— Leave a Comment

3 Benefits of Glute dominant exercisee

This brief article is about reasons to drive your hips

Hip drive. Hip extension. Glute work. Here are the benefits:

1. Mind the muscle

You can promote neural connections between the brain and the important postural glute muscles. Prevent and manage neural disease or degeneration. Properly move the spine through the hip range of motion.

2. Helps against knee pain

A lot of people have had incidence of pain in the knees at some point in their lives and that doesn’t feel good. So we train the hips through a pain-free range of motion and the knees benefit from the stabilization and strengthening of the surrounding muscles of the legs.

TRX hip raise w/ squeeze at top

TRX hip raise w/ squeeze at top (TRX on Amazon)

3. Feels good, body image 

If a person thinks they have a nice backside, they might feel really good about themselves.  I would exercise it and train it and then recover it. Make it perform better in the fitness workout so that you can recover it and do something more.

Exercise selections for group workout options: GLUTE training emphasis

This is a list of exercise ideas:

  • Some squat variations
  • Lying on your back 
    • Feet Suspended hip hinging (TRX / STRAPS) 3×8
    • AB dolly glute bridge / bosu glute bridge / feet on ground hip thrust 3×12 (if not 7/10 intensity or higher, then add more weight)
  • Hip hinge, deadlift patterns:
  • More lunges 
  • On hand, bodyweight
    • Donkey kick, leg raises, glute raises (bench/bosu)

Choose some specific exercise or exercises to focus on getting better in 30 days and you will also get a good glute workout

Making progression the resistance is important. First, select then exercise you want to focus on, then practice it at least twice a week and at most four times per week.

MODNAYMOTIVATION

EXAMPLE MODIFICATIONS

1. The Lunge Day

Start with your favorite lunge and go heavy/hard for no more than eight reps. Then move on to  a slightly less challenging weight and add 2-4 reps higher.Select different lunge variations and train various directions of motion whether onto a bench or not.

The most important thing is that you do something heavier or more challenging on the first round when you are the most fresh.

2. Squat and hip bridge combo

Start heavy/hard and then progress to higher rep schemes as you move on to different squat variations.

Start with heavy power bench squat with hips sitting as far back into it as possible while controlling the tempo. Add some weighted jump squats and then iso squat holds in several different lowered positions.

After the squats, perform exercises lying on your back to give your spine muscles some time to rest while you continue the focus of your glutes. Bridges, single leg raises could be feet onto a bench, trx, or any apparatus.

3. Deadlifts and core training combination

Any deadlift variation will strengthen the core and glutes. Then add some ab dolly pikes, TRX knee tucks, mountain climbers w/ leg raise combo etc. Also you can continue training your hip/glute bridging as it works the glutes without stressing the spine. Glute bridging/hip thrusts/hip raises definitely helps the cause.

Rest and recover after the workouts

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Fat Loss Fitness Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle
— Leave a Comment

How to Modify the Orangetheory workout for Gains in Fitness and Fat Loss

The instructor should be curious about your physical condition

I learn about a person’s fitness history by asking open ended questions. We can figure out the program together.

Before I get to the tips, I wanted to mention types of people who may be interested in modifying their workouts.

People who may be interested:

a. person wanting to burn fat

b. person wanting to improve lean muscle tone 

c. Trainees who seek balanced workout programs (aka promoting joint health and longevity with fitness)

Tip #1 Focus on the postural muscles (also do one side at a time for added benefit when possible)

The first tip is to improve your strength/skill in movements that most powerfully engage the leg, glute, and back muscles. These moves may reduce the loss of function could reverse problems associated with sitting too much.

  • Core and back 
    • TRX/STRAPS Inverted Row
    • Single arm bent over row
    • Single arm TRX/STRAPS Row
    • TRX/STRAPS Rollouts
    • Ab Dolly Rollouts
  • Upper body power
    • Med ball tricep push up (progress by elevating the feet, or performing alternating leg lifts during reps)
    • Single-arm DB bench press
    • Kneeling clap push ups, power push ups
    • Single-arm DB standing overhead press
    • Single-arm clean and press
  • Legs with Glute emphasis
    • Bench step ups, step downs (where front foot stays on the bench), and single leg squats on a bench
    • Reverse lunge especially practicing the hinging at the hips
    • Single leg glute bridges, hip bridge, hip thrusts, weighted swings
    • Single leg deadlift with emphasis on hinging at the hips and driving the glute in order to propel the core
    • When glutes are activated properly, SQUATS, squats, squats and all of its variations 

You can perform these movements if other exercises make you feel pain OR if you really want to focus on that area of your body (totally okay in many cases). You may just need to strengthen the core and tone the back muscles until you start feeling really vital again.

Or go for the glutes and revitalize the foundation of your spine.

Tip #2 Burn Fat with Power-Walking and HIIT: 2-4xHIIT and up to 7/days week of low-moderate intensity such as making walking more part of your lifestyle and Power-Walking for fat loss

While there are people who recover well from workouts naturally, most of us need to get some decent rest and a fair amount of calories. It’s true that most fat burn comes from after the workout.

itshiit

High Intensity Interval Training is the great torch of fat loss. On the other hand, you can’t do it all the time due to the very nature of the intensity (or intended intensity).HIIT is not good for the body when it is over-done.

Walking is like boiling for fat loss as opposed to torching, still effective for steaming the fat away. Power walkers practice a relatively challenging yet sometimes uncomfortable stride which can glide to fat loss accomplishments.

So go walking more and more. Walk. Eat and then go for a walk. Walk the extra mile.

If you are working out more than four days a week, you will probably feel better by making some days exclusively for walking especially at inclines.

Tip #3 Do the most challenging variation that you are capable of

Almost every exercise can be regressed into the most basic form or progressed into advanced skill challenges.

The more you progress, the better the fat loss. Gaining strength is more about the physical adaptations of the central nervous system and less about the true size of the musculature. Considering how much energy and metabolism the brain is responsible for, it should help you understand that the recovery from progressive training techniques is where the real fat burn lives strongly.

Strength is a skill. 

To gain strength, you must become more skillful about the movements which allows you to continue moving heavier weights. These physical skills promote healthy neural adaptations throughout the entire body so that a long, active, and mobile lifestyle is achievable for years to come.

In other words, when you do it harder, the brain tells the fat to burn.

Intense Workouts + Recovery are the catalysts and synergy for fat loss

Do hard workouts, consume high antioxidant and plant strong diets and get the rest you deserve. Then the fat has no options, it is taking a trip goodbye and the energy no longer acts as a redundant reservoir of excess energy on your body.

Let the fat boil, burn, or torch itself away!

Good luck stay tuned thank you for reading…

 

Fitness Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle
— Leave a Comment

Food is healthful, healing, and promotes Fat LOSS for Lean muscle tone

We have come a long way in the types and varieties of foods we consume.

You could go find quite a pleasure of food on busy commercial streets like Broadway and Pike/Pine in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Appealing places to go in Seattle

Appealing places to go in Seattle

 

At the same time, visit the block convenience store and there’s nothing but bagged chips and greasy or sugary foods. Is that even food?

How do some people seem to have a healthy relationship with food?

Many of the people who become conscious of their eating habits are the ones who have experienced some sort of low in their life. Or maybe they just want to be better. To feel better. Enjoy a sense of vitality. Freedom of moment. Unrestricted access to confidence in your step. Fitness.

lilbit

Food is life

There is much which cannot be explained inside the human body, more specifically in your human body. We are all some sort of ecosystem, with many trillions of bacteria that give us benefit for providing a safe home.

Focus on being healthy from the inside out

Focus on being healthy from the inside out

Sometimes the system goes out of balance and then you can experience a loss of equilibrium. You feel out of whack. It could have to do with the (im)balance of bacteria in your gut causing negative systemic reactions. This is just one very important part of the fat-loss process, to heal the gut will almost always promote a leaner you.

It’s about the gut to become lean with fat loss and to stay lean thereafter

You can do something good about it today

  • Consume fresh vegetables
  • Enjoy unsweetened probiotic beverage or healthy fermented foods
  • Living foods promote living well

It’s about healing first. Then it’s about longevity and anti-aging.

That’s big for fat loss too

Being lean means so much more than having visible muscle tone

Being lean means so much more than having visible muscle tone

Stay tuned for more my readers…

 

Nutrition, Immunity, and Digestion Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle
— Leave a Comment

Have a goal for every workout: Fat Cells respond to progressive resistance by getting smaller!

What is the goal of this workout today?

We all come into the workout room with different needs, strengths, and expectations. To some, not having a specific goal for every workout is actually unfathomable.

My goal for this workout

Keep track of specific exercises that have been done in the past and perform in more progressively challenging ways. These techniques help you to burn more fat:

  • Perform the exercise faster on the concentric, and slower on the eccentric
  • Use more resistance than before
  • Greater amount of reps using the same weight
  • Decrease rest intervals without sacrificing heavy weight
  • Using heavy weights in a larger range of motion
  • Improving your form and technique with weights that you struggled with before
  • Combination of the above
Time constraints can be motivating, as is some healthy Orangetheory Fitness competition

Time constraints can be motivating, as is some healthy Orangetheory Fitness competition

I don’t often speak to these accomplishments even if it is noticeable it helps me stay motivated in fitness.

Examples of a good goal to have

Let’s talk about a treadmill goal to begin with. Of course we’re following a HIIT program and the ideal length for a treadmill workout is between 20-30 minutes.

You can try to improve your times in the following ways:

  1. Your one-mile time
  2. Your half-mile time
  3. Your quarter mile time
  4. Your tenth of a mile time
Kyle Anderson from Seattle on the right running hard

Kyle Anderson from Seattle on the right running hard

You can further improve fat loss by:

  1. Your .25 mile run at 3% incline
  2. Your .25 mile run at 5% incline
  3. Your .25 mile run at 7% incline

Then on a later workout once you have recovered, do your .25 mile run at 1% incline and you will likely be able to run faster than you did before at that particular incline!

Thus progress! Fat cells should get smaller due to this physical and neural progression in muscular contraction.

Once you have accomplished it, nobody can take that away from you!

It’s yours.

Now believe in it and go with it

Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Physical Fitness by Dre Weightloss Now
— 1 Comment

Maximizing your Treadmill Intervals for Fat Loss, Performance and Unlimited Benefit

Will this blog help you get unlimited benefits? Maybe that’s a big statement

I’ve spent years now testing various treadmill interval blocks. Being native to the Pacific Northwest, I can run outdoors whenever I want but there are many times when I prefer to run indoors on a treadmill.

Treadmill intervals, if you go to OTFSeattle you'll recognize a face or two from this special Ft. Lauderdale workout

Treadmill intervals, if you go to OTFSeattle you’ll recognize a face or two from this special Ft. Lauderdale workout

The benefit of running on a treadmill:

  • Since it is a machine, you can find it easier to quantitatively track, record and achieve parameters of progression.
  • Increase resistance by simply increasing the incline
  • There is never a need to go downhill, so there may be less stress on the knees and the quads will be subjected to less stress and therefore less soreness.
  • Typically, less soreness means you can up your training frequency, thus getting faster results (so long as you stay healthy).

Designing effective treadmill interval blocks

Treadmill intervals are more a mental game than anything else. Almost every healthy person who uses a treadmill regularly can run faster than the maximum speed they’ve ever used on a treadmill. People just need a little encouragement! That’s why HIIT classes like Orangetheory Fitness in Seattle (my home studio Capitol Hill!!) are so popular and effective.

Example of a progressive HIIT block on the treadmill

Since teaching exercise classes to over a thousand people in Seattle, I’ve started focusing on how to coach these treadmill blocks even more effectively than before. Example of a recent All-Out block I coached my classes on.

  • 30 second all out at 1% (exerciser chooses their most intense speed possible for 30 sceonds)
  • 45 second walking recovery
  • 30 second all out using the same speed as last time, but at 3% incline
  • 45 second walking recovery
  • 30 second all out at 1% incline, starts off as an aggressive push, and halfway through exercisers are coached to peak at their maximum speed (even if only for seconds at a time)

After the block was over and people were walking for recovery on the treadmills, I asked people to raise their hand if that was the fastest they have ever gone on the treadmill. More than a quarter of people raised their hands, knowing they have achieved something they never achieved before and thus breaking another mental barrier which could have held them back from their fitness goals.

Kyle Anderson in the teal from Seattle, Washington. He's our fitness and business inspiration

Kyle Anderson in the teal from Seattle, Washington. He is one our fitness and business inspirations and a leader for the local team here

HIIT is here to stay

Exercise science tells us this. Workouts only need to be between 20-60 minutes long and the intensity can vary from minute to minute throughout the training. There is no better way to release that cocktail of beneficial fat-burning hormones in the hours after your workout. Good recovery from high intensity training guarantees the accelerated decrease in fat-cell size.

Stay tuned my people

Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Physical Fitness by Dre Weightloss Now