Harmonize Fitness
Harmonize Fitness



Leave a legacy

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If we think about the reason or purpose we´re here it´s to make this world a better place, to help as much people as possible and to leave a blueprint that can help the people behind us.

If we have the desire to be remembered by our contribution to society or to the world we need to work on building our legacy, what can we do now to help as much people as possible and to make this a better world?

For me there are two important things here: what do we want to be remembered for? and what blueprint can we leave that will be of help for future generations?

When our time is over how do we want to be remembered? what do we want to be known for? we all have a limited time and we´re here to live our best life possible. People will remember us by how we treated them, how we make them feel and the impact we had on their lives, if we do good for people our impact will last. The more people we help the better not only for us.

Do we want to be remembered as someone kind and generous, always helping the ones around and making people feel important? Then we need to start being kind and generous right now, treat everyone with respect and attention and make them feel important.

What blueprint can we leave behind that help future generations achieve more than we did? For this we need to be clear on our values, principles and priorities. What´s most important for us in our life, do we want to leave a guide for success, how to be a great athlete, how to be a great musician or actor, how to live our best life possible.

We all have different priorities and interest, our life is like a book full of stories structured by chapters, every chapter can be a lesson for others to avoid our mistakes, even when we all need to go through challenges and fail there are some failures and mistakes that can be avoided, this is why autobiographies from great people are a fantastic we take some of their ideas or experiences and apply them to our life in certain situations.

Our purpose help us leave a legacy, our purpose is the reason why we´re here, what do we love doing, what we´re good at and how can we help as much people as possible, when we find our purpose and work on it we live a meaningful and fulfilling life that will leave a blueprint behind for others to follow and will also helps us be remembered in the way we want.

By working and focusing on our purpose we focus on the things that matter, we spend most of our time doing meaningless stuff, we´re just busy but not productive, it seems like we´re doing a lot but we´re actually not making any progress and not getting results. When we think of our purpose as a way to live a meaningful and fulfilling life for us by helping people and making this a better world and also as our way to leave a legacy we get motivated to do what we need to do, we start working toward results and stop wasting time on activities or stuff that doesn´t matter.

Share with us the comment section how do you want to be remembered and what are you doing every day to make that happen.




Never stop learning


Life is the best teacher, it always give us situations and experiences just so that we can learn. Our biggest mistake is thinking we already know, closing the doors to new knowledge to come. We can always learn something new if we are open to learn.

What we´re doing today is defining our future, the people we spend time with, the movies we see, the books we read. You may have heard this quotes and it´s completely true.

The best step we can take is change our mindset, be open to learn from all experiences and from everyone and everything around us so we need to have a clear vision of what we want to achieve and who we need to become to select the people we need to be surrounded with today, the books we need to read today, what movies can we watch today and learn from them. They will be our mentors and guides so we need to keep our eyes and minds open to knowledge.

Insane focus in applying what we learn, making mistakes and improving every day is important, there´s no reason to learn if we don´t apply those lessons and as we keep learning and improving we need to change books, movies and meet more people that takes us through the next level never forgetting who was with us before.

The world is constantly changing and improving and we need to keep changing and improving too, the moment we stop learning we block ourselves from being who we could have been.

We can turn our failures to lessons, our pain and suffering to wisdom and be waiting for the next moment to apply all the lessons, knowledge and wisdom we got to either fail or hurt again and get one more lesson, more knowledge or wisdom or to make the right decisions and get the results we were looking for.

One of the most important things we can learn is about ourselves, learning about us what we like what we hate and why, understanding our emotions where do they come from and when, why do we react or respond a certain way in certain situations.

Understanding ourselves is key to help us make the most out of any situation, when we know our emotions, when we know ourselves and when we know how we really are we know what´s best for us in any situation, we know what goes according to our purpose and the most important point is that we know our strengths and weaknesses and we can improve our weaknesses and we can work on our strengths so that we can improve and be better every day.

Learning about ourselves is the most difficult thing to do but if we want to achieve great goals in life we need to work on ourselves first, when we know who we truly are, when we know our purpose and understand our emotions and when we surround ourselves with great people, when read the right books and watch the right movies and all this is in harmony working towards the same goals that´s when magic happens.

Knowing ourselves, our emotions help us control them and act the best way possible even in tough situations, this lead to make better choices, avoid conflicts and we get better results in our activities.



Fitness goals

The truth about muscle growth


For someone who started their fitness journey because of insecurities but being skinny their goal is to gain muscle and get stronger so they know that they need to lift weights, this is more common on guys than girls. Most girls and some guys don´t want to lift weight and follow a resistance training program consistently because they think that they will get big as bodybuilders but this is not true.

The truth about muscle growth is that it takes time to build muscle and we need a really good program that gives us the results. Muscle growth is the result of consistent training, a workout program that consider all variables of training and some advanced training techniques, the nutrition program needs to be on point, enough recover, enough good quality sleep.

I want to be clear here, all those bodybuilders that are huge most of them use drugs and that´s the results of many , many years of consistent hard work and dedication in and outside the gym, they spend hours working out sometimes even twice a day, they are so strict with their nutrition, they prioritize sleep because they know it´s crucial for recovery and grow, their workout programs are designed to work each muscle group as hard as possible and then give it enough time to recover, they also use supplements and some of them use drugs.

For the rest of us, if we´re not into bodybuilding, we´re not competing and our goal is only to get the best physique possible we don´t need to put that dedication and focus on our fitness program and most of us won´t do it so we just need to use fitness as a tool to help us live our best life possible, a life that we are proud of and this means that we can get in amazing shape and have an amazing physique but we don´t need to spend so much time at the gym and we can have more freedom with our food choices.

We can gain muscle without spending too much time at the gym, without being too strict with our diet and without drugs but we still need to work hard and be consistent, it takes more time to gain lean muscle mass than to lose fat  so be patient.

The best part is that we will only gain as much muscle as we want, if we don´t want to get big we don´t get big we just improve body composition and maintain  a healthy weight with  a good balance between muscle mass and body fat to look lean and toned. If we want to gain more muscle and look as a superhero it´s also possible but it depends of us, of our goals, the type of physique we want.

What I recommend is that no matter how big or lean you want to be we make sure that we improve overall performance, the goal of being in amazing shape is also that we can perform every daily activity with ease. That we can go through our day with high energy  and that we also have some endurance, strength, agility, flexibility to go on vacations and be able to enjoy the trip.




Make training as simple as possible


There´s a tendency to overcomplicate things knowing that the more complicated the more sure we´re not going to follow it, we tend to think that if something is simple it won´t work but there´s a big gap between simple and easy, even when the concepts to lose fat and achieve any fitness goal are simple they´re not easy.

We don´t need to spend 2 hours in the gym everyday and we don´t need to do a lot of different exercises for each muscle group, this only make things more confusing and we waste a lot of time, we don´t need to do a lot of sets and reps unless we´re looking for an endurance workout.

Nowadays most guys like to train one muscle group per day the 5 day split that we see most guys in the gym following, if we´re not a bodybuilder we don´t need to do this, a lot of guys give more attention and prioritize isolation movements so they spend a lot of time in the gym getting the “pump”.

If we keep in mind our primary goal which is improve body composition, gaining muscle while keeping body fat low then resistance training is a priority it´s more important than cardio. We need to follow workout programs that focus on helping us gain lean muscle so we need to be training 3 to 4 days a week on this, the days left we can do some cardio.

We can divide resistance training exercises in three categories, bodyweight exercises, compound exercises and isolation exercises. Bodyweight and compound movements are the best option to gain muscle and get stronger, the way to gain dense muscle is by getting stronger on those exercises.

Workouts based on simple exercises like pushups, pull ups, squats, handstands, leg raises, bench press, over head press, bent over row, barbell squats and dead lifts are simple and effective, to this we can add some isolation exercises to target weaker muscles or work harder a muscle group we want to stand out. What we want with resistance training is to get stronger in the 5 to 8 rep range and 8 to 12 rep ranges to build dense muscle.

Once we have our resistance training in place we can add some cardio workouts just a tool to help us burn some extra calories that will help us get leaner faster or to maintain a low body fat, we´ll also get all the amazing benefits of endurance. We don´t want to do a lot of cardio or make it the base of our workouts because it´s not the way to gain muscle.

How we design our workouts depend of what we like to do, if we prefer bodyweight exercises we can make them the base of our workouts and add compound movements as a second option, if we prefer compound movements we can use them as our base and just use bodyweight exercises to compliment the workout, we can use them both for a more complete workout and to get stronger on both.

Once we have this on place we may want to add some isolation movements for muscle that need extra work like calves, shoulders, arms and abs, just one exercise for each is all we need, calf raises, lateral raises for shoulders, dips for triceps and chin ups or barbell curls for biceps.

This may seems so simple and basic but it´s the truth and is what works, I´m old school, I like to stick with the basics and simple tools which end being the more effective. If we want great results as fast as possible we need to focus and stick with what works, whit the tools that are going to give us the best results in the shortest period of time and that we can sustain for the rest of our life.

Traditional fitness programs are in most cases not the best option, they overcomplicate things, they make everything harder than it is, they don´t focus on health. The reality is simple, focus o getting stronger on bodyweight and compound movements, add some cardio to burn extra calories.




Change your mindset and reframe the situation

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1. Realize that not all stress is bad

2. Understand the difference between stress and pressure

3. Identify stress and pressure in every situation




1. Think of all the positive results or outcomes







The importance of fiber

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Some people consider fiber as one more macronutrient because of its importance and to make sure that they get the right intake.

Fiber is a carbohydrates that is not broken down in the small intestine, it get into the large intestine where it is broken down by bacteria. It can be divided into soluble and insoluble.

Soluble fiber dissolves in water, it can help lower glucose and blood cholesterol and it´s found in oats, beans.

Insoluble fiber does not dissolves in water, it promotes the movements of material through our digestive system and it´s found on vegetables and beans.

Both of them have a lot of benefits making it an important part of our diet. There are so many benefits and it´s really important for our health, especially our gut. Some of the benefits are that it elevates satiety which helps with fat loss, it lowers body fat and helps in managing diabetes and improving insulin sensitivity.

Vegan and vegetarian diets are great at keeping fiber intake high but they can be deficient in other nutrients which are also important for our health, people following ketogenic diets can have more problems to keep adequate intake of fiber because they tend to avoid almost all carbohydrates.

Getting enough fiber daily is important but most of us do not get enough of it but it´s a big mistake to increase the intake considerably from one day to another which can promote bloating, cramping and other problems so we need to start increasing the amount of fiber we eat gradually so that the bacteria in our digestive system also adjust to the change.

It doesn´t matter which type of diet we follow we need to make sure that we give our body all the nutrients it needs from fats, to proteins and carbohydrates and by carbohydrates the more important being vegetables which are loaded with micronutrients and fiber and some fruits.

Green and cruciferous vegetables are great options to add fiber to your meals and your nutrition program. Oats are also a great option if we´re following a more balanced diet, it is great for breakfast, legumes like beans, lentils are also a source of fiber.

Some people are intolerant to grain and gluten so we need to pay attention to our body, every time we make a change to our nutrition program we need to be aware of how our body responds and how we feel, we are all intolerant to some foods or we all have problems digesting some foods especially at the beginning when we make some change to what we eat, this can also happen with vegetables or when we start consuming healthy foods high in nutrients and eliminate or avoid unhealthy processed foods.

We need to be patient and make the changes slowly to give time to our body to get rid of all the poison and toxins and get use to and adjust to a healthy diet.




We can achieve everything we want

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What would you think if I tell you that we can achieve almost everything we want in life? Would you get excited and interested on how you can do it and why I said almost everything?

The reason why I said almost is because there are 2 variables we need to consider which are:

1. Control.- Is our goal or whatever we want to achieve in our control?

2. Effort.- Are we willing to work as hard as we need for as long as we need?

If our goal or whatever we want to achieve is in our control meaning that we can control our progress almost entirely throughout the journey, our end results and we are willing to work smart, to work as hard as we need for as long as we need then we can achieve whatever we want.

If our goals depend of some external factor we can´t control then there´s no need to focus a lot on them but in most cases when we set a goal or we want to achieve something the end results or whether we achieve it or not depends of us and our commitment to that goal.

For anything we want to achieve we need to make a commitment and keep ourselves accountable, when we set a goal most of the times we already know what we need to do and we know that it´s going to be hard, it´s going to require hard work and it´s going to take time, if we´re not committed and we don´t have a strong reason why we want to achieve it we will fail.

We need to have a clear idea of what we want to achieve and make a plan, almost everything has already been done so we can follow the steps of the ones before us. We already have a guide we just need to take that guide and adjust it to fit our goal and our life so that we can follow it, then we need to take massive action.

If we work smart by doing the right thing, if we work hard and do it for a long period of time we will get results and we will achieve our goal, self-discipline, perseverance and patience are key. For how long are you willing to work as hard as you can?

Having a clear goal with a clear vision in our mind of that goal achieved, an insane focus and obsession and massive action every single day is the secret to achieve whatever we want but not everyone will do it.

Many people will call us insane or crazy but if we want to achieve something worth having we need to own it, all of us want to achieve amazing things but most of us don´t want to spend the time and put the hard work so the ones who are not willing to work hard for long periods of time don´t deserve to achieve success.

Success is not for the lucky ones, success is for the ones who set clear goals, create the plan and work as hard as possible, success is for the ones who own it.

Are you ready to own your success?




We are here for a reason

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It´s just another day, one more day to go and… do exactly the same as the day before.

Have you ever woke up one morning and not feel like wanting to wake up and go to work, you don´t feel motivated to do what you need to do?

This happens to all of us and this means that we haven´t found our purpose in life, what makes us feel fulfilled so we´re lost or we know our purpose, we know what makes us feel happy and fulfilled but we´re not working on it because we follow what´s normal.

To find our purpose, what makes us feel happy and fulfilled comes from doing something that has meaning and that involves giving. Is not only about asking what would we love to do even if no one pays us? Is about doing or working on something that is meaningful, something that has value and meaning to us.

Once we find our purpose our life will be much easier and enjoyable, our purpose is our guide and all our actions and decisions are based on that purpose. Every time we need to make a decision and for every action we want to take we just need to ask our self if those actions or decisions align to our purpose, if the answer is positive then go ahead.

There are simple ways to know what your purpose is and here are the steps:

1.- Ask the right questions.- What is your talent? what are you good at? what do you love? in which activities do you get insane focus?

2.- How can you help people around you or around the world by doing what you love and what you are good at?

3.- Values and principles.- You need to get clear on what you stand for and lead through your values and principles

4.- How can you make a living

When you find the talent that you are good at and that you love doing and find ways to help people leading with your values and principles you are on your way to living a life with purpose. It is hard to do but once you do it your life will change completely and with the right mindset you´ll find ways to make a living from it.

Having a purpose is having a reason to wake up every morning that motivates you and inspires you, that keeps you excited and that make your life amazing. This is how we´re supposed to live and everyone deserves to live this way.

When we find our purpose we just need to take action and here another struggle begins, we will go against what´s consider normal and most people won´t like it so we need to stay true to ourselves and follow our heart, our purpose even when people don´t support us, most of them prefer to follow the normal average and mediocre life and it´s hard for them to see someone living a better life, being happy and feeling fulfilled so we need to continue and if there´s someone who wants to change their life and we can help them then we take them with us by helping them find their purpose.



Fitness goals

The truth about weight loss

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How many times have you set weight loss as a New Years Resolution? I know you´ve started and at some point you gave up, if this is your case there´s something you need to know.

If we set our goal as weight loss the end results won´t be the one we´re looking for and it´s not the best option. When we talk about weight lose it means that we´re losing body fat, water and muscle which creates more problems.

For the past years we´ve become lazy and we are addicted to instant gratification and fast results. We want to get amazing results in this case we want to lose weight as fast as possible, we want results in one week without thinking of the consequences. We think short term instead of thinking long term, we want things now and this is a huge problem.

Our weight is the results of an unhealthy lifestyle based on unhealthy habits for so many years so we need to set our goal the right way which is improving body composition and realize that it will take time.

This is the truth about weight loss, it´s about improving body composition meaning lose body fat and maintain or gain muscle mass, it´s about developing good healthy habits that lead to a healthy lifestyle. We need to realize and accept that it´s going to be hard, it will take time and there are no shortcuts.

There are some points that we need to make clear and the first one is that diets don´t work, we all may lose some weight in any diet and the reason why is because we are restricting some foods and following a calorie deficit but in the long run we won´t follow that diet for the rest of our lives and the moment we stop it we gain weight back. Lack of sleep is another point, it affects all hormones and systems in our body not only making it harder for us to lose weight but create health problems.

Fat loss is actually simple, we only need to make resistance training the core of our training program, add some cardio and eat whole, fresh foods a little less. Even when it´s possible to lose weight eating unhealthy foods it is not the best way to do it. We´ve seen before that our body needs nutrients so we may eat unhealthy, processed foods and lose weight but our body won´t be working efficiently.

The industries had told us that to lose weight we just need to eat less and move more, if you´ve tried this, how did it work? This strategy applies for a fast weight loss when we´re not considering our health. It´s not about losing weight as fast as possible, it´s about developing good habits that make it easy and enjoyable for us to maintain our results and keep making progress. Finding a diet or nutrition program that we can follow for long periods of time, getting enough good quality sleep every night, doing some exercise every day specially resistance training this are small changes we can make in our life and develop them as habits that will help us maintain a healthy weight.

We need to think about it as improving body composition and developing good healthy habits that lead to a healthy lifestyle, the hardest part of all this is developing good habits, making new choices is hard but stick with it, it´s worthy. The secret lies in our lifestyle, if we´re willing to make some small changes we´ll get amazing benefits in all areas of our life.




What we need to know about muscle hypertrophy


In the last training post we talked about muscle fibers and how they play an important role for any fitness goal, today we´re going to talk about how those two types of muscle fibers are related to hypertrophy which is something we need to understand for muscle growth if we want to get the best results.

There are 2 types of hypertrophy which are  sarcoplasmic and myofibryllar. The 2 of them are related to the muscle fibers because depending of the rep range we are working is how we target each of them.

In sarcoplasmic hypertrophy the muscle increase in size because more fluid gets into the cell, we target slow twitch muscle fibers which are type 1, working around the 12 to 15 reps per set or more. If we want to get “the pump” this is where you need to focus on, this is also the most common rep range and the one we´ll see a lot more on gyms.

Since we are lifting light weights for high reps we can use the 3 types of exercises; bodyweight, compound and isolation (I´m writing a post for each).

This type of hypertrophy makes us a slave to the gym, we need to be training to hit the muscle otherwise we lose it. Is easier and faster to gain muscle and to look big with this one but if we take some time off the gym we lose those gains.

In myofibryllar hypertrophy the muscle cell increase in number, we target fast twitch muscle fibers which are type 2, working around the 5 to 8 reps per set. If we want to build lean dense muscle this is where we need to focus on.

Since we are lifting heavy weights for low reps we can use bodyweight and compound exercises which are the ones we can lift heavy weight, with isolation we can´t lift heavy because we can get injured.

This type of hypertrophy takes more time to build and to get big but it´s there to last,  we can take some time off the gym and it will take longer until we lose that muscle. What we need to consider is that here we are working our central nervous system and it takes more time to recover.

If our goal is only to gain strength we need to work on the 5 to 8 rep range which is type 2 or fast twitch muscle fibers if our goal is to get muscle mass faster we need to work on the 12 to 15 rep range which is type 1 or slow twitch muscle fibers. The best option for muscle growth is to work on both creating a program that focuses some days on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and other days on myofibrillar hypertrophy or creating a program where we can combine both in the same workout.

When we combine both types of hypertrophy we make sure that we build lean dense muscle which takes longer but also last longer and we get “the pump” to look bigger, this also help us design workouts with high volume which is also key for muscle growth, there are many variables that come into play (we´re going to talk about all of them in separated posts for each) and that we need to consider to make sure that we give our muscles the stimulus they need but also enough recovery to grow.

We also need to consider that muscle growth is the results of the right stimulus, recovery and also proper nutrition which we´re going to talk about in a separate post.
