Make Your Body Your Machine : exercise

Cool Combo: Scorpion w/ TRX Burpee

Fitness Anywhere — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:20:00 GMT

If you are taking the TRX 30 Thanksgiving Day Challenge, then you will become very familiar with the TRX Burpee. If you are feeling like you need more of a challenge, then maybe you will attempt the Scorpion. Now, if you are really looking to push your limits, than check out Fraser's cool combo, Scorpion w/ TRX Burpee! Combing both the Scorpion ab/core focused exercise and the TRX Burpee arm and leg exercise, you create a challenge for your whole body.

Cool Combo-TRX Burpee and Scorpion

Give in to Temptation!

FitnessAnywhere — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:47:00 GMT

Seriously! We're all for it. That is if you've read Ryan Andrews' latest Precision Nutrition blog article, Tempt Yourself. He says that WE are in control of what is tempting as we try to become more fit and healthy. For example, fresh, washed, prepared fruits and veggies that are readily available in the fridge are certainly a temptation to a chronic snacker. He argues that the secret is in the wrapping. Things have to appeal to our senses, and our personalities so that we want to do them.

Workouts can be a temptation if they are fun and varied or if they're done with a buddy.

For people that struggle with running on the treadmill, Andrews suggests doing so while watching your latest netflix rental. Walks and runs go by much faster and can even act as temptations if you're going to listen to your favorite radio podcast or music playlist while you do it.

Incorporating healthy habits in our lifestyles can be much easier if we just tempt ourselves to make right choices.

What good habits are tempting for you?

You can read the entire article here: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/expert-tip-tempt-yourself

Jonathan Ross vs. Time Magazine... Round 3

FitnessAnywhere — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:45:00 GMT

Author: Jonathan Ross, TRX Master Trainer, Discovery Health Fitness Expert, www.AionFitness.com

Third, the article drops hints at the real problem with obesity, but the dots are never connected for you. The real source of the obesity problem is not that “exercise does not help you lose weight.” Here’s the real reason that exercise doesn’t do much for many people’s weight loss efforts.

Exercise is powerless against poor nutrition habits.

You get hints of this in the article, but nothing more. The article references the “lip-licking anticipation of perfectly salted, golden-brown French fries after a hard trip to the gym.” Another reference is to someone who does a light workout and then grabs a massive coffee shop muffin afterwards.

I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years, some have lost a lot of weight while following my exercise programs, and some of them haven’t. Did I give them different programs? Did I treat one client better than the other by withholding some sure-fire exercise strategies from one and not the other? Of course not!

The main difference between results and frustration is in one’s ability/willingness to end their love affair with junk food. If you regularly fantasize about a threesome with Ben & Jerry, no trainer or exercise program is going to get you very far. This romanticized, weak-kneed reaction to stuff that barely qualifies as food is the real problem…and this leads directly to the fairly obvious conclusions from the research that the author (and unfortunately many of the researchers) missed.

The correct conclusion from most of the studies is to note the overpowering effect that junk food has on our metabolism, health, and minds. And to be clear, I don’t blame the individual for having difficulty staying away from it. Recall that the main study the author cites to form his premise featured already overweight women who made no changes to their dietary habits.

Let’s see…we all eat several times per day and maybe exercise 2-4 days per week. And we know that in this case, the women clearly were already living a lifestyle that led them to become overweight so it’s not a huge leap to assume their nutrition habits were a teensy bit off. You just cannot conclude from this study that exercise is worthless in weight loss. What if your car had no tires, but I made the engine run better and got it in tip-top shape? Your car still wouldn’t go anywhere. Do I conclude the engine work has no value?

Although all of our choices for food are up to us, I don’t blame the individual for having difficulty in staying away from junk foods. You can find the truth if you look for it in books like “Beating the Food Giants,” by Paul Stitt, “Why We Eat More Than We Think,” by Brian Wansink, and more recently, “The End of Overeating” by David Kessler.

The powerful chemistry – and the marketing – that is put to work on us through junk foods by corporations who are not necessarily setting out to make bad foods, but are most definitely setting out to increase profits, has us consuming more and more empty food. If they make satisfying, nutritious food, we’ll eat less of it and they’ll have lower profits.

If you strip away the nutritive value of food and you add the taste sensations of fat and sugar, and then add the “emotional gloss,” as Dr. Kessler says, of comfort foods that we ingrain in ourselves by soothing every skinned knee with an ice cream cone as kids, then we find ourselves in the situation we’re in now: a world where despite “trying everything,” people can’t lose weight.

It’s no coincidence that the timeline of our massive obesity problem flows right alongside our major industrial advances and the advent of large-scale food processing. Our brain and body chemistry is powerless against the “engineered addictiveness” of junk food, and no amount of exercise can undo the “sins” of eating.

We’ve been “exercising” forever as we’ve needed to hunt and avoid prey to stay alive for millennia. Modern living has engineered the need for movement out of our day-to-day lives so the need to reinsert it is self-evident. Whether it is through challenging chores or full-on exercise, the choice is yours. But there is a real myth exposed from the information in the article: And that is the myth that “there is no such thing as bad food.” The truth can hurt. And in this case to say so would incur the wrath of the big food companies and the mouthpieces they’ve brainwashed. But since you can’t sue the makers of “exercise,” it’s a safe target.

The cover of the issue of Time featuring this article really does say it all. It shows a woman on a treadmill eyeing a giant cupcake with green icing and sprinkles. The colors we used to eat in fruits and vegetables we now eat in cupcakes sporting the colors of health food but consist of junk.

Is the problem with exercise or with the food?

Jonathan Ross vs. Time Magazine... Round 2

FitnessAnywhere — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:58:00 GMT

Author: Jonathan Ross, TRX Master Trainer, Discovery Health Fitness Expert, www.AionFitness.com

The Time article completely misses the point of exercise. It promotes some of the most misguided misconceptions about exercise that keep people from living their best. Specifically, the article reiterates the concepts that:

· Exercise helps you lose weight

· Exercise decreases risk of heart disease

· Exercise prevents cognitive decline

· Regular exercisers have less back pain

· Exercise is a “sweaty, exhausting, hunger-producing” burst of activity

After reading this list, even I don’t want to exercise anymore. Boooooring. What a dull list. Given this approach, there is simply no compelling reason to exercise. It’s all negative, negative, negative. Many people think like this and it’s the wrong approach. What if I told you that you should go to college so you don’t have to be ignorant, work a tiring, dreary job for little pay, don’t have to drive a clunker car and wear old, dingy clothes? Even if it’s true, does all the negative language in this description sound positive and motivating?

Exercise isn’t about avoiding things it’s about doing things. It’s about becoming more capable. I feel this is the one essential mindset shift that is crucial for long-term health.

Physical activity isn’t supposed to prevent you from having a horrible life; it allows you to fully participate in your own life!

The article further points out that exercise – such as the author negatively defines the experience – may not even be necessary. A study showing kids who exercised vigorously were just as likely to be at a normal weight as kids who were active at lower levels more frequently throughout the day. I’ll concede to that point, if you can in fact keep kids more active throughout the day.

But what’s the real problem here, exercise? No, it’s that both the exercising kids and the daily-activity kids get told to stop fidgeting, sit still, grow-up and get real jobs and stop playing so much. So they go out and get journalism degrees, sit still for 23 hours a day, eat crappy food, then grunt and sweat their way through one hour of grueling exercise a day to try and balance the scales. That’s asking an awful lot of exercise.

(In the next post, I’ll address points 3 and 4)

Video Exercise: Rotating Oblique Crunch

Fitness Anywhere — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:05:00 GMT

Fraser takes an oblique crunch to the next level by combining it with a rotated push-up. This challenging combination will work you to the core!

Click here for video

Video Exercise: Pre-Fatigue Set

Fitness Anywhere — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:03:00 GMT

Get your muscles ready to work to fatigue by setting up with a pre-fatigue set! Fraser demonstrates using the chest press exercise a pre-fatigue set and a fatigue set.

Free TRX workout e-book!

Nathan McGee — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:40:00 GMT

If you are looking for Standup Paddle Surf training, well Jon Ham wrote the book... litterally. His standup paddle fitness book is available to download for FREE! That's right... FOR FREE!

And you don't need to love standup paddle surfing to benefit from this e-book. In Ham's list of why you should get this book he includes...

You love using the TRX,...and are looking for new ways to use it.

These are my favorite reasons he gives why you shouldn't get this book?

You don't believe in exercise
You already own the book
You are too Lazy to exercise

You can read more about standup paddle surf training at fitnesstrainingbyjon.com and sign up to download his e-book!

Video Exercise: Lower Power and Intensity

Nathan McGee — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Fraser demonstrates how to add power and intensity to lower body exercises. Increase your strength, speed and power with these additions to your lower body exercises.

Drew Brees TRX Game Day Challenge

Fitness Anywhere — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Overview

Football season is here and whether or not you play the game, it certainly won't hurt to train like a professional athlete! Todd Durkin brings in All-Pro Quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, Drew Brees, to demonstrate the August, TRX Game Day Challenge. This challenge features Todd Durkin's favorite exercises used in TRX Performance: Team Sports DVD

The challenge consists of:

30 Sprinter Starts on each leg
20 Power Pulls with each arm
10 Suspended Incline Presses on each side

Rules

The rules for the TRX Game Day Challenge.. see how close you come to the requirements listed above. Announce your acceptance of the challenge on our "accept the TRX Game Day Challenge" forum and let everyone know.

Once you are able to get 30 Sprinter Starts on each leg, 20 Power Pulls with each arm and 10 Suspended Incline Presses on each side, upload to Youtube, and post your results in our "TRX Game Day Challenge Champions" forum.

Technique

Sprinter start with a hop

Start Position
- Face away from anchor point
- Hold handles with a “palms in” grip, elbows bent at sides.
- Position TRX either underneath or outside arms.
- Step forward with left leg. Lean into TRX at approximately a 45-degree angle.
Movement Description
- Drive off front leg and bring rear knee forward.
- Hop
- Return to start position.
- Perform for 30 reps.
- Repeat on other side.

Power Pull

Start Position
- Face anchor point with feet shoulder-width apart.
- Hold single handle with right hand
- Lean back.
- Twist away from anchor point and extend left arm outward, following line of TRX.
• Movement Description
- Pull body towards anchor point with right arm, using a rowing motion.
- At same time, bring left arm as high as possible along TRX by twisting body. Return to start position.
- Perform for 20 reps.
- Repeat on other side.

Suspended Incline Press

Start Position
- Facing anchor point, place right foot in foot cradle.
- Drop to a push-up position and walk on hands away from anchor point, using free leg for balance.
Movement Description
- Lower torso into a press position, using free leg for support.
- Drive body up away from ground.
- Perform for 10 reps.
- Repeat with other leg.

Check out Drew Brees' results in the TRX Game Day Challenge Champions forum thread!

Using Arm Drivers and the Suspended Lunge

Fraser — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Learn how to apply this advanced technique, integrating arm drivers into the suspended lunge in order to functionally isolate or integrate the involved muscle groups through proprioceptive activation.

These progressive movements require tremendous core stabilization and control along with a high level of lower body strength and full body function and coordination.