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The Top 10 Workout Songs for December 2016

Please enjoy a post from our friends at RunHundred.com.

Dance tracks dominate the proceedings in our monthly workout music recap. While that sounds like the introduction to one-dimensional playlist, the tracks approach the genre from different avenues. Plus, there are a handful of pop singles mixing things up along the way.

The first batch of dance tracks are the remixes—where Top 40 favorites like The Weeknd and clubland stars like Flume both find their recent hits reimagined. Elsewhere, you’ll find David Guetta and Nevada each leading collaborative covers of a pair of ’90s, R&B singles. Finally, you’ve got straightforward pop tunes including a rousing send off to past loves from Little Mix and a contribution to the Singsoundtrack featuring Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande.

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Dealing with Shin Splints while Running

Please enjoy a guest post on a topic near and dear to our heart from our friend, Dan Chabert: Writing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Dan is an entrepreneur, husband and ultramarathon distance runner. He spends most of his time on runnerclick.com, monicashealthmag.com, and gearweare.com and nicershoes.com. He has been featured on runner blogs all over the world.

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Shin splints are a very common symptom amongst runners, especially beginners. This injury affects approximately 40% of beginner runners according to coach Jeff Gaudette. This injury is also known as medial tibial stress syndrome.

For a long time it was thought that shin splints were caused by small tears in the muscular tissue or inflammation of the muscles, causing intense pain. However, modern studies reveal that the shin splints are caused by flexing in the tibial bone. It’s very common for people to misdiagnose any tibial pain as shin splints– consider visiting a doctor to confirm the symptoms.

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Why You Should Switch Up Your Exercises

First of all, good for you for exercising. Good for you for putting in some work (I know it ain’t easy) into staying healthy and taking care of yourself. After that pat on the back, let’s talk about what you’re doing. It’s hard enough to get in the gym, do a home workout, or whatever you’re doing, let alone planning (and doing) different workouts. But it’s important! Doing the same old routine day after day can kill your mojo!

Why is it important to switch up your exercise? The body is always trying to get to homeostasis, meaning to a point where it has to do as little as possible to keep at a steady state. Humans are also great at adapting. Put those together and your body will try to get used to workouts as soon as it can. Once it “gets used to” a workout, it won’t have to work as hard. Which means YOU won’t burn as many calories, your heart rate won’t go as high, your muscles won’t get worked as intensely as they used to. Are you feeling what I’m saying now? You have to keep your body on its toes!

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Optimum Nutrition 30th Birthday Giveaway!

(This post was written and the computer deleted it, so good luck to our memory to write the exact… same… thing. We keep it real over here.

30 years. I think you’d have a hard time convincing a lot of people who modern-day supplement companies have existed for over three decades, but that wasn’t the case at the 2016 Olympia when Optimum Nutrition, the gold standard in the industry, threw a huge party in Vegas. Although I grew up in gyms and around fitness, I really didn’t start taking any supplements until 2007, but for the last decade as I’ve grown both personally and professionally in the fitness industry, there have been very few standards that have remained constant. Optimum Nutrition has been one of them, and they’ve done so by taking a smarter approach than any of their competition.

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ACTION Personal Training Certification

“I want to become a personal trainer, what should I do?”

Well… that’s a loaded question. How much time and money can you afford to allocate to that goal right now? How much knowledge do you currently have about anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, physics, kinesiology, etc? Why do you want to become a personal trainer and are you a motivated self-study course kind-of-person? And those are just the first three that pop into our head. We are asked all the time about ‘how to’ become a professional in the field of fitness and becoming a certified personal trainer is most enthusiasts’ first course of action, but what kind of weight do acronyms actually hold?

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Performance Shoulders Workout

Whether our injuries are actually located somewhere inside our shoulder or hip girdles, many injuries are caused by a lack of stability and mobility in those two areas. They’re two extremely complex joints that are surrounded by many different muscles, as opposed to our biceps or triceps that are far less challenging to isolate and deal with as a regular person working out at the gym. Fortunately, we don’t have to change anything in terms of “how to train” other than be aware of the various muscles that should be targeted.

This workout combines basic movements that activate all the major muscles in the shoulder girdle and eventually leads up to some lifts that are closer to what you’d see in competition. It’s not necessarily a workout for a beginner and that’s why we aren’t offering full explanations and pictures of the exercises. If you’re unsure what these (basic) exercises and muscles are, you should probably take a step back and start with the machines in the gym, rather than free weights. 

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The Top 10 Workout Songs for November 2016

Please enjoy a guest post from our friends at Run Hundred!

This month’s top 10 workout songs span a wider tempo range than normal—with the fastest song clocking at more than double the speed of the slowest. Moreover, that’s just the beginning of this playlist’s variety. So, with no further ado, let’s get into the mix.

On the lower end of the spectrum, you’ll find new tunes from The Weeknd and Lady Gaga that are perfect for warming up, cooling down, and stretching. At the other end, you’ll find lightning fast tracks from Green Day and Dagny that will give you an extra boost mid-routine. Those tracks alone incorporate country touches, Scandinavian melodies, pop punk,and Daft Punk. Elsewhere, you can find remixes from Ellie Goulding and The Chainsmokers alongside soundtrack hits by Years & Years (from Bridget Jones’ Baby) and Christina Aguilera (from The Get Down).

Whatever your tastes, new faves await. When you’re ready to make tracks, here’s the full top 10 list—according to the votes logged on workout music site Run Hundred.

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Boxing Home Workout For Everyone

Boxing is an incredible way to stay in shape. You can develop your muscles through repetitive movement of punches. You will certainly work on your cardio through boxing, there’s hardly any way to escape that. Your coordination will improve as well by getting footwork and the timing of your punches down. It is also great for getting out any aggression, trust me! With all these benefits, people should be lining up to do boxing. However, maybe you don’t have a boxing gym nearby. Maybe you can’t afford one. Maybe you just want to be able to do it at home. Well, here we go, I’ve created a small boxing-like workout for you to do at home. This requires no gloves and only one piece of equipment which you can sub out. Boxing isn’t easy, but it’s a worth-it workout. (Please excuse the sleepy morning photos)  

1. Jump rope (1 min). If you don’t have a jump rope, do air rope like I’m doing in the pictures. Challenge yourself. Do different paces. Try on just one leg. Try high knees. Work hard! This part should get your heart PUMPIN’.

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