5 Latest Articles on My Fitness Tunes

Dead lifting… Who Knew

Joe Lawrence June 13th, 2018 | Strength Training, Upper Body

About five years ago I discovered the best exercise ever. I had always heard about it, but never tried it. I am not sure if it was fear, intimidation, or whatever; however, I just never attempted it. Now, it is one of my favorite exercises of all time: dead lifts.

Dead lifts work a lot of muscles and can be incorporated into almost any workout,

4 Exercises for an Awesome Back Workout

Marnie Bii June 6th, 2018 | Assorted Workouts, Cardio

Your back muscles need to grow stronger in line with your arm, leg and abdominal strength increases to prevent imbalances. Weak back muscles can decrease your potential for gains in other areas and possibly increase the risk of injury. Luckily, you can target your back muscles directly and get your heart pumping at a healthy rate with a few easy moves. Here are four exercises to combine to create

3 Types of Face Masks That Can Relieve Stress

Marnie Bii May 30th, 2018 | Mind & Body, Stress

After a long, stressful day, you might just want to sink into a hot bath to relax and put the stress behind you. If you do not have time for a luxurious bath, you can mimic the stress-relieving effects of that rest time using a face mask. The cool, refreshing touch of the mask always seems to melt tension away in an instant. Try one of these three today.

Sheet Mask

The sheet mask consists of a cotton material drenched in moisturizers and other active ingredients designed to rejuvenate your skin. The mask treats the skin on your forehead to neckline

Making the Most of the Sun for Improved Health

Marnie Bii May 23rd, 2018 | Mind & Body

As the sunlight starts to peek out from behind the clouds, many people start to feel a little bit of relief from crushing depressed emotions. If you find the winter blues affect you deeper than what feels normal, you may suffer from seasonal affective disorder, which is depression caused by a lack of natural light. In many areas, the cloud cover and constant rain severely limit exposure to mood lifting light.

Sunlight doesn't just boost moods with its beauty, it provides a surge of vitamin D that naturally alleviates depression. Low vitamin D levels can be mitigated with the right

Goals for Staying Inspired

Kimberly Hays May 16th, 2018 | Mind & Body

You hit them gym, go to yoga class, or run three to four days a week, but why? To stay motivated, you need to not only go through the motions, but think about why you work out. Do you want more energy, to lose weight, or just want to look better? Figuring out your reasons will help you to stay inspired and reach your goals.

Break down whatever it is that motivates you and keeps you inspired, and break these things into goals of 6-12 weeks to see how you are doing. Don’t continually weigh yourself, look in the mirror

Improving Physical Fitness to Celebrate Your Body

Marnie Bii May 9th, 2018 | Body & Image, Mind & Body

If you have a negative outlook on your body image, you may spend a lot of time mentally picking apart your form. Instead of focusing on the way your body looks, it might be time to reflect on the way it feels. In fact, you can completely challenge your current negative outlook by training your body for increased flexibility, strength and endurance.

You can begin by setting small goals and celebrating your physical abilities each step of the way. For example, improve flexibility by stretching for ten to fifteen minutes a day. Gain strength by performing five lunges, squats and

Sculpted Arms by Midsummer

Joe Lawrence May 2nd, 2018 | Strength Training, Upper Body

Arms and abs are two areas most men want to strengthen. With summer fast approaching, there is still some time left to look great at the beach or pool. Not much time, though.

There are really only two basic motions you can do to build your arms: bicep curl and

Stop and Smell the Flowers for Improved Mood

Marnie Bii April 25th, 2018 | Mind & Body, Seasonal

As April showers work on nourishing the May flowers, you can gear yourself up for a mood boost from these amazing blooms. Flowers have bright, vibrant colors that catch the eye and encourage positive imagery. Upon coming in close, the heavy scents may improve your mood, inspire creativity and lower stress in an instant.

Although coupling your flower-filled adventures with a brisk walk is the simplest way to bring in positive energy, it's possible to keep the vibe going by bringing a bouquet indoors. Instead of nabbing your neighbors buds (with permission, of course!), have a bouquet custom made

3 Part Plan for Getting Beach Ready

by Joe Lawrence April 18th, 2018 Strength Training

Living in the south I can already see summer peeking around the corner. This is great; however, I definitely need to get my beach body ready. I am going to do this using my never-fail three part plan.

Part one of the plan is calorie reduction. I vacillate between calorie counter apps, but usually always go back to the Lose It! app on my iPhone. This app has everything you need to count your daily calories and only takes a minute each meal. This is a very important part of the plan, because too many calories is counter-productive and not

Quiet Your Inner Voice to Improve Your Body Image

Marnie Bii April 11th, 2018 | Mind & Body

If you cannot calm and quiet your inner voice, you may be your own worst enemy. Negative reactions to your image in a mirror or photograph can instantly derail your efforts to achieve self-acceptance. Even if you are working toward a firmer body or lower weight, you need to learn how to accept your image in a positive manner.

The first step definitely involves changing your knee jerk reaction to your image. You must replace all of those negative thoughts and emotions with positive ones. You may need to force a positive reaction by actively stating three to five

2 Easy Exercises for Your Lower Body

Joe Lawrence April 4th, 2018 | Lower Body, Strength Training

I love re-discovering exercises that I used to do or have done in the past. It is like moving the couch and finding the lost remote. Recently, I had such an experience and it led me to think of some other lower body exercises I have filed away.

As I was doing some crunches on the floor, I had the urge to stretch my back and came across an exercise I did years ago. We called it a body bridge, but I have also seen it called a hip bridge, and it is awesome for working the glutes.

To do the

How to Layer for Early Spring Running

Jessica B. March 28th, 2018 | Accessories, Exercise Wear

Spring is here and that means more and more people are heading outside to run. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky dressing to run outdoors in the spring because it is not quite warm enough to run in just a t-shirt and running pants, but after a few minutes you are so warm it can be too uncomfortable to run with heavy layers. Here are a few tips for dressing for a run

Staying Inspired to Keep Working Out

Kimberly Hays March 21st, 2018 | Inspiration, Mind & Body

Working out can become tedious at times, which makes you not want to hit the gym or go for a run. Staying inspired is so important to continue your workout routine, but sometimes you just need to switch things up a bit to still get exercise, but take a

Understanding the Lies: Body Image in Pop Culture

Marnie Bii March 14th, 2018 | Mind & Body

Basing our body image expectations on images seen in pop culture is much akin to chasing rainbows. The images do not represent a healthy or obtainable female form due to the overuse of photo editing tools, makeup and lighting tricks. The video depicting the creation of an "ideal" image for an advertisement details the transformation process from beginning to end. During the process, a healthy, attractive woman is transformed into a cartoon-like depiction with heavily skewed proportions.

Furthermore, beauty standards drastically differ from country to country. Trying to keep up with theses ideals is not only unrealistic, it's

The Spark Solutions Diet

Kimberly Hays March 7th, 2018 | Diet Plans, Diet Strategy

The weight loss website, SparkPeople.com, has developed a diet called the Spark Solutions diet. The diet is formulated to fast track you into a regimen of healthy eating and regular exercise over a two week period. During this two week period you are supposed to lose five pounds. It is designed to keep you on the diet for the two week period, which is usually the period when most people fail to stay on their diet plan. There is additional guidance for the weeks after the first 14 days, but the emphasis is starting out and staying on the

Cardio Like a Child: Part 2

Joe Lawrence February 28th, 2018 | Cardio, Outdoor

Ever since writing the article about doing cardio like a child, I have received a lot of emails from family and friends asking for more. They had so much fun pretending to be kids again that they almost forgot they were working out.

I have come up with a way to get a couple more childlike exercises into the fitness toolbox.

One is simulating the climbing and jumping kids do on playground equipment. If you ever watch them, they are working every arm and leg

Kid-Friendly Superfoods

Kimberly Hays February 21st, 2018 | Diet Strategy, Superfoods

Sometimes it is difficult to get children to eat some superfoods like broccoli and greens, but of course you want them to have foods high in antioxidants and other nutrients for optimum health. There are some superfoods, however, that you can sneak into meals and snacks that they will love and not even know they are eating healthy. The following list will help you make certain that your kids, and you, get the powerful benefits of superfoods.

Raisins – Toss raisins in everything from breakfast

All About Oats

Bea February 14th, 2018 | Diet Strategy, Workout Fuel

It is no secret that oatmeal is a great whole food choice for pre and post workouts. As a post-workout choice, oatmeal is great because it has a good carb to protein ratio. This will help with repairing your muscles so that they are ready to go for the next workout.

As a pre-workout choice, oatmeal is fantastic because it allows you to train on a well prepared stomach. It

The Mindful Diet: Lose Weight Using Your Mind

Kimberly Hays February 7th, 2018 | Diet Plans, Diet Strategy

Our relationship with food is a very personal one. We equate food with memories and good times with our family and friends. We in no way want to give up that, but we can change how we think about food. How does food make you feel when you eat? Being mindful of these feelings is supposed to get you on track to losing weight and keeping it off. Here are some suggestions for this diet to think about. They really do make sense once you are aware of them.

Remove Toxins – Removing toxins from your diet will also open

Healthy Snacks for Your Next Flight

R. Carnavale January 31st, 2018 | Diet Strategy, Healthy Snacks

Why spend two to three times what you'd normally pay for a snack when you fly? With airlines raking in money on their onboard menu offerings, passengers oftentimes finding themselves paying outrageous prices for everyday foods, such as $2.89 for a CLIF Bar energy Bar or $5.49 for a serving of fruit and nut mix. There's no reason to

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