Maintain > Regain

Welcome to afitnewyou!  This week I would like to help you stay on track on your way to reaching your fitness goals by emphasizing the importance of sticking with your routine.  There are many reasons why people choose to start a fitness routine, and unfortunately, there are just as many reasons, if not more, why people "fall off" of the path to reaching their fitness goals.  This can often lead to someone getting into a cycle of starting and stopping an exercise routine or healthy diet over and over again.  While any attempt to reach a higher level of fitness should be commended, the road to attaining your goals becomes much more arduous if you keep getting off of it.  From both a physiological and mental perspective, it becomes much harder to reach your fitness goals if you keep falling off, even if you start up again just as many times.  This is why I am encouraging you to do whatever takes to do something, anything, to stay on track towards your goals.  As with many things in life, it is much easier to reach your goal by constantly maintaining a steady pace, as opposed to stopping and trying to regain that headway.

In the private school where I teach there is one of those motivational posters with the quote "Character:  It is much easier to be maintained then to be recovered."  And this very true statement reflects what I am talking about here with your level of fitness.  Character, just like your level of fitness is something that is built over time.  And when you have something that hurts it, it becomes very difficult to recover.  Fortunately, in most cases, it is easier to restore your level of fitness more so than your character.  But, if you are one of those people who allow something to keep you on the path to achieving your fitness goals, you know just how hard it is to get started again.  This is why, again, I say it is important to keep doing something to get you there.

Just in this past week at the gym I was privy to two instances when someone was not happy with where their state of fitness and health was following a hiatus from exercising.  The first was a conversation I heard between two gym members.  They were talking about how hard it was to "get back into the routine" after stopping exercising regularly.  One of the members had stopped coming into the gym because of an upper body injury and then acknowledged how much difficulty he had restarting his routine.  The other member was insightful in that she empathized being there, and recommended that the next time that he continue getting into the gym to do cardio or lower body work, so as to keep the routine of getting to the gym routine. 

The second situation where this concept was exhibited was with a former client of mine started training with me again after taking more than a year off.  Due to a number of reasons, she was "forced" to stop her exercise routine completely.  One of those reasons was that she suffered from an illness.  I cant say exactly that if she had been exercising all along that she wold have avoided the illness completely, but I can say with certainty that she would have had a much easier time recovering from it if she had kept her exercise routine up over the past year.  It should be noted that the illness was an issue several months after stopping regularly exercising due to other "life issues" including an increased work load.  But here is my point.  by not making a little time each day, or even a few times a week, her level of health dropped so low that she became seriously ill and even had to be hospitalized for several days.  Now trying to recover the level of fitness she was at one point was now going to be a challenge.  When she started with me, I told here we weren't starting at "Day One," we were starting at "Day Zero". 

Aside from giving me two concrete examples of how trying to regain your health is more difficult than maintaining it all along, the positive in these two stories is that both of these people are now back in the gym, and once again on their way to reaching their fitness goals.  As I keep mentioning, the key is to keep at your goals all the long, because trying to get "out of a hole" is much harder than staying on the path in the first place.  Another more dramatic example would be with someone who smokes cigarettes.  Think about how hard it would be for a chronic smoker who develops lung cancer to recover their health, and how much easier it would be for them to have stayed healthy in the first place by not smoking all along.  Less extreme of an example would be with someone trying to reach a healthy body composition through dieting.  A cycle of losing weight and re-gaining weight as a result of on again off again dieting is not only unhealthy but is much more difficult at maintaining a healthy body fat percentage as is simply by making healthy food choices part of your daily lifestyle.

Any effort to improve your level of fitness deserves accolade.  But why make things harder on yourself?  Starting towards your fitness goals "from scratch" is basically starting over, all over again, when you start again stop again.  It is much easier instead to do anything, even if it is at a low level, to reach your fitness goals by constantly doing something.  Getting to the gym to do cardio when you have an injury will be easier to both maintain your current level of fitness and to get started training fully again when you are healed.  Similarly, making food choices that are healthy on a day to day basis is a much easier way to remain at a fit body composition over going on repeated crash diets.  Challenge yourself to attain a healthier level of fitness, but don't make that quest a harder challenge than it needs to be.  Maintaining a steady level of fitness is a much more efficient way, than trying to regain, to achieve a fit new you.

Act Your Age

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to tell you that while you don't have to look your age, you should act it to a certain degree when training.  As a teacher of pre-k through 8^th grade students, and a personal trainer of junior high athletes on up to people in their 70’s, I know quite well that the there are different expectations of people based on their age and stage of life.  I don’t expect a five year old kindergartener to have the same hand-eye coordination that an 8^th grader does, and I will use different exercises with my Jr. high lacrosse players than I do with my elder tennis playing clients.  This is true to a point however, because there are many fundamental training principles that are applied to everyone, and once the human body reaches a certain level of maturity, muscle cells have the potential to be relatively the same regardless of age.  Of course you need to consider differences in body chemistry between males and females, and adolescents and seniors, but any body and everybody has the ability to develop muscle strength, endurance and an improved body composition.  So, act your age…just don’t look it!

JT is a client of mine in his early 70’s who self proclaims that he is the “oldest man in the gym” every time he is training with me.  And while I like to make him feel better and point out other people in the gym near his age, most of the time he is there he most likely is the oldest at that time.  But I still push him as hard as I would any of my other clients, and he sweats just as much.  What JT also likes to point out and question is why I have him doing exercises that no one else in the gym is doing.  When he asks this, he is usually performing a single-leg, body weight dead lift while standing on the flat side of a Bosu ball.  I reassure him that other people do these exercises as well, and/or joke with him that I have him doing them because he is the oldest man in the gym.  What he sometimes misses is that the reason I incorporate exercises like into his routine in addition to the normal strength training exercises it to improve his balance, which is especially important for someone his age to do in order to prevent both falls and injuries relating to them. 

Just as balance training is particularly important for older clients, many exercises are specifically appropriate or can be considered contraindicated for certain age groups.  For example, with Jr. High and High school aged athletes, I will have them do primarily closed-chain exercises, which are great for improving athletic performance.  However, I do these as opposed to open-chain exercises as I don’t see the need to do isolated muscle exercises when their bodies are not ready to develop muscle mass yet.  Similarly, with older male clients, as their testosterone levels drop, I find it more beneficial and functional to have them do exercises like lunges as opposed to a single-leg extension in order to develop muscle strength.

What cannot be lost however is that muscle at any age can be developed.  And this is true with consideration of all the aspects of fitness; in terms of muscle strength, muscle endurance, flexibility and composition.  As long as the appropriate exercises are used with the proper intensity, muscle at any age can and will improve.  Everyone and anyone can see gains in muscle strength, endurance and composition.  So no matter what your age, get to the gym, hit the weights, and let people underestimate your age as you rock a fit new you.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to use a fable to emphasize the importance of making fitness a lifestyle as opposed to something that you do from time to time.  Fables are used commonly to teach lessons, and the one about the tortoise and the hare is no exception.  Most people are familiar with the story about the slow and steady tortoise beating the speedy hare; and this story can be used as a metaphor with how some people try to meet their fitness goals.  If you train and diet like the hare, quick and when needed, you might get some immediate results, but they might not last in the long run.  On the other hand, if you making exercise and the maintenance of a healthy diet your day-in and day-out thing, you will win in the long run.  And when the prize on the line is a healthier, fitter new you, this is a race you want to win.

Over the many years that I have been training, I have met time and time again, the type of person that “hits the gym” at certain times of the year, but does not exercise regularly.  This is the same type of person, and often the same person, who also goes on crash diets over and over again.  This way of reaching fitness goals is like the hare in the fable…quick and speedy.  But remember the ending of the story, the hare loses!  The same will be true with your fitness goals if your try to meet them this way.  You may get some quick results, but if the routine and/or diet are maintained regularly, those goals will soon be lost.

In the fable, the tortoise eventually wins the race by setting for the finish line by going slow and steady.  By not starting and stopping over and over again, the tortoise beats the hare.  And with fitness goals, if you keep at them with a slow, and more importantly, steady pace, you too will achieve them.  Rather than going on crash diets that are hard to maintain, and even unhealthy, over the long run if you maintain a regular, healthy food plan, you will not only reach your goals, but hold on to them thereafter.  The same is true with exercising.  Instead of trying to hit the gym every day of the week, by setting realistic goals for yourself, the practice of going to the gym becomes the norm.

I have said this many times before, fitness should be a lifestyle and not a fad.    Trying to improve upon your health in as short a time as possible will not yield lasting results.  The healthier way to reach fitness goals is by making small, manageable changes that can be maintained as part of your lifestyle, and then improving upon them with a steady pace.  The hare may be better at running a sprint, but as the analogy goes, life isn’t a sprint but a marathon, and here you need the slow and steady pace of the tortoise to win that race.

If given the option between losing 15% body fat in one month’s time, but to gain it all back two months later, or to lose 1% body fat each week for three months and then keep it off most people would choose the latter.  This type of body change comes with making long term lifestyle changes.  While it may take you a little bit longer to get there, the goals that will be achieved will be enduring.  Trying to sprint to a finish line that in actuality is always ahead of you will cause you to tire out and drop out.  But striving for that finish line with a slow and steady pace will keep you going and going.  It isn’t counter-intuitive, striving for your fitness goals with the tortoise’s slow and steady pace will be the lasting way to maintain a fit new you!  

You Need a Blueprint

Welcome to afitnewyou!  This week I would like to explain the importance and need of having a plan to aid you in reaching your fitness goals.  Just as an architect would need a blueprint, or an engineer would need plans to build something of significance, so to do you need to have a plan in order to reach your fitness goals.  Whether it be a design that a builder has in his eye, or the way you see yourself when you have reached your fitness goals it all starts with a vision.  However, that vision is what we see as the end result.  And in order to get to that outcome, we need to have sound plans to get there.

My friend John Buatsi is a friend of mine who I have referenced before as one of the best personal trainers around.  He is the personal trainer that many other personal trainers go to train with.  And although he has imparted many lessons on me, one that I have heard from him many times starts with him asking me the question “What are your plans for today?” when he sees me starting a work out.  On occasion I would reply a simple “chest” or “legs.”  But then he would follow up with “Ok. What are you planning to do?”  If I didn’t have a definitive plan to answer with, he would mock me and say that I won’t achieve much without a plan.  Although I did have a basic plan, and still think doing something is better than nothing, I completely understand his point that without a specific plan, goals will not be attained.

Having a specific plan, one that can be set up for you with/by a personal trainer and/or nutritionist, will help you reach your fitness goals more effectively.  Our fitness goals are usually set to a point we either having already reached, or have not attained for quite some time.  And if you haven’t gotten there yet, you need to ask if you have the proper plan to get there.  Think about this analogy…if you needed to travel to a place that you have never been to before, would you just hop in the car and hope you eventually got there by heading in that general direction?  Probably not…or at least you wouldn’t get there in a timely fashion.  On the other hand, if you had specific directions to follow, you should get there with minimal, if any, issues.  The same is true with the building comparison; a construction job will not get started until the plans are already laid out and set to follow.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that I regularly suggest and tell my clients to just get to the gym, as I believe that getting there is often the biggest hurdle people have to exercising.   But once you are there, it is important to follow a plan in order to reach your fitness goals.  I also often suggest that there is some merit to the idea that doing something is better than doing nothing at all.  However, if you are at the point of doing that something, why not make it the things that you actually need to do in order to reach your goals?  Following a plan designed to help you reach your fitness goals, with the correct exercises, weights, sets and rep prescriptions will get you to those goals much more efficiently.

When you hire a contractor to do work at your house, you often ask for not only a cost estimate, but a time frame in which you expect the job to be completed.  To meet that goal, the contractor has to follow a plan.  The need for a plan to help achieve a goal is also the same for you to reach your fitness goals.  Getting to the gym, and “pushing some weight around” is better than pushing the buttons on a remote control while on your couch at home.  But if you are making the effort, help yourself to get to the vision you have for yourself.  Just remember that in order to achieve that vision, there has to be the proper plan in place.  Having a fitness blue print is a very calculated way to achieve a fit new you!