Sometimes other things in your life take priority.
I’ve been absent on the queenflex blog for over a month, so this article is meant to fill you in on some life updates and changes to the queenflex blog. I’m back for the next 90-days with some exciting news. READ ON!
I want to preface this article by saying that it’s going to be a little different than my previous articles. I’ve decided to try incorporating a short audio clip where I speak about a topic. Today’s topic is “being a better YOU”. I invite you to read the article, listen to the clip, and provide me some feedback about this style of content on my blog. Tell me what you think! The good, bad, and ugly! Let’s get to it…
The holidays have come and gone and it’s time to get in the right headspace for 2017. New Year’s is a time to reflect on the past year and gear up for the future. And while 2016, may have been short-lived, I know I still have many more goals that I want to accomplish that have been sitting in the “in progress” or “incomplete” bucket for a couple years now.
The holidays are quickly approaching, and this week’s training schedule has been very sporadic. While I missed two training sessions (Wednesday and Thursday), I am hitting deadlifts today! The fitness lifestyle has to be dynamic, and you have to be both accountable, committed, and flexible. If you’re in it for the long-haul, this is an important consideration to have, so that you aren’t frustrated with yourself when life tends to get in the way.
I never really had a consistent warm-up routine until I struggled to come back to the sport of lifting after a lower-back injury. Had I properly warmed up prior to lifting each session, I might not have suffered the injury in the first place. I treat warm-up routines as a method of injury prevention and will not start the warm-up sets with a barbell until I feel completely warm and ready to lift - both physically and mentally.
This article outlines my 10-15 minute warm-up routine that I like to perform before any of my compound lifts (squat, bench, press, deadlift). There are some slight variations depending on the movement I am performing, but at the heart of the routine are four key movements.
This week has flown by, and I promise you, I haven’t forgotten about the “life on 5/3/1” series. This is going to be a bit of a longer article recapping my week, some travel, workouts, and food (because, who could forget talking about what they eat during a training program?).
Consider this the written version of Jake Owen’s, Real Life.
Do you ever have one of those days where you’re like “what just happened?!” or “where’s the undo button, ctrl-z!!!!?!”. Well, today was pretty much that for me. And while my nutrition and my lifting hasn’t been on point for any sort of regulated training program, I am still going to continue this series and make up for this [awful] first week of events.
Article 2 of the “life on 5/3/1” series is brought to you by legs day. You don’t know squat, if you don’t squat! This article takes a step into my day, my workout, and my nutrition. Click to read more.
I’ve always wanted to write a series of articles on my experience with training. This is the intro article for my “life on 5/3/1” series. Over the next 8 weeks, I will be doing 5/3/1 with the focus on body recomposition and strength gains.
Consider this like your typical fitness youtuber’s vlog without the video edits. I’m going to go into my routine, my day-to-day training progress, and some tips to help you along the way. Let’s get to it.
Oftentimes we overlook the cool-down routine as much as our warm-up routine. I think it has something to do with wanting to get to the exciting part of the workout and both warm-ups and cool-downs are “boring.” I used to think that these routines were a waste of time, but that was before I knew just how much benefit they provide the body. This article explains a quick, ten-minute recovery routine that you can do practically anywhere.
Charlie Mike. For those of you who don’t know, this isn’t a terrible name for a child. It’s actually the name of a terribly difficult workout program by Ashley Horner and Bodybuilding.com. You’re probably reading this because you’re curious about starting this program or you found my article posted on Facebook and figured you’d give it a read (thank you).
Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP) is all the rage these days. For a “program hopper” like myself, I find that DUP is a great way to feel like you’re doing something different each training session, without actually sacrificing progress, strength, or hypertrophy goals. The structure for DUP varies from person-to-person; however, since I am fairly new to this concept of training, I think it’s important to shed some light and decompose the process of setting up a DUP training program.
If you are like me and work a desk job, it is easy to turn into a slouched over mess. With all the hype out there about “sitting is the new smoking” and “prehab is rehab”, I have decided to create a list of the most realistic exercises that you can do at the office to help improve posture, mobility, and overall happiness. And hopefully prevent you from looking like a stupid fool, rolling around on the floor next to your cubical. ;)
Article 4
Let’s just say StrongLifts and I have a LOVE-HATE relationship these past 2 weeks. I’ve seen some major strength gains for bench press (up to 110# 5X5); however, I’ve had to reduce the volume of my deadlifts and barbell rows due to low back fatigue and stiffness.
Article 3
The last two weeks on the StrongLifts program have been both rewarding and extremely challenging. Between Christmas, New Years, and traveling with family, as well as keeping up with my Eat To Perform numbers, I added about 20 lbs to my Squat and hit PRs on DeadLifts and Bench.
Article 2
For the past week or so I’ve been following the StrongLifts 5x5 program. For those of you unfamiliar with the training plan, it’s very simple and most workouts take an hour or less to complete.
Article 1 So typically I like to plan out my routines and schedule what, when, and why I’m training and eating a certain way. In this case; however, I decided to jump head-first into StrongLifts 5X5 because, frankly, I’m tired of dancing around the bush with fitness. For the next 12 weeks I will be training according to the StrongLifts 5X5 program and continuing to Eat To Perform. My 2016 goals include considerable strength gains, so to FINALLY meet these goals, I am going to give this 5X5 program a try.
