Now that you are over 50 you may be wondering about the “Golden Years” to come. You have probably been working non stop for decades and are feeling both happy and nervous about the free time to come. Getting the most out of your retirement is as simple as getting healthy and staying active.

You have seen the ads targeting people your age. You see pictures of seniors hiking, swimming, and even rock climbing. Your peers talk about time on the tennis courts and golf courses. So many senior men and women enjoy activities with loved ones such as bicycling and ballroom dancing. Many have lives that are full and active, but you may wonder how you can enjoy retirement in that way. The secret to having the best years of your life is to achieve fitness over 50.

Decades of stressful work 5 or more days a week may have gotten you out of shape. Many people turn 50 and find that they are sedentary, overweight, unfit, and unhealthy. If you remain sedentary after retirement, you will soon become even more out of shape and unhealthy. A sedentary life can also have very serious and many times deadly health repercussions like a heart attack, diabetes, or cancer.

If you begin a fitness program tailored to your over 50 needs you be able to get the most out of your retirement and avoid illness. It is not hard to become fit, so do not be intimidated by your age. You may not start at the same intense level you would have in your youth, but you can still get the same fantastic results. The first step is to design a quality exercise regiment.

Strength training or bodybuilding over 50 is an important part of an exercise program. Bodybuilding builds muscle mass and makes you strong enough for all the activities you want to do in your retirement. Rock climbing, long hikes, and family bike rides means that you will need strong muscles to support you. Bodybuilding prepares you for this kind of activity and can help you stay free and independent for decades to come.

Cardio and Stretching exercises are an important part of exercise. Cardio workouts strengthen your heart, lungs, and circulation. It increases your endurance for activities like swimming and tennis. Yoga and other stretching workouts keep your joints and muscles flexible for activities like ballroom dancing all evening with someone special.

Good nutrition and positive lifestyle changes are also an important component of fitness. Reduce the fats and sugary carbohydrates in your diet. Increase the protein, nutrients, and water you consume. Positive lifestyle changes include reducing areas of stress in your life and stopping bad habits that harm your body such as smoking or alcohol.

You can control how active you remain. If you are healthy, you will be able to do all of the things you dreamed of doing when you retired. If you want the “Golden Years” to be the best yet, today is the day to start a fitness program.

To read more about bodybuilding for women over 50, visit Scott Fishers authoritative website. You can find a variety of articles related to over 50 fitness.

You may say “Wait Mitch, I want to build muscle and gain weight. Why do I need to boost my metabolism?”

Here’s why.

A slow metabolism will destroy muscle and store fat. Starving your body or inactivity will tell your body not to build muscle because it takes too much energy to maintain.

When you’re trying to build muscle, energy is in high demand because you’re lifting weights and doing intense cardio.

Your body needs a lot of energy to rebuild those muscles. Your body needs a lot of energy to maintain those muscles. To do this, you have to eat more. But we all know that if you eat more and do the same, you’ll get fat.

If you want to minimize the fat you gain while eating so much, you must increase your metabolism. This will feed your muscle and starve the fat. Lifting weight and intense cardio alone will increase your metabolism.

You’ll also needed dietary boosts in your metabolism. The following foods also help in your muscle building efforts.

1. Fish – for the omega-3 (O3)

* Mackerel – 2.5g O3 per 3.5 oz of fish
* Bluefin Tuna – 1.6g O3 per 3.5 oz of fish
* Salmon – 1.5g O3 per 3.5 oz of fish

The protein Omega-3 can potentially increase your daily calorie burn by 400.

Eating fish has many nutritional benefits that out weight simply taking a vitamin.

2. Veggies High in Fiber

* Avocado
* Beans
* Broccoli

Your body can’t digest fiber, but it’ll try anyway and burn a lot of energy in the process.

3. High Protein Meats

* Venison – 34g per 100 grams of meat
* Chicken – 25g per 100 grams of meat
* Lean beef – 25g per 100 grams of meat

Protein increases your metabolism because it takes twice as much energy to digest and metabolize a high protein meal than it does for a high carb meal.

Incorporate these into your diet, and along with your weight training efforts, you’ll benefit from a high metabolism around the clock.

Webmd supplied some of the information.

Want to find out more about how to increase your metabolism for muscle gain, then visit Mitch’s site on how to build muscle.

So many products in the market on developing toned abs with lot of extraordinary promises makes it very difficult to take a decision as to which product would be the most suitable one and whether it will give the desired results.

This happens because we are subjected to intense and repeated ads through print media, television and by online marketers assuring us excellent results but we all have heard from our friends as to how they invested in one of the products and did not find any considerable benefit by using the product. Let us now try to analyze the common mistakes made by us and the suggested guidelines to be followed so that we can be fully benefited.

First of all we have to understand the primary facts about body building and not become victims of misconceptions.But most of us get trapped by these misconceptions .The most common misconception that we come across is that it is of utmost importance that we exercise everyday in order to gain toned abs.But this is not true.An exercise routine of 3-4 days per week is more than enough to achieve the required level of fitness.The body is to be given time for the growth of muscles and the repairing of tissues.

Another common misconception is that it does not matter if we take Junk Food as long as we do an exercise workout immediately after taking the Junk Food.Majority of us believe this to be true due to the logic behind it,but in fact one has to give up the Junk Food in total if they wish to develop a six pack that they can exhibit with pride. Also the diet should be planned and balanced.

The biggest fable about the building of toned abs is that one should do maximum possible number of sit ups to fully tone the abs and attain six pack abs.The fact is that the exercise module should cover the whole body and not be focused only on the abdominal region. If this is not followed then the chances of gaining toned six pack abs are bleak.The body will extract all the deposited fat from the abdominal zone which is one of the major storing place of fats in the body when the whole body is exercised.

The noted personal trainer Mike Geary who is also a qualified nutritionist has created a manual with the following guidelines: * There is no need to undergo any sort of fad dieting, drugs or steroids course to get a toned muscular figure. *If one is a “lazy bone” and looks for shortcuts it will not be possible to build a six-pack. *He has formulated a set of exercises that help in losing the fat around the stomach and he also gives the scientific explanation as to how this result is achieved. *The diet plan that he provides does not involve any starving to lose fat and helps in cleverly selecting the foods that do not contain fats. *He has developed a course that fits both males and females from all age groups and the body toning can be achieved using the beginner, intermediate and advanced modules and he also suggests the workouts that exhilarate every layer of the abdominal muscles to gain a well toned abs.

If you are planning to build a six pack abs please be aware of the misleading myths about toning your abs and follow a properly designed scientific training program so that you will be able to develop a well toned lean muscular body in the shortest time possible.

Shiv Kumar invites you to visit Truth about Abs for more information on building six pack abs . You can also get more information about other similar products at Truth about Abs

Cardio exercises and strength training workouts helps in eliminating those unwanted fat. They also help in building muscles as well. And when you opt to tone down and make your body a mountain of muscles, then doing both strength training and cardio workouts really helps you succeed.

Strength training involves heavy lifting and pushing exercises, all of which are designed to stimulate your muscles. Strength training also has different sets of exercises that either focus on a certain muscle group or involving two or more muscle groups simultaneously. These sets are divided in to two – isolated and compound.

Isolated exercises are those that target one muscle group at one session. Such exercises include bicep curls, leg raises, and shoulder raises. For example, shoulder raises only focuses on building the muscles on the shoulder.

Quite the opposite, compound strength training exercises simultaneously stimulates two or more muscle groups in one session. Many experts say this is the best strength training set for anyone who wants to build muscles fast. Examples of this type of strength training exercises consist of bench presses, shoulder presses, and squats.

If you decide to do strength training exercise, the unwritten rule of the thumb is don’t overexert yourself in hopes of achieving results. Limit your gym sessions to at least two or three times a week. You might think that skipping days may deliver the results, but it is in fact, the other way around.

While many people find it hard to believe, excessive exercising hinders the growth of muscles. Try to lodge a day in between your gym days to make sure you get enough rest for the workout ahead. Just remember that muscles grow bigger when they are at rest.

Cardio exercises are also great in building muscles and losing weight. Cardio routines focus on moving your whole body so as to speed up your heart rate and calorie burning mechanism. Examples of cardio exercises are jogging, cycling, swimming, and playing tennis and football.

If you want to build muscles, do strength training and cardio exercises. But do not push yourself to the limits. Just work your body out and take the word of professionals. You’ll be a buff in no time.

The key to gaining muscles each week is your weight training. Many individuals fail to gain the weight and build the muscle they desire each week because they aren’t training right. They eat the wrong foods and they perform the exercises the wrong way.

A gain of one pound of muscle per week will be easy once you begin applying these 5 simple rules to an effective workout.

1. Get Enough Protein in Your Diet

Your muscles will grow larger as a result of the amount of protein you store. The thing is, your body is rapidly draining the protein it stores for other uses and this leaves less protein available for building muscle. This is why you have to build and store new protein faster than your body breaks down the old protein.

2. Eat More Food

The simple rule of thumb to be sure you are eating enough protein is to make sure you consume one gram for each pound of body weight every day. For example, if you weigh 180 pounds you should eat 180 grams every single day. You will also want to add at least 500 extra calories to your daily caloric intake for your first two weeks and add even more if needed after that trial period.

3. Bigger Muscle Groups are The Focus

You will see the most muscle gains the fastest if you place the majority of your focus on the largest muscle groups and do the exercises in 2 to 3 sets of about 8 to 12 reps each, with only a short resting period in between each. Common exercises that target mainly the largest muscle groups are of course squats, dips, bench presses and pull ups. This will maximize your weight gain potential.

4. Rest After A Day Of Workout

Each workout should be followed by an entire day of rest to allow the muscles to heal, which is when the actual new muscle growth occurs.

5. Carbs After Workout

Increasing your carbohydrate intake with snacks such as peanut butter or bananas will slow the rate at which your body metabolizes protein, making it more available to your recuperating muscles.

Consider using Acai Force as a bodybuilding supplement on your resting days for maximum gains.

1. Twelve Reps

The twelve rep standard is often prescribed in bodybuilding routines for gaining muscle mass. However, doing this many reps at once actually places the type of strain needed for strength and endurance, rather than gains in muscle mass. In order to develop strength and gain mass, you will need to include both strategies in your workout with the addition of sets of fewer reps of heavier weights to your routine.

2. The 3 Set Rule

It’s best to look at this as a guideline for three sets rather than the rule for which it is usually taken. The number of sets in your routine will depend entirely on your goals for that routine. If you are going for strength then the old 3 sets of twelve is perfect, but for muscle mass you will want to do more sets of fewer reps and increase the weight.

3. 3 to 4 exercises per muscle group

The sad fact is that this is the most inefficient way to target a muscle group during a single workout. Instead of spreading all those reps out across three to four different exercises, it’s best to do just fifty reps of one exercise during each workout. This way you are more effectively targeting each muscle group during a single workout.

4. My knees, my toes

Another common bodybuilding misconception is the idea that you should not allow your knees to extend beyond your toes. And it has indeed been verified in studies done by researchers at Memphis University that by doing squats where your knees go past your toes will in fact increase the stress on your knees by almost thirty percent.

But hip stress increased nearly 10 times or (1000 percent) when the forward movement of the knee was restricted. Because the squatters needed to lean their body forward and that forces the strain to transfer to the lower back.

5. Bodybuilding supplements

An entire industry was built nearly overnight with weight gain supplements. These products contained lots of sugar and in some cases even had cheap proteins. Guys were drinking these down by the gallon and even some hard gainers were finally building muscle but because of the quality of the ingredients the body preferred to add fat. The traditional weight gainer is no longer in vogue as supplement companies are more competitive with research and development so that they can create the next best muscle building supplement. Look for more nutritious supplements available these days.

Grab a free sample of my highest recommended pick of supplement, Acai Force Max for best results.

You have undoubtedly read some of the countless articles out there about creatine, HMB, periodization, thermogenics and more. So why is it — with all of this information out there — that you still don’t have the body you want? The answer will surprise you.

You’ve gained knowledge about some of the components of the body transformation process — not the entire picture. You just need to learn how to put all of the pieces together into a whole system.

This is the first of a series of articles I’ll be writing that will link together all of the pieces of knowledge you’ve acquired into a usable whole. This is a plan that works and is doable.

In the first part of your body transformation program you’re going to implement a strength training technique that I’ve dubbed “metabolic shift” training. This is the most effective method for releasing fatty acids from storage for burning and for getting lean.

If you’ve been looking for the perfect routine from friends, family, magazines, gym members well, that routine doesn’t exist.

Metabolic shift training will get your muscles out of their comfort zones. This will cause your body to develop new muscle and burn fat. Furthermore, as you adapt to the stimulus, progression is built in so that you never overtrain.

While the general guidelines of muscle development apply to “all,” you are an individual with individual strengths, unique recuperation and recovery abilities, and your own metabolism, therefore, once you understand and apply the general rules, you’ll learn to self-customize the specifics of your training.

There is a way to control the way that your body looks. And most people are unhappy with the amount of fat that is covering their bodies. The way to alter the amount of fat that your body burns is to control the amount of muscle that is on your body. So, you’re going to need to build muscle.

Not only does muscle size allow you to ultimately shed fat to reveal a lean, muscular, impressive physique, but muscle itself is the site where fat is burned. Even if your goal is to shed that fat layer, the development of muscle provides a much enhanced furnace for fat incineration! A focus on weight loss or gain without a concern for muscle maintenance or gain is a sure fire path to frustration.

How did you get introduced to strength training? Three times a week, basic compound movements, resting every other day? At first that worked. Then you learned more and you may have met someone that trains legs on Fridays and chest on Tuesdays.

Maybe you progressed with strength training development you learned terms like supersets, drop-sets, and burn-outs. Then maybe you started to classify your body into sub-segments. Instead of just doing legs, you started to devote an entire workout to “quads”.

This is the progression for most people from beginner to intermediate phase bodybuilding. As you advanced, you may have noticed that your gains started to slow. Results start to diminish.

About the author: Curtis is the founder of OC Boot Camp FX and has been teaching Orange County Boot Camp for more than 4 years. For more proven techniques on building muscle, burning fat, and transforming your body visit his Orange County personal trainers blog now.

Champion bodybuilders and other fitness experts keep exercise journals as a critical tool for their success. Exercise journals help you track and analyze your progress. When you are able to see what activities have positive results and which have negative results, you will know how to adjust your training program to make yourself stronger, healthier, and better.

Your exercise journal should be a detailed record of the muscle group trained, specific exercises, and how many reps you performed. As an example, you might train your biceps using arm extensions and dips. A typical journal entry would look like this: Triceps- Dips (6 reps), Arm Extensions (12 reps). Also, you should record the time of your total workout and each movement.

The more detail you can provide, the better you will be able to understand your progress. When you begin working toward fitness over 40, you cannot over-document your progress. As you learn more about how your body responds to strength training, you will learn which information is the most helpful and can modify your journal accordingly.

Another benefit to journaling is to be able to quickly identify when you overwork a muscle group and correct it. If you overwork a muscle group, especially in the beginning of a session, you will notice that you are unable to do as many reps later in the session. Also, if you notice unusual pain or need an unusual amount of rest you should be able to pinpoint the aspects of your training session that caused the injury. Therefore, you can keep yourself from repeating the injury or causing more damage.

Make sure you include your warm-up stretches, cardio, and weights in your journal. If you are not getting your desired muscle gain or if you feel pain afterwards, this could be from a lack of adequate warm up. You will be able to compare the warm up of periods when you saw positive results to the warm up of periods when you made no progress. Analysis of these two periods should help you adapt your workout accordingly.

Most fitness experts agree that you should also chronicle your nutrition, such as protein, carb, and fat intake. This is especially true if you are bodybuilding over 40 because your metabolism is changing. Also, you should note the amount of calories you are consuming and when. If you find that you are not able to build muscle, you may not be eating enough calories to counteract your exercise. If you are putting on extra weight, you may have to decide to eat fewer calories or perform more cardio.

There is also other helpful information you should include in your journal. For example, set up a numbered rating system to describe your energy level and mental outlook. In the morning or sometime throughout the day, record your number. If you track how you feel the day after a workout you will be able to analyze which training methods give you the most energy and motivation and change those methods which exhaust you too much. For example, if you added too many sets or rearranged your cycle to be more intense, you may feel overly sore the next day and need to back off a bit.

No matter how much they have researched, no one ever starts with a perfect program for bodybuilding over 40. Champion bodybuilders know that they have to track their progress and adjust their training in order to get maximum results. Exercise journals are one of the best tools you can use to create a winning fitness plan tailored to your body, your lifestyle, and your fitness goals.

Why own the Bodycraft K2 home gym? It is one of the highest quality types of home gym on the planet and is comparatively inexpensive. You could exercise your whole body by using a single piece of equipment if that equipment is the Bodycraft K2 home gym.

People offer many excuses for avoiding exercise. We are aware that exercise can keep you healthy and can even allow you to lose weight. Exercise will also help you build muscle and go from being scrawny to being fabulous by using a regular exercise program. Working out with weight bearing exercises tones muscles and makes you look nicer in your clothes. Even when you lost weight through dieting, you still should firm up your muscles. The Bodycraft K2 home gym could allow you to do that, right in your own home.

Purchasing your Bodycraft K2 home gym will cure all of your excuses not to exercise. Also, it will provide you with some excellent reasons to commence – and keep on – exercising. You can get a targeted workout that is customized for you every time you use the Bodycraft K2 home gym. You can do exercises like bench presses and pull ups when you work out with the Bodycraft K2 home gym. The K2 includes a chair that is designed to let you to exercise using the pull bar. It can be used to exercise all of the muscles above your waist. You may also do abdominal exercises as well as quad extensions for legs and thighs. You will feel like you own 10 machines in your house, even though fortunately, you will only have one if that one is the Bodycraft K2 home gym.

When you realize how to accomplish your exercise program with the Bodycraft K2 home gym, you will get to use this machine regularly to perform the same workouts that can be done at a health club. Exercising your muscles is the best way to stay in shape. A home gym is not simply a machine to build muscle, but also a method to get in and stay in tip top shape. And the Bodycraft K2 home gym is so uncomplicated to exercise with that your whole family can use it.

Keep in mind, though, just because the Bodycraft K2 home gym is easy to own is no reason to believe that it only offers an easy fitness routine. This is simply not true. You can get the same tough range of exercises with this home gym as you would if you were exercising at the athletic club.

The K2 gym is the ideal home gym for someone who would like the power of the Bodycraft home gym at an affordable price.

It’s hard to find a good dumbbell exercise chart. You’ll find charts with inferior exercises and most aren’t organized by major muscle group. You need only the best dumbell exercises, and you need them organized by major muscle group.

I’ve put together a list of major muscle groups and the best dumbbell exercises for those major muscle groups:

Quads: Squats

Hamstrings: Romanian Deadlift

Legs: Dumbbell Lunges

Calves: Calf Raise

Chest: Incline Bench Press

Shoulders: Dumbbell Overhead Press

Back: Rows

Biceps: Alternate Dumbbell Curls

Triceps: Dumbbell Extensions

Forearms: Dumbbell Pinwheel Curls

All you need to perform the exercises above are a good set of adjustable dumbbells and an adjustable weight bench for the bench press. That’s all you need to get a great workout with dumbbells.

You now have a list of the best exercises, and you know that you need some dumbbells and a weight bench. You can use a corner of any room in your house to set up your very own home gym. You can change your body and your life through weight lifting.

If you look at the dumbbell exercises I’ve listed above, you’ll notice that you don’t see many isolation exercises such as leg extensions, leg curls, dumbbell flyes, chest flyes, and lateral raises. If you focus on compound exercises, you’ll save time and work a larger amount of muscle mass.

Compound exercises are more efficient. This means you get better results in less time. Stay away from isolation exercises unless you really need to improve a weakness in one of the major muscle groups.

Do you want to know how to do each of the exercises in the list above? If so, you can see the entire dumbbell exercise chart at the link below. You’ll also see a few more of the best dumbbell exercises. Exercise videos are included.

You’ll even get more information about putting these exercises together to form a weight lifting program. Using an intelligently designed weightlifting program allows you to make progress and not waste your efforts in the gym. See the link below.