Christmas Day is over! However, the holiday threats to our lifestyle still challenge us! The invitiations for more gatherings are eminent. A few more tips to keep you on track.
6. Set yourself up for success:
Eat before you arrive at your social event.
Bevy up with soda between or to replace alcohol drinks(use a wine glass so friends don’t hastle you to have a ‘real’ drink) Read the rest of this entry »
The Christmas Holidays are a challenging time to avoid temptations, be true to your lifestyle savvy and make time for what should come first all year round…Your Health.
Here are a few strategies to help you be successful right through till the New Year.
1. No day but today to Take Charge. If you have a solid routine of fitness and healthy eating practises ’stick with the plan’. If not, spend an hour looking at the week ahead of you and figure it out before it disfigures you! Follow the golden rules: exercise, eat right and get plenty of rest! Take charge of your thinking, your schedule and your behaviour. Every choice you make has a consequence. Manage your choices well and the consequences will be favourable to your waistline, energy and sanity. Read the rest of this entry »
“What we call failure is not the the falling down, but the staying down” Mary Pickford
We’ve all attempted at one time or another to succeed at a lifestyle change. Lose weight, get our 8 hours sleep, stop smoking, eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce fat in our diet, take our vitamins daily, floss daily, the list is endless.
No matter what you have tried and failed at, let it not defeat you from trying once again. The past 8 weeks Team Fitness Personal Training facilitated a lifestyle challenge. Inspired by the biggest loser this challenge didn’t resemble the reality TV program in any fashion. Much more than a weight loss camp, our challengers busted poor lifestyle habits, discovered fitness benchmarks and then worked at improving those scores. They became educated on nutrition and most of all they became accountable to themselves, not a couple of hard nosed trainers looking for TV ratings.
Some excelled and had weekly success while others struggled daily. Congratulations to those who excelled. You are to be commended. Those who fell short of their goals however; you need not despair. Everything that you learned along the way is in your archive and can be pulled out in a heart beat to be used when you pick yourself back up, regroup and set the next goal of lifestyle change.
If you stay down and never attempt to reach the lifestyle goals you set, that will be considered failure. Every day is a new day for new beginnings, new triumphs, perhaps another failed attempt. Nonetheless, each time you pick yourself back up is one more success than the day before.
So, keep working toward positive lifestyle change. One day you will reach the goal, check it off your list and start on the next one. We look forward to encouraging you onward and sharing in your next triumph!
Mention the word ‘interval’ training and it can be a sure fire way to intimidate some to steer clear. The thought of interval training conjures up images of super hard bodies, die-hard fitness enthusiasts and athletes. However, interval training can be a most effective addition to any program allowing you to see faster results in less time.
The key to interval training is intensity. The technique involves intermittent exercise cycles of low and very high intensity. Each interval has a pre-determined time and intensity. The work interval (high intensity exercise) is immediately followed by a recovery interval (low to moderate intensity exercise) and repeated for duration of time.
For example: After an appropriate warm up increase your walk pace to an incline for one minute followed by 3/4/or 5 minutes back to regular pace. Or, jog at the same incline for one minute followed by 5 minutes of walking, repeat this interval 5 times. Intervals allow you to perform many minutes at a much higher intensity that you would otherwise not be able to sustain consecutively. By interspersing recovery intervals, you extend your capabilities, you accomplish more work and you burn more calories!
Interval training like any other type of training should be introduced progressively into your workout plan. Add an interval session once a week to start. Challenging interval workouts should not exceed two workouts per week and be separated by at least 48 hours to allow your body to fully recovery from the intensity.
It is important that you set a specific time for each interval rather than simply exercising strenuously. Work and rest intervals do not necessarily have to be equal in time. In fact, in the beginning rest intervals are longer than work intervals. As you become accustomed to the training, gradually decrease your rest time until the ratio of work to rest is equal. Then you may wish to increase the work time while keeping the rest time the same.
It is important to select an intensity that you can maintain for each interval. In the beginning you will feel very fresh and be capable of a great deal of work, however, if you start out too intense, by the time the fifth interval comes along you may not have enough left to complete the time and pace.
Your ultimate goal is to perform 10 to 20 minutes of high-intensity work each session, excluding the recovery time.
Interval Training is a great way to add variety and challenge to your cardio workouts. No matter what your level of fitness or goal there is a way to implement this kind of training in a safe and appropriate manner. It will assist you in every imaginable goal from weight loss to running your first 5km, a faster 10km or mountain bike climbs.
Cardio or Aerobic workouts need to have a purpose, a plan and direction, just like you do in the weight room. Gone are the days of ‘winging it’. Seek the advice of your trainer to help you plan a cardio program that will compliment not only your lifestyle but also your specific health and fitness goals or sport!
Need a coach CONTACT US!
….Why do your joints ache after exercise as you age?
Your joints are aching because you’ve been using them a long time. Seriously, day in day out. Up, down, up, down. Jump, jump, jump, sometimes fall down, many times fall down. Running, jogging, pounding. Day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. You use something long enough, its going to wear down after a while.
That is what is happening to your joints. Bone degenerates after use and abuse, fluid and cartilage pads that buffer bone from bone shrivel up and no longer offer the same protection and cushioning from physical challenges.
Excess body fat adds Read the rest of this entry »
What is the minimum amount of exercise I can get away with and still maintain a reasonable level of fitness?
Well, here’s hoping you are already starting with a reasonable level of fitness. If you are, then you need to at least maintain the regime you are presently at to stay where you are presently at.
That said, if you have been on a fitness surge to achieve a goal of fitness and weight loss, the good news is you can back off ‘a little’ and likely hold your own.
Try to remember, the more active your lifestyle is day to day, the less ‘routine exercise’ you will need to schedule. For example, if you ride your bike to and from work most days of the week, you’ve just taken a couple of cardio workouts off the block. If your job is physical, well that helps with weight work outs. Enlist your friends to socially active plans and swap out family movie night with bowling, biking or game of cherades!
The other thing you need to determine is Read the rest of this entry »
Is it true that running, unless supplemented by progressive resistance training causes bone loss?
Oh Contraire! running in fact helps stimulate bone growth not loss. Resistance training also helps maintain and increase bone density. Diets low in calcium and vitamin D and lack of weight bearing exercise are the culprits of bone loss.
So, keep running, walking and weight training, 30 minutes each day to reverse any bone loss that has already occured. Take a minimum of 1500mg of calcium and 1000 to 5000 IU of VD daily to help prevent further leaching and you’ll have the best chances of fending off osteoporosis and late life fractures!
For those of us with arthritis, what is your biggest tip for continuing with our fitness program, when we can no longer run or jog? Too much stress on the knees. I don’t like swimming!
Arthritis is the term given to describe joint inflammation. It manifests with pain, stifffness and joint swelling. It can slow you down, stop you and if you let it, paralyze you.
My advice to those of you who have it is accept it and get busy discovering ways to work around it. You may not like swimming, however if it is the only activity that helps you stay physically active and can be done pain free, do it. Do it often and and remind yourself that swimming is something you can do!
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Work, kids, volunteer work….I’m sure you could add your own list of obstacles that squeeze your time budget so tight that exercise gets budged out!
We all have the same amount of time in a day. 24/7. A key thing to remember, is your time is 100% yours, until you give it away. Exercise is not going to show up in your day unless you’ve shown it the way into the schedule in the first place.
Second key thing, exercise doeesn’t have to look like exercise for it to give you physiological benefits, up your endorphins or help you lose fat! Just simply think about moving, move, and move often . What I mean by that is figure out how else you can be more physically active while you are attending to your life.
You may be one of those DH or XC die-hards who will ride solid till a 
blanket of white lays under your tires. Good on ya! However, if you are nearing the end of the season and feeling a little antsy, it’s time to put that energy elsewhere. That said if you haven’t had a few weeks off now is the time to get some recovery time in. Bare minimum ‘two weeks’.
The spring season will be on us in no time. Make this spring your best entry yet. It won’t happen curling up on a cozy couch watching repeats of ‘Counterparts’ or ‘Days of Dirt’. Time to make a plan for your spring re-entry.
Early bird discount for ‘chicks’ and clients for dryland training in the studio!! LEARN MORE // REGISTER CLICK HERE Read the rest of this entry »
