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Today’s edition of the Washington Post Express newspaper has a wonderful article about your blogger, me, Nick Irons.   It is a great story entitled “Health Monitors: People Pump It Up with Online Personal Trainers.“ 

 The link above will take you to a PDF of the entire print edition of the newspaper.   The Health section starts on page 37.

 If you are inspired by what you see and want to try online personal training for yourself, please take a look at the online personal training section of this website or contact me.

Everywhere you turn,  people are telling you to exercise. You doctor tells you to exercise, George Bush tells you to exercise, now even McDonalds is telling you to exercise.  Why should you do it?  What should you exercise?  Here are the top 10 reasons to exercise.  

1)To look Better
Face it.   You look better when you are in shape.  You look better in clothes and you look better naked. 

2)To feel better
Exercise is addicting, because it improves your mood and the way you feel about yourself. Researchers have also found that exercise is likely to reduce depression, anxiety and stress.

3)To make more money
Studies have shown that you are more productive when you exercise.  One study found that 80 percent of employees believed their exercise program was helping them become more productive at work, and 75 percent thought regular exercise was helping them achieve higher levels of relaxation and concentration.

4)To reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke
Daily physical activity can help prevent heart disease and stroke by strengthening your heart muscle, lowing your blood pressure, raising your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (good cholesterol) and lowing your low-density lipoprotein (LDL) (bad cholesterol), improving blood flow, and increasing your heart’s working capacity.

5)To lower your blood pressure
Regular physical exercise can reduce blood pressure in those with hypertension. Physical activity can also reduce body weight and body fat which contributes to high blood pressure.

6)To prevent type II diabetes
By reducing body fat percentages, exercise can help prevent and control adult-onset diabetes.

7)To prevent osteoporosis.
 Weight-bearing exercise promotes bone formation and may prevent many forms of bone loss associated with aging (especially in women).

8)To prevent obesity
Exercise helps reduce body fat by building muscle mass, burning calories, and improving metabolism. When physical activity is combined with proper nutrition, it can help control weight and prevent obesity, a major risk factor for many diseases.

9)To reduce lower back pain
By increasing strength and endurance and improving flexibility and posture, regular exercise helps prevent back pain.

10)To improve your confidence and self-esteem.
Studies have shown that exercise brings about significant increases in confidence and self-esteem.

 

So you have been working out for a while, seeing great results and loving the difference you see and feel in your body. But what happens if, for some reason — injury, vacation, burnout, or something else — you have to stop for a while.

What happens?

Well first, let me tell you what doesn’t happen. Your muscle does not turn to fat. That would be like saying if you stop driving your car, your tires will turn to marshmallows. You may lose muscle mass and gain some fat, but your muscle does not turn to fat.

Here is what does happen:

• Cardio: You begin to lose aerobic endurance in as little as two weeks.

• Muscular Strength: Studies have shown that muscular strength will return to pre-exercise levels after four to 12 weeks off.

• Muscular Size: Muscles will shrink after 4-12 weeks off.

• Metablism:  As your muscles atrophy, your metabolism will slow.  This means that if you eat the same amount, you will gain weight. 

More is better right?  If exercise is good for you, than more exercise is automatically better, right?  Well, yes, to a point.  But, it is possible to exercise too much. 

When you exercise more than your body can handle, you can reach a state of overtraining.  In the past overtraining was no big deal.  You were just “hitting a plateau”,  or “burning out”.   But if you continue to exercise in a state of overtraining, your performance will continue to get worse, not better. 

 How can you tell if you are overtrained?  Well here are some common symptoms:

• Decreased performance

• Irritibility

• Lack of desire to exercise

• Depression

• Sleeplessness

• Increased muscle soreness

• Higher Resting Heart Rate

• Higher submaximum heart rate

• Lowered testosterone levels

When is the best time to workout?  

Many popular diets insist that the best time to exercise is first thing in the morning, before you eat breakfast.  The theory is that your body doesn’t have the fuel it needs to complete the exercise, so if goes to the only source of energy it has…your stored body fat.  There are two problems with this theory…

1)All that matters when it comes to weight loss is total caloric intake.  Are you eating less than you burn. If so, you will lose weight…simple as that.  Your body can’t tell time.

2)You need energy to exercise.   And to have that energy, your body needs food.  If you exercise before eating, you will not perform as well and your workout will suffer. 

 So what is really the best time to exercise?  The simplest answer?  Whenever you will do it.   Are you a morning person? If so workout in the morning.  Are you a night owl?  If so, you are better off exercising at night.  If you need to do it on your lunch break, do it the.  Do whatever works for you.

For those of you out there who are driven by winning, one of the most effective ways to lose weight is to be part of a weight loss competition. Competing against other people provides something that traditional weight loss programs fail at: motivation, accountability and incentive.

There is a website, WeightLossWars, that will run your competition for you, so all you have to do is worry about losing weight.

From Weightlosswars.com:

The site allows you to create weight loss or exercise competitions among your friends and family. You can compete belly to belly, or team against team. It is your competition, you build it how you want, and compete against who you want, for the prizes you want.

For every competition you receive a personalized “Arena” that displays the status of everyone you invited into your competition. The “Arena” includes:
• A Leader board to show up-to-the-minute who is leading the pack
• A Discussion board where you can post motivating or trash talking messages
• Interactive graphs to chart the progress of your competitor or to compare them to movie stars or barn yard animals
• The treasure chest that everyone is competing for
• Links to weight loss professionals and best of all…
• the “Sabotage” button

Each competitor also receives their own “Personal” page where they can record their exercise and food intake into helpful logs. The “Personal” page includes:
• Exercise and Nutrition Logs
• Goal management center
• Weight loss history
• Personalized progress graphs

Each competitor also has access to other helpful tools, including:
• The infamous “Sabotage” feature. Finding yourself behind in the competition? Find out how the WeightLossWars “Sabotage” can help!
• Access to Personal Trainers and Dietitians that can help personalize your weight loss efforts.
• The WeightLossWar Store! Filled with helpful weight loss products for your competition.

The Get Results! Fitness Blog will occasionally review workout books and videos.  But, I think you should know something right off the bat.  I am not going to review a book or video that I don’t like.  What’s the point?  So, everything you see reviewed on this website will have  a positive review. 

 The first video that I am going to recommend is Yoga Conditioning for Athletes with Rodnee Yee.   When I started using this video several years ago, I could not even touch my toes.  After regular use I became flexible enough to begin martial arts and started my six-year study of kung-fu. 

This DVD is perfect for athletes or anyone else who is trying to improve their flexibility.  This video is broken into three parts. The first part is “Opening,” includes several bends and twists for the spine, hips, and hamstrings.   “Conditioning” the second section, alternates basic standing poses (triangle, warrior I and II, extended right angle) with balancing poses (tree, eagle) and several sustained forward bends.  The final section combines seated and reclining back-bends, lunges, twists, and hip work.

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