Recently I was searching far and wide for an effective daily workout routine to jump start my health improvement action plan for the new year.

There were SO many different routines to sort through. Talk about complicated and confusing!

So I decided to keep things simple and efficient. If you are a reader of this blog, you know that ’simple disciplines repeated over time’ is my formula for everything.  Therefore, I had to determine what my ultimate goals were, then design an effective daily workout routine that would move me closer to those goals on a consistent basis.

After some thought, I decided that I’d like to eventually get down to a single digit body fat percentage … a nice lean muscular look.

I had dreams of being a professional bodybuilder back in my college days, but sub-par genetics combined with bad shoulders from constant heavy lifting put an end to that pretty quickly. But, I am still healthy enough to get lean and toned without too much discomfort, and I am thankful for that.

So now that the goal was in place – lean muscularity – I needed to decide what I should do on a daily basis to get there.

Here is what I came up with, which has been a very effective daily workout routine for me.  You may be shocked by the simplicity of it, but it works well and that is all that matters, right?

Monday through Saturday

30-50 push-ups performed in the morning and/or evening, followed by 30-50 bicycle sit-ups.

Monday – Wednesday – Friday

30-minute combination of walking and running, with the ultimate goal of competing in a few 5k events this summer.  I found an excellent 9-week program on the Cool Running web site.

That’s it!

Like I said, this workout produces great results for me.  And since it takes me no more than 30 minutes to complete, it is certainly simple and efficient – just the way I like it!

To Health,
- Scott

So, you’ve made a resolution to get healthy in 2010 – congratulations!

Hopefully you’ve begun eating a high-protein, low-sugar diet and are combining that with some regular exercise 3 times per week.  But, are making sure you get all your nutritional needs through supplementation?

If you are great, but if not let me suggest an excellent free-trial promotion that Prograde Nutrition is currently running. If you’ve never heard of Prograde before, they create the highest quality nutritional products and programs for their clients at reasonable prices. All products are manufactured in a GMP rated facility and recommended by health professionals, so you can rest assured that the product line is top-notch.

You can get a free trials of their whole-food based antioxidant product Longevity and/or their Post Workout protein product for a limited time.  These products will help you fill in the holes in your current nutritional plan, as well as recover from your workouts more quickly.

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Give them a shot – what have you got to lose but excess weight and low energy?

Of all the self improvement quotes I’ve read and internalized, there is one that I constantly keep in mind at all times.

“Success Doesn’t Happen By Accident … it Happens By ACTION.”

This quote always reminds me of the ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ approach to goal achievement, which holds that instead of planning your attack for days – or months – just get out there and take action toward your goals and dreams.

Action is what sets everything in motion!

I can set goals until I am blue in the face and make plans for their achievement, but absolutely nothing happens until I make the conscious choice to TAKE ACTION – even if just a small step – on a daily basis.

I know from prior experience that I  learn best through DOING.  Some things will go right, and some will not.  But I will make progress as long as I take consistent action, and then simply adjust the particular actions that were not producing the desired result.

As Emerson so beautifully stated, “Do the thing, and you will have the power.”

Notice that you do not get the power first! You get the power by DOING the thing.

So set your goals, get motivated and get into ACTION!