Category: Articles

Here I will post links to articles that I find interesting to read.

Ask the Trainer- “When should I stretch?”

Question: I run regularly and whenever I run in the park, I see people stretching before they run. I’ve heard some people say to stretch before a run and some that say to stretch after. When is it best to stretch?

Answer: It is very common for people to go through a long stretching routine prior to running or any exercise for that matter. Generally it is not advisable to go through an intense static stretching routine before running. Static stretching would be the type in which you move into a position and hold that for a period of time. What happens is that in the short term, the stretch will reduce the contractile efficiency or the power that you can develop in the legs. This can cause a decrease in performance and sometimes lead to injury. The only time it is advisable to perform this kind of stretching before a workout or run would be if you have a muscle that is excessively tight and you would want to stretch only that muscle.

Before a workout or run, you definitely want to warm up the muscles. There are a few methods of doing so, a fast walk, light jog, various jumping exercises, dynamic stretches are all ways to warm up. Generally it’s bets to warm up for 8-10 minutes prior to exercise.

Flexibility is still very important as it reduces the risk or injury and fixes muscle imbalances. I definitely advise stretching but save it for the end of the workout.

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Weekly Exercise Journal 2

Diet: My diet this year has been awful. I’ll eat anything and I’ve had a hard time specifically with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as well as unhealthy snacks.  Just as I preach to my clients, the focus of my diet is to make changes gradually rather than changing everything at once. In my case, since I’ve been doing this for so long, it will be at a bit of an accelerated pace. This past week, my focus has been eliminating the bad snacks. So no muffins, PB&J or anything like that.

Exercise
I always work out hard, so the intensity level has never been an issue. My problem is consistently getting to the gym. That had been a challenge with the combination of my work schedule and being tired. This weeks workout goal was simply to get into the gym 4-5 days even if it was for 30 minutes. My workouts were mostly Strength training so standard exercises and my rep range was 8-10. Starting next week, I will include a sample workout with my postings.

Results

Weight– 178 -6

Bodyfat- 9.4 -.6


Journal
I had a really good week. Its amazing how much better you feel just after a week of better habits. It doesn’t hurt that I lost weight rich off the bat. The diet change wasnt too hard. I’m an all or nothing kind of person so eliminating the junk all together wasn’t too bad. My substitution has been coffee with skim milk and splenda. I didn’t make any changes this week to my exercise routine but I did work out 5 days. That alone made me feel like a million bucks since I had been averaging 1-2 days for the last 4 months. So far so good but this being the first week, I know there is a long road ahead. Next week will be big as I make more changes and begin the thing I hate most,
Running. Thanks for reading.

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Strategies for Maintaining Healthy Eating Habits (Part 2)

Last week, I tried to give an explanation for why diets fail and the ways in which a person should approach their eating. This week I’m going to discuss what I believe are the core principles of a good diet. These are easy to follow principles and are things to work on if you are looking to put together a good eating plan.

Principle 1- Daily Caloric Intake (DCI) vs. Daily Caloric Expenditure

This principle is pretty straight forward. The DCE represents the amount of calories your body burns on an average day.  Click here for a DCE calculator. The DCI represents the amount of calories you take in on a given day. Click here for a calorie counter. In order to lose weight, a person must be at a Caloric defecit meaning that the DCE must be greater than the DCI or you must burn more calories than you take in. If a person wants to gain weight, then the DCI must be greater than the DCE. There are 3,500 calories in one pount of fat so for a person to lose one pound a week, he or she must on average take in 500 fewer calories than he or she burns every day.

Principle 2- Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  It’s important because helps set up the structure for the rest of the day. Studies have shown that people who eat breakfast actully consume fewer calories per day than those who don’t. The reason why is because skipping breakfast causes a person to feel significantly hungrier when it comes time for the first meal of the day. This hunger usually causes the person to over eat and to make bad decisions.  In addition, skipping breakfast usually causes a person to feel tired, sluggish and rely on coffee and simple carbs to gain energy. Eating breakfast, sets up the day properly and when it comes time for the second meal, the person won’t be as hungry. This will cause the person to eat less later in the day and will help regulate the system to get used to eating frequent but small meals.

When beginning a healthy diet, it’s more important that a persn get used to a consistent breakfast than that they make perfect choices. Breakfast doesn’t need to be a huge meal but should be a good mix of protein and carbs. This provides the person with energy that will be needed to begin the day. Good options are oatmeal, certain cereals like total, fruits, egg whites & whole wheat toast and yogurt.

Principle 3- Drink lots of water

Water intake, along with maybe breakfast, is the most neglected part of many diets. It is recomended that we drink 8 glasses of water a day and that number actually increases if you participate in a fitness training program. Water is great for many reasons. First of all, it keeps us hydrated. The higher the hydratio lever, the thinner the blood and easier it is for the heart to work. Second, it helps your body get rid of waist and toxins, like a cleaning system for the body. Third is that the more you drink water, the less likely you will be to drink sodas, juice and other beverages with high sugar contents. This is very important. Most soda and juice have no nutritional value and simply serve as empty calories, a great way to cut calories is simply to cut those out and replace them with soda. If you drink 3-4 cans of soda a day, you can immediately cut 400+ calories daily.

Principle 4- Eat Smaller more Frequent Meals

You have probably heard this one before and it is really important. Eating frequently can play a huge role in a weight loss program. First of all, every time the digestive system begins work, you burn calories. So, whenever we eat, we are also burning some calories in order to digest the food. What this means is that if person A eats 2000 calories over 3 meals and person B eats 2000 calories over 6 meals, person B will burn more calories throughout the day because the digestive system was active 6 times vs. only 3 by person A. Secondly, The more frequent the meals, the less hungry we will be from meal to meal. This means that we will eat less at each meal instead of overeating due to hunger.  Finally, frequent meals will help to keep our energy levels up and consistent instead of a roller coaster like many go through.

Principle 5- Day to Day Consistency

Consistency is the most important part of maintaining healthy eating habits, especially if you are beginning a new plan. Eating habits can be a challenge to fix and unless it’s ingraned in us, it’s very easy to fall off the wagon. Try to maintain consistent times to eat each day. Eat breakfast at 7:00 each day for example, rather than at random times. Also try to not leave more than 4 hours between meals or snacks. This will cause you to consistently think about eating but you’ll never be too hungry. When beginning a healthy eating plan, make sure to come up with something that works, is comfortable for you and stick to it. If you have a bad day or two, don’t beat yourself up just get back to the good habits. If you are consistent, then after a few months, you’ll find that you are sticking to these principles without even having to think about it and then you can make more specific changes to your new eating plan.

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Ask the Trainer: “Tone up without building too much muscle”

Question: “I am a woman and would like to tone up my arms without bulking up. Is there a way to build lean muscle without getting too big?”

Answer:  This is a great question which I am asked frequently. There are many misconceptions regarding women strength training and hopefully I can clear those up while answering this question. First, in order to answer this question, it is important that you understand what muscle tone really is. Simply put, muscle tone is the activation level of a given muscle while at rest. Even when we are not exercising, our muscles are active on some level, the more a muscle is trained and used, the greater the activation level. This level of activation, combined with  low bodyfat will result in the muscles appearing more defined or “toned.”

The second thing to note is the idea that there is a difference between lean muscle and bulky muscles. In reality, muscle tissue is muscle tissue and there is no way to train a muscle to become longer and leaner, your body will dictate how a muscle developes, this is in your DNA and there is no way to change that.

Now that we have those two things out of the way, I can better answer your question. In order to build muscle, we need a combination of resistance training and testosterone. Women don’t have the level of testosterone that men have so it’s very hard for a woman to put on a lot of muscle. Obviously this isn’t the case for everyone but generally, you won’t have to worry about putting on too much muscle.

In order to have “toned” arms, you will need to train with weights in order to build some muscle on the arms and again, you will likely not put on excessive muscle. Secondly. you will want to lose bodyfat. The lower the bodyfat, the more your lean muscle tissue will show. Cardiovascular activity along with a low fat diet will assist in dropping the bodyfat.

The combination of exercise and diet will assist you in becoming more toned but if you want to take it to the next level then here is a great way. Train like an athlete! Athletes are toned because their bodies are trained to react immediately, powerfully and explosively. If you are healthy enough, I incorporating a lot of explosive movements, powerlifting movements, bodyweight exercises and high intensity work. This level of training will increase the activation levels of your muscles and you will look far more defined.

Hope this helps.

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Strategies for maintaining healthy eating habits (Part 1 of 2)

As mentioned in a previous post, the majority of diets fail. Diets fail for a wide variety of reasons but there are a few basic reasons why most diets are destined to fail right off the bat. The key to maintaining healthy eating is to change the approach one has to their “diet.”

Why do diets fail?
Of the many reasons why diets fail, I think the biggest comes from our perception of the word “diet.” When people think of that word, they associate it with something temporary, something restrictive, painful and a means to an end (losing weight). These are all negative associations and automatically make the diet likely to fail.
Another reason why diets fail is because they are generally not sustainable. Most diets are so restrictive that a person can only stick to It for a finite period of time. A person may notice significant weight loss from a new diet but once they go off of it, the weight is likely to come back on in equal or greater numbers. The final reason why diets fail is because they are often not specific to the person. Everybody has different habits, lifestyles and physical needs. A diet must take all of these individual needs into account in order to be successful.

How do I approach an effective diet?

In order to have successful diet, one must overcome the obstacles mentioned above. The first thing that we need to do is to change our mindset when it comes to the word “diet.” The word “diet” simply refers to the way we are currently eating. Whether your diet is healthy or unhealthy, the word still applies so there is no need to apply those negative connotations. For a diet to be successful, what is needed is the proper mindset. It needs to be approached as a lifestyle change and not simply a way to lose weight. While weight loss may be a goal, it is also important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and to keep the weight off long term.

A typical crash diet is designed to be used for a finite period of time and generally to lose a significant amount of weight over a short period of time. While these diets can yield good results initially, the person will almost always gain the weight back once they stop the diet. For this reason, a good diet must be sustainable. It needs to be something that the person can stick to for an indefinite period of time. If someone can sustain a healthy diet, they will lose weigh at a steady and consistent pace but more importantly, they will keep the weight off.
The reason why I use the word “strategies” in the title is because it is essential that a person have a strategic approach to their diet. Everybody is different and requires a different approach to structuring their diet. Specificity is very important and we need to take a variety of factors into account. Things like work schedule, availability of food, sleeping habits, religion etc. all may have a potential impact and should be takes into account. If a person can pit together a diet which takes into account their lifestyle, they are more likely to stick with it than if they are simply given a sheet of paper with what they should do.

Please check back next Tuesday for part 2 of this series as I will go into the 4 basic rules and you can start to build the frame of a good diet.

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Ask the trainer: “I would like to tone up my arms and thighs, how do I do that?”

This question can be asked in a number of ways, substituting arms and thighs for any number of body parts. This is also a very loaded question and not an easy one to answer. The first thing is to understand what muscle tone really is. Muscle tone is simply the percentage of activity within a muscle group at rest. So when most people talk about toning up, they really mean something different from the true definition of muscle tone. What people are really looking for is better muscle definition. Better definition can be achieved by decreasing bodyfat percentage. Reducing bodyfat can be achieved by decreasing the fat content within your body, by increasing your muscle or a combination of the two.
There are several ways of decreasing the fat content within the body. Cardiovascular activity is probably the most effective if you are looking for fast results. Having a balanced diet is also a great way to drop fat from the body. Weight training also can indirectly assist with fat loss. Regular weight training boosts a person’s metabolism and over time that increase will result in fat loss.
Unfortunately, contrary to what many people think, it’s not possible to “replace fat with muscle” so while you are losing fat, you will need to do something in order to build up muscle. Muscles develop through resistance training. There are many forms including dumbbell training, machines and bands among others. If a person wants to have defined muscles then resistance training will be a key to their workout. It is important when training with weights that a person train at a moderate to high intensity in order to develop the muscles. This applies to men and women. Training with light weights and high repetitions only increases muscle endurance and does not develop the muscle in any significant manner.
Another important thing to note is the idea of spot reduction. When there is a specific bodypart that needs work, the only control you have is over developing the muscles in the area. A person cannot control where they will lose fat. Your body will decode on it’s own where and how it loses it’s fat. A good example would be a person seeking to lose belly fat. That person can do thousands of crunches a day but if they do not focus on fat loss, the person may develop muscles in the abdominal region but never see it through the fat.

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An interesting thing on hip fat vs. belly fat

Here is an interesting article I found on the difference between hip fat and belly fat. More can be found at the following site:  http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg19826553.600-why-hip-fat-

Why hip fat is good, but pot bellies are bad

  • 09 May 2008
  • NewScientist.com news service
  • Bob Holmes

Not all body fat is bad. Your body may store “good” fat and “bad” fat, similar to good and bad cholesterol. The finding could explain why liposuction has few health benefits.

Researchers know that not all body fat is equal. The worst kind is excess fat on the internal organs, which causes a pot belly and is known as visceral fat. People with this are more likely to suffer from heart disease and insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes, than those who put on fat under their skin on their hips and thighs. But it was assumed that such subcutaneous fat was merely the lesser of two evils.

Now it looks like it could be positively beneficial. C. Ronald Kahn and colleagues at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston transplanted subcutaneous fat into the bodies of some mice and visceral fat into others. They found the mice that had received subcutaneous fat ended up with lighter, leaner bodies and less insulin resistance than the animals that got visceral fat and, crucially, those that received no fat transplant at all (Cell Metabolism, DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2008.04.004).

“That increased body fat has a favourable effect is something I buy into,” says John Miles of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. If subcutaneous fat also has benefits in humans, the results could explain why liposuction, which removes this fat, does not reduce diabetes or other side effects of obesity. It also suggests that liposuction may even be bad for you, although that requires further study.

How subcutaneous fat exerts its positive influence remains a mystery but Kahn suspects it secretes hormones that speed up metabolism.

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Ask the trainer #1: “How do I find the right trainer?”

When a person makes the decision to work with a personal trainer, a very difficult task lies ahead. The process of selecting the right trainer is one that should not be taken lightly and is also one that could determine your own success. Unfortunately, many people don’t know where to look or what to look for in a potential trainer and they end up settling or choosing a person who is not the right fit. The personal training industry is one without a real governing body. Anyone can call them self a trainer. This means that there is a very broad range of people to out there, some with tremendous credentials and others with little or no legitimate experience. This is a problem that brings down the industry as a whole because for every legitimate trainer out there, there is one with no business working with people.
At a bare minimum, there are two things that a personal trainer must have. A trainer must have a current personal trainers certification and current CPR certification. There are many personal trainers certifications but only a handful are seriously recognized within the industry. Another blog will be devoted to this subject but some of the major ones are, NASM, NSCA, ACSM, ACE and ISSA. The certification should be current and the trainer should have documents to prove this. Most certifications require that trainers take continuing education courses to keep the certification and it is important that any trainer is actively involved in increasing his or her knowledge base. CPR is also important because you want to be sure that the trainer has life saving skills in the case of an emergency.
Once we get past these two basic requirements, there are plenty of other factors in the decision making process. The next thing to consider is your own personal health history. Are there any medical problems or injuries that could have an impact on the training regiment? If there are, then you need to be medically cleared by a doctor. Your trainer should have direct knowledge about whatever the medical problem is and he or she should know how to train people with whatever the condition may be. Don’t be afraid to quiz the trainer or ask questions.

The next thing to consider are your goals. Some goals, like general fitness or a little weight loss should be easy for even a novice trainer to work with while others may require some kind of specialization. If you want to improve your golf game, for example, you are going to want a trainer with specific knowledge in that area. Professionalism is a quality that every trainer must have. You want someone who is 100% focused on you when they are working with you and not themselves, other people or their cell phone. The trainer should be on time, not cancel frequently. With all that has been said above, the single most important factor in a successful client- trainer relationship is the connection between you and the trainer. This is someone with whom you will spend a lot of time with, a person who you are making responsible for a huge aspect of your life. Make sure that you pick someone who you enjoy being around and who makes you feel comfortable.
There are other things to consider when searching for the right trainer but those are usually more specific to the person looking, these guidelines should be the base level when you begin this search.

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