Friday, December 28, 2007

Workout Shoes - Shoes for Strength Training

Workout Shoes - Shoes for Strength Training
 by: Marc David

I've always worked out in just a plain pair of tennis shoes. Rarely to I see or even think that using special shoes would make any difference at all. However, I began to think of better shoe support when I started doing heavy squats. This prompted me to do a little research in specific type shoes for working out that would give me better ankle support and put my feet in a more level position for squats and leg presses.
After some Googling around, I came across the Otomix brand of shoes. There's virtually nothing on the net about workout shoes. There's even less in bodybuilding forums about the subject. Yet soccer players have special shoes, and so do most other athletes. Tennis shoes are great for running but they didn't seem to be wonderful when it came to squatting and doing other heavy leg exercises.
These shoes ( a few versions are available) sell for around $95 on average depending on the website you find, and the sales being offered. With some clever searching, you can find a great price. I ordered my Otomix Ultimate Trainers online and was pleased to see many e-mail and tracking notifications about my order. According to Otomix, these workout shoes were specifically for:
Ultimate Trainer has been designed specifically for weight training and incorporates the new High Performance Bodybuilding system. The HPB system provides a combination of comfort and support utilizing a special wrap around strap adjusted by our innovative lacing system. This shoe is a must for the serious bodybuilder.
Note: Their shoes run a half size small compared to your true shoe size. They suggest that you order a half size larger.
Quickly I opened the box and found everything intact and in brand new condition. I was ready for my leg workout.
Adjusting the laces properly is a must. It came from the factory like most shoes. It wasn't laced thru each of the holes. I fixed the laces and found the shoes to fit nicely and very snug. I felt ankle support and was able to tighten them like a snowboarding boot but not so tight as to be uncomfortable. I headed off to the squat rack.
Doing squats is something I enjoy. Honestly, I enjoy them a bit more now with full support for my feet. These shoes were great first time. NO break in period was necessary. They were comfortable, gave strong ankle support and allowed me to do full squats without any annoying feet issues. I felt like my feet were flat and firmly place on the floor with good traction. Moving onto the leg press, same thing. NO odd arches, no slippage, and good solid firm foot placement for a good pressing motion.
I only use these shoes on leg days. That is really where I want the support. I do not wear them outside for walking around. They are just like gym gloves. Used in that environment as appropriate. The soles of the shoe are good for traction in a smooth, flat gym environment. These particular shoes are not made to be worn as a street shoe. That would be a big mistake. You'd wear out the tread in days and be out $100 very fast. However, in the gym, where they are meant to be, these shoes were incredibly superior.
My overall reaction and opinion of my Otomix workout shoes are very favourable. I would recommend them to anybody looking for some comfortable, high quality, long lasting footwear that is designed specifically for the gym.

About The Author

Marc David is a bodybuilder, writer, and author of the the e-book "The Beginner's Guide to Fitness and Bodybuilding" (BGFB): What Every Beginner Should Know but Probably Doesn't. Marc has written over 20 articles and has been featured in several health and fitness websites. Marc's opinionated and informative articles on bodybuilding, weight loss and training are featured regularly on: http://www.freedomfly.net.

mrcd@freedomfly.net

This article was posted on April 03, 2005

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Top 3 Reasons Why You Suffer From Pain In The Back Of The Knee

Top 3 Reasons Why You Suffer From Pain In The Back Of The Knee
 by: Marc David

Pain behind the knee is something many of us have or might experience if we play sports that involve bending at the knees, running, tennis, or any activity that puts strain on the area.
Here are some things you need to keep in mind if you ever experience such pain behind the knee:
1. Possible Arthritis
This is one of the most common causes of pain in the knee. In fact, if you are over the age of 65 one in two of you have arthritis with the knee been one of the most common joints involved.
The pain of arthritis is usually a dull tooth ache pain that is occasionally sharp with sudden movements. The pain is usually located over your joint line (where the tibia meets the femur) and in the front of the knee. Mild and sometimes severe swelling is associated with this pain. The pain is worse when you exit a chair or car. It is also worse with any prolonged walking or standing. The pain is usually better with rest, heat (sometimes ice), wrapping the knee and pain medication.
Occasionally the knee may catch on the rough uneven surfaces of your cartilage. Patients often complain of grinding in the knee, and occassional popping.
2. Minor Tear of the Cartilage Surface
Rather then a cyst or fluid build-up, the causes of the pain behind the knee might simply be slight micro tears in the cartilage. This can be treated with the same solutions at the end of this article. Tears, if minor, require no surgery and will heal on their own depending on the time allowed for healing and if the activity that aggravates it is avoided.
3. Baker's Cyst The cyst usually occurs due to some other problem in your knee such as arthritis or even a tear of your meniscus. The swelling from this problem causes fluid to build up in your knee. This fluid pushes out the weakest point of your joint capsule surrounding your knee. This is usually to the back portion of your knee capsule, and a cyst forms. The cyst has a valve made out of your joint capsule tissue. This valve can sometimes become clogged and the fluid becomes trapped in the cyst. Thus, even when the injury has resolved, you still have the swelling in the back of your knee. This is associated with pain usually described as dull and aching. The pain is worse with prolonged walking or standing. It is sometimes improved with rest, elevation and taking pain medication.
Many people agree that when it comes to pain behind the knee, the best plan of action is Control, Avoid, and Rehabilitate.
Control:
Cryotheraphy which involves putting ice on the area for 5 minutes at a time. This will help reduce the pain. Do not continue to apply ice if a burning sensation is felt.
Heat from a heating pad for 10-20 minutes on a lower setting may help reduce pain. Alternative methods include creams that create a heating sensation like Icy-Hot or AST BioFreeze gel.
Bracing from a comfortable knee brace can provide some needed relief and stability to the area, reducing the pressure on the area and thus; reducing the pain. There are many knee braces available that can be worn during activity or at any time where the area becomes bothersome.
Avoid:
There's nothing special about this old saying. Simply avoid the activities that aggravate the pain and participate in ones that seem to help it. Making a list of things NOT to do and a list of things TO DO will be helpful in determining what makes the pain worse. Avoid activities that continue to make the pain worse or no better. This is typical advice. Pain is a warning signal.
Rehabilitate:
Talk to a Doctor and make a plan of action to rehabilitate the knee thru controlled motions. Rehabilitation includes motivation to do the prescribed exercises. The correct exercises as prescribed and the proper equipment to keep the motions in controlled.
Pain behind the knee is very common in some many sports that you can suffer from this by doing almost anything from snowboarding to racquetball. By taking precautions in your sports and understanding what might cause this, will allow not only enjoyable sports activities, but a lifetime of activity.

About The Author

Marc David is a bodybuilder, writer, and author of the the e-book "The Beginner's Guide to Fitness and Bodybuilding" (BGFB): What Every Beginner Should Know but Probably Doesn't. Marc has written over 20 articles and has been featured in several health and fitness websites. Marc's opinionated and informative articles on bodybuilding, weight loss and training are featured regularly on: http://www.freedomfly.net.

mrcd@freedomfly.net

This article was posted on April 03, 2005

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Healthy Eating Habits

Healthy Eating Habits
 by: Dawid Michalczyk

Disclaimer: This article represents personal views and should be treated as such. Implementation of any ideas contained herein can only be done at own risk. Original article location: www.art.eonworks.com
This article describes and explains my current view on what constitutes a healthy diet along with health promoting eating habits. Further, it will give examples of meals based on the suggested diet. The diet is simple to implement and relatively low cost - I spend about US $150/month.
I read a lot about the topics of health and especially diets. I have been experimenting with diets since 1990 and keep journals about my observations. Over time I tried several very different diets - ranging from the politically correct ones to highly controversial, along with diets of my own design. My general observation is that a healthy diet plays an essential role in the overall scheme of well being.
Why eat healthy?
Eating the natural foods humans are well adapted at utilizing, enhances ones ability to cope with the reality of every day life. This in essence improves the probability of living a longer, healthier life. Quality food consumption becomes especially important in the present world of high stress and pollution - making a healthy diet an essential aspect of modern self health care. (Although food is not the only aspect contributing to health or disease, it is significant enough to consider it's effects seriously.)
I think anybody who seriously tried living healthier through a better diet, proper physical activity, adequate rest, and by addressing mental and spiritual factors have experienced a vast range of natural health benefits. Common benefits are overall better health and a sense of well being, better sleep, improved physical endurance and strength, sharper mental abilities and lower sleep requirements. Further more, no or little time and money and energy is spend on doctors, hospitals and health insurance bills.
What is a healthy diet?
Since this article deals with healthy eating, a question remains to be answered: what constitutes a healthy diet? Unfortunately, there are more opinions about this than there are health experts. To further complicate the matter, dietary concepts change over time, leaving most people confused and uncertain about what or whom to trust. One solution to this problem is to become sufficiently knowledgeable about the relevant subjects and rely on common sense to draw basic conclusions. Along with personal experimentation, such an approach will enable one to establish healthy eating habits. This takes time and energy, but considering the long lasting benefits a healthy diet can provide, the effort is more then well worth it.
In order to determine the minimal basic requirements of a healthy diet, I concluded that it is safe to start with the following two objectives:
examine human diet over time - the foods humans consumed since the arrival of our species.
examine diets of ethnical groups known for their good health.
Looking at the type of diets humans lived on through out pre-history, provides good insights into the kind of foods human body should be well adapted at utilizing and dealing with. Further, the diets of certain ethnical groups that are well known for good health - the people of Okinawa(Japan), traditional cultures in the Mediterranean region and many hunter-gatherer societies - suggest certain health promoting dietary habits. Upon closer examination, two main denominators emerged: diets are based on natural, whole or minimally processed foods in accordance to heritage. diets are lower in calories compared to a typical western diet.
In the context of present time, one can therefore make two general assumptions in regard to the question of what constitutes a healthy diet: 1) generally, the less a food is processed the better. 2) eat less - eat what is adequate, do not over eat.
Generally, the less a food is processed the better.
The reason for this is simple. For 99.9% of human existence, our species lived on foods that were either raw or minimally processed. The technology needed to increase food processing did not exist until very recently. It is therefore reasonable to assume that our bodies are best adapted at utilizing and dealing with the raw or minimally processed foods which sustained us for hundreds of thousands of years: fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts and seeds.
Often, the more recent the food is, the more likely it is to be less beneficial or even directly harmful - possibly due to lack of full adaptation to such foods. For example, it is estimated that food cooking started about 500 000 - 250 000 years ago (depending on the source, the range may vary). During this time frame, it is likely that human species have at least adapted in some way to cooked animal and vegetable foods. On the other hand, the beginnings of grain consumption are much more recent. Evidence of earliest known, systematical collecting of grains for food goes back to about 23 000 years ago - giving less time for adaptation to grain based foods.
Now, let's fast forward to recent times and consider all the new, human invented, highly processed foods so common today: fast foods, pizza, sweets, chips, convenience foods, canned foods, etc. along with the dramatic rise in heart attacks, high blood pressure, stroke, cancers, diabetes, kidney problems (and all the complications that arose from these conditions) during the past 100 years or so.
Considering the declining health of most western nations as opposed to good health of the ethnical groups described above, it seems reasonable that the most recent food inventions are directly harmful to human health. Further, it has been repeatedly observed that as ethnical groups around the world adopt the modern western diet, their health dramatically declines and they develop the same diseases that are so common to westerners. Not to mention the fact that the above mentioned diseases were far less common among westerners themselves barely 100 years ago.
The more a food is processed - through excessive cooking, pasteurization, homogenization, high heat, mechanical processing, etc, - the less natural and nutritious it becomes to a point of becoming a harmful burden to the body, rather then a useful and health promoting food. Some industrial processing practices deprive food of their nutrients to such a high degree that the food has to be "enriched" by artificially adding some nutrients back into the food. This is especially true of flours where vitamins are added back in after the processing is done.
A good diet is based on natural, whole or minimally processed foods. A large portion of it should consist of foods that can be eaten raw, such as fruits and vegetables. Fermented or cultured, unpasteurized foods such as kefir, yogurt, cheeses, miso, sauerkraut and pickles are considered highly beneficial. Cooking should be minimal and only applied to foods that must be cooked in order to be edible. Ancestral heritage also plays an important role as certain foods may need to be excluded or emphasized.
Eat less - eat what is adequate, do not over eat
During the past several decades, food in the western and westernized nations became increasingly affordable and more readily available then ever before in human history. This very fact combined with the enjoyment food consumption brings, results in all too frequent over eating. Which again leads to the above mentioned health problems.
In the past, as in the traditional way of living among the ethnical groups mentioned earlier, food consumption has always been significantly lower. Food quality, on the other hand, has always been higher. Resulting in a lower food intake, but of nutrient dense foods.
Finally, as an interesting note, it has been repeatedly confirmed through laboratory experiments on animals, including monkeys, that cutting down calories considerably lowers their susceptibility to diseases and prolongs their life up to 50%. It is believed by many, that life long caloric restriction can have similar effects on humans.
Health promoting eating habits
Over time, through reading and experimenting, I gradually arrived at several basic health promoting habits that in my experience are the most important:
Avoid or minimize:
Avoid all junk, sweets, canned and convenience foods - including all foods with added sugar: most commercial yogurts, kefirs and juices, fruit and soft drinks.
Avoid all refined or overly heated fats: margarine, any oil that is not cold pressed, leftover fat from cooking, all foods that contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids (read the labels). Such fats are considered to be among the most health damaging foods.
Avoid consumption of fish and water animals unless certain they came from unpolluted waters. Especially predators should be avoided as the toxins accumulate in them in far greater quantities.
Keep the intake of foods high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) low - mainly nuts and seeds and any products made from them (mostly oils). PUFAs are unstable, they oxidize readily resulting in harmful free radicals. High PUFA intake have been repeatedly linked with cancer, heart and inflammatory diseases.
Do not cook meat or fat at high temperatures while exposed to air. Such practice will avoid fat and cholesterol oxidation - believed to be responsible for build up of arterial plaque and injury to arterial cells. Grilling and frying is especially harmful. Boiling is probably the safest way of cooking meat.
Minimize or eliminate consumption of foods frequently contaminated with mycotoxins: alcoholic beverages, wheat, rye, barley, corn and peanuts. Mycotoxins are poisonous substances produced by certain molds and fungi which cause a wide range of health problems including cancer, asthma, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
Emphasize and do:
The more natural and less processed the food the better. Emphasize whole, fresh foods. Replace white rice with brown rice; white bread with whole grain bread; sugar with small amounts of raw honey or dry fruit; pasta with millet or whole grain pasta; canned foods with fresh; candy and other sweets with dry or sweet fruit; etc. Organic foods are best as they are higher in nutrients and do not contain harmful pesticides, hormones or antibiotics found in conventional foods. Always choose fresh over frozen, dried or canned foods. Fresh foods taste better, have more nutrients in them, have no added salt, sugar or unhealthy additives.
Enjoy simple meals. Generally, the simpler the food preparation the more nutrients are preserved and the easier it is to digest. Simple meals are easy and quick to prepare and use fewer resources like electricity and water - thus are more environmentally friendly and less costly.
Only cook foods that need to be cooked in order to be edible (beans, grains and some vegetables). Foods that are edible in a raw state (fruits, most vegetables, sprouts, nuts and seeds) should be consumed on a daily basis and preferably with every meal. Raw foods are higher in nutrients, which to some degree get lost during cooking, and are easier to digest. At least 50% of the diet, by volume, should consist of raw foods.
Steam vegetables that need to be cooked - steaming preserves more nutrients which when boiled leech into the water. Do not overcook. Cooked vegetables should be crunchy when you eat them, not soft.
Chew food well (simply chew it longer) and eat at a comfortable pace. This improves digestion which already starts in the mouth while saliva gets mixed with the food.
Variety in diet is very important - to prevent allergies, malnutrition and to lower exposure to natural and man-made toxins found in many natural foods.
Always properly wash fruits and vegetables before consumption. This lowers the exposure to agricultural chemicals (used to cultivate conventional plants) and harmful microorganisms. Peel the skin if washing is not sufficient.
Nuts and seeds should be soaked before consumption - to lower or eliminate natural anti nutrients like enzyme inhibitors. Soaking makes them much easier to digest. Do not eat more then a few handfuls a week as they are high in PUFAs and difficult to digest.
Grains (except amaranth, millet and rice) and beans must be soaked before consumption. This lowers or eliminates anti nutrients like phytic acid which inhibits mineral absorption that can lead to mineral deficiency.
Fruits are best eaten alone as a snack between meals. To improve digestion only eat one type of fruit at a time.
Regularly consume unpasteurized fermented/cultured foods like sauerkraut, miso, pickles, kefir, yogurt, etc. These are pre-digested foods that are high in probiotics (friendly bacteria) and enzymes which provide numerous health benefits. Start with what your ancestors consumed and later experiment with other foods as well.
Regularly consume enzyme rich foods: sprouts, raw honey, grapes, figs, avocados, bananas, papayas, pineapple, kiwi, mango and fermented/cultured foods (see above). Enzymes obtained from raw foods ease the digestion by reducing the body's need to produce digestive enzymes.
Consider the diet your ancestors ate for thousands of years - you will most likely do very well on such a diet due to the long period of adaptation to it. For example, the traditional Chinese diet is high in carbohydrates and low in fat and protein; Europeans, on the other hand, have been eating less carbs and more protein and fat; North American Indians did not eat grains.
Drink adequate amounts of liquid through out the day. Water is best. Under normal conditions, most people need 2-3 liters of liquid/day.
Unless very hungry, do not eat for 3-4 hours before bedtime. That way the nightly fast can be prolonged considerably. This gives the body more/adequate time and energy to perform the countless nightly tasks that are so essential to good health. (Rather then digesting the just eaten meal)
Eat only when hungry and do not overeat regardless of food. I found this to be among the most important of all health promoting habits.
Good sources of protein: any meat that comes from organic, free range animals that are fed their natural diet (hard to find) when not organic: lean poultry meat (high fat cuts are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids which oxidize readily during cooking and in the body; toxins accumulate in the fat) beans fresh, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds raw fermented milk products: sour milk, kefir, cheeses, etc (hard to find) wild game eggs
Most commercial meats including pork and beef, unless organic and not fed corn/grains/beans, contain antibiotics, hormones and too many polyunsaturated fats - thus should be avoided.
Good sources of carbohydrates: vegetables fruits whole or minimally processed fresh grains: rice, oat, amaranth, millet, barley, wheat, etc. beans potatoes
Good sources of fats: avocados butter fresh, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds (mostly source of omega 6) coconuts or coconut oil full fat raw milk products (cheese, milk, cream, etc) from pasture fed cattle olives or first cold pressed (extra virgin) olive oil
Shopping
I always try to find organic foods to avoid harmful substances like hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc. The most contaminated fruits are: raisins, cherries, peaches, strawberries, mexican (winter) cantaloupe, apples, apricots, Chilean (winter) grapes. And the most contaminated vegetables are: spinach, celery, green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers, cultivated button mushrooms, potatoes and wheat. Lean poultry is probably the safest meat to eat if not organic.
Meal examples
What follows are weekly meals that closely resemble my diet at the time of this writing. When planning meals, the key idea is to have variety in diet and to rely on food combinations that agree with ones digestion.
TBS = table spoon tsp = tea spoon / = or any fruit eaten alone 0.5L sour milk, 300g potatoes, fennel 0.5L kefir, 50-100g oatmeal, 25g raisins 0.5L plain yogurt, 300g grapes/2-3 bananas 50-100g oatmeal, 1-2TBS honey, cinammon 1/2 salad head, 1-2 tomatoes/pepper fruit, 1/2 cucumber/squash, 1-2TBS olive oil medium avocado, 1-2 bananas, cinammon 50-100g brown rice, 1-2 hardboiled eggs, 2-4 radishes, 25-50g leeks, 1-2TBS ground flax seeds, 50g sprouts 50-100g amaranth, 1-2 steamed parsnips, 1 steamed onion, 1-2 steamed carrots, celery stick, 1tsp freshly grated raw ginger, parsley, 1TBS olive oil 200g mung bean sprouts, 1-2 carrots, 25-50g leeks, 25g soaked pumpkin seeds/almonds/sesame seeds 1/2 steamed broccoli/cauliflower, 1-2 tomatoes/pepper fruit, 1/2 squash/cucumber, 150g turkey/chicken breast, 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, 1TBS olive oil 100g buckwheat sprouts, 2 carrots, florence fennel stick, 25g sprouted sunflower seeds, 25g raisins 50-100g amaranth, steamed onion, steamed asparagus, florence fennel stick, 1tsp freshly grated raw ginger, parsley, 1TBS coconut oil 50-100g millet, celery stick, 2-4 radishes, 25-50g leeks, 25g pumpkin seeds
I plan meals loosely, 1-2 days ahead. The meal preparation is very simple: meat and eggs are boiled in water, vegetables that need cooking are steamed. Since certain food vitamins become more bioavailable once exposed to low heat cooking, it is a good idea to alternate between cooked and raw vegetables. For example, Bio-carotene found in carrots becomes more absorbable after light steaming. I adjust the quantity of food according to how physically active I am during the day.
In addition to the above foods I also take vitamin and mineral supplements and drink bottled water. I use spices and salt. Kefir and sour milk are made at home from organic full-fat, unhomogenised pasteurized milk. Sprouts are home grown as well for maximum freshness. Both are very easy to make and require only few minutes of daily attention.
Final thoughts
Although a healthy diet can enormously improve ones health, it is only one essential part of healthy living. The other parts are proper and adeqaute physical activity, mental and spiritual well being, and adequate rest. All need to be addressed in order to achieve better health.
An important thing I learned while experimenting with diets and other health related approaches is to always pay attention to the signals from the body. It is essential to do this - in order to maintain good health - and adjust accordingly. As one gets better at reading the body, it becomes natural to self diagnose a lot of minor problems (which can become major if not paid attention to) and remedy them by simply adjusting the diet or other aspects of life. Finally, we are all different - what works for one person may not work for another - thus it's important to experiment with ones diet to find out what works and what doesn't.
(If you found this article helpful, you may return the favor by buying a poster of one of my images at http://www.art.eonworks.com)
RESOURCES
My favorite health related websites:
www.mercola.com - an excellent, bloat free, fast and easy to navigate site of Dr. Mercola. Full of really useful, practical and down to earth health information.
www.westonaprice.com - by building upon the work of Weston A. Price, this site provides a rich source of information about health and nutrition. Their recommendations are based on time proven traditional approach to diet and health along with scientific studies, rather then hype or political-correctness.
www.beyondveg.com - a superb site dealing with: " Reports from veterans of vegetarian and raw-food diets, veganism, fruitarianism, and instinctive eating, plus new science from paleolithic diet research and clinical nutrition." A fascinating read for anybody who has been into health and diets for some time.
Sprouting basics - an excellent introduction to sprouting nuts, grains, seeds and beans by Tom Billings.
Dom's kefir - a comprehensive guide to kefir making at home.
www.wildfermentation.com - fermenting foods links.
USDA National Nutrient Database - find out the nutrient content of many foods. The database files are freely available along with free software.
Books I found especially valuable:
Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol by Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.
Mucusless Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret Natural Health, Natural Medicine by Andrew Weil, M.D.
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct
Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon, Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price Survival Into The 21st Century by Viktoras Kulvinskas
The Raw Life: Becoming Natural In An Unnatural World by Paul Nison

About The Author

Dawid Michalczyk is a freelance illustrator and artist. Besides computers, his main interests include art, health and anthropology. He loves to ride a bicycle and does it almost every day. To see examples of his work and other articles visit his website at http://www.art.eonworks.com. He can be reached at dm@eonworks.com.

This article was posted on April 03, 2005

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The Core: Unleash Your Inner Caveman

The Core: Unleash Your Inner Caveman
 by: Aaron M. Potts, ISSA CFT

An alternative name for this article could have been, 'How to undo Generations worth of Damage Caused by sitting on our Backsides and Letting Machines Teach us Not to Stand up Straight'.
That doesn't exactly roll off the tongue though, does it?
The point is the same, however. Before we were even able to stand fully erect we could literally fight for our right to live on a daily basis. Now, we are again barely standing up straight due to bad posture and bad habits, but we can hardly walk across town without pulling a muscle or throwing our back out!
Why? We are weak - from the inside out! In today's image conscious society, we are so concerned with the way we look that we ignore the fact that we are falling apart from the inside. For lack of a better term, we are "rotten to the core"!
What IS "the core"? Why does everyone keep talking about training 'the core"? What does any of this have to do with cavemen?
Basically, the idea here is that there was a time in human evolution when we literally had to fight to survive. Although actual battle was certainly part of life back in the Stone Age, we are also talking about the day to day struggle that was involved in just making it to see another sunset!
Walking, running, climbing, throwing, pushing, pulling, balancing, lifting, pressing - the list goes on and on. These activities were all a daily part of life way back when the human body was being "programmed".
Compare that to the present day activity level of an average person in a civilized culture, and what do you get? A MAJOR difference between the way we were built and the way we are actually called upon to perform! If you took your average office worker in 2005 and threw them back in time to a point when fur was "in", they probably wouldn't last for very long.
Is it wrong that modern technology has made our lives so easy? Probably not - depending on who you ask. However, is it wrong that we don't keep our bodies as strong and vital as we used to HAVE to keep them? YES!
Just because you CAN sit down all day, and just because you CAN eat 1,000 calories in less than 20 minutes, and just because you CAN pay someone else to mow your lawn doesn't mean that you SHOULD do those things.
Allowing our easy lives to make us weak is OUR fault. It's not your boss at work who tells you that you can't exercise when you aren't pulling desk time. It's not your mother or father who is making you eat at fast food restaurants every day. It's not your car that is making you drive it ј mile to the store instead of just walking.
It's YOUR fault. It's all YOUR fault. Does that sound harsh? That's too bad, because it's the truth and you know it. Even people who are paralyzed from the waist down can get plenty of exercise if they train hard enough. Even people who don't know a barbell squat from a bench press can learn if they really try to. Even "corporate Americans" who work 12-hour days can get some exercise and eat right if they truly make an effort.
So what can you do to be more in touch with the "programmed" caveman inside of you? Simple. Get out there and make an effort! Get up off your backside, stop making excuses, and MOVE. Start from the inside, though - with the Core.
What is meant by "the core" is the successful inner teamwork of many systems in your body, all of them originating at center mass - the torso area. We are talking about the muscles of your lower back and spine, the Transverse Abdominis muscle behind your "six-pack", the obliques and other supporting muscles, the circulatory and neurological systems that power these muscles with fuel and instructions, and many more muscles and tissues that all work together as a unit, collectively being called "the core".
Why does any of this matter to you? After all, it's only what you look like from the outside that matters, right. Wrong! Your body's core is like a power plant. It fuels and controls everything that you do. From moving nutrient and oxygen-rich blood to your extremities, to the very network of neurological pathways that control your arms and your legs - all of this starts at the core.
All of your vital organs and systems are located in the core area. Your heart, lungs, spine, stomach, liver, kidneys - the list goes on. The only thing outside of your torso that you couldn't live without is your head. However, your head is directly connected to your spinal column, which is part of the core!
Part of having a strong core is that the actual muscles are thicker, stronger, and much more resistant to injury. If you have a weak core, you could give yourself a lifetime back injury just by picking up a box the wrong way! On the other hand, if your core muscles are strong and vital, you have a lot more "margin for error" when it comes to bending over, picking things up, keeping your balance, etc.
What about your posture? Posture is definitely controlled by a strong core. Would you think of having good posture as an important thing? You should! If not, let's take a secret shortcut to weight loss: Stand up straight and suck in your gut. Congratulations, you just lost 10 pounds!
Are you starting to see the point? It all starts at the core, so safeguarding the inner-workings of your body is as important as it gets.
There are many great exercises to work your core, but listing them all is beyond the scope of this article. The point that you should take home is that working your core should be an integral part of your life - even if you don't exercise on a regular basis. Even if you don't care about weight loss or physical appearance, safeguard your LIFE by having a strong core!
Here are some resources where you can learn about core exercises:
http://exercise.about.com/cs/abs/l/bl_core.htm
Remember: Your core is your body's power plant. Keep YOUR body running at maximum power!

About The Author

Aaron Potts is the owner and creator of Fitness Destinations, a content-filled health and fitness website for consumers as well as professionals in the fitness industry. Get the weekly Fitness Journal: http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/journal.html

info@fitnessdestinations.com

This article was posted on April 02, 2005

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Coffee : Poison or Health Elixir?

Coffee : Poison or Health Elixir?
 by: Stephen Bucaro

Computers are very complicated, so computer professionals need to keep their brain synapses firing rapidly. To accomplish this, many computer professionals consume large amounts of coffee. Studies keep coming out that prove coffee is dangerous to our health. Other studies prove those findings to be false. Is coffee bad for us or not?
Does coffee raise blood pressure?
A 2002 study by John Hopkins University that tracked 1,000 former medical students found that heavy coffee drinking is associated with a small increase in blood pressure, but not enough to increase the risk for hypertension.
Does coffee cause heart attacks?
A 2000 Finnish study that surveyed more than 20,000 Finnish men and women about their coffee drinking habits and medical history found no evidence that coffee drinking is connected to heart disease.
The study did find that coffee drinkers have poorer health habits than those who drank no coffee. Those who drank coffee were more likely to smoke and have greater amounts of body fat.
Those who drank less than one cup of coffee a day were more likely have back problems, constipation, nausea, gallstones, and congestion, and deaths from heart disease were highest in those who did not drink coffee.
Does coffee cause diabetes?
A 2003 study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who drank four to five cups per day reduced their risk of type 2 diabetes by 30 percent. And men who drink six or more cups of coffee per day lowered their risk of type 2 diabetes an additional 20 percent. (The additional protection did not appear for Women).
Does coffee harm your brain?
A 2000 study by researchers in Hawaii that surveyed 8,000 men found that those who drank three or more cups of coffee per day were five times less likely to develop Parkinson's disease. Coffee appears to provide strong protection from Parkinson's disease.
These studies prove that coffee is not bad for us, but in fact it provides many health benefits. So computer professionals can continue to consume large amounts of coffee in order to keep their brain synapses firing. I would like to expand further on the health benefits of coffee, but it's time for my coffee break.
Copyright(C) 2005 Bucaro TecHelp.
Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included.

About The Author

Stephen Bucaro

Copyright(C) 2005 Bucaro TecHelp.

To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter visit http://bucarotechelp.com/search/000800.asp

This article was posted on April 01, 2005

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Busting Acne Myths Requires Individualized Treatment and More Research

Busting Acne Myths Requires Individualized Treatment and More Research
 by: Naweko San-Joyz

If you have acne, you know the deal- everybody has a cream or suggestion to help you get clear skin. But how do you separate myth, medicine and folklore to find an acne treatment that works for you? That's what researcher Parker Magin set out to do in a study entitled, A systematic review of the evidence for 'myths and misconceptions' in acne management.
Magin and co-researchers from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, conclude that clinicians cannot be "didactic" when making acne treatment recommendations that are based on diet, hygiene and sunlight exposure. According to Magin, acne treatments should be individualized.
Meanwhile, the Academy of Dermatology has published a press release touting, The Stubborn Truth About Acne: Myths and Misconceptions. Though this article discusses a recent Stanford University survey that examined acne myths held among young adults, it offers no solid advice for securing an acne antidote. Moreover, its meaning is paradoxical.
For example, the article headlines Alexa Boer Kimball, M.D. who is an assistant professor of dermatology at Harvard University. Dr. Kimballs sums up the survey on acne by saying "that substantial differences still exist between popular belief and scientific support, yet this does not change the way patients attempt to care for their acne."
Dr. Kimballs's comments at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology casts a discrediting shadow over her groundbreaking research that aimed to separate acne fact from fiction. Just two years ago in 2003, Dr. Kimball was apart of a Stanford University study investigating the effect of stress on acne. Then, Dr. Kimball concluded that, "increased acne severity was significantly associated with increased stress levels… while self-assessed change in diet quality was the only other significant association." The results of this study suggested that the link between acne, and diet and stress are no longer hypothetical but warrant further examination.
Another investigation aiming to demystify acne came for Dr. Loren Cordain. Cordain and his associates explored the link between diet and acne in a study called Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization. Cordain noted that Kitavan Islanders of Papua New Guinea and the Achй hunter-gatherers of Paraguay had no active cases of acne. This prompted the question, "So why does acne vulgaris affect 79% to 95% of the adolescent population in westernized societies?"
Cordain found that genes alone do not cause the disparity of acne incidences between non-westernized and modernized societies. Other factors must enter the equation.
Acne can arise from hormonal shifts, stress upheavals and a host of other causes. Your best defense against acne is observing yourself and noting what conditions, foods and emotions aggravate your acne situation. From there, you can use self-care to reduce acne flare-ups.

About The Author

Health author and Stanford University graduate Naweko San-Joyz lovingly writes from her home in San Diego. Her works include "Acne Messages: Crack the code of your zits and say goodbye to acne" (ISBN: 0974912204) and the upcoming work "Skinny Fat Chicks, Why we're still not getting this dieting thing" (ISBN: 0974912212) for release in June of 2005. For useful acne self-help articles visit http://www.Noixia.com

contact@noixia.com

This article was posted on April 01, 2005

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Splash Your Acne Supplement Expenses with Food

Splash Your Acne Supplement Expenses with Food
 by: Naweko San-Joyz

Twenty-one year old Lydia Garcia faces an imminent dilemma- poverty or acne. Lydia religiously uses three herbs to keep her skin clear and she's always on the prowl for supplements to augment her health. Just last week she read that the Chinese herb astragalus enhances the immune system. And now, Lydia ponders, "I think I want to take dandelion root and ginseng to ease my menstrual cramps." Yet Lydia's salary as a receptionist barely covers her fanatical consumption of supplements.
You don't have to spend a fortune on supplements when food provides all the nutrients you need to have clear skin. Herbs and supplements that provide support for clean skin typically offer the following benefits: Boost the immune system Enhance stress management Cleanse the blood and liver, and Aid in skin repair
A well-chosen diet can prove just as advantageous as supplements and herbs.
Foods that boost the immune system
-Vitamin C
Oranges, grapefruits, papaya, green peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, broccoli
-Vitamin E
Almonds, sunflowers seeds
-Zinc
Wheat germ, black-eyed peas, lean beef, crab, oysters
Foods that enhance stress management
-Vitamin B6
Legumes, whole grains, chicken, pork, bananas
Foods that cleanse the blood and liver
-Garlic, onions, turmeric, cayenne pepper, aloe vera juice, watermelon
-Bulk-producing foods
Oatmeal, apples, oranges, bran cereals
Foods that aid in skin repair
-Protein
Nonfat dairy, beans, meat, poultry, fish, nuts
-Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Sardines, herring, salmon, tuna, walnuts
-Selenium
Onion, garlic
Although herbs and dietary supplements offer a broad spectrum of benefits to the skin, it's no fun looking fabulous if you can't afford to go anywhere. So, save some cash and eat you way to clear skin.

About The Author

Health author and Stanford University graduate Naweko San-Joyz lovingly writes from her home in San Diego. Her works include "Acne Messages: Crack the code of your zits and say goodbye to acne" (ISBN: 0974912204) and the upcoming work "Skinny Fat Chicks, Why we're still not getting this dieting thing" (ISBN: 0974912212) for release in June of 2005. For useful acne self-help articles visit http://www.Noixia.com

contact@noixia.com

This article was posted on April 01, 2005

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Emotional Intelligence: The Basics

Emotional Intelligence: The Basics
 by: Michael G. Rayel, MD

There's so much talk about emotional intelligence and how it can promote personal and business success. What is it really? What are its basic tenets?
Emotional intelligence is the capacity to recognize, understand, and manage one's emotions and that of others. This "intelligent" concept focuses on the role of emotion in our daily lives and how it affects our perception, reasoning, and behavior.
Emotions are pervasive in our daily existence. From the time we wake up to the time we retire to bed, we experience emotions. We can get excited by the news of economic recovery, or we feel upset when our favorite team loses a championship game.
Moreover, we can get lonely when our friend of many years decides to look for greener pastures and we can feel anxious when our child does not go home on time after class.
So really, emotions happen everywhere and anytime. There is no day that passes by without emotions being involved. We experience emotions when we - win or lose, receive phone calls from long lost friends, greet our children good morning, say hello to our neighbors, prepare meals for our spouses, or ride the subway train.
Emotions are just as normal as the rising of the sun.
However, there are times when our emotions can become overwhelming and can negatively affect our functioning. For instance, anger is normal. However, the inappropriate display of uncontrolled anger can be destructive.
Let me clarify this point with a hypothetical situation. Richard, a relatively nice guy who works as a salesman, is married for 5 years with Cynthia. For the past few years, his sales have plummeted due to some unknown reasons. He used to be mild-mannered but lately he hasn't been the same.
When he gets angry, he just can't control himself. He yells, bangs the door, throws fits, and punches the wall. In addition, he calls his wife names and puts her down. Eventually, he has physically harmed Cynthia. Due to his uncontrollable anger and physically abusive behavior, Cynthia has decided to file a divorce.
In this example, Richard has failed to recognize his ongoing anger and its associated behavioral consequences. Because of his inability to recognize his anger and consequent behavior, he has failed miserably to contain his anger despite signs that his wife doesn't want to put up with it. In addition, he has failed miserably to recognize and understand the feelings of Cynthia. How could he? He can't even recognize his own.
Emotional intelligence can therefore become an important tool at home and at work. By learning its basic tenets of self awareness (knowing one's emotions), self management (controlling one's emotions), social awareness (recognizing the emotions of others), and relationship management (social skills), people can make use of the emotion to advance the positive cause of our families and communities.

About The Author

Copyright © 2005. Dr. Michael G. Rayel – author (First Aid to Mental Illness–Finalist, Reader's Preference Choice Award 2002) psychiatrist, and inventor of Oikos Game: An Emotional Intelligence or EQ Game. For more information, visit www.oikosgame.com and www.soardime.com.

mrayel@soardime.com

This article was posted on March 31, 2005

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Carbon Monoxide Can Be Deadly--Early Detection Monitors Make It Easy to Protect Your Family

Carbon Monoxide Can Be Deadly--Early Detection Monitors Make It Easy to Protect Your Family
 by: Debra Lynn Dadd

If you burn gas, kerosene, or wood in your home to produce heat for cooking or warmth, you need to monitor the level of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is odorless and can easily build up to dangerous levels. Ordinary carbon monoxide detectors don't sound an alarm until certain levels of carbon monoxide accumulate in the air. New monitors show the amount of carbon dioxide in the air at any given time, so you can take action well before levels reach the danger zone.
HOW CARBON MONOXIDE GETS INTO THE AIR IN YOUR HOME
Carbon monoxide is the major toxic combustion by-product that is created when gas, kerosene, or wood is burned to produce heat for cooking or warmth. Other combustion by-products include formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, nitric acid, and vapors from various organic chemicals.
Carbon monoxide and other combustion by-products are produced when fuels do not burn completely. All fuel-burning appliances need air for the fuel to burn efficiently. When a generous supply of fresh air is available and the fuel is burning properly, there is little danger of poisoning. But when there is inadequate ventilation or the appliance is not operating properly, carbon monoxide is produced and can gradually overcome and even kill an unsuspecting bystander. Many years before I was born, my grandmother almost died from carbon monoxide seeping from her gas furnace. It was just by chance that someone walked in and saved her.
SYMPTOMS OF CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING
It is possible to identify symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning if you know what to look for. Your body will tell you if there is too much carbon monoxide in your home. Different concentrations of carbon monoxide and different exposure times cause different symptoms.
Mild exposures to carbon monoxide are often confused with the flu. Symptoms include sleepiness, slight headache, dizziness, flushed skin, disorientation, abnormal reflexes, blurred vision, irritablity, slight nausea, fatigue, and an inability to concentrate.
As exposure continues, mild symptoms turn into severe throbbing headache, drowsiness, confusion, shortness of breath, vomiting, and an accelerated heart rate. Unconsciousness and convulsions are signs that cardio respiratory failure and death are near.
If you or anyone in your family experiences flu-like symptoms and you burn gas, kerosene or wood in your home, you should immediately evaluate if it is, in fact, early signs of carbon monoxide exposure.
CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTORS AND ALARMS
There are two types of devices that can warn you about carbon monoxide levels in your home.
Carbon monoxide detectors sound an alarm like a smoke detector when carbon monoxide reaches dangerous levels. These are relatively inexpensive, but, like a smoke detector, only warn you when carbon monoxide in your home has already reached a level that is approaching dangerous.
Carbon monoxide monitors give you an ongoing numerical reading of the current level of carbon monoxide, and sound an alarm when concentrations approach dangerous levels. These cost around $50, but show you what the actual carbon monoxide concentration is at any given time. With a monitor, you can catch carbon monoxide leaks at low levels, and rest assured that your family is safe.
TO ELIMINATE THE THREAT OF CARBON MONOXIDE...
Electric appliances do not emit combustion by-products under normal use.
If you prefer to use gas, propane, or wood, make sure appliances are well-adjusted for a clean burn and provide enough ventilation for combustion by-products to escape.
For online sources of carbon monoxide monitors, visit http://www.debraslist.com/air/index.html#coalarms

About The Author

Hailed as "The Queen of Green" by the New York Times, Debra Lynn Dadd has been a leading consumer advocate for products and lifestyle choices that are better for health and the environment since 1982. Visit her website at http://www.dld123.com to sign up for her free email newsletters and to browse 100s of links to 1000s of nontoxic, natural and earthwise products.

debra@dld123.com

This article was posted on April 01, 2005

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Personal Training: 3 Keys To Training Clients In Their Homes

Personal Training: 3 Keys To Training Clients In Their Homes
 by: Aaron Potts

When considering your options as a personal trainer, one of the very first things to decide is WHERE you are going to train your clients. The most obvious answer for most trainers is to get a job at a local fitness facility and train clients there. This is certainly an option, and one that is recommended especially in the beginning of your career. The structure and experience that you will get by working at a successful gym or fitness center is invaluable for a new personal trainer. However, there are drawbacks to working with your clients at a gym, and some clients will be unwilling or unable to workout at a local facility. Don't lose those clients by not having other options!
Working out with your clients in their homes is an option for any trainer, and by offering this option to your clients you can increase your potential client base by a dramatic number, and you may even decide to exclusively offer home personal training. In order to decide if this type of business model is for you, there are several points to consider, and they include time management, exercise modalities to be used, and business resources that are available.
Time Management
Managing your time and your schedule is a critical consideration when deciding whether or not to work with clients in their homes. Unlike working at a facility, the amount of time that you need to dedicate to each client is increased, sometimes to the point of even doubling the time spent for each client session.
For example, let's use a standard one-hour training session as our business model for this discussion. Although many trainers are utilizing different training times with their clients these days, one hour is still a good time frame to use for your scheduling reference. You want to remember that as a home personal trainer, you can be on a tight deadline to get from one place to the next, so you don't want to schedule your sessions back-to-back like you can when you are working at a fitness facility.
You must also factor in your travel time to get to your client's home, as well as to get to the home of the following client, the client after that, and so on. If you live in an even reasonably populated area, you will have to allow at least 15 minutes of driving time to and from every client's home, and sometimes as much as 30 minutes per client, depending on the size of the geographic area that you train in. Using our one-hour training session as an example, just one training session can cost you as much as 2 hours of your time.
A standard 8-hour workday will now only allow you to train between 4 and 6 clients, depending on where they live in relation to your starting point, as well as in relation to each other. Your best bet whenever possible is to set up your clients in a roughly straight line, or possibly a circle that brings you back to your starting point at the end of the day. The last thing that you want to do is set up a client who lives 30 minutes north of your starting point followed immediately by a client who lives 30 minutes south of your starting point. Not only will you eat up massive amounts of time driving to and from your client's homes, but you will put serious mileage on both your car as well as your wallet at the gas station! More on that in the Business Resources section below.
Exercise Modalities
The next thing to consider is the type of training that you will be doing with your clients in their homes. Unless they have a full fitness facility set up - which is rare - it is very likely that you will have to come up with ways to put them through a vigorous workout without the massive amount of equipment that is available at a full-size fitness facility. In order to put together these home workouts, you need to address the two different energy pathways that your clients will need to use during their workouts: aerobic and anaerobic.
Anaerobic Workouts
Although many trainers are used to the massive resources available at a local gym, getting your clients a variety-filled and intense anaerobic workout in their home is actually easier than most would think. With nothing more than an exercise ball and a portable set of dumbbells, you can take your clients through the full range of motion and exertion on almost the same scale that is afforded those clients training at a gym.
If you are just starting out in the industry, or are simply used to working your clients out at a fitness facility, you should do some research on the Internet for dumbbell workouts, bodyweight workouts, functional training, and sport-specific training. Those 4 keyword combinations alone will net you hundreds of websites with free or low-cost resources that will teach you thousands of exercises that can be done with little or no equipment.
The key to getting your clients a good anaerobic workout at home is not the type of equipment that is used, or the actual amount of weight that is moved, but rather the INTENSITY of the workout. A bit of trial and error will teach you how to take a client through their paces in a safe but intense manner that will leave most people ready to call it quits in 30 minutes or less!
Aerobic Workouts
Taking your clients through appropriate and effective aerobic workouts can happen on many levels. The 2 obvious differences are going to be whether they get their aerobic activity during their session, or if you assign them activities to do after you leave. You could also do a combination of both, depending on the needs and the fitness level of the client.
If you are going to take your clients through an aerobic workout during their session, you can either incorporate "heart rate maintenance" exercises into the workout itself, or you can get the anaerobic exercises out of the way, and then move into an aerobic workout for the second half of the session. Just remember that if your goal is to keep your clients inside their target heart rate zone, there will be very little rest time in between exercises.
However, before you blindly go forcing all of your clients to stay inside their target heart rate zone for the entire session, consider the fitness goal of the client, and the metabolically intense benefits of structured strength training compared to a session when you just make sure they are sweating the whole time!
Another option for your client's cardio is to have them do it on their own after the end of the training session. Obviously they still need your guidance on what to do, how to track their heart rate, and how long they should perform the activity, but not all clients will actually need you to stay there and guide them during the activity.
Also, it is not uncommon for people to own a piece of cardiovascular training equipment such as a treadmill, elliptical trainer, stair-stepper, etc. Nonetheless, most clients will still need some specific guidance on how to maximize the benefits from the type of equipment that they have access to. Things like interval training, cross training, and training at different heart rate levels are all things that you should educate your clients on, especially if they are going to be doing cardio on their own.
Business Resources
You must also consider the business resources that you will need access to when training clients in their homes. The time factor has already been discussed, and you should also consider the daily expenses involved in this type of training model. These include equipment expenses, "on the road" expenses, and auto expenses.
Equipment expenses should be minimal. You may have an initial cost, but after your initial purchases, all of those assets are reusable. Basic items for home training include an adjustable set of dumbbells and an exercise ball at a bare minimum. It would also be a good idea to have a roll-up exercise mat, a jump rope, and any other items needed for the type of activities that your clients will be engaging in. A great cardio idea for clients training at home is boxing drills. If you were to utilize that type of training, then a decent set of protective gloves for the clients would be in order, as well as target mats that you hold for them to strike during their drills.
In all cases, the items that you own stay with you, and they are simply taken from one client's house to the next. It is a great idea to have your clients eventually buy their own gear, however, which keeps you from having to tote arm loads of equipment into and out of their houses day after day. Also, depending on the type of program you put them on, they may use some of their own equipment in between training sessions.
"On the Road" expenses include food and drinks while you are traveling. Depending on your schedule, you will be on the road anywhere from 2 to 12 hours at a time! In those cases, you will obviously need to plan healthy places to eat along the way, or keep portable meals in your vehicle each day. In any event, make sure that you consider the cost of eating away from home as part of your business expenses.
Auto expenses are potentially the biggest expense that you will have to face in order to train people at home. The wear and tear on your vehicle - although accountable on your taxes - can still be a drain on your financial resources. You have to keep your vehicle insured, fueled up, and in good working order at all times. The last thing that you want to do is be late for a client session because your car broke down, or you ran out of gas! Also, at anywhere from $1.50 to $2.50 per gallon, gas can get expensive if you put in a lot of miles every day.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many considerations when deciding whether or not to train clients in their homes, and you must weigh those considerations against the benefit of being "free" from the gym trainer's normal boundaries, and instead being in charge of your own day to day business. In return, you can command higher per session fees for home training. Since you are saving your clients a lot of driving time and gym expenses, as well as giving them an opportunity to get healthy in the privacy of their own homes, it is not unheard of for a home trainer to charge $75 to $100 or more per session. Figure in scheduling issues, the exercise program that you will have your clients on, and the resources needed, and decide for yourself if this type of training program will work for your business!

About The Author

Aaron Potts is the author and creator of The Ultimate Complete Personal Training Business Kit, a quick-start kit and business guide for new as well as seasoned fitness professionals. Find out more about Aaron's programs at http://www.completepersonaltrainingbusiness.com or his personal training site at http://www.aaronspersonaltraining.com

info@fitnessdestinations.com

This article was posted on March 31, 2005

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Personal Training: 6 Secrets Of Award Winning Customer Service

Personal Training: 6 Secrets Of Award Winning Customer Service
 by: Aaron Potts

Would you believe that your ability to provide quality customer service to your clients is at least as important as your ability to get them results from their training program? Did you even know that customer service was going to be part of your business model? After all, what does personal training have to with customer service?
The answer: everything. Remember that your clients are people first, and their status as one of your clients comes second. Knowing how to tend to the needs of your customers will literally make the difference between a long and prosperous career in the fitness industry, or a short-lived stint that leaves you wondering what career path you should try next!
In order to assist you in walking down the success path, here are six methods that you can use to "WOW" your clients on a regular basis, keeping them happy, loyal to you, and engaging in long-term prosperous business relationships. In no particular order they are: contact, date and event recognition, listening, flexibility, forward thinking, and over-delivering.
Contact
When you get a new personal training client, many people will still second-guess their decision to hire you. After all, a personal trainer can be an expensive asset, and your clients need to believe that they made the right decision. One of the easiest ways for you to ease their mind in the beginning as well as during the course of their training program is by simply staying in contact with them.
Most clients will see you at most 3 times each week, and some clients even less than that. With at least 4 days in each week when your clients don't see you, you are influencing them less than 50% of the time! Many clients hire a personal trainer because they need constant guidance and support, and less than 50% could hardly be considered constant.
An easy solution to this is to send your clients a few emails a week, or mail them an actual snail mail letter once in awhile. Clip an appropriate article from a magazine and make copies of it to mail to your clients, or email them the URL of a great motivational story about weight loss that you found on the Internet. Forward them funny anecdotes about health and fitness, or drop them a postcard congratulating them on their latest progress.
For that matter, pick up the phone! Call Suzie Client on Saturday to let her know that you just got done updating her client record and had reason to again marvel at how great she is doing with her program. You just can't pay for the type of customer feedback you will get from something like that!
Stay in contact with your clients in between training sessions, and the increased attention will remind them on a regular basis that in the beginning you committed to a one on one training program for them, not just to stand there 3 times a week while they exercise.
Date and Event Recognition
Recognizing special dates in your client's lives is another great way to show them that you are thinking about them in between training sessions.
Send your clients a birthday card, or even a small but thoughtful gift.
Congratulate them on their wedding anniversary, or even send flowers or a card to their house.
Ask them how excited they are about the upcoming graduation of their child from high school or college.
Have a special token of your appreciation sent to their home or office after a set amount of time that they have been training with you - maybe annually or semi-annually.
Give them a special award every time they lose 5 pounds, or drop a percentage of body fat.
Attend the race or other fitness event that you have been training them for.
As you can see, the possibilities are limitless. The lesson that you want to take away from this section is that you went above and beyond the call of duty to recognize a date or an event that was important to your client. They won't forget that when it comes time to decide whether or not to keep working with you!
Listening
The fact that you should listen to your clients should go without saying. If your title is "Personal Trainer", please take a moment at this time to re-read the first word! Too many trainers fall into the familiar trap of just taking their clients through workouts. Your clients aren't paying you to workout with them. They are paying you to give them dedicated one on one service, and the actual workout is only one part of that.
In addition to the exercise programming, you must again think about the fact that your clients are humans before they are clients. As humans, they have as many outside considerations as you do. If you are only seeing them 3 hours per week, that leaves 165 hours each week when you are not around, and the lifestyle events that happen during that time will spill over into the training sessions.
Your clients will talk about their jobs, their spouses, their relatives and in-laws, their children and their neighbors, their gardener and their mailman, etc. Any good personal trainer realizes that although we have no business actually dispensing professional advice on personal or spiritual matters, we are a 3 time per week sounding board for our clients, and that is just part of the job. Listen to what your clients have to say, help out without leaving your professional boundaries, and let your clients know that you care about what happens to them, not just about what happens during the training session.
Flexibility
Although a trainer's day is usually dictated by a preset schedule, if you paint yourself into a corner with your calendar, you will quickly find that some of your clients can't stick with their program because their schedule is just not that black and white. In today's world of the ever-changing landscape of professional as well as personal lifestyle factors, many people have trouble doing the same thing day after day, and week after week. In order to keep your clients happy and on track with their programs, you must "roll with the punches" and exhibit some flexibility when it comes to scheduling and training issues.
It is a very good idea to have a running cancellation policy for your business, and it is an equally good idea to educate your clients on the need for regularity in their training program. However, being so inflexible that you charge a client $50 every time they get a flat tire, have to work late, or have a family emergency will quickly eliminate any professional bonding that your clients may have previously felt was a part of your working relationship. Enforce your policies, but be realistic about the fact that life is just not as black and white as it may have been 20 years ago.
Forward Thinking
This is as much of a sales technique as it is a great customer service tool. In a nutshell, it means that you should always be planning for the future when it comes to your clients. Talk to them about how you are going to start running with them once they get their weight down enough for their knees to handle the stress. Explain to them how much fun it will be when you can start taking them through the new training protocol that you put together. Get them excited about how good they are going to look on the beach this summer after several more months of working out with you, or about how their cousin Sally is going to be so envious at Christmas time this year when she sees how much weight your client has lost.
All of these things plant the seed for your clients that you are thinking about their future, and not just taking them through a workout. Let them know that you have great plans for them in the future, and that you can't wait to see their results when they get to a certain point in the program that you have them on. Again, your clients are people, and they want to be made to feel important, needed, and respected.
Over-delivering
Over-delivering value to your clients is probably the most important technique out of any that have been listed so far. It is last in our list of customer service secrets so that it is the one that you remember the most!
Over-delivering is just what it sounds like - giving your clients more value for their money than they originally expected to get. In fact, all of the items listed above are great examples of over-delivery. Do you think that when your clients hired you they expected to be getting gifts on their birthday, expected you to be excited about the graduation of their children, or that they could vent to you about their mother-in-law during training sessions? These are all examples of the infinite number of ways that you can over-deliver value to your clients.
In addition to what has already been listed, you can get much more specific with your over-delivery efforts. Each of your clients has a very well defined fitness goal that they are diligently working towards. As a fitness professional, you should be regularly keeping up with the latest news stories about health and fitness, as well as getting Continuing Education Credits.
Put that information directly to use for your clients! How impressed do you think your client would be if their fitness goal is to be a competitive swimmer, and you take a course on training competitive swimmers? What about if you have picked up some clients who are over the age of 55 and you start reading books and clipping articles on Senior Fitness? How about a bonus training session that you give your client when they reach a goal? What about if you have a client who is on the high school wrestling team, and after working with him for 2 months, you offer to do a free class for his entire team? The teenager becomes a hero because his personal trainer gave up some winning tips before the big meet, and you get a boat load of free publicity!
Conclusion
The pattern developing here is clear, and the above examples are only sketches of things that you might consider. Remember that every successful personal trainer runs a business, he or she doesn't just workout with their clients. Get under the hood of your business, tinker around with the wiring, and find ways to "WOW" your clients everyday!

About The Author

Aaron Potts is the author and creator of The Ultimate Complete Personal Training Business Kit, a quick-start kit and business guide for new as well as seasoned fitness professionals. Find out more about Aaron's programs at http://www.completepersonaltrainingbusiness.com or his personal training site at http://www.aaronspersonaltraining.com

info@fitnessdestinations.com

This article was posted on March 31, 2005

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Personal Training: 3 Powerful Ways To Position Yourself As An Expert

Personal Training: 3 Powerful Ways To Position Yourself As An Expert
 by: Aaron Potts

Regardless of what profession you are in, it is critical that people believe that you know what you are talking about! You won't find very many successful lawyers whose clients never win in court, or popular doctors whose patients are continually misdiagnosed. This concept obviously applies to personal trainers as well, and making sure you are viewed as an expert in your field is as important as having the knowledge to begin with.
It is helpful to be aware of the simple fact that a person's perception is their reality, even if that perception is incorrect. Let's use the example of the doctor in the above paragraph. If you heard through personal references that Dr. John Smith wasn't a very good doctor, the chances that you would ever go see Dr. Smith are pretty slim. However, do you actually know for a fact that Dr. Smith is a bad doctor? No - you just have the perception that he is a bad doctor because that is what you heard. Do you see how your perception is your reality, and how Dr. Smith is unlikely to be getting any of your business?
Your mission is to make sure that you are always viewed as an expert in your field! Otherwise you will end up like poor Dr. Smith, and your list of clients will be short indeed, as will the life of your business. However, if you have done your job and created the impression that you are an expert in your field, then the opposite will hold true. People will have "heard" that you know what you are talking about, and your reputation and your business will grow as a result. In order to get to this desired end result, three effective ways for you to build your reputation include media exposure, writing books, articles, or success tips for your field, and approaching any given situation from a "position of power".
Media Exposure
The most common ways to get viewed as an expert using media exposure include news programming on television, magazine and newspaper stories, and radio time. Each of these methods has one thing in common: mass exposure via a publicly accepted system of obtaining information.
Consider this point from your own perspective. If you see an interview on the news, read an article about a company in the newspaper, or hear about a professional organization on the radio, your natural instinct is to believe that the company or organization has a firm grip on the ins and outs of their product or service.
Why do you think that? Is it because the radio program included a long list of professional references for the company? Is it because the magazine article listed a passing grade by a professional review board or other certifying agency qualified to judge the advertised organization?
The answer to those questions is most likely "no". Why then do you believe in the company's ability to provide the product or service that is discussed? The answer is simple: because you were exposed to the company via a publicly accepted system of obtaining information. Whether that system was the six o'clock news, your local daily paper, or your favorite magazine, chances are that you believed what you read or heard simply because of WHERE you read or heard it!
Ideally, all consumers - including professionals such as yourself - would use other additional methods to determine the qualifications of a company before purchasing their product or service, but in reality, does that happen very often? No, not really. Most people believe what they read and what they hear, and as a Fitness Professional, you can take advantage of that fact. Granted, you should not profess to be an expert if you aren't, but assuming that you really do know what you are talking about, use the media to let others know, too!
Writing Books, Articles, and Success Tips
Comparable to the "expert" status that is afforded a company based on their mass media exposure, a similar assumed professional status can be taken on by any company or individual that publishes written works in their field.
Refer back to the power of the mass media that is referenced above, and you will see a very similar effect generated by published works. If someone writes a book, publishes articles, or generates a regular flow of "success tips" in any given field, it is automatically assumed by the reader that the author of the book, article, or success tip knows what they are talking about.
Is it true that the author is an expert in their field just because they know how to write or type? Of course not! However, the mass media phenomenon applies to published written works just as much as it applies to interviews done on the news, in magazines, or on the radio. The author is assumed to be proficient in the field that the book, article, or tip discusses, even though there is rarely indisputable evidence of the writer's expertise included with the written works.
Again, it is not being suggested that you write books, articles, or success tips unless you really do hold expert status in your field. However, since the "assumptions of excellence" apply as much to the written word as to audio and visual exposure, take advantage of that fact and write as much and as often as you can!
As a side note, writing is also an excellent way for you to enhance your own knowledge in your field. Frequently during the process of writing a book or article, you are called upon to reference the sources of your information, and gathering that type of information expands your own knowledge, as well as your understanding of how to find information for similar projects in the future.
Assuming a "Position of Power"
Utilizing a "position of power" is one of the most effective methods of positioning yourself as an expert in your field. Approaching a situation from a position of power is simply the art of assuming that whoever you are talking to already perceives you to be an expert. Remember that a person's perception is their reality, so as long as the other person believes that you are an expert, then in their eyes, you are!
For example, let's use the story of a talented personal trainer who is applying for the position of Director of Fitness Programming at a small but successful local gym. We will call our imaginary professional Joe Trainer, and we will say for the record that Joe does indeed hold an effective track record in the personal training industry. His clients have benefited from his knowledge and guidance, and he has successfully changed many people's lives in a positive manner. However, Joe Trainer has never been a "Director of Fitness Programming" before. Is he qualified for the job?
Let's review Joe's history. He has worked or worked out in dozens of gyms over the years. Joe has utilized all manner of fitness equipment, from paint cans in his garage when he was a teenager, all the way up through the most modern computerized workout machines available in some of today's fitness facilities. Joe has put together hundreds of different workout programs for hundreds of different people over the years, and we have already determined that his client track record is excellent. Joe has also been called upon many times over the years to recommend fitness equipment purchases to his many clients, including a cost to benefit ratio analysis (in other words, if the equipment is worth the money). Joe has also been exposed to many different lines of nutritional supplements, dietary guidelines, and he has even taken aerobics classes and yoga from time to time.
Has Joe Trainer ever been a "Director of Fitness Programming" before? No. However, is Joe Trainer qualified for that position? Most likely yes! However, now Joe has a dilemma. He has scheduled an interview with the local gym, he really wants the job, but he is nervous about the fact that he has never really been a "Director of Fitness Programming" or a director of anything at all, for that matter. Joe now has 2 choices.
Choice number one is for Joe to go to the interview, ramble on uncontrollably about the hundreds of clients that he has successfully trained, babble about how many different gyms he has been in, and go into mindless detail about why he thinks Supplement A is better than Supplement B.
Do you think Joe will get the job? Let's try a different approach.
Joe mentally prepares for the interview by reviewing the many different ways that his experience will benefit the facility. He puts together a few examples of how he successfully recommended or used one type of fitness equipment more effectively than a different type. Joe puts together mental notes about how aerobics and group exercise classes have added success to his training programs over the years, and how incorporating a cross training approach has kept his clients motivated and continually seeing results from their training programs.
By this point, Joe's confidence in his ability to be a "Director of Fitness Programming" has increased, and he honestly believes that it is not him who is being interviewed, but it is he who is interviewing the facility. Joe doesn't need this job - he has proven his ability to make a living as a personal trainer dozens of times over the years. He is applying for this position because he believes that he can be a great asset to the facility, and he wants to expand his experience in the field. In fact, the facility would be lucky to have him! For that matter, he may already be considering countering the posted pay scale with an increase if they want to hire him. After all, he is Joe Trainer, and his success record speaks for itself!
Now, do you think Joe will get the job? Pretty safe bet.
Is the Joe Trainer in the first example any different than the Joe Trainer using the second approach? No - we're talking about the same person. What is different then? Joe's belief in himself - and more importantly - Joe's ability to show the facility how they would be missing a great opportunity if they didn't hire him. It is Joe who is interviewing the facility, not the other way around. Joe assumed a "Position of Power" before he even got to his interview. He walked out with a new title and a nice salary, an increased confidence in his own abilities, and the opportunity to mold an entire staff of personal trainer into successful, results-oriented Fitness Professionals!
This same concept can also be applied when negotiating with potential new clients. Remember that you are the fitness professional. You are the one with the knowledge and the experience that the client needs. You are not asking them to be your clients, but rather you are giving them the opportunity to become your clients.
Conclusion
As you can see, as Fitness Professionals in the ever-growing field of health and physical fitness, we have many tools at our disposal when it comes to positioning ourselves as experts. However, we have an equal amount of responsibility to not utilize these tools unless we are 100% confident in our status as experts in our chosen disciplines. Use your knowledge and your tools wisely and appropriately, and you will see your professional and personal success grow beyond your wildest dreams!

About The Author

Aaron Potts is the author and creator of The Ultimate Complete Personal Training Business Kit, a quick-start kit and business guide for new as well as seasoned fitness professionals. Find out more about Aaron's programs at http://www.completepersonaltrainingbusiness.com or his personal training site at http://www.aaronspersonaltraining.com

info@fitnessdestinations.com

This article was posted on March 31, 2005

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Free Weights Vs. Exercise Machines

Free Weights Vs. Exercise Machines
 by: Aaron Potts

Anyone who has ever been in a gym before is familiar with the gleaming banks of shiny exercise machines. Coming in all shapes and sizes, they are usually cause for the newcomer to the gym to pause and ask, "What IS all of that stuff?"
Well, according to the price that the gym paid for any one piece of that equipment, I certainly hope that it not only stimulates your muscles, but also cooks your breakfast, washes your car, and brings the kids home from soccer practice! Now the question becomes whether or not those machines were worth the price, or if you'd be better off doing a home aerobics video with a can of soup in each hand….
Personally, I would advise you to get the low-sodium version of the soup, serve it up alongside a tomato sandwich, and then go buy yourself some free weights. Yes, that is just my opinion, but it does come with some scientific reasoning behind it.
Natural movement vs. Controlled movement
One of the things that you need to remember is that when you are exercising, you are training for LIFE. You may spend an hour a day at the gym, but that still leaves 23 other hours for your muscles to function without the aid of that fancy equipment.
Whenever you do any given exercise, the movement of your body during that exercise is called the Range of Motion. The greater and more difficult the Range of Motion, the more effective the exercise is, because your body has to work harder to perform that movement.
Let's take a classic dumbbell bicep curl for our case study. If you aren't familiar with the movement, it is basically performed by standing up straight with your palms facing forward, and a pair of dumbbells held down at your sides. You concentrically contract your biceps (also known as flexing your elbow) to bring the dumbbells up to approximately shoulder level, and then repeat the movement for a prescribed number of repetitions.
Let's take that same muscle movement and do it using a bicep curl machine. You sit down, brace your upper arms on a pad, grasp 2 handles that are in front of you, and do that same fancy elbow flexing movement to move the handles in an upward motion. Pretty easy stuff so far, right?
Now let's examine the muscles that are used in this motion. Wait - I thought we were concentrically contracting the biceps? That is correct, and if you are using the bicep curl machine, that is pretty much ALL you are doing. For one, you are sitting down. You know, like you did all day at work, and then in your car on the way to the gym. Then, your upper arms are braced on a nice soft pad to keep your upper body stable while you pull the handles upwards. The machine has effectively limited the muscles used in this exercise to the biceps, as well as the muscles in your forearms and fingers as you grip the handles.
Let us now sidestep over to the weight room where the dumbbells are kept, and once again get in the start position for a standing bicep curl with the dumbbells. Notice the term "standing". You know, like you DIDN'T do all day at work, and hopefully also did not do in your car on the way to the gym. So before we even start the exercise, we are using more muscles than we did on the machine - namely the leg muscles.
Now let's pick up a 10 lb dumbbell in each hand. We've just added 20 lbs to our body weight. What is keeping us from losing our center of balance and falling clean over? The abdominal muscles and the muscles of the lower back and spine. Now we are using our legs, our abs, and our back. Flex those elbows and start to raise the dumbbells. Now our center of gravity has become a fluid state, and our legs, back, and abs all have to constantly compensate to maintain posture. Oh, and the biceps are also in on the action by this point, as are the forearms, the fingers, and the shoulder girdle.
We now have the dumbbells all the way up and it's time to start lowering them again, via an eccentric contraction of the biceps (also know as extending the elbow). What muscle group controls the extension of the elbow? The triceps on the back of the arm.
Did you lose track yet? It's okay if you did because you have illustrated the point:
Machine Bicep Curl: Uses the biceps, forearms, and fingers
Cost: Thousands of dollars
Standing Dumbbell Bicep Curl: Uses the biceps, forearms, fingers, legs, abs, back, triceps, and shoulders.
Cost: $40 for a good set of dumbbells that can be used for dozens of other exercises
In a nutshell, free weight exercises simply USE MORE MUSCLES than machines do, which make them more effective. Does that mean that the machines are a complete waste? Absolutely not! In some circumstances it is BETTER to stabilize the muscles being used in any given movement. However, those circumstances are the exception, rather than the rule.
So what do you do? Change up your routine, and incorporate free weights as well as machine exercises. However, keep the machine work to a minimum - say 20% of your total time spent working with weights. Spend the other 80% developing your stabilizer muscles, your sense of balance and coordination, and if nothing else - just standing up!
After all, you can go home and sit down on the couch to enjoy your post-workout snack. The bicep machine already brought the kids home from soccer practice, remember?

About The Author

Aaron Potts is the owner and creator of Fitness Destinations. Aaron's experience in the health and fitness industry includes one on one personal training in many different environments, maintenance of several health-related websites, and authoring of many fitness-related products for consumers and fitness professionals. http://www.fitnessdestinations.com.

info@fitnessdestinations.com

This article was posted on March 31, 2005

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