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Three Words to Improve Your Posture

October 15, 2010 admin 4 comments

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Hi,

Do you know what the three words to improve your posture are?

Judging by the way that most people walk and sit, I would guess that you might not know them.

They are “stick em up”.

Now what comes to mind when you hear those words. Some gangster type trying to rob someone.

So if a gangster says this to you what do you do? You immediately stick your hands up in the air straight over your head.

Doing this simple exercise a few times a day will help improve your posture greatly.

Most of us sit all day at a desk doing paperwork or typing on the computer.

We drive in our cars with our shoulders hunched forward.

We eat our meals with a relaxed and rounded back.

Over a lifetime of doing this you can see the results. Rounded backs. Forward slumping shoulders. Neck tilted forward which causes the head to lean down. Then we have to compensate so we can see where we are going, so we tilt the head back.

This helps keep tension on your neck and shoulders all day long.

So how can stick em up work?

Try this exercise. Stand up against a wall, with your butt, upper back and head touching the wall.

Your heels should be just a few inches away from the wall.

Now raise your hands over your head and touch your wrists, elbows and shoulders to the wall.

Slide your arms down the wall keeping everything in contact with the wall. Slide them back up again like when the gangster tells you to stick em up.

If you are like most, you will find it hard to keep everything in contact with the wall.

As you keep doing this, you will find your posture improving. Your back will be straighter, your shoulders pulled back and your neck will realign itself.

If you are having a lot of trouble doing this, then you can do this lying down on the floor.

Just pretend the floor is the wall and do the same thing. Your heels will be touching the floor also.

As you do this, you will find that your elbows or wrists might come off of the floor. When you feel this happening, just stop there and relax for 30 seconds. Let gravity help you stretch out.

Whenever you start feeling tension in your neck and shoulders, just remember those three words to improve your posture and help relax your upper body muscles.

Thanks,

Mike Val

PS. Some of you may have noticed I am not posting 5 days a week. I am cutting down to 3 times a week for now and possibly less in the future.

I am working on a lifestyle program that is designed to easily help you acquire the body you want.

The problem is that I don’t have time to post every day and work on this program also. So the posting has to give for now. Hope you understand.

Calories and Weight Gain

October 13, 2010 admin 8 comments

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Hi,

There is a silly debate going on in the diet guru world right now. It has to do with calories and weight gain.

Some say that it doesn’t matter what you eat. It only matters how much.

So if you eat more calories than you expend or burn then you will gain weight. If you eat less calories than you burn then you will lose weight.

This is pretty straight forward and easy to understand.

But, there is another group that says it is more important what you eat then how much you eat.

Now the smarter ones in this group do add the caveat that there are limits to how much you can eat. In other words, overall calories are important.

This group believes that if you eat more carbs, then you will gain weight. If you eat more protein then you will lose weight or not gain.

So what is the truth?

They are both right to a degree.

This has to do with how your body uses the food or energy it takes in.

Some people will eat and eat and eat and still not gain weight. For some of them it doesn’t matter if they eat fat, carbs or protein. They have a higher metabolism and can process more food without gaining weight.

Wouldn’t you like that problem?

Well you can have it. Just not to the same degree.

Yes, overall calories do matter. However, your body will adjust to the overall calories. Most people notice this when they go on a diet.

As less food comes in, the metabolism slows.

However, when you eat more, the metabolism speeds up. To a degree. You can’t just eat more and more food and expect your metabolism to keep pace.

Your body has a system of checks and balances and if this gets to far out of whack, then – in this case – weight gain is a consequence.

But, what about the high protein diets that are the rage.

Here, is the thing. You can eat more protein than you can carbs (especially processed carbs) and not gain body weight.

That is because your body takes a certain amount of energy to process foods. It takes more to process protein than it does carbs.

And your body needs protein more than it needs processed carbs.

Too many processed carbs plays havoc with your whole hormone system which can more easily lead to weight gain.

But eating too much protein can lead to weight gain also.

So the bottom line is, you can not get away from the formula that more calories in than burned leads to weight gain.

However, what you eat also affects the amount of weight gain or loss you have.

So to lose weight start by eating less processed carbs and upping your protein intake. Even if your calorie level doesn’t change, you should see a drop in weight.

Calories and weight gain can be tricky and we’ll talk more about this in future issues.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Growth Hormone and Fat Loss

October 11, 2010 admin 17 comments

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Hi,

Can growth hormone (GH) help with fat loss?

The short answer is yes.

A study done back in 2008 showed that growth hormone helps build muscle and helps raise the body’s metabolism.

In this study the metabolism of a group of middle aged men was raised by an average of 172 calories per day.

Now that might not seem like much, but think about it over a years period of time. That 172 calories per day becomes 62780 calories in 1 year.

Divide that by 3500 calories in a pound and you would lose almost 18 pounds in a year.

Yes, I know that doesn’t really compare to the marketing hype surrounding diet pills, exercise programs, diet programs and all the other scams out there.

But, 18 pounds in a year is a good goal to shoot for. And you get this just by taking some GH.

These figures are pretty close to what actually happened. The men were given GH (by injection) for 6 months and gained 5.5 pounds of muscle and lost 8.8% of body fat.

Now, here is the problem. The injections.

The injections work. The problem is, other methods of administering GH have not shown the same results.

Fortunately, there are ways to raise your GH levels without injections or taking it orally.

This is through good old exercise.

Now regular exercise will raise it a bit, but by doing specific exercises and with specific intensities, you can amplify the results.

A typical GH enhancing exercise would be the squat. The squat has always been a great exercise for building overall strength and muscle and one of the reasons is because of its GH boosting properties.

I loved doing the squat. But, after back surgery it is no longer an option. So lunges and leg presses are what works for me.

Any exercise where you are using as many muscles in the body as possible at the same time are GH boosting exercises.

To get the most you have to use weights. So just a body weight squat will not give you the same GH boost that squating with 315 pounds across your back will.

To use lots of weight most people will have to go to a gym. But, there is another way.

That is to do pretty much non-stop exercises. This is a type of high intensity exercise that can also work and you only need your body.

Let’s use leg exercises as an example.

Start out with doing squats for 36 seconds non – stop. Rest for 10 seconds. Do another set and rest for 10 seconds.

Then do side to side squats. (I will put a video of these up soon). Start in your normal squat position and do a full squat. While in the down position, step out to the right side with your right foot. Bring your left foot to the right as you stand up.

Reverse this by going to the left. Do this exercise for 36 seconds. Rest 10 seconds and repeat 1 more time.

On to lunges. Do around the world lunges. This is done like so:

Do a forward lunge and step back. With the same leg, step to a side lunge and step back. Follow up with a rear lunge and step back. Now do the same thing with the other leg.

Do this for as many reps as you can. Make sure you do proper lunges. Form is more important than speed.

When you can’t do any more, rest 10 seconds. The finish with stationary forward lunges. Just step forward into a lunge position with one leg. Stay there and do as many lunges as possible or 36 seconds, whichever comes first.

Rest 10 seconds and repeat with the other leg.

Then collapse.

This group of exercises uses almost every muscle in the body. And the intensity factor will make your GH skyrocket.

Not only that, but this exercise session will ignite your EPOC to accelerate your fat burning from another angle.

Try this and your growth hormone will surge and your fat loss accelerate.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Soda and Weight Loss

September 29, 2010 admin 1 comment

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Hi,

Just read an interesting statistic in Health News Weekly today. If you stopped drinking soda what would your weight loss be?

It is estimated that the average person in the US drinks 600 twelve ounce sodas a year. At an average of 40 grams of sugar per drink that is a lot of extra sugar per year.

Each gram of sugar has 4 calories. So you – as an average American – are drinking 96000 calories from soda a year.

Since 3500 calories = 1 pound that is 27 pounds of extra weight you are gaining every year from sugar. And that is just from soda.

You can easily double or triple that amount when you count all the rest of the sugar you eat.

Is it any wonder that it is so easy to gain weight.

And so hard to take it off.

So does that mean if you stop drinking soda you could lose 27 pounds of weight in a year?

No.

Losing weight doesn’t work that easily.

While you can lose 27 pounds in a year, you have to do more than just stop drinking soda.

Whenever you reduce your calories, your metabolism also slows down. This is just a natural survival response.

Fortunately, there are ways around this. The easiest way is to increase your movement.

Whether you start walking, riding a bike, doing calesthenics, or weight lifting – everything helps.

Maybe you won’t lose 27 pounds, but you just might lose more!

So that is it in a nutshell.

Increase your movement, cut out your soda and the weight loss will come.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Want Great Arms and Burn Body Fat?

September 28, 2010 admin 3 comments

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Hi,

Do you want great arms and burn body fat at the same time?

If so then you need to be negative.

That means you have to increase the amount of time you spend returning the weight to the starting position.

So for biceps curls, you lift the weight upwards.

When you have the weight up, tighten the muscle as hard as you can for a split second.

Then, and this is the important part, lower the weight back to the starting position very slowly. Take 4 to 6 seconds to do this.

The upward lifting is called the positive part of the rep and the lowering is called the negative. The more scientific terms are concentric and eccentric.

The slow lowering is much more damaging to the muscle tissue.

All exercise damages your muscles somewhat, but lowering the weight slowly damages it the most.

And this is what you want if you want to burn body fat.

After you do any weight training, your body has to recover. The recovery does two things.

It takes more energy to repair your muscle tissue. You will have many tiny tears in the muscle and this is what needs to be repaired. This takes energy and your body gets it from raising your metabolism and burning body fat.

The other thing your body does is to realize that it needs a bigger muscle to handle what you just did to it.

So it repairs the muscle and adds a little bit of size to it. Again, lowering the weight slowly causes this repair process and growth process to accelerate.

A word of caution. You can’t do this at every workout. Even if you are only 20 and full of energy.

Add your negatives about once a month for a particular body part. That will be plenty to get the growth and raised metabolism you desire.

Add these to your routine and watch your arms grow while you burn more fat in the process.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Want Great Arms Part 2

September 23, 2010 admin 1 comment

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Hi,

In our last post on want great arms, we talked about extended sets to shock your arms into new growth.

Today we will talk about extending the time of the reps and changing the weight to shock your arms.

Here is a routine for the biceps.

Let’s use biceps dumbbell curls. The assumption is that you are already warmed up and ready to go.

Pick a weight that is about 50% of what your maximum rep is.

Do curls for 36 seconds. Don’t try to go really fast or really slow. Keep the weight under control at all times.

If you can’t do full curls before the 36 seconds is up then do 1/2 or 1/4 curls.

When you are done, immediately do some tricep push downs with a light weight for 10 reps.

Immediately go back to the dumbbell curls. Add five pounds to the dumbbells. Again do 36 seconds.

Immediately back to the tricep push downs. (If you are not at a gym, then do 10 pushups).

Now go right to the dumbbell rack and pick up 5 pound heavier dumbbells. Do three reps. Put them down and go up another 5 pounds.

Continue doing this until you can’t even budge the weight. Immediately do the push downs or pushups.

Finish your curls with 50% of the heaviest weight you used. Do this for 36 seconds. Finish with your push downs or pushups.

This will absolutely fry your biceps. And your triceps will get a good workout also.

That is your workout. Leave your heavy tricep exercise for your next arm day and just reverse the process.

Try this and you will no longer want great arms because you will have them.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Want Great Arms?

September 22, 2010 admin 2 comments

Hi,

Would you like to have great arms?

One of the ways to increase the size and power of your arms is to increase the amount of weight you are lifting or to increase the amount of time you are spending on them.

There is a problem though. Just extending a set for more reps with the same exercise is not very effective.

A more effective way is to use different exercises one after another to extend the time you have your muscles under tension.

The reason you use different exercises is to bring into play different angles and different muscle fibers being activated.

To do this properly you do one set of exercises until failure and then you go right into another exercise for the same body part and do that exercise to failure. You can even add a third set if you are a gluten for punishment.

Another option is to add a 10-15 second rest period in between each different exercise.

In either case you will be going to failure and then going to failure again. If you tried to do this with the same exercise you normally will not be able to get as many reps as you do when you do two different exercises.

The more reps, the more overall work you are doing for that body part.

Here are a couple of examples for your arms.

Biceps: Barbell curls followed by barbell reverse curls. Barbell curls hit your biceps hard and reverse curls hit your brachialis muscle which is the main muscle underneath your biceps.

If you still have energy add alternate dumbbell curls at the end.

For triceps: It is best to use an ez-curl bar for these exercises if you have access to one. If not use dumbbells or a short barbell. Start with a lying triceps extension and move to a close grip bench press.

For more, add some close hands push ups (hands close together with elbows flared out).

You can take any combination of biceps and triceps exercises to make your own killer routine. Just remember to go to failure on each set.

Going to failure is important, because it is the last 1-2 reps that you can barely get that really crank up the growth mechanisms. By going to failure on 2 or 3 exercises you have doubled or tripled the growth reps.

If you find you are getting 20-40-60 reps before you get to failure, then you are using too light a weight.

But, don’t try to go too heavy. Try to get around 10-15 reps on your first exercise and go from there.

Bottom line is to experiment. That way those great arms will come your way before you know it.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Health Care vs. Medical Care

September 21, 2010 admin No comments

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Hi,

So which is better – health care or medical care?

Maybe we need to define these terms first.

Your health care is one person’s responsibility. And that is you. You are the only one that can control what you put in your mouth. You are the only one that can do whatever exercise you decide upon.

You are the only one that can control your personal hygiene.

Medical care on the other hand is pretty much out of your hands. This is what we consider the medical fields. The doctors, nurses, hospitals and the ability to “fix” you.

In the US the medical care is top notch. The health care is not so top notch.

A lot of international studies that talk about the US not having the best medical care get these terms mixed up.

Michael Moore’s latest “documentary on medical care is an example. He claims that the Cubans are healthier than Americans because they have better medical care.

Well, they don’t have better medical care. Their hospitals are about where ours were 60-70 years ago.

But, what they do have is a population that does not have access to thousands of pounds of junk food at the grocery stores.

They also have a population that walks a lot and rides bikes and stays active.

So maybe the average Cuban is healthier than the average American, but it has only to do with health care, not medical care.

And this is something that you have full control over. Yes, it is hard to bypass all that good tasting junk food.

But, one key is to never bring it into the home. That way you won’t have it around to snack on.

When it is in the home then it is very hard to resist temptation. Keep it out of the home.

If you want to have some with your cheat meal – for example some chips – buy the small individual bags, not the 27 pound bag at your local grocery warehouse.

That way your health care will be so good that you might never need medical care.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Walking and Your Brain

September 20, 2010 admin 20 comments

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Hi,

You have probably heard that walking is good for you. Turns out that walking affects your brain in a good way also.

This is true no matter how old you are.

As with any type of exercise the key is consistency. Walking for 20 minutes 2 or 3 times a year will not give you the benefits of walking consistently throughout your life.

A recent study wanted to find out if walking did indeed have any positive effects on the brain.

This study measured DMN or default mode network. This is the network that keeps you involved with your outside world.

As people age they tend to lose this ability. The study measured DMN to see if a walking program would help.

They measured DMN in people aged 59 to 80 and they compared the results to those that engaged in a stretching and toning (don’t know what exactly they mean by that) program.

This study lasted 1 year and they measured cognitive functioning at 6 months and 12 months.

They found that the walking group’s DMN improved significantly and there was increased performance of complex tasks and cognitive tests.

These results were not seen in the toning and stretching group.

So, if you are not exercising now, then at least start with walking. If you are exercising now, add 1 or 2 walking sessions a week to your program.

It might just help you remember where your left your keys!

So get out there and start walking and your brain will thank you for it.

Thanks for reading,

Mike Val

Walking, Yoga Helps Your Brain (psychcentral.com)

Lower Your CRP With Fiber

September 16, 2010 admin 2 comments

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Hi,

You can lower your CRP with fiber.

What is CRP? It is called C reactive protein and it is a measurment of the amount of inflammation in your body. It is also used as a predictor of heart disease and diabetes.

So you want a very low number on your CRP tests.

Fiber can help.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition evaluated the body composition, diet, physical activity and CRP levels of 524 participants.

The CRP levels were inversely related to the amount of fiber in the diet. The more fiber, the lower the CRP levels.

This is a simple way to fight inflammation in your body.

Just eat a variety of fiber foods. You should include both soluble and insoluble fibers in your diet.

Fruits and vegetables have fiber in them. Eating your 5-7 servings a day will pretty much give you all the fiber you need.

Oats, grains and beans also have fiber. Just make sure you are eating whole grain cereals and breads and natural oats in order to get the full benefits.

Thanks,

Mike Val

valshealthblog.com

Three Words to Improve Your Posture

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