How to Kick Ass at Life

 

Wake up. This is your life. You’ve only got one shot at it.

If you fail, there’s no turning back.

This is it.

So I want you to ask yourself right now: are you living the life you want to live?

Are you kicking ass like you know you should be?

If your answer is no, don’t worry. It’s never too late to start living life optimally.

Because no matter whether you’re 18, 32 or 85, you can start living life the best you can right now.

Here’s how to start immediately:

Fuel your body

You wouldn’t expect a fancy car to run smoothly on cola-infused gasoline, and you shouldn’t expect your body to live up to its potential if you’re feeding it sugary drinks, fast food and junk 24/7.

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How to Assess Your Fitness Level

Most of the time, comparing yourself to others isn’t a good thing.

Looking through too many magazines with photoshopped, perfect bodies, measuring your own athletic abilities against those of super-trained, superhuman athletes—these types of comparisons can motivate you to push stronger, harder, faster—or they may cause you to lose all hope and give up all together.

But if you’re anything like me, you need some type of comparison to give you a sense of how fit you really are.

Back when you were in high school or junior high and played on a sports team or two (if you did play high school sports, of course), it was easy to figure out how fit you were. You knew whether you were good by how often you started on the basketball team, how often other players passed to you on the soccer field, how fast your 400 meter sprint was compared to the rest of the track team.

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Six Awesome 4-Minute Tabata Workouts You Can Do At Home

 

Tabatas are one of my favorite types of workouts of all time.

They’re short, incredibly effective, and mindblowingly hard if you do them right—everything that comprises a good workout.

I wrote an entire post on why Tabata workouts are so awesome, so I won’t go too into detail about them here. But basically, Tabata workouts are a method of exercise that lasts only four minutes, and requires you to go all out for 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. You’ll repeat this cycle eight times to complete the workout.

You’ll need a timer to effectively do a Tabata, since no one can accurately count to 20 seconds when they’re working that hard. You can get any kind you like, but I always use this one because of its portability.

And trust me on this one—if you think that you can do four minutes of exercise in your sleep, you’re underestimating how hard Tabata workouts really are (if you do them right, that is).

Because Tabata workouts will kick your ass—but they’re worth every second of the pain.

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10 Reasons to Love High Intensity Interval Training

Let’s face it: most people aren’t really fans of long, monotonous exercise. I know I’m not.

Still, it’s impossible to go to a gym that’s not packed with people spending hours at a time on the various treadmills and elliptical machines. Yet most of them aren’t there because they enjoy it. They’re there because they think it’s the most efficient way to burn fat and lose weight.

But here’s the thing: they’re wrong.

Because while the cardio machines may tell you you’re staying in the ‘fat burning zone’ when you’re running at 5.5 mph for 60 minutes, the truth is you’re burning less calories overall than if you worked harder for a shorter amount of time.

Yes, it’s true—you can actually burn more fat and calories when you work out for less time instead of more.

Because with high intensity interval training, you’ll actually burn calories more efficiently than you would running for hours, and it takes way less time to complete.

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Announcing Fitter Faster Stronger: Get in the Best Shape of Your Life!

 

Get ready to get excited.

After months of planning, tons of time and effort creating really awesome workouts, countless calls with my mastermind group, weeks of editing, endless hours tweaking the design, and what feels like forever making sure I’ve created something I’m incredibly proud of and excited about…

I’m FINALLY officially releasing Fitter Faster Stronger!

So… what the heck is Fitter Faster Stronger?

Fitter Faster Stronger is a high intensity interval training (HIIT) program focusing on incredibly effective workouts that you can do with minimal equipment in around just 12 minutes a day.

This is the program I would have wanted when I was first starting out trying to get into shape. For less than the cost of one personal training session (or less than half the cost of one month’s gym membership), you can get the accountability, planning and motivation you need to get in the best shape of your life.

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7 Phenomenal Push Up Variations You Should Do

krista stryker push up

Push ups are one of the most underrated exercises of all time.

Most females assume they can’t even do them, and most guys assume they’re too good for them.

So what happens? People just don’t do them.

But here’s the thing: push ups are one of the best exercises you can do. Not only do they target every single muscle group of your upper body, they get you stronger, leaner and fitter overall in no time at all.

Push ups are also awesome because:

  • They’re a compound exercise, meaning you’ll save time on having to target all the individual muscles in your upper body.
  • They promote muscular balance in your body.
  • They are a total bodyweight exercise, so you never have to go to a gym or pull out any equipment to do them.

In fact… drop down and give me 10 push ups, right now!

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How to Start (and Keep) a Consistent Workout Schedule

keep-a-workout-schedule

When it comes to starting something new—such as creating a workout habit—the hardest part is to stick with it long enough and keep a consistent enough schedule that it becomes a habit for life.

Because while it’s pretty easy to start doing HIIT, or eating healthy, or foam rolling after your workouts, sticking with it in the longterm is a much more difficult feat.

And we all know it’s only too easy to make excuses not to work out. You get busy. You’re too sore. Life happens.

And sooner than later, the excuses start to pile up. You end up skipping a few days, a week, maybe even a few weeks—and before you know it, you’re back at square one. It’s a vicious cycle.

In fact, learning to keep a consistent workout schedule is one of the subjects 12 Minute Athlete readers email me about the most. But it doesn’t have to be that difficult.

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I'm Not Perfect, and Neither Should You Be: 39 Things You Should Know About Me

Krista Stryker

Despite what you may think, I haven’t always been this active.

In fact, there was a time in my life when I was actually a little chubby. I didn’t work out. I ate way too much Trader Joe’s mac & cheese. I couldn’t do a push up or pull up to save my life.

Born into a family of extremely active people, I was constantly bitter that being healthy and active didn’t come naturally to me as it seemed to for most of my family. Even now, despite being in his mid 60’s, my Dad still skis, kiteboards, windsurfs, SUPs, surfs, bikes, goes on crazy hikes, does CrossFit and is always looking for a new sport to try. He’s my inspiration. But I used to think I was nothing like him.

Because for a long time, I thought that the ‘active gene’ in my family had skipped me—since I hated the thought of exercise so freaking much.

Along with this lack of desire to exercise, I also suffered from near constant depression starting in my early teenage years. In short, I hated myself. I was restless and always unhappy. I hated what I was doing (or not) doing with my life. I hated the way I felt every day. I hated the way my body looked.

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Bodyweight Training: How to Get in Incredible Shape With Zero Equipment

bodyweight training

Most people think that the only way to get the fit, strong body they want is to work out with machines or heavy weights.

But most people are wrong.

Because here’s the thing: the popularity of training equipment mostly comes down to marketing. Fitness companies need to have something to sell you, so they sell you on machines, fancy gadgets, and complicated systems.

Sure, weights and a few pieces of uncomplicated equipment like plyometric boxes, kettlebells and medicine balls can be useful tools to propel you to the fitness level you want. But the truth is that you don’t need any of these to get into incredible shape.

Because the simplest and most effective way to develop strength, gain endurance and lose fat is to train using nothing more than your own body.

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The Amazing Wonder of Coconut Butter (And How to Actually Use It)

artisana-coconut-butter

If you’re anywhere near the health food or fitness circles, you’ve no doubt heard of coconut oil by now.

But have you ever heard of coconut butter?

Until about a month and a half ago, I hadn’t. And oh my gosh is it good.

It tastes like the most delicious, decadent, oh-so-bad-for-you treat.

Except, it’s not. It’s actually good for you. In fact, coconut butter packs a crapload of benefits:

  • It’s rich in lauric acid, which boosts immunity and destroys harmful bacteria, viruses, and funguses.
  • It actually boosts your metabolism, which aids in weight loss and increases energy levels.

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