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Archives For June 2010

>Check in: How’s Your Progress Coming Along?

June 28, 2010 — Leave a comment

>Let me start by saying that I am honored and humbled to be teaching/training some of the most gracious and grateful people. Thank you all for being so inspiring to me!

This morning, I asked my students in Pasadena to be aware of aspects in class where they feel there has been progress. And it doesn’t have to be long-term oriented, such as weight loss in pounds, or inches shed in certain areas of the body. The progress I’m talking about is in the little things:

  • improvement in your movements
  • the ability to lift slightly more weight, or do more repetitions
  • feeling and knowing that your core is stronger
  • trying a Level 2 or Level 3 version of an exercise that you could only do at Level 1 a few weeks ago
  • increasing your functional range of motion
  • improving your interval times
  • decreasing your need for rest periods
  • adding more speed
  • fine-tuning the details of complex movement patterns
  • in general, getting more comfortable with your relationship with exercise

This list can go on, and can apply to any class or workout session that you do, whether it’s resistance training, cycling, or yoga.

Reflect on this for a moment, and take note of how far you’ve come along. There is value in accounting for the areas in which you have made progress, as it helps you redirect your attention to what you have accomplished, versus what you have not.

So take the time to check in on your progress, and see where the thoughts take you. You just might be surprised at how these little things add up to the fitter, more healthful, more athletic YOU that you are today.

I’d love to know your progress! Keep me posted.

In Fitness Information and Tips, Life , , , ,
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>Rhyme and Reason for the Structure of our Group Exercise Classes

June 23, 2010 — Leave a comment

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First of all, thank you to all of you who openly give feedback and ask questions regarding our classes. I appreciate your interest in understanding why we do specific exercises, and why we conduct the sequences in varying order every week.

The truth is, I take pride and joy in creating workout programs that make sense, in terms of exercise selection, order, and intention. I’m very flattered to be called “creative” or “unique” when it comes to the exercises that you get to enjoy and experience. Honestly, I come up with these out of a need to give you progression and challenge, while remembering to address injuries and varying fitness levels.
For that reason, you end up seeing and learning new moves a lot of the time. To me, novelty exercises are all well and good, but should also be created within the realm of the overall program design for the class. That will then always go back to the program’s goals, as far as what I aim to accomplish for you as your group fitness coach.
These new moves, as you have seen, are typically structured in mini-circuit fashion, as all our classes are intended to include a cardio component. You may have noticed that I will either pair up exercises, or bundle them in 3′s or 4′s, sometimes even giving you a series of 8 exercises that we finish as a sequence, before doing a second round.
We do this to save time, promote cardio benefits, give specific muscle groups or areas ample time to recover, or as the case may be, challenge these muscle groups by giving them 2-3 exercises dedicated to that area.
The question that prompted this post had to do with why we change the order of the exercises that we do, and the simple answer to that is my respect for the fact that your body will give its best performance to the exercises done while it is fresh and prepped from a proper warm-up. Simply put, if we start targeting leg power in Week 1, you may notice that by Week 3, leg power is saved for the 2nd half of the class. My goal is simply to ensure that your energy is spent on various aspects of fitness. Think about it, if we only started with leg power every single time, not only will you end up with leg overuse issues, you’ll also sacrifice other goals that are typically saved for the end of the class.
This explains why, if you come to the same class 3 or 4 weeks in a row, you’ll notice a few changes week per week, while noticing that some things remain fundamentally the same with at least 60-70% of the program. What I actually do is systematically change the exercise order and add a couple of challenge elements here and there.
The outcome? Progression, results, motor learning, and a well-balanced program; all for you, my valued students. I personally think you deserve to be given more than just entertaining music and an enthusiastic spirit — your health needs more than that; hence the focus on methodical program design.
So there you have it — now you know the so-called “secret” behind our class structure. Have other questions about all this? Let me know!
In Fitness Program Design, Group Fitness Classes , , , ,
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>Incorporating restoration/repair for the summer season

June 14, 2010 — Leave a comment

>

Yesterday, I took an Iyengar yoga class — a style that the old me tended to pass up, in favor of Vinyasa or Ashtanga styles, where you flow from one pose to the next and keep your heart rate constantly challenged.

Of course, a Type-A workout fanatic such as myself would want the latter. After all, these are movements that I can muscle through and expect to feel as a “workout” more than a restoration/repair session.
Yesterday’s Iyengar class focused on holding the postures in as much proper alignment as possible, for maximum benefit. The workout aspect was in the isometric hold of the poses, and in the challenge of fine-tuning the details of joint positioning. The biggest challenge: you CANNOT muscle through it. A lot of what’s required is patience, a sense of integration across the joints of your body, and an awareness of the placement of your limbs in space (also known as proprioception).
The class was humbling, to say the least. I left in a cloud of epiphany, realizing that for many months, I’ve put my body through day after day of teaching and working myself out through my own classes. As a fitness pro, it’s easy to justify this by stretching and using myofascial release techniques to reduce the effects of overuse on the joints. And as a fitness pro, it’s easy to admit that I am also not the best at ensuring that I practice these techniques consistently. The result? My S.I. joint issue, which, I am still experiencing to a lesser and lesser degree, almost 3 weeks after its onset.
So that said, I encourage you, particularly if you are on a hectic workout schedule of 4 to 5 days a week, to incorporate a restorative/repair session in your summer regimen. Fitness fanatics, I highly urge that for this season, instead of adding this to your already-packed fitness week, consider replacing one of your hard-core workout days with a restore/repair session such as yoga or even pilates. I’m sure that your probably-battered body will thank you for it, and you can keep yourself from experiencing the same joint issues I’ve had to learn the hard way.
What do you think? Can you see yourself shifting gears a bit during the summer?
Namaste. :c)
In Fitness Information and Tips, How To (Get Fit, Stay Fit, Perform an Exercise ...) , , , , , ,
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