Work Hard, Play Hard

I had a lot of time in 2005 to watch the Tour de France, because of time off with my daughter being born. I haven’t really paid much attention to the Tour over the last few years. This past year, I somewhat became fixated on it again with the return of Lance Armstrong. What I was focused on is how this “ancient athlete” was taking on one, if not the most, demanding physical events ever. This year he has had a full year of training and has already had an impact, finishing 3rd in the Tour of Luxemburg and taking second in the Tour of Switzerland. As he heads into this year’s Tour de France, he looks like he has had a return to form, even though by cycling standards, he is old for the sport at 38.

One of the keys to his training is that he follows the principle of “work hard, play hard”. Lance’s coach, Chris Carmichael, makes sure that the training program that Lance uses progresses him continuously and peaks for the Tour de France. One of the key components is that no matter how hard the work is, it has the right amount of recovery to allow him to response to the next higher level of demand.

The formal name for this process is supercompensation. I see a lot of clients and gym members start a fitness program with a great amount of enthusiasm, but no plan for their recovery. They don’t factor in how sleep, nutrition, work stress, and personal stress can crush their results. The only way to get results is to do the work, then allow your body to recovery from the work. A very good read that highlights this, from more of a corporate environment, is The Power of Full Engagement. The book uses the term “rituals” to illustration actions that you develop and put into daily routine to manage your stress and maximize the recovery process.

If you have just started an exercise program or have been doing one for some time, but are not seeing the results you expect, I seriously encourage you to take a look at your recovery from the workouts and the impact your daily stress is having on your fitness plan. Making small changes in your nutrition, sleep, and stress management can lead to large changes in your body!

LSCV 1st Group Run/Walk Gathering

From the desk of Marty Linclau-Miller …

Well… whether you’re joined the Longevity Studios Cardiovascular (LSCV) Group or not, you may be looking to do something active this Saturday (March 20, 2010). You may just want to celebrate the “no more blizzards” weather with some outdoor fun! But how on Earth could you do this?

I’ll tell you how, let’s get moving on the right “path” … or maybe trail would be a better way to say this … the Indian Head/White Plains Rail Trail!!! I would like to invite you to the first of many LSCV group run/walks. These are very informal and we look to get as much laughter out of you as sweat. The goal is to get the group together to share training tips, work together to improve our stamina, and meet others who share our goals. Any and all are welcome. Heck… you can even bring a friend or family member, if you like.

If you are looking to improve your running/walking performance, you have a task before coming. Your task before you arrive is to gather some data, so we can calculate your pace. Here is how:

• Time a run outside or on the treadmill. Remember it or write it down!
• Log your distance. The treadmill will tell you at the end of your run. If you run outdoors, go to www.mapmyrun.com and, well… map your run! Remember your distance!
• Bring both numbers with you and I will show you how to calculate your mile pace. With everyone’s pace, we will choose running groups and get rolling. We will go for 50 minutes, 25 out and 25 back.

We will meet on Saturday 3/20 at the “White Plains” end of the Indian Head/White Plains Rail Trail at 1:00 PM. Here is how to get there:

White Plains – From Rt. 301 South, make right turn onto Theodore Green Boulevard. Approximately ¼ miles, trail parking is on right side of road. Weekend (only) overflow parking is available at the Charles County Health Department’s parking lot (at intersections of Rt. 301 and Theo. Green Blvd.).

I’ll see you Saturday!

Longevity Studios Cardiovascular (LSCV) Group

We have many clients that are always looking for groups to walk, run, swim and bike within the community. We also had clients that were very serious about increasing their performance in cardiovascular endurance events. Marty Linclau-Miller and I were discussing it when we decided to stop talking and start doing something about it. Marty has organized a group to respond to the need.

Marty has a passion for starting this group because he has been involved with competitive endurance sports for his entire life. He graduated from Michigan State University with a B.S. in Kinesiology (Sports Medicine). His focus is on functional training and he has an intrinsic motivation to live a healthy lifestyle. Passion for getting the most out of life is what has made him who he is and helps his clients realize their full potential. He knows most of us are not training for sports, we’re training for life. He wants his clients to feel healthy and confident in their abilities. With three years of training and management experience, he is comfortable in helping people of all fitness levels.

Longevity Studios is proud to announce the creation of Longevity Studios Cardiovascular Group (LSCV). LSCV will be a group focused on fostering health and performance while increasing cardiovascular capacity. You do not need to be a current client to enjoy the benefits. Our goal is to create a community with shared desire to train properly and have a lot of fun along the way! Whether you are interested in staying fit or winning your next event, if it involves cardio, this is your group. LSCV will provide tips, group runs & rides, event preparation, and seminars. To become a member, simply go to the Contact Longevity Studios webpage and under comments type “I want to be a LSCV member”. You will begin receiving LSCV information. We will be participating in many of the running events in the local southern Maryland area.

The group will be competing in its first event coming in April, the St. Charles Half Marathon. The St. Charles Half Marathon will also include a 5K and a Rail Trail Fun Run. The event will take place on April 18th and you can register at: www.stcharleshalfmarathon.com.

We look forward to being your travel guide on the road to cardiovascular fitness!

Healthier Hips and a Better Butt

One of the first things we look at when a new client comes in is how well their hips are working for them. When the hips are not functioning properly, it can lead to the hip joint wearing out prematurely, knee problems, foot issues, and a low back that stays painful all the time. Muscle imbalance of the hips is common and often leads a person to overuse their lumbar spine. When we identify just how the hips need to be stretched and strengthened and give the right exercises, the imbalance goes away.

After the hips have been corrected or if the client comes in functioning properly, we move into exercises that continue to increase the function of the hips, but also focus on the best aesthetic development of the glutes … aka, the butt, the booty, the bum, and the junk in the trunk. A great looking butt is something that you should want, not only to turn peoples’ heads, but it a great indication that your hips are at their optimal level of function.

To see an exercises that can take your bum to the “boom boom pow” (as the Black Eyes Peas would say) that it should be, take a look at the following video. In the video, Marty Linclau-Miller, Human Performance Consultant, is demonstrating a Stability Ball Hip Extension. You can also go to our Longevity Studios YouTube Channel to view more exercises.

To learn more about how you can get the most from your exercise, you can sign up for one of our seminars or have a consultation with one of our trainers.

But do you squat?

Back in my heyday of powerlifting, it became a running joke with my workout partners that when someone bragged about their bench press, curls, or 6-pack, we would jump right into the question “…but do you squat?” The main reason for this, in our minds, is that this separated the fitness enthusiasts with the serious lifters. Heavy squatting is arguably one of the hardest exercise you can perform.

Since that time, my appreciation for the squat has remained the same, but has changed in its focus. I use to have the gym rat mentality of “go heavy or go home” pertaining to the squat. Now I realize just how important the squat is for functional movement and how everyone should be incorporating some form of it into their fitness program.

Squatting is a basic, functional movement pattern that we all need in order to live our daily lives. When we are unable to perform this movement is when the problems arise. Many times I have had clients walk through my doors from their orthopedic doctor and the first thing that comes out of their mouth is “The doctor said I shouldn’t squat”. One of my colleagues, Josh Rubin of East West Healing and Performance, created the video clip, Squatology 101, that gives the answers to why the squat is essential to perform. He does a excellent job of pointing out all the benefits the squat provides.

If I kept my old paradigm, then I guess I would have to agree with the client that said they shouldn’t squat. But the new thought process would have me say, “let’s find a way to get it done that will help to improve your life and performance”. To give you some appreciation of the variety of squats that you can perform, Marty Linclau-Miller, another Human Performance Consultant at Lonegevity, and myself developed the following videos of different squat versions.

Hopefully these videos and commentary will give you a new appreciation for the squat and ways that you can include it in your exercise program. If you need some suggestions as to ways that the squat can be modified to help you, leave a comment. Otherwise ….. Happy Squatting!

Happy New You … NOW!

When I talk to people around this time of year, who are interested in starting a fitness program and losing weight, I hear some interesting reasons about why they’re going to wait until New Year’s to do it. “The holidays are coming and I’m too busy”, “I want to start fresh with a new year”, or my favorite, “I’m going to gain weight through the holidays, so I’ll wait until after to start”. Right! … did you know that only about 12% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions actually keep them?

There are many reasons for the low success rate, but the most important one is that there is no plan put in place. When a plan is developed and effectively implemented, the success rate goes up significantly. But a plan can be developed anytime and get you going at the most important time … NOW, when you are motivated to change! When you come to Longevity and want to start working out, we sit down and develop a plan that gets you started at the appropriate place and level.

If one of your objections is that the holidays are too busy, then what you are saying to us, is even after New Year’s when you get busy, you’re not going to keep working out. We are always busy! And yes the Holidays do put extra pressure on us, but I can tell you without hesitation that the people who find a way to maintain a schedule during this time of year are the ones who do not let the fitness goals slide any other time of year, no matter how busy they get. If you start during a busy time, you are better at planning to get your workouts in and you start at an amount that you can maintain, then increase as the busy times pass.

Externally imposed deadlines never result in permanent change. People who come to us who have an arbitrary timelines to their weight loss goals, follow a pattern of temporary success followed by dramatic failure. If you’re waiting for that cruise, wedding, or that New Year’s resolution, then you’re more than likely to lose the weight for a short term, but then goal will pass or you will get get bored and the weight will come back … and sometimes even more than before. What it takes to sustain your results is to connect the goal to what is really important to you. This may be health, appearance, or what fitness allows you to do and then develop goals that keep you motivated and on task.

For those that think they will just gain the weight through the holidays and then do something about it … you are starting with an huge assumption … YOU HAVE TO GAIN WEIGHT! If you do start exercising now and give some thought to all those holiday events, meals, and snacks I’ll give you an eye-opening revelation … YOU DON’T HAVE TO GAIN HOLIDAY WEIGHT THIS YEAR!!!

Whether you are looking to start a fitness plan or have been exercising regularly, I urge you to take a look now at how you can develop a plan that utilizes the holidays to focus your fitness or weight loss goals to gain even more success in the coming new year. If you need help, you can checkout our specials that can help you be a Happy New You in the Happy New Year!

Exercise and Breast Cancer

At Longevity Studios, we serve clients trying to achieve a vast array of goals. Some of the most inspirational goals are for those clients that are fighting to overcome significant health issues. In this blog, Natasha Atkinson discusses exercising with breast cancer. She has worked with several clients who are survivors of this condition (see testimonial). Working with these clients requires her to be very precise with the exercise program, really listen to their individual needs, and embark a great deal of empathy and understanding. While the exercise helps the body, our trainers are always engaged with their mind and spirit, thus truly assisting to lift them above their circumstance and enhance their survivorship!

Natasha has been in the fitness industry for two decades and understands the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. It’s through this commitment to fitness and living a healthy lifestyle that she expresses her passion and gets her clients to reach their full potential. She enjoys training clients of all fitness levels. She especially enjoys working with women to help them overcome the many barriers they face in their pursuit of fitness. Her certifications include Holistic Lifestyle Coach Level 1 and Exercise Coach from the C.H.E.K.Institute, National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and American Council on Exercise (ACE) Personal Trainer certifications.

As many of you know, October is breast cancer awareness month. I have been reading the statistics on breast cancer and the numbers are astounding. According to Tricia M. Peters, of U.S. National Cancer Institute (USNCI) in Maryland, who led one study on the subject:

With an estimated 182,460 new cases diagnosed in the United States in 2008, breast cancer is recognized as the most common cancer affecting U.S. women.

As a trainer, I have had the pleasure to work with several clients that have struggled with the surgery and follow up of chemo and radiations treatments. I do say pleasure because these clients come with a different idea of training and a determination that others do not necessarily have. The idea of working out and getting fit has with it the meaning of a real change in nutrition, stress management, and lifestyle … but more importantly, life itself. This change is often overlooked by the general group of people that frequent gyms. I think the word I’m looking for is “awareness”. They come with a new awareness of the quality of life they want for themselves, which makes my job even more rewarding.

Many people do not realize that you can continue to workout while you’re receiving treatments. With a modified exercise program, working out can actually make you feel better. The best exercise program is one that meets you at the level in which you start it and continues to adjust to fit your needs. A regular exercise program can assist with weight gain, maximize body strength, improve body composition, and bone density. This is no different than for the general public. In my observation, what seems to be more valuable to my clients affected with breast cancer is the mental sense of accomplishment that you get from working out. The feeling of determining your own course and putting the control back in your own hands. This strengths the body, energizes the mind, and soothes the soul. All of which, help to offset some of the side effects of chemo and surgeries.

In the fight against breast cancer, exercise does not have all the answers. What it does come down to is that exercise is an integral part of healing yourself and another place to building your community that is going create the environment to boost your cancer survivorship.

Even if you are not impacted by breast cancer yourself, you probably know someone who is. I encourage all women to start activities that could help to prevent it. A reason to start an exercise program is that research has found that exercising more, eating healthier and lowering body fat, could prevent as many as 38 percent of breast cancer cases in the United States alone.

For more information about exercising with breast cancer, or any cancer, checkout the LIVESTRONG website. This site has tremendous amount of information, not just about exercise, but about cancer in general. We support this organization and how it’s trying to help the world!

If breast cancer has affected your life, let us know how by leaving a comment. If you like to contact Natasha, you can through her email, natkinson@longevitystudios.com or by calling the studio at 301-934-8855.

“Pain in the Butt Back Exercise” Seminar

Millions of people suffer from back pain.  Many avoid exercise because of that pain.  But exercise may be the key to recovery.  The right exercise program can make all the difference in the world, by helping, reducing, or even eliminating your pain, depending on its cause. Join Cliff Long, Corrective Exercise Specialist, to learn the 5 most common causes of back pain and how to address them. We’ll give you the exercise keys to unlock your back pain.

When:
Saturday, October 31st
11 am to 1 pm

Where:
Longevity Studios
6770 Crain Highway
Unit 2
LaPlata, MD 20646

Capacity:
Limited to 15 Participants 
(pre-registration is required)

Cost:
FREE – Longevity Studios Clients
$15 – General Public

Low Back Curve and Back Pain

Just about every client that walks through our door has some amount of low back pain. The reasons for their back pain range from the all-too-common inactivity to the more serious pathologies, like a herniated disc or spondylolisthesis. For those coming to us with general discomfort in their low backs, most have tried some form of exercise to help to relieve their pain. Most everyone knows that you must strengthen the “core” to keep your low back pain-free. What isn’t well known is that all exercise is not created equal. Giving the wrong exercise to someone with low back pain can be like a doctor giving the wrong medication to their patient … you get the wrong effect!

After collecting an extensive health history, one of the first things we check is the amount of curvature in the lumbar (low back) curve. Your low back naturally should have a certain amount of curvature (30-35 degrees). If your curve falls outside this range, this could be contributing to your back pain and it needs to be corrected. A curve less than 30 degrees is considered a “flat” back and can help to wear out your spinal discs much faster, which could eventually result in a disc herniation. A curve greater than 35 degrees is considered too much curve (hyper-lordotic) and can cause irritation and inflammation to the back of the spine … again resulting in pain.

Here’s where the right exercise comes into play. The most known “core” exercise in the U.S. … World … Universe (yes, I’m sure there are little green men on Mars doing them!) are crunches. We are a crunch-happy-society! So now we get the client that walks in our door and says they don’t know why they have back pain, because they’ve been doing 100 crunches a day! When we ask how they have been doing the crunches, the typical response is “off the floor”. When we measure the client’s lumbar curve, the low back is completely flat. Sometimes the degree of curve is as low as a single digit.

Performing crunches from the floor is a great way to reduce your low back curve … and performing 100 a day would result in a fast change. To help this client out of pain, we would eliminate the crunches and give flexibility/resistance exercises that promote an increase in lumbar curve. For instance, we would want to strengthen the lumbar erectors, the muscles on the opposite side of the muscles that perform a crunch movement. This would pull the lumbar curve back towards normal position, strengthen the back in the place that needs it the most, and address the real cause of the pain.

If you’re one of those millions suffering from general back pain, we suggest you find an exercise, orthopedic, or healthcare professional that can perform tests that will identify the root cause of your back pain. From there, you should follow an exercise program that compliments your back’s needs and gets your back moving “in the right direction” pain-free.

If you’re one of those people who started performing exercise to get rid of your back pain, only to create more pain, we’d like you hear your story. Post a comment and let us know what happened.

EDU-train-ment

For us to move you in the right direction for achieving your goals, we have adopted a word as the framework for how we deliver our exercise sessions. The word is “EDU-train-ment”. When I was discussing this concept with our marketing person, he thought that we had come up with an original concept … until we Googled it – Google search for edutrainment. It became obvious we were not the first to think of it, but is one of the philosophies that does make our service a wee-bit more interesting.

It consists of 3 elements: Education, Training, and Entertainment. Each element is adjusted to the right proportion and to fit you at the appropriate level for that particular exercise session.

Education – This factor is capitalized because it is the foundation for what we do at Longevity Studios. We delivery the necessary information in order for you to understand, not only the how but the why, and allow you to take accountability for your own exercise and lifestyle. We determine what the best style is for your learning and then deliver the information in that style at a level that you will completely understand.

Training – If education represents the why, this is the how. Behind the session is a collection of thought that has combined the exercise program variables (i.e., reps, sets, intensity, tempo, duration, recovery) in a very specific way. This specific way is implemented in the session and performed to achieve a specific outcome. This is the physical road that leads to your goals.

Entertainment – We are here to engage you and connect you with your deepest session experience possible. A bored, or even worse, a client completely disengaged from the session will not put forth the effort to learn and perform at their optimal level. Yes, it’s a little bit of show business!

After we have gathered assessment information, developed goals, and designed the exercise program, we determine the best proportion we should give you of our EDU-train-ment model. The proportions change based on your personality, stage of training progression, and desired session outcome. In other words, the amount of each factor in your session is in a floating range that is best suited to get you closer to your goals.

Some clients liked to be entertained more than others. The early stages of training are much more concerned with the learning process. A client training for competition in the middle of their power phase should be putting more of their energies into their physical effort. Respectively, the dominant element of the framework for these 3 scenarios would be entertainment, education, and training.

We take a lot of care to delivery to you more than just exercise. We consider your individuals needs and create an environment that supports you in your journey. We know that you come to us for more than just learning how to exercise better. You come to us to help you change yourself and your life for the better.