Getting in Shape for Summer

If you’re looking for way to get lean and toned for the summer right now, it probably means you haven’t done anything up until this point. Now you’re going to go run on a treadmill until you puke, do a juice cleanse until you have no insides, and you’ll be set for the your beach weekend, right? Nopers.

 

Here’s the most important thing to remember: getting in shape takes time. I know that’s antithetical to every fad diet and workout article that promises “toned sculpted and sexy arms 10 days”. Getting a strong, healthy, good looking body requires dedication and changes in lifestyle to reach your goals and stay there. Sure you could eat lettuce wraps filled with nothing for a few weeks, lose a few pounds, feel awful and be a pile of loose skin- if that’s your goal. But after that you’ll be right back to where you were and probably actually fain some weight.

 

Getting in shape for summer is the same as getting in shape any other time of year- a solid diet and workout plan. It’s not like summer is a surprise. It comes at the same time every year.

 

Diet- as they say, “you can’t out exercise a bad diet”. This is true.  The foundation of your summer six pack needs to be a solid, consistent diet. Eat for your body type and needs. That means depending on your goals, weight, activity level, and needs, your diet will be specific to you. Focus on eating lean meats, vegetables, and good fats. Stay away from processed, refined foods filled with sugary carbs and empty calories. Pretty easy, right? If you stick to a good diet, you will feel and look great- permanently.

 

You also need a good program built around weighlifting and short, high intensity conditioning. No one ever went astray with some squats, deadlifts, and pressing as the base of a training regimen. You will build muscle that will lead to a hot, toned body and will actually burn fat all day long.

The key here is building good muscle and losing excess body fat. No one has ever complimented someone’s bikini body by saying “man, that loose skin and flat butt look really good on you”. Getting a summer body isn’t about a fad diet and running until you puke. It’s about eating well and sticking to a good training program. You’ll find that sticking to a solid, simple diet and training program is actually easier (and much more worth it) than going on a juice cleanse and running 10 miles a day. Unless you’re a masochist.

 

-Coach Lily

Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Workouts?

So you have a great workout routine down, you’re committed, your spending lots of time in the gym, and maybe you’re even enjoying it. But how much attention are you paying to everything that goes on outside the gym that can make or break your results? Don’t underestimate the importance of what goes on in the hours you’re not in the gym and the impact it has on reaching your goals.

Sleep

Do you train hard only to go home and sleep for 5 hours? You could be sabotaging a lot of your training and diet. Aside from not having energy and undermining your body’s ability to heal itself after working out, numerous studies have shown that too little sleep can actually lead to weight gain, even when your diet is on point.

Nutrition

Diet is an important part of reaching goals, whether they are performance or body composition based. As they like to say, “you can’t out work a bad diet” (or something along those lines). But it’s true- even if your workouts are great, if you over eat a lot of junk, it will show.  Likewise, if you’re not eating quality foods with sufficient protein, fats, and carbohydrates, it can severely affect your performance in the gym and impede your body’s ability to build muscle and heal itself after an intense workout.

Soft tissue/mobility work

Foam rolling, massages, and other forms of soft tissue work can help your body repair and feel better after a tough session. Mobility work plays an important role in your ability to move well and feel good- inside the gym and out. Yes, they take time and are kind of boring but they will pay off in the long run.

Time Spent in the Gym

You could be working out too much. Yes, that is a thing. Obviously working out too little is a problem but at a certain time, you hit a point of diminishing returns on the other end of the spectrum.  In the gym for 4 hours? Benching every day and your bench isn’t going up? If you’re not making progress, this could be an issue you need to address.

 

Make sure you pay as much attention to what you do outside of the gym to ensure you get the most return from your hard work.

-Coach Lily

 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/lost-sleep-can-lead-to-weight-gain/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/

 

 

Keep It Simple!

Just like everything else in life, there will always be fads in training. Like bell bottoms, wallet chains, and velour track suits, there is also Zumba, paleo, and the Tracy Anderson Method. People need to keep writing articles, selling products, and making money so, consequently, there will always be hot new diets and methods of working out.

Certain things have been around for a long time and work. There’s a reason why people have been picking up heavy weights, sprinting, and eating “clean” for a long time. Because it works. Of course new ideas come out and we adapt to and incorporate new scientific information. No matter what workout tapes and diets come out that promise to the THE solution to your weight loss problems, there’s a reason they come and go. Diet fads are always changing; new exciting and unconventional workout routines promise you sculpted abz of your dreams. There’s a reason these products and ideas are hot for a few years then fizzle out and another trend takes their place. They’re not always based on scientific principles. They are easy, catchy, fun, and flashy. Easy and flashy usually don’t get results though. It’s hard enough to stay committed to losing weight or getting stronger- throw in an ever-changing variety of useless methodology and you’ll fall off the wagon in no time.

If you’re having trouble committing to a program, pick a simple, tried and true method. Lift some weights, eat well, and do some difficult conditioning. Crazy idea, huh?

 Coach Lily

What is a good workout?

The vast majority of people leaving a gym will talk about how great their workout was because they “got crushed” or can’t feel their arms. But the fact that you vomited doesn’t mean you had a great workout. So how do you know if your workout was good or not? First off, think about your goals. Then answer this question- is your workout getting you there?

If your goal is to lose a significant amount of weight, doing a boatload of tricep extensions will leave you sore but won’t get you any closer to your goal. You should be doing high intensity, compound movements. Just because you don’t get a crazy arm pump, doesn’t mean your body isn’t working hard. If you’re an athlete, you need to get stronger, improve your patterns, get better at your sport, and prevent yourself from being injured. Does doing drop sets of leg extensions make you want to vom? Probably. Does it make you a better athlete? Probably not. Chances are, you have practices to attend so not being able to walk for 3 days is probably not in your favor. Even if you’re not an athlete, you probably want to be able to sit on the toilet without having to lower yourself onto it with the aid of a towel rack.

Being sore is a symptom of delayed onset muscle soreness- which is your body responding to a new exercise or a seriously increased load. It is also pretty much only caused by exercises with an eccentric movement. However, if you are doing the same exercise (for example, squats), your body will not have nearly the same response as the first time you squatted and you won’t feel that same soreness. Does that mean squats aren’t a productive exercise anymore? Do I even have to answer that question? Unless you’e been doing the same weight for a long time (or less weight), the exercise is still productive. Just because your muscles aren’t on fire, doesn’t mean you aren’t getting anything out of it. You could do pretty much any new exercise- no matter how stupid- and still be sore from it. You could do a series of bizarre movements and feel like you go hit by a truck the next day just because it’s something new- not necessarily something beneficial.

If you leave a workout and don’t feel absolutely crushed and wanting to pass out, ask yourself if what you did was conducive to your goals. If the answer is yes, you had a good workout. Do you expect every workout to leave you lying on the cold floor pleading for death or do you want consistently progressive workouts that will get you to your goal and keep you there?

PS That was a rhetorical question

-Coach Lily