Another Awesome APP

Today after my bootcamp class, one of my students showed me an awesome app she uses on her smart phone when she works out solo. It's the NIKE NTC (Nike Training Club) app, which offers intense 15, 30 or 45 minute workouts for fitness levels ranging from beginners to advanced exercisers. I checked it out and I think it's a great tool. The workouts are varied, intense, and target specific training goals. The app is really simple to use, free, does a great job explaining exercises and even offers video demos of each exercise. The equipment necessary to perform the workouts is very minimal, dumbbells, mat and a medicine ball. This would be a great tool to use if you were traveling, bored with your workouts, or needed some direction the next time you went to the gym. Just find it in your smartphone's app store, download it, and Boom - you're ready for action.

Check out the link below to find out more information.

http://www.nike.com/nikewomen/features/ntc?locale=en_US

There's no "Easy Button"!

(click photo above to enlarge)



Reebok Has to Refund $25 Million to Consumers for False Claims About its Toning Shoes

If only it took a pair of shoes to have a booty like that.... :)

THis looks super fun

One of my friends posted this up the other day on their facebook page. What a cool concept, to make your runs entertaining and fun. I can't wait to try it out.

Small Changes can make a Big Difference

Trying to get in shape and lose weight can be overwhelming. There's so many "diet" plans, pills, shakes, philosophies, and workout programs available it can be daunting when trying to choose where to even start. If losing weight were easy, then the global market for Weight Loss wouldn't be worth US $586.3 Billion by the year 2014. In the big picture, weight loss is pretty simple.... calories in vs. calories out. It's just learning how to truly apply this equation to your everyday life, and making small, simple changes that will set you up for success.

There's no miracle diet or pill that's gonna help you lose weight permanently. Sure you can take diet pills for a week and lose a few pounds, buy you are screwing up your metabolism, and you'll most likely go right back to where you started, wasting your money and taking the unhealthy approach. Your main reason for losing weight should be for your health, and taking this route isn't going to benefit you. It's making lifestyle changes, that will keep the weight off permanently and improve your overall health.

I wanted to provide some examples of simple ways to make the "calories in vs. calories out" equation work for you. A pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories. A healthy, realistic goal for weight loss is to lose 1-2 pounds a week. So that's creating a weekly 3,500-7,000 calorie deficit until you reach your goal weight.

Let's say you go to Starbucks three times a week and order a 260 calorie Grande mocha with 2% milk and no whip cream. If you substituted a coffee or americano, with one oz of cream (37 calories and and 1 TB of sugar (48 calories), you'd be taking in 525 calories less per week, which totals 2,100 less in the course of a month. There's a half pound right there, from just a small tweak in your diet.

Then let's add a little exercise into the mix. Just adding 30 minutes of exercise 3 days a week can really make a difference. A 140 pound person, will burn roughly 320 calories jogging 30 minutes. That's 960 calories burned in a week, totaling 3,840 calories for the month, which is a little over a pound shed.

My advice is to write down or take a mental note of what you eat, and how much you are exercising for a just a few days. Start by making small changes, like adding 10 minutes more to your workouts, walking to work, substituting healthy food options for indulgent, high calorie meals. If you drink a 6 pack of beer (900 calories) after work, or a bottle of wine (500 calories) with a meal, 3 times a week, that totals 6,000 to 10,800 calories in a month, which amount to 1.5- 2.5 pounds. (Click chart below to enlarge)

A big mistake is to think you earned that pizza or ice cream because you worked out. Don't get into this mentality... you will be basically treading water. It will take you 2.5 hours of walking to burn off just 2 pieces of pizza, which took you about a minute to eat!

So take a deep breath, rise above all the weight loss gimmicks out there and remember:

The photo above was taken before the Warrior Dash I did this weekend... The photo below was the aftermath.

Why you are fat..... the simple truth whether you like it or not.

One of my friends kept talking about this book, "Skinny Bitch", by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. I needed something to read on my way back home from San Diego, so I decided to give it a go. It was a quick read and highly informative. It honestly really struck a chord with me and reinforced the importance of eating a clean and healthy diet. After reading the book, I was a little scared to even go in a grocery store... My boyfriend was rolling his eyes while I was inspecting every single food label making our grocery shopping trip last three times longer than it should of! (Another thing for me to get OCD about!) So much of our food is pumped up with crap, you can hardly even consider it food, more like genetically modified garbage. With all the hormones, preservatives, pesticides and chemicals we are consuming, it's no wonder cancer, obesity, heart disease and diabetes are plaguing us. I'm already on an organic kick, but what I took home from this book was altering some of my choices when it comes to consuming meat and dairy products. It is a little overwhelming trying to eat a "perfect" diet... but the more information you have, the better your chances of making healthy choices. The only thing I can't give up is my coffee.... No way! I don't want to give away too much, but if you are looking for a book that doesn't hold back, and tells you like it is, I'd suggest reading it. Especially if you need some incentive to change up your eating habits and make a lifestyle change, it really does the trick. In the end, it's all up to you... I don't believe in excuses or slackers, and that's why I liked this quick, amusing and worthwhile read.

Abs are Earned

I teach two, thirty minute Ab/Core focused classes a week. Here are a few of my favorite abdominal exercises to strengthen the core at the moment.







Being able to see muscle tone in the abdominal region takes some discipline. Unfortunately we can't "spot reduce" one area of the body. I see people doing hundreds of crunches and sit ups, getting discouraged from not getting the 6-pack they have always dreamed about. To be able to see some definition, you have to lower your body fat. Too much body fat and you won't be able to see your abs. In order for men to start seeing some of their abs they need to be at 10% or below. Women, on the other hands, start to see lines at 13% since women typically store body fat in other areas such as the hips and glutes. There's no quick fix, no miracle diet... you have to earn your Abs! Eating a clean diet (whole foods, and the removal of fast foods and sugar), strength training and including high intensity interval and cardiovascular training are components to losing body fat. Looks aside, what really is important is strengthening your core to avoid injury, prevent back pain and to be able to maintain a healthy quality of life.

My thoughts on marathon training so far....

I'm in my 4th week of official marathon training. This weeks long run is 11 miles, my farthest run in about ten years. I've been very cautious and a little nervous about the high mileage of marathon training. I've honestly never been a huge advocate of marathon training... seeing so many clients, friends, teammates, and students suffer from running related injuries. A lot of people lately have asked me, "Then why are you doing it?". Well I have several reasons for why I'm training for the 26.2 mile adventure in October. I have the typical "bucket list" reason, gotta cross if off my list of things to do in life. I also like working towards something, having a goal and training has pushed me out of my comfort zone. It's easy to fall into a routine, so it feels good to have a little fire under my ass to shake things up. Leaning out is another reason, obviously the extra calories burned will shed some poundage but most importantly I want to be able to learn from this experience and take in all that I can. I want the necessary tools to help future clients and friends with their running goals and training. When I take advice from someone, I find it hard to take them seriously if they lack the real experience. By going through the training and the entire race, I will have the knowledge, the empathy and experience to back me up.

So why am I nervous and training cautiously? You might guess, I'm worried about not being able to accomplish my goal of running 26.2 miles, but that's honestly not it. My biggest concerns are injury and overtraining. My job relies on my body... chronic injury is basically the death of my career. 8 out of 10 runners, fall victim to running injuries. It's the brutal truth, and I've seen many people suffer chronic back, knee, foot and hip pain for the rest of their lives from marathon training. I'm also trying to balance teaching Spin classes, strength training classes, boot camps, etc on top of the running mileage I've added to my weekly routine.

So not only is my goal to run 26.2 miles, but to do it injury free, without feeling completely physically exhausted. (I'd still like to be able to squeeze in a few sessions at the skatepark without my legs feeling like two blocks of concrete). So what's my plan of attack?

I will only be running three days per week, consisting of a short, medium and long run. Most marathon training programs call for at least four days of running, but with all my classes, my legs would be fried if I attempt four days.

I'm following the ten percent rule. This two-part rule specifies: (1) do not increase your weekly mileage by more than 10 percent nor (2) increase the distance of your long run by more than 10 percent per week.

I will have two days of rest per week, just light exercise like walking, tennis, skateboarding, mellow bike riding etc.

I will be Spinning twice a week, which will keep my quadriceps, (the muscles in the front of my thigh) strong. Running is very back of the leg, hamstring focused. Cross training is important to keep your body in balance.

I will include weight training and stretching, which is easy for me because I have to! I get paid to strength train and stretch.

I'm using the foam roller (These are so awesome, if you haven't discovered them, get one!) to help with the recovery process. Hot tub soaks after hard workouts also help fatigued muscles recover. I also plan to use ice baths, I absolutely hate these, but they work to speed up the recovery process by forcing more blood to your muscles.

I'm following the Hard/Easy concept with running. I'm not doing hard workouts on back to back days, and I'm using a sports periodization approach to training. Which in a nutshell, is the 18 week marathon program that I am following.

(These are the Nike 2011Air Maxes I'm training in)



And lastly, on my attempt to stave off injury, I will be swapping out my running shoes about every 400 miles. But can supportive and specially designed running shoes help prevent injury? This brings up a whole new tangent that has been recently brought to my attention. Over the past 30 years, with all of the latest technology and research, running injuries have not gone down. So those fancy, expensive, new shoobie doobies, haven't done much to aid with shin splints, plantar fasciitis, ankle sprains, runners knee (IT band syndrome)... My brother brought this up to me when we were discussing marathon training and he asked me if I had heard of the barefoot running movement. I told him I had heard a little about it, but I kinda scoffed at the idea of running on the pavement in my bare feet. He recommended the book, "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall, and I was intrigued when I read all of the reviews. I started reading it last night, and I can't wait to pick it back up and finish it. So far, I think this book may help my quest to run injury free and might change my position on long distance training. I guess we will wait and see. Cross your fingers for me being injury free this marathon season. And for all you former/current marathoners, if you have any tips, advice or suggestions on marathon training I'd love your feedback!