Fitness Revolution Blog

DO IT THE RIGHT WAY WITH AFITNESSADDICTION.COM

Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results. We look at going to the gym without an annual workout plan and expecting to see change in your body composition as the fulfillment of Einstein’s definition. Doing something is better than doing nothing right?

Not necessarily so. Look at our blog post on serious gym injuries and then…

Do it the right way. Do it with AfitnessAddiction.com.

A gym member walked up to a trainer and said, “I am doing three sets of ten reps and adding five pounds of weight each week. That’s good right?” The trainer wisely replied, “I don’t really know. What phase of training are you in?” 

Most people in the gym are guessing. Maybe doing something is better than doing nothing – maybe not. If you do not know where you are or what you are trying to accomplish, you cannot get there.  The trainer who was asked about three sets of ten correctly responded.…

Was the person working on strengthening the muscle at the same rate as the tendons and connective tissue? Had he been on an extended vacation? Was the person coming off of an injury?

Was this an athlete who was at the end of a season?

Was this an athlete at the beginning of a season?

Is the person attempting to put on size – a hypertrophic affect?

 Is the person trying to lose weight?

How long has the person been doing this?

What percentage of the person’s one rep maximum lift is the person using?

What is the rest period between sets? What is the rest period between days?

What actually happened here?

Most likely this was a routine question for the trainer to field, but the answer is correct. Without a specific program and a specific goal there is no answer to the question. Perhaps the individual wanted a little “free training advice.”  The member of the gym wanted free advice without paying trainer for his expertise.  Free advice is the worst advice.

Here are the AFITNESSADDICTION.COM options:

1. Enter the type program you want? Do you want to generally gain size, gain maximum strength, maintain and develop symmetry or lose weight?
2. After signing up for the program you want, you will receive a workout that can be done AFTER you determine your Select your group.  Are you an adult, senior, youth or needing a woman’s specific program.
3. one rep maximum lift for each exercise. No you do not actually lift your one rep maximum weight. You do from one to ten reps and the program calculates the weight you will use for each distinct phase you are in. These are typically three weeks to six weeks.
4. Review your progress and should you change your mind you can go to your PREFERENCES page and actually change your year ly program– say from core to weight loss or from weight loss to core.
5. Decide if you want to receive today’s workout on your computer or as a mobile handheld application.
6. Signup your friends for the AFitnessAddiction.com program that they need.  Maybe they are guessing and asking personal trainers in the gym for unpaid unsolicited tips. We are only $ 19.99 per month!!

The Benefit of Progressive Resistance Training for Chronic Lung Disease   (COPD) sufferers – can be delivered with the AFITNESSADDICTION.com progressive weight training program. See – reported online article and studies posted below on November 18, 2009:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People with chronic lung disease like emphysema or bronchitis can strengthen their arms and legs with resistance training, and this strength may help them perform everyday tasks more easily, a new review of 18 studies confirms.

Rehabilitation programs are intended to help people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), who often experience loss of muscle strength and fatigue, learn to exercise safely, Dr. Simone D. O’Shea of Charles Sturt University in Albury, New South Wales, Australia and her colleagues note in their report in the medical journal Chest.

There has been a growing emphasis in such programs on progressive resistance training, in which a person moves increasingly heavy weights to improve their strength, the researchers add. They undertook a review of the literature on resistance training for COPD patients to update current understanding of the benefits and risks.

Small but significant increases in strength of arm and leg muscles were seen after short-term progressive resistance training, O’Shea and her colleagues report, but the two trials evaluating whether patients added muscle mass and reduced their body fat were inconclusive.

Five of the studies included in their analysis looked at cycling endurance. When compared to no exercise at all, cycling offered some endurance benefit, but aerobic training was more beneficial, and it wasn’t clear whether combining the two types of exercise offered additional benefit.

The four trials that looked at measures of daily function showed benefits for stair climbing and the speed at which a person was able to rise from a chair, and these benefits were greater than those seen with aerobic training. But the design of these trials meant they could have overestimated the benefits of exercise, O’Shea and her colleagues say.

Often, the researchers note, COPD patients don’t have access to weight machines, so it’s important to determine if home exercises with resistance bands, free weights, and other simple equipment could be helpful.

“Long-term strategies for maintaining health in COPD patients are essential; therefore, an examination of longer-term outcomes, suitable maintenance dose exercise prescriptions, and long-term adherence is warranted,” they conclude.

SOURCE: CHEST, November 2009.

With afitnessaddiction.com you can gain the strength you need to help you feel better. Check us out on the web. Join us today for just $19.99 per month!

THERE IS NO ONE “BEST WAY” to lift weights.

At fitnessrevolution.com we customize your lifting based the result you want and teach you to “count your way” to the body you want.

If you simply want to lose weight you will go through several phases of training and each has a specific type of lifting involved to gain a training effect. The weight you lift will be based on the amount of weight you can safely and easily lift. There are exact percentages that you will lift and a style of lifting that you will do. The style is the key. Don’t just casually lift the weight, concentrate on the FORM.

DID YOU KNOW?

If you are a body builder generally you will lift with a four count. You will push out slowly for two counts and resist the weight slowly for two counts while going through specific phases of training. Even in these phases, the counts may vary.

If you are an athlete, you will want to use a power push for a one count and a two count for resistance. This is a total of three counts.

You will see lots of people in the gym lifting to a two count. That is one count out and one count in. This is not the right way to lift. Generally these people are counting their reps and they are thinking only about completing the reps and not thinking about each individual rep. For example, a person lifting to complete 15 reps might be saying in their head something like one, two, three – and only counting the reps. If that person were thinking correctly, it would be “one -two-three, two-two-three, three-two three.  In other words, just throwing the weight up and dropping it back without RESISTING WEIGHT as the exercise is performed is actually dangerous. The weight is being dropped back onto the tendons, joint areas and connective tissues – and for micro seconds, the weight is being handled by the connective tissue and not the muscle tissue because the weight is not supported by the muscles. This is bad form and can lead to serious injury.

Lift correctly and live long. We can help you set up a customized program that is downloaded via our mobile internet connect at fitnessrevolution.MOBI. You can have the weights and reps sent to you daily. You can change your preferences and changes the days and your routine will appear faithfully on your computer or handheld device. We provide daily workouts and check your weight limits every few weeks as you move through the phases. No more guessing costly personal trainers – a scientifically designed exercise program designed specifically with you in mind – all for only $19.99  per month !!!!

  Racquet Sports are exercise but they are not exercises

Afitnessaddiction.com has a system that will strengthen athletes of all levels. If you are an athlete you should use A Fitness Addiction programs to strengthen muscle, increase muscular size and create stronger more dense muscle. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that racquet sports are exercises.

At one racquetball club there is a 40 year old player with an amazing stroke. The great ones are like that. At one time he was top 20 in the world racquetball rankings. He kills almost all the balls he can get to. But he cannot get to anywhere near the number of balls he needs to get in position to kill to beat even the average A and B club players. They drive the ball deep and then cut balls into the corner while he is in the backcourt. They put the ball deep and put him in defensive position keeping him running deep and laterally. The players routinely move him around the court keeping him in defensive position.  His problem is simple. He has had two artificial hips from years of playing racquetball and not working out properly.

Racquet sports are exercise but they are not exercises. Racquetball is not an exercise program. Racquetball is a power endurance game. Power endurance is developed with proper cardio endurance programming and proper weight training.

A second player at the same club recently had a knee operation. He said he was playing racquetball to rehab the knee. He did not understand that playing a game or a sport is not exercising to strengthen muscles and connective tissue. It is not increasing the size of the muscles. It is not increasing the strength – or density of the muscles.

This is a common assumption, but the worst possible approach after release from physical therapy. Playing a sport is not strengthening the muscle groups to endure the stresses of competition. Playing a sport without proper conditioning is one of the easiest ways to sustain permanent injury.  Want more evidence? Every winter the hospitals in snow country load up with amateur skiers who suffer the most grotesque leg injuries imaginable. These injuries are commonly avoided by properly strengthened athletes. There are no fast weak competitive skiers – at least not for long.

Another racquetball professional sponsored by a major racquetball manufacturing company was measured by a member of the A Fitness Addiction  Training Staff. He was found to have a right shoulder that was almost three inches higher than his left shoulder. He is a right handed player. He has developed an asymmetrical body and is an eventual candidate for hip replacement surgery and serious spinal injury.  He immediately began a program designed to symmetrically strengthen all of the major muscle groups in the body.

If you are an athlete you should use A Fitness Addiction programs to strengthen muscle, increase muscular size and create stronger more dense muscles. Then a cut routine can be used to create the proper body weight relative to your height and favorite sport.  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that racquet sports are exercises.  Use the AFitnessAddiction.com programs to create the body you want for optimal sport performance. Do it the right way, do it with AFITNESSADDICTION.COM. only $19.99 per month!!!

We are talking about  the legions of people using those tiny dumbbells in the gym in their cardio classes. Here is a scientific fact: To sustain a training effect at least thirty percent of a one rep maximum lift must be used. This is the science behind the workout. The baby dumbbells have no training effect. This is what typically happens in a  cardio class. People mistakenly believe these are  weight training classes. There is no weight training effect at this low weight.  What is a weight training effect? A weight training effect is a gain in muscular size or a gain in muscular strength or a gain in muscular size and corresponding strengthening of connecting tissue. In fact it is possible to sustain injury based on the repeated use of very small weights and excessive repetitions.

There are cardio core classes and trainers. There are Zumba and Power Yoga classes galore using small weighted dumbbells. If you are in one of these classes ask the instructor to provide you with the kinesiology- the science behind the reason for doing that Zumba class three times per week or twice per week. Sometimes it seems that people pick the most fit looking aerobics instructor and think that they will look like the instructor after their sessions. But ask these questions:

Why am I using this weight dumbbell?

Exactly how many reps will it take to accomplish my goal?

The answers might surprise you.

It is interesting to watch and see that almost everyone in the class is using almost the same weight dumbbells. How is it that I can lift exactly the same weight as my neighbor? Shouldn’t I be using a weight specific to my body type, length of arms, amount of muscle development and general physical condition? How long has it been since I worked out? Why then am I doing the same thing as my neighbor on the next mat?

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

 Everyone in the class does something until they are fatigued but this does not give a training effect. The questions are simple:

What are your goals?

What training effect will accomplish your goals?

One of the A Fitness Addiction training Staff members has a pixie like approach to this problem. He will see someone punishing their abs and ask, “Are you doing this to get a smaller stomach?”  If the answer is yes for – pick the answer – “Swim suit season is coming?” “I am going to Hawaii for vacation.” “I have a class reunion.”

After listening to the answer the staff member says “Look over there. That person is doing lots of biceps reps to get his biceps bigger. Which of you is correct?”

The answer is that people must have an annual plan based on the correct principals to gain a training effect.  The answer is the AFITNESSADDICTION.com model based on a personalized program that is based on current strengths and weaknesses that need to be developed. Momma it is time to lose the baby dumbbells – you know which ones we mean.

I work as a professional trainer. If anyone does not think that the gym is a dangerous place to go without the fitnessrevolution.com programs – they should look again. I find the pictures on the fitnessrevolution.com website and your workout plans important beyond description. Here are two examples:

Actual case #1:

A six foot five inch tall man in a large gym that I work in came up to me and asked what he could do the fix his back. He said he was performing a seated row and heard his back pop. I went to the row position and asked him to describe the motion. He told me he leaned forward and pulled the weights and after his rowing he leaned forward to put the weights down then popped his back.  I suggested he get a back X-ray. It was clear to me that he had done some damage – probably disc related- in the lumbar region.  He was lifting a large stack of plates with no thought to the phase of training he was in. Worse still he had no concept of the one rep max and its use to determine weight loads. Was it adaptive or maximum strength? He had no idea. And worst of all, his form was awful. Leaning forward with a large stack of weights is a prelude to a disaster. It is similar to standing without knees bent and leaning over from the waist to put a heavy box down. No one would do that would they? So this man seriously injured his back. He hasn’t been back to the gym since then and that was over a year ago and as I think about it it is almost two years. So I think he must be in physical therapy after surgery or simply is suffering and not working out. Either way this is a stupid self inflicted injury.

Actual Case #2:

A former collegiate football player in his early 30s pulled a bicep off the bone while doing a series of intense bicep exercises.  People always think that former – fill in the blank – tennis  players, football players, basketball players etc. – know all about lifting. In fact they are almost as clueless as the guy lifting next to him!!! Sometimes they are worse because they think they did it in college so it will work now. This guy did several hard sets of biceps exercises. Then suddenly, the biceps fully tore off the bone – weak connective tissue area from a former injury probably – and curled up. The arm swelled up enormously, the lack of blood flow to the brain caused him to pass out. He was rushed to the hospital with EMT assistance in an ambulance and the arm was surgically repaired. Tragically, the second operation that was performed on the arm was a disaster and nerves were cut to his hand. This eliminated the ability of his right hand to close. When he came back to the gym, I made a sling for his hand from a lifting strap. A bolt of inspiration led to the idea that a D ring could be sewn into the strap. By doing this he could do fly chest exercises and a few other exercises. But it was a sad sight – AND COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

Using the FITNESSREVOLUTION.COM programs  I always start people at the beginning. Do the Adaptation to strengthen muscles and connecting tissues.  Then select your year. Do you want core strength, maximum strength or maximum size. Follow the guidelines, don’t rush it and you will get results. People – particularly young men ALWAYS want to rush ahead. Some have no idea what a one rep max is and just punish themselves with little training effect. Sometimes it results in life changing disasters like these two actual situations. So tell people to be careful out there the gym is a dangerous place. Your programs are well thought out to avoid injury, work for all age groups and frankly your programs are ridiculously inexpensive.  They work for a lifetime of improvement in physical strength, health and wellness. Why would anyone not use your programs? Strangely, using your programs with my clients is a help for my training business. People think I know what I am doing and the results are visible in the lives of my clients and that is wonderful. Thanks again.

       How many million of Americans are out there who have gym memberships, but DON’T even use them. Well I’m sure it is not because they want to waste their money. Right?   Or is it simply because they do not quite know what to do at the gym?  and can’t afford a personal trainer on top of the gym membership..(. I think that may a bit more accurate.. )Well A Fitness Addiction can help……  How ??  Because what we have to offer, you do not want to miss out on.  No more wasting your hard earned money on gym memberships that you never use.  We are here to help you utilize the gym membership that you already have.  We are your online personal fitness connection.   For a small fee of $19.99 per month, you can personalize your workout ,to fit your needs. Really, you need to check us out!

      Now, if you are one of those people who DO  use their Gym Membership, well this can help you  as well.  I have to admit, I have gone to the gym for most of my adult life, and for the most part I would run on the treadmill, or spend some time on the elliptical.  I would stay as far away from the weight section of the gym as I possibly could. The reason? I didn’t want to look stupid trying to use weight machines I had no idea how to use or how much weight to add.  So if  you are  one of those people, then we are here to help. A Fitness Addiction is the best way to get fit. Not only can you track your personal progress, you can personalize your workouts, keep track of how much weight you lift and choose which  days of the week you want to weight lift or do cardio.  Now how easy does that sound?  It has worked for me, as well as many, many others.  Its like having your own personal trainer with a small fee, instead of a large one! Trust me, this is a much easier way to stay motivated!

   So now to those of you who don’t have a gym membership at all . Well I suggest you take the plunge and get one ! There are all kinds of promotions at many different gyms going on out there right now. Your next step :  Sign up with A Fitness Addiction!

Remember

A Fitness Addiction Offers Programs for Everyone!!

• Women
• Men
• Teenagers
• Seniors

Sign up to today! A Fitness Addiction- Get Fit -Get Strong-Get Addicted

Tired of looking for a way to get fit?  Well look no more…..   Welcome to A Fitness Addiction….  We are so excited to be sharing our workouts with all of you who have already signed up! And for those of you who have not yet signed up, there is no time like the present! With the holiday season approaching us quickly, what better way to feel great, then to start a routine before the holidays begin! Cut out all those extra pounds usually gained over the holidays, by getting into a good habit of working out, before the holidays…Why not start your New Years resolution BEFORE New Years!!

Speaking of  the holidays… Maybe you even have a loved one  or friend who is looking to lose weight, gain size or is looking to tone up.. What a great gift this could be for that person!  During the holidays ,we will running a few great promotions.  And yes, we do have gift certificates as well. Check back with us for when those promos start and how long they will run!

Please check in with us daily, for new information and promos that we may be having….. and remember our workouts are customized for:

• Men
• Women
• Teenagers
• Seniors

Whether you are looking to :

• Add Size…You men are always looking to bulk up!!
• Lose Weight…. Ladies you are all over this…. And men too..
• Get Cut…. We all could use this… Right?
• Maximize your strength….

The Phases… The Root of the A Fitness Addiction Program

The backbone of the A Fitness Addiction program is the four different phases done in 3 to 6 week intervals. Whether you set your goal as Weight loss, Stay Fit, Maximizing your Size or Maximizing your Strength, these four phases are adapted and used in our programs… Below , I have listed the four phases with a simple description of the purpose of each one:

• Adaptive: This phase is designed to condition your body. It will build your muscles and tendons size, and help resist injury. You will use this to adapt your body to working out.
• Cut: This is to help you lose weight. You will get cut the same way body building and fitness competitors do. In this phase, you can achieve maximum muscle exposure and definition, in just three short weeks.
• Power: This phase is used to develop your absolute maximum power. Most people do not know that size is not strength. This phase will make you stromger.
• Size: This phase is used to bulk up and build extraordinary size quickly!

So as you can see our programs are for EVERYONE! Try it out …..Check us out at www.afitnessaddiction.com

For a small fee of just $19.99  per month… You can’t afford not to sign up !

A Fitness Addiction- Get Fit -Get Strong- Get Addicted.