31 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Exercise

The hardest part for most people is to stay motivated with diet and exercise. Here are 31 ways I suggest that you keep your motivation.

1. Find a training partner and commit to a schedule.
   
2. Buy a dog and take it for a long walk everyday. The fresh air and sunshine can give you more energy. You also have a chance to clear negative thoughts and focus on your goals.
   
3. Don't think about exercising or diet, just do it.
   
4. Get out of bed early, have a glass of water and use a cardio machine in your home.
5. Buy a cardio machine for your home, if you don't have one, then see 4.
   
6. Eat to live life with the right amount of energy and transform your body. Don't live to eat, especially when you eat junk. Garbage in = Garbage out
7. Never miss 2 workouts in a row.
8. Give away 1 or 2 articles of your fat clothing each week.
9. Buy 1 or 2 articles of clothing which are tight fighting and show off your body each week, If you still look fat in them, keep them around and focus on diet and exercise to start looking better in them.
10. Once 9 is fine, then start socializing more. At night on the town, does wonders to keep your motivation high. You'll realize fast where you stand and where you need to go with your image.
11. Choose friends that will take you higher and higher. Friends that have similar interests. Just because you've been friends with someone for 20 years and they don't share your view or don't want you to succeed for some reason, doesn't mean you have to hang around them all the time and influence you to make poor decisions. Find new friends.
12. Reward yourself. Reward yourself. Reward Yourself. Every time you noticeably start looking better and feeling better, give yourself positive verbal pep talk, then go shopping for something nice !
13. Get a tan. You'll notice so much more changes in your physique as the tan will accentuate your cuts.
14. Walk into an old age home and take a look around. You'll find that some are in their 60s. Prevention is key. When I'm 60, I'll be in my own Rambo movie, doing my own stunts.
15. Whoever says "Working out is not everything in life." is right. It's not everything, but that 1 hour that you dedicate makes you move ahead 100 times more than the person that complains about it. They complain because you look better than they do. Keep a balance, but never neglect your right to a better life.
16. Make it your goal to get a professional photo shoot done.
17. Write down your intentions for the month which lead to your goals. The more details the better.
18. Plan to go on vacation, so you have a reason other than health and fitness to motivate yourself to exercise.
19. Plan to go to a concert and meet the band !
20. Watch an inspiring movie, like "The Secret" or "Never Back Down" or "No Retreat, No Surrender"
    
21. Make an example of what you will accomplish, so that others can follow and be inspired by you.
22. Blog your complete body transformation experience.
23. Take body part circumference measurements every 2 weeks. Keep as a measurement of your transformation.
    
24. Take a front, back and side photo of yourself every 2 weeks. Keep as a measurement of your transformation.
25. Make a Pros and Cons list about exercise and eating healthy. Make Pros and Cons list about not exercising and not eating healthy. Why would you not want to feel and look better on a consistent basis?
26. Write down 1 thing each day that is going to move your life forward. Would you not want to increase your longevity and enjoy a better life ? What you write down is completely realistic.
27. Create in your mind what you want. Believe you deserve what you create. Accept the things that will help you move forward toward your creation.
28. Avoid distractions. A distraction could be a person or event, that pulls you temporarily away from your goals or creations. The best way to avoid them is to ignore or move away from them.
29. Meditate which clears and refreshes your mind and allows you to continue to focus on your goals.
30. Plan to get naked more often. Seeing yourself naked can surely motivate yourself to get in shape faster and stay in shape. Don't be afraid of your skin !
31. Don't think of the problem for too long. Thinking of the problem wastes time. You should be thinking of the solution and benefits that it will bring into your life. Make a decision to act on your solution.
    
32. 
    

Stumble It!

The 7 Essential Habits Of A Successful Fitness Routine

To get the most out of fitness routine, you need to develop habits that will focus your efforts in the gym and move you forward toward your goals. These are my 7 essential habits that I have developed and use on a daily basis which bring me success in the gym.

1. Have your body parts, exercises, sets and reps planned out in your head before you start your workout.
2. Perform some type of warm-up (bike), and flexibility (dynamic or static) and/or SMR, before you start your actual workout. Perform some type of cool-down as well, including the aforementioned above.
   
3. Tune out all distractions when starting your first exercise. You've already had your warm-up and stretches to get ready to tune them out, so you got no excuses. Leave your cell phone in the locker. Listen to your iPod if you can't tune out other people talking or the crappy music playing in the gym.
4. While performing each repetition, feel the goal of what each body part is trying to achieve, meaning feel the movement and your kinetic chain working together. Do this for every exercise. If you don't know what to look for, study the mechanics of the exercise or hire a personal trainer. Add the technique of visualization before starting your set. Visualize the intensity before you start, then DO IT.
   
5. Pay attention to your core, while performing your exercises. Your core is made up of 29 muscles that attach to the lumbo‐pelvic‐hip complex. This is increase your neuromuscular efficiency and provide stabilization during the movements.
6. Keep your resistance training to an hour or less. Your whole workout including warm-up, core, balance, SAQ etc.. obviously makes your workout much longer, but keeping your resistance part to less than 1 hour is crucial to making gains, including hypertrophy and strength.
7. Use full range of motion on each exercise, unless your performing 21s or intending to performing partial reps. Full range of motion is critical to developing the entire muscle belly and can have an effect similar to the benefits of PNF. You also develop balanced muscles and strength through the movement, which make you look better, stronger and help prevent injuries.
   

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HardGainer Routine To Build Your Chest Muscles

So we all know that building muscle isn't all about steroids and how much food you can eat.... or is it?

Of course not, and for some people it's VERY difficult. Especially drug-free athletes. To improve any body part you need to to really focus on that body part.

What is a hard gainer anyway? It's someone that has been training for at least 3 or 4 years and looks similar to what they looked when the started. Call it poor genetics, but I believe it's actually the wrong combo on diet, training and sleep.

If you been training for 1 year and not seeing any results, sorry dude, this does not make you a hard gainer.

The Chest muscles in particular are one of the most common complaints in the gym for these hardgainers to improve on. If you are a hard gainer that IS doing everything right, such as getting enough calories, macro-nutrient ratio is fine, sleep is fine, recovery is fine, then this is the hard gainer routine to build your chest muscles that will explode your muscle mass growth.


Here's a free sample workout to get your chest bigger! Try this routine for the next 6 weeks.

This workout assumes you've been weight training for about 2-3 years already.. consistently.


Day 1 - Chest

Incline DB Flys 3 x 10
Incline BB Press 3 x 10
BB Flat Bench 3 x 10
Cable Flys 3 x 10

Perform these exercises as straight sets in horizontal order.
For your last 2 reps, they should be real forced reps.
Your rest period is 2 minutes.

Day 4 - Chest

1. Superset these 2 exercises
Stability Ball DB Presses - Alternate Arms - 2 x 12
Incline BB Press

2. Superset these 2 exercises
Stability Ball DB Incline Presses - Alternate Arms - 2 x 12
Flat BB Press

3. Superset these 2 exercises
Plyometric Push-Ups 2 x 12
Cable Flys

Your rest period is 1 minute. There is no rest between the 2 exercises you are super setting.
No forced reps here.

Enjoy the Mass !

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Body building or Belly Building ?

Obliques the size of my arm? That's disgusting. Whatever even happened to building an aesthetically pleasing physique? I noticed a there are quite a few trainees in the gym, doing an exercise called 45 Side Bends. Do they know that this builds your obliques and makes your waist look thick? I see alot of women do this exercise more than men. It really shocks me. If you want to target fat loss in that area, you DON'T need to build more muscle in that particular area, because you'll also make yourself look like those dudes to the left. It's a double-edge sword. If you want to lose fat, you need to tune your diet. Ewwww! Diet, I said a dirty word. I can hear someone cry right about now. Don't be afraid to diet. Dieting literally means choosing the correct foods for your body. So go ahead and DIET, but please stop doing side bends.

Stumble It!