Research can provide golden information to health & fitness professionals. If you’re a personal trainer, here are some recent findings to help you get ahead of the pack: Resistance Exercise is Effective for Cancer Patients “Resistance exercise is effective to increase lower-limb muscular strength, increase lean body mass, and decrease body fat in cancer patients…
If basic abdominal crunches are too easy for you, here’s a version that you will likely find challenging. It’s called the hanging bat crunch, and it will literally turn your world upside down! Below is a demonstration from my 60-year old client, John. bat crunch attention to how he gets up to the chin-up bar…
The number one reason that people exercise is to lose weight, and aerobic activity is crucial for that… Right? Sure, you’ll lose weight, but at what expense? If you do an excessive amount of aerobic work, rest assured that you’ll catabolize muscle tissue, and the less muscle you have, the lower your metabolic rate will…
Some people have black hair, some people have blonde hair, and some people have no hair. Some people are tall and some people are short. Some people have dark skin and some people have light skin. Some people are bow-legged, others are knock-kneed. Although the hardware may look different, the operating software (OS) is quite…
I have three days of feasting ahead of me and it all starts tonight. You can bet my workout this morning is going to be a good one! Before I train, I’ll get my Rocky IV fix and when the session begins, this will be the first song I listen to: The holidays are a…
If there’s ever a time not to draw in the navel, it’s during exercise. In fact, this act should be abandoned altogether unless there’s a specific reason to do so (e.g., as a motor re-education method during injury rehabilitation). Drawing in the navel, or the act of “sucking in your gut as if you’re putting…
I discovered this unique abdominal exercise about a decade ago in the e-book The Bodybuilding Truth by Nelson Montana. According to Montana, abdominal development is genetically determined, and classic movements such as sit-ups and leg raises are ineffective for the abdominals but extremely effective for the psoas (hip flexor) muscles. Montana believes that the abdominals…
My eldest client is 87 years young. I’ve seen her twice a week since 1998. At the time, she was experiencing signs of osteopenia and her doctor recommended weight-bearing exercise. I got the call and her bone health has not been an issue ever since. She’s doing well not only structurally but functionally. It’s very…
Exercise is important for optimal health, but so much confusion exists on what type of exercise is best. For example, aerobic activity is crucial for weight loss, right? Sure, you’ll lose weight, but at what expense? If you do excessive aerobic work, rest assured that you will catabolize muscle tissue and keep in mind that…
The supine knee-in is an effective abdominal exercise when performed correctly. In most gyms you’ll see a medicine ball or dumbbell held between the feet for resistance during knee-ins, but since the weight is acting downward, this tends to over-activate the hip flexor muscles to keep the weight up off the ground. A much better…