Wellness In the Park Training, Free Fitness Class in Rochester, NY.

Core Strength demonstration.

With so many ways to work on the core, the demonstration of this push up (with its own many ways to switch it up and diversify it) is only 1 of HUNDREDS of exercises to improve a person's strength. 

Exercise to tone the body requires physical activity with diversity.

The EASY WAY to move that body and ingnite that metabolism!

Metabolism and Physical Activity, I can do what to increase my metabolism?!!!


Every time a person moves their body they increase the output or burning of calories for energy which is a result of the metabolic rate of the metabolism.   Not to get to complicated, but the energy systems of the body label aerobic and anaerobic.  The use of oxygen output are a results of different types of physical activity and the body will use either Carbs or Fat as energy sources to support metabolic output. 

The way a person exercises will fall into 1 of 3 categories to either maintain or improve a part of the body/function.

 MUSCLES         2.  JOINTS          3.  HEART/LUNGS (Cardio)

Our Components of Health-Related Fitness create sub categories to apply exercise training principles.

Muscles are worked on by practicing muscular strength and endurance exercises


Joints are worked on by practicing flexibility through stretching exercises


Heart/Lungs are worked on by practicing aerobic activity such as walk/run/bike/swim.


What does all this mean?  Well, it is simple to place any type of exercise into one of the components of health related fitness becomes health enhancing.  If a person would like to tone the body (which is increasing muscle and decreasing fat), then they would be told by a personal trainer to work on Muscular Strength and Endurance, with Cardio and some flexibility too.  All the things a person should be doing anyway to maintain their health. 

Every exercise a person can do will help increase their metabolism, but sequencing exercises to fall into an specific intensity level and order can change everything.  I will post in my last two blogs some specific ways to exercise to fire up your furnace we call a metabolism that will be burning calories for hours post workout and allow the fat burning process to be moving exponentially faster then you could have ever imagined, but only if you apply it....

Walk into a fitness center, now what?

In the Gym options                        2.20.12

The analogy I use when people ask me this question, “what should I do when I get to the gym/fitness center?” or “what is the best way to get me in shape?” is simply this, look at me as a personal trainer/fitness specialist in a gym more like a librarian at a library.  A librarian does not say go read this or only stay in that area.  What you do & how how you do it should be based off of many factors, so what are these important guidelines that should dictate what to do with all the gym options out there?

First a person should understand your 5 components of health related fitness because this is what makes up all the parts of physical health.  An assessment should be performed to see where you rank within each category, some of the answers you might already know, like you need to lose weight, but truly knowing your actual body fat percentage is a powerful guide not only as a measurement of progress, but it is one of those 5 major components of your physical health.  Flexibility, Muscular Strength & Endurance, and finally Cardio-Vascular Endurance are the other four fitness components.  Simple test can reveal results that will be guiding principles for your physical activity.

Each component plays a vital role in your success at both the gym and at home.  I always say training yourself is a lifestyle, not something you do at just a fitness center.  The idea is to combine as many components into a workout as possible.  Never truly repeat a workout, but make small modifications to movement to increase resistance.  Full body is the way to go with an emphasis on never really taking a break, but perform what I call an “active rest” (walk to get water, stretch, perform small simple one joint movements, breakdown or set up next movement (exercise)).  It is common to always see people around the gym beings social butterflies, taking long excessive breaks, and only performing simple one task movements that only work one part of your body within one component of fitness at a time.  All that takes LONG & is a waist of time with yielding very little results.  Getting on one piece of cardio equipment (like an elliptical) for 45 min. consecutively will not burn fat off your body in an effective way, that is totally utilizing your bodies energy systems in a “slow motion” way. 

The basic principle of knowing what to do at a gym should be totally driven by how you want to live your life, more specifically your goals.  What should you accomplish, how long will it take to get there, does my ability limit my options, how do I actually exercise effectively in the shortest amount of time?  Well, if you have any of those questions, that is exactly what a quality personal trainer can answer for you!

FAT burning MISTAKE 4.....

Here is one part of a plan that a person can do if they want to ignite the body's own fat-burning furnace and get lean, strong & totally ripped in less time

Fat Burning Mistake #4: Repeating the same workout routines over and over

Repeating the same workouts over and over is a surefire way to STOP getting results. We're creatures of habit and we tend to stick to things we're familiar with and good at. But when it comes to your workouts, if you want to keep making progress and keep seeing changes in your body, you've got to start switching things up.  Even though I train at a traditional gym (with each piece of equipment designed to do one thing only, not multi functional), my personal belief is we really don’t need to leave our house as long as we have some basic equipment like a medicine ball, a resistance band, one kettlebell, a sturdy chair, maybe a physio (exercise)-ball, & hopefully a full set of stairs.....I train many clients out of their own homes & quickly teach them special techniques that drive fitness results home very fast.
You see, your body has an amazingly ability to adapt quickly and when it does, that's when you hit the dreaded plateau and you stop making progress.  Utilizing your own body weight in effective movements can combine 3 different components of your fitness (Cardio, Muscular strength & endurance) for maximum results and the possibilities are endless with these exercises.

With so many movements out there to choose, I suggest this.  Start with you own body weight & think of how many different ways you can support it based upon your anchor points (hands & feet) with moving as many joints as possible.  Here are a few examples:  Chair dips with a leg raise, walk like a duck, bear crawl on all fours, star jumps or some more traditional with added twists:  Squat while performing an over head press with just your hands, over course body alignment is critical when moving like this.  Another idea is to be in push up position and you have two options, perform a push up as your raise one leg straight up or after push up raiser one arm straight over head with a rotation of the head/spine to follow that hand to make a sideways T. 

The idea is to take basic body weight exercises like squats (lower body), push ups (upper body), dips (upper body), pull ups, and various styles of walking (full body) and get them to be full body movements by moving as many joints as possible while maintaining great form.  I NEVER perform the same workout with a client, it is always progressing & building off the basics of how we move our joints & that leeds to a strong core.   No two sessions should ever be alike and that is how a person never repeats what they are doing, its two easy NOT too!

Work smarter about your daily routine, here is an idea...

Self Report of regular life style physical activity vs. organized exercise.  Do you really need a gym to have health benefits of movement?.....Here is something I do to be active  as a household chore, but turn into a fun fitness idea with adding that mental aspect of awareness. 

Component of Health Related Fitness Impacted:
                    Muscular Strength & Cardio-Respiratory Endurance
Task:  Shoveling Snow

Equipment :  Coat, gloves, boots, hat, & shovel   VS.     Various styles of Fit apparatus

Results of Shoveling:    Walked 1.5 miles in 30 min. of physical activity
        Took:  2418 steps of which 1264 were in my aerobic zone for 14 min
            Calories:  230 used & I definitely was in my Target Heart Rate Zone

How did I record the above statistics?  A pedometer, which is a step counter, but I have a super fancy one that has software, gives reports & I had to program my stride length, age, height & weight for the feedback of the above results.  Plus, this pedometer is specifically a walking and/or running pedometer made for movement is straight lines that is constant verses playing a game of basketball or tennis where constant direction changing is taking place.  Mine is super accurate, but all the steps & other stats mentioned above are off because I took more steps.  Reason being I wasn’t walking in a straight line consistently, my snow shoveling had a lot of stoping, shifting and other moving takes place when I shovel in a small space.  Basically, the pedometer is very accurate in a straight line, but sometimes does not record smaller movements.   So to me as a personal trainer to get the above stats is impressive, but to add that I know it was actually more beneficial because of outside variables such as lifting the snow, pushing shovel with upper body joints only, and actually feel my heart rate in my target zone for the entire duration of shoveling which was 30 minutes in length.

The take from it, well I always kept my feet moving & strategically moved snow in a pattern (like a repetition for when lifting weight).  The idea was get a physical workout with being aware of bending my knees & @ certain joint angel points to be just performing a push motion with one side of my upper body, then repeating with the other and my feet just slightly shifting..  When I paused to push the shovel with one side I definitely noticed my body alignment to have a flat back & then lifting heavy snow definitely needs to have balanced form.   The boost of energy required to impact to components of fitness definitely makes this a health enhancing activity that would keep my metabolism running high for a few hours after being done. 

How to BURN FAT OFF, Literally....

Here is one of the WORST things you can do if you want to ignite your body's own fat-burning furnace and get lean, strong & totally ripped in less time....

Well the worst things are that way because they waste your time and the bottom line, time is money.  To me its about working smarter, not harder, more efficient if you will.   What I am talking about is not maintaining your health, because all exercises have their place.  I’m talking about RESULTS driven movements that can develop a super strong heart and core, which in turn creates a lean, mean body....

Mistake #1: Doing long bouts of cardio
Look, you need to do cardio if you want to lose weight and burn fat...BUT there's a right way and a wrong way to do your cardio workouts. If you've been pounding the pavement or the treadmill with nothing to show for it (except sore joints and a pair of stinky worn out sneakers), you already know it takes a lot of effort to get minimal results. 

Of course cardio-vascular fitness is one of your 5 components of health-related fitness and needs to be maintained for optimal health.  So getting on your fav piece of equipment is fine, but for results driven effect this is how it falls on the worst list for FAT BURNING!

Combined the cardio with strength and endurance movements that utilize as many joints as possible.  A “Burpee and/or Squat Thrust” uses ever joint on the body & requires full body dedication to form & core strength.  The idea is to have super high intensity with functional (real world) movements that combined energy systems like cardio & musculare endurance with strength from body weight too.