Ruff Fitness

Exercise information is everywhere - we get bombarded by informercials, T.V. (The Biggest Loser), books, magazines and of course the intranet. We see on a pretty regular basis exercisers and even trainers selecting a given exercise or routine from a magazine or book. While this information can be helpful, a word of caution... First, any exercise or routine should have a purpose. Why are you doing the exercise? Does it match with what you are trying to accomplish? What are the risks versus the rewards? Secondly, is your body ready for the exercise? Has anyone assessed you needs? Was their any progressions leading up to the selected exercise or routine?

Exercise fads and trends come and go. Some will work; some will not. Many exercisers and athletes try things because their friends, training partners or trainer say they work. They read magazine articles that recycle and repackage exercises for every ailment, problem and body part. Many exercise and conditioning programs are a mix of fact, fiction, advertising and media hype.

Throw away any ideas about a quick fix or a fast track. Trends and fads are usually designed to sell something. We also want things now - unfortunately something always suffers when we rush natural processes. Training properly requires a conscious balance of body systems and being in touch with your body's needs.

Our training is based on a system - every client, every session will work on fundamentals that are needed for optimal health, fitness and performance - dynamic movement, energy system development, strength, stability and balance. The principles of our system allow us to test new techniques and exercises to make sure they fit in to the system before they are incorporated into your training. The system prevents us from incorporating trendy exercises or techniques that may be counterproductive or dangerous. The principles of the system don't change even as new techniques or exercise are introduced.

Our goal is to be as complete and holistic as possible - we train the body in the manner that it was meant to move. We also work daily to help you understand the keys to success - consistency, hard work and fun!

This is from a great article in the January 12 Wall Street Journal...

Why You Should Step Up Your Workout

By KEVIN HELLIKER

To Paul Williams, spurring more exercise out of the half of Americans who are already active is just as important as coaxing the sedentary off the sofa.

In Dr. Williams' study of more than 100,000 runners over nearly 20 years, stepped up exercise was found to have some powerful benefits. But his research is controversial. While Dr. Williams is well respected by other exercise scientists, he is shunned by those in the public-health field. Dr. Williams is routinely excluded from committees charged with formulating exercise guidelines, and his grant proposals are often rejected as irrelevant because few exercisers want to hear the word "more." Public-health officials also worry that touting Dr. Williams's research could discourage the sedentary from doing any exercise at all, or lure them off the couch with goals too lofty to engender success.

"Paul wants to raise the bar, but the fact is that we still have 50% of the population sitting on the couch," says Cedric Bryant, chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise.

Dr. Williams' studies have shown that exceeding the federally recommended exercise guidelines can reduce the risk of stroke, heart attack, glaucoma, diabetes and other diseases by as much as 70% above the benefits of merely meeting the guidelines. "There is no gene or drug discovery that comes close" to the effects of more and more-vigorous exercise, says Dr. Williams, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley Calif.

Official exercise guidelines—emanating from groups like the American Heart Association as well as the federal government—typically call for half an hour a day of exercise, including a portion at moderate to high levels of intensity. At 3.5 hours per week, most walkers and even runners would cover fewer than 20 miles.

By contrast, Dr. Williams's research has found progressively greater health benefits for runners topping 30, 40, even 49 miles a week. Dr. Williams assumes—as do his critics—that similar effects would be gained from increased workloads among swimmers, cyclists and other aerobic athletes. "Almost everybody can benefit significantly by increasing their exercise level," says Dr. Williams, who is publicly calling for a two-tiered approach to exercise guidelines, one that would give substantial attention to the benefits of going far beyond the current minimum recommendations.

Others worry about unintended consequences. As an elite marathoner, Paul Thompson knows first-hand the sense of well-being and health benefits that distance running induces. "I do think that the more you do, the more you benefit," says Dr. Thompson, a sports cardiology specialist. Yet as chief of cardiology at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, Dr. Thompson notes that vigorous exercise regimens can lead to injury. And he also observes in many patients a fragile motivation to exercise. Among those currently meeting or slightly exceeding the guidelines, a daunting new challenge might prove discouraging, he says. "And if you make them run more and they get injured, then they wind up running less."

Dr. Williams's most noted research dates back to 1991, when he used a subscription list from Runner's World magazine to identify a cohort of about 55,000 runners. In the years that followed, he doubled that number by recruiting participants at running and walking events. Calling his project the National Runners' Health Study, Dr. Williams began dispatching surveys asking runners to describe in great detail their running regimens, their demographics and their medical histories. From the outset, a one-word theme emerged from his findings: more. An early study, for instance, found that male distance runners gained weight with age unless they added mileage.

Two others, one published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1996, found that risk factors for coronary heart disease steadily improved with greater doses of exercise, up to 50 miles per week. Too few runners surpassed that number to determine whether such improvements would have continued, says Dr. Williams. In all, Dr. Williams estimates that the National Runners' Health Study has produced more than 40 published articles, some finding benefits beyond the well-established cardiovascular rewards.

A 2008 Runners' Health study in the journal of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science found that exercise lowered the risks of cataracts and macular degeneration; the greater the dose, the lower the risk. Other studies found that exercise—again, the more the better—reduced the risk of gout, gall stones, diverticulitis (a potentially fatal digestive disease) and prostate enlargement.

A 2008 article published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that men and women who ran long distances over a period of eight years substantially reduced their odds of developing diabetes. Conversely, however, a 2007 Runners' Health study published in the journal Diabetes Care found that runners who cut back on their mileage had a greater risk of diabetes than those who maintained their exercise levels. A number of his studies have taken direct aim at current exercise guidelines, by comparing the benefits of mere compliance with the benefits of running far beyond them.

A Runners' Health study published in the journal Stroke last spring found that men and women who ran more than eight kilometers a day had a 60% lower risk of stroke than those who ran at the guideline levels. An article published in September in the journal Atherosclerosis found that those Runners' Health participants who exceeded guideline levels had a 26% lower risk of coronary heart disease than those who ran at guideline levels.

A strength of Dr. Williams's study is that it involves an enormous number of participants–110,000 runners. A limitation, however, is that it relies on information provided by participants rather than gathered by examining physicians. The study also illustrates correlation rather than causation, although other large surveys of this sort—such as Harvard University's Nurses' Health Study—have been groundbreaking in providing health and lifestyle information.

Welcome to 2010 – are you ready to get in the best shape of your life? There is no single strategy that can work perfectly for every person, every time. To keep your program fresh, you need to make it your own. Below, you'll find two dozen of the most important training fundamentals based on research and trends from leading coaches and trainers. Adopt them as general guidelines, and then apply them to create your own smart, results orientated workouts.

The Basics

1. Variety. Your body adapts to the stress placed on it. Your exercise program should be always evolving and changing.

2. Periodization. Work in preset phases of intensity - go easier before going hardest, slow before fast, simple before complex, and light before heavy.

3. Schedule recovery time or be prepared for burnout. Strength and fitness develops during the recovery phase.

4. Break workouts up when you need to. Studies show that ten minutes, three times a day, equals 30 minutes at once.

5. Practice complete workouts. Active warm up first, and then cool down and stretch when you're finished.

Cardio

6. Build the foundation by going easy (little more than half of your ability or 60 – 70 percent of your maximum heart rate). Building endurance requires the patience to go slow.

7. Boost your fitness by going fast - to raise your lactate threshold, use intervals (short bursts over 85 percent of your maximum heart rate).

8. Manage your interval training wisely. First increase the number of intervals per workout (up to six), then their length (up to ten minutes). Then shorten the rest period in between.

9. Build slowly. When increasing the duration or distance of your workouts, don't jump up more than 10 percent from one week to the next week.

10. Exercise restraint – hard days such as intervals and tempo training should be done no more than twice a week.

Strength

11. Train movements—front-to-back (lunges), vertical (squats), pushing, pulling and rotational (medicine ball chops)—not body parts.

12. Practice form first. Three exercises done with good form are more productive than 30 done sloppily.

13. If you're new to an exercise—or to lifting altogether—one set of 10 to 12 reps is fine to start.

14. Use your body weight for resistance. Push-ups, pull-ups, and dips are all multi joint movements and excellent strength builders.

15. Use dumbbells. They're safe, versatile, and more challenging than barbells. 16. Integrate – train muscles to work together – example: dumbbell curl to press. 17. Move from stable to unstable - whenever possible, perform lifts on your feet or sitting or lying on a Stability ball.

18. Remember these numbers: 10 and 20. For muscle strength, lift enough weight to reach muscle failure after 10 reps. For muscular endurance and metabolic conditioning, perform up to 20 repetitions.

Fine Tuning

19. Treat stretching—and specifically yoga—as a workout itself, not a wrap-up. 20. Work slow, be slow: Do power lifts, Plyometric’s, and agility drills to supplement your slower-speed core strength and endurance work.

21. Perform Olympic lifts, Plyometric’s, and agility drills when you're fresh—not when you're dog-tired after an endurance workout.

22. Work out in the morning. Excuses to skip a workout will be less likely to pop up, and you'll invariably end up feeling great all day.

23. Find a buddy. Having someone to work out with will keep you on track.

24. Consult with a personal trainer on a regular basis to keep your program fresh, motivating, and results orientated.

Getting into a regular exercise routine is a very good thing -  if we are talking about making time each day to train. Unfortunately for many a "regular exercise routine" means performing the same exercises, at the same intensity day after day.

Fall into this trap and suddenly your body adapts to the workload - the result is a plateau in performance, boredom and perhaps even weight gain. Common pitfalls include doing the same cardio, at the same intensity, for the same amount of time each day. It also includes doing the same strength training exercises, in the same order, day after day. Let's take a look how some simple "tweaks" can breathe new life into your workouts...

Cardio

Using a heart rate monitor is the single most important tool for results! You'll have non-stop feedback as to how hard, or easy, you are working. The formula is simple - train all or most days. Alternate between short days at very high intensity (85%+) and long days at 70% of your maximum heart rate. You'll boost your lactate threshold and burn lots of calories on the hard days, the easy days will allow you to recover and build a strong aerobic base.

Strength

Vary your exercises on a regular basis. A simple way to do this is to make sure you incorporate exercises from each group: Pushing, Pulling, Rotation, Squatting and Lunging. Exercises that are functional and incorporate multiple muscle groups will give you more bang!

Simple "tweaks" include:

• Increase the speed of the exercise - see this week's workout!
• Increase or decrease the weight being used
• Increase or decrease the reps are being performed
• Vary the sets being performed
• Vary the rest period
• How difficult is the exercise - multiple muscle groups
• Move from stable to unstable
• Move from two legs to one

You spend a great deal of time and effort training! Making a few simple changes will give your workouts a whole new look, and help you get the results that you are looking for!

Saturday was the 48th running of the 50-Mile JFK Ultra Marathon. Approximately 1000 runners toe the line to run through 3 distinct sections of the 50 - 16 miles of mountainous trails, 26 miles on the C&O Canal and a final 8 miles of hills to the finish in Williamsport.

Take a look at the participants and you'll see some that look like runners, but more actually look like regular folks from all walks of life. All however, share the dream of crossing that finishing line at 50 miles.

Most people say "50 miles is crazy," or "I could never do that" yet belief, desire, and will are powerful perhaps even unstoppable forces that enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Throughout the race each runner wages their own personal battle against the physical demands of "the 50" but even tougher is the psychological side...

JFK is a microcosm of life - over a long day (7-14 hours) participants are subject to a range of emotions - happy, social, feel good, unhappy, glad to be running, depressed, anti-social, back to happy - it's a whirlwind of emotions and like life, full of change.

The ultimate emotion comes at the finish - tears of happiness in virtually everyones eyes and then, an inner strength and confidence, that stays with you for the rest of your life! What you believe - you achieve!