What happens when you think exercise is going to make you feel good, but you wind up feeling worse than ever after beginning a fitness program? You wind up quitting because you think it is not worth all the aggrevation. The truth is, if you want your body to look and feel better, you are going to spend some time being sore at first. It took you a long time to accumulate all that excess body fat, and it will not come off without a fight!

If you begin a weight loss and exercise program knowing you will have to endure some pain right off the bat, chances are good that you will not only be able to prepare yourself better, but you will also continue on to success. If you anticipate, plan, and take the proper steps, you can minimize your soreness.

Physical Fitness Tips #1: Anticipate, To Deal With Soreness From Exercise
It is normal to get excited on your first day of exercise. Visions of you flexing those muscles on the beach are probably dancing in your head. This is great, but keep your head in the game and out of the clouds. You’re not going to get that way tomorrow or the next day. Lifting too much or running too fast could end up delaying your program while you recover if it does not burn you out all together. Start slow. Next day, push a bit harder. Next day, a bit harder still. Easing into a program is the best way to anticipate soreness and achieve steady progress.

Physical Fitness Tips #2: Embrace The Pain, To Deal With Soreness From Exercise
A little soreness means you have embarked on something that is good for you. While it’s always bothersome, know that it’s only temporary and that it is an important step along the road to your fitness goal. Think of it as hurting in a good way. A great way, even. Once you work through the pain, you are going to be fitter than before.

Physical Fitness Tips #3: Eat Proper Nutrition, To Deal With Soreness From Exercise
The more you exercise, the better you need to eat. The better you eat, the less sore you will become. Most people think that since you are burning calories with exercise, you can eat as much junk as you want. Not true if you want to remain healthy. Why? Because junk will not fuel your muscles properly. This is especially true if you are trying to lose weight. If you are eating donuts for breakfast, switch to a soy based protein shake. What you eat is always vital.

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If you’re interested in fast ways to build muscle and gain weight in record time, naturally you should ask yourself: “What are the best muscle mass building exercises to accomplish this?”

The answer is simple, but because the market is flooded with so much garbage all you hear or read about is either the latest supplement or “advanced” exercises. If real, solid, steel-like muscles are what you want then anytime you are introduced to a “new” or “advanced” way of performing an exercise, you’ll do yourself a world of good by throwing it out the window.

Too many times do I see curious skinny gym members look over at the “gym buff” doing some funky exercise upside down on an exercise ball with one leg up flailing a pair of light dumbbells around thinking that if they learned how to perform that exercise they can look like him. Forget about it. Whether it works for him or not is irrelevant, the bottom line is that this type of exercise or anything like it will NOT work for hardgainers.

If an exercise is “new” I can almost guarantee it is far less effective then the simple, basic muscle mass building exercises. Why? Because all of the best exercises for maximum muscle growth have already been accounted for years ago. They have and always will be the number one exercises for the single purpose on how to gain muscle weight fast. Nothing compares and they will never be bested.

Basic or compound exercises allow you to lift more weight, and the heavier weight you can lift, the bigger you will be. With that in mind, what are compound exercises and which are the best for maximum muscle mass? Compound lifts, or multi-joint lifts, are weightlifting exercises that force you to use more then one muscle group, preferably 3 or more.

For example, the bench press is a compound lift because although the primary muscle used is the chest muscle, your shoulders and triceps are also helping to lift the weight. Tricep pushdowns, however, are what’s called an isolation or single-joint exercise. Since this exercise just isolates a single muscle, your triceps, it doesn’t stimulate nearly as much muscle growth as a compound lift would. Though there are many different compound exercises, you must focus only on those that stimulate the most amount of muscle and allow you to lift the heaviest amount of weight.

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Life can get busy. Spending time with the family, at work or even working out seems to absorb quite a bit of time. Unfortunately it can also absorb some of your night-time- in other words your sleep time. Sleep is important for a healthy lifestyle, without it your body will not function at its optimal level and could prevent you from enjoying activities to their fullest.

Regeneration and re-energizing time

Your body needs on average 7-9 hours of sleep each day. This is the time during which your body regenerates energy and your mind rests. By depriving yourself of sleep, you begin to suffer from an exhausted mind. You may begin to feel as though you can’t concentrate on one thing and find yourself jumping around or getting anxious.Keeping yourself up doesn’t help a situation by spending more time on it. You can find yourself making many mistakes that you will have to spend time going back and redoing.

If your mind and body are exhausted from lack of sleep, it will affect your energy level and moods. In order to stay focused on a fitness plan, keep your energy levels high.Neglecting sleep is contrary to your fitness plan. Exhaustion pushes your body and mind to become stressed and overworked. Your health may diminish and your immune system may actually get weaker. You may begin to feel a little more irritable than usual and grumpiness can make you a difficult person to get along with. If you have a fitness partner, this may be a little uncomfortable for them. The stress that is created by sleep deprivation can greatly affect your body and mind even more than you are aware of.

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I am sure a lot of people would love a brand new squat rack for christmas (maybe not), but if your like me, and your pockets are not deep enough, there are still some awesome affordable fitness gifts out there for a healthy Christmas!

Here are some healthy gifts you can get people for christmas that will be a boost to their fitness goals!

Polar Fs1 Heart Rate Monitor

You can buy this trusty little watch on amazon for around 40 dollars. This is the same watch I use, and its a great gift, there are so many benefits to knowing what your heart rate is! It allows me to train in certain zones with accuracy, so I know if I am working above, or below anaerobic threshold, tempo work, cardiac work, etc… its very useful! I do not opt for the fancier versions, this one will get the job done.

Hand Blender

I dont know what I would do without this, just a scoop of protein, some creatine, and water; blend with the hand blender and your good to go! I used to mix my protein up with a spoon, but that made a mess. The hand blender makes it easy to just grab, mix, and go.

Wrist Wraps

I bought some wrist wraps over at elitefts.com for 16.95. You can never get enough wrist support! It may add some weight to your lifts to, for me it did! I love these, and most people I train are worried about their wrists, so this is one of my first recommendations.

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“Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

I’m sure George Bernard Shaw wasn’t referring to fitness when he wrote these words, but they certainly describe to a tee how our inability or refusal to change our attitudes and actions can get in our way of reaching our fitness goals.

You know who you are – the women who want to shed some pounds but can’t go a day without your double whipped cream mocha latte with caramel on top, and the men who say you want to lose your love handles but would rather sit on the couch watching TV than go for an evening walk.

Understand change

How do we break our cycle of defeat? One key aspect is understanding change. When you’re overweight or not in the best shape, you must be absolutely willing to embrace certain changes in your life, starting with a change in diet. “No food tastes better than being in shape feels,” is a great perspective to have when adopting a new diet. Be willing to say “yes” to some foods and “no” and “sometimes” to others.

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I had the luxury, honour and excitement to have trained with a small Elite group of World Class Athletes and boy did I take my health and physical fitness to the next level.

Have you heard of the saying “You are who you hang around with?” Well I understand it now and I’ll tell you why! I knew taking the challenge and committing myself to the discipline and intensity of training with an Elite group of jumpers and sprinters was going to be the hardest thing I had done to date. My health and physical fitness was good before I started, but I was still sore for every day for 4 weeks when I was put through the paces of the UK’s Top Performance Coaches winter training program.

I want to discuss with you some of what I feel are the vital lessons I’ve learnt in improving my health and physical fitness which have had dramatic effects;

1. Plyometrics – simply jumping and hopping exercises – the effects that these exercises on my speed and body fat reduction was amazing.
2. Training with people better than you – Improves expectations of yourself and makes you work harder and faster towards your goal.
3. Rest and recovery – The importance of listening to your body is vital to staying injury free.
4. Discipline -The focus you need to improve and to stay healthy helps you stay the course.

Plyometrics - The biggest wake up call to me was plyometrics, basically all that hopping and bounding you see athletes do on grass and over hurdles etc. I had never given them their due credit and it showed; my example of a single leg hoping was pathetic. But as I had about 7 Plyometric exercises to do every Thursday I soon improved my strength and became very lean (ripped!) within weeks! The intensity is so great I found that after just two weeks of hard hopping and bounding my fat just melted off! My legs became super strong and my running speed improved throughout the year.

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