Age-Defying Muscles

"It's bad business getting older, and I would advise you not to do it!" Those words from Woody Allen on his experience with aging.  If only it was a matter of choice, and too many of us avoid the proven alternative.  Because the truth is that there is an established method and strategy that will let you grow old with some grit and grace, and its name is strength training through muscle confusion.

At around the age of 40, our bodies slowly and progressively begin to lose strength.  We lose about a quarter of a pound of muscle every year, or roughly 1 to 2 percent loss in strength!  What's happening is the aging process breaks down muscle, known as sarcopenia.   Your muscles up until the age of 40 are naturally able to synthesize enough proteins to grow and maintain muscle.  However, the bodies ability to keep up with the demands of life begins to wane.

Thankfully, the remedy to slow down this phenomenon is readily available.  Weights are the fountain of youth and the age-defying muscle builders!  Combined with a nutritional diet of lean proteins, we can put a halt to the decline and actually reverse the trend.  More muscle means you'll be more mobile, lower your risks and incidence of heart disease, obesity, certain cancers, and diabetes as well as increased quality of living.  Just ask someone who hasn't kept up with exercise and good eating about the quality of their life and you will usually find that they will encourage you to start doing those things as early as possible in life so that you can truly have some golden years. 

Fitness experts recommend that all healthy adults do strength training exercises at least two to three days a week.  It is also recommended to concentrate your muscle exercises on all six of the major muscle groups:  chest, shoulders, arms, abdomen, legs, and back.  The easiest and least expensive way to get into a weight training program is to use hand weights and or exercise bands combined with body resistance training, and that simply means using your own body weight.  If you want the most bang for your buck, you don't need to invest in expensive machines and pulley systems.  Your body is the fitness machine.  I strongly recommend the at home fitness program created by Tony Horton for Beach Body called P90X.

What I like about P90X is it gives me a structured, easy to follow, total body workout and nutritional guidance that is bringing me what I view as amazing results!  It's for all levels of fitness, so whether you're just a beginner or need to take your workouts to the next level, you're going to get exactly what you need!  Don't just take my word for it, there are thousands of success stories on Youtube and a few that I've shared here on my Rx For Fitness and Health blog.


To wrap it up, let me suggest some training tips for guaranteed success: 

1.  Always warm up prior to your workout!  Do some light jogging on the spot, some squats, arm circles and or push ups, jumping jacks and light stretching that will raise your heart rate slowly and get the muscles warm and ready for the workout.

2.  When performing any strength training exercise, watch your form in the moves by lifting with precision and controlled.

3.  Do NOT hold your breath.  Just breathe.  Focus on exhaling during the hard part of the lift.

4.  Start with a lighter weight and more repetitions for toning and to get the form first, then heavy up for fewer reps and for building more muscle.

5.  Do not over exert yourself or over extend your joints beyond comfort. Push yourself a little out of your comfort zone, but If it HURTS, STOP.

6.  Train the larger muscles first, such as your pecs, lats, glutes, quads and hamstrings, and then work your way to the smaller muscles of your hips, arms and shoulders.

7.  Leave your abdominal and core muscles training for the end.  You need these muscles fresh to help stabilize your body during weight lifting.

8.  Proper Rest and recovery is critical, so wait 48 hours between training the same set of muscles again.

9.  Lift with purpose, don't just lift, but focus on it and squeeze!.  Set goals and write them down and work hard to attain them!

The different workouts of P90X are based on a training concept called periodization, or "muscle confusion." This method of cross-training is achieved through switching the order of exercises and incorporating new moves and varied movements. From my own experience now using the method for the past 8 months has prevented my body from adapting to exercises over time and resulting in continual improvement without plateaus.  It has provided the perfect balance for strength training and my muscles have developed and continue to build in mass.  I feel stronger, have more energy, sleep fantastic and enjoy a quality of life at the age of 48 that I now feel like I had in my twenties!  If Tony Horton can do it at the age of 52, you too can have age-defying muscles if you decide, commit and succeed!  It's never too late to get started, so what are you waiting for?  "Why not you?  Why not you to do something for work that you love?  Why not you to have a healthy body?  Why not you to have a healthy love?  Why not you to be, have or do anything you have ever dreamed of?  We are so quick to think others are deserving over ourselves.  The truth is that we are ALL deserving, SO WHY NOT YOU?!!"  - Jillian Michaels

HARD CORE!

I want a six-pack!  Who doesn't want to get into the best shape of their life and have the perfect abdominal section.  A strong hard core has everything to do with strength, power, performance and your health.  If your midsection is weak, guess what...you're probably not benefiting like you could from this crucial center of power, agility and balance.

Using the P90X program has provided me, and several friends I know, (in the picture to the right, thanks Toni & Matt) with the perfect way to develop my core strength.  If you neglect the core muscles that consist of your abdominal and back muscles, the oblique side muscles, the transverse abdominis muscles that wrap around your torso, you are at significantly higher risk of pain and injury.  If you have lower back pain and want to reduce or virtually eliminate it, then you must improve your spinal flexibility by going hard core with exercise. 

However, I won't promise or guarantee you a six-pack if you fail to clean up your diet.  Exercise and nutrition go hand in hand.  I had a huge belly at a whopping 47 inches of fat when I started this journey on February 1st, 2011.  If I had continued down that path of obesity from overeating and poor nutritional food, it's most certain I would have developed cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney ailments, joint pain and a host of other conditions that medical doctors have linked to weight gain and bad diet.  Carrying all the extra belly fat was just a real pain and was becoming a major problem for me.

Fast forward 6 months and today I'm trimmed down to a respectable 34 inch waist! (I'll post updated pictures of my progress after August 1st) I have the creator of P90X, Tony Horton, to thank for giving me the program that brings results.  It offers a variety of core exercises that improved my posture, enhanced my body movements, strengthened and defined my abdominal and lower back muscles and is flattening my tummy!  I don't have a six-pack yet, but I'm working on it hard and daily.  Here's a video below that I put together of my workout today with a montage of the variety that's offered in the Core Synergistics Workout from Beach Body.



I ended my fat trend, I know you can too!

It's never too late to start changing bad habits, habits that can shave years off your life and impact the quality of your life.   So, if you want the straight dope on fueling your body with nutritious food and what to avoid, I'm here to help and it won't cost you a penny for the free advice based on my own experience and what has worked for me.  I hope you'll follow my blog and provide me with some feedback on my posts.  I'll be catering good choices that include both dietary and lifestyle changes.  So if you could use a boost to your engine, buckle up for the ride of your life and let's get started!

Creating a Healthy Core, Tony Horton style

I began 150 days ago to work on improving my health and fitness. Today I'm really excited to be literally in what I view as the best shape of my life. But what I want now is to take my fitness to new heights! What I'm pursuing is something most men and women only dream of achieving, a six-pack of abdominal muscles! It feels like mine are buried right now below a surface layer of belly fat. It seems to be elusive and just out of reach at the moment, so I keep on pressing forward and sweat a lot!  

When I began my quest in February of this year, I was obese at a whopping 34% body fat! No wonder my belly was 47 inches of pure fat!! To-date my belly is just under 36 inches and my body fat around 18 percent. I've got to BRING IT in my workouts and healthy eating to see that fat percentage trim down to about 10-12%. That's when I'm hoping to finally have an amazing beach body. My target is to get the abdominal washboard, but realistically this is not a short-term goal, but rather a long-term


milestone to get to, like climbing a mountain to the top and staying their for a brief period of time. After that the long-term goal is to maintain a slim mid-section for good health and core strength. By eating healthy and moving my body through functional and periodizational training, I know I can reduce unhealthy fat and have a strengthened healthy core.

What I like about P90X is it gives me a structured, easy to follow, total body workout and nutritional guidance that is bringing me what I view as amazing results! The AB RIPPER X is the 15 minute routine that concentrates on the abdominal core muscles, while the other workout's keep me working on everything! Having a healthy core is critical, like the strong core of a tree that supports the limbs and branches. The core of my body is the foundation from which to work and build on. Since I've been exercising my entire body, my back and ab muscles have grown stronger. I no longer have the muscle aches, tension, stiffness and soreness associated with daily activities at work or at home. The simple fact is the pain is now virtually gone, except for the soreness of the workouts, which I measure as a good soreness. My posture has greatly improved and the risk of back injury is reduced.

The following video's are of my AB RIPPER X workout. Push play on both and watch the difference 5 months has made! There's audio on the before video from my first week in February and no audio on the after that I record two days ago. If I can do it, I know you can too!!




As you can see, The AB RIPPER X routine is comprised of 11 exercises each having 25 reps or more. This means that if you complete all of them, you'll have done over 275 reps!!    Each exercise can be varied depending on your fitness level as you saw in the before video where I was unable to complete each exercise.   Just do your best and forget the rest!  From my own experience, this training is challenging and in the beginning was a huge struggle.  However, you can also see that it works and is bringing core strength results now.   Keep pushing play!


I do this 15 minute AB RIPPER X workout three times a week, every other day. You will feel soreness in the days and weeks to come after starting, but then you will also start to feel stronger as the weeks and months go by. It's extreme work that's better than any machine in any club.  If you truly put in the work and healthy eating, I promise that you will not regret it and you will have great results too!

If you want the straight dope on fueling your body with nutritious food and what to avoid, I'm here to help and it won't cost you a penny for the free advice based on my own experience and what has worked for me. I hope you'll follow my blog and provide me with some feedback on my posts. I'll be catering good choices that include both dietary and lifestyle changes. So if you could use a boost to your engine, buckle up for the ride of your life and let's get started!