Myth #3

This is the myth of crunches for a flat stomach.

Here’s an email I received this morning and my response:

Hey Emily how are you?

I just wanted to say hello and give you an update. As we have discussed my stomach was always my issue and for some reason it is still there. I have done the crunches, the ab excercises stopped eating after 10. why is it that my gut is not going  down like i thought it would???

- L

L-

Unfortunately, there is no “miracle” fix, nor is spot reduction possible. There are more than a few things to adjust, though in assessing what you are trying to accomplish…

You will NEVER see your abs if you have fat covering them, even if you do crunches until you die. Ab exercises will help to strengthen those muscles (and crunches are not even my favorite- more on that another day), but will not help you see them unless you are fairly lean-  even a lower body fat percentage for men than women.

Here’s a few things to look at and assess even before you :

- Are you doing intense cardio?

- Are you doing total body resistance training (to burn calories and create more muscle?) If so, are you doing it enough?

- Are you counting your calories and reducing your entire caloric input?  It doesn’t matter WHEN you eat, it’s the amount that you eat that really matters.

- Are you consistent in your efforts?

I hope that helps.

Emily

Taking a (rather long) hiatus from my list of myths, here’s a short article I wrote that appeared in our gym newsletter last week.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

You are probably familiar, at least in part, with this quote by Albert Einstein. While Einstein is best known for his scientific achievements, most notably his development of theories of relativity and winning the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, for most of us, it is simple statements like the one above that remain applicable in our day-to-day lives. For example, how are your workouts? And yes, I’m talking to you Mr. Trot-Along-At-Level-3-On-The-Elliptical-Machine and you Ms. Hundred-Daily-Curls-With-A-Three-Pound-Weight. Here are three signs you need a change

1.    You’re bored — Your workout routine has become something you dread, yet you do it anyway simply because you know you “should.”

2.    You are not seeing results — You work out with the goal of gaining muscle and/or losing fat, yet your body looks exactly the same as it did a year ago… or five, if not worse.

3.    Your workout isn’t hard… at least not any more — The mile you run at a ten-minute pace every day doesn’t leave you sweating and breathing heavy like it used to do; yet you still run at your usual pace.

Any of these look familiar? Complacency is an easy rut.  It just might be time to mix it up.

Believe it or not, our bodies are very efficient at adapting to the stimuli placed on them. This is why doing the same workout becomes easier over time. You also burn fewer calories once these adaptations have taken place. If your workout is no longer difficult, chance are you’re not going to see the results you desire.

How can you make these changes?

Work with a trainer. It’s not often that you find an individual with the personality traits required to push themselves further and harder as someone else can. A professional can provide new insight as to how you can attain your personal goals and will guide you to perform exercises you may not have considered on your own.

Switch from the elliptical to a treadmill, or a treadmill to running outside with the Colony Square Running Club. Consider changes in your terrain, your method of movement, your resistance or your speed. Make a point of rotating out of a familiar workout environment in favor of something different to add newness to your routine.

Increase the weight you lift. Change from barbell exercises to dumbbells or even to bodyweight exercises. Try out a TRX band and
incorporate balance to challenge yourself in new ways.

Finally, check out our group fitness schedule. In the month of May, we are adding several new classes, everything from Pilates to
jump rope that should help you to stay motivated and keep it fresh. Then you will start to see the results you’ve been working so hard for!

Myth #2

Each time that I meet with a new client at the gym, we talk through goals- what he or she has been doing health and fitness-wise and  the desired accomplishment. . With so many people, I get to the part in which I ask about the client’s current diet. Often,  the response is something like: “well… I like junk food, but that’s why I’m at the gym.”

Which brings us to our next unfortunate truth…

You can’t out-train a bad diet.

This is something I say to clients on a daily basis. There are so many advantages to working out regularly, but unfortunately, with the exception of long, endurance training, the workout you do rarely actually negates everything you ate.

I just came across a video from  Craig Ballantyne (creator of a great program called Turbulence Training) that very simply proves exactly that.

Diet Vs. Exercise

Myth #1

As I have been working full-time as a personal trainer, I’ve noticed quite a few things that seem to come up over and over again. I admit, they are myths I used to believe myself.

Today is the first one, the myth of incessant cardio for fat loss..

This one is  personal- I’ve believed this, too! The truth is that I’ve, especially in the past, loved steady-state cardio. I like that it’s easy, that you can just put shoes on and head out the door.. or go to the gym and catch up on music videos or whatever is currently showing on E! (especially exciting when you don’t have cable at home!) with the knowledge that you’re doing something healthy at the same time. Sometimes you (and by you, I am talking about myself) want to go to the gym and just not think. Cardio is the perfect way to do this. You feel like you must be burning a lot of calories and fat and you’re on your way to a thinner body by each minute you spend on the machine. Sadly, this is often incorrect.

I’ve noticed the difference in my own body in running a LOT vs. running less and lifting weights. Rachel Cosgrove has an article emphasizing exactly that from her Ironman triathlon training. She says that she hardly lost ANY weight in her training, even though she’d often work out for 8 or 9 hours at a time! Unfortunately, muscle turns to body fat, when you are exercising for that long. She states that you have to determine your goals. Are you planning on training for an event? Or are you trying to lose fat? Unfortunately, they are not the same goals and they do not achieve the same results. Both require different preparation.

There doesn’t appear to be a magic number of minutes in which cardio begins to burn muscle in addition to fat, though I read to rarely do more than 45 minutes at a time, recently. Are you frustrated with your body despite a decent diet and gym visits? Re-evaluate what you’re doing. If you are wanting to train your heart for an event, continue what you’re doing. If you are trying to lose fat, it is more important to lift weights and do short, intense cardio than to do a LOT of cardio, especially at a steady state. Most people would not mind being at the gym for less time. You’re allowed! Just make what you do count. If you are the cardio king or queen, try mixing it up. Lift some weights, switch your hour on the eliptical machine for 20 minutes of  things like intervals, sprinting, jump rope, stair climbing, and/or jump squats.  See the difference in your workout and in your body.

My dad and me at the 2009 Cooper River Bridge Run

As much as I wanted to run a lot, all of the time, I have discovered, in the past year, that if fat loss is a goal.. running a lot burns fat AND muscle. I met with a woman yesterday who has been doing 1.5 hours of cardio every time she comes to the gym. She enjoys it, because it allows her to sweat out her daily stress… but she has lost only a minimal amounts of weight.

At my gym, we’ve changed our new client assessments recently to include a cardio test. With all new clients, we put them on the treadmill, increasing the incline and speed until they cannot speak more than choppy sentences while walking.  We’ve found, time and time again, that many people don’t know what it feels like to work hard and they’ve not been maximizing their time.

From a personal example, my body is smaller,  since spending months of not doing more than a few hours of cardio a week. I am, though, ramping up my cardio again. After quite a hiatus, I’ve replaced my running shoes and started doing more mileage, in preparation for my seventh annual Bridge Run, and a hopeful not embarrassing time. This time, for the first year, I am adding more interval speed work and less volume training. We’ll see how it goes.  I’m not thinking this will be my fastest year, but I have certainly missed running outside and am gladly trading in my TV watching for the sunshine and running tights.

Discipline or love?

It is January and I work at a gym. This is the busiest time of the year, by far.  We’ve seen so many new members come through that “resolutioners,” is what we’ve nicknamed the upsurge. More than a few people who joined online at the beginning of the year haven’t come in yet.  Of those new faces who are populating the gym, we predict many  are only weeks away from dropping off.

Though I haven’t had time to do much of anything lately (including get enough sleep!), I’ve glanced at my Google Reader and have seen quite a few posts on motivation- geared at the “resolutioner” types.. or just anyone who is trying to wrap their head around maintaining discipline. One in particular caught my eye and changed my perspective. The gist? There is no such thing as discipline- there is only love.

Here’s a direct copy paste. Located here via here:

The Myth of Discipline

by Charles Poliquin

There is no such thing as discipline. There is only love. Love is the most powerful creative force in the universe. You are the result of what you love most. You either love finely etched muscular abs more than donuts or you love donuts more than wash board abs you could do your laundry on. It is as simple as that. Don’t beat yourself up that you have no discipline or further drown yourself in a sea of refined carbs. Admit that you like crappy food more than you love strength. Or ask yourself this, what do you really love? Self-esteem is the reflection of self-judgment. One of the best ways to raise self-esteem is to make truly loving choices that lead to increased strength of body and mind. For example, if you truly love yourself in the gym, you choose the full squat with chains over the leg extension machine. At the restaurant, if you truly love yourself, you pass on the heavenly smelling basket of bread and creamy butter, and ask for some more limes for the water. Limes alkalize your body which in turn helps your bones, muscles and your ability to deal with stress.

When you are faced with difficult choices, ask yourself, in context of course, what would a loving expert recommend? For example, when working chest, would a loving strength coach recommend the pec deck, or full range dumbbell presses. When choosing desserts, would the loving nutritionist recommend a bowl of berries or the triple decker brownie submerged under melting vanilla ice cream.

How to free yourself from the outdated concept of discipline:

1. Accept that all your choices are reflections of what you truly love.
2. Love is the greatest creative force of the Universe. Use it wisely.
3. Choose to love yourself more than external things.
4. Treating yourself well accelerates the growth of your self-esteem.
5. When people comment on your results and say things like “Wow you have a lot disciple” answer “No, I just make loving choices for myself”. Reinforcing your own positive behavior will help you grow in strength.
6. What you appreciate appreciates. Whenever you make a truly loving choice, say to yourself ‘Thank you for taking care of me in a loving way”. The more you talk to yourself like a loving parent, the faster you will grow. Let’s say, for example, you just did a single on the squat with a load you didn’t feel like doing. Say: “Wow! I am impressed with your strength of mind, that’s why you are a champion”. By documenting and rewarding your successes, they will grow in magnitude and frequency. Whenever I meet a goal, I reward myself with positive things like a vacation or a new piece of equipment. When I get something better, I make the choice of giving away the old piece to someone who will appreciate it. Living a clutter free life allows for more growth.
7. The more you believe in yourself, the more objectively you will be able to take the advice of authority figures.
8. “Use your faults” was French singer Edith Piaf’s motto. I don’t like to stretch athletes. It is too time consuming and requires too much energy. Using that fault, I developed the Poliquin Instant Muscle Strengthening Technique (P.I.M.S.T.),  which is a system that uses a myriad of body work techniques such as acupressure points that instantly give increases in flexibility. No wonder it’s always the fastest selling course we offer in the PICP!

There is an old Hindhu saying: “The World is as we are”. Are you tired of seeing the condition of the world around you? Start by changing yourself- be the change you want to see in the world.

A Few Worthy Reads

Today, I have been given two links to things I think are worth reading.

If you go back and see, I have read both of Michael Pollan’s books this year. He asked his readers to contribute dietary “rules they’ve given themselves.” Smart and some a little funny. Most good advice. The first one might be my favorite- “Don’t eat egg salad from a vending machine.” Ha!

Michael Pollan’s Favorite Dietary Do’s and Don’ts

Also, as a business major in college, I heard all about management and manufacturing theories. Two opposing theories are just in case (having everything you need just in case you need it), and just in time, (getting what you need when you need it.) The second link here is an article from a back issue of Oprah magazine, talking about how drastically our lives would change if we (like most modern manufacturers) applied “just in time” thinking to our lives.

TRX

This week, I spent my Sunday leaning into a vinyl strap.

It’s called a TRX band. It hangs from the ceiling and extends into an upside-down “Y” with straps that can be attached to hands or feet. If you’ve seen The Biggest Loser, gone to a gym, or read a fitness magazine in the past year, you might have heard of this.

The neat thing about this is that you can work out your entire body, just with this and your own body weight. The company is called Fitness Anywhere, and since you can We learned at least 20 or 25 exercises you can do on the TRX, all progressed or regressed based on your body angle and your foot placement. All three of us who went were sore.

I’m looking forward to this! Here’s a video from a Crunch gym to show you what a group class looks like. (DJ not included.)

Dominant Sides

Commonly, one side of your body will be stronger than the other. This happens for a variety of reasons. A client I trained a few weeks ago  found one side of her body more dominant  because she had formed the habit of picking up her eight year old (when younger) and now her four-year old on the same side of her body. You might feel more comfortable bowling with one arm or kicking with one leg.

When you start training with weights, a major concern is to correct muscle imbalances for the sake of vanity  and symmetry, as much as to feel capable of performing everyday activities as well as possible with all parts of your body. What is the way to do this?

Start with your weaker side. Do as many reps as you can with that side of your body. Then switch to the stronger side and do the exact same amount. You might feel like you’re not working the stronger side as much, but consistently doing thist will eventually create more balance in your physical abilities.

What Time Got Wrong

There has been a lot of buzz lately regarding a recent Time article entitled “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin.” I am not going to offer my own rebuttal because so many other people have done it well here and here and here, here, here, and here.

Have a few minutes? Click on some of the links. It is fascinating and should make a lot of sense. The article falsely states that exercise almost always leads to poor food choices and weight loss is not achieved.

General consensus in all of the rebuttals (the ones I linked to above and plenty of others) is that you need both diet and exercise for effective weight loss, something the Time article didn’t state very well. Neither is as nearly as effective alone.

The Next Right Thing

I am in the midst of a fairly sudden-onset change.

I’m getting ready to leave the city I’ve lived in for the past nine years and relocate to a different state. Things have come together amazingly, really. I am incredibly thankful right now. I have so many great people that I’m leaving behind in Nashville whom I’m going to miss and who have been the best part of years of life. I have parents and long distance friends who, from a far, have listened to me talk about so much that would bore me to death if I were them. I have friends in Atlanta who have helped me with so much over the past few months as a random suggestion has become a reality. I’m blessed to have a job I’m excited about starting and to be living with a friend of a friend who is also moving there- a girl whom, from my email conversations and phone conversations alone (we’ll meet the first time when we move in!) I feel like has already enhanced my life through her enthusiasm and love of God.

So, in the midst of all of this, there is so much unknown, especially for a girl who likes to have everything secure and settled. First of all, in thirteen days, I have nowhere to live. The place we’ve deemed “most perfect possible” for our needs is not going to work out, or at least for today. I don’t really know what exactly what to expect from the job, from my schedule, from everything else. Right now, it seems like there’s so much to do, so many people to see. It doesn’t stop.. and might not for a while!

The pastor of my church in Nashville has repeated a few things over and over again that I hope to take with me for my life. One of these is something I’ve found myself saying to myself frequently as of late and to others. It is:

Do the next right thing.

We will rarely have large events in our lives mapped out for us. When we try to wrap our arms around them is when we often become overwhelmed. We will rarely know the answers to the big questions in our lives right away, but we will always know one thing we can do next, trusting that something will reveal itself as the next right thing afterwards. John Ortberg (and countless others, according to Google) have said that sometimes “the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap.” Sometimes it’s to sit still in the midst of bustle, to pray, to check things off the list, or to go for a walk.

What’s my next right thing? I think it’s talking with an old friend who won’t be so close in thirteen days. And I’ll figure it out from there.