Develop Muscle Definition - Pectoral Muscles

Interval Training: Short Workouts That Really Pay Off

Less time in the gym doesn't mean you have to sacrifice fitness if you know this secret:Interval training. Research shows that interval training—workouts in which you alternate periods of high-intensity exercise with low-intensity recovery periods—increases fitness and burns more calories over a short period of time than steady-state cardio (you know: just doing the same thing for your whole workout time).

So how do you get the most out of interval training, and how long should each push and recovery be? One of the many great things about intervals is that there's no single hard-and-fast rule. Different lengths of work and recovery bring different benefits—and they're all good.

Start with these three interval training plans. Just know this: Interval training is tough, so if you're just starting to work out, spend a few weeks to a month building your stamina with cardio workouts before adding interval training to your routine. Add these interval training plans to your gym routine once a week to burn more calories, build more fitness, and get out of the gym faster.

1. Cardio Blaster

This is one of the best interval training workouts you can do to improve fitness. It burns lots of calories in a short amount of time.

How to do it:

•Warm up for 15 minutes.

•Then run, bike, or row for 3 minutes at 90 to 95 percent of your maximum heart rate (should feel like 8.5 or 9 on a scale of 1 to 10). Take 3 minutes active recovery (you're still moving, but at an easy pace) and repeat the 3 on/3 off pattern 3 to 4 more times.

•Finish with a 10-minute cooldown.

Bonus benefit: This workout is like weight training for your heart—it strengthens your cardiovascular system, which improves your overall health.

2. Speedplay

Sprinting is great for tightening and toning your legs, glutes, and core. It increases your muscle power, which helps you push harder and makes your non-interval training workouts feel easier so you can challenge yourself and burn even more calories.

How to do it: 

•Warm up for 15 minutes, adding a few 20-second bursts at the end to prepare for the workout.

•Run, bike, or row for 30 seconds at a nearly all-out effort. Take 3 minutes active recovery and repeat the 30 on/3 off pattern 5 or 6 more times.

•Finish with a 10-minute cooldown.

Bonus benefit: Because of its very high intensity, this workout is very short.

RELATED: Lose Fat Fast: HIIT Bodyweight Workout

3. Cardio-Sprint Pyramid

This adds sprint interval training for a fast and fun workout. Here, after each burst of hard work, you'll recover for the same amount of time.

How to do it: 

•Warm up for 15 minutes, adding a few 20-second bursts at the end to prepare for the workout.

•Run, bike, or row: During the work periods, you should have a rate of perceived exertion (RPEof 8 to 10, followed by 30 seconds of active recovery.

Build and taper the workout like this:
30 seconds sprint/30 seconds recover
1 minute sprint/1 minute recover
2 minutes sprint/2 minutes recover
4 minutes sprint/4 minutes recover
2 minutes sprint/2 minutes recover
1 minute sprint/1 minute recover
30 seconds sprint/30 seconds recover

•Finish with a 10-minute cooldown.
Bonus benefit: This major calorie-burning interval training plan gives you the best of both worlds—high-octane cardio and muscle-sculpting sprints.

Link: 

http://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/interval-training-short-workouts-really-pay

8 Minute Abs Workout - Get the Six Pack you've been looking for!

Goal Setting - How to achieve what you set out to do

Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile.

A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation  . It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence  , as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

You set your goals on a number of levels:

• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of goal setting by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

• S – Specific (or Significant).
• M – Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
• R – Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T – Time-bound (or Trackable).
• 
  

For example, instead of having "to sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to say "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

Further Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

• State each goal as a positive statement – Express your goals positively – "Execute this technique well" is a much better goal than "Don't make this stupid mistake."
• Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you'll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
• Set priorities – When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down – This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
• Keep operational goals small – Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals – You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control!
  In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck.
  If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.
• Set realistic goals – It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.
  It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.
  http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

Clarity Commitment Coherence Consistency = The Below Results......

Juicing - Nutritional Vitality

4 Healthy Alternatives to Energy Drinks

Image credit: Maggie Starbard/NPR

If reaching for an energy drink to get over the mid-afternoon slump is part of your daily routine, consider this: a 16 oz. can of Red Bull contains 52 grams of sugar, about the same amount as 11 Oreo cookies. Although energy drinks claim to provide a boost to mental and physical stimulation, Tristaca Curley, a dietician based in British Columbia, says these effects are short lived. "You may feel energized for an hour or so and then a couple of hours later you crash and [may end up] feeling worse than you were prior to the energy drink," says Curley.

Even more concerning are the health-damaging ingredients found in these drinks including excessive doses of caffeine and other stimulants that increase your heart rate and blood pressure and can lead to irritability, anxiety and an inability to sleep. "Some of these stimulants last in your body for several hours so if you're having one mid-afternoon, it could still be in your system at ten o’clock at night," says Curley.

Related: 4 Food Combinations That Will Boost Your Health and Productivity

Replace your afternoon energy drink these healthier alternatives:

Green Juices and Smoothies
The dark green vegetables such as spinach, parsley and kale used in green drinks are a great source of B vitamins which our body requires for metabolism to run at its peak. "If your metabolism is [high], your body is able to produce enough energy at a faster rate," says Curley. Since the best sources of energy are whole foods, high metabolism combined with a diet full of vitamins and nutrients will have you feeling fueled all day long.

Green Tea
It contains a smaller amount of caffeine than coffee does, and Curley says that the many health benefits of green tea (includingdecreased risk of heart disease and cancer) make it a great energy drink option. There’s also evidence that green tea helps improve mental clarity and performance, making it a great alternative to an afternoon cup of coffee.

Protein Shakes
Lack of protein is a common cause of fatigue. A high quality protein shake can help your body reach its nutrient requirement, but Curley warns that simply mixing a protein powder into a shake won't give you an energy boost. Protein requires carbohydrates to turn into an energy we can use. Add fruit, wheat germ or quinoa to your shake with 10 grams of protein from a powder, yogurt, milk or soy milk for a more sustainable energy boost.

Water
Curley calls water the world’s best energy drink. "All of the metabolic reactions that happen in our body happen in water," she says. "As soon as we're dehydrated all those metabolic reactions start to slow down and you start to feel sluggish." Dehydration is one of the mainreasons we experience a drop in energy. If you think drinking water is boring, spruce it up by adding fruit slices or some blueberries or strawberries. The fruit provides some carbohydrates and B vitamins for an extra nutritional punch.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228087

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