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No matter what the weather, getting muscles toned is important for your overall health and safety. It can help functional fitness. It can help prevent falls and aid with getting up if you do, help with lifting things and reaching in high places. Here are workouts that can help you tone your legs quickly. You’ll look great, feel stronger and have more flexibility and endurance.

Bodyweight exercises are great for toning your legs.

You don’t need equipment for bodyweight exercises. One of the best to tone legs is squats. This versatile exercise can be modified to tone all the muscles in your legs. Traditional squats target the glutes, quads and hamstrings that support the body. Feet should be slightly wider than shoulder width. Lower the body keeping the back straight, then raise it again. For a sumo squat that works the inner thighs more, feet are wider apart and toes pointed outward. You can do a walking squat, squat jump, split squat and a number of others to work other muscles for total toning.

Lunges are another favorite you can do anywhere.

Again, lunges are modified to work muscles in different ways. They improve functional fitness by improving your balance and hip flexibility. All lunges start with learning the traditional lunge. You put one foot forward with your knee bent and feet flat to the floor. The other foot remains behind and as you put weight on the forward foot, bending the knee, you lower the back knee to the floor with the heel lifted and toe touching. Then step back to starting position and move the other leg forward. There are dozens of modified ways to work different muscles and in different ways.

Plank leg lifts and a glute bridge are two of the exercises that work core and leg muscles.

Plank leg lifts build upper leg strength and so does a glute bridge. A glute bridge starts by laying on your back with knees bent and feet hip width apart and flat on the floor. Contract your stomach muscles to flatten your back, pushing your hips upward as you exhale and squeeze your glutes. Lower back to starting position as you exhale. Step-ups, single-leg deadlifts and box jumps are also good for toning leg muscles.

• Mountain climbers are excellent for the legs. Start in plank position, then alternate bringing one leg to your chest at a time, like you’re walking or climbing a mountain. Slowly increase your pace.
• Try a one-legged squat called a Belgium split squat. You simply put one foot on a coffee table or chair behind you as you lower yourself into a squat on one leg.
• Don’t forget your ankles. You can go up on toe and do calf raises, stair calf raises, plie squat while raising your heels and walking. Jumping jacks, jumping rope and riding a bike also help.
• Alternate leg days. You can spend one day doing regular exercises and another day doing fun things that work the whole body, like swimming, dancing and skiing. Challenge yourself more and record your progress.

For more information, contact us today at Rising Fitness Gym

You don’t have to suffer wearing long sleeves in the summer heat of Houston, Texas, when you do arm workouts that make your arms look fabulous. Whether you have batwings, no muscle or just flabby arms, when you get into shape you don’t have to hide them. You can show them off in Do you want big guns? While women won’t get the bulk, they’ll get the shapeliness that’s sexy. For men, working the bicep’s brachialis and brachii will do it.

Dumbbell curls and hammer curls are exercises that will get the biceps you want.

While a complete training program ensures you have a balanced approach with amazing results, there are a few great exercises to build the biceps. The dumbbell curl starts with holding a dumbbell with arms to the side and body straight. With palms facing forward, keeping upper arms still, exhale and curl the dumbbells by contracting the biceps, raising them to shoulder level, holding and inhaling while lowering them. Hammer curls start in the same position and are done the same way, but the palms of the hands face the body.

Throw a punch to knockout batwings.

Toning your arms can be easy, you have to throw a punch. Use dumbbells while you punch at the air. If you want to work forearms, do palm up and palm down wrist curls. An overhead press with weights can tighten the muscles and eliminate that flat in the wind looseness of batwings. Sit on the floor in upright position, with legs crossed over in diamond position, upright on the floor with knees bent and soles of the feet touching. Hold weights in each hand at chest level, pull shoulder blades down, push weight upward and away, move weight at an upward diagonal line away from the body, keeping the body straight.

No need for equipment with bodyweight exercises.

Go old school for great arms with bodyweight exercises. You can do them anywhere, and they sculpt and build arms. Traditional push-ups can be used in multiple ways. Just modify the hand position to work a variety of muscles. If you do a push-up with hands closer together, directly under the chest, it helps eliminate bat wings. When you have hands at shoulder-width, it works the triceps and small muscles in the forearm. Holding hands wider than the shoulders works the shoulders and triceps different ways.

• Keep it simple with a plank. A plank may look simple, since you’re just remaining stationary, but it’s tough. It’s all about holding the body in plank position as long as you can. You can modify it based on fitness level and modify the position to work different muscles.
• Lift something heavy. Make sure you lift correctly, using your legs, not your back. You can rearrange your living room every other day and build your muscles, while changing the scenery.
• Don’t attempt to start with heavier weights or too many reps when you first start. It’s all about form and working your way toward heavier weights and sometimes lifting to failure.
• Give muscles at least a 48-hour rest between workouts. When you first start, getting the help of a personal trainer can help you make progress faster and safer.

For more information, contact us today at Rising Fitness Gym

One of the latest diet crazes isn’t really new and actually works. It’s intermittent fasting—IF. There are all types of IF. Some require you fast for a day or two and then eat normally. Other types, the more popular type, is eating all your meals in a specific 6-8 hour window and fast the other 16-18 hours. Fasting has been around for centuries. It was used as part of religious ceremonies and even an early treatment for epilepsy before medications. Fasting was part of early man’s normal life. Food wasn’t always available. Then it became part of religious ceremonies for centuries. Today it’s being popularized for weight loss.

Early animal studies in the 30s and 40s showed fasting may slow aging.

Animal studies in the 1930s and 40s focused on mice and the effect of fasting by eating just once a day, 30% calorie restricted feeding twice a day and on demand food. Mice that fasted lived longer, had a darker coat compared to their counterparts as they aged and remained more active and youthful. The calorie restricted mice lived 11% longer than those on demand and the fasting group increased their life span by 28%.

IF health benefits, besides looking younger.

IF not only helps you lose weight, it helps you lose fat around your middle. It can boost insulin sensitivity, increase HGH—human growth hormone, boost your metabolic rate and reduce inflammation. Chronic inflammation is a major cause of serious illness. During those fasting times, it allows for cellular repair and waste removal, which is known as autophagy. The body removes old cells and replaces them with new ones. However, this normally occurs after 24 hours, so it requires the type of fasting where you eat one day and not the next. IF helps reduce the risk of cancer and improves brain health and concentration.

Does intermittent fasting work for you and your body?

That all depends on you. If you have diabetes, intermittent fasting isn’t an option without a doctor’s supervision. People with reactive hypoglycemia should be careful when trying It can interrupt your sleep cycle if you eat too early, so beware if you have insomnia. People with eating disorders shouldn’t use it, neither should pregnant and lactating individuals. If you’re working out hard at the gym, don’t fast that day. People with digestive issues may have more problems on the days or times they eat. People with a compromised immune system or those who take meds that require food first should also avoid fasting.

• One mice study showed fasting caused the body to produce Beta-hydroxybutyrate, a molecule that reversed vascular aging, while building more cells to line the interior of blood vessels.
• When you do eat on an IF program, make it healthy. Even though it’s all about timing, it doesn’t give a license to consume junk food either.
• One reason IF may work for weight loss is that it restricts the time you eat to a smaller window, which means you’ll normally consume fewer calories than you would in a full day. It also boosts your metabolism.
• Some more recent research shows IF can boost the fat burning of a keto diet and speed up ketosis for maximum weight loss.

For more information, contact us today at Rising Fitness Gym

Part of our program is educating you in all areas of fitness, including nutrition, so you can make the best possible decisions yourself. One of most often asked questions is whether all fats are unhealthy and the difference between types of fats, such as saturated and unsaturated fat. First, fat has a place in your diet. You need fat for many of your bodily functions, including weight loss. The unhealthy fats are trans fats, which are often found in baked goods or fried foods.

The key to knowing which fat is saturated and which is unsaturated is right before your eyes.

Check out the fat at room temperatures. Saturated fats are solid, but unsaturated fats are normally liquid. Fats are in four classes, saturated, unsaturated, monounsaturated and trans fats. As mentioned earlier, the trans fats are bad for you. The type of bonding with hydrogen makes a difference whether the fat is solid or liquid at room temperature.

There’s a myth about saturated fat being unhealthy.

If you consume the right amounts of saturated fat, it’s perfectly healthy. In fact, one study that was published in 2019 showed that decreasing the amount of saturated fat in your diet offered no health benefits. The reduction in saturated fat didn’t even reduce heart disease. So why is it so vilified? It’s all about one mega-study done in the 1960s that was paid for by the sugar industry. They bribed the three Harvard scientists that did the study with an extra $50,000 each, which is more like getting $470,000 today. They ask them to ignore the studies that pointed to sugar as the culprit and focus only on those that said saturated fat was the cause of heart disease.

You need saturated fat in your diet.

Each type of fat does something different. There are basically four types of saturated fat that are normally in diets, stearic found in foods with animal fat, lauric from foods like coconut oil, palmitic that’s in palm oil, dairy and animal products and myristic acid that’s in dairy and coconut oil. For instance, the body can’t build cell membranes without saturated fat. Cell membranes are 50% saturated fat. Myristic acid boosts the immune system and aids in fighting tumors. Lauric acid has antimicrobial properties. You need saturated fats to absorb fat soluble vitamins and saturated fats for healthy bones, proper growth and to prevent colon cancer and multiple sclerosis.

You also need unsaturated fat.

Unsaturated fat lowers inflammation and aids in preventing heart disease. There are basically two types of unsaturated fat, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. The polyunsaturated contain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. They both play a role in heart health, building better skin, hair bone and reproductive health. Unsaturated fat is important for both the nervous system and metabolism. It increases the good cholesterol and reduces the bad cholesterol. Monounsaturated fat also helps control blood sugar levels.

• You’ll get polyunsaturated fat when you eat salmon, Brazil nuts, walnuts, flaxseed, poppy seed and chia seeds. Monounsaturated fats are found in pecans, cashews, Brazil nuts, avocado and olive oil.
• Fat free foods, foods where the fat is removed, are often unhealthier than the full fat originals. That’s because the fat is replaced with sugar to give it flavor.
• You need about 20 to 35% of your caloric intake to come from fat. It should include 15 to 20% of caloric intake from monounsaturated fat, 5 to 10% from polyunsaturated, 10% from saturated and 0% from trans fats.
• Coconut oil, butter and dairy from grass fed cows, yogurt and fish. Many of these foods also provide heart healthy benefits.

For more information, contact us today at Rising Fitness Gym

What is quinoa and why is it so popular? Quinoa is an ancient grain that the world has recently rediscovered. There are many health benefits of quinoa and it’s been used for centuries as food. It is a member of the Chenopodiaceae family that includes spinach, beetroot and sugar beet. Unlike those members, not only can the leaves be harvested and cooked like spinach, the mature seeds were gathered and washed to remove saponins, then cooked and eaten. The saponins removed were used to wash clothing, since they have cleansing properties. No wonder it was called the Mother Grain by the Incas.

Quinoa is a complete protein.

The body can’t make all amino acids or store them, so you have to eat food to get them to build bones, blood, skin and muscles. Those nine it can’t make are called “essential amino acids.” Most plant based proteins don’t contain them all, but quinoa does. A cup of quinoa also contains 58% of the RDI for manganese, 30% of the RDI for magnesium, 19% RDI of folate, 28% of the RDI of phosphorous, 15% of the RDI of iron, 18% of the RDI, of copper, 13% of the RDI of zinc, 12% of the RDI of riboflavin, 13% of the RDI of thiamin and 11% of the RDI of vitamin B6.

If your digestive system is on the fritz, quinoa might be the answer.

Quinoa, which is pronounced KEEN-Wah, is gluten free. That’s because it’s not a grain but a pseudo grain. That simply means it has most of the nutrients of grain, it looks like a grain and you use it in the same manner but it comes from a different plant family. The novel part of this pseudo grain is that it’s a complete protein with healthy fat and lots of fiber.

Fight off cell damaging oxidation with antioxidants.

What does quinoa contain that makes it so healthy? It has phenolic acid, flavonoids, saponins and betacyanins. All those protect cells with antioxidant benefits. It also has fiber that helps control blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of type2 diabetes. The phytoecdysteroids it contains have been found to lower blood sugar levels in animal experiments. Besides the fiber, other compounds also help keep blood lipid levels under control. Quinoa contains powerful anti-inflammatories, like quercetin and kaempferol that can help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and other serious conditions.

• This ancient grain has a nutty flavor that reminds you of brown rice and is both fluffy and slightly crunchy at the same time. It makes it a nice addition to any meal.
• If you want the most antioxidant protection, look for the darkest seeds. Quinoa comes in a variety of colors with red, white and black the most popular. Black tends to contain the most antioxidants.
• Quinoa has a low glycemic index and lots of fiber and protein to fill you up and keep you feeling full longer, yet also is lower in calories. It may be a benefit if you’re trying to lose weight.
• You can use quinoa in several ways. It can be a side dish or the main serving. You can steam it or boil it, but always need to remember to rinse it first, unless you toast it, to remove the saponins that make it bitter.

For more information, contact us today at Rising Fitness Gym