Summer is getting closer

Okay, I have a confession to make. I've been getting lazy. I haven't done a gym workout in a few weeks. I'm proud to say my golf handicap is coming back down (presently a 13.6) and I shot a new personal best of 78 a week and a half ago. Golf is my newfound passion and it's been taking up all of my free time. But now my back is talking to me and telling me to get my butt back into the gym and keep everything around it strong and stop making it work so hard.

So it's almost bathing suit time, will you be ready? I'm off to the gym now, think I'm gonna do legs today, haven't done them in awhile since I hurt my hip, you guessed it, playing golf! Squats, lunges, deadlifts, extensions and inner thigh here I come!

What derails your workout plans?

So we are at that time of the year again. New Years has come and gone and so too have many of your resolutions. I'd like to know what it is that ruins your best laid plans for getting in shape and then I hope to respond with tips to help keep you on track! Feel free to post comments below or shoot me an email at info@centralparkfitness.com

Where did spring go

So it's been awhile since I've posted so time to catch you all up! We've been hard at work tweaking and launching our Starving Artist Bootcamp, now in it's third season! We worked with a test group of individuals to figure out likes and dislikes of our existing format and coupled that info with some of our own ideas and the result is our best bootcamp yet! We've combined traditional jogging with strength and conditioning and lots of more athletic speed & agility drills to ratchet up the intensity and keeping it fun at the same time. Our Saturday classes feature our killer obstacle course which puts together all of the elements of the class into one last calorie burning, endurance building grand finale! We've got videos coming soon but in the meantime you should come check it out for yourself! There is no better way to get in shape than with professional help and motivation from others! We give you both at a GREAT price! See you in the park soon!

Breakneck Ridge

Well our hiking trip has come and gone and this might have been the best one yet! A great athletic group made scaling the Ridge a pretty quick endeavor. We blazed some new trails and got some great views and only had to travel an hour outside of NYC. Best of all, everyone got an excellent workout out of it. Yeah, there were moments when the group was running low on energy but when all was said and done the consensus was the trip was well worth the work! Check out a couple of video clips of the trip and stay tuned for info on future adventures!

As you can see, getting a workout doesn't have to be just going to the gym, it doesn't have to be boring, and you don't have to be an "athlete". Just get out there and get moving!

Breakfast

I know you all have heard this a million times so lets make it one million and one! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Your body has been in a state of fasting for the better part of 6-10 hours depending on what time you last ate the night before. You need to put fuel in your tank to start your metabolism.
I've found a breakfast that works GREAT for me that I think everyone should try. If you live here in NYC you have to try Jamba Juice's Steel Cut Oatmeal. I know what your thinking, Oatmeal? Yuck. But this is different. You can get it with apple and cinnamon (tastes just like Apple pie, right Rachel?), blueberry and blackberry, or with fresh bananas. What makes Jamba's so good? Its steel cut oats so it has a great texture, and its cooked in soy milk. The bottom line is that it tastes better than any oatmeal i've ever had and it just flat out makes me feel full. Any of you who know me personally know that is VERY hard to do and you would never believe that one small serving of oatmeal could power me for the next 4 hours of my day, but it does! I really hate sounding like an infomercial but I've been eating it at least 4-5 mornings a week for the past 3 weeks and I've dropped about 7lbs! It just sets the tone for my day but giving me energy without making me feel full and bloated and when i'm ready for my next meal, I'm not even really hungry so as I result, I don't overeat. Don't have a jamba juice, try making your own oatmeal but stay away from those instant packets. You can use instant oatmeal, just avoid the packets with all the added sugars and preservatives. Freeze some berries or bananas and cook them right into the oatmeal and they will melt in and spread that flavor throughout the whole batch. There is nothing I hate more than oatmeal that only tastes good when you have a huge hunk of banana on the spoon but all the other spoonfuls taste blah!

Once again it's on!

Okay, we're doing it again! In our never ending quest to prove to you that fitness can be both fun and affordable we are leading another hiking trip up Breakneck Ridge! This is easily one of our most popular events because it offers something for everybody. Not your average boring stroll through the woods, you will definately get a workout as we make our way to the top. Once there you will be rewarded with amazing views of the Hudson River Valley! At the end of it all we will hike back to the historic town of Cold Spring where I am proud to say I will be drinking at least one pint of beer afterwards and probably more. What does that have to do with being healthy you ask? Trust me, when you finish this hiking trip, you will have earned your ice cold Daveweiser and will not feel guilty about it!!!!! I did say there was something for everyone didn't I?????

The Cost:$35 before 3/23 $60 after (includes round trip Metro North Ticket) RAIN DATE 4/5/2008

Invest in yourself!

So like many people i've been trying to stash some extra $$ money away with all the pronouncements of doom and gloom. Instead of putting money into a miniscule interest earning savings account I decided to buy some stock last month. Nothing crazy, just a few hundred shares of the parent of New York Sports Club, Town Sports Inc. Just my luck, the damn stock just hit a 52 week low today! I just got off their Q4 results conf call and I found it quite interesting. The most interesting piece from the call? Gym usage is up 15% over the same period a year earlier. The good news is that means more people are choosing to make fitness a part of their lives. The bad news is that it's probably because they have more free time due to the fact they have lost their job. I really hope thats not the case. I hope that people are just looking to the gym as a source of relaxation and stress reduction. If you've lost your job, I wish you the best of luck in finding a new one, it's a tough road right now and more than a few of my clients have been impacted by this and thus, i'm impacted pretty heavily too. But please, do yourself a favor, instead of drowning your sorrows in food and alcohol, hit the gym! While it sucks to be out of work, it doesn't have to be all negative. Life is all about turning negatives into positives. Take advantage of the time you have to hit the gym and get back in tip top shape. You'll be amazed at how much better you will feel mentally and physically and looking a little better in those suits can only help you on job interviews!

I got my start in the personal training business when my old corporate 9 to 5 got bought out and the company merged and moved headquarters to Texas. My job was safe, but being in my early 20's and not loving my job and not having a family to support, I volunteered to take a package to save someone else's job and I moved to NYC and got my start as a personal trainer. Through the wonders of Facebook, i've come across so many of those old coworkers who lost their jobs and am happy to see they all landed on their feet and in most cases they are BETTER off now than they were back then! It's great to see people reinvent themselves as nurses, teachers and entrepreneurs!

The Many Forms of Fitness

Don't be fooled, fitness doesn't simply mean grinding out workouts in the gym. There are many activities that provide great health benefits. Recently we did a day trip to go skiing to Mt. Peter. It was a lot of fun and nearly everyone was feeling some muscle soreness in places they didn't know they had muscles! Add to the fact that a long day at the slopes where we are active and interested and less likely to be munching on junk food and it really makes for a great workout! We are always looking for fun ways to incorporate fitness, plus, when you have an event or a trip in mind, it helps to give you a goal and more motivation in your regular gym workouts. For me, that means I'll be working hard on my legs the next 3 weeks as I gear up for our next daytrip, our Breakneck Ridge Hiking Trip! Details to be posted soon!!!! In the meantime, you can check out "Shaky Legs" duCille snowboarding here! Big thanks to my friend Jason, who I didn't even know had a video camera with him until I fell on my ass and heard him say "Hey Dave, Smile!"

Injuries

So I've been stepping up my workouts a little bit preparing for spring and the upcoming season of our Starving Artist Bootcamp. It's not like I have to be the fastest person around the reservoir, at 6'3" 240, i'm built more for intermediate bursts of speed than a mile and a half race. Nevertheless, I need to post some respectable times and keep my all around performance on par. Of course, I can't help but notice a few old nagging injuries trying to creep back up. But this year, i'm older and wiser! I've started my training gradually! I'm not trying to build Rome in a day. Your body knows itself better than any doctor ever will, so you should listen to it. At the same time, you can't let injuries become an excuse; doing nothing is almost the worst thing you can do for an injury. Muscle injuries often simply need a little bit of rest followed by a gradual reintroduction of intensity. Joint injuries often don't need much rest, but they need a proper strengthening program for the muscles surrounding the area as well as anti-inflammatory treatment after exercise in the way of Ice and Advil or Aleve.

Injuries are bound to slow you down, but they don't have to stop you! Work smarter, not harder and you'll probably avoid most injuries but when they do happen, make sure you take action. Action is almost always better than doing nothing, be it life, or in the gym!

Skiing anybody?

I'll let you guys in on a little secret. I HATE WORKING OUT! I've always considered myself an athlete and time spent in the gym grinding over workouts was a necessary evil to increase my performance in whatever sport I was playing at the time. I live for sports and active athletics and adventure. My latest passion is golf. It's just as competitive as any sport, takes a TON of skill, and is a lot easier on the body! I'm no stranger to playing winter golf but with snow on the ground the past 2 weeks and more in the forecast I need to do something active besides grinding over weights. So I'm thinking "Gee, I haven't gone snowboarding since I moved to NYC in 2002" I've only done it a handful of times but I absolutely love it. I'm trying to put a little trip together, if your interested login to facebook and click here

If I can do it, so can you!

So I made a post on my personal Facebook page about running intervals at 12.0 on the treadmill! I got a mixed response, some people thought I was full of it, and others said
"well your a trainer so of course you can" Well it's not quite that simple, yes I'm a trainer but that doesn't make me great at every physical feat known to man. The fact is that I'm 240lbs so 12.0 on the treadmill is pretty daring! But if I can do it, surely you can try jacking it up to 7 or 8. If your cardio workout has gotten stagnant, try this. 4.5-5.0 jog for 5 minutes to get loose, than 1 minute intervals going 7.0 followed by walking for 1 minute at 3.3 to bring your heart rate down. After you get a couple under your belt at 7.0, kick it up to 7.5 then 8.0. You'll find that the time goes by much faster this way and by adding intervals as a regular part of your routine you'll soon find those longer runs at 5.5 and 6.0 to be much easier.

New Years Diets ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

I just came from Barnes & Noble. I walked in with the intent to find a book on building golf clubs (another story unto itself) and was bombarded by diet books!!! No less than 32 by the time I lost count! Everyone knows "South Beach Diet" and "The Zone" but how about the "Lemon Juice" diet? Can't imagine that one flying off the shelves!!! It really got me to thinking, while there is a definate lack of education on proper nutrition for the average American, many of us know enough about the basics of what is good and what isn't to succeed. Accountability and willpower is a far bigger problem that no book can really help you with.

Find ways to be accountable for your nutrition and health habits and you'll be a lot more successful in 2009.

As a side note, i did come across a couple of books that looked useful. If your in the market for a diet book, start out with a basic calorie listing book. It will give you a great resource on just how many calories are in everyday foods you currently eat. There are also a couple of great books out there that list calorie content for over 500 fast food chains including some of the more "gourmet" style places here in the city like Panera and Pret a Manger. Of course calorie content in alcoholic beverages is quite useful. This just in, a shot of most 80 proof alcohols still has 110 calories so all you girls at the club drinking Bacardi and diet aren't doing any better than the guys drinking Bud Light!

New Years Resolutions

Here we go again! That special time of year! I must admit I always chuckle when I go to train my clients who live in apt buildings that have gyms in them. Come Jan 2nd of any given year I'm sure to find the gym packed with people who have the best of intentions but no real clue of what they are doing. The next week or 2 I'll be giving you an eyewitness accounts of some of the do's and dont's of starting a workout program.

My first observation:
A mid 30's gentleman appx 5'10 and I estimate around 210 lbs with 30lbs of that being beer belly. He's drenched in sweat running on the treadmill at 7.5 and to my surprise he's already grinded out almost 2 full miles in about 15 minutes so i know that he didn't start out slow and work up to 7.5. He goes another 5 minutes then makes his way over to the stairmaster.

So you say "Dave, stop being mean, he should be applauded for trying. Whats wrong with running a couple of miles?" Well I'll tell you. I've never seen this man before and I'm in this bldg as much as 6 days a week at varying times. Perhaps he works out regularly but I doubt it. The fact is that by carrying around 30 extra lbs on his frame and running that fast he's putting TREMENDOUS stress on his ligaments and tendons. What most people aren't aware of is that tendons and especially ligaments need conditioning as well. Muscles have tremendous amounts of blood flow and repair themselves quite fast. Connective tissues on the other hand have limited blood flow and if injured can take a long time to heal. This gentleman should start out with a nice easy stress free warmup on the bike or ellipitcal to take weight off of the joints then make his way over to the treadmill where he can maximize his fat burning.
The way he was laboring tells me his intensity was plenty high to get results but the reality is that he was working so hard that it probably wasn't very enjoyable and as a result, his chances of sticking with it long term are slim.

The Lesson:
Start small! Rome wasn't built in a day. Instead of making a general resolution to lose 30 lbs, resolve to go to the gym 30 minutes 3x a week for the first 3 weeks. Get yourself conditioned and focus on building the habit of making exercise a part of your life. Schedule your workouts into your Blackberry or Outlook calendar and prioritize them. If you absolutely have to miss a workout force yourself to reschedule into your week and stay on track. With a 3x per week plan there are 4 other open days for you to reschedule so NO EXCUSES!