Thursday, August 28, 2014

Learn the Art of the RMT Club at Fitness Together Brecksville

http://www.fitnesstogether.com/brecksville/rmtclub

Now you can learn how to use the brand new RMT Club the right way by working exclusively with one of our nationally certified fitness professionals.

If you have enjoyed working on your balance and core with the popular BOSU then you will absolutely love David Weck's latest invention, the RMT Club. This functional piece of equipment is a great way to improve your:

Rotator Cuff Health
Total Body Strength
Coordination
Core Conditioning
Body Composition

....and much, much more!

Click Here to take advantage of a special RMT Club Training offer for new clients only!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5L7SBc0YBg&feature=youtu.be

Watch this exercise demonstration video of how to properly use the RMT Club when doing a lunge to add extra core power!

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Trainer Tuesday: Why is it Easier for Guys to lose Weight Than it is for Women?

Trainer Tuesdays

Welcome back to the weekly edition on Trainer Tuesdays. Make sure to check in at our blog every Tuesday evening to learn the expertise of our great staff. Aside from being fantastic exercise coaches, they are also extremely knowledgeable in many aspects of health and fitness; so, it's time that you get to know them a little better! Each week, we will post a frequently asked, or sometimes just a fun fitness related question followed by the answers of each of the trainers at Fitness Together Brecksville.

Why is is Easier For Guys to Lose Weight Than it is for Women?

http://www.fitnesstogetherbrecksville.net

Adam Teplitz: Men tend to have it easy when it comes to losing weight. Women struggle and have to go that extra mile. There are a few reasons for this. Men generally have more muscle than women. This gives them a higher metabolic rate , which enables them to burn more calories , even at rest. Women are also predisposed to store and retain fat. The hormone estrogen is more prevalent in women. The hormone works to keep the fat on a woman's body. Men's bodies also respond quicker to exercise. There are times when women's bodies actually go into starvation from excessive exercise. In addition to this, women have a smaller lung capacity. This leads to women having a lower overall tolerance for exercise than men.

It should be noted, the last thing this should do is discourage anyone. It's important not to compare yourself to others. You should only be competing against yourself. The added challenges should be used as motivation to conquer your goals and barriers.

Kelly Bailey: I often jokingly lament that my husband can cut out something small, like one of the three coca colas he drinks every day, and drop 10 pounds. I have to cut all carbs and refined sugars and it's still a struggle to lose weight. While this is an exaggeration, there is some truth here: men do tend to lose weight more easily than women. The simple reason behind this is that men typically are larger, and because of the hormone testosterone, they also naturally have more muscle mass. This means they burn more calories. "NOT FAIR!" the women cry. The good news for women is that there is something you can do about it: train with weights to increase your lean muscle mass. This will increase your metabolism, making it easier for you to lose weight.

Steven Madden: It's a very simple truth; men loose fat easier than women. The answer is simply genetics. Men tend to be bigger than women, and this makes a very big difference. Since men are bigger, they tend to have more muscle mass to begin with. Muscle tissue burns fat even at rest. Since men tend to have more to begin with, it gives them a weight loss advantage. It is also easier to add more muscle mass when you start with more of it to begin with. Women, by contrast have a harder time adding a lot of muscle tissue. This is why trainers tend to focus on building lean muscle tissue with classic exercises and boosting the metabolism through cardio-strength training for women. While focusing on keeping the metabolism up post workout in women, it can make up some of the difference.

Bronson Rotaru: When it comes to weight loss and men vs women there are a couple main points. 1.) Women typically store more fat than men, the average body fat percentages are higher on a female’s body than a male’s. 2.) Considering the first point males have more muscle mass--- more muscle makes it easier to shed fat. You are actually burning more fat at rest the more muscle mass you have. Lastly, Females tend to store fat in areas like hips and thighs and it can be difficult to lose it, where as a male typically stores fat near their midsection.

Lisa Clark: As unfair as it may appear, men do lose weight easier than women. It is a fact due to physiological differences. Men are larger and have more muscle than women due to the hormone testosterone. Mens higher percentage of muscle allows them to burn more calories per hour than women.

Taynee Pearson: It is easier for men to lose weight than women due to a few reasons. One reason being that men have a more muscle mass and therfore there metabolism is faster than a women's in general. Secondly men produce more testosterone than women which in turn helps build lean muscle mass faster and decreases body fat. These two reasons are mostly why it is harder for women to lose weight as fast as men.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

LeBron's Back? Get a Cool Fitness Shirt & Let's Play!

LeBron's Back? Let's Play!

Promote Fitness Together with a cool FITNESS t-shirt while supporting a charity for underprivileged Akron youth...

Dear Fellow Fitness Enthusiasts,

http://www.newsnet5.com/sports/basketball/cavaliers/newschannel5-and-newsnet5com-celebrate-lebron-james-return-to-cleveland-with-an-interactive-banner

Wow what an exciting time to live in Cleveland! Especially if you're a sports fan. I was one of the 100,000+ people downtown for all of the events last night, and it was fun to be a part of. You can really feel the momentum and energy of our hard-working city finally shifting in a positive direction the last few years. A couple of weeks ago I went to Edgewater Live put on by our beautiful Metroparks and witnessed another large crowd, including at least 50 people on paddleboards doing yoga on Lake Erie. It almost felt like a beach town!

In honor of LeBron James's now famous (second) decision to return to our beloved Cavs, we have created this cool "FITNESS" t-shirt to play off of his popular Witness shirts. Please consider a donation of $10 for your shirt to support Let's Play while simultaneously promoting your favorite personal training studio. Let's Play is a charity that we truly believe in---keeping kids active and off of the streets---and it's no coincidence that we think King James himself would also believe in this cause (supporting underprivileged Akron Youth).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVL8_R_enqg&feature=youtu.be

Let's Play was founded by a friend of ours, and Broadview Heights resident Kurt Mears. Their vision at Let's Play is to provide underprivileged youth in our community the opportunity to participate in school or recreational sporting activities by recycling gently used sports equipment. Let's Play more importantly helps connect local youth to their Urban Ministry partners so that the kids can learn about Jesus and all of the great programs available to them through the group's inner city partners.

http://www.fitnesstogether.com/brecksville/letsplay

Please bring/send your cash or check (made to Fitness Together) to the studio to pick up your FITNESS t-shirt. We have both unisex and female cut styles available, as pictured. To make your order please click here and remember to give us your desired size/style. Once all of the money is collected, Sean will go to Play It Again Sports with Kurt to purchase some of the items needed for Let's Play. 100% of your donation is going towards this wonderful movement.

We appreciate your consideration. For more information about Let's Play please contact Kurt at mearsfamily2012@gmail.com Thank You!

Respectfully,

Sean Sullivan
Owner, Fitness Together Brecksville

Copyright © 2014 Fitness Together, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
SeanSullivan@FitnessTogether.com
8251 Chippewa Rd., Brecksville, OH 44141

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The 411 on Today's Popular Fitness Gadgets

The 411 on Today’s Popular Fitness Gadgets

http://www.fitnesstogether.com/brecksville

As every aspect of our lives becomes more automated, it’s no surprise that the variety and options of fitness gadgets on the market are growing at an exponential rate. Whether you’re interested in tracking heart rate, calories, miles, steps or blood pressure, there’s a fitness gadget out there to meet your needs. If you’re in the market to digitally and automatically track your fitness journey, Steven Madden, Fitness TogetherBrecksville personal trainer, has shared some personal and industry guidelines to help you decipher what’s what in today’s fitness gadget world.

“It’s an exciting time for fitness gadgets right now,” explains Madden. “There are a lot of great products out there today and I can’t wait to see what’s going to become available over the next couple months and years. Fitness gadgets can be great tools for helping increase people’s workout regimens and keeping them accountable. ”

Identify Your Favorite Activity, Fitness Goals to Find the Best Device

Madden sees about 25-30 percent of clients at Fitness Together using some sort of fitness gadget to track and monitor activity levels or workouts. The most popular fitness gadgets that he sees people using today include:

Nike Fuel Band: Keeps your calories in check, tracks your steps throughout the day and allows you to compete with other people by uploading your daily data via a docking system or the cloud. (http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pw/fuelband/90w?cp=usns_kw_AL!1778!3!43364128382!e!!g!nike%20fuel%20band!c)
JawBone UP: Tracks food and drink consumption, steps and activity levels and sleep patterns. It also helps you commit to personalized goals, as well as share them with your friends. (https://jawbone.com/up?gclid=CJ6l57v4ocACFQamaQod9i8A4w&gclsrc=aw.ds)
Strava: This running and cycling online GPS tracking and performance program allows you to track your runs, rides and cross training activities from your Garmin, Android or iPhone. You can view distance maps of your activities, see your time splits from one mile to the next, monitor personal bests and compete with your friends. (www.strava.com)
Fitness Video Games: Individuals and families alike can increase their fitness levels with various fitness-orientated video games for the Xbox, Wii or PS3. These devices can provide personalized workouts in the privacy of your own home and can be great ways for parents and kids to work out together.
Smart Scales: These wireless scales not only track weight, body fat percentage and BMI, but they also automatically sync your statistics to online graphs and tools that can help you see the bigger picture as you progress toward your weight loss goals.

Devices Collect Data, Not Solve Problems

Fitness gadgets can be great tools for helping guide you through your fitness journey and motivate you to maintain a consistent level of activity, but you still have to put in the work to meet your health and fitness goals. Buying a fitness gadget won’t solve your internal struggles to live a healthy and fit lifestyle, but it can help you be accountable to yourself and any people you choose to share your fitness information with.

Madden also stresses the importance of understanding the numbers and information that your gadget is tracking so that you can use it effectively to meet your goals. If you don’t know what the appropriate range is for your specific heart rate or if you get caught up in comparing numbers with other people who may have different goals and body types, then you may not be using your fitness gadget in the most effective manner.

“You need to understand what maximum heart rate is and what all of the numbers you’re monitoring mean specifically to you,” explains Madden. “Our Fitness Together trainers help our clients understand what their heart rate and other levels should be during different activities so they can effectively use their fitness gadgets while training and throughout their everyday life.”

It’s All About the Cloud

As fitness gadgets continue to provide ease of use for people to track, store and share their health and fitness levels, the fitness band wearable market will continue increasing in popularity. As technology continues to evolve, such as the ability to automatically upload and store data in the cloud, the possibilities for advancing the functionality of fitness gadgets will evolve as well. Looking forward, Apple will soon be releasing their much anticipated health and fitness gadget, the iWatch, which may be a game changer in the industry as it will track more than just activity levels and basic heart rate information. This comprehensive health tracker is anticipated to detect more in-depth body and health functionality, as well as detailed fitness activity levels.

“The new technology that Apple is planning to release soon is going to be a game changer because it’s going to track health markers like blood pressure and glucose levels,” explains Madden. “I don’t know the full extent of it because they really haven’t given out a lot of information yet, but what I’ve seen looks pretty cool. It’s going to show us a lot of different things that we never thought were possible.”

It’s definitely an exciting time for the fitness gadget market and time will only tell what’s in store for the future of tracking, monitoring, storing and sharing your health and fitness information.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Trainer Tuesdays: If I Stop My Physical Activity, Will My Muscles Turn to Fat?

Trainer Tuesdays

If I Stop My Physical Activity, Will My Muscles Turn to Fat?

Kelly Bailey: Spend time at the gym and you may overhear people talking about muscle turning to fat or vice versa. If you don't trust me, your doctor can assure you that this is not possible. However, if you stop working out, you will begin to lose muscle mass, and in turn may gain weight in the form of fat. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat tissue. This is a fancy way of saying that muscle tissue burns more calories. A loss of lean muscle tissue means you will be burning fewer calories throughout the day. Depending on your eating habits, this can make it easy to gain weight in the form of fat. Add to this a reduction in physical strength and functional mobility, and you have some pretty good reasons to continue working out!

Taynee Pearson: There is a myth out there and has been for a while that muscle will turn to fat if you don't workout or vice versa. This myth is not true, muscle and fat are two different types of tissues and cannot convert from one from to the other. When you stop working out, your muscles will decrease in size making it easier for fat tissue to overtake, it's not necessarily that the muscle turns into fat. So a solution to this problem would be to keep exercising, and do resistance training regularly to increase and maintain lean muscle mass as well as decrease adipose (fat) tissue.

Lisa Clark: It is a myth that muscles turn to fat when you stop exercising. It is impossible for muscles to turn to fat since they are made up of different types of cells which have completely different functions. What does happen after you quit exercising is that your muscles actually shrink to allow your body to conserve energy when your activities no longer require as much muscle mass. As your body loses muscle mass, however, you require significantly fewer calories and therefore it is easy to gain fat quickly if you don't adjust your food intake to compensate your decreased caloric needs. Hence the myth that your muscles turn to fat.

Bronson Rotaru: Your muscles won't exactly turn to fat. The muscles will always be there, they will lose some of their size though. The more muscular you are, the more fat you will burn around the clock even when not training. So if you were to make the mistake of ceasing physical activity/training, yes you will eventually replace the loss of muscle gains with stored fat. It is very difficult for people to start over in the gym, exercising etc. once they have stopped, so don't stop exercising!

Steven Madden: Thinking that your muscle tissue will turn to fat if you stop your physical activity is wrong, but it is an understandable mistake. It stems from over simplifying how trainers focus on body composition changes. I know I'm guilty of it. I've told clients that we will focus one changing five pounds of fat into five pounds of muscle. What I'm really saying is that at some point you may get on the scale and see that you weigh the same, but you have still dropped a size or two. What we did was add an equal amount of lean muscle tissue as fat that we lost. One pound of lean muscle tissue is smaller than one pound of fat. It is also worth noting that you never create more muscle tissue, you simply improve your muscle cells.

Now, what happens when you stop your physical activity? No, your muscles will not turn into fat, but they may start to atrophy. This means the cells will start to get smaller and shorter, affecting strength and mobility. You will also probably put weight back on as your metabolism slows down. Muscle tissue burns calories everyday just existing. If it's thicker and stronger, it will burn more for you. If it starts to atrophy, it will do the opposite.

This process doesn't take as long as you would like it to either. On the 4 th of July, I was thrown off a horse and hurt my lower spine. As a result, I couldn't work out for six weeks. I went from working out everyday, to not at all, in fact I tried not to move too much altogether. As a result, I'm 15 pounds heavier than I was before the accident. Now that I've started working out again, I am not as strong as I was before and I weigh more. Now it's time to turn some fat into muscle!

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Trainer Tuesdays: Aren't Personal Trainers Just For Beginners?

Trainer Tuesdays

Aren’t Personal Trainer Just For Beginners?

Steven Madden: Personal trainers are a great place to start if you are a beginner. If you don't know where to start and need help focusing, they can help you lay the foundation. However, personal trainers are not only for beginners. In fact, when you look at it, trainers exist for every level of physical activity. Many professional athletes and movie stars have trainers, some have more than one.

So what about you, the intermediate exerciser? Why do you still need a personal trainer? It's not enough to know a lot of exercises. A good trainer understands not only how and which muscles work during an exercise, but how to pair those exercises together for the most effective results. Many people who spend enough time working out may plateau in their results, and a trainer can help prevent this by constantly varying your routine every 4-6 weeks.

Even more so, what ever your level, a trainer is someone who will help hold you accountable. Not just for the time you spend with them in the gym. I ask most of my clients when I see them if they are doing cardio between sessions. A trainer is also willing to challenge you more than most people are willing to do on their own. I tell clients all the time, "I'm going to be honest with you, I'm going to lie to you." I'll increase the weight a little on an exercise without telling them, to prove that they are capable, or I'll make them do an isometric hold a little longer than I said we would do it for. I don't do this because I enjoy seeing people struggle, but because I can see that the only thing preventing them from progressing is the belief that they cannot. I want to push you, safely.

Kelly Bailey: When I tell friends and family that I'm a certified personal trainer (CPT), they often believe that I only work with beginners. While this is partly true because most personal trainers do work with a lot of beginner exercisers, hiring a CPT can be beneficial for intermediate or advanced exercisers as well. Here's why:

1. Accountability. Maybe you know how to exercise, but will you actually get out of bed early in the morning or after a hard day at work and do it? If you know your personal trainer is waiting for you (and got up at 4 AM to work with you), odds are that you are much more likely to show up.

2. Form check. One of the main reasons people don't see results from exercise (especially resistance training) is poor form. Proper movement during an exercise is extremely important for safety and to make sure you're hitting the correct muscle groups. A personal trainer will keep you safe by monitoring your form, and you will benefit because the proper muscle groups are being worked during a given exercise.

3. The lone wanderer. Have you ever been at the gym or rec center and noticed people wandering around, looking lost and/or confused. Maybe that person is you! Most people do not understand the how and why of exercise programming, which leaves them choosing exercises at random. A personal trainer creates programs tailored to your goals, so there's no guesswork on what exercise you should do next!

Taynee Pearson: The reason why people think that personal trainers are for beginners is because the majority of people who start working out, don't have proper form or technique. Personal trainers are also there for people who lack motivation to workout and to hold their clients accountable to a training session. Personal trainers are there to motivate, listen, and help clients. Getting fit or losing weight is a long process in which some people need help with. Personal trainers are also important to add variety to workouts and push clients to their full potential in what they are trying to achieve.

Bronson Rotaru: Personal trainers are not just for beginners. Sure a beginner can greatly benefit from having a personal trainer but someone who is advanced can reap the same rewards too. With everyone having different goals, a program design is very important. Your trainer is there to not only show you how to perform the exercises but to keep you accountable too. No matter what experience level you are, everyone benefits from working with a personal trainer.

Lisa Clark: As todays society is leaning towards a healthier, more active lifestyle, the question often comes up whether or not to hire a personal trainer. Aren’t personal trainers just for beginners? Personal trainers are a wonderful resource for people beginning fitness journey, however they play many roles that can also be beneficial to even the most experienced athlete. Personal trainers can help maximize your time by creating workouts designed to meet your goals quickly and efficiently. They also provide accountability, motivation, consistency, supervision and ensuring proper form and technique.