The most dangerous thing you can do…

July 5th, 2011 | Author: Rachel Cosgrove

 

Last year after having emergency surgery I was unable to return to physical activity for 6 weeks, doctor’s orders. I spent the first week on painkillers lying on the couch watching reality TV. We had just bought new couches with big soft pillows, the kind you sink into. They are so comfortable but horrible for your posture. After spending a week on the couch I went back to working in my office which I had set up for years with my computer on the left and my desk clear in front of me (I’m right handed so I realized that I have always set my desk up this way). For years I have been typing on the computer turned to the left. Head turned to the left, shoulders to the left and arms reaching to the left.

At the 3-4 week point of my recovery, just as I was starting to feel like I was healing up and ready to get back to something physical I went to bed feeling good thinking I might head out for a walk or do a light strengthening workout tomorrow…but woke up the next morning unable to move my neck. How do you hurt yourself sleeping? I did.
I literally could not turn my neck…from sleeping?!?! At this point feeling really sorry for myself- haven’t worked out for a month and now I’m getting old…whoa is me…I tried to foam roll, stretch, heat and ice. I went and saw our chiropractor, who made it feel better but it still wasn’t gone. I noticed that it improved with ice so every night I started to ice it.
It was improving but in the mean time I was still sitting on the couch and sitting at my desk everyday for hours and hours, doing the “right” thing by letting my body heal and rest. According to the doctor’s orders I still wasn’t supposed to be doing anything physical anyway for another 2 weeks. I was afraid to get back to my workout routine in fear that I didn’t want to make my neck worse and maybe if I give it one more day off it will feel better. So instead of working out I SAT. Days went by and it wasn’t really feeling any better. Still there…so I kept sitting, sitting, sitting…
Lucky for me, our new physical therapist at Results Fitness was starting and I was going to be her first patient. Amy Wunsch, is our full time physical therapist at Results Fitness and is amazing at what she does. Poor thing barely got her stuff set up and I was on her schedule begging her to fix me! By this point it was beyond the 6 weeks the doc told me to not workout and I was ready to go.
I have always thought of myself as a pretty active person who doesn’t have a desk job (hence never even thinking about my desk set up) and I have coached people for years on having better posture, standing up straight, pull your shoulder blades back, engage your core…Plus because of my dance background I have always had ingrained in my body to stand up straight “like a string is pulling up from your chest” and pull your shoulders back. I have even had people comment that I have dancer’s posture more than once.
Well, I was about to get a taste of my own medicine…Over the past 2 months that I had spent sitting on the couch and at my desk my upper back muscles had completely forgot how to fire. I had been turned to the left hour after hour so I had created inflammation in the little muscles attached to my skull. I had the dreaded forward head posture and shoulders pulled forward, the very problem I had made so many of my clients aware that they had from sitting at a desk too much. I was paying the price for SITTING so much! My poor body was a mess because I had spent that last 8 weeks SITTING!
As I started to work with Amy she would tell me- “you need to stretch your chest and get your back muscles firing to pull your shoulder blades back.” Sounded familiar…She also came over and fixed my desk set up and made me aware of my posture. I guess I was spending more time at a desk job than I thought and now I had the posture that I am always trying to correct on our clients…
And I was in pain because of it! It was very hard to have someone else tell me that I didn’t have good posture and needed to work on it by doing exercises to strengthen my back and stretch my chest…definitely a taste of my own medicine. One of my first questions for Amy was- do you think I can workout? She didn’t hesitate, “YES! Please start working out and wake up your upper back with some rowing exercises while you’re at it.” I realized that the worse thing I could do was sit at my desk and that all of those weeks that I thought I was letting my body rest and heal trying to be smart about it, I was perpetuating the problem by being sedentary.
This was a huge Aha! for me realizing that the average person sits at a desk 8 hours a day and that we are so caught up on making sure people are recovering and not working out too often that maybe we need to re-think this and get people moving every single day doing something. The most dangerous thing they can do is sit!

Why We Don't Do Crunches...

Here's a link to very short and simple mainstream article on the reasons why you don't see "crunches" at Results Fitness.

The exercises that are currently being used in our programming have been shown in the research to actually train the "core" in a superior fashion.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/19/the-man-who-wants-to-kill-crunches/3

Women, Weights, and Osteoporosis

More than once, I have had a female client come in to work with us directly after a doctor did a bone density test and they had been told that they were at high or medium risk for osteoporosis. They started lifting weights with us and only one year later had their bone density retested and the bone loss was actually reversed – they went from being at high risk for Osteoporosis to low risk with only a year of effective strength training. I have been able to see the actual DEXA scans of my clients with my own eyes, in the real world and see that absolutely without a doubt strength training will increase bone mass and reduce, even reverse your risk of osteoporosis.
I have always said that there are far more benefits to strength train for women than there are for men including a decreased risk of osteoporosis. In an article on MSNBC by Amanda Chan she stated that women are twice as likely as men to break a bone due to osteoporosis. This is why it is twice as important for women to lift weights.
The scary thing is that some women including certain celebrity trainers and celebrities have gone to extremes to lose fat and have followed drastically low calorie and therefore low nutrient diets including cleanses and other extreme measures along with over exercising. These approaches may have actually caused more damage to their bodies, possibly even putting themselves into increased risk for Osteopenia or Osteoporosis.
To reduce your risk of these diseases use a strength training program that challenges your system and puts a demand on it beyond what it is used to along with fueling your body with nutritious fuel. Your body is probably not going to respond to an exercise program that includes lifting weights that weigh less than your purse. Keep in mind that your body is already used to carrying your purse everyday. The average women’s purse is at least 10 pounds. This means that to create a demand on your muscles and bones you should consider lifting weights that are challenging but that you are able to still keep proper form with. If you are not eating enough to fuel your body to do a challenging workout you will not benefit.
If your strength training program looks something like the video below you are not doing anything to reduce your risk of osteoporosis. This type of strength training will not put the kind of challenge on your system to create a decrease in bone loss and unfortunately this is what’s out there and is exactly what some celebrity trainers are preaching. Really?!?!?! This is exercise?
 Click here to view Video

"Don't Let Money Change You"

A line from a funky old R&B tune by the O'Jays "For the Love of Money." This song came to mind while I was writing my final weekly email to all our incredible Transformation Contest contestants. As I typed "This is not about the money, it's about you" I started singing {{Don't let moneeeeey chaaange youuuuuuu!}}. Now, I know this steps away from the meaning of the song just a tad, but it's true money shouldn't be our sole motivation for change when it comes to our health.

Trust me, winning money is pretty dang cool. Who couldn't use an extra $1000? The money is a side note though; sure maybe it gets you in the door, peaks your interest, gives you a reason to finally decide to commit to getting healthy, getting fit. That's fine, but don't let the "money" change you, don't let it be your only motivation. Let's be honest, that money will be gone real quick, then what? What's going to motivate you, inspire you to come into the gym? I'll tell you: It's YOU!

It's about YOU not money. It's about making wonderful positive changes in your life, developing good, long-lasting habits, losing body fat, gaining muscle, feeling stronger, faster, more alive, having more energy, looking and feeling better and setting an incredible example for your family and friends. All of these things, and so many more, are so much better than just money. And, they will last much, much longer.

So, as the Transformation Contest winds down to its final days take an inventory from when you started 6 weeks ago to right now. How far have you come? How much fat have you lost? (Every pound is a victory!). How much more energy do you have? How much better do you feel? How much better do you feel about yourself? What positive impact have you made on people around you? Maybe you won't win the contest. That's okay because you're on your way to winning the war. Keep up the hard work!

Cameron Hedges C.S.C.S.
General Manager Results Fitness

Results Of Transfromation Contest Weigh In #3!!!

TOP 3 - HERE WE GO! Team Grant: 67.2lbs lost, Team Upgraft: 58.8lbs lost, Team Kavanagh: 52.2lbs lost. 

Total POUNDS OF FAT lost for all contestants: 901.32lbs!!!

Keep it up everyone!! Awesome job!!!

Final weigh in is Thursday March 31st through Tuesday April 5th. Winners announced on Thursday April 7th, 7pm at Results Fitness.

HITTING SNOOZE by Rachel Cosgrove

The night before you lay out your clothes and set the alarm for an early morning workout. “THIS TIME”…you’ll get up and do a workout and get your day started. As you get ready for bed, you are actually excited about your commitment to yourself and having tomorrow be “DAY ONE” of your fitness program.
Morning comes…alarm goes off…at that moment, when you are snuggled in the comfort of your bed (your comfort zone) every excuse creeps into your head and you tell yourself -

“I should probably get more sleep, lack of sleep has been shown to be bad for your health and obviously my body needs it…”
“I’ll work out after work when I’ll have a better workout anyway because I’ll have more energy.”
“I’ll start tomorrow. One more day, then I’ll start.”

Or you just hit the snooze button and roll back over to sleep forgetting all of the commitments you made to yourself the night before.

Hitting snooze is the moment when you decide to stay in your comfort zone rather than get out of your comfort zone and be uncomfortable for a short period of time to get the pay off.
When you think about it, the snooze button is something we hit daily. Maybe you committed that you are going to eat healthy and have no alcohol and then your friends call up and right then you hit the proverbial snooze button and decide I’ll go have a drink tonight…
Or on your way home from work you committed to yourself to go to the gym and as you drive by you decide…

“I should go home and eat something first.”

“I should probably start tomorrow morning.”

Start to notice how often throughout your day you are hitting your “snooze button” and instead start to get comfortable being uncomfortable, a quote I think I first heard Bill Parisi say.

“Get Comfortable being Uncomfortable.”

Know that when you are out of your comfort zone you are going to get rewarded. Get hooked on that uncomfortable feeling of getting out of bed before everyone else and heading to the gym to do something good for yourself, or skipping dessert, or not having your nightly glass of wine, or packing your food ahead of time.
This is also in your career or personal development. If you committed to reading everyday for 30 minutes, don’t hit the snooze button and start tomorrow. Go pick up a book and stick to your commitment.

Remember the quote- “Successful people do the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do.”

This blog post is inspired by an article I read in Success Magazine this month by Mel Robbins.

Transformation Contest 2nd Weigh Ins! Who Are the Top 3?

 The results are in for the Transformation Contest Weigh Ins #2!

Top 3 teams are:

1. Team Kathleen Upgraft with 44.2 lbs. of fat lost

2. Team Amy Grant with 39.7 lbs. of fat lost

3. Team Debra Kavanagh with 34.2 lbs. of fat lost

Wow! Congrats to the top 3 teams and congrats to everyone! We had a total fat loss of 654.82 lbs.!!! That's only 45 lbs shy of last year's total fat loss and we are just hitting the halfway mark. Unbelievable! Great Job Everyone!!! Keep up the hard work!

Nobody is out of this, it's time to dial it in and work even harder, you can do this. Remember every single pound of fat lost counts, be encouraged, be inspired and keep on doin' work! We are proud of all of you!

Next weigh ins are Tuesday 3/15 through Thursday 3/17. Remember you must weigh in by March 17th 9pm or your team will be disqualified.

See you all in the gym!!!!