The Perfect Addition to Your Home Gym

New year, new you, right? Well, we’re not quite there, but two of the most challenging weeks of the year are separating you from 2018. Most people focus on their struggle with large family meals and tins full of cookies, but why bother stressing about that when you can focus on something else… something rewarding.

What’s this crazy rewarding thing we’re talking about? Well, it’s simple and it is all based on performance. Looking in the mirror feels good; we don’t disagree with you there, but nothing feels better than feeling better! Huh? When you’re physically capable of something, especially something you were never capable of doing before, you feel amazing.

Dec132017

How to Get Big Calves!

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses; Hungry is often told that he has really nice calves. Whether it was cheerleaders on the sidelines during his high school basketball games or bros in the gym in Los Angeles, a lot of people have a tendency to stare at Hungry’s calves. Calves are often seen as one of the hardest muscle groups to successfully train, and as a result, a lot of people end up asking, what do you do for your calves?

Dec112017

Our Week(end) in Pictures

Tis the holidays indeed!

Dec072017

Join US for a Tough Mudder in LA!

You’re going to find out how tough a Tough Mudder is. Well, if you’re in LA on March 4th, you can. Not only can you find out how hard a Tough Mudder really is, you can have support from both Hungry & Fit during the race. We both just signed up the Half Mudder (~5 miles) on the 4th of March, 2017, in the Los Angeles area. (It isn’t in Downtown LA!) Now, we want you to sign up, train with us and even race with us.

Back in 2009, Warrior Dash (basically) started the Mud Run movement in the United States. At that time, terms such as Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) and what not weren’t being thrown around since not many people knew about it. Hungry jumped into his first Warrior Dash in 2010 and the rest is history. Since then, not only have Hungry & Fit competed in everything from the Men’s Health Urbanathlon to the Bubble Run, we’ve also helped others tackle these challenges.

Dec062017

The Perfect Gift for Men

This week, we’re going to release our 2017 Guide to Holiday Shipping, filled with tons of ideas, most of which are available through Amazon. Before we get there, we want to take advantage of some amazing deals that one of Hungry’s favorite brands is offering right now. This might just be the perfect gift for men this holiday season. Why? Let us tell you!

Oliver’s Apparel is a higher-end men’s clothing company based in LA that makes all of their product in LA, which we love. They don’t have a ton of designs or crazy patterns, but everything is high-quality, durable, comfortable and multi-purpose. Hungry told you more about their other products HERE, but no matter what you decide to buy, you should do it now!

Dec052017

Effective Female Body Fat Recomposition

Please enjoy a friendly post from Gary at https://garagegymplanner.com/.

Body fat recomposition: a topic that garners very mixed reviews from people. While some think it’s a myth and cannot be done, there are others who claimed to have found the secret formula and seen some very promising results too. Both men and women have tried their hand at this process but, mind you, it’s not a very easy one. The whole process involves first understanding how the body’s fat storage works and then breaking it down using exercise and most importantly, diet.

Dec012017

Physical Exercise and Aging

Staying fit is a lifelong journey, but as we age, it can be more difficult to reach the same exercise goals than it once was. Aging causes more than just wrinkles—it can also cause losses in balance, muscle mass and overall strength, agility, and bone density, while also triggering weight gain. Because of this, people who have stayed fit their whole lives may struggle with these changes, while people who have been inactive often find themselves unable to enjoy the activities they once did, or experience major health problems. The good news? Engaging in regular exercise can improve health and even help seniors live longer. Just 3 hours of exercise per week can increase overall lifespan by about 5 years!

In 2010, there were 40.3 million Americans age 65 or older, and this number is growing every year, making education about the importance of physical fitness in maintaining quality of life very important. Of those seniors, just 28-34% of adults aged 65-74 were physically active, and 35-44% of adults over the age of 75 were active. Since 4 out of 5 Americans over the age of 50 have one or more chronic conditions, an active lifestyle can be a key factor in managing health.

So what are the benefits of staying active as you age? Better mobility, strength, and balance, weight maintenance, and better health overall. Exercise can help people manage chronic conditions and lower blood pressure, and can even help to build up brain volume!

Check out this awesome infographic from USC’s Gerontology Department to understand aging and exercise in a visual way:

The University of Southern California Online

Nov292017

Cardio and Core Workout: Get It!

Happy Workout Wednesday, everyone, and welcome to one of our favorite workouts! Everyone has a different approach to training, and it may take a trial with every single one of those to find out what works for you, but one popular tactic is taking care of two important aspects at once. Combining core and cardio can be effective, since they’re extremely important to overall health, but can be painstakingly boring. It’s like vacuuming and scooping litter at the same time, in a way.

Now, to be clear, core refers to exercises that will help strengthen muscles throughout your abdomen, on your front and back. That means, you’ll be working your abs, obliques, lower back, hips and even glutes since they all work closely with one another when you’re performing more complex, or demanding, exercises and activities. Cardio is a misunderstood and overused word that we’ll use today to refer to exercises that will help you elevate your heart rate significantly in an effort to either burn fat or increase your athletic performance by building endurance. I hope that explanation makes sense.

Nov282017

Should You Try a Free Week at CorePower Yoga?

I started working from home just a few weeks ago and this meant a lot of changes to my lifestyle. I no longer had delicious (but often unhealthy) catered meals for lunch (and often leftovers for dinner) which means I now have to cook my own lunch. Although perhaps not as exciting, I was looking forward to this. I am so much healthier at home than when catered food is in front of me. I made plans to make and eat egg salad, tuna salad, and salmon cakes. My snacks are healthy too: carrots with peanut butter, protein bars, and smoothies. Workout plans had to change too: I no longer had a gym right in my workspace. Instead, I have to think of other options. I belong to a YMCA, but it’s not quite walking distance. Thus, I wanted to try a few places walking distance to my now-home office. I saw that the Hollywood CorePower Yoga offered a free week. Perfect!

Fun story: the first CorePower class I went to was a hot yoga class. I thought, there must be some mistake–it didn’t say that on the schedule! Boy, was I in for a surprise. I don’t like saunas, I don’t like being in overly hot areas, it’s miserable to me. Thus, I have never wanted to go to a hot yoga class…ever. To me, yoga is more of a spiritual exercise than a physical one. However, I ended up in this hot yoga class and I wasn’t going to turn back now. Thankfully, I brought water. I entered the room and was hit in the face with sweltering heat and could hear the heaters turn on, pouring more torture into the room (why?!). By the end of the class, I had taken my shirt off and I was pouring sweat. It was definitely one of the sweatiest I had ever been. As the teacher asked us to sit lower into chair pose, I mentally threw insults at him in a very non-yogic way. However, my mentality shifted from workout class to survival class. If I treated it like I needed to survive through torturous heat, I could actually do it. I even found more focus through that and could drop deeper into poses. Who knew. Whew, I made it through my hot yoga class–and hopefully the last!

My reaction to accidentally going to hot yoga

Nov252017

Advanced Boxing Tips

Jose James Hyland is an amateur boxer with a college degree, multiple certifications and years of experience as a personal trainer. He has worked with dozens of paraplegic and quadriplegic through the AXIS Project, helping them find their own form of fitness through boxing, with him as their coach. For those of you that aren’t working with a coach, but have practiced enough to no longer be considered a beginner, here are some more advanced tips to improve your technique. Essentially, if you’re just starting and don’t have the knack for boxing yet, you shouldn’t burden yourself with these more advanced ideas.

(Also, please remember that an amateur boxer has more experience than an expert. By that, I mean, an expert in the gym with no fight experience, hasn’t competed at the level of an amateur boxer. It takes a lot of time and effort to become an amateur. Unless you’ve been registered, fought in the ring with a referee, and even seen your face on an official poster for the card of a legitimate organization, you are not an amateur boxer.)

You can check out more tips from Jose at Flexing Fitness but until then, enjoy!