Tag Archives: Exercise

2018—Get it Started on the Right Track!

General Fitness, Living the Fit Lifestyle, Nutrition/ Diet, , , , ,

 

I can’t believe we’re already coasting through January!  I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and your 2018 is starting off well!  We’ve all heard it.  New Years comes with a ton of promise.  January is full of resolutions—people wanting to do better, feel better, get better, etc.  The number one New Year’s resolution?  You guessed it—losing weight!  Here are my top tips on how you can get your year started on the right track to make some major changes and lose those last few pounds for good!

1.) Awareness.  The first step in making changes in diet and fitness is being AWARE of what you’re eating.  It means paying attention to portions, labels, skipping meals, behavior patterns, etc.  The first thing I typically make new clients do is keep a food log or journal for EVERYTHING they ate and drank for at least 7 days, including times and amounts.  Most people don’t really pay attention to what they’re eating, and that’s where problems start.  If you don’t know where you start point is, then it’s really hard to figure out a gameplan.  Pay attention to emotional eating, alcohol intake, eating out, even those little handfuls of snacks here and there at the office and at home add up, sometimes even to hundreds of extra calories a day.

2.) Activity.  Not every gym rat came out of the womb a gym rat.  It sometimes takes years to develop behavior patterns that result in spending multiple hours a day in the gym.  What I always tell my clients is to find a form of activity that you ENJOY and ultimately you will be more motivated to do it!  It’s NOT going to be easy, especially when you’re first starting out or have a lot of weight to lose, but every bit of activity is a step in the right direction.  Maybe it’s just a walk around your neighborhood, or a yoga class at the Y, or just parking a few spaces futher out at the mall.  Aim to be active as much as you can every day.  Make a list of active things that you enjoy— I promise you that you will look forward to doing those activities!  It doesn’t even have to be the gym (although obviously that’s what I recommend the most!!), it can be hiking, the zoo, running, bicycling, dance lessons—you name it, there’s a TON of ways all around you that will give you an opportunity to be active and burn calories!  You can even go with a friend and it will make it that much more enjoyable!  Just get out there and get moving!!

3.) Consistency.  There’s a saying that it takes 4 weeks for YOU to see your body changing, it takes 8 weeks for your close friends and family to see, and 12 weeks for the world to see your changes.  Rome wasn’t built in a day!  True weightloss and transformation comes from being CONSISTENT with nutrition and exercise day after day for several weeks.  Can you have pizza or a cheeseburger every now and then, OF COURSE!  But at the end of the day, it comes down to making healthy choices on a daily basis.  You can’t expect to see major changes in just a couple of weeks.  In fact, most doctors and nutritionists advise against losing any more than 1-2 pounds per week!  If you have 20-30 pounds to lose (which is most people just starting out) then do the math!

4.) It’s a LIFESTYLE.  Newsflash: There’s not a pill, a 21 day fix, a pink drink, a wrap, or a shortcut that will help you have true, lasting, successful weight loss.  It may work in the short term, but unless you truly begin to understand what it means to have a healthy lifestyle, I guarantee you’ll succumb to a lifetime of yo-yo dieting.  THOSE THINGS DON’T WORK!!! You can’t expect to do the “whole 30” for thirty days, or eat clean for 21 days, or drink a pink drink or Shakeology when you remember to, and go right back to your old habits and not gain the weight back.  You have to make true changes in how you approach choices in what you’re eating and the activity that you’re doing.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m here to help!  I love working with people to educate them on how to be healthy and fit!  We all start somewhere.  I’m taking clients on a part-time basis right now and would be honored to work with you and help you start your fitness journey.  Feel free to email me at meredithlynchfitness@gmail.com, or message me for more information.

Thanks for spending a few minutes with me reading this post today.  Cheers to a wonderful 2018!!

Till next time,

-Mere

Boulder Shoulders!

General Fitness, Workouts, , , , ,

Hi friends!

I hope this finds you all healthy and happy!  I don’t know about all of you, but I am definitely ready for the holidays!  I love this time of year—so many things to be thankful for, fun activities, and Christmas cheer.  It will be 2017 before we know it! Between studying for my upcoming NASM personal training test and decorating our new home, things have been pretty busy.

I wanted to make today’s post about my favorite moves for one of my favorite parts to train.  You may not know this, but your shoulder is an extremely complex joint.  Not only is it connected to several muscles in the arm, chest, neck, and back, but it also houses the rotator cuff!  Your rotator cuff is comprised of four muscles (here’s my NASM studying coming through), the Teres Minor, the Infraspinatus, the Supraspinatus, and the Subscapularis.  These muscles work together to allow for the wide range of motion and movements that make your shoulder so unique.  Your shoulders are utilized in several upper body exercises when you train chest and back, but because of their structural complexity, they are also easily susceptible to injury.

See? So many muscles!
Lots of bones connect at your shoulder too!

 

Be careful with your form!   When you’re training shoulders, it’s really important to make sure that you are training all angles of them, the front, rear, and side delts.  Again, this is a complex muscle/joint group!  Broader shoulders also make your waist appear smaller!  A total shortcut to getting every girl’s dream “hourglass” curves!  Here are a few of my go- to moves for awesome shoulders.

  • Overhead Dumbbell Shoulder Press: This is the standard shoulder movement in weight training.  To perform this movement, you hold a dumbbell (moderate weight, something you can keep good form with for 12-15 reps) in each hand, and make almost like a field goal with your arms as you extend and press the dumbbells overhead.  Be careful to keep your head up and core tight.  Here is a link from Bodybuilding.com explaining the movement.  You can also do these with a Shoulder Press machine, just make sure you are lined up correctly with it before you begin, and start out a lower weight to make sure you’re using the correct one.
  • Lateral Raises: You can do these with dumbbells (my favorite!) or cables. Typically I like to do a lighter weight and go higher in volume.  You can keep a slight bend in the elbow if needed, but don’t bend it too much.  You can also change the tempo to really get a good pump!  I never do shoulders without these!! 
  • Angled Shoulder Press: These are super fun! We have a butt blaster machine in our gym that works great for these, but you can also use a barbell for them as well.  They’re easier on the front part of your deltoid muscle (front delt), than a traditional front raise, but are a great finisher, or to do a drop set with.  Here’s a picture. 
Angled Shoulder Press
Angled Shoulder Press
  • Reverse Peck Deck: Using the pec deck or chest fly machine, face the pad and move the arms out to either side of you, similar to if you were opening a cabinet. You should really feel these at the back of your shoulders.  Keep your head and spine neutral, and don’t lock your elbows.  Start with a lower weight if needed until you get the form figured out.
  • Front Raises: Personally, I like to get crazy and superset these with my lateral raises at the end of a shoulder workout.  Go lighter with these, and really focus on NOT swinging your arms to move the weight.  For added benefit, you can pause and squeeze at the top of the movement, or take them really slow.  Those are killer!

There you have it y’all!  Remember, summer bodies are made in the winter!  If you want those hot sexy shoulders come tank top season in a few months, NOW is the time to work on them!  Let me know if you have any questions—I love answering them!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!!

 

Till next time,

-Mere

Easy Ways to Change Up Your Workouts!

General Fitness, Workouts, , , ,

One of my favorite things about training is that you can constantly change up your workouts!  Since I’m in offseason, I have really been changing things up with my weightlifting split and routine to push myself in the gym.  Here are some of my favorite ways to mix things up!

  • Drop Sets—these can be super challenging, and can be used for almost every muscle group. I particularly love these for lat pull-downs, leg extensions, shoulder presses, and leg press.  But really, use your imagination because they can be used for pretty much every move.  The idea is that you start with a heavier weight doing less reps, and then decrease (“drop”) your weight and increase your number of reps each set.  The idea is to get a lot of blood flow to your muscle.  Your first set should be challenging and heavy!  Sometimes I like to go until failure each set, dropping the weight each time.  Also, make sure you’re not resting very long between sets.  30-45 seconds is plenty of time.

For lat pull downs, it might look something like this:

  • Set 1– 10 reps at 110 pounds
  • Set 2– 15 reps at 90 or 100 pounds
  • Set 3– 20 reps at 80 or 90 pounds

 

  • Pyramid Sets—similar to drop sets, pyramid sets involve increasing the weight and decreasing the number of reps, but you also come back up in weight, so typically you’re doing 5-7 sets. These are tough!  I love to do them for Bicep curls and squats!  Keep your rest periods short, and make sure you are only using a weight that you can safely move with good form.  Try it like this with dumbbell bicep curls:
    • Set 1- 12 reps at 20 pounds
    • Set 2- 15 reps at 15 pounds
    • Set 3- 20 reps at 10 pounds
    • Set 4- 15 reps at 15 pounds
    • Set 5- 10-12 reps or to failure at 20 pounds.

 

  • Super Sets—these are one of my all time FAVORITE things to incorporate into a workout! In fact, I superset something pretty much every day I’m in the gym.  They’re time savers, and a great way to really get a muscle group to hypertrophy, which will encourage muscle growth!  Supersetting means that you preform two exercises (using the same or opposing muscle groups) back to back with no rest in between.  They are really great for legs, and arm workouts (supersetting bis and tris).  Remember, no rest in between exercises.  Done correctly, these will really get your heart rate up, and get a lot of blood flow into your muscle.  Give these supersets a try:
    • Leg Press supersetted with plie squats or squat jumps
    • Bicep curls supersetted with tricep extensions or skull crushers.

You can even go crazy and add on a third exercise for a GIANT set!

  • FST-7s. FST stands for Fascia Stretch Training.  This training concept was created by Nicole Wilkins and Phil Heath’s trainer, the legendary Hany Rambod.  Basically it involves doing 7 sets of the same exercise with roughly 8-10 reps each set and very little rest in between sets.  Like 15-20 seconds between sets.  They need to be done as a finisher at the end of your workout, or at the end of training the particular body part you are using them on.  They get a great “pump” to the muscle, because all those reps really build up bloodflow.  These are tough but soooo much fun!  I like to do them for shoulder presses, lateral raises, bicep curls, typically smaller muscle groups, but you can use them for back and legs as well.  The basic formula for an FST looks like this:
    • 7 sets of 10 reps at the same weight, with 15-20 seconds between sets. *Note—you may have to drop weight.  Sets 5-7 are particularly challenging, and you will likely go to failure J

So there you have it!  4 easy ways to really mix things up and challenge yourself in the gym.  Be creative with your workouts—I can promise you that you will enjoy your workouts even more!

 

Till next time,

-Mere

My Favorite Cardio Workouts

General Fitness, Workouts, , , ,

Hi friends!  It’s hard to believe Fall is already here!  This summer absolutely flew by!  Between the move and vacationing, things have been a little nuts around here, but things are FINALLY starting to settle down a bit.  In my last post, I mentioned planning to start prep in August for a November show.  We all know how life throws curveballs, and I got a bit of an unexpected surprise when I ended up getting a small stress fracture in my foot that required rest and a boot for several weeks throwing my plans completely off course.  I basically had what felt like a sprain at the top of my right foot for several weeks.  I thought between the move and my usual running, plyo, crazy workouts that it was nothing.  It kept getting more annoying and the pain got worse.  I hobbled around for about a month before finally caving and seeing a sports orthopedic doctor on the advice of both my coach and MAT therapist.  The treatment—anti-inflammatory prescriptions, rest, and a boot for at least 3 weeks.  There was no way I’d be able to get ready for a show by November—I saw the doctor the week I was supposed to start prep!  Fortunately, I was still able to work out, I just didn’t put much weight on my foot, and had to modify my leg workouts.  I also stopped doing cardio—thankfully my weight has maintained this whole time, despite not being perfect with my eating!  Some days were easier than others, but it slowly got better!  Honestly though, if wearing a boot for 3 weeks and postponing a figure competition are my only major problems in life, then I’m really doing okay.  Hey—at least since I’m not in Prep I can enjoy pumpkin spice everything season, right?!  Thankfully I just had my follow up appointment and things are looking and feeling better, so I can slowly get back into training legs as usual and cardio as I feel like it.  Other than that, it’s just been fun to enjoy our beautiful new home, and go through my normal routine.

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In other news- I’m happy to report that I have officially started preparing to take my NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine—they’re the leader in personal training certification) CPT exam!  My book and studying materials are en route, so I will be able to start studying next week, and plan to take the exam in February.  You have six months to study, which is great because there is a TON of material to cover.  The test covers everything from anatomy and physiology, to exercise science, client assessment and evaluation, nutrition, supplementation, and a ton more.  I’m so excited to take my passion for fitness and nutrition to the next level, and use it to help others on their journeys too.  Here’s to a new adventure and learning ALL of the things!

Since I’m building up my client base, I really wanted to give you guys some ideas for cardio workouts.  An important thing to keep in mind when doing cardio is that interval training is best to really get the highest calorie burn in the shortest amount of time.  HIIT is where it’s at to get the most bang for your buck!  To be honest, I’ve kind of missed cardio these last few weeks!  I’ve done all of these—give them a whirl the next time you’re up for a sweat!  I guarantee you’ll get a great calorie burn!!

Tabata Workouts—these are some of my favorite forms of HIIT training!  Basically the idea is that you have all out intensity for a “work” period, followed by a brief “rest” period. You can download the Tabata Timer app, and set it to any split of the two that you’d like, but aim for about a 2:1 ratio of rest to work.  Trust me—you want a timer! Typically I do tabatas for 10-15 minutes.  When done correctly, that’s about all you can handle of these guys.  These are great for finishers on top of say 20 minutes of an incline walk, jog, or stairs.  Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Set your tabata timer to 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest for 10 rounds, and do the following 5 exercises 2x through: squat jumps, mountain climbers, jump rope (in place is fine), butt kickers, burpees.   This should take you 10 minutes to do, or you could do a third time through for 15 minutes.
  • Battle ropes! Most gyms have these—set your timer to 30 seconds of work, 1 minute of rest—aim for 10 rounds.  I LOVE to do these as a finisher on an upper body day—especially arms and shoulders!  Hit the ropes HARD as fast as you can, you can even alternate or make waves with the ropes.  Your shoulders should burn and your heart rate should be UP!
  • Sled pushes—most larger gyms have these. Load that puppy up and push for 20 seconds with a 40 second rest.  After leg day it’s particularly good!!!
  • 8 rounds of burpees on the 20 sec work/ 10 sec rest split is BRUTAL, but you feel like a BOSS after finishing it!
  • For my lower body days, I love to do a split of lower body exercises with HIIT training—try the 30 sec work/ 1 min rest split again, but with squat jumps during the work period and body weight squats during the “rest” period, or lunge jumps/ lunges.
  • Sometimes I’ll even challenge myself to do 50 reps of 5 different exercises 5 times—this can be pretty difficult, but it’s fun—do whatever you want, jumping jacks, high knees, skater hops, frog jumps, pop squats, you name it!

Treadmill Workouts:

Poor treadmills get a bad rap!  Honestly, they are a multi-purpose MACHINE and can be used for more than just running.

  • Incline Walk—set the incline for a 13-15 and walk at a 2.8-3.0. You will feel this in your hams and calves.  I PROMISE.  Don’t hang onto the hand rails unless you absolutely need to, and then only for short periods of time.  Work your way up to 20-30 minute sessions.
  • Sprint intervals—You can do these with or without a timer. Sprint for 20-30 seconds, followed by a minute to minute and a half of rest.  A sprint should be a speed of at least 8.0 on the treadmill.  During your rest periods, just hop up and put your feet to the sides of the belt.  I like to crank up the inline to about a 4 to make them extra difficult.
  • Jogging intervals—you can walk (3.8-4.0) for 1 minute, then jog or run at a 5.0 – 7.0 for 2 minutes, this one’s much easier to do for longer periods of time. 10 rounds of it for 30 minutes, and 15 for 45 minutes respectively.

I also LOVE the stairmill for cardio!  It really works your lower body and glutes like no other.  Try the interval programs on the machines, or make your own intervals at high and low speeds.  I like to make my own, and skip steps on the lower speeds to really work those glutes!!!  The elliptical is also beneficial, but it’s not my preferred poison of choice.

Also—cardio is more fun when it’s nice outside!  Take your tabatas outside, or go for a jog around your neighborhood instead of on the treadmill.  It’s good for your soul!!!

Track Workouts:

When it’s not 100+ degrees outside here in Texas, I LOVE to hit the track with my girlfriends for a crazy cardio session.  Here are some of our go to workouts—most of these we’ll combine for a total time of 45 minutes to an hour.

  • 15 minutes of stairs (run up the bleachers, walk down), 15 minutes of sprinting the straits along the track and walking the curves/endzones, 15 minutes of plyos consisting of the following: 1 min squat jumps, 1 min rest, 1 min jump rope, 1 min rest, 1 min burpees—3 rounds, with one minute between each round. THIS IS KILLER!!!!
  • Suicide sprints– Sprint to the 10, jog back, sprint to the 20, jog back, etc. all the way to the other end zone.
  • Jog a lap around the track, 50 jacks/ 50 squats/ 50 mountain climbers. Repeat 5 times.
  • Running the stairs on one side of the field, sprint to the other side, do those stairs, then run around the track.

track

I hope y’all enjoyed these ideas—can’t wait to hear your feedback!  I’m working on putting more blog posts together, especially as I learn more these next few months as I’m studying.  Stay safe and stay fit!

 

Xo,

-Mere

I’m in the Gym – Now What?

General Fitness, Workouts, , , ,

One of the questions I get asked most often is how I figured out how to train.  How many reps?  How many exercises?  How often for each body part? How much weight?  How will I know if I’m doing it right?  Trust me when I say there really is no perfect answer.  What I’m learning on my journey is that you really learn as you go.  We all are—even the most experienced trainers and bodybuilders I know are still learning, experimenting, and still changing their workouts up.  Isn’t that cool?  It’s one of my favorite things about training—you’re never an expert, and you can always keep learning and trying new things.  Like I’ve mentioned so many times before, it’s important that you try to educate yourself as much as possible.  Use different resources.  Bodybuilding.com and Oxygen magazine are two of my FAVORITES, and they’re so easy to access.  Not sure how to use a piece of equipment?  Ask trainers and other fitness professionals in your gym.  Health and fitness can be a part of everyone’s life, but not everyone chooses for it to be.  I hope that I can give some insight into some of these “how” questions I mentioned earlier so you too can start to structure your own workouts and gain more confidence with all this weight lifting stuff!

How should I structure my workout split each week?

A lot of this really depends on the time you have.  Aim for at least 4-5 workouts a week if you want to really build muscle and see results.  That should really just be weight training NOT CARDIO.  Cardio is a whole other post!  Remember that muscle will burn fat, so you want to focus on building muscle.  Of course any time in the gym is better than none at all, but I would aim to be there an hour or so.  Your major body parts/ muscle groups are: legs, back, chest, arms, and shoulders.  Abs and calves need to be thrown in there too, but you can just add those onto whatever other parts you’re training.  Depending on where you are lagging and what areas you really want to grow, you can train them as many as 2-3x a week.  You ideally want to have 1-2 days of rest between training sessions.  Try to just focus on 1 or 2 muscle groups each workout and train them HARD.  The idea is to make your muscles do more work, getting to hypertrophy (or muscle failure—we’ll talk more about that in a sec.), so that they repair and grow.  Doing so will yield more results than doing a total body workout 4-5x a week , I promise!  A good split could work like this—Monday—legs, Tuesday—arms and shoulders, Wednesday—OFF, Thursday—back, Friday—chest and shoulders, Saturday—yoga or a spin class.  SUNDAY—off.  There are ton of other examples out there though—find what works for you!

Meet Mr. Smith, my meanest friend.
Meet Mr. Smith, my meanest friend.

How many exercises and how many reps?

Here’s the fun part.  You can get creative with this.  When I first started, believe it or not I didn’t know that difference between a rep and a set!  I’ll share— a repetition or “rep” is how many times you will do each exercise or motion in a “set” which is really just a set of reps.  For example, you can do 3 sets of pushups, with 10-15 pushups or (“reps”) each set.  You would do 10-15 pushups, rest for a minute or so, another set of 10-15, rest, and then do your least set.  For beginners, I would focus on form and technique.  Building out higher volume sets into your workout routine will help you get to hypertrophy, but your workout should include a mix of both.  I started with using workouts I found online, and would sometimes build out my own.  Once I started working with my coach, he designed my workouts during Prep, but now I am back to using those as a framework and getting creative on my own as well.  I would shoot for 7-8 exercises each workout, doing 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps each.  That will give you a pretty good place to start.

Spreading my wings!
Spreading my wings!

How much weight?

It’s called working out because it takes WORK!  Your training sessions should not feel like a walk in the park—you need to push yourself!  This is different for everyone.  Here’s a good rule of thumb:  if you can knock out all of your reps easily and not feel your heart rate increase or your breathing change, you need to add more weight.  Your last 2-3 reps should be somewhat of a struggle.  The key here though is to keep good form.  If you lose your form, you can hurt yourself and that’s no bueno.   You will need to try different dumbbells and amounts of weight out to see work works for you.  A good starting weight for shoulder presses should be around 10-15 pounds for arms, and likely the same for bicep curls, but again see how many you can do.  You can do more reps with less weight and fewer reps with more weight.  If it’s heavy, you’re doing it right!  You will be surprised how quickly your strength increases.

Make sure it's heavy. AND YOU HAVE PROPER FORM!
Make sure it’s heavy. AND YOU HAVE PROPER FORM!

How will I know if I’m doing it right?

If you’re sore (not hurting—just sore!) the next day, that’s a good sign.  Sweat is good too!  Keep pushing yourself every workout, every day, and eating the right foods, and you will see results.  You will know when you’ve pushed yourself.  Consistency is key.  Make this a priority and it will pay off.  We all start somewhere.  The great thing is that there are a ton of resources out there that can show you proper form and technique, you just have to seek that information out.  I’m here to help too!

Thank you all so much again for your support and interest in my site!  I know things aren’t as exciting now that I’m not prepping for a show, but my hope is that this platform can help and encourage others to live a healthy lifestyle.  I have a special place in my heart for women who are scared of the gym and clueless as to where to start, because I was one of those girls.  You can do this!  If I can, anyone can.

Till next time,

-Mere