kettlebell training Archives - Dover Personal Trainer at Breakthrough Personal Coaching & Wellness

Dover Personal Trainers bring you The Secret To Getting In More Fruits and Veggies

Dover Personal Trainers know that no matter how committed we are to getting in the recommended five to nine servings of vegetables and fruits every day, sometimes we come up short. It may be that we are busy and barely have time to eat at all, or perhaps we find ourselves in eating situations that don’t include many fresh vegetable choices. Or maybe we just don’t like them.

On days that you find it hard to eat enough vegetables and fruits, a green drink is the perfect answer. It is a great way to boost your health and even detox your system.
Green drinks are just that—green, because they contain the juice of fresh green vegetables and other vegetables and fruits. There are many reasons to consider adding green drinks to your diet.

Why drink green juice? Dover Personal Trainers Have the Answer!
Vegetables and fruit are full of essential vitamins, minerals and enzymes that your body thrives on. And because you are consuming it in liquid form, your body can digest it quickly. This is especially helpful if you have digestion issues, because the process of juicing ‘pre digests’ the food for you by breaking down the cell walls. This means that the nutrition can easily go right into your system.

Drinking your veggies and fruits also allows you to take in more nutrients. You may find it difficult to eat an entire bunch of kale in a day, but drinking the juice from that same amount is no problem at all!

You will also detox your body by drinking fresh juices. The enzymes contained in the juice help to release built-up toxins, leaving your body much healthier.
Dover Personal Trainers know that many people have found that juicing helps them to lose weight, increase their energy and even improve some medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Smoothies too!
An alternative to juicing your veggies and fruit (my preferred method) is to turn them into smoothies. While a juicer extracts the juice and leaves behind the pulp, a high-powered blender can be used to blend the juice and pulp together into a thicker drink. Either method is fine–it just depends on your preference. The fiber in the smoothies will cause you to feel full longer, which may help you to have fewer cravings.

Watch Your Calories and Sugar Intake!

DOVER PERSONAL TRAINERS WARNING: Juicing can really jack up your calorie and sugar intake when you use a lot of fruit. Be mindful of what you’re putting in your green drink…

Get started with these recipes
Here are some recipes1 to help you jump start your health and energy.

Baby’s First Green (a great starter juice)
1 large pear 1 apple 1 cup pineapple, cubed 4 large stalks kale 1 cucumber

Gena’s Classic Green Juice
1 green apple 1 inch knob ginger 5 large stalks celery 1 cucumber 1 large handful parsley 5 stalks kale

Veggie Ginger Juice
3 large carrots 1 beet 1 green apple 4 large stalks celery 1 large handful of spinach, parsley, or other dark green 1 small cucumber 1 inch knob ginger

Do you juice? Let me know your favorite recipes!

Chris Gray

Dover Personal Trainers
Breakthrough Personal Coaching & Wellness
President

Sources:
1 http://www.choosingraw.com

Dover Personal Trainer Thinks It’s Time For Your New Beginning!

Spring is a time of new beginnings. As the world wakes up from its long sleep, our minds feel energized, refreshed and ready to celebrate. Dover Personal Trainers want to know if your body feels the same way?

If you haven’t been working consistently on your fitness and health this winter, your body may be struggling to keep up with your mind. It’s hard to make a new start when you feel sluggish and discouraged.

That’s why Dover Personal Trainers exist: to help you move from reality to your dream. If you have tried and failed at fitness, then you likely feel too paralyzed to try again. Motivating people to get healthy, however, is what I do best. But you have to let me help you! Let’s get started.

A quick look back
We are going to focus mainly on what is ahead for you; the past is the past and it is best to leave it there. However, in order to make the best start, we need to take a look at what may have sabotaged your previous efforts to get in shape

Impatience.

Because we live in a society that is used to instant gratification, it can come as quite a shock to find that fitness doesn’t happen fast. Dover Personal Trainers don’t care how many infomercials you watch that promise you a 6 pack in 6 weeks, it is not going to happen. There is no short cut to fitness. If you grew frustrated in the past because results didn’t happen as fast as you would like, prepare yourself now for a different attitude: we will celebrate small results and be patient as the transformation happens.

Lack of planning.

The biggest sabotage in any fitness plan is lack of planning. If you have tried fitness and failed, it is almost certain that you came up short in the area of planning. Without forethought and intentionality, you cannot eat a healthy diet, get enough sleep each night and stick with an exercise routine. This time, you will plan before you start.

Support.

If you have attempted to get fit with little support, Dover Personal Trainers want you to know, you are not alone. Many people try to change their lifestyle on their own. The trouble with this approach is that those around you will probably not value what you are doing. They will unintentionally or intentionally sabotage your efforts. For example, they may resent the time you take to workout, or they may ridicule you for the radical changes you make to your diet. However, you will have support this time, and the difference will shock you.

Forward from here

Today you start fresh and leave the past behind. Yes, you may have quit during your previous attempts to be healthy. That doesn’t matter now. What matters is what you do today, tomorrow and next week.

Dover Personal Trainers say that following tips will help you make a strong start and make this time different.

1. “Do not be afraid of the space between your dream and your present reality.”

This is where patience and courage comes in.

What is your dream or your goal?

Do you want to lose 20 pounds? Do you want to run a mile? Do you want to eat a diet that energizes you? Maybe you want to exercise for 6 days a week.

Do not let the distance you have to cover cause you to give up before you even begin. Recognize that this will take some time. Every single fit person you know started somewhere short of where they are now. How did they get to their present condition? By taking it one day at a time, celebrating every victory and getting up when they fall down. You can do the same.

2. “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” -Alan Lakein

Have you ever heard of the tyranny of the urgent? It means that if you don’t have a plan, the matter that seems to be the most urgent at the time will get attention, at the exclusion of the others. Without a plan, your own health will always take a backseat to what seems the most important at the moment—and that could be as simple as a television show that you want to watch! Having a plan will keep less important things from creeping in and sabotaging your health.

Count on it: if you do not plan for fitness and health, it simply will not happen. This time, make a plan.

Before you even start your new healthy lifestyle, decide:

When and how you will get your exercise (bootcamp? running in the mornings? treadmill at the gym after work?)

What foods you will eat and how you will ensure that you have access to those foods (do you have a small cooler that you can take along with you? What will your breakfasts consist of? How much caffeine will you allow yourself?)

How you will arrange your schedule so that you get at least 7 hours of sleep each night (do you need to get the kids in bed sooner or prepare your lunches on the weekends to save time in the morning?

Without a strategy, you set yourself up for failure. Dover Personal Trainers suggest to plan on succeeding! Take some time right now to jot down some ideas to overcome the obstacles that you know will arise. Be prepared for them, and you will breeze through them.

3. No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. -H.E. Luccock

It is no secret that the biggest predictor of whether a person succeeds in their fitness and weight loss efforts is whether or not he has accountability. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: getting fit is not easy. If it were, we would not have our current epidemic of obesity. If it were easy, more people would be doing it! In order to make sure you succeed this time, get some support. That support could come from a few friends who are making a new beginning with you, a personal trainer or a boot camp instructor.

The people in your support system will be genuinely interested in how you are doing. Like Dover Personal Trainers, they will encourage you when you lose your motivation. They will cheer when you get up early to exercise. They will talk you out of eating those brownies. They will expect you to tell them how you are doing. And they will not let you fade out of the program: they will come after you if you start slacking.

Are you ready for your New Beginning? It is within reach.

Chris Gray

President

Punch Gym Dover

Healthy Alternatives For Easter Basket Goodies

The warm breezes of spring mean that Easter is around the corner! After the heavy colors of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day, the bright, cheerful colors of spring are a welcome sight. Dover Personal Trainer But the cheerful colors are not limited to flowers and eggs. There is no escaping the onslaught of sugar that threatens us at every turn. From jelly beans to chocolate bunnies, empty calories abound.

You need a plan.

First, the facts
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Dover Personal Trainer but you really do need to know what you are getting yourself into when you reach for that fluffy, yellow peep. Brace yourself, this is going to hurt…

Sugar is really bad for you.

When you consume Easter candy, you are getting a large dose of sugar. Dover Personal Trainer Whether it is in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup or cane sugar, it slams into your system like a bowling ball, and the effects are disastrous.

Within the first 20 minutes or so, your blood sugar level spikes as the sugar enters your bloodstream. It arrives there in the form of glucose, which is your body’s main source of energy. This sudden rise in blood glucose stimulates your pancreas to Dover Personal Trainer start pumping out large amounts of insulin, which is the hormone that helps your cells take in the available glucose. Some of this glucose is used immediately for energy. But the rest stored as fat by insulin, to be used later.

The more sugar you eat, the more insulin your body produces as it works hard to remove the Dover Personal Trainer glucose from your blood. But these high levels of insulin are not healthy. For one thing, the extra insulin in your blood stream signals to your body that you need more glucose, which causes you to crave even more sugar. But even worse, after repeated exposure to high insulin levels, your cells begin turning numb to the effects of insulin, and this leads to a condition called insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. When your cells no longer respond properly to the storage effects of insulin, the sugar in your blood has Dover Personal Trainer nowhere to go, and so it continues circulating in your blood. This is what is known as a ‘high blood sugar level.’

The result is that you feel fatigue, because you have no way of accessing Dover Personal Trainer the energy that is in your blood stream. You will likely feel weak, tired and have trouble concentrating, because your brain uses glucose to function.

If your blood sugar levels stay elevated, damage begins happening to various parts of your body. Dover Personal Trainer For example, the capillaries become damaged (which leads to blindness), your kidneys become diseased (which can eventually require dialysis) and nerve damage occurs throughout your body (which can lead to amputations). The heart muscle also suffers, which leads to heart disease, and your organs begin aging at a faster rate. Dover Personal Trainer You also become more susceptible to infections.
The ravages of sugar cannot be overstated: that handful of jelly beans is not worth it.

But it’s Easter!
Easter only comes once each year. Do you really have Dover Personal Trainer to be so uptight about it?
Yes, you do. Because there will always be an Dover Personal Trainer excuse to eat poorly. February it was Valentine’s Day. The month before that saw New Year’s Eve. Before that was Christmas. Before that was Thanksgiving.

And the holidays in each of these Dover Personal Trainer months weren’t the only excuses for eating unhealthy food—no doubt your schedule included countless other “can’t-miss” opportunities to throw all caution to the wind! You likely had business dinners, birthday parties, evenings out with friends, fundraising banquets, breakfast meetings, church dinners…

Every one of these occasions screams, Dover Personal Trainer “But this is special!!…It’s okay just this once!”
At some point, you have to stop the insanity, make a decision and choose health, so that the indulgence truly becomes the exception; not the rule.

Easter Alternatives
So let’s look at some alternatives for your Easter celebration. Dover Personal Trainer You do not have to sit there munching on steamed asparagus while those around you are tossing back marshmallow ducklings by the dozen.

Consider the following ideas for Easter basket treats and munchies. Dover Personal Trainer Sticking to this list will ensure that you are clear headed and full of energy while your buddies are slipping in and out of consciousness after their sugar highs!

Dried fruit (eat with a protein such as nuts)
Very dark chocolate (choose some with very little sugar)
Nuts
Fresh fruit
Whole grain crackers and pretzels
Cheeses
Popcorn

Non-food ideas for kids’ baskets:
Play dough
Ball
Jump rope
Sidewalk chalk
Crayons
Garden starter set
Butterfly habitat
Beading supplies
Swimming toys
Card games
Have a healthy Easter!

Chris Gray
President
Punch Gym Dover

Dover Personal Trainer

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

How often do you hear someone say, “I had a great night’s sleep last night!” or “I feel refreshed and energetic!”? Probably not very often. Feeling sluggish seems to be the new normal. In fact, according to the National Sleep Foundation, it is the new normal: Dover Personal Trainers most Americans are sleep-deprived. But not getting enough sleep may be causing more trouble for you than just that pesky drowsy feeling: it could be seriously harming your health.

Why aren’t we sleeping?
Centuries ago, it was common for people to sleep 8 to 9 hours each day. Dover Personal Trainers But now, only about 25% of Americans get 8 or more hours of sleep. The reasons we are not sleeping are Dover Personal Trainers many. We live in a 24/7 society—practically Dover Personal Trainers anything we want to do is available around the clock, from fitness centers to pharmacies to department stores.

We are working long hours, transporting our kids to activities, Dover Personal Trainers trying to make time for friends and fitness and Dover Personal Trainers entertainment. When the heat is Dover Personal Trainers on, the first thing to go is usually sleep. And it’s usually Dover Personal Trainers not even a conscious decision to skimp on sleep-we just get in bed a little later most nights, because we are so pressed and pushed.

But even when we get into bed, we aren’t guaranteed sleep. The National Sleep Foundation Dover Personal Trainers reports that 60% of Americans have sleep problems. That means more than half of us struggle to sleep Dover Personal Trainers . And it is taking its toll.

Dangers of sleep deprivation
“The foundations of good Dover Personal Trainers health are good diet, good exercise and good sleep, but two out of three doesn’t get you there,”1
— Dr. Anne Calhoun, neurology professor,University of North Carolina.

Eating healthily Dover Personal Trainers and getting plenty of exercise Dover Personal Trainers are not enough to make up for the danger that sleep deprivation poses to your health. Adults need around 8 hours of sleep each night, although some studies indicate that as little as 7 and Dover Personal Trainers one-half hours can be sufficient. Getting less than that can have Dover Personal Trainers serious consequences:

Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: If you get Dover Personal Trainers less than 6 hours of sleep each Dover Personal Trainers night and have disturbed sleep, you have a 48% greater risk of developing or dying from heart disease and a 15% greater risk of developing or dying from a stroke.2 Dover Personal Trainers Lack of sleep can cause high blood pressure, blocked Dover Personal Trainers arteries, stroke, kidney disease and dementia.

Obesity: Sleep shortage is directly linked to obesity. When you don’t Dover Personal Trainers get enough sleep, two powerful hormones that control hunger are disrupted. The result is that you feel hungrier and have fewer sensations Dover Personal Trainers of feeling “full.”

But without enough sleep you will also Dover Personal Trainers feel more stressed, Dover Personal Trainers which encourages t Dover Personal Trainers he production of the hormone cortisol in your Dover Personal Trainers body. This hormone causes you to crave high-carbohydrate Dover Personal Trainers foods such as potato chips and brownies, and then deposits those carbs as fat around your belly—the most dangerous place to store fat.

Pre-diabetes is also a risk for those who don’t get enough Dover Personal Trainers sleep. Trying to get by on less than 6 hours of sleep per night can cause impaired glucose tolerance.

Compromised immune system: Why is it that two people can be exposed to Dover Personal Trainers the same germs, but only one of them gets sick? The reason is the immune system. If your immune system is Dover Personal Trainers functioning well, you can ward off many illnesses. But if something happens to compromise your immune response, you will be vulnerable to infections, bacteria, viruses, and even some autoimmune Dover Personal Trainers diseases such as arthritis and asthma.

When you do not get enough sleep, your immune system Dover Personal Trainers becomes stressed and compromised. You actually have a decrease in white blood cells, and those that remain are less active. The result is that you will get sick more often.

Impaired exercise performance: As if the threat of heart disease, obesity Dover Personal Trainers and immune suppression weren’t enough, lack of sleep can negatively impact your fitness efforts. It’s not uncommon for Dover Personal Trainers people to struggle to maintain their normal level of workout intensity when they are sleep deprived. You just won’t have the energy to push through. Also, your muscles repair and rebuild while you sleep: if you Dover Personal Trainers don’t allow your body this recovery time, you will be at a significant disadvantage during your next workout.

Make time for sleep
The truth is, if you don’t make time now for adequate sleep, you will Dover Personal Trainers likely be forced in the future to make time for illness. It may take significant effort to arrange your schedule and priorities to carve Dover Personal Trainers out time for more sleep, but the payoff will be increased health, energy and productivity!
Ready for a nap? Dover Personal Trainers

Sources:
1http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2010/12/02/f-sleep-tips.html
2http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/09/dangers-sleep-deprivation

Chris Gray
President
Punch Gym Dover

How To Avoid A Regret-Filled Spring

Have you ever told yourself that you are going to lose weight and get fit in time for spring, only to be frustrated when warm weather rolls around?
It’s easy to hide behind heavy winter clothes, but Dover Personal Trainers when the mercury starts climbing, the clothes get lighter and we can’t hide any more. “Why didn’t I start working out weeks ago?” we ask ourselves. “If only I had started sooner!”

A year from now you will wish you had started today. Dover Personal Trainers
-Karen Lamb

Regret-proof your spring: set a deadline

The best way to protect yourself from a regret-filled spring is to set a deadline and start NOW. Dover Personal Trainers Deadlines are powerful motivators. Without a deadline, you really have no set-point toward which to work. You have nothing pushing you.
We need to be pushed.

Deadlines create a sense of urgency. They help you position yourself to succeed, Dover Personal Trainers because that final date is always staring back at you. It forces you to prioritize and strategize. Otherwise, you will let things slide…you will keep putting off the workout, and insisting that tomorrow you will start eating better.
Without a deadline, tomorrow never comes.

It’s time to shake things up

If you keep doing what you have always done, you will get the results you have always gotten. It’s time to do something different. Dover Personal Trainers Ask yourself this question: If I keep doing what I am doing right now, will I achieve what I want to achieve? If you answered no, then it’s time for a change.

Get your calendar out and decide when you want to see your first wave of results. Be realistic: make sure you give yourself time to really dig in and see changes. But challenge yourself too—make it a little tough so you can take full advantage Dover Personal Trainers of the power of urgency.

Prevent deadline-creep: get competitive
But a deadline may not be enough. Why? Dover Personal Trainers Because you may be tempted to move it. Deadlines are not supposed to be moving targets! The best way to prevent deadline-creep is to get competitive.

Entering into a competition or contest is a sure way to give you the edge you need to keep yourself on track and finish strong. Dover Personal Trainers
There is something very motivating about competing with others.Dover Personal Trainers Just knowing that your effort and results are going to be measured alongside others really will give you an extra boost in motivation.

This is a time when a little peer pressure is useful! Dover Personal Trainers And you will find that those with whom you are in competition will also be your biggest cheerleaders: they know exactly what you are going through and will be there to encourage you to keep moving.

Deadlines and contests form the perfect combination to guarantee your fitness success:Dover Personal Trainers put them to work for you! Spring is close enough to give you a push, but still far enough away to ensure that you have enough time to get some serious work done. Dover Personal Trainers Plan now to greet spring and warmer weather with no regrets!

Chris Gray
President
Punch Gym Dover

The 2 Steps To Fat Loss and Fitness Success

What are you aiming at?
Zig Ziglar once said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” And each of us knows from our own experience that he is right. Dover Personal Trainers The general flow of human life tends to be toward ease and comfort. One day flows into the next, and many of us never quite get around to turning our good intentions into reality.

Those ‘good intentions,’ while no doubt admirable, tend to remain unrealized mainly because they are too vague. Dover Personal Trainers Vague ideas are impossible to focus on and aim for; they are moving targets.

Do you have moving targets in your life? Perhaps you want to eat a more healthy diet or lose the winter weight that has crept upon you. Maybe Dover Personal Trainers you just want to establish a regular workout routine and stick with it this time.

The keys to your success are two-fold: steady the target and create momentum.

How to stop a moving target
Imagine a target shooter trying to hit a small bull’s eye on a distant target.Dover Personal Trainers He begins to aim, but then the target suddenly moves to the right, and before he can position himself to aim again, the target darts to the left. Will he ever hit that target? Not likely.

Without setting specific goals, your good intentions are exactly like that moving target. Dover Personal Trainers You would like to lose some weight, feel a little better, make a change in your diet–but without clearly defined goals and methods, you can’t focus and make it happen.

The way to steady the target so you can finally hit the bull’s eye is to define your goals and write them down:

-How much weight do you want to lose?
-What kind of changes do you want to make in your diet?
-How many days per week do you want to exercise?
-Which article of clothing do you wish would fit your body again?
-How much weight would you like to lift while strength training?

Once you know where you want to end up, Dover Personal Trainers you are much more likely to get there.
But you have to start moving toward your goals. That is where momentum comes in.

Create momentum to reach your goals

In his book, Eat that Frog, Brian Tracy discusses the Momentum Principle of Success. Dover Personal Trainers In Tracy’s words:
“This principle says that although it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia and get started initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going.”1

There is much wisdom in his words. Dover Personal Trainers Sometimes, the hardest part of reaching a goal is just getting started. That first day of doing things differently or the first experience of bypassing an unhealthy treat in favor of a food that will give you more energy can be daunting.Dover Personal Trainers It isn’t easy and it certainly isn’t fun.

So how do you get that momentum? How do you start moving? Accountability is the answer. Having someone else involved in your efforts can be the most important factor in your success.

It is hard to change lifelong habits on your own. Dover Personal Trainers You need radical motivation that comes from involving others in your efforts. Setting deadlines, making commitments and entering contests all provide an external motivation that will carry you through even the toughest temptations.

And once you get started, you will find that the momentum Dover Personal Trainers principle kicks in and it becomes easier and easier to keep going.

GOALS>>>MOMENTUM>>>SUCCESS!!!

Start NOW
You can make that moving target come to a screeching halt Dover Personal Trainers and blast the bull’s eye right out of it by taking a few minutes to write down what you want. Don’t make it your goals too broad; be specific. And then begin brainstorming ways to get others involved with you; that will provide your momentum. Dover Personal Trainers Success is within your reach. You can do this!

Oh, and remember, we’re here to help you the entire way! ☺

Source:
1Tracy, Brian (2007-01-01). Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time (p. 107). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Chris Gray
President
Punch Gym Dover

Dover Personal Trainers

Why You May Have Too Much Belly Fat

Some have called it the “master” of all hormones. Dover Personal Trainer Others curse it for its ability to wreak havoc on our body’s fragile endocrine balance. In spite of the mixed opinions one thing is certain: cortisol is a powerful hormone necessary for life. But if its level is not optimal in your body, your health could suffer. Dover Personal Trainer

What is Cortisol?
The hormone cortisol is produced in the adrenal glands Dover Personal Trainer and is primarily responsible for regulating blood sugar, helping to metabolize fats, protein and carbohydrates and assisting in managing our stress response. We all have times of stress in our lives, and cortisol helps us to function during these times.

When the stress goes up, cortisol kicks in and delivers help. We get a quick burst of energy, our memory sharpens, our immunity increases, and our sensitivity to pain decreases. These are all important and natural functions of cortisol and ensure that we are able to weather the curve balls that life throws at us.

However, if the stress doesn’t let up, neither does the cortisol. Unfortunately, what is healthy in small bursts becomes dangerous over the long term. If you have persistent stress in your life, then you have cortisol levels that are out of balance: your body makes so much cortisol that it detrimentally affects your health. This leads to adrenal fatigue.

When you have prolonged, high levels of cortisol in your bloodstream
you will crave foods that are high in carbs (like cake and cookies), Dover Personal Trainer

you will gain weight in your abdominal area (which increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes), and

you will have trouble sleeping Dover Personal Trainer

Cortisol and the Circadian Rhythm

Our bodies produce different chemicals during the day and night that control our sleep, energy and mood. Dover Personal Trainer The natural rhythm of this cycle is known as the Circadian Rhythm, and cortisol is a key player.

Under normal circumstances, your body produces cortisol in amounts largely determined by the clock. Dover Personal Trainer Levels tend to be higher in morning—triggered by the emerging daylight–giving you a boost of energy to jumpstart your day.

As the day wears on, cortisol levels should drop, helping to prepare you for a good night’s sleep. Dover Personal Trainer Likewise, Melatonin (another hormone that affects your energy and sleep habits) levels should be lower in the morning but as the daylight fades, they should increase, helping you to begin relaxing and preparing for sleep.

However, if you are under constant stress or if your adrenal glands are not functioning properly, your cortisol level may not drop off during the day. Instead, it may actually rise and stay at a dangerously high level. By the time bedtime rolls around, you will not feel sleepy. You will feel “tired but wired,” and be unable to relax and fall asleep. Dover Personal Trainer

Reset Your Circadian Clock

If you suspect that your natural, circadian rhythm is disrupted, don’t despair. Dover Personal Trainer There are several things you can do to reset your clock so you can start sleeping better at night and waking up more refreshed in the morning.

Try the following tips:

Reduce stress. Easier said than done, I know. Dover Personal Trainer But many times our stress levels are correlated to our response to stressful situations. Learning how to cope with stress more effectively may be all it takes to balance your cortisol.

Be consistent. Going to bed and getting at the same time each day will help to regulate your circadian rhythm. Dover Personal Trainer Practice this habit to slowly coax your body into a schedule.

Use light wisely. Dover Personal Trainer Since your circadian rhythm is partially controlled by light, darken your room well when you go to bed, and flood it with light when it is time to get up. Try using a full spectrum light in the mornings.

Avoid naps. If your circadian clock is off, you may find that you get very sleepy in the afternoon. Dover Personal Trainer However, taking a nap may make it more difficult to fall asleep at night. Try to resist naps.

Chris Gray

Dover Personal Trainer
President
Punch Gym Dover

You Can’t “outrun” a bad diet

Ever heard someone give themselves permission to indulge their sweet tooth just because they just had a great workout? Dover Personal Trainers It’s a common excuse. Many people believe that because they exercise, they’re in the black as far as their calorie input/output. Dover Personal Trainers But in reality, this sort of thinking is a sure road to failure. Most people with a lean body and a 6 pack didn’t get that way by rationalizing their way to the desert buffet.

Many people have no idea how many calories they take in on an average day, often severely underestimating when asked to take a guess at it. But they also overestimate the number of calories they burn. The truth is, 30 minutes of the best boot camp in town will not cancel out that burger and fries! Dover Personal Trainers

Do the math
Let’s look at the hard numbers. Dover Personal Trainers An average, moderately intensive workout will burn 300-400 calories in about an hour. Dover Personal Trainers That’s an hour of hard work with plenty of sweat and hard breathing.

Now say on the way home from the gym, you decide to grab a couple of donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts. After all, you’ve earned it! In the 3 minutes it will take you to put away two chocolate frosted cake donuts, you’ve consumed 720 calories. All your hard work is wasted, plus you’ve provided your body with several hundred extra calories to store as fat!

Or maybe you just want to have some pizza and soda with friends. Dover Personal Trainers You consider the 600 calories you burned running on the treadmill for an hour today (at 10 miles per hour—that’s a really fast run for a really long time!), so you eat 4 pieces of pizza and a coke. No problem, right?

Wrong. You just downed 900-1,000 calories in about 10 minutes! Dover Personal Trainers

Is it really worth it? Dover Personal Trainers

Face the facts
The bottom line is you simply can’t out train a bad diet. If you try to spar a bad diet with exercise, the exercise will lose every single time. The only way to lose weight and get that lean, sexy, healthy body that looks great in anything (or nothing) is to eat a healthy diet AND exercise. Dover Personal Trainers

Your weight loss is driven by diet and maintained by exercise. Dover Personal Trainers The only way to get ahead in the calorie game is to eat fewer calories than you burn. Only then will you begin to see the fat melt away. Exercise builds muscle and can rev up your metabolism, but you won’t lose weight if you continually eat more than you can metabolize.

This is not to say that exercise is not important. It is! Dover Personal Trainers In fact, according to Barry Braun, associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
“When you look at the results in the National Weight Control Registry, you see over and over that exercise is one constant among people who’ve maintained their weight loss.” 1

Want to keep the pounds off? Exercise! Exercise is crucial. And you must combine it with a balanced diet if you want to shed pounds. Dover Personal Trainers
If you try to spar a bad diet with exercise, the exercise will lose every single time.

Start smart Dover Personal Trainers
Have you been trying to out exercise your diet? Don’t be discouraged; Dover Personal Trainers many of us have been guilty of this. It’s time to rethink your weight loss strategy. Try the following tips to start fresh and recreate your body!

Plan, plan, plan. The only way you are going to get control of your diet is to plan ahead. Dover Personal Trainers Do not let yourself get hungry with nothing healthy prepared to eat; your will power will plummet and you will reach for a snack that will set you back. Keep food ready in your refrigerator that you can grab and heat quickly. And don’t leave the house without cool water, nuts, fruit, whole grain crackers and cheese. Make things really easy by using a service like Lean Eats. Dover Personal Trainers
Lift weights. When you start losing weight, you must protect your muscle. If you begin to lose pounds without adding in weight lifting, you will likely lose up to 25% of your muscle mass. Also, after an intense weight lifting workout targeting at least 3 big muscles, your metabolism increases for up to 39 hours after you are finished. And repairing that muscle tissue after lifting requires energy! Energy=calories burned.
Get some accountability. We’ll strike this note again and again: you need a partner. Dover Personal Trainers Remember, the single biggest determiner of your fitness success is whether or not you have an accountability partner. Find someone to trade food journals with and report on how you are doing with your will power.

You need both exercise and a healthy diet to be lean, strong and healthy. Don’t neglect either one! Dover Personal Trainers

1http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18exercise-t.html?pagewanted=1

Dover Personal Trainers

Chris Gray

President

Punch Gym Dover

The Importance of a good warmup

You might be tempted to skip the warm up when you work out. After all, you only have so much time to exercise—“Let’s just get on with it already! I’m in a hurry!”

But warming up is a critical component of your fitness routine, and skipping it could have unpleasant and even dangerous results—such as muscle strain, muscle injury and pain.

Oh yeah, and a proper warm-up will actually IMPROVE your workout performance! Dover Personal Trainers

The Warm-up: Basics
A warm up is a short workout period at the beginning of your exercise session. It is generally low intensity and prepares your body for the upcoming exertion.

Dover Personal Trainers The purpose of a traditional warm up is to slightly increase your heart rate. This raises your core body temperature and increases the blood flow to your muscles. Cold muscles and other connective tissues do not stretch very easily. A warm up session literally warms them up and relaxes them, making them more supple and ready to work.

Without a warm up, you will be more susceptible to sprained muscles, cramps and injury. Ultimately, these effects could keep you from exercising for an extended period of time as you recover, which is not conducive to the healthy lifestyle you desire.

It takes about three minutes for your body to realize that it needs to move more blood to your muscles, so the ideal warm up time is between five and ten minutes. Dover Personal Trainers

There is no set prescription for what your warm up should consist of. You can choose a set of preparatory exercises (such as squats, lunges, toe touches, etc.,) or you can do a light intensity version of your upcoming workout (a brisk walk to prepare for a run, for example, or lifting light weights before increasing the load). Dover Personal Trainers

The Warm-Up: Advanced Strategy
Now with all that being said about a “basic” warm-up, Dover Personal Trainers let me share with you how I personally prepare myself, as well as every one of my personal training boot camp clients.

For long-term health and fitness combined with your weight loss training efforts it’s imperative to understand that a proper warm-up is about more than just “warming up the body.” It’s a about preparing the body for an all-out training assault that’s going to boost your metabolism through the roof.

Therefore, we look at the warm-up as a Preparation Phase for the workout to come. Through research and practical experience we’ve determined that best results are typically seen when an exercise prep routine incorporates 3 key components: Dover Personal Trainers

1. Tissue Quality

2. Corrective Exercise

3. Mobility & Activation

Tissue Quality
Almost all chronic joint pain or overuse injuries are caused by tightness and restrictions in the muscles above and below the joint in question. In other words, it’s not about PAIN SITE… it’s about PAIN SOURCE!

Dover Personal Trainers Knee pain is often caused by restrictions in the tissue of your calves and front/inner/outer thighs. Back pain is often caused by restrictions in your glutes and hamstrings. Shoulder pain is often caused by restrictions in your thoracic spine (T-Spine), chest and lats.

Tissue quality describes the general health of your muscles and the interconnected web of fascia that surrounds them all. Over time, we develop scar tissue, adhesions, knots and trigger points due to high-intensity training, overuse, and/or extended periods of sitting. Dover Personal Trainers

The best way to address this is to self-massage sore, tight, and restricted muscle groups of the body to regenerate tissue both pre and post-workout to promote injury reduction and allow for a smoother, more productive workout. Dover Personal trainers

In addition, self-massage before stretching allows for a better, Dover Personal Trainers more complete stretch by smoothing out the knots. You should always precede flexibility work with tissue quality for best results.

Massage is one of those counter-intuitive things whereby you are actually actively searching for pain. In fact, it’s the only time to ever do so when it comes to proper training.

The best analogy I can give you is this: Dover Personal Trainers
If it hurts that much when you put pressure on your muscles, just imagine how bad your joints must feel!

Corrective Exercise
Dover Personal Trainers We all have unique “issues” with our body mechanics and functional movement capabilities. For some it’s a lack of flexibility, while others there may be a balance or mobility issue. Perhaps there’s an asymmetry – one side is significantly “stronger” than the other leading to muscular imbalances, postural distortions and overcompensation injuries. You can find out your individual corrective needs by going through a movement screen such as the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). Dover Personal Trainers

The FMS is a ranking and grading system that documents movement patterns that are key to normal function. Dover Personal Trainers By screening these patterns, the FMS readily identifies functional limitations and asymmetries. These are issues that can reduce the effects of functional training and physical conditioning and distort body awareness.

The FMS generates the Functional Movement Screen Score, which is used to target problems and track progress. Dover Personal Trainers This scoring system is directly linked to the most beneficial corrective exercises to restore mechanically sound movement patterns.   Exercise professionals monitor the FMS score to track progress and to identify those exercises that will be most effective to restore proper movement and build strength in each individual.

So, in a nutshell, the FMS is designed to:Dover Personal Trainers

-Identify functional limitations and asymmetries which have been linked to increased injury risk

-Provide exercises to restore proper movement, and build stability, mobility, and strength in each individual Dover Personal Trainers

Mobility & Activation
More than just a typical warm-up, a mobility and activation circuit truly prepares your body for a maximum performance workout. Dover Personal Trainers

Mobility describes the ability of a joint, or a series of joints, to move through an ideal range of motion. Though mobility relies on flexibility, it requires an additional strength, stability, and neuromuscular control component to allow for proper movement. Activation is often paired with mobility because many mobility exercises activate key, and often dormant, pillar stabilizers in your hips, core and shoulders. Dover Personal Trainers

More Than Just a Warm-Up…
So, as you can see, a warm-up is much more than just a warm-up when you’re training smarter for long-term health, fitness and fat loss goals.

Think twice before you skip the “warm-up” in your next workout… Dover Personal Trainers

Chris Gray
President
Punch Gym Dover

Dover Personal Trainers

How To Survive The Holidays Guilt Free!

Let’s face it: it is hard to stick to a healthy eating and exercise plan during the holidays. Everywhere we turn there are tempting foods and drinks—from treats at office parties to our own traditional family favorites. When you add in a busy schedule filled with shopping and get-togethers that make it tough to squeeze in exercise, you have a recipe for disaster as far as our scales are concerned.

The good news is that Dover Personal Trainers you really can get through the holidays without gaining weight. It will take some effort, but you will thank yourself a thousand times when January 1st rolls around and you have no regrets!

Your Goal: Maintenance

In order to greet the New Year without tipping the scale, it is wise to try to maintain your weight during the next few weeks instead of trying to lose. Remember: you want to enjoy the holidays, not be miserable from deprivation. This means that you will allow yourself occasional treats and splurges and keep the scale where it is rather than trying to actually decrease your weight.

There are several ways to accomplish this:

Don’t skip your workouts. Even moderate intensity workouts can burn 300-400 calories per hour. You need this calorie-burn to keep up with the richer food that you will be eating. You will also be less likely to overeat if you have just sweated through a hard workout!

Eat breakfast. People who eat breakfast consume fewer calories throughout the day than those who skip this important meal.
Keep a food diary. Write down every single thing you eat—even if it is only one bite of shrimp cocktail. Dover Personal Trainer It is a proven fact that keeping a food journal results in better weight control than not keeping one.

Monitor your hunger. Never show up at a party or buffet ravenous—you will most certainly overeat. Dover Personal Trainers Drink water and have a protein-filled snack (such as nuts or cheese) before arriving. This will help you to have more self-control around the temptations.

Watch your portion size. If you have an idea of how much food you are putting on your plate, you will be less likely to overdo it. Familiarize yourself with portion sizes as they compare to your hand.

Deal quickly with leftovers. If you have unhealthy leftovers in your home, you are likely to indulge. Dover Personal Trainers Don’t leave them sitting around. Freeze them, give them away or toss them. It’s not worth the temptation!

Check in with your future self. Every day, speak to yourself from the future—say, from January 1. Thank yourself for doing the tough work of self-discipline during these holiday weeks. You might say something like this:

“Thank you! I feel great! I’m no heavier than I was in November, I’ve stayed on track with my exercise, my energy is incredible and I’ve got the momentum to spend the rest of the winter getting in even better shape before spring gets here!”

Go public. Sound scary? It’s supposed to! Let others know what your current weight is and check in with them each time you weigh yourself. That kind of intense accountability will give you will power when the cheesecake and fudge starts showing up at the office!

You can survive the holidays with no added weight gain. Dover Personal Trainers Remember these tips and keep a vision of what you want to feel like on January 1 in mind. It’s going to be a great holiday season!

Chris Gray
President
Punch Gym Dover