Care your skin – 6 practical tips

We forget about it many times, but the ones of us who do bodybuilding or fitness  have the skin like our main work tool. Although the changes we experience because of the training begin since a very microscopical level, like the cellular (what stimulates the muscular growth), the fact is the effects are visible in our shape. How are we caring it?

 

If you think this is a females issue, we warn you’re wrong. . Maybe, the male skin is what requires most care because of the same modifications what it’s submitted to.

 

1. Learn it deeply – Oily, dry, or neutral? As incredible as it seems, many of us ignore what type of skin we have. The oily skin shines all the time, its pores are so expanded that they hold much ddirt, it uses to appear acne or shins, it has a rough texture. The dry skin has a soft texture but it’s too tense that it gets to crack, its appearance is opaque with almost invisible pores. Consider the ideal pH (acidity/alkalinity index) goes from 4.7 to 5.75. Are you in that range?  You should know it. A dermatologist can solve your doubts, so it’s time to appoint someone.
2. Eat healthy – although some trendy food or product appear each certain time, the true is that eating balanced is the better for your skin to keep healthy. However, there is natural food that optimizes it: carrot, potato, pumpkin, mango, peach, papaya, kiwi, bell pepper, red fruits, watercress, pomegranate fruit, olive oil, nuts, derry, eggs, and blue fishes. Do you realize?
3. Take a mindful bath – It seems an obvious suggestion but many of us think the personal cleanliness is only the act of keeping clean. Not exclusively. The bath time is perfect to relax and meet again yourself and  your physical assets. Add who wwork out,  sweat more than the average people, so we have to be more meticulous with that so-personal moment, especially if we talk about commissures (armpits, crotch, amid buttocks) or very hairy zones where the sweat can promote the bacteries to flourish. The bad smell? Precizely, the bacteries cause it. Use proper products according to your skin type or the conditions it can develop. Do you remember the dermatologist? He also can guide you.
4. ever moisturize it – Drinking water or consuming food rich in it is a practical and natural way  to guarantee elasticity to the skin as well as promoting its regeneration at ccellular level. The use of creams or products is a choice of external use, but the aloe vera natural gel have proven to be a much better choice, especially if you use to do mechanical or chemical hair removal.
5. Manage the stress – How are you dealing with your daily life? If your skin becomes red, starts to itch, appears hives or acne, they might be warning signals. As well as you train physically, train mentally to face the daily problems, one each time, understanding you’re bigger than them. Thus, you can accept they exist but also you can have them under control, and better if you can solve them. Meditating, talking to a true friend, granting you moments to do nothing, or to do some of your hobbies are going to help much, and your skin is going to thank you too.
6. Ever enjoy it – Never consider your skin like the clothes you wear but like a key feature of your identity. Find moments through the day to connect with it, feeling good with it. When you self-compensate, your own skin projects it. It’s not magic but pure biochemistry:  the hormones we naturally flow when we work out, they do that part of the job. Another way to stimulate them aside the physical training? Yes. Ever smile even when there’s no motivation. Good humor makes wonders.

 

If you want to learn more or if you want to take your particular case, contact us to our Twitter account, WhatsApp, or chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

Outdoor Training

By ChulucanasGym

Much more before  there were the classic gymnasiums, the Hellenic predecessors of the actual facilities, the way how the people kept fit was outdoor. If it’s true the Greek Classic Culture was the one that printed a lot  those activities through its art, there is evidence that every ancient world’s culture had training sessions mainly addressed to war exercises, all them made in the open.

As the time has been going on, the conception of the physical training has been getting close into the gymnasiums as we know them more than 3000 years ago, and only some specific activities have been left to work out outdoor, especially the ones referred to adapt to the natural landscape, as adventure sports. However, the effort to look for a major contact with Nature is motivating the people to depend less on indoor and to rediscover  the advantages of doing it not depending on the limitations of four walls and a roof.

As the environmental quality is guaranteed, one of these main benefits is to oxygenate with pure or mostly pure air. Another of those advantages is improving the mood much more evident compared to indoor only provided the landscape is cared or if it still conserves itsinitial natural setup. That’s why many outdoor training activists, our partner Ronald Benites among them, have demanded the authorities to have more green spaces inside the cities and to conserve the areas as the forests, beaches, wetlands, or any space where the human action has created few or none impact.

Over this basis, the outdoor training activity chances are wide, from calisthenics  to  major physical exigency sports. You choose the one you like a lot because whatever will come OK, the issue is you put in activity, so we have you some very useful tips for it.

1. Check Out The Weather Conditions

There’s no more disappointment than to schedule a day for beginning your training sessions and a heavy rain just starts to fall. It’s not about the heaven sending you any kind of message, it’s about you forgot to check out the weather conditions for the zone where you’re going to work out. Then, the solution is such simple as paying attention to the forecast on your favorite TV or radio station, or newspaper. Also remember today there are services offering you a high level of accuracy those allow to know the weather forecast and check it out real-time, that you can have it as an app on your smartphone, even.

2. Protect From Solar Radiation

Even in cloudy days, remember that having long time outdoor means to be exposed to B-type ultraviolet rays (UVB), unlike their A-type brothers (UVA), those can cause skin burning or cancer, or cataracts in the eyes (we will see which protection on the next point). Then, use a sunscreen that allow you to isolate them while you are out there. Remember the medical consensus is to use that with a 40-to-up sun protection factor (SPF). However, ask your reliable doctor or dermatologist about  wwhich one is the most adequate for your skin type. Also remember the sweat removes the sunscreen, so it’s necessary you to retouch it as suggested, one to two hours in general.

3. Choose The Right Outfit

One thing is working out indoor, where you can work out even naked, but another very different is doing it outdoor where you have to face different elements as solar rays, the wind, the temperature, the humidity, and inclusive the insects. Lookfor  and wear the clothes that guarantee you two things at the same time: protection before those elements, and flexibility for doing your movement in a free and natural way. Also choose the sportshoes those allow you to anchor very well  to the soil (or whatever you have to get your feet on), and that results easy to handle. If you work out during the daylight, wear a hat or a cap according to the circumstance and protect your eyes  with special sunglasses those filter UVB rays, those don’t go flying at the first abrupt movement. Get advice  with your trainer, in a serious sport store, and with other people those also work out outdoor.

[READ ALSO: Mask For The Muscle]

4. Never Forget The Medical Kit

If we didn’t advice it before is because we suppose your gym has an accessible one, but when you’re not in a facility of that type, or you’re totally alone at worst, and you have an eventuality as a contusion or any kind of accident, who and how helps you? That’s why it’s worthy to invest in a kit containing band aids, alcohol in gel, iodium, cotton, gauze, sticking plaster, some cream against bites, and even your sunscreen. It’s a good idea your kit box to have a card  wit your name and your phone numbers in emergency case - nobody never knows. Oh, and never it’s useless to know about first aid.

5. Have A Specialized Monitor

As much as the difficulty and the risk of the physical activity you do is major, the ideal would be it has the supervision and the guidance of a person who is paying you attention constantly, who knows how to act if any type of eventuality happens. If you work out in group, it would be fine that one of you to be someone having most experience for becoming that monitor. Remember that one thing is the gym, where you are just a couple of feet away, but another very different is out there where you could be inclusive a couple of hours away.  So listen carefully to your monitor, follow up the recommendations literally. The idea is you to come back to work out, not you to go just once and being forced not to come back for a long time or not coming back never again.

6. Hydrate

Yes, it’s obvious, but it’s necessary to remind it for the same reason than the previous tips. If you are at the gym, you only got to go to the water dispenser or buy a bottle with water, but out there, especially if you are far from the city, the better is you go well-supplied with enough water for hydrating before, during, and especially after  your training session. The same thing if you are accostumed to drink re-hydratant beverages, those only you have to consume after your training session for replacing salt and carbohydrates, not before. Find out more related information here.

7. Leave Clean The Space

It doesn’t matter  if you’re the only person who works out there, and much more reason if it’s about a collective space, avoid to leave trash although that’s not yours, especially if that could harm someone else. Working out outdoor implies a big commitment with the environment, so the hygiene would be a logical and consistent attitude. In consequence, not polluting (anyway) and educating the others through your example not for doing it  will be another of your responsibilities.

8. Create A Community

Although someone will prefer to isolate physically from the rest for a better training, our suggestion is you to try connecting other people like you doing certain outdoor sport or discipline around your region, your country or the world for interchanging experiences, warning for any cause, or even seeing the chance to visit each other for sharing the experience by promoting a kind of sport tourism. The social media are currently the means for commiting that task effectively and efficiently. Use them responsibly.

9. Share Your Experience

If you are who think your relatives, friends or contacts deserve to share the same satisfaction you get when you work out outdoor, try to write something and post it on your social media where you tell how you had, describe the place, and motivate the people to go with you or by themselves. If you want, share your experience with our crew on our Twitter account, by writing us at chulucanasgym@gmail.com, or leaving some message right below. We’ll enjoy to read you!

The photos on this post were provided (from the top to below) by César Campos, Ronald Benites, Pedro Changanaquí, and Félix Oviedo.

The Risks of Contracting Monkeypox at the Gym: What You Need to Know

Monkeypox is a rare viral disease that has gained attention in recent years due to outbreaks in various parts of the world. Although most cases have been limited to specific population groups and situations, it's natural to wonder if high-traffic places like gyms could pose a risk of infection.

 

What is Monkeypox?

Monkeypox is a disease caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, though it is much less severe. It is primarily transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, skin lesions, or contaminated surfaces, as well as through respiratory droplets at short distances.

 

Transmission Mechanisms

To understand the risk at a gym, it's important to consider how monkeypox is transmitted:

 

Direct contact: The highest risk comes from direct contact with the skin or lesions of an infected person. In a gym, this type of contact could occur if shared equipment is used without proper cleaning or if there is close physical contact during certain activities.

Contaminated surfaces: The virus can survive on surfaces such as exercise machines, weights, mats, or towels. If someone infected touches a surface and another person comes into contact with that same area, there is a potential risk of transmission.

Respiratory droplets: While airborne transmission is less common and generally requires prolonged face-to-face contact, it is still a possibility in crowded and enclosed spaces like gyms.

 

Factors That Increase the Risk at the Gym

High usage frequency: Gyms are places where many people share equipment and spaces. If proper cleaning practices are not followed, this can increase the risk of the virus spreading.

Inadequate hygiene: Poor hygiene, such as not washing hands regularly, not disinfecting equipment before and after use, or not showering after exercise, can facilitate transmission.

Enclosed and poorly ventilated spaces: Poor ventilation in enclosed areas can increase the risk of transmission through respiratory droplets, especially in areas where high-intensity exercises are performed.

 

Measures to Reduce the Risk

To minimize the risk of contracting monkeypox at the gym, it's important to follow some recommendations:

Regular disinfection: Always clean and disinfect equipment before and after use. Bring your own towels and sterilize surfaces you will come into contact with.

Personal hygiene: Wash your hands frequently and avoid touching your face. Change clothes immediately after working out and shower as soon as possible.

Social distancing: Maintain a safe distance from other users when possible, especially in areas where high-intensity exercises are performed.

Use of personal equipment: If possible, bring your own equipment, such as yoga mats, small weights, or resistance bands, to avoid sharing objects with others.

 

While the risk of contracting monkeypox at a gym exists, it can be minimized with good hygiene practices and precautions. Stay informed about public health recommendations and take steps to protect yourself and others. If you experience symptoms or believe you have been in contact with someone infected, consult a healthcare professional and avoid going to the gym until you are sure you do not pose a risk to others. | X | WhatsApp | chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

Home Training

Is it possible to get the same results than if you worked-out at the gym?

By ChulucanasGym

Despite many posts say on the net, training at home is an option for people who don't have enough available time for attending a gym but could have the necessary will power to enter one.

It's also a choice for the ones who dont have enough money to pay a membership due to different reasons, but who also show up the enough will power to reserve a part of the day for keeping fit.

And the will power could be the starting point. If you don't have the enough motivation to schedule an hour of your day, or to set up the time for working out, you won't do anything.  Surely, you can request your best friend to visit at home for doing both together, but what would happen the day that friend can't attend?

Missing the training might not be your option, so the cause that motivates you must break out from yourself, in the beginning.

[READ ALSO: A quick guide for beginners at the gym.]

Define Your Goals
The question everybody asks is what exercises can be done at home, and the answer is before designing a routine, set up your physical achievement goals first: losing weight, keeping fit, increasing mass (yes, it is also possible).

Unless you already have previous experience with a supervised training at a gym (what trends to develop discipline), it would be worthy to invest in a personal trainer who helps you to set up those goals with greater objectivity and based upon science, biotype and body measures in other words, so the diet you use to have and you can optimize, and another relevant information as well.

Look for many opinions before choosing a personal trainer. The ideal is that one becomes a companion along your whole training process, but if your budget don't allow to, that could help you to start up with your first session, then supervising you weekly, biweekly, or monthly.

Remember that although you can develop a degree of trustness and friendship with your personal trainer, the ideal would be the relationship to be strictly professional at the time of coaching on you.

Whatever the reason, if you are not available to have a personal trainer, you can write us down at chulucanasgym@gmail.com for providing you with remote orientation (online). This service we offer you is a symbolic cost.

You Need Space
Although there is not a general rule about the space you need for doing the training, the criterion we recommend is your own comfortability. Maybe you need a couple of square feet, or maybe you need a whole room, or even your home's full backyard. Depending on you, your routine, and the existent availability, you must determine how much space you're going to use while you work out.

The suggestion we do point out as universal is your space must be free of obstacles what could harm you during your sessions. Imagine you work out in your bedroom and  you have eberything messy on the soil. Probably you get wounded by your own clothes or damaging your stuff. So although the space be little, you'll get alright if it were clean and ordered.

Versatility
One of the main benefits of home training is you schedule your training time and don't depend on the gym times. It's possible there is one near your home but the time you chose is already full of students. Instead, that problem gets solved at your home or bedroom.

Unless your life activities have no beginning, end time or your schedule be irregular, you decide the time you'll start to move.

of course if you have control of your life, the recommendable is setting up a regular hour for training, maybe just waking up, but if that is not possible, it comes alright anytime free you have.

Another most personal aspect at home, and depending on the privacy degree you have, is you decide what you wear for training. Inclusive you can work out underwore or even Ancient Greek-style (naked).  what you do must consider is there are certain clothes favoring  determined routine types better, depending on your physical goals.

If you work out with music, another advantage is you can do it with that you like much. There is no consensus here about what the ideal is neither. use that motivates you  and can mark you a beat, especially if you do a resistance or functional training. A Bach's selection as well as the Rocky's music score are perfectly valid.

Another aspect that represents a home's advantage over the gym's is you won't have to wait  at any locker-room for free showers. After cooling your body, you go straight to yours and take a bath.

How Many Time Do I Need?
Another advantage of home training is if your time at the gym is very attended, you already won't have to wait for the machine or the space to be free, what means you a time saving. But if you think you need at your home the same lapse you need at the gym, go ahead.

if the time scarce is your enemy or your justification, at least set on 20 or 30 minutes. You can control it classic-style, watching a clock in other words, or setting up your mobile alerts. if you work out with music, you can take as a reference that 5 full songs (usually the radio-edit versions)  equals about 20 minutes.  If you add three more, you'll have the half hour.

In the morning, in the afternoon, or at night? The general medical consensus is when you work out early, just waking up, you charge endorphines for the whole day, those will keep you alert, good humor. You won't have any excuse to run away your own regime, by the way.

 However, we repeat, that adjusts to your own life train. The important is you be constant, that you never leave off.

With Or Witout Apparel?
One of the existent prejudges is you can't get at hgome the same results like at the gym because we don't have enough equipment, or we simply don't have any.

Of course if you pretend to be a top-profile athlete, this reason probably could justify. But if your purpose is keeping fit or recuperating it, the creativity is more important than the complexitty.

The universal thing applying to the training at the gym, at home, outdoors, wherever, is dividing the body into key muscular groups: shoulders, arms, chest, back, abs, gluteus, tighs, and calves. Then, your training plan must consider them all, full, focused, in-circuit.

The general or full-body routines look for activate you from the top to the base with exercises working more than a muscular group at a time, with relatively acrobatic movements  (There are all-dificulty levels), those can be used for gaining resistance as well as increasing power, acording to the quantitty and the intensity you take on.

[READ ALSO: Working out by wearing a mask?]

As much as you go gaining more reliability on your routines, many times they end to seem without-apparel olympic gymnastics sessions. Don't feel bad if the trick goes no good at the first attempt. You'll have to practice it until getting it. The results will appear in the process.

[READ ALSO: Aerobics at the beach]

The focused routines are concentrated into a determined muscular group or a couple of them each session, and they are usually used in the power training, the ones looking for strength and volume gaining, in other words.

The in-circuit routines are referred to the ones methodically focused  in some or all muscular groups each session, alternating them to take advantage out  of the resting moments. In other words, in one same session you can start with an exercise for tighs while you don't do anything with your arms, then when you leave doing tights go to the arms, and when you leave them go back to tighs or go to the back, then you do calves.

The functional training is a good example of in-circuit training although it's not the only one. Remember that one of its advantages is it takes up what be around you, turning into accesories for doing each exercise, from your own body weight tover the soil to  the furniture near you.

Yes, a chair, your bed, a small fence can be useful for this purpose.

if you have acquired or have access to any type of training home machine, it also can give you too-notable advantages like if you were using a dozen of them at a gym. Some personal trainers are too capable than inclusive teach you  to adopt certain angles with your body, so a 40-pound  weight look like a 120-pound one, reaching significant results (that's why we said you have to ask well before having a home advisory).

Some people can make their own training apparel or accesories as barbells, those are perfectly valid. The same thing if you buy them at a specialized store. Keep in your mind that if although how is important, also are important what, when, how much, where and why.

what Routine Can I Do?
If you already solved the whole prior details, you can start on moving.  Whether apparels or accessories, or not, the key parts your training session have to include are the warming-up and the routine itself.

Although we are not fans of the rigid formulas, if you insist on knowing what type-routine you could follow up, here we give you one, which you can changing as  you gain more power or resistance.

Warming-Up:
- 4 sets of 10 crunches (if you do them over the soil, remember to protect your back  with a pad or many clothes muffling  and not pressing your skin).
- 5 minutes of static trot or running (if you don't have a walking machine, you can help by using a back chair for not going forward or reverse).
- 15 to 20 pushes on the wall.

Arms, includes shoulders and torso (chest and back):
- 4 sets of 12 push-ups (with hands unite you work out pecs, hands aligned to shoulders work out shoulders with your arms, you work out the back if you put your hands a wide distance.)
- 4 sets of 10 push-ups with feet raised over a sofa, a chair, or your bed (this demands a bigger dificulty, but as you set your hands like the previous exercise, you get the same work-out levels.)

Tighs and gluteus:
- 4 sets of 20 full squads (pushing down your buttocks as much as you can, and flexing up your legs not setting them straight, trying first your feeet unite, then quite separated, and finally widely separated.)
- 4 sets of 15 jumping flexes, whether the feet unite or alternating one foot forward and the another one behind.
- 4 sets of 10 one-leg squads, while the another one is extended  behind for pushing your gluteus when you flex down; then, you do other 10 with the another leg.
- 4 sets of 10 strides.

Calves:
- 4 sets of 30 lift-ups, putting on your toe tips over a step letting your ankles suspended in the air, those you'll lift-up and lift-down (try to hold something  for not losing the body balance.)
- 4 sets of tip-toe walk during 1 minute (our executive editor says you probably will be gotten wrong, but it actually work out your calves.)

We repeat that if you have machines, aparels or accesories at home, you can reply the same movements like at the gym. They work exactly the same. You can also can combine them to the non-apparel training we suggest lines up.

And finally, ever remember the exercise without a balanced diet, enough resting neither, will be useless for you.

You can control this way if your body improves or not

By ChulucanasGym

Everyone who goes to the gym or does any type of training  is expectant about his or her progress. Have I overcome something I couldn’t overcome before, am I on the same spot when I started, or, in the worst scenario, am not I closer where I started neither?

The problem about measuring our progress is how much objectivity we put to our appreciation. In that sense, the first mistake we use to commit is trusting in the bare-eye, in what we see on the mirror, and almost never the diagnosis we get is reliable. Then, the prognosis we set uses to be wrong.

Is there any objective form to control our progress? Yes, there is. The anthropometrics is the discipline that helps us to have information adjusted to the reality on we can do our analysis and set up our strategies for improving or correcting our physical achievement. This information must be key for your and your trainer at the time to define if it’s necessary to adjust the training routine, the diet, the lifestyle in general, or everything.

Coming up next, we introduce you those key indicators you can control from your home, inclusive, and those will give you that objective vision about what is happening to your body. Look at the data you get – they can’t be taken isolated but grouped. So, the conclusions you arrive and the action plans you take will be more accurate than acting by simple supposition or guessing.

Height

This measure is basic because it serves to calculate other body measures such as absolutes, indexes, and percentages, we will talk about later. You can use a stadiometer, that is the specialized tool in measuring your height, although you can also take the job to paste a measuring tape on the wall or to paint a number scale in centimeters (or feet and inches in the U.S.) setting the ground as the point zero.

Next, take off your shoes, raise naturally, stick your body to the stadiometer or the wall column. Over 20 years old, the height is unvariable for both sexes, at least until the senescence when it can reduce because you will lose bone and muscular tissue.

Body Weight (BH)

It’s a first progress indicator, but alone is not enough because it only will say us if we have increased or have decreased respect to the last measuring. However, it offers us first clues.

The manner of taking it is as easy as put you up on the weighing machine and waiting for the reading in kilos and grams (pounds and ounces in the U.S.). What you have to be careful for sure is  how you take your weight: you ever have to take your shoes off and put on the device; don’t worry about your clothes (if sportswear) because the adding increase is irrelevant, unless you’re a professional or contesting athlete or bodybuilder, and it will be actually necessary you take off almost all your clothes or get naked for having the correct number. Of course, it will depend on how much privacy the place has and how much you trust in the one who could be with you.

The bathroom weighing machines use not to be much accurate as the clinic weighing machines that might be at every good gymnasium. Some electronic devices are only reliable as much as the manufacturer warns it so; then, read the instructions carefully before considering it as reliable and compare many readings taken with different devices to know what is the most accurate. In the same way, we suggest you have a monthly or biweekly record of your weight. Some trainers probably will demand you to have a weekly control if you’re training for a competition. Obbey them.

Absolute Body Measures (ABM)

We call them absolute body measures or ABM because they give us advance or slowing down indicators what only apply to our body as much as parts of it have got wider or have got thinner than a previous control. For that, what interests us is to have countour or perimeter measures expressed in centimeters (or inches in the U.S.), those put in a table give us a mathematical idea of your body volume. Who are dedicated to be models or bodybuilders or athletes know perfectly what we mean. However, a proffessional physical trainer will have here compplementary information to the BW  through he or she can evaluate the effectiveness of the training plan, the diet, or the lifestyle.

The best manner to take these measures  is by using a measuring tape that is put over the skin, not stretching it or releasing it too much, but letting it adjusts naturally to the shape of your body. The precission of the measure gets when the tape makes direct contact with your skin. If there are clothes between them, the excess must be depreciated or definetly avoided. Another trick, if you want more precission, is taking the measure before having meals or starting your training session. And if you still want more precission, take three measures of the same zone and then go to have the average for eliminating the excess or default error.

The measures are taken on specific areas of your body. Remember we need to know the contours, in other words you have to take the measuring tape and round each part of the body, going around it. We are not interested on lineal measures (as taken in dressing), we want to have an idea about volume. The places where those measures are gotten:

• Shoulders: Take as reference the part where it is seen more prominent and put there the start line of the tape. Then, pass it under your two clavicles until arriving to the most prominent part of your another shoulder. From here, make the tape to run over the upper part of your backuntil meeting the pointwhere the tape begins. For you to have an idea if you have taken the measure correctly, if you’re a male and you’re 170 centimeters or 5 feet 7 inches height, your shoulders perimeter should be between 118 to 120 centimeters or 46.5 to 47.1 inches. However, this measure is relative according to your age, body shape, and sport goalds.
• Chest: Whether you are a male or a female, take as a reference the part where it is more prominent (probably the nipples in both cases) and go the tape around you including your scapulas. For the women, taking this measure will be easy because it belongs to the same like the bust contour, very required in dressing or beauty contests. If you’re a 170-cm or 5’7-feet male height, your chest contour could be between 106 and 108 centimeters, or 41.2 and 42.5 inches, but we remind you the measures are relative, as we clarified you on the previous point.
• Arms and forearms: The biceps and triceps allow your to know how you are in arms, so you will have to round them at the same time with the measuring tape and take the reading. If you’re a male 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height, it is possible your arms grow until 38 or 39 centimeters, or 15 or 15.4 inchescontour. In forearms case, take as a reference its most prominent part and put you the tape around, although this measure is almost never used.
• Waist:    In the males, it’s taken as a reference a point 3 centimeters or 1.2 inches below your belly button, and in the females, the zone where it becomes strechest, 2 centimeters or 0.8 inches above the belly button in general. Then, you take the tape around including the lower back in the case of males and the medium back in the case of women. The World Health Organization recommends the males should not be more than 95 centimeters or 37.4 inches waist contour, and the females no more than 65 centimeters or 25.6 inches, although not much because of a beauty criterion but preventing many conditions caused by the overweight and the obesity.
• Belly: In the case of women it’s the same than the taken for waist in men. Basically, it looks to know how much flat your belly is, in mathematical terms, obviously.
• Hips: In male as well as female, it’s taken as a reference the most prominent part of your gluteus, rounding both sides where the pelvic bone is more prominent, passing over your pubis. If you’re a male (and adding the squads, your genetics helps you too), it is possible you reach 102 centimeters or 40.2 inches contour if you’re 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height.
• Thighs: It’s the section of your leg that begins in your pelvis and ends in your knee. Look for its widest part and round it with the measuring tape. Look! You have to take just one thigh per measuring, never both at the same time. If you’re a male 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height, your thigh can be between 59 and 60 centimeters or 23.2 and 23.6 inches at least, although it’s going to depend on your kind of training. What is clear, indeed, is that for every 3 centimeters or 1.2 inches of thigh you get, your arm can not be more than 2 centimeters or 0.8 inches.
• Calf: It’s the part of your leg between your knee and your ankle. Look for its more prominent part and round it here with the measuring tape. As equal as the thigh, both calves never must measured at the same time but one at once. If you’re a male 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height, your calf can be 37 to 38 centimeters or 14.6 to 15 inches at least. Yes, at least.

Indexes And Body Percentages

If you think it’s too many Maths for today, we have not finished yet. There are more specialized indicators those allow you to measure your progress, especially if you are in a professional or competition training environment.

• Body Mass Index (BMI): Basically, it gives us a more accurate idea if you are your ideal weight, or if you are overweight or in obesity. It is calculated by dividing your weight in kilos by your height’s square. Let’s suppose you’re a male 170 centimeters (1.7 meters or 5’7 feet) and you’re 70 kilos (154.3 pounds), your BMI will be 24.2 – it’s inside the healthy.  If it would exceed beyond 30, we could talk  about obesity.
• Body Fat Percentage (BFP): It’s a more specialized measure that, as its name says, looks for knowing if there is a healthy balance between the body fat you need for your vital functions and the fat you store to do your elective functions –we mean- as training. Here Maths are not enough but we need to use special procedures and devices for having us a reading. It is obtained by multiplying the quantity of your body fat by the quantity of your body mass and all that divided by 100. Women will ever have a BFP greater than men because some fat is reserved for reproductive functions. About percentages, it is considered that athletes go from 10% to 15% depending on the physical activity they do. A professional trainer will educate you about how to control your BFP for optimizing better your training, although will combine it with diet and improvement in your lifestyle. In fact, it is probable this catch more attention.

So, if you only trusted in your mirror, your weighing machine, or your measuring tape, you see we have to combine all this and much more in the end if we want to measure progress. And, by the way, it’s not a bad idea you feed all your data on an electronic  spreadsheet that allow you to view graphically if you improve, you keep, or you need to work harder. Yes, it’s a lot of work but you deserve it well. It also will give you more conscience about you, especially if you add some psychological advisory to see if there is any motivation problem, or something like this.

Like everytime, we will be pleased to know your questions here on the comments, or on our Twitter account, or by writing us at chulucanasgym@gmail.com

The models featured on this post are Pedro Changanaquí, Fran Checa, Alfredo Rivera, and Anderson Sandoya

How Much Do genetics Influence On Me?

The very enthusiastics say it's not related and the less motivated use it as an excuse, but what does science say about?

 
By ChulucanasGym
Model: Henry Hernández*

Talking in strictly clinic terms, Genetics do influence on building the body you wish, what means your body's whole characteristics and those come inherited in you by generations influence in your capability  of increasing muscular mass, or losing body fat, or having more stamina, or being stronger,... everything or anything them.

However, Genetics do not determine completely your final body shape. If you can't change it in its programming, you will know it for taking it advantage or balancing it at level you're looking for, through diet, training, and a resting regime correctly designed and followed  as much disciplined as you can.

It's probable you also need supplementation, but it only applies in case when clinically proven your body reports some deficit or scarce, and it's necessary running to the medicine for compensating there where it lacks. It's good to mention  this extra puling has ever to be advised by  a trustable medic or nutricionist.

But, how much do genetics play in your favor, or not? The first you must have in mind  what your body's primary shape or biotype is, which turns into your first visible indicator... unless you want to have some lab tests, what will be ever much safer.

• If you trend to be thin, so you don't accumulate much fat body, and your muscular mass is few, then your biotype could be ectomorph.
• If you trend to get fat, accumulate many body fat (that must not be confused to muscular mass), your body could be endomorph.
• If you trend to have muscular mass not working out  often, don't accumulate body fat (or you can undo it fastly), and your body shape ever keeps athletic features, your biotype could be mesomorph.

Look! Specialists warn that people don't have just one pure biotype necessarily and this is not strongly linked to skin color neither. In fact, it's very common that because of our mixture, we may have combined biotypes.

Depending on what your sport goals are, it would design a plan that works straight to your biotype. Generally Endomorphes and Ectomorphes  will require a very special type of training, and their capability to reach the shape they look for, can take many months or years even. Despite, Mesomorphes could take few months to improve their shape, so target to body goal  they're looking for. That's why  you have to remember that it could be working for one individual not necessarily works to you.

In the other hand, if you're not Mesomorph, don't desperate or look for magic solutions neither. Patience, good humor sense, and discipline will have to be your constants.

And if you're Mesomorph, please don't be self-sufficient because one thing is having some comparative physical advantages compared to other people, but uncaring doesn't guarantee  to keep fit.

Based upon this first tip and your body achievement objectives, your feeding and training plan will be designed. We can't give you here a formula for general using. Simply we recommend you to talk muchly to your trainer for doing the design and having some mechanism allowing to control the progress (usually body measuring, routines performance, your own motivation capability).

What indeed is common for every biotype is the resting time. Whatever your sport activity is, 8-10 hours of deep sleeping will you rcover and build the desired shape.

But if your lifestyle doesn't allow too many resting hours, you must work seriously on get disiplined through a schedule, that you'll follow enthusiastic, full of attitude.

* Henry Hernández, this article's model, is a Chulucanas-based personal trainer who you can contact directly on his Facebook account or leaving him any question below.