Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Resolve Nothing

It’s a new year, a new start, a new me. I resolve to give up chocolate, stop eating before bed, cut back on my drinking, run 3 miles every morning, go to the gym 5 times a week, join a yoga class….

Junk.

This New Year’s, don’t resolve to give up sweets and hit the gym every day. I know, it’s not very trainer-ly of me is it? I like challenging people. Maybe I’m just a challenging kind of guy, but you know what? I know you’re better than that, so I’m challenging you again. Resolve nothing. Start 2009 resolution free.

Resolutions are like low carb, no carb, raw food, all natural, grapefruit only, or any other hair brained diet out there. They fail you. After your hard work, determination & energy, they fail you, rob you of your momentum and stick you right back where you started with an extra 5lbs to boot. Don’t do it to yourself. They failed you once. Then they failed you again a year later. So don’t waste your time. That’s insane. They’ll do it again.

Instead, try this. Make the next best decision for your health and fitness. That’s it. Just the next one. Maybe you just say “no” tonight when the waiter asks if you’d like fries with that. Maybe you choose to take the stairs to your fourth floor pad after work instead of the elevator. Maybe you choose the red wine instead of the vodka mixer. Maybe you pick up the whole wheat pasta at the market instead of the regular stuff. Small things. One at a time.

Make the next best decision for your health and fitness. It’s not a high pressure do or die resolution daring you to fail. It’s one choice at a time. Broke down and ordered the fries? That’s ok. You’re fine. Just make a better decision for yourself next time. Little choices throughout your day…Maybe it starts as just one decision in a day. Fantastic! You did it. You made a good decision for yourself. You made a start. The next time you do it, it gets a little easier. Then it gets a little easier the time after that. Before you realize it, it becomes a lifestyle.

Congratulations. You just lost that last 5lbs.

Above all else, have a happy, healthy and safe New Year’s!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Fuel Economy


Overdosed from holiday pie and brownies? Did you have a couple of those moments on the lips and are now awaiting the eternity on the hips?

Ok, don’t panic. Think of it like this. You’ve got to get from Portland Maine to Ft. Lauderdale. Which would you rather drive; a Suburban or a Mini? Easy answer. Mini. Why? Better fuel economy. Why? Well, the engine on that Suburban is huge compared to the Mini so it uses a zillion times the gas. Small engine, less gas. Bigger engine, more gas.

Ok, so now think of your body like a car. If you’re the car, the fat stored in your body is the gas. So what’s the engine? Muscle. Ok, so as opposed to our goal of highway fuel efficiency, when talking about fat loss, the goal is the exact opposite. For those of us with weight loss goals, we’re actually trying to create a more fuel inefficient machine.
So if you’re not burning the amounts of fat you want to burn, the equation is an easy one. You need a bigger engine.

Now, nobody’s talking about body building or mass bulk and creatine supplementation. It’s what I was talking about in the “Maintenance is Nothing” post, providing an elevated challenge to the body in order to stimulate an elevated response. Challenge your body. Even a little gain can make a huge difference. Be the Suburban. Burn a zillion times the gas.

Don’t forget, January 3rd at 6:30 we’re throwing the next Saturday Night Blowout at West River Health & Racquet Club. Stop in and burn some gas!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Moving Forward

A colleague brought to my attention the other day just how foreign a lot of the information I put out there can be to some people. Well, there's a revolution in fitness. It's a revolution born in garages and on blacktops across the country. Basements, car ports, warehouse spaces, living rooms. Anywhere people can twist, jump, throw, lift, pull & otherwise move themselves and other objects through space. It's a revolution against the "modern" model of fitness and training. It's a revolution against mirrors, "exer-tainment" & padded ass pampering lay-z boy machines that do half the work for you. It’s against men in the weight room and women in aerobics class. It’s moving away from $10,000 vibrators on the gym floor & tvs on your treadmill. It's a revolution & return to an older simpler way.

Everything old is new again. A sledge hammer and an old tire. A sandbag. A pair of rings strung from the rafters. A straight bar. Open space. Doesn't matter who you are just get out there and move.

It can be seen in the grass roots efforts of people like the guys at Sorinex, my fellow blogger Steve at EFC Madness, at firehouses & police precincts across the country. It can be seen in the already over commercialized Crossfits & infomercial home DVD fitness programs. It is happening in many forms and with many different approaches, but with a single underlying principle message, let's do some real work!

The contemporary gym model is about to change dramatically. Gym floors cram packed with expensive machines with weights, built in lights, fans, hand sanitizers…it’s all about to go. Take a look back at this gym floor circa 1880 and you get a good look at what’s coming. Space for a human to move, gravity as your opponent, your body is your tool.

I’d invite anyone that doubts or is unsure of the process to come out for the Saturday Night Blowout on Jan 3rd. You’d be surprised just how much fun, and how much work working out can really be.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Highly Unstable

Next time you're in the gym trying to figure out which toys look like the most fun today, Bosus, wobbles, half rollers and foam pads, ask yourself this question. Outside, at home, at work, what are you usually standing on? Hardwood? Low nap commercial carpet? Concrete? And when you're on them, what are they usually doing? Moving? Shaking? Tilting to and fro?
Then what on God’s green earth does a wobble board or a Bosu really have to do with anything? Really.

When you're bopping down the street running your Saturday errands, what is it that’s moving and shifting unpredictably; the earth upon which you walk or those plastic grocery bags? When you're standing in line at the movies, what is it that's challenging your ability to maintain control and equilibrium; the solid concrete floor or the impatient and increasingly grouchy 4 year old you're holding? Make sense?

So instead of wobble and foam how about a little sand and water?
Sandbags: One of the cheapest and most versatile training tools. Shifting, unstable weight that can be moved in any number of ways. The same can be said for water, although finding a suitably durable vessel you can actually lift & move w/o worry of spillage may be a tad more challenging. But I have to say, the slosh factor and necessary compensatory effects are well worth it. If you have access to an extra physio ball, use and old kitchen funnel and run couple gallons of water in there. As soon as you pick it up you’ll understand what I mean.

Try this: Take a regular old barbell at a semi challenging weight. Front load it & squat it 10 times. Now, bear hug a canvass duffel bag full of sand at the same weight to your chest. 10 squats. What do you notice? What was different? If you don't have access to sandbags, then do this with a stack of heavy books, one of those 5 gallon water cooler jugs, gravel from the driveway in a bag, anything that is going to want to shift or move in your arms.

The key here is that we’re training our bodies to deal with the world more efficiently. So, we have to bring very real challenges into our fitness regimen. Last time I checked, the American infrastructure wasn’t so far gone that walking across the mall parking lot felt anything like standing on half a beach ball. Meanwhile, I do distinctly remember racing down the sidewalk ahead of the oncoming ice storm yesterday with several shopping bags that just didn’t want to cooperate…

Bring fitness out of the gym and into your life. As always, I welcome your comments and feedback!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Maintenance Is Nothing

In my first posting, I took the stand that life demands athletic performance from us every day. Your city, neighborhood, home & office are your playing field. By this line of thought, we are all athletes. I may still be waiting on my offer letter guaranteeing a CC Sabathia sized paycheck, but none the less find myself contesting with my world on a daily basis.

This is why we should be training like athletes. The first rule of competitive training is that you always strive to elevate your performance. You can be stronger. You can be faster. You can move through your world with more ease and efficiency. You can experience your day with more energy and enjoyment. So it only makes sense that we should always be reaching higher, further.

"Maintenance" is nothing. To maintain is to automatically lose ground. Adapt and accommodate; it's what the body does. We throw a workout, a physical challenge at it, it adapts, gets stronger or faster to meet that challenge. That's adapting to accommodate an imposed demand. That's also progress! But, keep throwing the same thing at it over and over...no more adaptation. Once you figured out that 6x8=48, your teacher didn’t keep asking you what you get when you multiply 6x8. She asked you something harder, made you grow just a little more. You had already accommodated that demand.

The difference in math class and the gym is you still sweat after you’ve accommodated. You’ve stop progressing after lifting that same 135lbs for the last few months even though you may still feel fatigued after 15 repetitions. Then why are you tired? Because you haven’t trained your body to go further. If all you do is 10 or 15 squats at 135lbs, then as soon as you hit 10 or 15, you’ll have tapped the tank dry. Want to progress? Push through it. Make yourself hit 20. Over time, that fifteen is going to feel like the appetizer and you’ll be looking for the main course. After gaining the strength & endurance to make it happen, the body doesn't work as hard to do the same thing. You begin to move by rote and your body checks out more and more each time, losing ground.

Maintenance is regression. Find a goal. Set a date. Drive yourself forward. Achieve!
Yes treadmill people & spinners, your trusted daily workout is failing you. Not because it's bad, not because you're not trying, but because your body is so smart. Those three miles or 60 high intensity minutes just can't keep up with your adaptation. You have to build in those curve balls that keep your body guessing. Throw an extra weight plate on the stack. Go the extra mile. Add an extra set. Crank up that incline by even 1%. Stand up off that machine and try to lift that load through space. As you’re adapting, you're burning, building and striving forward.
You can thank me when you have a hard time standing up out of your chair tomorrow.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Saturday Night Blowout



A huge heartfelt congratulations goes out to this weekend's Saturday Night Blowout participants. Although, truth be told, not all started out as participants. Some started as protest-ants. "We're gonna what?" Then they started getting their feet wet and began to discover what it feels like to really push in this particular arena, thus making the transition to participants. As some came to understand how rewarding this level of exertion can be, they pushed for as many laps, lengths, throws & rows as possible. Now they become contestants. This is why we call the programs evolutions. Through this experience you become... something else. The experience is a transformative one in some ways.

The veteran team jumped off to an early and very strong start. Black & White seemed a little shell shocked at the whole proposition, but jumped on in. Team Kleidman...machines.
Into the courts. Am I imagining things? Do the Veterans actually look a little hungry for this?
Round 1 down. There's one or two in here that can't believe what they just did. There's another one or two that just discovered something about themselves and gave their teammates a thing or two to think about.

"Yes sir. We're going again." One blank, pale face staring back, team black & white mustering for a second helping of what they didn't even know they could do the first time...& I swear the Vets are still chomping at the bit. One is working through, persevering & pushing. The other drawing on...something and even smiling.

Beastly beastly team K. Machines.
Another round down. Evolution complete. Several of you took this workout to a performance level you didn't even know you had. For others it was a familiar feeling with a new face. Some of you tapped the tanks dry. Congratulations. Congratulations to you all. And thank you!

So far Carl walked away with the “Beast” at 250 points. Team Kleidman is leading the “Barbarian” with a total of 222 points. Scores are still coming in. I’ll update as I have more information.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

On a serious note

Understanding how it is one of the most devastating things anyone could ever have introduced into their lives, I am almost never comfortable when any one of the various ills of our world are described by our leaders, media personalities and spiritual leaders "a cancer.” Cancer is a devouring of the human body by a tumor so ravenous, so malignant that is can only be stopped by the introduction of toxins that attack both disease and patient, breaking the body down in every system, in every function to the point that the cure begins to resemble some of our world’s most notorious illnesses. Apologies, but I just don’t see talking on a blue tooth headset in public the same way.
There is one case in which I do not disagree with the application of “a cancer” as a label. In fact, I feel as though it is rather appropriate. There is one thing that is eating our population at an alarming rate. It is literally eating away our bodies, our friends, family and children. Attacking our hearts, our joints, our arteries, our livers. It attacks us economically. It attacks us socially. It attacks us emotionally. Right now it will be a significant contributor to the over $4 trillion we’ll spend on healthcare in 2016 alone. We would watch as our family & friends die around us at ever decreasing ages. The longer it grows, the more the treatment will cost, economically and in lives taken.
We educate. We legislate. But it isn't enough. At this rate our reaction is akin to taking a garden hose to the great Chicago fire of 1871. We are allowing the "cancer" to win. As reported by the CDC, the slideshow below shows the actual spread of obesity in America since 1985.



It even looks like a cancerous growth doesn’t it.
I’m not going to belabor the point. Simply put
Right now 2 out of 3 people in the room are overweight or obese. By 2030, 3 out of 4.
Right now 1 out of 3 children are in the same boat.
Obese 12 year olds show the vascular health of a 45 year old individual. Their bodies ages 33 years ahead of their chronological age.
For every 2.2lbs of fat a child puts on, their body must generate 2 miles of veins and arteries to support that tissue. Think how much harder that 12 year old’s heart has to work…just to feed the fat.

Obesity leads to:
Diabetes
Heart disease
Stroke
Arthritis
Gall Bladder Infection
and yes…cancer.

Take a stand and make a change today.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Does it pay?

Meme Roth from National Action Against Obesity ( ActionAgainstObesity.com )just turned me on to a writer who was doing the groundwork for an article to answer the question of "Does it really pay to hire a personal trainer?" Well...
A former client pointed this out the other day after not training with me for a few weeks. "You know what I just realize?” he asked as I walked into the weight room. “As soon as you came in, I started working harder. No way do I push myself as hard as when you’re here.” It’s almost as if largely by human nature we simply just do not work as hard when we’re not being held accountable to anyone else.
Think about it. How long has your "honey do" list been sitting around waiting for a little attention? Fixing the hinge on the kitchen cabinet. Getting that button sewn back on your charcoal blazer. Cleaning out the freezer. And who’s really there to make sure you get it done? Now, when your supervisor drops that TPS report on your desk tomorrow morning, how fast are you going to have that puppy turned back in?
Here’s another side to the equation. Say you're a young professional, established but climbing. Jumping at that next rung on the ladder. You strive and reach for every opportunity to advance just a little higher. Come end of year, you've got two W-2s, a hand full of 1099s, a disbursement from those stock holdings in your old company that fell 40% over four years before you cashed in and three months of the year spent just across the river at your old address in Jersey City.
How much do you trust yourself to finish and file the appropriate forms with the IRS and multiple state treasuries on time and to make sure you get that monster refund you really really hope is coming your way? Right about now, your CPA’s fee becomes something of a moot point. It really doesn't matter how many hours of CNBC you've watched, being a professional and an expert in her field, your CPA is so much more qualified than you or I will ever be to assist you in getting your taxes taken care of as quickly and efficiently as possible. How were we to know we could deduct 1/4 of the cost of that jalopy of a laptop you bought in college? You still use it to prepare your Power Point slides right? Well, that’s what you hired a professional for. She knows these things.
In the same way a qualified, nationally certified, experienced trainer has the combination of education, academic research, practical experience and finesse to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Think of it like the tax situation. You've got sciatica, a bum knee from college soccer, a six year smoking habit, high blood pressure from all those 70 hour work weeks & a problematic right shoulder. Are you going to trust your law degree or the cumulative knowledge of your trainer's entire career, degree & certification to get rid of that back pain and put you into a size 4 again by your 10 year reunion in March?
Add to that the motivation of someone standing with you, holding you accountable and reassuring you that, yes, in fact you can and you will do this. Fall down & get discouraged? Guess who's there to pick you up and help you back to the path? Guess who's there to tell you you're not alone and that this is worth fighting for, or that you’re not a bad person for having that extra yeast roll last night. Just be more careful next time. You’re going to make it.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

...It comes naturally

Take a few minutes out to go play with the family dog. Or think back to a time the two of you spent together. How cute is he, every time Fido your fun loving four legged fluffy little friend, sets out for one of his runs? One of those not too fast, not too slow, just long and steady runs around the neighborhood. So adorable. Or for that matter, remember when that beastly strong little guy of yours went out and nose'd that huge rock in the garden back and forth ten times for three or four sets. The way he sat there until he was completely rested before he did it again. Just sat there, scratching his big floppy ears with his hind leg. Breaks your heart it's so cute.
What? No? You've never seen that? You mean to tell me that you've never actually seen the family pet head out for a good old fashioned cardio day?
Of course not. We both know that's farcical at best. What do Fido and Rover do when they get loose? Probably looks a little more like; RUN!! RUN!! RUN FAST!! STOP! GO OVER THERE! WAIT!! STOP!! RUN OVER THERE!!! RUN!! NOW OVER THERE!!. Tug on the chew tow. PULL!!PULL HARDER!!! Gimme Gimme GIMME! RUUUN!!!!
All of this to illustrate one point. The separation of what we traditionally think of as cardio (aerobic) work and strength (anaerobic) training is a completely synthetic, man made distinction. Those of you who know me know how big a fan I am of the Gym Jones video "One Piece." Now, while I don't agree with all their methodologies or the hype surrounding their unbelievably svelte Trojan warriors, the thesis in this video is an important one. The body is one piece. Train it that way. If you haven't seen the video, I've imbedded it below.
It's not just your muscles, your joints, or your cardiovascular system. It's your energy systems, your coordination and the amount of control you have over the whole thing. Why do you suppose there's so much overlap in conventional weight training? To get strong we do 3 to 5 sets of 8 to 12 reps. To train endurance we do 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 20 reps... They were never meant to be separated to begin with.
Challenge: Go pick up the heaviest thing you possibly can with a reasonable degree of safety. Do it again. Again. When you can't lift that anymore, pick up something that's almost as heavy. Keep going. Keep moving. Do the unthinkable. Keep moving that thing for 5 whole minutes. 10 minutes. How many times do you think you can move that thing in 20 minutes resting only just as long as it takes to pick it up again as you go?
How do you feel at the end of that 20 minutes? Starts to give you an idea of why Fido outlasts you in the park every weekend..and just how artificial and ineffective that 45 minutes on the treadmill in your 30% heart rate zone really is.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Doesn't take much.

The trainer carefully cherry picks two pink plastic coated Barbie weights from the rack, hands them to his 2nd trimester client. “Ok, here. Extend out in front of you like this. Not all the way now. Good. Just relax. Good. And rest.”….

Or the trainer could stop wasting the client’s time, pause to think about the demands pregnancy, labor & post partum recovery impose on the body and actually use their hour productively. How does one address strength in the lower back and the hip complex to ensure the body is equipped to deal with the increasingly low and off set center of gravity? For trained professionals, this should be the first thing we do. Stop. Look at what the client needs. Balance that with what the client wants. Plan. Deliver results.

One of the central tent poles of my practice is that fitness doesn’t just exist in the gym. To truly attain a higher level of physical fitness, we must be observers of the world around us ad the demands it places on our bodies every single day. How does it challenge you? How do you boil that down? How do you increase the challenge so that when the world demands of you performance of 8, you’re ready to give 12?

When a professional or collegiate athlete trains, they don’t simply train up to the challenge of their event. They train faster, harder and longer than the event or the game could ask of them. Each of us is an athlete. Each of us is tasked with performing at a higher level to get through the day. Maybe it’s a multitasking & coordination demand your ringing phone, satchel, hot Starbucks, rush hour and the subway stairs place on you in an instant. Maybe it’s just the fear of changing the water bottle on the office cooler that demands higher performance.

At any rate, I would like to pose the question: What do pink plastic coated Barbie weights and Lay-Z Boy padded machines on your gym floor have to do with any of that? Challenge yourself. Stand up off that bench or out of that oh so comfy machine that you’re so used to. Practice picking something up. Practice moving your weight through space. Practice sweating a little more than you’re used to.

If you’re not sure how, drop me a line. I can send over an idea or two. Try it.

If you’d feel more comfortable getting your feet wet with other like minded folks, stop in for this week’s Saturday Night Blowout. Details in the “Upcoming Events” field. Thanks for stopping in. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.