Iron Fit Personal Training
Helping people achieve a better lifestyle, through effective and personalized workouts.
Succeeding Over the Holidays
This is a great time of year for so many different reasons. You get to see family you may not have seen in a long time. You get days off of work during the middle of the week. You also get to enjoy a bunch of food that you may not regularly enjoy because of all the gatherings that you will be attending. That’s where the problem lies for many. You eat a bunch of good but unhealthy food, and your time gets taken up because of all the gatherings you are going to. You miss one workout here, then another there, then another. Before you know it, you haven’t even gone to the gym at all this week. Here are a few tips to help keep you focused on your goals during the Christmas Season.
1. Re evaluate and write down your goals. Go back and look over what you are trying to achieve, and go over the reason you started doing it. This could help inspire you to stay strong and determined this season, without having too many setbacks. Giving yourself that constant reminder will help your mind stay focused on the task at hand. If you give yourself a constant reminder, you are more likely to hit your goals.
2. Watch your snacking at parties. One of the common things we do is over eat when we are snacking. Take a plate and stick to that plate of food that you’ve gathered. Obviously don’t pile the food Fred Flintstone high, but if you can stick to that plate you will likely enjoy yourself and not get over stuffed. Over eating on the path towards any goal will cripple your ability to reach your goals.
3. Limit your drinking. Over consumption of booze during these next few weeks is common. However, what you may not realize is the excess of pop that you are drinking. Both booze and pop will inhibit you from getting to whatever goals you have, so try and watch your intake. Again, have one cup at the party you are attending. Drink it but don’t gulp it down. Allow it to last a little while.
4. Don’t cut everything out. This time of year comes around only once, so try and enjoy it a little bit. If you find yourself eating absolutely none of the goodies around, you may find that once you have one, you will over eat. A little bit here and there will not hurt you, as long as it’s in moderation. Remember, it’s not about cutting out everything in the world that is “bad”. It’s about learning and adapting it to suit your lifestyle.
Have a safe & Happy Christmas Season, and remember to contact us to help you reach your goals in the safest and most effective way possible.
NEWSFLASH – Fat Is Needed!
Whether you are a high level athlete, regular gym attendee or someone who doesn’t hit the gym, fat consummation is on your mind. You think about it, it crosses your mind when you are going to eat something and you a currently being bombarded in the media about watching your fat consumption. There’s enough being thrown at you to make you completely confused about what to eat, as well as how much fat to eat. Everyone talks about reducing fat, but they forget to tell you that you need to consume fat! That’s right, you need to make sure you have good sources of fat in your diet. But what is the difference between good fat & bad fat?
First we need to look at what fat is. Fat is a crucial nutrient for normal body functions. It supplies us with energy, it helps other nutrients work effectively and it’s essential in our survival. Fats come in various forms such as oils, animal fats and vegetable fats. It plays a role in protecting our organs and maintaining a solid body temperature. However their are also some “bad” forms of fat that cause problems for our bodies and our future. Let’s look at the types of fats and some examples, so we at Iron Fit can help you better understand your body.
Mono – Unsaturated Fats
This type of fat is currently confusing many researchers and scientists. However, recent studies are showing that this type of fat may reduce your risk of developing heart disease. They have also been found to lower your cholesterol if you eat this type of fat instead of saturated fats. Common occurrences of this type of fat are found in canola or olive oil, peanuts, avocados and creating types of nuts. Now Iron Fit isn’t saying to eat a ton of products containing these items, but they are a smarter choice of fat.
Saturated Fats
These fats are big contributors to heart disease, and they tend to raise blood cholesterol levels. Eating this type of food over a long period of time greatly increases your risk of cardiovascular disease and the chances of a stroke. Sources of this fat are fast food (deep friend especially), meat, chicken skin and processed foods such as cakes, pastries and today’s dairy products. You should be eating this type of fat in moderation, and not over consuming it on a daily basis.
Trans Fats
This is the type of fat you are looking to avoid. They provide no benefit to your health, and there really is no reason to consume them. This fat is created and is not naturally occurring. They increase your bad cholesterol and they lower your good cholesterol levels, and by putting the pieces together, your chances of a stroke and heart disease go way up consuming this fat. Restaurants use this fat because of the taste and it’s very cheap to make. You can find trans fat in many fried foods, pizza, pies, crackers and a bunch of other baked goods.
Now that we have broken down the types of fat, how much should you eat in your diet? The typical adult (18 and older) should be consuming 25% – 35% of their daily caloric intake from fat. If you can stick around that 30% level of good fats and with the proper workout, you should be able to maintain a healthy diet and reach your fitness goals. We obviously want to lower your fat intake, but it’s very important to maintain the right balance.
Not sure how many calories you need in a day? Confused by the workouts you should be doing to see performance? Contact us at Iron Fit today to help. We make sure you have all the information you need to reach your goals successfully.
Change to Succeed
You are likely the problem with your child’s & your eating pattern. Recently, schools have thought of banning all junk food. While this may solve the short term problem, it doesn’t solve anything long term. Kids will still find a way to eat the junk food that they want to eat. It’s similar to when you are working out and training. When you know something is bad for you, it may make you want it more and you may consume more of it.
But the whole issue of childhood obesity and even family struggles with weight generally falls straight at the feet of the people making the food. Likely that person is YOU! Your kids learn their eating patterns from what you feed them, not from TV or outside sources. You are their main inspiration and role model, they like to follow what you do. If you struggle with your weight, maybe it’s time to change your eating habits as well.
Many of us consume too many carbohydrates in a day (breads, pastas, cereal, etc…) and not enough vegetables and protein (fish, chicken, meat, etc…). Likely if you or your child eat cereal for breakfast, you are consuming a food that really doesn’t do much for your body. Unless you are eating cereals with low sugar in them, you’re not fuelling your body with anything. Try some oatmeal, fruit or even some toast for breakfast. Ease up on your snacking of any foods in a package, and you will likely see a HUGE change in your overall look and feel. If it goes in a package, can you imagine what it takes to keep it fresh for that long? How long does your fruit last? Exactly my point.
Making subtle changes to your eating is the easiest way to see success. If you try and change it completely right off the bat, you will likely feel overwhelmed. That may lead to you losing sight of your goals, getting frustrated and giving up. At Iron Fit we make sure we teach our clients about eating. It’s not about cutting out everything, it’s about learning when and what to eat. We aren’t robots, so how can you expect to eat the same thing all the time? We teach our clients to read and nutrition label the easy way, not just looking at calories. But how protein, carbs and fats relate to those calories. Contact us today to get your change started.
Save Your Knees!
Our knees are something that we end up taking for granted. We don’t think about it when we are young, but later in life we look back and realize what exercise choices helped affect our achy knees when we are older. Was it the type of sport you play? Was it the style of exercise that you are doing? While we have heard all about the effects of various sports on our bodies, most times we don’t hear about the effect our training has on our bodies. This post will try to look at knee aches and how to help alleviate some of your current and future aches and pains.
At Iron Fit, we try and focus on the posture of our clients while we are training. I don’t necessarily mean we only work on that, but the posture of our clientele during exercise. One of the common imbalances we see is when we see the knee falling too far over your toes. Ideally, you are looking to have your knee come no farther than the end of your toes when you are bending. Now, we know this isn’t the case with all forms of training, but we are focusing on general training in this article. Whether you are an athlete or someone trying to lose weight, if those knees fall too far past your toes, you’re asking for that walker later on.
Something else to watch is how much stress you are putting on your knees. Many times we see people doing squats, which is a great exercise for everyone. However, a goal is always to sit yourself down to a 90 degree angle. When you think of the chairs, couches or seats you sit on, how low are they? Many of the times they are at a 90 degree angle or lower. Therefore a squat equates out to a great exercise. However, why add any weights to your training if you can’t sit or bend as low as 90 degrees? Focus on getting the correct form and proper knee and hip bend before adding weights to your program.
During our training, we workout hard and try to push our bodies to the upper limit they could handle. However, something important that many of us fail to realize is stretching may be a cause of our pain. I’m sure you didn’t realize that many of our leg muscles connect in and around the knee. Our group of quad and hamstring muscles are muscles that we use a ton, but many times we fail to realize the stress they put on the knees. Factor in the tightness of our adductor (inside) and abductor (outside) muscles, and it could create a perfect storm for knee pain. We always think about strengthening those muscles, but try to think outside of the box and think about loosening them.
At Iron Fit, we focus on improving you and your body the safest way possible. There are always faster ways, but you’ll pay for them in your Golden Years.
Contact us to see how we can help you alleviate your knee pain and enhance your workout.
The CrossFit Saga
When I first came through my schooling, there was a new “craze” going through the fitness industry. All you had to do is go to a
website and they would give you the workout for the day. It may be 100 push-ups, 1000 sit-ups, 50 burpies or whatever it was, you just had to do that workout and you would supposedly achieve all of your desired results.
As we have moved on in years, we have realized that this form of training may not be the most effective, or the safest. Take a look at the following article, and draw your own conclusions. As with anything in fitness, try and keep an open mind when you are reading it. This article is a great read for anyone.
https://medium.com/health-fitness-1/97bcce70356d
Eric Robertson Professor of Physical Therapy @Regis University, @PTThinkTank founder. Speaker, Researcher. Technology in Healthcare and Education, conversationalist
We would love to hear your thoughts on CrossFit, pro or con for it, it is a great discussion point.
What’s The “Right” Cardio?
Have you ever looked at all of the cardio equipment and just jumped on a machine? Then, after a while you notice someone else using a different machine and sweating profusely, so you decide to give that one a try. You jump on and after a while realize your knees hurt and you are not sweating at all. Or have you been doing cardiovascular work and not seen any results from your efforts? It’s possible that you aren’t doing the correct cardiovascular work for your needs.
There are many different options in the gym for you to “get your cardio on”, but it’s all a matter of knowing how hard and which machine to use.
BIKES
– the bikes in the gym are great pieces of equipment to move your legs and to get your cardio work started. For the most part they are easy on the joints, and provide a great workout for anyone looking for rehab work or joint injuries. However, if you are looking to lose weight using the bikes, you need to be going at a decent speed and intensity to see weight loss benefits from them. You will see weight loss or cardio improvements, it just may take you a little longer than you expect.Try taking a spin class, or getting your Iron Fit Personal Trainer to set you up on an interval program to get the most out of your bike program.
ELLIPTICAL/CROSSTRAINERS & THE STAIRMASTER
– both of these machines are great for faster weight loss over the bikes, but they do require more of a challenge and dedication to see your success. Many people avoid the Stairmaster because they feel it is too hard, or it looks like a leg torture machine. Yet it’s a great workout for the legs and the lungs, and requires a ton of your force to move it up and down. The more force you are putting forth, the harder your body is working. The harder your body is working, the more calories you will burn. The elliptical is the machine that most “newbies” in the gym start with. It’s taken over the fitness industry, and has proven to be easier on the joints that running on the treadmill. By involving your legs and arms at the same time, it is again require you to put more force into the workout. It’s a great way to get your whole body involved, but it is also one of the easier ones to “slack off” on. Make sure when you are using the elliptical machine, you are going as hard as you can.
THE TREADMILL
– this is a machine that you have either come to love or hate. One of the things we see very often are the people that are using the treadmills for walking. If you are going to walk on a treadmill, go outside unless you are planning to do some serious incline work on it. You can get a much more effective workout by walking outside with the variance in incline on the pavement/grass, and also some of the potential wind resistance. If you are going to run on the treadmills, it is still proven as one of the best forms of cardiovascular work. You just need to make sure that you have the proper running style and technique. At Iron Fit, we monitor our clients running and change up their stride, foot posture, and gait if this is required.
Overall, cardio boils down to the tried and true methods of client specificity. There is no right or wrong form of cardio for 100% of the population. The Gazelle, Tae Bo, Insanity workouts, etc. have come and gone. Yet the bikes, treadmill, stairmaster and elliptical seem to be standing the test of time. The right cardio is the one that has been specifically prescribed for you by your educated Iron Fit Personal Trainer.
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