Tagged: fat loss
Runner Coaching Special Offer for December
One of my jobs over the past 15 years has been coaching runners of all shapes, sizes and ability levels towards whatever goals they might have in the running world. I have coached Boston Marathon qualifiers, 1:30 half marathon runners, and many, many people towards doing their first race straight off of the couch as well as walkers. I’ve personally done two full marathons, over a dozen 1/2 marathons and every other type of race over the years.
My belief is that anyone can accomplish their goal given proper progression over time and appropriate stimulation of strength and endurance combined.
Ottawa Race Weekend on May 23rd, 2015 is one of the best races in North America, and offers every type of race from a 5k right up to the full marathon. Most years I have 1/2 a dozen clients participating, and I’d like to offer for you to join my client roster with some online runner coaching from January 1st right to Race Day.
The good news about this service is that most of it is done via virtual support, which can save my clients money and time – get all of the guidance you need to without having to come into the studio and train in person.
What is included with coaching:
- An assessment of your goals and current ability with a realistic goal setting strategy for your race.
- Weekly workouts programmed month to month with distances, paces and skill workouts outlined in detail (hill work, tempo work, interval work and others if needed).
- Adjustment allotted for treadmill users and cross training suggestions for people who don’t want to run all of the time!
- Constant feedback and adjustment to schedule if needed due to time constraints.
- Race Week and Race Day coaching including nutrition tips and course strategy – know exactly what you’re going to do before you do it!
- Support and follow up continually for the duration of your program from start to finish.
As a special promotion for Ottawa and the month of December, anyone who is attempting Ottawa Race Weekend (or any race in May) can receive coaching beginning January 1st up to and including Race Day (and afterwards) for only $299 plus HST. This is an incredible value for the runner in your life, or if you are even thinking about participating in Race Weekend (or doing another race in May elsewhere). Get your spring running fitness set right away in January!
If you want to see or contact references of past success stories or have any questions feel free to contact me through the web site or at paradigmfitnessottawa@gmail.com, or simply call me at 613-252-2972. I look forward to helping you reach whatever goal you are working towards.
Sometimes, Strength Can Be Simple
Often my first few encounters with people are met with trepidation and fear. These are people who are injured, and have been for a long time without getting any type of improvement or change in their condition and they are tired of it, or often have just resigned themselves to feeling a certain way for a very long time.
I’m of the opinion that if you do the right things to tissue, it is a living thing and it can change to adapt and get stronger given the right stimulus. I’ve managed to prove this to myself and my clients over and over again through the years by giving their tissue exactly what it needs – more capability to handle stress under load without overtaxing the nervous system and causing pain, which is more often than not a defense mechanism or warning sign that something isn’t quite right.
My most recent example happened just two weeks ago. I began working with a woman who has had what was diagnosed as “tennis elbow” (by a sport medicine doctor) over nine months ago and has been living with daily pain since. She’s been doing physio weekly and has had not one, but two trainers working with her as well. She was actually referred to me by a colleague in another city after moving to mine.
So I’m doing my assessment and taking a very careful look at her elbow and notice that there seems to be a lot more laxity in the joint than on the opposing side. Her shoulder, elbow and wrist were also quite weak and unstable (unable to hold force without deviation) on that side. So as a result I spent a lot of our first full session together increasing her elbows’ ability to hold position, and also did a movement designed to apply force directly through the radioulnar joint into the humerus. Isometric elbow extension, limited range elbow flexion, and finally a simple direct push isometric into the joint with a lot of force. Result? Immediately after a simple 20 second isometric application she stated that it felt “better – strangely better” as she proceeded to fully extend her elbow (which she couldn’t do 2 minutes previous). As we proceeded with the rest of the movements things continued to improve.
Three days later she said that she had slept through the night previous, something she hadn’t done in months due to pain, and suddenly her elbow was a lot stronger – strong enough to do weighted pulling movements, which is something else she hadn’t done in months. All from a very simple – but deliberate and intentional – application of force to an area.
Now two weeks later we can do upper body pulling movements with load – something she couldn’t do two weeks ago and was afraid of doing when she walked into my studio.
Here’s the thing – if a wall is falling down, do you let it fall part way, then stop it there and start repairing it? No. You shove it back into place and then put a bolt in it so that it doesn’t fall down again. That’s strength.
So many people have a misconception that strength means that they have to move a boulder or throw something over their head. That they will get big and huge overnight if they even look at a weight. To me, strength is the ability of the body to hold onto force through its’ varying joints without causing trauma that causes that tissue to degrade. If you can move a bit more force through that joint (picture your knee during a knee extension) without the joint being compromised and losing the ability to hold position – that’s strength. If you can run 500 meters further without causing your legs and back to degrade to the point that you slouch or start striking with the wrong part of your foot – that’s strength.
Stronger tissue also means shorter recovery times, meaning you can either train more or train harder. Stronger tissue means that simple everyday tasks don’t have to cause you pain due to a joint going way too far out of its’ appropriate range of motion. The great thing about your body is that if you stimulate it properly with just enough force, it will adapt. Every single time. And, it is so intelligent that it will learn how to deal with that level of force by laying down more tissue in order to deal with the requirements being put upon it.
The greatest thing about this concept is that you can literally apply it to anyone. Have an elderly relative who can’t lift a grocery bag? Find a way that they can lift one that’s half or quarter full, or weighs 3 pounds. Then, once they can do that, add a pound. On the flipside of that you might have an athlete who can perform explosive fast movements for 45 seconds, but needs to be able to do it for 60, or maintain strength after being on a basketball court for 35 minutes with little rest. Find out where their threshold is and take them just a little beyond (if they can handle it at the time) and then the body will do the rest.
And for pete’s sake – if you are dealing with a professional who isn’t working towards resolving the problem and still throwing money at them – stop it. There’s a thousand practitioners out there in my city alone. I’m not saying that I have all of the answers, but sometimes what is done to people in the name of “therapy” makes me shake my head. Here’s a very simple statement: If your practitioner can’t tell you what they are trying to do to make sure your problem resolves and doesn’t happen again – every time – then find someone else who can.
And the next time you’re in the gym, or on the field, think about what you did last time. Then do more.
Overweight Teens Helped by Weights and Cardio – And Man Lands on the Moon.
A recent study in the Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics found conclusively that for teenagers between the ages of 14-18, a combination of weight training plus cardiovascular work is the best way to “fight teen obesity”. This is the headlines that went up all over the country and internet saying that the amazing findings of this study were that if teenagers did strength training and cardio work combined instead of just one or the other, they would lose more weight.
This is news?
I hate to say it but that was my first reaction. However, when I took a closer look at this study I found that there were in my opinion some flaws in the methods used to determine this conclusion.
Basically this study, which you can read HERE took 304 overweight teens and put them into four groups, one of each doing only strength training OR cardio, one doing nothing, and one doing a combination. They did this program for 22 weeks (almost six months!). They were also given diet counselling. At the end, the group that did the combination of both was found to have lost less body fat overall (compared to the strength training group), but their waist size decreased the most – by a whole centimeter. That’s not even one whole pant size.
Therefore this shows that a combination of aerobic exercise and strength training is better than strength training alone or cardio alone. Again, this isn’t news to anyone (I sincerely hope). This has been proven time and again to be the best approach for those of you out there who are looking to drop inches and pounds.
But when we look a little closer, the criteria for what they consider “overweight” has some flaws. They cited overweight as at or above 95th percentile of BMI or 85th if there was one or more risk factors or health condition already existing (like diabetes). So this means that a teenager with a BMI of above 28.5 (the cutoff for 95th highest BMI percentile according to statisticians) is overweight or obese.
Do you know what that means? An 18 year old who is 5’10” and 180 pounds qualifies for this study as an “overweight teen”. A BMI of 24 actually falls into the 85th percentile of qualification. So if my daughter is 5’3” and weighs 135 pounds according to this study she is overweight. Oh, and another note – when she turns 18, even if she is the same height and weight suddenly she has dropped to the 74th percentile. Does that make sense?
Pretty much any athletic teen is going to weigh at last that much and sometimes more. Using BMI as a method of overweight is a highly flawed criteria in my opinion. There’s a lot of other flaws. They obviously weren’t all following the same diet. Who knows how many workouts they actually completed on their own. It didn’t indicate if any of them were athletes previously, inactive or high level performers. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for a 16 year old football player to be 5’8 and 160 pounds but have very low body fat and high muscle mass.
This football player is overweight according to this criteria.
So this made national (actually international) news because we heard about it up here in Canada. I guess it was a slow news cycles, what with war in the Middle East and a deadly epidemic spreading around the world.
The simple fact is that kids today don’t get enough exercise. Currently 59% of adults in Canada are overweight or obese in Canada (as of 2012). We can blame a lot of things here. Increased screen time, lack of physical education and after school sports programs, deteriorating nutrition both at home and at school and simply the fact that overweight parents tend to have overweight children because kids learn many things from their parents, not the least of which is eating habits. The medical industry unfortunately can’t or won’t help because many doctors have no clue about proper diet and exercise habits themselves. Many doctors I have worked with or attended have been relatively clueless about these things because it really isn’t their job to know about it even though they are expected to.
However, if you do have a young teenager or someone younger at home then the good news is you can keep their weight down. Guess what’s a great way to get both cardio and resistance exercise without a gym?
Sports.
Whether your kid is an individual sport kid (like I was – I ran track, did cross country skiing and played all racquet sports) or a team sport kid (like my sister who played basketball and hockey) there are a couple of dozen options available for each type. And even if the cost is prohibitive to a budget for things like hockey, there are tons of community resources available in any city for parents who want affordable exercise for their kids. Even something like martial arts isn’t ridiculously expensive, teaches really great fundamentals of coordination, discipline and uses lots of strength at the same time. Finding time as a busy parent can be hard, but what’s the priority – a healthy, happy kid or a promotion at work?
The sad thing is that I have trained kids as young as 8 and 10, and they could barely balance enough to walk slowly on a treadmill. Kids just simply don’t learn these things when they are developing any more. I could go on a rant about parenting and education these days but I’ll save that for another time.
So if you have a teen that is struggling with weight, maybe a good option is to get them to put down the Ipad, register them for a few sports or activities to see what they enjoy doing and get them being active and moving around more. Long term they will be much better off for so many reasons. Maybe even do it with them if you need help as well. Things like martial arts or even group exercise are easy to do with your teenager. Take your kid for a run or a bike ride on the weekends instead of staying inside. Take the whole family out for a long hike without any technology.
Like I said at the beginning, it isn’t news that kids need more exercise, or that a combination of things is likely to help them lose that extra centimeter. But it starts with actually getting them involved with exercise.
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It’s Biggest Loser Time
It’s that time again – I saw the first inspirational commercial yesterday, with two former NFL athletes who are now severely obese starting on their weight loss journey followed by millions of people. Complete with massive weekly weight losses, lots of crying and screaming from trainers, product placement shots from Jenny-O brand ground turkey and Subway and lots of manufactured drama we can look forward to another person losing up to 50% of their body weight whether it be healthy or unhealthy.
You might remember at the end of last season where the winner looked severely depleted on the finale and there was a massive public outcry about her weight loss methods and how unhealthy they were both physically and mentally (and then it was revealed that most of the finale winners do the same thing, she just did it better). So here’s a few revealing notes about this show and some things to think about when approaching your own fitness regime, if this show inspires you to get off of the couch and actually get healthier.
The Winner is pretty easy to pick right away
Here’s the thing – when your body was fit and healthy in the past it really, really wants to get back that way again. Some of the contestants have been unhealthy and overweight their entire lives, and these are the ones that have a hard time once they hit a certain point. The contestants that were formerly athletic and thin (and have a ton of weight to lose) make the final 4 almost every time (unless they get booted due to politics), and almost all of the winners have been fit in the past, either when they were younger or just a few years before. So when I’m watching and I hear that “I was a high level athlete in high school/college” or there is someone who turned 20 and then gained 200 pounds that’s the person you’re going to see going really far unless they sabotage themselves or fall victim to the game politics.
I won’t comment on the trainers except to point out that the workouts they put the contestants through aren’t anything revolutionary or different than what a decent trainer would do – except at a much higher intensity (which isn’t always a good thing) and with lots of screaming and drama for the benefit of TV. And just because they do it – doesn’t mean you should.
Lesson: Your body likes to be healthy – and will try hard to get back there even after you have done awful things to it. It might take a bit longer to do so, but odds are you can get back there as long as you stick with it.
What these people do daily is NOT healthy
Contestants on the show are contractually obligated to burn x amount of calories every day and eat x amount of calories, all of which is controlled. The workouts you see with the trainers are for about 1 hour of the day and are somewhat staged, but they do work out – for hours. People hurt themselves constantly and sometimes you see it and sometimes you don’t, but if you watch you will notice how sometimes things like knee braces and support tape start appearing. When they go home, inevitably their weight loss slows down – because they aren’t working out hours a day and they actually have a real life time management situation with family, children and jobs. If many of you could dedicate 15-20 hours a week to exercise and eating right, you would lose weight too, possibly just as rapidly. Don’t assume that just because they did it, you can too – real, healthy weight loss is much more gradual.
Most of the gains you make while attempting to lose weight are done outside of the gym by eating properly, lowering stress and sleeping well for recovery so that you can exercise again as soon as possible. This is how real gains are made over time.
Lesson: Your body also likes to make change gradually, and will fight back against doing anything forced. Give yourself time and constant effort and the weight will come off.
Why load a leg press with only yourself?
Buyer beware with the products that they push
Please remember that the products that they promote are based on marketing dollars – not the best products. For example, on the most recent episode they were promoting canned soup. Low calorie, certainly – but canned soups are often high in sodium. There are also highly processed ingredients in them, even if they claim to have chicken or vegetables as an ingredient. Subway, which has been a huge sponsor of the show has been shown to not have much more nutritional value than many other fast food places. Things like Lara Bars and other quick snacks are fine once in a while, but should not ideally be eaten over something natural and whole. Ground turkey and chicken are good protein options, but possibly having a whole product from your local farm would be a much better idea (and cheaper). Instead of vegetables cooked in a plastic box, get them fresh from the produce aisle. The trouble is that the general public doesn’t know and will blindly purchase something because they paid the show to be a sponsor – don’t be that person.
Lesson: Just avoid anything processed as much as possible. Eat real food whenever you can. Period.
Don’t get discouraged if your personal journey takes a long time
The main focus for anyone changing their lifestyle should be HEALTH FIRST. In case I didn’t say that emphatically enough. Scale weight coming off is a nice by product of maintaining an exercise program and eating whole foods within your caloric requirements, but it should not be the top priority. In fact, stay away from the scale at the start if you can. Compare how your clothes fit, think about things like energy levels and sleep quality and improve steadily day by day – then step on the scale. Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise when you have had all of these amazing benefits plus you’re down 20 pounds. On the show they do some brief doctors’ visits with lots of tears and crying, especially when people do things like lower their blood lipid values or successfully reverse diabetes onset. The thing is – you can do that too. It’s really not that remarkable if you just start treating your body with respect.
Lesson: Getting started is the hardest part, but pretty much any condition can be slowed, stopped and even reversed if you do things the right way. You don’t have to feel the way you do right now if you’re unhappy – it’s a choice.
Television shows are meant for entertainment, and this show is a prime example. As I have said in the past, if this show inspires regular people to get off the couch and start exercise, eating maybe a bit healthier and changing their lives then fantastic. Obesity is a horrible epidemic that will continue to get worse if we don’t start getting smarter about it. This article simply means to point out some perspective on the fact that what you see (especially in the fitness industry) often isn’t real.
Until next time, losers. And I mean that in the nicest way.
Therapy and Exercise Refined 