Bagaimana 'Record Keeping' Boleh Membantu Anda Mencapai Target Fitness Anda

Bila bercakap mengenai target fitness tidak kiralah untuk menurunkan lemak, menambah otot ataupun meningkatkan kadar kesihatan ramai yang meletakkan cita-cita untuk mencapai target mereka dalam tempoh tertentu yang diinginkan. Walaupun mempunyai 'deadline' untuk mencapai target adalah habit yang penting untuk berjaya, namun berapa ramaikah yang betul-betuk komited untuk merekod setiap tindakan (action) yang mereka ambil beserta hasil (result) yang mereka perolehi secara kerap dan konsisten?

Record keeping mungkin boleh dianggap sebagai sesuatu yang leceh dan menyusahkan, tetapi bagaimanakah anda boleh mengetahui bahawa program yang anda ikuti sekarang berkesan ataupun tidak jika tiada rekod yang boleh membuktikannya? Adakah memadai dengan melakukan perbandingan dengan melihat tubuh anda dicermin ataupun dengan mendengar pendapat sahabat handai ataupun keluarga yang mungkin sedang cuba menjaga hati anda?

Mengenal Pasti Kesilapan dan Membaikinya Serta Merta

Dalam proses anda untuk mencapai target, boleh berlaku beberapa kesilapan yang anda lakukan menyebabkan progress anda tergendala. Jadi anda boleh sentiasa berbalik kepada rekod anda untuk menilai apakah kesilapan yang boleh diperbetulkan dan apakah hasil yang anda perolehi setelah anda memperbetulkan kesilapan tersebut?

Sebagai contoh, Aliza mempunyai target untuk menurunkan berat badan sebanyak 10kg dalam masa 3 bulan. Pada awal bulan kedua dia sudah berjaya turun 4kg tetapi minggu berikutnya beratnya naik semula sebanyak 1kg. Jika Aliza mempunyai rekod makanan apakah yang dia makan, apakah kuantiti makanan tersebut serta senaman apakah yang telah dilakukan pada minggu tersebut sudah tentu lebih mudah untuk Aliza menilai apakah faktor kegagalannya pada minggu tersebut. Jadi dalam kes ini Aliza mungkin boleh mengurangkan jumlah kalori makanannya pada minggu akan datang dan kemudian menilai samada tindakannya itu telah memperbaiki progressnya ataupun tidak.

Rekod Adalah Sumber Motivasi Yang Sangat Kuat

Bayangkan seorang pelajar yang sentiasa mendapat A dalam peperiksaannya, sudah tentu dia akan bekerja keras untuk mengekalkan rekod kecemerlanggannya. Jika sekali dia gagal mendapatkan A, pastinya dia akan bekerja lebih keras untuk memperbaiki rekodnya untuk kembali mendapat A. Begitu juga dengan fitness, jika setiap minggu Aliza sentiasa berjaya menurunkan 1kg berat badannya, sudah tentu dia akan bekerja keras untuk meneruskan rekodnya yang cemerlang itu. Namun jika berlaku peningkatan berat sebanyak 1kg, pastinya Aliza akan berhempas pulas untuk menurunkannya semula.

Jadi Apakah Yang Perlu Direkod?

Saya pernah berbual dengan seorang rakan bina badan dari pasukan ATM, dia menunjukkan buku rekod yang sangat detail (makanan yang diambil, kuantiti makanan, masa makan, jumlah latihan, set latihan, masa latihan etc) sehingga saya sendiri merasa tidak mampu melakukannya. Mungkin sebab itulah saya bukan seorang juara bina badan terkenal seperti kawan saya itu. Bagi orang kebanyakkan mungkin contoh tersebut agak extreme kerana sebagai seorang tentera dan ahli bina badan sudah tentu dia mempunyai tahap disiplin yang sangat tinggi.

Kalau dipermudahkan, apa yang perlu anda rekodkan ialah

1) Corak pemakanan anda (bahan makanan, kuantiti dan masa)

2) Program latihan (otot yang dilatih, jumlah beban serta jumlah set dan ulangan)

3) Hasil (Berat badan, peratus lemak, ukuran bahagian badan)

Seperti yang saya sering nasihatkan kepada ahli-ahli Revolution Gym, sentiasa amalkan sesuatu sedikit demi sedikit sehingga kita biasa dan selesa melakukannya. Tidak perlu terus mengamalkan sesuatu yang baru secara mendadak kerana biasanya orang sebegini akan mudah tertekan dan bosan dengan usaha mereka.

Bak kata seorang juara bina badan dari Indonesia Ade Rai dalam laman Twitternya,

Semakin kita tidak sabar untuk mendapatkan hasil, semakin lupa kita untuk menikmati prosesnya, semakin lambat pula kita mencapai hasil yang diinginkan.

Selamat beramal!

Lazy people's excuses....

1) I don't have time to exercise

Well...everyone of us are given 24 hrs a day. I believe in life we should be balancedly focus on 7 things; spiritual, relationships, health, career, financial, family and emotions. If you don't have time for one thing, you will jeopardize everything. Master speaker Anthony Robbins once said what good if you are rich but you're not healthy. Furthermore if you follow a proper exercise program it normally wouldn't take anymore than 4-5 hours per week.

2) If I stop my workout routine, I can easily gain fat

If you stop exercising and start eating nasi lemak, roti canai, pizza and all those stuff excessively than yes, you will get fat. However if you maintain a healthy life style (good sleep, balance diet, enough water etc) plus with all the muscles that you have gained, you are more likely to keep your good figure even though it is not as great as when you still actively exercise. I believe once you have started body building there are no reasons whatsoever for you to stop anyway.


3) My house is too far from the gym.

I've seen an incredible growth in fitness industry for the last few years in Malaysia. Especially in highly populated area like KL. Everywhere you go you can easily find a fitness and body building center, yoga, aerobic and dancing studio etc. Not to mention big players like Fitness First and Celebrity Fitness. You may pick any one closest to you home or go to the one that close to your office. Plus there's an increasing trend for gym owners to run their gym just above the Mamak restaurant. So if you know where the Mamak restaurant is...just look up and you may see a fitness centre.


4) I'm a woman, and most gyms are full with sweaty boys...euwww

Well... i do respect the women's need for comfort and privacy. I can ensure many women not to feel too uncomfortable. Many gym owners nowadays have been targeting women as their primary customers. As a result, most gyms have becoming more women friendly. There are more cardio machines, women trainers, and fitness program specialized for women. In fact the number of women in a so called 'hardcore gym' have also increased dramatically.


5) Exercise is more like torturing myself, I better off spending some money at the slimming center.

You can look at it this way. If your body have been out of shape all these years, more likely you also have developed the 'out of shape' behavior in you. You can easily get rid of the physical fat from your body overnight in the slimming center but are you able to get rid of your 'out of shape' behavior that quick? More likely you will go back to your old habit and gain back that fat in no time. Exercising is all about building the mental strength and developing a balance and healthy lifestyle. The keywords here are 'building' and 'developing'. Those are your weapons to achieve your physical goal and to make it last for the rest of your life.


6) Most of the people who work out in the gym are gay.

This one is quite controversial and yet this myth has been growing for quite sometimes. Well i don't like to comment much but my opinion is nowadays gay people are everywhere. If they are gay, whether in the gym or not they still gay. If they are straight, whether in the gym or not they remain straight. If you're really a homophobic, then you may start exercise at home with your wife as your spotter.


Cheers!!!
RevoGym

Why Weight Lifting Is An Exercise That Delivers Top Health Benefits

While some individuals are strictly interested in obtaining muscle for aesthetics, for most people, this isn’t an interest. Instead, you’re more interested in knowing what health benefits weight lifting will have for you…

Far too many people overlook the many health and fitness benefits that weight training has to offer, and because of this, experience problems down the road with their body such as decreased bone density, a slowed metabolic rate, increased stress levels and other negative consequences that are associated with constant stress.

Increased Bone Density

Weight lifting, being one of the best weight bearing exercises you can do, will increase your bone density and help ward off osteoporosis or stress fractures in the future.

Many people think running is the best exercise for increasing bone density, but this isn’t necessarily true. If the truth is told, running actually promotes muscle breakdown in the body, while weight lifting, being an anabolic process, helps to promote the building of tissues.

Therefore, weight lifting is going to be much better at preserving your bone mass, not to mention it’s far less impact than going for an hour run.

Decreased Frequency of Injuries

When you strength train, not only are your muscles going to get stronger, but you’ll also work the ligaments and tendons that are connecting bones, muscles, and other tissues, thus reducing the chance they become injured when participating in other physical activities.

If you’ve ever been injured, you know just how frustrating this can be. In about 80% of all injury cases, the injury is a direct result of a tendon, ligament, or muscle not being strong enough when a stressful force is applied.

Since weight training will really hit all those deep tendons and ligaments, it’s the best injury prevention out there.


Reduction of Health Related Risks

Numerous studies have demonstrated that regular weight training can have a positive effect on health by showing reductions in the rate of insulin resistance, blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.
If you couple a solid weight training program then with a well-thought out diet, you’ll be putting your best foot forward at warding off these chronic health problems.



Prevention of Fat Gain

The more you weight lift, the higher your metabolism will be, thus the more food you can eat while maintaining your weight. If that isn’t good news for your future and the fight against body fat, I’m not sure what is.

Now, with all of this said, one big problem many people run into is the thinking pattern that using a muscle building program will make you big and bulky.

This is most certainly not the case.

So let’s look at an analogy to gain an understanding of this.

Pretend you have two teams and each are going to try and build a house using the exact same building technique.

One team is given 10,000 bricks to construct this house, and the second team is given only 2,000 bricks.

Who’s going to build the bigger house?

The choice should be obvious – team one since they have more bricks to build it with.
Now, think of those bricks as being the calories you put into your body. Unless you’re supplying enough calories, you aren’t going to build really big muscles. This is precisely what makes bodybuilders look like bodybuilders.

It’s not just about the way they train, but more about the way they eat (if you’ve ever had a teenage son in the growing process in your house, you likely know just how much food must be consumed when growing at rapid rates).

Whether it’s growing in height during puberty or trying to build bigger muscles later on, calories must be supplied for this growth process to take place.

You can’t build a house out of nothing. Likewise, you can workout all you want, but if those building blocks – in the form of amino acids, carbohydrates, and dietary fats are not there, you aren’t going to see too much muscle growth.

So, don’t get caught thinking that just because you add weight lifting to your workouts, you’re going to develop large bulky muscles. If you control your diet, this simply will not happen.
So, hopefully it is clear now that just because you’re weight lifting, it does not mean you will end up with bulky muscles as a result. Many people make this incorrect assumption – but it really is the diet that makes all the difference in how this weight lifting will shape your body.
When you make the decision to work with me using my 6-Pack Ab Quest program, I’ll take you through the weight lifting and ab techniques that will provide maximum results with minimal effort on your part (why spend more time in the gym than you have to?), as well as provide you with meal plans that are custom designed to ensure you get the best results from your training without the muscle bulk – in fact, the plans are formulated to help you shed the fat so you look leaner and more defined.

Not choosing to include weight training as part of your current workout program is without-a-doubt the biggest mistake you could make as far as your long-term health and fitness level is concerned. So don’t let this exercise pass you by any longer

From Vince DelMonte

Pretty good article on mindset...

Normally bodybuilding articles talk about how to build muscle up, diet, training workouts, muscle building nutrition and so on, however whilst these are all really important there is one things slightly different I would like to introduce to you and your muscle building armoury. It is the reticular activating system (RAV).

The RAV works together with the visual componenet of our brain and diverts our attention to specific things that our sub conscious has programmed into it, to be important to achieve our goals. The day to day actions, sights, sounds, preferences and so on that we get daily are all because of our sub conscious thought process that is continually operating.

This has been now proven by neuroscientists and actually qualifies the approaches of positive thinking and the law of attraction. If you do not know what the law of attraction is it is basically the premise that ‘what you think about, you bring about’ or ‘thoughts become things’. Now in the past this was thought of as being a bit to new agey for the majority of people however there is an increasing acceptance of this mental approach worldwide.

Now it doesn’t matter if you take the neuro-scientists approach about it or the metaphysical approach to it because it will work either way. So by programming our subconscious we are able to activate our RAV which in turn will lead us to take the correct steps towards our goals as we will simply be noticing and identifying these things more. Some people will experience beneficial co-incidences that will significantly aid there progress, this is from uncommon but often gives this ‘law of attraction’ a slightly magical feel whereas in reality those things were probably there all the while anyway!

What can a bodybuilder do to benefit from this? Well think now about your present ongoing thought patterns. In your mind, what exactly are you saying to yourself on a daily basis. Are they thoughts like ‘losing weight is too difficult’ or ‘I never grow muscle fast’ for if they are then that is exactly what your RAV system is choosing for you to notice and act upon on a daily basis. It is therefore your everyday sub conscious thought process that you need to alter to positive muscle building thought processes such as: ‘muscle mass come quickly and easily’ or ‘I am getting huge fast’ and so on.

How can you alter these patterns? Here are a couple of things to try:

1) Visualisation: first you need to set aside 5 minutes or so each day to do this. Simply shut your eyes and visulaise in your minds eye precisely how you want your body to look. Large biceps, lean 6 pack and such like, make sure you are as clear as possible about this vision and hold it with a sense of belief.’

2) Speak out aloud clearly and confidently simple statements like: I am extremely fit and healthy, I am huge and muscular, I am growing more and more each day and so on.

Everyday try to do these things. Usually 30 days is all that is required in order to over ride the previous thought patterns. After that, keep doing them also to keep reaffirming your new beliefs.

If you don’t believe that this stuff works then I suggest that you take a look at a few sportsmens autobiographies or sports studies books, I gaurantee that you will find these processes talked about in depth, particularly visualisation which is an amazingly productive technique that should get daily usage!

Ok with these positive thoughts and feelings in mind, go build muscle mass!