This Week's Goal

Think of those diagrams of the muscle man that hang on the wall in some gyms. If you look closely, you will see how all of the muscles attach to a bone. They all also attach to other muscles. A tight muscle can pull its bone out of proper alignment. It can also pull on other muscles which will pull their bones out of alignment. Keeping your muscles long and stretchy is important to your body's entire dynamic and should be a goal for all of us. Stretching is often the first thing that gets cut when we are pressed for time during a workout. A good way to prevent this is to stretch during your workout, so if you have to cut it short you will still have gotten in some stretching. It is best to stretch when your muscles are warm (after/during a workout), but another good way to get your stretching in is to do it at a separate time in your day. Everyday this week, set aside 15 minutes, maybe before dinner, and start out slowly with a shallow stretch before you ease in to deeper, longer stretches. Have the kids join in and make it your summer stretching time. Kids love to do stuff like this and you will be setting such a great example for them!

Because of the way we typically move, sit and stand, human bodies have the most tightness in the lower back, hip flexors and hamstrings. Here is a quick and easy stretching routine to hit these major areas. Ease into each stretch and hold for at least 20 seconds; think "relaxing, slow and controlled."
Hip Flexor: This is where your quad attaches to your hip.) Stand tall with your right hand on the wall for support. Bend your left knee and raise your left foot behind you. Grab your left foot with your left hand. Keep your knees in the same plane and a small space between your heel and your left glute. Think about pressing the top of your foot into your palm while pushing your hips toward the wall in front of you to feel this stretch from the top of your knee all the way up to your hip. Hold with a nice, tall, straight posture and then switch sides.
Hamstrings and Back: Stand with your feet hip width apart and your knees ever-so-slightly bent (soft knee). Slowly round your back and reach for the floor. Hang your head so that you are looking at the wall behind you and feel this stretch in your hamstrings while you decompress your back.
Back: Sit with your heels on the floor and your toes pointing up to the ceiling. Spread your feet and bend your knees enough so you can grab the bottoms of your feet. Drop your chin to your chest and round your upper and lower back as you pull against your feet to stretch across the back of both shoulders and all the way down to your lower back.
Hamstrings: Keeping your hands here, sit up tall and slowly straighten your legs as you feel the stretch move to your hamstrings. When you can't straighten them anymore, exaggerate the straightening of your back by sticking your chest out to increase the stretch on your hamstrings. (You may not be able to reach as far with a straight back.)
Back/Core: Release your feet and sit with a tall torso, left knee bent and with your left foot flat on the floor. Put your right hand on your left knee and twist your body to the left. With your shoulders and upper body relaxed, hold and then switch sides.
Finish: Lie on your back with your arms out to either side, your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Drop your knees to the floor on the left side while keeping your shoulders on the ground. Relax, hold and then switch sides.

Stretching:
~Reduces muscle tension which leads to...
~Decreased stress.
~Increases range of movement in the joints.
~Enhances muscular coordination!
~Increases circulation of the blood to the body which leads to...
~Increased energy levels.

I like to separate my workouts from my stretching sometimes because it puts my health back on the forefront of my thoughts, where it should be. It puts me back in touch with my body. When I am stretching, I imagine my muscles getting longer and releasing their tightness of the day. I picture them to be like the guy's in the muscle poster: sturdy, strong, pink and healthy. I always finish with a tall glass of ice water and a renewed gratefulness for what my body can do and for its ability to get me through each day.

This Week's Goal

Water is your body’s best friend. A well hydrated body is the perfect environment to build lean tissue, i.e. muscle. And the more muscle your body has, the more calories you will burn while you are resting. The problem is getting these fluids in; most people walk around their entire lives in a semi-dehydrated state. Isn’t that crazy?! A non athlete of any age needs half of their body weight in fluid ounces each day. So my 90 pound son needs 45 ounces of liquids each day. I can count his meal time milk in this number and I can also count 100% fruit juice (no sugar added). If he has the rare soda, it does not count. Other things that don’t count are drinks loaded with refined sugar, coffee that has real cream in it and any coffee that is over 16 ounces. So your first two cups of coffee do count toward your total fluid intake if you don’t use cream. After that the caffeine acts as a dehydrator and your fluid intake will need to be increased to compensate for it.

Now, I know that none of you fall under the non-athlete category; you guys are active! To keep things simple, this is when we go to urine color to check our hydration level. Fluids should be taken continuously, all day long (think of a slow i.v. drip) so that urine remains slightly tinted yellow.

It is interesting to first go through a day simply taking note of how much you normally drink and comparing it to what the guideline is. You may feel like you are getting along just fine where you are, but if you are even 2% dehydrated, you have a 20% decline in performance. You surely can get away with this, but I am talking about what is optimal for your body. You wouldn't wash 5 loads of laundry with the same batch of recycled water. It would get darker and murkier as you went along and the clothes wouldn't get clean at all. Give your body new, fresh water to work with everyday. Your body is approximately 60% water. Water is used in every single chemical reaction in your body. It is the most important nutrient that your body gets; so important in fact that you can only last about 3-5 days without it.

Now that you are all produce-aholics after last week's fruit and veggie goal, increase your fluids and give your body what it is thirsting for. Good luck!

Does It Work?

I was walking uphill on the treadmill the other day at the gym and there was in infomercial on the tv selling TonyHorton's"10 Minute Workout" program. After watching for a bit and seeing several before and after photos, the girl next to me said, "do you think that really works...ten minutes?!"

Well, sure it works; in fact all of the workout programs out there work. The main secret to their success is that they all pitch the importance of following a healthy diet in conjunction with their exercise program. The program gets you to move your body in some way, shape, or form on a consistent basis. They try to make it sound like this will be the key to your succcess~only ten minutes of moving~but the real key to your success will be moving consistently while following their sensible diet plan. They spend 95% of the time talking about how quick and effective the workout is and then spend only a minute or two talking about the nutrition portion of the program. Think about it: if they spent a big chunk of their commercial talking about the healthy eating required, no one would buy the program. Healthy eating takes thought, planning and discipline. People know that and they hate that. But without that, fitness only takes a body to a certain level (not a very high level at only ten minutes a day!) and it hovers there indefinitely until the nutrition gets in gear. People will consider committing to a ten minute exercise program, yet they won't commit to the healthy diet that they know is important to their body's function. Why is that? Why the resistance? It continues to baffle me.

And here's me, a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, and forever-proud gym rat saying that the nutrition is more important than the workout. Wow. But really, my body wouldn't last through my workouts without good nutrition to back it up. I am always working out to achieve some sort of fitness goal, so if my workouts failed, I wouldn't reach my goal. The nutrition helps my workout, the workout helps my goal. I love that commercial for a post-recovery workout shake (can't remember the name) that has a bunch of pro athletes saying something like, "You're not done working out until you refuel. Finish your workout and then finish your workout with ________ recovery drink." Love that. It very simply supports the ever-important nutrition piece of the puzzle. These professionals are serious about their nutrition, why shouldn't you be?

The next time you see an exercise infomercial, watch it through to the bitter end and you will always see a quick little blurb about following the sensible diet that is included with their program. They all do this: P90X, Hip Hop Abs, Slim in 6, TurboJam Maximum Results, etc. They know that their programs won't work if they are followed by a greasy, sugary, processed diet. The programs that don't include a sensible meal plan are the ones that don't work.

This Week's Goal

How many servings of fruits and veggies do you eat? You should be getting at least seven everyday. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fiber and clean calories that your body needs to function optimally. They also contain lots of water which will help in your ongoing quest to stay hydrated.

Getting them all in sounds hard, but when you look at exactly what a serving size is, you will see that it can be done with just a little bit of tweaking.

Each of these listed below counts as one serving:
~1 medium banana
~6 medium strawberries
~15 grapes
~1 inch thick slice of watermelon
~tennis ball-sized apple, peach, orange
~1 cup of blueberries
~10 baby carrots
~5 broccoli florets
~baseball-sized pile of green salad
~1 small boxof raisins
~12 grape tomatoes
~6 asparagus spears
~6 oz. fruit or veggie juice

Box them up and throw them in your purse, add them to your oatmeal, keep them washed and ready in a bowl in your fridge, mix textures (combine the crunchy with the juicy and the creamy), freeze 100% juice for an icy treat; be creative and do whatever you need to do to make it convenient to eat them up. Summer is the perfect time to become a produce-aholic. I love to browse through my grocery store's produce section this time of year and see the mountains of strawberries, blueberries and watermelon. It's enough to make fruit freaks like me giddy!

Not all motivating workout songs have to be fast paced and peppy. There are a few slow songs on my playlist that really get me going even though their tempo is rather slow. There is something about the methodical, underlying pulse of these songs that revs me up and makes me feel strong and fast. Maybe it's their message, maybe it's their anthem-like feel, I don't know but I love when these songs start to play on my Ipod and I hate when they're over. I thought I would pass on some of these not-so-common workout songs for your next sweat session. Enjoy!

Halo~Beyonce

Thunder Road~Bruce Springsteen

It's Only Life~Kate Voegele

Spirit in the Sky~Norman Greenbaum

Falling Down~Muse

Me and Bobby McGee~Janis Joplin

Shameless~Billy Joel and Garth Brooks both sing this song very well, but in my opinion, Garth's version is better.

To make a change in your body, you have to make a change in your lifestyle.

Think about that: you can't just wish for it. And if you do the same things over and over again, you can't expect different results.

Make a change to see a change, people.