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Need Inspiration? Get Outdoors by @relaxedmale

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Need Inspiration? Get Outdoors

by Bryan Goodwin | Featured Contributor 

Well look at that, midweek and your get up and go and has gotten up and left. You are not feeling the drive. That blank Word Document hasn’t sparked any joy and you are ready to scream. You are needing some serious help. How do I know? Well, you are reading this post right now.

We all drift into the inspirational doldrums from time to time. It happens. How you get out of the dry spell is dependant on you. Some people free write while others bounce a racket ball against a wall for hours.

What if you could kill two birds with one stone? What if you could find inspiration and destress your life a little bit and all at the same time? It is possible. Now unless you cheated and looked at the title of this post, this solution will come as a surprise. The solution is to get outdoors. Yeah, that bright space between your front door and your mailbox. You know the one. It has that cacophony of birds chirping and dogs barking.

What? You can’t do that! It because of those deadlines that are approaching? The deadline for the project that you are stuck on? The one you aren’t working on because you don’t have any inspiration on what to do?

You have time. The benefits that will be poured upon your head by getting outside, will surprise you. So let us look at some of these glorious benefits I’m talking about.

Fresh Air

Nothing better than fresh air in your lungs to help clear out the cobwebs. Your brain needs the oxygen, nitrogen and other elements floating around in the air to function properly. Combine that with a well-balanced meal. Especially when you have all the proper animal-based fats and proteins. Alongside eating those needed plant-based nutrients. You have a high octane mix that is perfect for rattling loose brilliant ideas and opportunities.

What you live in the city? There’s pollution in the air? There is more pollution indoors than there is outdoors. Everything is hermetically sealed these days. With no air flow, you have more chemical elements and other nasties indoors than outside. That air is dirtier than the outdoors. That is unless you are living in Zabol, Iran which has the air quality of Boise City, OK during the dust bowl.

Also, the quality of our air has been improving generation by generation. The difference between 1970 and today is astronomical. You are breathing cleaner air than most people like to believe so don’t fear the outdoors. The air is clean. The air is fresh from the trees and other plants.

So step outdoors and take a deep breath. If you cough, don’t worry, you are forcing that bad indoor air from your lungs. So breathe deep and get to thinking.

Exercise

While you are outdoors taking deep healthy breaths. You have a choice. You can stand in the front door and inhale deeply enjoying the light headed feeling you get. Yet you can also add two benefits together and get to walking. Walking isn’t only good for your body but it also has other mental benefits. Specifically when you are needing some inspiration.

Remember when I said fresh air has oxygen for your brain. Well, there is a way to get that oxygen to your brain faster. That is by getting your heart rate up. Which causes your blood to flow faster. This, in turn, delivers more oxygen to your brain. More oxygen your brain gets the more efficient it can think.

So get out breath deep and start hoofing it around. A small tip for you as you go walking. You may try going without your phone or other electronic devices. Walk without music or podcasts. Let your brain just chew on the dead air. I call this free thinking. Much like free writing you just let your brain work on the task at hand. Your brain will piece weird ends together. This will jumpstart a wacky idea. Which may lead to a good idea that then morphs into an incredible idea. Let your thoughts work themselves out.

Change of Scenery

Another benefit to getting outdoors is that you change your scenery. Your mind can and often gets bored when it is faced with the same thing day in and day out. Even though we are creatures of habit. We get up and commute to our desk in the living room and proceed to most of the time wow people with our inspiring prose. There are times that your brain says I got nothing and will keep that up till it gets new stimuli. Best way to do that is go walking. Walk around the block you may get an idea as you see a random squirrel play hide and seek from a dog.

You may see an example of a point you are trying to make play itself out at an intersection. As you walk don’t keep your head down. Bring it up. Look around take in the city or the countryside as you are plodding down the road, breathing deep.

You get some sunshine

Whether it is cloudy or a bright sunny day. The last benefit I would like to point out is that you get some sunshine. The sun though it received some bad rap recently. People are starting to come around and realized that you as a person need to have the sun shine on you. Your body needs to have sun rays strike your skin and actually have a slight tan.

Getting outdoors can help you find the missing creative spark

Photo by Havilah Galaxy on Unsplash

The largest amount of Vitamin D is produced by your body. Your body produces vitamin D by absorbing ultraviolet light. Vitamin D complex does a multitude of good for your body and is an essential vitamin. That is why they put it in Milk. Vitamin D help your bone stay strong and healthy. Vitamin D is also needed for mental health. Your brain needs that vitamin. The key is moderation. Don’t spend 12 continuous hours in the sun, but several hours a week can make a huge change in your mental health.

The bright healthy sun also improves your attitude. You don’t need to look any further than in the winter time. When people get the winter blues or Seasonal Affected Disorder. Many believe this happens because you are not getting enough of a specific spectrum of light. This light is found in sunshine. Either way, way you work better when you are in a good and positive mood. The best way to get that happy mood is to get out in the sun see the scenery and breathe deep as you walk.

There you go slap your tennis shoes on. Get up and take a brisk walk around the block a few times. Set aside an hour to just stroll around. Look at what is around you. You can and will find surprise inspirations all over the place. Also as Mr. Miagi said Breath deep, Breathing very important.

Three Secrets to Knowing Whether Your Exercise Time Will Pay Off by @lgfit

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by Luci Gabel | Featured Contributor

You don’t have much time to exercise.

So when you do, you want to get the most out of the time you spend.

We don’t see the results of exercise immediately, so it’s important to know if the time and energy you’re investing in your workout is going to pay off in the way you expect.

There are three secrets to knowing whether you’re going to get the results you’re looking for.

When used together, they always get results:

1. Burn the most calories possible.

If you want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight as you go through life, you need to be burning as many calories as possible during each workout.

Bigger muscles and larger, harder movements burn more calories. 

Your glutes, hamstrings and quads (butt, front and back thigh) are your biggest muscle groups. They are followed in general order by your back, then abs, chest, shoulders, and finally arms. Inner and outer thighs are somewhere in the middle of the list.

To put this in context, if you want your legs to look great, you’ll get more return your time if you do a squat or a lunge which involves large movements of your glutes and entire leg. You’ll also get all these muscles and more (legs, glutes, abs, back and sometimes arms) working when you walk, run, use the elliptical or stairs. These exercises will burn more calories and bring more results in 30 minutes than standing at a ballet bar and squeezing your glutes and inner thighs for that amount of time.

It’s not that smaller exercises and smaller muscle groups don’t count, because they’re very important for muscle balance and joint alignment. But, to burn the most calories and see the most improvements from an hour-long workout (or even a half hour), make bigger muscle groups and bigger movements dominate your workout.

In addition, if your heart gets to pumping harder while you’re exercising, that’s a sure sign you’re getting both cardiovascular and calorie burning benefits. On that note—

2. Exercise for specific results.

Your body responds specifically to the work you give it.

  •   If you want to be stronger and have muscle tone, you need to do resistance exercise (weights or bands) to create muscle. You’ll be stronger, and you’ll see the definition in your body that the muscle brings.
  •   If you want a healthier heart, lungs, and blood vessels, you need to do cardiovascular exercise. This means movement that causes your heart to beat higher and for longer than the 90 seconds of time it increases when doing a strength exercise.
  •   If you want more flexibility and not tighten up and feel stiff after sitting for long hours at the desk, flexibility needs to be part of your exercise equation. Yoga is a good exercise for flexibility.

Want a powerful body that matches your powerful life? Do all three of these types of exercises regularly.

You can’t get all of these benefits from one movement or one type of exercise. In fact, if one exercise attacks more than one of these aspects at a time, you’ll get less benefit from each. If you want to look great, and/or keep your body in the best shape possible for as long as possible, you’ll want to alternate all three of these workouts throughout the week.

3. Be challenged.

No challenge—no change. You don’t need to do high-intensity interval training (HIIT) every time you exercise. In fact, it’s not recommended that you do. But, you do need to have some workouts during the week be challenging enough that you honestly felt you could not do any more when it was time to stop. Then your body will adapt to the challenge, and you’ll see physical results.

Some days, it’ll be challenging enough just to get to the gym and finish your workout plan. Other days, you’ll feel you can push yourself harder and that’s when you should!

In short:

To see real results from your workouts, burn the most calories possible with exercises that emphasize large muscle groups and large movements; rotate through cardio, strength, and flexibility-focused workouts throughout the week; and challenge yourself in some way each week.

I often get questions like:

  • Can I tone my thighs by doing squats while putting laundry in the dryer?
  • How much weight can I lose by doing leg lifts at the bar?
  • Do I get all the exercise I need from yoga?

What do you think my answers are?

Does your workout have the elements above? Let me know in the comments.

And share this post if it helped you or if you think it might help your friends!

Maximizing Your Exercise ROI by @lgfit

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by Luci Gabel | Featured Contributor

Maximizing Your Exercise ROI

You’re a businesswoman and you don’t have time

to waste. If you’re making time to exercise, kudos to you. You need to get the most out of each minute you spend working out.

I’ve spent much time helping clients increase their exercise return on investment (ROI).  The first and foremost rule: If you want your body to change, your exercise needs to be challenging. But—

challenge and comfort don’t necessarily sit at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to exercise.

Of course, we’ve all heard about high intensity exercise training (or HIIT). It’s the rage—but it’s not for everyone. It’s not the only way to get results, and not the only way to challenge yourself.

When coaching clients, I ask them to get to a place where they feel comfortably challenged.  It’s a good place to be, because you can keep up a comfortably challenged pace for longer periods of time, thus burning more calories overall. And, it’s important to have a certain level of comfort if you’re going to keep coming back for more.

Yes, you heard me. It’s ok to feel comfortable in your workout and not always feel like you’re killing yourself. In fact it’s well known by those of us in the industry, that regularly cycling through harder and easier workouts is the only way to long-term success.

Quality movement is most important for achieving results and maintaining a certain level of comfort.

It involves learning the right movement technique* as well as being connected to your body during a workout. (Exercise *technique is also known as form.)

Like playing a musical instrument or dancing, having good form is critical for optimizing any physical movement. It maximizes your opportunity for results and minimizes your exposure to injury. With correct form you’ll use the right muscles in the right way, feel less “bad” pain (joint pain, and general uncomfortability), and more “good pain” (muscle work and sweat).

If you aren’t sure if your movements are quality movements, take a little time to investigate. Having an expert watch you is an excellent way to begin. You can also learn plenty about form and technique from trustworthy professional sites on the web. Some of the sites I recommend are: ACE Fitness Exercise Library, Yoga Journal Pose Library, and my own.

Stay tuned for 3 more ways to maximize your exercise ROI, and most importantly see the results you’re looking for without wasting time.