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Fitness Together 405-350-7373 Website |  | | Breaking Through Runner's Rut
To break through a runner's rut, you need to change your routine. The longer you stick with one routine, the harder it will be to break out. Make sure you keep a warm up and a cool down in your routine regardless of the changes made. Start adding intervals into your training. Alternate fast bursts with slower running. Five minutes on, five minutes off is a good way to start, repeating for two miles in the beginning. You can also increase distance; don't increase this every time you run. If you add two miles to your run, stick with that for two weeks until adding another few miles. Another way to break out of a rut is to do cross-training and strength training. You can build muscle, gain flexibility, increase your stamina, and improve cardiovascular health, all of which will carry over into your running. Best of all, you'll expand your horizons, hopefully find more activities that you enjoy, and prevent workout boredom. | | | Recipe: Chilled Avocado Cucumber Soup
On hot days when you don't want to heat up your kitchen, nothing is more perfect than a cooling soup with avocados and cucumber. All you need is a blender, the ingredients, and your appetite. You can vary the ingredients to suit your tastes – many people find that adding another avocado can substitute for the yogurt, while others still throw in some buttermilk for a different flavor. Ingredients: - 2 cups diced and peeled cucumber
- 1 avocado, pitted, peeled and diced
- 1 tbs fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 ts lemon zest
- 1 scallion, roughly chopped
- 1 cup cold water or broth
- 1/2-1 cup plain yogurt (if using whole yogurt, use less)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (or herb of choice)
- Optional: one hot pepper, roughly chopped
Directions:
Reserve 1/4 cup cucumber and 1/4 cup avocado for garnish. Blend all remaining ingredients until smooth. Garnish and serve chilled. | |  | | Bicep and Tricep Workout
 | Your biceps and triceps are two muscles you can show-off without being obvious – so make them bigger. The first step to making this workout effective is to avoid overtraining. Your body needs at least two days off before you attempt to do another workout session with the same body parts. If your muscles burn out from overtraining, you are wasting your time and risking injury. Biceps – The seated bicep curl is one of the oldest workouts for a reason: it works. Take a seat on a workout bench with a curl bar in your lap. Grip the bar with the traditional underhand, shoulder-width curl grip and curl upwards. Be sure to load the bar with a weight heavy enough so you can only perform 8 repetitions. By number 7, you should be struggling for this to work. After the first rep, take a quick 30 second breather and increase the weight by 10%. Keep doing 8 reps of each weight until you can't do any more. Triceps – We're all used to tricep extensions, and we're probably all tired of doing them. For this routine we will be using the close-grip bench press to isolate and build our triceps. You'll hold the bar like a normal bench press with your knuckles facing down at you, with one modification: slide your hands about six inches apart on the bar. Un-rack the bar, extend it full upward and slowly come down, keeping your upper arms locked with your forearms and hands moving towards you. This motion isolates the triceps and makes them work harder to press the bar up and down. The close-grip bench press might be new to some of you, so before adding loads of weight, try this exercise with just the bar until you get used to the motion. When you are ready for weight, add enough so you can only get 8 repetitions. Like we mentioned above, keep adding 10% until you can't do any more. Over the next fourteen days try this workout three times without any other type of arm exercise and you will begin to see results in a few short weeks.
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Fitness Goal Pitfalls
 | Many people are undermining their fitness goals without even realizing it. Here are some common pitfalls people make and what you can do to avoid these mistakes. The big killer is overtraining. Some people think that the more they are in the gym the better it is for their bodies. It's a hard concept to grasp, but less can be more in the gym. After workouts, you have to give your muscles time to recover so they can stay healthy and continue to grow. Avoid overtraining by not working the same muscle group two days in a row. For example, don't do a traditional bench press workout on a Monday and a decline/incline bench press workout on Tuesday. It's not helpful, and it leads to injuries and fatigue. Another pitfall is continuing the same routine for months. It's easy to get used to a routine, because you are efficient in the motions and the workouts are familiar to you. That's not good for building muscle though. Your body gets used to the same workouts each time and you stop seeing results. Keep your muscles guessing by trying different workouts, different weights, and different amounts of repetitions. Another way to undermine your goals is to waste time. We've all seen people in the gym who seem to wander around, talking and not working. Most of us aren't using the gym solely to socialize. So, to see improvement while at the gym make the most of your time; take short breaks in between workouts to keep your cardio level elevated and your muscles ready for what comes next. If you just realized you fall into one of these three categories, it's alright! Work on changing your gym habits, get refocused and hit those goals you've set for yourself.
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Stay Fit Without Breaking the Bank
 | Getting fit is something on many people's to-do list, but a similar number of people have money saving goals as well. It can be hard to make the two goals fit when getting fit so often comes in the guise of spending money on gym memberships, personal fitness trainers, special workout gear and clothing, dietary supplements, etc. The following are several ways in which you can focus on your fitness goals without jeopardizing your financial goals: Bike to work. You will get in shape and save money on a daily basis. Some companies even offer incentives to their employees who bike to work. If work is too far away, try organizing outings with friends, like bike rides in the park. You get a workout and you won't be tempted to make plans that involve spending money on food, coffee, or shopping. Make the most of your home gym to supplement your fitness goals and follow your trainers advice. From resistance bands to Wii Fit to home workout videos, you should be able to find plenty of exercises that never require you to leave your living room. Workout in the name of charity. Entry into charity runs, marathons, triathlons, and similar events can be pricey, but if you coordinate with a nonprofit organization to raise money for them then you can usually enter for minimal cost. Not only will you have a little built-in motivation and a cheering section, but you'll be able to make a difference by raising money and awareness for your cause. Know when to spend your money and when to save it. A good pair of running or cross-trainers, an mp3 player, a portable heart monitor, and cold weather running gear. All of these things can be very valuable things to spend your money on because they help keep you on your path to fitness. Spending some money on your goal will likely be necessary; just make sure that you're not needlessly shelling out bucks for something you won't need or use.
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S-T-R-E-T-C-H Fifteen seconds is better than five, though five is still better than nothing when it comes to improving flexibility. A new study out of the United Kingdom suggests a significant benefits from holding each stretch at least 15 seconds as opposed to five seconds or not stretching at all. Twenty-four college students (average age 20) participated in the five-week training study. Those in the five-second group performed each stretch nine times, while those in the 15-second group did each stretch three times. While both groups improved their passive range of motion, those who held their stretches longer showed greater improvements in active range of motion as well.
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