Muscular-Fitness

Over the years I have been involved in bodybuilding and working as a personal trainer I have come across a number of handy fitness tips that could help anyone from a recreational jogger to an Olympic weight lifter. It doesn’t matter what your level of fitness is since these fitness tips relate to the human body in general and can be beneficial to anyone looking to simply maintain their fitness or improve their level of fitness.

One of the most important fitness tips of all is to understand why you should eat 4-6 smaller meals per day instead of 2-3 big meals per day. Although most people follow the breakfast, lunch and dinner eating regime, this is not the ideal way to eat. No matter what your fitness goals are, to lose weight, gain muscle or simply get in shape, you will get more benefit from eating more smaller meals than you ever will from eating 2 or 3 large meals each day. By eating smaller meals more often you speed up your metabolism which leads to less bodyfat and more muscle and you are less likely to want to eat junk foods or any foods high in sugar or fat in between meals. For more information check out why diets don’t work.

Another one of my favorite fitness tips is to understand the best time to exercise if you want to lose weight. You can exercise at any time throughout the day if you want to burn body fat but when you exercise first thing in the morning before you eat breakfast your body has its lowest level of blood sugar than at any other time throughout the day and at this time your body will burn the most fat for energy.

Of all the fitness tips everyone should be aware of is the spot reduction myth. Many people go to the gym everyday and do countless sets of abdominal exercises and wonder why they never lose fat from their stomach or mid-section. Well the truth is you cannot burn fat in an area of your body by training that area. If you have fat on your biceps you cannot train your biceps to make the fat disappear from that area just like you cannot train your abs and reduce the fat in that area. The body does not work that way. You will lose fat by exercising in general and by eating the correct foods. Your body decides where it will burn the fat from due to your genetic make up and none of us have any control over our genetics.

This is one of the fitness tips everyone can benefit from. Your body is approximately made up of 70% water so water is the most important substance you can ingest. Drinking water has more benefits than I could possibly list. By drinking enough water you can speed up your metabolism to help you lose weight. Drinking water is also a natural appetite suppressant and beneficial if you crave snacks in between meals. Drinking water is as important to a bodybuilder as protein is and allows you to train harder, longer and get a better pump plus minimizes the chance of injury to the muscles while your are training.

I could go on forever but one more of the fitness tips you should know is that walking is better than running if you want to lose fat. The best way to burn fat is through walking since walking is a low intensity exercise and running is a high intensity exercise. When you run your body needs a high quality fuel source and that is from either the food in your system or from amino rich muscle tissue. Walking however only needs a low quality source of fuel to burn so your body uses fat for energy when you walk. Bottom line is walking is better than running if you want to burn fat.

I hope these fitness tips give you a better understanding of your body and allow you to make more constructive use of your available exercise time so you make more progress towards your fitness goals and spend less wasted time doing things that do not work.