It’s your right to be fit, sexed, and happy. So claim it!

In the current issue of Men’s Health magazine, there is a story regarding some of the best new exercises to have improved on the old standards. Here are a few from Men’s Health to help you get into top form in no time.

Pushup Plus

Assume a pushup position with your arms straight and your hands placed slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Your body should form a straight line from your ankles to your head. Lower your body until your chest nearly touches the floor. Pause, and then push back up. As you straighten your arms, push your upper back toward the ceiling. Besides working your chest as effectively as any exercise, the “plus” part of this movement hits your serratus anterior—a small but important muscle that helps move your shoulder blades. Strengthen your serratus, and you’ll improve your posture and reduce your risk of shoulder injuries—as you build your chest.

Mixed Grip Chinup

Grasp a chinup bar with your hands shoulder-width apart on a chinup bar. Use an underhand-grip with one hand, and an overhand-grip with the other. Hang at arm’s length, and cross your ankles behind you. Now pull your chest to the bar by bending your elbows and squeezing your shoulder blades down and back. To prevent your torso from rotating as you perform this exercise, your back, shoulder, and core muscles have to work harder than in a conventional chinup.

Farmer’s Walk On Toes

Grab a pair of dumbbells and hold them at your sides at arm’s length. Then rise up on the balls of your feet. Now walk forward for 60 seconds. Not only will this work your calves, but it also improves your cardiovascular fitness.

Bar Hold

Set a barbell on a rack at the level of your waist and load the bar with a heavy weight. Grab the bar with an overhand grip that’s beyond shoulder-width apart. Dip your knees, lift the bar off the rack, and hold it for the appropriate amount of time for your goal. This helps make sure your forearms don’t give out too early, so you won’t shortchange the rest of your working muscles.

Read more at: www.menshealth.com

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I’m going to start this week off with a little video of OMG Facts from a couple of years ago, then get into the new personal development jive.

Pretty interesting. Make’s me think of that Ferris Beuller line.. “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Let’s make that life the best we possibly can, right? Moving on… Lots to cover this week, so let’s get to it!

Over at the home of Personal Development blogger extroirdinare Steve Pavlina, Steve addresses how to “create your vision”

When you write down your goals, your primary aim is to create a new vision for what you desire to experience next in life, so that you can begin to make that vision a reality

So what do you do when you sit down to write a vision for your life, and you’re coming up with a lot of blanks that you just aren’t sure about?

Guess.

Steve also recently penned a book called “Personal Development for Smart People” Which I highly recommend.

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The experts from Ask Dan and Jennifer, answer the question “Is your single behavior ruining a potential relationship”

Being single is all about freedom: freedom to dress how you want, do what you want, clean when you want, and so on. You don’t have a girlfriend who insists you cut your hair or take the garbage out before your apartment starts to smell. You don’t have a boyfriend who wants to see you wearing something nicer than sweatpants or makes you want to keep your legs clean-shaven. You don’t have a significant other who stops you from making a fool of yourself in public.

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On PickTheBrain, we learn 5 Ways to slay the un-motivation demon.

You could be making attempts to get out there and do what you’re setting out to do. And even begin to get results here or there. But your surroundings, circumstances, and negative or lazy forces around you constantly hold you back. They pull you back to where you started. And you get discouraged or convince yourself you can’t do it.

That’s the un-motivation demon at work.

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Dumb Little Man teaches us “how to shape your lifestyle to improve your fitness” in 3 simple morsels

Fitness, in the past, has not been a big part of my life and I imagine that’s true for many people reading this. I want that to change.

I don’t like running out of breath, aching after minimal movement and not being able to do the things I want to do just because I’m not physically prepared for them. For the longest time I felt this was just who I was. I was the computer geek, someone who wasn’t built for sports or to be fit and healthy.’

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One of our favorites, The Positivity Blog has a great collection of quotes which help turn failure into success:

Failure can be quite the problem. And the fear of it can be paralyzing.

So what can you do to motivate yourself to take a chance, to overcome possible failure and to use it to your advantage?

Here are a few timeless words of advice.

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Finally at MensHealth.com, we learn how to “Burn Fat In a Hurry”

Researchers at Australia’s University of New South Wales found that intervals burn three times as much fat as running twice as long at a moderately hard, steady pace. Use this interval program from the University of Oklahoma Department of Health & Exercise Science this winter to turbocharge your body’s fat-burning system.

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The web is full of really useful posts that have all of the secrets required to become a better version of yourself. Here’s some of our favorite ones from this past week.

First off check out the inspiring Gary Vaynerchuk speaking at the Web 2.0 expo in NYC from 2008.

If you’re interested in learning more about Gary, check out his website or follow him on twitter.

Next up, the fine people over at Psychology Daily tells us about the connection between self confidence and gauging what kind of first impression that we make.

We found that people who were poor at making good meta-impressions were less confident than people who made accurate ones. So, after making a first impression, if you’re confident in your judgment, you’re likely to be right.

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PickTheBrain.com offers tips on Taming your To-do list..

Do you use a to-do list? Most of us have some kind of running list of tasks which we want to get done (even if we keep this list in our heads). And I expect that at some point, like me, you’ll have had the experience of creating an extremely ambitious to-do list … only to end up completing just a fraction of the tasks on it.

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We have a couple of selections from one of our favorites Dumb Little Man. First we have 7 Steps to turn Failure into Success.

Chances are you’ve got success on the brain if you’re reading this article. You’ve set your goals, you’re on your way to achieving your dreams. But they’re not coming as fast as you would like. You’re ready for it to all come true right now. You set a deadline to reach your goal, but it just didn’t happen in that timeframe. And now you feel a little deflated. Maybe you’ve even allowed a little doubt to creep in, as you’re not sure when (or if) it will ever happen.

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The other piece from DLM, is one offering 7 Tricks to Sleep Like a Dog.

A bad night’s sleep is the worst when it comes to getting things accomplished and feeling good during what should be a great day.  The effects due to lack of sleep on mood, productivity, creativity, and even the quality of our relationships take a bigger toll on our health than most realize.

Anyone who does have trouble sleeping most likely have read all the “regular” things to do in order to get better sleep.  The concept becomes nothing more than a repeated set of rules that get ignored, similar to the simple rules of training a well behaved dog.

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Finally over at Men’s Health, you can learn 32 ways to jump start your love life…

We have 32 ideas to launch a voyage of sexual discovery unlike anything you’ve seen . . . at least since Cindy Lou let down her guard senior year. The difference now: You know what you’re doing, and you have a partner who deserves your respect, attention, and devotion. So make the most of it.

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Jena La Flamme is a Writer/Speaker/Certified Holistic Health Counselor/Weight Loss Coach as well as being the Jena Wellness Center. A real renaissance woman in the field of “being better”, Jena has an interesting and useful blog on her website JenaWellness.com.

Jena’s career in the healing arts began 11 years ago during her first visit to India. Touched by the message that the fulfillment we seek already resides within us, Jena launched into focused study of nutrition,yoga and meditation, where she experienced their power first hand, and her life was transformed.

Jena is now primarily a speaker. She speaks to groups of varying sizes, from small and intimate to groups of several hundred. No group is too big for Jena! Her ideal speaking opportunity? An organization that is passionately devoted to the health of its employees or a professional women’s group. (Via Her Blog’s About Page)

F&S readers who are interested in losing weight in the new year would be interested in checking out some posts from Jena’s blog such as:

• VIDEO – How to Break Your New Year’s Resolutions Before Jan 1
• Stop Your Sugar Binge Without Discipline and Watch the Pounds Melt Away
• How to Boost Your Body Image on Facebook

You can also find Jena IRL (in real life) at some of her live-workshops, which you can read more about on her homepage.

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Over at eMaxHealth.com they discussed the problem that many people have with completing New Year’s Resolutions:

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, led a team of investigators who have come up with an answer to this age-old question. The research team surveyed about 700 people and asked them to describe their strategies for achieving their New Year’s resolutions. The most common goals told to the researchers were losing weight, quitting smoking, or beginning a better relationship.

A total of 78 percent of the participants did not meet their goals, and the researchers found that many of the individuals had focused on the downside of not achieving their goals. This included suppressing their cravings for food and/or nicotine, relying solely on willpower, adopting a role model, or fantasizing about being successful.

Luckily for us, we’re in 2010 and we have such useful tools as eHow, this video offers a solution to this problem:

What to Do If New Year’s Resolutions Fail — powered by eHow.com

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There are many blogs on the internet which are merely portals to sell some product or service. The Adonis Lifestyle is attempting to push a book, however this blog has a lot more to offer than pushy pitches. This blog features regular posts about health, physical fitness, and even social strategy for men. The blog also features a regular podcast which creates a much more dynamic experience for users.

Blog creator John Barban explains his intentions for the blog in the about section:

I’m John Barban, along with Brad Howard and Brad Pilon we are here to give you up to date no BS information on exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle tips for the modern man (if you’re reading this, then that means YOU).

I guess you could say we’re part mythbusters, part lifestyle coach, part nutritionists and part exercise coach.

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The e-book “Fit and Sexed” discusses 10 superfoods that will help you lead a healthy life. In this post we’ll list them and let you know why.

Quinoa = is a species of goosefoot grown primarily as a pseudo-cereal crop. Although technically neither a grain nor a cereal, it is generally considered to be a grain crop. Quinoa comes from the Andean region of South America, where it has been an important food for 6,000 years. Quinoa has come to be highly appreciated for its nutritional value, and the United Nations has classified it as a supercrop for its very high protein content (13%). Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete foodstuff. This means it takes less quinoa protein to meet one’s needs than wheat protein. Although technically a seed, quinoa is considered a whole grain and a good source of dietary fiber. Quinoa also contains omega-3 fatty acids, which provide benefit to the heart. Quinoa is a good source of phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten free and considered easy to digest.

Olive Oil = 40% of the worlds olive oil comes from Spain. Many Italian olive oils are bottled in Italy, but bought from Spain. It decreases LDL, the bad guy cholesterol and increases HDL, the good guy cholesterol. Recently there is some speculation that a compound in Olive Oil is the same as Ibuprofen which is an anti inflammatory. Ibuprofen thins the blood and can aide in heart attacks, strokes, cancers and Alzheimer. Olive Oil is not only a great food , but great for your skin.

Lentils = A sample in India and is eaten twice a day there. Lentils are high in protein, B Vitamins, Folate and cholesterol lowering fiber. It has twice the iron of other legumes. It is also speculated to has anti oxidant qualities.

Wheatgrass juice and green juices = Wheatgrass is a young plant of the genus Agropyron, a relative of wheat. Fresh leaf buds of this plant can be crushed to create a juice or dried to make a powder; the unprocessed plant contains high levels of cellulose which makes it indigestible. It possesses chlorophyll, amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and enzymes. The chlorophyll molecule is similar in structure to hemoglobin, leading some to believe that wheatgrass helps blood flow, digestion and general detoxification of the body. These claims have neither been proven nor disproven.

Vegetables = is a culinary term. Its definition has no scientific value, and is somehow arbitrary and subjective.

Any part of a herbaceous plant that humans eat whole or in part is a vegetable, except for culinary fruits and arguably grains, nuts, herbs, and spices. Also, mushrooms are commonly considered vegetables, despite belonging to a different biological kingdom, namely fungi (which used to be classified as plants).

Vegetables include leaf vegetables (for example lettuce), stem vegetables (asparagus), root vegetables (carrot), flower vegetables (broccoli), bulbs (garlic) and botanical fruits such as cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, avocados, capsicums, as well as botanical pulses such as green beans, and fleshy, immature seeds such as those of peas or beans.

Since “vegetable” is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in a plant part being a fruit botanically while still being considered a vegetable (see diagram).

In general, vegetables are thought of as being savoury, and not sweet (with some exceptions, such as rhubarb and pumpkin).

Fruits = In botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary-together with seeds-of a flowering plant. With most fruits pollination is a vital part of fruit culture, and the lack of knowledge of pollinators and pollenizers can contribute to poor crops or poor quality crops. Pollination is an important step in the reproduction of seed plants: the transfer of pollen grains (male gametes) to the plant carpel, the structure that contains the ovule (female gamete).

Almonds = Almonds are a rich source of Vitamin E, containing 24 mg per 100 grammes [1]. They are also rich in monounsaturated fat, one of the two “good” fats responsible for lowering LDL cholesterol.

Flax seeds = Alpha-linolenic acid is one of the two essential fatty acids that humans require. The other is Linoleic acid. They are called “essential” because they can not be produced by the human body. Essential fatty acids should not be confused with essential oils which are not required by the human body. Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is a polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid. Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fatty acids found in oil from oily fish and vegetable sources such as the seeds of chia, perilla, flax, walnuts, purslane, lingonberry, seabuckthorn, and hemp. Omega-3 fatty acids are classified as essential because they cannot be synthesized in the body; they must be obtained from food.

Important omega-3 fatty acids in human nutrition are: α-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

Brown Rice = Whole grains are believed to be nutritionally superior to refined grains, richer in dietary fiber, antioxidants, protein (and in particular the amino acid lysine), dietary minerals (including magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium), and vitamins (including niacin, vitamin B6, and vitamin E). Manufacturers are sometimes required by law to fortify refined grain products to make up for the loss of vitamins and minerals.

The greater amount of dietary fibre, as much as four times that found in refined grains, is likely the most important benefit, as it has been shown to reduce the incidence of some forms of cancer, digestive system diseases, coronary heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Some of these protective effects occur because carbohydrates from whole grains are digested and enter the bloodstream more slowly (as measured by the glycemic index).

Whole grains are often more expensive than refined grains because their higher oil content is susceptible to rancidification, complicating processing, storage, and transport.

Root Vegetables = are underground plant parts used as vegetables. They are called root vegetables for lack of a better generic term, but include both true roots such as tuberous roots and taproots, as well as non-roots such as tubers, rhizomes, corms, and bulbs. Several types contain both taproot and hypocotyl tissue, and it may be difficult to distinguish the two.

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This is probably my favorite speech of all time. Steve Jobs addressed Stanford’s 2005 graduates discussing some major lessons he learned in his lifetime.

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks—including death itself—at the university’s 114th Commencement on Sunday in Stanford Stadium.

Wearing jeans and sandals under his black robe, Jobs delivered a keynote address that spanned his adoption at birth to his insights into mortality after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a year ago. In plainspoken terms, his address struck a balance between the obstacles he has encountered during his notably public life and the lessons he has gleaned—for example, from his high-profile ousting in 1985 from the computer company he helped start. (via Stanford News)

Check out the video here:

After the jump is the full text of Jobs’ speech, which is full of awesome quotables:

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Sweating can be uncomfortable and sticky. It can drench your clothing on a hot day or after a workout. It’s connected with waking up from a bad dream, and worrying about some upcoming event. There are however some major benefits of sweating:

* Sweating speeds up metabolic processes of vital organs and inhabits the growth of pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The vital organs and glands (including endocrine and sex glands) are stimulated to increased activity.

* Sweating Creates a fever reaction that kills potentially dangerous viruses/bacteria and increase the number of leukocytes in the blood, thereby strengthening the immune system.

* Sweating Places demands upon the cardiovascular system, making the heart pump harder and producing a drop in diastolic blood pressure.

* Sweating  Stimulates vasodilation of peripheral vessels, which relieves pain and speeds healing of sprains, strains, bursitis, peripheral vascular diseases, arthritis and muscle pain.

Finally

*Sweating Promotes relaxation, thereby lending a feeling of well-being.

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