Who knew that by wearing a bracelet or necklace you could relieve all of that unwanted stress and fatigue of everyday life? You’ve probably seen these products worn by some of your favorite professional athletes, whether it’s baseball, softball, golf or tennis. Phiten products work with your body’s energy system, helping to regulate and balance the flow of energy throughout your body. Proper energy balance helps to alleviate discomfort, speed recovery, and counteract fatigue.
Athletes who wear the Phiten products have found that they tire less easily and recover faster from intense physical activity. If you’re interested, you can buy directly from their site or I know that any sporting good store (Sports Authority, Dick’s, Eastbay catalog, etc.) carries them. The prices are pretty reasonable, between $10-$35, and they offer them in pretty much any color!
For those of you who haven’t heard about the P90X workout, it is an intense…I should say VERY intense, 90 day workout program which includes full body strength training, yoga, abdominals, plyometrics, kenpo (martial arts) and stretching. The trainer (and creator) in the videos, Tony Horton, emphasizes over and over again the importance of regular exercise to increase stamina and build muscle to burn through the unwanted fat and calories. As a trainer myself, I know how important it is to be consistent when exercising. In most cases, individuals will not see significant results by exercising once a week. BUT, 90 days straight?????? Really?
The reason P90X has become such a hit in recent months is because of how different it is from all of your other exercise videos, although I must say it is still very cheesy at times!! The reason for it being so different is because P90X focuses on “muscle confusion” which means to constantly work your muscles in a different way than they are used to so that you never plateau. Muscle confusion has many benefits and I will list some below.
1) It speeds up your metabolism to a whole new level allowing your body to utilize more calories during your workout and will even stay at that level for a period of time after your workout.
2) It keeps you from becoming bored with your normal everyday workout which probably involves doing the same exercises each and every day, right?! P90X is made up of 12 videos, between 30min and 1hr each. Trust me, there are so many exercises included and a lot of them were even new to me. You will not be bored, I promise!
3) One more benefit of muscle confusion that I’ll explain is the fact that it allows your muscles and ligaments to be used from several different angles, rather than repetitively doing the same motion over and over. Most importantly, this prevents injuries and strengthens muscles you didn’t even know you had!
I have done and completed all of the videos included and LOVE it!! I was incredibly sore after a lot of the workouts, but I have seen results and have incorporated a lot of the exercise routines in my own personal training sessions and have gotten a lot of great feedback. Tony Horton is extremely motivating and pushes you throughout the entire program and I found that to be helpful. Another thing I wanted to point out is how important a good warm-up and cool-down are and Tony Horton does not slack off when it comes to that. He goes through a good 10 minute warm-up and cool-down before and after each session. Major plus in my book!
Also, when you purchase P90X, it comes with a nutrition guide and a calendar to track your progress. Once you purchase, all you need to get started is a set of dumbbells (I recommend a lighter set and a heavier set) or a resistance band.
You may also consider a floor mat for the yoga and ab exercises, although this is not essential. I’d say 75% of the exercises include using just your body weight, so no equipment is needed a lot of the time. In some of the videos, they do a number of chin-ups and pull-ups…but, don’t worry!! They always show a modification for those who do not have a chin-up/pull-up bar or for those who are not at that level, just yet!
Here is a short video of Tony Horton being interviewed. Take a look and please let us know what you think. If you’ve done the program already, share your thoughts with us AND if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate in asking.
It seems we all want to lose weight. But how do you know what a healthy weight is exactly? One way, and I do stress one way, to gauge where you are weight-wise is to calculate your BMI, or body mass index. Here’s how you do it:
Multiply your weight by 703
Divide the result by your height in inches
Divide that number by your height in inches again
If the final number is between 18.5 and 24.9, you are at a healthy weight. If the number is outside of this range, you may be under- or overweight.
There are a few caveats regarding using BMI to determine whether or not you are at a healthy weight. WebMd has some more in-depth reading about the matter, the most salient point for me is the following:
“It’s important to remember that your BMI is only one measure of your health. A person who is “overweight” according to BMI charts, but not “obese,” may be healthy if he or she has healthy eating habits and exercises regularly. People who are thin but don’t exercise or eat nutritious foods aren’t necessarily healthy just because they are thin.”
Let’s face it: trying to follow all of the “golden rules of health and fitness” can be not only intimidating, but unrealistic, too. Most days it feels as though there are not enough hours in the day between work, household responsibilities, cooking meals, and if you have kids? Forget it. You feel proud of yourself if, after a long tiring day, you dragged yourself off the couch to take the dog around the block for 10 minutes. I couldn’t make it to the gym today but, hey….this has got to be good enough.
There is a lot of information out there about what we should eat to be healthy, how much we should work out, how much sunscreen we should apply at ALL TIMES in order to avoid the sun’s damaging rays. It’s a lot to keep in your head, and if you fall short (which we all do), you end up feeling more guilty than anything.
That’s why I breathed a sigh of relief when I read this article from Prevention magazine. It’s a quick read and you’ll be glad you checked it out. How can people who are busy or just plain unmotivated still reap the benefits of healthy eating and exercise? It can be done! The key message here: believe that every little bit counts.
Here’s an example. The “gold standard” of daily fruit and vegetable consumption is 9 servings. I don’t know about you, but when I see something like that I picture myself eating a piece of fruit or a veggie once every hour while at work. People would think I was nuts…and beyond that, it would just never happen. Of course you could double-up your servings during a meal…but even that would be a challenge. So how can you ever feel like you’ve getting enough fruits and veggies to make a positive impact? The article says that actually, 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day is “good enough.” Anything on top of that is gravy. So sure, strive for 9 servings. But if you make it to 5 you’re still doing alright.
Here are some other interesting health mantras that the article explores:
Cardio – Gold standard is 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Good enough? 17 minutes a day – broken up throughout your day if you need to.
Sunscreen – Gold standard: Apply SPF 30 or higher several times a day. Good enough? Throw on some moisturizer in the morning that contains SPF 15 (unless you’re spending the day at the beach, of course.).
Strength training – Gold standard: 2 or 3 times a week. Good enough? Once a week. (A little digression here: I recently starting taking a half hour strength conditioning class at my gym once a week. I’ve been attending consistently for about six weeks and have seen marked improvement in my upper and lower body strength. I’m able to lift more than I was at the beginning of the class, and I surprised myself at how many push-ups I could do without fatigue during last week’s class. I’ve been getting a few compliments here and there that I look “tone,” although I actually haven’t lost any weight. Again, this is only a half hour class once a week. Case in point that every little bit counts.)
Read more here – you’ll feel better about the small improvements you can accomplish throughout your day in regards to your health and overall fitness.
