Tips to Make the Gym Trip Easier

I have noticed obvious frustration on the faces of gym-goers due to the larger crowd the last couple days and I wanted to share some dieas to make your trip to the gym easier:

1. Gym too crowded? Ask the desk worker when the least busy time is during the day. Chances are you can get in the gym when it is less of a fight to get everything you need to get done accomplished.
2. Define what makes you miss the gym- Do you leave work and stop by your house with intentions to go to the gym, and then end up staying at home. Make it your goal to go straight to the gym after work. When you go home, things come up and distratctions are there. Pack a snack to eat at work to hold you over until dinner after your workout. Pack your workout clothes and change at the gym.
3. Surround yourself with go-getters- If you really want to transform your body and improve your health, find some friends and/or family that want to do the same. Pick people that stick to goals. You will fail at attaining your present goals if your workout partner is the one trying to get you to skip the workout.

If you are just starting to workout again then it is a large enough of a task to break your bad dietary habits and sedentary lifestyle, use these tips to make the transition to a healthier you as easy as possible.

Ignorance in Health and Wellness- Pregnant Women

I was able to catch up with a guy I went to undergrad with and is currently finishing his masters. With both of our full time jobs and life, it had been a while since a meeting of the meatheads had happened. One of the many topics we discussed covered people who know nothing about personal training giving PT evaluations, but that individual is a whole other topic.

What I want to focus on is one of the prospective clients that his coworker received... a pregnant woman. Now there is a lot of areas with this particular client that could vary... meaning, the program that is written for this individual would need to be very individualized to what SHE can do without too much fatigue. ***I want to throw out a disclaimer--- I have only trained a handful of pregnant women and all of them were very good at communicating how they felt and my complete focus was maintenance of fitness and health and safety of the child and moms***

My buddy's coworker was supposed to take the client she was given through a workout that should focus on that indiviual's goals while taking into account their present physical condition. So she aced it right???? Let's see a recap of how the workout started...

(No warm-up)
Lat pulldowns- forget the front of the seat pushing on your belly.... ridiculous, oh and thanks for the warm up
Leg Press machine- great, lets put a pregnant women in a supine position and tell her to make sure her knees hit her chest... because that wouldn't cause any undue pressure on JR or cause any unneeded intra-abdominal pressure

Needless to say this "trainer's" workout ended here when a couple graduate assistants started listing the contraindications of just the first two exercises... baffling the "trainer"

Just when it couldn't get any worse .... WRONG, sigh.... a full time staff member (said individual who has no business evaluating any one) defended the "trainer" saying that she had been doing leg press all summer so she thought it would be ok... did I mention moron full time staffer is prego?

If you haven't punched the computer screen yet in rage, I want to recommend that if you or any one you care about is pregnant, please make sure that physical activity is monitored by someone that knows what they are doing. Weights and cardio is fine, if approved by doctor, but you should stay hydrated, never lay on your back, ask your doc questions about heart rate and body temp recommendations to stay under... pregnancy shouldn't stop you from working out, but you should take the basic steps to maintain what you can and grow your baby!

If any one would like help with a workout during pregnancy, email me and we can get you one. Also, check out Cassandra Forsythe's blog

DO YOU HAVE PROGRAMMING A.D.D.?

I was talking to a member of one of the gyms I work at and he is constantly changing his program. I usually recommend that people change their program every 4-6 weeks to avoid plateauing and prevent boredom. He varies his program too often. He want to be huge one week... then he wants to be lean... then he wants to get stronger... then he wants to just do arms one day.. and so on. I am sure that most of you know some one that can't stick to a program for longer than a week and a half.

You can have the best program written down and if you aren't consistent and don't really focus on the goal you set (weight loss, hypertrophy, strength) you aren't going to improve. Not giving the program you are doing a chance is similar to not having a program at all. Would you get directions off mapquest and then throw them out the window once you started driving to your destination?

Pick a goal. One specific goal and focus on it. You can vary the periodization of your program to have a hypertrophy phase, then strength building, then back to hypertrophy... or you can stick with the same rep and set numbers, just pick different exercises. Sticking with a goal doesn't mean you have to do the exact same workout. You are just doing the workouts for the same purpose.

Destroy Your Core at the End of your Session

I was working with a client today and she asked to be killed. She wanted to be pushed to the limit, but she was talking about a future session.... she should not have said that to me with forty minutes remaining in her session.

I had her completing cable chops (set a cable to the highest setting, keep your upper body rigid, and chop the rope or other attachment to your opposite shin) 12 each side, dumbbell shoulder press, and then a core routine listed below.

Each was done for thirty seconds:
Two point planks (alternating supermans done from a plank)
Three point planks (elevate and lower each limb separately before raising another)
four point planks
side plank
other side plank

And then threw in mountain climbers, seen below



I am currently writing her kill week workout which hopefully will help her lose the remaining 8 pounds that she is wanting to lose.