Category Archives: Metabolism

Oct 5 2011

5 Fat Burning Medicine Ball Exercises for Women

Definitely include medicine ball exercises in your workouts to burn fat and tone your body! Medicine ball exercises are not used enough by people in their workouts (from my observations).

Full speed medicine ball exercises will help you burn fat faster. These exercises will also improve your core strength and power (how fast your muscles can produce force). This makes your workouts more efficient (do more in less time).

Medicine ball exercises also allow you to exercise with natural movements. Your movement is not restricted by weight machines or barbells. Every one moves differently and you can even be a little creative with medicine ball exercises.

Here are 5 medicine ball exercises for you to burn more fat:

Note: Do these exercises at a moderate pace until you have mastered your form.

1. Medicine ball diagonal chop – The medicine ball diagonal chop helps you work multiple muscle groups in different planes of motion (at the same time). Injuries of the torso (such as oblique strains/pulls) hurt and are hard to recover from. Its better to avoid these types of injuries. Your legs will also get quite a workout from squatting and standing.

2. Medicine ball front chop – The medicine ball front chop is similar to the diagonal chop but is only done in one plane of motion.

3. Medicine ball rotational throw (pictured above) – Many everyday movements require coordination while rotating your body. This exercise is also very difficult to do correctly. When you get good at it, you will burn upper and lower body fat at a faster rate.

4. Medicine ball soccer throw – The medicine ball soccer throw is a great upper body exercise that uses your legs. It requires coordination and power. The soccer throw also works the muscles that you use to throw a ball or swing a racquet overhead.

5. Medicine ball squat jump – The medicine ball squat jump will improve your power. Bodyweight squat jumps should be mastered first, especially jumping and landing techniques. Jumps are proven fat burners and will really accelerate your heart rate.

It is hard to limit this list to just 5 medicine ball exercises. Medicine ball lunges with rotation and medicine ball side lunges are two exercises that come to mind.

Train harder and burn more fat with medicine ball exercises!

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“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!

Jul 29 2011

Speed Metabolism with 10-Minute Workouts

Don’t let your metabolism get sluggish or slow down. And, you can keep your body looking good and toned without working out 2 hours a day. Who has time for that anyway! The number one reason that womens’ metabolisms slow down is loss of muscle mass. Save your muscle mass with my Free 10-Minute Fat Burning Workouts!

Muscle tissue is the most metabolically active tissue in your body. Your body has to work harder to maintain muscle mass. So, muscle mass is your top fat-burning tool. Work hard and build your body.

“As women age, their metabolisms slow down, mainly because they are losing five or six pounds of muscle each decade starting in the mid-20s,” explains fitness expert Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director of the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts.

“There’s no reason you can’t have the same metabolism in your 30s and 40s that you had in your 20s,” stresses Pamela Peeke, M.D., author of Fight Fat After Forty.

Keep your metabolism more active at any age with these 10-minute workouts:

1. First, do three weight training workouts a week. On your Monday and Friday workouts, you will do full body circuit training with light (but challenging) dumbbells or bodyweight exercises. Your repetition range for each exercise will be 10-12. This type of weight training increases growth hormone in your body.

Growth hormone elevations during this type of exercise have been shown to decrease body fat and increase protein synthesis after exercise. Growth hormone helps promote tissue repair and muscle mass growth from lifting weights.

Intense exercises such as sprints and squat jumps also increase growth hormone release. These types of exercises would be perfect for your interval cardio and bodyweight cardio workouts.

2. Women can also build muscle mass through heavy weight lifting (you won’t get bulky). “Heavy” is relative to your body weight and strength. According to the research, doing this type of weight lifting will give you exercise-induced testosterone increases. Of course, this will help you build muscle mass.

Your repetition range for exercises will be 6 (you would have a difficult time lifting these repetitions). Your Wednesday workout will be with heavy weights.

Speed up your metabolism with my FREE 10-Minute Fat Burning Workouts now!

“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!

Jan 6 2011

Top Reason Womens’ Metabolisms Slow Down

The number one reason that womens’ metabolisms slow down is loss of muscle mass. It is definitely true that age, genetics, diet, etc. also play roles in the speed of a woman’s metabolism. But, the top way to keep your metabolism humming is to build and maintain muscle mass throughout your life.

Muscle tissue is the most metabolically active tissue in your body. Your body has to work harder to maintain muscle mass. So, muscle mass is your top fat-burning tool. Work hard and build your body.

“As women age, their metabolisms slow down, mainly because they are losing five or six pounds of muscle each decade starting in the mid-20s,” explains fitness expert Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director of the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts.

“There’s no reason you can’t have the same metabolism in your 30s and 40s that you had in your 20s,” stresses Pamela Peeke, M.D., author of Fight Fat After Forty.

So, here are my tips to build more muscle and keep your metabolism active at any age:

1. First, do three weight training workouts a week. On your Monday and Friday workouts, you should do full body circuit training with light (but challenging) dumbbells or bodyweight exercises. Your repetition range for each exercise should be 8-15. This type of weight training increases growth hormone in your body.

Growth hormone elevations during this type of exercise have been shown to decrease body fat and increase protein synthesis after exercise. Growth hormone helps promote tissue repair and muscle mass growth from lifting weights.

Intense exercises such as sprints and squat jumps also increase growth hormone release. These types of exercises would be perfect for your interval cardio workouts on Tuesday and Thursday.

2. A less common way that women build muscle mass is through heavy weight lifting. “Heavy” is relative to your body weight and strength. According to the research, doing this type of weight lifting will give you exercise-induced testosterone increases. Of course, this will help you build muscle mass.

So, how much weight is heavy enough? Your repetition range for exercises should be between 3-5 (you would have a difficult time lifting these repetitions). You would typically do 4-5 sets of each exercise.

Concentrate on compound (multi-joint) exercises like squats, deadlift, bench press, rows and pull-ups because they build major muscle groups.

If you need help speeding up your metabolism, get my Free women’s fat loss guide now!

“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!