUSCLE GROWTH - The intensity of a new training program or your workouts in general, is another big factor in reaching your desired results. Altering your current or new workout in ways that will be most beneficial to you is what you are looking for, such as... shocking your muscles for further growth since muscles will adapt over time. You should constantly add changes to your workout; use dumbbells in lieu of barbells, free weights in lieu of machines, and changes in heavy / light days and rest time between sets.

SPEED - Don't confuse intensity with speed, they are not the same in any means. Your speed of your reps and workout will determine whether or not you will meet your goals in the time frame you are looking for. Reaching your optimum level of fitness comes from... slow, concentrated repetitions throughout your workouts. Lifting too quickly may prevent strength development and risk injury by placing high levels of stress on the muscle and connective tissues. It may also bring momentum and cheating into your workout. Take 1-2 seconds to contract and 2-3 seconds to return in a rep.

RANGE OF MOTION - Your range of motion is your movement from start to finish in any exercise. This motion varies for each exercise and is necessary to be performed correctly. An overall note on your range of motion (ROM) for any and all exercises would be to... complete each exercise movement throughout the entire range of motion and not stopping the movement short or fully completing it, helps optimize muscle development while also fully stretching antagonist muscles. Your start-to-finish must be just that without over or hyper-extending the muscles.

FATIGUE - Fatigue is a crucial point in your workout that you want to reach. Reaching fatigue is exactly what you are looking to do, although there are two different types of fatigue, one that you are striving for, and the other that you are wanting to avoid, they are... neural and muscle fatigue. "Neural" fatigue is when your mindset is not fully concentrated on your workout. Your mind sends a signal down your spine through your nervous system, to your motor neurons and then off to your muscles. That signal tells your muscle that it's burnt out and finished working out. Your muscle could actually have done more, although your mind gave up on it. "Muscle" fatigue is when your actual muscle fatigues from getting full contractions as the binding of muscle fibers from the build-up of calcium around the fibers occur. That bind is released by your body's natural supply of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is limited in your muscle cells. When your natural supply runs out and the bind can not be released, then your muscles are fatigued from"muscle" fatigue. Your ATP supply can be replaced by creatine phosphate (ATP-CP). This is most effective during short duration, high intensity exercises such as sprinting or weight lifting.

RESISTANCE OR CARDIO - The question of which is better for you, for what you are trying to achieve, cardio or resistance training is one of the number one questions in fitness. For those who need to lose a few pounds of body-fat, then... extra cardiovascular work is needed. Exercising hard and fast will get your heart rate going at a level that will not only help burn body-fat, but will also improve your aerobic fitness level and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Resistance training will also raise your heart rate if performed at high intensity, which can sometimes burn more calories than from cardio.

CARDIO - The time frame of your cardio workout is another long sought after question. Your body burns fat most efficiently when at its maximum heart rate. The length of your cardio workout also decides whether you're burning fat or hard earned muscle, muscle that keeps your body firm instead of flabby. Limit your cardio workouts to... just 20 to 30 minutes of HIGH intensity aerobic work, with your pulse falling between your maximum and target heart. If you exercise at a level that has your heart rate between 60 and 90 percent of your maximum heart rate, you're in the training range that induces cardiovascular system improvements, anything less is a waste of time, anything more at HIGH intensity can cause muscle burnage.