The most interesting subject to write about often just appears out of thin air. Lucky for me, I have recently made the acquaintance of Marla Battles a professional body builder who is currently competing on the WNBF Pro Bodybuilding Circuit. Quite successfully I might add; Marla has a 1st place finish under her belt in addition to several top 5 finishes in the last 4 years. But what is really astounding about her body building accomplishments is that Marla is a 45 year old mother of 2 who competes primarily with 20-30 year olds in the open figure category. She is completely drug free, which is verified before each WNBF competition by medical testing and a polygraph test. Marla usually only reveals training secrets to her clients; but we are in luck because as a true advocate of healthy living she has agreed to reveal a few workout tips to us including some of her diet and workout equipment preferences.

In the domain of home gym equipment the options are myriad. You may be surprised to know that Marla's preferred training tools consist primarily of 2 types of equipment, dumbbells and a bench. She says the reason for this is that you can effectively work your entire body with nothing more than those tools, if need be. I guess the way to phrase the question is what can't you accomplish with dumbbells and a bench? Arm curls, incline, decline and flat press, mid rows, tricep extensions, lunges and many more exercise options are available with the most mundane set of dumbbells. Ironically, a professional bodybuilder uses workout equipment that is affordable or would easily fit into any home gym.

When available, Marla also using the more modern cable crossover machine to supplement her workouts, again citing the versatility of the equipment as the reason. However, she draws the line at the Bowflex machine. She says she used it once in the past and found that working out on the Bowflex proved to be extremely cumbersome due to having to frequently adjust the bands.

Diet is another crucial element of any bodybuilding regimen and also an important part of any health and fitness program for all levels of workout enthusiast. Marla's diet consists largely of protein and vegetables and she suggests that the best way to maintain a healthy diet is to keep it interesting and tasty. Marla made soup a large part of her diet because she grew tired of steaming the vegetables all of the time. Soup is also perfect for the cold rainy days that are so common in the Seattle area and when made correctly they contain the right mix of protein and other essential nutrients. One of her favorite training recipes is asparagus w/ground turkey soup. By using a blender it is not necessary to steam the asparagus, just chop it up and add it to boiling water with the rest of the ingredients. When life serves you veggies make soup, so to speak. Well, she didn't put it exactly in those words, but you get the idea.

My conversation with Marla Battles confirmed my own basic workout philosophy. If any fitness program is going to succeed to fruition it must be mapped out in such a way that you will be able to stick with it for the long term. If vegetables are a large part of your diet develop different ways of cooking them so you will not become jaded and lose interest. Your workout program also must be something that will fit into your time schedule; after working all day at your job, you may not have time to make the additional commute to the gym. Home gym equipment is a very affordable and viable solution for today's workout enthusiast. It is a time saving addition to any fitness program and could be the difference between failure and success of your lifelong fitness objectives.

Visit Marlas' Pro Fitness Blog for importand fitness and diet tips that will help your optimize and achieve your home fitness goals.