Motivational techiques 1

Motivation can sometimes be simple and other times complicated. When your going good no problem! When your not feeling it, forget it! Just this week I had a client that has been having trouble getting in his workouts that he is supposed to be doing on his own (he works with me once a week). Try this, have a person to report to for some or all of your workouts (I offer this to my clients for no extra charge). It can be a friend, family member, or work out buddy. Research shows that when people have someone to report to they are likely to do it!

Good Luck!

Exercise with and around injuries

Hi everyone, this is a great topic because so many people stop exercising completely when injured.
This month I had several phone calls from clients asking if they should work out or cancel due to an injury.
Ninety nine percent of the time I say "we will work around the injury, you can still exercise". A good personal trainer with a solid understanding of anatomy and physiology should be able to effectively work around an injury so as not to irritate the injured area. Most of the time clients will feel better after the workout and heal faster because of the increased blood flow.
This is a tricky area if you are working out on your own without knowledge of anatomy and physiology. I don't recommend doing it on your own, hire a good personal trainer and ask him/her if they have experience working with injuries. Although, as a general rule if your upper body is injured you can work out the lower body and vice versa. Be smart and don't perform exercises that hurt the injured area!

New Year's Resolutions in Feb?

Hi everyone!
Why am I now just mentioning New Year's resolutions? Because this is when you need it! The media covers this topic to death around the 1st of the year, but now is when you need to check yourself.
Most people that start an exercise program don't make it more then six weeks, and here we are coming up on the fifth and sixth week of the year. If you have not continued your exercise program simply start again.
This is where personal trainers are handy. If you can't afford a trainer every week, its not that expensive to hire a trainer once a month to check on you. Many trainers will offer an update or a once a month review of your program. This is extremely helpful when you are having trouble sticking with your exercise or nutrition program.  People need to take the attitude that this is a once a month health check. If you don't have time to meet with a trainer in person, Skype with your trainer on line. If you don't have the time at all, your just not trying!
The benefits of good health are worth it!

Holiday Eating

This is a tough time for most of my clients trying to loss weight. The holiday period tends to run about 6-8 weeks if you start on Thanksgiving and extend that through the New Year's celebration. With 8 weeks of holiday party's it's no wonder that people gain 5-8 pounds on average during this time. Most people consider it a victory not to gain weight!
Here are some tips to keep off extra pounds!

1) Don't skip your favorites, what ?! That's right, eat what you want, but make sure you only eat Aunt Pat's tasty meat balls or holiday cookies only on the actual holiday itself! Whatever holiday (s) you celebrate, one day is enough! I don't know of any religious holiday celebration that tells you to stuff yourself for six weeks straight, if I'm wrong please let me know.
Even if you have 3-4 holiday's your celebrating you can minimize your damage.

2) Keep exercising! As a personal trainer this is my most frustrating time of year for cancellations. Prioritize your workouts and stick to it, the excuses are too easy this time of year.

Great Arms For Women

     Yesterday one of my more recent clients asked me about her arms. She wanted to know what her arms were going to look like in a few months, would they be more like Madonna or Michelle Obama? Her concern is that here arms will get too muscular. This is a common concern for women, most want to have toned arms (not a lot of jiggle) but not become overly muscular (no one really needs to look like Arnold). In a world where everyone wants answers, I answered with an "I don't know", and let me explain that. The truth is that every-one is going to build muscle a little differently. This client is a 37 year old female, so it is not likely that she will build a ton of muscle, most women simply don't have the testosterone levels to accomplish this. The only way to know how her arms are going to look is to put in the time and work hard and be consistent with your training. If your arms become too muscular you can always reverse the process and cut back on the intensity or volume of muscular training in the arms. 

Michael W. Karr, MS

Owner, Mike's Full House Fitness 

Great Arms For Men

     In my last blog I discussed the female arms, now it's the guys turn. Good news, men are more genetically geared toward muscular arms (not calves, you know what I'm talking about guys)! Normally when I set up a strength program for a client I make sure all major muscle groups are getting attention, but that doesn't mean you can't add a few extra biceps and triceps exercises to polish off the arms. There are plenty of different types of biceps curls and for the triceps perform some extra work with chair dips (see my video section, its the exercise using a chair). 
     Here's are the two things you need to build great arms, pain and misery! To me that means you have to push the intensity of the workout, you have to be consistent with your lifts and with rest (strength train 3x a week with one day of rest between workouts, and be persistent (it could takes years, that's right years) to build the arms you want.
     How much do you want it?
Michael W. Karr, MS
Owner, Mike's Full House Fitness