2 Workout Secrets (This Really Helps!)

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 at 9:24 am

I hope you’re having as great of a weekend as I am. The sun is shining, the weather is amazing, and the energy in the winter air is making me want to get outside and move.

Before I go for a great snowshoe hike, I thought I’d share two amazing workout secrets with you:

Pre-nourish for best results.

Music is everything in the absence of novelty.
Let me explain…

Pre-nourish for best results:

For the last several months, I’ve been testing a new concept with my workouts. It’s quite simple. Basically, I believe that you want to facilitate easy digestion, improved oxygenation of tissues, and
delayed onset of lactic acid as much as possible.

One of the best ways to do this is by feeding your body the essential nutrients it needs before you begin working out. This can be done through eating a variety of raw and cooked vegetables, a dose of clean protein like grass-fed beef or pinto beans (I tend to stay away from other forms of beans before a workout for highest energy output), and adequate hydration.

To give you a better idea of exact portions with real food, I’d recommend about 1/2 of a meal. I know this is a bit more than your typical pre-workout snack, but I’ve been finding that this buys me a bit more time to cook a meal after a workout and keep my metabolism high. Please bear in mind that you should adjust your meal portions slightly to offset the increased caloric intake before your workout/cardio session/activity.

Music is everything in the absence of novelty:

Let’s face it. After awhile, cardio or your workouts may be a bit repetitive… even the mere habit is repetitive, but I still yearn for my workouts, and I still make progress all the time. There’s a reason for this: Strategy.

My strategy is simple. Always add variety to my workouts through music, set variety, and exercise position.

Music – very simple solution that allows me to focus on exercise form, intensity, # of repetitions, and format:

iWorkoutMuse App for the iPhone <— This is one of my best tools.

iWorkoutMuse App for the iPhone is made to help you turn any workout into interval-based training. It allows you to use your own music library, but it helps you time your sets, reach a greater intensity, and have more fun with your workouts.
I highly recommend it, and I make nothing for doing so.

Set Variety – this can be changed easily through the alternation of strength sets, endurance sets, slow sets, sprint sets, and unstable surfaces. I’ll be in touch soon with more details on each.

Exercise Position – most muscles in your body need to be trained at more than one angle in order to stimulate all of the muscle fibers. By simply changing positions and challenging a muscle in a new way, you are often stimulating otherwise forgotten areas of your muscles and enhancing the effect of your exercise program. This is highly recommended!