Long Beach Press-Telegram Reader’s Choice FAVORITE!

The results are in!

Thank you Long Beach Press Telegram Readers for voting me your choice of “Favorite Personal Trainer!”

Its an honor and a privilege to help Long Beach get beach ready and FIT!

I look forward to further serving the Long Beach community and helping more people achieve their fitness goals and live a healthy active life!

If you want to join in the fun and are in the Long Beach or Lakewood area, let me show you what One on One Personal Training  can do for you! Feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

That sounds like a prison sentence! Its not that at all.

I prefer to call this workout “Whatchoo Got?” Its a test of work capacity, overall fitness, strength, stamina, endurance and sheer willpower.

This workout uses all kinds of equipment: sand bags, jump ropes, Dynamax Balls, kettle bells etc. I’ll let the description do the talking:

Workout of the Week: “Whatchoo Got?”

50 Wallballs (10#/20#)

50m Sand bag Carry (45#/70#)

50 Situps

50m Sand bag Carry

50 Pushups (bar/floor)

50m Sandbag Carry

50 Kettlebell swings

50m Sand bag Carry

50 single under jump rope

50m Sand bag Carry

15 minute time limit to get as much work done as possible. If you get to the finish, start over again!

So the basic rundown is this: each exercise is done to completion and then there is a 50 meter sand bag carry. The ladies carried a 45lb bag and men a 70lb bag, then they move on to complete 50 reps of the next exercise, with sandbag carry to follow again. So on and so forth.

This was a great little functional workout test. I was really excited to see everyone learning new fitness “levels” they could test out. Everyone got really good at keeping a constant quick moving pace to get the MOST work done in the shortest amount of time. Isn’t that what being FIT is all about? Farther, faster, stronger, quicker.

Here are the results:

Great job everyone! I was happy to see everyone just working hard and checking in with me for the time so they can adjust their pace. Everyone kept moving fast and from the sweat and rosy cheeks…got a great workout.

If you want to join in the fun and are in the Long Beach or Lakewood area, let me show you what One on One Personal Training  can do for you! Feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Are you just spinning your wheels and going no where?

I’ve seen it for years. When I worked at a big corporate gym (rhymes with 24 Hour Fitness) I would see members day in and day out that were absolutetly committed to spending time getting NO RESULTS. They would come in religiously, sweat and toil away (well…maybe thats a bit too much credit) and never make any progress. I don’t say this to be mean but rather to shed some light on what 90% of the gym going population has accepted as OK. “Doing something is better than nothing” they say. I say thats a load of crap.

Sorry to put it so simply but if I’m going to do a lot of work and convince myself of the “no pain, no gain” idea…I had better be making some change. Somewhere!

So here are a few questions to ask yourself to make sure you aren’t wasting your time and energy in the gym:

Are you improving?

This is the most basic question. Are you making any improvements? You see, many people follow this formula. Find a workout (either from a magazine or what they learned over the years) and then they do said workout. Over and over and over. They might change it up a bit by adding in an exercise here or there but by and large  it mainly goes unchanged. This was the case that I saw with the  bulk of the people at the big corporate gym. Like clockwork I would see the Cardio Queens hop on their treadmill or elliptical trainers, or the old gym rats that would do the workout they remember from high school. Never changing, never improving.

How do you know?

How do you know if you are improving? Quite simple, you measure it! Improvements and results are measurable, plain and simple. Just like food tracking/meal planning you can’t know how you are doing unless you know WHAT you are doing. If you can’t measurably see change, you are plateauing and thus not changing.

Here are some ways to check if you are improving…

Are you better, faster, stronger?

Can you run faster or farther? Jump rope longer? Have you improved on a particular skill? Are you lifting more weight? Doing more reps? If you are following along a workout from a magazine or what you have “always done” and you know you always lift 10 lbs or always do 12 reps…well you have plateaued LONG AGO!

You have to be able to observe or measure SOME sort of progress, otherwise you will stay comfortable and spend weeks, months, or even years…getting NO RESULTS.

Is your body changing?

Now it doesn’t always have to be about lifting more weight. If you have a goal of losing weight or toning up, a great way to see change is weight, body fat testing or even better…your clothes are getting too big! This is a RESULT! It means you are doing something right. Kudos to you.

Is “something better than nothing?”

No. Sorry…maybe its the trainer in me but I don’t think that just doing SOMETHING is a positive way of looking at things.   As a trainer you had better expect me to to have this attitude or I’d be wasting my client’s time by babysitting them rather than expecting more and more out of them. I expect measurable changes. That’s how I know I’m doing my job. So if you’re in the gym you have to remember…

Doing something with the goal of setting a new record for yourself is better than nothing.

This should be your new mantra. I would hate to see you waste years of working out and not see ANY results with all the effort you put in…or should I say the time you spent. I want you to have something to show for it. Something you can be proud of. A measurable change! We all want a return on our investment (of time) so you should expect MORE of yourself each and every time you break a sweat.

So here is what you should take away from all this…

Work out with a purpose. Push towards a goal. Strive for a few more reps, finishing your workout a little faster. Those are small changes you can make initially. Find exercises to better, stronger, faster at. I have certain benchmarks and “games” I play with my clients to give them some idea of their level of fitness. I call it our Long Beach Workout of the Week. We do this to measure improvement and push to new limits.

If you just start paying attention to how much you are staying in the “comfort zone” you will see when you start to stagnate and more importantly you’ll know WHY. Keep track of certain exercises, workouts etc and see if you are making changes in them.  It can be your own personal motivation tool and also an indicator that you are getting RESULTS from all this hard work.

So now you know what to look for and how to make some changes to your “routine.” (Your fitness should be anything BUT routine, by the way) Armed with this knowledge and renewed sense of purpose…go out there and make some measurable change and EXPECT RESULTS!

If ready to make some big progress and break through some plateaus, let me show you what One on One Personal Training in Long Beach can do for you! Feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Workout of the Week #1:

10 Deadlifts

30 seconds rest

5 Rounds for TOTAL TIME

The Deadlift is a great functional exercise that EVERYONE can benefit from. Just think to yourself of lugging those bags of groceries  around or how many friends have asked you to help them move and now you get why this is useful.  The key to this one is moving quickly through the reps. The main thing we were working with was recovery and work capacity. How fast can you recover on your rest and how much can you sustain the work. It was a fun test for everyone as it took them past some limits. I got a few laughs as I heard “Go now? Already???” or “How many more sets?!?”

Here is how everyone did:

Workout of the Week #2 Crossfit FRAN

21-15-9 reps Barbell Thrusters

21-15-9 Pullups

For Time

Crossfit names many of their benchmark workouts using women’s names. Don’t ask me why, its just what they do. This was my first Crossfit workout that I ever did and was completely worn out when I finished. So…I figured its time everyone else enjoys it as well.

A barbell thruster is essentially a barbell front squat followed by an overhead barbell push press. The press is completed by using the force from your legs…not by using your shoulders to strictly press the bar overhead. Pullups I modified for everyone by doing either an assisted pullup or a modified hanging bar “row.”

This workout is a testament to sheer willpower. Its not overly heavy so its a matter of pushing one’s self to keep moving. I scaled each person with this in mind.

Here are the results:

Here is what a really fast FRAN looks like:

Great job and effort by everyone. We’re going to keep getting those times down and weights up in the future so keep pushing hard! Next week we get REALLY functional  as you bring “Whatchoo Got!” Stay tuned.

If you want to join in the fun and break through some plateaus, let me show you what One on One Personal Training in Long Beach can do for you! Feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Goals! Without them we are destined to meander about aimlessly just living day to day. Some of us have them in the “back of our mind” while some are very specifically focused on them each and every day. The people that look at them each day…will probably achieve those goals. Sorry…its just how it is. No one stumbles upon success.

A friend of mine and fellow Crossfitter just reminded me of the importance of them. My friend sent me a text message telling me he had just squatted 300 lbs. He mentioned that it was something he wanted to do before his birthday. That got me thinking up to my own birthday and what I wanted to achieve by then. What were MY goals? Hmmm…

Inherently I had them in the back of my mind but when it comes to the physical things you want to be able to do, it reminded me of how important it is to put them right out in front of you, each day. Crossfit uses the “whiteboard” they keep track of specific benchmarks to track progress on certain workouts.  I do some of this with my clients on our Long Beach Workout of the Week, but that is about general performance and testing one’s overall fitness.  I’m talking about specifically…

What do YOU want to be able to DO?

Each of us are individuals. We have different interests, needs, abilities but one thing is certain…we all want to be able to do something. We all dream of how cool, neat, fun, challenging it would be to be able to do…something.

So now I’m asking a couple things of yourself. Take time to think what would you really love to be able to do? Walk a mile, run 5, do a cartwheel? Anything! (and don’t listen to the voice that says you can’t or really don’t want to…its just sabotage.)

Make a list of those things that you want to do. No matter how crazy it sounds. There are baby steps to getting you to those goals and if you have them out in front of you every time you work out (or work out with me) then little things can be worked on each and every time to get you to that goal.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Then why haven’t you taken your first bite? Write those goals down, no matter how audacious, crazy, unattainable they sound. They are YOUR goals and no one else’s and you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone.

Baby Steps to your new goal…and DON’T hesitate!

Now armed with your goals then next thing to do is look at the little tiny thing you can do to get closer to it. It can be a matter of watching something on Youtube about it, or reading an article to make yourself more knowledgeable. It can be a big step like working with someone to help you physically prepare for it. The most important thing is to DO SOMETHING NOW!

Most people feel that when they work with a personal trainer that its all about “help me lose weight” but I have found that if someone has THINGS they want to be able to DO then I can take them towards many physical achievement goals while we work on losing weight too!

Think about that next time you just say “Oh if I lost the weight…THEN I’d want to do _____.”

Its not a “do this first, then you can do that” process. Baby steps towards ALL of your goals will make your weight loss goal more fun, FASTER and before you know it you’ll be checking off a whole lot of physical achievements from your list.

Remember: Your goals are YOUR goals! Dream BIG and start moving towards those accomplishments today. The only person who can tell you can’t do it…is YOU.

Get started today! If you need help, I’d be happy to work with you towards ALL of your goals. Feel free to email me or call 562.225.2244 and we can sit down and talk about the things you want to achieve and map out a plan to get you there fast!

This week’s Long Beach Workout of the Week was a BREATHER! Non-stop movement and high heart rate fun!

Everyone was surprised this week to start working in Kettle Bell Push Presses into the mix. Its fun to add some explosive strength work into the mix so we did just that and upped the weights as well.  We also added in some highly taxing leg work as well as continuous jump rope work.

So what is “metabolic conditioning” or METCON?

I’ll keep it very basic. To sum it up in a few short words: high intensity workouts that incorporate numerous energy pathways (eg the stuff that gives you short strong bursts all the way through to the stuff that keeps you running aerobically)

So without further ado here is this week’s Long Beach Workout of the Week:

Workout of the Week: Metabolic Conditioning

25-12-6 Kettle bell Push Press

50-25-12 Lunges

200-100-50 Jump Rope

For Time

KB weight prescriptions: Women 20lb, Men 35lb

How this works is the first round is 25 kettle bell push presses each arm, then moving on to 50 steps of walking lunges, then grab the jump rope and hit 200 single unders (one jump one swing). Then moving on to the second round and so on and so forth.

I warned everyone that the first round will test their will to live. (I’m so nice.) If they can get through that one, the last two will be a piece of cake. I was right.

We had some great showings with K.M. going completely unbroken on her jump rope rounds. (That means no stopping or messing up) This was T.M. and C.B.’s first time doing push presses and they were fairly new to jumping rope but they did awesome with the push presses and we modified the jump rope to hopping side to side…still very tiring! I even jumped in and played this week.

So here is how everyone did:

Ladies	Time	Men	Time
K.M. as Rx’d	11:56	M.L. as Rx’d	21:28
M.K. as Rx’d	12:51	Me   53# KB	14:23
M.R. scaled: 15#KB	7:36
F.M. scaled: no J.R’s	13:06
T.M. scaled: side jumps	10:55
C.B. scaled: 10#kb, 1/2 lunges	11:45	**As Rx’ed= As Prescribed

I was really impressed by how much everyone pushed. This was a great learning experience in threshold training and how to work out with high intensity safely and within your own limits while setting new limits! I’m excited to see how everyone does next week.

If want to join in the fun and set some new limits for your personal fitness, let me show you what One on One Personal Training in Long Beach can do for you! Feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Are you Asleep at the Wheel?

I just heard an interesting analogy from a friend of mine on Facebook. She had just started using the Weight Watchers food tracking app and said that it was eye opening and she felt like she had been “sleep eating” for the past number of years. This was a powerful statement, enough to make me want to write a post about it.

How many of us are just eating portions that “look” about the right size. Worse yet, how many are eating portions that DON’T look the right size. We as American’s have a very distorted view of what is a correct portion size. With every restaurant trying to outdo each other with a bigger burger, plate, dessert or even salad, how can we expect to really know what is right? No one is telling us what a proper sized meal looks like. So we go on for years and perhaps a lifetime eating what is put in front of us gaining pound after pound and thinking that one plate equals one meal. I will now call this “Sleep Eating” because it seems appropriate. We are doing the equivalent of sleeping at the steering wheel and going wherever it takes us. For most of us that’s a few extra pounds every year. For even more its down the road to diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and a slew of other health issues.

So Why am I so Crazy about Calorie Counting?

I am adamant about calorie counting for three reasons. First, calorie counting gives you perspective. Figuring out an approximate calorie range that you need to be in for your goal (maintaining a weight, losing weight etc) will give you the parameters or boundaries in which you can eat. This sets the “rules” by which you live each day. If you can eat 2000 calories per day as a maintenance program that’s where you start. The next part of it is the BIG lesson.

Fitting those calories in to a day is the next reason counting calories is important. I recommend eating for what you are about to do. Let me show you what that DOESN’T mean because this comes up frequently. Most people eat a minimal breakfast, a light lunch and then come home and eat a large dinner. Most of the time its because breakfast is on the go, lunch is out (because of work) and dinner is the only time they have to sit down and unwind or actually cook so they make it a “solid meal.” The problem lies in the fact that at the end of the day that person has about 3 hours or so before they go to sleep. Sleep is our period of burning the LEAST amount of calories. So large meal plus long period of inactivity is a formula for storing all those unused calories aka getting fat. You may have heard someone say they are “not eating after 7pm” though a bit misguided it is still following the premise that towards the end of the day you don’t need the extra calories. You are about to power down for the night, so why fuel up excessively?

So back to calorie counting. You have your calorie boundaries so now its up to you to fit those in to the day to fuel you where you need it most. Are you most active early in the day? Chances are that is when you need to be eating. Fit the bulk of your calories in to the earlier parts of your day to fuel the activity that comes after. This gives you a chance to burn what you eat. My example for this is pay bills after you get paid.

The third reason that calorie counting is important is accountability. At work you are accountable to your boss, team, coworkers etc. At home no one is accountable for their actions. If you over eat, you don’t know it because there are no systems, policies etc like at the workplace. Calorie counting provides that organization so that you are running as smoothly as a business runs. You have very little surplus or deficit, so to speak. If you were to walk in to the accounting department of a major business and saw no books or calculators, you would probably think its time to get a job somewhere else because this company is going down. Why is your body any different?

How to get started?

1. Start by calculating your maintenance calories. This will get you started and get your mind on being aware of food. You’ll see calorie counts on menus more and more and start to realize “wow, I really am over eating!”
2. The next step is to start tracking those calories. You can do this by hand in a notebook by reading food labels and being mindful of portion sizes. Measuring and weighing is the best way to get a good “eye” on portion sizes. Most of us are way off base as to what 3 ounces of chicken looks like etc. If you have an iPhone I recommend Tap and Track. Its a very powerful free app that has a huge database of food and is very easy to add in foods on the fly. *Plus if you skipped step 1, it will calculate your calories according to your goals for you.
3. Now start to manipulate your food and calories around to give you the right amount of calories for your active day. If you go to the gym at lunch, try to fuel up at breakfast. If you work out after work, then breakfast and lunch should be your heavier meals with dinner being fairly light.

Now you have a good start to getting control of your food intake. Using just those simple steps above will open your eyes to how you are currently eating and perhaps give you the motivation you have been looking for. Being able to chance your body at will is very empowering. Remember “Abs are made in the kitchen” so if you are not in control of how you are eating, you can’t expect to see any changes in your body. Exercise alone won’t cut it so get your food life back on the road and don’t be “asleep at the wheel!”

If you need to get your diet under control and start getting in shape with One on One Personal Training in Long Beach attention feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Workout of the Week #1

20 Kettle bell swings
40 Jack knife crunches
20 Dips (bench dips for women, bar dips for men)

3 rounds for time

The round starts with 20 kettle bell swings. I let everyone do a Russian style swing which is to eye level since the standard weight for women was 35lbs. Some were new to that weight, many just hadn’t done 20 reps before so it was a surprise to all and a great confidence booster. The 40 jack knife crunches are pretty straightforward, opposite arm and leg touch with each crunch. Finally bench or bar dips, repping it out. This was a “fast” metabolic conditioning workout that kept the heart rate up from the first set of kettle bell swings.

Here are the results:

So after we finished we took about 3 minutes to recover and then headed outside for part two of our little game!

Workout of the Week #2

1/4 mile run
Rest 2 minutes
1/4 mile run

Here are the results:

GREAT effort by everyone this week! The run outside is a great reminder that some of the best workouts can be had OUTSIDE the gym and this little test compliments all the hard work everyone puts in INSIDE the gym.

Stay tuned for next week’s Long Beach Workout where everyone really pushes their limits while working on strength, endurance and stamina. This workout isn’t for the faint of heart!

If you are looking to take your workouts to the next level and want to get One on One Personal Training in Long Beach attention feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Workout of the Week: Tabata Squats

20 seconds max work/10 seconds rest

8 rounds for score

Everyone really did well with this one. Some had a very consistent pace all the way through while some started out very fast and then tapered off as they fatigued. Above all else it was HIGH intensity!

Here are the scores:

A word of caution if you have never Tabata Intervals before: you will more than likely get very sore. As you become more fit and accustomed to high intensity work it will get much easier.

Check back next week for a DOUBLE dose of Long Beach Workouts! Have a great week!

If you are looking to take your workouts to the next level and want to get One on One Personal Training in Long Beach feel free to email me today or call 562.225.2244 for a FREE Consultation.

Workout of the Week: Deadlift/Burpee

5 Rounds for time:

• 5 Deadlifts

• 10 Burpees

Rules/Standards:

Deadlifts: The bar has to touch the floor between reps, no near touches allowed. You must stand all the way up with the bar so that the hips are locked.

Burpees: Only 2 rules…lay on the floor fully as the bottom position and jump in the air with hands overhead at the top. Some may criticize and look for precise burpee form (to include the pushup) which we do normally but for this it is a test of work capacity, speed, agility and overall stamina. Using these as our only two rules for form means faster cycle time and less recovery. That being said everyone did pretty clean burpees!

This is a standard Crossfit Workout where the weights are usually considerably higher for the men and women. If you are accustomed to doing heavier dead lifts feel free to scale them up to body weight or even Crossfit Standard weights. (275lb men/185 women)

Here is the workout as Crossfit does it:

Here are the week’s Results:

So this was quite a surprise to everyone! Many were not used to handling some of the weights and they did a stellar job trusting that they could do it. Some great Personal Records for the  Ladies this week. For some it was an eye opener as to how much further you can go. For many it was a great lesson in learning new levels and thresholds that you can push past. I think everyone felt the same way about how taxing it was and really enjoyed the challenge. Kudos to everyone for working hard this week!

My favorite quote of the week:

This was the hardest thing I have ever done in the gym…ever. -J.H.

 

If you are looking for a Long Beach Personal Trainer and want to feel great and get FIT,  feel free to EMAIL ME or call 562.225.2244. I’d love to sit down and discuss your goals and map out a plan to achieve them.