“How do I lose weight?” Is this not the hot question today? With good reason too. We’re hit on an hourly basis with commercials for various products ranging from diets to pills. Exercise equipment to surgery. The list goes on and on. Frankly, it makes my head spin.

All of these products sell the “easy fix” for obesity. The concept of weight loss is not difficult to grasp. Losing weight could be described as simple, but never easy. The old adage of something seeming to be good to be true applies here. Some wise decisions go a very long way.

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At one time it was normal to see athletes stretching before a game. The image of a baseball or football team doing their warm-ups assuredly includes stretching their upper and lower bodies. Or the jogger stretching their calves, thighs, and hamstrings before setting off at the local park.

Have you ever seen a runner pull up lame with a hamstring or groin pull? How about a soccer player with stress injuries to their knees? Or the baseball or tennis player with tennis elbow? Could it be that performing these static or ballistic stretches prior to exercise is not doing what they are supposed to do?

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An all too common fact is that many people do not warm-up prior to doing physical activities such as playing sports or exercising. Performing this simple act can reduce injuries, as well as increasing performance.

For the average person training in a gym, a light jog on a treadmill or slow bike riding for ten minutes is adequate enough to start things off. For an athlete competing in a sport, dynamic warm-ups are recommended.

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In Part 1 of this series we discussed the first component of getting that lean, muscular look; diet. We covered why diet is arguably the most important component when it comes to being ripped.

As we mentioned in part 1, the idea behind getting that shredded look is to strip off as much fat as possible. While burning fat through diet is job one, stripping the fat through physical cardiovascular work would be next.

You can get a good burn on a stair machine, bike, or elliptical machine. For that matter, don’t count out any aerobics classes, such as kickboxing, that are offered in the gym or local community centers. When it’s all said and done though, the treadmill is the tool of choice.

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