Author Archives: Ian Frazier

Fashion Tendencies for Men

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With the close of summer, a chill of fall we find ourselves rolling right on into darkness and coldness again.  Fashion is constantly changing and this year in Men’s Fashion is no different.

Those of you that enjoy that layering effect of say a long sleeve shirt, t-shirt covered by a flannel will be thrilled about some fashion tendencies that will bring solace to an ever changing world and showcased on a runway near you.

Hiking Related Gear

Function and fashion merge together to bring us pieces that not only feel good but show the fashion statement you want to create well.  Who can resist merging those heavy-duty hiking boots in your closet with a back pack or another hiking related bag to keep yourself hands free.  If you are really adventurers throw a tied-up rope around your neck and wear as a sash to truly bring in the outdoors.

This fashion season Louis Vuitton and White Mountain show us “hiking chic.”  To obtain this fashion statement, focus on certain materials as you comb through those line of clothing racks at your favorite department or thrift store.  Coated wools and cargo pants are just two of the items slipping back into the men’s fashion world.  Pair these fashions with a cotton face mask, hiking boots and a tent like material shirt and you can start your own fashion trend!

The Scrumbo

No this isn’t a new food!  This is that look of “Justin Bieber.”  You know the one where you can pretty much throw anything together and it’s a hit.  Think of it as being an adult, pretending your that avid skate board kid you were back in the 80’s with lots of money.

This style can be whatever your heart desires. Throw pieces together that would normally not make any sense and watch the fashion scene take off down that runway.  Throw on a tie-dyed t-shirt, $300 designer jeans and those $3.00 thrift store tennis shoes and go out rocking the night.  Top it off with your favorite baseball cap and bam you can walk your own runway.  If that’s not the look you’re going for then try a cut off shirt under a long sleeve button down that is not buttoned over a pair of wool blended pants and wing tipped shoes if you choose a more “sophisticated” appeal.  Just remember though, Justin Bieber is more of a tennis shoes, sweatshirt, button down, sweatpants, jeans kind of artist.

The Many Shades of Brown

Dark, chestnut, dull, dishwater looking are all words to describe the color brown.  Even saying the word doesn’t make it appealing.  Brown, if utilized in the right fashion sense can actually set you apart from your male friends and give you some “pop” in taking the color to a whole new level.  Try something along the lines of a warm cream-colored sweater, brown checkered pants and extreme white tennis shoes to bring out the color.  Showcasing the many shades of brown will have you the life of the party and runway expert in no time.

Beginner’s Guide to Bodybuilding

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If you are new to the world of bodybuilding and are looking for the best and fastest ways to improve your overall look, here are several tips and strategies to help you out. You shouldn’t expect massive improvements overnight, but you will see results sooner than you think. It’s vital that you practice patience, so stick to your diet and workouts, and you’ll definitely see results.

Stick to Free Weights

Although modern gyms are jam-packed with shiny and fancy machines, they won’t assist you in building a solid muscle mass foundation. Barbells and dumbbells are your best friends when it comes to muscle building, especially if you are new to bodybuilding.

Do Compound Movements

Even though you’ll be tempted to try every single exercise you see on websites and fitness magazines, it’s better to stick to basic compound movements first simply. We recommend exercises such as military shoulder press, barbell bench press, deadlift, and squats.

Get a Gym Program

You can’t just walk into a gym and do whatever comes to mind. You will need to follow a strict routine and stick to it. Ask an advanced bodybuilder or personal trainer to provide you with a daily gym program which includes a series of exercises you need to perform as well as the number of reps on each exercise. This will ensure that you know what to do before you step foot in the gym.

Avoid Training Every Day

If you are new to bodybuilding and you have a decent gym program at hand, you will realise that three to four workouts per week are more than enough. There’s no reason to train seven days a week when you are starting out. Rather use the off days to recover and rest.

Train Every Muscle Group Each Week

While too many days in the gym won’t assist you in getting bigger, a limited number of workouts won’t help you either. You’ll be required to workout every single muscle group at least once per week.

Learn the Right form for Every Exercise

It’s no surprise that beginners try their best to see how much they can lift instead of doing the exercise correctly. We highly recommend learning how each exercise should be done with lower weights before increasing the weights.

Gradually Increase Weights

Once you mastered the right form on every exercise, you can start increasing the weights once every one or two weeks. We suggest keeping track of the weights you lift on every exercise and periodically increase it when you feel comfortable that you can lift heavier weights. This will undoubtedly increase your overall strength, leading to significant muscle gains.

Eat Loads of Protein

Protein is your best friend when it comes to muscle building. Protein can be found in vegetables, nuts, dairy products, milk, eggs, fish, and chicken to mention a few. Most advanced bodybuilders recommend 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight for maximum results. If you find it difficult to consume protein every day, include a protein shake.

Best Supplements for Bodybuilding

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If you consider yourself to be a serious physique or strength athlete, you’ll undoubtedly know that supplements can assist you in getting the most out of your intense training sessions. However, which supplements are best suited for you?

The market is filled with bodybuilders that recommend certain supplements that is best suited for everything, promising massive results in the shortest amount of time. However, not all of them work and if you don’t know which one works, you’ll be highly disappointed. Fortunately, we are here to help you out. We included the best products on the market to help you reach your goal in getting big and strong.

Creatine Monohydrate

This power-enhancing, muscle-building supplement comes with a high safety profile and an arsenal of evidence which supports its efficiency. Creatine supplements works as it essentially increases the availability of phosphocreatine and creatine with your muscle, assisting you in maintaining energy during exercises. It also helps by boosting recovery after each session.

Caffeine

Caffeine is considered the most popular used supplement across the globe. It’s repeatedly indicated to effectively aid in both high-intensity and endurance exercises. However, in terms of strength performance, caffeine effects are a bit muddier. Some researchers indicate that taking caffeine prior to a gym session can increase by one-rep max, while others have indicated that there’s no benefits when using caffeine. However, caffeine does decrease fatigue and lowers perception.

Branched Chain Amino Acids

If you consider yourself to be a bodybuilder or strength athlete, there’s not a single reason on this planet not to incorporate BCAA during each workout. It not only tastes delicious, but it also assists in speeding up recovery after an intense workout. Those that ingests BCAA have significantly less damage and muscle soreness after a high-intensity workout.

Citrulline Malate

Citrulline Malate was first advertised as the perfect supplement to lower fatigue. In fact, if you take a step back in time, you’ll notice that CM was used to treat physical and mental fatigue for patients after surgery. However, CM also comes equipped with performance-boosting effects.

No Boosters

Nitrate-rich foods, such as pomegranates, radishes, and beets are fantastic ways to boost nitric oxide production. Although you won’t find loads of research on the effects of pomegranate extract or beet root juice on resistance training, the ingredients have previously shown an increase in skeletal mass and a reduction in soreness. This can lead to improvements on performance and strength.

Whey Protein

Whey protein is fast-digesting and is best used after a gym session. It can greatly assist in improving your recovery time on the muscle you trained, and it helps with increasing your muscle mass at a much faster rate. Whey protein is best suited for bodybuilders after a high-intensity workout.

Glutamine

Although this amino acid might not provide extreme muscle growth, it does help when it comes to recovery and repair of your muscles. It essentially eliminates excess ammonia which accumulates during exercise, assisting in regulating your body’s acid-base balance.

The Best Workout Wear & Gym Clothing Brands

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While you have the freedom to wear whatever you want while working out at the gym, there’s nothing wrong with looking stylish either. Fashionable gym attire can be considered as your reward for training so hard. There’s no denying that when you look good, you’ll also feel good. So, invest in the best clothes while working out and show off the fruits of your labour. Below, you will find the best brands when it comes to gym clothes.

Gymshark


We believe that Gymshark is one of the best clothing brands when it comes to working out. The brand offers a remarkable range of affordable gym gear for both men and women, ranging from basic leggings and bottoms to more advanced gym gear with technological breakthroughs. Gymshark’s DRY Moisture Management clothing range is developed to wick moisture while training fast, so there’s no need to stress about odours or wet clothes.

UnderArmour

UnderArmour is still the most popular brand when it comes to gym clothing and provides equipment for every fitness junkie out there. Apart from the clothing being extremely comfortable, UnderArmour also offers a wide variety of fitness gear for just about any occasion. Whether you are playing soccer, hiking up a mountain, or hitting the gym, UnderArmour has you covered.

Nike


While most workout clothing brands have a garish and large logo on just about everything, Nike continues to keep things simple with their Swoosh logo. You’ll benefit from wearing stylish and comfortable clothes without a logo that is constantly in your face. Nike delivers relatively simple designs while emphasising on performance. Their Dry Fit clothing range is among the best in the world.

Adidas

Although the company made a name for itself with streetwear attire, you’ll find that their fitness attire is just as remarkable. The famous three strips can be found on just about all their products, including their workout attire. You can find everything from training tops to running shoes and everything in between. You’ll also notice that their attire won’t cost you an arm and a leg, making it affordable for most fitness junkies.

Reebok


Reebok is considered one of the best fitness clothing brands in the world. Named after a South African antelope, Reebok is also one of the oldest clothing brands into the world, boasting with more than 125 yards in the industry. Although it’s no longer ranked as the top clothing brand in the world since the early 1980’s, Reebok remains a reputable clothing brand for gym enthusiasts around the world.

MyProtein

MyProtein is renowned for providing fitness foods and protein shakes. However, they also offer an astonishing range of high-quality gym clothes at extremely low prices. Apart from offering attire which includes stringer vests and sweatpants, the company also produces advanced gear, including a base layer and compression clothing. While you won’t find an extraordinary selection of clothing from MyProtein, you’ll be pleased to know that the quality of their clothing is some of the best in the world.

CrossFit A Series of Brutal WODs

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Created. By Greg Glassman, CrossFit is a fitness regime that is branded as well as a registered trademark. It was founded by Lauren Jenai and Greg Glassman in 2000 and promoted as both philosophy and physical exercise while it is also a highly competitive fitness sport. The workouts part of CrossFit incorporates interval training, high-intensity training, strongman training, callisthenics, plyometrics, weightlifting, gymnastics, powerlifting, and gireyoy sports. Currently, CrossFit is practised at more than 13,000 gyms of which almost half are located in the USA. The daily workouts at all affiliated gyms are the same every day and are known as WOD, an abbreviation of workout of the day.

CrossFit History

The CrossFit Inc was founded in 2000 by Glassman and Jenai although the company existed since 1996. Cross-Fit originated in a Santa Cruz gym in California and the first affiliated gym in Washington, by 2005 another 13 affiliated gyms adopted the combination training and currently it is one of the fastest growing fitness trends in the world. Glassman is now in complete control over the CrossFit company after Lauren agreed to sell her part to him as part of their divorce settlement.

CrossFit Training Benefits

CrossFit is both a conditioning and strength program made up of a blend of Olympic weightlifting, callisthenics which is basically body weight or strength training, as well as aerobics. The program offers massive results and in general, can be described as a conditioning program combined with strength training that constantly changes to ensure high intensity.
Most importantly the goal of the training is to increase fitness, and the hour-long classes provide fitness-conscious people with the opportunity to work together in small groups to achieve the ultimate level of fitness via high-intensity workouts.

CrossFit Daily WODs


Each of the WODs workouts is ranked and scored, which further increase competition while it also tracks the progress of individuals. The daily WODs differs completely some focus on a combination of powerlifting and running, others on bodyweight training combined with cycling and the success of the program is that no two days are the same. Participants get to exercise every part of the body, and there never is a feeling of getting bored with the program or the daily routines. Affiliated gyms display the WOD on a big board, allowing all participants to view the entire exercise plan of the day, which lasts an hour.

CrossFit Indoor and Outdoor Equipment Used for Daily WODs

Exercises used to strengthen includes handstands against the wall, handstands, and push-ups. Equipment used for CrossFit includes dumbbells, barbells, mats, jumping ropes, pull-up bars, gymnastic rings, rowing machines, and plyo boxes. Outdoor activities part of CrossFit includes running, swimming, while indoor activities include rowing machines and stationary bikes. Most affiliated gyms also offer CrossFit challenges over weekends, which normally takes place outdoors or in shopping malls.

What Happens When You Deprive Your Body from Sleep

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Whether it is the fault of your snoring bed-mate or the upstairs neighbours that keeps you awake at night, we have had those nights where an early night becomes one of tossing and turning, and the more we stress about the rest we need the least sleep we get. The problem is that skimping on sleep result in a lot more than just having a heavy eyelid day. At the end of the day, sleep is not a luxury, it is a necessity according to PsyD, director M Drerup. After years in the field of behavioural sleep medicine, studies show that lost sleep is a much bigger health hazard than most people realise.

Sixteen different sleep studies performed around the world on the long-term negativities of sleep deprivation shows that if you are getting less than 6 to 8 hours of sleep per night you are increasing your risk of early death by 12%, and experts in the field recommend that individuals should sleep 7 up to 9 hours every night. The effects of sleep deprivation are enough to keep you awake with fear. It includes mood swings, fatigue, heart disease, weight gaining, slow reactions, and a decrease in sex drive.

Weight Gain

One thing is for sure, and that is that snacks look much more appealing when you had a restless night. The main reason is that a lack of sleep leads to reduced leptin levels, leptin is the hormone that makes us feel satiated. According to Dr Hollington of the NYC Surgical Association, you feel much hungrier once your leptin levels are low and you crave foods that are high in calories, which is the reason why most people that sleep only a few hours, gain weight.

Fatigue

It is self-explanatory that you feel tired, exhausted and all your body need is for you to catch up some sleep, it is craving rest and you battle to focus and might nod off when you least can afford it. Some of the danger zones are heavy traffic, going to long seminars and overall you know that you cannot perform at your best when fatigue sets in.

Your brain needs rest, rest only offered by sleep since it needs to consolidate memories, rehearse events, it needs a bit of cleaning up, and there is the processing of emotions. Daytime sleepiness has the tendency to make you fall asleep during any period of inactivity. It makes you break your good habits of going to the gym. These are the days you consume massive amounts of caffeine, and in most cases, it is used to mask a shortage of sleep and then could lead to more sleep deprivation. No matter how much coffee you consume the one thing it can’t mask is that your crankiness levels are high. One of the major effects of too little sleep is high blood pressure and heart decease are one of the more serious conditions linked with sleep deprivation.