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The short answer is yes.

Running on a treadmill while flat shouldn’t cause you any back pain but running or walking on a treadmill may  cause some back pain if:

1. you use the incline too early in your workout
2. you use the incline for too long
3. or you use an incline that is too steep

Of course you can avoid all of these scenarios by taking a walk outside. And with the weather getting so much nicer these days, who wouldn’t mind a nice leisurely walk outside over working out on a treadmill indoors?

Popularity: 26% [?]

OK, I have to admit that title was meant to get your attention since most of us since we were small children have been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Maybe the title should have read:

The Most Important Meal of the Day if your goal is to look and feel better. 

That meal would be the post-workout meal and if you ain’t having it; a lot of the hard work you put in to exercising is being wasted!

After you workout, your body is starving for the nutrients it needs to replenish itself. During your workout, you break down muscle tissue and after your workout, you need to feed your muscles sugar to fuel them and protein to rebuild them.

A protein shake is the perfect supplement/ “meal” post-workout because it instantly feeds your muscles whereas a regular solid meal would take about 30 minutes for your body to digest.

The perfect strategy, if you’re looking to add some lean pounds of muscle, is to have a protein shake immediately after your workout and a solid meal about an hour after. That’s usually how I try to do it anyway…

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1. Blood pressure lowers
2. Cholesterol levels drop
3. Body temeperature drops

One of the easiest things you can do to cut some calories is replace one of your meals with a MRP (meal replacement powder - basically a protein shake with a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals and macro-nutrients) or a meal replacement bar (think Met-Rx).

I prefer meal replacement products because they’re easy, they pack a punch (like I said most on the market provide a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals, micro and macro nutrients as well as other supplements if you desire), and most keep your  caloric intake somwhere in the 200-400 range.

Personally, I like to have a bar and a 20 oz. bottle of water. The bars today taste a lot better then the chalk and cardboard supplement manufacturers used to peddle back in the day.

I’ve heard some people complain that  they don’t feel “full” after having a meal replacement bar or shake and that’s usually because they’re accustomed to only having 2-3 meals a day when they should be having 4-6 to further enhance their metabolism.

Popularity: 30% [?]

I’ve received a few questions lately regarding how exactly interval training can be more effective then a “regular” cardio tarining session where the same jogging type pace is utilized for the entire workout.

The answer is that sprinting (which is usually what you’ll be doing 50% of the time in an interval workout) burns more calories then normal jogging because it takes more energy to run hard. 

Sprinting also recruits the use of the fast-twitch muscle fibers in your legs which jogging does not so we have yet another reason to incorporate interval training into your workouts!

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with this little tidbit:

The harder you workout; the more progress you will make.

Just don’t push it to the limit every workout, ok.

Popularity: 25% [?]