Tag Archive | personal training

Getting The Best Results From Your Workouts

Yes, you can get a great workout without spending money on a monthly gym membership.  You can still get great results

We received an email from one of our subscribers (who will go nameless to protect their identity) and they had specific concerns about not being able to get great results from working out because they couldn’t afford to go to a “real gym”.  We reached out to our friends at the Functional Athlete, a personal training gym in Countryside, IL, to address some of the concerns and we wanted to share their responses with you.

I don’t have fancy equipment. 

Don’t be mistaken…you can still get a great workout without using fancy equipment. In fact, you don’t really need any equipment at all. Many people don’t realize just how fit you could get with nothing but your own bodyweight, a small space on the floor or ground, and a timekeeping device (say, a wall clock or wristwatch).

I don’t have a lot of time to workout.

Search any app store and you’ll find many apps that promise a great workout in 7 minutes or less. We have tried several and they are good for beginners but once you master the 7-minute workout, the next progression for many of these apps are doing the same workout twice or even 3 times. It’s true that you can get sweat dripping, calorie burning complete workouts in 20 minutes or less. In that time, you can get all the strength, endurance, flexibility/mobility, balance, and cardio that you need.

Do I just need to workout or do I need to change my diet too?

No matter what your workout routine is, its benefits can be nullified by a bad diet. If you want to see tremendous results then try to eat clean for at least five days a week. Include plenty of fresh vegetables and protein. Try to limit your dairy intake.

How do I overcome my hatred for working out and just do it?

Alright, alright….workouts can be tough, but so can being obese and all of the damaging effects that it comes with. Working out can be exhausting but you’ll feel so good after a great workout. Put in the extra effort. Step up your game. You will feel tired when you’re putting in that extra effort. It should suck. It should hurt (in the right way, of course). Push yourself! If you can laugh, read a newspaper/magazine/novel, hold a conversation, or watch TV while working out, you’re not going hard enough.

I lose focus during my workouts.

Get your mind right.  Workouts are more effective if you’re mentally focused and present. Be present in your workouts and by that we mean that everything you do in your workout, you should be thinking about how your body is moving, whether it’s moving as a cohesive, unified, functional unit, how it feels, whether your form is as correct as possible, etc. While it’s true that you can benefit from a workout even if you just zone out to music, you can get even more benefits by putting forth the effort and paying attention. Remember, it’s only 20 minutes after all.

Diet vs. Exercise – Which is Better for Weight Loss

Should You Focus on Diet or Exercise When Trying to Lose Weight?

It’s not uncommon to hear this question as least once per week.  Is exercise or diet better for weight loss?  HuffingtonPost  interviewed Michele Olson, PhD, professor of physical education and exercise science at Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama.  She  recommends that you should hit the gym.  She mentioned that” you can lose weight with diet alone, but exercise is an important component. Without it, only a portion of your weight loss is from fat and you’re also stripping away muscle and bone density.

Since working out stimulates growth of those metabolic tissues, losing weight through exercise means you’re burning mostly fat. The number on the scale may not sound as impressive, but because muscle takes up less space than fat does, you look smaller and your clothes fit better. Data show that to lose weight with exercise and keep it off, you don’t need to run marathons. You just need to build up to five to seven workouts a week, 50 minutes each, at a moderate intensity, like brisk walking or Zumba. Resistance training helps, too. But don’t just do isolated weight-lifting exercises like biceps curls — you’ll get leaner faster by using your body weight against gravity, as with movements like squats, lunges, push-ups and planks. And, of course, beyond burning fat, people shouldn’t forget that exercise can have other impressive health perks, like improving the quality of your sleep, lowering your cholesterol and reducing your stress level.”

They also spoke to Shawn M. Talbott, PhD, nutritional biochemist and former director of the University of Utah Nutrition Clinic.  His recommendation is to Eat Smart. He says, “As a rule of thumb, weight loss is generally 75 percent diet and 25 percent exercise. An analysis of more than 700 weight loss studies found that people see the biggest short-term results when they eat smart. On average, people who dieted without exercising for 15 weeks lost 23 pounds; the exercisers lost only six over about 21 weeks. It’s much easier to cut calories than to burn them off. For example, if you eat a fast-food steak quesadilla, which can pack 500-plus calories, you need to run more than four miles to ‘undo’ it!

“So, what should you eat? It’s true that low-carb diets tend to be the most popular because they offer the fastest results, but they can be difficult to sustain. I recommend striving for a more balanced plan that focuses on fruits and veggies, lean proteins and whole grain carbs. And never cut calories too low (this causes your metabolism to slow, and you can start losing muscle mass). For a healthy daily calorie count, allow 10 calories per pound of body weight — so a 150-pound woman should shoot for a 1,500-calorie target. That way, you should be able to lose weight no matter how much you exercise.”   While diet and exercise are both important for long-term weight loss, remember this: “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet,” says Talbott.

Our Final Word: If you’re serious about losing weight, then this shouldn’t even be a debate. Eat a healthy diet and combine that with exercise. To kick it up even further, you should find yourself a great personal trainer that will give you an intense workout as well as nutritional coaching.