A Healthy Habit

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to talk to you about making exercise a healthy habit in your life.  Throughout the day, we find and/or make time for healthy habits.  These healthy habits include things like brushing your teeth, flossing, washing your hands, or washing your face.  They are habits that take only a minute or two to do, but provide us with important health benefits.  We would possibly be repulsed to learn someone wasn’t doing one of these habits.  Exercise can and should be looked at as one of these healthy habits as well.  While I do understand that it takes much longer to get to the gym and get a workout in than it does to wash your hands in the bathroom, you can still benefit from adding in a few minute or two exercises into your day as part of a healthy habit.

Anthony, a member of the gym, was getting ready to take a fitness test for a local police department.  He was nervous about being able to complete the qualifying number of push-ups, so he asked me how he should train in order to pass that portion of the test.  Anthony had less than two months to prepare for the test, and he knew his upper body strength wasn’t the greatest as he didn’t get to the gym regularly.  He needed an easy to adhere to routine so I told him simply to do push-ups every day.  I told him to do one set of push-ups everyday before he took his shower.  This routine wouldn’t take more than a minute or two to complete.  He wouldn’t need to worry about getting to the gym; he would simply do the push-ups as a healthy habit before his shower.  I also advised him to try and complete one more push-up every other day, so if he got 20 the first day, to get 21 on the third day, and 22 on the fifth day.  By doing push-ups everyday, he was able to add 16 repetitions to what he was originally able to do, and was able to pass the test.  But what he also did was he adopted this healthy habit into his daily routine, and maintained it even after he took the test.  He still does a set of push-ups every morning.

Even if you aren’t looking to pass a fitness test, you can still add a simple, healthy habit to your daily routine for no other reason but because it’s the healthy thing to do…just as brushing your teeth, or washing your hands is a simple, healthy habit.  You can add a set of push-ups, burpees, or jumping jacks before you take a shower if you are looking to add something that doesn’t take a lot of time, or, if you have a little more time, you can add something that takes a little bit longer such as taking a walk around the block after dinner.  Your goal should be to add something that takes a relatively short amount of time, minimal effort, and is simple to do, which can be maintained as a healthy habit.  You need to incorporate it into your daily routine as matter-of-factly as washing your face at the end of the day is.  Over time, this small little habit will have big results.

Most of us know the importance of making regular exercise a priority in our lives.  Unfortunately, when you think exercise has to be a whole process that requires significant energy and time for, you might not be able to find the ability to do it as regularly as you would like.  However, if we make exercise a simple and routine habit, it becomes a part of our lifestyle that we do with minimal effort.  It becomes a priority that we value.  And once that value is instilled in us, it becomes much easier to find the time for getting to the gym for the longer routines.  Making exercise a healthy habit is an easy way to put you on the path to find a fit new you!

I work out so I can...

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to talk to you about finding your personal inspiration to reach your fitness goals, particularly in the gym.  There have been many commercials and marketing campaigns asking “what drives you?” or “what fuels you?” They are asking you what motivates you to put in the time and sweat in the gym.  Some people are already driven, and some need that extra push.  So, if you are one of those self-motivated people to “hit the gym”, I ask what has you acting on your motivation?  If you’re someone who needs that extra push, what will drive you to reach your fitness goals?

As a personal trainer, I always took to heart the word “personal” in that moniker.  As I meet clients, the first conversation I have with them revolves around what is their fitness history, and what are their goals.  The training regimen is personalized to meet their needs and goals.  The training principles might stay the same, but how these individuals get to their individual goals may be different.  I’ve trained athletes from the professional to junior high level; people recovering from surgeries; and regular Joes and Janes who are just trying to look and feel better.  Everyone one of these people have their own goals.  Even over the course of my active life, my fitness goals have changed.  And as we know muscle has an incredible ability to adapt to stress and exercise so “routines” need to be changed appropriately, therefore our drive must change and adapt to meet your new goals.

To help motivate you, rather than asking you what your fitness goals are, I instead ask you to finish this sentence “I work out so I can…”

Here are some of the answers I have had from my own clients that are reflective of their personal goals:

I work out so I can look fabulous on my wedding day

I work out so I can make the varsity soccer team

I work out so I can dance at my daughter’s sweet 16

I work out so I can pass the police department’s physical fitness exam

I work out so I can lower my blood pressure and get off my mediation

I work out so I can play golf without any pain

I work out so I can feel good about myself

I work out so I can lose the last 10 pounds

I work out so I can lower my health insurance premium

I work out so I can keep up with my wife

I work out so I can look good in my vacation pictures

I work out so I can be a good example to my kids

           

            Whatever the reason you have to exercise, as long as it gets you being physically active, it’s a great reason.  The key to finding a reason that keeps you motivated and inspired, and not succumb to all of the excuses that would keep you from being healthy, is to find a reason that works for you.  I know sometimes it’s hard to follow good sound advice from health professionals…getting enough sleep, flossing everyday, avoiding stress, drinking enough water, eating exactly as we should.  Life can get in the way, and the excuses tend to mount.  And while it is recommended to be physically active everyday, it becomes hard to find the time, energy and often the motivation to do just that.  However, you can inspire yourself to get and remain active simply by finding your own personal goal.  You can stay motivated to reach your goals by completing the sentence:  I work out so I can…  Identifying your goals is a great first step to reaching these goals.  Knowing them is also a way to stay driven to reach a fit new you!

Do more with less

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to let you in on how you can do more with less.  When strength training in the gym, you don’t always have to lift the heaviest amounts of weight to reach your goals.  Lifting heavy doesn’t always lead to greater gains, and can often even be unsafe or inappropriate.  You can get just as good a “burn,” and workout using something we trainers call a “drop set”.  Drop sets are when you start at a heavier weight, get as many repetitions that you can while maintaining proper form, and then drop down to a lower weight to get even more reps.  This allows you to work through and past your muscle fatigue, and can be beneficial, particularly when dealing with an injury.

Hank, a former competitive MMA fighter in his late 40’s trained with me for a number of years.  He had two distinctive traits that affected his workouts; the first was that he had suffered shoulder injuries during his fighting days, and the second was that he always wanted to know how many repetitions he had to perform prior to doing the set.  While he still had a lot of bravado, and wanted to lift heavier and heavier weights, his body couldn’t often keep up.  There was just too much wear and tear on his body from his previous injuries.  Also, due to his martial arts training being so regimented, he had the mind set that he had to perform concrete numbers of reps, as opposed to working to failure.  He would always insist on knowing the number of reps he had to complete before he started the set.  I told him that didn’t always make sense, and that he should finish a set only after he performed whatever number he could to fatigue.  I initially had a hard time convincing him to change the way he trained, to not worry about the weight so much but rather to focus on form, and to work to failure instead of a set repetition number.  He finally jumped on board when I introduced him to drop sets, where he could get an even better burn, while keeping his shoulders healthy.  He quickly fell in love with drop sets, as was evident by big bad Hank’s “fear” of when we would incorporate them into his workouts.

To properly perform a drop set, you need to start with a weight that you would normally consider being on the heavier side.  The weight should be heavy enough that it is very challenging yet light enough that it can still be done with proper form. Once the appropriate “heavy” weight is selected, perform as many repetitions you can until your reach muscle failure; meaning you cannot perform another rep with proper form.  Then without rest, “drop” the weight to a lesser amount, and repeat the exercise again.  Keep doing this until you either run out of weight to choose from or the number of reps that you can complete is more than the number you did on the initial weight.  For example, with dumbbell curls I will start with 60 lbs. and be able to manage 1 or 2 reps.  Upon completion, I would put those back on the rack and “drop” down to 50 lbs. getting what I can with proper form.  Then I drop down again to 40lbs. repeating, with further drop sets to 30lbs, 20lbs, and eventually 10lbs.  You can do similar drop sets on assisted machines, such as with pull ups and dips, but you give yourself more and more assistance as you “drop”.

Put a drop set in your workout and you will see how you can get an incredible burn, using less weight.  You do not need to use heavy weight because you perform the exercise while the muscles are already fatigued.  Making the weight lighter and lighter is a safe way to get more repetitions completed during that fatigue.  Drop sets are a great addition to any workout, whether you are coming back from an injury, or just looking for a new twist.  It’s not always about lifting more, but lifting smarter.  Drop sets are a great way to reach your fitness goals and safely reach a fit new you!

Comfort zone

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to remind you that in order for you to reach your fitness goals you have to go beyond your comfort zone.  Muscle, and the other systems of our bodies, adjusts, and more importantly adapts, to stress and pressure.  For example, you’re most likely not going to get “sore” from moving the way you do during your regular day-to-day routine.  However, you might be “feeling it” more the day after you did some extra physical activity.  The same idea should be used every single time you are in the gym; if you want to see a change with your body, you need to push your muscles past their normal limits.  Strength gain and weight loss only come after the body has a need to adapt.  Give the body the reason it needs to change by pushing it beyond your comfort zone.

I usually spend this time telling you about a specific client who relates to the topic at hand, but the truth is that I find too many people in the gym who are not reaching their fitness goals because they are working too comfortably.  For example the client who “hits” the elliptical for 45 minutes 3 times a week but is not losing body fat because her intensity level is too low to get into the proper target heart rate during that time.  Or, the client who is in 70’s who wants to train for a more functional life but thinks exercises on the Bosu ball to be impossible so he doesn’t try progressive exercises on it.  It’s also the client who weight trains 5 days a week and hasn’t seen an increase in strength and / or muscle mass because he hasn’t progressed properly.  Truth is there are a lot of clients in the gym who become discouraged that they are not reaching their fitness goals even though they train frequently.  The one thing many of these people are missing, including the three I mentioned above with completely different fitness goals, is that they are not pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone.

Determining the most efficacious training regiment could be accomplished with elaborate physiological tests, basic tests that personal trainers can implement, and / or even much research.  But you could also push yourself to achieving your fitness goals simply by working beyond what’s comfortable for you.  You don’t have to “kill” yourself training, but pushing beyond the comfort zone should be easily recognized by anyone who has done anything in the gym.  If your fitness goals involve cardio work, turn it up another level or two, or add an incline to what you normally have been doing.  Anyone who has spent cumulative hours on the cardio machine know exactly they set the machine at to work comfortably, and they know the level where they would be pushing it…so turn it up and push it!  Those of you who are well-versed in body weight training for its functional benefits, probably know their comfortable repetition number that they hope their personal trainers request.  But you also know how “going a little deeper” in your lunge or adding a medicine ball to your squat feels…not quite as comfortable.  But that’s ok, as long as the exercises are still performed correctly; so push yourself to a level that is out of your comfort zone.  And the weight trainers, with their books and logs, undeniably know how many reps and sets of a weight can be completed comfortably.  They should think about how much quicker they would reach their personal best if they asked someone for a “spot” to push out that one extra rep each set.  I’m not saying it will be easy, but it will be beneficial.

I’ve said it time and time again, working out should be just that…work!  And work shouldn’t be comfortable.  It can be familiar, but in order for your body to physiologically change, it needs to be pushed.  You don’t really need an elaborate test to figure out how much to push; just push yourself beyond your comfort zone.  You currently are where you are because of all you’ve done already.  You will be where you want to when you push past your comfort zone.  It’s a simple but not so comfortable way to a fit new you!

F the Scale!

Welcome to afitnewyou!  This week I would like to motivate you to F the scale.  And the F is a double entendre; but mainly I want you to FORGET the scale.  I would have to say that the largest percentage of people who are either working out, or want to work out are those “trying to lose weight”.  And that goal could be for many reasons, for health and/or for appearance.  But, the truth is, simply lowering your weight, that number on the scale, isn’t always the healthiest or even the most advantageous approach.  The healthier approach is to lower your body fat percentage.

Although stepping on the scale and checking your weight is a simple, clean, and cheap way of assessing your body composition and exercise progress, it can often be discouraging, and particularly for all of the wrong reasons.  People need to understand a few things about body weight measurement.  First, your weight fluctuates throughout the month, week and even day just due to your normal activities.  You may even weigh more after a workout if you had consumed a significant amount of water during the routine.  Second, every scale is different.  You can weigh yourself at home, get a number, and then go to the gym and get a different number on the gym’s scale.  Third, some of the most effective exercise routines might actually have you gain weight as a result of putting on muscle.  It’s this last reason that needs further explaining…particularly to the large number of people who have their main exercise goal to “lose weight.”

If you were to take an equal volume of both fat and muscle, you would see that the muscle has more mass, and therefore more weight, because it is denser.  In other words, denser, more massive muscle weighs more than fat.  But, the other way of looking at this is that muscle takes up less volume then the same amount of mass of fat, so you actually become leaner.  Ask yourself this, what would you rather be, 10 pounds lighter and wearing the same dress/pant size, or weighing 5 pounds more and wearing a smaller dress/pant size?  I think many people would rather opt for the latter.  After all, no one else will be able to see the number on the scale, but everyone will be able to see your body’s figure.  It is for this reason that instead of worrying about your number on the scale, you should instead focus on your body fat percentage.

Body fat percentage is the calculated ratio of your fat mass compared to your lean body mass.  It is the most telling assessment of your body composition.  Your weight simply looks at how much total mass you have…the good, the bad and the ugly.  But your body fat percentage essentially compares your fat to everything else.  The leaner, more fit you get, the lower that number will become...even if your weight goes up because muscle, which is leaner, has a faster rate of metabolism, and is obviously more useful, is denser. 

There are many ways of calculating your body fat percentage, and some are more effective than others.  But for the general population, there are hand-held devices, and dare I say it, even scales that can measure your body fat percentage in a quick non-intrusive way.  You can either measure your body fat percentage simply at home with one of these devices, and/or most gyms should have someone there who can measure it for you.  Preferably, you would have a qualified personal trainer measure it for you as there is a correct technique.

Measuring your body fat percentage is the most effective means of assessing your body composition.  Simply worrying about that number on the scale can be discouraging even when you are becoming more fit.  So, F the scale!  Focusing on improving your body fat percentage rather than trying to “lose weight” is the healthier way to reach a fit new you!