4 Keys To Starting Fitness

1. Make a commitment. 

Decide what sort of workout you will do and plan the days and times you are going to workout. Having it on the calendar makes it much easier to to be consistent.

2. Just start. 

On your planned day, make a commitment that no matter what (other than injury or fever) you will atart your workout. Even if you don't think you will finish it, commit to starting each day no matter what. In the beginning building the habit of starting is the most important thing.  

3. Bite the bullet and hire a trainer. 

Even if it is just temporary, hiring a trainer (like me for expample) will help you get off to a good start in a reasonable manner. Not only can a good trainer show you what exercises to do and how to do them safely, they can help you progress your workout as your fitness improves. 

4. Don't let the ego plan your workout. 

If you are new to fitness take it easy at first. Overdoing it can get you injured or worse. At first learning how to exercise properly is more important than "feeling the burn."

If you want help, let me know. My email is franklinkungfu@gmail.com, and I'm on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/StevenONanPersonalTrainer?ref=bf  and can be reached at franklinkungfu@gmail.com. 

How Many Minutes of Cardio?

This week I will do approximately 400 minutes of cardio.

The recommendations for cardiovascular exercises are to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise, 75 minutes of intense exercise, or somewhere between those two numbers if it is mixed between moderate and intense.

There are two possible reasons someone might be doing massive amounts of exercise. One is the idea that if a little is good, a lot is better. If someone is doing 400 minutes of cardio in a week in order to get health benefits, there is some bad news in the form of the law of dimininshing returns. The truth is that you will gain some more benefits from doing more, but the higher the amount is, the less bang you get for your buck.

If you go from no exercise to 75 minutes of moderate exercise you will start seeing some huge health benefits. The benefits keep increasing a lot as you up the amount or intensity from there. Once you get over those numbers though, to get a little more benefit, you have to do a lot more work.

The other reason to massively increase exercise is if you are training for a specific event. That is why I will be doing 400 minutes of cardio this week. That is why by the time my training is done, I will have a had a couple of weeks with nearly 10 hours of cardio. I have a 31 mile trail race coming up. I have carefully crafted a training plan to create in my body the physiological adapatations that will enable me to complete this massive race.

After the race, I am going to tone things back down to a more reasonable level. Rest and recovery is part of the plan.

Your exercise plan, or your training for an event should be planned intelligently. Randomly doing some exercises will benefit you. Having a long term plan in front of you based on your specific goals will benefit you a lot more.

If you want help with setting and meeting your goals, whether they include weight loss, toning muscles, or running a marathon, let me know. I'll be glad to help.

One Reason Runners Should Be Lifting Weights

As I've written about before, I truly admire those people who enter a race knowing they will be at the back of the pack, knowing they will be struggling at the finish line. I love watching their faces when that "I did it!" feeling takes over. As a result, I have often stayed and watched the last people coming in at various races. Something I notice repeatedly at endurance events is how a person's posture can completely collapse by the time they get to the finish line.

One particular aspect of this is the upper back and shoulders. Often by the end of a race, a runner has started hunching their shoulders forwards. This can be due to tension in the chest, or due to fatigue of the upper back. Either way, those hunched shoulders are going to be causing a lot of suffering during, and after the race.
During the race, hunched shoulders will limit the ability to breathe deeply. When you are not breathing deeply, then your muscles are not receiving the oxygen they need to continue going, especially on the last few miles of a long race. If the hunching is a result of tight pectoral muscles and shoulders, full movement of the body while running is limited interrupting stride, and the extra tension is burning energy that could be much more useful in other parts of the body.

After the race, that hunching posture can lead to upper back pain. The longer you run in that position, the more your upper spine has been jarred while in an unnatural position. This position does not allow the spine to absorb the shock the way it should, so you can expect back pain and even shoulder pain afterwards.

Lifting weights, specifically using motions that involve the upper back musculature, strengthens, and builds endurance in the muscles that maintain a neutral spine during endurance events. Running alone doesn't do much for these muscles, so at some point your legs will be able to last much longer than your postural muscles.

The solution for this problem is to stretch the pectoral muscles, and strengthen the rhomboids and trapezius. Some good exercises for this include the reverse lateral dumbell raise and the single arm dumbell row.

If you want help with your running, come check out my class "Run For Your Life." You will do strength training, learn about different types of training runs, and improve your running. This class can make running easier on your body, and improve your race times. So come on down to GT Fitness or get in touch with me. Find more information by clicking the tabs at the top of the page.

Performance Vs. Appearance

Lately, I feel more and more that performance measures are more important than measurements of weight and waistline. I am not saying that weight and waist measurements should never be used, they are very useful measures. The problem with weight is that when you add muscle it is possible to stay the same weight or even gain weight while losing body fat. I have a client who has lost over 80 pounds this year, but I'd be willing to bet she has lost 85 or more pounds of fat and gained some muscle mass. 

Waist measurements are a good indicator of fat loss, but if you have a client that is sensitive about body image they can be discouraging and/or embarrassing and they also put the emphasis in appearance. 

Personally I would prefer my clients to have a performance measure as their metric of improvement. I'd prefer my clients to be proud of what they can do over what clothes they can fit into. 

Runners, Are You Lifting?

Some people would think this was a post against running. http://dnfitness.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/for-people-who-like-to-run-and-do-cardio-workouts/

I know, however that David and I are on the same page here. Personally I like running workouts. Getting outside and moving, running down a country road, or better still, a trail in the woods for two, three or more hours for me stops feeling like a workout and more like a communion with my body and the world around me. I love ro run, if I didn't I wouldn't be training for a 50K trail race. 

Soon after I started running I figured out (by getting injured) that a good way to not get injured running is to balance things out and do some workouts other than just running. 

Running provides a lot of work for certain muscles, but not others. So with lots of running the prime movers for hip flexion and extension can outlast the muscles that stabilize your hips and lower back. The result is that as you tire, running form starts to break down, and injury becomes more and more likely. So strength training stabilizers, not just in the hips and core but throughout the body, can reduce your chance of injury. 

Also, your running posture affects your running economy. If you start slouching forward it is harder to get enough oxygen to your muscles and you become less and less "fuel efficient" leading to sooner and greater fatigue. 

Running, while considered an aerobic exercise, actually uses three energy systems, the higher the intensity (the harder you are running), the greater percentage of energy coming from anaerobic systems. So training the anaerobic systems as well as the aerobic improves running economy and decreases fatigue. 

Heavy lifting teaches the body to recruit more muscle fibers and to recruit them more efficiently which puts more power in each stride improving economy and performance. 

Strength training of the "I pick things up and put them down," variety are extremely important to running economy, injury prevention, and running speed. The studies on this keep rolling in. A friend of mine was told by Alberto Salazar, one of the top running coaches ever, to lift heavy. 

One more thing on strength training and running. I had a runner do my strength training for runners course. After 8 weeks of progressive training she ran a personal best in three different distances over 4 weekends. She took 12 minutes off her half marathon PR, and nocked 2 minutes off her 5K best which was only about 2 months earlier. 

So runners, whatever your running goals, not getting injured, running longer, running easier, or running faster, remember to lift things up and put them down. 

http://youtu.be/eOSeOieLh7s

Love Your Curves or Tone Your Tummy?

Once again the media is sensationalizing the debate between loving your body as it is or exercising to beautify your body. 

My stance on this as a fitness professional is that both sides of the debate need to wake up, open their eyes, and close their mouths. 

The love your body side says that being focused on changing your body comes from a place of self loathing, and the make your body beautiful side says that accepting yourself as you are is an excuse to not get fit. 

Why do they focus on external beauty and ego? There is an easy answer, those make it easier for them to sell you something. 

I say let's all forget about how beautiful we think we are and how beautiful we think others are. That is not what fitness is about. Fitness is about loving yourself enough to take care of your health. Fitness is about giving ourself the strength and energy to get through your daily activities. 

Lack of fitness leads to aches and pains. It leads to disease and injury. It leads to early death. 

Looking good is so irrelevant when you look at the big picture. 

Love your body because of the work it can do. Love your body because it allows you to do good in the world. Strengthen you heart, lungs, arms and legs not to get that bikini body, but so you can live life more fully, so you can give more to others and so you can be around longer for your loved ones. 

If you need help getting started contact me, it's what I do. 

Starting From Zero.

The importance of being active, of regular exercise, is nearly immeasurable. The list of benefits is staggering. Unfortunately, the idea of getting started can seem pretty overwhelming. 

You might see the ads for the "Insanity" workout, or witness the people lining up at a local 5K race starting line peeling off their shirts before they run or you may see the commercials for a local gym full of insanely fit people who make you wonder why they even still need to go to the gym. 

Part of the problem is that a lot of fitness advertising is trying to grab the eyes of people who already have a high motivation for fitness. They are the easiest ones to sign up, and the easiest ones to keep signed up. 

So what do thearketing machines try to sell to people who are feeling overwhelmed by all this?

An easy way out. 

Buy this pill, wrap your body in this concoction, order these shakes or buy this device and you can burn body fat while ordering more stuff from us. 

Those gimmicks won't cut it. It takes work, but it doesn't take insanity. When I have a personal training client, I start them from where they are, even if they've been on the sofa for the last 15 years. If one-on-one isn't for you, I also have a group class called "New Fit You" for those who need to start at the bottom. If you are ready to get started, let me know how i can help.