Access FREE Fitness Tips from the Ultimate Fitness Personal Trainers

To help our members maximize their health and fitness goals, Ultimate Fitness provides some of the best personal trainers in the industry. Combined, our personal trainers have over 100 years of fitness, diet, and exercise experience. Our personal trainers regularly provide free training classes and are also available for private training sessions.

Working Out With Weights

One rule when making weightlifting workout programs is to make sure to split it so that you aren't overtraining. Doing chest on Monday, then triceps on Tuesday, then shoulders on Wednesday will overtrain your triceps. Why? Because just about every chest and shoulder exercise works the triceps secondary. And, almost every back exercise works the biceps secondary. So, you would need to do one of three things when making your workout routines and splits:

1. Work chest, triceps, and shoulders on the same day, and biceps and backs on the same day so that it's okay if the secondary muscles get worked that day, because you're doing them anyway.
2. Separate those muscles that work a secondary muscle so that they are far enough apart not to overtrain you. For example, do chest and biceps Monday, triceps Wednesday, and shoulders and back Friday.
3. Do chest and triceps Monday, and shoulders Thursday, and back and biceps together on Friday.

While there are a variety of weightlifting routines available, a very popular routine is a split routine where you work different body parts on alternating days of the week. A sample split routine is shown below.

Saturday and Sunday are rest days

Physical Fitness and Nutrition

For years everyone has known that regular exercise along with good nutrition is good for his or her health. The trick is how to build sound exercise habits and a balanced diet into your busy schedule. The stress of modern times mandates that you develop and maintain a fit, trim, and fully functioning body. Being active and physically fit heightens your self-expression and self-esteem.

Research polls indicate that people today are becoming more health centered. As a result, people are becoming more interested in making fitness exercise an integral part of their lifestyle. This article will introduce you to the why of fitness. you will learn all about exercise and its benefits and will also learn how to structure a personal exercise program that is safe, reasonable, effective, and, most important, rewarding and fun.

Give some thought to the following statements:

• In the past, health meant only absence of disease. Today we have a much broader perspective and consider physical fitness to be a key component of total health.
• The modern lifestyle fosters unfitness because technological advances have eliminated much fitness producing physical exertion from everyday activities.
• Everyday activities, even for the laborer, no longer adequately stimulate the heart, lungs, and muscles to produce physiological benefits.
• Society, especially the corporate world, is beginning to realize the importance of health promotion and the role of exercise in developing and maintaining good health habits.
• Being physically fit means living at your fullest physical potential. Physical fitness is the capability of the heart, blood vessels, lungs, and muscles to function at optimal efficiency. It provides a basis for living a full and rewarding life.
• The basic health components of physical fitness are cardio-respiratory endurance, strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition.
• To be physically fit does take effort (yes, some sweat too!), but exercise does not have to be punishing to help you develop and maintain physical fitness.
• Regular and vigorous exercise of the total body is a necessary ingredient of muscular and circulatory fitness - the key to good health and well-being.