Exercise For EveryBODY
Knowledge
This page will be updated constantly so please continue to check back regularly. Want to request a specific topic or have a question? Email me. I've included a few photos of myself training clients, with their permission.
Before we get started, I'd like to address the fact that few fitness questions are answered adequately in a "black and white" manner as most of us are accustomed to in the world outside the fitness realm. For example, I have a client, Joe, and he works out regularly by doing three days a week of resistance training and two days of cardiovascular exercise. He is complaining of low energy levels and wants me to examine his diet and caloric intake. Joe's needs would be different than someone who lives a more sedentary lifestyle and who doesn't exercise regularly. It's important to understand these differences. As a trainer, few questions can be answered with the same responses from people who's lifestyle are completely different. Therefore, If you choose to take advantage of our "Contact Us" link and pose a question, I encourage you to be as specific as possible. With that being said, let's get started.
A couple of the basics:
Warm up: From the most avid gym rat to the recreational guest, no one should ever skip out on warming up. There are several different kinds of warming up but for the most part, the key is to just break a sweat during your warm up. Try and duplicate the target areas you're fixing to work but in a less dramatic fashion. You're priming your muscles for the work load here. Benefits of warming up include less chance of injury, increasing range of motion, prevention of lactic acid buildup, mental preparation, and hormonal changes in your body which in turn make carbohydrates and fatty acids available for energy production.
Cool Down: A proper cool down is just as essential to any workout as the warm up is. Blood flow can be trapped and pool up in the limbs of the body and create nausea, fatigue, and headaches. Lactic acid can buildup which can be painful. The trick is to slow your heart rate back to it's original resting heart rate. This can be done by light jogging or walking and slow, concentrated, holding stretches of the limbs, especially the hamstrings and quadriceps of the legs. Slow rhythmic arm circles, tricep stretches, shoulder shrugs, etc. Try to target the major muscles of the body along with specific areas worked during the workout.
Before we get started, I'd like to address the fact that few fitness questions are answered adequately in a "black and white" manner as most of us are accustomed to in the world outside the fitness realm. For example, I have a client, Joe, and he works out regularly by doing three days a week of resistance training and two days of cardiovascular exercise. He is complaining of low energy levels and wants me to examine his diet and caloric intake. Joe's needs would be different than someone who lives a more sedentary lifestyle and who doesn't exercise regularly. It's important to understand these differences. As a trainer, few questions can be answered with the same responses from people who's lifestyle are completely different. Therefore, If you choose to take advantage of our "Contact Us" link and pose a question, I encourage you to be as specific as possible. With that being said, let's get started.
A couple of the basics:
Warm up: From the most avid gym rat to the recreational guest, no one should ever skip out on warming up. There are several different kinds of warming up but for the most part, the key is to just break a sweat during your warm up. Try and duplicate the target areas you're fixing to work but in a less dramatic fashion. You're priming your muscles for the work load here. Benefits of warming up include less chance of injury, increasing range of motion, prevention of lactic acid buildup, mental preparation, and hormonal changes in your body which in turn make carbohydrates and fatty acids available for energy production.
Cool Down: A proper cool down is just as essential to any workout as the warm up is. Blood flow can be trapped and pool up in the limbs of the body and create nausea, fatigue, and headaches. Lactic acid can buildup which can be painful. The trick is to slow your heart rate back to it's original resting heart rate. This can be done by light jogging or walking and slow, concentrated, holding stretches of the limbs, especially the hamstrings and quadriceps of the legs. Slow rhythmic arm circles, tricep stretches, shoulder shrugs, etc. Try to target the major muscles of the body along with specific areas worked during the workout.
