Sorry we are a little late with this week’s newsletter, just enjoying the Christmas Holiday. When we finished last week, we said we would cover the basics of choosing the proper aerobics conditioning program. Aerobic exercise is the type of exercise that requires oxygen as it’s energy source. The types of activities that require oxygen are running, riding a bike, using th ellyptical, or using the stairstepper. Aerobic exercise requires oxygen as it’s source of energy. When oxygen depletes as the source of energy, the next source of energy is fat. Aerobic activity over a long period of time becomes a fat burning activity. Unfortunately, performing an aerobic activity until it becomes a fat burning activity can become uncomfortable. Many people have difficulty tolerating the discomfort that comes with running or other aerobic activities. The long term benefits of aerobic activities include improved efficiency of the heart, decreased heart rate, and improved mood. Again, the downside of running is the fat burning effects are short lived.

    When choosing an aerobic activity that is good for you, there are some things that must be considered. Running is high impact. The use of aerobic activity to burn fat requires time. There is some discomfort involved when working hard enough to burn fat and not everybody is cut out to tolerate this discomfort. The upside of aerobic activity is an associated euphoria when working into and beyond fatigue. This euphoria is known as the runner’s high.

    If you want to add aerobic activity to your program you need to be physically able to perform the activities. Running is high impact. Ellypticals and Stairsteppers are lower impact. High impact is rougher on the joints than low impact. Aerobic activity is beneficial to an exercise routine. Consider adding it to your routine, please use good judgement when considering adding it to your routine. Aerobic activity is a good choice when thinking about adding ways to lose weight to your exercise routine.

    We hope all of the information we have given you regarding exercise and how to choose the proper execise routine that is beneficial to you has been helpful. Please use the information given to you when making your New Years Resolutions and choosing your exercise program for 2012. We will not be publishing a newsletter on 1/1/12. Have a good New Year. See you next year. We will not be holding our adult class on 1/2/12. We will be holding speed and agility on 12/31/11 at Grass Lake School. If you have any questions, please call Steve or Larry at 847-395-6100.

    One more week until Christmas. We hope everybody is having a good Christmas season. We will be holding open speed and agility sessions at Grass Lake School on Satueday, 12/24/11 and 12/31/11. We are closed on Christmas and New Year. Adult sessions will be held as usual on Monday and Wednesday nights. If you have any questions, please feel free to call us.

    We have been discussing choosing an exercise program and choosing the exercise that is right for you. the last thing we wish to discuss before the New Year is aerobicc exercise.  Aerobic exercise can come in the form of running, use of equipment such as exercycles, or in in classes like step aerobics. Next week we will discuss the benefitsts of aerobics and the various ways to perform aerobic exercise. Have a good week and we wish you a Merry Christmas.

    This week we would like to congratulate another one of our athletes for their success on the field. Congratulations go to Josh Antilla, quarterback for the Antioch Sequoits. Josh led the Seqoits to a division title. They suffered only two losses. Unfortunately, the last loss was in the state playoffs. Josh received the team award for Leadership and Sportsmanship. He was All Conference, Honorable Mention. He received this honoras a quarterback in an offensive system that centered on the run. Josh is presently being recruited by Division I, II, and III schools. We look forward to hearing where he accepts. Josh has been a pillar at our weekend training sessions during the school year and our SPA camps in the summer. If you want to see more, check out Josh’s video on YouTube.

    Last week we talked about using your body as a means for resistence. Some of the things you can use to make use of your body harder are Swiss Balls, BOSU balls, and TRX straps. Other devices of resistence are medicine balls, resistence bands, and resistence cords. Swiss Balls and the BOSU ball can be used on a variety of ways from an unsteady surface to challenge balance to an unsteady surface to challenge the core. Medicine balls provide resistence that can be moved in any plane and the can also be used to produce an unsteady surface. Resistence bands provide a constant resistence that increases as a muscle reaches it’s maximal tension point. Bands and cords provide a very good option for functional strengthening and they come in varying resistences. TRX straps provide unsteady supports for feet and hands. They can make simple calisthetic activities extremely difficult. It is best to receive some instruction when using any of the above devices. They all require a little bit of a higher skill level to use. We hope our discussions on weightlifting and resistence type activities have been helpful. Next week we will start covering aerobic exercise.

      Over the holidays, we will be holding our speed and conditioning sessions, at Grass Lake School, on December 24th and December 31st. If you have any questions , call us at 847-395-6100. Please remember to check our website on Fridays to check if there are any changes over the weekends. Have a good weekend.

    December has started and there are only 21 days til Christmas. Keep us in mind when thinking outside the box for Christmas gifts. We would love to be part of your fitness plans or for somebody you know in 2012. Give the gift of health, hire a trainer, be part of an exercise group, or send your athlete to speed and agility. We’re available for all of the above. Contact us, we can discuss how we could fit into your fitness plans for next year for you or somebody you know.

    We continue our discussion on resistence training and this week we tackle the use of  bodyweight and other resistive devices. It always amazes me that young people want to go right to the weights and see how much they can lift. Surprisingly, most can’t perform a proper push-up or situp. Our most convenient piece of resistive equipment  is our body and most Americans can’t even lift that well. A workout using bodyweight can be very challenging and create quite a physique. Some of the more trendy workouts are going old school and using bodyweight as their form of resistence, the main variable is how they challenge the person working out. A good example is the P90X workout. People who follow the discs as prescribed have seen tremendous results. Some of the basic moves using bodyweight are the push-up, the situp, the leg raise, the squat, and the lunge. These exercises can be done anywhere and they can be modified to accommodate any ability. You can change the angle of a push-up from a wall push-up, to a table push-up, to a chair push-up, to a floor push-up. Squats and lunges are an important part of our functional lives. If done properly, they are not hard on the knees. Sit-ups can vary from small curl-ups, to roll-ups to crunches, to full sit-ups. The sraight leg raise can be done on a single extremity in all planes, front, side. back, across, depending on your body position. It’s not hard. Mastering control of your bodyparts and good movement patterns is a good way to start. It helps your normal activities of daily living.

    There are some ways to challenge use of your body that use resistence bands, Swiss balls, Pilates reformers, tilt boards, gliders, etc., etc. We will review the use of these resistence devices more in depth next week.

Have a good week!

    Another Thanksgiving under our belts. We hope you all had a chance to run in a Turkey Trot or play in a Turkey Day football game with family and friends. It is time to try to get a jump on your New Year’s Resolution and lifestyle changes. We are going to continue with our discussion on weightlifting routines.

    As we discussed last week, resistence can be in the form of free weights, weight machines, or body weight. The first thing to think about is what are your goals for weightlifting? Would you like to become stronger? Would you like to be more toned? Or, would you like to develop a more chiseled, musclebound body? Answers to these questions dictate the intensity (% maximal repetition) you lift, the number of repetitions per set, and the number of sets per exercise performed. Most routines would benefit from mixing up all of the above variables to avoid adaptatation to the routine. Adaptation basically means the body accommodates to the stress placed on it and no longer improves its ability to progress. Adaptation is the reason people who do the same routine day in and day out can’t lift more, run further, or do more over time. Often, people who perform the same routine and don’t change the variables, see a decline in their performance over time.

    When lifting weights, the intensity is often defined by the one rep. maximum. The one rep. maximum is simply the amount of weight you can lift in a lifting exercise i.e. bench press, one time only and no more. Lifting routines are usually based on percentages of the one rep. maximum and the number of repetitions. Phases of weightlifting programs are set in 4-6 week phases. The variables of the phases are changed every 4-6 weeks to prevent adaptation and encourage improvement. The three phases most commonly referred to in weightlifting are the hypertrophy phase, the strength phase, and the power phase.

    The hypertrophy phase is loosely outlined as the phase of weightlifting that recruits muscle fiber. The sets range from 3-5 set of 10-12 reps./set at 60-80% one rep. maximum. When starting out, people usually notice rapid improvement in the amounts of weight they can lift. After the early phases of the hypertrophy phase it’s, “Game on!” Improvements slow down and coninue to be harder to achieve. It takes a strong mind set to continue on and push yourself.

    The next phase is the strength phase ,which again, is loosely outlined as the phase where you gain real strength. It is harder with sets remaining the same at 3-5 sets, but repetitions and resistence change. Repetitions decrease to 6-8 and percent one rep. maximum increases to 80-90% one rep. maximum. The muscle fibers recruited in the hypertrophy phase become stronger during this phase.

    The power phase is the phase where you push yourself to extremes.  Lifting techniques become more explosive and muscle becomes more explosive. During this phase repetitions are dropped to 1-3 reps. for 3 sets at 90-95% one rep. maximum. This is a very stressful phase and very uncomfortable. Getting through a workout in the power phase is quite empowering.

    The last variable to discuss during these phases of weightlifting is the rest period. During the hypertrophy phase the rest period is short at 30-60 seconds. The rest period during the strength phase is moderate at 60-90 seconds. And, during the power phase, recovery is full at 2-3 minutes between sets.

    The above principles can be applied to either a free weght or fixed weight program. Honesty and effort are required in setting the one rep. maximum. The rest is easy, just plug in the formula.

    Next week we address bodyweight strengthening and use of other resistive devices.

    For those participating in our weekend workouts at Grass Lake School, we will not be holding a session on Sunday, December 4th. We will hold our Saturday session. Any questions, call 847-395-6100.