Fitness, Training, Health & Conditioning

In this category the goal will be to give you many tools to help improve your ability to run. Running is one of the most fundamental movements our bodies are designed to do. As young children we ran just about everywhere we went. As I talked about in the philosophy posts we slowly lose this over time. Not due to aging but more due to the lack of muscular efficiency we establish as we get older. 

Lets break running up into two different parts. First you have your stride length. The amount of motion you are able to generate in your pelvis based on various factors such as muscular strength, muscular range of motion, and the by product of both of these, joint mobility. In the next few posts we will break this down into great detail. Understanding this is truly the key to making yourself a runner that is ale to enjoy the sport without injury or the breakdowns that are so common to the sport of running.

The second component is your stride frequency. This is how quickly you are initiate your stride in your hip flexor muscles. In my personal opinion this factor is greatly influenced by genetic factors. However, just like your stride length, this component of your stride can also be enhanced through training.

Throughout the upcoming posts in this area we want to assist you in understanding all of the components that make up a tremendously successful running program. From how you warm-up to the various components of training, to a proper cool down. Stay with us and we will give you the knowledge that 15 years of training runners can bring to you.

Well we have all the data collected. Now for the last point on looking long and seeing short. The long term goals have been established.

February 28th is the big day for all of them.

Now I will be seeing the short term progress by doing a weekly test on each of the areas. I will update you after I have done each of the tests so you can see the progress that is being made.

I will be working over the next few days to get you the second routine to be doing each day.

So you should have everything you need to get going. You have your diet to follow. Just follow it for the time being. If you would like another and you find it to be working for you, go to dietaccess.com. From there you can change it up and keep going. If it is not working for you then try something new. Stick with your same major components. First, the water. Second, the foods that have no nutritional value must go. Beyond that there are hundreds of diets to choose from. To be honest they all work. It just is a matter of does it work for you?

You have your daily routine to help improve the efficiency of your muscular system. This will impact everything you do in a positive way. It will help you to burn more calories, it will make it easier to gain strength, and even help to improve your running.

Now as far as the training goes. Continue to practice your pushups and chin-ups.

Follow this routine every other day to help you out. If you are unable to get to a gym to do chin-ups, there are alternatives that I have found that work pretty good. Check out the P90X Chin-Up Bar. It is fairly inexpensive (about $70.00 with shipping) but it is the best home Chin-up product that I have seen.

1. Pushups – As many as you can (we covered form on this on the test but remember to keep your body straight. If it is too hard from your toes, do it from your knees)

2. Big Kneeling Arm Circles – 20x (from your knees, place your arms straight down by your waist. Now keeping your torso still, make a large rotation forward from the shoulder, Keep your arms straight the entire motion. Now rotate them backwards

**Now Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 2 sets

3. Crunches – 30x (Lie on your back with your knees bent so your feet are flat on the floor. Now place your hands behind your head. From this position you are going to contract your abdominal wall as hard as you can. Make sure that you are not concerned with the height of your crunch. Focus more just on the contraction. Keep your elbows back and your chin off your chest as you go up. Now slowly release the contraction in your abs until they have completely relaxed. Form is vital on this move so take your time to do it right)

4. Straight Arm Bridge – 20x (Sit down on the floor with your knees bent so your feet are flat on the floor and your palms down at your sides with your fingers pointing towards your heels. In this position, contract your gluteus (butt) muscles as you raise your hips as high off the floor as you can. Once you have gone as high as you can, slowly lower your hips back down to the ground. Keep your arms as straight as you can the entire duration of the repetitions)

**Now Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 2 sets

5. Chin-ups – as many as you can (grip the bar so your palms are facing back towards you. Make sure they are approximately shoulder width apart. You also want to start with the arms full extended. Now avoid momentum if you can as you pull your chin up above the bar, on the way down, use control and make sure that your arms return to a perfectly straight position.)

6. Kneeling Overhead Palm Twist – 30 Seconds (from your knees extend both of your arms straight up over your head. Now keeping them straight, twist at the shoulder until your palms come in contact with one another. Bring your hands directly over your head and keeping your neck relaxed, hold this position.

**Now Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 2 sets

7. Prone Arm Lifts – 20x (Lie down on your stomach with your legs straight. Now resting your forehead on the floor, place your arms straight out to the side so that your thumbs point straight up into the air. Now keeping your neck as relaxed as you can, raise your arms straight up into the air and back down)

8. Cats and Dogs – 10x (From your hands and knees, place your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees directly under your hips. Now from this position, arch your back as high into the air as you can and tuck your chin to your chest. Now do the opposite, drop your back towards the floor and look up towards the ceiling. Continue to move up and down keeping your arms as straight as you can)

**Now Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 2 sets

Wow it was ugly but I was able to do it. I could really tell I had ot done anything for well over a week. My lungs and legs got tired very quickly. I decided that since we are in the beginning of the winter season that I would do the test on a treadmill.

I do not prefer to do it this way but for the benefit of accuracy i decided to do the test this way. The main difference between a treadmill and truly running outdoors is that when outside the sidewalk is not moving towards you. This increases the amount of pressure that goes into your joints. Many treadmills (including mine) have a flex deck where the belt you are running on is on a flexible platform. This is designed to help eliminate a lot of the pressure into the joints but now you are running on an unrealistic surface. 

However, it is a decent alternative especially if you live in a very cold area that makes running outside in the winter challenging.

The Treadmill I used is a Nordic Track C2150. It is a decent home one that my wife and I purchased a few years ago. I also broke the test up just a little bit. I did the first mile as a calibration for my Nike Plus program. If you have not checked these out, they are a great little toy to help you chart your progress and even do goal setting. I purchased one awhile back and have barely used it to this point. I am excited to work on my 5k goal for many reasons, one of them is so I can use this fun little toy.

 
You make these fun little guys that you can post on your facebook or myspace or even in a blog! That way people can keep track of how you are doing. You can also choose to keep it private if you want as you can see in this example.

If you have not seen them, it works with your ipod nano. You plug this thing into your ipod and then you have a sensor that goes into your shoe. You must be wearing the Nike running shoes that support the product but there are now many different shoes to choose from so it is not hard to find one that will work for you.

I personally like the Nike Free. They are designed to let your foot do what is most natural for it. I do not like when shoes are designed to force your foot into a certain position. Shoes that force a certain amount of pronation or supination or a very harsh forced arch support can be very hard on the feet. If you currently do not have any issues in your feet, your best bet is to get a neutral shoe such as the Nike Free.

Feel free to check out www.nikeplus.nike.com. It is a fun way to get started on a running goal. I really like the site and makes your goal setting a little more fun and interactive.

Once I finished my calibration I finished the remaining 2.2 miles. I was glad I did not need to walk at any point but i was getting real close at the end. My official time for the run was a 29:12. That is about as bad as i expected but hey, its a start.

So tomorrow I will go over some training advice with you for how to keep working at your goals. Keep up with your water and your food choices. If you are following the diet, keep up the great work!

This will be a short post today. I just wanted to go over the chin-up test with you. Similar to the pushup test the key is to make sure that you have excellent form. There are pictures attached to show you an example. Obviously this is a challenging exercise. If you are unable to do a chin-up then your next option would be to do a flexed arm hang.

The hang is simply you holding your chin above the bar for as long as you can. It may only be a second or two but it is a starting point. If you are unable to hang from the bar there are several other modifications you can add to the exercise, however, these will eliminate the accuracy of a test. So for the test let us just stick with the chin-ups or the flexed arm hang.

The test is to do as many chin-ups as you can keeping your body straight and not pulling your knees up to your chest. Make sure you come all the way down each time to the starting position with the arms completely straight before going back up. Also make sure you are going slow and using control.

My result on this test was………….8! already 1/2 way to my goal!

Tomorrow we will start quite a bit of new information. I will be doing the 5k. I am so thankful to be healthy enough to do it finally! It will be a great start to the new year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I am finally getting better!!! So I will do the pushup test today, and the Chin-up test tomorrow. Then I will look to try and do the 5k on Thursday or Friday after I see the Dr. again. I hope you have all had a chance to look over the diet and see if it will work for you. 

For the pushup test, it is important to try and have someone watch you. Remember back to the original goal, I said perfect pushups. Well what does this mean? It means pushups done with excellent form. 

Look at the pictures. I included both a full pushup and a kneeling pushup.

The form is the key. If you are unable to do more than 2 or 3 full pushups, start with kneeling for the first phase of your Resolution goals. This has always bothered me when people refer to kneeling pushups as girl pushups. Honestly there is just good pushups and bad pushups. If you are a guy who can only go about half way down in a full pushup, drop to your knees, its not an ego thing its like everything else I talk about, an efficiency thing. If you only are able to go half way down you are limiting the amount of muscle fibers you are using and also creating tightness in your shoulders.

The key to your pushups is going all the way down. Your chest must touch the ground for it to count. No Excuses. If you are unable to get to the ground doing a kneeling one, fine then make it even easier and put your hands on the edge of your couch and start from there but please always find a situation where you can get full range of motion in the move. 

Obviously if you have pain symptoms that are made worse by this exercise, please do not do it. I will give you an alternative instead.

Look back to the daily exercises we started a few days ago. On this routine is an exercise called clappers. Please use this as your exercise to replace pushups if you are unable to do any form of a pushup without pain. Here again is the pictures that demonstrate how to do it.

So do as many pushups as you can from whatever position works best for you. Now here is the key, you ned someone else to watch you do it and let you know when your pushups are no longer perfect. When is your back no longer straight is the main one to watch for. I will be having one of my fellow trainers count for me.

Good Luck on the test, after I get through the chin-ups and 5k, we will discuss ways to work on improving all 3 tests while losing weight! In the meantime, when you finish your daily workout routine, do a set of pushups just to practice!

Oh and I am sure you are curious about my pushup test. I made it to 17 before I lost my form and my back started to drop. Only 33 to go to get to my goal!!

Well the official weight this morning was 188. Down 3 pounds which I am fine with considering I had absolutely zero activity since the first weight check. I am slowly getting better so it looks like I might be able to work out at some point this week! I hope you all had a successful first week with your Resolutions!

This week I am going to give you an example diet to follow. It is an eleven day diet that I have found to work extremely well. I have used this diet with many clients and they to like it quite a bit. Keep in mind you may not like the food that is listed and if that is the case, thats fine just switch it with something that is more or less the same. If you like peanuts but not almonds, fine eat the peanuts then. If you like roast beef but not turkey, again go ahead and eat the roast beef. Just make sure you stay within the same food group. There are quite a few more instructions included in the diet. It is quite long so I will include it in this post as a pdf you can print. Otherwise it is about 12 pages. 

Tomorrow will be an exercise day. I will get you started on a new one. We will revisit some of the short term goal possibilities as soon as I can get the push-ups, chin-ups, and running tests done. I came across this diet on a website I saw. It was www.dietaccess.com if you want to check it out. There is a small fee you pay and it will keep generating new menus for you. I like how easy they make it and for the price it is hard to beat.

The part I like most about this diet is there are simply trying to change the way your body burns the fuel you give it. That is truly the key to nutrition. Whatever you eat the most of, that is what your body will try to use as its primary fuel source. Thats why we eliminated the empty calories last week. Too much of those types of food and the body will feel like it needs to use that as a primary fuel source. If you are eating a lot of thsoe types of food there should be little to no surprise if you frequently complain about your energy levels.

This diet teaches your body how to utilize foods that are high in vitamins and minerals and are great fuel sources for your body. 

Here is the diet, let me know how you are doing with it or if you have questions. Obviously make sure you are not allergic to any of these foods and I recommend that you alert your physician before starting any exercise or diet regimen. 

Click on this:11-day-menu

This is a terrific article I was given that was written by one of the greatest trainers of the last half century. Jack Medina has written countless books about personal health and here is what he has to say about water.

      HOW ABOUT THIS FOR A STATEMENT!    If you don’t  take in an adequate amount of water, you will likely find impossible to achieve control over your weight!  What this means is 10-12 eight-ounce glasses of WATER per day, plus eight more ounces for every 25 pounds you are overweight. This is the basic requirement for healthy living.  Unfortunately, not many people drink as much waster as they need. Many problems of weight control can be cured by increasing your amount of water  intake.  Constipation,  nausea,  and  headaches can all   me helped with this, the greatest nutritional supplement in the world.  WATER.

First, by not drinking enough water, you can actually cause your body to retain fluid. Four or five cups of coffee in the morning, a glass of wine at lunch, another cup of coffee or a soft drink in the afternoon, a cocktail before dinner and a couple of cups of coffee after dinner isn’t what I’m talking about.

People who drink like this say they are always thirsty.  Their body is being deprived of the water needed to keep itself healthy and it reacts by retaining almost every drop of the tiny bit it is allowed by your stopping at the water cooler once or twice each day. The body often gets puffy and swollen as a result.  The extra weight you think of as fat may not be fat at all.

Wine, gin, coffee, tea, fruit juices, and soft drinks are all fluids, but they don’t have the same chemical properties as ordinary water.  Alcohol and soda pop contain too much sugar, so to a lesser extent do fruit juices. The caffeine in coffee and tea is bad for your heart and blood pressure. Even diet soda contains sodium which contributes to water retention. Cut down on coffee, drink sugarless drinks if you like them, but most importantly, drinks if you retention. Cut most importantly, drink 10-12 eight-ounce glasses of water daily.

Restricting your water can promote fat deposits.  Your body uses water as the major component of blood to transport nutrients and water. A lack of water in the system can cause fats and other toxins that are normally disposed of, to remain in your body – including that dimpled fat commonly referred to as cellulite.

Your kidneys have a difficult time processing contaminated water so your liver has to detoxify it. This means   your liver can’t do it’s main tasks, which is to process you blood and help it break down fat.  This, as you store water, the fat you eat can be stored in fat cells instead of being broken down in the liver.  You become bloated, waterlogged and obese.

The good news is that it is easy to solve this problem.

An 8 oz. Glass of water isn’t very large.  Keep in on your desk and keep refilling it.  Don’t go by the water cooler without taking a sip, thirsty or not.  Keep a glass on your nightstand and drink when you first get up.

Dieters and non-dieters alike must establish a “fluid balance” where going into the body approximately equals the amount being excreted.  When you reach this balance point, you’ll see the incredible difference water can make in your weight control program.  Pounds and inches begin to disappear.

Trying to solve the problem of fluid retention by drinking less water only aggravates matters because it (retention) occurs even when you drink no water.  If you don’t drink more water after salty food, your body pulls water from your intestines and bowel to dilute the extra sodium.  If you drink more water, you force stored water out of your body through your kidneys.

You don’t have to worry about drinking too much water-it’s impossible!  Any excess will be urinated and/or sweated out. 

What about diuretics?  Diuretics force stored water out of your body.  The problem is that your body perceives this as a lack of necessary water and it stores whatever is available.  So unless you are drinking enough water, diuretics won’t usually solve the problem of retention.  Diuretics can also cause constipation by draining water from the colon in order to distribute it around your body because not enough water is available. Thus, without enough water in the colon, your stools can become dry and hard.

I suggest you give water a chance.  Only with an adequate supply of clean, fresh, life-giving water can your body’s systems function in a way that keeps you healthy.

If you are unaccustomed to drinking water, this chart will help you comfortably increase your water consumption.

DAY WATER DAY WATER

Day#

1 4 – 8 oz. glasses            8 8 – 8 oz. glasses

2 5 – 8 oz. glasses            9 8 – 8 oz. glasses

3 5 – 8 oz. glasses           10 9 – 8 oz. glasses

4 6 – 8 oz. glasses           11 9 – 8 oz. glasses

5 6 – 8 oz. glasses           12 10-8 oz. glasses

6 7 – 8 oz. glasses           13 11-8 oz. glasses

7 7 – 8 oz. glasses           14 12-8 oz. glasses

Recommended Programs and Reading:

The Nutripoint Program for Optimal Nutrition by Dr. Roy Vartabedian (program available from Fitness By Design).

Smart Exercise: Burning Fat, Getting Fit – Covert bailey

The Complete Fit or Fat Book: The Phenomenal Program that Successfully Guides You from Fatness to Fitness – Covert Bailey

The Fit or Fat Woman – Covert Bailey

The Fit or Fat Target Diet: The Easiest Plan for Your Best Diet – Covert Bailey

Fit or Fat Target Recipes – Covert Bailey

Any of Jane Brody’s Nutrition Books

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes – Joan Ryan

You’re OKAY, It’s Just a Bruise – Rob Huizenga, M.D.

This is quite possibly the most frustrated I have ever been. I am still unable to get out of bed. I still am going to stay focused on the Resolutions though. Today is an important day since tomorrow I will weigh in. I am hoping to be down a few pounds despite being in bed all wek. The problem is the weight loss will just be from a loss in muscle density. But I still could use some good news.

To make the early morning Monday Weight checks accurate we need to make sure the day before stays the same. For Breakfast its Cheerios, a medium sized banana, and an 8 ounce glass of Welchs purple grape juice. Make sure to get the 100oz of water in today. For a mid morning snack it should be a yogurt. I like Lemon Burst from Yoplait but choose whatever. Lunch is going to be turkey sandwich and some carrots. Afternoon snack will be some kirkland brand trail mix from Costco. And Finally Dinner will be another sandwich. After dinner before bed I will have another glass of juice, this one will be orange.

This may seem boring but I know I can do this every Sunday. Consistently will be the key to making the weight checks accurate. Please keep up with the exercise routine. 

As we close the first week of this lets look at what we accomplished.

1. We established one of the most important habits you can have. Drinking water. I discussed with you earlier how important this really is.

2. We gave up a significant amount of empty calories. All the ffods that we are choosing to not eat will make a significant difference as we go along.

3. We started a simple yet very effective exercise routine.

Next week we will move on to the next phase of the goal.

Most importantly  in my opinion you set yourself up for success, not burnout and failure. 

Later today I will try to post again with another exercise Routine, this one a specific warm-up for running.

Again I am unable to sit-up or stand without significant pain in my head so not much else I can do for my goals except keep up with the water and eating without the foods I have listed so far. Last one for the first round of five Items to give up completes the first round. Again the key is that all of these items had very little nutritional value but were high in calories. The last one for the list is French Fries/ or Tater Tots or Onion Rings. Or Fried cheese sticks. All of these delicious appetizers are a disaster when trying to lose weight. 

So here again are the 5 foods I would like you to try and avoid for the duration of your Resolution. 

1. Soda (try to not even do Diet if possible, it is just not good for your body….at all)

2. Chips (no not even the baked kind)

3. Candy (for now it is ok to have snickers or baby ruth, at least there is a little nutrition in there.

4. Desserts (delicious but not worth it)

5. Fried potato products (no more bottomless fries at Red Robin)

Tomorrow I will put together the initial running Progressions for you. I will not have a 5k base yet but we will use a theoretical one and build a progression of of that.

Do not forget your Water!!!