Health and Fitness Blogs

 What? Yes, the knee has a patella stabilizer, as the shoulder has the same stability mechanisms. Remember the closer (local) the muscle is to a joint the greater the role in stability … rather than strength.

When the deep stabilizers don’t work well to stabilize the spine, the brain recruits the global muscles to compensate.(this is what happens inmost humans, and of course pilates classes)  If the body didn’t compensate the spine would be unable to resist the force of gravity and would collapse. Pain around the lower back and pelvis or groin often results from these compensatory strategies. Treating the painful areas only gives short term relief.

It is scary. Sarcopenia is a word that comes from Greek and means ‘poverty of flesh’. For our purpose, I’ll define as a loss of muscle as it seen with some diseases but it is most commonly associated with aging. Research shows that everybody will experience a certain degree of sarcopenia as we get older; however, the degree of this loss of muscle is not pre-determined and is largely influenced by our lifestyle choices. 

   The seasons seem to be running a few weeks behind, which means there is still time for some great hiking in the high country. The well used trail up Shrine Pass Road in Summit County offers meadows blanketed in yellow daisies, purple larkspur, pink Indian paintbrush, white yarrow and more. Pass the snowfields and reach the ridgeline with its great views. All my lunges paid off in that my legs were not sore, except for the front of my ankle from flexing my foot to go up the inclines. I NEED MORE TOE RAISES!     

There are no quick fixes.  There are no shortcuts.  People comment all the the time about how fit I am, how great my arms look, and they ask me what I do.  They don't really want to hear the truth.  They want me to tell them I did the cabbage diet, or I did P90X for 3 months, or I walk 3 times a week.  They don't want to hear that I'm up before 6 more than twice a week (and before 7 on most of the other days), that I spend at least 60 minutes each day doing intense exercise (and up to 4 hours on some days), that I have not eaten fast food for more than 7

Being a female San Diego fitness trainer I work with a lot of female clients. I would say females make up about 80% of my client base. That being said, women have the hardest time losing weight, and getting fit on their own. Most often times it relates back to the woman’s basic instinct to put everything before herself, including family, significant others, career, friends, etc. Women have a hard time putting aside time for themselves to exercise, cook healthy meals, and grocery shop.

Tuesday after working a long day, a person is ready to call it a day with the thought doing a workout being fragile. Whether or not to get the workout in is hanging by a thread. The early morning alarm starts, waking a person up to hit the gym. Does the person percieve the work out to be worth while enough to initiate the get up and go necessary to lace up the shoes?

Does life seem to be moving too fast to get your workout in and you want some quick simple solutions to get in a mini workout? I know with my change of jobs my life has been in the fast lane all week long and that is why this blog is going to be a rather short one cause I still have to run to the grocery store and do several other things before I call it a night. With my new job change I have promised myself that I would be more active and I have done just that partly due to the new job.

Starting next month I will be featuring some amazing success stories of some of my clients. I think it is very important to call our each other's success as these may inspire others to finally- take action towards reaching their fitness goals. If you have a weight loss success story, be proud of how far you have come. If you haven't reached your "goal" yet, be proud of the steps already taken in getting to your goal. Remember, you are still moving forward. Weight loss is definitely not an easy journey, but one that is most rewarding both mentally and physically.

    What a great weekend I had at the IDEA convention, so much great science.  I'd like to share a couple of concepts to help you get started.