Training – Page 38 – The A.L.I.V.E. Experience

They LIED – Spot reduction IS possible (here is the way to do it)

by Joel Marion

Do you suffer from “regional” fat storage? You know, “problem
area” fat deposits — like on your hips, butt, thighs, stomach,
“love handles”, or god forbid, the dreaded “man boobs”?

Let me guess, every trainer you’ve talked to has told you the
same thing:

“It’s not possible to ‘spot reduce’. You lose fat over your entire
body and you can’t ‘pick and choose’ where you lose it from.”

Right?

WRONG!

The problem is that most people don’t understand the CAUSES
of regional fat storage, and thus can’t provide you with a solution.

Fortunately, I DO know both — the causes AND the solutions,
and I’ve gotta give credit to one of my best friends and NY trainer
John Romaniello.

Problem Area: “love handles”
Hormone to Blame: Insulin
Solution Hormone: IGF-1
How to stimulate IGF-1 release: “Dynamic” Training

Problem Area: hips, butt, thighs and/or “man boobs”
Hormone to Blame: Estrogen
Solution Hormone: Testosterone
How to stimulate Testosterone release: “Density” Training

Problem Area: “belly/stomach”
Hormone to Blame: Cortisol
Solution Hormone: Growth Hormone
How to stimulate IGF-1 release: “Lactic Acid” Training

Fact is, you can fight off “problem area” hormones by
naturally producing more combative hormones via specific
types of training and exercise.

Here at ALIVE…we get it. That’s why your body is continually building and burning. If you don’t give your body 100%, what do you respect back in return?

Shower, Stretch, ……….you know the rest

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5 Secrets from an NFL Trainer

Nutrition, Training

By: Adam Bornstein

LaDainian Tomlinson. Drew Brees. Reggie Bush. Carson Palmer. Kellen Winslow, Jr. Besides being NFL Pro Bowlers, what do these five guys have in common?

Answer: They’re all trained by Todd Durkin, C.S.C.S., owner of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, and the head of the Under Armour Performance Training Council. He not only makes his living training elite athletes, but also by helping average guys achieve their ideal bodies. We sat down with Durkin to discuss his work with these top athletes, and to find out how you can apply the same techniques to your own body-sculpting efforts. From the eight components Durkin believes every workout should contain to the surprising drills he uses with top athletes, it’s your chance to learn the training secrets of a top NFL trainer.

Secret #1

MH: You work with a lot of talented athletes. What’s the key to taking someone who is already very gifted, and making them even better?

Durkin: The first step is discovering weaknesses and strengthening them. And this applies to everyone. The average guy will avoid certain exercises when that should be his focus. And I do the same thing [focus on exercises that people are the weakest in] with my athletes. For example, when I first started working with LaDainian in 2002, he had room for improvement on his balance. He since has become so much better. When I started working with Brees that same year, his core wasn’t as strong as it should be. So with an emphasis on joint integrity and core strength, he was able to really improve his game.

The next key is focusing on training movement. Many guys come to me and they are already strong. I want to try and make them faster, more explosive, and more flexible. You would be surprised that some of our workouts don’t involve a lot of traditional “weight” training. I like to emphasize speed, agility, quickness, acceleration, power, and metabolic conditioning along with my strength and flexibility work.

And this variety goes beyond punishing your muscles. I try to involve many sensory stimuli while training. I love to create exercises that challenge the mind as well as the body. For example, while doing 45-second slide board drills [where you skate side-to-side on a frictionless surface], I like to force my athletes to catch tennis balls coming at them while they’re sliding. Can you catch two balls coming at you at the same time? Can you catch playing cards that I am tossing up in the air while I am quizzing you on questions relating to your sport, your position, or other questions that challenge you to think while you are tired? By involving so many aspects you train your body, but you also train reaction time and hand-eye coordination, and all of these aspects combine to create a better athlete.

Secret #2

MH: What tactics do you use with the pros that can be applied to the average person’s workout?

Durkin: For me, tempo is king. I love to keep the heart rate up during the workout, and because of this I encourage my athletes love to train with a heart-rate monitor so we can see their level of conditioning and have them hover right under lactate threshold. I’d recommend the same for any person because, regardless of fitness level, this leads to improvement. Beyond tempo and heart rate, there are three other rules of them to keep in mind:

1. Use high-intensity interval training.
2. You don’t need to train all day—the intense part of my clients’ sessions is approximately 45 minutes. Get in, do your work, and then recover.
3. Diversify your program—keep it challenging, mix it up, and train the body from the feet to the fingertips, left and right, front and back.

A great program should have at least eight components to it. They are:

1. The dynamic warmup: Calisthenics and bodyweight exercises that help warm your muscles and activate your central nervous system, for better performance.
2. Joint integrity: This focuses on exercises that strengthen the small muscles that surround your joints, improving your strength and reducing your risk for injury.
3. Strength training: Designed to improve strength and build muscle. (Try this part of the workout yourself with this all-new routine created specifically for Men’s Health.)
4. Power/plyometrics: These are explosive exercises that boost your ability to activate muscle fibers quickly, to help you jump higher, throw harder, and run faster.
5. Movement training: This involves training for speed, agility, and quickness, including hand-eye coordination and reaction-time drills.
6. Core conditioning: The emphasis here is on the muscles of your abs, lower back, and hips, in order to improve core strength and stability.
7. Flexibility/recovery/regeneration: Foam rolling and stretching are used to help improve mobility and speed recovery of muscles.
8. Metabolic conditioning: You might think of this as “cardio.”

Secret #3

MH: Can you name one or two exercises that you believe everyone should be performing to maximize performance? What makes them so good?

Durkin: How about three?

1. Pullups. This exercise taxes your entire upper body, and performing them correctly—where you pull your chest up to the bar and retract your shoulder blades and contract the muscles in your upper back—leads to improvements in strength and appearance. And if you can’t do pullups, then use an implement like a TRX to assist you. I love the TRX and use it in every session with my athletes because it allows me to get creative with my programming and adjust to the level of my client (from beginner to advanced athlete).

2. Pushups are another great upper-body builder for your chest, shoulders, back, and arms. But mix it up by putting medicine balls under your hands, do them on the TRX, do them with different hand positions, wear a weighted vest, or try them inverted. The pushup is a great “basic” movement that can be modified for all levels. You have to love the basics; and you can do these movements whether you are in the gym, outside, traveling, or at home.

3. Lunges. I love lunges because they target the entire lower body. And when you are looking to get the most bang for your buck, focus on training the big muscles like the glutes and quads. Again, you can diversify the types of lunges that you do—straight, angled, reverse, side, cross-behind. Have fun with it, but they’ll surely work your entire lower body.

Secret #4

MH: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen any of your athletes do?

Durkin: I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of tremendous athletes, but here are just a few that come to mind:

LT (Ladainian Tomlinson) sprinting at 18.0 miles per hour for 20 seconds. I don’t know if a gazelle would look as smooth.

During the card flip game on the slide board (see question 1), Drew and LT both caught 18 out of 20 card flips with one hand. This is incredibly challenging and requires great focus.

Again on the slideboard, Drew caught 139 tennis ball catches in a row. Think about that: He is skating back and forth on a slideboard working his entire body as I toss two balls at him at the same time, and it took 140 attempts for him to drop a ball once. Amazing.

And I’ll throw in a strength example. My big guys—Kellen Winslow, Jr., Justin Peelle, Ben Leber, and baseball player Brian Anderson, flipped a 420-pound tire six times in less than 14 seconds. Speed, power, and explosiveness.

Secret #5

MH: What do you think is the biggest mistake most guys make in their approach to getting in better shape?

Durkin: To be honest, there are lots of mistakes I see. So I’ll offer you six that your readers should start correcting today.

1. Too much emphasis on big weights. There’s nothing wrong with challenging yourself with heavy weight, but also focus on taking 30 to 60 seconds of rest on some days between sets (this will force you to use lighter weights), interval your exercises, and work on your conditioning.
2. Not enough total-body training and conditioning. Men love to focus on their chest and biceps, but total-body training will improve the appearance of your entire body.
3. A lack of diversity: I want you to hit the iron, but also use tools like medicine balls, stability balls, the TRX, and the BOSU to ensure you’re working multiple muscle groups and diversifying your program.
4. Overtraining: Many injuries happen because of too little rest and too much emphasis on the same muscle groups.
5. Inconsistent nutrition: Nutrition and proper hydration fuels everything, and most of us can do a better job in this department.
6. Not enough sleep. You want a great tip? Here it is: No sleep means no growth. You need to be eating right, sleeping right, and training hard to keep the results improving. That’s a great formula to start you in the right direction.

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6 Easy Ways to Beat Job Stress

Training, Weekly Motivation

By: Eddie Robbins

Raise your hand if the following are true: Your boss recites Dilbert. The staff consists of the Pink Floyd Animals trifecta: dogs, pigs, and sheep. You hear blood churning through your ears, taste adrenaline in your saliva, feel sweat spreading out from your armpits as your stress levels rise, rise, rise…and then sit there and boil. No release. No escape.

Okay, hands down. Work stress rips us apart. It sabotages us. Inspires stupid comments snapped at people just as stupid. Makes us a Monday-through-Friday phosphorous burn.

Enough already. Tomorrow, and every day thereafter, remember these tips for controlling the weight on your shoulders. Because if you think your job isn’t your life, you’re dead wrong.

Dump the Coffee

We know, coffee is in your blood—and that’s the problem. Caffeine is liquid stress, simultaneously boosting adrenaline production and suppressing adenosine, a natural relaxant in your brain. “Eliminating caffeine is more effective than any other stress-reduction strategy I know,” says David B. Posen, M.D., a stress expert and author of Always Change a Losing Game. In fact, Dr. Posen claims that 75 percent of his decaffeinated patients feel significantly more relaxed and, ironically, more energetic—mostly from better sleep.

To avoid withdrawal headaches, Dr. Posen suggests gradually cutting back by one cup at a time, beginning with your last cup of the day.

Say the “O” Word

Ask David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, what’s the biggest office stress buster, and his answer is immediate: organization. “It’s what’s most needed and most lacking.” Even a very basic organizational habit can cumulatively save you hours in a work week. And, of course, more time means less stress. Allen’s most valuable habit? “My end-of-week review. I go over my inbox and my work lists. By far, it’s my best-spent time.” Thanks to that one wise Friday hour, he’s never frazzled or overwhelmed when the whistle blows on Monday morning.

Spy on Yourself

Hunched over a keyboard with knots in your shoulders? Yeah, and you probably didn’t realize it until you stopped to think about it. But who has time to stop when everybody around you is shouting, “Go, go, go!” like the Laker Girls from hell? West Virginia University researchers found that people’s stress levels dropped by 54 percent after a 2-month “mindfulness training” program—that is, simply paying more attention to the symptoms of stress, such as bunched-up muscles and fast, scattered thinking.

The good news: You don’t need a 2-month course. “Even minor adjustments can produce big benefits,” says Kimberly Williams, Ph.D., author of the study. This means paying attention if your thoughts begin to race or your breathing becomes shallow. And when you notice knots in your shoulders, you can . . .

Do the PC Stretch

With all due deference to Bill Gates, this is for everyone shackled to a friggin’ computer. “When we’re under stress, we usually lean forward to focus on what we’re doing,” says Neil Chasan, a physical therapist in Seattle. “This makes the muscles of the neck and lower back work harder—and they’re small to begin with.”

For quick relief, do what Chasan does when he’s deskbound: Clasp your hands behind your neck and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Now let your head fall forward so your chin is close to your chest, and bring your elbows together in front of you so they’re touching. Pull down with your hands for several seconds, then release. Repeat six to eight times whenever you’re knotted up.

Buy a New Multivitamin

Tomorrow, revise your morning routine to include your antistress pill. In a University of Birmingham study of men 18 to 42 years old, British researchers found that those who took a daily multivitamin high in vitamin C and all the B vitamins enjoyed a 21 percent drop in anxiety, while those popping a placebo actually felt more stressed. (Perhaps from feeling deceived.) Even better, the multi men also rated themselves less tired and more focused. The probable cause: Research has shown that B and C vitamins help reduce the effects of stress. If you want to try the multivitamin used in the study—Berocca—go to . Ninety pills will run you $40.

Throw Up Your Hands

And start juggling. “Juggling gets me out of my chair,” says Dr. Posen, admitting that his limited skills are actually helpful. “It’s hard to juggle without laughing at yourself.” Plus, it’s nearly impossible to think about work when you’re concentrating on juggling. And that’s the point: Regularly schedule 5 minutes of laughing distraction. Pick up Juggling for the Complete Klutz, beanbags included (about $10 on Amazon).

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The Benefits of Strength Training for Young Athletes

Training, Weekly Motivation

By Dr. Toni L. Thompson-Chittams

Seton Hall huddles up around their sophomore goalie. Credit Katie

Every spring—the second week of March to be exact—there is a rush for sports physicals for the young athletes. As a Pediatrician, I am often faced with the daunting task of determining who has a health risk that could preclude them from participating in competitive sports.

During the evaluation many parents ask, “Is my child ready for weight training?” I start the discussion by explaining the distinction between weight lifting and strength training.

Weight lifting involves rapid lifts. Because of the limited data on its safety and possible risk of injury to the immature skeleton, the American Academy of Pediatrics is opposed to the participation of children in the sport of weight lifting.

Strength training on the other hand uses resistance methods (for example tubing
bands) to increase ones ability to exert or resist force. There are numerous studies in pediatrics that have shown that strength training is effective in improving strength, endurance, and flexibility in the young athlete.

Strength training utilizes various types of resistance such as resistance bands, exercise balls, free weights, and ones own body weight. It should include aerobic conditioning and a 10-15 minute warm up and cool down. More importantly, strength training programs should have strict supervision by a certified instructor with pediatric experience who will teach proper techniques and safety methods, thus reducing the risk of injury.

The benefits of strength training can be seen in the overall health of the young athlete such as cardiac fitness, increasing bone mineralization and decreasing blood lipid profile. Furthermore, there are a few studies that have shown that strength training aimed at certain muscles of the body can play a role in reducing the incident of sport related injuries.

During the sports physical, I often emphasize that a strength training program does not equate to increased muscle mass. The young athlete who has not reached puberty tend to have low circulating androgens—a hormone that promotes the growth of skeletal muscle cells— and thus muscle mass can’t develop.

Strength training programs are generally safe however for certain individuals it may be contraindicated. Any child with a complex cardiac issue, hypertension, seizure disorders or receiving chemotherapy that effect the heart should be withheld from strength training programs until clearance is obtained by a physician.

Overweight adolescents may appear to be strong enough to participate in a strength training program however they should proceed with caution.

Because of the pressure to perform, there is an increase in the use of performance enhancing drugs.

These drugs include stimulants (Caffeine, Pseudoephedrine, and Ritalin etc.), anabolic steroids, growth hormones, and protein supplements (such as Creatine). these drugs can lead to cardiovascular issues, kidney failure and testicular atrophy if taken in excess. Coaches, trainers and more importantly parents should be aware
of this issue and discuss it with their children.

Proper nutrition with adequate fluid intake should be encouraged. A multi-vitamin which contains Vitamin D, Calcium (1300mg/day) and iron should be taken daily. Finally, sleep can improve physical and mental health, and is extremely important for young people, so encourage up to 8-12 hours of sleep per night.

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Interval Training by the Numbers for Women

Training

by Rebecca Goodrich

Interval training consisting of intense exercise punctuated by short periods of rest can yield impressive increases in many metabolic processes.

Hammer those bike pedals till your feet are a blur. Your heart pounds, and each ragged inhalation feels like it might be your last. Just when you can’t manage one more revolution, you ease off the gas and cruise at a steady cadence to catch your breath. Checking your pulse, you note that it’s dropped by twenty beats per minute. But you don’t get too comfortable. After one minute of rest you’re off in another high intensity sprint. If this scenario sounds familiar, then you already know the power and effectiveness of interval training. Interval Training

Intervals: short bursts of high intensity exercise punctuated by even shorter periods of rest. As far back as the 1950s, scientists and athletes discovered that interval training yielded remarkable physiological results in a short amount of time. Since then, hundreds of studies have documented the power of interval training for women, for recreational and elite athletes, for patients with heart disease and breathing disorders, to name just a few.
What the Research Says

In the aptly named study “Two Weeks of High-Intensity Interval Training Increases the Capacity for Fat Oxidation During Exercise in Women” published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, December 2006, only seven sessions of high-intensity interval training over two weeks brought about a 36% increase in whole body fat oxidation along with many other positive metabolic changes in women who were moderately fit.

In the April 2008 study “Metabolic Adaptations to Short-term High Intensity Interval Training: A Little Pain for a Lot of Gain?” published in Exercise and Sport Reviews, researchers Martin Gibala and Sean L. McGee conclude that: “High-intensity interval training is a potent time-efficient strategy to induce numerous metabolic adaptations usually associated with traditional endurance training.”

Although many different interval formulas have been tested, no clear favorite has emerged as the optimum combination of exercise and rest. Most sport science experts recommend periods of high intensity exercise ranging from 1-4 minutes at 80-85% of maximum heart rate followed by rest periods of 30 seconds to one minute.
Weightless Interval Training

One popular example of interval training is a system taught by sport scientist and entrepreneur Kiya Knight. By studying cutting edge research and applying those insights to her personal training practice, Knight has developed a highly efficient interval protocol called Weightless due to its emphasis on body weight exercises and ease. A Weightless interval workout consists of three rounds of eight exercises. In the first round, each exercise is performed at high intensity for ninety seconds. After a one minute rest the second round consists of the same eight exercises performed for 60 seconds each. The workout concludes with the third round of exercises performed for 30 seconds each.

“It makes sense to exert yourself at the start of the workout when you’re fresh and can maintain good form,” Knight says. “The thirty second round is just as tough as the first, but you stay motivated psychologically because it’s so much shorter.” Her Manhattan clientele agree:

“Kiya’s personal story of health and fitness is astonishing. I want this kind of personal trainer at home! Kiya pushed me physically and mentally. Intense workouts completed in 30 minutes just 1 minute at a time! She taught me that my body is able if I am willing, making me feel accomplished, powerful, successful, and strong.” Deana, Bikini Bootcamp Participant 09′

If your fitness regimen has gotten stale and your diet has plateaued, consider increasing the efficiency of your workouts with interval training. The next time you do cardio, simply up the intensity for one or two minutes, then relax while continuing to pedal or step. Repeat the cycle several times.

Give the Weightless protocol a try by choosing 4-8 bodyweight exercises that work a variety of muscles. Do not use weights as it is difficult and potentially dangerous to lift weights rapidly. While maintaining good form, perform each exercise at a moderate to high rate of speed for ninety seconds. Rest for one minute. Repeat the cycle of exercises just as you did before, but this time for sixty seconds each. Again, rest for one minute. Now blast through each exercise for thirty seconds using maximum effort.

In a workout lasting less than thirty minutes you will have initiated a cascade of positive metabolic changes ranging from increased fat oxidation to improved circulation and increased respiratory endurance. Studies haven’t yet linked interval training to smaller jean sizes—you’ll have to conduct that research yourself.

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