Ahwatukee StrengthLab Personal Training 480-612-7726

There’s so much health and fitness nonsense circulating that only a dedicated health and fitness professional can decipher fact from fiction.

What the majority of people do, including personal trainers, is subscribe to what’s been done in the past, or what’s currently being done now, without taking the time to investigate the origin of the approach or the validity of the message.

Examples:

Supplements are good for you, right? Myth! Vegetables and Fruits are good for you!

Stretching increases flexibility, right? Myth! Resistance Training increases flexibility!

Low intensity exercise burns more fat than high intensity exercise, right? Myth! Exercise burns calories, so go burn some!

Extra protein is required to build muscle, right? Myth! We already consume more than we need, just go exercise!

Expensive running shoes prevent injuries, right? Myth! There’s no correlation with expensive running shoes and prevention of injuries. In fact, specific running shoes that correct a particular foot strike (i.e. over pronation) cause the most injuries.

There’s countless ways to stay fit and active while aging, but there’s only one way to maintain a strong foundation for all of these activities, and that’s resistance training.

There’s a large and substantiated drop in disease rates among those who have been sedentary who simply begin to exercise moderately. Get Moving!

Despite what is written on your treadmill, and various other fitness equipment for that matter, slow, or lower intensity exercise does not put you in some “magical” fat burning zone; this notion was made popular by treadmill manufacturers in order to keep health club members on their treadmills longer, requiring many gyms to purchase more treadmills in order to keep club members satisfied in regards to treadmill availability.

Clearly stated: 30 minutes of high intensity exercise on a treadmill will burn more calories than 30 minutes of low intensity exercise on the same treadmill, in the same conditions; obviously burning overall calories and not regaining them through consumption post workout is integral to maintaining or losing weight.

Isolated nutrients (such a vitamins, minerals and antioxidants) taken as supplements to our existing diet or artificially added to a product found on a store shelf where it’s then called fortified, is simply a misunderstood concept and grossly inadequate for good health. For instance, vitamin C, is only one single compound of hundreds of compounds found within a single fruit or vegetable. Consuming more of it, when there’s no dietary deficiency (which is normally the case for all of us) without the other compounds, is misguided and unsafe. Vitamins, minerals and antioxidants consumed singularly, in large doses typically found in many store bought supplements, have proven to actually increase disease in carefully performed research on humans; so much so, the studies were halted early because cancer rates were increasing significantly in the participants – not decreasing as desired!

Case in Point: The majority of our bodies are made of water (65-70% of our bodies); drink normally and things function as they should. But, supplement your normal drinking habits with excess water and you end up in the hospital with Hyponatremia (a metabolic condition in which there is not enough sodium in the body fluids outside the cells because of over-hydration).

If something is good for you, then more must be better… is simply poor thinking.

Many of us fail to realize how smart and complicated our physical bodies really are; they are indeed very clever machines that know what they require; real food and real ingredients provide what our bodies need, don’t believe the mass-marketing of supplement companies.

We don’t need special diets, human engineered pre-packaged foods, fancy supplements, powders or magical potions… the unpopular and unprofitable SIMPLE truth concerning almost every health ailment we suffer from in our culture can be cured by eating fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, avoiding artificial ingredients, exercising regularly, sleeping adequately and maintaining healthy relationships.

When we become comfortable, we stagnate and no further growth occurs.

When we push our boundaries we become uncomfortable, stay there long enough and eventually we become comfortable again, extending our boundaries.

This process can be repeated over and over again throughout our lives in order to continually grow.

Caveat: Not all things are worth getting comfortable with… know the difference.

As we work to achieve our own personal goals, we should work to care, help and serve others along the way. This “give and take” mentality is a good way to insure balance and lasting success.

Amazon Description:

Linking the time when karate was a strictly Okinawan art of self-defense shrouded in the deepest secrecy and the present day, when it has become a martial art practiced throughout the world, is Gichin Funakoshi, the “Father of Karate-do.”

Out of modesty, he was reluctant to write this autobiography and did not do so until he was nearly ninety years of age. Trained in the Confucian classics, he was a schoolteacher early in life, but after decades of study under the foremost masters, he gave up his livelihood to devote the rest of his life to the propagation of the Way of Karate. Under his guidance, techniques and nomenclature were refined and modernized, the spiritual essence was brought to the fore, and karate evolved into a true martial art.

Various forms of empty-hand techniques have been practiced in Okinawa for centuries, but due to the lack of historical records, fancy often masquerades as fact. In telling of his own famous teachers-and not only of their mastery of technique but of the way they acted in critical situations-the author reveals what true karate is. The stories he tells about himself are no less instructive: his determination to continue the art, after having started it to improve his health; his perseverance in the face of difficulties, even of poverty; his strict observance of the way of life of the samurai; and the spirit of self-reliance that he carried into an old age kept healthy by his practice of Karate-do.

http://www.amazon.com/Karate-Do-Way-Life-Gichin-Funakoshi/dp/1568364989/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394258462&sr=1-1&keywords=karate-do

Although there are numerous challenges in life that we all face, one of the biggest challenges is simply the passage of time.

Many will fail the test of time with wrong thought and wrong behavior; those who generally pass the test of time follow right thought and right behavior.

Both approaches have eventual consequences that become crystal clear in time… work to make those consequences something you can live with.

People with less wisdom don’t seem to see the importance of living a life of excellence. Characteristics such as discipline, restraint, patience and empathy are lost on the foolish. Excellence appears to be much work for little reward; it seems only the wise can see the great benefit in living in this way.

Seeking to be liked and respected by everyone should never be the goal, rather, the goal should be “to be worthy” of everyone’s affection and respect and simply not worry about what others think.