Here’s a handy checklist of everything you need to hit the gym.

Workout Clothes (check out the Vi-Store for some great options!)

• Breathable T-shirt or tank
• Shorts, track pants or yoga pants
• Sneakers
• Socks
• Sports bra/underwear
• Headband and/or hair elastics

Gear

• iPod or other Mp3 player
• Heart rate monitor
• Activity-specific accessories, such as a yoga mat, weight-lifting gloves, tennis racket, etc.

Shower Essentials

• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Body wash/soap
• Deodorant
• Hairbrush/comb
• Facial wipes
• Towel
• Shower shoes
• Change of clothes

 Fuel

• Water bottle
• ViSalus GO™
• ViSalus PRO™
• ViSalus Nutra-Cookie™

Extras

• Combination lock
• Plastic bag for dirty gym clothes

What’s the one thing you can’t go to the gym without?

The post What’s in Your Gym Bag? appeared first on The Challenge.

Is your workout routine in a rut? Change up your gym game with training tricks from two Vi Model Finalists.

Vi Model Finalist Sara Moylan is a pro fitness competitor and a ViSalus™ Presidential Director in Jenison, MI. Her advice is to change your playlist, change your workout routine completely, and pick a new 90-Day Challenge goal. “90 days is a great gauge for taking new turns in your fitness endeavors,” she says. “You have to constantly change it up or your body will quit responding.”

Tyler Howard, a ViSalus 2-Star Ambassador from Atlanta, GA says that small tweaks can yield big results—all you need is a little creativity. “Trade out weight machines for TRX to maximize your strength-training workout,” advises Tyler. “Adding some TRX suspension will engage multiple muscles vs. isolating only one body part on weight machines.” He also recommends trading standard ab exercises for kickboxing. “Instead of doing planks on a mat, engage your core and burn calories with kickboxing. It’s great for the six-pack!”

The post Reboot Camp: Training Tricks from Two Vi-Model Finalists appeared first on The Challenge.

Hitting a workout plateau is fairly common. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, it’s one of the reasons more than 50% of people who start an exercise program quit within three to six months.

Don’t let this happen to you!

Harvey Stables

We checked in with Vi Model Finalist and ViSalus™ 4-Star Ambassador Harvey Stables for his advice on pushing past a workout plateau. (Have you seen the chiseled physique on this guy? He knows what he’s talking about!) Here are some of Harvey’s fitness tips:

Exercise with a committed partner

• Why? Increases your accountability and your results
• Makes training and exercising a habit
• You’re less likely to give up or blow it off

 Make the workout fun

• Vary the activity
• Try an obstacle course, get in the boxing ring, or take a CrossFit or Zumba class to liven things up

Change the duration and/or intensity

• Go as hard as you can for 20 minutes vs. an hour of low to medium power
• Dial up the intensity level of each workout—shift from walking to running up hills or stairs

Get adequate sleep

• Plan for 6-8 hours every night
• Why? Your body heals and recovers when you sleep, not when you train

Add a Challenge Kit

• Why? A nutritious way to meet your specific weight-loss or fitness goal and make your health a priority for 90 days at a time
• The Fit Kit is Harvey’s weapon of choice to keep him going strong toward his Challenge goals

The post Push Past the Plateau appeared first on The Challenge.

Although core exercises are extremely important to a well-rounded fitness program, people often assume that doing a few sit-ups every now and then is all it takes to strengthen their core. While sit-ups are a good exercise, it often takes much more to really build your core.  To clarify, core muscles are generally defined as the muscles that are in your pelvis, lower back, hips and abdomen and play a vital part in a number of daily functions.

Strengthening your core improves posture, stability, is the key to flat abs, reduces the risk of back injuries and plays an extremely important role in sports performance. To put its’ importance in perspective, one must realize that any dynamic movement that is made with your upper or lower body actually originates from the muscles in your core.

With all of this being said, here are 3 exercises that are simple to do, don’t require a gym membership, will greatly improve your core strength and will tighten and flatten your belly when incorporated into your workout routine.

Leg Lifts

Leg lifts are one of the simplest and most effective ways to strengthen your core, specifically your lower abs. To start you will need to lie flat on the ground or on a yoga mat with your hands either behind your head or across your chest. The next step is to lift your legs off the ground while keeping them in a straight or slightly bent position. By tightening your abdominal muscles and squeezing your buttocks, lift your legs so that your body comes somewhat close to creating an ‘L’ shape and then return your legs to approximately an inch off the ground. After completing the single repetition you will want to repeat anywhere between 5-40 times. The amount of repetitions you are able to do will be a reflection on the strength of your lower abs and will vary from person to person.

One variation of this exercise that may be of interest is to lie in the same position and lift your legs in a similar manner but hold them only one inch off the ground. You will want to hold your straightened legs off the ground for anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Again, the amount of time you are able to sustain your leg raise will vary from person to person.

Segmental Rotation

Don’t let the name throw you off- this is a relatively common core exercise that again is easy to do and can pretty much be done anywhere. To do this, lie on your back with your knees bent in an upward position and your back in a relatively neutral position. Let your knees ‘fall’ to the left while keeping your shoulders on the floor. It is important that you only let your knees fall as far as what is comfortable for you, that distance will vary from person to person. Once you have reached a comfortable position, return your knees to the starting point and repeat the exercise to your right. Make sure that when you are doing this exercise you are feeling a stretch, not pain.

Image Source: mayoclinic.com

The great thing about this exercise is that it is not only a great way to tone your core and abs, but it’s also a good way to stretch your lower back.

Extended Plank

There are a variety of names out there for this exercise, but the bottom line is that it is a great core workout. Start in the push-up position and after holding for 10-15 seconds begin to place your hands further and further in front of you. Move your hands one at a time but make sure not to reach too far as you will find that you will be nearly fully extended quickly. Once you reach a position where you are well extended with your weight on your hands and toes, begin moving your hands back to their original position. Once you have reached the original position, repeat.

There are tons of great core exercises out there so don’t limit yourself to just these three. What are your favorite core exercises?

Sources: mayoclinic.com, fitsugar.com, menshealth.com

The post Core Exercises to Tone & Flatten Your Stomach appeared first on The Challenge.

Many people that are overweight or obese find it difficult to work out, so here are a few simple exercises to help you on your journey to a healthier and happier life.  There are a few reasons for this difficulty, so to start let’s provide some background information:

• According to Krista Scott-Dixon, a researcher and nutrition coach, “Fat is a metabolically active organ. It’s not just storage; it actually secretes hormones that affect your energy levels.” So, to put it simply, “Even if you don’t really feel that much pain, you just feel like crap.”
• Personal trainer Steve Barrett stated: “Exercise is stressful for the body – but for those who are severely overweight, their bodies are already stressed, their blood pressure is already raised, they are already fatigued, their joints already strained.”

While sticking to a workout routine can be tough for the slightly overweight person (or even someone in good shape), it is clear that the more pounds you have on you the more difficult it can be. But don’t give up! Here are a few ways to start that journey to a healthier life:

• Participate in low or non-impact activities.
• Focus on exercises that are easy on your joints and lower back such as cross-trainers and recumbent bikes.
• Work your way up to the gym. Some obese individuals feel embarrassed to go to the gym considering the majority of people there are already ‘fit’. Don’t let that hold you back. Activities as simple as gardening or even washing your car can help you on your way to becoming more active and you’re likely to drop a few pounds in the process.
• Take a few walking breaks at work. The walk can be 2 minutes or 10 minutes- it doesn’t matter. As long as you are moving around and not pushing yourself too hard, pretty much any form of exercise will improve your overall health.

Before jumping into a workout routine it is extremely important to consult a doctor to make sure you not only have realistic goals in mind, but more importantly, to make sure you don’t injure yourself in the process. Remember: Don’t let anyone, including yourself, hold you back from a healthier life. You CAN do it!

Sources: Livestrong.com, About.com, The Guardian

The post Overweight or Obese? A Few Simple Exercise Tips appeared first on The Challenge.

With your Vi-Shakes, Nutra-Cookies and ViSalus energy drinks you’re already well on your way to losing any excess fat you may have in the stomach area. The following three exercises, used in combination with proper nutrition, can really have a positive effect on the look of your stomach.

Planking

Image Source: Women’s Health Magazine

Planking will not only strengthen your core (abs included), but they will actually strengthen your back as well. The combination of working your abs and back will not only ‘flatten’ your belly, but it will actually improve your posture so you will appear much flatter than you were previously.

How to do:

• Start in the pushup position, except have your forearms on the ground/mat instead of your hands. Keep your elbows in line with your shoulders.
• Push off floor, body resting only on toes and forearms.
• Keep your back flat, squeeze glutes, tighten abs- creating a nearly straight line. A ‘plank’ if you will.
• Hold for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on core strength.

Ab Crunch with Toe Touch

This will not only work your lower, middle and upper abs, but it will stretch your hamstrings and is a good isometric hold for your hip flexors.

How to do:

• Start by lying flat on your back.
• Raise both legs in the air with a slight bend in the knees.
• Do a crunch and reach up to touch the toes (you may not make it all the way to the toes, but touching your ankle/shoes is a good enough start).
• Return back to position with feet in the air with a slight knee bend.

Full Crunch with Medicine Ball

Image Source: http://www.everydaybetter.com

This is a standard crunch taken to the next level. The additional weight will add difficulty and force your abs to work harder, therefore strengthening them more than a ‘standard crunch.’

How to do:

• Lie flat on a gym mat or ground with arms extended out straight behind head with medicine ball in hands
• As you curl your upper torso towards your knees continue holding ball and shift ball from above head to over torso
• Pause, then return to start point where arms are extended above your head

The post 3 Exercises to Help Flatten your Belly appeared first on The Challenge.

1. Get Fit with HIT

Get the most impact and maximize every minute with HIT (high-intensity interval training). You can cut your workout short without shortchanging your results. For each exercise, go as hard as you can for 50 seconds and rest for 10 seconds: jump rope, high knees, burpees, mountain climbers, lunge jumps, squats, fast feet, speed skaters, jumping jacks, pushups and ab crunches

 2. Muscle Up

Limit your weight workouts to 60 minutes. After an hour, your body produces more cortisol- a stress hormone- that can actually impede muscle-building.

 3. Get a Grip

Before you do arm curls, wrap a towel around the bar. It’ll strengthen your grip. The towel makes the bar thicker, and that makes your forearm muscles work harder.

4. Less Pain, More Gain

Count your reps backward. Toward the end of your set you will think about the few reps you have left instead of the number you’ve already completed.

5. Breathe, Baby, Breathe

Want to force your abs to work harder? During sets of abdominal crunches, exhale strongly at the top of each movement.

6. Take Five

If you only have five minutes for fitness, here’s what to do with them: 1 minute of plyometric lunges, 1 minute of standing broad jumps or speed skaters, 1 minute of high knees, hold plank position for 1 minute and 1 minute of pushups. This workout doesn’t require gym equipment, so no excuses- you can do this (almost) anywhere

Photo credit: isafmedia / Foter.com / CC BY

7. Get a Leg Back

Strengthen your legs by doing lunges in reverse. Step backwards instead of forwards and you’ll force your front leg to engage throughout the whole exercise.

8. Run Like You Mean It

Increase your speed and endurance by dividing your run into thirds. Run slowly for the first third, go at a normal pace in the middle third and then run even faster at the end.

9. Bring Back The Six-Pack

Deadlifts and squats can build your abs. These two moves require your abdominal muscles to engage in order to support your posture. Make sure you keep your weight in your heels, not your toes.

10. Get Tested

Every few weeks, measure something like body fat or waist size that correlates to your 90-Day Challenge goal. You’ll see tangible short-term results that will motivate you to keep going for it.

This article can also be found in the new Challenge Magazine

The post 10 Fitness Tips From Team Vi appeared first on The Challenge.

Happy Friday everyone! Today we’re going to talk about some serious arm assaulting for both men and women!

Gentlemen, we all know you want big arms so I’m going to run you through a couple tips and tricks to get you there. Ladies, nothing is more unattractive than undefined arms! Let’s get your arms sexy and lean for summer!

Now, when training arms the most important thing you can focus on is the squeeze. I’m talking about that burning sensation at the peak of the movement. Biceps and triceps have multiple “heads” and to hit them all effectively it’s important to give that extra contraction at the top in order to promote some serious muscle growth.

Now, what I want you to try this time around with arms is to go a tad lighter than you’re used to. Stick to rep ranges of 12-15 and really focus on form and squeeze! You’re working on molding and shaping your body- not powerlifting! Generally speaking, I like to start with biceps  and then move onto triceps. Here we go!

French Bar Curls: I like to substitute these in every other week for straight bar curls to reduce the pressure on my wrist. To get a more neutral grip, I tend to grab the outer “ridge” of the bar so that I’m getting a more full range of motion instead of hitting the peak of the bicep only. Make sure you open up completely at the bottom and give a good one-second squeeze at the top.

Alternating Dumbbell Curls: I almost ALWAYS do these seated. By sitting down you’re less likely to throw the dumbbells around like an ape. What I like to do here to get a good squeeze in the peak is turn my wrist so that it is parallel with my body. I do this to bring the squeeze from the bottom part of my bicep right into the peak.

Concentrated Curls: I was doing the pictures for this in a friend’s gym so I wasn’t able to show the way I normally do these. These can be done with dumbbells or cables. I chose to use a preacher approach to really focus on the peak and upper part of my bicep. Keep your form tight, dumbbell turned as such in the picture and don’t forget to breathe!

Skull Crushers: This is by far my FAVORITE tricep exercise. I used to do them flat and then decided to try it at an incline. By bringing the bench up you’re really able to focus on the outer head of the tricep. You’ll have to go a little lighter than usual to save your  joints but keep your elbows close together and make sure to reach all the way back at the bottom of the movement.

Close Grip Bench Press: Ladies, if you do these go light. Gentlemen, this is one tricep exercise where I DEFINITELY recommend going heavy. Still keep in that same rep range but get yourself a spotter to really pack on the weight. This moment promotes immense muscle growth and can really stack some inches onto those triceps. Keep your elbows close to your body and come up about 75% of the way. Don’t lock out at the top; you don’t want to lose tension on the muscle.

Rope Pull Downs: There’s a ton of different ways to do these. I tend to prefer grabbing the rope at the bottom. As noted in the picture, the bells on the rope turn out at the bottom to really squeeze the “horse shoe” and make it pop.

Dips: Last but not least! A good way to work out those triceps is dips. Slide in 2 or 3 sets at the end of your workout until you reach failure and enjoy the tearing sensation!

Alright friends now it’s your turn to go out and try to either shred or grow those arms! Make sure you follow me on instagram @bestrongstayfit or www.instagram.com/bestrongstayfit . My twitter account is www.twitter.com/bestrongstayfit or handle @bestrongstayfit. Hope to hear some feedback on how your arms feel after this one and enjoy your weekend!

Be strong. Stay fit.

The post Fitness Friday: Arms Assault appeared first on The Challenge.

Many of you may need to change up your boring cardio routines and get busy torching more body fat in 2013.   Since cardio exercise is inherently tedious and monotonous, ramp up the intensity and finish your workout as soon as possible with gassers!  

I don’t know which sounds worst, gassers or burpees. What I do know is that they are both tough and excellent fat burners.

Gassers are a cult favorite among football coaches. What are they you ask? Basically, gassers are sprint intervals, if you do them right.

Two Types of Gassers

Note: For best results, do these gassers on a grass surface. And you don’t have to be fast, just run as fast as you can on each repetition.

Half Gassers - Sprint across one football field sideline to the other sideline (53 yards). Immediately sprint back. That’s 106 yards and one repetition. Walk one minute and do it again. Simple as that. Do as many as you can for 20 minutes. You will be gassed.

Full Gassers - Sprint across one football field sideline to the other (53 yards). Immediately sprint back. Do the same thing again without rest. That’s 212 total yards for one repetition. Walk for 1-2 minutes and go again. Do as many as you can for 20 minutes.

I like to do half gassers because I can sprint full blast all the way through. And, I can get in more sprints. Full gassers are more for conditioning purposes.

Doing these types of short burst workouts will change your hormones allowing your body to naturally regulate fat burning, appetite and moods. Short burst workouts, such as interval cardio and circuit weight training have more fat burning benefits.

Research at Duke University, directed by Dr. Cris Slentz, supports high-intensity exercise for better fat loss vs low-to-moderate intensity workouts. The eight-month study showed that people could lose weight with exercise when a large about of high-intensity exercise was a part of their workout routines. Those who exercised intensely (especially using interval training) lost much more fat than those who exercised moderately.

According to the research, the high-intensity exercisers had these advantages over the low-to-moderate intensity exercisers:

• More release of fat from cells
• More fat used as fuel during exercise
• Increased metabolic rate after exercise

Doing this type of exercise will burn more calories and fat during and after your workout. Exercise Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) causes your body to burn more calories and fat after a tough workout. Your body has to work harder to get back to its pre-exercise state. Fat burning and metabolism can increase for up to 48 hours after your workout.

Traditional lower-intensity, steady-state aerobic exercise on treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, etc. are good for beginners or those who have been inactive. It will also bore you to tears! Aerobic exercise is an activity that is done continuously for more than 2 straight minutes. But research has proven that the heart-health and fat-burning benefits of anaerobic exercise is superior to aerobic exercise. The progression of exercise should be low-intensity aerobics to moderate/high-intensity aerobics to high-intensity anaerobics (intervals).

Sprinting activates your bulkier, shapely fast twitch muscle fibers. These fast twitch muscle fibers will lie dormant when you do slow-paced cardio sessions.

Sprinting will really burn the fat on your butt, hips, thighs, hamstrings and lower legs. Fat will also be burned on your upper body.

Go and get gassed in 2013!

The post Gas Up Your Interval Cardio and Torch More Fat in 2013 appeared first on The Challenge.

Every now and then the four walls filled with iron and cardio machines get a little monotonous. Just like anyone else I get burnt out on constantly being in the gym to get my work outs done…especially when you go to the same gym all the time. I have to say that I’m grateful for the fact that Los Angeles has some gorgeous trails if you just take the time to find them. I hit the trails this past weekend for a little outdoor fun but wanted to get some fitness in there as well.

Kept things basic being that I was outdoor and didn’t have much to work with. This particular trail had little to no one on it. If the incline wasn’t too bad I would lunge for twenty steps each leg then jog the rest of the way up. Obviously this is all terrain pending so be careful and make an informed decision depending on the trail.  The jogging did stop about half way through because I had a backpack filled with water which added about an extra 8 pounds to my weight. The eight pounds wasn’t the issue but the water swishing back and forth was.

Now there were quite a few areas where the ground was flat on this hike. I would do the following routine

25 push-ups (Watch where you place your hands!)

50 squats (DEEP!)

25 Squat jumps

25 close grip push-ups

By the time I was done with my hike I definitely broke a sweat. With the holidays coming around and finances being tight, it’s common for many to use money as an excuse not to get in shape. Whether it be in your home, at a park, outside or just about anywhere you can take the first few steps to getting back on track. It’s not about the whole staircase just take the first step and the rest will follow.

Check me out on Instagram and Twitter @BeStrongStayFit and feel free to email me with questions BeStrongStayFit@gmail.com regarding online personal training and nutrition.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful pre-holiday week! I’ll make sure to get you a post holiday fat assault work out as my gift to you!

Be Strong. Stay Fit.

The post Fitness Friday: Outside the Gym appeared first on The Challenge.