Hello again! It’s been a lovely day, and some time in the park earlier today has me inspired…I spent some time throwing a frisbee around with some friends, and had a blast! Not only that, but getting out and getting moving helped me work out that kink in my neck I’ve had (stress relief?).

And all that play reminded me of one of my favorite quotes, “We don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing.” There are a lot of people out there who are serious about fitness, and that’s good, but even better is to enjoy your fitness and use it to do things you love. I mean, if you don’t get out there and play, you’ve got much less of a reason to keep at it. And if you do get out there and play, what ever that is, you’ve just made your journey into health that much easier, and helped fight that familiar threat, burnout.

Even better, have fun with your fitness routine. Do things you like, work toward goals, and play around with it. For instance, I can tell you there are a few routines I find difficult, heart pounding, and FUN! I love bodyweight exercises, and finishing a set of pushups on a half-ball brings a smile to my face, right after the concentration and anguish is over.  It’s all a matter of finding what you like and keeping at it. Everyone has something they love, I promise.

So, take advantage of this beautiful day–and hopefully the weekend, too!–and get out there! Remember, it’s not about getting into shape, it’s about getting into LIFE!

Hello again, my loyal readers. It’s been a busy couple of weeks getting everything together for High Intensity Training here at AlaskaFit, and I’ve missed a few Thursdays. However, things are back in full swing, and I am here to share some more advice.

I’ve been teaching a full on, high intensity class this week that leaves my students tired, panting, and worked out every day of the week. Even so, there’s a question circulating around my class, “What do I do over the weekend?” Well, you rest. (All my bootcampers and clients, pay attention. This applies to you, too.)

Rest does NOT mean you sit on the couch all weekend, and it doesn’t mean you don’t exercise.

It does mean that you engage in light-moderate exercise at the most. Something to remember is that all exercise is cumulative. That means that the activity you do over the weekend stacks on top of any exercise you do, and, if it’s active, it is exercise.

So ride a bike, go for a walk or hike, play with your dog in the park, enjoy your weekend and don’t stress too much about whether you “exercised” because as long as you were active enough to raise your heart rate for 30 minutes you did.

This isn’t just a cop out or an excuse to lay around, either. Rest is necessary if you are going to work hard all week, get results, and avoid injury.

Rest gives you the energy you need to keep working as hard as you can in class or at the gym.
Rest gives your body a chance to rebuild what was damaged (and, to a certain extent, exercise always damages muscle).
Rest reduces your stress so you don’t burn out.

Have a great weekend and remember…Rest. It’s important.

Hello, Everyone!

I hope you’re having a wonderful Friday and I hope that you have a great 4th of July weekend!

I’ve got some hikes and bikes planned for the weekend, and I hope all of my bootcampers and clients get a chance to use that fitness they’ve been working so hard for! After all, it’s not about getting into shape, it’s about getting into life, right?

I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that High Intensity Boot Camp begins July 18th, and it’s going to be a fun one! We’ll be meeting at Cuddy park. Click here for details.

After all the things we’ve talked about, you might be saying, “How does this affect me?” “Chris,” you might say, “I like who I am. I’m not really into getting outside or working out. I like to read, cook, paint, crochet, talk to my family and hang with my friends.” As a friend of mine put it once, you might say, “I’m fat and happy.”

Loving yourself and your interests is great! And I’d never ask any of my clients to change anything about themselves that makes them who they are. There’s something you should know, though. You’re health, and that is what we are talking about here, isn’t just your issue.

This isn’t like preferring a typewriter to a computer or liking sauerkraut. This is a health issue, and the choices you make about your health affect everyone around you. Sometimes it’s by setting an example, sometimes it’s just the subtle influence you have on people around you, but sometimes it’s more serious than that. When we are unhealthy we need more help from our friends and family and are able to give less help to those around us.

That might sound ridiculous, but let me give a personal example.

My mother is getting older, and has old injuries that keep her from being able to do certain things well. I go shopping with her and help her load her basket with the heavier items. I help her around the house, and help fix things at her home. I love doing that, and I wouldn’t be able to do it half as well if I was in poor shape. I wouldn’t be as willing, either. Being fit gives me the energy and strength I need to be able to work hard and still have energy to help my family without it being a struggle.

And, of course, it doesn’t stop at being able to help more! You can put that same energy into doing more painting, singing, cooking, and spending more time with friends, too! I remember a client telling me that they had the energy to stand at choir practice all night without feeling like they had to sit down once, and that was wonderful news.

So get out there and have a safe & happy holiday weekend.

Til next time,
Chris

P.S. If you are ready to do something about your health and fitness, call us at 783-1241.  We would love to help you!

If you’ve followed my previous posts, you know I’ve been defining some of the principles of exercising.  Today we dig a little deeper.

When most of us think of exercise we think of walking, jogging, or weight lifting. These are great exercises, but to really understand exercise we need to understand two different types of exercise: Aerobic and Anaerobic.

Our body has two different systems for providing energy for the muscles: the aerobic system and the anaerobic system, and they work quite differently and for different purposes.

The aerobic system is the system most of us are familiar with.  It is used for longer duration sustained effort, such as jogging and walking. In this system your body uses oxygen to turn fat and glucose (blood sugar) into usable energy for the muscles. The quicker you need to do this the more oxygen demand is put on your body, which I know all of my boot campers understand as they are running through the cardio training in camp.

The Anaerobic system is used in short-term, high-demand work such as sprinting or weight lifting. It relies on energy stored in the muscle that must be replenished before it can be used again. So, you might find it doable to sprint 100 yards or press a heavy (for you) weight 10 times, but no one can sprint a mile because or press a heavy (for them) weight for 10 minutes because there isn’t a person alive whose muscles can store that much energy ready to use. On average your muscles can store enough energy for almost one minute of hard work without needing a rest.

“Aha!” some of you may be saying, “So if I want to burn fat and lose weight I need to do more cardio, right?”  Well…no. It’s more complicated than that because our body is ALWAYS USING BOTH SYSTEMS EXCEPT WHEN WE ARE AT COMPLETE REST OR OUR FASTEST SPRINT OF EXERCISE.

Anyone who’s been to our boot camps knows that they can push themselves to work hard for longer than one minute (laborers do it all day), and that’s because our body is using energy from outside the muscle (fat and blood sugar) to continually replenish the energy stored within the muscle. The end result is that we can push ourselves harder longer than if we had to rely on just one system.

When you come right down to it cardio exercises by themselves are one of the slowest ways to burn fat. The best use for cardio is to strengthen your heart, but if you want to burn fat there’s a better way. Since our body uses fat to replenish the muscles and do the day-to-day maintenance of the body, we can make it use a lot more by giving it a lot to fix while we rest.

By using short bursts of high intensity exercise we can exhaust and cause minor “damage” to our muscles that our body has to repair and replenish.  The entire time it does this it will draw the majority of it’s energy from fat! We can work out and burn more fat with 20 minutes of work than a treadmill walker will do in an hour!

If this sounds exciting, make sure you’re here tomorrow as I talk about the very best way to do this– high intensity interval training.

Hello my Loyal readers!

Last week I told you all about the S.A.I.D. principle and how it is the basis of all exercise.  It’s one of the most basic principles of how your body works.

Today I’m introducing another principle, and this one will almost seem to contradict the S.A.I.D. principle. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you how they both work together.

The S.A.I.D principle says that to get stronger or better at something you have to use that part of your body or that skill, again and again.  Nothing else will develop what you’re looking for.

Today’s principle is called “Adaptivity.” It’s related to the S.A.I.D. principle, but looked at from a different angle. Any skill you practice or exercise you repeat will get easier until it isn’t difficult anymore.

Here’s what that means: If you do 30 pushups everyday eventually those pushups will be easy. So easy that you could do them in your sleep. If you practice your tennis serve constantly you’ll eventually be able to put the ball in the same 5 inches everytime.

This is great news! If we like to play sports and hike and bike, we can go further, faster, and harder and master any skill simply by repeating it.

There’s only one problem: if it isn’t difficult, it isn’t a workout. If you aren’t working hard in some way, for example, wobbling as you balance, sweating through your cardio, straining to lift that weight or hold that stance, you aren’t going to see continued improvement.

Even though it’s true that we can constantly work on the same thing to constantly improve, eventually we become good enough at it that it’s not challenging enough for us.  We master our skill, we run as fast as we can.

Once we’ve mastered it though, it’s not the end.  You never reach the end of your fitness, there’s always a way to improve.  But it means we have to be creative.  We must constantly change our workout if we want to keep getting great results.

This may seem like a hassle, but actually it’s a good thing, because our body isn’t the only thing that adapts. Our brain adapts, too.  Doing the same workout again and again gets really boring.  This is why you’ve started at a gym, been great for about 3 months, get bored and quit.  No change.

It’s also why we now have 3 more campers this month celebrating their 1-year anniversary with us (Congratulations to Faye & Joe Sullivan and Sandy Brewer).  Our Boot Camp workouts are never the same. I do all of the work to change your workouts and keep you from getting bored physically or mentally.

We do follow familiar formats so that no one gets lost, but we change what we’re doing, and I have several formats that I throw in there as well. We never do the same workout twice in any month, and even across months my workouts don’t repeat often. What this means for you is that you can get all of the benefits of always changing workouts without having to plan your own.  Get an expert workout, tailored to your body, without the hassle of planning your own.

Here’s a quick sample of what we do. You’ll work the arms with biceps curls one day, uppercuts with a resistance band the next, static exercises another day, and as part of a full body exercise another. Not only do you get the best workout you can this way, but you’re never bored.

And keeping your mind engaged in the workout is just as important as keeping your body learning.

Until next time,
Christopher Rayner

If you’re a boot camp regular, you can skip this first paragraph and get into the “meat” of this blog post.  If you’re new to AlaskaFit, welcome!  I’m Chris.  I’m a personal trainer, certified by the National Association of Sports Medicine (NASM).

Ginny asked me to help her out and start blogging, so here I am.  I’ll cover all kinds of topics, including workout advice and tips and tricks from our boot camps, along with success stories and other fun stuff from Boot Camp.  You’ll have to check back each week to see what I’m up to.

There are as many different types and styles of exercise as there are minutes in the day.  Not only that, there’s often more than one name for each type of exercise! Trends come and go in the exercise community (remember Tae Bo and the ThighMaster?) and create new buzzwords to go with them. But the good news is whether you are talking about weight lifting, isometrics, Crossfit, or high intensity interval training there are a few basic principles that cover all exercise.  Today we begin at the beginning and discuss the most basic principle.

The S.A.I.D. Principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. Everything about exercise is based on these 4 letters.  In non-trainer-speak, it means that your body adapts to what you’re doing.  So, if you want to be a better sprinter, leg presses may give you strength in your legs and that  COULD make you faster.  But if you want to sprint better, practice sprinting.  If you want to be a better tennis player, play more tennis.

I know what you’re thinking…Chris, I practice boot camp.  Do I want to be a better boot camper? Well, yes.  But that’s not why you come to boot camp.  At boot camp, we train your body to move better, balance, engage your core and overall we teach the pieces (arms, legs, core) to work together better.  What does this get you?  It gets you a better life.  When your body works and feels good, everything in your life is better…right?

So my campers and loyal readers, the question for you is, what do you want to be able to do well? This can actually more important than weight-loss or fitness results, because if you’re training only to lose weight or keep your doctor happy you run the risk of burning out.  Or worse, reaching your weight-loss goal and then reverting to what you did before you lost the weight.  Think long-term.  The people I have seen succeed at losing weight and keeping it off had very specific, personal goals they wanted to achieve.  The weight loss was a great side effect, but their goals went deeper than that.  Many of them simply wanted to be an example to their kids or to keep up with their grandkids.

Did you see April’s video?  She won Your Best Body Spring Challenge.  She lost more weight than anyone else, but that wasn’t her goal.  Her goal was to change her life so she could not be put on Diabetes meds.  She’s still losing weight, improving her muscle mass and staying away from Diabetes (and she’s setting the example for her 6-year old daughter).  Think she’ll stay on track?  I know she will.

So, What’s your goal? What do you want to do?  Figure it out and then call us here at AlaskaFit.  We can help you do anything.

P.S. Did you know we offer a free consultation?  Just click here and tell us a little bit about what your goals are and we’ll tell you how you can reach them.