by IcennaEmach | Jan 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
A question generated by a previous article, “How You Train Determines How You Look”, is from a reader who exercises regularly, but still has concerns regarding the approach to training and disappointing visible results.
Question: I am 57 years old and have been exercising regularly for the last 9 years. I do cardio classes at the YMCA two times a week, yoga one day a week, and additionally I am in a weight training class two days a week. I eat healthy, feel good, and am at a good weight, although I’d like to lose about 6 pounds. I have a lot of energy too, but with all this exercise, I still don’t look like I work out. My arms are flabby, I have no waist, and my posture is semi-poor. I don’t understand your last letter on recruiting muscle fibers with weight training for a leaner look! Don’t I do that in my weight training classes?
Your concern is understandable and also very typical for many people who exercise regularly. You are putting much energy into working out, but you just cannot get the look you desire.
Here’s What You Need to Know:
What is Cardiovascular Exercise Good For? What is it Not so Good For?
Cardiovascular exercise is great for burning calories and for making the heart strong. However, it does little for shaping the muscles of the upper body or even the legs. It’s true, sometimes you’ll see runners or other people who only do lots of cardiovascular exercise like biking and the elliptical trainer and they have nice looking legs. However, this is rare and seen mainly in those individuals with very little body fat. You’ll notice they look good, even though their muscle mass is minimum. For the other 99% of us, we must use full range of motion weight training techniques to fully sculpt not only the muscles of the legs and gluteus maximus ( rear) but the muscles of the upper body as well, especially the tricep muscles ( back of upper arms). As an additional note, if you are not exercising with good form and through a full range of motion, you are encouraging bad habits and increasing the likelihood of furthering poor posture.
What Can Yoga and Pilates Do For Us?
Yoga, pilates, and well designed stretching routines are great for increasing flexibility, general strength, and core strength. They aid our appearance by helping us move more fluidly as in our younger days. Some people who are very lithe and slender can attain a lean look solely by faithfully implementing these forms of exercise. This advantage lays in their super low body fat percentage visually magnifying what little muscle mass they may have. For those of us who are not so thin and lissome, or want a more fit look, developing muscle through properly tailored weight training routines are critical to achieving a visually appealing body frame.
Fortunately, many of today’s yoga and pilates instructors are well aware of the benefits of specialized weight training for a more desirably aesthetic look. These savvy instructors smartly refer and encourage their clients to engage in uniquely designed weight programs that are not being implemented in their yoga , pilates, or general weight training classes.
How Specialized Weight Training Can Change the Look of Your Body
Weight training is different than cardiovascular training flexibility. Of all the forms of activity, it is weight training that is crucial to shaping our muscles!
Think about this, but don’t get the wrong idea. Body builders sculpt and shape their muscles through the lifting of weights. It is not through hours on the treadmill, hours in the yoga studio, or hours spent on the pilates machine that muscles are densely defined. Now, before your image of the body builder is taken to the extreme form, know that their training is highly rigorous, highly intensive and highly systematic. That’s ok for them, but for those of us that want just a small amount of defined muscle that looks good and gives us that chiseled smooth look, we need not follow their program intensity or duration, but only their highly specialized weight room system for building muscle.
The progressive overload technique as well as various forms of what is called pyramid training done properly and implemented correctly are two of the quickest ways to achieve muscle tone that has been lacking for years. And yes, even in the hard to define areas of our bodies such as back of the arms, abdominals, rear end, hips and shoulders. What you need to know is that regardless of age, you are capable of gaining muscle, gaining strength, and gaining the confidence that you can not only feel better, but look better. For this to occur, specialized weight training is crucial, but the results are remarkable! You can do it! I will help. Bodysmart gives you the flexibilty to train online, on the telephone, or in person. For questions or inquiries on training with kim go to [email protected].
by IcennaEmach | Jan 3, 2010 | Uncategorized
”The main reason diets fail, and health, fitness, and wellness goals are not achieved, is that our mental discipline weakens in an attempt to lose weight and become fit in a small span of time. Ironically, we consider ourselves weak willed and undisciplined when our dieting and exercise goals fail.” K. Miller
As a Health/Fitness coach and trainer in the St. Augustine, Florida area for over 10 years, I’ve seen many health trends come and go. Until a year or two ago, I received many exercise and health related questions from people seeking to obtain the “single” best approach to health. For example, “What is the best exercise?” “What is the best food?” “What is the best abdominal exercise?” And Etc. To most of us today, even novice exercisers, these questions appear narrow in scope and too basic for real health change to occur.
With the New Year here, this is a good time to summarize health observations. Specifically, I’ve noticed an ever increasing number of people gaining a better sense of what it means to be healthy and fit. They, it appears, are taking a broader and less superficial view than in previous years of what it means to be healthy and well.
There are many health observations that I could write about, but the three featured below were chosen because they represent an awareness that transcends superficial fitness practices and provide a hopefulness that I believe is necessary for real health change to occur.
Observations
1. We Use a Multi Tiered Approach to Health. People are savvy in what they require from a competent trainer. Years ago, a trainer needed only to be competent in putting a client through a vigorous routine without getting him or her injured. Today, this approach is fast disappearing. Trainers today must have an awareness and appreciation for engaging their clients in a more holistic approach to health, wellness, and fitness in order to keep up with the increased needs of their client base.
2. We Understand Exercise Cannot be Used to Mitigate Poor Eating Habits. The new attitude today is, ” I worked out hard today, let’s not mess things up by eating poorly.” People have adapted this new attitude because they are looking at food not merely as calories to be burned through exercise, but nutrition to be gained through proper eating habits.
3. We Realize The Best Exercises Are The Ones We Actually Do. There are certainly best approaches to take as it relates to a well balanced fitness program. It should include various aspects of fitness from cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and endurance, to flexibility, balance, and body composition. And, they should include the more wellness oriented aspects of health, such as stress reduction, nutritional needs, and relationships with friends and family. However, if we are not ready to tackle the full demands of what it means to be healthy and well, then pick one exercise and do it well.
It’s amazing how focusing on one activity can change the heart and mind of an individual. In my earlier days of training clients, I used this singular approach successfully by putting one through an intense, but manageable workout with the hope that their minds would become open to engaging in other aspects of health and wellness. It’s still a great approach, and can be used as the basis of jump starting any lifestyle change! Try it yourself and drop me an e-mail at [email protected] letting me know how you are doing.
by IcennaEmach | Jun 6, 2009 | Perspectives in Aging Well, Uncategorized
In his book, The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Doidge, M.D. writes, “competitive plasticity explains why our bad habits are so difficult to break or “unlearn.” Most of us think of the brain as a container and learning as putting something in it. When we try to break a bad habit, we think the solution is to put something new into the container. But when we learn a bad habit, it takes over a brain map, and each time we repeat it, it claims more control of that map and prevents the use of that space for “good habits.” That is why “unlearning” is often harder than learning, and why early childhood education is so important-it’s best to get it right early, before the “bad habit” gets a competitive advantage.”
Not Surprisingly We Are Conditioned to Fail
Often we are conditioned by advertisers to believe feeling better, looking better, and achieving a vital vigorous lifestyle are easily achieved tasks. Unfortunately, this type of thinking leads many people astray and more apt to act quickly,rashly, and consequently with a high failure rate when looking to overcome various adverse health habits that have been learned over a lifetime.
Slow, Progressive, Consistent Behavior Achieves Results For a Lifetime
The reason many people eventually fail in their weight loss and other health goals is they have not achieved a healthy, slow, patient, and consistent behavior change process that allows the brain to adjust to it’s new neural pathway patterns and brain map. Mr. Doidge proposes we must make space for our new habits, but not only must we make space for these habits, we must emphasize the manner in which we do so. Care and consideration for how we implement changing our “bad” health habits is paramount to making lasting lifestyle changes, and fortunately many of today’s savvy consumers are not buying into self denial, superhuman willpower, and hard to sustain dietary and exercise routines. These smart consumers are leaving many of these “dark age dieting techniques” to their unaware counterparts.
Think about this analogy the next time considering losing weight or making behavior lifestyle changes: An amateur or professional golfer and tennis player learns not in one day, but over a lifetime of practice, can you consider that the future of our wellness is no different. We learn and unlearn best like the golfer and tennis player who practices and “unpractices” his skills for a lifetime.
by IcennaEmach | May 24, 2009 | Perspectives in Aging Well, Uncategorized
“Most people would agree that our body would rebel if we asked it to go from an eight-minute mile run one day to a six-minute mile run the next. Yet in our fervor to diet down to the perfect weight, we ask our brains to do the same by drastically changing our lifestyle habits in one day. Consider that our brains, like our body, will break down under similar demands.” Kim Miller
I only ask that you think about this. It takes more than willpower to change our habits. It takes thoughtful consideration for who we are, patience, and strategic planning for us to make lasting lifestyle changes. Consideration for small incremental lifestyle changes is an absolute must for long lasting behavior changes. Let the old way of dieting be out and the smart way to a healthier life be in! You can do it. There’s no hurry.
by IcennaEmach | May 17, 2009 | Burn Baby Burn, Uncategorized
What happened to her?
She wants me to walk 14 miles a day to lose weight.
I’m worried about her!
I better tell her she’s taking this weight gain thing far too seriously!
Such is the feedback to my last two weight loss issues. Now I know how the playwright felt when a review read “There was only one thing that weakened the play. They opened the curtain.” But, there was an objective to the direness I wanted one to feel in reading the past two issues.
The objective was to point out that it is easy to gain weight, but hard to lose weight, and because of this, we would be wise to utilize preventative weight gain measures such as weekly weighing and logging of caloric intake. The illustrations were intended to expand awareness of what occurs when one gains weight quickly yet expects to lose the added weight just as swiftly. It appears I accomplished this! I even have death threat e-mails to prove my astuteness in bringing full awareness to my Fit Through the Ages readers.
In part, our problem with weight loss has to do with our expectations. It is easy for all of us to consume additional calories. Eating a delicious pie ala mode may take only 5 minutes, and is pure enjoyment, but burning the calories will take two hours of what some term exercise misery! If we gain a pound of body fat in a short period of time by consuming too many calories, should we expect to lose the pound in the same amount of time it takes us to gain it?
The explanation in the last two blogs on weight loss frankly illuminates how much one needs to exercise, or reduce calories by, to lose a pound in 3 short days was certainly preposterous. However, consider the irony of this with our own weight loss goals. That is, that many of us expect to lose weight as rapidly as we gain weight. Who is going to walk 14 miles daily for three days in addition to working out in the gym for an hour daily, and all the while consuming only 1,100 calories on each of three days? Unfortunately, this is the reality when the goal is quick fat weight loss.
Viewing typical information in different ways helps to put things into proper perspective. Weight loss is about putting things into this proper perspective.
Think about this:
It is easier to gain weight than it is to lose weight.
It is easier to maintain weight than it is to lose weight.
And, it is easier on the body, mind, and spirit to maintain weight loss when done slowly, deliberately, and smartly than it is to lose weight quickly only to gain it back. The days of quick weight loss with no sense of sustaining lifestyle changes will soon be a perspective of the past. Our challenge is to act smartly, and with a sense of continual progressive lifestyle changes that deepen our convictions to do more for ourselves than just lose weight.
