Workout Songs
There are some Thursday morning when I just don’t want to get out of bed, and I DEFINITELY don’t want to go teach spin class.
But I always do.
And my music always gets me through. There have even been studies and articles written (like this one by the NY Times) about the fact that music can motivate and help us push through fatigue during workouts.
Why did this come up when I typed in "working out to music" in Google images?
Some of the songs that I love when I spin or workout are songs that I would be embarrassed to admit that I love to listen to…Like Sexy and I know it.
Super stupid song, but between the beat and the phrase “Sexy and I know it,” I just get super pumped up and always find myself pushing harder and forgetting about the fact that the sun isn’t even up yet and my muscles are sore from the leg workout the day before.
There is just something about certain songs that makes you push harder – that motivates you to push yourself beyond the initial fatigue. There are just some songs that can get you through a workout even when you would rather be snuggled under your comforter in bed!
For me these songs usually have a strong beat and motivational lyrics…I prefer hip hop, pop, rap and some country…anything mainstream…yes I’m lame and definitely don’t have good musical taste.
Some of the songs that I’ve found motivating during my workouts recently are: Sweat by Snoop Dog, Sexy and I know it by LMFAO, Stronger by Kanye West, Remember the Name by Fort Minor, Country Girl by Luke Bryan, Click Click Boom by Saliva and Good Feeling by Flo Rida.
There are many more, but those are the most recent (and admitting I like some of them is slightly embarrassing) motivational songs that I’ve include on my spin playlists. I’ve also included songs like Who let the dog’s out and Bad Touch…but those were purely for amusement purposes. Making people laugh is also a great way to help them get through the hour and a half of spin.
Do you find that music motivates you to push through a workout even when you don’t really want to be there? What songs do you listen to? Anything embarrassing!?!
The P.I.N.K. Method
What does a workout and diet program need to make it big in the mainstream?
Apparently it needs to endorse lots of products and make it onto Dr. Phil. At least that’s all I could see that the P.I.N.K. method had going for it…(Oh and obviously a ton of money to spend on the packaging and marketing).
Oh and I guess it does need a whole lot of women who supposedly never liked working out, but managed to lose a ton of weight, endorsing it and saying it was the only program they could stick to. HA!
As far as I can see, the P.I.N.K. method (which stands for Power, Intensity, Nutrition and “Kardio”…yuck) is the same old crap just re-packaged with lots of pink. Light weights, “toning” exercises and cardio that looks like ever other workout tape for women is what you’ll get on their nicely packaged DVDs.
Along with the workouts, you’ll also get the same old nutritional information you find in every women’s fitness magazine, BUT they’ve made up catchy names for their dishes…like “Shred Soup” (which is essentially just a chicken broth, veggie soup) and some Pink Smoothie (I can’t remember the exact name, which is just a berry protein smoothie).
But hey…I mean don’t listen to me…Dr. Phil says it is a revolutionary new program. And with their Sketchers Shape Ups and Yoga pants that will burn more fat, it has to work right?
And if it doesn’t at least you got a free bracelet along with the DVDs…
P.S. I also love the lack of information on the P.I.N.K. method website. And I wish I could come up with some witty thing to say that P.I.N.K. stands for…Any ideas?
Man Bicep Principles
This post was inspired by Fit and Feminist. Caitlin wrote a post about 15 things she did to improve her health. When I started writing my list, I realized that everything on the list stemmed from 5 main principles. And these principles in my opinion are the foundation of developing a healthy lifestyle.
1. Question everything. Don’t blindly follow what others do. Study any diet or exercise program before you follow it. If you know the arguments for and against a program, you can really make an informed decision about whether or not you want to follow it. Questioning conventional wisdom about diet and exercise is what led me to Primal and heavy lifting/Crossfit – it led me to find a diet and exercise program that I think is IDEAL for me.
2. Experiment on yourself. Everyone is different. Just because it works for your friend, doesn’t mean it will work for you. You can’t know if something will work for you unless you give it a shot. The best way to create the perfect healthy lifestyle for yourself is by experimenting to find out what works! For example, the variation of Primal and heavy lifting that I do isn’t exactly the same thing that works for Ryan or Candy or Brian!
3. Lift heavy weights. I’m sorry. Cardio just doesn’t cut it ladies and gents. You need to lift heavy weights – you need muscle and strength to really be healthy (PLUS there are tons of benefits besides looking sexy that you get from lifting heavy weights…like increased bone density!)
4. Always challenge yourself. I don’t mean that you have to push yourself every workout, but don’t ever become complacent. Always set new goals to strive for. Don’t ever just get stuck doing the same thing over and over again. Always seek out new ways to challenge yourself. Try a new workout routine or a new sport. Try lifting heavier weights or a new form of cardio!
5. Focus on the big picture. This one has been the hardest thing for me to do. You can get so caught up in your day-to-day diet or even your weekly diet that you don’t realize all the progress that you’ve made over the past year. I know I’m guilty of occasionally getting stuck on daily fluctuations in weight or even weekly fluctuations in how much I can lift. Remember, the day-to-day stuff doesn’t matter that much as long as you remain committed to your health a majority of the time. One cheat day isn’t going to ruin your year even if it makes you gain weight the next day. One bad workout won’t set you back. Remember the 80/20 rule. If you work hard and commit to your diet and workout program 80% of the time, you WILL see results over time. Don’t stress over the few times you cheats or have a bad workout because they won’t matter. Just enjoy the adventure!
So those are the 5 main things I always keep in mind – those are the five main things I think everyone needs to live by if they want to lead a healthy happy life!
No Snow Angels just Snow Push ups!
That’s right…Man Bicepers even do push ups on mountain tops in snow.
Thank you Judy for these wonderful push up pictures! You and Libby are awesome!
Judy and her daughter Libby
Love it!
Spam Mail
I thought this was funny!
So of course around Black Friday the spam mail seems to double. But what really caught my attention was all the health and fitness spam mail that I received.
I got a bazillion “Eat This, Not That” emails along with emails from Men’s Health and Women’s Health with some sort of line about how to lose 10 pounds in just seconds! (haha ok a bit of an exaggeration but that is how stupid most of the emails were!) I even get emails from Runner’s World Magazine and as far as I know…I’ve never read Runner’s World Magazine.
And two years ago…I would have opened and read each and every single one of them. I would have opened them knowing that I already knew everything they were going to say BUT hoping that one would reveal something, ANYTHING that would be the key to quickly getting the perfect body.
Now…well now I delete them without even opening them. I should really unsubscribe to those email lists since most of the time I don’t even want to open the emails to make fun of the stupid tips they provide.
But I don’t.
I think partly I keep them in case I get writer’s block and need something to rant about and partly because I think I, like everyone else out there, secretly wishes that there is a quick fix.
Even though I KNOW that there isn’t some part of me does hold out hope. I mean who doesn’t want get the perfect body or be able to lift a bazillion pounds in ONLY 30 days!?!
Push ups on the Playground
So the day after Thanksgiving, it is always nice to get in a bit of a workout. We took a nice long walk through the neighborhoods near us before heading to the playground to do some push ups and pull ups.
Ryan managed to show me up with 15 straight pull ups while yesterday I could only do 11 (and these are dead hang pull ups with no swing mind you). Drew managed to bust out 2 in the end (yay for rock climbing!).
The Man Bicep Mom was a bit too short to reach the bar…so I picked her up. She was so distracted by the fact that I just picked her up that she laughed instead of doing a pull up.
After the pull ups, we did some fun push ups around the park! Here are some pictures of them!
Drew doing a push up on me.
Another angle of Drew doing a push up on me
Bleacher push ups!
Slide Push Up by the Man Bicep Mom
And Ryan busting out the trash can push up.
Family and Food
"Can I have a side of toast and butter but hold the toast?"
It’s always weird going on a vacation or going to visit family, where you aren’t totally in control of your eating. It’s especially interesting when your family doesn’t have exactly the same nutritional beliefs as you. (Not to mention it means lots of nutritional debates, which I will discuss in a later post).
For the Man Bicep Mom and my sister, oatmeal, toast, and carbs in general, are a usual part of breakfast.
For me..well I can’t remember the last time I had toast until today. And it is hard for me to just go with the flow after a day of indulgence…especially for something like toast haha.
BUT sometimes being around family means just going with the flow and knowing that you won’t be doing any damage you can’t correct right when you get back from vacation.
I mean I know I can just say no, but sometimes I think it just isn’t worth the effort (partly because it just makes things more complicated and we are all already indecisive and partly because of the debate and questions that will ensue…yes that is right sometimes, and only sometimes, do I avoid debate!)
Is it just me or does anyone else struggle with saying “no” and sticking to their diet when they are staying at their parents’ house? Do you find it easier to just go with the flow?
HAPPY THANKSGIVING MAN BICEPERS!
I hope everyone is enjoying a day with family and friends! I must admit that I’m enjoying a relaxing day of eating all the bad food that I’ve been craving for the past month. There is nothing as good as mom’s home cooking and baking to fill you up!
Thanksgiving – Diet or Indulge
I swear if you looked at top searches over the past week you would find something involving “Thanksgiving” and “diet.”
It seems like half of the United States population decides to freak out about their diet around Thanksgiving…not the 364 other days of the year…but on Thanksgiving…the one day they should, in my opinion, indulge.
And most of the tips that you will find are absolutely ridiculous:
- Drink water so that you feel fuller and don’t eat as much. (That has never ever worked for me..I always still eat as much but just feel way fuller at the end…like I’m going to explode…)
- Use a smaller plate (I’d love to see someone ask their host for a smaller plate…)
- Make sure to eat breakfast (If you’ve ever done IF, you will be better off fasting UNTIL the meal)
- Exercise on Thanksgiving (How about you exercise the other 364 days and take Thanksgiving off. That will probably help you burn more calories in the end than going for a long walk on Thanksgiving)
- Skip the dark meat (UHM HELLO!?! The dark meat is the best part! AND not bad if you eat Primal/Paleo.)
Ok so those tips are totally bogus. People waste a perfectly good holiday meal trying to stick to their diet by following those tips.
And I even tell most of my clients that if they like Thanksgiving food, this is one day they should indulge. I tell them they need to stick to their diet until the day of and go right back on afterwards, but for that one day, that is based around food and family, they can indulge.
I just think there can be too much stress and deprivation involved in trying to stick to a diet on Thanksgiving.
But not everyone agrees with me. And while I don’t believe in dieting on Thanksgiving (I DEFINITELY count it as a cheat meal!), Mark’s Daily Apple does give some good recommendations on how to prepare a Primal Thanksgiving or how to stick to Primal if you’re not cooking.
So if you think a cheat day will derail your progress or make it hard to get back on track, maybe following good (underlining good) tips like the ones on Mark’s Daily Apple will be the way to go.
For me though there is no question about whether or not I’m dieting or indulging. I’m always going to cheat on Thanksgiving. For me, it is absolutely worth it to eat pie, gravy, cranberries cooked with sugar and stuffing (I LOVE STUFFING).
What do you think? Is it worth it to indulge? Or do you stick to your diet?
The Benefit of Time Off
Anytime there is a holiday or I have a vacation planned, I always start thinking about how beneficial the time off will be. I actually wrote another post about Rest right before my California vacation.
I’m bad about taking more than one day off a week BUT sometimes your body really needs more recovery than that. So vacation/holidays are a great time to take a few extra days off!
When you workout, you break down muscle tissues. You create mini tears, which when they heal, make your muscles stronger.
BUT for your muscles to rebuild the layers that were broken down and become stronger, you must take some time off. YOU MUST REST!
For me its sort of hard to accept how important time off is – even though I know that it is just as essential to a workout program as the lifts you design.
I just want to believe that all the work I’m doing in the gym is all that matters, BUT the time off that I take is just as important (if not more so!).
Rest is about more than even muscle repair. If you never rest you are probably overtraining and overtraining has consequences:
- Your energy level will drop and you may regress in how much you can lift or how far you can run.
- You can actually lose some of your leanness if you are overtraining. Working out too much can actually cause muscle wasting and fat deposition. You’re burning calories but those calories are coming from predominantly glucose/glycogen and precious muscle tissue.
- You are unable to sleep soundly. If you are working out too much, you won’t be sleeping well, which will hurt your workout intensity.
- You’re getting injured more often and have lots of aches and pains. Uhm injuries prevent you from hitting your lifting/weight loss/workout goals. So if you are training so hard you get injured, you need to take some time off because injuries won’t help you progress!
- You’re getting sick more often. Yep..overtraining can cause a lowered immune system. And getting sick…well that doesn’t help you workout hard!
So next time you think about skipping that rest day…DON’T!
Man Bicep 