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When you sit down on a weight bench or climb onto one of the resistance machines in the gym, do you start cranking out your reps immediately or do you take time to really focus and set yourself up for success?

One of the disciplines that I try to reinforce in each of my clients is the principle of “Get Ready. Get Set. GO!”

This has come from watching (mostly) guys plop down on a bench, 50# dumbbells in hand, lever them up awkwardly and then start banging out their reps. No care if the spine is straight… No sense that the feet are pulled back and imbalanced… No awareness that the pelvis is mis-aligned… No clue that the shoulder ligaments are being strained.

Do This:

Take a few extra moments to “Get Ready”… which means adjusting the seat level, securing the bar, loading the right amount of resistance. Then, “Get Set”… aligning your spine (including your neck!), relaxing your shoulders, tightening your core, setting your base of support, ensuring that your body position is symmetrical.

Then… GO!

That’s what makes it count. Safe. Effective. Efficient.

Doug

I was very happy to participate in this year’s Prairie Faeries Fowl Supper held in Vancouver.

Well over $75,000 was raised for 2  local AIDS charities (McLaren House and Loving Spoonful), as well as for OUT in Schools!

Amazing success!!

Congratulations to Yves M of Vancouver who was the successful bidder for the 4-session Personal Training Package that MyTrainerSays donated to the event.

I’m looking forward to providing those sessions for Yves, and to helping our local community again.

Doug at MyTrainerSays dot com

OK… so you’ve made your commitment, you’ve set aside the time and are focussed on your objective.

All good.

Now, for the most challenging part of your fitness program… DISCIPLINE.

Interestingly, when selecting from the variety of words printed on the back of my business cards, 9 out of 10 people choose the Discipline card.

Achievement is fleeting without the Discipline it takes to exercise on a regular basis, to faithfully follow a fitness workout appropriate for your fitness objective, to regularly monitor your results and to challenge yourself to set the bar higher and higher.

Equally, achievement is fleeting without the discipline to align your lifestyle with your fitness objective  - remembering that you only spend a few hours per week in the gym – which leaves the rest of the week to sour your fitness investment if you’re not careful.

It’s all choice.

To ACHIEVE, you must COMMIT, you must FOCUS and you must have DISCIPLINE.

MyTrainer Says… “How can I help”?

Doug at MyTrainerSays dot com

Yes… You can use your free time searching for practical and useful fitness information on the Internet. It’s all out there.

Yes… You can (and will) read lots of fitness mis-information on the Internet – it’s rampant. And some of it is downright dangerous.

Yes… You can spend hours (as I do) sifting the good from the bad to determine what applies, then formulate a strategic fitness plan for yourself.

Yes… You can search and view YouTube videos to learn the best (& worst) way to perform each exercise in your evolving program.

Yes… You can register for one of many Fitness Seminars held each year across North America, then accompany me for an entire weekend to learn all the applications of 1 particular fitness regime.

Yes… You can join a gym, then visit it regularly – making each visit focused, disciplined, consistent, time-efficient, safe and (most importantly) progressive.

Yes… You can do all of that for yourself during the non-working, non-sleeping, non-choring hours of your week.

Or… You can afford to hire a Personal Trainer for 2-3 hours a week who can prepare all of that especially for you.

You just show up with a vision of better health and appearance.

Doug at MyTrainerSays dot com

An oh-so-simple posture fix: When walking, quit hanging your head forward as if you’re expecting to trip over a log! Yes, scan your field of vision for obstacles, but keep your head up and Walk Tall!

My partner Luc and I just returned from a 6 week trip to Europe – which started with all good intentions of working out “regularly” on the road, but quickly transitioned to “pausing” our workout regime due to cramped quarters, lack of gym access, travel schedules, etc.  I figure that’s a fair enough exchange for 2 pretty fit individuals who were walking anywhere from 4 to 8 hrs each day.

Having been away from the gym for that length of time however also gave me a good opportunity to evaluate and compare the affects of “pausing” a regular fitness program.

Here is my observation:

- Weeks 1 to 3 brought about little change in body composition – walking several hours a day counter-acted our increased consumption of European pastries, meats, cheeses, wine and beer. Short-burst energy was slightly affected, in that there were no quick sprints or high-level intensity exercises being performed, only “plodding” along for hours.

- During weeks 4 to 6, a more definite and noticeable effect emerged. Loss of upper body muscle mass (shoulders, neck, arms and back) became more obvious – the way once form-fitting T-shirts now fit, the increased love-handle pocket of fat, the way jeans now needed to be cinched up.  Total body mass dropped by about 8 pounds in me, about 12 pounds in Luc – undeniably the result of no weight resistance training.

Without specific testing, lung capacity and heart conditioning effects are difficult to assess. The best gauge of that was returning to the gym this week to see (a) how quickly I “winded” when trying to perform my usual HeartRate Interval training (H-L timed intervals) and (b) the rate of my pre-exercise heart beat (slightly higher than before).

Where I have really noticed a change is in flexibility and range of motion. Not being the spring chicken that I once was, it hasn’t taken long for the muscles of my legs (particularly hamstrings and calves) to shorten from all the walking and the airplane /train sitting that we did during our 6-week travels.

Posture also took a dive by the end of the trip – with a return of slightly rounded shoulders (as pectoral muscles shortened and pulled forward the shoulder girdle) and mid-thoracic back muscles elongated (rounded mid-back, forward neck). As I age, the importance of keeping my mid- back muscles toned and tight – for good posture and for effective upper-body exercise movement – becomes more and more apparent.

Re-Entry Workout

This week’s workouts have been comprised of HeartRate Intervals (best done on a treadmill), with a slightly shorter “peak” phase and a slightly longer “rest” phase. Same time however – between 20 and 40 minutes. Intention: to restore lung capacity and O2 utilization.

My weight training workout has been “full body”, 3 times this week at about 60-70% max – with a bit more specific attention paid to my mid-back (standing rows / facepulls /pullups), shoulders (overhead presses / rear delt flys), legs (deadlifts /lunges) and abdominals (SB roll-outs, front planks), all paired with balanced stretching – stretching – stretching!! Then more stretching.  Intention: to specifically restore proportion and muscle balance around the shoulder joints, hip joints and the vertibrae.

Conclusion

For every body, it’s important to have regular “rest” periods in your training program. By “rest” – that generally means a few days per month of “much-less-than-full-intensity” workouts. It allows the body to fully recover from the stresses that an intense program puts on it – particularly true for aging bodies… 40+.

At the same time, taking a full 6 weeks off from my regular regime was a kind confirmation for me that once a decent level of fitness has been achieved and maintained for awhile (long-term gain), it can’t be lost “overnight”. Repeat: Once a good level of fitness has been achieved.

If your progress at home has been relatively short-lived, then yes, during the course of 3+ weeks away from the gym there is a good chance that you will lose those short-term gains. Once back in the gym though, you can rest assured that results will return faster than they took to appear the first time. From my observations and experience, I’d say that it takes a full year of regular conditioning to fully re-wire a body to get “used to” maintaining a new metabolic form.

To those just starting out, or who are re-committing to a regular fitness program, this entry is meant to be ENCOURAGING, not discouraging:

1) think how fast 1 year goes by

2) break it down into chunks, either seasonally, monthly, or weekly

3) set some realistic fitness goals for each of those periods… whether muscle gain, fat loss, flexibility, speed, endurance – and importantly, measure your before and afters.

4) get professional advice – there is lots of information out there to help you succeed.

5) keep it simple. No body has time for complicated workouts that end in frustration.

Finally, let me say that after being on the road for 6 weeks – seeing so many places and sites that I’d only heard of or seen pictures of before – the experience was amazing. Culturally, the differences between each country that we traveled through was enlightening. Cuisine – scrumptious, whole foods, few processed or packaged. Fitness awareness – I was surprised to see so much smoking still, and un-healthy lifestyle behaviours – albeit, little obesity.

It’s good to be back in Vancouver.

Cheers.

Doug

Everyone in my peer group seems to be caught up in over-committed schedules… particularly as the days get longer and everyone starts to wake up from winter hibernation.

As a result, I often get asked: What time is the best for working out?

Answering this question generally requires 2 pieces of information; the preference of the person being trained (say, a morning or evening type person) AND what  science exists to support one time or another.

The Science

In general, many of the studies that I have read claim better performance is achieved in the afternoon… and that means around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. For example,

“Studies by Rodahl et al found that swimmers performed better in the afternoon and had a greater alertness and power at around 4:00pm each day. Likewise, both Torii et al and Hill et al found aerobic training and performance to be more effective in the afternoon than in the morning.”

Relative to strength gain from resistance training however, it seems that there are little differences found between groups lifting weights before 10:00am or those lifting after 6:00pm (however, I did read that the PM group can achieve greater lean muscle mass adaptation (good), while the AM group can be more prone to dehydration (simple remedy: drink water as soon as you awaken, and throughout your morning workout).

Client Preference

“Excuse me Boss, I’m leaving before I miss my most effective training period.”

Obviously for most of my friends and clients – and for myself – timing a workout usually comes down to when training can be scheduled in the day – certainly more so than selecting the best “scientific” time (exception: when the purpose is for competition or elite athletics)

Some folks find themselves too exhausted after a day at work to drag themselves to the gym. Others absolutely thrive at that time. While others (like me) are morning folks, and prefer to exercise in the morning, before the daily routines compounds.

2 important notes:

- AGE plays an important role here – don’t ignore the fact that as we age, it becomes more difficult to maintain full energy levels across all hours in a day.

- CIRCADIAN RHYTHM (sleep /wake cycle) is also a factor for consideration. That said, we have survived as a species through adaptation… and a shift in the rhythm is no exception, it adapts to repetition.

When Luc and I first shifted our work-out times to 6 a.m. – because of the frustration of too many missed work-outs – it was painful. Especially because it was mid-winter. But now that we have adapted, working out in the evening has become useless, unless we are really, really focused – more effective for cardio and flexibility routines than for heavy weight lifting.

So the answer to the question becomes:

The best time to train is when it’s YOUR best time to train.

Could I help you stick with a pattern that works best for you?

Contact me for a free consultation.

Doug