What you can learn about fitness from the Superbowl

Superbowl Sunday. What kind of fan are you?  Are you glued to the set, watching every replay and hanging on the announcers' every word? Are you just there to rip on Madonna, eat hot wings and rate the million dollar commercials? Or is it a day for you to get outside in the garden or get a head start on spring cleaning? Superbowl Sunday is many things to many people.

This year's game was very different for me than previous games. This is the first Superbowl I have watched as a married man. My beautiful and amazing wife is from Russia and knows very little of our national game. This Sunday we sat together on a friend's couch in front of a giant bowl of guacamole and watched our first Superbowl together.  By the end of the first quarter she had come to the conclusion that football was five minutes of fighting followed by two minutes of advertising.  I couldn't disagree with her. At a certain point she asked me, “why do you like this game so much?”

I answered that I liked the game because it is equal parts physical and cerebral. She seemed amazed that there was any thinking involved in the game, but as a former player I assured her that despite all the violence, football is a thinking man's game.

Prior to the Superbowl, the game is dissected for two weeks by shouting former players with loud suits and enormous jock knots in their shiny silk ties. Offense, defense and the kicking game... should they run, should they pass, how does the quarterback react to the blitz?  I can't stand all the blah blah and hype for more than ten seconds, but the incredible amount of preparation put in by coaches, players and broadcasters got me thinking about how important direction is is any activity.

Football is a very physical game, played by powerful genetic freaks who combine amazing strength, speed and agility, but without preparation and a solid game plan even the the most talented teams can appear utterly lost.  The game is a chess match, and each piece is a highly specialized and trained athlete who has been programmed by his coach to do everything in perfect synchronization with his teammates.

So how does this relate to fitness?

I've spent thousands of hours at the gym over the years, training my own body and working with my clients. Over the years I couldn't help but observe the coming and going of so many gym members. Often I saw the same faces in the gym, day after day but never saw any change in their bodies. Bench presses, treadmills, leg curls, spin classes and thousands of situps- and yet absolutely no discernible progress. All that time, all that activity and not much to show for it.  It reminds me of a classic old cliché  used by several of my former football coaches – never confuse activity with progress.

 If you doubt the impact the coach has on a football team, consider this year's San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers in the last several years have been horrible despite having a roster filled with talented players. Last year they fired their coach and brought in Jim Harbaugh, a former NFL quarterback who had turned around a very mediocre program at Stanford University. With virtually the exact same players as the previous year, Harbaugh led San Francisco to a 13-3 record and nearly made it to the Superbowl. Under his direction, the underachieving 49ers finally reached their potential.

Spinning your wheels in the gym? Lots of activity and no progress?  Consider hiring a new coach. Don't know who to hire? In my next post I will break down how to pick the right trainer for you.

Getting started, the basics of program design

When I was teaching program design to new trainers, there were a lot of questions about the latest hot movements in the magazines and videos. There are always new trends and modalities that become popular and become the new "It Thing" at the gym. Kettlebells, Vipers, Power Platforms and TPX are examples of great new trends in fitness that can really add to a program design.

That being said, there is definitely someting to be said for the basics. Especially when you are starting out. I always designed my programs for deconditioned clients with 8 weeks of basics before we began to move into more complex movents.

When you, the client are starting out, basic multi joint movents are going to be the most effiicent means for acheiving measurable results and building the skill set necessary to succed at advanced movents. When designing a program there are four basic movements that should be included in every program: the squat, the lunge, the push and the pull.

Effective combinations of these movements can be gradually variated over 8 weeks and the body will be leaner, stronger and more cooridated, definitely ready to take on the hot trends in fitness. Multi joint exercises are preferred because they are functional, involve major muscle groups and are a very efficient use of your time. So lets talk briefly about these exercises.

The squat - if I was on a deserted island and only able to choose one exercise for the rest of my life, it would be the squat. Why? Because it builds strength in the legs and the lower back,  the real source of strength and power for sport and life. Strong legs and trunk is a great recepie for a healthy body. The thighs and butt are the real winners cosmetically, for those of you into it for the beach body.

The lunge - is actually the squat done on one leg. It is functional, can be done in many directions and duplicates many forms from sport, dance and life. Balance, strength and coordination are improved by practicing lunges, and again the thigs and butt are rewarded cosmetically.

The pull - is really important because it the muscles on the back are cucial for good posture and spinal health. Nearly all of the muscles of our upper body are designed either to push or pull. Most people tend to use their push muscles far more often than their pull muscles, creating imbalances and injuries.  In our daily lives, we spend much of our days hunched over while driving, eating, working at computers, and other activities. Sports involving hitting or throwing as well as pushing motions like the  pushups or the bench press contribute to a forward shoulder position that can be very damaging to posture and result in pain and injury that can be felt from the low back up into the kneck and shoulders. By developing the muscles of the latisimus dorsi, posterior deltoids, trapezius and rhomboids you can help to balance out the tug of war of the upper body and achieve a healthy and pain free posture.

The push - the great mass builer for the anterior or front side of the upper body. Charactarized by pushups, dips and the bench and military presses, pushes are a gym favorite and for good reason. These are large and important muscles both cosmetically and functionally. Athletes who throw and strike require strong push muscles and emphasize them througout their workouts. I always use caution though, when designing push muscle programs, because these muscles are often overdevolped in many athletes, especially men. If forward, rounded or raised shoulders are an issue, I will often design a program of 2 or 3x more pulls than pushes to balance things out.

So there you have it, the four multi joint movements that make up basic program design. Gradual progressions of these four exercizes for eight weeks in my experience is the best way to get a new client instant results and prepare them for their paarticipation in more advanced work.

I hope this helps all of you who have recently started or are looking to get started. To learn how to do these exercises safely and properly, check out my youtube channel for the building block basics.

Будь здоров! Be healthy

Good for the posture and the shape - the pull! A strength training basic is explained and demonstrated

PART TWO:THE UGLY TRUTH

In my previous post, I discussed the beautiful lie – that lean, muscular and sexy abs are easy to achieve through simple movements. Just buy this gizmo and in no time at all your belly fat will disappear and everyone will love your new physique. Now it is time to swallow the bitter pill of reality.

The ugly truth is, that it takes a complete, whole body, long term fitness, nutrition and lifestyle program to lose bodyfat.

The truth is that we cannot pick and choose what parts of our bodies we want the fat to disappear from. (have you ever seen someone with lean sexy abs and fat flabby arms?) Most people lose fat off their body in a first on / last off pattern. This means wherever it was on their body that fat first appeared when they began to gain weight is also going to be the last area for them to lose it from as they gradually lose weight.. We can't choose. It was decided for us before we were even born. It's called genetics.

The truth is that those people on television are professional fitness models. They live and breathe health. They sleep eight hours, train 5 or 6 days a week, drink lots of water, eat 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, have excellent posture and are blessed with great genetics. Most of them are former gymnasts, dancers or elite athletes of some sort.

“But my friend Brittany just does (pilates/crunches/leg lifts, etc) and she has great abs.”

Yes, I'm sure she does. And my best friend in college, Rob – had the best abs I ever saw. He also ate one meal a day (usually a double cheeseburger with fries and a shake) , never worked out, and drank and smoked like a sailor.

That's the thing about great genetics, some people have them and most people don't. In this way, life is not fair. My friend Rob was born lean and strong, and stayed that way into his 30's (despite his rockstar lifestyle) I could out lift him, out run him, out box him and beat him in every sport known to man (except video games, Rob was unbeatable at hockey), but I never had abs that looked like his.

So, the lesson is: don't choose your fitness routine based on what Rob or Brittany or some Navy Seal on TV does or says. (an in the name of all that is Holy - stop comparing yourself to them!) The ugly truth is you may never look like Rob or Brittany.

But there are things you can do...

Eat well, get lots of sleep, and train your whole body. The body fat will come off, a little at a time until you reach your genetic peak. Check in with your trainer to make sure your routine isn't getting stale. Change up your workout to break through plateaus. Make an appointment with a nutritionist or registered dietician to get on a nutritional program that is right for you. It will be a wise investment and will probably cost the same as that new Malibu Pilates Chair that your favorite 80's actress is promoting at 2am on the Lifetime Network.

Here's another often ignored factor that drives my clients crazy: stress. The human body has not evolved at the pace that our lives have changed in the last few hundred years. As a result, the body associates stress with a biological reality of our past - famine. Therefore, a human body under stress will horde body fat to deal with the anticipated lack of food in its future.  A hormone called cortisol is released into the body which helps the body pack on abdominal body fat so that it will survive to live another day.

In our daily lives, stress can be caused by our relationships, careers, finances and many other factors. The unintended result is - abdominal body fat!

So, the ugly truth is that a stress management program can really help you get great abs! Much more so than the Extreme Ab Power slide that was designed by a Navy Seal.

Of course, nobody is going to get rich on TV selling stress management solutions, so nobody ever hears about this inconvenient but very real truth about abdominal body fat.

Training your abdominals is a great thing and you absolutely should do it, but make it a sensible part of your fitness routine, and you just may get that lean sexy waistline that everyone loves!
Будь  здоров! Be healthy!

THE BEAUTIFUL LIE

Probably the single most frustrating thing about being a trainer is constantly fielding questions from clients about new exercises that will give them great abs. The question is asked so frequently and is very frustrating to deal with as a trainer, because the client never wants to hear the truth. So when I tell them the truth, they become frustrated that I don't have a secret wonder ab exercise that's going to make them look like those models in the latest infomercial.

“It's much easier to sell a beautiful lie than an ugly truth.”

I'm not sure who originally said this, but it certainly applies to the people who market products that promise to give you “that lean and sexy waistline that everyone loves.”

Just use the ab dolly for ten minutes a week and you'll get ripped fast!

Look at this celebrity, he uses the product and just look at his six pack!

So it's no wonder that clients show up to the gym armed with questions about how they can get those fast and easy results. The answer to their questions is, unfortunately – you can't get fast and easy results – the people on television are lying to you.

Get used to it. It's called a marketing ploy.

In the fitness industry, beautiful lies make millions of dollars for those that tell them. And all the consumer ends up with is another gimmick that ends up in the closet, under the bed or on Craigslist.

In fitness advertising, there is no need for proof, especially when you can write in teeny tiny letters at the bottom of the page “results may vary”. So advertisers are virtually free to say anything they want to sell the latest product, regardless if there is any validity to the product at all. Think about it, if you could tell a beautiful lie on TV and get rich doing it, wouldn't you? Fitness is the easiest industry to tell lies about because there is no watchdog. Nobody ever goes after the makers of the Ab Dealy 5000 because they sold a million units to a people that still have beer bellies.

All of these lies are based on one giant myth: THE MYTH OF SPOT REDUCTION!!!1

It's based on this idea – you have fat around your belly, so if you exercise the muscles in that area, the fat will go away and all that will be left is lean, sexy muscle. It's such a beautiful lie that almost anyone will believe it, but it is simply not true.

Between your skin and muscle there is a layer of fat called subcutaneous body fat. It accumulates on various areas on your body in varying amounts based on your percentage of body fat and your genetics.

If you have fat around your midsection, strengthening your abdominals will not make your belly fat disappear. You will have strong abs – but nobody will see them under the layer of fat that is still there.

“OK, so we get the beautiful lie – what's the ugly truth?”

The ugly truth will be exposed in my next post...

 Будь  здоров! Be healthy!

PART ONE:THE BEAUTIFUL LIE

Probably the single most frustrating thing about being a trainer is constantly fielding questions from clients about new exercises that will give them great abs. The question is asked so frequently and is very frustrating to deal with as a trainer, because the client never wants to hear the truth. So when I tell them the truth, they become frustrated that I don't have a secret wonder ab exercise that's going to make them look like those models in the latest infomercial.

“It's much easier to sell a beautiful lie than an ugly truth.”

I'm not sure who originally said this, but it certainly applies to the people who market products that promise to give you “that lean and sexy waistline that everyone loves.”

Just use the ab dolly for ten minutes a week and you'll get ripped fast!

Look at this celebrity, he uses the product and just look at his six pack!

So it's no wonder that clients show up to the gym armed with questions about how they can get those fast and easy results. The answer to their questions is, unfortunately – you can't get fast and easy results – the people on television are lying to you.

Get used to it. It's called a marketing ploy.

In the fitness industry, beautiful lies make millions of dollars for those that tell them. And all the consumer ends up with is another gimmick that ends up in the closet, under the bed or on Craigslist.

In fitness advertising, there is no need for proof, especially when you can write in teeny tiny letters at the bottom of the page “results may vary”. So advertisers are virtually free to say anything they want to sell the latest product, regardless if there is any validity to the product at all. Think about it, if you could tell a beautiful lie on TV and get rich doing it, wouldn't you? Fitness is the easiest industry to tell lies about because there is no watchdog. Nobody ever goes after the makers of the Ab Dealy 5000 because they sold a million units to a people that still have beer bellies.

All of these lies are based on one giant myth: THE MYTH OF SPOT REDUCTION!!!1

It's based on this idea – you have fat around your belly, so if you exercise the muscles in that area, the fat will go away and all that will be left is lean, sexy muscle. It's such a beautiful lie that almost anyone will believe it, but it is simply not true.

Between your skin and muscle there is a layer of fat called subcutaneous body fat. It accumulates on various areas on your body in varying amounts based on your percentage of body fat and your genetics.

If you have fat around your midsection, strengthening your abdominals will not make your belly fat disappear. You will have strong abs – but nobody will see them under the layer of fat that is still there.

“OK, so we get the beautiful lie – what's the ugly truth?”

The ugly truth will be exposed in my next post...

fitness basics 1 - the squat