Let's talk about that guy, the one you don't want to be.

Okay so we all know that guy who comes into the gym, drives all around the parking lot until a spot in front opens up then finally parks and goes into the gym to do nothing more than walk leisurely on the treadmill. That is the prime example of that guy. Don't be that guy. That guy is paying however much a month to come to the gym and then walk on the treadmill. That's one seriously expensive treadmill. It's costing him not only his gym dues but also gas. Not to mention, it's costing him time he could have been spending actually doing something to change his body and better his health.
Let's first talk about the treadmill. I know I've talked about it before but let's seriously break this down. The things a treadmill can be used for effectively: basic warm-up, interval training, cup holder, clothes hanger. That's it. Really. I come into the gym and I use the treadmill for 10 minutes to get my juices flowing and organize my workout. Once I get that done I hop off, forget about it, do my real total body warm-up and get into my exercises. The only time I use it for my clients is when we are doing interval training. We hop on, do 30 seconds easy, 30 seconds hard, repeat repeat repeat. Even with this though, I find an elliptical is a little kinder to your joints. You cannot hop on a treadmill and walk on it for 30 minutes twice or three times a week and expect that to count as your workout. That's not a workout. It's wasted time (the only time this might not apply is if you are a brand new exerciser, but even then you HAVE to push yourself). In order to change your body you have to challenge your body. If you are hell bent on using that treadmill get on it and bump up the incline, walk that hill for a few minutes, then take it easy, repeat repeat repeat. But I would much rather see you walk over to the free weights and do some lifting. Fact: An hour of weight training is a much more effective calorie burner than an hour on the treadmill.
So I just told you weight training is the way to go, what do you do with those free weights? For starters you won't pick up those weights and start doing biceps curls. That is an exercise that is a waste of time. You will get plenty of biceps work doing other exercises. Fact: Your biceps will not grow out of proportion with the other muscles in your arms. So it is absolutely pointless to isolate them and work them to fatigue. Yeah they might fill with blood like any other muscle and fill out while your doing those curls but as a long term exercise it really is time wasted. Good free weight exercises include things like a Dumbbell Push Press, Split squats, Bulgarian (Rear Foot Elevated) Split Squats, deadlifts, deadrows. Even without dumbbells a great pushing exercise is the Push Up. Lou Schuler wrote a great book with Alwyn Cosgrove called The New Rules of Lifting. I highly recommend that book for any level of exerciser whether you are new to exercise or an advanced lifter. That book has great exercises and great info. Plus Schuler has an awesome sense of humor so the book stays entertaining when most books might go dry and get boring.
So, lots of information to let sink into your brains. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Let me know, find my e-mail on this page.

Going on a diet, quick weight loss doesn't mean results.

Clients love to argue with me about diets. First of all, if you are my client you have obviously reached out to me for advice and motivation concerning weight loss and fitness so don't argue with me about the advice I give you. Second of all, I would never give you advice to sabotage your well being. That goes against everything I stand for as a Fitness Coach. Almost every client I have ever had has told me a story about how they went on this diet and lost all this weight a year ago and have since then gained it all back and then some. Well, let's back up a second. If you went on the diet to lose weight but have actually gained weight, I would call that diet a failure. So whatever diet that was throw it in the trash. This is where people love to argue with me. They say but I did lose weight in the beginning.
Stop.
Getting healthy and fit is all about long term life changes. Diets that make you fluctuate in weight (by fluctuate I mean lose a couple of pounds, gain them back, lose it, gain one pound, plateau, start all over) is not a healthy diet. You have to find that balance of exercise and proportionate eating that works for your body. It isn't a one size fits all kind of thing. What works for your friend or neighbor or that guy on TV that lost 100 pounds on the blah-blah-blah diet may not work for you and that's fine.
Getting healthy isn't ever going to be quick and easy. If it was everyone would be an ideal weight and eating the right foods everyday. I do promise you this though, the effort that you put into it will definitely be worth the outcome. Finding the right balance now will save you hundreds or maybe thousands on preventable hospital bills later on in life.
A couple of diets I do recommend has been put out by Fitness Quest and Rachel Cosgrove. Definitely check those out they may give you a good place to start.

Change is coming, accept it or not!

There is a lot of talk about change going on right now in the fitness industry. Credible fitness professionals and exercise scientists and organizations are putting out some pretty extreme stuff right now. I think it is sort of a make or break time for a lot of trainers. Are we all willing to accept everything that 'needs to change'? I don't know if I am willing to take it all in yet myself. There are a lot of things that I have done so far in my programming and with my clients that has seemed to be affective and I haven't really had any adverse affects. Of course, I am the first one out of the trainers and coaches I know that will drop everything I've been doing to accept a 'better method' if it has in fact been proven to be better. I'm all about being better, but I also want to keep training in my style and not be a one size fits all. What would be the point in selling me as a product if I had to say I was just like every other product on the market? When is it okay not to change?
A very reputable man that I follow very closely in this industry, Mike Boyle, has come out with a whole lecture as to why many exercises and exercise programs are becoming a thing of the past. One of these exercises being the common squat. If there is one exercise that I can honestly say everyone has done at least one time in their life is the squat. Everyone knows what a squat is and everyone can execute a squat if asked (note I didn't say they all could perform this correctly, just simply execute). Reason behind this being that it is too knee dominant and we are a society that has been overloaded with knee dominant exercises and now are seeing more knee injuries. On top of this due to a focus on knee dominant programming we have neglected to put focus on hips. So the solution to this is moving away from the thought of bilateral movement and moving into unilateral movement. The science to back this up is the the fact that we are able to load a unilateral squat with more weight than a back squat. This makes sense to me because in a back squat using 1RM weight the first thing to give is never the legs, it's the back. I also find this idea effective with my athlete clients as well. I see major improvement in mobility and muscle growth.
Another point that Boyle brought up was the idea of spinal flexion actually not being that much of a functional move at all. How many times in a typical a day do we actually lay on the floor and do a crunch? Never. I think the only time we actually 'crunch' is to raise ourselves from a lying position to get out of bed in the morning. He also mentioned back injuries due to this sort of movement in the spine. I accept this sort of thought until we start talking about injuries. I haven't known of anyone who got injured doing a crunch correctly. Now in a full sit-up, absolutely, but not doing a crunch. The science behind this stating that our lumbar spine wasn't built for mobility but more for stability for our hips and for our T-Spine (our hips and T-Spine both being used as the mobility joints). I have actually removed all spinal flexion from my programming and moved into other exercises such as the plank or hover and Swiss ball or bar rollouts. The feedback has all been surprisingly positive. Clients with low back pain have reported less pain and every client has reported feeling stronger in their core. I have had one instance where a client was not comfortable doing the rollout because he said it hurt too badly but that may have been an error on my part for starting him on a bar instead of the swiss ball then graduating him to using a bar.
One thing I still see coaches doing with athletes is having them stretch and using foam rollers before workouts. Stretching before a workout has been proven time and time again to be ineffective and dangerous. I wouldn't even consider doing it with the healthiest of athletes. Now the foam roller I'm a little confused on. Why would you have your athletes roll on the foam rollers pre workout? Would it not be more affective to wait until after your athletes have warmed the muscle to roll out the surrounding fascia? Seems like just in the idea of stretching, rolling would be a waste and maybe harmful to begin with it. I also can't say that I have put a whole lot of time into researching yet. Maybe I will find my answer when I dig in deep and look at some scientific evidence. I do believe rolling is great though, I am just on the fence as to when it would be most effective not just for athletes but for my general clients as well.
A lot of trainers and scientists are saying we are becoming too rehab oriented in our exercise programming and that we should save the rehab for physical therapists. My opinion? Exercising is rehab. Just as we rehab a muscle that has been injured and now is weak and needs to be conditioned our bodies have gotten out of shape and weak and need to be conditioned. It's the same thing to me. Maybe this statement was said in response to a question concerning the exercise intensity? I'm not certain but that really wouldn't make sense either considering our job as coaches and trainers is to change peoples' bodies. Change doesn't come from sitting still. Change takes work, hard work.
Like I said, lots of interesting things coming out right now. I did try to condense a little bit as to not make this post too long but still wanted to get the facts and ideas out there from not only myself but other great trainers and coaches as well. You definitely need to Google Mike Boyle and Alwyn Cosgrove and read some of their stuff. It is worth the time. I will definitely continue my research and may come to find some stuff I have said in this post is proven wrong. I will definitely let you know if this happens. Any other good stuff you find also feel free to e-mail me. My e-mail is posted on this page somewhere.
Don't let change be the reason you lose your clients. Definitely put in some time researching and decide what you agree with and what you don't agree with and then research some more. Ultimately the decision is yours. Just don't be afraid to change!

Holidays are for enjoying, not for feeling guilty.

Alright guys here is my opinion on how the holidays are supposed to go for the regular exercisers and the serious dieters, take it or leave it. I'm just one of MANY opinions. I'm going to share with you the advice I give to my clients.
Thanksgiving on into New Years is a REALLY difficult time to maintain a healthy lifestyle. People start baking all the yummy foods we crave and love to eat. Food in general is in abundance through Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas parties and celebrations and New Years get-togethers.
Just because you happen to eat that piece of pumpkin pie (or two) doesn't mean your diet is ruined. I don't even see it as a setback to my clients' goals or programming. We get food like this once a year it isn't fair to ourselves not to indulge in it a little. Make sure to drink plenty of water to help flush all of the bad stuff and cleanse your insides and don't let that bad meal be the reason you stop exercising. KEEP EXERCISING! Weight gain happens during the holidays because we feel like we have eaten badly and that guilt keeps us from going to the gym or even taking a walk/jog.
Enjoying the holidays is part of life, a part of life I'd rather not miss out on and especially would not want to see my clients miss out on. Indulging doesn't mean you have to feel guilty. Just follow the two simple rules and you will come out on top in 2011!

1. Drink PLENTY of fluids (H20)
2. Don't stop exercising!

Double the results, same ol' exercise.

KW Fit Fitness QuickTip:

Looking for more or better core strength but only have so much time to put in to your workout?

Try all of your traditional standing exercises on your knees.

Fact: Taking out the stability of your quads automatically forces your core to engage and work as your power house to keep you stabilized.

Example: Triceps Overhead Extension.

Take it from standing or sitting and grab a mat and kneel (Remember to keep a tall spine). It will make a difference, I promise.

The sport of Body Building, and remind me how it is still around?

As a trainer, I have to wonder how sports like Body Building are still around. A sport that is so infected with cheating it's known by everyone, literally, EVERYONE. We all know most body builders take steroids. It's no secret, no body looks like that without the use of them. There have been several documentaries on body builders who try to win the natural way, the real way, the way that takes real work and dedication, such as any real sport would. We all know the ending, they get beat out by the guy who is a 'roid head. My question is simply this: How in hell is body building still around? Officials know, participants know, people who go to competitions, the competitors themselves all know, its a 'sport' plagued with drugs and shortcuts. I can tell you now, no other sport would allow for that. Am I turning a blind eye to the fact that steroids are used in every major sport? Absolutely not, but when it becomes known to the public, something gets done about it. Why has body building been made to be the exception? It really does baffle me. It goes against every fiber of the basic component of any sport. Athletes train hard, it becomes what they eat, drink, sleep. They beat the sun getting up to train. They do this day in and day out, many times they pull two-a-days just to get up to par with the competition. Blood, sweat, and tears are the foundations of a sport. The use of performance enhancement drugs are severely looked down upon. It's cheating. Sports don't accept cheaters. Why does body building accept cheaters? Do you not take it offensively when someone is found to be taking steroids? Does that not discount your efforts when the winner of a Mr. Olympia competition is a known steroid abuser? All really good question which I am not asking rhetorically. I would like answers because I am generally curious. One of the many anomalies that will probably never make sense to me.

Group fitness, it's just what you need.

It's that time of year where everyone makes their New Year's resolutions to hit the gym and lose a few pounds! It's also that time of year where all of the treadmills and elliptical machines get crammed and no one can find an empty one to use. You really want to stick to your plan and REALLY lose those pounds? GET OFF THE MACHINE! I wouldn't stick to an exercise regimen either if all I did was go to a gym and walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes. It's boring! Step off the machine and step into the group fitness room. Yes, I'm serious. Group fitness isn't grandma's aerobics anymore. That means guys, too, can get GREAT results from group fitness. There is a fair amount of hype when it comes to group fitness from long time trainers and gym owners. A lot of people say group fitness isn't really working out or it's easy. Answer this one question for me. What is the difference between doing a dozen push ups in the group fitness room and a dozen bicep curls out on the strength training floor? NOTHING. It's all the same. It is proven that group fitness gives results. I'm talking proof in numbers. Group fitness is fun, definitely a lot more fun than walking or cycling or climbing in place on a machine. Group fitness creates an atmosphere where people can safely push their limits and find awesome results. It also gives a feeling of accountability when you start to get to know the people that are working along side you. It's especially beneficial for you to take the time out to get to know the instructor. If they are a good instructor they will make sure that you aren't slacking off and you'll hear about it when you skip a day! It's the perfect atmosphere that tailors to nothing but results. Yes I will say the word one more time, RESULTS. Why wouldn't you do it? Find a class and just get into it and do it. I don't care if it's a barbell lifting class, a step class, a cardio groove class, a boot camp class, or a yoga class. Make 2010 the year that you change up your routine and actually STICK TO IT. Find the group fitness schedule at your gym and check out a class that tickles your interest. You will be pleasantly surprised, I promise.