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The Fitness Environment By Doug Setter, B. of Human Ecology www.2ndwindbodyscience.comIf you really find it difficult to stick with an exercise routine or feel some psychic force yanking you to physical sloth-ville, then you might want to look at your training environment. It is difficult to keep going to a gym or training area that is poorly maintained and located, crowded, rude and unclean. It just makes for a difficult time to concentrate on your goals if you are distracted or subtly punished for training in a certain environment.

4 Ways to improve your training environment:

1. Change your location. A different gym or community center might be more conducive to training. Parking? Easy access? I found it far easier to train and instruct in some parts of town than others. Some over-long commutes were just tiring and unsatisfying.

2. Change the people around you. Do you get tired of the look-at-me crowd, the yellers and the machine hogs? I would rather get paid less to instruct or pay a little more to train at a place that is friendly. Carefully select your training partner or people you want to be around. Friendly folk are more fun to train with. Some trainers are a better match than others.

3. Change the surroundings. You can change your surroundings by placing an exercise mat by your bed or a gym bag by the door. Maybe the cardio room is getting a bit passé ¦or you. Time to try circuit training, rowing or even the power yoga class. Better yet, get outside.

4. Change the time of your training. Morning people like to hit the ground running in the early morning. These morning people like to exercise early to that adrenalin high and a sense of accomplishment. Also, there are claims that early morning exercise increases the metabolism throughout the day. Yet, some people do not get started until noon. Noon training can be a great time to get over that mid-day slump and eat your lunch earlier or later in the day. Then there are the night owls who like being active in the evening. It is a more social time and beats staying home in front of the television set.

Doug Setter Author of Stomach Flattening and One Less Victim www.2ndwindbodyscience.com

If you want to use a bodybuilding workout program to gain muscle, you have to begin somewhere. You might feel overwhelmed by all of the information that is out there on various weight training plans that are available. However, once you do some research you will find out that a bodybuilding workout plan is really simple. You will be able to build muscle and burn fat easily when you follow a proven plan.What you need is a good weight training, nutrition, and supplementation program that you can follow. You do not need espensive exercise equipment at home. It is usually easier if you workout in a commercial gym. In addition to having more exercise equipment to choose from, there is a lot more energy in a commercial gym and there is a sense of friendly competition.

This will inspire you to work hard every time you workout and it will keep bodybuilding interesting. A beginner will benefit by doing a good bodybuilding workout, best done 3 times a week or every other day. When you workout like this it gives your body the time it needs to recover and it allows for muscle growth. Muscles don’t grow when you’re actually working out; they grow when you are at rest.

Working out will in fact stress and harm the muscles slightly. Then your body responds by building up the muscles in order to handle the extra work and stress. So by steadily increasing the workload you put on your muscles and your body will become bigger and stronger.

When you decide to begin a weight lifting exercise routine, it is necessary to strictly follow the calendar. Days of lifting must be followed by days of rest and recovery. This cycle is then repeated. A common mistake beginners make is working a set of muscles every day, for hours at a time. If you do not give the muscle fiber repair time, it will not grow larger.

Over training means getting the muscles all stressed and damaged and not getting their chance to recover and build up. This is not good for your body. If you over train, you may not be able to put up muscle and even loose some of what you now have. However, an intake of proper nutrition and supplements by the body can shorten the period for the body to recover from a workout.

Intake of lots of healthy food provides the body with the raw material needed for muscle growth. Having nutritional supplements can also help supply the extra nutrients in addition to those you get from food. However, they are not meant to replace real food, but taken in addition to your food diet. An extra protein for example from a protein shake or whey concentrate or isolate protein powder in between your three meals daily can supplement your diet.