It’s very difficult to build up lean muscle mass . You need the proper combination of regular diet, exercise, & hormonal processes. It is a known fact that women do not secrete the same quantity of testosterone which men do to build up the kind of hefty muscles that men hold.

Instead, women secrete high levels of the hormone estrogen. The main reason behind the difficulty that women face while loosing weight is that oestrogen is a hormone that stores fat. Focusing on building lean muscle mass will actually help women with this problem.

We’ve already gone over why women should not be afraid of lifting weights. You won’t build the big, buff bodies of men just be a few sessions of weight training. When you build even 1-2 lbs of muscle, it will have a dramatic, and different look on you then it would a men. Women who lift weights tend to have long, lean sculpted muscles the help them improve their body composition.  This is because increasing lean muscle mass this will help women increase their metabolic rate.
The rate at which your body burns calories is called the metabolic rate of your body. Therefore, the greater your metabolic rate, the more calories you burn at rest. It is good to maintain some muscle rather than fat as muscles are more metabolically active than fat. This means that muscle needs more calories than fat to maintain or sustain them. So concentrate on building lean muscles in order to burn fat.

Weight training helps you more to shape your physique. This is done by body builders all the time. As mentioned earlier, women can learn something from the body builders and it is needless for them to have worries about building huge muscle.

It is quite easy to develop a basic dumbbell workout. All that you have to do is choose three to ten exercises that train your body and organise them into a routine. This simple and a straight method is enough for beginners.

Craig Ballantyne has but together a great, simple program called Turbulence Training. In this program, he shows you how to effectively burn fat using basic weight training and interval training methods. Click here for more information.

He also has a set of workouts specifically designed for women. Click here to learn more about these workouts.

Obese individuals can still follow typical Turbulence Training workouts. However, they just need to lower the intensity and change around some of the exercise selection.

The main Turbulence Training principles remain the same:

• Use Multi-Muscle Exercises
• Organize them into Supersets
• Use Interval Training for Cardio

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

According to Craig Ballantyne, as long as your doctor approves you for exercise, you’re ready to go. In fact, he’s trained men over 300lbs and women over 225lbs using Turbulence Training principles.

If you are obese, you want to start off with the Introductory and Beginner level workouts included in the original Turbulence Training Manual. In these workouts, 90% of the exercises have you lying down on the ground.

Hence, the workouts will be easier than other TT workouts for obese individuals. But, they’ll still be intense, and they’ll still provide results. If anything, they’ll build up your body so that you can perform tougher workouts.

Obese individuals need to get stronger, and learn how to use and move their bodies again. The best way to accomplish this is to use bodyweight-only movements.

However, many people can barely move. So performing pushups or squats is out of the question. A better alternative would be to use dumbbells to improve overall strength and mobility.

Most people work backwards. They do a lot of cardio to try an melt the fat off, and then try to build up their muscles with weight training. This will only lead to injury.

Craig Ballantyne warns of is steady state cardio. This is especially dangerous for obese individuals. Too much jogging, cycling, or aerobic exercise will lead to overuse injuries.

On top of that, assuming that the Cardio does help an individual lose weight. They’ll be much weaker after the cardio, then before doing the cardio. Instead, do your strength training first, then try and lose the fat with the cardio.

Most likely, if you stick to Turbulence Training guidelines, you won’t need to do too much cardio. Craig’s workouts help boost your metabolic rate. Your metabolic rate is a measure of how many calories your body burns through out the day.

Most obese individuals have very slow metabolic rates. And fat is not very metabolically active. In fact, it takes more calories to maintain a pound of muscle than it does to maintain a pound of fat.

So, putting on muscle will help you lose fat in the long term. There are three things that boost your metabolic rate with regards to exercise:

• The workout itself
• The post-training oxygen consumption following the workout
• The addition of lean muscle mass

I already mentioned how adding lean muscle mass helps you boost your metabolic rate. Now lets take a look at the other two methods:

When you train, your body needs energy. They also produce heat, which is a by product of muscular contraction. The more muscle tissue involved in the exercise that your performing, the more energy is needed and more heat is produced.

This is why Craig Ballantyne sticks to compound, multi-joint movements. After your training, your metabolism will be elevated to help your body recover from the intense workout.

Some studies state that your metabolism stays elevated for up to 48 hours after an intense workout. Regardless of the number, if you train with a Turbulence Training workouts 3 days a week, you’ll be leaner in no time.

Craig Ballantyne has developed hundreds of fitness programs that revolve around the basic concepts of Turbulence Training.

To get an overall introduction to Turbulence Training, you should grab the original Turbulence Training manual. The manual includes everything you need to get started on your fat loss journey. There are workouts for beginners, intermediate, and advanced trainees. If you go through each program separately, in a few months you’d have literally transformed your health and physique. Click here for more information.

For individuals who have had some experience with exercise or even Turbulence Training, then Craig has numerous other workouts specifically designed for women, muscle mass, bodyweight only, abs training, and more.

You need to make the decision today: Are you going to continue to follow pointless, boring workouts and never get any impressive results, or you going to take a chance and try some trully unique ideas using Craig Ballantyne’s workouts? Start today with either one of the Turbulence Training workouts:

• Click here for Turbulence Training Original workout Review
• Click here for Turbulence Training ab Workouts
• Click here for Turbulence Training for Muscle Mass
• Click here for Turbulence Training Bodyweight Only Workouts
• Click here for Turbulence Training for Women

You ever watch that show “Ninja Warrior?” Ninja Warrior is a tournament held in Japan that has individuals try to get through a nearly impossible obstacle course. These obstacle courses don’t require brute strength and incredible endurance.

What they require is the ability to move your own bodyweight effectively through space. The athletes who actually complete these courses are usually very lean and cut. The big guys usually fall off. The short guys usually slip.

And over confident guys fail the first.

Ninja Warrior is one of the best tests of effective body control and mental toughness. The reason I’m talking about this is because Ninja Warrior also effectively brings to mind the effectiveness of even basic bodyweight training.

Most people will never compete or even think about competing on Ninja Warrior. However, what the show reveals is a very simple lack of most training programs: the ability to move. Most people simply can’t move.

Powerlifters can move big weights, but most have difficult moving themselves up a flight of steps. Distance runners may be able to move forward, but they do so at aridiculously boring, slow pace. But a Ninja Warrior, on the other hand, needs to jump, crawl, duck, sprint, climb, and fall in order to survive the challenges that are faced before him.

What I’m talking about is the idea that you first need to develop a base level of health and fitness before you can pursue a narrower goal. Getting enormously big, or incredibly lean, or super fast, or super strong, or developing unbelievable endurance are useless if you can’t do other things well.

I believe that basic bodyweight movements such as pushups, pullups, squats, jump roping, jumping, sprinting – anything that involves improving the movement of your own bodyweight is very crucial to your overall well being.

Just by performing these basic movement, you’ll be leaner, stronger, and more agile. For example, when peforming a pullup or pushup, your body will perform better if it has less to push and pull. In other words you’ll lose weight.

And when you already carry a good amount of weight on your body, you’ll be training your joints to handle lifting that much weight. Why are you hitting the weights if you already weight 100, 150, or 200 lbs?

You already have enough weight to lift. Learn to lift your weight first before you decide to join a gym or start buying pieces of weight. Basic pushups and pullups actually work a greater amount of muscle tissue then popular gym movement such as the bench press and row.

Click here if you want to experience the true effectiveness of bodyweight training today and learn over a hundred simple bodyweight movements that will help you become healthier, stronger, and leaner.

This article links out to products. If you purchase these products, I get a percentage of the sales. Read my disclaimer.

Getting started with body weight resistance training is fairly easy: just pick a handful of exercises and do them. When people come up to me and ask me how to lose weight, gain muscle, or any other exercise – related question, the first thing I ask them is, “What are you doing RIGHT NOW to achieve your goal?”

If the answer is,”Nothing,” then I tell them to do SOMETHING. Start somewhere. Get things moving. It doesn’t even matter what you do. Just do something, then come back to me with specific questions. If the individual is doing SOMETHING, then I’ll listen to see if their training programs are aligned with their goals.

Unfortunately, most of the time, they are not. Nine out of ten times people need to strip down their program – they need to do less to achieve their goals. But, lets focus on the first group of people first: the people who need to START training.

There many excuses I’ve heard why people do not start a training program:

Excuse #1: “I have No Time to Workout”

Ever heard of Tabata? Tabata Intervals are where you perform an activity for 20 seconds, followed by 10 seconds of rest. Repeat these intervals for another 7 times, for a total workout time of 4 minutes. Now don’t tell me you can’t find 4 minutes to workout in your entire day.

Start off with just one exercise per day. Once you get into the exercise habit, you can do 2 exercises per day, or 8 minutes of total exercise. Before you know it, this form of high intensity exercise will come second nature to you and you’ll be leaner and stronger than ever!

Excuse #2: “I can’t Afford a Gym Membership”

Ever heard of bodyweight training? You can easily get a great workout in the comfort of your own home. In fact, this website is full of amazing bodyweight only workouts. If you need even more information on bodyweight training, just check out one of the products I endorse on the side bar to the right.

If you wish to lift weights, then simply purchase a set of adjustable dumbbells and start performing cleans, snatches, and swings in the comfort of your own home. Steadily build up your own home gym by purchasing one basic piece of equipment every few months.

Excuse #3: “I’ll Just Follow a Strict Dieting”

I agree that diet is extremely important to health and fitness. But dieting won’t help you gain lean muscle mass if you don’t give your body a reason to gain lean muscle mass. Most people that use only dieting to improve their health and fitness, usually lose weight in the form of both fat and muscle, giving you a “skinny fat” look.

Skinny fat means that you weigh less, but you’re still fat. The only way to solve this is by exercising. Break down lean muscle mass, so that you your muscles grow back bigger and stronger than before. More muscle and less fat is the only path to positive long term health and fitness.

Excuse #4: “I Travel all the Time.”

Guess what! Bodyweight training is one of the most portable forms of exercise. You can litterally perform pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats anywhere and at any time. If you don’t have a pullup bar to hang from, then just go to a local park, or hang from a tree branch.

You can also purchase a resistance band. Resistance bands are anywhere from $5 to $20. You can fit them in your briefcase or travel bag, and can perform hundreds of different exercises and variations. Use the Tabata technique you learned earlier in this article to create some short, high intensity resistance band workouts.

Excuse #5: “I’m too Fat to Workout.”

Being fat is the perfect reason you SHOULD workout. Look, you’re not going to a gym so you won’t be embarrassed trying to workout in the gym. Just train with your own bodyweight in the comfort of your own home, and you’ll lose all that fat in no time.

The key to fat loss for overweight or obese individuals is to start slow. Many advanced trainees forget that they were once beginners. They prescribe these workouts that are too tough for beginners and discourage them. My advice is to start with basic chair squats and wall pushups to develop a base level of strength.

So, here’s what I want to you to do today: Start Something. Get down and do pushups. Then do it again tomorrow. Go read a blog and learn some more. Purchase an ebook and learn some more. You’ll never ever know everything there is to now about exercise, but if you start today, you’ll be better off tomorrow.

The reason you’re not ripped is because you don’t control your diet. Even I don’t really pay attention to my diet, I get compliments all the time about my physique. This is considering the fact that my goal is not fat loss or mass gain.

I workout for athletic and health purposes. The reason I’m able to control my weight is that I still eat rather healthy. My binging days are over, as are my trips to fast food restaurants. I rarely ever have soda and I stay away from sugary Starbucks drinks. Continue reading

For some reason, our society accepts the gradual regression of the health of our body. In fact, in some parts of this country you’re SUPPOSED to have a pot belly after a certain age.

Even in some cultures, being fat is a good thing. In the last Biggest Loser, Tongan’s Filipe and Sione stated that food and being overweight were a part of Tongan culture. Even where my family is from India, after a certain age you are expect to be out of shape.

We are where we are because of our society: the majority of our time is spent in front of the television, in front of a computer screen, eating, or sleeping. Most people that claim they do not have time to workout, actually Continue reading

We all know how much I love bodyweight training. When I first began this blog, I was going to focus my training specifically on portable equipment such as dumbbell, kettlebells, and resistance bands. My bodyweight training consisted only of push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and sit-ups.

My bodyweight workouts began to change when I started looking into bodyweight solutions for beginners. Questions such as, “What kind of workouts can I design for people who are unable to perform a single push up?” plagued my mind.

In my search for these answers, I stumbled up on an eBook titled “Workout Without Weights.” After purchasing the eBook, I was impressed by the variety of exercises for both beginners and advanced trainees. And unlike most eBooks, Author Coach Eddie Lomax actually teaches you how to design your own training programs and Continue reading

I know I’ve been talking a lot about program design lately. This is because learning how to create your own intense workouts is important. At least to me. You can search the net as much as you want. You can even buy tons of products out there.

But…well maybe this is just me…at the end of the day, creating your own unique philosophy is important. I design my own workouts. And my workouts change up by themselves every few weeks. When one things stops working, its time to move onto something else. Continue reading

For years, we’ve been bombarded by sleazy infomercial marketers about how we need to purchase their products if we want to lose weight and put on muscle in the comfort of our own homes.

I say, forget the infomercial products. I’ve come up with 8 things you absolutely need in order to design the perfect home fitness program:

#1: Minimal Equipment Necessary – This flies in the face of all those infomercial marketers. The idea Continue reading