Benefits of cold showers

Most of us have heard of either cold tubs and know most of the benefits from them. Not many people know about the benefits of cold showers. I know for myself my thing has always been hot showers. I enjoy them a lot but it wasn’t until recently when I did the research on cold showers that I actually seen the benefits from them. Some of the benefits are below

Increases Alertness

Taking a cold shower in the morning and feeling cold water go down your body seems more discomforting than soothing. However the deep breathing that happens during this process when our body is in shock helps us keep warm and also increases our overall oxygen intake. This gives us the energy boost we need for the day.

2. Refines Hair and Skin

When it comes to hair and skin, one of the most natural ways to maintain it is with cold showers. Ever wonder when you take a hot shower and you get out and you become ashy and your skin is dry? That is because it is drying out our skin. Cold water on the opposite hand tightens up our skin and will tighten our pours which will prevent then from getting clogged. The same thing goes for the scalp where it prevents dirt from getting in it.

3. Simulates Weight Loss

Cold showers can help weight loss in an unexpected way. The human body contains two types of fat tissue white fat and brown fat. White fat is gained when we consume more calories than our body needs to function and we don’t burn off these excess calories for energy. This body fat piles up in a variety of places in our body and is hard to get rid of. Brown fat is good fat which generates head to keep our bodies warm and is activated when exposed to extreme cold temperatures.

#4 Eases Stress & Helps recover faster

Jumping into the shower without letting it heat up or going into a pool without slowly acclimating to it can help increase tolerance to stress and even disease. Also as you may all know ice baths are something that athletes do to help their body recover faster but if you are not at that level yet, cold showers can have the same affect.

Try a cold shower in the morning and see how alert you are for the rest of the day. A lot of you depend on coffee and other energy boosters to help you. But from my past experiences I have been way more alert after a cold shower than any other drink could do for me. And if you can just jump right into a cold shower, start gradually. Try a luke warm shower and then move it to a little colder.

Any questions or advice feel free to contact me on instagram

@lefthandedassassin

Coach Q

Importance of Eating breakfast

All my life growing up I have never been someone who liked to eat breakfast. I never saw the point in eating cereal or anything of that matter in the morning. It was never for me I always thought that I could skip breakfast and just eat things in the afternoon, little did I know that I was starving myself. Think about it growing up if you didn’t eat breakfast if you were lucky enough to go to a school where you would get a snack break in elementary school sometimes middle school if not you would have to wait until 11 AM to eat your first meal. And growing up when I would get light headed or feel dehydrated it would be because of either I’m not drinking water or I’m waiting too late in the day to eat my first meal. It wasn’t until I got to high school and realized that when I don’t eat breakfast and wait until 11 to eat my first meal that I realized that I was literally starving myself for 8-9 hours. There was no wonder why I would have no energy to go to the gym in the morning or even feel light headed. So when I realized how important it was too eat breakfast I thought about some simple ways that I could fix this problem of not eating in the morning and I wanted to share them with you:

#1. You can drink a protien shake. Every morning I wake up I try to drink at least 2-3 glasses of water on an empty stomach. After that is when I would suggest drinking a protien shake so you could at least have something in your stomach. If you are like me I’m not a big fan of food in the morning so eating a big breakfast is something that I never do. A protien shake can be a subsitute and should hold you over until your next meal.

#2. Bring mini snacks with you to eat throughout the day until your lunch time. Whether it is eating a banana and bringing bags of nuts or different fruits with you to work or put it in your gym back, it is always important to have some sort of filler snack that you can eat that can hold you over until the next meal. I’d rather you do that than to be so hungry after the gym that you go eat fast food.

Drinking a protein shake or eating a variety of fruits and nuts in the morning or even eating something light as yogurt is something that I think is very beneficial to you. A lot of people over look breakfast as I once did and I think this is one of the worst things you could do. Breakfast provides you with a variety of vitamins and nutrients that you miss out on if you wait until lunch. Now of course if your fasting or doing some sort of dieting program than their is exceptions.

Hope you find this beneifical to you.

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The benefits of deadlifts

The deadlift it is an exercise that has many benefits too it that people over look. I know when I first started out weight lifting dead lifts is something that I hated doing. I would see it on my college lifting workouts and automatically skip over them because I never saw the benefit from them. It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I started to taking deadlifts serious. Below are some benefits that I’ve discovered during the process.

#1. Better Posture

Deadlifting increases your core strength and also adds to core stability. While performing this exercise it targets all of the muscles responsible for your posture and enables you to keep your back straight during your daily activities.

#2 More Muscles are being worked

The deadlift works more muscles than any other exercise believe it or not and that is also including the squat. While doing this exercise the lift engages all of the major muscle groups. When you are performing this exercise you may notice that your upper and lower body parts are being worked which is contributed to this workout.

#3 Increases Hormones

When doing at least 8-10 reps of deadlifts with a significant weight you can increase the amount of testosterone and growth hormone that is produced in your body. Testosterone increases muscle growth and improves muscle. So if your doing deadlifts and after a couple sets seems like your what I like to call “in the zone” it is because your body is producing testosterone at a high level.

#4 Prevents Injury

The deadlift can help prevent injuries by increasing the strength of your muscles around certain tendons and ligaments. After pulling my hamstrings and even partially tearing one during my basketball career when I found this out deadlifts became my best friend, They have helped me a lot during my career and I think it is something that is very vital to having strong hamstrings.

Overall I know deadlifts are one of the most important exercises that can benefit you when done correctly. Some people tend to put a lot of weight on and their form ends up being horrible and they end up hurting themselves. The best advice I can give is to do what is comfortable for you and more importantly make sure your form is correct.

Take a nap or power through?

Everyone tends to know how important sleep is but a lot of people tend to not have a lot of knowledge of how important naps are. Some people love them and others hate them or they think napping as a whole is a bad thing and others tend to think they are great. But the real question is who is right? And in reality the answer is everyone is correct depending on the situation.

The key answer is if you can easily fall asleep between 11 am and 3 p.m. in a comfortable place with the lights out for exactly 20 minutes then yes a nap can work wonders for you, if not then you are better off just staying awake and powering through. Our circadian rhythm has two natural stages of sleepiness which is during the middle of the night and the other one is post lunch. So whether you believe in napping or not you can eliminate the guilt you feel when you start to lose focus early in the afternoon. If you have a quiet place to lay down you shouldn’t fight the feeling to nap.

If you want to get the maximum benefit out of your next nap then I would suggest the following

#1 The time matters

This may sound contradictory but the proper nap length is either 20-30 minutes or 90 minutes. It will take you 90 minutes to go through the full REM sleep cycle which allows you to have the same benefits of having a full 8 hours of sleep. If you wanted to take a short nap then I’d suggest taking a nap for 20 minutes because you will be less likely to deal with sleep inertia which makes you feel groggy when you wake up.

#2 Nap in the right evnorinment

I know for myself sometimes being at school it is hard for me to get time to nap because during the day is when people are most active and more importantly the sun is out. This causes my room to not be completely dark causing it to be hard for me to go to sleep. I’d suggest finding a room with the least distractions.

#3 Know when to nap and when to power through

Don’t nap too late in the day if it is after 3 p.m. because if you do then your more than likely going to shorten your ability to fall asleep at night. Often times when I get tired after 3 p.m. I try to go to the gym or take a walk to wake myself up.

Finding motivation

A lot of people struggle with the ability to find motivation when accomplishing their dreams and goals. People say that they want to go to the gym everyday but when that alarm clock goes off and your body is telling you stay in bed people often give in. When they have to be at the gym by 7 they think 7:30 won’t hurt then that turns into 7:45 then they think maybe I’ll just go later in the day and never make it to the gym. Trust me I know this happens because this is something that I use to struggle with myself until I found something that motivated me. Here’s a little story:

On January 5th I drove to the basket and landed on my hand. I automatically assume the worse because it was my shooting hand but I continue to play through it because it was late in the game but I knew something wasn’t right and I went to the trainer right after. I told him what happened and he said it was probably a minor sprain and with ice and some treatment it will get better. The following week I’d say it gets worse to a point where it’s excruciating pain just to shoot a basketball. Nobody really knows what I’m going through and to make the long story short I play the rest of the season dealing with this injury. Come to find out a couple days ago I have a ligament torn in my wrist and now they are talking about possibly getting surgery done once I graduate. But during this process I had to find something to keep me going. Basketball is my life I been playing since I was 3 years old. If something it going on in my life and I want to get away from it I go lose myself in the gym and go shoot. I love the game. But imagine not being able to do something you love to do because every time you do it it literally hurts. I even had a dream about this a couple nights ago and tears literally started pouring down my face in my sleep and when I woke up I knew it was still a reality. I miss it but this is what I was dealing with and I had to find something to motivate me to get through it. I would always have talks with my parents back home and they would always tell me how proud they were of how far I’ve come even though my performance wasn’t like it was last year they knew what I was capable of. But little did they know I physically couldn’t do it and that is what hurt me mentally the most. To be completely honest with you all from Jan 5th to the end of the season mentally was the worst time of my life. But talking to my parents and seeing back home that I had people that counted on me kept me waking up at 5AM and training. I couldn’t shoot because the pain was too much but I kept working on things in my room to keep my mind and body strong and in tune with myself.

I say all this to say, if you ever find yourself asking how can I keep the momentum going to accomplish my goals or tasks, whether it’s going to the gym everyday or eating healthy or going to work when you don’t feel like it, find something that will motivate you. Once you find that motivation I promise everything will be so much easier for you. Those days when you just don’t want to get up for work, when you think about your motivation your body will switch into another gear and you will find yourself never contemplating those thoughts again.

I want you to take some time out of your day today and think about it now and write it down so it’s a daily reminder to yourself, what motivates you?

Benefits of drinking water when first waking up

Everyday whether your working all day or going to class your body has exerted energy and power. That’s the reason that you get thirsty and want to soothe yourself through hydration. But something that you may not have known was that drinking water first thing in the morning has many health benefits.

Every morning when you wake up your body is craving water. The human body is composed of more than 50% of water to keeping it refreshed with water is very important. When you do this in the morning you will see amazing benefits from it. Maybe after reading these benefits that I will give you, you will also join me and drinking water first thing in the morning as well.

#1 Drinking water first thing in the morning immediately helps rehydrate the body.

A lot of people don’t realize that when you go to sleep for that six-eight hour time period that’s literally your body not having any consumption. So when you wake up feeling thirsty that’s your body telling you that it needs to be replenished. Drinking two-three glasses of water when you wake up on an empty stomach allows you to quickly rehydrate.

#2 Drinking water first thing in the morning helps fuel your brain

One thing you may not have known is that our brain is made up of over 70% water. So when you are not properly hydrated your brain operates on less fuel causing you to feel drained and feel fatigued. It can also help your memory and brain performance.

#3 Drinking water first thing in the morning increases your level of alertness

One of the main indicators of fatigue and tiredness is your dehydration. A lot of times when you first take a drink of something in the morning you literally feel like a shock went through your body. I know a lot of people like coffee or tea first thing when they wake up but try water. Water can stimulate faster growth of red blood cells in your system which generates more oxygen in your blood. When this happens it gives you a good burst of energy.

#4 Drinking water first thing in the morning helps get rid of the toxins in your body

Drinking a few glasses of water in the morning can help flush out all of the toxins that stores in your body overnight. As you drink it, it naturally stimulates movements in your bowels. During the night your body repairs itself and takes out all of the toxins in your body. Drinking water in the morning will help flush out these toxins giving you a fresh body.

As you start this process of drinking water on an empty stomach in the morning you will also start to see your skin start to glow and your metabolism increasing. Water is one of the most underrated things when it comes to having a better lifestyle that people look at. I know for myself I never used to drink water I was always a big juice fanatic but when my body started cramping during games and I would always drink juice after a workout and would still feel thirsty I wondered why. And it’s because water does so many things to your body that you have no idea it would even affect but it does.

Try this out for two weeks and let me know if you see any progress in your health!

Coach Q

Benefits of NoFap

Fellas I wanted to touch on this subject because I think this is something that a lot of you may be dealing with and having struggles with. When you watch porn and jerk off you are actually lowering your testosterone levels. Your semen literally has nutrients and vitamins in it that you need to be a man. Women can sense a man’s masculine energy from a mile away but when you masturbate your limiting yourself from certain options. When you masturbate you’re not at your strongest, ever think why after you masturbate you feel tired? It’s because you’re emptying yourself of the nutrients that men need to have. Now in order to fix this you need to have goals and aspirations that your passionate about and translate that energy that you spend jerking off towards that goal. I know some of you will spend hours at a time watching porn but just imagine taking that time and putting it towards a business you want to start or hitting the gym. This is called SEXUAL TRANSMUTATION. I only know this because it is something that I used to do myself. But once I was able to restrain from it and put my energy towards the weight room and basketball my life started to change. I had a different swagger about myself and quite frankly when I walked into any room I owned it. My confidence level was and still is through the roof. And I would say restraining from porn had a lot to do with this because I know after I would masturbate my testosterone level was low and I wasn’t motivated to do anything at all. All I wanted to do was take a nap after and when I woke up half my day was already over. A number of things will improve when you stop jerking off to porn. Some of these things are you will have improved confidence, your motivation to get things done will improve, your sex life will improve and lastly your all around aura will improve. You should want to be the most masculine version of yourself but can’t be the masculine version of yourself if your beating your meat and watching porn. How do you expect for you to walk into a room and have women feel your energy when all your energy is being wasted on porn all day? This dampens your masculine energy and it’s something that as a man you should pay attention too. Now if you find this to be you I’m not saying to go cold turkey and stop watching porn because you will relapse but I am suggesting too limit the amount of times you watch it gradually and eventually it will become easier for you to control yourself.

Self Love is most important

A lot of times when people want to change the way they look, I often find that one of the reasons that they do it off of others people’s opinions of them. I believe if someone wants to change physically they first have to love them selves where they are at now. The key to this is acceptance of what got them there then realizing it’s time for a change. But if you don’t love yourself where your currently at then the process of getting to where you want to be will be much more difficult. Waking up everyday and realizing that you are blessing on this earth is something that I want you to cherish the most. I get it Life happens. And at times you will want to throw in the towel or question why are you even here. But it is times like this that define or character and make you stronger. Things happen in our lives for a reason but without growth and continuing to love ourselves then we will never learn from them. When you look in the mirror I want you to be happy with who you are as a person. The physical things can change, you can always lose/gain weight get a slimmer waist gain muscle get a bigger butt etc. But what I want you to realize is if you don’t love yourself now while your in the process of getting to your desired goal, when you actually achieve it you will instantly find something else wrong with you because you don’t love yourself. And this will be a constant cycle of you searching for other people’s validation when the only validation you really need is within you. So I want you to take some time out of your day today and write down things that you love about yourself and put it somewhere where you can read it daily. Take pride in who you are and be the best version of yourself from here on out!

Coach Q

The importance of a good warm up

A lot of times especially for myself when I first started training and wanting to get my body in shape I would never warm up. Even playing basketball I would do two or three stretches then jump right in and play. Over the years I over looked the importance of a good warm up and this is why I want to help you. I find that we skip warming up for numerous reasons whether you are pinched for time or think you don’t need to, it is something that I would highly recommend that we all do.

One of the benefits of warming up is that you prevent yourself from having injuries. I know this personally dealing with hamstring injuries if I had warmed up before hand and took the proper precaution and stretched properly I truly think that I could have prevented my injuries. Even until this day now that my body is healed I learned my lesson from before to never just jump into a workout.

Another benefit that warming up provides is the mental preparation part. Sometimes you may not be in the mood to workout so you find yourself not motivated to get it done. But I have found that if I warm up it sharpens my mind and gets me focused on the task that I am going to accomplish and therefore will put me in the right frame of mind. If the mind is ready to endure the discomfort from your workout then your body can prepare for the task at hand.

The last benefit that I have discovered from warming up is that it enhances your performance. During a warm up your blood flow increases which causes an increase in your muscle temperature. The more blood going to the muscles along with more oxygen available to the working muscles means better performance.

I would recommend that your warm up should be no more than 10-20 minutes. Some exercises for warming up are low intensity swimming cycling or running. Keep it moderately low so your body can adapt and get ready for your workout shortly after. You don’t want to kill yourself during your warm up and then have no energy for your main workout.

Misconception of Waist Trainer

Many women often look for easy ways to lose weight. One of the most common ways that women think of are wearing waist trainers. Yes when you are wearing them you may see results but often times there are many things happening to your body that you do not know about. Below I want to make you aware of the things happening to your body when you have these waist trainers apart of your daily routine.

#1 Harmful to your organs

Permanent stress on your waist can damage organs such as your intestines, liver, stomach, and kidneys and move them into unnatural positions.

#2 Causes Dehydration

Heats up your core leading to excessive sweating. This can give the appearance of temporary weight loss but it’s just a loss of water and the increased likelihood of dehydration.

#3 Skin Irritation

Wearing a waist trainer for extended periods of time leads to excessive sweating which causes chaffing and rashes. These can lead to infections over time

#4 Acid Reflux

Compressing your mid-section and stomach can increase your chance of heartburn and indigestion. This is not only painful but can lead to permanent erosion of the walls of the esophagus

#5 Mental Health Issues

The slimmer appearance while wearing a waist trainer will only lead to frustration and psychological stress in the long run. It’s easy to see why they become addictive when people feel they need to wear them all the time.

#6 Weakened Core

Atrophy of abdominal muscles over time as you are essentially wearing a giant constricting belt which reduces the need to keep your ab muscles tight.