Health and Fitness Evangelism - Share the Love

Other people – people you may care deeply about – need you to get them started on their own personal health and fitness journey. As a member of the fitness community you will have an obligation to share the love with others.

In his classic book The Tipping Point on viral networking (a great book, by the way), author Malcolm Gladwell describes “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable”. Gladwell leverages the tipping point concept from physics and applies it to how ideas travel and become accepted in a society. In physics, the tipping point describes how a relatively small amount of weight added to a balanced object can cause it to suddenly and completely topple.

We need to completely topple society’s existing paradigms regarding health and fitness, and it starts with each one of us going out among our friends, our families, our neighbors, and our associates and informing them that, regardless of their past or of their current situation, few limitations exist on our ability to realize the greatest levels of health, fitness, and strength that we’ve ever known.

7 Reasons Why Workouts Fail You

While literally millions of people workout, very few realize true workout success. Most dabble in the gym on and off, never getting results. They quit working out, usually under a myriad of excuses along the lines of being too busy or of disappointment that "they're just not seeing results".  Below are seven common reasons why workouts fail:

1) No clear goals - If you can't measure it you can't manage it. Too many people head into the gym with either no thought of what they're trying to accomplish or vague goals of "losing weight" and "toning up".

What to do: Be specific and write it down. If the goal is weight loss or body fat loss, identify how many pounds or the target weight, the time element, and what you'll do every day to make it happen. If it's muscle gain, identify things like desired bicep and chest measurements or one-rep max increases.

2) Motivation is missing - motivation has two key elements: a) possessing a goal that is deeply meaningful to you, and b) feeling mostly in control of the outcome.  If motivation is missing from your workouts, examine these two factors and identify what's missing. Why do you care about your goals? Do you feel you can make them happen or do you need help?

Improve Your Physique with Muscle Balance and Flexibility

We tend to think of our skeletal systems as what keeps us upright and erect, after all they’re the most rigid part of our bodies. But it’s our muscles, not our skeletal system that makes this happen. In fact, our skeletal system is simply the framework that our muscles attach to in order to work.

To be sure, our bone health is critically important, and an added benefit to resistance training is increased bone density, but our skeletons, and thus our bodies, are nothing without a very strong, flexible muscle base.

Yoga instructors often talk about not “settling into your joints” meaning that our muscles should carry our weight, not our joints. This is really a key concept in understanding the importance of a strong muscle base. For most of us, our joints have several decades of use on them, and if our muscle base is allowed to decline then the joints must bear more weight, stress, and wear.

Fitness over Fifty: Three Myths Exploded

The famed baby boomer generation is now aged between 46 and 64, so shortly this entire post-WWII demographic bubble will be over 50. And they're in horrible physical shape.

The luxuries that the baby boomers have created for themselves are mostly their downfall; rich, plentiful calorie and fat-laden diets along with a generally sedentary lifestyle have combined to create an unhealthy populace characterized by extreme physical limitations and multiple diseases.

Diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer are three deadly conditions that can all be directly related to baby boomer's unhealthy lifestyles. These conditions will multiply as the baby boomer generation continues aging, imparting staggering health costs on our already over burdened health system.

Additionally, out-of-shape baby boomers create significant limitations on their ability to enjoy life by lacking muscle and cardiovascular strength and endurance. Their bodies can't act on their desires, and life quality goes down in a self-perpetuating spiral of inactivity and continued physical decline.

Bodybuilding.com - The Fitness Industry's Best Friend

I recently had the privilege of being selected Bodybuilding.com Personal Trainer of the Month, which will probably go up on the site late summer or early fall. I don't take this honor lightly coming from the electronic fitness industry's mecca.

If you're into fitness but not into Bodybuilding.com you should be. People ask me fitness and nutrition related questions all of the time, and when I can't answer their questions with the level of precision I set my standards by, I go to bb.c for my research. With literally tens of thousands of published pages and thousands of videos, no other single source in the world provides more information on fitness and nutrition.

So not only can you get information, you can get great prices and incredible service on supplements, and you can also participate in the world's largest on-line fitness community, bodyspace, where you can interact, network, and build relationships with hundreds of thousands of fitness enthusiasts.  Go to bodyspace and after you create your own profile be sure to check my profile.

As a thanks to my readers and followers at Omni-Fit, here's a sneak preview of the Q&A that will go up for my Bodybuilding.com Trainer of the Month profile:

Refiguring 50: 10 Ways to Stay Young

As a personal trainer and a life-long fitness geek, I get asked a lot about the secrets to "fitness over 50".  While that answer could go on for days, here's a boiled down version of the top seven factors:

1) Think young, be young

Our thoughts become our actions. Taken another step, the vision we have of who we are leads to what we will be.  Think young thoughts. Be unafraid to take chances physically. No, don't do anything stupid, but you can still challenge yourself to be on the edge physically. I recently read about an 87 year old San Antonio man who plays softball and competes in track events, and he's going for the age-group pole vault world record. Do you supposed he thinks of himself as "too old"?  He proves that we can continue pushing ourselves physically well past 50, and it has to start with thinking young.

2) Get ultra-lean:

Lose the body fat. And I don't mean ridiculous stuff like "I want to lose 10 pounds", or "gee, I'd like to be around 20% body fat". No, get serious about it and get ultra-lean, 15% should be the absolute tops, but really more like 10% - 12%. Extra body fat does nothing but slow us down, restrict our movements, and hide all of that beautiful muscle that makes a great physique. 

3) Diet discipline isn't an option:

You could goof-off about your diet when you were younger; you can't anymore. Our bodies need fewer calories after 50, but especially with vigorous exercise we need the right macro and micro nutrients more than ever. This means the only thing passing your lips has been scrutinized and passes the "clean eating". specifically low-fat protein from fish and from chicken, complex, low-glycemic carbohydrates from vegetables and from fruits, and healthy fats from nuts and fish oil. It also means portion-control discipline and not exceeding daily calorie targets.

Omni-Fit Interviews Chantayn Winner

Hey everyone, hope you're having a fantastic day!  Earlier this week I had the privilege of interviewing figure competitor Chantayn Winner when she stopped by Omni-Fit to check the place out and to talk fitness, you can see the interview at the below link:

Omni-Fit Chantayn Winner Interview


Chantayn's success has led to her becoming well known in the community not only for her success on stage but also for her commitment to health and fitness.  If you didn't know, figure competition isn't Chantayn's full-time pursuit, she's also a wife, a mother, and a professional, serving as Relationship Banking Officer for Bank of the Cascades in Boise.  That makes Chantayn one of "us" in that she must work gym time and diet management into her already busy schedule. And Chantayn's results, including taking first place in her division two years in a row at the Northwest Naturals, prove that her approach works.

We all know how things like our workouts and our diets can get squeezed by our real priorities in life, and Chantayn is no different than the rest of us.  She manages her commitment to fitness through planning, organization and by getting up early for her workouts. This is a sterling example for anyone seeking a healthier life; that it doesn't always come easily, that no quick-fix solutions exist, and that results are only achieved through hard work in the gym and through disciplined adherence to our diets.

You may or may not aspire to compete, but people like Chantayn play in important role in inspiring people to lead a healthier life through fitness, and providing and example that discipline and commitment are the keys to any successful fitness plan.

For more on Chantayn, go to her website at:

http://www.chantayn.com/